The Apple Vision Pro Goes Global: Will This Mark a Change for Wearable Tech?

This summer, the Apple Vision Pro has hit some of the largest economies in Europe and Asia. The UK, France, China, and Japan have received Apple’s expensive mixed reality goggles, alongside Canada and Australia. As the Vision Pro goes global, wearable enthusiasts should ask if it’ll mark a shift toward adopting this tech in the future.

Apple Vision Pro arrives in new countries and regions beginning June 28.

Customers in China mainland, Hong Kong, Japan, and Singapore can pre-order Apple Vision Pro on June 13, and customers in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, and the U.K. can pre-order on June 28. pic.twitter.com/H3LvT4s3e9

— Apple Vision Pro  News (@AppleVisionPro) June 10, 2024

Wearables & Mixed Reality

If you’re interested in wearable tech, you already know that headsets have yet to off. Even within their specific niches, VR headsets still haven’t and may never go mainstream for entertainment purposes. In the search for expanded use cases, a lot of VR headset developers have embraced augmented reality (AR) and mixed reality instead.

That led to the Vision Pro, where Apple leapfrogged over the competition to provide a pair of goggles that can do most things your smartphone can. That includes internet access, allowing users to work or enjoy a wide scope of entertainment online. Mixed reality can bring online businesses into the real world, by summoning digital storefronts or iGaming slots right in front of your eyes. It does this through the built-in browser where, for instance, you can pull up windows for the casino at Paddy Power Games and control the site with your hands. Likewise, you could stream a show and position its window against your wall, so it looks like a TV that only you can see.

The potential of mixed reality headsets is much greater than VR and other head wearables we’ve seen in the past. By having a transparent screen, users see the real world while simultaneously benefiting from the digital interface in front of their eyes. It can be used for a lot more than entertainment and has practical benefits for users’ work and home lives. This seems to be the way to market wearable devices – most wearables show off practical features over entertainment applications. Take smartwatches and smart rings, whose main draw is their ability to track your fitness and other lifestyle metrics.

The Apple Vision Pro Experiment

The Apple Vision Pro is essentially a prototype, a $3,500 test run for the most avid fans of Apple products and wearable tech. It’s aspirational, with a few flaws highlighted by Forbes that should get stamped out in the future. If successful, it’s virtually guaranteed that Apple will carry the product line forward and make it better, sleeker, and most importantly of all, cheaper. 

It’s hard to tell what success for the Vision Pro looks like since it’s catering to an entertainment medium that hasn’t been fully developed yet. Based on current figures, they produced roughly 500,000 units ahead of the international launch (which may have netted Apple $1.5 billion in sales). For the average person, it’s less costly to get a smartphone and enjoy the same features. Those buying the Vision Pro are buying into something else, and if it takes off, then Apple’s forward-thinking could pay dividends.

After June and July, eight of the most developed economic regions in the world have access to Apple’s latest experiment. In the coming months, we’ll have a much better understanding of how much interest there is in the Vision Pro and the future it was made for. There’s no doubt that if the McKinsey prediction of the metaverse arrives, a product like the Vision Pro would be right at home.

For wearables in general, the Vision Pro’s success could mark a critical leap away from passive fitness tracking and toward active manipulation of the digital world, where the real world is your desktop. If the Vision Pro is unsuccessful, we’ll doubtlessly see wearables continue to dominate in fitness and medical fields, instead of becoming the hot new way to read your emails.

Read more: Apple Delays Vision Pro 2, Focuses on Affordable Headset: Report