Apple unveils Vision Pro ‘mixed reality’ headset

Apple on Monday unveiled its long-awaited “mixed reality” headset in its most anticipated hardware product launch since Steve Jobs revealed the iPad in 2010.

The gadget, named Vision Pro, will be available “early next year.” It combines virtual reality with augmented reality, overlaying digital images on top of the real world. Apple said it would sell for $3,499, even more than most analysts expected and about 12 times the price of its best-selling VR headset, Meta’s Quest 2.

The Vision Pro is the biggest gamble ever on a product from chief executive Tim Cook, who took over from Steve Jobs in 2011. Cook has long been hailed as an operations genius who took Apple’s market value from $350bn to about $2.9 billion in 2011. tn currently, but he has long been criticized for running on past ideas and delaying projects such as the Apple car.

Creative Strategies consultant Tim Bajarin said the headset’s launch should “cement Cook’s legacy” beyond operations. “It won’t put him in the same class as Steve, but Steve was a lone visionary. Cook has carried his vision into the future,” he said.

Cook said on Monday that the headset will be used to “seamlessly blend the real world with the digital world”, and is “the first Apple product you see and don’t”. In a sign that the company does not expect the device to become a major seller in the near term, he said that the launch represents “the beginning of a journey” into what the company calls “spatial computing”, predicting that it will become a day will be made. Just as important as personal computing on the Mac and mobile computing pioneered by the iPhone.

In a pre-recorded video demonstration shown at the start of its annual Worldwide Developers Conference, Apple demonstrated the use of the display to play video games, watch entertainment on a large “virtual” screen, and jointly work on documents and multiple video calls. Shown the headset being done.

“When you actually test it and see it in action, it’s staggering,” said Bajarin, who uses the instrument. “If you’re watching a sports game, you’re really on the field. You’re in front of the action. And if the movie is 3D, you’re almost in a 3D world.”

The device’s price and a narrow range of applications are expected to limit its use in the early years to gaming and a range of specialized workplace uses. The headset is also aimed at software developers, who expect Apple to create a wide range of VR and AR applications.

CCS Insight analyst Leo Gabbi said, “Gaming has been the killer use case for VR so far, but what Apple is doing is appealing to a completely different crowd — it’s a more comfortable headset, it’s something That’s something you can give to your parents.” , “The other side is, it costs $3,500, so I won’t be able to buy one for my parents for a while.”

Carolina Milanesi, founder of The Heart of Tech, a research group, said that Apple was “playing to both productivity and work as well as entertainment, so you think about the price point differently”.

Apple shares hit a record high ahead of the announcement, rising more than 2 percent to $184.91 and topping the previous record set in January 2022, before the headset was unveiled. Shares ended the day down 0.8 percent at $179.58.

Apple pitched the device to white-collar workers, saying it would be the “ultimate workspace”. But, in a move that surprised analysts who expected the product to be aimed primarily at business users, Apple showed the People viewing photos and videos, reading documents, and surfing the Web.

Apple said the Vision Pro could be “your own personal movie theater,” with a “100-feet wide” screen and real-world automatic dimming around the screen. Its demonstrations primarily featured people using a headset to view a two-dimensional screen, as opposed to the full three-dimensional virtual world produced by Meta.

Bob Iger, chief executive officer of Walt Disney, called Vision Pro “a revolutionary platform” and said it would allow Disney to create content that was not possible before. A video produced with Disney featured Mickey Mouse jumping out of a photo frame and into the wearer’s living room, leaping onto furniture. However, the only service Disney announced for the device at launch was its existing Disney Plus video streaming content.

Apple’s revenue is expected to decline 2 percent in its current fiscal year ending in September, and most analysts expect it to sell only about 200,000 Vision Pro headsets in the first year. However, Wall Street is expecting the device to become a solid contributor to the company’s revenue within five years, with the potential to one day become the most important computing platform since the launch of the iPhone.

At the start of its annual conference on Monday, Apple also announced a faster version of the Mac Studio desktop, the 15-inch MacBook Air and the first Mac Pro with “Apple silicon” — its multi-year phase out of Intel chips across its entire portfolio. accomplish. , It promised that its latest computers would offer “outrageous performance”.

Apple on Monday unveiled its long-awaited “mixed reality” headset in its most anticipated hardware product launch since Steve Jobs revealed the iPad in 2010.

The gadget, named Vision Pro, will be available “early next year.” It combines virtual reality with augmented reality, overlaying digital images on top of the real world. Apple said it would sell for $3,499, even more than most analysts expected and about 12 times the price of its best-selling VR headset, Meta’s Quest 2.

The Vision Pro is the biggest gamble ever on a product from chief executive Tim Cook, who took over from Steve Jobs in 2011. Cook has long been hailed as an operations genius who took Apple’s market value from $350bn to about $2.9 billion in 2011. tn currently, but he has long been criticized for running on past ideas and delaying projects such as the Apple car.

Creative Strategies consultant Tim Bajarin said the headset’s launch should “cement Cook’s legacy” beyond operations. “It won’t put him in the same class as Steve, but Steve was a lone visionary. Cook has carried his vision into the future,” he said.

Cook said on Monday that the headset will be used to “seamlessly blend the real world with the digital world”, and is “the first Apple product you see and don’t”. In a sign that the company does not expect the device to become a major seller in the near term, he said that the launch represents “the beginning of a journey” into what the company calls “spatial computing”, predicting that it will become a day will be made. Just as important as personal computing on the Mac and mobile computing pioneered by the iPhone.

In a pre-recorded video demonstration shown at the start of its annual Worldwide Developers Conference, Apple demonstrated the use of the display to play video games, watch entertainment on a large “virtual” screen, and jointly work on documents and multiple video calls. Shown the headset being done.

“When you actually test it and see it in action, it’s staggering,” said Bajarin, who uses the instrument. “If you’re watching a sports game, you’re really on the field. You’re in front of the action. And if the movie is 3D, you’re almost in a 3D world.”

The device’s price and a narrow range of applications are expected to limit its use in the early years to gaming and a range of specialized workplace uses. The headset is also aimed at software developers, who expect Apple to create a wide range of VR and AR applications.

CCS Insight analyst Leo Gabbi said, “Gaming has been the killer use case for VR so far, but what Apple is doing is appealing to a completely different crowd — it’s a more comfortable headset, it’s something That’s something you can give to your parents.” , “The other side is, it costs $3,500, so I won’t be able to buy one for my parents for a while.”

Carolina Milanesi, founder of The Heart of Tech, a research group, said that Apple was “playing to both productivity and work as well as entertainment, so you think about the price point differently”.

Apple shares hit a record high ahead of the announcement, rising more than 2 percent to $184.91 and topping the previous record set in January 2022, before the headset was unveiled. Shares ended the day down 0.8 percent at $179.58.

Apple pitched the device to white-collar workers, saying it would be the “ultimate workspace”. But, in a move that surprised analysts who expected the product to be aimed primarily at business users, Apple showed the People viewing photos and videos, reading documents, and surfing the Web.

Apple said the Vision Pro could be “your own personal movie theater,” with a “100-feet wide” screen and real-world automatic dimming around the screen. Its demonstrations primarily featured people using a headset to view a two-dimensional screen, as opposed to the full three-dimensional virtual world produced by Meta.

Bob Iger, chief executive officer of Walt Disney, called Vision Pro “a revolutionary platform” and said it would allow Disney to create content that was not possible before. A video produced with Disney featured Mickey Mouse jumping out of a photo frame and into the wearer’s living room, leaping onto furniture. However, the only service Disney announced for the device at launch was its existing Disney Plus video streaming content.

Apple’s revenue is expected to decline 2 percent in its current fiscal year ending in September, and most analysts expect it to sell only about 200,000 Vision Pro headsets in the first year. However, Wall Street is expecting the device to become a solid contributor to the company’s revenue within five years, with the potential to one day become the most important computing platform since the launch of the iPhone.

At the start of its annual conference on Monday, Apple also announced a faster version of the Mac Studio desktop, the 15-inch MacBook Air and the first Mac Pro with “Apple silicon” — its multi-year phase out of Intel chips across its entire portfolio. accomplish. , It promised that its latest computers would offer “outrageous performance”.