Don't want to wait in line at the Apple Store to try out the latest iPhone on launch day?Patently If a patent published by Apple comes to fruition, the day may come when you can try it out without even stepping out of your house

The patent, titled “Method of Customizing and Demonstrating Products in a Virtual Environment,” imagines a world where customers can avoid the crowds and experience Apple products in the comfort of their own living rooms, perhaps via a mixed reality headset, presumably the Apple Vision Pro

In this most innovative imagining, product demonstrations take the form of “interactive demonstrations in a simulated virtual environment” As the image below shows, one can “test” the new iPhone camera in a virtual park and see how effective the telephoto lens is at capturing distant objects

It can also be used to show products in one's living room via augmented reality, useful for getting a sense of the size of non-portable products like the HomePod, Apple TV, and iMac Speaking of Macs, one of the more interesting concepts of the virtual demo is the ability to see the actual impact of an upgrade on a device

In another image, Apple imagines that users could configure a desktop Mac with different components and see the performance changes in both virtual benchmarks and on-screen performance In other words, they can see for themselves the benefits of paying extra for more RAM and a faster processor

Of course, this patent comes with a rather large caveat

First, you have to experience it in person to understand it Being able to “hold” a virtual iPhone is obviously not the same as holding a weighted real one and feeling the edges press against your hand

More importantly, the patent calls for a virtual reality headset, and while the document does not specifically name Vision Pro, it is hard to imagine Apple going beyond its own family of hardware: there are Vision Pro owners worldwide Not only are there not that many, but those who purchase the $3,500 headset undoubtedly have the spending power to make big tech purchases on a whim, without the need for persuasion by virtual demos

Thus, it is likely that the patent will become a never-marketed product, or at least sit on the shelf until Apple sells enough Vision Pro headsets Of course, that may not happen, but the company is reportedly setting its sights on a lower-priced version that could appear as early as next year

Still, we wouldn't put money on buying an iPhone 17 with Vision Pro next year, let alone an iPhone 16 next month