Apple's EyeSight Feature on Vision Pro Is Creepier Than It Needs to Be
The slightly bizarre feature on Apple's mixed reality headset will show your eyes while you're scrolling apps to indicate you can see people nearby.
- I've been covering technology and mobile for 12 years, first as a telecommunications reporter and assistant editor at ZDNet in Australia, then as CNET's West Coast head of breaking news, and now in the Thought Leadership team.
Apple's Vision Pro headset shows a display of your eyes to the people around you.
Vision Pro, Apple's new mixed reality headset, comes with a feature that verges on creepy: the AR/VR device will display your actual eyes to those around you while you're wearing the headset, using a feature it's calling EyeSight.
"Your eyes are a critical indicator of connection and emotion, so Vision Pro displays your eyes when someone is nearby," Apple said during its annual Worldwide Developers Conference on Monday at Apple HQ in Cupertino, California, calling the feature "incredible" and sharing footage of someone wearing Vision Pro with their eyes peering out of the front of the headset in a slightly bizarre way.
Apple said during the WWDC keynote that the feature will help provide "important cues to others about what you're focused on."
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If you're just scrolling your Vision Pro apps, your eyes will show up on the headset, blinking and staring out at the world. But if you're "fully immersed in an experience," your eyes won't be shown -- which signals those around you that you cannot see them at that moment, according to Apple.
"We also thought hard about how others can interact with you while wearing vision pro eyesight utilizes a unique curved OLED panel with a lenticular lens to project the correct perspective of your eyes to each person looking at you," Apple said. "The result is a 3D display that makes the device look transparent."
Your eyes are an important feature for Vision Pro. The tech giant said that unlike all of its previous major platforms, which used physical inputs such as a mouse, a click wheel or multitouch, the mixed-reality headset will rely "solely on your eyes, hands and voice."
"With Vision Pro we set the ambitious goal to design an incredibly intuitive input model for spatial computing," Apple said. "It's just you and your content. It's remarkable and it feels like magic."