Apple is also planning to introduce real mixed reality glasses that should be as easy to wear as regular glasses. The well-known Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo learned this from the Taiwanese investment company TF International Securities from the iPhone manufacturer’s supply chain. Accordingly, Apple’s plan remains, first to bring two headsets and then said “Apple Glasses” onto the market. However, these are not to be expected before 2026 or even 2027, it said. In addition, the so-called Metalens would have to be completed by then, a special lens design that makes bearable large glasses possible.
Headset 1 und Headset 2
First of all, Apple will introduce devices that are based on the usual AR/VR headset design. The first model, the Reality Pro, is expected at WWDC 2023 on June 5 after Apple had postponed the presentation several times. The hardware, which costs up to 3000 US dollars, looks like ski goggles that are too big and is supposed to deliver high-end VR/AR technology, for example with particularly wide 4K OLED screens, many cameras and possibly even an external screen.
The Reality Pro is aimed in particular at early adopters and developers who can then use the product to develop their own apps. Among other things, communication and avatar applications are said to come from Apple itself, and it is said that you can also work productively with the headset. Later, probably by 2025, a second generation of hardware would come onto the market, which could be called “Reality One”. This should be cheaper and aimed at a mass market.
It starts with the Metalens
Finally, in 2026 or 2027, it would be the turn of the Apple Glasses – or something similar to how Apple had long imagined the design anyway. In Kuos recent Medium post on the subject he writes that Apple could use Metalens technology as early as 2024 to replace the plastic lens of the Face ID sensor in the iPad. Critical suppliers here are Apple’s chip manufacturer TSMC and the specialist company VisEra. The Metalens technology is then also planned for the iPhone, before they reach the Apple Glasses in 2026 or 2027 (at the earliest) – which Kuo explicitly “does not call an AR/MR headset”.
The Metalens technique is based on a particularly flat lens technology that uses so-called metasurfaces to focus light. In optical applications, they can take advantage of the flat surface and reduced thickness compared to traditional curved refractive lenses. This would enable the construction of particularly flat and glasses-like AR glasses.
(bsc)
