Apple’s Vision Pro is a technical marvel. Will anyone buy it?
“CERTAIN PRODUCTS…shift the way we look at technology,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s boss, as he unveiled the tech giant’s latest gadget on June 5th. The Vision Pro, a headset for virtual and augmented reality (VR and AR in the lingo), whose development has been rumoured for years, will be available early next year. With more than 5,000 patents, Apple dubbed the sleek glass goggles “the most ambitious product we’ve ever created”.
It may also turn out to be one of their lowest-selling. The company had reportedly hoped to shift some 3m units in the first year. But expectations have been scaled back; some analysts now expect Apple to ship fewer than 200,000 units in 12 months, an order of magnitude less than any other big product launch. The Vision Pro’s first iteration may be a commercial flop. Yet it is also the first step on the way to something that Apple hopes will be much bigger.
The tech, which Apple has yet to let the public get its hands on, looks impressive. Unlike other headsets, which tend to require hand-held controllers, the Vision Pro is controlled by hand gestures, voice commands and eye movements. It tracks eyes like a mouse, and recognises irises in lieu of a password. It is a “pass-through” device, which uses front-mounted cameras to show the user a video view of the world around them. And to make them appear more normal to others, it projects a video image of their eyes onto the front of the glass. (An Apple ad shows a man making his children breakfast while wearing it, something you would struggle to do with most headsets.)
2023-06-05 21:10:46
Source from www.economist.com