The WWDC 2023 opening keynote was an opportunity for Apple to present to the amazed world its vision of the future. If we believe the Cupertino company, it will be increased and virtual thanks to its new flagship : the Vision Pro AR/VR headset.
He was born the divine child, ring the oboe, ring the bagpipes, one would almost be tempted to proclaim. Beneath its air of a ski mask (or diving mask, strike out the unnecessary mention), the Vision Pro, presented as a “space computer”, excited the tech galaxy (OK, nothing very exceptional), but also the competition, which is already rarer. Didn’t we hear HTC Vive welcome Apple as a good player “in this vibrant community” ? Well yes !
Indeed, one cannot deny the dynamism of the community. The day before yesterday, Sony unsheathed its VR headset, the PS VR2 for the PS5. Yesterday, with Zuck’s voice amplified through Facebook and Instagram networking, Meta strutted around with his Quest 3.
Today, it is therefore Apple that is diving without a swimsuit into the great pool of VR (and AR, let’s not forget). Through a very “Cupertinian” video, we discover a bare world, if not sanitized, in which nothing protrudes, not even the logs in the fireplace or the real books on the equally real coffee table. There, masked adults work in the virtual world, admire their vacation photos or their favorite series, play (thanks to what looks like a DualSense, by the way) on a giant screen, meet in meetings virtual…
Discussing business from your bedroom with your VR headset… Tomorrow’s life? © Apple
In a nutshell, AR and VR are the world of tomorrow, we tell you! Thanks to them, your boring projects will have the false air of Minority Report, but it’s something other than the banal spreadsheet on dad’s monitor! You will be able to enjoy films with a diagonal that would make the giant Rex screen look like a postage stamp! Finally, we will be able to read the smallest characters of a web page as if they were printed on a 4 by 3 m advertising poster.
Before that, you will still have to checkout. And this fund will be big, tympanizing any bank adviser concerned about the solvency of his clients. Apple announces an introductory price of $3499. Some will say that it’s not a big deal: expensive products from Apple, it’s not scary since the most high-end smartphone models are close to the symbolic bar of 2000 €. There will be a few influencers in the brand’s small papers who will be graciously equipped, a few wealthy zealots — or not, moreover, when you love, you don’t count — to offload such a sum in the Vision Pro and swear to the gods that nothing beats the virtual world made by Apple.
Endless windows… © Apple
Please note, there is no question here of questioning the economic model of the brand. Apple products are expensive, but they are technically flawless. And the Vision Pro seems well enough armed to make the competition blush on a purely technological level.
But are AR and/or VR really worth that amount? Is it reasonable to spend more than two Smic in a Vision Pro? For what little we have been able to experience with VR, the answer is no. Admittedly, we have a little fun, the “wow” effect is there. But after a few hours, weariness sets in and you put away your hard-earned helmet without taking it out. A real bread machine syndrome. Again, there are always exceptions and some users have hundreds of hours of Beat Saber behind them, but they are rare.
“You misunderstood, damn foam journalist! It’s a Vision Pro, its name shows that it’s for professionals. The general public is not the target, it is a tool for businesses!”, I am whispered in the bronchi. In addition to the fact that this Vision Pro still seems oriented towards the general public – remember, family photos, video games, series… –, it is hard to imagine an interface well thought out enough to be able to use professional tools such as spreadsheets , image editing or music creation software with motion recognition. Can you imagine updating or creating a dynamic crossover table from scratch by moving your arms? This is not the case with yours truly. “So what about voice recognition, is it for dogs?” A big user of Google Home, the author of these lines is already struggling to manage all the music sources in the house by voice as he sees fit. So production tools, damn it!
Since we tell you that it’s for the pros who work! © Apple
But beyond these purely ergonomic considerations, the Vision Pro headset (like all other VR headsets, for that matter) has another much more prohibitive flaw. It is a device that is used alone and completely isolated from the rest of the world. An observation that the promotional film particularly highlights, involuntarily no doubt, at around 02.00. We see a man with his Vision Pro in front of two very real little girls blowing bubbles. The more practical among you will say that luckily they are not playing with matches or strangling the cat. The most poetic will think: “Take off your thing there, and go enjoy the moment!” Still, he seems to prefer his virtual world to reality. The rest of the video reveals single people, in the real world, whether the Vision Pro is used for work or for entertainment. You have to believe that Apple is targeting singles without children, or asocials.
“I have no idea what the two kids in front of me are doing. Thank you, VR!” © Apple
A trial run?
As it stands, you will have understood, even putting aside the pricing question completely, the Vision Pro did not really convince us. The technical characteristics or the embedded technologies are not the cause of this mistrust, rather VR itself which, in its current form, does not yet seem to have acquired its letters of nobility to establish itself as a more sustainable technology than 3D TVs or monitors, whose glasses clutter many closets today. And it is not the concept, still vague, even hazy for the moment, of the space computer that is likely to make us change our minds.
Apple has often revolutionized tech, but its latest revolutions, precisely, are starting to date. The iPod is 22 years old, the iPhone 16 spring. And since these two icons, the Apple tends to follow the trend rather than innovate. The Apple Watch, for example, despite its qualities, is ultimately only a response to the many models of connected watches released years ago, just as the Vision Pro seems to be only a response to HTC, Meta…
This AR/VR headset seems to us rather to be a trial run towards something much less intrusive, such as a pair of AR glasses, a much smaller accessory than the Vision Pro, much more discreet and usable by everyone in the everyday life, which would not isolate its wearer from its environment. Succeeding in making very real guinea pigs pay $3,499 to try out a concept that is still wobbly, this is perhaps the real tour de force of Apple and its Vision Pro.