It is said that the complex curved surface design of Apple's VR/MR headsets brings extremely high challenges to production, and the early yield rate is only 20%.

(Nweon June 1, 2023) According to The Information, Apple’s VR/MR headset will be the company’s most complex hardware product ever, and its unique design has proven to be unprecedented. Create challenges.

It is reported that the device adopts a "non-traditional curved surface design, thin and ultra-light". At the same time, The Information said that they obtained several renderings (but did not release them) and saw "a piece of curved glass with a smooth aluminum frame wrapped around the edges, which looks slightly thicker than an iPhone." Therefore, glasses users must buy Custom lenses that magnetically clip into the headset.

As a reference, the community has produced various homemade renderings based on intelligence along the way, as shown below:

Renderings made by netizens, not official Apple images

Renderings made by netizens, not official Apple images

Additional details of the headset design

Although a series of descriptions of Apple’s headset have appeared in the community earlier, The Information’s report provides further details. For example, in order to adapt to the curved shell of the headset, Apple had to develop its first "curved motherboard". The device uses carbon fiber to strengthen the structure without adding extra weight.

The headset is equipped with a small dial above the right eye to support users to switch between augmented reality and virtual reality, and above the left eye is the power button. In addition, the left temple of the headset provides a circular design connector similar to the Apple Watch charger, and is connected to the battery pack on the waist through a data cable.

The headband of the headset is mainly made of flexible materials, with short and hard ends on both sides of the headset. These two ends contain both the left and right speakers. Meanwhile, a flexible removable mask is designed to fit the user's face.

It is said that Apple has discussed adding additional eye-tracking cameras or further adjusting the electric lenses to adapt to more face shapes.

Complex curved design is the main driver of the $3,000 price tag

Apple’s industrial design team required the front of the headset to be made of a thin piece of curved glass, and for aesthetic reasons it needed to hide more than a dozen cameras and sensors. There are obvious concerns that the glass will distort the image captured by the camera, and because of the shape of the material, a conundrum is how to balance the durability of front-facing curved glass with the thickness and weight. That could mean it's even more fragile than the iPhone's display. Engineers have been concerned that if glass breakage became an issue, it could compromise eye safety.

The Information says this design is the main driver of the device’s $3,000 price tag. Because of its shape and dense electronics, assembly workers had to operate tools and install components at awkward angles. Testing the glass casing and camera simultaneously took much longer than testing other Apple devices.

The Micro OLED display mounted on the device is said to be very expensive. Apple headset supplier Sony may struggle to produce enough panels for more than 250,000 devices this year due to high size and pixel density requirements.

Due to the complex design, Apple produced 100 headsets per day in the early stages of development, but only 20 met the standards. In mid-April this year, the team conducted design verification testing, which reportedly took an unusually long time compared to more mature products such as the iPhone. In order to facilitate production, Apple made substantial design adjustments in April.

It is expected to be officially released in autumn or winter

According to reports, although mass production of the equipment has not yet begun, Apple has asked Luxshare Precision to start work before July. The Information believes that this indicates that the device will be officially released in the fall or winter, and they expect to ship less than 500,000 units in the first year.

It is worth mentioning that Pegatron initially helped Apple develop and assemble equipment, but later it was replaced by Likai, a joint venture between Pegatron and Luxshare. Since Likai is led by Luxshare, this means that Luxshare will take over the subsequent design and production of the product. Although the manufacturer replacement caused certain problems, since Luxshare Precision was the team that completely took over Pegatron, the product development work continued to be carried out at the same location and with the same engineers, thus ensuring a smooth transition of the alternate work. In addition, the production of the equipment only takes place in one factory in Kunshan, China.

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