Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman said in his latest Power On newsletter that the focus of Apple’s engineering team is now shifting to xrOS, resulting in an iOS 17 update codenamed “Dawn” that is “much smaller than expected.
xrOS is a system specially created by Apple for AR/VR head-mounted display devices. The “xr” in it stands for “extended reality,” which makes sense from the point of view of integrating AR/VR.
Apple has also applied for the trademark of “realityOS” system. Foreign technology media 9to5Mac learned through internal channels that the two systems “realityOS” and “xrOS” are co-existing. The former is based on the iOS platform, and the latter is based on the macOS platform. It’s just not clear what kind of differences there will be between the two systems.
Apple plans to launch its first head-mounted display device this year, so the focus of Apple’s engineering team is on polishing the xrOS / realityOS system, which naturally reduces the update of the iOS / iPadOS system.
iOS 14, announced in 2020, and iOS 16, announced last June, are two major updates that brought redesigned widgets to the iPhone home screen, app library, and new features in stock apps like Maps and Safari, a redesigned lock screen, and more.
