Apple has reportedly joined forces with Valve to co-develop its long-rumoured AR headset, with the project said to be releasing as early as the second half of next year.
Word of an Apple-developed AR headset began to circulate in 2017, when Bloomberg reported that the company was working on the device, envisaged as an eventual iPhone successor, with an aim to ship in 2020.
Respected Taiwanese analyst Ming-Chi Kuo later corroborated those claims, recently suggesting that Apple's device would enter production in the fourth quarter of 2019.
Now (as spotted by MacRumors), DigiTimes reports that Apple, following the temporary suspension of its AR project earlier this year, has shifted its in-house efforts to co-development with Valve, who it previously worked with to bring native VR headset support to macOS.
"Apple will cooperate with Valve on AR headsets rather than VR devices," says DigiTimes, "as its CEO Tim Cook believes that AR can make digital content become part of the user's world and will be as popular as smartphones with consumers."
Apple's AR offering - which DigiTimes calls a "head-mounted display device" - will be marketed as an iPhone accessory, according to previous reports from Kuo, with the headset serving as the display while the iPhone wirelessly handles computing, networking, and positioning.
DigiTimes says that Quanta Computer and Pegatron will be responsible for manufacturing and assembly of the device. Launch is planned for the second half of 2020 "at the earliest".
