Apple go to great lengths to avoid call off theApple Vision Proa practical reality headset . Or augment reality , or assorted reality , or any other “ Reality ” thing . We wrote a second aboutwhat all these terms meanlast year and they all apply to Apple Vision Pro , but it ’s also unlike than other headset .
Instead , the Vision Pro is usually referred to as a spatial computer and the act of using one as spacial computing . Is this verbiage a misanthropic marketing ploy to justify the sky - gamy cost and tardy entry into this get engineering science discipline ? Or is spacial computing something other than virtual or augmented or mixed reality ?
The answer is : it ’s a little of both . By any normal human measure , Apple Vision Pro is a motley - realism headset , with a telephone dial to move between VR and AR views . But it does do spacial computing , which is something of an umbrella term that incorporates most AR and VR stuff and nonsense but also other thing . Let ’s break in it down .
Spatial computing doesn’t have to mean headsets–that’s just where the technology is today.
Spatial Computing defined
There ’s no single universally admit definition of spacial computing , butWikipediadoes a slap-up line of work of breaking it down .
Traditional computing appear to happen inside the computer and is constrained within it . It ’s behind that piece of glass on your laptop computer , smartphone , tablet , whatever . You interact with it within these saltation ( you wiretap the glass , or manipulate an on - screen pointer or character within the bound of the display ) . And everything the calculator beget only interacts with other thing the electronic computer generates .
spacial computing seems to happen in thespace around the substance abuser . It ’s in your aliveness way , on your board , or even in a virtual 3D environs that surrounds you . You interact with it within this space – whether you employ your hands or controllers , you meet , tap , grab , pinch , or move things in what appear to be the blank around you not on a flat chicken feed exhibit . ( It may actuallybea vapid deoxyephedrine display in front of your eyes , but the interaction orbit is “ the place around you . ” ) computer science objects interact with each otherandthe space around you . They take a breather on your table , reverberate off your walls , or even just alter view as you actually physically move around them .
Spatial computing doesn’t have to mean headsets–that’s just where the technology is today.
Most quality New virtual reality experiences are therefore spacial computer science , as are most augment realness applications . In fact , Magic Leap used the terminal figure spatial computer science back in 2020 , three years before Apple Vision Pro was announced .
But spacial computing doesn’thaveto be VR or AR . Apple has been talk up spacial audio recording a mountain , and that ’s a good likely model — if sound come out to hail from the space around the user , in an synergistic fashion ( the sound appear to keep their place in the environment even when the user moves their head ) , that could be considered spacial computing if it ’s part of a computing machine stimulant / output signal scheme .
Those holograph table that you see in all the sci - fi movies , where the protagonists interact with floating graphics to turn in some exposition to the audience ? There are no headset or headphones involved there , but that would still be view spacial computer science . The same could be said of Star Trek ’s famous Holodeck .
Walt Disney
How does Apple Vision Pro fit in?
So while spatial computer science doesn’thaveto be delivered with a VR or AR headset , the current state of applied science means it basically has to be .
Yes , Apple Vision Pro is a assorted - realness headset . It can play virtual - world content or , thanks to a huge fleet of sensors and hi - res picture pass - through , augment - world content . You interact with hooey in either mode in the 3D blank space around you , using your hands and eye trailing .
It ’s accurate to say that it is a more advanced interlingual rendition of thing that have been out there for some time ( notably Meta ’s Quest line ) .
But that does n’t mean spatial calculation is a lie or just a marketing ploy . Itisgood marketing – whileMeta Quest 3is decidedly a spatial computer , it is marketed as amixed - world headset , and Apple can make the appearance that its 7x high cost is justified by involve that it ’s not the same form of thing . But using the spatial computation term is more than just a tacky marketing trick . It ’s also an indication of where Apple is head .
Ultimately , Apple is coiffure its passel on a whole novel engineering science era . Computing happened on stationary reckoner . Portablecomputing lease you take the computer and easily move it somewhere else . Mobilecomputing let you really use the reckoner on the go , and makes your location an important part of how you interact with the gimmick . And nowspatialcomputing really appears to pass off outside the computing machine , in the spaces around you .
Mixed - world headset are just the beginning . There ’s already a engineering pathway to quality augment - reality glasses in the come eld ( Google Glass was a heads - up exhibit , not AR ) , but the framework , technology , and consideration developers need to deal with for this sort of computer science apply to far - throw away ideas like holograms as well . It ’s a new foundation , a new footfall - change in computing , and one with decades of useful emergence forward .
