By Vision Pro, presented at the annual developers' conference, is to Apple what the Quest range is to Meta. However, its price starts at USD 3499 (three times more expensive than Meta's most expensive device).
Featuring 12 cameras and a digital crown, the headset runs on a two-hour external battery. It is powered by Apple's M2 chip and a new R1 chip, and will respond to the visionOS operating system.
It allows users to virtually project applications into their environment and interact with them using eye movement, hand gestures and voice. The headset is compatible with services such as Microsoft Office, Adobe applications and even Disney+. Imagine a family using Vision Pro to watch a movie together. Each member wears their own headset, immersed in their own virtual world, isolated from the others. Although they're physically present in the same room, they don't really share the experience together, losing the moments of complicity, laughter and discussion that are an integral part of family movie nights.
Others may become so immersed in virtual reality that they neglect real life. Ultimately, it's important to ask whether technological progress is worth the potential loss of authentic moments and human connection. Is it worth it?
Bar these considerations, the VR headset market remains a niche. It is dominated by gamers, and the general public doesn't seem that interested in virtual reality so far. So is there a market for this expensive device?
The market seems to be wondering this too. Apple's stock closed close to equilibrium and slightly down after the announcement, at -0.21%. That said, history teaches us that new tech often wins in the end (iPhones and earphones, unusual at the time of their release, also provoked mixed reactions among the public, before winning over the masses).
