The Future of Tech: Apple's Vision Pro and the Rise of "Face Computers"

Apple's foray into the "face computer" space (I did not decide on the name) is a glimpse of where our tech is heading and how it could change how we work and play.

2/11/20242 min read

a pair of goggles sitting on top of a table
a pair of goggles sitting on top of a table

You definitely don't need an INR 3L piece of metal and foam, AKA "Face computer," strapped onto your face while you go around your day. But then again, I believe when cars were introduced in the early stages, some people might have thought, who needs a car when I have this nice purebred horse in the stable?

Apple's foray into the "face computer" space (I did not decide on the name) is a glimpse of where our tech is heading and how it could change how we work and play. Apple describes it as a "revolutionary spatial computer that seamlessly blends digital content with the physical world,".

The closest competitor is the Meta Quest devices, the only true competitor to the Vision Pro. According to WSJ reporter Joanna Stern, Vision Pro is much more advanced than the Quest.

Yeah, it's an expensive piece of tech, so what's the point of this discussion? The point is the vision (pun intended) and where this tech lands in a decade, give or take. The applications hover from every day to work, entertainment, cooking, video calls, and much more.

The way Apple releases a product and what it ends up becoming are on different spectrums. The company releases a product. Albeit a seemingly finished product, the use case of the devices is left to the collective efforts of the software developers and customers.

WSJ reporter Christopher Mims writes, "When Apple first launched its Apple TV device, for example, the company touted its ability to run games but has since responded to user behaviour by focusing it primarily on plain old streaming. The same thing happened with the Apple Watch, which at first promised to be something like another iPhone, but on your wrist, but has since been refocused as primarily a health-and-fitness device."

Guess what? Microsoft Office is coming to Vision Pro soon. So you can view your spreadsheets in a much-enlarged version than your company-assigned meagre 13-inch laptops. You can present your PPTs more immersively in a virtual meeting. You can take video calls much more interactively. The possibilities are endless. Take that with a pinch of salt.

So, maybe the V Pro could become a more enterprise-focused product. A mint article says that "After Apple reported its fourth-quarter earnings Feb. 1, Cook said the company was "incredibly excited about the enterprise opportunities with Vision Pro." And Chief Financial Officer Luca Maestri said that companies including Walmart, Nike and Vanguard have started using the headset for everything from collaborative product design to "everyday productivity."

We are living in some exciting times with lightning-fast tech developments. Maybe after we are over the motion sickness, VR/mixed reality could be as ordinary as wearing spectacles in a decade. As a first-generation product, it's big, heavy, buggy, and comes with a ~2-hour battery life, which is meh (for now).

The thoughtful intention, the attention to detail, the engineering, the display, and the ideas surrounding the tech are things that Apple can be bold enough to bring to market with all that money flowing in from the now-turned-cash cow iPhones. Hopefully, other companies can bring on the heat and give the half-eaten-apple giant a tough time, whereby the true winners would be us- the customers.