Apple to launch mixed reality headset in 2022, ‘AR contact lenses’ rumored for 2030–2040

Respected TF International Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has published a new investor note, reporting that Apple’s first stage in a three-phase plan to begin to launch mixed reality wearables will begin next year with the arrival of a new “helmet type” headset with AR and VR capabilities, priced around $1000.

According to the analyst, the “helmet” will be followed by Apple’s long-rumored AR glasses in 2025, and potentially in 2030-2040 new AR contact lenses.

The Information shared in Febuary what it claimed to be our first look at Apple’s upcoming AR/VR headset, publishing a sketch based on secret internal imagery it saw from an unnamed source “with direct knowledge” of the development, claiming the device will offer a “sleek, curved visor attached to the face by a mesh material and swappable headbands,” as shown in the drawing above.

The headset, or “helmet type” device as Kuo calls it, will supposedly feature two ultra-high-resolution 8K displays with a “bevy” of other features, including advanced eye-tracking technology and the ability to pass video of the real world through the visor and display it to the user, offering a “mixed-reality effect.”

The investor note, obtained by MacRumors, reads: “We predict that Apple’s MR/AR product roadmap includes three phases: helmet type by 2022, glasses type by 2025, and contact lens type by 2030–2040.” “We foresee that the helmet product will provide AR and VR experiences, while glasses and contact lens types of products are more likely to focus on AR applications.”

Kuo claims the iPhone maker doesn’t have a prototype of its 2025 Apple Glasses as of yet, suggesting the wearables  “may have” independent computing power and storage space, offering an “optical see-through AR experience” to overlay the AR elements onto the real-world.

Apple Glass Concept | Xhakomo Doda

The Apple Post has previously shared concept images created by Italian Industrial and Graphic Designer Xhakomo Doda that envisioned Apple’s new AR smart glasses, imagining interchangeable frames and a sleek stainless steel casing with a sapphire crystal glass front and back housing the eyewear’s battery and internals.

Delving even further into the future, Kuo claims new Apple “contact lenses” could launch around 2030-2040, bringing electronics from the era of “visible computing” to “invisible computing.”

Image: The Information