Apple is poised to bring Metaverse mainstream and dominate the market.
Apple's biggest new hardware launch in decades happened on February 2 when the Vision Pro space computer hit the US market. Based on pre-order sales and the company's track record of hardware success, there are plenty of reasons for various fans to be optimistic about the future.
Apple Vision Pro is a spatial computing device that takes the form of an augmented reality headset. Not to be confused with virtual reality, Vision Pro gives users a view of the world outside the headset and overlays that reality with digital images. Basically, it turns the physical world into your computer desktop.
Spatial computing, not VR.
The distinction between spatial computing and virtual reality is important. Despite positive game sales and steady enterprise adoption, virtual reality has failed to take hold in the mainstream consumer market.
This is not surprising. As many commentators have noted over the past five years, a large portion of the population experiences “VR disease” when using VR hardware. And some of the most experienced VR reviewers have reported occasional disorientation or nausea.
Spatial computing has so far proven to be more universally convenient. Instead of immersing wearers in a virtual space, it uses cameras to show their current location. As a result, users are isolated from their surroundings, interact with other people and feel safer, as they can see and avoid obstacles in the real world while wearing the headset.
This could make it easier for Apple to adopt VR than manufacturers have found it. And if major players in the metaverse space can envision a future in augmented reality rather than virtual reality, the next major shift in tech hardware could be here.
Remember the iPhone
The iPhone is arguably the most successful piece of consumer technology of the 21st century. His start-up Apple, then a company backed by cash injections from the likes of Microsoft, has made it the world's most valuable company over the years.
In the year When it launched in 2007, the iPhone cost a little over $700 in 2024. Apple only sold 270,000 units in the US in its first week.
Related: Apple in 2016 By 2024, it's going to roll out generative AI features, Cook says
The Apple Vision Pro, on the other hand, costs five times as much today ($3,499). And while first-week sales have yet to be released as of this article's publication, pre-orders are reported to be over 200,000.
Back to the iPhone, Apple sold 1.4 million iPhones in 2007, generating about $630 million in revenue. But by 2021, iPhone sales alone will generate nearly $200 billion in revenue for the company.
Front computers
It may seem silly to think about wearing a computer on your face at work or in public, but it's worth remembering that many researchers predict that touchscreen phones will fail. The general idea then was that consumers would never give up the feeling of typing text on real keys to touch a glass.
Today, it's hard to imagine a world where everyone walks around with a computer on their face — even if it's an augmented reality headset. But, in 2007, with people spending so much time staring at their phone screens, even at public events, it was almost impossible to predict the future.
Augmented reality headsets can bring people closer together. Instead of looking at a screen, people can view the world around them through their headphones and overlay important information on demand.
People can chat face-to-face, displaying multimedia graphics without having to move away from each other to look at a screen.
And thanks to the magic of cameras, artificial intelligence and augmented reality, people can even make eye contact with others wearing computers on their faces.
