Apple's mixed-reality headset 'delayed to late 2023' - Macworld

Apple’s mixed-reality headset, arguably its astir highly anticipated caller merchandise launch, has been deed by yet different delay. The respected manufacture expert Ming-Chi Kuo predicted Sunday that it whitethorn person been pushed backmost from the 2nd 4th of 2023 to the 2nd fractional of that year.

In a Twitter thread mostly focused connected the interaction of the hold connected supplier firms, Kuo cites unspecified “software issues” arsenic the crushed for the change. One effect of this, helium says, is that less than 500,000 units volition beryllium shipped successful 2023, down from the erstwhile estimation of betwixt 800,000 and 1.2 million.

Kuo notes, however, that it “still needs to beryllium determined” whether the announcement of the headset volition move. It was thought that if Apple was to marque an announcement astir the caller merchandise successful January it would bash truthful astatine a Special Event, the archetypal January lawsuit since Apple announced the iPad successful January 2010.

It is inactive imaginable that Apple could inactive clasp an lawsuit for this intent successful January 2023, though this would mean an adjacent longer spread betwixt announcement and shipping–and Apple has been burned before erstwhile announcing products excessively early.

The device, referred to arsenic a “mixed-reality” headset due to the fact that it’s understood to harvester elements of virtual and augmented reality, has been a dependable root of some breathtaking rumors and disappointing delays since it was archetypal mooted good implicit a decennary ago. (Back successful 2008 Apple filed a patent for a headset with a slot for an iPhone oregon iPod, which gives a consciousness of however overmuch the conception has evolved.) At 1 signifier it was confidently predicted that an Apple headset would launch by 2020, truthful readers would beryllium forgiven for feeling skeptical astir the 2023 theory. Of course, it’s debatable whether it’s just to telephone these delays, since Apple has ne'er confirmed a motorboat schedule.

Apple’s world plans person been successful the spotlight recently, with reports that the institution has travel up with an wholly caller operating strategy called xrOS–likely forming the ground of an wholly caller ecosystem of products–for the device. Along with the headset, pundits expect Apple to motorboat a astute ring, arsenic portion of a larger “metaverse” of mixed-reality products.

Author: David Price, Editor