Apple’s rumored combined actuality headset would seem like the worst-kept key in tech, and a new report about the gadget from The Details (its 2nd this week) is chock total of specifics about the unannounced product’s turbulent progress.

A single of the most notable elements of the tale is about Apple’s final decision to go with a standalone headset. At one particular point, Apple hadn’t nevertheless resolved regardless of whether to go ahead with a a lot more effective VR headset that would be paired with a foundation station or a standalone one. Although Apple’s AR / VR leader Mike Rockwell seemingly preferred the version with the foundation station — which integrated a processor that finally shipped as the M1 Ultra, according to The Information — Apple executives selected to go with the standalone solution. Bloomberg reported identical particulars in 2020.

That alternative has seemingly had extended-time period consequences on the progress of the headset. “By the time the determination was manufactured, the device’s a number of chips experienced presently been in enhancement for numerous years, generating it difficult to go again to the drawing board to develop, say, a solitary chip to deal with all the headset’s jobs,” The Facts reported. “Other troubles, these kinds of as incorporating 14 cameras on the headset, have prompted problems for hardware and algorithm engineers.”

The report also contains particulars about Jony Ive’s continued session on the project’s structure even just after his formal departure from Apple. Ive “prefers” a wearable battery, perhaps like what Magic Leap delivers. But other prototypes have experienced the battery in the headset’s headband, and it is unclear which will be applied in the closing structure, The Information and facts states.

Apple reportedly showed the headset to its board of directors last week, so it could be nearing a general public reveal. That said, it may well not be introduced right up until afterwards this calendar year, and it may possibly not hit store cabinets until 2023, so we could be waiting around a even though to try out it for ourselves. For more down the line, Apple is producing a pair of AR eyeglasses that seem like Ray-Ban wayfarer glasses, but The Info suggests those people are “still many many years absent from launch.” (I’m curious how they’ll vary in type from Meta and Ray-Bans’ real wayfarer-like eyeglasses.)