Apple Vision Pro won’t solve the problems with virtual reality

Apple’s Vision Pro headset announced at WWDC 2023 blends virtual and real-world experiences together. But it still has many of the same problems as other headsets

By Jeremy Hsu

5 June 2023

Apple has announced its first VR headset

Apple

Apple’s newly announced virtual reality headset promises to blend the real world with video and audio, ranging from immersive FaceTime video chats to watching films and shows on a huge virtual movie screen. But even the company that pioneered the modern smartphone may not have great expectations for its $3499 device at a time when rival Silicon Valley giants such as Meta and Microsoft have struggled to make VR go mainstream.

“Apple’s headset is both experimental and expensive,” says Lee Vinsel, a historian of technology at Virginia Tech. “The same was true for many other eventually successful devices, including the iPhone, but those technologies were opening up new spaces, whereas Apple is entering well-trod ground where others have failed.”

Apple’s Vision Pro headset presented at its annual Worldwide Developers Conference on 5 June is designed to deliver blended reality experiences for many familiar apps made by Apple, Microsoft and other companies that mix virtual and physical spaces for work and entertainment. The headset also provides a “see-through” experience that shows the wearer’s eyes and allows for interaction with other people in the physical world even while the wearer is interacting with virtual experiences. It even creates a digital persona to replicate the appearance of the wearer for use in FaceTime conversations and other experiences.

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Scheduled to become available for purchase in early 2024, the headset is connected by a woven cable to a pocket battery that supports up to 2 hours of use and supposedly runs almost silently and at a comfortable temperature. It also contains a new Apple computer chip called R1 that processes information from 12 cameras, five sensors and six microphones in an attempt to eliminate sensor lag. The headset can be controlled solely through the wearer’s visual gaze, voice and small hand gestures such as pinching and flicking motions.

Silicon Valley has been trying to make some version of XR – the catchall phrase for virtual reality, augmented reality and mixed reality – go mainstream for decades, says Wagner James Au, author of the book Making a Metaverse That Matters. Apple’s Vision Pro headset is technically a mixed reality device that enables wearers to access immersive virtual experiences while still seeing the outside world.