Last Updated on May 31, 2022 by srinivas
Two of the most well-known analysts on the track have poured cold water over claims that Apple will be releasing its mixed-reality headset at WWDC next week.
Ming-Chi Kuo, a widely respected expert who has been described as “the most accurate Apple analyst in the world” — although AppleTrack’s 72.5% accuracy score suggests this is an exaggeration — tweeted today a brief series of thoughts regarding Apple’s long-awaited launch of the headphones. Based on the time it will take for the product to go into mass production and the dangers of rivals copying the specs and OS design, Kuo concluded that it won’t be at WWDC next week, or even at some point in 2022. released.
This follows Sunday’s discovery that two trademarks for the term “realityOS” were filed by what appears to be a shell company last year, and that those trademarks have a deadline just two days after this year’s WWDC keynote presentation. Since we know that realityOS is a term Apple has used internally for its virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) projects, this seemed to suggest an announcement regarding the headset would take place that evening.
There may be another announcement to come, but Kuo doesn’t think it will be the headset, and more often than not he’s right. An alternative launch plan was proposed yesterday by another well-known expert, Robert Scoble.
Scoble is an accomplished blogger and tech evangelist who specializes in AR and VR and continues to be prominent in that field. (It’s important to acknowledge at this point that he was significantly more prominent until 2017, when he stepped back after allegations of sexual misconduct that his partner said were “for the most part true”.) Scoble thinks so does. Kuo, who won the Apple headset won’t launch until 2023 — he predicts June of that year — but has offered some thoughts on how the company will pave the way for this launch over the course of the next 12 months.
WWDC, Scoble predicts, will see the announcement of “a new development environment for a new breed of photorealistic 3D scenes, avatars and more.” The headset is expected to be unveiled in January 2023 and will finally go on sale in the summer of that year.
This double-prediction (or anti-prediction) is a blow to Apple fans who had hoped to finally see the mixed-reality headset they’ve been waiting for since 2017. But it looks like we’re slowly getting closer to a reveal, and we should learn more at WWDC 2022.
We are curious what Apple has in store in the field of AR/VR. For more information, join our comprehensive coverage of WWDC 2022 next Monday.
The main image is a concept illustration courtesy of Antonio de Rosa.