Apple has announced that it will start taking pre-orders for the Vision Pro in the United States from 19 January 2024 at 05:00 AM PST and that it will start selling the mixed reality headset in the country from 2 February 2024. The company will take pre-orders for the Vision Pro on the official online store and sell it through official online and offline stores.
Apple unveiled the Vision Pro almost seven months ago, on 5 June 2023. Back then, the company said that it would release the product in early 2024. As scheduled, the tech giant has announced the pre-order and sales dates for the mixed-reality headset. So, the report from Mark Gurman on Bloomberg about the availability of the Vision Pro was true after all.
The Apple Vision Pro costs $3,499, making it much costlier than similar products on the market, such as the Meta Quest 3, which starts at $499. “The era of spatial computing has arrived. Apple Vision Pro is the most advanced consumer electronics device ever created. Its revolutionary and magical user interface will redefine how we connect, create, and explore,” said Apple CEO Tim Cook in a press release about the availability.
What is Apple Vision Pro?
The Apple Vision Pro is a mixed-reality headset. Once you wear it, you will be able to see the visionOS operating system superimposed over a view of the real world around you. You can then carry out many tasks on the Vision Pro, including watching photos and videos, playing games, and using applications, such as a browser or a document editor. You will be able to interact with the headset using your eyes and hands.
The Vision Pro has two micro-OLED displays (one for each eye) with a combined resolution of 23 megapixels (11.5 million pixels per eye). According to Apple, the headset delivers “more pixels than a 4K TV for each eye.” Powering the Vision Pro are two chipsets: M2 and R1. There are two speakers, six microphones, twelve cameras, and five sensors onboard. It comes with a battery pack that offers two hours of usage.
You can read more about the Vision Pro in our launch article. On a side note, Samsung is also developing a mixed-reality headset called XR in collaboration with Google and Qualcomm. Reportedly, it will use the Snapdragon XR2+ Gen 2 chipset, which was announced last week. Expect this headset to cost a lot less than the Vision Pro. Speaking of which, an affordable version of the Vision Pro is also in the works.
