Apple Announces VisionOS, the Operating System For Its Vision Pro Headset (theverge.com) 38
Apple has announced a new operating system for its Vision Pro headset. Called visionOS, the operating system has been designed from the ground up for spatial computing and will have its own App Store where people can download Vision Pro apps and compatible iPhone and iPad apps. The Verge reports: The operating system is focused on displaying digital elements on top of the real world. Apple's video showed new things like icons and windows floating over real-world spaces. The primary ways to use the headset are with your eyes, hands, and your voice. The company described how you can look at a search field and just start talking to input text, for example. Or you can pinch your fingers to select something or flick them up to scroll through a window. The Vision Pro can also display your eyes on the outside of the headset -- a feature Apple calls "EyeSight."
It seems Apple envisions this in part as a productivity device; in one demo, it showed a person looking at things like a Safari window, Messages, and Apple Music window all hovering over a table in the real world. Apple also showed a keyboard hovering in midair, too. And the Vision Pro can also connect to your Mac so you can blow up your Mac's screen within your headset. It will also be a powerful entertainment device, apparently. You can make the screen really big by pinching a corner of a window (Apple demoed this with a clip of Foundation). You can display the screen on other backgrounds, including a cinema-like space or in front of Mt. Hood (Apple's suggestion!), thanks to a feature Apple calls Environments. You'll also be able to watch 3D movies on the device. And Disney is working on content for the headset, which could be a major way for people to get on board with actually using it to watch shows and movies -- Disney Plus will be available on day one, Disney CEO Bob Iger said during the show.
Apple Vision Pro will play games, too, and support game controllers; Apple showed somebody using the device with a PS5 DualSense headset. Over 100 Apple Arcade titles will be available to play on "day one," Apple said during its keynote. The Vision Pro also has a 3D camera, so you can capture "spatial" photos and video and look at those in the headset. And panorama photos can stretch around your vision while you're wearing the device. FaceTime is getting some "spatial" improvements, too; as described in Apple's press release, "Users wearing Vision Pro during a FaceTime call are reflected as a Persona -- a digital representation of themselves created using Apple's most advanced machine learning techniques -- which reflects face and hand movements in real time." You can learn more about Apple's first spatial computer here. A dedicated page for the Vision Pro headset is also now available on Apple.com.
It seems Apple envisions this in part as a productivity device; in one demo, it showed a person looking at things like a Safari window, Messages, and Apple Music window all hovering over a table in the real world. Apple also showed a keyboard hovering in midair, too. And the Vision Pro can also connect to your Mac so you can blow up your Mac's screen within your headset. It will also be a powerful entertainment device, apparently. You can make the screen really big by pinching a corner of a window (Apple demoed this with a clip of Foundation). You can display the screen on other backgrounds, including a cinema-like space or in front of Mt. Hood (Apple's suggestion!), thanks to a feature Apple calls Environments. You'll also be able to watch 3D movies on the device. And Disney is working on content for the headset, which could be a major way for people to get on board with actually using it to watch shows and movies -- Disney Plus will be available on day one, Disney CEO Bob Iger said during the show.
Apple Vision Pro will play games, too, and support game controllers; Apple showed somebody using the device with a PS5 DualSense headset. Over 100 Apple Arcade titles will be available to play on "day one," Apple said during its keynote. The Vision Pro also has a 3D camera, so you can capture "spatial" photos and video and look at those in the headset. And panorama photos can stretch around your vision while you're wearing the device. FaceTime is getting some "spatial" improvements, too; as described in Apple's press release, "Users wearing Vision Pro during a FaceTime call are reflected as a Persona -- a digital representation of themselves created using Apple's most advanced machine learning techniques -- which reflects face and hand movements in real time." You can learn more about Apple's first spatial computer here. A dedicated page for the Vision Pro headset is also now available on Apple.com.
Yawn (Score:3)
Garbage software for garbage, useless hardware.
Don't be such a spoil sport (Score:2)
Designed from the ground up for spatial computing? (Score:5, Insightful)
a) You don't use your hands to interact with content as if it was in front of you.
b) Everything looked like apps built for 2d screens projected on something that looks like a very large 2d screen.
Give me Minority Report level stuff with me shuffling through email super quick, dragging and dropping data from one application to another, something with multiple layers of depth that we can start talking about something "designed from the ground up for spacial computing".
Give me what Photoshop would like in a spacial interface, and what it would do differently. Not today's photoshop projected in front of me because I already have that. And I already have multiple screens in front of me.
It feels like a huge missed opportunity here.
Re:Designed from the ground up for spatial computi (Score:4, Informative)
It is Minority Report style interface except that your arms don't get tired waving extended in front of you. You can make tiny gestures like the flick of a finger to scroll.
You get close to infinite monitors because you can look up, down and all around to see different displays every where you look. You can also enlarge displays to fill your entire vision.
I don't know if the OS will be a "success" or not. I'm not going to run out and buy one of these things. I don't dismiss the technology though. It is very impressive.
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Re: Designed from the ground up for spatial comput (Score:2)
VisionOS not ... ? (Score:2)
Apple probably thought naming it "ViOS" or "viOS" would start a/nother religious war with EmacsOS ... :-)
Re: (Score:2)
ViOS is the name of the big bad in Doom II RPG.
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Re:Much better name (Score:4, Interesting)
Just absorbing today what you can really do with visionOS.
As predicted, it doesn't look like much.
that's not really a $3500 headset exactly
Keep telling yourself that. The competition costs less than a tenth of this thing, and has a battery that can last through a long movie.
I had very low expectations, but I really thought they would do a lot better than this.
Re: (Score:2)
The question, as it usually is with things like this, is "what's the killer app"? Like what profound thing does it do that you could never do before or what thing do you do today that this just makes so much better that you wouldn't care about spending a lot of money and dealing with the clumsyness of a large headset and battery pack for. Based on their presentation they don't know so they're seeding it to developers at a high price and delaying the launch in the hopes that a use for it can be found.
Even th
Re: (Score:2)
The competition costs less than a tenth of this thing
Uah, no it really doesn't. At best you can say some real competition comes in at 1/3rd of the thing, but the reality is this is actually quite capable hardware that doesn't directly compare to the competition.
Now the question is, will anyone pay the premium for the hardware capabilities this offers. I'm guessing no, but Apple has many fans with high levels of disposable income to prop up some of their sillier hardware, like their decisively not workstation Mac Pros.
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I looked up "popular vr headsets" and whatever came up was a $300 device.
doesn't directly compare
I'm comparing this to one of those plastic jobs you slip you phone into. That also does VR and AR. The difference is some of the specs on the Apple one have higher numbers. It has got to be a little embarrassing for Apple that their ultra-premium thing doesn't beat the toy version on everything.
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Blackberry outsold Apple for years after the iPhone launched. Apple didn't overtake them until sometime in 2013.
apple the vision quest that starts at $3.5K (Score:2)
apple the vision quest that starts at $3.5K
I can see tim cooks vision of an stock that goes very high!
Re:apple the vision quest that starts at $3.5K (Score:4, Funny)
Meh. Peyote is cheaper.
all hovering over a table in the real world (Score:4, Insightful)
It seems Apple envisions this in part as a productivity device; in one demo, it showed a person looking at things like a Safari window, Messages, and Apple Music window all hovering over a table in the real world.
Wow, you mean to tell me I can sit at a table and look at content on a screen? All this time I have been standing while holding a heavy ass monitor at arms length in mid air. What wonders will technology bring us next... surely as revolutionary as sitting at a desk looking at a fuckin web browser.
Re: (Score:3)
Yeah, but now you can spend $0.99 for a custom surface overlay for the table. Hope you like your Hello Kitty desk. :-D
Re: (Score:1)
Don't be a moron. Can you sit a desk / table with a laptop? Sure. Now sit on a couch or armchair. Not as easy.
Now walk from couch to kitchen and get a drink, while continuing to browse. Damn hard.
Now do it on a bus. Now do it at a public coffee shop. Oops, gotta use the bathroom - better carry your laptop with you so it doesn't get stolen.
Now do all the above without straining your neck and arms, hunched over with poor posture. Yeah didn't think so.
If you can't see the obvious benefits
innovation galore (Score:2)
There is no truth to the rumor the headset will feature a third eye display on the forehead, to freak people out.
Also, the headset will not feature two Mickey Mouse ear antennas able to beam 5G into your brain and turn you into a zombie.
Re: innovation galore (Score:2)
But I want to look like Mickey Mouse when employed in a Mickey Mouse operation! :O
Ergonomics (Score:4, Insightful)
This will seem cool and wow for a while, and then it will be back to regular monitor, keyboard, and mouse. Because that's what people are comfortable with in a physical sense.
This is also why touchscreens play second fiddle in a desktop enviroment. "Gorilla arm syndrome" being one reason touchscreens get much lower usage than a keyboard and mouse.
Beats external monitor in my book (Score:1)
then it will be back to regular monitor, keyboard, and mouse
You can use an external Apple smart keyboard with the device (and maybe trackpad? Not sure about that).
I could see this being really, really useful for a laptop user. You can use a laptop often without needing a larger screen, but for some tasks you really do need one - then you put on the headset, and you have a couple of displays of data.
it saves you from having to have a external monitor around taking up space and plugs all the time, and you c
Clever marketing of $3500 device (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Clever marketing of $3500 device (Score:4, Insightful)
The whole Vision Pro part of the presentation was targeted at crazy rich Asians. The actress, the imagery, the colors, the interiors, the suitcase, etc., all asserted that this is not a product for the middle class consumer.
You're quite right -- for now. Apple is targetting the middle class consumers of 2030 or so, by which time they hope to have all the kinks worked out and the price down to something that the masses might actually be able to afford.
But you don't get from here to there by keeping your product cooped up in a lab for seven more years; you have to get some real-world usage miles under its belt in order to gather feedback. So here's Apple, courting rich early-adopters.
Damn... had been hoping for a monitor replacement. (Score:2)
Is it actually all new or just OSX again? (Score:2)
Don't get me wrong, it would be spectacularly stupid to reinvent the wheel. But remember when Apple said they had a new OS for phones and then it turned out to be just a castrated version of OSX? Well, they're saying they have a new OS for headsets now...
Easy Queasy (Score:3)
Has anyone mentioned queasiness yet? I don't mean after seeing the price, I mean while wearing the headset. It would be interesting to know how they tackled the problem, and with how much success.
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Has anyone mentioned queasiness yet? I don't mean after seeing the price, I mean while wearing the headset. It would be interesting to know how they tackled the problem, and with how much success.
There are already reports of nausea from people allowed to use a demonstration unit. From what was reported, the company of course insisted this is a beta problem and it will be solved before launch. I'm not exactly holding my breath on that one.
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I have seen literally zero press reviewers reporting issues with nausea. Every result I clicked on when Googling this contained people saying "they really seem like they've cracked the problems that cause nausea".
Of course none of these people used the device for more than half an hour, but... where did you get the idea people are experiencing nausea?
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I get a few newsletters in my inbox from various orgs. One of them said a person on their staff experienced nausea. It's possible they made it up, but I think anything we hear today is suspect, including reports that they've solved the nausea issue. It's hard to trust any of the press to tell the truth at this point. They're either paid to shill, or paid to smack-down. We'll probably have to wait for a few actual people to get ahold of them before we know the truth.