Apple’s board of directors, consisting of Apple CEO Tim Cook and 8 independent directors, meets 4 times a year, but it is been a very long time since Apple was rumored to develop virtual reality (AR) / Bloomberg reports that a virtual reality (VR) headset was unveiled there.
The new product demonstration at the board of directors is proof that the official product announcement is near, and it seems likely that it will happen as early as the end of this year.
Over the last few weeks, Apple has been pushing ahead with the development of ROS (short for reality operation system), an operating system for headsets, and with overlapping presentations of AR / VR headsets at the board of directors, within the next few months.
Bloomberg’s Mark Garman, who is familiar with Apple’s developments, commented that the product may appear in. Apple’s AR / VR headsets will be a new major hardware product category for Apple, which makes about 80% of its revenue in hardware.
Headsets will be announced by the end of 2022 at the earliest and are expected to be available in 2023. The code name for the AR / VR headset that Apple is expected to announce within a few months is ” N301 “, and it is said that development began around 2015.
Bloomberg reports that the N301 is spearheaded by the company’s vice president, Mike Rockwell, and overseen by Dan Ritchio, Apple’s former head of hardware engineering.
About 2,000 workers at Apple are functioning on the development of this device as part of a group called the Technology Development Group (TDG).
Apart from that, Apple is also said to be developing an AR headset known as the code name “N421”, but it is expected to be released 10 years from now.
Bloomberg: The Secret Project of Dan Riccio is the Apple VR headset. Full gallery at: https://t.co/eFXCVoNLs5 pic.twitter.com/xSSEmbIbbH
— Antonio De Rosa (@aderosa75) February 9, 2021
Apple will not announce the rumored AR / VR headset or reality OS at this year’s WWDC. Well-known Apple analyst Minchey Kuo made a prediction on Twitter on May 31st.
He said it’s still a long time before Apple goes into mass production of AR / VR headsets.
And if it were announced, competitors could soon start developing copycat products, which could be on the shelves by 2023, when Apple plans to launch them.
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It still takes some time before Apple AR/MR headset enters mass production, so I don't think Apple will release AR/MR headset and rumored realityOS at WWDC this year. Apple's competitors worldwide can't wait to see the hardware spec and OS design for Apple's AR/MR headset.— 郭明錤 (Ming-Chi Kuo) (@mingchikuo) May 31, 2022