Apple CEO Tim Cook appeared in a new interview today with “Good Morning America” co-host Robin Roberts following Monday’s WWDC 2023 keynote.
Cook took the opportunity to discuss the company’s newly-announced Vision Pro headset, praising the scale of what is possible with the new headset, adding that “it will do anything a Mac or iPhone can do and more.” He also addressed the isolation criticisms of XR devices as a whole, stating that EyeSight was a “major design point from the start.”
EyeSight is a controversial new feature of Apple Vision Pro. It incorporates an external OLED display that shows a continuous and realistic passthrough video stream of the wearer’s eyes to surrounding people in an effort to make using the headset less obtrusive and isolating.
Cook also justified the eye-watering $3,499 price tag, explaining that Vision Pro packs in cutting-edge technologies never seen before in a consumer electronics device. He acknowledges that the price will be difficult to swallow for most consumers, strongly hinting that Apple is tempering its expectations for Vision Pro sales-wise.
The depth of engineering is mindblowing. You get more than a 4K experience in each eye; of course, it doesn’t come for free. It costs something to do that, but I think its a great value.
Apple CEO Tim Cook
Apple Vision Pro is the company’s first mixed-reality headset that ushers in a new era of “spatial computing.” The headset incorporated many new features in addition to EyeSight, including a new Optic ID iris scanner for biometric authentication, and a new R1 processor that handles input from the headset’s dozen cameras and sensors. The headset will be available early next year initially in the US only, with prices starting at $3,499.
