For several years, Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple, has been looking for his Next Big Thing, the tech find that’s driving mass adoption and shaking up an entire industry. This attempt was announced Monday, June 5 with the presentation of an augmented or virtual reality helmet called Vision Pro. Noted for its degree of technological advancement compared to its competitors signed Meta or Microsoft, the product will be sold for 3,499 dollars (about 3,250 euros). It’s expensive, but never forget that the first Mac cost the current equivalent of $7,300 when it launched, and the average buyer spends $1,000 on a new iPhone.
For Tim Cook, Apple boss since 2011, the Vision Pro – what he calls “spatial computing” that goes beyond the screen – is a huge gamble. Apple intends to revolutionize a sixth sector, no more and no less, as it did for personal computing with the Mac in 1984, music with the iPod in 2001, mobile telephony with the iPhone in 2007, tablets with the iPad in 2010 and watches with the Apple Watch launched in 2015.
This time, the brand is attacking television, cinema, and also targeting industry, with a device that will change the way of designing a car, an assembly line or a molecule. And that should change the way to interact with a personal computer. The success of this helmet, the first version of which was, unsurprisingly, cumbersome and expensive, will be measured over years. But the dice are rolled.