The Vision Pro’s future lies in healthcare.
Wesley Hilliard from AppleInsider:
Sharp HealthCare purchased 30 Apple Vision Pros and started a Spatial Computing Center of Excellence in February 2024. One year later, they are hosting a summit to share what doctors have learned about using the headset in healthcare.
The Sharp HealthCare summit enables 300 doctors from 10 countries around the world to share how they've implemented Apple Vision Pro in their workflows. Adoption by doctors has been quite surprising, as enterprise, especially the medical field, tend to be quite slow at bringing new technologies into their work.
The Vision Pro has three main problems for mass-market appeal:
Cost
Comfort
Portability
For healthcare, the Vision Pro actually solves these problems:
As for the $3,500 price, the doctors say it pales in comparison to the $20,000 monitors used in the operating room. And the price coming down will only help drive adoption.
Comfort and portability are also huge benefits according to a surgeon interviewed by Fast Company:
“We were looking around the operating room,” he remembers. “We have a lot of monitors, a lot of clutter. We were like, ‘There’s got to be a better way to do this.’”
It wasn’t just about tidiness. ”For [a] monitor to be in the ideal position for surgery, it really should just be directly in front of your head without having to turn your neck or adjust your body,” explains Dr. Broderick. “But often in laparoscopy, you have to adjust your body, turn your neck, and be in uncomfortable positions. And with repeated use like that, it can lead to tight muscles, neck injury, back injury.”
The doctors’ frustration with this situation happened to come to a boil at an opportune time. On February 2, Apple released the Apple Vision Pro, its first headset. A major element of the device’s spatial computing experience was the ability to float multiple virtual screens of any size in real-world surroundings, unconstructed by the bulky inconvenience of physical displays. Dr. Broderick’s team got its hands on a loaner Vision Pro and worked with UCSD Health chief clinical and innovation officer Christopher Broadhurst to assemble a system capable of streaming video feeds and overlaying them on the live view of a surgery in progress, greatly reducing the need to crane necks.
In short order, the idea became a trial that involved real patients and is currently undergoing peer review. “We’ve done over 50 cases and have had great success thus far,” says Dr. Broderick.