Specs, software, could help it break the VR curse

appleThe new Vision Pro headset has revived interest in head-mounted computers that immerse users in virtual worlds.

Engineers have always dreamed of virtual reality since 1968 When a professor at the University of Utah built the first 3D VR headset, headsets have been released by some of the most powerful consumer electronics companies since then, including Nintendo, Microsoft, Meta, Google, and Sony. None were hit.

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Now that Apple is at the negotiating table, virtual reality experts and developers say it has an opportunity to succeed where no one else has.

“When people ask me what’s special about this announcement, in a nutshell, it’s Apple. The largest technology company in the world, and the most responsible,” said Ori, co-founder of Superventures and CEO of Augmented World Expo An industry conference, Inbar said. “They always put everything behind every product they launch. That’s the message they’re sending to the XR industry and everyone else.”

Apple’s reputation and track record make it indisputable when it comes to truly new technology, and many consumers already own and love Apple’s products.

Apple’s successful commercialization of the multi-touch display with the iPhone transformed the smartphone industry by showing the world a new way to interact with the phone. It may be able to replicate this in the VR industry with the Vision Pro’s gesture and voice-based user interface. Unlike other headsets, it doesn’t require a controller.

“Part of the Apple effect is that they built this brand equity, and they’ve done it time and time again across multiple categories, whether it’s watches, music players, and of course smartphones,” said Tipatat Chennavasin, director of Venture Reality Fund general partner. “I think what’s really interesting is that they articulated their vision for the future — which is the next iPhone, the next big platform.”

The Apple Vision Pro is far more powerful than almost any competing product on the market. It features two high-definition screens, an array of cameras and sensors, and a custom processor that reduces lag and lag. In short: it does more than any other headset.

The increased power beneath Apple’s visors has also spawned a relatively new concept sometimes called “XR,” “mixed reality,” or “passthrough,” or, as Apple calls it, “spatial computing.”

Cameras on the outside of the Vision Pro can display the real world inside the headset in near real time, making the technology less isolating and solving a long-standing problem with virtual reality: Users can’t see what’s around them while they’re in VR.

But Apple also has to change the public’s perception of virtual reality. The moment the average consumer wears headphones every day is likely years away.

One notable aspect of the Apple Vision Pro is that it packs a lot of raw power and expensive parts. Original Apple products in the past didn’t emphasize processor speed, display resolution, or specs.

Vision Pro does it. A short and incomplete list of its components that we know so far:

• Two Micro-OLED displays about an inch in diameter, each with more resolution than a 4K TV.
• An Apple M2 processor — the same one found in laptops — and a dedicated R1 processor for the camera and other visual effects.
• eye tracking
• six microphones
• 12 cameras and 5 sensors to monitor gestures

All of these specs combined mean that the Apple Vision Pro runs at a higher fidelity than products currently on the market, such as Meta’s $299 Quest 2, which uses a mobile processor and has a lower-resolution screen.

It’s also much more expensive: It’ll cost at least $3,499, and possibly more if you opt for custom lenses or other potential upgrades like storage.

The powerful specs allow the Vision Pro to display the outside world in real-time via video inside the headset, making it the first device to do both high-quality VR and AR, with the former taking users into virtual worlds and blending virtual objects into the real world.

“Apple seems to totally believe that it will let you see outside, but it will let you see outside using camera and passthrough and very, very low latency and very, very, high-performance computing and Techsponential analyst Avi Greengart (Avi Greengart) said he demoed the headset earlier this week at Apple’s campus.

These devices require less processing power than competing devices that use transparent displays, such as Magic Leap and Microsoft Hololens, but offer lower image quality.

This level of visual quality means presentations can be better, and developers don’t have to limit themselves based on hardware. There is room for new experiences that require a lot of processing power.

It also lays the groundwork for future virtual reality experiences: Once people try out Apple headsets, equipped with thousands of dollars of computing equipment, it will be difficult to use cheaper headsets without trade-offs.

“Apple says, quite bluntly, that in order to do VR, AR, or what they call ‘spatial computing,’ that’s the experience you need to deliver, and that’s the price it’s going to pay for,” Greengart said. Anyone launching a product at that price point will be considered a niche market. But Apple, because of its history of consumer products, and because of its historical iteration, you can expect the experience to get better over time, and the price comes down — Well, hopefully it will come down.”

Eye tracking typically uses small sensors to see where the user is looking. According to someone who controlled a hands-on demo earlier this week, it worked fine. “Meta’s headset has similar capabilities, but it doesn’t work nearly as well as the Apple Vision, if it works at all,” CNBC’s Steve Kovacs writes.