Apple is about to launch the Apple Vision Pro, a mixed reality headset. The most advanced consumer headset on the market. This new addition to the MR market will thrust Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality and Mixed Reality back into the limelight for the forseeable future. As consumers and business users explore the capabilities of Apple’s addition to this rapidly developing marketplace, it is likely that such an advanced product will reinvigorate the competition and innovation for other competitors in the space such as Meta with their Quest 3 and Bigscreen’s high resolution microLED Bigscreen Beyond headset. Each headset has their own target audience, advantages and, of course, limitations. Apple’s contribution appears to offer premium quality materials, build, technology and design whilst making the bold move of using an external battery to supply power. Their most notable selling point is that the device will introduce Spatial Computing to the marketplace.
Spatial Computing
Spatial Computing is a term that describes how computers function in a way that interprets intent, context and purpose related to objects, events and people as well as their x, y, z co-ordinates within a space. In a recent article on LinkedIn, Paul Tomlinson, a futurist, scientist and researcher at Mural argued that Apple’s new headset did not use Spatial Computing in the true sense of the term. He also recognises that the journey towards true Spatial Computing must begin somewhere and a headset of this calibre is a good place to start.
…there’s almost nothing about what we’ve been shown so far that makes what the Vision Pro does ‘spatial’. Depth cues on icons and shadows on furniture don’t make this 3D; maybe a really slick 2.5D at best…Computers don’t care about the ℤ, any more than they already care about the 𝕏 and the 𝕐. The added dimensionality is only meaningful to us, and how we perceive it: to our spatial cognition – Spatial Computing is 5 Dimensional – and Apple’s Doing It Wrong, Jan 2024
So I decided to drop Paul (also known as Ptom to his friends in VR) a line to see if he would like to discuss the article and outline his own definition. Below is a video of our meeting in virtual reality using Horizon Workrooms, a Meta Quest Pro (Paul) and a Quest 3 headset.
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