Tim Cook offers the clearest hint yet that Apple is making a headphone

apple CEO Tim Cook recently offered the closest thing to confirming that Apple makes a headset.

Cook was asked in a recent interview with China Daily USA What he believes are the key factors are the success of augmented reality or augmented reality in the consumer market.

“I am very excited about augmented reality you know. And the crucial thing for any technology, including augmented reality, is to put humanity at the center of it,” he said, echoing comments he’s made in the past about how important augmented reality is to a company.

He then described Apple’s work in the space so far, which has been focused on AR apps on the iPhone and iPad, before adding, “But I think we’re still very early in how this technology evolves. I couldn’t be more excited about the opportunities we saw in this place.” Stay tuned and you’ll see what we have to offer.”

Augmented reality or “mixed reality” describes technology that overlays computer-generated images over views of the real world, as opposed to virtual reality, or virtual reality, which completely immerses the viewer in a computer-generated world.

It’s one of the clearest examples yet of Cook’s acknowledgment that Apple has something bigger in the works. While existing apps can be useful for things like mapping a room or figuring out if a new piece of furniture is a good fit, it’s likely that Apple has been building the library and tools for developers to create apps for something like a headset.

Bloomberg said in May That Apple recently showed off an AR/VR headset on the Apple board and that the company plans to announce it as early as the end of this year, although it may slip into next year. The same report said that Apple plans to sell the headset in 2023.

Apple will play a catch-up role with a number of other big tech companies, in particular deadwhich changed its name from Facebook last year to denote it refocusing About immersing users in virtual worlds known as the “metaverse”, and Microsoft, which first introduced Hololens glasses for augmented reality in 2016.