(Yicai) March 26 -- Apple is in discussions with companies in China to build an ecosystem in the country for its Vision Pro, a mixed reality headset that launched in the United Stakes early last month, according to an industry insider.

Apple may take a different approach in China as its content is limited there, so it must rely mainly on local suppliers, Liu Jiansen, an analyst at market research firm Canalys, told Yicai. The US tech giant needs to attract developers and vendors to devise content for this new platform, Liu added.

At the annual China Development Forum in Beijing two days ago, Chief Executive Tim Cook said Apple will bring the Vision Pro to the Chinese market later this year. 

Very few apps are available for the first-generation Vision Pro, with users mainly streaming movies and downloading games via the Apple TV app. But Apple China accounts do not support watching Apple TV, limiting the headset's entertainment features when it enters the market.

Apple is expected to release more content related to the developer ecosystem at its Worldwide Developers Conference in June, and it may debut new generative artificial intelligence features.

Compared with the development path of MR devices such as the Vision Pro, China's development of augmented reality products is more mature, noted Wu Xiaomao, founder and chief executive of GritWorld, a computer graphics engine technology provider.

Apple's R1 processor chip plays a key role in the Vision Pro’s computing power, and it will be hard for the products of many Chinese hardware makers to achieve Apple’s computing power in the short term, Wu said.

China is better suited to developing AR technology because a lot of computing power is put on the edge and cloud, reducing the dependence on a device’s capability, Wu added.

Editor: Martin Kadiev