Online Apple Store goes offline for maintenance before Vision Pro headset starts pre-sale

Before the official release of VisionPro on Friday, February 2, the Apple online store in the United States began going offline for maintenance. Apple Vision Pro is the company's first foray into the world of mixed reality, or what Apple likes to call "spatial computing." The device has been in development for over a decade and features a range of cutting-edge technologies that can display augmented reality content overlaid on the world around it, as well as fully virtual content for an immersive entertainment and gaming experience.

The wearable headset, which starts at $3,499, features two tiny OLED displays that allow for more than 4K resolution in each eye, as well as an external display called EyeSight that projects an image of the user's eyes so people can tell whether you're using the headset in immersive mode or can see what's going on around you. For those who wear glasses, a custom Zeiss optical insert ($149) magnetically attaches to the headset’s lenses, and a reading version is also available ($99).

The device includes a series of sensors and cameras to detect gestures and map the external environment, as well as speakers on either side of the device. VisionPro is equipped with an M2 processor and a separate R1 processor dedicated to processing information from these sensors. In addition, it comes with 16GB of memory and at least 256GB of onboard storage. Apple may also offer models with up to 1TB of storage, although this has not been officially confirmed. An external battery pack is also included in the box.

According to analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, Apple plans to produce 60,000 to 80,000 units of Vision Pro in its first batch, which will be released on February 2. Due to the small shipment volume, Vision Pro will "sell out quickly after release."

The area currently accepting orders is limited to the United States, but Apple is likely to launch Vision Pro outside the United States before WWDC 2024 in June. It is reported that Canada and the United Kingdom will be the first countries for sale outside the United States.