Apple’s AR glasses have been shrouded in secrecy, just like its rumoured self-driving car.It seems that Apple has not given up on the idea of augmented reality (AR) glasses. MacRumors has found an internal build of iOS 13 that contains references of Apple’s long-rumored AR glasses. The publication discovered various evidence related to a “STARTester”, an application which has the ability to switch between hand-held and head-mounted modes. This could mean that the headset might work with the iPhone.
The internal build of iOS 13 also found references to “StarBoard”, which is designed to work with AR-related apps. The documentation seems to suggest that one of the augmented reality (AR) headset is being referred to as “Garta” internally.
The Cupertino company has been working on AR glasses for years. But a DigiTimes report at the beginning of this year, had claimed that Apple had “temporarily stopped developing AR/VR headsets.” The report said that Apple had disbanded the team working on the AR glasses in May and reassigned them to other projects. That information seems to be untrue, if we asked to believe this report. Internal builds of iOS may seem to indicate that Apple is currently working on the software that will run those mysterious AR glasses.
Apple’s AR glasses have been shrouded in secrecy, just like its rumoured self-driving car. The first reports of Apple working on AR glasses surfaced way back in 2015, when the company hired Nick Thompson, an engineer who previously worked on Microsoft’s HoloLens augmented reality headset.
In 2016, The Financial Times reported that Apple had a team of over 100 people building prototype AR and VR headsets. In 2017, Bloomberg reported that Apple would be ready with the augmented reality technology in 2019, and a headset could ship in 2020. The report said that AR glasses would run on a new chipset, similar to the A-series chips that power iPhones, and a brand new operating system, dubbed “rOS.”
Well-known Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo believes that the headset could go into the production towards the end of 2019. Knowing Kuo is the most reliable analysts around, there’s a chance we may see a preview of Apple’s AR glasses at the company’s September 10 event.
