In mid-July, Apple launched the Apple Vision Pro headset in Australia. The marketing sells it as a productivity tool, while quietly showing you how great it is for watching TV shows and movies. And yes, there’s some cool productivity functions. And yes, watching your stories in the Apple Vision Pro headset is eye-popping.
At a per unit cost of AUS$5,999, it’s going to be some time until average day-to-day people are using this for day-to-day work or entertainment. But you know who will be able to get some real value out of the Apple Vision Pro? The home and reno construction sector.
First of all, what is it?
It isn’t virtual reality (VR). It isn’t augmented reality (AR). It’s what Apple is branding “spatial reality,” but really, it’s what industry professionals call extended reality (XR) and that is basically when VR and AR are smooshed together.
The Apple Vision Pro is a headset that lets its users engage with a digital reality layered over the real world. Think of it snow goggles that take you out of that real world and place you into your phone.
This promo from Apple is a surprisingly impressive (and quick!) way to get a feel for the Apple Vision Pro experience:
Hands-on experience
The headsets are on sale now and Apple is very keen to sell some. This means you can go into an Apple store, and they will demonstrate the headset with you.
The first thing you’ll notice is the weight of the headset. It’s a bit heavy, but not as heavy as you might expect. The weight is offset by the fact the Apple Vision Pro is actually quite comfortable on your face. The caveat here is that the guy writing this article has a huge, oversized Irish head. So, your experience may vary.
You don’t have a mouse or other type of hand control. So, when using the headset, it will track your eyes, and you use them like a mouse. To select it – like you would while clicking a mouse – you just pinch your thumb and index finger together. How it recognises your bare hands are doing that remains a mystery – Apple Witchcraft.
A lot of what you will be shown is pretty cool …up to a point. Being shown photos from the generic photo library is good when the photos are displayed at what is effectively the size of a wall. Even cooler are the panoramic photos that look so big through the headset that you almost feel like you are there. Sitting in your own private cinema is also pretty nifty. Because you are wearing a headset, videos can interchangeably be 2D or 3D.
But where the headset really dazzles is with its immersion videos, which are promotional videos filmed using special camera rigs that record in an especially large format that’s designed to completely surround your 180-degree vision. Being so large and, well, immersive, you genuinely feel you are there – watching a football match behind the net, some impressive parkour with dudes jumping beneath buildings, standing beside elephants, and (most impressively) looking a singer directly in the eyes as she sings with her band.
It’s really cool to watch and immediately you can think of some great ways to use this technology professionally. But, we’ll get to that in a moment.
An Apple staff member will guide you through the experience. Using the headset is intuitive enough, but you will need some initial guidance. Again, Apple actually have another rather good promotional video that replicates one of the tours. Just note that:
- It is waaaaay more impressive actually experiencing this yourself. The whole experience was joy inducing and is genuinely remarkable.
- The tour guide in the video is perhaps a little too infantilising in that Apple way that is both comforting and annoying.
Using the Apple Vision Pro as part of your professional tool kit
The housing, construction, and design sectors have been using virtual reality and augmented reality tools for years. Often used in design, clients could envision work they have contracted brought to life with augmented images and videos layered over the real world. Real estate agents have used the technology quite a bit for immersive walkthroughs.
All of that is made possible and functionally a bit better with the technology upgrade the Apple Vision Pro can offer. But where the Apple Vision Pro can really excel is in the area of education and training.
For years, there has been the idea of using virtual reality for education and training. The easy way into thinking about this is the idea of school classrooms learning about history by being placed into virtual simulations of Ancient Rome, World War 2, etc. Or biology students walking with the dinosaurs. Or any number of ideas that sound great in initial concept, but don’t really work when you start thinking about implementing them into teaching.
The problem with all those simulation ideas is that they are great for exposure to the subject, but they block the teacher out of the experience. This is where the Apple Vision Pro actually creates a really compelling use-case. Because the headset is built with augmented reality as the default experience for users, it enables the teacher to be visible and present through the lens of the headset, while the user is being presented digitally created objects, spaces, and experiences.
The headset makes a lot of sense for teaching trades where there complexities in work being done, along with serious safety concerns. That augmented experience means that not only can a person wearing the headset follow along in real life with their instructor, but it also removes the virtual concern of the user thinking of the scenarios as more of a game than real life.
There’s also considerable cost savings that can be found by training employees with the Apple Vision Pro. For example, Porsche released some information about how it is training its staff on the shop floor of its automotive manufacturing facilities.
“Employees not only learn safety, such as maintaining a proper distance when working with certain robots, but also receive visual instructions on safe walkways. In addition, the application can be enhanced with playful elements, or gamification, to appeal to younger employees,” explained Jörg Dietrich, Sales Director at IT consultancy MHP, which worked with Porsche.
As explained by Porsche, shutting down production facilities for training is hugely expensive, so this provides an elegant alternative. Porsche are also able to track the progress made by those in training, with the device tracking personalised time keeping, they can also assess and certify the training. Within the virtual training assessment, for example, they can evaluate “the sequence of steps and parts, as well as maintaining the correct distance from the robot.”
At $6k a headset, the Apple Vision pro doesn’t make a whole lot of sense for your average person, but they can offer incredible opportunities for education/training and will continue the evolution of digital presentations for real estate and design firms.
