After 7 years of "tossing" and constantly bouncing tickets, Apple's first headset device, Vision Pro, was finally unveiled at the latest World Developers Conference (WWDC), which temporarily attracted the global technology circle.
Apple CEO Tim Cook said Vision Pro allows users to operate apps, games, movies, etc. on digital devices in real space, bringing the real world into "spatial computing." Apparently, Apple has locked it into the direction of development for the next 10 years.
However, the reality is that despite the many applications and prospects in areas such as digital entertainment and industrial production, the extended reality (XR) technology track pointed to by Vision Pro is still difficult.
Extended reality technology is finally coming to life
Like many cutting-edge technologies, extended reality, a technology that frequently appears in science fiction movies, has experienced many twists and turns, but still tenaciously moves from fantasy to reality.
Virtual reality technology (VR), augmented reality technology (AR), mixed reality technology (MR) technology can be collectively referred to as extended reality technology, that is, the combination of real and virtual to create a virtual environment for human-computer interaction, and better realize the connection, mapping and enhancement of the digital world and the real world.
From the perspective of the landing of the mainland, in addition to being applied to wearable devices, the extended reality industry represented by virtual reality and augmented reality is now developing rapidly.
For example, Lenovo Group began to lay out the research and development of augmented reality technology earlier, and applied technologies such as virtual reality mapping, virtual and real superposition, and virtual and real linkage to production, maintenance and other links to improve the level of industrial intelligence. In 2022, Inspur Group released a server that serves the collaborative creation of large-scale, highly complex, and high-fidelity digital scenarios; Shenzhen Securities Information Co., Ltd. launched three segments of the digital economy theme index, including extended reality, which confirms the capital market's long-term optimism about the development of extended reality-related industries... With the continuous efforts of enterprise innovation subjects, the technical foundation for the development of extended reality industry is increasingly consolidated, and an innovation ecology of integrated application is taking shape.
In order to help the rapid development of related industries, all localities and departments continue to strengthen policy support and planning guidance, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has successively issued the "Guiding Opinions on Accelerating the Development of Virtual Reality Industry" and "Action Plan for the Integrated Development of Virtual Reality and Industry Applications (2022-2026)", etc., by the end of 2022, more than 20 provinces have issued virtual reality industry related construction plans.
According to the planning of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and other relevant departments, by 2026, the overall scale of the mainland virtual reality industry (including related hardware, software, applications, etc.) will exceed 350 billion yuan, the sales volume of virtual reality terminals will exceed 25 million units, and 100 backbone enterprises with strong innovation capabilities and industry influence will be cultivated; At the same time, breakthroughs have been made in key virtual reality application fields such as industrial production, cultural tourism, integrated media, education and training, sports and health, business creativity, and smart cities.
A revolutionary experience in how you interact
In the field of extended reality technology, the combination of virtual image and real image is one of the technical difficulties, which requires the blessing of powerful algorithms, sensors, displays and other multiple technologies and the joint efforts of the industry. What level of extended reality can be achieved in hardware today? Apple's Vision Pro has the answer.
Although several times more expensive than the mainstream consumer headsets currently on the market, Apple defines the Vision Pro as a "spatial computing" device. In order to integrate the two functions of virtual reality and augmented reality, allowing users to "seamlessly" integrate the real and digital worlds, Vision Pro is equipped with 2 chips, equipped with a 23-megapixel screen, and the device is filled with 12 cameras. Supported by Vision OS, the world's first space operating system, users wear Vision Pro without relying on a controller or remote control, and can achieve real-time control with only eyes, gestures and sound.
Zhong Wei, senior director of R&D at Lenovo Research Institute, introduced that the Vision OS space operating system is mainly specially created for three-dimensional spatial interaction and experience. There are actually many difficult problems, such as how to ensure error-free fine gesture operations, how to render large-scale scenes, how to save more power, how to switch multiple 3D applications, etc., all of which are inseparable from the support of technology.
Yan Yuelong, a well-known technology critic, said that the biggest surprise of Vision Pro is the innovation of interaction, which has pushed the interaction mode of the headset device to the most natural, simple and comfortable interaction method for human beings. While other mobile phones still use keyboard control, Apple's iPhone introduced multi-touch screen interaction. Vision Pro is also the same, when most of the other similar devices use controllers, Vision Pro uses a comprehensive interaction method of gaze + gesture + voice, which is a "revolutionary" experience.
"The biggest problem with virtual reality is making the virtual like reality, but decoupling it from the real reality." In Yan Yuelong's view, another major innovation of Vision Pro is to further blur the boundary between virtual and reality, allowing users to see digital content in the real world. In addition, although Vision Pro is generally more entertainment-oriented, it has shown more interactive scenarios than similar products, such as immersive office.
Yan Yuelong emphasized that the core advantage of Vision Pro is its overall strength in chips, operating systems and ecology. For example, the spatial interaction that can be achieved by turning one's eyes and moving a finger is still relying on powerful computing power. To this end, Vision Pro has built-in M2 chips and the latest R1 graphics chips, and the Vision OS system will also pull iOS and MacOS systems at the bottom layer to share Apple's application ecology.
Is it a "tech toy" or a spark
In the eyes of many analysts, the Vision Pro, which is the "most complex hardware in history", is a "technology toy", which is difficult to meet users' expectations for actual use scenarios.
"The evaluation of Apple's Vision Pro has formed two distinct factions, one is 'boiling and exploding', and the other is disappointed and regretful. Of course, this device is neither as good nor as bad as expected. In Yan Yuelong's view, it is still unknown whether it can promote the extended reality industry to a new round of outbreak, but at least it has rekindled the public's interest in the extended reality future.
In the eyes of many consumers, the headset device is chicken ribs, bought to send a circle of friends in a few days began to eat ash, they are most concerned about the weight of the headset device, battery life and explosive applications, Apple did not explicitly mention these three points at this conference, but has shown the efforts to shrink the size of the device to the minimum, the lightest, and the content and service ecology to rich and orderly.
Wang Lijun, a foreign academician of the Russian Academy of Engineering and chairman of the AR/VR technical committee of the International Information Display Society SID (China), said that the extended reality technology head-mounted terminal will replace mobile phones and become the first meta-universe intelligent interactive terminal for mankind.
However, from the perspective of development, extended reality is not an industry with a fast return on investment, Zhang Yi, CEO and chief analyst of iMedia Consulting and consultant of the Hong Kong Top 100 Research Center, said that relevant companies still need time and space to nourish, and the value of the industry needs to be measured by "long-termism".
After round after round of ups and downs, although it has not been able to set off the same technological frenzy as the mobile Internet, the testers of "one foot deep and one foot shallow" are still moving forward. Among them, including Huawei, LeTV, Xiaomi and other Chinese Internet companies, as well as Meta, which focuses on virtual reality technology and Microsoft, which promotes augmented reality technology, plus Apple, the situation of the extended reality giant player "Three Kingdoms Killing" has not changed.
Yan Yuelong said: "Domestic manufacturers need to further strengthen the direction, not to pursue functions and applications, but to work hard step by step on chips, operating systems, and ecology." ”
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