Apple Pure Vision and the Immersive Experience Opportunity

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Memorable VR experiences

AR/VR and XR have been around for years, if not decades. The most unique VR experience I was involved with was people wearing an immersive headset whilst snorkelling in a pool to experience being “weightless” whilst watching an immersive video.

The second most interesting video 360 experience was a ZDF volcanic explosion where you could watch a volcano explode, as if you were in Pompei. You could follow the projectiles as they flew by you. You could watch the pigeons take off and fly away.

The third immersive experience of note was where we sat in wheelchairs, with a VR headset on and we saw the world through the eyes of an old person in a wheel chair. We could see people “talk” to us, as if we were the main character.

Price as a Barrier to Entry

The Pure Vision headset by Apple is exhorbitantly priced. A few years ago the Quest 3 headset cost about 340 CHF and could be used for gaming. The Apple headset costs 3700 USD. Samsung headsets in contrast cost the price of a mobile phone and a headset.

The Affordable Options

VR headsets that are mobile friendly cost just 20-70CHF depending on the size of the phone, and the quality you desire your headset to have. Apple’s is way out of people’s acceptable price range.

Patent Monopoly

One of the most worrying things about the Pure Vision demonstration yesterday at WWDC was the mention that they had over 5000 patents. Some might think “Youpie, that’s a lot of innovation” but I see this as monopolistic and destructive. The more they patent indiscriminately the more they will prevent innovation by others. I would own a Quest 3, if Meta didn’t own Oculus. I don’t trust Meta with Immersive experiences, and I don’t like how Apple charges exorbitant fees.

Always Worn

From the demonstration of the Pure Vision headset it seems as though Apple wants us to immerse ourselves into XR for extended periods of time, to browse photos, videos, and work in AR. They seem to want us to edit video in augmented reality, rather than on a screen. They want us to be fully immersed, to the point that when we’re talking to someone, the display becomes transparent, rather than have us take off the headset.

Film Watching

They demonstrated how the headset fades the background to “nice colours” or some similar kitsch. They also promoted that we can make the screen for movie watching as big as we want. When I heard this I thought “Imax VR experiences”. With 23 million pixels you could probably watch Imax quality content from the comfort of your airline seat, should you have such a desire.

Solitary

One of the key issues I see with the Pure Vision headset is that it will isolate us from the world we are in, encouraging us to spend more and more time alone in a virtual world, rather than in the real world. I see this as great for people who live alone, but awful for family, love and other aspects of life. If you’re watching a film with a VR headset then you’re alone, unless they code in a way to be with others.

Irony

It’s ironic that just as Meta gave up on VR/AR/XR apple brings out a headset that would help get people immersed.

The Mobile Office

The Apple Pure Vision headset was marketed as a remote work tool, as well as a work tool. the idea is that you organise your work space within the immersive VR goggle experience. Video editing in VR could be interesting because rather than get a large screen, you simply set up the timeline, player and program screens as you want them to be. In theory you can edit 360 videos whilst immersed in VR. They didn’t explore typing and writing, but I did get the impression that they want us to navigate through the environment either through gestures, to grow or shrink windows, or voice, to tell Siri and the VR environment what we want to see.

Looking Forward to the PureVision SE

Although Apple haven’t even started to sell their PureVision headsets yet I look forward to the PureVision SE alternative. This version should be more affordable and more interesting for normal people. By normal people I mean people who buy a fragile glass headset rather than an electric bike. I want the PureVision SE option to be affordable, maybe even existing mobile device friendly as we have with the Samsung Gear solutions.

An Increased Demand for Content

The PureVision headset should come out in the beginning of 2024 which means that for the rest of the year we should be working on 360 videos and other immersive experiences. Now is the time to make sure that when the headsets come out, our content is there, for people to enjoy. YouTube videos, netflix content, amazon prime, and others should know work towards 360 video experiences, like the porn industry has already made available.

The one drawback to porn and the PureVision goggles, is that there are plenty of cameras, and if it uses gestures, then self-gratification may not be ideal.

And Finally

With good battery life, simplified typing and good gesture controls PureVision and similar products could replace laptops and desktops, and if not laptops and desktops, then external screens. In my experience VR is a lot of fun to experience but it does cause fatigue, and that fatigue means that we use it less than we would otherwise.

The act of putting a VR headset on, queueing content and more is slow and clunky. If Apple has found a way to make this easier, then that will help drive adoption. The Quest 3 was already a good step forward. We have to see the leap made by PureVision.