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The Apple Vision Pro is the best headset anyone’s ever made — and that’s the problem.
$60 million sounds like a lot, but how much can it really buy you these days?
The extra money should allow Xreal to make up to 2 million AR headsets in 2025, per Bloomberg. Its latest, the Air 2 Ultra, ships in March.
With the Vision Pro set to ship starting on February 2nd, Apple uploaded a TV spot for the headset to its YouTube channel. Tim Cook presented this ad at the end of his WWDC 2023 keynote presentation, and it appears to be mostly the same, all these months later.
In June we dug through it to find out everywhere Apple imagines you’ll use its $3,499 headset, but you can watch it again right here,
9to5Mac reported this morning that despite Apple Vision Pro preorders still being set for March shipping, the Apple Store website showed a February 3rd pickup date.
When I checked, I saw a February 3rd in-store pickup and March 3rd ship date. On a second try, there were no pickups available, with estimated shipping between February 20th – 27th.
Part of the online ordering process involves a Face ID-like head scan using your iPhone to size the Vision Pro head strap, but as some complained in a MacRumors thread, multiple scans can produce multiple results.
Not to fear, though. Apple retail employees were told they can swap straps for online customers who get the wrong size, according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman.
Or iPad, Mac, or any AirPlay-enabled device, including smart TVs. According to Apple’s website, the Vision Pro will support 720p AirPlay mirroring, however earlier on Friday, it said it would support 1080p AirPlay.
Correction, Friday, January 19th, 2023, 8:11PM ET: The description on Apple’s website changed after this post was originally published, and it has been updated to note the new resolution listed.
In an interview with Venturebeat, Ross Rosenberg claims that Apple can’t match the level of precision that Magic Leap’s tech can provide:
“What Apple has shown, as I’m sure you’ve seen, is much more about watching a streaming movie or a Facetime call, where you don’t need nearly as much accuracy. That’s a very different space.”
The augmented reality company was recently granted $590 million in additional debt relief funding from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, as Apple readies its Vision Pro headset for launch on February 2nd.
If you’re spending $3,499 to be one of the first 70,000 or so people with Apple’s Vision Pro, we can probably assume you own a recent iPhone. But just in case, 9to5Mac points out details from an Apple email explaining the online ordering process.
Despite rumors of required in-store appointments for face scanning, it looks like Apple will let you use FaceID on another device to judge the fit requirements and provide a current prescription if you need the $149 vision-correcting lenses.
Supply chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo closely follows Apple’s production plans and is saying that for the February 2nd launch day, “Apple will produce 60,000 to 80,000 units of Vision Pro,” with around 500k shipping in 2024.
We had our first Vision Pro experiences last year at WWDC, and in just a couple of weeks, everyone can decide if they’re ready to spend $3,499 for an early entry to the world of spatial computing.
The RayNeo X2 Lite AR Glasses come in at “just around” 60 grams, according to a press release, which is about half of the X2’s 120g weight, Mashable says. The glasses are tentatively set to launch in Q3, Mashable reports.
TCL is also gearing up for a global launch of the first X2 glasses... on Indiegogo, sometime in February.
Last week Qualcomm announced a new AR/VR chip and reference design aimed at competing with Apple’s upcoming headset; yesterday Xreal (formerly Nreal) debuted some new spatial computing glasses with the same goal. And today the two companies announced a multiyear partnership that could include:
AR external hosts and processors; purpose-built devices and experience categories, such as fitness and sports; and artificial intelligence integrations.
A little vague, I’ll admit! But both companies have long AR track records and have worked together before, so as partnerships go, it’s a safer bet than many.
That’s according to Mark Gurman in today’s Power On newsletter in Bloomberg.
Apple doesn’t participate in CES, of course, but Gurman writes that he still expects an announcement about Apple’s fancy AR / VR headset to come “in the next week or so” ahead of a February release.
Apple’s upcoming mixed reality headset can play back stereoscopic 3D video shot on iPhone 15 Pro, and CNET’s Scott Stein got to load up some of his own spatial videos on a Vision Pro and watch them:
[My mom] sort of raised her eyebrows a bit, and the way she looked at me in 3D — at a scale close to normal size, with her seeming to make eye contact — made me feel like I was almost there. It made me want to climb through that fuzzy-bordered window and join my family again on the other side.
ByteDance reportedly scrapped it after sales of last year’s Pico 4 “fell far short of ByteDance’s expectations,” according to a report by The Information. The last headset still hasn’t launched in the US, as political heat has stayed on ByteDance and its other well-known project, TikTok.
However, the report also claims Pico engineers are working on a long-term “Swan” concept to develop a high-end headset inspired by Apple’s Vision Pro.
Look, there’s nothing wrong with taking your phone to the ceramic throne so you can relax, read, and relieve... but a virtual reality headset? That’s next level.
OK, there are clear benefits to taking the new Meta Quest 3 to the bathroom, though. As Redditor Tall_Whole_5777 describes: You don’t need to touch screens or buttons to watch and control a YouTube video.
Meta VP of engineering Don Block has been leading the operating system development for its augmented reality glasses project, codenamed Nazare, planned for release in 2024. Now Reuters reports the former Microsoft engineer is stepping down, citing a Meta spokesperson saying it was for personal reasons and that the upcoming product roadmap will not be affected.
It’s an exclusive partnership, Android Central reports, meaning that Meta would be the only company that gets to use the chips. That said, Meta’s first pair of AR glasses might be years away, so it could be awhile until we know how capable the customer silicon is.
Not your TV, though.
A beta version of the app shows support for 3D playback on the Vision Pro. Early titles including Jurassic World Dominion and The Boss Baby: Family Business.
[FlatpanelsHD]
The three companies announced an Android AR / VR headset in February but with few details. UploadVR and Korean business outlet The JoongAng report rumors of a late 2024 launch, after Apple introduces its Vision Pro.
Last month Samsung closed a $218 million deal to acquire eMagin, a US company developing Micro OLED tech that execs have said could surpass the panel in the Vision Pro, could be two to three years from being commercialized.
One of the questions about how Vision Pro users will be able to share content with people who don’t have their own $3,500 headset may be answered, as MacRumors points out code discovered in Apple’s visionOS 1.0 beta 4 release about mirroring content to other devices and sharing via AirPlay or FaceTime.
Another string in the code is a new alert for situations where “This video has excess motion, and could cause discomfort if expanded.”
Developer Steve Troughton-Smith spotted a fun little note today on the download page for the Xcode 15.1 beta that says a Mac with Apple Silicon is required if you want to develop for visionOS.
So alas, you can’t use a decked-out 2019 Mac Pro ($400 wheel upgrade included, of course). But buy a base-model M1 MacBook Air from 2020 for under a grand? Go forth, my friend.
