Apple wants to make sure your posture’s right when using the Vision Pro

Neck strain warnings

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The first preorders for theApple Vision Prowill very soon be making their way into the hands of users, but it seems thatAppleis making plans to have headsets like the Vision Pro respond to the posture of the person wearing them.

A newlypublished patent(viaPatently Apple) refers to “tiered posture awareness” – a method through which headsets and smart specs could figure out the posture of users, and then make any necessary tweaks to the way content was presented.

So, for example, a virtual 3D environment might be slightly adjusted based on the way the user is standing or sitting, and the surround sound effects applied to audio feeds could also be changed to be as immersive as possible.

The patent also mentions making calculations based on how much strain the headset might be putting on the person wearing it – this information could be used to warn users if their posture is putting too much strain on their body parts.

Future updates

It’s quite a complex patent, and the usual caveats about patents apply here too: there’s no guarantee that these ideas will ever actually be implemented in a product, but they offer an interesting insight into what Apple’s engineers are thinking about.

In the hands-on time we’ve hadwith the Apple Vision Pro, we haven’t noticed any kind of head or neck strain, though these sessions have been rather brief. We’ll be running a full test of the spatial computing device just as soon as we’re able to.

Something like what’s being described in the patent could potentially be delivered to the Vision Pro via a future software update. Alternatively, it might be held back for future versions of the headset, which we’ve alreadystarted hearing rumors about.

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Apple will also be hoping that more app developers put out dedicated versions of their apps for the Vision Pro in the future: the likes of Netflix arecurrently holding backbecause it’s going to take a while for the Vision Pro to make it to the mainstream.

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Dave is a freelance tech journalist who has been writing about gadgets, apps and the web for more than two decades. Based out of Stockport, England, on TechRadar you’ll find him covering news, features and reviews, particularly for phones, tablets and wearables. Working to ensure our breaking news coverage is the best in the business over weekends, David also has bylines at Gizmodo, T3, PopSci and a few other places besides, as well as being many years editing the likes of PC Explorer and The Hardware Handbook.

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