Unveiled to the general public in 2022, the Apple Vision Pro mixed reality headset was quickly considered one of the best VR/AR apparatus on the market - if not the best. But why? And is this opinion really justified, especially in view of the exorbitant price of the device?
We have gathered for you all the most important information regarding the device's technical sheet, to answer them. You will see, in this file, that the pro vision is probably not the product you think, but that it targets a very specific type of customer.
Apple Vision Pro helmetarrived in France on July 12, 2024, following an announcement made on this subject during WWDC 2024 of June 10. The release is made 7 days after the opening of pre-orders which took place on June 28, 2024. Our friends from Germany, Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom were housed in the same brand: pre-orders on June 28, 2024, released on July 12, 2024.
In Asia, more precisely in China, Hong Kong, Japan and Singapore, the deployment is earlier: pre -orders started on June 13, for deliveries and a store outing scheduled for June 20, 2024.
In the United States, Apple Vision Pro have been available since the start of 2024. The first customers were able to receive the mixed reality headset on February 2.
The costs
Price of Apple Vision Pro according to storage capacity
Here is the pricing grid in France of the Apple Vision Pro helmet:
- 256 Go de stockage : 3 999 €
- 512 Go de stockage : 4 249 €
- 1 TB of storage: € 4,499
The more bulky the storage space, the more applications you can install. More memory also allows you to store many photos and videos, or download a maximum of music from streaming platforms.
Price of some accessories
Many official Apple Vision Pro accessories can be purchased separately. This is for example the case of the external battery: with several on your belt, you should be able to hold the load much longer. Count $ 199 in the United States for this product, which should result in 229 euros in mainland France. Note that an external battery is already included in the pro vision box. You can also bet on Light Corrective Zeiss lenses (€ 115) for reading, or stronger (€ 169, on prescription only). Apple Care+ insurance costs € 549 in single purchase, or € 27.99 per month in subscription.
Accessories included
Are provided in the Apple Vision Pro box:
- The joint to isolate yourself from the light and its pad
- Two bands to belt the device around the skull
- A protective cover for the external screen
- An external battery with integrated cable
- a cloth to clean the screen
- A USB-C to USB-C cable for recharging, a meter and a half long
- an AC adapter to USB-C of thirty Watts, also for the power supply
Apple Vision Pro: the technical sheet
Screens
The Apple Vision Pro have the distinction of not taking one or two, but truly three screens! Two slabs are thus arranged inside the passenger compartment, in front of your eyes, with a 4K definition and no less than twenty-three million pixels. It is this duo that makes it possible to disseminate content in virtual reality, in particular thanks to micro-room technology to obtain a larger contrast than with LCD, for example.
With such a resolution, the Apple Vision Pro offer image quality rarely equal to the market. What is more, three refresh rates are offered: 90 Hz, 96 Hz or 100 Hz. A high refresh rate will be much appreciated by gamers, because it allows you to display more reactive graphics. A low figure, on the other hand, saves energy, for example when a low rate is suitable: reading an email, a message, etc.
The third screen is located outside the Apple Vision Pro and it is the one that diffuses a capture of your gaze, for your interlocutors (Eyesight feature).
© Apple
Two chips under the hood
The Apple Vision Pro are equipped with the unprecedented R1 chip. Its latency of only twelve milliseconds offers high -flying performance. Few slowdowns are expected for augmented reality apps, to which this owner processor is above all dedicated, with 256 GB per second of associated bandwidth.
A second motherboard equips Apple Vision Pro is the M2, already known to lovers of iPad Pro and Mac Mini of the same name. The M2 is made up of eight hearts for the CPU, four of which are there to guarantee you a foolproof velocity while the other four are dedicated to less gourmet tasks. To this must be added a graphics card to ten cores, it is responsible for supporting the display of high frequency images, as well as a neural engine with sixteen cores. It is an engine that improves the capacity for calculating the helmet with artificial intelligence. Siri, vocal assistant of Apple Vision Pro, is an AI who takes the opportunity to answer you faster. We also know that many recommendations, in the features, go through homemade algorithms to suggest the best content according to your habits.
The M2 chip, with the SOC format (system on chip), also integrates sixteen gigabytes of unified memory on the same printed circuit as the GPU and the main processor. This RAM allows you to open many apps at the same time, and it is therefore your ideal ally for multitasking by deploying as many virtual screens as you wish. The infinite canvas of visionos allows it.
The different sensors of the Apple Vision Pro
- A stereoscopic sensor of eighteen millimeters and 6.5 megapixels in stereo, in three dimensions and with f / 2.00 opening
- two high resolution cameras
- Six external cameras
- A TRUEDEPTH sensor
- The flight time radar (Lidar)
- Four inertia power plants
- An ambient light sensor
Autonomy
The external battery of the Apple Vision Pro can hold on up to two hours in a row, on a single load.
This figure varies of course depending on the use of each. Especially since you just have to link the external battery to another, for example purchased from a third -party manufacturer, to extend its endurance. You can also buy several official batteries for the Apple Vision Pro.
Even the sound is with small onions
Apple has integrated headphones directly into the branches of Apple Vision Pro. So you don't need to use airpods or a third -party accessory, if you want to launch a playlist or watch a video.
The soundAudio spatialis there, but it must be admitted that it is only a marketing asset that does not really have its place in the hearts of the audiophiles. On the other hand, the presence of six microphones on the Apple Vision Pro will clearly allow you to make calls with a certain quality at the rendezvous.
Apple Vision Pro connectivity
The Apple Vision Pro are not entitled to 6th Wi-Fi, but to the previous generation (Wi-Fi 6), already very fast during wireless connections or with Airplay, whose definition is confined to 720p for mirroring. So you should not meet too much lags by watching streaming videos. With this, know that Bluetooth 5.3, more up to date this time, is also there, especially to connect accessories to the mixed reality headset.
Among the equipment supported, we can notably cite the case of wireless keyboards, which will prove to be much more practical than the virtual alternative natively proposed by Visionos. The latter asks us to type in the air, which can very quickly prove to be particularly tiring.
Visionos: the operating system
Visionos, the operating system of the Apple Vision Pro, should not overwhelm you too much if you are already a regular of iOS or macOS. And for good reason: the functionalities proposed automatically are similar, even if there is much less on the virtual reality headset. The icons are also circular on Visionos, which is more appreciable.
What we particularly appreciate is in particular the infinite canvas of the platform. So, where we have to juggle betweenMission Control,Stage Manager, virtual offices,Split ViewOr external monitors with our Mac, the Apple Vision Pro are much better. The unlimited work plan allows you to display as many virtual windows as you wish, all around you.
© Apple
Imagine then display house near the front door to control your smartthome with Homekit, your bank accounts with Numbers on the wall in front of your office or YouTube on the door of the toilet, to look during the big commission.
Your mac and iPhone apps are on visionos
Most of the most used native apps on macOS and iOS are also available on Visionos during its first ignition. This is not the case, however. For the moment, here is the apps proposed by Apple with Visionos 1 and its minor updates:
- Freeform: notes and drawing on an infinite canvas
- Keynote : concurrent de Microsoft PowerPoint
- Mail: Reception box
- App Store: to download third -party apps
- Encouncing dinosaurs: three -dimensional immersion in the time of dinosaurs, to meet the famous animals as if you were there
- Files: Explorer of folders and documents
- Messages: Synchronized in real time with the eponymous iPhone and iPad app
- Mindfulness: guided meditation
- Apple Music: Streaming from 10.99 euros per month
- Notes: notes taking
- Photos: Photos and videos media library
- Safari: Owner browser with groups of tabs
- Settings: Operating system configuration settings
- Apple TV: streaming of movies and series
- Livres : e-books
- Calendar
- House: Domotic management
- Apple Plans: Alternative to Google Maps
- Apple News (unavailable in France for the moment)
- Apple Podcasts: Audio emissions
- Reminders
- Shortcuts: task automation
- Bourse
- Vocal memos
4 ways of controlling the pro vision
The equivalent of the pointer associated with the mouse on Mac is your look at Visionos. So you just have to move the head and cameras integrated into the mixed reality headset will be exactly where your view arises, at any time, thanks to a dedicated look technology.
Then, to click, just make a pinch of pinching by touching the end of your thumb with that of your index.
Apple also integrated aDigital CrownSimilar to that of Watch or Max AirPods on the pro vision. Except that here, the interface makes it possible to move from augmented reality to virtual reality, and vice versa. Rather clever.
Finally, be aware that you can interact directly with the vocal assistant Siri, in the same way as with a homepod or an iPhone.
© Apple
Security
In place of Face ID or Touch ID, the Apple Vision Pro are controlled with Optic ID. This solution uses the recognition of the iris, to unlock Visionos. The associated data is then stored in the Enclave secure. With this, end -to -end encryption is part with many apps synchronizing their data online via iCloud. This is particularly the case with messages or photos.
A third party app already provided
A section of the App Store is dedicated to third -party applications dedicated simply to Apple Vision Pro. Otherwise, know thata siteCreated by an independent developer also lists many platforms of the genre.
Among our favorite apps, we recommend that you take a look at Numerics (followed by KPI for entrepreneurs) and aura for Spotify (customer for the eponymous musical service).
Unique features on pro vision
Apple also included a few features only available on Visionos.
Eyesight allows for example to display a realistic rendering of your gaze, on the external screen of the Apple Vision Pro. The developer sells him as a good way to “stay connected” with those around you, if you have to interact quickly with him without unscrewing the helmet from your forehead.
The Apple Vision Pro also allows you to capture photos and space videos, in other words in 360 degrees as with a dedicated camera.
The design of the Apple Vision Pro is problematic
Designed with many recycled materials, Apple's VR helmet is the most elegant that we have been given to see. There is no need to say. Only, here it is: its mass reaches almost six hundred grams, more than a meta quest 3. This weighs on the neck, and prevents us from using the helmet over time. But that's not all, because several buyers reported having been victims of migraines or an eye on black butter after calling on the virtual reality headset. For comfort, we will go back. However, it should be noted that competition is often accused of the same evils.
We also regret that the Apple Vision Pro does not really offer a augmented reality. Indeed, when you overlap a virtual interface with your environment, the latter is actually not displayed through a transparent screen. And for good reason: the frame is covered with a third slab, outside, for Eyesight. The solution found by Apple therefore consists in filming the outside with cameras, and retransmitting the flow on the 4K diagonals inside. However, it would have been more affordable to simply call on transparent ice, because the screens are the most expensive components. What's more, Eyesight is clearly useless, for us.
3 case studies
Apple Vision Pro replaces a plane workstation
It is our favorite use, at the editorial staff. To work effectively, we have installed two external monitors on the left and right of our MacBook Pro. But inevitably, on the move, difficult to take these screens with us. The pro vision, conversely, can be carried everywhere with its transport bag. Its infinite canvas allows, moreover, to deploy more than three displays if necessary. On the plane, where it is difficult to have its laptop at height (in front of the eyes) to avoid back pain, Visionos is therefore found for telework.
For engineers
Among engineers, Apple Vision Pro is also highly appreciated, especially to explore three -dimensional models. We know for example that KLM leads to its employees on real -sized representations of plane engines. Without needing, therefore, to take out the real material, necessarily very bulky, with each session.
In the block with the Apple Vision Pro
Since the release of the Apple Vision Pro, several doctors have explained having used it to assist them during surgical operations. One of them even hasfilmedThe scene.
Our opinion on the pro vision
Apple would have originally sold almost twice as of pro vision as expected, a sign of some success. But where the company has been missed, it is on the side of marketing. Indeed, when the product was presented to the general public, the manufacturer has not emphasized enough on its strengths for professionals. Because yes, it is this audience that this mixed reality headset aims. Not only in view of its price, but also from its apps and its performance, mainly business oriented.
Besides, as we have said, the third screen is really useless and we wait for the second helmet in the range for a more affordable and less swift version. Because to just watch immersion movies or play games, there is clearly no need for a high -flying technical sheet like that of the pro vision. But for a nomadic entrepreneur or an engineer, this device is a real nugget. Be careful, however: it is a kind of beta version, and the following dirts will certainly be much more comfortable.Our advice: wait.
