Apple unveiled Apple Vision Pro, its first augmented reality headgear, at its 2023 Worldwide Developers Conference. (WWC), as reported by the website Mashable.
According to a US website citing an Apple engineer, the camera inputs of the Apple Vision Pro will not be made available to third-party developers. Apple is restricting access to the camera out of concern for privacy.
An Apple engineer disclosed during developer discussions at WWDC 2023 that third-party developers will not have access to Apple Vision Pro camera feeds (via UploadVR). Apple will prevent unauthorized access to the mixed reality headset’s camera due to privacy concerns.
When using Apple Vision Pro to make a FaceTime call, the recipient’s persona will be displayed instead of their actual visage. Using techniques developed by Apple for machine learning, Personas can be generated to replicate the user’s facial expressions and hand gestures in real time.
Apple Vision Pro blocks third-party camera access.
It has been hypothesized that meeting applications such as Zoom and WebEx also utilize Personas. VisionOS’s default behavior for the rear camera is to display a black image with a “no camera” icon in the center. According to the Mashable website, if they did this, the application wouldn’t collapse and developers couldn’t add their own vision enhancements.
UploadVR asserts that competitors such as the Meta Quest headset do not have access to raw camera data. HTC also restricts access to the Vive XR Elite’s raw camera output. In the near future, however, with the introduction of innovative headgear, this could all change.
Beginning in 2024, the Apple Vision Pro will cost $3,499 (Rs 2,88,500) in the United States. It is powered by visionOS and has two micro-OLED displays with ultra-high resolution. It is powered by Apple’s M2 and R1 chipsets, according to the Mashable website.