The 'ultimate entertainment device'

I’ve seen the sci-fi classic Blade Runner a million times. I know just about every scene by heart.

I have a bunch of favorite moments — among them, an amazing, beautifully cinematic transition between Deckard’s apartment and a street scene outside the market where artificial animals are sold.

It’s a small moment, and perhaps I’m the only person on the planet who loves it. But I do, thanks to the combination of Vangelis’ beautiful soundtrack and a masterful tracking shot. It’s perfect cinema.

And yet when I watched Blade Runner on the big screen recently for the first time in many years, I had a totally different reaction.

The most incredible scenes were ones I’d missed on the smaller screen. I was moved to tears watching Sean Young let down her hair at the piano, a scene that I hadn’t much appreciated before. But seeing her face 30 feet high, her incredible beauty, and again, Vangelis’ stirring music, had me secretly sobbing in the dark.

And this is why I’m very much looking forward to the Apple Vision Pro headset. The movie theater where I recently saw Blade Runner has a screen about 50 feet wide.

A virtual cinema screen inside the Vision Pro is supposedly equivalent to a screen 100 feet wide. Wow! This is one reason why Apple is pitching Vision Pro as the “ultimate entertainment device.”

At $3,500, it’d better be.

I can’t wait to strap one on and blubber into it as I watch movie stars fiddle with their hair.

Also in today’s newsletter:

• Hard to believe, but for the first time, Apple sold more smartphones than its rivals in 2023.

• Prices for in-app purchases are likely to get cheaper, thanks to a legal decision that went against Apple.

• If you regularly forget your iPhone — and apparently, this is something our writer Ed Hardy does frequently — you might find this single-purpose gadget handy.

• Mifa's EDC-style Nylon Sports Leather Apple Watch band looks extra-cool in orange and green.

• If you’re worried about AI taking your job — or everyone’s jobs — don’t click on the first tweet below. It shows someone with a Vision Pro headset using AI to build a web page from just a crude drawing. It’s jaw-dropping amazing — and scary as heck.

— Leander Kahney, EIC.

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