At Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference on June 6, 2023, the long-awaited "One More Thing" session reappeared. This time, Apple CEO Tim Cook has unveiled his most ambitious product since taking office: the Apple Vision Pro — an epoch-making product that Apple calls "ushering in the era of spatial computing."
On January 19, Apple Vision Pro went on sale. At 9 p.m., just 5 minutes into the sale, the servers were packed. The pre-sale was half an hour, and the physical store was sold out.
At present, Vision Pro is only sold in the United States, and the "scalping price" in China is as high as 39,000 to 90,000 yuan, a premium of at least 50%, and some merchants cannot even guarantee the date of delivery, which shows the popularity of pre-sales.
Image source: Network screenshot
What exactly is the Apple Vision Pro, why is it causing such a sensation?
Let's start with a brief introduction to the Apple Vision Pro.
The Apple Vision Pro is an MR (Mixed Reality) device that allows users to see a part of the real world while fully immersing them in the virtual world.
Image source: Apple's official website
It looks like a large ski goggle stuffed with complex and expensive components. It sells for close to 25,000 yuan, doesn't seem to have much new technology, and doesn't seem to be fully mature. It has also received mixed reviews from various tech and mass media, ranging from "Apple's driving force for the next decade" to "Apple's biggest failure in two decades".
At first glance, Google tried this kind of device ten years ago, and then Microsoft did it, and Facebook did it. Microsoft is still working on this kind of thing, and there are already some apps in the enterprise market, and Facebook has invested heavily in this kind of device after changing its name to Meta, and we all remember last year's "metaverse" wave.
None of these products have made any waves this year, and generative AI is the shining star of the year. However, breaking through the boundaries between the virtual and real worlds may be a new answer for the market after Apple's long-term exploration of technology and sufficient user use scenario mining.
Merging the real and virtual worlds
Apple's plan to bridge the two worlds dates back at least to 2015. At that time, Apple brought in Mike Rockwell, head of products and technology at Dolby Laboratories, to begin working on the next generation of mobile computing devices. They want users to spend more time on this kind of device, preferably "as long as they are awake, they are using it".
As Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg envisioned, the future of humanity is in the virtual world. It will be a completely man-made, immersive digital space where people can sit at home and appear in this virtual world, where spatial distance is no longer distance, and reality doesn't matter – as depicted in the movie Ready Player One.
Apple CEO Tim Cook doesn't think so. He believes that immersive virtual spaces have their value, but the interaction between people and the world is still important. Apple wants people to live better in real world lives with the help of this mobile device.
The core difference between these two ideas is the difference between virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR). In other words, it is the difference between creating a virtual world where it is difficult to distinguish between real and fake, or adding a layer of data filter to an existing world.
Stunning panoramic photos taken with iPhone unfold and surround the user, creating the feeling that they are in the scene. Image source: Apple's official website
The concept of virtual reality appeared a little earlier. Such a device was conceived in 1965 by Ivan Sutherland, the founder of computer graphics. In an article called "The Ultimate Display," he proposed a new theory of human-robot collaboration that feels real and interacts with reality.
A few years later, Sutherland had built a display system that was close to ideal. It was a huge, heavy helmet-mounted display that could only be hung from a shelf. It has an ironic name: "Sword of Damocles".
After another few decades, with the development of computing technology and display technology, the sword of Damocles finally became a helmet that could be worn on the head. It can trick our senses of sight and hearing and make us feel like we're in another space. It doesn't completely replace reality, but the brain doesn't seem to mind, and some studies have shown that even rough virtual reality environments can bring real emotions. The brain will perceive them as real.
In 1992, Boeing's Thomas Caudell came up with the concept of "augmented reality." Soon after, the U.S. Air Force and Columbia University followed suit, using augmented reality for the repair of complex machinery, where engineers wore helmets with screens that overlaid repair instructions on the screens of the helmets when they looked at the machines that needed to be repaired.
In 2012, Google released Google Glass. Subsequently, Microsoft released HoloLens. Nowadays we can buy quite a few types of augmented reality glasses. Most of them, though, are just a giant screen that can be displayed in front of the user's eyes.
At the end of the day, augmented reality is all about being able to merge two worlds – the real world and the digital world into one. Apple believes that being able to switch between these two worlds at will, or freely stack them together, will be the way people live in the next era.
In 2018, Rockwell, which has been with Apple for 3 years, developed a base station that allows users to receive virtual or augmented reality content wirelessly as long as they are within range of this base station. This solution looks good: the headset won't be too heavy, the computing power can be very strong, and the battery life and cooling are not even a big issue.
But it has a major drawback: users are limited to what the base station can support.
Apple vetoed the plan. Apple wants a freer solution.
Where does the future come from
In 1945, Vannevar Bush, then the president's scientific adviser, published an article in The Atlantic called "As We May Think." This is often cited as the beginning of the Internet.
In that article, the authors envision a grand picture: a system called "Memex" where people's knowledge can be connected to each other and can be easily expanded. He envisioned a Memex with a screen, a keyboard, and a light grip in the hand, but with a huge amount of information.
Due to the limitations of the times, Faneva's idea at that time was not necessarily the perfect form of technology. The best technology should be unaware that it exists, and it should seem like it was born that way. Screens and keyboards are just a result of technical limitations, and gaze, gestures, and natural language should be better choices. Or to put it a little more jargon: eye tracking, gesture tracking, and voice control are the most suitable ways to interact with the 3D world.
Image source: Apple's official website
And AVP does a great job at that. According to testers, it is very precise in its gaze positioning and does a good job of recognizing finger movements. It's not easy to achieve such a natural-looking tracking and displaying effect.
Apple crammed the goggle-sized device into a lot of things: 12 cameras were used to sense the user's behavior and surroundings, including two RGB main cameras, four downward view cameras, two outward view cameras, four eye-tracking infrared cameras, five sensors, and six microphones.
In order to present the most realistic visual effect possible, the user is presented with two micro OLED displays with 23 million pixels. And to do the heavy data processing, two chips are crammed into the already small space: an M2 for laptops or iPads, and a specially developed R1 chip that handles input from the camera, sensors, and microphones, reducing latency to 12 milliseconds, which is one-eighth the time it takes to blink an eye.
"Today marks the beginning of a new era in computing technology. At Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference, Cook said, "Just as the Mac brought us into the era of personal computing, the iPhone brought us into the era of mobile computing, and the Apple Vision Pro brought us into the era of spatial computing." ”
Fu Sheng, founder and CEO of Cheetah Mobile, said on Douyin that it was "Apple dropping a nuclear bomb late at night." Fu Sheng believes that it will be an epoch-making product, powerful enough to suffocate and advanced enough to make peers despair. It may indeed usher in a new era.
Apple's technological long-termism
During the "One More Thing" session at Apple's 2007 conference, Jobs pulled his iPhone out of his jeans pocket. At that time, the development of the iPhone software was not yet complete, and in order to avoid problems during the presentation, he had to prepare several mobile phones, and each time he showed an application, he changed the phone. A few years later, the iPhone became the most talked-about phone and sent humanity into the touchscreen era completely.
The newly born AVP may also have various problems. Its functionality is far from perfect. Its difficulty and price can also be a hindrance. Compared to the iPhone, AVP has a more complex structure and carries greater ambitions. But the AVP we see now is still a little far from that vision.
Of course, as mentioned earlier, the concept of the Internet precedes the Internet, and the concept of augmented reality precedes augmented reality devices, and regardless of the final product, we need to go through the creation and reserve of theories, as well as the resulting long-termism of technology. It takes a long and sometimes aimless, series of explorations that one day dawn on us to find the exact path to our goal.
Apple's story may have started with its acquisition of Augmented Reality Software company Metaio in 2015. Since then, Apple has made more than 20 acquisitions in public information alone, ranging from technology companies in the fields of chips, sensors, and displays related to hardware production, as well as software and content companies building augmented reality ecosystems, such as SMI, a German eye tracking company, JDI, a Japanese screen technology company, and NextVR, a virtual reality live streaming company in the United States. Apple has been preparing for this product for eight years and has invested billions of dollars.
After several years of polishing and consistently high investments, AVP has set the standard for MR products. With its own technical prowess and ample cash reserves, Apple is good at making the user experience the extreme, so that once users use it, it is difficult to give up.
Unlock the magical experience of office and home with AVP Image source: Apple's official website
Perhaps only Apple would dare to make a product in this way - it has the money, the people, the time. It can practice the true long-termism that has turned Apple into a standard-setting player in the red sea of consumer electronics.
Continuing to cultivate one field and continue to invest in one vision is long-termism. Apple is very different from other consumer goods companies: it doesn't rely on specific resources, and it has never monopolized a single product category. Its value depends on the annual release of new products, from the recognition of users, from the continuous investment in technology, and from the insight into the market and marketing.
In a market full of free competition, in the huge cycle of researchers, various enterprises, technology research and development, and consumers, our lives and the world are becoming more and more convenient in the process of large investment and long time. AVP is perhaps just the latest addition to the long list of products that have been continuously improved in the last century.