The object of many rumors for several years, Apple’s virtual reality headset would gradually begin to materialize internally. According to information from the media DigiTimes, this future product has already passed its “second phase of validation and technical testing (EVT 2)”.
At this stage, and if DigiTimes is right, Apple is no longer working on prototypes, but on a headset that is gradually approaching its final version. As ArsTechnica points out, “EVT 2” indeed refers to a stage in Apple’s journey in designing new devices. The firm starts by working on prototypes before moving on to the first EVT (engineering validation testing) phase, followed by the “EVT 2” phase, which interests us today.
This is an important marker for the progress of Apple’s work on this headset: after the engineering validation (EVT), comes the design validation, followed by the production validation… which allows, as its name indicates, to start the mass production of a finalized product.
A VR headset expected at the end of 2022
Still according to DigiTimes, the Apple headset could enter the production phase in August or September, for a launch in late 2022. Note that Mark Gurman, journalist for Bloomberg, had however evoked a delay of the device somewhere in 2023.
The analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, for his part, had maintained that a marketing in 2022 was still possible. We will have to wait a few months to know for sure.
In any case, the first Apple headset should mix virtual and augmented reality by relying on advanced components. We’ll find 4K screens, multiple sensors and an M1 processor that develops a computing power equivalent to that of the latest MacBook Pro.
The idea would be to make this product very powerful and autonomous (it would not need to be connected to another device to work) in order to target the professional world, at least at first.
