Apple has set a February 2 release date for the much-anticipated Vision Pro mixed reality headset, with preorders to begin January 19. The $3,500 device (plus $149 for prescription lenses) will be available to U.S. buyers at all Apple Store locations and through the Apple Store online. News of the company’s first new product since the Apple Watch in 2015 sent Apple shares up 7.74 percent by market close, even though the device is at this point (and price) aimed at enterprise customers. The headset has 256 GB of storage and runs on Apple’s new visionOS, the company’s first spatial operating system.

Since visionOS leverages existing developer frameworks, “more than 1 million familiar apps across iOS and iPadOS” will be available on the Apple Vision Pro at launch, the company says in an extensive announcement document, detailing everything from customization capabilities to specs like spatial audio and the micro OLED technology packing “23 million pixels into two displays, each the size of a postage stamp.”

“‘The era of spatial computing has arrived,’ Apple CEO Tim Cook said in Monday’s release,” according to CNBC, which notes “the headset is powered by Apple’s M2 chip, the same one used in its computers.”

Users will interact with Vision Pro using “a new three-dimensional user interface and input system controlled entirely by a user’s eyes, hands, and voice,” Apple says, controlling apps “simply looking at them, tapping their fingers to select, flicking their wrist to scroll, or using a virtual keyboard or dictation to type.”

Apple is targeting three core markets with the device: business productivity, entertainment and gaming. Vision Pro introduces the new Apple Immersive Video format, which “puts users inside the action with 180-degree, three-dimensional 8K recordings captured with spatial audio.” Developers are sure to find innovative new uses for the capability.

Although the Vision Pro was announced  in June at WWDC with availability set for early 2024, CNET says the announcement of the specific release date “arrived out of the blue — likely timed to overshadow the rest of the tech industry news from CES this week.”

The Wall Street Journal reports the Vision Pro will face lively competition in the form of “rival virtual or mixed-reality offerings from Meta Platforms, TikTok owner ByteDance, Samsung Electronics and Sony,” with some of those offerings, including the Meta Quest, retailing “for less than $500.”