In 2012, as a jab against the recently released Microsoft Surface - a 2-in-1 tablet/laptop combo - Tim Cook said:
"You can converge a toaster and a refrigerator, but those things are probably not going to be pleasing to the user."
When Meta demoed Orion for the press last year, what I found most interesting is not that their approach to product announcements is different from Apple's (since it was a press demo of a product they're not releasing), but that they recognise that AR and VR are different products.
Meanwhile, the Vision Pro is the toaster-fridge. A product that is always going to be compromised by the fact it's trying to be more than one thing.
That's why it's a VR device that can't actually play most existing VR content because it doesn't have hand-controllers.
I've heard Jason Snell describe the Vision Pro as an AR emulator, since the technology doesn't yet exist to build the product Apple wanted. I think that's a fair assessment, but the Vision Pro currently offers:
- Immersive environments for watching videos, playing games, etc (VR)
- A virtual Mac display (AR)
- Various games (AR and VR)
- Immersive video on Apple TV (VR)
- Spatial computing (AR)
- Apps like Jigspace for exploring 3D content (AR)
Which means at some point in the development journey, the AR emulator also became a VR device. But if they really could build Orion-style glasses then features like immersive environments and video would no longer be possible. The immersion disappears if I can still see the real world out the side of my glasses. I want to watch NBA games and feel like I'm in the arena, not that the players are in my living room.
This is an area I haven't seen discussed. Is their lack of effort in producing regular immersive content simply because they don't want to produce a VR device? Are they eventually going to have to admit that Meta are right, and these are two different product lines?