A year ago I wrote a sceptical piece about the just announced Apple Vision Pro. Then, of course, I hadn’t actually seen it. Now I have, courtesy of a demo at the Apple Store, and frankly I was blown away.
Throughout the history of cinema many filmmakers have sought after a total immersive environment – widescreen, Cinerama, 3D, IMAX, Dolby audio, shaking seats and odour sprays – but they never seem to quite convince. The Apple Vision Pro is without doubt the most successful immersive environment I have ever witnessed. Pin sharp, 3D images fill the entire field of vision. Apple’s eye tracking – you select by eye movement rather than hand gesture – worked seamlessly. Like so many innovations, Apple did not invent VR and immersive computing, but it has just done it better than others. Even watching conventional flat movies on the Vision Pro is very impressive – the ‘Cinema Environment’ replicates the movie theatre experience extraordinarily well.
