Vision Pro: reporter tries Apple glasses – 06/06/2023 – Market

Apple has done it again. The $3,500 Vision Pro headset takes all the major computing trends of the past two decades, places them around your eyes in a stylish and comfortable way, and offers an intuitive interface that’s fresh and intimate.

Following Apple’s two-hour presentation on Monday, I was one of the first people to receive a 30-minute private demo of the Vision Pro and was given the opportunity to try out a variety of features – including a “killer app” not mentioned in CEO Tim Cook’s speech, watched by millions of people online.

Moving from app to app using the headset (virtual reality glasses and headset combo) could hardly be more intuitive, thanks to eye and hand tracking. Click a button with your right hand and an iPhone-like splash screen appears. Take a look at a photo or icon and pinch to “double click”. You can scroll through photos with a swipe or zoom gesture as if a giant smartphone is projected in front of your face.

The device can easily transition between virtual reality, in which the user is fully immersed in a digital world, and “augmented reality”, which superimposes images on the real environment. An Apple Watch-like display lets you manually switch between these two modes, or in some configurations the effect is automatic: if a person is next to you, just look at them and their image slowly appears, becoming clearer with the time.

Among the features that Apple was unable to show in its presentation were the 3D photos and videos that the headset could capture. In my private demo, I could sit around a campfire with friends or sit at a table while kids blew out birthday candles with incredible depth.

Gene Munster, portfolio manager at Deepwater Asset Management, said this part of the demo surprised him. “3D memories are going to change the way we remember things,” he said. “I won’t want to do a birthday party video again unless that’s the way it is.”

Apple has proclaimed a “new era” in “spatial computing”, hinting at what the Vision Pro could do for AR/VR [realidade aumentada/realidade virtual] what the iPhone did to revolutionize mobile computing.

Wall Street, however, shrugged its shoulders. Apple shares dropped less than 1% after the headset was unveiled, with its high price tag likely to make it unaffordable for many people. Still, industry insiders were taken aback by the sophistication of the device.

“Every other virtual reality company is in serious trouble because Apple has raised the bar,” said Rony Abovitz, founder and former head of Magic Leap, maker of augmented reality glasses. “They just issued a challenge for companies like HTC, Samsung and Meta to pursue. And they topped them all in one fell swoop.”

A few days before the demo, I attended AWE, the premier mixed-reality conference in Santa Clara, where start-ups showcased all sorts of cutting-edge technology that hinted at a post-smartphone future. But nothing was essential, few devices were consumer-oriented, and they weren’t necessarily cheaper.

Magic Leap 2 glasses cost US$3,200, while Finnish group Varjo’s top-of-the-line headsets cost US$6,500. I left thinking that this type of technology has a future, but a distant one. The Apple event changed that.

Apple managed to demonstrate a vision of AR/VR that felt like the here and now, in stark contrast to the avatar-filled “metaverse” envisioned by Meta head Mark Zuckerberg.

“To many, the concept of the metaverse sounds and feels a long way off, raising disbelief as to when it will materialize,” said Sam Cole, CEO of immersive fitness app FitXR. “What we saw today felt natural, obvious, accessible.”

Munster of Deepwater Asset Management said he was initially “shocked” by the $3,500 price tag and penned a note to clients emphasizing his disappointment. After using it, he admitted his outlook changed “totally”. “I think it’s fairly priced,” he said.

Reviewers pointed out that the headset felt “familiar”. The device’s design borrows elements from the Apple Watch and AirPods Max headphones, while the visionOS software is reminiscent of the iPhone and iPad. It is equipped with “Apple silicon” chips, further underscoring how Apple’s effort to design and manufacture many of its components in-house gives it another advantage over rivals.

“What struck me right away was the fact that anyone who uses an Apple product will be instantly familiar with the device,” said Ben Wood, an analyst at CCS Insight.

As impressive as it is, it’s hard to argue that any consumer “needs” this device. Watching movie clips, viewing photos, and taking a call was fun, and I was amazed at how clear and comfortable it was to simply read a PDF document. But Apple still has some big challenges in convincing the general public to invest.

Organizing thousands of demos for potential customers at Apple retail stores around the world will be difficult. But I couldn’t find anyone who was disappointed after trying it. Most testers were extremely enthusiastic.

“I saw the presentation and thought it looked good, but I figured when we tried it out we would see flaws,” said Francisco Jeronimo, an analyst at IDC. “But my demo was completely flawless. Everything worked, like the product was ready to hit stores. I was really impressed.”

Jeronimo added that in the 20th minute he was ready to remove him. Despite Apple’s “EyeSight” technology — which shows the user’s eyes to other people in real life so the device doesn’t appear antisocial — he wasn’t sure he would use it in a social setting.

“Even if the battery lasts all day, I don’t see people interacting with others in their offices with a screen in front of their eyes,” he said.

Some reviewers argued that the Vision Pro didn’t offer true AR because, unlike the Magic Leap, for example, Apple’s device is immersive — everything is seen through cameras, even the room you’re in, rather than images. images superimposed on a view of the real world.

But the semantics of that distinction probably don’t matter. The latency of the video feed is just 12 milliseconds – eight times faster than the blink of an eye – and your brain will struggle to distinguish the difference between the screen inside the headset and its physical environment.

During my demo, I chatted with two Apple employees in the same room, and a third appeared in a mobile window on a FaceTime call. She was using Vision Pro, but Apple made it invisible so I could see her full face. Apple calls it a “persona,” which sounds cartoonish, but even when I asked her to look back and forth or made her laugh, her reactions were realistic.

To my embarrassment, I even screamed when a dinosaur emerged from the demo room wall, acknowledged my presence, and tried to bite my hand. Said this happened all day.

Apple has also developed proprietary cameras to record 3D video of sports games and events like a studio concert, letting the user feel like the action is right in front of them. It was impressive enough to make me wonder if Ticketmaster was about to close.

The disappointment that the headset wouldn’t go on sale until “early next year” was palpable. Akash Nigam, CEO of Genies, the avatar tools company, said he was surprised that Apple made little or no attempt to target the device at Gen Z consumers. , for example.

But millions of developers now have months to create content. When they do, the Vision Pro’s potential could emerge in ways even Apple doesn’t understand.

Translated by Luiz Roberto M. Gonçalves