After years of speculation, leaks, rumors, setbacks, and rumblings of amazing behind-the-scenes demos, Apple has made its plans for a mixed reality platform and headset public. Vision Pro is “the first Apple Product you look through, not at,” Apple’s Tim Cook said, a “new AR platform with a new product” that augments reality by seamlessly blending the real world with the digital world.
The headset will start at $3,499 and be available early next year. That puts the device in an entirely different class than most existing VR headsets, including the $550 PSVR2 (which requires a tethered PS5 to use) and the $500 Quest 3 that was just announced for a fall release.
The technology on display here is amazing, but the presentation itself, including Apple’s proposed use cases, were thoroughly dystopian. When you’re wearing it, a video feed of your eyes can be shown on the outside display when talking to someone next to you, which looks like pure nightmare fuel to me. Apple also showed a birthday party where the dad was wearing this thing while his daughter and her friends were blowing out the candles – which, as a dad… Just no. Don’t wear the creepy glowing robot face during your daughter’s birthday party.
Other than that, since it has no controllers, the gaming proposition consisted of regular “2D” games projected on a screen, so you can’t play popular VR games like Beat Saber or Gorilla Tag. Since the device tries very hard to mimic a traditional user interface in VR, many of the renders shown off during the presentation consisted of floating windows. Videoconferencing consisted of floating windows with camera feeds from the participants, for instance, while the VR user’s face is rendered onto an avatar. Showing multiple application windows floating around you definitely looks very cool, but whether or not that’s actually a pleasant user experience? I don’t know.
But the biggest problem with the whole presentation is that Apple has not actually showed off anything tangible. Everything shown off during the keynote was fake – prerendered special effects layered onto video, and since nobody has received any hands-on time with the actual hardware, and thus nobody outside of Apple has seen the real user interface in action, we actually have no idea how it will actually look, feel, and perform. This is the AR/VR equivalent of using prerendered cinematics to create hype for a video game, and we should know better by now.
If there’s one company that can convince people to spend $3500 to strap an isolating dystopian glowing robot mask onto their faces it’s Apple, but I still have a hard time believing this is what people want.
They literally showed PS5 controller support.
I agree, the idea that anyone would wear this thing during social interactions is preposterous. At work, maybe that’s the exception to the rule, as long as you have a bag or backpack to tuck it away in case you want to go out for drinks later, but not anywhere else. However, when we are at home alone, most of us are already glued in front of a TV, PC monitor or smartphone, so why not? Also, workouts could be a use case (as a rich person’s toy, I am not claiming it’s essential or anything).
So, my biggest worry is not the alleged “dystopian” factor of it (your smartphone did that already), but the fact that if it catches on, other companies may not be able to catch up (especially if Apple has built a wall of patents around key concepts as they claim). Imagine a market entirely owned by Apple…
kurkosdr,
PS5 controllers are not the same as VR controllers. But yes, since this is a generic computer, someone will enable bluetooth support for some sort of VR controller.
As for the use case, there could be exceptions. This is essentially a Macbook Pro with 3 monitors in portable form. It looks “dystopian”, true, and the battery life is very low (so needs to be tethered). But I can see a very rich student with a small dorm using this as a primary computer.
(Yes, very narrow use case).
The kind of person who buys a highly experimental and highly expensive device like this and at the same time doesn’t already own a computer (desktop or laptop) doesn’t exist. This is a rich person’s toy, plain and simple. And that’s OK, not everything has to be for everyone. if Apple shifts 1 million of these things worldwide, and assuming there is a $1000 profit margin in each of them (Apple likes to keep their profit margin in the 30+% range), that’s a sweet 1 billion dollars of revenue. And assuming the average Apple engineer is paid $250.000, that’s enough to have 4000 employees working on it full-time for a year to improve it (so that they have something really good software-wise when the components inside are cheaper and more power-efficient).
What most people don’t understand is that Apple is not some plucky startup that’s one bad bet away from bankruptcy, nor are they an OEM like Dell which packages other people’s chips and software together with no ability to improve upon the product while having to compete with other OEMs selling the same chips and software (which means their margins are capped). Instead, Apple can afford to keep the Vision Pro barely profitable or even barely unprofitable until the technology improves. And Apple is certainly not a mismanaged mess like Facebook which spent tens of billions of dollars to produce a crappy VR game with Nintendo 64 graphics.
Can’t play real VR games with a traditional controller.
Which is OK, VR games are only good for giving you motion sickness and the urge to throw up (your eyes tell your body that it moves, but the body’s sense of balance is feeling stationary because it is, and that’s what gives you motion sickness and the urge to throw up when playing VR games).
The rest of the experiences, where you are stationary in the virtual world or playing a stereoscopic 3D game (think Nvidia 3D Vision), can be done with hand gestures or a PS5 controller.
Just to mention that there are good “stationary” (1:1 movement) games in which being in VR completely transforms the experience; examples are Colors (3D puzzle game), Eleven table tennis (ping-pong), Eye of the Temple (Indiana Jones style), Keep Defending (simple archery game), etc…
Nonetheless the niche where it really excels is with car sims and flight sims.
Certainly not enough for mass-market appeal, but it is the right tool for a certain demographic.
Also it has it uses for 3D modeling, archviz, etc.
OTOH, all of what I’ve mentioned is pure VR, don’t know what is the utility of having Mixed Reality as in the Apple Vision Pro…
I have yet to get motion sickness when gaming in VR (Beat Saber, Skyrim, Half-Life, what have you). The Quest is where VR should be, IMO. Not this robot-faced waste of hardware…
Will this OS be hobbled and walled off like iPadOS, or mostly open, but still hobbled (for gaming) like macOS?
It seemed like a new OS, but might actually allow “work”?
“Vision OS”: https://youtu.be/TX9qSaGXFyg?t=34
I’ve already given these numbers at ArsTechnica but I’ll give them again. This is actually a VERY price competitive product.
Let me explain.
In March 2020 when COVID hit (it hit before that but it wasn’t until now that … ) I was sent home and told to test out our phone system (we use Webex for phone calls), remote software to remote into our computers at work, etc., etc..
Now I took a computer home with me but Windows being Windows I found that I couldn’t make a phone call AND also remote from that computer into my work computer without quite a few problems with Windows. This was using three different “images” of Windows that we used at work and not of them “just worked” “all the time”. I have a very good internet connection (which my organization verified) so there was nothing other than Windows that should been causing problems.
So I turned to my then 14 year old Mac Mini and used that (don’t worry, we had LOTS of security which I’m not getting into) and the fourteen year old Mac Mini NEVER failed on a remote session. Another win for Mac, another loss for Windows.
Anyway, my wife told me that since I was going to be using a personal computer to remote from home I should buy a new one. And I’m “older” (I’m in my 60s) and my eyes aren’t as young as they used to be so I bought a brand new at the time late 2019 27″ iMac and bumped things up so that the total ended up being about $2,600 (because I also game on that machine – “7 Days To Die” for one) and it has been a great computer for me.
However, when it comes time to replace my 27″ iMac … well Apple doesn’t make a 27″ iMac anymore and I’m not going with a smaller screen and the only monitor that Apple sells (the 27″ iMac screen is a 5k monitor and that is NOT a typo) is the “Apple Studio Display” which is a 27″ 5k monitor which costs $1599.
The “cheapest” Mac Mini that is comparable in RAM (24GB unified memory) and (512GB SSD storage) would cost me $1,199.00.
Together that is $2798.
Now take in the fact that the Vision Pro is basically like multiple monitors as you can literally line up things side by side in a 360 degree view of you wanted. but let’s just say I buy TWO of the “Apple Studio Display” monitors so that would be $3198 just for the monitors themselves with no computers.
Yes I could use those monitors for future computers too but that is still a lot of money for just monitors.
So what about other brands of monitors. Do any of them have 5k that are close to being as good and the answer is no. Everyone that I know that knows monitors (I’ve checked before with people on the internet that you just might know and they say that there really is no monitor out there that has the same performance and resolution – FIVE K, not FOUR K) for a significantly better price so I might as well go with the Apple monitors. And the guy I was talking to is a Linux and Android guy and he isn’t into Apple and he still said that.
Plus, consider that I could take the Vision Pro ANYWHERE. I would NOT wear it walking around in public. I would NOT wear it at birthday parties. But there are LOTS of times where this would be significantly better than an iPad Pro or Apple laptop if I was out and about. Also, I could use this ANYWHERE in my house while using my AirPod Pros and I wouldn’t be hogging the TV and nobody would be hearing me and I would only be hearing them if I wanted to.
Let’s get back to something I mentioned. iPad Pro. My mobile computer is an iPad Pro. It does everything that –I– need to do when out and about but the iPad Pro screen is only 12.9″ big while the Vision Pro is vastly bigger than that AND I could use the money I WOULD have used to buy a new iPad Pro and use >>that money<< as part of the money for the Vision Pro.
Buying a Mac desktop computer (laptop screens are too small) plus TWO 27" FIVE K monitors (even if they weren't Apple but were comparable) PLUS an iPad is WELL OVER $3,500 and I could replace all of that with one Vision Pro (my wife and I have our own computers and don't share). So it would actually be CHEAPER for me to buy a Vision Pro for $3,500 than to buy a desktop computer, two really good BIG 5K monitors AND iPad Pro. I would literally be STUPID NOT to buy a Vision Pro.
Because for what I do, it would be better than a laptop or a 12.9" iPad Pro and for what I use it for, better a desktop (360 degree view (obviously I would have to turn my chair around for that) and I'm better off with the Vision Pro. That's ASSUMING it comes with at least 24 GB of unified memory). I really don't picture it coming with less than that since this really was created for developers with non pro versions coming out later with less 24GB unified memory and a lower price.
The math does lie.
Sabon,
Millions of people have done this teleconferencing thing on windows with no problem. Without some kind of strong proof, I suspect windows could be more of a scapegoat than the real culprit.
Note that I have also experience the symptoms you are describing, my VOIP calls would glitch constantly if I were transferring files or doing other things with clients at the same time. It was bad. However the problem was not with the OS, but rather the network environment. When it comes to realtime communications like video/audio conferencing, having lots of bandwidth is not enough (most people have more than enough bandwidth). It’s far more important to have low latency and low jitter under load. Yet these metrics are rarely measured, advertised, or talked about. A lot of equipment including modems/switches/routers/wifi can actually make this problem much worse by having large data buffers, in particular when realtime traffic isn’t using any QOS to bypass long queues that are filled with bulk traffic.
While you haven’t given us much information to go on, it’s quite probable that using QOS, rate limited bulk traffic or reserving bandwidth for realtime traffic would have fixed your real time calls while doing other things.
Where exactly in your ass do you have to plug the back cable?? 😛
I think I know where this is going, but in case you are serious, you are supposed to keep a battery bank in your back pocket. Which from a presentation standpoint is ridiculous even by Chinese startup standards, but if it makes this device last through a workday, I can understand why they did it to enable that use case. The good news is that it lasts an acceptable 2 hours even without the silly cable and power bank.
I think it does not have built in battery, it needs a battery pack with the “silly” cable to operate. Otherwise you can plug it in to the wall, but with an even longer cable. This is a tethered device.
They mentioned 2 hours of battery life without the cable.
^ Actually that may not be correct. The details were fuzzy.
Boy are you ever short sighted.
1) The battery back isn’t that big and will not be an issue as it will take you all of 10 seconds before you forget about that cable and battery in your pocket.
2) The battery only lasts about 2 or 2.5 hours. If you need to work for eight hours you will need multiple batteries, at least two if the batteries charge faster than they drain. They might even have an optional bigger battery pack that lasts longer (and costs more).
3) Weight. This drops the weight of the Vision Pro by a not insignificant amount, moving that weight to your pocket instead of on your head. That was the SMART thing to do. AND you can easily swap it out quickly and get back to what you were doing.
So that “silly” cable and power bank was actually … genius.
Genius? … I think you mean, DUHHH. No rocket science or geniusery involved in that decision, and I hope you aren’t -actually- impressed considering how obvious the design choice is.
>> “But the biggest problem with the whole presentation is that Apple has not actually
>> showed off anything tangible. Everything shown off during the keynote was fake – ….”
That’s a ridiculous claim. Captured video from the device being rendered into a presentation video is fake how? Just say you don’t believe it, that’s an opinion and fair enough. However, asserting “it was fake” is not helpful, and just more “fake news”.
ewespestad,
I believe Thom Holwerda is talking about the video presentation using effects and renders from a fake perspective.
I didn’t see/notice the video in the article, so thank you sukru for posting it!
https://youtu.be/TX9qSaGXFyg
I guess the question is whether apple’s marketing video effects does it justice and feels representative. As I haven’t experienced these myself, I won’t comment on that aspect.
Marketing claim: “Foundational to apple vision pro, is that you’re not isolated from other people. You can see them and they can see you.”
Um yeah, even their marketing video makes this thing look incredibly awkward in terms of social interactions! Somehow it looks creepier and less natural than google glass. Despite the social aspect apparently being foundational to apple, IMHO we’d need to become more socially regressive for this “apple glass” to become acceptable in polite company. They could probably make great use of this technology as a theme park novelty as part of a ride/exhibit, but for normal social interactions on a daily basis, apple hasn’t changed my opinion that AR/VR headsets are socially isolating and awkward.
“Um yeah, even their marketing video makes this thing look incredibly awkward in terms of social interactions! Somehow it looks creepier and less natural than google glass.”
Maybe to you but I actually asked my family members, none of which anyone would call computer nerds. Accounting nerds, yes, computer nerds, no. And they definitely felt that Apple’s Vision Pro is a lot LESS creepy than Google’s glass because you get a representation of WHERE the person is looking AND you can see if they are looking at you or not.
Plus, I bet most of the situations that you are thinking of aren’t a real thing as far as when people would use these.
How many times are you at your computer (laptop or desktop) and looking at someone else. And if you did and they could see where your eyes were looking (at you) and it looks really real, then it wouldn’t be creepy at all. You are swinging at something that doesn’t exist and missing.
Sabon,
That doesn’t really add up though when you consider that with google glass you are literally seeing the person’s physical face and eyes, including when they’re looking at the screen.
Apple’s goggles on the other hand are the fake projection. I personally find apple’s product creepier. The “uncanny valley” may play a role here.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/uncanny-valley
But it’s just my opinion. We’ll see how well they’re received by public. My prediction is that apple fans will enjoy a temporary attention high, but that will wear off and it will become pretentious and dorky to wear them in public.
Maybe they are just overthinking it…
https://i.postimg.cc/pTcS2dG1/apple-vr.png
🙂
So this is how it starts. 20 years from now people will be divided into two categories: those with electronic eyeballs and those without.
And what do people think about you being focused on your cell phone?
This sounds like the worst, most expensive and useless VR set so far. I honestly don’t get it. Who is this actually for, the target group? Granted, Apple can afford to take risks, but still. What’s the endgame?
Rather expensive ski glasses. But Apple users like to pay premium for such stuff.
I think the ski glasses aesthetic was intentional. Who skis? Well those with generally large amounts of disposable income. I mean the insults just kind of fall flat. Ha that thing on your face makes you look like you can afford multiple expensive vacations per year! Oh also companies already make corrective inserts for ski goggles, so that’s already tooled up and ready to go.
Some people buy the most heap a** shoes they can and that’s great … for THEM. But I like quality shoes and I like quality hassle free computers.
I just recently retired about being a computer and systems analyst for 40 years. I’ve worked on and supported every version of DOS and Windows (including DOS 1.x and Windows 1.x and 2.x – HORRIBLE) and Linux and Mac.
Our companies stats showed that Mac people had 16% as many support calls as Windows people and Linux people had 41% the number of calls as Windows people making the total cost of ownership MUCH less than for Windows computers because 90% of the total cost of a computer is support. The only reason we didn’t drop Windows (and WINE works for all the apps WE USE that are Windows only) is because IT Management knew that if we dropped Windows as the “main choice” that the number of tech support people we would need would drop by at least 50% and their pay is partly based on how many people are under them. And our IT department has over 800 people in it.
So premium? Not if you know the REAL cost of computers. It’s the support costs. Maybe not for geeks and nerds but for normal people that IS a bigger cost. Oh, and my Apple computers I replace on average every 9.1 years and they are my main computers.
I have a Mac mini that is eighteen (18) years old and I can STILL import movies that are over 2 hours long and edit them and upload them to YouTube or burn custom DVDs that look and work like AAA movies. I did it to show someone I know that was EXTREMELY frustrated with their Windows computer trying to connect their cell phone and import the video they shot and was trying to edit parts out and move a couple things around and add some “flash” (their words, not mine” to it and they were still struggling with it after three weeks.
I invited them over and the vast majority of the time was importing the video which didn’t take all that long. They found iMovie to be very easy and quick to learn and before they knew it they were finished with their video and uploaded it to YouTube.
They asked me WHY they were having so much trouble with THEIR computer. I told them they bought the wrong one. They should NEVER buy Windows.
“But what about all my other programs?” I asked him what programs he uses (he had brought his laptop with him and I asked if it would be okay if I imported all his data to my computer and he said yes. I then was able to open up every piece of data he had without problems. He was STUNNED that a Mac could use all the data that HE had. And that in most cases he wouldn’t have to pay 1 cent for software because everything he needed came with the Mac.
He went out and buy an Apple computer after he left my house. That was a month ago. It took him some time to learn the Mac way but after a week everything suddenly clicked and he said he would never go back.
Mac isn’t for everyone. But I would say that between Mac and Linux (which I’ve used since 1996 when a co-worker showed it to me. Ever since I’ve used Linux, Mac, OS/2 and BeOS/HaikuOS and more since 1996 for Linux but earlier for everything else. Overall, Mac has been the LEAST expensive OS that I’ve used based on what I’ve spent to make comparable computers and time waisted with the other OSs where things often didn’t “just work”. I would have to compile this or that or write programs to make something that was at least a minimum version of something that I couldn’t buy or download for one of the OSs.
When I NEED to get something done RIGHT NOW, I always turn to Mac. Literally decades of usage at home and and a programmer/desktop analyst supporting Linux, Windows and Mac at work have shown me that. Apple isn’t premium at all.
For a long moment I thought you were serious.
Maybe you were truly serious.
Good arguments, but my personal truth is:
Windows is used by everyone for everything, so you have a lot of not so skilled (= very dumb) users, so a lot of helpdesk calls.
Linux users have made their choice, and they know how to use the system and solve /avoid problems.
Mac users… they use the machine only for very specific tasks the 90% of the time, they are programmers, or video and/or audio producers, their problems can be very specific but not so various. And bonus, Mac users often they think that “it’s not a bug it’a a feature…” or otherwise is the the universe that is wrong not their Mac.
” Apple has not actually showed off anything tangible”
Are you serious dude?
Lots of people at WWDC got extended hands on with Vision Pro. Just search for their reports. None of them say the experience was different to that portrayed in the Apple presentation.
Claiming Apple showed nothing tangible seems to be the exact opposite of what happened. The hardware was impressive but what I think surprised almost all tech commentators was just how polished the operating system was.
For example Marques Brownlee described it as the closest thing to magic he has seen
https://youtu.be/OFvXuyITwBI
Oddly what seems to have been missed here is that Apple just introduced an entirely new interface for computing, something that is likely in the coming decade to have the same sort of impact as the touch interface in the original iPhone had.
There was much about the presentation that excited me, although I will be waiting for a sleeker cheaper version 2 or 3, but by far the most impressive thing was the combination of eye tracking and the ability of the headset to see and correctly interpret very small and relaxed hand gestures. This is something new and it seems to work really well.
BTW imagine what this will allow extremely disabled people to do.
Honestly I think this is the begining of something really big
Strossen,
It is kind of his job to follow the hype, without it he wouldn’t have content for his channel. But when you look past the hype, is paying a few grand for a headset to watch a virtual screen that mimics the aspects of a physical screen much better than a physical screen that everyone can actually watch at the same time without any headgear, not to mention being far cheaper than this product, which can only be used by one person at a time? I think that for most people, the excitement will wear off quickly. Seriously I think after a few days the novelty of plopping yourself down in front of virtual screens in virtual space will wear off and the AR aspect will just become redundant even if it is well done.
Well, this is what Zuckerberg thought too. Companies keep pushing for wearable tech because they obviously want to sell it. But more often than not it’s exaggerated hype followed by lackluster demand from real people. Of course, there are the specialty applications like games, architecture, and product prototyping where VR/AR do make sense, but that’s not really new and outside of these specialized applications normal people just don’t want to wear face boxes in their daily lives.
Heck knows he is wrong. He is grasping at straws and so was Thom as they try to bash the Vision Pro. They are swinging at air and missing everything.
Very interesting video from WWDC about design and input for the new spatial computing. Impressive and interesting
https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2023/10073/
Honestly this is too little too late from Apple here. The Varjo Aero headset basically is cheaper/does the same or better for the VR. And they have an AR headset already in mass production. One price drop and the Apple Vision is stuffed. Who is Apple selling these to? Varjo is already selling them to the Military for Augmented Reality Combat Flight Simulators. The Headset renders the skies and enemies, but the cockpits used are real. They had the Varjo Aero (Non-AR Version $2000 USD) at PAX Australia. No screen door effect and the feeling of immersion being inside an F-18 cockpit gripping a Thrustmaster HOTAS Warthog setup is insane. I am completely unconvinced by the claims that people are going to be walking around with these on their faces. I own a PSVR1, skipping the PSVR2 because the Varjo was THAT good 2880×2880 per eye, has no screen door effect and is very comfortable to use. Metaverse is dead on Arrival, Virtual Desktops are still an iffy concept but starting to look more possible especially with some of the Linux desktops targeting VR/AR.