The first preorders for the Apple Vision Pro will very soon be making their way into the hands of users, but it seems that Apple is making plans to have headsets like the Vision Pro respond to the posture of the person wearing them.
A newly published patent (via Patently Apple) refers to “tiered posture awareness” – a method through which headsets and smart specs could figure out the posture of users, and then make any necessary tweaks to the way content was presented.
So, for example, a virtual 3D environment might be slightly adjusted based on the way the user is standing or sitting, and the surround sound effects applied to audio feeds could also be changed to be as immersive as possible.
The patent also mentions making calculations based on how much strain the headset might be putting on the person wearing it – this information could be used to warn users if their posture is putting too much strain on their body parts.
Future updates
It’s quite a complex patent, and the usual caveats about patents apply here too: there’s no guarantee that these ideas will ever actually be implemented in a product, but they offer an interesting insight into what Apple’s engineers are thinking about.
In the hands-on time we’ve had with the Apple Vision Pro, we haven’t noticed any kind of head or neck strain, though these sessions have been rather brief. We’ll be running a full test of the spatial computing device just as soon as we’re able to.
Something like what’s being described in the patent could potentially be delivered to the Vision Pro via a future software update. Alternatively, it might be held back for future versions of the headset, which we’ve already started hearing rumors about.
Apple will also be hoping that more app developers put out dedicated versions of their apps for the Vision Pro in the future: the likes of Netflix are currently holding back because it’s going to take a while for the Vision Pro to make it to the mainstream.