Apple’s upcoming AR / VR headset

Apple showed a mixed reality headset capable of both augmented and virtual reality to its board of directors last week and has engineers hard at work on an operating system for the device, according to a report from Bloomberg. The story notes that while this doesn’t necessarily mean we’ll see a headset announced at WWDC next month, it may indicate that an announcement is drawing closer.

Bloomberg says there’s historical precedent for the board seeing devices shortly before an announcement. Apple’s board reportedly got an early demo of Siri in 2011.

It also makes sense that Apple wouldn’t want to go all in on software development until the hardware is close to completion, so it knows what features and software to build. To that point, Bloomberg says Apple has “ramped up development” of “Reality OS,” or rOS, the operating system that would run on the headset. There’s also another reason a software push could mean that the device is nearing its final stages; it’s easier for hints and traces of software to leak out before an announcement. We’ve previously seen rOS mentioned in early iOS 13 beta builds, and it’s also shown up in logs.

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