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Apple’s Vision Pro goggles unleash a mixed reality that could lead to more innovation and isolation

by Lucas Garcia
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Apple's Vision Pro Goggles

Journalists are usually tough critics, so it was extraordinary to hear several praising their firsthand encounter with Apple’s latest innovative product – the high-priced headset dubbed the Vision Pro. This device integrates complete virtual reality and augmented reality, superimposing digital images over real-world scenarios.

After participating in a meticulously planned demonstration by Apple and experiencing the Vision Pro for half an hour, I found myself amongst the mesmerized lot, captivated by the remarkable technology embedded in this goggle-style headset. However, this fascination was coupled with an unsettling realization that this could potentially be a stepping stone towards another dimension of digital seclusion.

THE POSSIBLE BENEFITS

Starting with the positives: the Vision Pro is an impressively complex device that offers a relatively straightforward setup and instinctive usability. The initial configuration involves an iPhone to automatically carry out measurements of your eyes and ears. For those wearing prescription glasses (I use contacts), additional calibration might be necessary, but Apple assures this won’t be complex.

Once setup is complete, you’ll discover that wearing the Vision Pro is as straightforward, thanks to a side knob ensuring the headset fits comfortably. Unlike other headsets, the Vision Pro doesn’t look unusually geeky, even though its design is not exactly stylish, bearing resemblance to something one might wear on a ski slope, jet fighter, or race car.

The Vision Pro can be easily operated. Users simply press a button above the right goggle to display a virtual screen of apps, including known essentials for photos, messaging, phone calls, video streaming, and web browsing. Launching an app simply requires a direct gaze and a pinch of a thumb and finger. The same pinch can close the app, or it can be swiped aside by holding two fingers together and moving them to the desired location.

Predictably, Apple’s carefully constructed demonstration showcased the Vision Pro in its best light. The headset clearly appears to have the potential for popular business usage, enhancing productivity, cooperation, and video conferencing, particularly in an era of increasing remote work.

Without inducing the disorientation often associated with other virtual reality headsets, the Vision Pro immerses you in visually stunning, 3-D displays of distant locales. It enables the incorporation of users into videos of past memories captured with one of the device’s 12 cameras. It provides an IMAX-like experience of 3-D movies such as the recent Avatar sequel from the comfort of your own couch. It creates surreal moments, like a butterfly emerging from a prehistoric era and seemingly fluttering across the room to land on your outstretched hand.

The demo offered glimpses of how sports events look through the goggles, suggesting that major sports leagues are likely to adapt this technology into subscription services that make viewers feel like they are watching from the front row.

A point in Apple’s favor, the Vision Pro is designed to enable users to maintain awareness of their surroundings if they choose to do so.

THE POTENTIAL DRAWBACKS

My ambivalent feelings towards Apple’s initial venture into mixed reality are paradoxically born from the Vision Pro’s well-executed design, brought to us by a company that has pioneered revolutionary technology consistently over the past 40 years, from the Macintosh computer to the iPhone.

This appears to be another instance where Apple has achieved what has evaded other tech firms by making virtual and augmented reality more immersive and less disorienting compared to other underwhelming headsets of the past decade.

The primary barrier to the Vision Pro becoming an instant hit is its price. When it launches in the U.S. market early next year, it will retail for $3,500, likely making it a luxury product inaccessible to most households, especially considering it doesn’t eliminate the need to

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