Apple Unveils Apple Vision Pro: Its First Mixed Reality Headset
Apple today introduced Apple Vision Pro, the company's first Mixed Reality Headset that seamlessly combines digital content with the physical world. Apple Vision Pro creates an infinite canvas for apps, extending beyond the confines of a traditional displays that we’re use to, and introduces a fully 3D user interface controlled by natural and intuitive inputs such as a user's eyes, hands, and voice. With Apple’s first spatial operating system called visionOS, Apple Vision Pro allows users to interact with digital content in a manner that feels physically present in their space. The design of Apple Vision Pro features an ultra-high-resolution display system, packing 23 million pixels across two displays, and custom Apple silicon in a unique dual-chip configuration to deliver real-time experiences in front of the user's eyes.
Apple Introducing New Experiences
Apple Vision Pro redefines powerful and personal computing by transforming the way users interact with their favorite apps, capture and relive memories, enjoy immersive entertainment, and connect with others through FaceTime.
An Infinite Canvas for Apps at Work and at Home: visionOS presents a three-dimensional interface that liberates apps from the limitations of a traditional display, allowing them to appear side by side at any scale. This creates a totally new perspective on how we think about Apps. With Apple Vision Pro, users can be more productive, with limitless screen real estate, access to their preferred apps, and new ways to multitask. Moreover, with support for Magic Keyboard and Magic Trackpad, users can create an ideal workspace or seamlessly bring the powerful capabilities of their Mac wirelessly into Vision Pro, forming a massive, private, and portable 4K display with exceptionally clear text. It would definitely not be convenient to type with your fingers in the air for more than a minute.
Image Credit: Apple, Inc
Engaging Entertainment Experiences: With two ultra-high-resolution displays, Apple Vision Pro can turn any space into a personal movie theater with a screen that feels 100 feet wide and an advanced Spatial Audio system. Users can enjoy movies, TV shows, and immersive three-dimensional content. Apple Immersive Video offers 180-degree high-resolution recordings with Spatial Audio, and users can access a captivating lineup of immersive videos that transport them to entirely new places. Furthermore, spatial computing opens up new possibilities for gaming, enabling titles that immerse gamers in all-new worlds. Users can also play over 100 Apple Arcade games on a screen of any size, accompanied by incredible immersive audio and support for popular game controllers.
Immersive Environments: With Environments, a user's world extends beyond the dimensions of a physical room, offering dynamic and beautiful landscapes that help them focus or reduce clutter in busy spaces. A simple twist of the Digital Crown allows users to control their level of immersion in an environment.
Memories Come Alive: Apple Vision Pro includes Apple's first three-dimensional camera, enabling users to capture, relive, and immerse themselves in their favorite memories with Spatial Audio. Every spatial photo and video transports users back to a specific moment, whether it's a celebration with friends or a special family gathering. Users can access their entire photo library on iCloud, viewing photos and videos at a life-size scale with brilliant color and stunning detail. Panorama shots taken on iPhone expand and wrap around the user, creating the sensation of standing right where the photo was captured.
Image Credit: Apple, Inc
FaceTime Becomes Spatial: With Apple Vision Pro, FaceTime calls take advantage of the user's surroundings, with everyone on the call reflected in life-size tiles and Spatial Audio that makes it seem like participants are speaking from their actual positions. Users wearing Vision Pro during a FaceTime call are represented as a Persona, a digital representation of themselves created using advanced machine learning techniques from Apple. The Persona reflects the user's facial and hand movements in real time, allowing users to engage in shared activities like watching a movie, browsing photos, or collaborating on a presentation. Still we would expect this to be more revolutionary but I guess future generations of Apple Vision Pro could simply project something that looks more like a hologram.
Even More App Experiences: Apple Vision Pro introduces an all-new App Store where users can discover apps and content from developers, including hundreds of thousands of familiar iPhone and iPad apps that work seamlessly with the new input system for Vision Pro. Apple's developer community can leverage the powerful and unique capabilities of Vision Pro and visionOS to design entirely new app experiences and reimagine existing ones for spatial computing.
About visionOS
visionOS was meticulously designed to support the low-latency requirements of spatial computing. The result is a totally new operating system that delivers powerful spatial experiences, leveraging the space around the user and unlocking new possibilities in work and home environments.
visionOS features a brand-new three-dimensional interface that makes digital content look and feel physically present in the user's physical world. By dynamically responding to natural light and casting shadows, visionOS aids users in understanding scale and distance. To enable navigation and interaction with spatial content, Apple Vision Pro introduces an entirely new input system controlled by a user's eyes, hands, and voice. Users can effortlessly browse through apps by simply looking at them, tapping their fingers to make selections, flicking their wrists to scroll, or using voice commands for dictation.
Apple Vision Pro also features EyeSight, an extraordinary innovation that helps users stay connected with those around them. When someone approaches a person wearing Vision Pro, the device becomes transparent, allowing the user to see them while still displaying the user's eyes. When a user is immersed in an environment or using an app, EyeSight provides visual cues to others, indicating what the user is focused on.
Design Elements
Apple Vision Pro builds upon the company's innovation and experience in designing high-performance products such as Mac, iPhone, and wearables like Apple Watch, resulting in the most advanced personal electronics device ever created. To achieve their ambitious goals for performance, mobility, and wearability, Apple utilized the most advanced materials available.
Apple Vision Pro features an astonishing amount of technology within a compact design. A single piece of three-dimensionally formed and laminated glass is polished to create an optical surface that acts as a lens for a wide array of cameras and sensors required to merge the physical world with digital content. The glass seamlessly flows into a custom aluminum alloy frame that gently curves around the user's face, while the modular system allows for a personalized fit to accommodate a wide range of individuals. The Light Seal is made of a soft textile material and comes in various shapes and sizes, flexing to conform to the user's face for a precise fit. Flexible straps ensure that audio remains close to the user's ears, while the Head Band, available in multiple sizes, is three-dimensionally knitted as a single piece, providing cushioning, breathability, and stretch. The band is secured with a simple mechanism, making it effortless to switch to another size or style of band.
Apple Vision Pro utilizes micro-OLED technology, cramming an impressive 23 million pixels into two displays, each the size of a postage stamp, while offering wide color gamut and high dynamic range. This technology enables outstanding sharpness and clarity. Users with vision correction needs can use ZEISS Optical Inserts to ensure visual fidelity and eye tracking accuracy.
An advanced Spatial Audio system is at the core of the Apple Vision Pro experience, creating the illusion that sounds are emanating from the environment surrounding the user and matching the sound to the space. Each audio pod contains two individually amplified drivers that deliver Personalized Spatial Audio based on the user's own head and ear geometry.
In addition to the groundbreaking display and advanced audio experiences, the high-performance eye tracking system in Apple Vision Pro utilizes high-speed cameras and a ring of LEDs that project invisible light patterns onto the user's eyes, facilitating responsive and intuitive input.
Apple Silicon Powering Apple Vision Pro
All the above have been made possible by Apple silicon in a new dual-chip design. The M2 chip delivers unparalleled standalone performance, while the brand-new R1 chip processes input from 12 cameras, five sensors, and six microphones, ensuring that content feels like it is appearing right in front of the user's eyes in real time. The R1 chip streams new images to the displays within a mere 12 milliseconds, which is 8 times faster than the blink of an eye. Apple Vision Pro is designed for all-day use when plugged in and provides up to two hours of use with its external, high-performance battery.
Privacy and Security & Optic ID
Apple Vision Pro is built on a strong foundation of privacy and security, empowering users to remain in control of their data.
Optic ID is a new secure authentication system that analyzes a user's iris under various invisible LED light exposures and compares it to the enrolled Optic ID data, which is protected by the Secure Enclave. This process instantly unlocks Apple Vision Pro. The user's Optic ID data is fully encrypted, inaccessible to apps, and never leaves the device, ensuring it is not stored on Apple servers.
Where a user looks while navigating Apple Vision Pro remains private, and eye tracking information is not shared with Apple, third-party apps, or websites. Additionally, data from the camera and other sensors is processed at the system level, eliminating the need for individual apps to access a user's surroundings to enable spatial experiences. EyeSight also includes a visual indicator that makes it clear to others when a user is capturing a spatial photo or video.
Pricing and Availability
Apple Vision Pro will start at $3,499 and is scheduled to be available early next year in the U.S., with availability in more countries to follow later in 2024. Customers will have the opportunity to learn about, experience, and customize their fit for Vision Pro at Apple Store locations.
