Apple on Monday unveiled one of the most anticipated secrets of recent technology: its augmented reality glasses, the Vision Pro. They will arrive in 2024 only in the US and “other countries” throughout the following year. The price was a resounding certainty: 3,500 dollars (3,270 euros today). It is expensive, but Apple boasted of having created an impeccable product with more than “5,000 new patents” that has taken “years to make.” A handful of engineers and designers were free this Monday …
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Apple on Monday unveiled one of the most anticipated secrets in recent technology: its augmented reality glasses, the Vision Pro. They will arrive in 2024 only in the US and in “other countries” throughout the following year. The price was a resounding certainty: $3,500 (3,270 euros today). It is expensive, but Apple boasted of having created an impeccable product with more than “5,000 new patents” that has taken “years to make.” A handful of engineers and designers were free on Monday to show off this hidden object that they had worked so hard on.
From there, there are more doubts than certainties. At the moment, they have only been tested for 30 minutes by a handful of journalists and influencers technology experts who attended the event. And without being able to record it. These are some of the doubts or questions raised by the new device, destined to be, according to Apple, the new platform for “spatial computing”, after personal (Mac) and mobile (iPhone).
1. The photos that didn’t come out. Apple CEO Tim Cook kicked off the 40-minute presentation of the Vision Pro. He then took photos next to the glasses, but not, importantly, with the glasses on. Neither he nor any of the Apple executives who spoke put them on. Why? Maybe to avoid memes. There were no photos of anyone wearing glasses on the street either. They were all in closed spaces and barely moving. Only a father kicks a soft ball to a little girl or another kneels down to take a photo.
A third photo that also wasn’t visible was of someone doing some kind of physical exercise, which is one of the big sellers for Meta’s glasses. Apple has a reputation for releasing a product and waiting to see where users and developers take it.
2. The words that were not said. It was already suspected that they were not going to say “metaverse” in the entire presentation. But what other expression was barely used? “Virtual reality”. These glasses are designed to coexist with the world, not so much to leave it. Although they will also have that option to watch 3D movies or play video games. Meta can breathe a little easier after seeing that the Vision Pro aspire to another type of use, although they seem clearly better. Meta’s Quest Pro glasses were launched for sale for 1,800 euros, although they later dropped to 1,200.
3. The great success. In the articles or videos of people who have tried them, two things stand out above all: eye and hand tracking and image definition. The glasses do not come with built-in controls, but instead detect where you look and click with your fingers. That click is putting your index finger and thumb together: will that gesture become a meme? To write, you can click on virtual keyboards or just speak.
A common problem with augmented reality glasses was the poor quality of both the outside world and images. Apple seems to have solved this. For example, it was not easy to read text in a browser due to the lack of resolution, but the Vision Pro boasts that it makes this possible.
4. The Big Chill. The surface of the glasses is opaque. In order to see the surroundings from inside, cameras look outwards and reproduce the content on the screen. According to those who have tried it, the view is very good, although it is still a video: it is not reality.
The new problem arises from the opposite perspective: people who see the person wearing the glasses from the outside. The device “emits” the eyes on the surface of the glasses and imitates their movement. It causes an effect bulging eyeslike the minions, which promises great jokes. If the user of the glasses is watching a movie, his eyes cannot be seen from the outside, but the moment there is interaction with the outside, his big eyes pop out.
5. Latency, discomfort and dizziness. A big problem with VR headsets until now was discomfort and dizziness. Apple has apparently solved one: dizziness. The uneasy feeling was caused by latency. Computing in the headset doesn’t go fast enough, and the micro-difference in time between what we expect to see and what we see causes dizziness. That latency has been greatly reduced in the Vision Pro, according to those who have tested it.
But it’s still a heavy piece of equipment, which could be fitted with a headband to make it more manageable. The glasses are made of metal and glass, not plastic, which is coarser but lighter. Who wants to work for several hours with a kind of motorcycle helmet on their head? Of course, there are already memes:
6. Will it convince the public? The big question will only be answered by time: how many people will believe that these glasses are indispensable in their lives. Based on the price alone, that number will inevitably be small in the first few years. But will the feeling that “you have to have these glasses” spread over the years, as it did with the iPod, iPhone or iPad?
The price will inevitably drop, and perhaps also the size and weight. The battery life will also improve, which is currently 2 hours and you have to carry it in your pocket connected by a cable. But it remains to be seen whether we will evolve socially to appreciate having huge screens to work on, to be at home recording our children’s birthday parties in 3D and even if we will want to go for walks with them. The idea is that it will be a computer that we can take on trips, for example, without needing anything else. That is one of the best options for the future: how will these glasses end up being used, if they are used much at all?
7. A sadly individual experience. Maybe society will change, but Google Glass was already smaller and was killed off because nobody liked being near someone who could record you. These glasses do exactly that too. In the presentation, a father is shown recording his daughters with the glasses on. The phone does something like that, but it separates, not isolates.
Obviously, they are glasses for individual experiences: it is sad to see a father in the presentation remembering moments with his children, to “relive it”, as if he could no longer do so in real life. The films are also very nice, but you cannot share with anyone that you are watching them. Will you have to have three glasses at home and give them to someone else? play all at once?
To counter this, Apple showed off Facetime, a video calling app, as one of the great applications of its glasses. It also solved the big question of how others see you if you wear the glasses: they see a digital reproduction of you that moves according to the facial expressions that the cameras detect. It’s not an ugly avatar like the one in the metaverse, but it’s not your own face either. And does that make the Facetime experience much better than a mobile or computer, in addition to not having anything in your hands and being able to move around?
8. What about privacy? Apple has been boasting about its privacy protection, as always. It’s been one of its strong points with the iPhone and it’s used by the company to distance itself from Meta, which lives off advertising. Nothing you record will leave the device, they said. But to use it, the personal identification will be the iris of each user, which seemed the last frontier of individuality. There’s a company called Worldcoin, co-founded by Sam Altman, that aims to collect the irises of all humanity in order to identify us all. It’s supposedly a bad idea, but if Apple does it directly with its glasses? It won’t seem like such a big problem anymore.
Whatever the case, this is the initial version of a revolutionary product made by a company that has earned, at least, the benefit of the doubt. Will we be writing articles like this with glasses and generative artificial intelligence in 2030? At least things will no longer be like they were in the 80s and 90s, when a famous request from parents was: “Little girl, don’t get too close to the TV.” We might end up wearing one over our eyes.
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