Apple's rOS-powered AR Headset May Launch Earlier Than Expected

With Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and other tech giants entering the Virtual, Augmented and Mixed Reality segment, it was only a affair of time earlier Apple, too, jumped into the fray. Reports circulating over the past week indicated just every bit much, with the iPhone-maker said to exist working feverishly on what's beingness described as a "headset-like gadget with a fully transparent lens that allows users to come across through and interact with the environment". However, while initial reports had suggested that the visitor might only be able to introduce the device sometime in 2020, latest reports seem to suggest that the commercial launch of the rumored gadget might happen "no afterward than 2019".

The news comes from sources within the Apple supply chain, with C.C Leung, the vice chairman Quanta Calculator, a main assembler of the Apple Watches and Macbooks, revealing the info while talking to reporters at Taiwan recently. According to him, toll will exist a major determining factor in whether the device will get on to become a success or not. While he suggested that a sub-$1,000 tag would exist a sweet spot, information technology wasn't immediately clear if he had whatever inside cognition of Apple's pricing strategy for the upcoming product.

While details about Apple'due south rumored AR headset is still sketchy at all-time, it apparently has a lawmaking name of "T288" and, is said to come with an iOS-based operating system called 'rOS', or 'reality operating system'. The Cupertino giant, however, is believed to have not yet finalized any of the software or UI aspects of the product, which include app launches, Siri vocalisation activation and caput gestures. The company is also believed to be testing a whole bunch of different impact panels, control buttons and other hardware components as it tries out multiple prototypes before settling on the final design.

While Apple CEO, Tim Cook, has expressed "profound involvement" in AR, he'south as well argued that the current AR technologies are only non compelling enough, and bringing something based on that would not be "something that any of us would be satisfied with". Having said that, the Cupertino giant is conspicuously laying the foundation for a foray into the AR segment at some stage, seeing as the company earlier this twelvemonth launched its ARKit platform that enables developers to integrate augmented reality features into iPhone and iPad apps.