Tim Cook said that the WWDC 2023 it would be historic. And boy has it been. At least for the company that, for the first time in years, is entering a new market with a new product. The Apple Vision Pro They are the long-awaited mixed reality glasses with which the company intends to enter a new era of computing.
Apple calls them space computer or spatial computer, which blends digital content with the real world and the environment around the person using it. It is the device with which they open their way to a new world where graphic interfaces are no longer limited by a rectangle, that is, by a screen, be it a monitor on a desk, a smartphone in your hand or a smartwatch on your doll. To achieve this, it is necessary to develop devices that interact naturally with your eyes. The Apple Vision Pro They are a first version of a long road in which they will try to make them smaller, lighter, more powerful and more invisible.
If it succeeds, the impact that Apple will have on technology —and especially on society— will make smartphones look like objects from the Stone Age.
Apple presented a future in which the digital world and graphical interfaces blend with the real world. Reflecting it in situations where we want to consume content on giant screens that only our eyes can see, manipulate virtual three-dimensional objects that are on a real desktop or relive videos and photos recorded in three dimensions. Thanks to a device like the VisionProthe way in which we relate to technology in our day to day, would have a profound change.
But, although it sounds like a science fiction movie, to a distant and unattainable future, the Apple Vision Pro they pretend to be the door to that new era of computing where the metaphor of the rectangle dies. Where the interface, in a certain way, is you.
Apple Vision Pro: the first step on a long road to a digital future where screens are the past
The Apple Vision Pro they are the first step on a long road towards a world in which screens are a thing of the past. It is a first generation device that will give us the first notions of all that future where the real and the virtual are intermingled.
The technical characteristics of the device, and even the price, are relatively irrelevant. The Apple Vision Pro are truly special and innovative for two fundamental reasons: the eternal attention to the smallest details in each of its aspects and the intimate relationship between software and hardware.
If we stop to think, the Vision Pro is the culmination of pretty much everything that makes up Apple. The device is a reality because it is the only company —at least today— capable of offering new ways of interacting with technology effectively. In fact, over the last forty years, they seem to be the only ones that have been able to successfully propose new interfaces.
The Mac popularized the graphical interface. The iPhone showed us that we can interact with a screen using our hands and fingers. The VisionPro show a new way of manipulating digital content using, simply, looks and gestures. Each element seems to be very well positioned with the real environment. And that’s the product of years of software innovation that goes hand-in-hand with all the work Apple has done on its own chips. That they must not only work efficiently on mobile devices, but must also be extremely powerful.
While the rest of the industry has developed virtual reality or mixed reality solutions where you have to use hands in your hands to be able to interact with virtual elements, Apple has achieved —and apparently very effectively— that it is done with, looks and gestures.
Just as manipulating the iPhone interface with a multi-touch screen opened up a world of possibilities for smartphones, looks and gestures will do so with this new way of experiencing technology through the Vision Pro.
The Apple Vision Pro will be a standalone device
The VisionPro it will be a standalone device, not an accessory. You don’t need to be paired with an iPhone or Mac to get the full experience. It’s powered by an Apple M2 and a new chip called the R1 that drives the device’s cameras and sensors, with high-resolution 23 million-pixel HDR displays, and inside, a new operating system called visionOS.
The absolute independence from any other device, the fact that we are not talking about an accessory, but a new type of computer / computer is key to understanding the Vision Pro. Yes, it can interact with a Mac, extending its screen on more screens virtual. But that is only a first use, almost rudimentary, of what we could have in the future.
Once you have the Vision Pro in front of you, you understand two things: this is the first generation of something very big that can change the world. As it is a first generation, yes: it is bigger than it should be, it will weigh more than we would like, it will have less autonomy than we would like, and it is so high in price that few will be able to access the device. Like any other new technology in the last 50 years.
But as the first iteration of something so new, it’s hard not to feel excitement and a little bit of fear once you see them for the first time. In terms of industrial design, the Vision Pro maintains the level of construction quality to which Apple has accustomed us. Both in materials and in the design of the device itself.
And, for me, the best evidence that we are dealing with a first generation device: the external battery that connects to the Vision Pro by means of a cable.
A future that excites, but is also a little scary
When Steve Jobs announced the iPhone in 2007, he based his presentation on 3 fundamental uses: a telephone, an iPod with a touch screen, a device to connect to the Internet. Today, the smartphone is the center of our life.
Tim Cook has presented the VisionPro showing us a few more uses, but also summarized in three axes. 1: A way to consume digital content in more investing ways. 2: A different way of working. 3: New possibilities of interaction with other people.
But, like the iPhone, the possibilities are immense and very difficult to imagine today. While watching the presentation I felt both excited and fearful. If a device that fits in the palm of our hands has abstracted us so much from the real world, what will happen once devices like the Vision Pro become as popular as or more than smartphones?
I am optimistic and want to believe that as a society we have learned a lot about the uses of technology and how to put a positive spin on it. I believe that these types of products are tools that, yes, can disconnect us greatly from reality, but I also want to believe that we will find new ways to integrate the most innovative aspects of technology with our reality.
Perhaps, once we have broken the metaphor of the screen, technology will not block reality, but we will see through it to find new and better ways of living it.