Apple Vision Pro is the company’s first truly new computing platform device, and the biggest change in physical form factor, in about 10 years. While it looks.
Editor’s take: I was one of the lucky few who got to attend Apple’s WWDC keynote presentation in person, and also got to try the new Apple Vision Pro headset for a 25-minute hands-on, er, heads-on demo. The experience was very good – as it certainly should be for a product that’s going to cost a whopping $3,499 – but it was also a bit more similar to other devices I’ve tried over the years than I initially expected it to be.
Apple Vision Pro is the company’s first truly new computing platform device, and the biggest change in physical form factor, in about 10 years. While it looks to most people like the augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) headsets that we’ve seen companies like Meta, Microsoft, Magic Leap, Samsung, Lenovo and others introduce over the last few years, Apple refers to Vision Pro as a spatial computing device.
The idea is that Vision Pro’s extremely high-resolution display along with its natural user interface let you see and manipulate digital content of all types in the space in front of you. Practically speaking, that means it functions like a virtual monitor onto which you can place everything from traditional iOS apps to applications running on your Mac to immersive photos, videos and more.
At its best, Vision Pro offers a hyper-realistic perspective. The full-room screen size and spatial audio features combined with immersive video content specifically created for the device can make it feel like you’re experiencing something in person – whether that’s exploring a remote mountaintop, diving with sharks, watching live sports, and much more.
Applications such as Apple’s interactive dinosaurs demo provide a means to view and even do simple interactions with digital objects floating in front of you. Additionally, 3D movie content like the second Avatar movie that Apple demoed surpasses anything you’ve ever seen in a theater or theme park experience.
The problem is that it can all be a bit overwhelming. Like with existing AR and VR headsets, the initial demo with Vision Pro is super impressive – and for those who haven’t tried previous VR iterations, the experience can be even more mind-blowing. But once the roughly 25-minute demo was over, I was perfectly content with it being done.
