2023-06-06 00:28:00
For a long time there was speculation about Apple glasses with transparent lenses that display digital objects in real environments. Now there is a device with displays in mind. But the Apple glasses can also appear transparent.
Apple wants to establish a new computer platform with its first data glasses. The iPhone group presented the device with the name Vision Pro, which is reminiscent of high-tech ski goggles.
The headset can show digital objects in the real environment on its displays. An unusual feature of the device is a display on the front that shows the user’s eyes when other people are nearby. The Vision Pro then appears transparent. With a price of 3500 dollars, the glasses are significantly more expensive than devices from the competition.
Apple calls the Vision Pro a portable environmental computer. “We believe the Apple Vision Pro is a revolutionary product,” said CEO Tim Cook. He was convinced that the device would change how people communicate and work together. In the United States, the device will be launched early next year.
With Apple’s glasses, the environment is captured by cameras on the housing and displayed on displays in front of the eyes. The competition also follows this principle. The glasses have 23 million pixels spread over both screens – more than the 4K resolution of a TV for each eye.
Use at work or for entertainment on the go
Apple sees a possible use for the Vision Pro at work because you can display many large virtual displays in your field of vision. Another application is intended to be entertainment with videos in large format, even on the move. The Disney+ streaming service will be available on the Vision Pro right from the start.
The Vision Pro is unlocked by eye recognition. In this way, you can also share saved passwords with online services – similar to fingerprint or face recognition on the iPhone. In order to make the glasses lighter, the battery has been removed and is connected with a cable.
The combination of digital content and real environments is known as AR (Augmented Reality) or Mixed Reality. Apple has been working on this for a long time. For years there has been speculation about the group’s plans for glasses with transparent lenses, in which digital objects are displayed directly in the user’s field of vision. According to industry insiders, however, the necessary technological breakthroughs, for example in computing power, are still missing. That is why most computer glasses have so far been used to display virtual reality (VR), in which users are completely immersed in digital worlds.
Apple is entering the market at a moment when a short-lived hype surrounding the business with virtual worlds and objects has noticeably died down. Instead, thanks to the chatbot ChatGPT, which can formulate sentences at the language level of a human being, artificial intelligence is the focus.
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg in particular continues to believe in a future in which large parts of life will take place in a digital world – the “Metaverse”. To emphasize this, he renamed the Facebook group Meta. But despite billions in investments, VR glasses and virtual worlds have so far remained a niche business – which brings Meta billions in losses. The group is the market leader in VR headsets and welcomed Apple last week by announcing the new Meta Quest 3 model at a price of 570 euros. It will also be good at overlaying digital objects into the real environment, Zuckerberg said.
Hype has already subsided noticeably
According to US media reports, some top managers at Apple were not convinced of the business prospects for computer glasses. The company set the direction for the boom in the smartphone market with its iPhone, which was introduced in 2007 – and it continues to be Apple’s most important product.
The business with VR glasses has so far been incomparably smaller than the smartphone market. Market researchers at IDC assume that only ten million VR and AR headsets will be sold in 2023. For comparison: Last year, more than 1.2 billion smartphones were sold worldwide.
It is Apple’s first entry into a new product category after introducing a computer watch in 2014. The Apple Watch has led the smartwatch market since it went on sale in spring 2015.
Apple developed a new chip and a special operating system for the glasses and claims to have secured around 5,000 patents. At the same time, over the years, the group has positioned various building blocks for the AR experience – such as the 3D audio in the AirPods earphones or the ability to display digital objects on the iPhone display in the environment.
At the beginning of the event, new Mac computers with more powerful processors were presented. Among them is the first model of the Mac Pro, aimed at professional users, with in-house chips. This completes the multi-year conversion of the model range from Intel processors to chips developed in-house. Then innovations of the next operating systems for iPhone, iPad and Mac were presented. This includes, among other things, the possibility of exchanging contact data more easily between two iPhones. (dpa)
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