Google kills off its Apple Vision Pro competitor

Pity poor Google. That company has been working on VR technology for over a decade and it just can’t seem to get anything to stick. First there was Google Glass, an AR system so expensive and so over-promised it entered the popular zeitgeist as a famous flop, then Google Cardboard, a mobile VR setup so cheap you could build a headset out of an Amazon box. Now Google is shutting down “Project Iris,” a next-gen AR system that (according to early reports) could have rivaled the upcoming Apple Vision Pro.

The internal project was shut down sometime earlier this year according to a Business Insider report, which isn’t a huge shock following the resignation of Google’s vice president of AR/VR. It had been in the works for at least three years, beginning with strategic acquisitions like the North AR hardware startup. Anonymous employees told Business Insider that Google leaders kept changing strategies and when the company tightened its belt with layoffs in early 2023, the entire thing was on the chopping block.

Google isn’t abandoning VR/AR altogether. The report also says that an internal team is still working on software called “Micro XR” in conjunction with Samsung, which Google hopes can become “the Android for AR.” Repeating Google’s success as the world’s number one mobile operating system (or operating system, period, depending on how you measure it) is a lofty goal, especially given three previous failures. Internal testbed hardware for this AR system is reportedly named “Betty,” but don’t expect that to result in anything that actually comes to mark it unless someone else makes it.