mattinoz

AppleInsider said:

While Apple may still be on the road to augmented reality glasses, a detour it is taking along the way is a future Apple Vision Pro that goes far beyond just mirroring a Mac's display.

Apple Vision Pro, with a Mac keyboard

Apple isn't abandoning the Apple Vision Pro concept, despite the repeated calls from naysayers to do so. In the lates Power On newsletter, author Mark Gurman details what he's been told Apple is working on, for one of Apple's follow-on units.

The report spits a very fine hair for what's going on with one of the units. A previous report said that Apple had stopped work on glasses that tethered to a Mac. Instead, it is working on a headset that directly connects to a Mac.

The Apple Vision Pro does this already -- sort of. The Developer Strap accessory allows developers to capture a direct video feed from the Vision Pro to a Mac via a USB-C connection, using Reality Composer Pro or QuickTime. This is just a 100 megabit network connection, though, and is relatively bandwidth-challenged for anything other than video stream.

Presumably, this future version would be more flexible than just mirroring a Mac display. It should providing a bidirectional path of data, and not requiring a $300 accessory that only developers can buy to do so.

A cabled versus wireless connection also cuts video latency way down. Cited in the report is viewing surgical imagery or flight simulation -- both needing as little latency as possible.

The concept is fairly sound, and is more or less what happens from most other vendors' headsets. A tether offloads the heavy processing power needed for the headset, keeping the weight off the user's head.

The Valve Index, for instance, relies on cable, beacons, and controllers for identifying the headset and user intent. Meta's devices have taken both approaches, depending on model.

A timetable for release isn't clear. Depending on who you listen to, it could be as soon as the next year, but 2027 seems more likely.

Also not clear is pricing. Apple still catches heat for a $3499 virtual reality and augmented reality headset.

Rumor Score: Likely

Read on AppleInsider

If it is aimed at flight sim and medical uses then the price is not going to drop drastically.  Will be interesting to see how they get a higher bandwidth on a flexible connection given free movement is kind of device requirement. Also a long cable is kind of a key need as well. Sounds like it needs thunderbolt optical to finally be a real thing. 

Optimistic renders indeed.
Thank you for a refreshingly honest description. 

mikethemartian said:

Afarstar said:

Big congrats to Tim Cook for his quiet and thorough diplomacy. All the Cook naysayers should hang their heads in shame. 

Apple is a big company. Big companies can afford their bribes to get special treatment. It is all the small companies that will be screwed.

More likely someone in the administration finally managed to point out that all the exemptions weren’t going to pay much anyway as most of the value is untaxed IP.

so best to remove them so the income doesn’t look piss weak

iqatedo said:

The issue that I have with this advertisement is that once the helicopter arrived, there wasn't more than a ripple in the ocean below. Perhaps it had calmed down by then

Or the downforce of air from a helicopter causes its own ripples radiating outwards.

This is pretty obvious given it is how they do it generally