Apple unveils sleek, $3,500 ‘Vision Pro’ goggles

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Apple unveiled a long-rumored headset that will place its users between the virtual and real world, while also testing the technology trendsetter’s ability to popularize new-fangled devices after others failed to capture the public’s imagination.

After years of speculation, Apple CEO Tim Cook hailed the arrival of the sleek goggles, dubbed “Vision Pro,” at the company’s annual developers conference held on a park-like campus in Cupertino, California, that Apple’s late co-founder Steve Jobs helped design.

Although Apple executives provided an extensive preview of the headset’s capabilities during the final half hour of June 5’s event, consumers will have to wait before they can get their hands on the device and prepare to pay a hefty price to boot.

Vision Pro will sell for $3,500 once it’s released in stores early next year.

The headset could become another milestone in Apple’s lore of releasing game-changing technology, even though the company hasn’t always been the first to try its hand at making a particular device.

Apple’s lineage of breakthroughs dates back to a bow-tied Jobs peddling the first Mac in 1984 —a tradition that continued with the iPod in 2001, the iPhone in 2007, the iPad in 2010, the Apple Watch in 2014 and its AirPods in 2016.

The company emphasized that it drew upon its past decades of product design during the years it spent working on the Vision Pro, which Apple said involved more than 5,000 different patents.

The goggles will be equipped with 12 cameras, six microphones and a variety of sensors that will allow users to control it and various apps with just their eyes and hands.

Apple also developed a technology to create a three-dimensional digital version of each user to display during video conferencing.

If the new device turns out to be a niche product, it would leave Apple in the same bind as other major tech companies and startups that have tried selling headsets or glasses equipped with technology that either thrusts people into artificial worlds or projects digital images with scenery and things that are actually in front of them, a format known as “augmented reality.”

This article was provided by The Associated Press.

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[Vision Pro goggles on display inside Apple headquarters]

Ben Bajarin (interview): “My whole kind of question coming into this is how would Apple position it. I knew they wouldn’t use a metaverse term or they’re not going to talk about VR. They used AR but but more importantly, they put it in the context of a spatial computer. And I think that’s an important way to think about the software development and the opportunity because ever since software has been developed, you were always limited by screen size. And so now think that you can create software that goes beyond a bezel or a border is a really interesting idea.”

Ben Bajarin (interview): “But at this price point, with the technology that’s still developing, I still think this category is a couple of years off. But it’s important that they get this in the hands of developers because, again, for this platform to be successful, Apple needs their developers. Which is why it makes sense to do it at this point and really present the vision of what this platform could be.”

Carolina Milanesi (interview): “Apple has a habit of recreating and re-energizing markets that have either kind of stalled or they never quite got their head start. And I think that that they will be able to do this for mixed reality. I think what is interesting in their take is that there’s the ability to be fully immersing in experience and yet not being cut off from the world around you. And I think this is important because it allows you to then take a device like Vision Pro to other environments, then not just your own.”

Carolina Milanesi (interview): “It’s definitely not cheap. I mean, three and a half thousand dollars is something that I think early adopters will definitely be able to afford. But then we go back to what is this device going to be for you? If you start to think about it as is being your television. It’s going to be your monitor. It’s going to be your computer. This is a standalone device with its own compute power. So I think if you look at the return on investment that way, it’s becoming easier to justify the three and a half grand.”

This script was provided by The Associated Press.

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