Apple has set the release date for Vision Pro, its virtual- and augmented-reality headset — priced at a whopping $3,500 each and hyped as providing “the ultimate entertainment experience.” It marks the company’s most ambitious product launch in nearly a decade.
The tech giant announced that Apple Vision Pro will be available at all U.S. Apple Store locations and the online Apple Store beginning Friday, Feb. 2, with pre-orders beginning Friday, Jan. 19.
Apple unveiled the Vision Pro at the company’s Worldwide Developers Conference in June 2023. The company calls it a “spatial computing” platform — promising that the headset will change the way people work, play games, watch TV shows and movies, and more. CEO Tim Cook has compared the product’s coming introduction to the way iPhone introduced smartphones to millions of people. At WWDC, Disney CEO Bob Iger said the “revolutionary” platform will let the company create “deeply immersive” stories in ways that were “previously impossible.” Iger said Disney+ will be available on Vision Pro on “Day One” and previewed various concepts the company is working on for the device.
But the device carries a steep entry price: Apple Vision Pro will start at $3,499 with 256GB of storage. In addition to the main headset, Apple is selling Zeiss optical inserts, which magnetically attach to Vision Pro, for those with a prescription ($149 U.S.) or as readers ($99 U.S.). The inserts allow users with “vision needs to take full advantage of the display’s incredible sharpness and clarity,” according to Apple.
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As amazing as the Vision Pro might be, it will face competition from cheaper devices — including Meta’s Quest 3 device, which starts at $500. At an employee meeting in June, Zuckerberg downplayed the threat of Apple’s entry into the space, noting the Vision Pro’s high price tag and telling staffers, “There’s no kind of magical solutions that they have to any of the constraints on laws and physics that our teams haven’t already explored and thought of.”
Apple is betting the high-end features of the Vision Pro, which features ultra-high-resolution displays that deliver more pixels than a 4K TV for each eye, as key differentiators.
According to Apple, on Vision Pro, you can watch movies and TV shows from Apple TV+, Disney+, Warner Bros. Discovery’s Max and other services on a screen that feels 100 feet wide. Vision Pro also introduces Apple Immersive Video, a new entertainment format pioneered by Apple that “puts you inside the action with 180-degree, three-dimensional 8K recordings captured with Spatial Audio,” the company said.
Out of the gate, Vision Pro will include something called Environments — which Apple describes as “dynamic, beautiful landscapes” that will immerse users in different exotic locales, including the surface of the Moon, Maui’s Haleakalā and California’s Joshua Tree and Yosemite national parks.
Vision Pro includes productivity and collaboration apps like Fantastical, Freeform, JigSpace, plus apps from Microsoft 365 and Slack. Apps can appear side by side “at any scale to create the perfect workspace,” the company touted. All told, Vision Pro users can access more than 1 million compatible apps across iOS and iPadOS, in addition to apps specifically built for the device.
Apple Vision Pro also lets users view photos and videos “at a life-size scale with brilliant color and spectacular detail,” including panoramic shots that “make you feel like they were right where it was taken.” Customers with iPhone 15 Pro or iPhone 15 Pro Max can capture spatial video and replay them on Vision Pro. FaceTime on Apple Vision Pro makes it appear as if everyone on a call appears life-size while the device’s spatial-audio capabilities make it sound like each person’s voice comes from the location of their tile.
In addition, players can access games on the App Store, including more than 250 titles on Apple Arcade, including “NBA 2K24 Arcade Edition” and “Sonic Dream Team.” New spatial games, including “Game Room,” “What the Golf?” and “Super Fruit Ninja” will take advantage of the capabilities of Apple Vision Pro to transform the space around players, the company said.
The tech giant’s Vision Pro VR and mixed-reality headset reportedly was in development for seven years, and marks the first new product category entry for Apple since it launched Apple Watch in 2015.
