Vision Pro may only have been announced this year, and go on sale in 2024, but we’ve known for many years that the company was working on a product of this kind. What we didn’t know was quite how many years.
A newly-published patent reveals the answer to that question – at least since 2007, the year that the original iPhone launched …
Of course, the 2007 patent doesn’t describe the entirety of Vision Pro’s capabilities. Specifically, it describes using a headset to display movies and sports events – but even then, it includes reference to doing so in a virtual reality setting and describes some surprisingly sophisticated capabilities.
The patent describes how the headset would give the illusion of sitting in a movie theater.
The personal display system may include an electronic device operative to provide media to a personal display device operative to display the received media.
Using one or more optical and digital components, the personal display device may adjust displayed media to overlay features of a theater, thus giving the user of the personal display device the impression of being in the theater.
It’s also not the case that this is a just a dumb viewing device. Even back in 2007, Apple envisaged that it would respond to head, eye, or hand movements.
In some embodiments, the personal display device may detect the user’s movements using one or more sensors and may adjust the displayed image based on the user’s movements. For example, the device may detect a user’s head movement and cause the portion of media displayed to reflect the head movement […]
The user may move his head, eyes, or another body part to cause the portion of the media displayed to follow the user’s movement.
It also describes creating a virtual stadium experience when watching sports.
The personal display device may provide the user with an opportunity to view media associated with a baseball game as if the user were in a baseball stadium (e.g., Fenway Park or Yankee Stadium).
The personal display device may modify the display of a sporting event to reflect the seat in the stadium from which the user selected to watch the event.
It also describes how sound output would be adjusted to match the virtual position, and head movements.
All-in-all, it’s a pretty sophisticated description of a Vision Pro like device!
The patent application was made in 2007, and it’s unclear why it was only granted and/or published yesterday.
Via Patently Apple
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