Apple Vision Pro: the long-awaited glasses that allow us to see the future

Not one, not two, not three... Almost 15 years since the first sketches of an Apple helmet or glasses oriented towards virtual reality, augmented or extended as it ended up being. From that first Steve Jobs patent in 2008 to 2023, there have been 5,000 patents (confirmed by Apple).

However, Apple lenses are already a tangible reality. The Vision Pro, not Apple Reality Pro, already exists. Wow, they do exist. And if it were up to Apple, they would change the current technological paradigm as the iPhone did in 2007.

In the highlight of the keynote that opened Apple’s annual developer conference, WWDC, company executives unveiled a pair of smart glasses that seem to herald a post-iPhone world. Apple has returned to adopting a wait-and-see approach, targeting Meta and now aiming to take control of your face. Will they succeed?

A new Apple “real world”

To start, here is a quick and short summary: interactive screens everywhere. This is Apple’s Vision Pro. A helmet/goggles, let’s call it what we want, that makes all the elements overlap the real world. Although technically it is not augmented reality, it is a mixture of the virtual one that Apple calls ‘extended reality.’ The Vision Pro interface is intuitive: a few gestures and touches of the digital crown were enough for me to understand everything. External cameras make the use of hand controllers unnecessary because the device can “see” the user’s hands. The device as such, is not opaque, since the rest can see our eyes and we can see the real world. It offers a series of controls, such as the digital crown that we have in AirPods Max and Apple Watch. In addition, it is made up of a multitude of sensors and cameras.