Apple has made epoch-making hardware again, and Jobs is back?

Cook and Apple Vision Pro

I believe everyone has seen that at Apple's WWDC developer conference in the early hours of this morning, Cook released One More Thing, Apple's first headset - Apple Vision Pro, and claimed to bring the world into the so-called era of spatial computing.

Apple Vision Pro is a headset that can both immerse itself in watching movies and playing games, and can see the outside world and interact with others through the camera, which we used to call mixed reality (MR) or virtual reality (VR), but Cook clearly wants to redefine this type of experience, so he has played a wave of skills that point to the deer as a horse, and has always called it augmented reality (AR). But to avoid confusion, let's still call it an MR headset for the time being.

Macintosh and iPhone

The spatial computing he refers to corresponds to the personal computing represented by the Mac and the mobile computing represented by the iPhone. These two epochal devices began with the Macintosh released by Jobs in 1984 and the iPhone in 2007.

It's not hard to see Cook's ambition to redefine the tools for people to interact with the digital world by 2023. Can he do it?

Global digital manufacturers are launching so-called world-changing products every month, why do people generally think that Apple's previous two times are really great innovations?

Because no matter how the times change, digital products are always tools to connect people and people, people and information, people and scenes, a great digital product must greatly narrow the distance between people and the digital world.

Macintosh

After computers were equipped with mouse and graphical operating systems, people no longer needed to learn programming languages to operate computers. Since then, the computer has leapt from a productivity tool for a few geek programmers to a learning and entertainment office terminal that everyone can use. The computer came out of the office laboratory and entered the homes of ordinary people.

The first generation of the iPhone

After the introduction of multi-touch screens in mobile phones, in terms of handheld distance, mobile phone screens have become large enough, even larger than computer screens, and the operating threshold has been further reduced to the level that one-year-old children can use. Coupled with the advancement of mobile chips and 4G, 5G mobile networks. Mobile phones are starting to move away from the single function of making calls and texting and becoming a tool for us to connect to the digital world anytime, anywhere.

So for an MR headset like Vision Pro, from what angle does it bring people closer to the digital world?

META Quest2

If you have played previous VR/MR products or experienced VR in the mall, I believe you will be impressed by the immersion brought by VR. Just as the so-called oncoming you make me so anxious, the kind of zombie shiver is an experience that no mobile phone, computer TV can provide. Driven by sports and fitness horror games, as well as some film and television works with a particularly strong immersive experience, MR headsets have formed a medium-sized market, and as of writing, the sales of the previous popular product META Quest2 have exceeded 20 million units.

However, we must admit that MR's killer app has not yet been born, because not everyone has the need to play immersive games. How to introduce the immersive experience of MR into more social, office and even entertainment and consumption scenarios, so that it can truly enter the mass market, is the key issue that determines whether the MR industry is mediocre or soaring.

At this morning's conference, Apple decided not to answer this question directly, but to force some interesting settings and start teaching users and developers how to play digital products as usual.

Bringing us closer, both real and false

 EyeSight

If you want to choose the most prominent or strangest design of Apple's MR headset, I think most people will say that it is its external curved screen. It displays the user's eyes collected by the sensor outside, so that you can make eye contact with the person next to you, which seems unnecessary.

I think this is a clear signal that Apple teachers don't want students to be completely immersed in their own world, you always need to pay attention to the people around you and what is happening around you.

If you have children or boyfriends and girlfriends, you may wish to recall, why do you feel very uncomfortable watching them play games? At least for me, it's because when ta is playing games, it seems that the soul has traveled to another world, and there is only a shell left here, and whatever you say to ta, ta will only be uh-huh.

This is actually the biggest cost of playing VR or MR in the past, that is, it will isolate the entire real world, even if you return to WeChat, you have to take down the headset, let alone communicate with the people next to you.

And Apple said that this will not work, it must achieve the perfect integration of reality and virtuality.

Screenshot of Apple's press conference

Apple people repeatedly emphasized at the conference that the outside world you see through the headset is clear (and not as blurry as other products) and the latency is only 12 milliseconds, far below the 20 millisecond delay limit that humans can perceive.

  Vision Pro's ultra-high pixel density

To this end, at the display level, Apple uses two ultra-4K-level Micro OLED screens, each screen is only the size of a postage stamp, but the display pixels reach a staggering more than 10 million (more than 8 million for ordinary 4K displays) to ensure that you can't see the pixels with the naked eye. Because a single pixel is too small, only 7.5 microns, this problem can only be solved by using the process of making chips.

Screenshot of Apple's press conference - chip

At the computing level, Apple has specially developed a new R1 processor, with the Macbook series of M2 processors, to process real-time data from up to 23 sensors, as well as massive graphics computing brought by high resolution, which has achieved extremely low latency and shocking visual effects.

At the same time, Apple Teacher has several overbearing rules.

First of all, no app can block communication with the people around you. The Vision Pro headset has a knob to adjust the immersion, and as long as the user doesn't tune it to full immersion, anyone who comes close will stand out. For example, if you are watching a movie, your girlfriend walks in, and the area where she is will become translucent.

Second, any virtual object must be integrated into the real environment. For example, if you generate a virtual screen on the desk to work, this screen has a shadow on the desk.

Third, any sound effects must be integrated into the real world. Any sound emitted by a virtual object must provide a 3D stereoscopic sound effect that correctly corresponds to the blocking and echo of its location and environment, forming a "where the sound is coming from" effect.

Apple wants to bring people closer to each other, people and things, and people to scenes, whether in the virtual world or the real world.

Anyone can get started, young and old

Another outstanding design of the Apple Vision Pro is that it does not have a handle.

PREVIOUSLY, WHETHER IT WAS META, PICO OR SONY'S MR PRODUCTS, WITHOUT EXCEPTION, THEY WERE MAINLY OPERATED BY THE CONTROLLER.

Finger zoom in and out

Apple teachers once again decided that users and other manufacturers could not play, so they decided to teach everyone how to operate MR with eye movement recognition + gesture recognition + voice input.

You can select an icon by looking at it with your eyes and tapping it in the air, and you can zoom in and out by pinching it with your finger, while text input is mostly done by voice.

There are several interesting details about this piece at the press conference.

Fingers are placed at will

First of all, your hand can be operated in any comfortable position, such as on your leg, without having to move to the center of the picture like META's gesture recognition. That means the Vision Pro's camera must have a wide enough coverage, even more than 180 degrees on the front.

The biggest difficulty with eye tracking is that there is an essential difference between the eyes and the hands and mouth, that is, you can control the hands or not speak, but it is difficult to control the eyes to move.

For example, if you are talking to me, it does not mean that you will always look at me. If I have to concentrate extra hard to control my eyes to operate, it's obviously not a good experience.

That is to say, Apple must use algorithms to filter out the turmoil of my eyes and identify my true intentions, and the accuracy and speed of gesture recognition must also have a qualitative leap compared with the current MR products, in order to be truly arm-driven.

I think this is where Apple's MR experience is most likely to go buggy, and it may take several generations of iterations to become completely usable, just as the iPhone's touch keyboard was very difficult to use and later improved by algorithm updates.

But I really feel that this is the right way, and sometimes in order to achieve an epoch-making experience, you have to sacrifice all the previous accumulation and climb off the shoulders of giants.

I had a strong experience playing MR before, which was to teach others to play MR with special egg pain.

Because unlike mobile phones, you can't see other people's VR pictures, so you can only verbally command, "Is there a screen in front of you now?" "It's not the one below, it's the one above!" "Is there a sign with three dots in the upper right corner of the screen??? "What doesn't I QNMXXX". Etcetera. Let me experience in advance the joy of not doing homework and filial piety, and doing homework.

An MR headset that can't be used can't be promoted, and even if it's difficult, it must define an interaction that everyone can naturally use, and Apple took the first step bravely.

Play anywhere, ignoring the outside world

Meta Quest Pro

Although META released the MR headset QuestPro last year, it tried to define part of the experience of integrating reality and virtuality, and there were some office or social applications, and there were also sales of hundreds of thousands.

But I've never seen anyone use META QuestPro in China, the United States, airports, cafes, offices, or any other public place.

It's a very delicate matter.

A piece of clothing that you dare not wear out, will it be a real hit?

Electronic products are a window for people to interact with the digital world, and explosive electronic products are used frequently.

In other words, it is not only a digital product, but also a new way of life, which inevitably constitutes a crude invasion of the old way of life, triggering people's instinctive resistance to foreign objects. So no matter how silky the experience is, there will be resistance for people to use it, which is a structural problem that any digital product or software product must face. I remember when I didn't use WeChat, I often felt that the college roommate who was always talking into his mobile phone had a brain disease.

The look of the Vision Pro

And Apple's approach to this problem has been consistent. Apple's digital products are necessarily fashion items at the same time. This is a legacy of the Jobs era, and one of the fundamental reasons why Apple has been able to repeatedly define the new era, which depicts a cool, beautiful, desirable lifestyle through product design.

Apple never comes up with ugly products, and Vision Pro is no exception.

Curved glass front face, lightweight aluminum frame, 3D fabric headband, and optional face shape mask with breathability and elasticity.

I had a hunch in half a year. I'll see for the first time a beautiful boy with an MR headset in a restaurant at some tech company, a lounge at an airport, or a lobby bar in a hotel.

See you in a year

Apple Vision Pro will be officially shipped early next year, and I will get one to give you a review, but I strongly recommend friends who do not have development needs to start this product.

Because it's not a consumer-facing product yet.

First of all, its pricing is $3499, and the 16-inch MacBook Pro at the same price is priced at 27499 yuan in Chinese mainland, apparently it does not want to have a high sales volume at this price.

It is a developer-oriented product, in addition to Apple's own system applications, there are only a few applications, and no application ecology has been formed.

It was released at this time precisely because it is a brand new product, representing a new ecology, and it is necessary to use the world's first attention of this conference to attract developers to invest in the next year and make something that can be used. Then as early as next fall, I expect Apple will come up with the first true consumer MR headset, Apple Vision does not have a pro, and then it is time for us to consider whether to chop our hands.

But anyway, Apple Vision Pro is already the most imaginative Apple product I've seen in more than a decade, and it seems that Steve Jobs' Apple, the Apple that is forever trying to define the next era, the Apple that we like, is back.

Coldplay Labs Finishing Edit

First published on WeChat public account: Coldplay Lab (ID: coollabs)

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