January 11, 2023: Apple will unveil its highly expected mixed reality headset this spring, with consumer deliveries starting in 2023, Bloomberg recently reported.

The report comes after the previous week’s comments from Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, reporting that software development and mechanical component issuing had forced Apple to wait for the shipment to the latter half of 2023. Kuo also expected that Apple would announce its headset in the spring or at the company’s developer event, typically in June.

On Sunday, Bloomberg said that Apple’s anticipated headset would run on a recent operating system, dubbed cross and that Apple had already granted a select firm of software developers access to the platform. The headset will call Reality Pro, according to the report. Apple uses the “Pro” appendage over its higher-end, power-user-focused product lines.

Apple has made a foray into mixed, virtual and augmented reality efforts on iOS and iPadOS, its iPhone and iPad, which operates systems. Apple’s software enables firms and developers to let users do anything, from trying on glasses to model furniture purchases in their personal spaces.

But a prospective headset from Apple marking an entrance into a new product line that puts Apple in immediate competition with Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta, which has paid billions of dollars, to the chagrin of investors, which builds out Zuckerberg’s vision for the metaverse.

Apple’s mixed reality offering differs from Meta’s Quest line, a pure virtual reality product. Mixed reality augments a user’s environment rather than replaces it entirely with a computer-generated view.

The report stated that Apple has put most of its efforts into the headset and that many of the firm’s other products, such as its MacBooks, Watch, TV and iPads, will get minor updates.