In the eight and a half months since Apple announced the Vision Pro and today I have had the opportunity to test on two occasions what the Cupertino company calls a spatial computer, a new concept of work and leisure device whose image has has been distorted in recent days by an army of influencers in search of easy clicks and likes who have used the viewer in a thousand ways to attract attention. And no, it's not that.
The first time I put on this headset was last June in Cupertino, where Apple gave individual demonstrations to a small group of technology journalists, including me. I wrote then how I had been amazed by the way in which this company is able to work in silence to suddenly show an advanced product that leaves a trail to follow. There are several examples throughout Apple's history in which it has achieved this, but two of them in particular have been key in how we use computers - whether they are called computers, laptops, mobile phones, tablets or watches.
In 1984, a spectacular advertisement directed by Ridley Scott burst into the homes of 96 million Americans during the break of the Super Bowl broadcast to announce that Apple was going to present its new Macintosh computer a few days later, which was not on the screen. The final motto was: “Then you'll see why 1984 won't be like 1984.” The advertisement was an allegory referring to the work of George Orwell and the all-seeing Big Brother. A young athlete with a hammer broke a screen on which a dictator was making proclamations before a crowded crowd. The woman represented Apple. The dictator, to IBM, which at that time led the PC market, a machine as effective as it was boring.
On January 24, 1984, Steve Jobs showed the world the Macintosh. It was the complete opposite of an IBM PC. It had a graphical user interface. Like today's computers, no one needed to learn anything to start using it. It used a mouse that pointed to icons with a pointer. None of this was invented by the apple company—they owe it to the Xerox PARC laboratory—but no one had had the idea of putting them together to show the path that personal computing should follow. The rest of the computers had to follow these guidelines and that is how they have survived to this day.
23 years passed until, once again, Steve Jobs made a new successful presentation on personal computing that would transform an industry and force the rest to continue along the path he had set. It was the iPhone. Now it seems normal to us to separate our fingers on a touch screen to zoom in on a photo, but all that and the rest of the advances in graphical user interface came with the apple mobile.
Vision Pro continues that same legacy. It is an attempt that remains to be seen if it will be successful or a failure, but it maintains the spirit that Jobs transmitted. The first patent for the device is from 2007. Apple is capable of turning things around a lot until it achieves what it proposes. The viewer is a new leap in graphical user interface. There is no mouse on the screen anymore. To point to an icon you just have to look at it. The interior cameras of the device detect the point you are looking at. To activate that selection, you just have to put your fingers together. Another camera is responsible for seeing that gesture.
Each of those dates—1984, 2007 and 2023—represents a new leap in the way computers are used. In all three cases, these are changes with a meaning: to make everything more and more natural. The technology available in each era is what has marked this evolution. When Apple registered the first patent for the viewer, there were no complex sensors or very powerful chips that Vision Pro uses to so perfectly mix the real world and a layer of extended reality at the whim of the user.
Many people claim, without having tried it, that Vision Pro isolates people. Yes and no. So far, no attempt to get us to use technological devices in the form of glasses has worked. For a few years, television manufacturers tried to convince us about the benefits of 3D. They failed. It's not easy to put something on our faces. It could be said that Apple's viewer separates individuals, but the Californian company has designed it to reduce that impression as much as possible and it is possible that it still has a letter to advance even further in that sense.
When someone puts on the Vision Pro, they have a screen in front of each eye with a tremendous resolution that, in theory, isolates them from what is in front of them, but what they see is precisely what is in front of them. The concept consists of placing computers and applications of all types, both for work and leisure, in front of our space, with the same field of vision that we would have without glasses. To reduce that impression of isolation, the device's outer screen, similar to ski goggles, can also show the eyes of the person wearing them. It is obvious that Apple wants to fight the feeling of isolation.
One of the great advantages of the new devices that Apple launches is that they already have a rich input ecosystem in which everything is interconnected. For example, if a person copies a piece of text on their iPhone and can paste it on their Mac (linked to the same account) in the easiest way. Everything is interrelated in the world of the apple. It is possible that in future updates Apple will consider how to make it so that two or more people using Vision Pro at the same time can share the same screens.
One of the factors to achieve an even more natural relationship with the device is to make it lighter and thinner. We are facing the first generation of Vision Pro, and that evolution will occur, but this viewer has already generated the feeling that we are facing something that can mark a richer and more natural way of using computers. In ten years, will it be more practical to carry a computer or a headset in your backpack/purse/purse that provides us with a large screen size, computing power and image quality for any use? It is difficult to answer that question today, but it is not so difficult to intuit where things may go.
One of the advantages of having such a viewer is that you can virtualize powerful computers that we do not need to carry with us. The glasses allow someone to work remotely or come to their office and instead of a monitor on their desk they simply have one of these devices. After all, it is designed to work with several screens at the same time. Why limit yourself?
It is not yet known when the Vision Pro will arrive in Spain or other countries outside the United States, but it may not take long. The sales process in American stores has been a test. One of the key elements of the sale is the customization of the visor, with adapters to the shape of the user's face or the possible placement of lenses (very fast) for people who wear glasses. As soon as Apple can transfer all this to its network of more than 500 stores - 11 in Spain - distributed around the world.
The public discussion about Vision Pro is very marked by its high price. In the United States, the model with the most basic memory configuration (256 GB) costs $3,500 plus taxes (they are different in each state). Currency exchange insurance and taxes in each country will put the price of the device at around 4,000 euros, a sum that seems too high to make it a mass product. But Apple has always known how to turn its items into objects of desire. Will a cheaper non-Pro model arrive? For now, there is silence in Cupertino, but it is more than likely that there is already a plan for that.
The experience of using Vision Pro is truly impressive. Objects and screens appear in natural space in front of the user with the shadows and highlights they would have if they existed in real space. There are many possible practical applications, but some of those already seen – it already has more than 600 of its own apps – expand the way of working in diverse fields, such as engineering or architecture. In leisure, they are a real spectacle with panoramic photographs, three-dimensional photos and videos and cinema mode. It is very accomplished. The exclamations of astonishment from those who try them for the first time corroborate this.
Putting on the headset is easy and the initial setup is extremely simple. You place your hands in front of you for a moment so that the cameras recognize them and then you follow three patterns of points with your gaze so that the cameras perfectly recognize where on the screen you are looking. The sound, through two speakers near the user's ear, is immersive and has compatibility with Dolby Atmos (spatial audio), although headphones can also be used.
Like everything that surrounds Apple, any information is viral. There are some users who return headsets to stores because they bother them, feel heavy, or cause a headache. According to the Bloomberg agency, a reference medium for Apple information, the return rate is below that of most products. There is a lot of noise around this device, perhaps due to a perception that it is designed to transform the way we use computers. The first iPhone radically changed the mobile phone industry, but at first it was a machine with limitations: it came on the market without 3G and you couldn't do things like the copy-paste function. Apple knew how to evolve it. There is no reason to think that it will not do the same with Vision Pro.
It's hard to think what will become of the Vision Pro (or a cheaper non-Pro version) over time. If Apple persists in its development in the same way it has done until now, it can be predicted that the path is already set. It is no coincidence that the Cupertino firm insists on avoiding the word glasses and talks about a spatial computer. That is what they have done, invent a new way of interacting with a computer, although in reality what they do is put all possible computers within easy reach. Apple seems to have started a path that still has a long way to go. Time to time.
Thanks to Pedro Aznar, from Applesfera, for his generous help with this test
