After 8 years of brewing and many jumps, the much-anticipated Apple headset has finally been unveiled.

At 1:00 a.m. Beijing time on June 6, Apple (AAPL.O) held WWDC 23 (Worldwide Developers Conference) with the theme of "Code New Worlds". At the conference, the MR (mixed reality) head-mounted display Vision Pro was released as the grand finale, priced at $3,499 (about $25,000), and will be available in the U.S. in early 2024, and later in the global market.

Vision Pro is equipped with the M2+R1 dual chip and uses the visionOS operating system, which allows the wearer to navigate through eyes, gestures and voice. The main feature of this headset is the integration of AR (augmented reality) and VR (virtual reality) technologies, which allows the wearer to stay connected to the real world while experiencing the virtual world. At the application level, beyond the common games and movies, Vision Pro also expands into office and leisure scenarios.

"Mac brought us into the era of personal computing, iPhone brought us into the era of mobile computing, and Apple Vision Pro will bring us into the era of spatial computing." Apple CEO Tim Cook said at the launch event.

Vision Pro means a lot to Apple. It is Apple's first new product since the release of the Apple Watch in 2014; it is also the next generation of end devices that Apple is betting heavily on after the sluggish growth of products like the iPhone. For Cook personally, this is likely to be his last work during his tenure at Apple.

But the capital market did not buy it. On the eve of the launch, Apple shares once rose more than 2%; after the release of Vision Pro, affected by factors such as high selling price and late production time than market expectations, Apple shares fell to $180 from a high of $185 per share, and the total market value evaporated $84.5 billion (about 600 billion yuan) from the highest point.

In the past two years, the XR (extended reality, including AR, VR, MR) industry has experienced a round of rise and fall due to the concept of "meta-universe". Microsoft, Meta (formerly Facebook), Tencent, Byte Jump and other major Chinese and foreign technology companies have entered the market, building XR teams, developing hardware and software, and then collectively making business adjustments and layoffs at the beginning of this year.

The release of Vision Pro has brought new vitality to the XR industry. IDC China senior analyst Zhao Siquan judged that it is difficult for Apple to achieve leapfrog development in the industry with a new generation of new products, the industry's new display and interaction technology component yields, mass production time is still uncertain, and major technical problems still need to be overcome; however, the release of Vision Pro is a great opportunity for industry-wide hardware research and development, content ecology upgrade and However, the release of Vision Pro is a positive signal for industry-wide hardware R&D, content ecology upgrade and new technology development in the industry chain.

The device is not mature enough

The most important feature of Vision Pro is that it combines the attributes of VR (full access to virtual space) and AR (virtual images and information superimposed on the real world); the wearer can both interact with the real world and be fully immersed in the virtual world.

News site 9TO5Mac writer Chance Miller tried it out and said that Vision Pro can be adapted by performing a vision test on the user. The headset is controlled by tapping a finger to select an object, pinching to zoom in and out (like on an iPhone), and flicking the wrist to scroll.

He said it took some time to learn how visionOS operates; but after 30 minutes of experience, he was used to this type of use. Also, during the experience, Apple would repeatedly emphasize that the headset would allow the user to stay connected to the real world around him, for example, he could look left and right at two other people in the demo room.

Chance Miller also mentioned that Apple did not even mention the word "headset" in the press release, referring to it as a "spatial computer" and calling visionOS "the world's first spatial operating system".

One of the highlights is the abandonment of the traditional VR device's handle, which allows free interaction with gestures alone. Another feature is the design Apple named "eyesight", which is a screen outside the headset that can project eyes when the user communicates with reality. Software level, Vision Pro in a number of Apple App applications, and iPhone, Mac and other products linked, it is also different from the advantages of other headset devices.

But at this stage, Vision Pro is hardly "mature". 25,000 yuan high price, external power cord, 2 hours of short battery life, are destined to be an extremely limited market scale products. But there is a consensus in the industry - Apple's hand, more important than anything else, because Apple's usual style is to wait until the product experience is good enough to launch.

PICO Asia Pacific corporate marketing leader Zhang Wulong told "Financial Eleven" that the cardinal point of the industry's outbreak at this stage is VR content, "When users create VR content as easily as shooting short videos, the moment when the VR industry explodes is not far away."

An Apple supply chain enterprise source also told "Financial Eleven" that the fatal pain point of the AR/VR industry is ecology, and the ecology is most lacking in volume to get started. For developers, Apple is not only willing to invest in research and development products, but also provides them with a large number of development tools, which greatly reduces the difficulty of adaptation.

As early as 2017, Apple launched ARKit, an AR development platform. last January, Cook had revealed that the App Store had more than 14,000 ARKit applications. "These are the dry goods." The supply chain business person said that the VR/AR industry has been struggling to move forward for a long time, and now he finally sees a little light.

After the ebb of the "meta-universe" of big manufacturers

Before Apple's launch, the XR field has experienced multiple rounds of ups and downs. Previously, Sony, Oculus, HTC and other companies have led the XR trend, but soon cooled off.

The most recent high point was two years ago when Roblox, a game development platform that proposed the "Metaverse" in its prospectus, successfully went public and Facebook, the world's largest social software platform, changed its company name to "Meta "The concept of "Metaverse" became popular, and the Internet majors laid out their plans, and then cooled down once again after the buzz.

In April 2021, Byte Jump invested in code Qiankun, a meta-universe concept company (the company has a social platform for teenagers to create "Reboot World" with a similar concept to Roblox); in August, it acquired PICO, a VR hardware manufacturer, for 9 billion yuan; in June 2022, Tencent set up XR department in Interactive Entertainment Group (IEG), whose business includes software and hardware. 2021 Racer pushed forward the integration of meta-universe with short video and live broadcast, launching virtual anchors and virtual idol singers. Wan Pengfei, head of Y-tech AI technology center, has said that meta-universe is an important direction on the development path of Racer.

By February of this year, the big manufacturers have collectively adjusted their XR business again.

Byte jumping in PICO opened organizational optimization, layoffs, surging news cited PICO insiders said that the overall layoff ratio is not high, the move is a normal organizational structure adjustment, PICO business operations will not be affected. Tencent announced the cancellation of the entire line of XR positions, and responded that XR business will change the path of hardware development, the relevant business team to adjust. Racer adjusted the panoramic video business, and Ma Yingwu, the head of the Yuan Universe/panoramic video project, left. Microsoft disbanded the industrial meta-universe team, which was established only four months ago.

At that time, there was a view that the "retreat" of big manufacturers in the field of "metaverse" was a sign that the XR industry had entered a "cold winter". But some practitioners do not agree with this statement, they believe that this is the normal adjustment of the industry in the process of development.

One of the VR practitioners working in the Internet company told the "financial eleven", the intensive adjustment of each big factory, not because the industry is cold, the prospect of worry, just happened to adjust the time close. In addition, the person believes that the concept of "meta-universe" is too vague, suspected of hype; his team, will not discuss XR and "meta-universe" together, therefore, "meta-universe" of Therefore, the ebb of the "meta-universe" does not mean the ebb of XR. "There is an objective law of technology development, which is step by step forward and will not 'explode' in a short period of time.

The term "meta-universe" was also not mentioned at the Apple Developer Conference.

Zhang Wulong also agreed with this point, he said, since the introduction of VR all-in-one machine in 2019, the industry has more than 10 times the growth; big factory adjustment triggered by the "retreat" evaluation, mainly because the public for VR such an emerging industry expectations are too high: "big factory into the game, the capital is hot, the market Concerned, as if next year will explode; big factory adjustment, capital moved to other hot spots, the market failed to explode as expected, as if next year will be 'cool'."

Zhang Wulong and the above-mentioned VR practitioners mentioned that the XR industry has experienced many cycles of ups and downs, "some changes are capital disturbances brought about by the change of pace, not the industry itself out of the question.

This year, the XR industry has become active again. on June 1, OPPO launched MR Glass Developer Edition, providing developers with tools to verify and develop XR content; on the same day, Meta launched its new MR headset Quest 3.

In May, Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth said on social media that 2023 "represents a pretty big shift" into "VR 2.0," which will include two-handed Tracking, eye tracking, facial tracking and other technologies, and they "are the new baseline for the future of specific types of devices".

Some practitioners also told the "financial eleven", although the Apple headset attention is very high, but are previously available technology, "not particularly beyond expectations, the direction is also the industry consensus"; 25,000 yuan high selling price can not bring substantial break circle for the industry, after a short period of public opinion, the industry will still return to the dull.

An optical enterprise mid-level said that in the past years, the AR/VR field has been lacking rigid application scenarios, commercial applications are still immature, and it is difficult to make a big leap in two years.

Shipments have not yet kept up either. Third-party research firm IDC data shows that the global AR/VR headset shipments in 2022 will only be 8.8 million units, a significant gap compared to the level of 1.2 billion smartphones and 500 million smartwatches, and shipments are still declining year on year, down 21%.

But no matter what, the release of Vision Pro has injected fresh blood into an industry that has been dormant in the public eye for some time. The above VR practitioners commented: "The good show has just begun".

After 8 years of brewing and many jumps, the much-anticipated Apple headset has finally been unveiled.

At 1:00 a.m. Beijing time on June 6, Apple (AAPL.O) held WWDC 23 (Worldwide Developers Conference) with the theme of "Code New Worlds". At the conference, the MR (mixed reality) head-mounted display Vision Pro was released as the grand finale, priced at $3,499 (about $25,000), and will be available in the U.S. in early 2024, and later in the global market.

Vision Pro is equipped with the M2+R1 dual chip and uses the visionOS operating system, which allows the wearer to navigate through eyes, gestures and voice. The main feature of this headset is the integration of AR (augmented reality) and VR (virtual reality) technologies, which allows the wearer to stay connected to the real world while experiencing the virtual world. At the application level, beyond the common games and movies, Vision Pro also expands into office and leisure scenarios.

"Mac brought us into the era of personal computing, iPhone brought us into the era of mobile computing, and Apple Vision Pro will bring us into the era of spatial computing." Apple CEO Tim Cook said at the launch event.

Vision Pro means a lot to Apple. It is Apple's first new product since the release of the Apple Watch in 2014; it is also the next generation of end devices that Apple is betting heavily on after the sluggish growth of products like the iPhone. For Cook personally, this is likely to be his last work during his tenure at Apple.

But the capital market did not buy it. On the eve of the launch, Apple shares once rose more than 2%; after the release of Vision Pro, affected by factors such as high selling price and late production time than market expectations, Apple shares fell to $180 from a high of $185 per share, and the total market value evaporated $84.5 billion (about 600 billion yuan) from the highest point.

In the past two years, the XR (extended reality, including AR, VR, MR) industry has experienced a round of rise and fall due to the concept of "meta-universe". Microsoft, Meta (formerly Facebook), Tencent, Byte Jump and other major Chinese and foreign technology companies have entered the market, building XR teams, developing hardware and software, and then collectively making business adjustments and layoffs at the beginning of this year.

The release of Vision Pro has brought new vitality to the XR industry. IDC China senior analyst Zhao Siquan judged that it is difficult for Apple to achieve leapfrog development in the industry with a new generation of new products, the industry's new display and interaction technology component yields, mass production time is still uncertain, and major technical problems still need to be overcome; however, the release of Vision Pro is a great opportunity for industry-wide hardware research and development, content ecology upgrade and However, the release of Vision Pro is a positive signal for industry-wide hardware R&D, content ecology upgrade and new technology development in the industry chain.

The device is not mature enough

The most important feature of Vision Pro is that it combines the attributes of VR (full access to virtual space) and AR (virtual images and information superimposed on the real world); the wearer can both interact with the real world and be fully immersed in the virtual world.

News site 9TO5Mac writer Chance Miller tried it out and said that Vision Pro can be adapted by performing a vision test on the user. The headset is controlled by tapping a finger to select an object, pinching to zoom in and out (like on an iPhone), and flicking the wrist to scroll.

He said it took some time to learn how visionOS operates; but after 30 minutes of experience, he was used to this type of use. Also, during the experience, Apple would repeatedly emphasize that the headset would allow the user to stay connected to the real world around him, for example, he could look left and right at two other people in the demo room.

Chance Miller also mentioned that Apple did not even mention the word "headset" in the press release, referring to it as a "spatial computer" and calling visionOS "the world's first spatial operating system".

One of the highlights is the abandonment of the traditional VR device's handle, which allows free interaction with gestures alone. Another feature is the design Apple named "eyesight", which is a screen outside the headset that can project eyes when the user communicates with reality. Software level, Vision Pro in a number of Apple App applications, and iPhone, Mac and other products linked, it is also different from the advantages of other headset devices.

But at this stage, Vision Pro is hardly "mature". 25,000 yuan high price, external power cord, 2 hours of short battery life, are destined to be an extremely limited market scale products. But there is a consensus in the industry - Apple's hand, more important than anything else, because Apple's usual style is to wait until the product experience is good enough to launch.

PICO Asia Pacific corporate marketing leader Zhang Wulong told "Financial Eleven" that the cardinal point of the industry's outbreak at this stage is VR content, "When users create VR content as easily as shooting short videos, the moment when the VR industry explodes is not far away."

An Apple supply chain enterprise source also told "Financial Eleven" that the fatal pain point of the AR/VR industry is ecology, and the ecology is most lacking in volume to get started. For developers, Apple is not only willing to invest in research and development products, but also provides them with a large number of development tools, which greatly reduces the difficulty of adaptation.

As early as 2017, Apple launched ARKit, an AR development platform. last January, Cook had revealed that the App Store had more than 14,000 ARKit applications. "These are the dry goods." The supply chain business person said that the VR/AR industry has been struggling to move forward for a long time, and now he finally sees a little light.

After the ebb of the "meta-universe" of big manufacturers

Before Apple's launch, the XR field has experienced multiple rounds of ups and downs. Previously, Sony, Oculus, HTC and other companies have led the XR trend, but soon cooled off.

The most recent high point was two years ago when Roblox, a game development platform that proposed the "Metaverse" in its prospectus, successfully went public and Facebook, the world's largest social software platform, changed its company name to "Meta "The concept of "Metaverse" became popular, and the Internet majors laid out their plans, and then cooled down once again after the buzz.

In April 2021, Byte Jump invested in code Qiankun, a meta-universe concept company (the company has a social platform for teenagers to create "Reboot World" with a similar concept to Roblox); in August, it acquired PICO, a VR hardware manufacturer, for 9 billion yuan; in June 2022, Tencent set up XR department in Interactive Entertainment Group (IEG), whose business includes software and hardware. 2021 Racer pushed forward the integration of meta-universe with short video and live broadcast, launching virtual anchors and virtual idol singers. Wan Pengfei, head of Y-tech AI technology center, has said that meta-universe is an important direction on the development path of Racer.

By February of this year, the big manufacturers have collectively adjusted their XR business again.

Byte jumping in PICO opened organizational optimization, layoffs, surging news cited PICO insiders said that the overall layoff ratio is not high, the move is a normal organizational structure adjustment, PICO business operations will not be affected. Tencent announced the cancellation of the entire line of XR positions, and responded that XR business will change the path of hardware development, the relevant business team to adjust. Racer adjusted the panoramic video business, and Ma Yingwu, the head of the Yuan Universe/panoramic video project, left. Microsoft disbanded the industrial meta-universe team, which was established only four months ago.

At that time, there was a view that the "retreat" of big manufacturers in the field of "metaverse" was a sign that the XR industry had entered a "cold winter". But some practitioners do not agree with this statement, they believe that this is the normal adjustment of the industry in the process of development.

One of the VR practitioners working in the Internet company told the "financial eleven", the intensive adjustment of each big factory, not because the industry is cold, the prospect of worry, just happened to adjust the time close. In addition, the person believes that the concept of "meta-universe" is too vague, suspected of hype; his team, will not discuss XR and "meta-universe" together, therefore, "meta-universe" of Therefore, the ebb of the "meta-universe" does not mean the ebb of XR. "There is an objective law of technology development, which is step by step forward and will not 'explode' in a short period of time.

The term "meta-universe" was also not mentioned at the Apple Developer Conference.

Zhang Wulong also agreed with this point, he said, since the introduction of VR all-in-one machine in 2019, the industry has more than 10 times the growth; big factory adjustment triggered by the "retreat" evaluation, mainly because the public for VR such an emerging industry expectations are too high: "big factory into the game, the capital is hot, the market Concerned, as if next year will explode; big factory adjustment, capital moved to other hot spots, the market failed to explode as expected, as if next year will be 'cool'."

Zhang Wulong and the above-mentioned VR practitioners mentioned that the XR industry has experienced many cycles of ups and downs, "some changes are capital disturbances brought about by the change of pace, not the industry itself out of the question.

This year, the XR industry has become active again. on June 1, OPPO launched MR Glass Developer Edition, providing developers with tools to verify and develop XR content; on the same day, Meta launched its new MR headset Quest 3.

In May, Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth said on social media that 2023 "represents a pretty big shift" into "VR 2.0," which will include two-handed Tracking, eye tracking, facial tracking and other technologies, and they "are the new baseline for the future of specific types of devices".

Some practitioners also told the "financial eleven", although the Apple headset attention is very high, but are previously available technology, "not particularly beyond expectations, the direction is also the industry consensus"; 25,000 yuan high selling price can not bring substantial break circle for the industry, after a short period of public opinion, the industry will still return to the dull.

An optical enterprise mid-level said that in the past years, the AR/VR field has been lacking rigid application scenarios, commercial applications are still immature, and it is difficult to make a big leap in two years.

Shipments have not yet kept up either. Third-party research firm IDC data shows that the global AR/VR headset shipments in 2022 will only be 8.8 million units, a significant gap compared to the level of 1.2 billion smartphones and 500 million smartwatches, and shipments are still declining year on year, down 21%.

But no matter what, the release of Vision Pro has injected fresh blood into an industry that has been dormant in the public eye for some time. The above VR practitioners commented: "The good show has just begun".