From Patent to Present: Exploring Apple Vision Pro’s 2007 Patent
By Ashley Kim
On June 5th 2023, Apple announced to the world the new “era of spatial computing” on YouTube. Interested users could pre-order on January 19th 2024 or wait until Apple Vision Pro became available for in-store and online U.S. purchase on February 2nd 2024. The 3D vision tech has spurred curiosity and dystopian fervor on social media with many making connections to the speculative fiction show, Black Mirror.
Putting these initial reactions aside, people have dug up perhaps a more thought-provoking revelation: Apple Vision Pro has roots in a patent that dates all the way back to 2007– the year the first iPhone debuted. This means Apple’s aspiration for a 3D immersive experience even predates the launch of the Oculus headset or other popular VR hardware. A central reason for this delay in the Vision Pro’s development is that Apple invented 50% of the headset’s technology themselves and frame their product as a more sophisticated, head-mounted display over a VR headset1.
Apple was finally granted this 17-year old patent on August 22nd 2023 by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office2. Examining this time capsule, one can immediately see the similarities between the illustrations and the present product (as well as it being funny to see the discontinued iPod being used as its power source). The patent’s description refers to the Vision Pro as a “personal display device” and centers more on creating immersive experiences for entertainment. It hopes of users feeling like they are actually inside movie theaters or sport stadiums. It relates sophisticated details on the device responding to head, eye, and hand movements which the Vision Pro’s have actually impressively achieved3.
It is exciting to wonder what else is in store for the future of Apple products based on their patents if “the most ambitious product Apple has ever created” was in the works 17 years ago4. For one, Titan, the code name for Apple’s electric car project, has been rumored to be in the works since 2015, as suggested in this Wall Street Journal article from 9 years ago. It has had more recent speculations of its possible release in 20285. In combination with the Apple Vision Pro, though, Apple was granted a patent on October 18th 2023 for windowless, self-driving cars to utilize Vision Pros to see outside the vehicle6... Whether or not we’ll see this patent come to fruition can only be determined by time.
On its U.S. launch day, Apple CEO Tim Cook celebrated Apple Vision Pro as “tomorrow’s technology today”7. In a similar spirit, patents offer a glimpse into the technology of tomorrow– no matter how unconventional or seemingly far-fetched– in the present day.
Sources:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TX9qSaGXFyg
https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2024/01/apple-vision-pro-available-in-the-us-on-february-2/
3https://9to5mac.com/2023/08/23/working-on-vision-pro-since-2007/
4https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TX9qSaGXFyg
https://www.wsj.com/articles/apples-titan-car-project-to-challenge-tesla-1423868072
5https://9to5mac.com/2024/01/23/bloomberg-apple-car-2028-release/
6https://9to5mac.com/2023/10/18/apple-car-with-no-windows
7https://www.cnbc.com/2024/02/02/apples-vision-pro-headset-launches-in-us.html
