During today’s Apple Worldwide Developer Conference keynote, Apple made a number of hardware announcements, but none more important than their new headset known as the Apple Vision Pro.
Apple says this is the first Apple product you look through, rather than at (like your phone, iPad and computer).
“Today marks the beginning of a new era for computing. Just as the Mac introduced us to personal computing, and iPhone introduced us to mobile computing, Apple Vision Pro introduces us to spatial computing.
Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO.
Built upon decades of Apple innovation, Vision Pro is years ahead and unlike anything created before — with a revolutionary new input system and thousands of groundbreaking innovations. It unlocks incredible experiences for our users and exciting new opportunities for our developers.”
The augmented headset offers a range of new features:
- See Digital Content overlayed to the space around you.
- Unique interface
- Using the digital crown, you can control how much of your view is consumed by the digital world vs the real world.
- You can use the Apple Vision Pro without controllers, using eye tracking and hand gestures.
- Voice input with Siri lets you look at an input box and start talking to type.
- EyeSight shows your eyes to people around you.
- The headset has an external battery pack you’ll carry in your pocket and connects via a cable. The battery life will last all day, or a couple of hours without it.
- Works with Magic Trackpad and Keyboard
- Support for viewing 3D objects
- Allows you to connect to your Mac and resize windows
- Do Facetime video calls with friends or colleagues
- Support for Game streaming.
- Built-in audio
- Detachable band with adjustment dial
- 23 Megapixels resolution, higher than a 4K display per eye.
- Runs a new Apple R1 chip.
- Runs VisionOS
- 1,000s of apps available at launch.
- Apple uses OpticID.. essentially a retina scan to identify who’s using the device and will load the custom experience based on this.
Price and Availability
Apple has confirmed the Apple Vision Pro AR headset won’t be available until early 2024 in the US, with other countries to follow.
The headset starts at a significant price point of $US3,499, not entirely surprising for the specs, but is at the same time disappointing. This translates to $5,288 in Australian dollars, which means as cool as this product is, it’s never going to be a mainstream product at the price of a small car.
Apple’s product page is available at https://www.apple.com/apple-vision-pro/
