WWDC 2023 was announced on Tuesday, and Apple is expected to use the event to unveil its long-talked-about AR/VR headset. However, there seems to be some trepidation within Apple about the headset’s viability as a platform, so much so that it may not ultimately be announced at WWDC.
According to analyst Ming-Chi Kuo on Twitter, Apple has decided to push back the headset assembly schedule by a few months to the end of the third quarter of this year. The delay could cause Apple to skip the expected WWDC unveiling of the headset.
Kuo, who is used to reporting more reliable pre-release information than others, also reports that Apple has cut its shipment forecast to 200,000 to 300,000 units, which is below the “consensus of the market” of 500,000. (Apple has a history of conservative shipping forecasts relative to market consensus.)
Kuo’s report paints a picture of a company that isn’t convinced the headset will create, as Kuo puts it, an “iPhone moment.” His report follows one from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman last Sunday, who said Apple held a demo of the headset for a number of influential employees. Gurman said that while the demo was “refined, glitzy, and exciting,” Apple executives are “taking a realistic tone” regarding its level of success — at best, they expect it to develops in the same way as the Apple Watch. Also on Sunday, The New York Times reported on “division” within Apple’s ranks over the headset and its potential.
Even before the WWDC announcement, speculation swirled that the event would primarily focus on headset hardware and the rumored xrOS running on it. Anyone looking for hidden meanings in Apple’s WWDC press release will believe it provides proof – the image in the press release has been interpreted as a representation of the Fresnel lenses used in VR headsets.
If Apple decides to drop the headset, it opens up the possibility of a drop event, which has traditionally been dominated by the iPhone. It’s possible that Apple could integrate the headset into this event as it did with the Apple Watch in 2014, although a separate event is also possible to pay special attention to the headset and introduce it as a new platform. -form.
Earlier reports indicated that Apple is putting so many resources into the headset that the company’s WWDC plans for its other operating systems (iOS, iPadOS and macOS in particular) are minimal, with few major new features to be revealed. , if applicable. . If the headset were to be removed from the WWDC keynote, Apple might choose to use the stage to show off the rumored 15-inch MacBook Air, Apple Silicon Mac Pro, or M3 processor.
