Speaker 1: It's almost go time for Vision Pro. Apple's mixed reality headset could hit stores at the end of January. We're hearing reports that Apple Store employees are getting ready. Vision Pro will be the biggest tech story of 2024, and I'm so excited. I can barely speak. Actually, my voice is like this because I went a little too hard at a holiday karaoke party, so we're going to keep this episode super short. Yes, there is one more thing we have to talk about before we close out the year. [00:00:30] These are the big questions we still have for the biggest product of next year. I'm Bridget Carey, and this is one more thing. I'm so curious on how Apple's going to do in-store demos of the Vision Pro. How do you sell a product that most people have not experienced in other forms and it's a product that they don't actually need to get their work done and they have to put it on their face before deciding if they want to buy it?
Speaker 1: Apple stores need a way to create vision protest drives and do it in a way where customers [00:01:00] find it comfortable and it can work with their vision. If say customer wears glasses and needs prescription lens inserts, Bloomberg reports that Apple is inviting retail employees from each of its US stores to headquarters in Cupertino, California to train them on how to use and sell the Vision Pro. The report says training is set to begin in the middle of January, and the idea is that retail employees will fly in. They'll spend two days in training and then fly back home to teach others at their [00:01:30] stores. Every step of the customer demo is set to be carefully orchestrated because a poor fitting could ruin the customer experience. The report also says customers who order online will be encouraged to pick up the device at a store. We still don't know if you can just buy one on a whim or try it out for fun or what to do if you need corrective lenses.
Speaker 1: We also don't know what other accessories you can buy. The starting price is $3,500, but will there be extra [00:02:00] battery packs? How much more would you pay to expand storage? What about different head straps? It seems likely there's going to be different straps, but Apple could keep things simple to start. We don't know how the Vision Pro is going to work with our other devices. You control it with hand gestures, but will there be the option for controllers if maybe you want to play certain games? Will it interact with data collected from an Apple watch? Right now, the iPhone 15 Pro models can record spatial video, [00:02:30] so you can watch videos in 3D on the headset. That's cool for replaying family memories, but will all the next iPhones have that ability? There have been reports that Apple could be testing, changing the back camera placement on the next iPhones, so every phone could maybe capture spatial video. We have somewhat of an idea of what we would look like when wearing the headset. There is an external screen that can show an image of eyes or display a swirl of colors to indicate if
Speaker 2: The person wearing the headset [00:03:00] is actually looking at you or if they are fully immersed in VR and they can't see you. The eyes are not actually your eyes, it's an animated recreation. You use the headset to scan your face. It makes a persona of you. You can use this persona for FaceTime calls, but it also is displayed on the outer screen and it's supposed to animate in real time, mimicking your eyes with eye and face tracking sensors. I just wonder what other indicators we could [00:03:30] see on the screen besides eyes. Above all, I'm curious what media tricks we are not hearing about yet. Will we really be able to watch sports in a new way? Certainly Apple could experiment in how it broadcasts Major League Soccer in the headset. Will Mickey Mouse and other cartoons be able to surprise you in your space like augmented reality room decorations or will moments like this feel like cringey advertising that you only try once? We didn't see a whole ton on gaming [00:04:00] yet. The Game Studio resolution announced it is bringing a popular VR role-playing game Demio to the headset and Apple said over 100 Apple arcade titles will be playable. What big questions do you still have for the Vision Pro? Maybe I could hunt down some answers for you. Let me know. Thanks for watching and I'll see you in 2024.
