Yesterday Apple unveiled the Apple Vision Pro, an AR headset that’s looking like a quantum leap in VR/AR tech. The device seems like an attempt to make VR truly consumer-friendly, focusing on enhancing the world around you rather than simply blocking out the real world.
The trailer showcased chatting with your friends with an AR pop-up screen, playing soccer with your kids, watching a movie on a plane in a virtual theater, and working on 3D projects suspended in front of you. It all looks very cool, though the eyewatering $3499 price tag will mean it’s only available to customers with a lot of disposable income.
But, perhaps inevitably, this new AR frontier has many comparing it to Black Mirror:
We can see some truly scary potential in this CGI facetime replica tech:
And, of course, some suspect this will immediately be used for… other stuff:
The ski-mask look doesn’t exactly bode well either:
And don’t forget some bonus Ready Player One comparisons:
It’s worth mentioning that none of this AR stuff is groundbreaking technology, though Apple seems to have refined and improved it in many key areas. The colossal price tag means it’ll be a while before people wearing this in public becomes a common sight, though it’s also likely we’ll get a non-Pro version of the hardware in late 2024 or early 2025.
There have been many attempts to bring VR/AR tech to the mainstream, though Sony’s PSVR and Meta’s Quest headsets have mainly catered towards gamers rather than casual users. Apple has a long history of making tech slick and user-friendly, so perhaps this is what’s going to open up a bright new future of editing boring old reality into something more interesting.
The Apple Pro Vision will be available domestically in early 2024 with other countries getting it later in the year. Black Mirror will return to Netflix on June 15.