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Apple realityOS filing offers WWDC hint, but the wait may go on

There have been several reports in recent weeks claiming Apple’s mixed reality headset might be closer than we thought, and here’s another: RealityOS has appeared in a planned trademark filing.

The term, rumoured to be the one Apple plans to use for the operating system underpinning the AR/VR headset, was spied by The Verge’s Parker Ortolani.

Furthermore, while Apple isn’t specifically referenced within the documentation, it will be filed internationally on Wednesday June 8 – the same day Apple holds its WWDC 2022 keynote.

That would appear to suggest Apple might announce rOS during the annual developer conference. In the past, as Ortolani pointed out, Apple has filed some trademarks for new products just after the keynote.

“It cannot be a coincidence that the “realityOS” trademark owned by a company that seemingly doesn’t exist and is specifically for “wearable computer hardware” is being filed around the world on June 8, 2022,” Ortolani writes.

However, as 9to5Mac points out, the announcement might actually be a legal obligation for Apple rather than the signs of an imminent announcement may at next week’s keynote. That’s because it’s six months exactly from the date of the domestic trademark filing in the United States.

In replying to a tweet from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, attorney Jason Manakis said: “Attorney here. It’s a legal deadline. The Paris Convention requires that any foreign filings based on a first application made in a Convention country be made within 6 months of the date of filing of the first application.”

So, the wait might go on for Apple to take the wrappers off its realityOS – which first appeared in reports in 2017 and has since appeared in source code. However, given reports the product was recently demonstrated to the Apple board we may yet see a preview of hardware and software in 2022.

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