Apple buys enterprise-focused AR headset firm, Mira

Apple isn’t standing still with Vision Pro, its AR headset originally thought to be dubbed Apple Reality. The company continues to develop and acquire additional skills and technologies to make its well-received product even better.

Getting into enterprise AR

The Verge tells us that Apple has acquired Mira, an AR headset firm that makes the headsets used on Mario Kart rides at Super Nintendo World, at Universal Studios locations in Japan and also in Hollywood. It is interesting that Apple’s former design lead, Jony Ive, was an advisor to the startup at one time.

Mira also makes headsets for use by the military and in manufacturing and mining industries. All three of those industries have already emerged as a natural fit for devices of this kind as they enable everything from remote site management and exploration to on-site spot checks, mission familiarization and more.

Doing the impossible

After all, given robots can go where humans cannot, it’s perfectly feasible to consider that remote exploration, diagnosis, and mission control will be leading usage cases for technologies of this kind.

You can be relatively certain that industries of this type will be among the first to purchase Apple’s Vision Pro devices to explore their potential for their work, that’s a given.

Take a look at one of Mira’s existing customer stories to get to grips with this. Mira also had experience in building these technologies into differtent forms, such as hard hats and safety gear.

The report claims the purchase was originally revealed in an Insta post from Mira CEO Ben Taft. It says at least 11 Mira employees have joined Apple. Apple, for its part, has confirmed the deal only to the extent of confirming it buys smaller companies from time to time.

What did Mira do?

“Our out-of-the-box hardware solution provides an intuitive hands-free interface with a display that doesn’t block the user from the real world,” the company website claims.

Its software solutions include those for remote real time support, including document, video and photos sharing. They also include Mira Flow, a VR-driven procvess management solution.

A 2020 Protocol article explained a little more about what Apple’s new acquisition was into. It also reveals some connection with one time Apple execs Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre, as the Mira founders met at USC as part of a program run by both men.

“We are absolutely betting,” Stern said at that time, “that there will be a paradigm shift in the ways that people do work moving forward.”

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