Analysis-Vision Pro headset is Apple's next Mac and TV combined

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By Stephen Nellis and Dawn Chmielewski

(Reuters) -Apple's Vision Pro could upend how people watch television at home and how they use computers at work, potentially positioning the headset to be a successor to both traditional television and the Mac.

The $3,500 headset, which blends three-dimensional digital content with a view of the outside world, landed in the company’s physical U.S. stores on Friday. It enters a market crowded with lower-cost rivals from Meta Platforms, HTC and others that have mostly been confined to the video game market and failed to find a mass audience.

Apple has had mixed results courting developers. Netflix, one of the most popular consumer video apps, said late Friday it is not making a new app for the Vision Pro, though consumers can watch movies and series on the device's web browser.

YouTube, which could not immediately be reached for comment, said in a Bloomberg report that it is not planning to launch a new app for the device but consumers can instead use the Safari web browser. The music streaming service, Spotify, also has not developed an app for the product's launch, according to a person familiar with the matter.

The pricey device comes with custom computing chips and difficult-to-manufacture displays that rivals lack. Analysts who have tried the headset say these features could make the device a threat to almost every large two-dimensional screen at home or work.

Walt Disney has quietly worked with Apple for years on an app for the Vision Pro's launch, the latest in a history of collaboration between the two companies.

“When we saw this, it became evident it was a new canvas for how we can tell stories in a way that hasn't been done before,” said Aaron LaBerge, chief technology officer of Disney Entertainment. “And so it became pretty obvious that we wanted to do something here just as a way to stretch ourselves.”

The Disney+ app envelops movie viewers in one of four environments, so they can watch “Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” from the seat of a fictional X-34 landspeeder craft on the planet of Tatooine, like a futuristic drive-in movie theater, or catch “Avengers: Endgame” from inside Avengers Tower in midtown Manhattan. Viewers can also watch 42 Disney films in 3D, including box office hits “Avatar: The Way of Water,” “Black Panther” and “Inside Out.”

Jamie Voris, chief technology officer at Walt Disney Studios, said filmmakers such as “The Lion King” director Jon Favreau and James Cameron of "Avatar" are interested in telling stories in new ways. Disney will soon introduce an experience it teased in a clip screened at Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference last June, in which consumers interact with its Marvel Studios animated anthology series, “What If?”