In a world where large companies report their results every quarter and live and die by daily fluctuations in share price, Apple operates to its own schedule. A case in point – the Vision Pro. Announced this year, the Vision Pro has been decades in the making, highlighting that Apple’s schedule for innovation and development is set to a much longer horizon than most other companies.
Patently Apple reports that Apple has just been granted a patent for a Vision Related invention. The original application was made in 2007. That’s the same year Apple announced and launched the first iPhone. And that predates devices conceived and created by a number of other companies including Google, Meta and Samsung.
Incredibly, the patent covers technologies we did not see in consumer devices for many years including the ability to detect head movement and the ability to overlay graphical elements onto other objects. For example, displaying the surrounds of a cinema while watching a movie. That sounds a lot like visionOS and spatial computing.
Apple has amassed a significant war chest of cash over the last couple of decades. That cash, as well as the recurring revenue driven by the iPhone and its growing services division, means to can spend years, even decades, coming with ideas and refining them. In many cases, as we’ve seen with there Vision Pro, the technology to bring those ideas to life need to catch up with the imagination of Apple’s development teams.
Many companies are focused on their next quarterly results or making sure the annual report makes shareholders happy. Apple manages to do that while keeping its eyes firmly fixed on the horizon.
Creating new products takes time, faith and patience. While Android phones enjoy great sales, they are largely built on ideas that Apple pioneered with the first iPhone. Before the iPad, tablet computes were 2cm thick and weighed over 1kg. The iPad changed the computer industry’s idea of what was possible. And the netbook disappeared as quickly as it appeared when the first MacBook Air was pulled out of an envelope by Steve Jobs.
The Vision Pro may not be a perfect device. The trailing battery pack and size and weight may be a deterrent to many prospective buyers. But just as the first iPhone and iPad were made with compromises, they ushered in new ways of treating and using technology.
Apple’s long game with the Vision Pro could do the same.
Anthony is the founder of Australian Apple News. He is a long-time Apple user and former editor of Australian Macworld. He has contributed to many technology magazines and newspapers as well as appearing regularly on radio and occasionally on TV.