The fight to control the headset market will intensify

By Tom Wainwright

The most eagerly awaited gadget of 2024 is Apple’s Vision Pro, a sleek headset that can transport users to the middle of a “Star Wars” battlefield, or simply project the world’s biggest Excel spreadsheet into their office. The magic goggles combine virtual reality (vr) with “mixed reality”, using front-mounted cameras to show the user a live video-feed of the outside world, onto which computer graphics can be superimposed. The device is controlled with eye movements and hand gestures. Apple calls it the most ambitious product it has ever made. At $3,499 its price is ambitious, too.

Apple will be jostling for consumers’ attention with various rivals. Chief among them is Meta, formerly known as Facebook, which had a big hit with its Quest 2 headset during covid-19 lockdowns, when the metaverse was briefly more enjoyable than real life. It launched an upgraded Quest 3 late in 2023, offering mixed reality. The Quest 3 is more basic than Apple’s device, but at $499 will outsell it. Fancier models will follow.