Apple went for oleds in Vision Pro

As soon as it was announced, I was dying to see what type of display Apple has used in the Vision Pro augmented reality headset.

And its website says: a pair of micro-oled displays, with resolution above 4K

I was hoping for a micro-led display – ie, inorganic semiconductor – as this is a very interesting technology.

Maybe this tells us that micro-led is not ready, as Apple must have done a lot of homework before picking its display technology.

Advocates of micro-led promise much more light than lcd or oled, and high light output is crucial with AR glasses as the internal display has to compete with ambient lighting – virtual reality goggles exclude all ambient light and the displays get a far easier ride.

Looking at the very dark front glass of Vision Pro, which must be attenuating ambient light a great deal, makes me wonder if Apple is having intensity issues with its displays – particularly as it has gone for goggle-like, rather than glasses-like, construction to exclude ambient light from the sides.

One more note: that much-discussed two hour run-time is with an external battery, on the end of a lead, so the displays, and very likely the image processing electronics, must be drinking power. Apple even said: "A specially designed thermal system gently moves air through Vision Pro". I wonder if the battery will be integrated by the time the goggles go on sale next year?

On the subject of image processing, Apple said it has an M2 chip running visionOS, vision algorithms, and delivering graphics, and a chip called R1 processing input from the cameras, sensors and microphones, and streaming images to the displays.

Lidar and a camera provide data for a 3d map of the locality to be created on which displayed content can be overlaid.

The Vision Pro's (annoying as there is too much to scroll through before real information appears) website is here