Apple headset, savior or shooting star

Author: Zheng Keshu, Liu Shuqi, Gu Lingyu, Editor: Liu Yiqin

**Source: **Finance Eleven

Image source: Generated by Unbounded AI tool

After 8 years of brewing and multiple ticket bounces, the much-anticipated Apple headset was finally unveiled.

At 1 am on June 6, Beijing time, Apple (AAPL.O) held WWDC 23 (Worldwide Developers Conference) with the theme "Code New Worlds". At the meeting, the MR (mixed reality) head-mounted display Vision Pro was released as the finale, priced at $3,499 (about 25,000 yuan), and will be sold in the United States in early 2024, and the global market will be later.

Vision Pro is equipped with M2+R1 dual chips and uses the visionOS operating system. The wearer navigates through eyes, gestures and voice. The main feature of this headset is the integration of AR (Augmented Reality) and VR (Virtual Reality) technologies, so that the wearer can stay in touch with the real world while experiencing the virtual world. At the application level, in addition to common games and movies, Vision Pro also expands office and leisure scenarios.

**“Mac will bring us into the era of personal computing, iPhone will bring us into the era of mobile computing, and Apple Vision Pro will bring us into the era of spatial computing.” **Apple CEO Tim Cook said at the press conference.

Vision Pro means a lot to Apple. This is the first new product launched by Apple after the release of Apple Watch in 2014; it is also the next-generation terminal device that Apple is betting heavily on after the growth of iPhone and other products is sluggish. For Cook personally, this is likely to be his last work during Apple's tenure.

** But the capital market did not buy it. **On the eve of the press conference, Apple’s stock price once rose by more than 2%. After the release of Vision Pro, affected by factors such as the high price and the mass production time being later than market expectations, Apple’s stock price fell from a high of $185 per share to 180. U.S. dollars, the total market value has evaporated by 84.5 billion U.S. dollars (about 600 billion yuan) from the highest point.

In the past two years, influenced by the concept of "Metaverse", the XR (extended reality, including AR, VR, MR) industry has experienced a round of ups and downs. Chinese and foreign technology companies such as Microsoft, Meta (formerly Facebook), Tencent, and ByteDance have entered the market one after another, building XR teams, developing software and hardware, and collectively adjusted and abolished their businesses at the beginning of this year.

The release of Vision Pro has brought new vitality to the XR industry. Zhao Siquan, a senior analyst at IDC China, judged that it is difficult for Apple to achieve a leapfrog development of the industry with a new generation of new products. The yield rate and mass production time of new display and interactive technology components in the industry are still uncertain, and major technical problems still need to be overcome; but Vision Pro's The release is a positive signal for the hardware research and development, content ecological upgrading and new technology development of the industry chain in the whole industry.

Equipment is not mature enough

The biggest feature of Vision Pro is that it combines the attributes of VR (completely entering the virtual space) and AR (superimposing virtual images and information on the real world); the wearer can not only interact with the real world, but also be fully immersed in the virtual world.

Chance Miller, author of the news website 9TO5Mac, said after a trial that Vision Pro can test the user's vision to adapt. The headset is controlled by tapping your fingers to select objects, pinching to zoom in and out (like on an iPhone), and flicking your wrist to scroll.

He said that it takes a certain amount of time to learn how to operate visionOS; but after 30 minutes of experience, he has become accustomed to this method of use. In addition, during the experience, Apple will repeatedly emphasize that the headset can keep the user in touch with the real world around him, for example, he can look left and right at the other two people in the demo room.

Chance Miller also mentioned that Apple didn't even mention the word "headset" in the press release, calling it a "spatial computer" and calling visionOS "the world's first spatial operating system." ".

Judging from the effect of the press conference, the experience of Vision Pro is not much different from the existing products on the market. One of the highlights is that it abandons the handle of traditional VR devices and can realize free interaction only by gestures. Another feature is what Apple calls "eyesight," a screen on the outside of the headset that projects eyes as the user communicates with reality. At the software level, the linkage of multiple Apple Apps in Vision Pro with iPhone, Mac and other products is also an advantage that distinguishes it from other head-mounted display devices.

**But at this stage, Vision Pro can hardly be called "mature". **The high price of 25,000 yuan, external power cord, and short battery life of 2 hours are destined to be a product with an extremely limited market scale. But there is a consensus in the industry - Apple's move is more important than anything else, because Apple's consistent style is to wait until the product experience is good enough before launching.

Zhang Wulong, head of PICO’s Asia-Pacific enterprise market, told Caijing Eleven that VR content is the sticking point of the current industry explosion. “When users create VR content, it’s as easy as shooting short videos, and the moment when the VR industry explodes is not far away.” gone."

A person from an Apple supply chain company also told Caijing Eleven that the fatal pain point of the AR/VR industry is ecology, and ecology needs the most volume to start. For developers, Apple is not only willing to invest in product development, but also provides them with a large number of development tools, which greatly reduces the difficulty of adaptation.

As early as 2017, Apple launched the AR development platform ARKit. In January last year, Cook revealed that there were more than 14,000 ARKit apps in the App Store. "These are the dry goods." The supply chain business person said that the VR/AR industry has been struggling for a long time, and now he finally sees a little light.

After the ebb tide of Dachang "Metaverse"

Before the Apple conference, the XR field experienced many rounds of ups and downs. Previously, companies such as Sony, Oculus, and HTC had led the XR trend, but they quickly cooled down.

The most recent climax was two years ago when Roblox, a game development platform that proposed "Metaverse" in its prospectus, was successfully listed. Facebook, the world's largest social software platform, changed its company name to "Meta", and the concept of "Metaverse" began. After becoming popular, major Internet companies have deployed one after another, and after the excitement, the temperature has cooled down again.

In April 2021, ByteDance invested in Metaverse concept company Code Qiankun (the company owns a youth-creating social platform "Restart the World" similar to Roblox); in August, it acquired VR hardware manufacturer PICO for 9 billion yuan. In June 2022, Tencent established an XR department in the Interactive Entertainment Group (IEG), whose business includes software and hardware. In 2021, Kuaishou will promote the integration of Metaverse, short video and live broadcast, and launch virtual anchors and virtual idol singers. Wan Pengfei, head of Y-tech AI Technology Center, once said that Metaverse is an important direction on the development path of Kuaishou.

**In February of this year, major manufacturers collectively adjusted their XR business. **

ByteDance started organizational optimization and layoffs in PICO. The Paper quoted PICO insiders as saying that the overall layoff ratio is not high. This move is a normal organizational structure adjustment, and PICO’s business operations will not be affected. Tencent announced the cancellation of all XR positions, and responded that the XR business will change the hardware development path, and the relevant business teams will adjust. Kuaishou adjusted the panoramic video business, and Ma Yingwu, the project leader of Metaverse/Panoramic Video, resigned. Microsoft disbanded the Industrial Metaverse team that had been established for only four months.

At that time, there was a view that the "retreat" of major manufacturers in the "Metaverse" field was a manifestation of the XR industry entering a "cold winter". However, some practitioners do not agree with this statement. They believe that this is a normal adjustment in the development process of the industry.

**One of the VR practitioners who works for an Internet company told Caijing Eleven that the intensive adjustments of various major manufacturers are not because the industry is in a cold weather and the prospects are worrying, but it just happens that the adjustment time is close. In addition, the person believes that the concept of "metaverse" is too vague and suspected of speculation; his team will not discuss XR and "metaverse" together. Therefore, the ebb of "metaverse" does not mean that XR Ebb tide, "technical development has objective laws, it is moving forward step by step, and will not 'explode' in a short period of time". **

The term "Metaverse" was also not mentioned at the Apple Developers Conference.

Zhang Wulong also agrees with this point. He said that since the advent of VR all-in-one machines in 2019, the entire industry has grown by more than 10 times; the "retreat" evaluation caused by the adjustment of major manufacturers is mainly because the public has over-expectations for emerging industries such as VR. Gao: "Big factories have entered the market, capital is hot, and the market is concerned. It seems that it will explode next year. When big factories adjust, capital will be transferred to other hot spots. The market fails to explode as expected, and it seems that next year will be 'cool'."

Both Zhang Wulong and the above-mentioned VR practitioners mentioned that the XR industry has experienced multiple cycles of ups and downs. "Some changes are rhythm changes brought about by capital disturbances, not problems in the industry itself."

This year, the XR industry has become active again. On June 1, OPPO launched the MR Glass developer version, providing developers with tools to verify and develop XR content; on the same day, Meta launched Quest 3, a new MR headset.

In May of this year, Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth (Andrew Bosworth) said on social media that 2023 "represents a considerable shift" and will enter "VR 2.0", which includes hand tracking, eye movement Tracking, face tracking and other technologies, which "are the new baseline for the future of certain types of devices."

Some practitioners also told "Financial Eleven" that although Apple's headsets have attracted a lot of attention, they are all existing technologies. "It didn't exceed expectations, and the direction is also an industry consensus." It also cannot bring about a substantial break in the industry. After a short period of heated public opinion, the industry will still be flat.

A middle-level optical company said that in the past few years, the AR/VR field has been lacking rigid application scenarios, and commercial applications are still immature, and it is difficult to make a big leap within two years.

Shipments have not kept up. According to data from IDC, a third-party research institution, the global shipments of AR/VR headsets in 2022 will only be 8.8 million units, which is a significant gap compared with the 1.2 billion smartphones and 500 million smart watches. The volume is still declining year-on-year, with a drop of 21%.

But in any case, the release of Vision Pro has injected fresh blood into this industry that has been silent in the public eye for a while. The above-mentioned VR practitioners commented: "The good show has just begun."