9to5Mac Product of the Year: Apple imagination Pro

Apple fired on all cylinders throughout 2024 with large revamps to the iPad and Mac lineups, the iPhone 16, and the Apple Watch Series 10.

None of those products, however, have had and will proceed to have the impact of Apple imagination Pro. For that reason, we are crowning the Apple imagination Pro as the 9to5Mac Product of the Year for 2024.

Chance Miller, 9to5Mac Editor-in-chief

Even though picking Apple imagination Pro as our Apple product of the year will be controversial, I’m certain we’ve made the right choice.

I’ve had very fewer if any, technological experiences as magical as interacting with Apple imagination Pro. Watching my first spatial video is simply a minute I’ll never forget. Watching my favourite movie (Back to the Future) immersed in the Cinema Environment was stunning. In factor, I’ve watched more movies this year than always before, thanks to Apple imagination Pro.

Apple’s human interface plan choices with Apple imagination Pro have already influenced its biggest competitor. Meta fired up its photocopiers right as imagination Pro launched to mimic Apple’s innovative spatial computing plan paradigms. The company has besides rolled out upgraded hand tracking and gestures, spatial video support, and more. The Apple imagination Pro’s influence is clear.

Then, of course, there’s Mac Virtual Display. This turns Apple imagination Pro into a truly versatile powerhouse computer. The first version of Mac Virtual was impressive, but visionOS 2.2 took the experience to the next level with fresh wide and ultrawide options, improved visual fidelity, and appropriate audio routing.

Apple has work to do if it wants Apple imagination Pro (or whatever “Vision” product comes next) to truly become the future of computing. The good news is that I think Apple is taking the feedback in stride and will proceed to perfect the spatial computing experience in years to come. We’ve besides seen a notable uptick in the amount of Immersive Video and an increasingly impressive collection of third-party apps.

The clear honorable mentions for me are the M4 Mac mini and M4 iPad Pro. As awesome as those upgrades are, however, I don’t think they rival Apple imagination Pro. Nonetheless, I look forward to all the feedback from people telling me I’m wrong.

Zac Hall, elder summertime Intern

Apple imagination Pro is undeniably the Apple product of the year. It didn’t be as a product you could buy last year, and it won’t be fresh next year. all another Apple product is iterative this year. Apple imagination Pro is both technologically awesome and entirely fresh for Apple.

Sure, it’s astronomically priced, but it’s astronomically more awesome than all the affordable headsets out there. In short, AVP is simply a Mac and everything another headset is simply a Nintendo Wii. Yeah, affordable game consoles are better for entertaining games, but the Mac is simply a workhorse.

Apple imagination Pro is besides a much better 1.0 product than the first iPod, iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch. Each aforementioned product was replaced within a fewer years with a version that made the first hardware look long in the tooth. possibly that will happen with Apple imagination Pro, but my anticipation is that the gen-one AVP will be seen as futuristic and ahead of its time by the end of 2025 and mid-2026.

This is not to say that Apple imagination Pro is the technology of the year. The combination of ChatGPT and Claude share that honor. But with the narrow focus of Apple’s contributions to technology, I’m certain 2024 will be marked as the year Apple imagination Pro became reality. What about Apple Intelligence? Apple’s suite of generative AI features needs a dedicated chatbot before it should be considered comparable to ChatGPT and Claude.

Honorable mentions: task Titan getting canceled (RIP Apple Car), 16 GM RAM upgrade for M2 and M3 MacBook Air, and the demise of FineWoven iPhone cases.

Ryan Christoffel, News Writer

There’s no uncertainty Apple’s another 2024 products have been more ‘successful’ by typical benchmarks. But the imagination Pro is anything but typical.

Vision Pro launched a fresh product that put a classical Apple twist on an existing category. It’s technically a VR headset, but functionally an AR and VR device. Apple calls it a spatial computer.

While it may take years to see if spatial computing takes off, imagination Pro is undeniably a bold, innovative take on the future of computing.

Vision Pro deserves Product of the Year due to the fact that it offers something radically unique among Apple’s 2024 lineup.

My most-used device of the year, the M4 iPad Pro, packs any awesome upgrades—but it’s inactive fundamentally an iPad. The iPhone 16 Pro and M4 Mac mini are likewise strong products, but nothing altogether new.

These days, all fresh Apple product is expected to be a hit. imagination Pro surely isn’t that yet. But Tim Cook’s grown accustomed to calling it an “early adopter product,” and I think that rings true.

I can’t wait to see where Apple takes the imagination Pro next.

Jeff Benjamin, Head of Video Content Production

There are a fewer unforgettable first tech experiences in my life: the first time I jumped over a Goomba while holding an NES controller, the first time I clicked the mouse on an first Macintosh, the first time I swiped on an iPhone’s 3.5-inch display, and yes, the first time I mashed the accelerator in a Tesla. These moments are rare, but erstwhile you’re in the midst of one, you just know.

The Apple imagination Pro gave me that feeling again—a feeling I’ve only experienced a fistful of times in my lifetime.

To be honest, I was all set on crowning the M4 Mac mini due to the fact that it offers unparalleled value and arguably the best bang for your buck in Apple’s history. However, the Apple imagination Pro deserves designation due to the fact that it genuinely feels like individual from the future dropped this headset in my lap. It’s not just a fresh product with a fancy exterior; it’s an entirely fresh device with groundbreaking UX and UI paradigms that inactive leave me in awe, almost a year after its release.

The Apple imagination Pro is hands down the best tv and movie-watching experience I’ve always had. It surpasses any movie theatre on the planet. It’s an isolating, single-user device, but I’d argue that smartphones themselves can be equally isolating, possibly not physically, but mentally—perhaps even more so due to the fact that they make a false sense of presence erstwhile your head may be a 1000 miles away.

With the Apple imagination Pro, there’s no pretending. You’re transported to a completely different realm, sometimes even a completely different planet – hey, I like to usage visionOS 2’s Mac Virtual Display Ultrawide screen to edit videos in Final Cut Pro from the surface of the moon – don’t justice me.

It’s not perfect, but fewer first-generation devices are. Apple has laid an incredible foundation with imagination Pro and visionOS, and I’m incredibly excited to see where this journey takes us.

Filipe Esposito, Editor

The imagination Pro hasn’t rather lived up to Apple’s expectations of success. Yet, even if you don’t own 1 or plan to buy one, you’ve likely heard a lot about it. While the first iteration of the Apple imagination Pro may 1 day fade from our memories, I’m certain the imagination platform will yet evolve into more compact headsets and possibly even sleek glasses.

Although only a fewer 100 1000 people worldwide presently have access to the headset, the Apple imagination Pro has already made waves in the AR/VR industry. And I can’t wait to see what comes next.

Fernando Silva, Video Producer

The Apple imagination Pro has earned its place as Apple’s Product of the Year for 1 simple reason: it’s the first product since the first iPhone that has left me completely in awe. From the minute I experienced it, the full device felt like pure magic. The way you can seamlessly manipulate UI elements with nothing but your eyes is nothing short of revolutionary, and the precision with which it detects finger taps, no substance where your hands are, feels like it should not be possible. It’s like stepping into the Iron Man helmet, where technology feels both futuristic and intuitively human at the same time.

The Mac Mini and the M4 iPad Pro were besides strong contenders for this title. Both devices are incredibly impressive, showcasing Apple’s continued commitment to innovation and performance. However, even though I was thoroughly impressed by these products, the imagination Pro was the device that truly made my jaw drop.

What truly makes the imagination Pro deserving of this title is its versatility. Whether you’re diving into productivity tasks, perfectly synced with your Apple ecosystem, or immersing yourself in content while traveling, it excels at both with effortless grace. As a content consumption machine, it’s unparalleled, bringing cinema-like experiences straight to your face wherever you are. It’s not just a gadget; it’s a glimpse into the future of computing and entertainment, redefining what’s possible. That’s why, for me, it’s not just the best Apple product this year, it symbolizes a future that I want to be a part of.

Ben Lovejoy, European Editor

Vision Pro is of course a very controversial pick, with the redesigned M4 Mac mini a more apparent choice. Apple’s spatial computer is an costly niche product with comparatively fewer native apps, and I’m 1 of many Apple fans who enjoyed trying it but wasn’t remotely tempted to buy one.

Even those who did lay out the cash mostly ended up using it for immersive movie viewing, which could be far more comfortably and affordably achieved with a $440 face monitor.

But what’s crucial about imagination Pro is not what it is today, but the direction it sets for Apple. This is the iPhone maker taking its first tiny step toward an eventual Apple Glasses product. That, erstwhile it yet arrives, will be not Apple product of the year, but most likely of the decade. The iPhone maker reportedly even believes that it could yet replace the iPhone.

I’m not so certain about that, but I do believe that the advent of Apple Intelligence makes it at least a importantly more plausible prospect. possibly I’ll choice up my Apple Glasses erstwhile I want to rapidly usage an app in much the same way I choice up my Viture glasses erstwhile I want to watch YouTube.

Either way, I’m truly excited about the future of this form factor, and full anticipate Apple to do it better than anyone else. We can’t get there without Apple beginning that journey now, so for that reason imagination Pro earns its title despite its undeniable niche position today.

Michael Bower, Graphics Editor

Some people have claimed that Apple imagination Pro is the “future of computing.” I don’t know about that. But what I do know is that I’d love to see it become available in the Apple store for Veterans and Military in the foreseeable future, ideally within my lifetime.

Benjamin Mayo, European Contributor

While any have deemed it as a dead-end, I think the imagination Pro is setting a course for Apple’s future. People expecting imagination Pro to make an impact on culture in its first year had misguided expectations.

At an eye-watering $3,500 price point and riddled with various compromises like weight and battery life, the perfect hardware is inactive being crafted but this first-generation device sets the imagination for a fresh product line that will become successful sooner alternatively than later. It only needs a couple of hardware iterations to come into its own, and you have the long-term goal for augmented reality glasses simmering beyond that as well.

With the imagination Pro, Apple set out to build “a tool, not a toy” (to quote Apple VP Mike Rockwell), and it got amazingly far along to that goal in its first outing. We’ve already seen competitors change their software importantly to ape what Apple nailed out the gate in terms of productivity and window management in augmented reality.

Michael Burkhardt, Weekend Editor

Apple imagination Pro is simply a clear choice for product of the year. The hardware itself may not be the eventual expression of what spatial computing can be – but the software surely is. visionOS has had a profound impact on the remainder of the mixed reality industry, and almost surely caused Meta to rethink things. Apple’s software plan was incredibly thoughtful and features like Mac Virtual Display (which got even better this year thanks to Wide and Ultra Wide support!) are just the cherry on top.

I’m excited for the future of this product category. It needs to get smaller, lighter, and surely cheaper before any kind of mass adoption, but Apple laid an highly solid foundation with visionOS. In the meantime, you can start taking spatial photos and videos with your iPhone 15 Pro (or later) to enjoy in future imagination headsets.

There’s simply nothing else like imagination Pro on the market, and that’s why it takes the crown for product of the year. Many would propose Mac mini instead, but it’s more of a large value than an eventual product. If the redesign happened separately from the upgrade to 16GB of RAM, there wouldn’t be as much hype here. imagination Pro was the first truly fresh Apple product since the HomePod in 2018 — and Apple did a remarkable occupation here.

See also: