Apple’s 2023 Worldwide Developer Conference kicked off at 10am PT this morning, with keynotes packed with product announcements like the M2 Ultra in the updated Mac Studio and the new Mac Pro. But the most exciting news is that Cupertino has taken the opportunity to announce a new headset, the Vision Pro. The rumors swirling for months seemed to go something like this: In many cases That’s true, but in true Apple fashion, the most interesting aspect is what’s stored in the software.
The Vision Pro is Apple’s first augmented reality device (a spatial computer in the company’s parlance). The idea is that instead of looking at the display like a typical VR headset, the user wears the Vision Pro and looks through the lens to see the area around them with the user interface overlaid. , which is no different than Microsoft’s current HoloLens 2 AR product. Apple has been pushing augmented reality as part of iOS and iPadOS for years, and companies are getting their hands on it too, with perhaps the most notable example being Pokémon Go.
Apple’s AR operating system: visionOS
Dye says the main interface will look like an enlarged version of the Apple Watch app launcher, and the UI will actually feel like it’s part of the room. UI elements have depth, react to light, and cast shadows as a way to give hints about the scale and distance of elements in the room. Voice control includes dictation and the ability to speak to Siri to open and close apps. We haven’t been able to try this ourselves yet, but the demo looks very polished. The only thing we’re not entirely convinced about is the virtual keyboard, but Apple says the Vision Pro is compatible with Apple’s Bluetooth devices such as the Magic Keyboard and Magic Trackpad. I hope this just says that he supports Bluetooth accessory support as standard as iPadOS and macOS. And of course, with resolutions up to 4K, you can place your screen anywhere in the room to see Vision Pro and control your Mac.
Apple says it filed over 5,000 patents during the Vision Pro and visionOS development cycles. Dye says the whole visionOS experience feels like “magic”, but the word gets thrown around a lot and he’s convinced that this isn’t magic and is the result of a lot of new research. . Still, in the demo visionOS looks pretty polished. Apps easily slide to make room for newly opened apps and fill the surrounding space as the user interacts with the system. Speaking of navigation, Apple’s demo included people walking around the room wearing Vision Pro headsets, a handy byproduct of his AR focus on the device.
Applications, or “experiences” as Apple calls them, are not bound to the display and can adjust to their virtual size and position around the user. The apps don’t remove each other, they just take up another space in the room. Environments allow your UI to extend beyond the dimensions of your room, giving you the immersive feeling of being anywhere. Want to watch Ted Lasso from a lakeside location? Apparently, that’s an option. With the Digital Crown (another Apple Watch feature borrowed by the Vision Pro), users just need to dial in. how they are soaking The landscape is volumetrically captured, so you don’t get the flat photo motion effect you often see in his 3D photos on Facebook.
Most headsets require at least a little extra hardware to track hands, heads, and users in the room, but Apple’s input design goals were based around using no extra hardware. . Dai said users will only use eye movements, hand gestures and voice commands to control it. The eye-tracking controls seem to basically mimic mouse hover and cursor position, a concept he tried out on the Alienware m15 R2 a few years ago, but Apple decided to increase accuracy around the Vision Pro’s eyes. showed that it has a large number of sensors. Flick to scroll or pinch your fingers to select objects. The interface seems very intuitive and simple, which are usually his two words for how Apple UI works. Everything seems really sophisticated.
Unlike VR headsets, which inevitably isolate you from the world around you, Vision Pro has features that allow you to continue living in the real world. It is important not only for the user, but also for the people around them. So that anyone who has ever been startled or pranked while wearing a headset can attest. When someone is nearby, Vision Pro users can see them, and thanks to an outward-facing display called EyeSight, others can see the eyes underneath the headset. EyeSight also gives others cues to show you how immersed you are when you’re busy. Also, if someone is nearby, they will appear in the immersive view. Every detail about this suggests that Apple has been through so many scenarios, and suddenly the long-term investments being reported make sense.
The apps included are the same basic apps available for all other Apple devices. Browse the web with Safari, send and receive SMS and iMessages, make calls with FaceTime, and automatically sync all your data with iCloud. Spatial audio with life-sized FaceTime calls of him seems like a great way to immerse yourself in conversations with other people. Apps are more than just two dimensions, either. Apple’s demo involved receiving a 3D model attached to a message in the Messages app and taking it out to see a wireframe on a table in the same room.If that’s not the promise of a madman minority reportThe -type stuff is right there, but this author doesn’t know what it is.
Apple Vision Pro: M2 and 23 megapixels
As for the Vision Pro itself, the hardware looks pretty fancy. The shell is made from a large slab of aluminum with a modular design that allows for different head sizes and face shapes. The headband is a 3D-knit, one-piece design that aims to hold the main display and its flexible face mounts close to the user’s eyes, while the integrated audio solution is pinned to the temples. The default configuration leaves no room for glasses, but Apple worked with his Zeiss to create prescription lenses that attach magnetically.
The display itself is a micro OLED Apple Silicon backplane in an RGB arrangement with red sub-pixels positioned horizontally above green sub-pixels. Those OLED pixels sit on an Apple-designed backplane, and one of his in-house developed controllers runs the show. Mike Rockwell, vice president of Apple’s technology development group, said he has 64 pixels in the same space as the iPhone’s pixels, but the iPhone’s pixel density is different. The Vision Pro features two of his “postage stamp-sized” displays totaling 23 million pixels. That’s about 8.3 million pixels per eye on his 4K display, so it’s pretty dense, and it also supports 4K HDR video playback. All of which is observed through his three-element lens.
Rockwell said Apple wanted the audio to come from the room rather than from the headset. As a result, the audio setup looks similarly complicated. A pair of “audio pods” are needed to deliver sound to the user’s surroundings rather than directly to the ear. Spatial audio uses a proprietary technology Apple calls Audio Ray His Tracing. It contains sensors that read the room around the user and adjust playback to the environment. As a result, users perceive the sound as coming from the environment, says Rockwell. The system also incorporates numerous other sensors, including head and hand tracking, IR illuminators, downward and side facing cameras, LiDAR, and more.
Needless to say, all these sensors and high-quality interfaces require a lot of computing power, which is why Apple provided the Vision Pro with the M2 Arm64-based SoC. The low-power processors in Mac mini, MacBook Pro 13-inch, and MacBook Air handle most of your computing needs. Running in parallel is a new chip called R1 that handles all real-time sensor input. 12 cameras, 5 sensors, 6 mics to handle, but R1 needed to keep response time low enough for sustained use, M2 and R1 combined for just 12ms can bring a new image to the display, says Rockwell. .
Being a first-generation device, early users will have to put up with some awkwardness, especially when it comes to how the device gets power. Apple CEO Tim Cook talked about the aluminum-encased tethered battery pack as if it were a fashion accessory, but that means users have to deal with wires. Every time the user puts on the headset, they feel the wires covered with the woven fabric. Because the battery isn’t built into the headset, the Vision Pro is lighter than the rest, and we’re not too concerned about that.
The biggest downside of the battery pod is that Apple chose not to make the battery bigger. As it stands, users can expect a runtime of about two hours, the company says. The size of the battery is clearly more a result of form than function, as Apple says it’s meant to be put in your pocket. Cook hyped up the entertainment interface by saying that users would be engrossed in movies and sporting events, both of which he lacks in two hours. Most users probably want to stay connected and use their Vision Pro for short bursts of untethered activity. The device supports such configurations.
The Vision Pro seems like a very slick, intuitive piece of kit with a lot of potential, but not all of this technology is cheap. Apple says the Vision Pro will be priced at $3,499 when it becomes available. That’s a staggering amount of money, but to put it into perspective, it’s the same price as the base model of Microsoft’s HoloLens 2. While HoloLens is a business-focused product, Apple seems to be targeting deep-pocketed consumers who have already invested in the fruit-flavoured ecosystem. Will it sell? have to look into it. Vision Pro is expected to be available early next year.
