Apple this week unveiled Apple Vision Pro, a revolutionary spatial computer that seamlessly blends digital content with the physical world, while allowing users to stay present and connected to others. Longtime tech writer David Pogue tried it out in Apple’s hands on area and found it to be “one freaking mind-blowing piece of tech.”
Vision Pro creates an infinite canvas for apps that scales beyond the boundaries of a traditional display and introduces a fully three-dimensional user interface controlled by the most natural and intuitive inputs possible — a user’s eyes, hands, and voice. Featuring visionOS, the world’s first spatial operating system, Vision Pro lets users interact with digital content in a way that feels like it is physically present in their space. The breakthrough design of Vision Pro features an ultra-high-resolution display system that packs 23 million pixels across two displays, and custom Apple silicon in a unique dual-chip design to ensure every experience feels like it’s taking place in front of the user’s eyes in real time.
I spent half an hour trying the Apple Vision Pro headset. Here’s the punch line: This is one freaking mind-blowing piece of tech.
I mean, when Steve Jobs unveiled the iPhone in 2007, you could feel the paradigm shifting in real time.
This was like that, but better…
[T]he result is so advanced and polished, it makes Meta’s VR headsets look like Blackberries…
[A]t the outset, you won’t be able to order the Vision Pro online. You’ll have to visit an Apple Store to get a custom fitting in person. You’ll get a guided tour while you’re at it…
Photos: It’s just like the Photos app on the iPhone or Mac, except that the photos can be huge. Wall-sized. And when you open a panorama photo — oh my God.
Watching Movies: Oh man. Oh man. This thing does a beautiful simulation of a dazzling, 4K movie screen right in front of you — literally the most pristine visual experience you’ve ever seen, up to “100 feet” diagonal.
Dinosaur Encounter: The demo ended with an insanely compelling interactive video… the wall of the demo room split open to reveal a gigantic screen playing a CGI dinosaur scene. An immense dino — some kind of raptor? — lumbered in, noticed me, and looked directly at me.
As I moved around the room, he continued to stare, tracking me.
And then, curiosity thoroughly piqued, the dinosaur — oh man — stepped out of the screen and into the room.
It was another one-shot, virtual-reality magic trick — but man, what a trick. If your heart rate doesn’t shoot up the first time you see it, you’re in a coma.
MacDailyNews Take: Apple Vision Pro, regardless of price, even in the first generation, is going to sell better than most people, perhaps even those at Apple, think.
Does anyone even remember that the first iPhone didn’t have a front camera, a flash, video recording, or GPS? And there was no app store. You got 16 apps, and you were happy. By those standards, this very first Vision Pro looks like a far more finished machine. It’s as though Apple unveiled the iPhone X back in 2007. — David Pogue
There’s much more in the full article – recommended – here.
Please help support MacDailyNews. Click or tap here to support our independent tech blog. Thank you!
Support MacDailyNews at no extra cost to you by using this link to shop at Amazon.
My favorite line in the article: it makes Meta’s VR headsets look like Blackberries…
Agree. There’s a lot packed into that one short sentence 🙂
Pogue is a rogue and he’s weird. But he’s spot on with this review.
known him awhile. he’s a nice enough dude and has a knack for boiling tech down to its essence and communicating it well.
I remember one of his segments on TV, it was SOOOOO whacky and weird the host of the show afterwards was just befuddled as to WTF she just saw. He’s weird, but good weird. Weird though.
Considering that the Apple Vision Pro is a first generation product in 2023, it will be interesting to see what it evolves into over the next 5 years . . . If you look at the first iPod (size of a deck of cards) and see how it evolved into the iPod Nano (stick of gum), it shows how with advancements in manufacturing and materials science, the Apple Vision Pro of 2030 might not be goggles (glasses? . . . contacts?)
Technically this first generation product is in 2024. The announcement mentioned several times that availability will be “early 2024”, which could mean March or April 2024.
It will be a major step forward from anything else currently on the market or even openly proposed for sale by early 2024. Everyone else will be playing catch up.
One of my unanswered questions is more along the lines of the Zeiss inserts for those of us that wear glasses. I wear aspheric lenses with an atypical prescription. I doubt that the inserts will include people like me. Maybe the second generation device will be what works for me.
How hard will it be for a 3rd party to offer lens inserts?
People often forget about the holo-lens https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/hololens
Because Microsoft itself forgot about it, no one cares