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There have been plenty of rumors over the years detailing VR headsets, AR headsets, and AR glasses, and the tech giant’s most expected and awaited AR headset will reportedly offer well-being features like exercise and meditation, as per the reports of AppleInsider.
Apple’s AR/VR development team is reportedly comprised of over 1,000 Apple employees, all dedicated to working emerging technologies into upcoming products. This is backed up by specific AR/VR-inspired Apple hires over recent years, and the company has also acquired a handful of companies that specialize in either AR/VR tech or content tailored to those platforms.
The headset is not expected to be accompanied by a dedicated gaming controller, and Apple has seemingly not focused substantially on gaming for the device. That being said, the company does have the plan to allow Unity to be its first partner to offer full VR experiences in the headset via its game engine.
Apple is focused on videoconferencing on the device, with digital avatars that have a high level of accuracy when mimicking a user’s facial expressions and body movements. It has also created software to allow users to perform activities like dragging the Maps app off a Mac screen and using it to display a 3D model of a city on a tabletop, and has devoted resources to educational resources for the device.
The solution, according to various sources, could be an AR/VR hybrid headset similar to the Meta Quest 2, due for release in the not-so-far future. Here’s all you need to know about Apple’s foray into the world of AR/VR headsets, including the latest leaks and a possible release window.
While the majority of rumors about Apple’s upcoming hybrid headset have referenced it by its function – an AR/VR headset – a recent batch of trademark applications suggests Apple could’ve finally decided on a name.
When it comes to Apple’s initial AR/VR offering, Bloomberg suggests that the headset will be a “pricey, niche” option and that Apple allegedly expects to only sell 180,000 units (along the lines of the Mac Pro) when it’s released.
Bloomberg suggests that while Apple had originally planned to announce the headset at WWDC 2022, “development challenges related to overheating, cameras and software have made it harder to stay on track”. The publication suggests that these issues have caused Apple to delay the announcement until early 2023, with Gurman reporting for the publication that it will appear either at a dedicated spring event or at WWDC 2023, which would likely be in June.
Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo predicts the same, that Apple will announce the AR/VR headset either in spring or at WWDC 2023. Either way, Kuo claims that the mass shipments of the headset aren’t due to begin until the end of 2Q23 or the start of 3Q23 – i.e. June or July.
According to a DigiTimes report, the headset was allegedly in the manufacturing validation process as of November 2022, with mass production scheduled for March 2023. The publication also speculates that an announcement could follow a month later in April, though with a very limited run of headsets initially available.
Reports also suggest that Apple has ramped up the development of realityOS, the software that’ll run on the headset. That was backed up by a separate discovery of a realityOS trademark in early June 2022, which falls under the categories of peripherals, software, and wearable computer hardware.
With all that said, a reveal and subsequent release of Apple’s AR/VR headset sometime in early 2023 sounds most likely, but we’ll update this if we hear differently.
While Apple has not released specifications on this front (or any other), it seems highly unlikely that any device in this category will work for extended periods without recharging. Plus, despite all the ways that Apple is a leader in elegant hardware design, battery life is not really its strong point.
A prediction from JPMorgan Chase industry analyst Yang Weilun suggests that it could be significantly more expensive, allegedly costing Apple around $500 per unit to manufacture, and a huge report from The Information suggests it could be as much as an eye-watering $3,000. The publication reaffirmed that rumored price in a subsequent report in January 2023, suggesting that it very much could be a top-end headset.
