After its announcement back in June, it is now believed that Apple Vision Pro is predicted to make its official debut “sometime around March”. According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman in his latest Power On Newsletter, the originally predicted release date of the mixed-reality headset was slated for January 2024, but was moved as they are allegedly still behind their distribution plans and final testing.
Despite the hiccup, Apple is still adamant about keeping its promise of releasing the device “early next year”. The US$3,499 headpiece seems to be arriving in the US at first, with other countries following shortly. Reports claim that Apple engineers are localising the headset for France, Germany, Australia, China, Hong Kong, Japan and Korea, though a proper timeline for said rollout is yet to be released.
It also appears that Apple’s software team are already nearing towards the completion of the headset’s visionOS platform, ahead of its launch. According to 9to5Mac, its latest beta is discovered to feature product onboarding videos and material, wwhich are typically included at the end of the software development cycle. This further suggests that the team initially were aiming to have the software reader for the January launch which, as pointed out earlier, is no longer the target date for the Vision Pro’s debut.
Additionally, Gurman says that Apple wants to carefully curate the rollout experience for its upcoming headset, therefore it will only be sold via its official online and physical stores. Retail stores will also need to keep stock of hundreds of different SKUs, such as different sizes of headbands and prescription lenses.
As with most of its products, we can expect another media event to be held in spring 2024, ahead of the VisionPro’s release later in March. This will give the company the opportunity to showcase newer features and apps that weren’t ready for demonstration during the headset’s initial reveal during WWDC 2023.
(Sources: GSMArena, 9to5Mac [1], [2], Forbes)
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