两万五的苹果头显将替代你的下一台 iPhone？

Author | Yu Huiru Editor | Luo Lijuan

The highly anticipated Apple XR (AR/VR/MR) product is finally here.

In the early hours of June 6th Beijing time, Apple's WWDC23 developer conference kicked off. In addition to the regular update of iOS 17, Apple also released multiple hardware products including the 15-inch MacBook Air, M2 Ultra, and the long-rumored heavyweight "one more thing" - the Apple Vision Pro headset.

Apple CEO Apple's positioning of this product is: a revolutionary spatial computing device that allows users to operate apps, games, and movies on digital devices in real space, seamlessly integrating digital content with the physical world.

"Just as the Mac brought us into the personal computing era, Apple brought us into the mobile computing era, and Apple Vision Pro will bring us into the spatial computing era," said Cook.

Apple Vision Pro is priced at $3,499 (about RMB 25,000). According to Apple's plan, this product is expected to be officially launched in the United States early next year, and then gradually launched in other countries and regions. This price exceeds the expectations of most analysts and is nearly 12 times the price of Quest 2, which is currently the best-selling headset.

In addition, Apple said that Apple Vision Pro has reached cooperation with Disney and Unity, the latter providing ecological content for it.

However, investors' expectations for Apple's first headset product seem to have changed. Before the WWDC23 developer conference started, Apple's stock price rose more than 2% and approached $185, setting a new intraday high. However, after the two-hour press conference, Apple's stock price fell. As of the close of June 5th local time, its stock price was $179.58 per share, down 0.76%, with a market value of $2.8 trillion.

In the preheating stage, Cook expressed high expectations for Apple's headset product: hoping that it can replace Apple in 10 years.

A device with a built-in 3D camera

"This is the starting point of a great journey, a new dimension of powerful personalized technology." Before introducing the Apple Vision Pro headset in detail, Cook used grand narrative language to open the scene.

Apple Vision Pro combines most of the functions that can be thought of under VR, AR, and MR. Therefore, Apple uses the concept of "the first spatial computing system platform" to describe this product. ""This is Apple's first device with a built-in 3D camera that can capture 3D images with spatial audio," Apple said at the launch.

In terms of appearance, the Apple Vision Pro looks like ski goggles, consisting of dual displays, a portable battery, headgear, face masks and other components.

To ensure lightness and performance, Apple has equipped it with an M2 chip and a new chip: the R1 processor, which significantly improves transmission speed and reduces latency while ensuring performance. According to official data, the latency of Apple Vision Pro is only 12ms.

The biggest highlight of Apple Vision Pro is its simple operation, completely abandoning the controller, and tracking hands, eyeballs, sound, and faces through 12 cameras and 5 sensors. It can be controlled using only eyes, hands, and voice without the need for a controller or additional hardware.

At the same time as launching the hardware, Apple also released VisionOS for headsets, which integrates core operating systems, real-time execution engines, gaze rendering pipelines, 3D engines, etc. The system is also perfectly compatible with existing ecological applications, including browsers, office software, social software, etc.

With Apple Vision Pro, users can see everything in the space they are in, and the main view will appear in front. All apps are also there. Each element is given a real sense of existence. They have volume and dynamic light reactions. You can feel the size and distance, and freely fill the surrounding environment. Apps can be placed anywhere in space, and newly opened apps will not occupy previous space, and each app can be extended to fill the entire room.

To navigate in the system, just move your eyes, and the app icon will flash slightly when the user looks at it, responding to the gaze, and can be opened with finger gestures. Voice can be used to type, and Siri can quickly open or close apps, play media files, etc.

At the same time, based on the spatial audio system of audio ray tracing, Apple Vision Pro can locate and speak according to the real environment or virtual screen. When someone is nearby, the EyeSight function allows people to be displayed on the screen, making them visible, and when someone approaches, they will appear in the field of view. It can also let people around see what the user is focusing on.

At the launch, Apple introduced several main application scenarios of Apple Vision Pro, including work, film and television, games, and home."

Taking work as an example, Apple Vision Pro is suitable for office and remote work. It allows remote collaboration with teams to process the same document and conduct FaceTime calls in space, where people appear in real size. Content can be inputted through the Magic Keyboard or floating keyboard. Vision Pro stays in sync with Mac, Apple, and iPad, and all memos, information, photos, and documents can be automatically updated through iCloud.

In terms of content, users can watch Disney+ content on Apple Vision Pro. At the same time, Apple also collaborates with Unity to develop games and more.

However, battery life has become a major issue that many netizens criticize. Since the headset body does not have a built-in battery, Apple Vision Pro's power supply system uses a wired external battery pack, and its battery life is only 2 hours.

Seven years in the making

It has been seven years since Apple first revealed its XR device development.

In 2015, Apple's AR/VR project was established, with Mike Rockwell, former executive vice president of Dolby, as the team leader. Today, Apple's AR/VR technology team has about 2,000 people, including key employees from NASA, gaming, graphics, and audio industries, as well as former hardware and software engineers from Apple, iPad, and Mac.

Over the past seven years, Apple has been active in the VR/AR field. In addition to cultivating its own team, Apple has also made deep layouts in optics, displays, motion capture, facial recognition, modeling, content, and other related areas through acquisitions of related companies.

The year the AR/VR project was established, Apple acquired Metaio, a company based in Munich that mainly produced AR application production tools. In the same year, Apple also acquired Faceshift, which specializes in facial animation and motion capture.

Two years later, Apple acquired the startup Fabric Software, whose team is also the predecessor of its current content development tool team. In 2020, Apple acquired two startups in Southern California, NextVR, which provides VR sports broadcasting, and Spaces, which provides VR video conferencing.

According to incomplete statistics, in recent years, Apple has acquired dozens of VR/AR related companies, such as LuxVue, PrimeSense, Emollient, eMagin, Akonia, etc.

Two years ago, there were rumors that Apple would launch MR headsets by the end of the year, but due to issues such as the pandemic, technical difficulties, and consumer scenarios, the release of the headset has been repeatedly postponed.

In March of this year, the Financial Times quoted insiders as saying that Cook and Apple's COO Jeff Williams were getting impatient. Although the design team still hoped to wait for the technology to mature before launching the product, the operations team believed that it was more important to launch the first-generation product first to seize the opportunity, even if it was expensive and bulky. Cook finally made the decision to reject the design team's objections and demanded that the headset be launched this year.

After seven years of polishing and multiple delays, Apple's XR product has finally arrived. Although the capital market voted with its feet, it did stir up the XR market.

Just five days before Apple released the Apple Vision Pro, Meta founder Zuckerberg announced the company's first consumer-grade MR (mixed reality) headset Quest 3 on social media and introduced the key upgraded features of the new product.

However, some industry insiders commented that Quest 3 is inferior to Apple Vision Pro in terms of chips, performance, and other aspects. "The only advantage may be the price."

Will the Metaverse "come back"?

"After more than seven years of development work, it has come to a successful conclusion," "It is indeed a technological miracle"...

Before the release of Apple Vision Pro, domestic XR practitioners were unusually excited. Many people pulled WeChat groups and even live-streamed to "watch" this Spring Festival Gala in the technology industry.

After the release of Apple Vision Pro, many institutions have expressed optimistic views. "We believe that Apple's MR products will completely change the current XR products, and XR demand will completely explode", "The VR industry can currently benchmark Apple's early development"...

However, "Apple's most accurate analyst" Guo Mingchi sang a different tune. He believes that compared to virtual reality devices, investors are more concerned about when Apple will launch services similar to ChatGPT. In the long run, the key to the success of this device lies in its ability to integrate with AI or AIGC.

It has been too long since the moment when Apple "redefined the phone", and hardware practitioners always expect more from Apple. Before the release of Apple Vision Pro, a VR hardware practitioner told All-Weather Technology that if Apple's XR product is successfully released, the XR hardware industry will be like a drought-stricken farmland encountering a sweet rain, and the metaverse concept is also likely to "return to the tide".

In 2021, Facebook changed its name to Meta, which caused a crazy speculation in the market about the metaverse, but this metaverse trend did not continue.

As the recognized entrance to the metaverse, the shipment volume of XR hardware devices has also failed to maintain an upward trend.

According to statistics from the third-party organization Wellsenn XR, in 2022, affected by macroeconomic fluctuations, the price increase of the Quest series, and the mid-to-late stage of the life cycle, the global VR shipment volume was 9.86 million units, a year-on-year decrease of 4%. Another market research organization, IDC, showed that the total shipment volume of AR/VR devices in the most recent quarter has decreased by more than 50%.

Can Apple Vision Pro become the "One more thing" of the metaverse?

At the release event on the 6th, we seem to be unable to find the answer. Cook has always positioned Apple Vision Pro as a spatial computing device. Compared with the virtual space entrance, Apple emphasizes the practicality and tool nature of Apple Vision Pro.

On the other hand, the limited user group brought by the high price of Apple Vision Pro seems unable to bear the heavy responsibility of the metaverse trend.

Market research firm TrendForce predicts that the shipment volume of Apple's headsets this year will be less than 100,000 units. "Although Apple's headset may stimulate some new demand for AR/VR product categories, the high price tag of the device will obviously pose a major obstacle to broader market growth."

"There is no unexpected technology, and it is similar to previous analysis and interpretation." A VR practitioner told All-Weather Technology that they hope that Apple's 7 years of research and development will promote the industry's outbreak, but they also worry that its products will quickly erode the market after they are launched.

"However, at the moment when the price was announced, I knew that my worries were unnecessary. No one can keep up with this price, and no one can afford it." The above-mentioned VR practitioner believes that the high price of $3,499 has excluded most people. In the early stage, the scope of use of this device will be very small, and more buyers will tend to be developers or a small number of enthusiasts.

In any case, the XR market needs this product.