Apple chooses China’s Luxshare to assemble augmented reality headsets
Apple has chosen China’s Luxshare to assemble its new augmented reality headsets, the first time Apple has tapped a Chinese supplier for a first-generation product, Nikkei Asia reports Thursday.
Lauly Li and Cheng Ting-Fang for Nikkei Asia:
Luxshare, China’s rapidly rising tech manufacturing champion, has taken over the AR development team in Shanghai that was previously owned by Taiwan’s Pegatron, according to five people with knowledge of the matter.
Luxshare’s participation is a milestone for Chinese tech suppliers. In previous decades, Apple has relied on Taiwanese suppliers like Foxconn to help it develop the first generations of new product lines. Its decision to rely on a Chinese player like Luxshare comes amid heightened tech tensions between the U.S. and China, and scrutiny of Apple’s own reliance on its supply chain in China.
Luxshare… has grown over the years to become the U.S. company’s most important China-based supplier and already helps build iPhones, the Apple Watch and AirPods.
Foxconn is also helping with the AR project, four people told Nikkei Asia. The longtime iPhone assembler will work on parallel development of a cheaper second-generation AR device, four sources said.
Apple has high expectations for augmented reality and is tapping the full range of its supply chain to make its devices a success. Two of its most important suppliers, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. and Sony of Japan, have been chosen to develop micro OLED displays for the devices, three people said. Part of the development of these displays has taken place at Apple’s secretive campus in northern Taiwan, Nikkei Asia previously reported.
Each microdisplay costs $150 and an AR device needs a pair of such screens… The cost of the display technologies and chips could push the retail price of Apple’s AR gadget to $3,000-$5,000, based on analysts and industry executives’ estimates.
MacDailyNews Take: First Apple’s mixed-reality (AR + VR) smartgoggles, focused on developers, then the smartglasses revolution will follow!
Apple has the custom silicon. Apple has the installed base. Apple has the ecosystem. Apple has the services. Apple will have the profitable portion of the mixed-reality headset market. And then, a few years later, Apple will take the profitable portion of the smartglasses (AR) market, too.
And some people will slap their foreheads and lament, “I could’ve bought Apple shares under $140!” – MacDailyNews, May 24, 2022
Apple’s smartgoggles will be cool, but it’s the subsequent Apple smartglasses that will change the world. – MacDailyNews, July 11, 2022
Augmented Reality is going to change everything. — MacDailyNews, July 21, 2017
Someday, hopefully sooner than later, we’ll look back at holding up slabs of metal and glass to access AR as unbelievably quaint. — MacDailyNews, July 28, 2017
Please help support MacDailyNews. Click or tap here to support our independent tech blog. Thank you!
Support MacDailyNews by shopping The Apple Store at Amazon.
The post Apple chooses China’s Luxshare to assemble augmented reality headsets appeared first on MacDailyNews.
This content was originally published here.