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4 Min
On February 28th, Adello organized a unique event, Take a Glance at the Future Apple Vision Pro Live Experience. This event welcomed anyone interested in new virtual technologies and the Metaverse, offering insights into how these advances will define our digital future. Also, the guests were one of the first in Switzerland who tried Apple Vision Pro.
Mark Forster, founder and CEO of Adello and LAB51 Inc., and chairman of the IAB Metaverse Division, gave the Apple Vision Pro center stage by asking whether it represents the future of digital or is merely an overhyped gadget. In this engaging session, he led the audience through 10 thought-provoking theses to let them decide for themselves. Here are these questions:
Every 15-20 years, a new major technological cycle starts: are the Metaverse, VR/AR/spatial, or AI part of this new cycle?
From a purely technical standpoint, the Apple Vision Pro offers little to no innovation compared to other competing devices, or does it?
Apple has built a strong ecosystem of devices, a standardized OS, and an App Store. The Vision Pro neatly fits in there - but can Apple leverage this advantage?
Meta Quest 2/3 has firmly established itself with a seemingly large installed base of ~30M devices. Apple is just starting. But if we compare it to the installed base of smartphones, even Meta's lead seems tiny. Are we comparing it to the right competing devices?
Will Apple be able to create enough reason for users to change their behavior to integrate a new device into the daily routine of smartphone/tablet/laptop?
$3,500 sounds expensive if you compare the technical specifications, i.e., with the Quest 2 or 3. Resolution offers largely the same: the field of view is similar, passthrough is available, and you can work with office screens and have video calls. In many ways, the Quest 3 is seemingly on the same level. Or not?
Are we seeing a similar situation in 2008 when we had several competing mobile operating systems (Symbian, iOS, Windows Phone, Blackberry, Android), which within 10 years boiled down to the iOS/Android duopoly? Will Apple's walled garden be able to compete with completely open systems like HTC Vive and partially open systems like Meta Quest? Has a new race for spatial operating system standards begun?
What many forget is that despite the many successes, Apple has a history of failures. Their attempt to own homes as Apple hubs to which all household members and devices connect (Apple TV/Apple Homepod) has to be considered half-baked. Apple Auto (project Titan) has just been axed, despite ambitions to own cars as data hubs.
The numbers and technical data do not do the device justice. The experience of Apple Vision Pro is vastly superior to what others offer. Apple understood that the traditional point-and-click interface urgently needed to be revamped for the future and for spatial computing (in whatever form factor) to take off. Them borrowing inspiration from the Hololens gestures is a nod at Microsoft. Despite that, over time, people will remember Apple as the innovator.
Apple also does not need to sell the device in large numbers to succeed. What they presented with the Vision Pro is an updated framework for a digital future of connected sensors and devices. Where developers can port across all devices with greater ease to reach an audience unmatched in numbers. Apple just scared Meta and HTC and any buyer for such devices; the industry will have to decide whether the open yet fragmented approach, which allows for great customization for industrial metaverse applications, is really the way forward. Or whether building for a revamped Apple ecosystem with vastly superior computing power and better user experience is not the safer bet. Apple has won time. They launched a race of 3-dimensional operating systems, which they do not even need to win today. A 2nd generation device, presumably cheaper, will instantly have thousands of apps available. The Vision Pro is a part of a larger framework. In itself and its current form, it does not represent the future. It might even end as a sidenote in tech history. But it allows to develop the future use cases. Mainly, it demonstrates that Apple has equipped its ecosystem for a future that is immersive. The industry must have taken note. They are forced to make a move. Commit or not.