Apple's Struggles With Long-Rumored AR/VR Headset Detailed in New Report

The Information's Wayne Ma today published a lengthy report detailing technical and leadership challenges that Apple has faced during development of its long-rumored augmented reality headset, which is currently expected to be announced by the end of the year.

Ian Zelbo created an Apple headset.

According to the report, the team working on the headset was led by a former executive of the company, and they had to fight to get help from other parts of the company. The team worked out of office buildings in Sunnyvale, California that were several miles away from Apple's headquarters, which helped preserve the group's invisibility to the rest of Apple.

In early 2018, for example, one of Rockwell's team members asked Apple's camera hardware engineering group to add a firmware feature that would improve the speed with which the headset's cameras could capture images and reproject them in a display. Rockwell's group wanted to include the feature in a prototype headset ahead of an important demo for Apple's top 100 employees, known as the T100. The member of Rockwell's group was told the headset wasn't a priority and his group would have to wait until after the iPhone XS shipped later that year.

The idea of swappable batteries for the headset that would allow users to wear it for up to eight hours per day was scrapped due to the complexity involved. According to the report, the headset had a battery that could last several hours in line with similar products.

The full report outlines many other challenges and is a good read for those interested in the development of Apple's headset.

The issues that Apple has faced with the headset include overheating, camera and software challenges. Gurman said the headset will be powered by two chips, with one on par with the M1 Pro chip in the latest MacBook Pro models.

Last year, The Information shared a render of Apple's supposed headset based on a late-stage prototype that it viewed. The report claimed that the headset would have a curved visor, swappable headbands, and dual 8K displays. According to Ross Young, there may be a third display.