Apple Vision Pro. Apple’s Mixed Reality Glasses were showcased in style yesterday at a -WWDC 2023- conference that Tim Cook -Apple CEO- described as The largest developer conference in Apple history. We had iOS 17, iPadOS 17, watchOS 10, new Macs… but the star was the glasses, the aforementioned Apple Vision Pro.
Today everyone is talking about them and their 3,500 dollars. And no, you weren’t confused and entered the Applesfera, the reason we’re telling you all of this is that price is a huge barrier to entry for this technology, and Nine years ago, Google did the opposite: allowing total accessibility when virtual reality was born (well, once again, there was already VR a few years earlier, these technologies are cyclical, like 3D).
Any cardboard, a mobile and you’re done: the recipe for accessibility
Oculus was born in July 2012.a company that wasn’t first in virtual reality, but had geniuses behind it like Jason Rubin (co-founder of Naughty Dog), Hugo Barra (a heavyweight at Google during the early years of Android) and Mr. John D Carmack (one of the creators of DOOM and the best programmers in the video game industry).
Following a successful Kickstarter campaign, Oculus released its first VR headset dev kit and we quickly saw an explosion in the industry. Valve got into virtual reality at the hands of HTC, PlayStation VR came shortly after… well, what everyone wanted their virtual reality headset
At the same time, the universe of augmented reality was beginning to be created, with a few Google Glasses, which we all know how they ended up in, but in the end, the one that most appealed to the general public was virtual reality and, at a At some point, the goal was for virtual reality to be available to everyone.
google i/O from 2014. In those years, I/O was really a developer event. Google has shown the currency of its many operating systems and services and only the most tech-savvy people support these “plates”. Now it’s more “mainstream” events that attract the user with hardware (the Pixel 7a or the Pixel Fold at this year’s event), but in 2014 they presented something that went against the grain.
When almost everyone boarded the ship of futuristic AI helmets, Google sells maps. They were literally cardboard which, with tweaks here and there, became virtual reality goggles. More or less. And that was seen later with the Nintendo Switch and… more cardboard.
The idea was to put the mobile and use both the high resolutions that the devices were starting to reach and the gyroscope and accelerometer to give that feeling of immersion. They not only sold the boxes, but they shared the plans so anyone could make the glasses. By being a little handyman, with the right materials and patience, we could make a headset that was not going to be as aesthetic as Google’s, but functional. And there was the key.
Besides Google’s instructions, tutorials were posted on other sites (if you’re into it, here’s the one on Instructables) and more viewers started popping up that did the same thing as Google Cardboard, but cost a lot more money. Key to the Google project was accessibility
And, of course, in this approach, entertainment was key.. During the presentation of the Apple Vision Pro, those of Cupertino showed applications focused on productivity, telecommuting and professional environments, but gave a lot of weight to leisure. They’ve even teamed up with Disney to bring a special Disney+ app to the Vision Pro.
Video games were also present, but if you ask me, something that stands out is the basic use of the Apple Vision Pro: isolate yourself from the outside world with a giant screen right before your eyes And that, saving panel quality and resolution distances, was what Google wanted it to be for everyone in 2014.
Though Caesar’s is Caesar’s, the Apple Vision Pro is the mixed reality many of us had imagined
But hey, in the end, it’s not just about watching videos, and the Apple Vision Pro are a technological milestone. Apple says it’s the most technologically advanced product ever made (whatever that means) and the truth is, if it works as well as it’s been shown in the videos, they’re amazing.
It’s an almost perfect mix. between virtual reality and augmented reality, showing digital elements in the real world in a very coherent way, but with the possibility of locking ourselves into this digital world whenever we want. With a large cinema screen or a video game, for example.
Plus, your hands are in control, be able to connect a Bluetooth controller like the PS5but with the naturalness of using our hands as the main method of control.
Google, after the Google Glass fiasco, has another approach to augmented reality
Currently, if you search for “Google Cardboard” on Google, the first two or three results have a Cardboard-related URL, but they redirect you to Google’s AR and VR page. You can access the Cardboard open source project. If you know a bit of programming, you can get to work.
Well, now the company doesn’t have a viewer or anything like that, but they have augmented reality in mind a lot. In fact, the approach is similar to that of Apple until the introduction of the Vision Pro.
Well, the philosophy is identical to that of Cardboard: that everyone uses their mobile to access cutting-edge technologies. An example is to see certain monuments and buildings in 3D thanks to virtual reality, certain functions of Google Lens or the new routes that Google Maps has recently launched in certain cities. IKEA also has something similar.
Then yes, Apple Vision Pro is revolutionary because they are the perfect mix between augmented and virtual reality, true mixed reality, but many will use it to see movies and photos in a big way and that’s something that Google has already enabled in the past of a infinitely more accessible way.
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