James Cameron Loves Apple's Vision Pro. But Will It Be Addictive?

James Cameron tells Vanity Fair's Nick Bilton that his experience with Apple's Vision Pro 'was religious. I was skeptical at first. I don't bow down before the great god of Apple, but I was really, really blown away... I think it's not evolutionary; it's revolutionary. And I'm speaking as someone who has worked in VR for 18 years.'

He explained that the reason it looks so real is because the Apple Vision Pro is writing a 4K image into my eyes. 'That's the equivalent of the resolution of a 75-inch TV into each of your eyeballs — 23 million pixels.' To put that into perspective, the average 4K television has around 8 million pixels. Apple engineers didn't slice off a rectangle from the corner of a 4K display and put it in the Apple Vision Pro. They somehow compressed twice as many pixels into a space as small as your eyeball. This, to people like Cameron who have been working in this space for two decades, 'solves every problem.'

But even with all this wonder, with 23 million pixels that are so clear and crisp that you can't tell reality from a digital composite of it.... the more I've used the Apple Vision Pro over the past two weeks, the more one glaring problem revealed itself to me. It's not the weight (which is a problem but will come down over time), or the size (which will shrink with each iteration), or the worry that it will drive us to consume more content alone (almost half of Americans already watch TV alone). Or how tech giants like Meta, Netflix, Spotify, and Google are currently withholding their apps from the device. (Content creators may come around once the consumers are there, and some, like Disney, are already embracing the device, making 150 movies available in 3D, including from mega-franchises like Star Wars and Marvel.) And it's not even the price, because if Apple wanted to, the company could subsidize the cost of the Apple Vision Pro and it would have about as much financial impact as Cook losing a nickel between his couch cushions.

I'm talking about something that I don't see a solution for... I can see a day when we all can't imagine living without an augmented reality. When we're enveloped more and more by technology, to the point that we crave these glasses like a drug, like we crave our iPhones today but with more desire for the dopamine hit this resolution of AR can deliver. I know deep down that the Apple Vision Pro is too immersive, and yet all I want to do is see the world through it. 'I'm sure the technology is terrific. I still think and hope it fails,' one Silicon Valley investor said to me. 'Apple feels more and more like a tech fentanyl dealer that poses as a rehab provider.' Harsh words, but he feels what we all feel, a slave to our smartphone, and he's seen this play before and he knows what the first act is like, and the second act, and he knows how it ends.

Political blogger Taegan Goddard says the Vision Pro 'offers a glimpse of how we might use computers in the future. If you're skeptical — and many people are — you need to try it before drawing any conclusions. It's hard to explain unless you've worn it. But I can assure you, it's mind-blowing.'

Apple CEO Tim Cook tells Bilton 'You can actually lay on your sofa and put the displays on your ceiling if you wish. I watched the third season of Ted Lasso on my ceiling and it was unbelievable!'

Dan Ives, a senior analyst at the investment firm Wedbush Securities, tells Bilton, 'We think a few years from now it'll resemble sunglasses and be less than $1,500.'

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