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STORY: Cook: “Introducing Apple Vision Pro”

Apple unveiled its hotly-anticipated augmented-reality headset on Monday - its riskiest and biggest bet since the iPhone debuted more than a decade ago.

The Vision Pro poses a direct challenge to Meta's line of mixed and virtual reality devices.

And with a price tag that will start at $3,499…the Vision Pro will cost more than three times Meta's priciest headset when it launches next year.

Apple CEO Tim Cook:

Cook: "It's the first Apple product you look through and not at. Vision Pro feels familiar, yet it's entirely new. You can see, hear, and interact with digital content just like it's in your physical space."

Apple said that users of the Vision Pro will be able to select content inside the goggles with their eyes, tap their fingers together to click and gently flick to scroll, while also using a three-dimensional camera and microphone system to capture videos and pictures that can be viewed in 3D later.

In its most striking difference from Meta's headsets, the device also has an exterior display that shows the user's eyes to people in the outside world.

Cook: "So in the same way that Mac introduced us to personal computing and iPhone introduced us to mobile computing, Apple Vision Pro will introduce us to spatial computing."

The exterior screen goes dark when a user is fully immersed in a virtual world. When a person approaches a user who is in full virtual mode, the headset will show both the user and the outside person to each other.

For work uses, Apple showed how the headset can be used with a trackpad and keyboard to work like a traditional computer with multiple displays.

The Vision Pro has two hours of use with an external battery, similar to Meta’s top of the line Quest Pro mixed reality device,

Besides the headset, Apple also displayed a raft of new products and features, including a 15-inch MacBook Air, a powerful chip called M2 Ultra and improvements to its iOS software and autocorrect feature.

Shares of the iPhone maker rose 2% to hit a record high ahead of the launch, but shares ended slightly lower after the announcement.