Rumblings 'Round realityOS

30 May 2022 - There seems to be movement on the RealityOS front. 9 to 5 Mac says Parker Ortolani has spotted trademark registrations for the term “RealityOS,” thought for years to be the operating system that will power whatever Apple does in any virtual reality and augmented reality devices.

Now I know what you’re thinking: Who is Parker Ortolani? No offense intended. He’d probably say, “Who’s Ken Ray?” Ortolani lists himself on Substack as “Product manager for The Verge, Polygon, and Vox Media Podcasts.” Perhaps more important for this story though, Ortolani says he nailed the name macOS Monterey, thanks to a bit of trademark sleuthing. Over the weekend he wrote:

Last year I discovered that Apple had renewed two of their macOS name trademarks: Monterey and Mammoth. I nailed the macOS Monterey name months ahead of WWDC in February.

He thinks macOS 13 will be Mammoth, by the way. We’ll find out in a week.

On the realityOS front, Ortolani writes:

There are two trademarks for “realityOS” that are currently active and owned by a company called Realityo Systems LLC. I can’t find any details about this LLC, much like the other shell corporations that Apple has formed in the past to trademark other operating system names. These two “realityOS” trademarks are also the only ones owned by the LLC.

Both were filed on December 8, 2021 in a wide variety of categories all related to the “design and development of computer hardware, software, peripherals, and computer and video games.” The marks also specifically mention “wearable computer hardware.”

But wait. There’s more. Someone has filed in opposition to another company’s use of the term “REALITY OS.” If you’re wondering how anyone could do that, my guess is it’s a combination of arcane trademark law and a bit of “if you know, then you know.” While we heard about references to realityOS in Apple code earlier this year, references to “rOS” go as far back as 2017.

But there is still more. Ortolani says:

The [realityOS] marks have a deadline for international filing on June 8, 2022 which is just two days after the WWDC keynote [set for next Monday 6 June]. Apple has historically transferred trademarks for announced products from their shell corporations a few days following the keynote.

Interesting timing, but can anybody actually tie this previously unknown LLC to anything having to do with Apple? Back to our friends at 9 to 5 Mac, who say:

…one of Apple’s shell companies is “Yosemite Research LLC,” which Apple uses to register macOS names like Yosemite and Big Sur.

[…]

…both Yosemite Research LLC and Realityo Systems LLC are registered at the same address, which points to “Corporation Trust Center” – a real company that provides trademark services of which Apple is a client.

That is, of course, not proof. Apple may not be (or probably isn’t) Corporation Trust Center’s only client. Still, hints start to add up. Now add this: It was just a couple of weeks ago that Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman said that Apple had demonstrated its mixed-reality headset to the board of directors. That was seen as a sign “that development of the device has reached an advanced stage, according to people with knowledge of the matter…” In that same article, Gurman wrote:

In recent weeks, Apple has also ramped up development of rOS—short for reality operating system—the software that will run on the headset, according to other people familiar with the work. That progress, coupled with the board presentation, suggests that the product’s debut could potentially come within the next several months.

So why am I so into VR and AR?

AR and VR excite levels of belief in me that I cannot fully explain.

In 2006 - I think it was either Bill Gates or Steve Ballmer who talked about the death of the iPod - and no, they were not talking about the Zune. They were talking about a converged device - something that would do more than one thing, not just a thing to play media. To me - this made sense. I didn’t know what it would be. I didn’t know what it would look like. But the idea just made sense. And I believed.

“Mac OS Ken: Live” ran its first round from mid-2010 through mid-2012. Somewhere in there, we got into a discussion of wearable technology. And I was a believer. And I won’t even pretend that I saw Apple Watch or AirPods coming. At the time, I think I said you could make the case that we already has wearable technology in the form of iPhone - this thing without which many of us never were. I had no clue what the future of wearable technology was - but I believed in it.

Take On AR/VR

Allow me please to tell you about a few “ah-ha” moments around Virtual Reality, which I do think will fold well into our Augmented Reality thinking.

I had use of an Oculus Rift for a while. Boy was it heavy and uncomfortable. I also had use of a high-powered Asus gaming laptop to run the Oculus Rift - and boy did I not enjoy that. Fans came on pretty much the second you turned it on. Also, Windows 10 makes a crap-ton of noise - popping up pop-ups on the screen that I couldn’t see because I was wearing a VR rig.

I know I’m making it sound terrible. It was really amazing. My first “ah-ha” moment came in this sort of VR museum. There was a virtual map on the virtual table in this virtual museum I was virtually visiting. I had trouble making out some of the information on the map and so, I leaned down to get a better look. And the information came into focus. Not, I selected it and it enlarged. I bent at the waist to get closer to the info, just like I would over a real table, and the info got easier to read. And that was an ah-ha moment. Done well enough, you can forget that you’re wearing a thing. You can forget that the thing in front of you isn’t in front of you and just start… being in that reality.

My next ah-ha moment had to do with an excursion. You could transport from that museum to an Egyptian tomb that’s several thousand years old. It’s a real tomb. And it’s been photographed meticulously. And I’ve been inside it. I mean, I haven’t. Not really. But I’ve been closer to the wall of that tomb than I’d be allowed to be if I’d actually gone to Egypt to see it. You can get that close and examine.

I’ve turned and examined objects in VR that I would never be allowed to handle in the real world. Do I think AR and VR are replacements for actual experience? I do not. But they do give people versions of experiences that they’d never have otherwise, even if time and money and location were no object.

Also - virtual reality and augmented reality are not governed by reality. I have walked the length of the Apollo 9 mission. Not really. Another VR museum I visited was dedicated to Apollo 9. In a great hall were several artifacts, including a 1:1 scale version of the rocket that hurled men at our closest celestial neighbor. That’s cool, but here’s what was cooler. There was a scale model of the earth and the moon and Apollo 9’s journey between the two. The journey was represented by a line - kind of like the line that illustrated plane flights in the Indiana Jones movies. But what was really neat was - if you leaned near to the Apollo 9 trajectory, you could listen to the radio communications between the astronauts and ground control. That is a whole new way to imagine teaching and learning… and that - to me - is amazing.

The possibility for learning is amazing. The possibility for training is amazing. The possibility for seeing things we’d otherwise never see is amazing. The possibilities for entertainment are practically unfathomable.

No - I don’t know what they all are. But yes - I believe.

Also - if the AR thing hits, it’s time to start thinking about who’s going to replace Tim Cook.

Time for Tim to Fly?

Have you ever heard Tim Cook talk about Augmented Reality? Lately, he talks more about COVID and the supply chain, but he used to get a lot of questions about AR… and he spoke with the conviction if a zealot.

As far back as 2016, Cook said:

I do think that a significant portion of the population of developed countries, and eventually all countries, will have AR experiences every day, almost like eating three meals a day, it will become that much a part of you…

And as recently as last year, he said:

I am so excited about AR. I think AR is one of these very few profound technologies that we will look back on one day and went, how did we live our lives without it?

If you’re looking for more, The Verge has a long and (I assume) running roundup of Cook quotes on VR and AR. Definitely worth a look.

What does that have to do with replacing Tim Cook? In 2021, ten-years into his time as Apple CEO, Apple Insider says Cook was asked whether he’d be around for another ten. “Ten more years? Probably not,” said Cook. “But I can tell you that I feel great right now and the date is not in sight. But ten more years is a long time — and probably not ten more years.” According to a piece around that time, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman wrote:

The belief inside Apple is that Cook just wants to stick around for one more major new product category, which is likely to be augmented reality glasses…

And there’s a trademark for the OS that’s expected to run those. And that team is said to have kicked it into high gear recently. And Apple's board is said to have seen an actual headset. And WWDC is a week away.

And I want to believe.

Education. Applications. Physical hardware. What comes next for Apple after AR - both in terms of tech and the company… AR and VR stand to be the next big thing for Apple, with lots of other big things to follow.

Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.