Apple announced its mixed-reality headset, the Vision Pro, on Monday during its WWDC developer conference. The $3,499 headset is its first major new product since the Apple Watch in 2014.
The Vision Pro will allow users to see apps in a new way, in the spaces around them. Users can use their eyes and hands to navigate through apps and search with their voices. The headset can be used to watch movies, including in 3-D, with spatial audio, view their own pictures or videos, and play video games. It can also be used for work with video conferencing apps, Microsoft Office tools or Adobe Lightroom.
It will be available starting at $3,499 beginning early next year.
Apple stock dropped about 1% after the company unveiled the headset, giving up gains from earlier in the day.
With a feature called EyeSight, the headset can become transparent or opaque to signal to people around the headset user if they’re immersed in an experience or available to interact. Spatial audio will make it feel like the user is totally immersed in the experience, including by sensing other items in the room.
The Vision Pro can also create a realistic-looking avatar of a user to use in the experience.
The headset is made to fit different face shapes and sizes with adjustable and interchangeable parts.
The company announced several partnerships for the Vision Pro on stage. Disney CEO Bob Iger appeared on stage to announce that Disney+ would be available on the Vision Pro from day one of its release. Unity stock spiked over 20% and trading was briefly halted after Apple announced a partnership with the game development platform.
Here are some images from Apple’s presentation that shows how it works:
This is how the headset looks when a user is available to interact with others in the room.
Apple Vision Pro
Source: Apple
Apps appear in front of the user, who can look around and gesture to navigate.
Apple Vision Pro
Source: Apple
Here’s what it looks like to view a panorama with the headset.
Apple Vision Pro
Source: Apple
This is what it would look like to play a video game on the device.
Apple Vision Pro display
Source: Apple
This is what it’s like to video conference with the headset.
Apple Vision Pro
Source: Apple
It can also be used to learn new things in 3-D.
Apple Vision Pro
Source: Apple
Users can view different windows in front of them like they typically see on a computer screen.
Apple Vision Pro
Source: Apple
Apple has worked on headset hardware and software since at least 2016 in a division called the Technology Development Group. Monday’s launch is the culmination of years of development — some in secret, and some as public-facing groundwork previously released for the iPhone, such as depth-sensing cameras and software.
Apple CEO Tim Cook has spoken at length about the potential of augmented reality that overlays computer graphics onto the real world, saying that the tech could eventually be an everyday device for most people and that its impact could be similar to the invention of the internet.
Apple’s VR headset debut comes during a time when the broader virtual reality industry has struggled to meet high expectations for the technology. For now, it’s considered to be “mixed reality,” or virtual reality that can access the outside world through cameras mounted on the headset.
Monday’s launch also opens up a new era of open competition between Apple and Meta, which develops its own virtual reality headsets. Meta said last week that its latest headset model, Quest 3, would be released later this year.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang delivers remarks next to U.S. President Donald Trump at an ‘Investing in America’ event in Washington, D.C., on April 30, 2025.
Leah Millis | Reuters
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang will meet with President Donald Trump at the White House on Thursday, CNBC’s Megan Cassella reported.
The meeting comes as Nvidia rose slightly on Thursday, becoming the first company to close a trading day with a market cap over $4 trillion, beating Apple and Microsoft to the symbolic milestone. Nvidia touched the mark briefly on Wednesday during trading.
Trump praised Nvidia stock in a social media post Thursday morning.
“NVIDIA IS UP 47% SINCE TRUMP TARIFFS. USA is taking in Hundreds of Billions of Dollars in Tariffs,” Trump posted on Truth Social. “COUNTRY IS NOW ‘BACK.'”
An Nvidia representative declined to comment, and it was unclear what the meeting is about, but Nvidia has been grappling with export controls on its artificial intelligence chips implemented by the Trump administration in April for national security reasons.
At the time, the U.S. government told Nvidia that its previously-approved H20 processor — intended exclusively for the Chinese market — would require an export license. Huang previously told investors that requirement effectively cut off Nvidia’s sales to China with “no grace period.” The AI chipmaker said that it would miss $8 billion in planned orders for the chip in the company’s July quarter.
“The $50 billion China market is effectively closed to U.S. industry,” Huang told investors on an earnings call in May.
Nvidia also faces another potential restriction on AI chip exports after the Trump administration cancelled a planned rule by former President Joe Biden called the “AI diffusion rule.” The Trump administration promised newer, simpler restrictions later this year on which countries could receive Nvidia’s technology.
Ex-CNN anchor Don Lemon‘s lawsuit against tech billionaire Elon Musk and his social network X over the cancellation of their partnership can proceed to trial, a San Francisco judge ruled this week.
Musk’s team had tried to get the case moved to a Texas court and tried to convince the judge to strike the complaint altogether.
Attorneys for Musk and X didn’t respond to a request for comment.
In an order Tuesday, Judge Harold Kahn said Lemon and his attorneys plausibly alleged, among other claims, that X and Musk had committed “fraud by false promise” and that there was “an implied contract” between them.
Lemon filed the suit in August 2024 after X canceled a partnership with the broadcast journalist a few hours after he taped a tense interview with Musk, who owns X. The interview preceded a planned premiere of Lemon’s new show on Musk’s social network.
During the interview, Lemon pressed Musk on several contentious topics he had posted about or amplified on X. Musk had boosted the so-called “great replacement theory,” and other bigoted tropes and falsehoods, including posts that claimed there was a “Hispanic invasion” of immigrants to the U.S.
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Lemon also pressed Musk about content moderation on X, and a reported surge in antisemitic content on the platform that occurred after Musk acquired it as Twitter in a $44 billion leveraged buyout in late 2022.
Musk made sweeping changes after taking over the site, firing huge numbers of personnel and reversing account bans for users who had been booted from the platform after posting hate speech or inciting violence.
Musk, who characterized himself as a free speech “absolutist” also restored the account of President Donald Trump. The site had permanently banned Trump from the platform in January 2021 following the attack by his supporters on the U.S. Capitol.
Lemon’s case against Musk and X Corp. is in San Francisco Superior Court. A date has not been set for the trial.
Musk and X have faced a litany of other lawsuits over non-payment to vendors and over failure to provide severance as promised to laid-off employees from Twitter.
Lemon was fired from CNN in 2023 following reports that he mistreated coworkers and made sexist remarks on-air, including about politician Nikki Haley. Lemon later apologized for the Haley comments.
Bitcoin climbed to new all-time high on Thursday, building on its previous record reached just a day earlier, as investors jumped into risk assets and liquidated short positions.
The price of the flagship cryptocurrency was last higher by about 2% at $113,459.16. Earlier, it rose as high as $113,863.18.
On Thursday afternoon, bitcoin saw about $318 million in short liquidations across centralized exchanges in a 24 hour period, according to CoinGlass. When traders use leverage to short bitcoin and the cryptocurrency’s price rises, they buy bitcoin back from the market to close their positions, which pushes the price up and causes more positions to be liquidated.
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