好英语网苹果头戴设备Vision Pro能引爆虚拟现实热潮吗
A bet on injecting iPhone-esque magic into virtual reality
将iPhone般的魔法注入虚拟现实的一次押注
It’s here (or it will be “early next year”): Apple unveiled its long-awaited entry into virtual reality, or what the tech giant calls “spatial computing,” in the form of the Apple Vision Pro, a $3,500 device that looks like exquisitely designed futuristic ski goggles.
它来了（或者说“明年初”即将到来）：苹果公司推出了人们期待已久的虚拟现实设备Apple Vision Pro，即该科技巨头所谓的“空间计算”，它售价3500美元，看起来就像设计精美的未来风格滑雪护目镜。
众所瞩目的苹果公司新产品发布会。
The initial reviews were mixed and skeptics questioned whether even Apple could make virtual reality anything more than a niche technology. But boosters say that if any company can make it mainstream, it’s Apple with its ecosystem of two billion iPhone, iPad and Mac users.
最初的评论褒贬不一，怀疑者质疑，就算由苹果公司开发，虚拟现实能否不局限于一种小众技术。但支持者表示，如果说有哪家公司能够使其成为主流，那就是拥有由20亿iPhone、iPad和Mac用户生态系统的苹果公司。
“We believe Apple Vision Pro is a revolutionary product,” Tim Cook told developers and journalists on Monday. It certainly looks like an Apple product: Unlike other virtual reality headsets, an external display shows your eyes to others, and the device is controlled using hand gestures, eye movements and your voice. A dial allows you to adjust how immersed you want to be in the virtual world, which is beamed to your eyeballs via two tiny 4K screens.
“我们相信Apple Vision Pro是一款革命性的产品，”蒂姆·库克周一告诉开发者和记者。它看起来确实像苹果产品：与其他虚拟现实头戴设备不同，外部显示器可以向他人显示你的眼睛，并且该设备是通过手势、眼动和你的声音来控制的。你可以通过一个转盘调节你想要在虚拟世界中的沉浸程度，虚拟世界通过两个微型4K屏幕传送到你的眼球。
Yet what Apple demonstrated on Monday were mostly immersive versions of apps like FaceTime and Safari, as well as 3-D photos and video, rather than a wholly VR experience. Here’s what early testers had to say:
然而，苹果周一展示的主要是FaceTime和Safari等应用程序的沉浸式版本，以及3D照片和视频，而不是完全的VR体验。以下是早期测试者的体会：
• “At the end of the demo, I took off the headset and felt two things: 1) Wow. Very cool. 2) Did I just do drugs?” wrote Joanna Stern of The Wall Street Journal.
• “在演示结束时，我摘下设备，感觉到了两件事：1）哇哦。很酷。2）我刚刚吸毒了吗？”《华尔街日报》的乔安娜·斯特恩写道。
• The device’s eye-tracking “is the closest thing I’ve seen to magic,” said the tech reviewer Marques Brownlee.
• 该设备的眼动追踪功能“是我见过的最接近魔法的东西”，科技评论员马克斯·布朗利说。
• “The most perfect headset demo reel of all time is still just a headset demo reel,” wrote Nilay Patel of The Verge.
• “有史以来最完美的头戴设备演示仍然只是一个头戴设备演示，”The Verge的尼莱·帕特尔写道。
These are tough times for virtual reality. Enthusiasm for virtual worlds, often called the metaverse, rose during the pandemic, but waned as lockdowns eased. Investors also appear to have moved onto shinier new technologies like artificial intelligence: Metaverse-related start-ups raised about $664 million in the first five months of 2023, down 77 percent year on year, according to PitchBook.
现在是虚拟现实的艰难时期。对虚拟世界（通常称为元宇宙）的热情在疫情期间上升，但随着封锁的放松而减弱。投资者似乎也转向了人工智能等更耀眼的新技术：根据PitchBook的数据，与元宇宙相关的初创企业在2023年前五个月筹集了约6.64亿美元，同比下降77%。
But Apple has supercharged new product categories before. Remember that the market for portable digital music players was just 3.3 million units in 2000 before Apple released the iPod; four years later, it surged to 26.4 million.
但苹果公司过去就曾带动新产品类别。别忘了，在苹果公司发布iPod之前，便携式数字音乐播放器的市场在2000年的时候只有330万台；四年后飙升至2640万。
And Apple is often content to play the long game: “They know this is an evolution that’s going to take some time,” Jeff Fieldhack of Counterpoint Research told The New York Times. (Then again, not all Apple products turn out to be hits.)
苹果公司通常乐于打持久战：“他们知道这种演变需要时间，”Counterpoint Research的杰夫·菲尔德哈克告诉《纽约时报》。（话又说回来，并不是所有的苹果产品都大受欢迎。）
Others may profit from riding Apple’s coattails. Shares in the game developer Unity jumped 17 percent on Monday on the news, while those in Disney shot up after the media giant said its Disney+ service would be available on the Vision Pro.
其他人可能会因为搭上苹果的顺风车而获利。消息传出后，游戏开发商Unity的股价周一上涨17%，而媒体巨头迪士尼表示其Disney+服务将在Vision Pro上使用后股价飙升。
Even Meta, which has invested — and lost — billions in trying to make the metaverse go mainstream, may benefit: Could its lower-cost Quest Pro, whose newest version will start at $500, end up becoming the Android to the Vision Pro’s iPhone?
即使是试图让元宇宙成为主流的Meta——已经投资并损失了数十亿美元——也可能会受益：它的Quest Pro成本较低，其最新版本起价为500美元，最终会成为安卓版的Vision Pro吗？