Today’s announcement by Apple about the entertainment aspects of the Vision Pro was followed up by new hands-on stories from Engadget and The Verge. A lot of what they saw was similar to the WWDC demos, but there were some new highlights, including additional Environments, a beta of the Disney+ app, Apple’s Encounter Dinosaurs app, and the Vision Pro’s floating keyboard.

One of the big open questions about the Apple Vision Pro is how well its virtual keyboard works. Interestingly, Engadget’s Cherlynn Low and Dana Wollman had very different experiences with it:

Cherlynn: It’s not as easy as typing on an actual keyboard would be, but I was quite tickled by the fact that it worked. Kudos to Apple’s eye- and hand-tracking systems, because they were able to detect what I was looking at or aiming for most of the time. My main issue with the keyboard was that it felt a little too far away and I needed to stretch if I wanted to press the buttons myself….

Dana: This was one of the more frustrating aspects of the demo for me. Although there were several typing options – hunting and pecking with your fingers, using eye control to select keys, or just using Siri – none of them felt adequate for anything resembling extended use. It took several tries for me to even spell Engadget correctly in the Safari demo.

Engadget’s editors were also impressed with the Disney+ Avengers and Star Wars-themed environments.

The Verge’s Victoria Song and Editor-in-Chief Nilay Patel also spent some time with the Apple Vision Pro. According to Song’s story:

Nilay had shot some spatial videos where he’d intentionally moved the camera to follow his kid around the zoo and felt some familiar VR motion queasiness. Apple says it’s doing everything it can to reduce that, but it’s clear some shots will work better in spatial than others — like any other camera system, really.

Song describes the experience of seeing EyeSight demoed, too:

So we got to see a demo of EyeSight — what an onlooker would see on that front display when looking at someone wearing the Vision Pro. It’s a bit goofy, but you can see the wearer’s eyes, part of what Apple calls a “persona.” (We were not able to set up our own personas, sadly.) When Apple’s Vision Pro demo person blinked, we saw a virtual version of their eyes blink. When they were looking at an app, a bluish light appeared to indicate their attention was elsewhere. And when they went into a full virtual environment, the screen turned into an opaque shimmer. If you started talking to them while they were watching a movie, their virtual ghost eyes would appear before you. And when they took a spatial photo, you’d see the screen flash like a shutter.

What’s clear is that it’s one thing to read about these experiences with the Vision Pro and a completely different thing to live them. After reading several accounts, I still don’t know what to expect myself, except in the broadest sense. That’s both a little frustrating but also very exciting.

Source: Apple.

Apple has announced that the Vision Pro will be available for pre-order beginning on January 19th at 5 am Pacific time with the device available on Friday, February 2nd at Apple retail stores and its online store.

The Apple Vision Pro starts at $3,499 and has 256GB of storage. The device comes with a Solo Knit Band and Dual Loop Band, a Light Seal, two Light Seal Cushions, a cover from the front of the Vision Pro, a polishing cloth, a battery, a USB-C charging cable and a USB-C power adapter. Also, ZEISS Optical is offering reader inserts for $99 and prescription inserts for $149 that will attach to the Vision Pro magnetically.

Apple’s CEO Tim Cook said of the device:

The era of spatial computing has arrived. Apple Vision Pro is the most advanced consumer electronics device ever created. Its revolutionary and magical user interface will redefine how we connect, create, and explore.

Today’s Apple Newsroom announcement includes images of the Solo Knit Band, Dual Loop Band, and Light Seal:

The Apple Vision Pro’s Solo Knit Band. Source: Apple.

The Apple Vision Pro’s Dual Loop Band. Source: Apple.

The Apple Vision Pro’s Light Seal and Digital Crown. Source: Apple.

As previously announced at WWDC in June 2023, the Apple Vision Pro will be initially available in the US only. Left unanswered by today’s announcement is whether additional storage options will be available and what they will cost. Also left unsaid is how ordering the ZEISS Optical inserts will work.

Today, Apple published the reactions from some of the people who have attended the Vision Pro labs being held in cities around the world. Those quoted include developer David Smith, the creator of Widgetsmith, the chief experience officer of Pixite, Ben Guerrette, the maker of the video creation and editing app Spool, Chris Delbuck, the principal design technologist at Slack, and Michael Simmons, the CEO of Flexibits, the company whose developers make Fantastical. All four came away from the experience impressed with visionOS and the Vision Pro hardware.

According to Smith:

I’d been staring at this thing in the simulator for weeks and getting a general sense of how it works, but that was in a box. The first time you see your own app running for real, that’s when you get the audible gasp.

Guerrette struck a similar chord:

At first, we didn’t know if it would work in our app. But now we understand where to go. That kind of learning experience is incredibly valuable: It gives us the chance to say, ‘OK, now we understand what we’re working with, what the interaction is, and how we can make a stronger connection.’

Any time new hardware with its own operating system is announced, the challenge is to get it in front of as many developers as possible to ensure there are apps for the launch. Apple has tackled the problem with a combination of an app evaluation process, labs in big cities around the world, and developer kits shipped to developers who had to apply for access. From the reactions quoted in the story published on Apple’s Developer website, hands-on time with the Vision Pro sounds as though it was well worth the effort to travel to one of the labs.

Today, Apple announced that it, along with Pixar, Adobe, Autodesk, and NVIDIA, have formed the Alliance for OpenUSD (AOUSD), to “promote the standardization, development, evolution, and growth of Pixar’s Universal Scene Description technology.”

OpenUSD is a 3D screen description technology invented at Pixar and open-sourced in 2016. The alliance’s new project, which will be housed in the Joint Development Foundation, an affiliate of the Linux Foundation, has invited other companies and organizations to join in the effort to develop OpenUSD, “a high-performance 3D scene description technology that offers robust interoperability across tools, data, and workflows.”

Mike Rockwell, Apple’s vice president of the Vision Products Group, was quoted in the press release as saying:

OpenUSD will help accelerate the next generation of AR experiences, from artistic creation to content delivery, and produce an ever-widening array of spatial computing applications. Apple has been an active contributor to the development of USD, and it is an essential technology for the groundbreaking visionOS platform, as well as the new Reality Composer Pro developer tool. We look forward to fostering its growth into a broadly adopted standard.

With big companies coalescing around a new standard, that’s one more point of potential friction that hopefully will be removed as creators begin building 3D experiences for the Apple Vision Pro and other devices.

As previously announced at WWDC, Apple today rolled out more details on three programs it has created for helping developers build apps for Vision Pro.

Developers will be able to submit their visionOS, iPadOS, and iOS apps for Vision Pro compatibility evaluations. Apple has included a checklist of steps developers should follow before submitting their apps. Once an app is ready, it can be submitted and will be tested on Vision Pro hardware, after which Apple says:

We’ll send you the evaluation results, along with any relevant screen captures or crash logs.

The second option is to apply to attend a lab in Cupertino, London, Munich, Shanghai, Singapore, or Tokyo. The labs are self-directed testing sites with Apple employees on hand to help with setup and troubleshooting.

Finally, developers can apply to borrow Vision Pro developer kit from Apple. The hardware loans also come with the following:

• Help setting up the device and onboarding.
• Check-ins with Apple experts for UI design and development guidance, and help refining your app.
• Two additional code-level support requests, so you can troubleshoot any issues with your code.

All three programs are open now, so if you’re working on an app for Apple Vision Pro, you can start submitting compatibility evaluation requests and apply for a lab or developer kit today.

What the Golf? running on visionOS. Source: Unity.

Today, as promised at WWDC, Unity launched a beta technology for visionOS developers called PolySpatial, which is designed to help developers bring their apps and games to the Vision Pro, which Apple has said will debut in early 2024.

Mike Rockwell, Apple’s vice president of the Vision Products Group, was quoted in Unity’s press release as saying that:

We know there is a huge community of developers who have been building incredible 3D experiences using Unity’s robust authoring tools, and we’re so excited for them to build apps for Apple Vision Pro. Unity-based apps and games run natively on Apple Vision Pro, so they have access to groundbreaking visionOS features including low latency pass-through and high-resolution rendering. This enables Unity developers to take full advantage of the powerful and unique capabilities of Apple Vision Pro. We can’t wait to see what incredible experiences are created.

Unity’s press release also revealed that Triband is bringing the studio’s game WHAT THE GOLF? to visionOS.

Unity kicked off the application process for developers who want to try the beta version of PolySpatial, saying:

Unity is excited to collaborate with Apple to bring familiar and powerful authoring tools for creating immersive games and apps for this new spatial computing platform, Apple Vision Pro. Your apps will get access to benefits such as pass-through and Dynamic Foveated Rendering, in addition to popular Unity features like AR Foundation and XR Interaction Toolkit.

With a deep integration between Unity’s new PolySpatial technology and visionOS, your apps can sit alongside other apps in the Shared Space. By combining Unity’s authoring and simulation capabilities with RealityKit’s managed app rendering, content created with Unity will look and feel at home.

Developers who are interested in Unity PolySpatial can learn more in the company’s blog post, which links to additional Unity and Apple development resources, and can sign up for the PolySpatial beta here.