On the one hand, enthusiastic technophiles and large companies who see virtual reality as the medium of the future. On the other, a technology that is struggling to break out of its niche, in which Meta has suffered losses of 32 billion US dollars in two years, weighed down by expensive devices and an aura of weirdness. But what the hell did Apple do in this mess with its $4,699 Vision Pro headphones? The tour in opinions and statistics.
In showcasing his long-rumored Vision Pro headset last week, Apple’s CEO placed it in the “augmented reality” category. This statement is rather controversial: this is generally defined as devices that overlay information on what a user sees live, such as the defunct Google Glass. However, the Vision Pro has a screen and not a glass on which the filmed eyes of the user can appear outside. He does not directly see his environment, which is recorded by a dozen cameras and broadcast on the two small interior screens. It would be more accurate to speak here of virtual reality, a marketing choice that Apple has obviously chosen to avoid.
It is rather striking to compare the impact of everything related to virtual reality on the real reality, that on the market. It makes enthusiasts dream, obviously less common mortals. Some 19 million helmets were sold in 2022, all manufacturers combined. By comparison, IDC estimates that 1.2 billion smartphones sold that year. Nineteen million headsets is ten times less than the number of iPhones sold in 2022.
Very few journalists, and La Presse is not one of them, have been able to try the preview version of the Vision Pro, whose official launch will not take place until the beginning of next year. From a technological point of view, the comments are generally rave reviews, its 12 cameras and the undeniable quality of the components ensuring a very fluid experience. “The finished product is of a refinement that supplants all other gadgets of its kind”, notes for example the colleague Alain McKenna in Le Devoir. “As a portable device, the Vision Pro is better than anything I’ve ever tried,” reads The Verge.
But we often feel a sense of disappointment regarding the real novelty brought by this helmet, which will be sold for US$3,499.
“What’s better than everything we have now?” What problem does it solve? asks Paul Tassi in Forbes. It’s billed as a revolutionary new technology, but the usage is exactly the same. »
Clearly, Apple has failed to fix one of VR’s main problems in 2023: its user simply looks strange, to put it mildly, when cutting themselves off from the world to contemplate images in his helmet.
The author of these lines counts dozens of mocking remarks that break out as soon as we see him with one of these devices, and the famous photo of Mark Zuckerberg walking in a room in Barcelona surrounded by spectators wearing their helmets in 2016 marked the spirits.
“This case is a computer in the face,” says Denis Talbot, a techno pioneer in Quebec who has produced the Radio Talbot show on Twitch for 10 years. “Apple, for sure, they have the means to always be ahead, to do miniaturization, and it has already begun. »
Describing himself as “a big fan of virtual reality”, he finds it hard to see how current technology could break out of its niche. “It’s heavy, it’s not comfortable. When I’ve played two hours, it’s hot and I play with people who tend to get sick. »
However, Denis Talbot believes that the Vision Pro is only a first step, “a beautiful step into the future, but a future that will be changed”. At this price, the Vision Pro is obviously not intended for Mr. and Mrs. Everybody, he recalls. And disturbing features like the artificial display of the user’s eyes on the external screen, or its replacement by an avatar in video conferences as Apple showed during its presentation, may be commonplace in the future.
“There are people who don’t want to be on screen, who create the character they want to be, there are filters on TikTok, says Mr. Talbot … There is something that s is coming, and it is coming fast. »
2021 Global Virtual Reality Market Assessment by Fortune Business Insights. This is one of the most credible estimates in this area where analyst firms compete in creativity to inflate the figures. In 2014, for example, The Farm 51 reported revenues of US$50 billion in 2018, La Presse wrote at the time.
Losses reported by Meta in 2022, for revenues of 2.1 billion US, for its Reality Labs service, responsible for the development of virtual reality based mainly on its Quest headsets. This loss comes on top of the $10.2 billion loss the previous year.
What do you expect from augmented reality and virtual reality? Do you believe that Apple’s proposal will help democratize these devices despite the price demanded by the company?
