The Apple Vision Pro launched today in the United States.
The Apple Vision Pro launched Friday and I was the first person in any part of the DC area to get a demo and purchase the device.
As someone who has been in the XR industry for a long time, I know this day was years in the making and will be a catalyst for future experiences to come.
Apple Vision Pro demo
After quickly settling into the Apple Store near me, I received the first demo of the day.
The demo ended with an immersive video montage including hot air balloons in Turkey and above a soccer field somewhere on the African continent, where children were playing soccer in a field and rhinos were hanging out on the outskirts. The video included footage of a woman petting a baby rhino and ended with video of a grizzly bear in a river.
At that point I started crying. I really didn’t think I would get emotional, as I had worn many devices and experienced the Apple Vision Pro before, but this moment got me thinking. Like hundreds of other professionals, I believe in the promise of spatial computing and have worked in the XR industry for nearly a decade.
It was a moment that many of us were working towards and hoping for, and here it is. As I looked at this bear in the water, probably the closest I want to be to a grizzly bear, I realized, once again, how powerful this technology would be in changing not only human interaction -machine, but also human interaction. communications between humans.
I took the device off and shed a few tears. So many men and women worked to make this moment a reality and it felt like the culmination of all the work, but also the beginning of a new era of computing that is about to take off.
After completing my demo and collecting all my equipment, I left reassured that the career path I had chosen many years ago was the right one for me. The people in the store knew how excited I was and they cheered when I walked out with the first Apple Vision Pro ever sold in that store.
This seemed so meaningful to me because this is my personal Apple Vision Pro.
This is Apple’s first space computer.
Setting up Apple Vision Pro at home
I came home and took the Apple Vision Pro out of the box. I showed it to my daughter and our nanny. Then we decided to be silly and take some photos with the camera. I took several, one of them sitting on the couch with my dog. We just wanted to have fun.
After enjoying some free time with family, I started setting up my device at home. I took it out, connected the battery and off we went to the races. I set up Optic ID and also Apple Pay. I decided to set up my Persona later because I knew I would want to do it when I had good lighting and could sit still for a while. I want to try to get the least weird version of myself possible so that when I appear on Facetime or Zoom as the character, it’s the best possible version of myself. I followed the setup menu, watched a demo, and started downloading apps.
I downloaded a gaming app called Loona, as well as Super Fruit Ninja, one of my favorites. Then I downloaded the Lowe’s app, the PGA app, the Warner’s Max app, also Zillow Immersive, the MyTheresa Luxury Shopping app as well as J. Crew’s Virtual Closet app and a few others.
In the first hour after installation I played space games and had a great time.
I’ve browsed multi-million dollar homes on Zillow; I watched a space video from my family’s vacation, then decided to wrap it up with some retail therapy. I browsed through a gorgeous sequin Balmain dress that I might purchase and decided to shop in the J Crew app. To purchase some cute black platform shoes, I selected my size, added to my cart, and purchased via Apple Pay. It was super easy and fun.
Spatial Retail: Some Thoughts on Shopping in Spatial Computing
Spatial computing is a form of 3D-centric scalable computing that primarily uses AI, computing … [+]
My first impression of the shopping experiences on Vision Pro is that there will be a lot of experimentation to translate the retail experience into spatial computing.
As with anything, there will be hits and misses.
Some apps will provide a first glimpse of tomorrow’s engaging shopping experiences, while others will simply replicate or port what they did on the web into Apple Vision Pro, thereby not leveraging this scalable form of computing focused on 3D.
The way we shop in person is not static, as it can often be within the confines of our mobile devices. Brands that understand this and work with those that understand this will ultimately help prove the value of spatial retail experiences and, in the coming years, will eventually translate into actual physical and virtual fashion sales.
We will see many experiments using high-fidelity assets in shopping experiences that can oscillate between fully immersive environments that can be more fantastical and mixed reality environments where virtual objects must respond to the physical world. I’m particularly excited about the use of Apple’s SharePlay in spatial shopping and, later, the use of Apple Personas for a more immersive and tailored shopping experience.
Brands like H&M and Moschino experimented with spatial computing and shopping experiences as part of the Magic Leap in the late 2010s. Now, we’ll see brands create Apple Vision Pro pop-ups that will exist only for a limited duration or will be linked to a specific event or parade.
I think we’re about to see spatial computing appear on the runways during fashion month.
With spatial computing, the world becomes a catwalk or a canvas, and innovative fashion players will leverage and exploit technologies that enable spatial computing, such as AI, computer vision and XR, while that agile and innovative emerging players will do so as well. leverage technology and get ahead of some incumbent operators, just like what happened with mobile.
Fashion is constantly evolving and the transition from mobile computing to spatial computing will once again change the situation.