Apple’s fourth era is about to begin

Macworld

Welcome to our weekly Apple Breakfast column, which includes all the Apple news you missed last week in a handy bite-sized roundup. We call it Apple Breakfast because we think it goes great with a Monday morning cup of coffee or tea, but it’s cool if you want to give it a read during lunch or dinner hours too.

Vision Pro (Apple’s Version)

Every now and then you get a strong sense that you’re living through Actual History. Wars and disasters tend to trigger that feeling, as can the deaths of major public figures. And I remember feeling that way when leaving the office on an ominous day in early 2020, unsure when or even if we would return.

It obviously doesn’t compare to the great events of our century, but on a smaller scale, I’ve been getting that historical feeling lately about Apple’s Vision Pro. Which makes a change, because most Apple launches in recent memory have felt thoroughly insignificant: workmanlike iterations, announced because the requisite time has elapsed since the last one. By contrast, Vision Pro carries a significance far beyond its immediate financial prospects. Vision Pro is the thin end of what Apple hopes will be a vast and all-conquering wedge and could herald what we will later acknowledge as the fourth great age of Apple’s history.

Each age has been centered around a single product. The Mac made the company’s name, the iPod brought it back from the brink, and the iPhone gave it a license to print money, each product dominating the landscape in its era before fading into the background. Nothing lasts forever, and even the iPhone will eventually lose its luster. But Apple recognizes this and has been working for years to find its successor. What does a post-smartphone world look like? Nobody is sure, but Apple is ready to make a guess.

Like the Mac, the iPod, and the iPhone before it, Apple’s mixed-reality headset is supposed to be more than just another Apple thing to buy. If things go to plan it will become a tentpole: the central point of an entire ecosystem of products and supporting services, from subscriptions to third-party apps and accessories. It will be the entry point into Apple’s world, and the primary means by which customers experience the company’s “vision” of technology.

Then again it might be none of these things. After all, history cannot be judged until afterwards; and perhaps it’s worth acknowledging that I didn’t get the historical feeling when Apple announced the first iPhone in 2007. To be clear I thought it would be a successful product, I didn’t have a Steve Ballmer moment, but it never occurred to me for a second that this would be the product about which Apple’s third empire would be built. Did anyone realize it would be the most lucrative product in human history? Surely not.

They say that history is written by the winners, but more importantly, it tends to be written about the winners, with a large proportion of the flops and failures consigned to merciful oblivion. Will we be talking about Vision Pro in 17 years, or will it have faded by then into the mists of time, a half-remembered debacle that never lived up to the hype? That depends on factors far bigger than one product, on currently unforeseeable changes in our relationship with technology and in society as a whole. But Apple has placed its bet, and I’ve got a good feeling about its chances.

Foundry

Trending: Top stories

Vision Pro is already changing everything we know about Apple, says Dan Moren.

CES isn’t all PCs and Android phones. Here are 5 announcements Apple fans should care about.

Will Apple Vision Pro be a bigger flop than the HomePod?

Apple’s case to keep selling the Apple Watch has been called “weak and unconvincing.”

We explain how Apple’s generative AI is going to think different–and smarter.

Apple’s first Vision Pro ad makes strapping a giant headset to your face kinda cool.

Apple’s $3,499 Vision Pro will hit stores February 2—with a free Polishing Cloth. (Sorry Android users, you’ll need an iPhone to preorder.)

An iPhone has survived the ultimate drop test–from a plane at 16,000 feet.

Podcast of the week

The dawn of spatial computing is coming as the Apple Vision Pro is about to go on sale. Are you ready to buy one? We talk about what you need to know before investing in the Apple Vision Pro, on this episode of the Macworld Podcast!

You can catch every episode of the Macworld Podcast on Spotify, Soundcloud, the Podcasts app, or our own site.

The rumor mill

You probably won’t be able to buy a Vision Pro even if you want one.

Apple plots a huge AI strategy shift, but it may be too little too late.

Get ready for a ‘massively more expensive’ OLED iPad Pro.

Software updates, bugs, and problems

China firm reportedly cracks AirDrop using a flaw Apple has known about since 2019.

Attention iPhone Verizon subscribers: Here’s how to claim your $100 refund check.

Your Magic Keyboard just got a rare update to fix a serious security flaw.

And with that, we’re done for this week’s Apple Breakfast. If you’d like to get regular roundups, sign up for our newsletters. You can also follow us on Facebook, Threads, or Twitter for discussion of breaking Apple news stories. See you next Monday, and stay Appley.

Apple Inc