# video_summary

date: 2023-06-15 07:16:32.780112
video_id: SSC0RkJuBVw
title: Apple Vision Pro - Is it worth $3500?
transcript:
The title of the video is Apple Vision Pro - Is it worth $3500?.  This is the Apple Vision Pro headset. It starts at $3.5,000. It's going to very possibly replace the smartphone one day. So, how does it work? What's good about it? What's bad about it? And then most importantly, why in earth is Apple doing this? So, it's a pair of goggles that you wear over your eyes. I wouldn't exactly say they make you look cool. Like these auto-timting sunglasses I'm testing for another video. Kind of do. Wow. But I think the key thing that Apple's trying to go for here is to make it look seamless. They've designed it in a way that even though there is more tech going on in this headset than literally any other consumer tech product on the market right now, that it doesn't feel like a burden. So, how does it work? Well, the main thing that you're going to be seeing is the screens. There's two of them. There's one for each of your eyes, which, you know how in the real world, each of your eyes sees things from a slightly different angle, and that's what gives things a sense of depth. This allows them to recreate that same effect, but in the digital world. So, it will feel that you can reach out and touch the things you're seeing, which is not completely new, but it does seem like one of the most convincing applications of that. In large part because of how good the screens are. To give you an idea, the iPhone screen is already pretty sharp, right? Like you would struggle even if you stare right up close to discern individual pixels on this. Well, the screens on these glasses have kind of make this stuff up. 64 times the pixel density of the iPhone. That's almost impossible to even visualize, but they're doing that because even when your eyes are right up next to these screens, they don't want you to ever see an individual pixel. So, yes, this thing is really, really expensive, but we need to make something very clear. That this is not just a pair of movie glasses. The kind you've been able to buy already for the last 15 years, that you stick on your face and you watch TV on. This is Apple fleshing out what's very likely to become the replacement to the smartphone one day. A way to watch things, yes, but also a way to communicate, to express yourself and one day be able to use all the apps that you've gotten used to, but in a whole new dimension. It's the equivalent of not just having like a 6.5 inch screen like I have on my iPhone right now, but a screen that at all time can fill your entire vision. And if your entire vision is just display, then you have basically unlimited room for your apps. And so, as you can probably imagine, to achieve that, the hardware also has to be a lot more than just screens on the inside. So, you'll notice if you look at the bottom, this thing is covered in sensors. You've got 3D cameras, you've got light-up scanners for depth detection and more. So, the 3D cameras can continue to feed you a 3D view of the room you're in, just like your eyes would normally do. And then because you've got these depth sensors, you can place your apps within these rooms. And what I thought was just such a cool touch is that they actually have a presence. You'll see them casting a shadow on your desk, or if you're watching a movie, you will see the glow from the screen, spill over into your surroundings. Don't get me wrong, there are some very legitimate concerns about tech like this. And I'm getting there, but at the same time, this has been the wet dream of every developer for the last 30 years. And so, some part of me is kind of shocked that one fell swoop. It's not just here, but this well, fort out already. And then the other thing that you can tell Apple is trying to push here is that, this is not you losing yourself in your own little world, in your own content, this is a social experience. And for that, the inside of the headset is lined with a second set of cameras, which kind of feels like the next iteration of how phones right now have a rear set of cameras and a front set of cameras. And this has a few implications. It can A, record your eyes, and then use its general understanding of what your face looks like to turn those eye expressions you make into a full-on photorealistic digital avatar for when you're having FaceTime calls. So it will look like your entire face, even though it isn't. So then also, it can project a 3D model of what your eyes are actually doing underneath this headset to the external screen. Yes, the outside is a 3D screen too. And yes, the image that other people see will change based on the angle that they're looking at you from. And this is kind of weird. I've definitely not used to it. And it's not something I ever expected a headset to do, but it does make you look like you're present. When you're doing things that are augmented reality, where you can see other people in the background, it's making it clear to them that you can see them, which does at least somewhat address that kind of uneasiness that you'd get by not actually knowing what someone wearing one of these headsets is looking at. And then when you switch to something that's a full-screen experience, your external screen will cloud over to, again, communicate that to the people around you. And then the third thing that these internal cameras do, assisted by some tiny little infrared sensors, is that these are how you control the thing. And this moves me on to the things that I really like about the Vision Pro. Because yeah, really, it tracks the pupils in your eyes, it learns what irises and uses that as the way to authenticate you and automatically unlock itself. It knows exactly where you're looking, and effectively makes your eyes the cursor to hover over things. I was a little nervous that they then make you have to blink every time you wanted to click something. Thank God they haven't, because that would be a fast track ticket to a headache. Instead, you could just use your fingers. Your glasses will know where your fingers are, because of these cameras, which have a massive field of view. And from the moment that I first saw this, I thought, yes, this is the most natural way to interact with a VR or AR headset. It's going to make it feel like an extension of you. And I'm so glad that you don't have to reach out and hold your hands up like this, because that's gimmicky. The fact that you can just rest it on a table or your lap and still use it, that is going to be the key to it feeling seamless. Kind of like when we first saw touch screen phones that didn't need styluses, you'll just interact with your fingers and, I mean, the rest is history. Plus, you do also get Siri to type things with your voice, and you can also link it with your normal Apple keyboards and mice. And then you've got the power. When I first saw that Apple was making a headset, I initially thought, oh, okay, well, it's going to require you to have an iPhone, and that iPhone is probably going to be the main source of computing power, and it'll just stream to the headset, which is just where you view it. That would have been the simple way to do this. But Apple has, instead, very clearly drawing a line that separates this from just being an accessory to the phone. This is a brand new product category with a brand new operating system for the first time since they launched the Apple Watch nearly 10 years ago. And with that, it's got its own laptop quality M2 chipset inside of it, as well as a dedicated R1 chip that's going to focus on processing the insane amounts of data from the 12 cameras, 5 sensors, and 6 mics on the thing. And then to keep the whole thing juiced up, got quite a weird solution, in that it's an external battery pack that you keep in your pocket. And my very first thought was, this doesn't feel very Apple. It's not the seamless, polished, perfect solution, and the fact that it only lasts like two hours on a charge definitely makes it feel a little bit less bleeding-edge. But I do think it was the right decision, because it allows you to redistribute a large part of the weight and size of the headset, which if it's being designed for daily wear, is really really important. It's still not light by any stretch of the imagination. I mean, it is made of glass and aluminium mostly, but it's not bad, B, it means that it's completely standalone and portable. Having a battery and having your own chip means it doesn't require you to be plugged into a console or a PC. It, C, allows you to quickly swap out batteries, instead of needing to actually take the headset off and recharge it. Although, to be fair, based on the cost of the headset itself, I don't think many people are going to have spare budget to buy extra batteries. But D, what I think is the most important part of this is that it's allowed them to get the product out sooner. If Apple had waited for the day where they could get this much power in this kind of form factor with an integrated battery, this tech might well have been sitting on a shelf for another 10 years. But the fact that they are putting out now means not necessarily that now is the time to buy on, but that in 10 years' time, this tech is going to be in a much better place than if they waited for the first iteration to be perfect. It's also going to be a really comfortable way to consume content. So I took an 11 hour flight to get here. I've pre-downloaded some podcasts on my phone, but the whole time while doing that, I was just thinking, this doesn't feel like the idea way to consume that content. Whereas the Vision Pro would have an even more immersive screen, that even though it's smaller will feel a lot bigger, have speakers that fire directly into my ears, it'll rest naturally over my eyes so that I don't need to hold it or prop it up to get just the right angle. In a way, this one product has the best parts of every one of Apple's other products baked into it. The connectivity of the iPhone, I mean, the current Vision Pro does not have a sim slot in, but there's no reason why the next generation couldn't. The display quality of the $5,000 Pro Display XDR, the computing power of the MacBook, not to mention the whole other extra dimension it's adding. And then cameras, this is where you really feel the benefit of wearing your tech. In the sense that all of a sudden, you don't need to take anything out to take a photo or video. It's one button, so you can experience a moment, while also at the same time resting easy, knowing that you're recording that moment, in the exact same way that you experienced it, in full three dimensions. I mean, this is a huge deal. We've been capturing photos and videos for over the last 50 years in two dimensions. So if this headset or the idea of this headset catches on and becomes mainstream, that changes the entire paradigm of what it means to capture a memory. But there are also some things that do concern me. For example, I find it kind of funny that in the same presentation, Apple talked about how it's introducing a feature that encourages you to keep screens further away from your face, and then introduced a device that keeps screens one inch from your face. Then there's the next thing, which is that there's already very little separation between us and our technology. You only have to take your phone out your pocket and your screen auto turns on and you're blasted by notifications. When the device is on your face, there's no escaping it, and that's also slightly worrying. The FaceTime thing also kind of creep me out. So when you first set this headset up, you do a full 3D scan of your face, and from that point onwards, whenever you FaceTime, what the other person sees is technically a reconstruction of your face instead of your actual face. And at least with the state that it's in right now, it does feel uncanny valley kind of weird. But the key thing that I don't think any future revision of this headset could ever solve is the potential for isolation. I am so incredibly excited that this next era of tech is here, but I've never wanted and not wanted a product to exist at the same time as much as I do with this one. For the simple fact that I do think this is the start of the end for shared experiences. At the end of the Apple event, where they were leading up to announcing the price, they were like, you know, if you bought a massive TV and a proper sound system, you'd spend like 12k. But with this, all of those things together are just 3,500. But the key thing that was missing from that is that a cinema room is an experience for a family. This is an experience for one. I mean, yeah, you could buy four or five with the entire family and then technically watch the same film all at once. But what I imagine is a more likely scenario is that everyone's actually just watching their own thing. And that core human connection that we've built up ever since we first discovered fire and we've gathered around it will start to fade. And that brings me onto the why. Why is Apple doing this?
 I mean, let's face it, this does not feel well timed. The AR and VR headset market shrunk by like 50% last year. No one wants the metaverse. People don't like the idea of wearing a thing over their head the whole time. And at $3,500, this is not going to sell in the quantities that the iPhone did. Well, I think this is an optimistic gamble. I think this is Apple having seen the potential of VR and AR, having seen that it could potentially allow people to do way more than their current phones can and they're trying to win the market early. And to be honest, I think they've got a pretty good chance. Apple has kind of a reputation at this point for moving into product categories, not necessarily being the first to enter them, but dominating them. The iPod became the best selling MP3 player, the iPhone, the best selling smartphone, the iPad, the best selling tablet, and the Apple watch the best selling smartwatch. And see, Apple has been secretly preparing for this headset for years now. They introduced LiDAR scanners into the iPhone 12 Pro for depth perception in the cameras, which as well as benefiting the iPhone, has silently been training developers on how to best take advantage of LiDAR so that this headset doesn't feel like a sudden new development pull challenge for them. How they've been focusing really hard on Siri's voice to text engine, knowing that one day it may well be the primary way to type things. How a couple of years ago, they announced spatial audio for AirPods, which tracks the movement of your head and adds the dimension of direction to your sound. Not that useful for an iPhone, but for a headset, this designed around head movements, I mean, it's pretty clear, that's what it's really made for. No other company has had an opportunity like this to slowly, gradually build up all the separate ingredients of what makes a headset like this. And that's what's allowed this to launch as a far more complete product than anyone else has in their first gen. And I honestly don't know what other company is gonna be able to compete with it. I think Apple is fully aware. This is not about to replace the iPhone now, but it is going to sit at the pinnacle of Apple's lineup. And it's also pretty clear that the ceiling for what this can do is way higher. And so if Ten years down the line, let's say the iPhone keeps plateauing and this takes leaps and bounds and gets slimmer and lighter and way more powerful. I don't think it's unreasonable for the iPhone to start to drift away into being a legacy product. One thing is for sure, they absolutely need developers to get on board for this thing to pay off. This isn't like a watch where you can just build some health apps and some sleep tracking and that covers 90% of use cases. This is a platform that could carry us for the next 20 years into the future with applications that are far bigger and more complex than anything we've seen before. At the same time, of course, it's also arguably the hardest market to break into right now, because Apple has to not just make the best products, but they also have to change the way that society uses technology. So the purpose of this video is not to say, you should go out and buy one of these, but it's validation that AR and VR are very likely going to be the next chapter in technology. And now that this is out there, the use cases for it are about to get a lot better very quickly. If you enjoyed this video, then a sub to the channel would be visionary. Catch you in the next one.

summary:
Apple's Vision Pro headset is going to replace the smartphone one day. It's going to be replaced with a smartphone. The headset is a pair of goggles that you wear over your eyes. Apple's iPhone screen is 64 times the pixel density of the iPhone. It's expensive, but it's not just a pair of movie glasses that you've been able to buy already for 15 years. if your entire vision is just display, the hardware has to be a lot more than just screens on the inside. The 3D cameras can continue to feed you a 3D view of the room you're in, just like your eyes would normally do. The Vision Pro can record your eyes and then use its general understanding of what your face looks like to turn those eye expressions into a full-on photorealistic digital avatar for when you're having FaceTime calls. Apple is making a VR or AR headset. It's going to require you to have an iPhone and that iPhone will be the main source of computing power. It will stream to the headset. Apple has a new operating system for the first time since they launched the Apple Watch nearly 10 years ago. It has its own laptop quality M2 chipset and a dedicated R1 chip that will focus on processing the insane amounts of data from the 12 cameras, 5 sensors, and 6 mics on the thing. It's an external battery pack that you keep in your pocket. I took an 11 hour flight to get here and I've pre-loaded some podcasts on my phone. It's going to be a better place than if they waited for the first iteration to be perfect. The Vision Pro has an even more immersive screen. The current Vision Pro does not have a sim slot in. Apple introduced a feature that encourages you to keep screens further away from your face and then introduces a device that keeps screens one inch from the face. The next thing is that there's already very little separation between us and our technology. Apple's AR and VR headset market has shrunk by 50% last year. People don't like the idea of wearing a thing over their head the whole time. The price is $3,500. Apple has been preparing for the iPhone 12 Pro for depth perception in the cameras. The iPhone has been training developers on how to best take advantage of LiDAR so that it doesn't feel like a sudden new development pull challenge for them. Apple has a reputation for moving into product categories. The iPhone needs developers to get on board for a watch that covers 90% of use cases. This is a platform that could carry us for the next 20 years into the future.


