Future vision: is Apple reigniting the Metaverse?

The annual WWDC is always a spectacle. It not only reveals Apple’s latest suits of tech (from hardware like the new M2 MacBook Air to software like WatchOS10) but combines them with a sense of theatre, resulting in an undeniable feeling of magic. While most of the 2023 WWDC sped through a number of expected releases, it was the “one more thing” that captured our imagination. The final flourish from this year’s event? The launch of the Apple Vision Pro.

The Apple Vision Pro is an advanced augmented reality (AR) headset. It offers users an immersive and interactive experience by overlaying digital elements onto the real world. The headset boasts cutting-edge technology, including high-resolution displays, spatial audio, and precise motion tracking through the users eyes and hands. With its sleek design and powerful capabilities, the Apple Vision Pro aims to revolutionise how we perceive and interact with our environment, bridging the gap between the digital and physical realms – a tall ask, given how many existing products have not been widely adopted.

The Vision Pro is a sleek, expensive looking product, made primarily of glass and metal and strapped to the head via a 3D knitted band. It looks like something a future Gwyneth Paltrow might wear on a ski holiday. And with a hefty price tag of $3499, it’s positioned for an elite few – for now. Carrying the Pro title, we’re almost sure to see more accessible versions of this product over the next few years. Popular YouTuber Marques Brownlee anticipates an SE version that is sure to be made available at a cheaper price point, bringing the magic of this product to a larger audience.

That brings us to a key question: there’s little doubt that Apple has reinvigorated the VR and AR space, but how long will it take before it becomes truly mainstream?

When Apple released the first iPhone it revolutionised the smartphone market. Global giants like Nokia and BlackBerry at the time struggled to keep up with the innovation and Apple surged ahead after releasing what was, at the time, an expensive flagship product.

Apple knows a thing or two about mass adoption of its products and the next few years could certainly see a massive uptake in VR headsets. The New York Times reports that “the market for portable digital music players was just 3.3 million units in 2000 before Apple released the iPod; four years later, it surged to 26.4 million.”

How will the company do it this time around? Well, it’s Apple after all. Headsets mass marketed by the likes of Meta have primarily been focused on gaming and isolated VR experiences, but Apple has fully integrated its iconic software suite into every aspect of the Vision Pro. This means that consumers will find utility in the device through accessing and experiencing their everyday apps in a whole new way. Even with the headset being a standalone product that doesn’t rely on a separate CPU, its integration in the Apple software universe is unmatched by any other product on the market.

Apple has launched the Vision Pro this side of the year, but it’s only available in early 2024. Why? To give third party developers time to build their own suite of apps for the products inside Xcode, which is the primary platform used to create software for Apple’s range of devices.

What does this mean for the designers of today? It’s a huge opportunity to create content for what Apple calls “spatial experiences” and deliver a whole new format for how users engage with apps.

It’s almost guaranteed that within a few years, Apple users will adopt this product and begin to use it for a number of daily activities, from taking FaceTime calls to watching movies (even studios are getting on board to create content specifically for the device).

Apple’s Vision Pro also presents a starkly different view of the metaverse. Where Meta imagines a virtual world focused on avatars interacting with one another, Apple has brought the quintessential Apple experience into the virtual world, making it feel familiar and easy rather than intimidating and cold.

This is good news for those on the fence about the concept of VR, AR and the metaverse as a concept. While it’s still early days for Apple’s first truly revolutionary piece of hardware in years, the launch of the product has truly reignited and reinspired the aspirations we first experienced when the metaverse hit the mainstream.

Whether you’re an aspiring VR designer or wanting to develop future-forward thinking to tackle the new frontier of tech, Red & Yellow has a range of online short courses and qualifications to give you the skills you need to thrive.

If you’re interested in creating content and experiences for this new range of tech, your journey starts at Red & Yellow. Our Designing for the Metaverse online short course is only 12 weeks long and is packed with important design skills using Blender and Unreal Engine. With it, you’ll be able to design 3D environments for virtual and augmented reality, as well as a host of 3D assets.

Learn more about Designing for the Metaverse, here.

Design thinking is still on everyone’s mind, and it’s a discipline that teaches you to solve tomorrow’s problems in creative ways. Our Design Thinking online short course is 10 weeks long and will equip you with the foundational theories and methodologies to approach complex problems from a completely different perspective.

Learn more about Design Thinking, here.

Data is becoming more and more visual and learning to display it is a skill that’s more in demand than ever before. We’ve launched our 12-week Data Visualisation for Designers online short course – it’ll enable you to create beautiful, conceptual data visualisation content for reports using Adobe Illustrator and other software tools.

Learn more about Data Visualisation for Designers, here.