Apple shook up the consumer tech world by announcing a brand new product Monday — the Apple Vision Pro headset.
The announcement, made at Apple’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference, marks the tech giant’s entrance into the AR/VR (Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality) space.
Apple has put a hefty $3,499 price tag on the device, which is scheduled to come out in early 2024.
“Vision Pro is a new kind of computer that augments reality by seamlessly blending the real world with the digital world,” said Apple CEO Tim Cook. “It’s the first Apple product you look through, not at.”
Unlike most other AR/VR headsets on the market, the Vision Pro will not feature any handheld controllers. Instead, users will control all virtual actions with their eyes, hands, and voice.
Furthermore, the headset does not feature the closed shell design that provides complete opaqueness. Instead, users will have the ability to see the environment around them and interact with the real world even while wearing the headset.
“I believe augmented reality is a profound technology. Blending digital content with the real world can unlock new experiences,” Cook added.
Tim Cook described the device as Apple’s entry into “spatial computing,” allowing users to add 3D objects to their surroundings.
Apple also unveiled new privacy and security features for its devices at the WWDC23.
What is Apple Vision Pro?
The Vision Pro headset is a computer in itself, allowing users to interact with apps in any environment of their choosing. It has both professional and personal uses — users can access any of their apps, interact with team members over Facetime, and even stream content for an immersive experience. The headset also has external cameras allowing users to capture moments in their external environment.
The device runs on the Apple M2 chip, and a new chip called R1. It also features 12 different cameras (including a LiDAR scanner and TrueDepth camera), five sensors, and six microphones. The processors combine the data from these sensors to track the users’ surroundings and their hands, resulting in a seamless AR/VR experience.
It also has a number of IR cameras and LED illuminators on the inside to track the user’s eye movement.
When a user puts on the headset, they see a home screen set in their real-world environment. The home screen contains a number of apps, which a user can interact with by first looking at and then selecting by tapping their index and thumb fingers together. The UI instantly highlights and selects the part of the display the user is looking at.
Popular YouTuber and tech reviewer Marques Brownlee used the product for thirty minutes and waxed lyrical about its real-time responsiveness.
“The most impressive thing about this headset is the eye-tracking,” said Brownlee. “I’m not even kidding, this eye-tracking is sick …. it feels telepathic. You just look at it and select it, and that’s it,” he added.
VisionOS and Compatibility with iPad, iOS, and Mac
Apple calls the headset’s operating system VisionOS. The company will allow existing iOS developer frameworks to work with the new operating system in order to build out spatial computing. This will allow numerous existing iOS and iPad apps to work with the Vision Pro right off the bat.
Apple also demonstrated that users can mirror applications running on a Mac directly to their VisionOS environment in real-time. To do so, a user simply looks at the Mac screen, and it automatically mirrors the application on the headset display.
The headset will feature a new app store containing dedicated Vision Pro apps as well as other compatible apps from its other operating systems.
Users can unlock their headset using the on-device Optic ID and also use it to authenticate Apple Pay and autofill passwords. The Optic ID data and other camera information are stored in a separate background process, which is meant to keep it safe from third party apps and websites.
Preliminary Concerns: Cost, Weight, and Battery Life
While we will surely learn more about Vision Pro as it becomes accessible to reviewers and app developers in the coming months, some immediate concerns stick out.
The first has to do with the $3,499 price tag. While Apple has cut no corners in using a premium aluminum frame and soft mesh materials for a comfortable fit, the result seems to be a device that is priced out for many potential customers. Meta recently announced the Meta Quest 3 —starting at $500 — clearly a move aimed at mass-market adoption.
Another downside to the Vision Pro’s aluminum build is the concerns about the weight and comfort. Companies like Meta have opted for a plastic build to significantly reduce the weight of the device, and Brownlee believes Apple’s headset’s weight may not make for long usage sessions.
“This is pretty heavy, this is a pretty heavy VR headset. Kind of the same way that AirPods Max, Apple’s metal headphones, are heavier than most plastic headphones. There’s a reason why most other VR headsets are just plastic. It’s not because it’s cheap, it’s because it is lightweight. It is fatiguing to have a heavy thing on your head,” said Brownlee.
It will also be hard to ignore the battery situation. Users will have to connect an external battery pack to the headset, which will offer up to two hours of usage. Apple says that the battery pack can be connected to a power source for unlimited juice, however, that is likely to restrict the portability of the device.
