Much has already been written about the Apple Vision Pro, and clever minds either love or hate the glasses, although hardly anyone can evaluate them yet, since they are not yet available on the market. For this reason, we don't want to presume to pass judgment on Apple's long-awaited product. Instead, we look at why there are reasons to be excited about this product.
Apple stands for ergonomic design and state-of-the-art usability. How does that translate to VR glasses? Especially in the area of ergonomics and wearing comfort, the VR glasses already available on the market still leave a lot to be desired.
Can Apple have succeeded in building VR glasses that allow users to wear the device for more than two hours without feeling like after a night of drinking afterwards? That would be a major step forward. All the approaches to date that have to do with coworking in the metaverse and true productivity in VR seem to ignore the motionsickness aspect. It is not reasonable to spend long periods of time in VR with the current hardware available on the market. The longest time I had spent in VR without a break was 3 hours. Even after that, I felt really lousy for 1 hour.
Besides the challenge of ergonomics, software integration is also of great importance for productive work in VR. Meta has made the mistake of launching their own software products for their VR glasses instead of relying on established solutions. Apple seems to be taking a different approach here and allowing users to use standard software for the Mac on the Vision Pro as well. This makes sense, because who would want to have to learn a new text or image editing software, for example, just to be able to use it in VR?
The Apple Vision Pro builds on many familiar concepts. Some things seem to be a bit of the Microsoft Hololens 2 to be inspired. The floating Windows interfaces and the term "spatial computing" were already conceived in a similar way in the context of Microsoft's Windows MR systems. The idea of the monitorless desktop will also be familiar to many who have followed Meta's product presentations.
These concepts were good, and they still are. But both Meta's Quest as well as Microsoft's Hololens have the problem that use cases were advertised that cannot be implemented in a meaningful way in reality due to hardware limitations in terms of ergonomics, resolution, performance and software offering. #Overpromising
Apple does not promise much that is new, though it is to be hoped that the weak points of products like the Hololens 2 and the Quest of Apple's glasses will be solved by clever design.
For example, the monitorless desktop can be a real alternative to desktops overloaded with hardware. If Apple manages to deliver the Apple Vision Pro where others have failed, I will willingly pay €3500 for it.
