Well, it finally happened. 

After months of speculation, leaks and rumours, Apple finally unveiled their entry into the AR/VR market. Dubbed 'Vision Pro' the headset looks to upturn the market, and if their previous successes are anything to go by, it could revolutionise the way we consume and interact with our digital lives.

First let's start with the design itself. It looks very similar to leaks, renders and rumours we've seen in the previous weeks and months. More akin to a set of ski goggles than a traditional 'VR" headset (like the Valve, or OG Oculus). In form factor I would say it's closest comparison would be the more recent offerings from Meta, such as the Quest Pro and Quest 3. 

It's a lot of glass and metal, unlike the plastic composites we typically see in this segment. Whilst it makes an attractive looking product, and I'd imagine a sturdy build-quality, my fear would be that it could be a rather weighty unit, perhaps heavier than the competition.

Moving onto the hardware, the Vision Pro is absolutely chock-full of cameras, sensors and even processors. Not only does it include an M2 CPU (that's right, the one that powers their laptops and computers) but it also debuts the new 'R1' chip, which according to Apple is specifically geared up to enable everything to work together near real-time. It also features a plethora of cameras and sensors (17 in total) which enable the Vision Pro to provide the most life-like pass-through of your surroundings than ever before. This combination of regular cameras, depth sensors, LIDAR and more will give the user a stereoscopic (3D) colour, greater-than-4k view of the room they’re in. The only way to get a higher quality view of your environment would be to, ahem, take your headset off. But who wants to do that?

Unlike other iterations of AR & VR that we’ve seen so far, the Apple Vision Pro is the first headset in the space to have a third built-in OLED screen, which is out-ward facing. This could be seen as a two-way pass-through I suppose, where not only does the user have cameras feeding through what the environment around them looks like, but also passing back out to other people what the wearers eyes are doing, and where they’re looking. This feels like an attempt to tackle one of VR’s biggest objections, and that’s the anti-social nature of users closing themselves off the world whilst they’re using their headset. This new outward facing OLED screen would allow friends and family to talk to you and still ‘see’ your eyes, lending a more sociable side to headset usage.

Apple is putting a lot of emphasis on the resolution and clarity of the unit's displays, boasting 23 million pixels per-eye using Micro OLED displays ‘smaller than a postage stamp’, and for good reason. The quality of the visual experience will make or break this headset, and Apple has a reputation to uphold of coming to the market with the best possible product in any given space.

Personally I think the biggest deciding factor on the Vision Pro’s success will be the quality of the environment recreation. The promotional material almost misleadingly makes it appear as though the Vision Pro overlays the digital content onto the ‘real world’ around you like the XREAL (formerly NReal) glasses however it is in fact a closed-off 'VR Style' headset where you're exclusively looking at screens, with the environment passed through via high-quality cameras.

Since the announcement, it's been discovered that the displays have a 96hz refresh rate, which is comparable with competitors but by no means the fastest available on the market. Typically higher refresh rates are linked to reduced motion sickness, but time will tell how the masses feel when using the Vision Pro.

So, is this the next 'iPod' or 'iPhone' moment? I tentatively think so... it's my personal opinion that AR & VR is undoubtedly the future, however I think the form factor and sense of immersion needs to take some significant leaps before it really hits the mainstream. Right now we're experiencing the battle of the trade-offs: improved immersion at the cost of (actual cost) and bulkier form factors, or at the opposite end of the spectrum you have the XREAL glasses which arguably have a lower immersion factor and direct image quality, with the benefit of being far more user-friendly and less 'intentional' to use. For AR & VR to succeed, we need to be wearing something that's akin to regular sunglasses in size and weight, sub $1,000 in price and with some 'killer apps' that keep you coming back for more. Right now I'd say we've progressed from Alpha to Beta stage, and it's up to the consumer if they want to part with their hard earned cash to ultimately be a product tester for this segment.

Let me know what you think - would you be willing to part ways with over $3.500 for the Apple Vision Pro?