The WWDC 2023 keynote is over, and unlike most years this year we had a completely new hardware category too. Apple Vision Pro is the newest hardware product from the company that gave us the Mac, the iPod, the iPhone, the iPad and the Apple Watch.
I was watching the WWDC keynote and the software updates were interesting but they were rushing to reveal this new device at the end.
To be honest I was blown away from what Apple was demoing. The UI and visuals looked stunning on the demo, but I will wait to see how it works in the real world. Of all the ways this product was meant to be used my interest peaked at when they were talking about entertainment. On how you can sit back and watch movies in the leisure at your own home but make the screen so big that it fully covers your peripheral vision (not a pun here!).
To sidetrack here a bit (it’s related I promise), I love movies and I love going to the cinema. But a lot has happened to the cinema in the past few years. The increase of streaming services, the relative affordability of them compared to going to the cinema, the ease of watching a movie from home in your pyjamas, and pandemic that the whole world has just come out of wasn’t really helping the cause of the cinema. People attending cinema to watch their favourite movies is on the rise after the pandemic but still low compared to pre-pandemic times. I was one of the few people that kept going to the cinema, watched Tenet on day one of it getting released at the cinema during one of the lockdowns as I personally love watching stuff on the big screen.
I love Christopher Nolan, and he is one of the proponents of 70mm IMAX film and he rightfully states that watching a film on the biggest canvas you can find is the way to enjoy movies. They cover your full peripheral vision, the screen in front engulfs you completely, and has your full attention.
There is Netflix, there is Apple TV, there is Disney + and there are multiple others right now, all of them helping you watch new movies (some not even released in cinemas) from the comfort of your own homes, but these experiences are limited by the size of the TV you have, the last time I checked LG makes an 83 inch OLED but this is minute compared to a digital cinema screen let alone a 70mm IMAX screen.
So back to Apple Vision Pro, in the demo the scene was set — you sit in your couch, grab some popcorn and put the headset on, and the screen you want to watch a movie on is as big as you want it to be. And this also could be one of the catalysts for people to avoid going to the cinema. And this extends to TV shows and games too. Better Call Saul, in my opinion, is one of the greatest TV shows ever made and I would have loved to watch it in a bigger screen, but I don’t think I would have gone to the cinema for every single hour long episode. But if I can watch the same show on a screen so big, from home, that I get lost in it’s world and characters, I’d love it.
Now I am not saying the cinema is going to die tomorrow, the Vision Pro headset costs $3499, this is a first generation product, and the speakers are not going to be as good as in a cinema. But as I just said, it is a first gen product, it can only get better from now on. And it will get more cheaper/affordable as the tech becomes cheaper. So what do you think? in a decade or so would headsets like this from Apple and from all the copycats, further diminish the number of people that actually go to the cinema?
One more thing: I didn’t even mention 3D movies. The Vision Pro will have better 3D image generation than any 3D tech on the market. Will this be the moment 3D movies become more than a headache inducing gimmick?
