Apple’s plan for a mixed reality headset may have hit another snag as the tech giant has apparently pushed back the unveiling of the MR device by two months. According to a Bloomberg which cites insiders familiar with the matter, the company has postponed the announcement from an initial planned date in April to June.
This means we might see the long-awaited headset during Apple’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference. It was previously reported that the iPhone maker would be unveiling the mixed reality product in the spring before making it available for purchase in the fall, but if the delay is proven to be true, then it could potentially affect the timeline for its availability as well.
The report also claims that Apple made the decision to push back the launch earlier this month after product testing showed that there were still several hardward and software issues that needed to be resolved. The Cupertino firm has been working on the product since 2015 and it was rumoured that it would be revealed in June of last year before it was pushed back to January 2023. Of course, it was then shifted even further to April before this latest postponement.
The mixed reality device, which Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman has said will likely be dubbed the Reality Pro, fuses together the functions of virtual and augmented reality and will purportedly run on a new operating system named xrOS. It will be Apple’s first new major product category since it started shipping out smartwatches in 2015 and is predicted to be priced around USD3,000 (~RM13,200), making it a highly premium product.
It was speculated that Apple would be releasing a lightweight pair of AR glasses following the premium headsets but last month, Bloomberg reported that the glasses have been put on hold indefinitely due to technical challenges in making the product consumer friendly. Instead the company is purportedly developing a lower-cost mixed reality device that would be ready in 2024 or early 2025.
(Source: Bloomberg)
