Apple presented on Monday 5th, its long-awaited mixed reality glasses, called Vision Pro and which will be available early next year at a price of US$3,499. The glasses combine virtual reality with augmented reality by overlaying digital images on top of the real world.

Vision Pro is the biggest bet on an Apple product in years. Some compared the launch to that of the iPad, in 2010.

At the launch, Apple CEO, Tim Cook, said the headphones "will seamlessly blend the real world with the digital world".

The glasses project images with 23 million pixels, the equivalent of having a 4K television in front of each eye. They are powered by Apple's M2 chips and a new R1 semiconductor. The latency of the video transmission is only 12 milliseconds, eight times faster than the blink of an eye.

Some analyzes argued that the Vision Pro glasses do not offer AR because Apple's device was immersive: everything is seen through its 12 cameras, although this semantic difference is unlikely to matter to consumers.

The week before, Meta revealed its new version of the glasses, the Quest 2, whose price at US$350 is almost 12 times less than that of Apple's device. In this way, the virtual glasses market is configured in ranges, with the Vision Pro in the highest place. In this segment there are also the Magic Leap 2 glasses (they cost US$3,200) and the high-end ones from the Finnish Varjo (US$6,500).

Apple doesn't expect these glasses to be an immediate revenue driver. The firm said at the launch that it represented "the beginning of a journey" into "space computing," a horizon that is in sight, although somewhat hazy.

In any case, the use cases showed by Apple indicate that there is a wide range of possibilities for its use. From now on, a first stage will be marked by entertainment. But at the launch, mention was made to their use in labor areas, something that will be enhanced with the development of new applications. Apple geared the device towards administrative workers, saying it would be "the final workspace". They are also aimed at software developers, who are expected to create a broader range of virtual reality and augmented reality applications.

Apple's revenue is expected to fall 2% this fiscal year, which ends in September, with most analysts expecting it to sell around 200,000 Vision Pros in the first year. But some Wall Street analysts have already predicted that the device could become a solid contributor to the company's revenue within five years, with the potential to one day becoming the most important computing platform since the launch of the iPhone.

And, as with this smartphone, it is considered that the Vision Pro could take a huge advantage from its competitors, especially Meta, HTC and Samsung. A point in favor of the Apple product is its intersection of the metaverse, since it offers a "here and now" very different from the virtual space inhabited by avatars.