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Samsung has increased the size of their Secret Team behind their upcoming XR Headset that will compete with Vision Pro this Fall

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Last Summer Samsung's Mobile Experience (MX) division created a "secret organization" Internally that were known as the "immersive team." The team has since grown from a handful of people to more than 100. It's now being reported that Samsung is expanding its organization to speed up the development of extended reality (XR) headset devices with long-time allies such as Google and Qualcomm. In February 2023, Samsung's Tae-moon Roh brought Qualcomm's CEO and Google's SVP of Platforms and Ecosystems on stage to announce their collaboration for building the next XR experiences, as pictured below.

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As the XR market expands with such devices as Apple's 'Vision Pro' which has sold more than 200,000 in just a few weeks, Samsung Electronics' understand the challenge ahead.

It is reported that Samsung Electronics' MX Division Head (President) Tae-moon Roh is now strengthening the organization for the development of XR headsets now that he knows what Apple's strengths are with Vision Pro.

In order to compete with Apple, an Alliance had to be formed so that Samsung could make the headset powered by Qualcomm chips that runs on a Google/Android XR OS.  President Roh also said, “The whole is greater than the sum of the parts through open, proven, and trustworthy collaboration with leading industry leaders.”

In other words, Samsung is basically admitting that there's no way to take on Apple's Vision Pro without deep collaboration with large partners with deep pockets. It's definitely a compliment to Apple's team led by Mike Rockwell who filed for over 5,000 patents to protect every aspect of this advanced Spatial Computer.  

In the XR device market, fierce competition is taking place between global companies. Market research firm IDC predict that global XR headset shipments this year would increase by 47% compared to the previous year to 11 million units.

The industry's opinion is that Meta's 'Quest'(via their Oculus acquisition), has played a pioneering role.  According to market research firm IDC, shipments of Quest 3 in the fourth quarter of last year are estimated to be between 2 million and 2.7 million units. Though despite the high price, the industry consensus is that Vision Pro is changing perspectives on XR headsets. Vision Pro is gaining sensational popularity among ‘early adopters.’

Apple didn't market their headset as just another gaming headset or one that will push childish-looking avatars in a "Metaverse." Instead, Apple focused on ease of use with simple hand gestures to control their new visionOS; deliver the ease of creating wall sized displays for watching movies, playing games and more importantly, working with Macs to advance and redefine multitasking with multiple gigantic floating displays with sharp, crisp readable text and knockout graphics. They invented a way to join a FaceTime conference call in a way that was never done before. The list of features could be reviewed on Apple's marketing pages. 

What Apple didn't do is produce a video or ad whining against their competition like Meta's CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently did. Nor have they ever produced videos about futuristic devices that may never make it to market like Meta did with a Wristband for AR as presented below. 

Samsung Electronics on the other hand is known to focus on the technology and completeness of its products and with Apple Vision Pro now out in the market, their team now knows what their mission is to compete with Vision Pro. Of course only time will tell if their secret team will simply "copy" Vision Pro's key features.  

In the end, the more competition there is, the better it will be consumers if the quality of specifications remains high as with Vision Pro; if unique and compelling applications come to market; and prices realistically fall over time.

Yet make no mistake about it, the Samsung, Qualcomm and Google alliance is going to be a powerful industry force behind the Samsung XR Headset when it arrives. One that will certainly give Meta a giant headache right out of the gate this fall.

What I'll be looking for this fall is what Google will provide Samsung's headset with regarding AI. For instance, will Google's "Circle it" feature be customized for the XR headset? And will there be a surprise killer AI app to excite first time customers?

On the other hand, will OpenAI work with Apple on an exclusive Vision Pro app?  Open AI's CEO Sam Altman recently stated on X that "vision pro is the second most impressive tech since the iPhone." Of course only time will tell if that was a simple comment or a hint of something in the works on the horizon.

To be sure, the XR Headset wars will really begin to heat up this fall and it should be fun seeing it all play out. 

10.0F3 - Patently Extra News

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