Industry insiders: VisionPro is the watershed between VR and AR industries, welcoming competition from Apple

On June 7th, it was reported that after Apple released its new head display VisionPro, some major companies in the fields of augmented reality and virtual reality stated that the debut of Apple's hybrid reality head display was a "watershed" in the industry and they welcomed competition from Apple.On Monday, Apple unveiled the VisionPro headworn device at its annual Global Developers Conference, and months of speculation surrounding Apple's release of its own virtual reality or augmented reality products have finally come to fruition

On June 7th, it was reported that after Apple released its new head display VisionPro, some major companies in the fields of augmented reality and virtual reality stated that the debut of Apple's hybrid reality head display was a "watershed" in the industry and they welcomed competition from Apple.

On Monday, Apple unveiled the VisionPro headworn device at its annual Global Developers Conference, and months of speculation surrounding Apple's release of its own virtual reality or augmented reality products have finally come to fruition.

Cher Wang, CEO of HTC, said in an interview that Apple's move is recognition of virtual reality and augmented reality industries. A few years ago, HTC shifted its focus to Vive's headphone display business due to poor smartphone business conditions.

Cher Wang said: "Apple's entry into this market is a watershed for the entire industry." "This will bring greater confidence to the global virtual reality market."

But she added that there is a problem with the "closed" nature of the Apple service ecosystem. This restriction is even greater when it comes to the platforms and devices that users use to access Apple services.

Cher Wang believes that "Apple's iOS products and content distribution platform have always adopted a closed ecosystem, which may restrict developers from entering a new value chain. If developers are locked in an ecosystem, it is difficult for them to maximize their impact."

Apple stated at the Global Developers Conference that VisionPro allows users to access applications in a new way in the surrounding space. Users can browse applications with their eyes and gestures, and search through voice.

Users can use the VisionPro head display to watch movies, including 3D movies that support spatial audio technology, browse photos or short videos, and also play games. Users can call Microsoft Office tools and video conferencing applications such as Adobe Lightroom to carry out their work.

Apple introduced that VisionPro is equipped with the VisionOS operating system, a spatial computing platform specifically developed by Apple for new headsets, allowing developers to develop applications for headsets just like on the iPhone. VisionPro is scheduled to start shipping early next year, starting at $3499.

Apple also released new features such as the iPad operating system and Apple TV at the conference on Monday. In contrast, people's response to Apple's new appearance is relatively flat.

Cher Wang said, "When these (mixed reality) devices are fully integrated with 5G technology and transmit content from the cloud side computing network, the next major change will occur."

Due to the difficulty of gaining attractiveness for its own products in the fiercely competitive mobile phone market, HTC has spent years transitioning from the smartphone industry to virtual reality.

In 2018, HTC sold most of its smartphone business to Google for $1.1 billion.

For a long time, the virtual reality industry has not received attention, and consumers mainly view this technology as a way to play casual games, rather than a commonly used device integrated into daily life.

Facebook's parent company Meta is betting its entire future on the so-called "metaverse" concept, where people will access the vast virtual reality world through the MetaQuest series of headworn devices and the HorizonWorldsVR social gaming platform.

However, so far Meta has not brought widespread commercial appeal to its products, with the company losing billions of dollars in investment in this technology every year.

Recently, the sales of head display devices in the virtual reality industry have also been poor, mainly due to consumers struggling to cope with the adverse situation of rapidly rising living costs. Last December, research firm NPDGroup stated that the sales of virtual reality headsets in the United States in 2022 decreased by 2% year-on-year to $1.1 billion.

For companies like Apple, releasing a headshot is also surprising, as Apple usually insists on waiting until a mature product becomes popular among consumers before choosing to enter the industry.

Nevertheless, industry executives have stated that Apple's release of the new headphone is an important milestone in the mixed reality market.

Urho Kontori, Chief Technology Officer of Varjo, a Finnish based company, stated in an email that this indicates that hybrid reality may have more feasible use cases in the enterprise field.

The entry of Apple into the mixed reality field with VisionPro is an important moment for our entire industry, "Cantori said

Hybrid reality has become a normalized device in the enterprise field, and the innovative technology pioneered by Varjo has changed the way many large companies around the world work, train, design, research, and collaborate

He added, "We hope today is a turning point in the consumer field, and mixed reality will begin to become a part of their daily lives, with promising applications in entertainment, personal productivity, and communication

Although Apple's new flagship will not be available until early 2024, we expect VisionPro to change the field of spatial computing thanks to Apple's design solutions and innovation in VisionOS, "said Leo Gebbie, an analyst at market research firm CCSInsight

He added, "The field of virtual reality and augmented reality has undergone a period of rigorous scrutiny and questioning recently, but if there is a company that can use the celebrity effect to revitalize this field, it is Apple