MIT computer scientist: Apple Vision Pro could change the world

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(CNN): Apple’s new device could… become a new type of computing platform, one as revolutionary as the Macintosh was in 1984 or the iPhone in 2007.

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Apple’s headset (which it calls a spatial computer) has the potential to herald a new era of wearable “ubiquitous computing,” a somewhat fuzzy term conveying that computers will become small and be everywhere, ridding us of the need for dedicated computing devices and accessories like keyboards and monitors.

In fact, a wearable computing platform that is always with you and can create displays of any size in real time could eventually replace desktops, laptops, tablets and mobile phones; those are all unnecessary if you can have any number of high-resolution screens floating in the air around you and a virtual keyboard that responds to your hand and eye movements, the main control mechanism of Apple’s Vision Pro.

I see many reasons why Apple may succeed in reaching mass adoption where others have spectacularly failed to do so.

I’m not alone. Cathy Hackl, former enterprise strategist at Magic Leap, told me on Monday, “What you saw unveiled today is the most advanced tech product ever created, it’s a super computer on your face.”

While the first version of Vision Pro will undoubtedly have kinks that need to be worked out, like a short-lived battery with an unwieldy wire, we should remember that the first Mac was also very limited and wasn’t initially a financial success. Yet its user-friendly interface laid the foundation for a new way of computing, just as the iPhone did a generation later.

While the first version won’t be as compact as the glasses in “Westworld” or “Ready Player One,” it won’t be long before you’ll be able to place large screens all around you and manipulate what’s in them, a la “Minority Report.” Unlike Tom Cruise, you won’t even need gloves.