Oliver Haslam·

iOS 13 GM And Xcode 11 GM Confirms Apple Is Testing AR Headset

Apple has been rumored to be working on some kind of AR headset for months and months, and iOS 13 hasn’t helped. Numerous mentions of AR and such have been found in iOS 13 betas to date, and now the latest Xcode beta is at it, too.

9to5Mac’s Guilherme Rambo and developer Steve Troughton-Smith have been digging into the latest Xcode 11 GM and have found all kinds of bits of code and files that further suggest something is afoot.

References to codenames that are said to be various headsets are found throughout, including Franc, Luck, and Garta.

Developers found references to a STARTester app within iOS 13 that is believed to be used to switch AR modes, allowing the replication of a headset on an iPhone. That would allow Apple testers to do just that, test things.

And there’s a reference to StarBoard, too, which appears to be a system shell for AR apps. Basically, Apple is up to something although it isn’t entirely clear what.

Guilherme Rambo and developer Steve Troughton-Smith are still picking through what they can find, and we expect more information to be gleaned or leaked before anything is announced by Apple. When that might be, we don’t  know, but an event next month is likely – new iPad Pro models as well as the fabled 16-inch MacBook Pro are still yet to be announced.

Will we see some sort of AR headset during the event? Probably not, but there’s so much to be found in Xcode 11 and iOS 13 that something is definitely going to come sooner or later.

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