If you want to experience Apple’s innovative three-dimensional computer for yourself, you’ll have to be patient and start saving now. This is also cheaper and faster. Savvy developers have simply copied the user interface (visionOS) of the Apple Vision Pro and are already making it available for significantly cheaper glasses.
Apple’s first “spatial computer” will not come onto the market until next year and will probably cost over 4,000 euros in this country. In the US it will be just under $3,500 plus taxes. Ergo: If you want to experience visionOS, the operating system for data glasses, you still have to be able to wait.
However, developers can at least use a two-dimensional simulation of visionOS run on Mac. The manufacturer also wants to hold special sessions with the real Apple Vision Pro around the world so that developers can try their applications directly.
Apple Vision Pro: Developers recreate interface for Meta Quest Pro
In short: the visionOS experience will stay with you for a long time very exclusive. So what do you do if you want to “sniff” yourself first?
The developers at Supernova have a fun and cheaper solution. On the basis of their “Nova User Interface Framework” they made one without further ado low-cost version of visionOS together (source and download: UploadVR).
Looks like visionOS, but it’s not:
All it takes is one Meta Quest Pro Mixed-Reality-Headset. The same is currently sold for just under 1,200 euros in Germany and is therefore far cheaper than Apple’s upcoming data glasses (see Amazon).
Important to mention: Since the demo of the visionOS copy relies on Meta’s eye-tracking function, it only runs on the Pro version. The much cheaper Quest 2 or the announced Quest 3 are therefore not suitable.
The original from Apple:
The demo is already impressive, as the well-known app grid from the Vision Pro introductory video is projected directly into the room, just as Apple has shown. Particularly clever: Apples Gaze and pinch based interaction system is also reproduced.
Clear hardware disadvantage: Hands up!
However, the users have to actually hold your hands in the air and cannot simply support them on their knees or the couch. The explanation: Apple Vision Pro has downward-facing cameras, unfortunately the Quest Pro doesn’t. You have to help with that and move your hands into the actual field of view.
You can’t really work with such a demo yet. So maybe you shouldn’t get yourself a Meta Quest Pro just yet. But so much attention to detail in the replica is always worth seeing.