WWDC 2023 was announced on Tuesday and Apple is expected to use the event to unveil its long-rumored AR/VR headset. However, there seems to be some trepidation within Apple about the viability of the headset as a platform – so much so that there’s a possibility it won’t be announced at WWDC after all.
According to analyst Ming-Chi Kuo on Twitter, Apple has decided to push back the headset assembly schedule for a few months into the latter part of the third quarter of this year. This delay could lead to Apple skipping the expected WWDC unveiling of the headset.
Kuo, who has a history of reporting pre-release information that is more reliable than others, also reports that Apple cut its delivery forecast to 200,000 to 300,000 units, which is lower than the “market consensus” of 500,000. (Apple has a history of conservative shipping forecasts compared to market consensus.)
Kuo’s report paints a picture of a company that isn’t confident the headset will create, as Kuo puts it, an “iPhone moment.” His report follows that of Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman last Sunday, which said Apple held a demo of the headset for a select number of influential employees. Gurman said that while the demo was “polished, glitzy and exciting,” Apple executives are “taking a realistic tone” when it comes to its level of success — at best, they expect it to grow on a similar path to the Apple Watch . Also on Sunday, the New York Times reported “discord” within Apple’s ranks over the headset and its potential.
Even before WWDC was announced, speculation was running high that the event would mainly focus on the hardware of the headset and the rumored xrOS that runs on it. Anyone looking for hidden meanings in Apple’s WWDC press release will believe it provides evidence for this – the image in the press release has been interpreted as depicting Fresnel lenses used in VR headsets.
If Apple decides to hold on to the headset, it opens up the possibility of a fall event, traditionally dominated by the iPhone. It’s possible that Apple will make the headset part of that event, as it did with the Apple Watch in 2014, although a separate event is also possible to highlight the headset and present it as a new platform.
Previous reports have said Apple is putting so much of its resources into the headset that the company’s WWDC plans for its other operating systems (most notably iOS, iPadOS and macOS) are minimal, with few new major features being revealed, if any. are. . Should the headset be removed from the WWDC keynote, Apple could choose to use the stage to show off the rumored 15-inch MacBook Air, Apple Silicon Mac Pro or M3 processor.
