After years of waiting, Apple’s first major new product in nearly a decade has arrived. The $3,500 Vision Pro, a facial computer that looks like ski goggles, will be released next week.
So, what can we expect?
The device, which features high-resolution displays and sensors that track eye and hand movements, is one of Apple’s most ambitious products. He touts the headset as the start of an era of “spatial computing,” which blends data with the physical world to improve our lives. Imagine, for example, giving a presentation with digital notes displayed in the corner of your eye.
I was part of the first group of journalists to try the Vision Pro last year and came away impressed with the image quality, but ultimately I’m not sure people will want to wear it. My skepticism was colored by my experience wearing more than a dozen headsets over the past 12 years from companies like Google, Meta, Snap, Samsung and Sony, including virtual reality glasses plugged into bulky desktop computers and smart glasses for taking photos. The devices were intended to create immersive experiences that let you get things done by moving your body instead of typing on keyboards.
Generally speaking, the problem with headsets has less to do with technology and more to do with behavior: people quickly get tired of wearing a computer on their face, appliances end up in cupboards, and software developers lose interest in creating applications. Sales of mixed reality and virtual reality headsets fell 8.3 percent last year, according to research firm IDC, although they could rebound this year with Apple’s entry into the market.
Even though Apple has a reputation for being late to the party with superior products, as it did with music players and smartphones, the Vision Pro is not guaranteed to be a breakthrough success , especially with its breathtaking price.
“Does Apple enter a market late but arrive with the best product and therefore be successful?” asked Michael Gartenberg, a technology analyst and former Apple marketing director. “Or is there no existing market because there are no $3,500 headsets aimed at the mass market?”
To better understand how an Apple face computer might (or might not) fit into our lives in the future, it’s worth taking this moment to look back at the many face computers I’ve worn that set the stage for the Vision Pro.
smart glasses
In 2012, Google unveiled a mixed reality headset, Google Glasses. It was essentially a headband with a camera and monocle, placed above your right eye, which contained a transparent screen displaying a calendar and map software. To demonstrate its exciting potential, Google produced a video of people wearing the facial computer as they jump out of a plane.
When I tried an early prototype of Google Glass that year, the only working feature was a maps app that showed directions as I walked down a path. This could be useful, in theory, for keeping your eyes on the road while driving or biking, but at a significant cost: I looked like a character from “Star Trek.”
Sure enough, after Google Glass made its public debut, chaos ensued. A San Francisco blogger was attacked for wearing one. Memes have appeared, including the term “Glass hole” for anyone likely to record videos of people without their permission. Google eventually marketed the monocle as a professional device, but ultimately killed the product in 2023.
After Google Glass failed, the tech industry banded together and tried to solve design and privacy issues. In 2016 and 2021, Snap and Meta launched sleek glasses with cameras and tiny lights that indicated when a user was recording. Both products were unpopular. I recently tested the second generation Meta glasses and concluded that although they looked hip, privacy concerns remained because no one noticed when I took a photo of them.
Virtual reality on smartphone
The tech industry was also eager to sell people a different type of headset for virtual reality. The headsets, which looked like plastic glasses, blocked your view of the outside world to immerse you in a 3D digital environment and experience it as if you were actually there – moving your head to look at the Grand Canyon, for example. example. example.
To make virtual reality headsets easier to sell, tech companies like Google and Samsung have tried to rely on smartphones for their screens and computing power. In 2015, Samsung collaborated with virtual reality company Oculus to design Gear VR, a headset into which the user could insert a smartphone to watch virtual reality content. In 2016, Google launched Daydream VR, a similar product for Android phones.
Even though the products reduced the cost of trying VR, I ran into issues with them. Smartphones running the VR software got very hot, their batteries drained quickly, and the apps were gimmicky — one simulation I tried involved watching a virtual dinosaur. Google removed Daydream VR in 2019, and Samsung announced the end of its VR content services in 2020.
VR plugged in
In 2016, Oculus, which Meta had acquired for $2 billion two years earlier, launched the Oculus Rift, a high-end VR system plugged into a powerful desktop computer. The complete bundle, including the headset, a game controller and a computer, costs $1,500. With 30 games at launch, the product was marketed as a next-generation gaming device.
Virtual reality games were designed to allow you to move as if you were inside the game. A shooter game might involve reaching for guns, leaning, and using motion controllers to pick them up and shoot them at opponents.
Other similar products followed, including Sony’s $400 PlayStation VR, a headset plugged into PlayStation consoles. For years, the PlayStation headset dominated the high-powered virtual reality sector because it lowered costs by eliminating the need to buy a separate computer. The second generation PlayStation headset was released last year.
However, a Sony executive recently called virtual reality a “difficult category” because VR hadn’t changed much for the video game industry. Most people still prefer to play video games on a TV.
In my experience testing all of these products over the years, they shared the same flaws: the headsets felt heavy, the hardware and cables created clutter in a living room, and there weren’t many compelling games to play.
Autonomous headsets and mixed reality
Standalone headsets, which combine computer, display and sensor technologies into a single product, have become the most practical VR products to date. As of 2019, Meta’s Quest headsets, which cost between $250 and $1,000, use this approach, but the products are still not mainstream hits.
Last year, Meta launched the $500 Quest 3, its first consumer headset focused on mixed reality, which uses cameras to see into the real world while using the headset. When shooting a gun in a shooter game, for example, you can hide behind the sofa in your living room. In my testing, I concluded that although the graphics had greatly improved, the headset felt too heavy on my neck after about 15 minutes. I also wasn’t impressed with the games and the device’s short battery life of two hours.
Which brings us all to the product in question: the Vision Pro, which Apple markets as a productivity tool to replace your laptop with a virtual screen and numeric keypad, 3D movie player, and gaming device.
At 21 ounces, the Vision Pro is just as heavy as the Meta products, and my eyes and neck were just as tired after wearing it for half an hour.
The Apple headset’s battery, a separate brick that connects to the glasses via a wire, provides two hours of battery life like Meta’s — not enough to finish most feature films, let alone get much work done.
As for gaming, no major game studio has yet announced anything specifically for the Vision Pro. The headset, however, includes an application allowing you to observe a dinosaur in 3D.
