The wait is over, Apple has presented their stunning entry into the XR space. A long awaited move and a tremendous validation of Meta’s XR roadmap. The announcement is a historic turning point and the actual beginning of the XR era. It also ends the uncertainty over Apple’s plans that were looming over the industry amid last year’s tech downturn.
Apple’s Vision Pro headset has ended all these worries. The machine has arrived, and it is beautiful. Apple has presented an elegant, frictionless and rock-solid platform that has been thought out down to the most granular details, according to early tests. Apple’s XR headset shows that it was designed by a company that has UX design in their DNA like no other. It addresses all the areas where Meta has had a mixed track record, to say the least: Productivity, comfort, delightful interaction and high fidelity. Spatialized 2D content and eye-tracked pinches that feel intuitive and natural, plus a vast ecosystem of iPad apps spread out in an endless screen with crisp visuals, have raised the bar for any future MR headset. The incredible polish makes this a viable screen replacement and convincing first-generation XR device for the next computing platform. The fact that recent iPad M1/2-based generations have been powerful enough to run such high-end industry-leading applications as Davinci Resolve and Logic means that users who have shifted toward an iPad-centric workflow will at some point be able to seamlessly transition into the 3D dimension. Rest assured that spatialized flat-screens in this XR environment will, over time, get enhanced with additional 3D features to boost productivity.
It sure seems like a brilliant idea to perfect UI interaction with the rested hand, based on precision data of the downward-facing cameras, to be able to capture subtle lab-rested pinch gestures with such high accuracy. Couch-potato comfort and delightful high-fidelity xinteraction has to be the foundation for a consumer-facing XR product eying wider adoption down the line. The way to dial in the degree of immersion, similar to a curtain reveal, is another careful consideration for user concerns. As noted before, some users feel uneasy or disconnected when thrown into a simulation, no matter how good it is. Being able to gradually dial in the immersion level is probably a good onboarding approach for XR applications that allow you to go from AR to VR.
Also great, the idea to use the headset as a camera to record stereoscopic video. A feature with huge potential, considering that 360 and VR180 content will play a major role in the headsets media formats. Everything is pointing at much more to come in that respect. A major rollout of high-end VR video content wouldn’t be a surprise, considering the strategic acquisition of NextVR in 2020.
In another smart move, Apple has put privacy in the front row. Considering the potential issues that could arise from cloud-connected XR devices that constantly capture your environment. Privacy UX has become a big deal—and Cupertino seems to be ahead of the curve here.
Mixed reality passthrough HMDs are the new standard going forward. Meta Quest has pioneered the experimental phase, and Apple is now putting the final polish on the fundamentals. The next generation of the Meta Quest Pro will, most likely, be in the same league as Apple‘s Vision Pro. One could safely say that Meta is ahead in concepts, use cases and proven markets such as gaming. The recently announced MR Discover showcase for Meta’s Mixed Reality APIs is bringing a massive push to social MR with shared spatial anchors and co-location. Once again, this has tremendous potential for pretty magical group interactions, where MR will show its critical strength.
Nevertheless, passthrough AR in a mixed reality headset, does not have a proven market, yet. Virtual Reality has a proven, albeit niche, market, with a consistent user base, a successful marketplace, passionate VR gamers and enterprise pioneers. It remains to be seen if passthrough AR applications will find the same success with users. Most of the current MR titles using passthrough have their player base due to the VR version.
The long arch is obviously to move from passthrough AR to smaller transparent glass-based wearables in the future. But what are the AR killer apps that can attract consumers? The fact that Apple didn’t reveal any major XR app conveyed a clear message to developers and designers: You build it! We give you a sophisticated and refined platform…build something for it that sticks. In that way, the Vision Pro is like a blank canvas.
It was obvious that Apple’s mission is to avoid VR pain points by avoiding any VR talk at all, even though the Vision Pro is a very capable VR device. VR does have a lot of baggage in the public opinion, of course: Often baseless preconceptions and stigmas with images of isolation, motion sickness, expensive niche gaming and a history of not living up to economic expectations—and, on top of that, a major Metaverse backlash.
Apple avoided that whole discussion and went the route of AR first, no artificial locomotion, no hardware controllers, hands/eye/voice control only, thus skipping all potential issues. That, on the other hand, leaves a lot of open questions for game development and game porting, for titles that require some sort of artificial locomotion, controller functions and haptics. Gaming is obviously not a focus at this stage. Apple’s focus is clearly to get the simple things right first, moving around in the UI, sharing a photo between devices, making a call, watching a video. The “fundamentals of spatial design” presented for the Vision Pro communicated the new design paradigms in beautiful clarity, introducing the variables space, depth and scale as tools for hierarchy and focus. Using Glassmorphism as a UI style adds another layer of sophisticated distinction, showing that spatial design context is more than just the XYZ position, but also UI material and room-light interaction through subtle environment reflections and soft shadows, bringing a balanced design hierarchy into augmented browsing.
The strategy is, apparently, to first build a platform that everyone wants and then as a second step try to make it affordable, not the other way around. With the Vision Pro platform, Apple has reshaped the UX design languages for XR to the extent that it can be considered a reboot of the entire XR space. It makes important additions to XR design patterns that can be considered new standards, with a broad influence on other.
It can be expected that Apple’s bold move will energize Meta. Meta Quest is now an established gaming platform, more comparable to a player in the console market. This tremendous success is a fantastic base to expand into other areas where consumers are ready for other types of meaningful immersive, social interaction.
Intuitive, precise and reliable hand interaction is most likely the ticket to broader consumer adoption. The discontinued MRTK toolkit for the HoloLens 2 is still one of the best reference design systems for direct hand interaction. While direct hand interaction has been solved, remote hand interaction has never been fully tackled until Apple came along. Eye-tracked selections, with a simple two-finger activation pinch, has been called the new mouse click for XR. Hopefully, variations of this intuitive and elegant solution will make it into other XR platforms.
Making XR experiences that stick outside of the core VR gaming crowd has proven to be a tough nut to crack, and Apple just infused new energy into solving that problem. The entire XR space will benefit from the design revolution out of Cupertino.