Apple shows how you could try out a new iPhone inside Vision Pro

If you want to try out a new iPhone, you might not have to leave your home in future. Apple has applied for a patent which illustrates a virtual try-out of a new phone from within a Vision Pro environment. The company describes its use for iPads and Macs too.

For example, you could hold up a virtual iPhone in front of a virtual landscape, and see the images you’d capture with the different cameras …

The patent application (spotted by Patently Apple) is for what Apple describes as a method of “customizing and demonstrating products in a virtual environment.”

Methods for providing a virtual shopping experience in which a demonstration of a product is presented to the user. In some embodiments, the demonstration is an interactive demonstration in a simulated virtual environment in which a user is able to interact with the device and the device is responsive to the simulated virtual environment. In some embodiments, the demonstration demonstrates one or more customizable features of the product. In some embodiments, a user is able to customize the features of the product, such as to customize the configuration and/or the parts of the product.

It includes an augmented reality view of a device in your own home.

An electronic device displaying an extended reality (XR) environment (e.g., a computer generated environment) according to embodiments of the disclosure. In some embodiments, electronic device is a hand-held or mobile device, such as a tablet computer, laptop computer, smartphone, or head-mounted display […]

The physical environment may include physical features such as a physical surface (e.g., floor, walls) or a physical object (e.g., table, lamp, etc.). In some embodiments, electronic device may be configured to capture areas of physical environment including tabletop, lamp, desktop computer and input devices.

Bur virtual environments would also be used. For example, the illustrations include someone trying out the camera of a phone, standing in front of a simulated image of a mountain range, and able to see the photos that would be captured with wide-angle and telephoto lenses.

Another one shows someone configuring a desktop Mac with different components, and seeing the impact on performance in both statistical form and an on-screen demo of actual use. A Buy button then lets you buy the system you just specced-up.

You could, for example, try out a Mac with the base processor and memory, then swap to a faster processor and more memory to see the improvement in performance.

What Apple describes is the ability to use the virtual device in a very comprehensive way. For example, for a Mac or iPad:

The device typically supports a variety of applications that may be displayed in the computer-generated environment, such as one or more of the following: a drawing application, a presentation application, a wordprocessing application, a website creation application, a disk authoring application, a spreadsheet application, a gaming application, a telephone application, a video conferencing application, an e-mail application, an instant messaging application, a workout support application, a content application (e.g., a photo/video management application), a digital camera application, a digital video camera application, a web browsing application, a digital music player application, a television channel browsing application, and/or a digital video player application.

Clearly the goal here is to allow a virtual demo to completely replicate the in-store experience.

If you currently like to try Apple products in-store before buying, could you imagine using a virtual experience like this instead? Please share your thoughts in the comments.

Image: 9to5Mac collage of images from Apple and My name is Yanick on Unsplash