What Is 'realityOS' And What Does It Mean For Apple Investors?

Apple Inc's (NASDAQ: AAPL) highly anticipated augmented/virtual reality headset has reportedly been delayed to 2023, but new findings from the developer community has led to increased speculation. 

Initially reported by MacRumors, the operating system supporting Apple's long-rumored AR/VR headset may be called "realityOS."

What Happened: New references to "realityOS" were discovered in Apple's app store upload logs and open source code Wednesday morning.

“What is Apple’s realityOS doing in the App Store upload logs? AR/VR confirmed?” iOS developer Rens Verhoeven said via Twitter. 

The reference confirms that it “has its own OS and binaries and ... has a realityOS simulator,” according to iOS developer Steve Troughton-Smith.

“#if TARGET_FEATURE_REALITYOS”

Well then. This at least confirms it 1) has its own OS & binaries, and 2) has a realityOS Simulator https://t.co/6a25kWshXR pic.twitter.com/RyF5O5gFjg

— Steve Troughton-Smith (@stroughtonsmith) February 9, 2022

Why It Matters: The operating system was first reported by Bloomberg as "rOS" in 2017, noting that it was based on iOS. The project is reportedly known internally at Apple as just “Oak.”

The realityOS name would align with other well known operating systems from Apple like iOS, macOS, iPadOS, watchOS and tvOS. 

According to recent reports, Apple is facing challenges with AR/VR headset development related to overheating, camera and software issues. 

However, if the realityOS references are legitimate, it could suggest that Apple may be closer to a release than most think, or at least that developers could be getting access to the platform relatively soon. However, accidental releases are not uncommon, according to iOS developers. 

"This also bodes well for a product/platform announcement perhaps as soon as this year. Though, of course, we’ve been seeing this stuff accidentally make it into release builds since at least iOS 13," Troughton-Smith said, commenting on his initial tweet. "This could just be a remnant of somebody’s pull request from a fake account."

See Also: Why 8 State Treasurers Are Asking The SEC To Investigate Apple

AAPL Price Action: Apple shares were up 0.65% at $175.99 Wednesday afternoon.

Photo: Tumisu from Pixabay.