“Nobody wants to put a device on their head,” Jim Cramer, the hyperactive celebrity financial analyst and host of CNBC’s Mad Money show said in June.
“What’s the point? I have two eyes. Why do I need them augmented? Why would I want myself to be cut off from whoever I was with to put this helmet on?”
Good question. But Cramer did put the helmet on and quickly drank the Kool-Aid. Like many influencers and journalists, he came away from a 30-minute demonstration of Apple’s US$3500 Vision Pro mixed reality headset a VR convert.
“This wondrous device is so far ahead of anything yet dreamed up by Hollywood,” he gushed.
“All said, it took five minutes for me to get used to it, and then I was hooked. That simple.”
The Vision Pro arrived in a carefully stage-managed launch on June 5 during which Apple chief executive Tim Cook chose not to wear it himself, a telling sign that didn’t go unnoticed by Apple watchers.
While the state-of-the-art screen display in the Vision Pro, its numerous sensors, and its slick software interface make it a genuinely innovative product, Apple has dampened down expectations for the device, which will go on sale next year in the US.
It will launch into a soft economy, with an eye-watering price tag that puts it firmly in the realm of well-heeled Apple fans who probably already have an iPhone, MacBook and Apple Watch.
It’s also unclear just how comfortable or convenient it is to use for longer periods than the quick demos the first users in the US were limited to. Is it a device you are likely to want to spend several hours a day wearing?
Where’s the killer app?
Cramer figured that watching TV on the Vision Pro will be its best feature. Instead of looking at a flat-screen TV in your lounge, you can have a screen wrapped around your face, the ultimate big-screen experience – at least for the headset wearer. So much for family movie night.
But I remember watching movies on Samsung’s Gear VR headset five years ago. It wasn’t as high-resolution or as ergonomically designed as the Vision Pro, but I normally tapped out, slightly nauseous after about 30 minutes. Movie watching failed to take off as a popular use of VR because wearing a device throughout a two-hour movie is never going to be a comfortable experience.
Instead, video gaming has accounted for the vast majority of virtual-reality use. Consulting firm Deloitte estimated last year that 12% of people in the US owned a VR headset or had access to one. They are a popular add-on to video gaming consoles and PCs, but even that market has proven to be sluggish.
Analyst group IDC downgraded its global estimate for VR and AR (augmented reality) headsets to 10.1 million from 13 million units. After a blip of enthusiasm following the Vision Pro launch, the VR industry has settled into its usual pattern of VR game and headset releases that incrementally build on what has come before. It’s a sector awaiting its iPhone moment. The Vision Pro, technically, should be it. But no one, not least Apple, seems to be expecting it to repeat the success that greeted the iPhone in 2007, which set the standard for what a premium smartphone could deliver in terms of quality, features, and ease of use.
A 3D-TV moment?
That’s not to say that VR/AR is a dying category. Many promising newcomers such as Google Glass and Magic Leap have arrived in a frenzy of hype and quickly burnt out, or, in the case of Microsoft’s HoloLens, lived on as a niche product serving a genuinely useful purpose in medicine, design, and training.
VR gaming has a solid following, with the likes of Meta-owned Oculus, Sony, and Taiwanese headset-maker HTC regularly releasing new headsets, software and games. But over a decade ago, flatscreen TVs arrived in our lounges capable of displaying 3D video. It was billed as the ultimate home theatre experience.
But the two pairs of 3D glasses that came with my Samsung TV were used once – to watch the 3D version of Finding Nemo. It certainly wasn’t the killer app to take TV viewing to the next level.
Meta’s reality check
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg spotted big potential in VR nearly a decade ago when he bought leading VR company Oculus for US$2 billion. In 2021, he rebranded his social media empire as Meta, signalling his intention to build the metaverse – a virtual world he sees many of us navigating through the lens of a VR headset.
But the metaverse has become a dirty word, scorned by sceptical consumers and Meta’s own investors, who have protested the eye-watering sums Zuckerberg is investing in Meta’s Reality Labs division.
The VR unit of Meta lost US$3.7 billion in the second quarter of 2023, bringing its total losses since the start of 2022 to US$21 billion. Meta’s Horizon Worlds virtual world is estimated to attract only 200,000 active users each month. Zuckerberg faces a long and expensive journey to realising the metaverse.
A vision for AR
Still, Apple’s Vision Pro’s launch at least showed there are some compelling uses of VR beyond gaming, including using photo and video-conferencing apps, and replacing your entire computer screen with a VR display.
The question is whether Apple can lower the price of its device without having to compromise on the technical features that helped produce those rave reviews of the Vision Pro.
I still like the idea of Google Glass, the augmented glasses that stalled amid backlash over the camera built into them that allowed users to record everything they were looking at. Early adopters of the high-tech specs were written off as “glass holes”. Google quietly killed the Google Glass programme for good in March.
But the idea of being able to view message alerts, map directions, and yes, even snap a photo, all via a pair of lightweight glasses, appeals to me. Forget VR, its AR glasses for the masses at a reasonable price that still holds promise to provide the true killer app for the AR/VR world.
VR in New Zealand
There is an enthusiastic cohort of VR users in New Zealand, mainly donning their headsets for more immersive video gaming. Here are three of the best-selling VR headsets on the market here:
Meta Quest 2
A reasonably affordable, easy-to-use headset that doesn’t require you to connect to a PC to run it. Access a large selection of games in Meta’s library, and get a more tactile feel with the hand controllers, but also use your voice to navigate the user interface. An LCD display offers 1832 x 1920 resolution per eye for fairly decent 360-degree video playback.
Price: $699 (bundle)
Sony PlayStation VR2
Purpose built to work with Sony’s PS5 video console, the VR2 headset tethers to the console to take advantage of its processing power and deliver a VR version of some of the best titles from the Sony universe of games. Two 2000 x 2040 OLED displays for excellent ultra-high definition video, with eye tracking and spatial audio. The ultimate add-on for PlayStation lovers.
Price: $899 (bundle)
HTC VIVE Cosmos
A high-quality and well-designed VR headset that plugs into your PC to serve up games, movies and virtual yoga sessions. HTC is a recognised leader in VR headset design. A headset for serious VR enthusiasts though at a reasonable price (HTC’s Vive Pro 2 sells for around $2700).
Price: $1099 (bundle)
