Apple unveils 'Vision Pro' headphones that will cost $3,500 – will they be what people are looking for?

Apple on Monday unveiled the long-rumored headset that will place its users between the virtual and real worlds, also testing the possibility of popularizing the new devices after others failed to "capture" the public's imagination.

After years of speculation, Apple CEO Tim Cook welcomed the arrival of "sleek glasses" - called "Vision Pro" - at the company's annual developer conference held at a campus in Cupertino, California, the Telegraph reports.

"This marks the beginning of a journey that will bring a new dimension to powerful personal technology," Cook told the crowd.

But even though Apple executives gave a broad overview of the headset's capabilities during the latter half of Monday's event, consumers will have to wait a little longer before they can get their hands on the device, and should be prepared to pay a high price.

That's because the Vision Pro will retail for $3,500 when it hits stores early next year.

"It's an impressive piece of technology, but it was almost like a tease," said Gartner analyst Tuong Nguyen. "It seemed like the beginning of a very long journey."

And as foreign media estimate, Telegrafi reports, the headphones could become another milestone in Apple's ability to launch game-changing technologies, even though the company has not always been the first to try producing a special device.

Read too Vision Pro: Apple's new augmented reality headset is revealed - and its price is revealed

Apple's line of innovations dates back to Steve Jobs selling the first Mac in 1984 – a tradition that continued with the iPod in 2001, the iPhone in 2007, the iPad in 2010, the Apple Watch in 2014 and its AirPods in 2016 .

As for the latest product, the company said it drew on decades of product design over the years it spent working on Vision Pro, which Apple said included more than 5000 different patents.

Thus, it is known that the headset will be equipped with 12 cameras, six microphones and a variety of sensors that will allow users to control it and various applications only with the eyes and hand gestures.

Apple said the experience won't cause the dizziness and repetitive headaches that similar devices have done in the past.

The company also developed a technology to create a three-dimensional digital version of each user to appear during video conferences.

However, the glasses will either need to be plugged into a power outlet or a portable battery connected to the headset – a factor that may make it less appealing to some users.

"They've worked hard to make this headset as integrated into the real world as current technology allows, but it's still a headset," Insider Intelligence analyst Yory Wurmser said, but described the discovery as a " pretty engaging presentation” – likely to help overcome skepticism about the technology.

However, analysts don't expect the Vision Pro to be a big hit right away.

This is mainly due to the high price, but also because most people still cannot see a compelling reason to wear something around their face for a long period of time.

So, if it fails to convince people, it would leave Apple in the same position as other big tech companies and startups that have tried to sell headphones or glasses equipped with the technology.

Otherwise, the founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, has described these three-dimensional alternative realities as "metaverse".

It's a strange concept that he tried to push into the mainstream by changing the name of his social networking company to Meta Platforms in 2021 and then pouring billions of dollars into improving the virtual technology.

But Cook and other Apple executives avoided referencing the metaverse in their presentations, describing Vision Pro as the company's first step into "space computing."

In general, it can be said that the response to virtual, augmented and mixed reality has definitely been "so-so" so far.

Some of the devices that use this technology have even been the subject of ridicule, with the most notable example being Google's Internet-connected glasses released more than a decade ago.

Microsoft has also had limited success with HoloLens, a mixed-reality headset released in 2016, though the software maker earlier this year insisted it remains committed to the technology.

Magic Leap, a startup that sparked excitement with previews of a mixed-reality technology, had so much trouble selling its first headset to consumers in 2018 that it has since shifted its focus to industrial uses. health and emergency.

Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives, who expects an initial tepid response to the Vision Pro, estimated that Apple will sell 150,000 headphones in the first year on the market before scaling to 1 million headphones sold in the second year — a volume that would make the glasses "small" in the company's portfolio.

By comparison, Apple sells more than 200 million of its own branded iPhones annually. But the iPhone wasn't an instant sensation, with sales of less than 12 million units in its first full year on the market. /Telegraph/