Apple is asking its developers and partners to describe its upcoming Vision Pro headset as a “spatial computing” device; It’s a smart move that allows the company to avoid the boring AR-VR-XR nomenclature.
For years, “virtual reality” has been used to describe a headset that blocks out the outside world and displays digital images that can move with the user’s head movements. “Augmented reality” meant smaller glasses that displayed digital images within clear lenses.
In reality, Apple’s Vision Pro looks more like VR. The front of the device is not transparent. But calling it VR ignores the fact that the device’s world-facing cameras provide the user with a clear representation of the room in front of them. The lenses of the headset can reflect all kinds of digital content, from user interfaces to work tools and gaming environments, to this area. It’s more like augmented reality this way.
So Apple could call it “mixed reality” as others have, but the company is completely avoiding the tedious AR vs. VR vs. Spatial computing has been used in mixed reality environments for years. This isn’t actually anything new for Apple, which uses “spatial audio” to describe some audio experiences.
It’s not like the word spatial will make Vision Pro an easy sell; In fact, it’s far from that. Apple will have to bring its best marketing game to push the product towards the mainstream, perhaps more than at any time in recent memory. The device is very expensive at $3,500. Its key use cases aren’t entirely clear, so the public doesn’t yet know why this is a must-have. And it looks like a VR headset, a device that seems niche to many consumers.
Apple is trying to sell not just a new device, but a new category of devices (spatial computing). This is quite evident in the company’s first promotional video for the Vision Pro, which some observed to be reminiscent of the tone of the iPhone’s first commercial. Solid ad. The imagery and energy (helped greatly by Devo’s classic “Uncontrollable Impulse”) screams “This is a paradigm shift!”
In fact, mixed reality devices may become very natural areas for artificial intelligence. Meta has been talking about how to embed artificial intelligence into AR headsets for years, and has already started using it in the smart glasses it produces with its partner Ray-Ban. Vision Pro will do something similar in the coming years. Users can use the device by, for example, talking to an AI assistant.