The Apple Vision Pro is a high-performance M2- and R1-powered spatial computer that makes VR headsets from the likes of Nintendo, Microsoft, Meta, Google, and Sony look like the toys that they so clearly are.
Engineers have been dreaming about virtual reality since 1968 when a professor at the University of Utah built the first 3D VR headset… Now Apple’s at the table and virtual reality experts and developers say it has a chance to succeed where others haven’t.
“When people ask me what’s really special about this announcement, in one word, it’s Apple. The largest tech company in the world and also the most responsible,” said Ori Inbar, co-founder of Superventures and the CEO of Augmented World Expo, an industry conference. “They always put everything behind every product they put out there. And that’s exactly the message they’re sending to the XR industry, but also to everyone else out there.”
The Apple Vision Pro is significantly more powerful than nearly all competing products on the market. It’s equipped with two high-definition screens, a battery of cameras and sensors, and custom processors that reduce latency and lag. Put simply: It can do more than any other headset…
One notable aspect of Apple’s Vision Pro is that it has a lot of raw power and expensive parts… All these specs put together means that the Apple Vision Pro operates at a higher level of fidelity than products currently on the market, like Meta’s $299 Quest 2, which uses a mobile processor and has lower resolution screens… [D]evelopers don’t have to limit themselves based on the hardware. There’s headroom for new experiences that require a lot of processing power.
It also establishes a floor for virtual reality experiences going forward: Once people have tried an Apple headset, with thousands of dollars of computing gear, it will be more difficult to use a cheaper headset without seeing the tradeoffs.
MacDailyNews Take: Apple’s rivals peddle consumer-grade junk and worse. Same as it ever was.
One of Apple’s biggest advancements with Vision Pro is eliminating handheld controllers and, in doing so, making every so-called rival’s VR headset look like a horse and buggy in comparison, but the main thing is that Vision Pro is not a “VR headset” or “AR headset” or whatever. It’s a computer. A “spatial computer,” to be precise.
Computing in 3D space is how we should have been computing all along, but the technology wasn’t ready for several decades… Now, we can finally use our Macs naturally, with no 2D displays confining us!
So, don’t let the the Vision Pro’s ancillary features – watching giant 3D movies, playing giant 3D games, taking 3D photos and videos, etc. – drown out the fact that for just $3,500, you can own and use the world’s first spatial computer – a Mac on your face! – that allows you to compute anywhere and everywhere.
— SteveJack, MacDailyNews, June 6, 2023
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