James Vincent
An audience reaction worth $3,499.
When Apple unveiled the price-tag for the Vision Pro there were groans aplenty from those watching on big screens. Not a great litmus test for whether it’s worth the money.
AR
Apple’s new don’t-call-it-a-VR-headset is the best riff on some very familiar ideas, but still searching for a purpose.
Nilay Patel
Adi Robertson
Apple, thank you for not calling it realityOS.
I’m still waiting for the Verge ground team’s impressions of the new Apple Vision Pro and visionOS — but seriously, I’m glad those name rumors were wrong.
Jess Weatherbed
Richard Lawler
Ok, so the front-facing eye display rumor was real.
Now we’ve seen some pictures of Apple’s Vision Pro headset, complete with the rumored display that can show the user’s eyes to indicate they’re in mixed reality and not screened off in a private virtual reality.
What are your first impressions? Tasteful or creepy.
Image: Apple
Adi Robertson
The rumored debut of a ‘Reality Pro’ headset is right around the corner, but Tim Cook has been singing the praises of AR for years.
Kim Lyons and Wes Davis
Wes Davis
These are issues Apple may fix in later versions of the “Reality Pro.”
We may not know until after WWDC, but Apple’s mixed reality headset probably won’t address every AR issue right out of the gate. As pointed out by Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman in his Power On newsletter today:
I expect that future versions will fix problems in the first model — such as nausea complaints, performance hiccups, overheating concerns and a lack of cellular connectivity — and bring down the price.
That’s not surprising, and doesn’t paint the “Reality Pro” as doomed, just a first attempt likely aimed at developers and very early adopters. As Casey Newton writes for The Verge, whether Apple’s new platform succeeds depends more on its evolution than on tomorrow’s device.
‘This is the single greatest thing that could happen to this industry.’
Adi Robertson
Umar Shakir
Apple’s VR/AR goggles might come with some important warning labels.
Apple’s recent focus on accessibility in its devices includes features like the upcoming Personal Voice and Assistive Access mode. Now, according to Mark Gurman, Apple’s considering including warnings that people with specific health conditions should not buy or use the headset that it’s expected to reveal next week.
That includes people with Meniere’s Disease, past traumatic brain injuries, post-concussion syndrome, migraines and vertigo.
A similar notice (PDF) for Meta’s Quest notes the risk of seizures and possible interference with medical devices. In another tweet, Gurman said Apple could add additional warnings for ADHD, anxiety, pacemakers, pregnancy, and more.
Wes Davis, Jay Peters and 1 more
Richard Lawler
Ten years later, here’s the second-generation Leap gesture controller.
The original $80 Leap gesture controller debuted so long ago that we compared it to the Kinect. However, unlike Microsoft’s Xbox accessory, Leap is still kicking.
Now known as Ultraleap after a 2019 merger, it’s showing off the Leap Motion Control 2 (via RoadtoVR) and retiring the old device. The new $139 unit will begin shipping this summer, and new Gemini software for it is coming to macOS — and with its positioning as a VR accessory, you can probably guess why that’s suddenly a priority.
Key improvements over the original Leap Motion Controller include higher resolution cameras, an increased field of view, and 25% lower power consumption, all in a 30% smaller package for optimum placement and convenience.
It is the most flexible camera ever developed by Ultraleap and is compatible across platforms and complimentary hardware including VR/MR/AR headsets, PCs, and holographic displays.
Wes Davis
What’s Mark Zuckerberg holding?
The Zuck posted a teaser image to his Instagram story with a countdown to 11AM ET on Thursday obscuring... something (courtesy of Voices of VR podcast host Kent Bye and presented here with some light editing).
What’s he holding? It’s surely not a Meta Quest 3. Is it a philly cheesesteak? A tennis ball? Did he get his fingers stuck in one of those finger traps? If it’s the last one, don’t worry, Mark, that thing confounded Data once, too.
Wes Davis
Grab your iPhone or iPad and check out Apple’s “AR Experience” teaser ahead of WWDC.
Apple has a little AR teaser for WWDC (spotted by MacRumors). To see it, visit the Apple Events website using Safari on your iPhone or iPad and tap “AR Experience,” point your camera at a wall, and you’ll get a colorful animated logo with June 6th, 2023 — the WWDC keynote date — printed inside.
Apple’s mixed reality headset is expected to be the biggest announcement at this year’s WWDC.
Richard Lawler
Is this Apple’s sneaky way of teasing an AR headset at WWDC 2023?
At the exact same time as Microsoft’s Build developer conference kicked off, the folks at Apple released schedule details for their own developer event, WWDC.
The updated page also has a small embedded video that, if you look at it with a designer’s eye, either shows a clear lens moving over the 3D logo, causing it to animate, or a pass-through transition. Our list of anticipated announcements has been adjusted accordingly.
James Vincent
Apple’s headset is a compromise with reality.
Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman has a fantastic and comprehensive report detailing Apple’s work on its mixed-reality headset. The details are familiar, but Gurman’s narrative emphasizes how Apple has had to repeatedly bow to technological constraints:
During the planning stages, [Apple] had high hopes for a self-contained, comfortable wearable device that would feel more like a fashion accessory than a computer strapped to your face. [...] As the project progressed, though, the solutions to key issues never emerged, and the need to ship a product drove engineers to find the best compromises they could.
Apple is set to unveil the headset on June 5th at WWDC. We’ll see if its vision holds.
Jay Peters
Google has some new tools for face filters.
Like Face Landmarker, which can apparently let you make something like what’s shown in the below GIF. (Which admittedly looks a lot like an Apple Memoji.) Very interested to see what developers make with these tools.
Jon Porter
What do Apple’s mixed reality headset and smartwatch have in common?
Bloomberg’s Apple correspondent Mark Gurman thinks the iPhone maker could take a scattershot approach to its headset.
It’ll reportedly launch with everything from games, to fitness services, productivity tools, and book reading, before Apple focuses in on what works based on feedback.
It was a similar story with the Apple Watch. It’s now marketed for fitness and wellness, but Apple originally pitched it as everything from a luxury timepiece to a communication device.
David Pierce
Snap’s next gadget: AR mirrors.
Other than the My AI chatbot launch, the most interesting thing at Snap’s Partner Summit today was definitely the AR mirrors. The company thinks you might use it in a store to try stuff on, or just goof around while you wait for your friend to check out. It all seems very early, but pretty fun.
Also... AR vending machines are apparently a thing now.
Obviously James Bond gets a bit of help from movie magic, but real-life smart glasses can do more than you might expect.
Victoria Song
Richard Lawler
Kuo: Apple headset production pushed back.
Well-connected supply chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo says mass production for Apple’s rumored headset has been pushed back and forecasts shipping numbers this year of 200k to 300k units instead of 500,000 or so.
Kuo suggests the change is tied to a lack of optimism about the launch and “uncertainty” about a WWDC reveal — echoing a recent New York Times report — and while I don’t know if that’s the case, I’m sure there will be more rumors before the show starts on June 5th.
Adi Robertson
Magic Leap is a little salty about the Apple AR headset.
Poor Magic Leap — it really does have a decent augmented reality headset these days, but it was way, way too early to the consumer AR party, and now Apple is the guest of honor. No wonder it’s venting a little schadenfreude at Apple’s apparent internal woes.
Mitchell Clark
James Vincent
Xiaomi’s augmented reality glasses are too big for real life.
XDA has an exclusive hands-on with a prototype pair of AR glasses by Xiaomi. They’re wireless, support gesture controls, and can switch between transparent and shaded modes.
But they’re also bulky as hell and a long way off commercial readiness. As we learned yesterday, Meta, too, is still betting on an AR future. But we’ve yet to see breakthrough hardware that can actually take us there.
