Behind the mass production of Vision Pro, has the virtual reality industry reached an inflection point?

In 2023, Apple released the Vision Pro headset, which gave a shot in the arm to the stagnant VR industry. But because it was not released, the effect was not very obvious. It is said that the Vision Pro will be released at the end of this month, so can Apple still lead the new cycle of consumer electronics this time?

As the mass production time of Vision Pro approaches, the concept of VR has once again come into people's field of vision, and the wave of "hype VR" in the industry seems to have re-emerged. However, judging from the statements of a truly powerful player like Apple, the concept of VR has long been outdated, at least it does not cover Apple's product demands and values for mixed reality.

In Apple's view, the "metaverse", a fully immersive digital space, cannot create a virtual world for escapism. This is best illustrated by the Vision Pro, which is designed and developed for short periods of gaming, content consumption, and communication. The Vision Pro is what Vision Pro wants to convey by watching movies, browsing photo albums, playing games, and video chatting with friends through avatars while staying connected to the real world.

1. Vision Pro, Apple's new benchmark

According to a recent report released by market research agency IDC, it is estimated that China's AR market will ship 240,000 units in 2023, a year-on-year increase of 133.9%, and it is estimated that it will continue to maintain high growth in 2024, with a growth rate of 101%. Split AR will still be the mainstream of the AR category, but it is worth noting that with the release of Qualcomm's AR dedicated chips and the advancement of optical waveguide technology, mainstream manufacturers will successively release or iterate integrated AR glasses, and it is expected to ship 60,000 units in 2024, an increase of 68.5%.

As Apple's first new product category since 2015, Apple is selling consumers a novel concept: mixed reality, which blends virtual reality and mixed reality. As a subversive work after Cook took over as CEO, Apple is actually under a lot of pressure, because Apple not only wants to launch a new product, but also wants to create a new terminal benchmark and open a leading new era of consumer electronics.

As Apple's promise of the Vision Pro release node - "early 2024" is getting closer and closer, Apple CEO Tim Cook began to mobilize all parties to prepare for the Vision Pro release early. In order to fight this battle, Apple is providing escort from three aspects: hardware ecological linkage, rich software applications, and ensuring the supply chain.

First of all, it is the preparation of software and hardware ecology. For example, at the hardware level, Apple has opened the UGC era of spatial computing through the spatial shooting function of the iPhone, so that everyone can start shooting spatial videos with 0 threshold. In terms of ecological linkage, Apple teaches iOS and iPadOS developers through developer videos to migrate the corresponding application content to Vision Pro.

For iPhone users, the synergy between the Vision Pro and Apple's other products is a very much anticipated innovation, and in fact, Apple has made a lot of efforts to achieve this. For example, after more than three months of beta polishing, on December 11, the iPhone finally launched the spatial video feature in iOS 17.2. If your phone is an iPhone 15 Pro series, you can shoot spatial videos directly by tapping the "Headset" button in the bottom left corner of the video shooting.

Secondly, it is the escort of the supply chain. In order to make Vision Pro accepted by consumers, Apple recently convened some retail employees to train "Vision Pro" related services, and some Apple retail stores have also set up trial sites for Vision Pro. In terms of specific configuration, Vision Pro adopts Micro OLED technology, which can provide 23 million pixels on the left and right displays, and the single-eye effect can even exceed 4K display, and it also has a wide color gamut and HDR high dynamic range. Apple also added the M2+R1 dual-chip design to the Vision Pro, which greatly shortens the picture and operation delay, so that the minimum delay can be controlled within 12ms, and the user's perception of latency is greatly reduced.

It is not difficult to see that whether it is software and hardware ecology or supply chain management, Apple has been fully prepared for the outbreak of vision Pro.

Second, the new cycle of consumer electronics is about to begin?

In fact, from the industrial level, the entire consumer electronics industry around Apple hopes to find the signal of the opening of a new cycle of consumer electronics from Apple's new products, and then accumulate strength for the next stage of development. According to sources from a number of consumer electronics supply chain companies, the first batch of Apple's new generation MR product, Vision Pro, is about 400,000 units, and the sales target is 1 million units in 2024 and 10 million units in the third year. In terms of data, Apple's stocking plan is big news for all companies in the entire "fruit chain".

On the one hand, with the emergence of new terminals, a new increment of the entire consumer electronics industry chain may have appeared. With the penetration rate of smartphones peaking, revolutionary innovation is weak, the replacement cycle of domestic and foreign users is longer, and the shipment of smartphones continues to decline, the consumer electronics market has ushered in a cold wave. According to the data, mobile phone shipments fell by 12% last year, hitting a new low in nearly a decade, and the PC market is not optimistic, falling by 16% year-on-year last year, and demand continues to shrink. Since 2023, the downward trend of the industry has not been completely reversed due to factors such as consumer expectations and weak economic recovery.

In this case, leading consumer electronics companies such as OFILM, Goodix Technology, Lens Technology, etc., have suffered heavy losses, with performance and stock prices falling across the board, plummeting for three years, revenue and profits declining, and companies suffering from "fruit chain dependence" are even more sad and fall into a loss-making situation.

As the vane of global technology products and consumer electronics, Apple's blockbuster new products have a very strong pull effect on the entire industry, especially 60% of the supply chain of Apple's new products will originate from China, which will be very obvious for the entire supply side. With the release of vision Pro, the entire hardware field, including titanium alloy, OLED, MR, etc., will usher in new incremental opportunities.

At present, manufacturers, including Lens Technology and Crystal Optoelectronics, have disclosed relevant plans. Among them, Crystal Optoelectronics said that Crystal also works closely with specific large customers and more technology giants to actively cooperate with and promote AR terminal products for ordinary consumers. Bozhon Seiko said that the company has provided customers with the testing and assembly equipment required in the production process of Vision Pro, and the equipment has been shipped, while Pengding Holdings said that the company provides a full range of PCB products and services for industry-leading customers, including smart glasses and other related products. It is not difficult to foresee that some of the stimulus effects on the supply side may have begun to emerge.

On the other hand, the innovation and technological changes on the application side may integrate the current consumer electronics to boost user purchase demand with a new application experience. Compared with existing VR products, Apple's MR products are expected to achieve all-round function and configuration upgrades in six major hardware lines, including display technology, full-color perspective, interpupillary distance adjustment/eye tracking, ring control, full-body motion capture, and lidar applications, setting a new hardware configuration benchmark for the XR industry.

The technological leap from 2D to 3D will drive the emergence of new content needs such as 3D immersive games, entertainment, and social networking, and attract users to participate in it. Cinda Securities believes that the design of Apple's Vision Pro is based on the user, and there is no positioning as an "advanced game console" with volume cost reduction configuration, which is expected to open up a new cycle of consumer electronics.

3. The VR industry has ushered in a new inflection point

At the same time, with the emergence of Apple's Vision Pro, the reshuffle of the entire VR industry may be coming to an end, and industrial innovation has entered a new stage.

In the past period of time, world-renowned technology giants such as Tencent, ByteDance, and Meta have been involved in the VR industry, and the industry has been hyped around concepts such as the metaverse, but truly revolutionary technology products have never really appeared. The companies involved, including Tencent, ByteDance, Meta, etc., have faced the difficult choice of whether to continue to invest in MR internally, and now this choice has become more and more clear.

First of all, after the release of Vision Pro, companies with advantages chose to increase investment, while some companies that felt that they were far away chose to retreat, and the reshuffle of VR was further accelerated. For example, after Apple released the Vision Pro, ByteDance and Tencent made completely different choices, ByteDance reduced its MR division, and Tencent reorganized the MR division that had been eliminated, including Meta also stated that it would continue to participate in the MR process. Why do the giants have such a big disagreement on this matter? The reason is that their own circumstances are different.

From the perspective of Byte's original intention of doing MR, it wants to make hardware, while Tencent wants to make content. But in fact, compared to the latter, the difficulty of the former is exponential, involving a wide range of aspects, even if it is as strong as ByteDance, they are not too sure, especially after seeing Apple's products, they are more convinced of this. For example, Apple has its own self-developed M2 chip to solve the problem of vertigo to improve the user experience, but the self-developed chip is still very difficult for ByteDance.

Let's look at the current screen scheme is applicable to micro OLED4K screen,This belongs to super black technology,The current product yield is very low,At present, only Sony can do it for the time being,Only suppliers with deep relationships with the supply chain are willing to take a risk,Because this product is losing money in the early stage。 Many people mistakenly think that with the super domestic electronics industry chain, they only need to hand over to others to OEM and part of their own research to achieve new technology applications and changes, but in fact, in the face of this innovative technology application, there is no good brand effect and supplier relationship, as well as super core self-developed technical capabilities, and it is tantamount to hellish level of difficulty if you want to kill in such a field, even if it is as strong as ByteDance.

But for Tencent, what it is looking forward to is innovation at the content level, such as bringing WeChat or the content application of the next era into Apple's vision Pro. For example, at present, WeChat can already support the Vision Pro version, and Tencent's new games are also being laid out in related directions, which is the same as Tencent's layout of the Internet of Vehicles. The advent of the super hardware terminal has made Tencent, who was afraid of investing too much and becoming a martyr, feel more certain, so he dared to re-intervene.

Secondly, the industry barriers have changed substantially. In the past, everyone made VR headsets, probably because of the popularity, blog traffic, chasing the wind outlet, and heaping parameters, trying to use a bunch of application chain application integration to leverage the arrival of the VR era. But as a sufficiently innovative field, as soon as Apple's new product is released, many junior players have understood that if they want to make VR headset hardware in the future, they must first answer the industry, can you achieve the integration of software and hardware? For the entire VR industry, this will be a fundamental change, and it may also be a landmark inflection point for the entire VR industry.

Fourth, the next step of VR is to remove the chaff

Just as the invention of the world's first tablet, the GRiDpad, Time magazine described it as: "It's an engineering miracle, but it's a market loser, and the reason for the failure is that it's not portable, it's too big, and now VR is facing a similar situation." In fact, with the advent of Apple's Vision Pro, the industry is bound to trigger a new round of survival of the fittest, and in this process, some technology manufacturers will gradually go out, while some new technology companies will gradually rise.

With the mass production of Apple's MR, Huawei is not far behind, and plans to enter the MR and AR markets in a big way in 2024. According to internal sources, Huawei's MR is expected to sell about half of Apple's, and given Huawei's huge influence in the entire consumer electronics sector, its first MR product will sell more than Apple's 400,000 units. In addition to Huawei, other tech giants are also stepping up their efforts to get involved.

It is reported that meta is mobilizing heavy troops to secretly develop high-end products, benchmarking Apple's vision Pro, Samsung abandons the original VR product plan, and instead develops high-end products with Micro OLED technology, Pico adjusts its direction, abandons Pico 5, and focuses on the development of high-end "velvet" series. Vivo has focused its technology investments on MR and humanoid robots, with companies such as Xiaomi, Honor, Oppo, and Meizu following suit. It is not difficult to foresee that a new war around MR terminal hardware has begun. From the point of view of the technical difficulty of the new terminal, terminal enterprises with technical reserves and consumer electronics manufacturing experience in the past will have more advantages.

First of all, it is compatible with the existing mobile phone ecosystem, which can reduce the development cost of the content ecosystem. At present, if VR is only regarded as a "high-end game console", its input-output ratio is obviously not optimistic. The practical solution is to combine VR with mobile terminals to lower the threshold for content creation and control the overall cost. For example, Apple's support for shooting 3D spatial videos with the iPhone 15 Pro or iPhone 15 Pro Max can drive the enthusiasm of vlogers, up creators and other mass creators to create more innovative content, and at the same time start to build a new ecosystem for the next generation of computing platforms.

Secondly, it is integrated with smart homes, which can improve its ecological application capabilities. At present, the living space is transitioning to comprehensive intelligence, connecting VR with other whole-house smart homes, and with the help of low-latency transmission of gigabit optical fiber, a complete spatial computing experience can be created and the value of VR products can be enhanced. It has been revealed that another device designed around the Vision Pro by Apple will be the Apple TV, a TV product. Technology manufacturers and home appliance companies that have explored in the field of whole-house intelligence have accumulated relevant technologies and brand recognition, which also helps to reduce the marginal cost of technology.

Finally, the blessing of domestic computing. When it comes to spatial computing, computing power is indispensable. The improvement of the quality of VR experience, including the accuracy of the game screen, is still too low for mass users who are Xi to 4K/8K image quality. However, moving daily socializing, office and other activities to the virtual space, perceptual computing requires real-time processing of a large number of high-precision images, and manufacturers need to balance effect and cost.

To this end, Apple launched Apple's R1 perceptual computing chip, Qualcomm released the AR2 chip, from the perspective of domestic applications, with the breakthrough of Huawei's Kirin chip, it is also expected to be applied to domestic VR applications in the future. All in all, controlling costs and exploring in small steps is still the only way for domestic VR. Combined with the existing advantages of domestic software and hardware, let VR continue to go forward, wait for the further maturity of the industrial chain and ecology, and the next generation of computing platform is already on the way to full completion and operation.

Columnist

Liu Kuang, WeChat public account: 刘寑 (liukuang110), everyone is a product manager columnist. Chairman of Hainan Sanche Network Technology Co., Ltd., founder of Buytuanbang Information, and well-known self-media.

The title picture is from a screenshot of Apple's official website

The views in this article only represent the author's own, everyone is a product manager, and the platform only provides information storage space services.