What The Apple Vision Pro Means For Traditional Entertainment

When the iPhone launched in 2007, whether we knew it then or not, the world cha

nged. With the 2024 launch of the Apple Vision Pro (AVP), the world has changed again. The Apple Vision Pro is Apple’s answer to the question of VR-headset-or-AR-glasses. It very consciously calls itself neither and offers, literally, a new way of seeing the world.

Some say the AVP is the first piece of hardware to unite the physical and digital worlds in ways both entertaining and practical—one can use it to watch a movie on a 100-foot surround-sound screen and also to have an immersive Facetime chat. The 10-minute Apple “film” on the product shows the device’s potential impact on how we live our lives—it’s large. And it’s clear that the AVP’s impact on how we consume and experience entertainment is one of its biggest spheres of influence. The AVP has solutions for streaming, for watching across multiple screens and for feeling present at live events.

Watch Me

While the Apple Vision Pro is ready to show us the future, it’s also prepared to stream us the past… and present. The Apple Vision Pro can stream videos from the internet through its Safari web browser. Certain streaming services also have apps—accessed through the familiar App Store model— to stream video and audio content. This includes movies, TV shows, songs and more.

“The Disney+ app is fun…You can watch movies in one of about four different 3D landscapes. I sat in a racer on Tatooine and watched a bit of a Star Wars movie, but then switched over to watch Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse in 3D. Unlike 3D TVs and movies, which generally flopped, the effects work well in the headset,” writes Todd Haselton, CNBC reporter.

In his review, Haselton goes on to explain how, when watching a clip from Avatar: The Way of Water on the Vision Pro, “it seemed like I was in the water with the characters, and it was an even more immersive experience than one would get on an IMAX screen.”

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Tim Bajarin, Chairman of Creative Strategies, is quite bullish on this functionality of the AVP. “If Hollywood embraces the Vision Pro as a new medium for delivering 3D movies,” he speculates, “I would suggest that while not necessarily a killer app, it could become one of the central applications that help Apple grow demand for the Vision Pro.”

Another way that the AVP takes entertainment into the future is by providing with one device what used to require several. As Haselton reports, “I used the NBA app, which was updated to work on the Vision Pro, to stream four games at once, with the main game in the middle and others pinned to the sides. It’s wild.”

Watch There

Additionally, the AVP can take you to “the room where it happens.” Apple’s technology has the power to make you feel as if you are a part of the crowd in a stadium watching sports or a fan cheering for the singer at a music concert. You’ll get to experience the enthusiasm of the crowd from the comfort of your home or office, without actually traveling to the venue.

The Apple Vision Pro is also poised to leap us forward when it comes to interactive and experiential learning. An example of just how powerful this can be is that instead of just hearing about history or cultural traditions, students could actually experience them, or at least feel like they are. Harvard has already published a case study on the effectiveness of such applications.

Everything Here All At Once

The Apple Vision Pro isn’t going to render traditional entertainment useless, unappealing or extinct. Instead, the AVP’s functionality allows it to bring together in a single device the variety of ways that we’ve enjoyed our entertainment—streaming on a screen, shown across multiple screens, and viewed while present. And the AVP does this not just in any device, but in a top-quality device.

Apple Vision Pro has a built-in micro-OLED display with a resolution of 23 million pixels for each eye, making it better than any 4K TV. And the sound quality is similarly impressive: the AVP comes with dual-driver audio pods which are adjusted just above your ears and deliver a spatial audio experience that bends with your real environment seamlessly. The launch of the AVP is the dawn of a new era and its impact on traditional entertainment is just the beginning. How it addresses communication and commerce and connects those with entertainment is powerful and something I look forward to sharing my thoughts on with you.