Apple has introduced “the period of spatial computing” by means of the upcoming launch of its Apple Imaginative and prescient Professional combined actuality headset — with pre-orders opening on Friday, January nineteenth.

“The period of spatial computing has arrived,” claims Tim Cook dinner, Apple’s chief government officer, of the corporate’s newest wearable launch and its first entry into the digital, augmented, and combined actuality (VR, AR, and MR) market. “Apple Imaginative and prescient Professional is probably the most superior shopper electronics system ever created. Its revolutionary and magical person interface will redefine how we join, create, and discover.”

Apple is eager for customers to see the Imaginative and prescient Professional as a “spatial laptop,” powered by a one-two punch of Apple’s in-house M2 and R1 chips and with 12 cameras, 5 sensors, and 6 microphones, fairly than a easy headset. Working the corporate’s in-house visionOS software program stack, the Imaginative and prescient Professional creates a three-dimensional person interface managed by the wearer’s eye actions, hand gestures, and voice.

Movies could be displayed on a free-floating digital canvas with the true world seen across the person, or the true world despatched away in favor of digital “Environments” — which could be pale out and in by twisting the “Digital Crown” management.

Apparently, not all the things on the Imaginative and prescient Professional will likely be new — nor constructed for augmented actuality. The corporate is making a lot of visionOS’ assist for iOS and iPadOS apps, which is able to “routinely work” with the 3D person interface and new enter system. The 4k-format micro-OLED shows, one for every eye, may even assist current streaming providers with Excessive Dynamic Vary (HDR) content material — and Apple’s personal Immersive Video format, providing 180-degree three-dimensional footage with spatial audio.

One uncommon characteristic of the headset requires that you simply maintain it fairly than put on it: the front-facing sensor system can be utilized to scan the person to create a “Persona” — a digital avatar which mimics the wearer’s facial actions, to be used throughout FaceTime calls. Ought to somebody method in the true world, in the meantime, a entrance panel show exhibits a rendering of the wearer’s eyes by means of a system the corporate calls “EyeSight” — making the headset seem translucent.

All this, nevertheless, comes at a severe value: Apple is opening pre-orders for the Imaginative and prescient Professional on January 19, forward of transport on February 2nd, at an eye-watering $3,499 for a base mannequin with 256GB of storage, two bands, a lightweight seal with two cushions, and an off-headset battery related through a tether cable to scale back the headset’s weight; those that require corrective lenses will pay a further $99 for reader lens inserts or $149 for prescription inserts from lens maker ZEISS.

Extra info is out there on the Apple web site.