While people talked a lot about the hardware of Apple’s new Vision Pro device launched last week, I’ve thought a lot about Apple’s emphasis on spatial computing. What’s that all about, you might ask? I am going to turn to this piece at Yanko Design to explain:
“Vision Pro is a new kind of Computer,” says Tim Cook as he reveals the mixed reality headset for the very first time. “It’s the first Apple product you look through, and not at,” he adds, marking Apple’s shift to Spatial Computing. What’s Spatial Computing, you ask? Well, the desktop was touted as the world’s first Personal Computer, or PC as we so ubiquitously call it today. The laptop shrank the desktop to a portable format, and the phone shrank it further… all the way down to the watch, that put your personal computer on your wrist. Spatial Computing marks Apple’s first shift away from Personal Computing, in the sense that you’re now no longer limited by a display – big or small. “Instead, your surroundings become a canvas,” Tim summarizes, as he hands the stage to VP of Design, Alan Dye. Spatial Computing marks a new era of computing where the four corners of a traditional display don’t pose any constraints to your working environment. Instead, your real environment becomes your working environment, and just like you’ve got folders, windows, and widgets on a screen, the Vision Pro lets you create folders, windows, and widgets in your 3D space. Dye explains that in Spatial Computing, you don’t have to minimize a window to open a new one. Just simply drag one window to the side and open another one. Apple’s VisionOS turns your room and your visual periphery into an OS, letting you create multiple screens/windows wherever you want, move them around, and resize them. Think Minority Report or Tony Stark’s holographic computer… but with a better, classier interface.
Spatial computing is something bigger than the new hardware from Apple. It’s talking about changing the way we do computing.
You see, since the 1980s we’ve been stuck with the WIMP paradigm in computing: windows, icon, menus, pointer. We have it for so long we don’t even think about it anymore. Even when we went from desktop computing to smartphones and tablets, we more or less kept this paradigm.
With spatial computing, we can think out of the box. Get away from the desktop. You are no longer looking AT a computer: you are IN a computer.
Apple is still kinda stuck with the WIMP in some of the demos they have for Vision Pro. I get that: it’s going to take some time for all of us to make the shift. Even Apple. But the shift will come.
The shift may not even come primarily from Apple the software company. I believe one of the reasons Apple launched the device the way it did — limited and at WWCD — is to get developers excited about it. Already some big name software companies have signed on. And if I read this piece correctly, then there could be a rush of developers from everywhere to come out with software for the device. Perhaps much of that could be non-WIMP software.
Much of this will depend on Vision OS and what it is capable of supporting. But from everything I read, it sound like it provides spatial computing flawlessly with the Vision Pro.
And perhaps spatial computing is not just for the Vision Pro. Currently Apple allows you to do handoffs from one device to another. I could see that happening with the Vision Pro, your Mac, and your phone. You might be working on something on your Mac that you want to take a break from, so you put on your Vision Pro to play a game. Then you get an idea, so you work on it in the Vision Pro, rather than taking off your goggles. Likewise, you may need to take a break from the Vision Pro, so you do a handoff to your Mac or your Apple TV to watch the rest of a movie from that device.
I can also see bits of VisionOS creeping into MacOS and iOS and even WatchOS. If VisionOS breaks the WIMP paradigm virtually, perhaps it could do the same thing physically. All of Apple’s devices could be spatial computing devices.
Spatial computing promises to be a new big thing in computing. I’m excited for this. I hope Apple and others can bring it to fruition. (Pun intended.)
P.S. For more on how impressive the Vision Pro is, I recommend this: Every Single Sensor inside the Apple Vision Pro and What It’s Individually Designed To Do – Yanko Design
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