Can Apple Head Show this Fire, Light up the Dark Night of the Metaverse?

After 12 years of taking over from Steve Jobs, Cook finally ushered in his true Onemorething moment, hoping to use MR (augmented reality) to usher in the post iPhone era.

At the Apple World Developers Conference (WWDC) on the early morning of June 6th,This MR device has been officially named Apple VisionPro instead of the previously rumored RealityPro, priced at $3499 (approximately RMB 25000), which is higher than the rumored starting price of $3000 and has been delayed until early next year, and is only available in the United StatesThe non disclosed items can be delivered this autumn, and other countries or regions will not be eligible for purchase until later next year.

In a keynote speech lasting over two hours, Apple successively released a new 15 inch MacBookAir equipped with M2 chips, a MacStudio equipped with M2Max and M2Ultra chips, and multiple hardware versions of MacPro equipped with M2Ultra chips. They also presented functional updates to four major systems, including iOS17, macOS14, iPadOS17, and watchOS10. The official versions of these latest systems will be promoted to all end users this autumn.

As the highlight of this year's WWDC, Apple spent nearly an hour explaining the design, experience, and technological innovation of its first MR product.

On the day before the release of Apple's MR, Guo Mingyi, a well-known Apple analyst at Tianfeng International Securities, wrote that the key factor for the success of Apple's AR/MR headsets in the long run is whether they can be highly integrated with artificial intelligence (AI) or generative artificial intelligence (AIGC). However, under the stimulation of NVIDIA's soaring stock price, investors are paying more attention to when Apple will launch a similar ChatGPT service than headsets.

Although Apple has not mentioned any trends related to the AI big model, when introducing the iOS17 feature update, Apple executives talked about the intelligent upgrade brought by the use of Transformer, the hottest language prediction model at the time, to keyboard text input and dictation functions.

In just one year, AIGC has replaced the metaverse as the latest trend. Meta, which once heavily invested in the metaverse, saw its stock price plummet by over 70% and underwent two rounds of layoffs among 10000 employees internally; PICO, acquired by Byte for billions of yuan, has also revealed a 15% layoff plan for a 2000 person team; Technology companies such as Microsoft, Google, Tencent, and Baidu that have laid out their metaverse have also welcomed plans to reduce their projects and products.

Under the cold winter of the metaverse, the hope of the VR/AR industry in the entire village is now placed on the Apple family.

Despite Cook's high-profile comparison of VisionPro with the personal computing era opened up by the Mac and the mobile computing era opened up by the iPhone, shouting the slogan of "the era of spatial computing is coming", VisionPro, which has not had a breakthrough innovation in appearance design and application experience,The capital market has not been ignited by new enthusiasm from Apple.

On the evening of June 5th Beijing time, after the US stock market opened, Apple's stock price rose by over 1.4%. After the release of VisionPro, Apple's stock price fell by 0.76% at the close of the day, and continued to decline by 0.28% after hours.

A

In order to differentiate from existing VR/AR products, Apple has brought many highlights and functional designs to VisionPro.

The most intuitive manifestation is that Apple VisionPro is no longer equipped with peripheral controllers.Just like the Mac has a mouse and the iPhone has multi-touch, Apple has developed a new 3D interactive interface for VisionPro, which requires no controller and additional hardwareComplete various interactive actions through the coordination of eyes, hands, and voice.If you move your eyes, you can complete the navigation, pinch your fingers to complete the selection, and flick your palm to scroll the page.

According to Apple's official statement, the coordination of hands and eyes "feels like using your mind to control everything

To enable voice typing, users only need to look at the search bar to start it, and VisionPro also supports using Siri to quickly open and close applications.

In order to make the operation more convenient, Apple also equipped VisionPro with two physical buttons. One is a digital knob, which can adjust the canvas size to change the user's immersion in the spatial environment. The other button can take photos or record videos with one click.

Under Cook's strong social interaction philosophy of 'few people would think that being confined to a certain world is natural. Because we are all social beings',Apple has designed an innovative feature called EyeSight on VisionPro.

With the help of a double-sided display screen, when someone is near the user, VisionPro will display the user's eyes, making the head display screen translucent. When the user is immersed, the screen will be covered by a five color halo, and outsiders will no longer be able to see the user's eyes.

In addition,In order to solve the dizziness problem after wearing VR/AR head display products, Apple has developed a dual chip design, which is equipped with M2 and a new R1 chip. M2 ensures operational performance, while R1 ensures the elimination of delayed experiences.

The Apple R1 chip is designed to handle real-time sensor processing tasks and can simultaneously process data collected by 12 cameras, 5 sensors, and 6 microphones. With the help of R1, VisionPro's new images can be transmitted to the monitor within 12 milliseconds, which is eight times faster than a person's blink speed.

Apple, which has always been known for its privacy and security, has also introduced a new feature on VisionPro, which is OpticID, which is different from FaceID. By using a unique iris, users can quickly unlock VisionPro by registering an OpticID comparison. At the same time, learning from the lesson of Google Glasses being accused of violating the privacy of surrounding people, Apple has intentionally added a visual indicator light on EyeSight to remind those around it that they are taking space photos or videos.

Like other mainstream VR/AR products,Apple VisionPro also supports Bluetooth connectivity, which can be connected to an external keyboard or optical insert to meet the wearing experience of nearsighted individuals.

However, VisionPro did not bring obvious "Killer application" in the presentation of specific application scenarios, but simply demonstrated the upgrading experience of VisionPro in office, home and entertainment scenarios.

However, Apple's rich software and hardware ecosystem is still expected to bring it a competitive advantage compared to other VR/AR head display manufacturers. For example, VisionPro can maintain synchronization with Macs, iPhones, iPads, such as memos, photos, documents, information, etc., which can be automatically updated between multiple devices through iCloud.

Zhongtai Securities pointed out in this analysis that the multi device interconnection function of Apple MR will bring higher ecological convenience and richer content experience, and have broad application space in entertainment, office, and other fields. For example, the 3DFaceTime conference has been regarded as the main demonstration highlight of Apple MR ecological content.

When VisionPro is released, all apps on iPads and iPhones will be available for use on VisionPro. In order to further improve the content ecosystem, Apple has also called for Disney to assist, and Disney+will become the first streaming platform to enter VisionPro.

But considering the selling price of up to $3499, whether Apple's series of eye-catching features on VisionPro can become a differentiated advantage that attracts ordinary users to rush to purchase is currently a question mark.

The lesson of MetaQuestPro is right in front of us. Last October, the device was released for $1499, but after its launch, it suffered a double defeat in sales and reputation. Meta not only lowered the price to $999, but also was exposed that it had decided to stop the research and development work of the QuestPro second-generation internally.

Another major factor that hinders users from getting started is battery life.As a new terminal computing device that is expected to replace the iPhone, the Apple VisionPro can only be used for up to two hours when connected to an external battery without being plugged in.

According to previous revelations, VisionPro has far deviated from Cook's initial plan. In Cook's original plan, Apple's first MR product should be a small and lightweight pair of glasses that can be worn all day.

But in the face of reality, Cook's envisioned MR device had to evolve into a headwear device similar to ski goggles, requiring a separate battery pack.

One of the reasons for doing so is that, while ensuring its lightness and thinness, VisionPro must reduce its battery power to one tenth of the iPhone while maintaining performance comparable to the iPhone in order to avoid device overheating issues.

B

Apple has put in eight years of effort to strike a balance between ideals and reality, thereby driving MR towards mass production.

In 2015, which is considered the "VR Year", Apple just completed its acquisition of German startup Metaio.The acquisition of this project incubated in Volkswagen was originally intended to strengthen Apple's auto drive system with its AR technology, but with the emergence of virtual reality boom, Apple has taken the opportunity to rely on Metaio to form an AR/VR project team. Since then, Apple has invested over $1 billion annually in this project. And formed a research and development team of thousands of people. In recent years, Apple has successively acquired over 10 companies related to VR/AR technology.

According to The Information,The Apple VR/AR project has sparked significant internal disagreements, with the board temporarily suspending project development and constantly changing the product roadmap.

In 2016, Apple's board of directors had a concentrated exposure to a large number of VR/AR devices and prototypes, demo demonstrations, etc. Initially, under the insistence of former Apple designer Johnny Ivy, Apple considered adopting a "VR box" design to achieve VR functionality by pairing it with smartphones. However, Mike Rockwell, the then VR/AR project leader, hoped to launch more powerful related devices in the form of VR all-in-one machines.

In the end, under Cook's coordination, Apple chose a compromise route - first developing products in the MR form, and then gradually evolving to a more lightweight, compact, and powerful AR form.

AR is the area that Cook has always been optimistic about.In an interview with Independent in 2017, Cook said, "AR is a great idea like a smartphone

In an interview with Time magazine in December 2021, Cook directly said, "Metaverse and AR are clearly two different words, and I will only refer to them as AR

Internal disagreements have led to changes in the external release time of Apple's headsets. According to Bloomberg, Apple's head display was initially planned to be announced in 2019, and then released in 2020, and then released in 2021, and officially launched in 2022.

Apple, which has been slow to achieve results in expanding its VR/AR market, has also experienced the bitter consequences of this, with talent loss being the first to bear the brunt.

According to Bloomberg, after Meta made a full bet on the metaverse, approximately 100 engineers were poached from Apple in the second half of 2021. In order to retain key employees, Apple has even had to distribute huge bonuses in the form of stocks to some engineers involved in chip design, hardware, some software, and operations.

Just three months before the release of VisionPro, Apple was even hesitating internally whether to delay it again. According to the Financial Times in March, the design team suggested patiently waiting until the technical path for lighter and thinner AR devices is established, which means it will take several years for the product to go live. The operation team hopes to launch the product as soon as possible, even though the equipment may be bulky and expensive.

In the end, Cook chose to support the operations team and rejected the opposition from the design team, which finalized the plan for VisionPro to be launched by WWDC this year.

The price of rushing to go public is that Apple has already lowered the sales of its first MR product, from its original annual sales of 3 million units to 900000 units. According to Guo Minghui, the expected shipment volume of VisionPro is even only 200000 to 300000 units.

Behind the significant reduction in sales, there is an implicit adjustment in Apple's strategy. According to Bloomberg Technology reporter Gurman's analysis,Apple's first MR display is not aimed at profitability, but rather to establish a solid foothold in the VR/AR market as soon as possibleTo consolidate the company's market position.

Apple's true goal is to quickly obtain first-hand feedback from users and the market through VisionPro, and use subsequent product iterations to gradually reduce prices and evolve into the form of AR glasses, known as the rumored Apple Glasses, which is the ultimate weapon Apple plans to harvest the market.

C

It is not only Cook who sees smart glasses as the key to unlocking the post iPhone era, but also Ma Huateng, who proposed the new concept of the full truth internet, Zuckerberg, who renamed Facebook Meta, Allin Metaverse, and Zhang Yiming, who invested billions in acquiring PICO, among others.

At the end of 2020, Ma Huateng pointed out in an article in the company's internal journal that another major reshuffle is about to begin. Just like the transformation of the mobile internet, those who cannot board the ship will gradually fall behind... Now, an exciting opportunity is coming. After a decade of development, the mobile internet is about to usher in the next wave of upgrading, which we call the Quanzhen Internet

In order to implement Ma Huateng's true Internet concept, Tencent not only announced the acquisition of Blackshark Technology, a game phone company, and will shift its business focus from game phones to VR devices as a whole, but also officially established the XR department under IEG (interactive entertainment business group), which will be in the charge of Ma Xiaoyi, a senior vice president of Tencent and the actual trader of the game business.

ByteDance is directly through the way of money for time, spending billions of yuan to acquire the VR manufacturer PICO. In October 2021, Zuckerberg renamed Facebook Meta, announcing the transformation of Facebook into a metaverse company within five years.

But with the arrival of a new era of AIGC, these technology giants that layout the metaverse have fallen into a cold winter: in February of this year, Tencent was suddenly cancelled its XR line; PICO conducts a new round of personnel optimization; Microsoft disbanded the Industrial Metaverse team, and there were no new developments reported from HoloLensAR Head Display; Google officially stops selling AR products; Ma Jie, the head of Baidu's metaverse product "Xirang", has officially resigned and joined AIGC.

Before there is sufficient evidence to prove that the Touareg can become the next star product in the visible future of consumer electronics, the final hope of reigniting the VR/AR industry's enthusiasm may only be achieved by Apple.MagicLeap CEO Peggy Johnson believes that he will never underestimate the ability of Apple devices to dominate the consumer market. "It's difficult to innovate in the market, but you have to leave it to Apple. They are very skilled in this area

The deeper significance of the widespread attention given to Apple's MR products by the outside world also lies in this. Once Apple truly enters the field, with its unparalleled appeal in the consumer electronics field, its global number of over 30 million developers, and its software management ecosystem spanning the world, coupled with Apple's continuous financial support, it will undoubtedly attract more people to invest in the VR/AR field. Investment bank Wedbush believes that this will make filling the VR/AR related ecological gaps more efficient.

Cook did the same.Along with VisionPro, there is also a new operating system visionOS that is compatible with MR head display. Just as the AI big model is expected to reshape all applications, Cook also hopes that developers can use VisionPro to reimagine all existing apps and create new ones.

Feeling the closed ecosystem model built by Steve Jobs' iPhone and iOS, Cook is replicating this successful experience in the field of smart head displays. VisionPro will also have a brand new AppStore.

After leading Apple from $400 billion to $2 trillion, and even exceeding $3 trillion at one point, 12 years after taking over from Steve Jobs, doubts about Cook still exist. Especially with the peak growth of the smartphone market, the VR/AR industry is not only an excellent opportunity for Cook to prove himself, but also expected to help Apple explore a new growth curve.

The release of Apple's MR headshot either became one of the hallmarks of the Cook era or announced that the main reason for Apple's success was Steve Jobs, "Gulman said.

References:

Another iPhone grade hardware is coming from Apple, but the first generation products may disappoint you. "Tencent Technology

Zuckerberg "Truncates" an Apple, But It Doesn't seem to Work "Tiger Sniff

Apple MR7 Years of Development History: Internal Expectations Drop Again and Again, Cook Makes Employees "Depressed" Love Collection Micro

13 Soul Figures Exposed on Apple MR Head Display! Uncovering the Insider of AR Glasses Dystonia "Smart Things

Byte PICO layoffs, large factories collectively retreat from the metaverse "Leopard transformation