Is Apple's Vision Pro another "iPhone moment"?

In 1999, a 600-page history of Apple by Michael Malone was published under the title 'Infinite Loop' describing the company's rise and fall. The subtitle was: How Apple, the World's Most Insanely Great Computer Company, Went Insane.

Apple is not only not dead but alive and kicking. After 24 years, this insane company has reached insane value and is the world's most expensive valued company. And although its legendary founder is gone it looks as if his spirit still hovers over the company. Yesterday's Vision Pro presentation shows that Apple is once again pushing the boundaries of personal computing. And although the product itself will probably be a market flop, as it is absolutely the first in a series of prototypes, I would bet money that Apple will succeed in opening up Virtual Reality to ordinary people, just as it did with the personal computer 40 years ago.

No, I am not an Apple fanboy, although I am writing this text on this manufacturer's laptop and using an iPhone.?

I am aware that the unbelievably created Apple brand also has its dark sides and Steve Jobs was not only a brilliant visionary, but also a very difficult man. Including for those closest to him.

In his book "Palo Alto" (highly recommended, an entry from this year), the columnist of, among others, "Wired" Malcolm Harris shows all the sins of Apple throughout its history.

It can be said that Apple de facto created Foxconn, the Taiwanese hardware manufacturer that got exclusive rights to produce the iPhone. Foxconn first started mass onshoring production to mainland China. Foxconn took advantage of the mass migration of young Chinese to the cities and created huge manufacturing campuses where working conditions verged on exploitation (to put it euphemistically). The sweatshops sewing Nike sneakers were talked about, the working conditions in iPhone production were not. In 2009, a wave of suicides began at Foxconn. The response was to suspend safety nets on high production buildings. Apple by no means suspended its relationship with its supplier and Jobs soured the whole thing by saying that people sometimes take their own lives.

Harris describes and other stories from Jobs' life like how he put his pregnant girlfriend out on the street and didn't pay child support for his daughter, after which he paid exactly the amount indicated by the court.

I take issue with all this because Harris's book is written from strongly left-wing positions, but it is nevertheless good that books like this are being written and not just monumental biographies portraying legendary founders like Greek heroes, to say the least.

But back to the present. Will Vision Pro glasses become a breakthrough on the scale of the iPhone? In my opinion, yes.

Why do I think so? Human-machine interaction has long been talked about in the context of the development of artificial intelligence. I think augmented reality (AR) tools such as Vision Pro are just an example of how humans will not so much collaborate as interact with machines. The machine becomes an extension of the human.?

Sound too lofty? Maybe. But as with the iPhone, I expect the market for apps for AR devices to explode. And these apps will be AI-based. As we walk around the house we will get information in a way similar to car navigation about what we can cook, how it will affect our diet, which book from our library we can use to write an article etc.

Sound like science fiction? Yes. But watch the Vision Pro presentation piece. Will it happen now? In my opinion, no. The Vision Pro is probably something like early Apple computers before the Macintosh era. Who among you, by the way, remembers the iPhone 1? I remember it as the first iPhone 2. But according to a reviewer at TechCrunch (link below), the Vision Pro is done really brilliantly and the biggest AR problem, which is image latency, is contained like never before. Apple claims that 5,000 patents held by the company have been applied to the Vision Pro. Impressive.

Will Vision Pro be a market success? Commentators don't think so. The $3500 price tag will make it a product for rich early-adopters. But wasn't this the case with other Apple breakthrough products again recalling the famous 'iPhone moment'? Apple seems to have a strategy of releasing its first products to gather data and see how consumers use them.

Why did Apple decide to release the device just now, when rumors had already announced it a year ago? In my humble opinion, they were waiting (various information was probably also reaching them) for the founding models to appear. Because would augmented reality applications without AI really be interesting? They would be a cool gadget in my opinion, but probably nothing more. With the breakthrough in AI, AR goggle apps allow humans to literally 'walk through the world with AI assistance'. We have ChatGPT built-in our eyes. It seems amazing to me. And somehow terrifying at the same time, but maybe it's just the age.

Have a great week ahead!

Maciej