Macintosh 40 Years Ago Compared to Vision Pro Today
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Speaker 1: 40 years ago this week, apple released the Macintosh with a built-in screen, keyboard, mouse, and floppy drive. This was the start of a computer that changed the world. On January 24th, Steve Jobs pulled the Macintosh out of a bag and the Macintosh said hello. This was an all-in-one machine for the home that let users navigate around with a graphical interface. It was such a big deal that it was teased in the iconic 1984 Think [00:00:30] different Super Bowl commercial directed by Ridley Scott. Now 40 years later, we are about to enter a new era of computing with the launch of the Apple Vision Pro. Apple calls this the spatial computing era, freeing us up to use the space around us for our mixed reality computing work, visualizing anything we want in our living room. And yet how free will we feel with a headset strapped to our faces, probably making our hair look silly as it beams.
Speaker 1: Dual 4K resolution [00:01:00] screens onto our eyeballs while a battery pack clips onto our pants. The world is very different now than it was in 1984, but there are some parallels between these two moments in history. In fact, consumers today might be asking themselves some of the same questions as consumers did four decades ago. Like with it being so expensive, what exactly can this big machine do and how useful will it be before the Vision Pro Headset lands in consumer's hands? There's one more thing to talk about this week. How is Apple [00:01:30] going to get us thinking differently about what we want from computers? I just got back from seeing cutting edge technology at the world's largest consumer electronic show known as CES, and the Vision Pro is not the only new tech that could influence where Apple and personal computing is heading. Next. I'm Bridget Carey, and this is one more thing.
Speaker 1: We do not even have all the answers to what it's like to use a Vision Pro headset, and yet the first batch of devices arriving February 2nd are sold out. [00:02:00] Of course, you can still order a Vision Pro, but now the shipping times for the next batch are pushed back roughly five or six weeks. Arriving in March. Analyst mink cheek quo estimates that Apple sold around 160,000 to 180,000 Vision Pros over the first weekend, and he wrote that Apple should be able to produce half a million this year. It's another reminder that people really love Apple and really trust Apple. If they're fast to dish out nearly four grand to say they're among the [00:02:30] first with a headset, and that's no exaggeration on the cost when you account for taxes and if you buy the $200 travel case that is just shy of $4,000 and I did not include AppleCare protection.
Speaker 1: Now that's a lot of money to spend on a new type of computer, but I keep thinking back to the original Macintosh computer from 40 years ago. Also very expensive and different for its time. The introductory price of the Macintosh was $2,495, which when [00:03:00] adjusted for inflation is over $7,500 today. So one Macintosh was two Vision Pros and how many people were jumping to get a Macintosh if it was so pricey. In the first four months, apple was reported to have sold 50,000 machines and Apple reportedly spent millions of dollars in marketing and advertising, including holding stunts for people to rent out the machine for 24 hours to try it. So it was something that got a lot of buzz, even if not everyone bought one. It was also reported to [00:03:30] have a very small library of software programs. There were things like Mac Paint and Mac, right?
Speaker 1: Of course, we are talking about the early days. Today's Macs have programs galore in the app store, but limited software at Launch could once again become a speed bump for Apple. With Vision Pro's debut, there's been stories that several apps, including Netflix and Spotify are not making special apps to work with the Vision Pro, and I'm sure you'll see a lot of the same apps that you get on the iPad, but how many of those apps will [00:04:00] be so specially designed for Vision Pro that it can elevate the usefulness of the device to make it a must have or at least a must try at your local Apple store? Theater Entertainment right now is a big feature of The Vision Pro. You can turn your space into a giant personal movie theater with different backgrounds like making it look like you're watching Star Wars on a Star Wars planet because you really like Star Wars, but there will be lots of 3D content and more than 150 3D movies, so you can watch Avatar the Way of Water, [00:04:30] the way it was meant to be seen all by yourself inside goggles.
Speaker 1: I really think the coolest uses for this will evolve in time just like we saw the Macintosh evolve. And the same goes for any of Apple's products. Remember, the iPhone was pretty limited in its features when it launched. Earlier this month I was running around the show floor of CES. It's the largest consumer tech show and companies come here to show off their visions of the future and wouldn't you know it even though Apple [00:05:00] does not have any booth or presentation at the show, apple still stole the show as it began. Apple dropped news about the Vision Pro pre-orders and release date, and this Looming Vision Pro arrival just hovered in the air. Now during my week, I got to check out another mixed reality headset that also boasts very high end specs to rival the Apple Vision Pro. It is called the Rio XR four, and it is from a finish company that says its resolution and pass through cameras are so good [00:05:30] that it's being used right now for military training like a flight simulator with the US Department of Defense, but it does need to be tethered to a PC to run the programming.
Speaker 1: It was impressive with how its cameras could tell where I was looking to keep the image and focus and I could pick up very fine details in the room I was in, but also when it was time to use the pass through cameras, I could easily read a piece of paper that I held in front of me. But this High-end model is for industrial, use it at four grand and it goes up to 10 grand in cost. [00:06:00] And that's not even counting the price of the pc. You still need to hook up to it. It makes Vision Pro look affordable, but even so, it depends what needs a business would have to get such a high-end image simulated. And I think business needs will be a big motivator to where we go next. In VR and visualizing products in front of us, there were other headsets designed to help with very specific needs.
Speaker 1: There's the ECI Go. It's worn like a pair of glasses and it helps the visually impaired [00:06:30] for people with Central vision loss who normally cannot see much at all unless the object is just inches from their face. They can use this to see fine details far away again by having smart cameras and screens display the world up close to their eyes. Now, I've been wondering how the Vision Pro could be seen as something to help with accessibility, but it's not like you want to walk around with a big Vision Pro headset at the grocery store. So could the next generations of Apple Vision get so light that it could be a health or accessibility [00:07:00] tool to help make life easier. With all those cameras and sensors, there is a push for computing to be able to show you anything you want and have it look real in front of you in your own little closed off headset world.
Speaker 1: But mostly at CES there was a bigger focus around the machine learning side of artificial intelligence where a computer can take all this data being collected and present a solution before you're even aware that there could be a problem to solve. So it's less about the hardware and more about the computing power, making the gear smarter [00:07:30] and doing something useful. With all this data we're collecting, there's a mirror from Barra Cota called the B Mind. It uses AI smarts in a camera to analyze your skin and tell you how to fix your face. It was not very kind to me. Noticeable eye bags, oh no, and all this gets me thinking if our computers will start doing more with all the data being gathered, I have been wearing a new smart ring discovered at the show. It's called the EV at. It's so much less intrusive than a smartwatch [00:08:00] pinging me and needing charging every day.
Speaker 1: Now I do like my Apple Watch, but culturally, could we be seen a pendulum swing us back to fewer screens, more of an older tech analog desire to fewer interruptions if the tech is smart enough to just recognize my activity and process the data on its own. Speaking of older tech, the Clicks iPhone keyboard got a ton of interest at the show. The case gives your iPhone physical keyboard buttons. I got to check it out a bit and my fingers got used to it after about [00:08:30] five minutes and I got a personal walkthrough from Mr. Mobil himself, Michael Fisher, who is a co-founder of the company. But the hype around this shows you that there is a split of how even though we are moving toward a world where we can control computers with just our gestures, there is still something we crave with wanting the physical click to control our interfaces.
Speaker 1: Just like how using a mouse can feel better than a track pad, I want to see if the Vision Pro's, hand gestures start rewiring our [00:09:00] brains and if it can still give us that tangible feedback and control we crave. I cover Apple every week, but I couldn't at this point justify dropping thousands of dollars to be among the first to have the Vision Pro. So no, I did not pre-order it. That does not mean I don't find it interesting. I have been using the iPhone 15 Pro Max to take spatial videos of my family. I am eager to see what it could be like and if Home movies and 3D could change my outlook on the device. We're just going to [00:09:30] see how the Vision Pro shapes up over time, and if the data collected in our real world makes anything more interesting on what gets projected inside the virtual one. Let me know if you'll pre-order the Vision Pro or if you are waiting and why. I'll catch you next week when the Spatial computing era begins. But you should probably watch the show from your Macintosh. There's no YouTube Vision Pro app. Thanks for watching.
