Text | AR Research Yuan
Apple has released the Vision Pro, the "next-generation consumer electronics" spatial computing device, and at the same time launched the most powerful iPad Pro in history.
From 2010 to 2024, for 14 years, Apple will push the iPad to the extreme at the same time.
The 2024 iPad Pro 11-inch is 5.3mm thick, making it the thinnest and lightest Apple device ever. The performance is also very powerful, the CPU of the M4 chip is 50% higher than that of the M2, the GPU rendering performance is up to 4 times higher than that of the M2, and the 16-core neural processing unit (NPU) of the M4 can perform 38 trillion operations per second, which is theoretically twice as fast as the M2 chip and nearly 60 times stronger than the A11 Bionic chip.
What's even more rare is the progress of the display.
The screen of consumer electronics is the focus of manufacturers' attention
Physical screens have never stopped evolving! Take the new iPad Pro, which went on sale on May 15, for example, and its display shocked many people.
From 2010 to 2024, for 14 years, Apple will push the iPad to the extreme at the same time. Evolution in particular on the display.
The 2024 iPad Pro 11-inch is 5.3mm thick, replacing the 5.4mm iPod nano as the thinnest and lightest Apple device ever. This is due to the use of a double-layer OLED (Tandem OLED) screen that has removed the original Mini LED backlight module.
Tandem OLED is another milestone screen upgrade after Apple's iPad Pro switched to a Mini LED backlit screen in 2021, and it used Mini LED before, because the full-screen brightness of the OLED screen at that time could not reach Apple's XDR display standard, Tandem OLED mainly solves this problem: providing a high enough full-screen brightness. The new iPad Pro has a full-screen brightness of 1000nit and a peak brightness of 1600nit, which is perfectly met.
Image from Apple's official website
Apple's harshness and pickiness about physical screens are at the pinnacle. For example, the new iPad Pro's more precise brightness and color control, P3 wide color gamut, high contrast and high dynamic range, OLED can achieve sub-millisecond control of the color and brightness of each pixel, and then make the XDR comprehensive display effect to a new height, Apple also gave this new height a new name, Ultra Retina XDR (ultra-fine retina XDR). User-perceived highlights in photos and videos are brighter, blacks are deeper and more realistic, and shadows and shadows are more detailed.
Some key details can reflect Apple's extreme pursuit of display. OLED, as a physical screen with the principle of organic light-emitting, has the problem of slow decline in brightness with the duration of use, Tandem OLED has dealt with a problem very beautifully: iPad Pro 2024 is not to increase the brightness with the risk of OLED "screen burn-in" (pixel residual image caused by brightness drop), and the global brightness (Apple calls full-screen brightness) is increased at the same time, and the OLED life is longer.
For users, what they have always wanted is high-end entertainment and productivity satisfaction, outstanding portability, and high-definition immersive "large screen" display. iPad Pro does almost everything that physical displays and mobile computing devices can achieve at this stage. If you start from the first principles of the product to meet the needs of users for performance, portability, and high-definition large screens, is there a solution?
The "display" value of spatial computing devices is unique and practical
The competition of consumer electronics in "display" is moving from single to diverse.
Regarding the value release of "display", manufacturers are focusing on the single dimension of "display effect", and it has evolved to the extreme. The flexible giant screen with adjustable size, which has both "super size", "mobility" and "degrees of freedom", is also a rigid demand for display by users, and the next generation of spatial computing equipment has just made efforts.
The product path of the next generation of consumer electronics and spatial computing devices is different, but the effect also hits the key point. Taking China's latest spatial computing equipment Rokid AR Lite as an example, the display principle belongs to the "near-eye display", which almost does not belong to the category of physical screens, such as chip-like micro-display screens are magnified by optical modules, which can be virtualized in the space A large or small can be flexibly adjusted, and it can be connected with position and attitude sensing to achieve a series of incredible characteristics of the virtual large screen.
What's the real difference? A pair of 75-gram glasses Rokid Max2, a host Station 2 that can be held with one hand, and a pair of wirelessly connected folding or scrolling Bluetooth keyboards, can realize high-frequency scenarios such as office, audio-visual entertainment, and web browsing from almost any location. The emerging spatial computing is a completely different product form from laptops, tablets, desktop computers, and smartphones, and is in a new ecological niche.
Writing code, content creation, external "big screen" games, giant screen viewing, this large screen virtualized from the space, brings characteristics, for users, is simply too useful.
"In the crowded subway morning rush hour, bumpy cars, and airplanes swinging up and down in the clouds, you can watch movies on the big screen, play games and entertainment, and even do light work. Is this possible? "Before the advent of spatial computing devices, it was almost impossible.
You chase dramas, watch short videos, play games with your mobile phone, and if you run into the morning rush hour of the subway, you don't even have room to stretch your hands. On the small table of the plane, I didn't waste 2 or 3 hours of lengthy flight time, I wanted to take out my laptop, edit the document, change the PPT, and listen to the roar of the engine, but the result was completely unworkable, because the space was too small, and it bumped from time to time.
However, the use of spatial computing equipment does not have these troubles at all, and the virtual large-screen space display does not occupy physical space, and there is no additional demand for the environment and scenes, which is the exclusive value of spatial computing at present.
Before each new species emerges, it quietly does something that previously seemed incredible.
For example, "I did the same thing as in the past at a lower cost." And it's even richer in details! There is no need for any learning or adaptation process yet. This is an accurate summary for users who have experienced the Rokid AR Lite space multi-screen and gradually used it as the main office equipment. Financial traders, command and control personnel, and professional designers often need multiple devices to monitor information in parallel, efficiently process information and react synchronously.
To achieve all this, the cost of buying a few high-definition monitors often requires tens of thousands of yuan, and the more high-end the display, the higher the price. Moreover, it needs to be specially configured, wired, and set up software, which is professional and cumbersome. With the Rokid AR Lite Spatial Computing Kit, not only the hardware cost is greatly reduced, but it does not need a desktop to carry the monitor, no physical space, and the "configuration" can be completed in an instant in the simplest way of direct drag-and-drop. Instant messaging, key information, and multimedia content will no longer be mixed together, and the frequent switching of windows will interfere with your ability to concentrate.
The multi-screen floating in the air can be fixed, dragged and dropped, zoomed in and out, and the display content is highly flexible and customizable. And that's just a display alternative for spatial computing devices as work screens. Another high-frequency work demand, remote video conferencing, 3D virtual presentation, interaction, and shared space whiteboard, which was originally limited to remote video and collaboration on 2D screens, will be a completely different scene because of the arrival of spatial computing.
With the use of spatial computing equipment, physical space is no longer a limitation of entertainment venues, and physical screens are no longer necessary for content, such as home theaters, game halls, studios, and functional rooms in the traditional sense, which are broken by spatial computing equipment. Spatial computing gives not only the physical display and spatial degrees of freedom, but also the degrees of freedom of the body and posture.
Meditation and mindfulness before falling asleep, when you lie in bed, immerse yourself in the bamboo sea forest, the Swiss mountain town, the snowy fields in the north, and the valley on a rainy day, feel nature, soothe anxiety, such content and experience, before you need to sit in front of the TV, computer, or laboriously lie on the side of the bed, hang one hand to brush the phone, and just scratch the boot. And spatial computing devices bring more freedom to the body and posture! And with the development of optics, displays, and sensors, the immersion and realism of the spatial picture can completely make it impossible to distinguish between virtual and reality. Virtual and real, digital and physical worlds blend perfectly!
When a new form of consumer electronic device emerges, users will be the first to perceive its potential. The powerful iPad Pro, with almost no shortcomings, can also achieve a comprehensive display improvement in 2024, which is breathtaking. The new generation of consumer electronics and spatial computing are also quietly entering our lives, bringing more diversified display empowerment in terms of portability, flexibility, freedom, and cost-effectiveness.
There will always be new species on the horizon of the market. Under the continuous and diversified evolution of consumer electronics, spatial computing is gradually blooming its value in the visible field of vision!