Apple AR/VR headset release date just tipped — and it could pack three displays

(Prototype credit: Ian Zelbo)

Update: While Apple's headset may well arrive this yr, don't wait it to join other headset makers in the metaverse . Apparently that concept is off limits, with Apple tree focusing on other things.

While Apple tree'southward AR/VR headset remains a mystery, a new report has emerged that could shed some light on its advanced brandish tech equally well equally its potential launch window.

According to analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, as reported by MacRumors, Apple is looking to ship the rumored headset at the end of 2022, with shipments ramping up in the first quarter of 2023.

MacRumors stumbled upon this intel after acquiring a research note from TF International Securities. In it, the written report stated that the headset would employ "3P pancake lenses," which, co-ordinate to the site, "have a folded design that allows light to reverberate back and forth between the display and lenses." This, according to MacRumors, volition let for a compact and lightweight headset.

In the world of photography, pancake lenses refer to apartment, thin prime number lenses that tin can't zoom due to its compact size. These lenses tend to accept a wider angle besides.

This is not the only recent rumor to emerge regarding Apple's VR ambitions. According to a report by Brandish Supply Chain Consultants (DSCC), as detailed by 9to5Mac, Apple'southward upcoming headset may characteristic three displays: two Micro OLEDs and one AMOLED console.

Sony is apparently the manufacturer on deck to brand the 4K 4000 x 4000 Micro OLED panels with a 1.4-inch diagonal. This absolutely destroys the electric current male monarch of VR resolution, the HTC Vive Pro two. As for the AMOLED screen, a supplier was not mentioned, merely DSCC did say information technology would be a depression-resolution screen for "peripheral vision, thereby enabling a foveated display arrangement."

Foveated displays refer to the fovea of a person's eye. The fovea sits at the dorsum of the eye, forth the retina. The fovea helps with precipitous primal vision. A foveated display essentially adjusts the resolution to areas a person's eye is focusing on. So, for case, if a person is focusing on a person in a crowd, the display would heighten the resolution of that particular focus point and lower the resolution of the periphery. This video by YouTube aqueduct SweViver does an fantabulous task explaining fixed foveated rendering, or FFR.

If true, this suggests that Apple could be implementing eye-tracking tech, which may be similar to what Sony confirmed with its PSVR 2 at CES 2022. Although, Apple tree volition not be the first visitor to practise this. The Varjo V3 is a foveated headset that's currently on the market.

Like Kuo, DSCC too believes that Apple will release its headset at the end of 2022. And like a previous Bloomberg written report, DSCC reports that it would cost "several one thousand dollars." Dissimilar the Oculus Quest 2, it seems that Apple is targeting professionals and developers, at least at first.

According to DSCC, Apple's headset will also have multiple cameras for hand tracking, besides equally a possible LiDAR sensor. To power ii Sony-made 4000 10 4000 displays, DSCC believes Apple will throw in a high-cease CPU and GPU, which makes sense to us.

As to whether Apple's VR/AR headset lands on our all-time VR headsets list remains to be seen.

Imad Khan is news editor at Tom's Guide, helping straight the day's breaking coverage. Prior to working at the site, Imad was a total-time freelancer, with bylines at the New York Times, the Washington Postal service and ESPN. Outside of work, you lot can find him sitting blankly in front of a Word document trying desperately to write the kickoff pages of a new book.