Apple VisionPro AR Headset Targets High-End Market With Heavy Focus on 2D Content & Displays -- Not the Metaverse

After being developed since at least 2015, Apple finally unveiled its AR headset, the VisionPro. As the "Pro" in the name suggests, it's very much targeting a niche of high-end enterprise power users, and is significantly pricier than rumors suggested, at $3499.

For me the big reveal is VisionPro has little or no VR capabilities -- instead, the overwhelming focus is on displaying photos, video, and audio in an AR space. Even the rumored ultra-realistic avatars are not really avatars per se, but volumetric models of the individual user, called a "persona". 

Relatedly, there's little or nothing in VisionPro that smacks of the Metaverse as it's properly defined -- no immersive shared virtual world, no highly customizable avatars, no virtual economy of user-generated, etc. But then that shouldn't be a surprise: Apple CEO Tim Cook has never been a booster of the Metaverse concept.

Some other standout notes from the WWDC reveal:

The EyeSight feature, which displays a user's eyes on the headset, so they can make eye contact with people around in them, is a nice and novel solution to the "cut off from the real world" problem XR has had since inception. 

Again, I'm struck by how little interaction with 3D content we saw in the WWDC reveal -- just a bit in the Disney and 3rd party developer portion. Even the small segment devoted to playing games in VisionPro was about integration with Apple Arcade -- i.e. games on a pre-existing 2D screen format!

Instead, Apple's focus with VisionPro is heavily on a new, much more immersive way of interacting with 2D content. But that's not a surprise: With it's $3499 price tag, it will not target gamers or virtual world fans, but wealthy individuals who expect the product to be useful in a work / productivity context.

Another hook with that price: If early sales are steady, we can expect the VisionPro's price to slowly go down. But it will probably take 10 years or so before it's affordable to the average consumer (i.e. under $500).

More soon!

Comments

[Luther Weymann]

The "era of facial computing...is here" No it's not.
Are they going to sell swim fins with those? iFins anyone?
These hardware companies are desperate to come up with something worthwhile to sell.
This ain't it.

[Martin K.]

> With it's $3499 price tag, it will not target gamers or virtual world fans, but wealthy individuals who expect the product to be useful in a work / productivity context.

Another way to look at it might be that for that price tag, people expect AAA content. And there just isn't enough AAA content for AR and VR - but there is lots of 2D AAA content.

By the way: I would not be surprised if the Rec Room app for Apple VisionPro is a 2D flat-screen version based on the iPad version.

[Adeon Writer]

It's got nothing to do with virtual worlds or the metaverse, or even VR for that matter. Additionally, I don't know a single person who actually wants one. But make no mistake: It'll be all anyone talks about anyway.

[Nadeja]

I think I'd like an iPad or a portable computer with a virtual screen as wide as you want, and that leaves your hands free. There is a chance they nailed it.
You know the last famous words: the iPhone was "nothing new", the iPad "just an oversized iPod", and yet...
Indeed it's not just yet another VR/AR headset, but it looks like a way of interacting with the 2D interface as you say.

I don't know if it's going the be the leader of a new paradigm in portable computing or if it's going to flop because it seems bulky or because of fearing of looking silly or whatever, until they make one looking like sunglasses (at office, and if all your colleagues use these, you won't care so much, though), but I can see there is some potential here.

As for the price, it is about the same as Hololens 2 when it was released in 2019; but I think you are right, it will take a while before affordable models for the average consumer will be available (and hopefully shaped like sunglasses!).