The headset is said to have an “unconventional curved design, ultra-thin and ultra-light”, and several renders seen by The Information “show a curved piece of glass with a smooth aluminum frame wrapped around the edges that looks slightly thicker than an iPhone “. Because of the thin profile, users who need to wear glasses must purchase prescription lenses that magnetically attach to the headset.

To accommodate the curved housing of the headset, Apple had to develop a first-of-its-kind “curved motherboard”. To enhance the structure without adding weight, carbon fiber is used inside the headset. A small knob above the right eye allows the user to switch between augmented reality and virtual reality, and a power button above the left eye. A circular connector similar to the Apple Watch charger is attached to the left side of the headset’s mirror leg and connected via a cable to a battery pack worn at the waist.

The headband of the headset is primarily made of soft material and is attached to two short, rigid temple sections that also contain left and right speakers. To improve the wearer’s facial comfort, the rear of the headset also has a soft, removable cover.

Apple is reported to have discussed whether to add more eye-tracking cameras or further adjust the motorized lenses to accommodate more face shapes. Apple’s industrial design team apparently advocated having the front of the headset made of a thin piece of curved glass, which would require a dozen cameras and sensors to be hidden for aesthetic reasons. But this has raised some concerns, such as the glass distorting the image captured by the camera, which if left uncorrected could lead to nausea for the wearer; and because of the shape of the glass, it is more prone to shattering than an iPhone screen, which could lead to the headset fragments hurting the user.

This design is said to be the main reason for the device’s high retail price of $3,000. Because of its special shape and dense arrangement of electronic components, it is difficult for assembly workers to operate and install components inside the device, and testing of the glass housing and camera takes longer than other Apple devices. In addition, the microOLED display used in the headset was so expensive that Apple had to fix the defective unit rather than just discard it. Sony, the supplier of the display, may have trouble producing enough panels this year because of the size and pixel density of those displays, and Apple is expected to ship fewer than 250,000 head units this year.

Apple is also having trouble manufacturing prototype head units because of their overly complex design. In the early stages of development, Apple could build 100 headsets a day, but only 20 met the company’s standards. In mid-April, the headset underwent design verification testing, and it reportedly stayed in this phase much longer than more mature products such as the iPhone. Apple is even reported to have made some very late design tweaks in April to make it easier to produce.

While mass production of the headset has not yet begun, its sole manufacturer, Lixin Precision, has reportedly told workers that the factory that will make the headset must be fully staffed by July. The Information takes this to mean that the headset will likely be available in the fall or winter, with fewer than 500,000 units expected to be shipped in its first year on the market.

The post Apple’s mixed reality headset design is uniquely complex and faces production challenges appeared first on TechGoing.

Fine Metal Mask is a consumable core component of the OLED evaporation process, mainly used to deposit RGB organic material and form pixels in the OLED production process, to accurately and finely deposit organic material where needed to improve the resolution and yield of the product.

The higher the resolution and the more pixels, the finer and more delicate holes are required, with approximately 20 million holes in a metal mask, making the process very difficult.

Reports that Samsung APS Holdings is collaborating to develop a 3500PPI fine metal mask (FMM) for the manufacture of “OLED on Silicon” (OLEDoS), primarily to meet the display needs of VR / AR headsets. Samsung Display (Samsung Display) is also developing RGB OLEDoS.

Apple previously asked Samsung Display and LG Display for the initial OLEDoS requirement of 2800ppi, and later increased the resolution to 3500ppi. Samsung is likely in talks with APS Holdings for a 3500ppi FMM partnership, as this is the resolution its potential customers want.

The report that APS has developed ultra-high resolution FMM boards and masks at 4000 ppi.

The post Samsung is developing a 3500ppi FMM and also supplies screen for Apple’s mixed reality headset appeared first on TechGoing.

The report claims to reveal a number of previously unheard-of features of the headset, including

A digital crown-like subdial on its right side allows users to quickly switch between the virtual and physical worlds. Unlike the Apple Watch, it will not provide haptic feedback.

While there were rumors that the headband would be interchangeable with the Apple Watch band, this is no longer the case as engineers face technical challenges with the headband acting as a “power conduit” for the headset.

The prescription lenses, customized for eyeglass wearers, can be magnetically attached.

Small motors automatically adjust their lenses to fit the wearer’s interpupillary distance, providing the largest possible field of view for each individual.

The 120-degree field of view is larger than the 106-degree field of view of the Meta Quest Pro and Valve Index.

The H2 chip is used for ultra-low latency connectivity with the second-generation AirPods Pro.

Two chips are on board, including a main SoC with CPU, GPU and memory, and a dedicated image signal processor. Both are built on a 5nm process, and these chips communicate through a custom streaming codec that Apple was forced to develop due to unacceptable latency.

A dedicated ISP translates distorted images captured by the external camera into faithful video of the user’s surroundings with low latency. The chip contains custom high-bandwidth memory manufactured by SK Hynix.

User input is expected to come primarily from gesture and voice recognition.

The Information also independently confirmed the existence of features previously reported by sources such as Bloomberg, Nikkei Asia and DigiTimes.

The headset includes a large, ultra-outward facing display on the front of the device that shows the headset wearer’s facial expressions to those around them, seeking to reduce the feeling of isolation when using the device.

The outward-facing display features an ultra-low refresh rate and low power consumption, much like the all-weather displays of the Apple Watch and iPhone 14 Pro.

The internal display has 4K resolution per eye, using a Micro OLED panel made by Sony, and the overall composition is 8K images.

Each eye is tracked by at least one camera, allowing the headset to accurately track whether the user is staring at the avatar. Eye tracking also enables the headset to perform recessed rendering to save power and render full-resolution images only directly where the user is looking.

More than a dozen cameras and sensors capture facial expressions and body movements, including the user’s legs. Apple eliminated the cameras that capture eyebrow and chin movements when it developed machine learning to accomplish this task.

Equipped with short- and long-range LiDAR scanners that map surfaces and distances in 3-D space.

Apple supplier PEGATRON, which assembled thousands of prototypes of the headset at a factory near Shanghai last year, has passed multiple prototype stages and entered engineering validation testing, the report said.

In addition, Apple has discussed pricing for the headset at around $3,000 (about RMB 20,730) or more, depending on its configuration, according to four people familiar with the matter who spoke to The Information. The product is made of ultra-premium components and materials such as aluminum, glass and carbon fiber, and is said to be thinner and lighter than the just-announced Meta Quest Pro.

Gaming is not expected to be the primary use case for the product, and Apple “sees video conferencing as a potential killer application” for virtual conversations using digital avatars. Some groups within Apple are working on educational content for augmented reality, and iPhone apps will also run in an overlaid 2D format.

The release date for Apple’s first mixed reality headset is still unclear and is expected to be officially released sometime this year.

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