Apple AR/VR headset: Vision Pro features, price, specs, release date and more

Apple’s AR/VR headset, dubbed Vision Pro, is official—learn about its key features, hardware specs, price, release date, availability and other information.

Apple’s extended-reality headset was unveiled during the June 5 WWDC23 keynote. At least seven years in the making, the headset combines virtual and augmented reality into a sophisticated head-worn computer.

Vision Pro could be the AR/VR industry’s iPhone-like moment, and Apple hopes the underlying xrOS operating system will become its next major software platform.

Here are the facts about Apple’s headset, including its key features, hardware specifications, release date, price and other tidbits.

Apple headset: Vision Pro key features

The first version of the Vision Pro includes these key features:

  • 3D interface: Use your eye,s hands and voice to control the UI. The interface looks and feels present in your room, using augmented reality, with virtual items casting realistic shadows on your environment. You can place apps anywhere you want in your real space. So your apps appear right there in your room with you. Focus on an app by looking, flick your finger to scroll or pinch them together to select. For example, you can just look at a search field and instantly use your voice to enter your query.
  • Front display: Called EyeSight, this is a front-facing screen that projects your eyes as captured by the internal cameras to others around you. A blurred mode alerts others you’re deeply immersed in AR.
  • Mindfulness session: Create a private sense of calm.
  • Environments: These are like screen savers for the AR background. You can use these sceneries to calm down, focus, inspire and more.
  • Bluetooth accessories: Magic Trackpad and Magic Keyboard are supported for those who want to enter text or navigate the user interface using the old century method.
  • FaceTime: You can conduct group calls on FaceTime in AR, and participants’ video windows are correctly sized relative to one another.
  • Photos: Your environment dims around you, bringing focus to your colorful photos and videos. Panoramas expand and wrap around you in AR.
  • Camera: This is your first 3D camera. letting you feel like you’re part of the action. You just press a button to capture a spatial image or video.
  • Spatial cinema: You can adjust the screen to the perfect size, and Vision Pro automatically dims the surroundings. You can watch movies with spatial audio, use the Environments feature to dial in soothing environments to enjoy movies in. Vision Pro can even render 3D movies like in movie theaters.
  • Games: More than 100 Apple Arcade games will be playable on Vision Pro from day one, with full controller support.
  • Use as Mac display: Just look at your Mac and then place its screen anywhere you want in AR, giving you a full 4K display.
  • Disney: Disney CEO Big Iger said on stage that it will provide content optimized for Vision Pro.
  • Design: Vision Pro uses a single piece laminated glass, polished to not interfere with the external cameras.There’s a button dedicated to capturing spatial images, and a Digital Crown-like dial. Soft textile parts for the back of the product provide comfort, and you can customize the device fully to fit the shape of your head. The headband is 3d-knitted as a single piece, providing fine cushioning. Those who wear glasses can buy Zeiss optics to adjust. You get up to two hours of use with an external battery pack that uses a wire and a custom plug that connects magnetically
  • Video: Vision Pro uses two micro-OLED displays at 4K resolution each, providing 23 million pixels across two panels (more pixels than 4K per each eye). A 3-element lens designed bay Apple provides experiences “not possible on any device,” including HDR support and sharp text.
  • Audio: Integrated dual-driver speakers render spatial audio like you’ve never heard before. Using a technique calling audio raytracing, Vision Pro adjusts your soundscape to objects in your room.
  • Chips: Vision Pro uses Apple silicon based on the Mac’s M2 chip, which runs in parallel with the new Apple R1 chip that process input from onboard sensors and cameras that Apple says eliminates lag.
  • visionOS: Vision Pro runs a new operating system, called visionOS. It supports foveated rendering, a multi-app 3D engine, real-time subsystems and more.
  • OpticalID: With a little help of internal cameras, Vision Pro authenticate you as soon as you put it on.
  • Privacy: Where you look while wearing the device stays private, is not shared with apps and never leaves the device.
  • Price and availability: Vision Pro starts at $3499 and will be available from apple.com and the company’s retail stores in the United States starting early next year. Vision Pro will expand to additional countries later in 2024.

For additional reading, feel free to browse our earlier articles about the Apple headset and learn more about extended reality on Wikipedia.

More to follow later…