As Apple headset reaches Europe, will VR ever hit the mainstream?

theblownews

To get a sense of the public interest in the Vision Pro, Apple's very high-tech, very expensive virtual reality (VR) headset - finally launched in the UK and Europe on Friday - where better to head than one of its own stores?
In the past, people camped outside Apple branches overnight, so desperate were they to get their hands on the tech giant's latest product.
When I went to its branch in central London on Friday morning, though, there was just a small group, mainly comprised of men, waiting for the doors to open.
Partly, that's because people these days prefer the convenience of pre-orders.
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But it also perhaps tells us something about the question that continues to hang over the VR headset market: will it ever escape the realm of tech aficionados and go truly mainstream?
Apple's plan to make its product break through is to position it as a product you use to do the stuff you already do – only better. Home videos become 3D-like, panoramic photos stretch from floor to ceiling, 360 degrees around you. Apple keeps reminding me it calls this “spatial content”. Nobody else does. Plenty suck their teeth at the Vision Pro's price though - a whopping £3,499.
Facebook owner Meta has been watching Apple’s approach closely. It’s been in the VR game a long time. At a recent demo for the Meta Quest 3, which has been available in the UK since 2023, the team was very keen to talk to me about “multi-tasking” – having multiple screens in action at once. In a demo I had a web browser, YouTube and Messenger in a line in front of me. “We always did this, we just didn’t really talk about it,” one Meta worker told me.
And in its most recent advertisement, a man wears a Quest 3 to watch video instructions while building a crib. Not the most exciting concept, perhaps, but it shows just how Meta wants people to see its tech.

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