SPECIAL REPORT
40 years after the Mac made its debut, Apple is reinventing computing –again!
By the time you read this, the first US customers for Apple’s new Vision Pro will be getting their hands on the headset – arguably the most revolutionary product the company has launched since the iPhone arrived in 2007 and the Mac made its debut 40 years ago.
While the jury’s still out on whether the Vision Pro will prove successful, it heralds the arrival of ‘spatial computing’ – Apple’s term for anew way of using devices that’s fully immersive, while also delivering the familiarity and intuitiveness that we’ve come to expect from the iPhone, iPad and Mac.
Central to the Vision Pro’s way of doing things is anew OS: visionOS, which takes everything you know about macOS, iOS and iPadOS and then cunningly places it inside in a threedimensional (3D) space. To use visionOS, you will, of course, need to wear the Vision Pro, with the headset placing its interface right in front of your eyes through the use of the stereoscopic 3D display system. You’ll be able to read our first impressions of the new Vision Pro on p13, but let’s start by talking about all the new things the Vision Pro, and OS offers – from Spatial Video to the OS itself.
Right from the get-go, visionOS comes with many of the apps with which you’ll be familiar: Photos, Safari, Messages and Mail, as well as productivity apps such as Notes, Keynote and Freeform, plus entertainment apps Apple Music and Apple TV. Going hand in hand with Apple’s own apps is anew App Store, with over one million compatible apps already available, including specially developed ones such as Disney+ and Encounters With Dinosaurs, along with over 250 Apple Arcade gaming titles.
New experiences
To access and interact with all of these apps, visionOS presents them, iPadstyle, in a virtual Home View that floats right in front of you. Accessing each app relies on a combination of voice commands, hand gestures and eye movements, with apps opening and presenting their contents in a myriad of exciting new ways. These include Spatial Video, which enables you to capture 3D videos on your iPhone, then immerse yourself in them on the Vision Pro, to a spatial version of FaceTime, which uses Personas to enable you to see life-size versions of whoever it is you’re talking to, with Spatial Audio making their voices sound like they’re coming from exactly where they’re placed on-screen.
While it’s possible to be fully immersed in whatever’s right in front of you, the Vision Pro also enables you adjust the level of that immersion. By using the Digital Crown on the Vision Pro’s top, you can dial back what you’re looking at, enabling you to see your real-world
