Apple’s Vision Pro is new, but big tech’s fascination with face computers is not

The headset, which Apple has marketed as a spatial computer, actually costs 4600 USD if you include add-ons and accessories that many people would want to buy. (Image credit: Apple)

The criticism is valid and Apple is no exception. The Vision Pro is marketed as a new type of “spatial computer” that is worn on your face. Instead of looking at the screen as you do on your smartphone, the output is beamed directly in front of your eyes using two high-resolution displays not too far from you. A device like the Vision Pro transforms your physical space into a giant screen floating in the air. Additionally, Apple ditches the traditional control mechanisms like a keyboard, mouse, or touchscreen, and instead tracks your eyes and hands for inputs.

Face computers are nothing new

The tech industry’s fascination with face computers dates back to the 1960s when American computer scientist Ivan Sutherland introduced the first head-mounted display with the help of his student Bob Sproull. That head-mounted virtual reality display system was so heavy that it had to be suspended from the ceiling. The device was primitive both in terms of graphics and realism, but it laid the foundation for Virtual Reality, VR as it is commonly known, where users interact in a three-dimensional space around them. The development of VR sped up in research labs since then, and the technology began to be heavily marketed through Hollywood movies.

By the 80s and 90s, companies like Sega and Nintendo started to launch dedicated VR gaming systems with a focus on 3D gaming, but none of the devices were able to bring virtual reality into mainstream conversations. The Sega VR, heavily promoted at the Consumer Electronics Show in 1993, had head tracking, stereo sound, and LCD screens in the visor. Sega intended to commercially release the headset at a price point of $200, but technical difficulties led to the project’s cancellation, and the wrap-around glasses remained a prototype and were never released.

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Two years later, in 1995, Nintendo took a risky step and entered 3D gaming with the Virtual Boy. Designed under the watch of Gunpei Yokoi, Nintendo’s former head of R&D, the Virtual Boy was far from the console that the company intended to make. In reality, however, the Virtual Boy was a bulky headset, and the console could only be used on a flat surface. Ironically, the console never showed content in VR as opposed to its name; instead, the Virtual Boy’s screen was limited to displaying a red and black colour palette combined with the 3D effect. The design flaw, lack of software support, and somewhat bleak screen compromised the Virtual Boy severely. But where Nintendo received the most criticism was that the 3D effects made people sick. In fact, Nintendo even issued warnings, stating that the Virtual Boy may cause headaches, nausea, and seizures. The Virtual Boy was a colossal failure, with Nintendo managing to sell only 770,000 units, and the device was eventually discontinued within a year of release.

It was only in the early 2010s that VR saw a revival when companies like Oculus, Sony, and HTC brought premium VR headsets to the market, boasting high-fidelity graphics. These headsets needed to be plugged into a powerful desktop computer or a game console to get the graphics and horsepower to run the games. Unfortunately, the whole bundle, including the headset, a game controller, and a computer, ran in the thousands of dollars, limiting average consumers’ access to true VR experiences. At the same time, efforts were also made to sell smartphone-led VR headsets from Samsung and Google to simplify the product category and persuade regular consumers to join the VR bandwagon. However, this experiment too was short-lived due to subpar experiences and a lack of compelling content.

While consumers were still not fully embracing the idea of a virtual world, VR began to gain a foothold in areas with far more practical implications. More companies were using VR to train their employees, aiming to mimic a close-to-real-world experience. However, for tech giants like Meta (formerly Facebook), virtual reality had all the ingredients to be the next big thing after smartphones and PCs. They hoped to create a metaverse, a possible virtual world where people would interact with each other and spend hours. With that intention, Meta acquired Oculus for $2 billion in 2014, and subsequent years saw the social media giant pouring in billions of dollars to sell the dream of creating this virtual world by selling Meta’s standalone VR headsets – which combine the processor, display, and sensors on devices like the Quest 3 to consumers. Although Meta’s ambitions to bring everyone to the metaverse have been scaled down, the company continues to believe that VR could have as profound an impact as smartphones and apps had in the early 2000s.

Google Glass sparked privacy concerns and didn’t gain traction with consumers. (Image credit: Anuj Bhatia/Indian Express)

But virtual reality (VR) is one of the many immersive technologies these tech companies are currently experimenting with. A decade ago, Google experimented with augmented reality (AR) by launching Google Glass, an optical head-mounted display that would project information right into your field of view. The eyewear was packed with memory, a processor, a camera, speaker, and microphone, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi antennas, an accelerometer, gyroscope, compass, and a battery into one single device. It was a pretty advanced wearable computer that wrapped around users’ heads, enabling things like accessing Maps and recording videos on the go.

Despite multiple efforts to revive Google Glass and reach different markets and users, the smart glasses never set the market on fire like the BlackBerry and iPhone once did, making smartphones mainstream. Google Glass was criticised for its high price, limited functionality, and objectionable built-in cameras that could be used to film anyone without their consent. Perhaps the biggest reason why Google Glass could never become a mainstream product was because the device featured a rather simple display than actually promising augmented reality, which allows users to overlay digital content onto the real world. Consumers too never understood the need to wear eyewear to do things that their smartphones were already capable of.

Microsoft was an early player in the AR/VR headset market with HoloLens. (Image credit: Microsoft)

But the failure of Google Glass didn’t deter others. A secretive startup named Magic Leap surprised everyone when it raised millions of dollars for developing its augmented reality glasses. However, when the headset eventually reached the market, the AR glasses had many glaring flaws like a limited field of view and questionable image quality. Magic Leap’s debut headset sold poorly, and the startup, like many in the past, had no answer to how these augmented reality glasses would bring meaningful use cases that excite consumers.

Around the same time, Microsoft had its eyes on a new emerging technology called mixed reality (MR) when it debuted the HoloLens. Alex Kipman, the inventor and lead developer of HoloLens, described the device as the first fully “untethered holographic computer.” The headset could create immersive, three-dimensional virtual worlds and mix holograms with the environment around you. The headset was marketed as a sci-fi dream, with users interacting via hand gestures or voice commands. Many thought mixed reality would be the beginning of something new, and with time, it would help popularise the technology and the headset market. The first version was sold in 2016 as an experimental device to developers for $3,000 and to enterprises for $5,000.

Meta’s Quest 3 is a mixed-reality device like Apple’s Vision Pro. (Image credit: Anuj Bhatia/Indian Express)

But by the time Microsoft shipped the second version in 2019, the company had already lost the vision it had originally set for the HoloLens. While the second-generation model did improve on the flaws that the original HoloLens had suffered from, many things remained unchanged, like poor colour uniformity, flickering images, image quality, and the headset’s weight and design that barely changed. It became clear that the HoloLens 2, which cost $3,500, was far from being ready as a consumer product, and all those demos that Microsoft was showing might not become a reality.

With the exit of HoloLens chief Kipman from Microsoft in 2022 and rumors of HoloLens 3 being axed internally, it marked the end of the company’s efforts to double down on the hardware side of things. Microsoft still has its mixed-reality platform called Mesh, which is gradually expanding and will expand its enterprise mixed-reality ambitions. Surprisingly, Microsoft is backing Apple’s Vision Pro headset with its own productivity apps – Excel, Word, and Teams – that are reimagined and will support a user interface that can be controlled with your eyes.

Pokémon Go helped introduce many people to augmented reality for the first time. (Image credit: Niantic)

Mainstream appeal is still not clear

For years, the tech industry has been working on the idea of creating an immersive digital world, opening the gateway into the metaverse and virtual reality experiences. But reality has set in, and despite glitzy demos and presentations, the mainstream appeal—whether you call it a metaverse, a virtual town square, or the headset that transports you into a 3D world—is still unclear. The problem has been finding a legitimate use case for VR/AR/MR that smartphones and personal computers are not capable of doing. The reason why Pokémon Go, a smartphone game released in 2016, became a sensation is because it helped introduce augmented reality to average consumers. The game didn’t require users to buy another device to experience AR and that helped Pokemon Go to go mainstream. The point is if today Pokemon Go launches on a headset, it might not work because the game was always designed with smartphones in mind.

Even though Apple is entering the headset market late, the underlying technology that Vision Pro is based on is fundamentally the same as others: Virtual Reality. The Vision Pro, by definition, is designed to immerse you in a virtual environment. One can change the environment by turning the dial and being transported to a different world. Early reviews have praised the Vision Pro for its terrific displays and great video pass-through capabilities. Apple may not intentionally be using the terms AR and VR though the Vision Pro is a VR headset but with some AR capability sprinkled on top. Sadly, augmented reality, which Apple’s Tim Cook has been talking about for years, is not there yet, and Apple knows that. This is why there aren’t many spatial apps designed specifically for the Vision Pro, with some 600 apps built just for the headset at present. But that number is still huge, considering the Vision Pro is the first-generation device.

The Vision Pro is designed to let users capture spatial videos or photos. (Image credit: Apple)

Where Apple is different, and which could be an effective way to open the market until it gets mature, is in what it makes of Vision Pro. The headset isn’t trying to replace your iPhone and Mac but rather wants to coexist with the Apple devices you own. This is a nice change and will normalise headsets as a new tech. The way Apple designed the user interface and the fact that the Vision Pro is deeply integrated into the ecosystem is something that may popularise the concept.

However, the Vision Pro doesn’t immediately solve the issues people have had with the interactive nature of these devices. The Vision Pro is essentially a headset that covers your face. It’s heavy and bulky, and users wouldn’t want to strap a computer to their head for longer than 30 minutes. Another question is whether this headset can change the mood of developers and spur the development of AR and VR applications that are more suited for new environments.

Apple may be staying away from showing forward-looking “use cases” that don’t exist right now, which is a good move. Instead, it is pushing for things that may seem simplistic, like watching a movie in 3D, scrolling through 3D photos and video clips shot with the Vision Pro’s 3D camera or iPhone 15 Pro, or attending FaceTime calls using an AI-generated 3D “persona.” Maybe that could get more people introduced to the world of VR – some very familiar ideas but implemented in such a way that gives a realistic view of what is there and what’s about to come.