Thus far, Apple’s groundbreaking new Imaginative and prescient Professional spatial computing headset has been a US-only affair, however that would quickly change if new code discovered within the visionOS working system is any indication of what’s to return.
Apple has been comparatively quiet about its plans for the Imaginative and prescient Professional overseas, preferring to concentrate on its successes within the US for now, the place it’s estimated to have offered round 200,000 items of the expensive headset within the 5 weeks because it launched. Nevertheless, when it first confirmed off the headset at its June 2023 Worldwide Builders Convention (WWDC), it promised an early 2024 US launch adopted by different counties “later” within the 12 months.
Though it didn’t provide any specifics about what “later” meant or what nations could be included on that checklist, most analysts consider that English-speaking nations like Canada and the UK will more than likely be the subsequent ones on deck. However, there’s additionally loads of proof that Apple has been preparing for a wider worldwide launch for fairly a while.
Solely a month after the Imaginative and prescient Professional debuted, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman was already reporting that, whereas he believed Canada and the UK would see the primary worldwide releases, Apple’s engineers have been additionally already engaged on localization for a number of international markets and languages, together with France, Germany, Australia, China, Hong Kong, Japan, and Korea.
Whereas Gurman didn’t have a timeframe again then, well-known analyst Ming-Chi Kuo chimed in shortly earlier than the Imaginative and prescient Professional went on sale to recommend that a number of worldwide releases would possible come by June, when Apple might be internet hosting its 2024 WWDC occasion. Kuo’s logic was that Apple needs to make use of its annual developer occasion to encourage and empower a broader visionOS developer group, which necessitates extra builders having the ability to get their fingers on the Imaginative and prescient Professional {hardware}.
In late February, Kuo doubled down on his prediction. Whereas he didn’t specify which nations could also be coming subsequent, a number of different sources have additionally pointed to an imminent launch in China.
Now, we’re seeing some new proof that Apple is preparing for this, due to the most recent visionOS 1.1 launch. Along with some good tweaks to the digital keyboard in that newest launch, the code sleuths over at MacRumors have discovered proof of help for 12 new languages past US English.
These languages aren’t but out there within the visionOS person interface, however there’s underlying code that means they’re coming, and so they present some fairly apparent hints for which nations might be subsequent on the checklist:
| Nation | Languages |
| Australia | English (Australia) |
| Canada | English (Canada) and French (Canada) |
| China | Cantonese, Conventional and Chinese language, Simplified |
| France | French (France) |
| Germany | German (Germany) |
| Japan | Japanese and English (Japan) |
| Singapore | English (Singapore) |
| South Korea | Korean |
| UK | English (UK) |
A launch in China would possible embrace Hong Kong and probably Taiwan.
The extra language help may merely be tied to providing various language choices for US Imaginative and prescient Professional homeowners. Nevertheless, the a number of flavors of each English and French way more strongly recommend a launch in these nations, because the distinctions between a few of these are fairly refined.
Expanded language help may seem in visionOS 1.2, though Apple has but to launch a beta of that. There are additionally reviews that Apple is already engaged on visionOS 2.0 for a potential WWDC preview. Nevertheless, that model possible gained’t be launched past the beta levels till later this 12 months.
Both means, with WWDC possible about three months away, we must be listening to one thing quickly if the rumors of a pre-WWDC international rollout are certainly true.
[The information provided in this article has NOT been confirmed by Apple and may be speculation. Provided details may not be factual. Take all rumors, tech or otherwise, with a grain of salt.]