Disney And Apple Tease An Immersive New Mandalorian Viewing Experience Using Vision Pro Headset
Apple is teaming up with Disney to create a wildly immersive new product called Apple Vision Pro, and judging by the first look unveiled at the Worldwide Developers Conference today, it might end up being pretty revolutionary. Disney CEO Bob Iger appeared on stage to introduce the sizzle reel for the headset-like virtual reality product, which Apple is calling a "spatial computer."
The sneak peek at Apple Vision Pro — which you can see for yourself about an hour and 43 minutes into the WWDC livestream — included a dreamy vision of unique, interactive viewing experiences for shows like "The Mandalorian" and "What If..." along with classic Disney cartoons and even mainstream sporting events.
Apple
The futuristic setup for "The Mandalorian" shows us the point of view of a viewer who's clicking on an episode in a typical Apple TV-like screen that's floating in midair, only to be met with a whole bundle of immersive extras. Outside the edge of the screen, we see stylish interactive graphics popping up. There are vehicle schematics, lists of key characters, planet maps, and more; it's a bit like Amazon's pop-up fact feature on steroids, mixed with the hologram-heavy vision of the future we've seen in so many movies before. It looks cool, and Apple and Disney have a lot more where that came from.
What if you watched The Mandalorian from Tatooine?
"What if all the things that we thought were impossible were suddenly possible?" a voiceover says at the beginning of the highlight reel, and goes on to ask a bunch of "what if?" questions as we're transported through the Apple Vision Pro features. To be clear, this doesn't seem to be any type of real demonstration so much as a rather ambitious mock-up, one that, in the next scene, imagines viewers could actually watch "The Mandalorian" from the desert of Tatooine. The voiceover mentions the idea of watching your favorite shows from "unbelievable places," hinting that part of the product (which is set to drop in 2024, per TechCrunch) will be virtual backdrops against which to watch TV.
All of this is admittedly extremely impressive, and while I have some questions about both the execution of Apple Vision Pro (will people like me, who move around a lot when watching TV, get super dizzy?) and the ethics behind it (will this utilize the type of AI the WGA is currently fighting to keep out of their workplace?), this is an undeniably exciting idea on a surface level. The headset will reportedly cost $3,499, so early adopters will have to report back and let us all know if it's worth it to see Baby Yoda looking extra-huggable in virtual reality.