Apple don’t want you to buy a headset - they’re selling a vision of the future

The Vision Pro headset might be Apple’s riskiest launch ever but they are in this new technology for the long haul, writes Andrew Griffin

Apple CEO Tim Cook unveils The Vision Pro in Cupertino, California (Getty Images)

It is very expensive, a little unwieldy and undeniably strange. Few people were asking for it and many more people now have lots of questions. Apple’s Vision Pro headset might be its riskiest launch ever. But it also could be the future.

That, at least, was Tim Cook’s pitch during his presentation at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference; he doesn’t only want you to buy the headset, he wants you to buy into the company’s vision of where computing is headed. It’s not just a headset but a whole platform, he suggested.

But what he also made clear was that Apple considers the launch only the beginning of its plan for “spatial computing”, a future where information is laid out on virtual screens in real space, rather than being tied to a slab of metal in your hand. The ideas behind that vision seem thoroughly sketched out; the vision itself seems more like a first draft, which might be why Apple stressed so often that it sees the headset as just the start.