Apple expected to unveil mixed reality device at WWDC 2023: Report

Apple has postponed the launch of its first mixed reality (MR) device due to software and hardware issues that require more time to be fixed, Bloomberg reported on Thursday citing unnamed sources. It is now expected to be announced in June at the Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) instead of the Spring event in April. 

Apple is yet to announce the dates for this year’s WWDC event, however, it is usually held in early June. 

Apple has been reportedly working on augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) headsets for a while and has filed trademark and patent applications with the US Patent and Trademark Office for multiple devices and an operating system called RealityOS. 

In July 2021, the US agency granted Apple a patent for an MR headset with a dynamic focus 3D Display, which will use a direct retinal projector system to scan images, pixel by pixel, directly on the subject's retinas, according to a Patently Apple report. 

According to another report in The Information, published in February 2021, Apple’s MR device will have an 8K display and a price tag of around $3,000. Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman said last June that the MR device will be powered by Apple’s latest M2 chip with 16GB RAM. The M2 chip is Apple’s most powerful in-house ARM chip and is used in its latest lineup of MacBook Pro laptops. 

Last year, the MR devices were shown to the company’s board members in an internal meeting, which led to the speculation that Apple might launch them along with the iPhone 14 series last September. 

Apple is looking to widen its product portfolio as the smartphone market has hit saturation levels in several key markets. The company’s global quarterly revenue declined 5% year-on-year (YoY) to $117.2 billion in Q1 2023. Revenue from iPhones declined by 8.17% to $65.78 billion. 

The interest in the metaverse and the growing adoption of MR devices by enterprises across sectors are expected to create a huge revenue-generating opportunity. Big tech companies such as Meta and Microsoft have already made a foray into the segment with both hardware and platforms for enterprises.

To be sure, metaverse is expected to generate up to $5 trillion in economic value by 2030 in both consumer and enterprise segments, according to a June 2022 report by Mckinsey & Company.