The Vision Pro helmet © Apple
It was the most anticipated announcement of the keynote opening of WWDC 20023. Apple therefore announces, in Cupertino, its first mixed reality headset, which does not take the name Reality Pro as expected, but Vision Pro. And that’s what Apple is emphasizing: the view, the applications at work in the helmet, but also the environment surrounding the user.
The Vision Pro, more or less looks like what we expected. Understand that it looks like a “ski mask” covering the top of the face, but whose glass is not opaque: the user’s eyes are therefore visible behind the screen he is using. A wide padded band ensures the maintenance of the machine, whose weight remains to be specified, at the back of the skull. To make it work, Apple relies on a triptych: voice first, allowing you to call on Siri to open and close applications, or to launch content; the hands, to navigate in applications, for example to scroll through web pages; and finally to the eye, since the look, indicates the Apple, will be enough to click on the icon of an app.
Spatial computing, the concept behind the Vision Pro
Designed as a computer to wear, or computing in space (“spatial computing” in Apple jargon), the Vision Pro headset is aimed at both professional and personal use. The American shows various use cases, including the simulation of workstations with several offices, in which it is possible to virtualize your Mac with a simple glance at the computer. It also highlights the game, but also the cinema, since the helmet makes it possible to display a screen – in 2D or 3D according to the needs – to be resized to the size that will please the user. It is possible to make calls via FaceTime, to film its environment in 3D and to share said videos. Among the applications mentioned, we perceive Mindfulness, Apple TV, Photos, Messages, Mail or Freeform.
The Apple Vision Pro will be controlled by the hands of its user. © Apple
Vision OS and a host of technical elements
From a technical point of view, the Vision Pro has two micro-LED screens displaying between them 23 million pixels, in a three-element design (Zeiss glass). The device is equipped with two chips, the Apple M2 that we already know very well, since it sits in iPad Pro and Mac, but also a newcomer, the Apple R1. The latter is expressly designed to articulate 12 cameras, 5 sensors and 6 microphones and provide a natural and powerful 3D effect. On the sound side, Apple promises two high quality speakers, but also a system called audio ray tracing promising to analyze the user’s environment to adapt the sound delivered to it. All in an aluminum alloy frame that Apple promises as light and airy.
Apple has finally tackled the issue of user interaction with its environment. An Oled screen located on the outside of the helmet allows its interlocutors to view their eyes, even when they are covered by the helmet. FaceTime also benefits from this care taken in connecting to the outdoors, as the headset’s cameras are leveraged to model the user’s face (before they put it on) and then designed to create an avatar of it. realistic, who therefore “speaks” in the same way as the other interlocutors within the application. All this is very nice, but you will have to use an external battery, connected by a cable to the headphones, to obtain only two hours of autonomy: you will therefore be able to watch films from Vision Pro… but not Avatar.
What about the operating system governing Vision Pro? The rumor was all wrong, since it does not take the name of xrOS, but of visionOS. A system that we will discover further by the beginning of 2024, since the Vision Pro will not be released before. But we already know its price, which will make it an exceptional device: it will cost $3,500, and probably more than €4,000 if it is marketed on the Old Continent.