PRESS RELEASE
January 16, 2024
Apple previews new entertainment experiences launching with Apple Vision Pro
Users can turn any space into a personal theater, enjoy more than 150 3D movies, and experience the future of entertainment with Apple Immersive Video
CUPERTINO, CALIFORNIA Apple today announced a series of groundbreaking entertainment experiences that will be available on Apple Vision Pro beginning Friday, February 2. With more pixels than a 4K TV for each eye, combined with an advanced Spatial Audio system, Vision Pro enables users to watch new shows and films from top streaming services including Apple Originals from Apple TV+, transport themselves to stunning landscapes with Environments, and enjoy all-new spatial experiences that were never possible before, like Encounter Dinosaurs.
“Apple Vision Pro is the ultimate entertainment device,” said Greg Joswiak, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. “Users can turn any place into the best seat in the house, enjoy personal concerts and adventures with Apple Immersive Video, interact with lifelike prehistoric creatures in Encounter Dinosaurs, and even land on the surface of the moon using Environments. It’s unlike anything users have ever seen before and we can’t wait for them to experience it for themselves.”
“At Disney, we’re constantly searching for new ways to entertain, inform, and inspire by combining exceptional creativity with groundbreaking technology to create truly remarkable experiences,” said Bob Iger, The Walt Disney Company’s CEO. “Apple Vision Pro is a revolutionary platform that will bring our fans closer to the characters and stories they love while immersing them more deeply in all that Disney has to offer. We’re proud to once again be partnering with Apple to bring extraordinary new Disney experiences to people around the world.”
Breakthrough Technologies Power the Ultimate Entertainment Device
To provide an immersive viewing experience with brilliant color and extraordinary clarity, Apple Vision Pro features a pair of ultra-high-resolution micro-OLED displays that pack a combined 23 million pixels with wide color, high dynamic range, and Dolby Vision. The brand-new R1 chip streams images to each display every 12 milliseconds — 8x faster than the blink of an eye — while the M2 chip delivers breakthrough, power-efficient performance across its CPU, GPU, Neural Engine, and other custom technologies. Vision Pro supports two hours of general use, up to 2.5 hours for video playback, and all-day use when the external battery is connected to power with a USB-C charging cable.
Apple Vision Pro sounds as good as it looks with an advanced Spatial Audio system that provides rich sound. Dual-driver audio pods beam Personalized Spatial Audio to each ear1 — with support for Dolby Atmos and Lossless Audio — while also allowing listeners to hear what’s happening around them. Audio ray tracing analyzes the acoustic properties of a user’s surroundings to optimize sound for their space. For listeners who want to use headphones with Vision Pro, AirPods Pro (2nd generation) with USB‑C offer the perfect experience, featuring Lossless Audio with ultra-low latency.
Dynamic Apps and Environments in visionOS
visionOS seamlessly blends digital content with a user’s physical space to provide an infinite canvas for apps, games, and other spatial experiences. Apps in visionOS can be placed anywhere within a user’s space and scaled to the perfect size. Users can also transform their space with Environments: beautiful, dynamic vistas with realistic soundscapes that can automatically evolve based on the time of day. Users can open apps within Environments, so they can stream music, audiobooks, or podcasts as they look up at a starry night sky from Yosemite, surf the web from Haleakalā, or settle in for a movie during a storm on Mount Hood. Users can adjust the immersion of an Environment, including the volume of the ambient sounds, by rotating the Digital Crown on Apple Vision Pro.
visionOS supports several technologies unique to the Apple ecosystem to provide a seamless entertainment experience on Apple Vision Pro. With SharePlay, Vision Pro users can watch TV shows and movies, listen to music on Apple Music, and play games from the App Store and Apple Arcade with users on other Apple devices, including iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple TV. visionOS also introduces several new features and technologies unique to Vision Pro: Users can enable Travel Mode to stabilize visuals for use on planes,2 and Guest User to share specific apps and experiences with family and friends,3 such as Photos or Safari.
The viewing experience on Apple Vision Pro is unparalleled: When a user begins watching a video, the lights around them automatically dim as the content moves closer to them. Videos can be positioned anywhere in their space or placed in an Environment for the most cinematic experience. With Environments, users can scale videos beyond the dimensions of their room, so the screen feels 100 feet wide, all while preserving the frame rate and aspect ratio. And there is no need for a remote: Users simply invoke controls with their eyes, hands, or voice.
A Personal Theater for TV Shows, Films, Sports, and More
With the Apple TV app, Apple Vision Pro users can watch all award-winning Apple Originals from Apple TV+, including Golden Globe winner Killers of the Flower Moon, the Emmy Award-winning STILL: A Michael J. Fox Movie, and the new, critically acclaimed limited series, Masters of the Air. Users can also access MLS Season Pass, home of Major League Soccer, and much more from popular streaming apps and channels. The Apple TV app also features the Cinema Environment, enabling viewers to transform any space into their personal theater. Users can even choose their favorite seat from the floor or balcony, and the front, middle, or back row.
Users will also be able to download and stream TV shows, films, sports, and more with apps from top streaming services, including Disney+,4 ESPN, NBA, MLB, PGA Tour, Max, Discovery+, Amazon Prime Video, Paramount+, Peacock, Pluto TV, Tubi, Fubo, Crunchyroll, Red Bull TV, IMAX, TikTok, and the 2023 App Store Award-winning MUBI. Users can also watch popular online and streaming video using Safari and other browsers.
With visionOS, developers can leverage the powerful and unique capabilities of Apple Vision Pro to transform the user’s space, making the viewing experiences within their apps even more immersive. With Disney+, subscribers can watch thousands of TV shows and films from four iconic environments with vivid details: the Disney+ Theater, inspired by the historic El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood; the Scare Floor from Pixar’s Monsters Inc.; Marvel’s Avengers Tower overlooking downtown Manhattan; and the cockpit of Luke Skywalker’s landspeeder, facing a binary sunset on the planet Tatooine from the Star Wars galaxy.
3D Movies Like Never Before
At launch, Apple Vision Pro users can watch more than 150 3D movies from the world’s top studios with remarkable depth wherever they are, including all-time favorites and recent releases, such as Avatar: The Way of Water, Dune, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, and The Super Mario Bros. Movie.
Users can access 3D versions of eligible movies when they become available to rent or purchase from the Apple TV app, and users who own or purchase movies with a 3D edition will be able to access that version on Apple Vision Pro at no additional cost. Several streaming apps, including Disney+, will offer 3D versions of their latest and most popular movies on Vision Pro at launch, and will debut new 3D editions alongside or shortly following standard 2D releases. Users can watch both 2D and 3D movies with Spatial Audio and in an Environment to make the experience even more immersive.
All-New Immersive Entertainment Experiences
With Apple Vision Pro, users can experience Apple Immersive Video, a remarkable new entertainment format pioneered by Apple. Apple Immersive Video features 180-degree 3D 8K recordings captured with Spatial Audio to transport viewers to the center of a place, moment, or story. At launch, users can enjoy a curated selection of immersive films and series on the Apple TV app at no additional cost:
- Alicia Keys: Rehearsal Room offers a rare glimpse into the Grammy winner’s creative process with this intimate rehearsal session featuring renditions of her hits “No One,” “If I Ain’t Got You,” and “You Don’t Know My Name.” Users can also access these performances as a special EP exclusively on Apple Music when it debuts.
- Adventure follows pioneering athletes as they take on awe-inspiring challenges in some of the world’s most sensational locations. In the first episode, Highlining, viewers step into thin air with highliner Faith Dickey as she takes on her highest challenge yet: a daring traverse 3,000 feet above Norway’s breathtaking fjords.
- Wild Life takes viewers up close and personal with some of the most charismatic creatures on the planet to uncover what makes them unique, featuring the experts who know them best. The first episode brings viewers into the world’s largest rhinoceros sanctuary where a former police captain has dedicated her life to rescuing, raising, and rewilding these gentle giants.
- Prehistoric Planet Immersive: The award-winning Apple Original docuseries from Jon Favreau and the producers of Planet Earth returns with an immersive film that transports viewers into the daily lives of dinosaurs, and follows the struggles and triumphs of these majestic animals amid spectacular scenery. Prehistoric Planet Immersive whisks viewers along a rugged ocean coast where a pterosaur colony settles in for an afternoon nap, which proves to be anything but restful.
Even More on the App Store and Apple Arcade
Along with all-new immersive experiences, users can enjoy cutting-edge interactive entertainment exclusive to Apple Vision Pro. With Encounter Dinosaurs, a new free app developed by Apple and Fairview Portals that ships with Vision Pro, users can peer into the Cretaceous, a period more than 66 million years old, where dinosaurs roamed the earth and Mother Nature reigned supreme. Executive produced by Jon Favreau and inspired by his award-winning work with Prehistoric Planet, Encounter Dinosaurs makes it possible for users to interact with giant, three-dimensional reptiles as if they are bursting through their own physical space.
With even more to discover on the brand-new App Store — featuring more than 1 million apps, over 250 fun games on Apple Arcade, and brand-new spatial experiences built for visionOS — users will enjoy a world of entertainment on Apple Vision Pro.
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- Personalized Spatial Audio requires an iPhone with a TrueDepth camera to create a personal profile.
- Apple Vision Pro should not be used while operating a moving vehicle.
- When Settings is open, guests may access some app content, such as large photo attachments, in Messages. A user’s Apple ID settings, Optic ID, passcode, passwords, Apple Pay, Persona, and health data will be restricted while Guest User is enabled.
- With access to Hulu content for eligible Disney Bundle subscribers. A Disney+ subscription is required.