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Early Impressions of the Apple Vision Pro Are In

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Someone looking "through" the front glass, a display that shows their face

Vision Pro via Apple

The Apple Vision Pro is the most ambitious product from Apple since the iPhone was first introduced 17 years ago. That’s a long time to go without anything truly revolutionary. The iPad was actually in production before the iPhone, despite being released later. The Apple Watch is basically a tiny annoying iPhone for your wrist (and an old iPhone 6, going by the design). The Apple TV is basically an iPad that uses your TV and a remote instead of a touch screen. And the Mac? Despite being the most important bit about the entire formula, Apple has forgotten about it since no real competition has come from Microsoft on the productivity front and Apple has given up on being a gaming company, despite their claims about Apple silicon performance.

The Vision Pro is the first time in a long time Apple tried to figure out what comes next. That future starts at a whopping $3,500. You may want to be sure it’s worth the price of admission. Reviews from early reviewers and early adopters who already have the new headset in hand are starting to pour out online. And if you ask me, it sounds like most people should skip this generation, maybe even the next generation. Reviews are positive, but not one cay say why you should buy this.

If you look at the Apple Vision Pro from a lens of, “Is this a good VR headset,” it excels. However, if you ask yourself, “Is this good AR, the future of computing,” you may come up with a different answer.

The Common Review Themes

There are a few common themes in reviews across the web: the Apple Vision Pro is expensive. I think it’s telling that such a message comes attached to every review. If you’re reviewing a Porsche, you don’t comment on how expensive it is. It’s all about raw handling and speed. But when you review a headset that doesn’t live up to its expectations, well, it’s time to discuss price. The Vision Pro starts at $3,500. Need glasses? That’ll be an extra $99-$149. Want to bring it anywhere? You’ll need that $199 carrying case. Want to protect it with Apple Care? Drop another $500. Extra battery packs to help that sad 1.5 to 2.5 hours of battery life? Maybe $50? And then taxes. You’re looking at paying $5,000 for your headset, and going off of early reviews, it doesn’t sound like you’ll feel like you bought the future, just a peek at what it could hold. A $5,000 toy.

Mostly Good Controls Though!

Most also commented that the controls are intuitive, and almost magical, when they work. There seem to be occasional issues with hand tracking, and, if you’re moving, such as when you’re on the train, forget being able to use anything with a visual component. Still, when they work, many people make references to a scene in Minority Report, how every piece of the interface is controlled with intuitive eye movement and hand gestures.

Don’t Skip Neck Day

“After wearing the Vision Pro on and off for several hours, I didn’t find it uncomfortable to wear, but I did feel like taking periodic breaks because of the heft. I also got some light red marks on my cheeks.”

Mark Spoonauer, Tom’s Guide

The Apple Vision Pro is heavy. It comes with two headbands, but only one is really usable, the other is included, seemingly, for marketing purposes. The band that does not include a piece that goes over your head places far too much pressure on your face. People state that they can’t use this one for more than a few minutes. However, it’s the only one that won’t mess up your hair too much. Of course, you’re already putting something directly on your face, messing up any makeup you’re wearing, so maybe you have to give up caring for your appearance to use a Vision Pro. Obviously this wouldn’t be an issue if Apple went for true passthrough AR with a glasses-like implementation, but instead, they went for VR with passthrough video to simulate AR, and you’re going to have to give up whatever good looks you have to use it.

At least your uncanny valley “Persona” can have perfect makeup.

Loneliness, Social Isolation, Awkwardness

This might not be something you expected to hear, but loneliness was one of the more common themes in this review. People felt disassociated from the people around them. Scott Stein of CNET wrote his wife said she “doesn’t like this, that I’m so removed from everything.” Multiple people said it gave them a feeling of being alone, and people in the room with them said it was like they were staring in their phone the whole time, ignoring them. People don’t know when you’re present, even with presence turned on, because that outer screen is terrible. You’re going to be in your own little world with this, even if you are trying to let it in.

You can’t even share what you’re looking at. Want to take a screenshot of watching Avatar in your living room for social media? It’ll just be a black box where Avatar stills should be. Because while you can take a photo of something on in your living room when you’re using a TV when you’re using an Apple headset, you’re blocked by DRM. You can’t even share your experience through screenshots with friends over social networks.

Casey Neistat walked around SoHo, Canal St, and Times Square in NYC, and collected a lot of weird looks. He also found himself distracted by a butterfly in VR, landing on his donut. From the outside, he looked ridiculous. Of course, he was goofing around, but did mention he got lost in it a little, forgetting he was looking through heavy ski goggles after some time. Yesterday, I saw a woman walking slower than a crawl, staring at her phone. She was blocking a guy behind her trying to get past. He didn’t look happy. She was oblivious. It’s a common occurrence now, but if you think that’s bad now with a phone, imagine when it’ll be glued to your face. But don’t worry, I’m sure no one will try to use one while driving.

Battery Life

Reports on battery life say it varies, but one thing is clear: you can’t use this to watch Avatar 2. The movie won’t be finished by the time the battery has ran out. Of course, the movie is too long and many movies are just too long now, but that’s beside the point. Users report the battery life varies around 1 hour, from under two hours to nearly three. You won’t just have to tether yourself to a battery pack, you’ll have to tether yourself to the wall. And how long is your workday? Mine is far too long, but at least I can easily leave my desk for a quick stretch every half hour. I’m not tied to my desk… yet. I mean, with return to office, layoffs, and the collapse of any illusion that capitalism works for the middle class, I wouldn’t be surprised if this joke doesn’t make sense in five years.

Casey Neistat walked around NYC with his headset on. How’d he do that? Battery swaps? No, a more ridiculous solution. Battery packs. Multiple battery packs. He used a battery pack to charge the Apple battery pack to run the Apple Vision Pro. Does the future of tech require a backpack full of batteries?

VR That Wants to be AR

“The Vision Pro’s Passthrough is easily the best I’ve seen. Even here, however, there is a good bit of work to be done. It’s generally darker than the room you’re in, with its own uncanny, grainy quality”

– Brian Heater, TechCrunch

Joanna Stern wore the Apple Vision Pro for a full day. While cooking, she showed off one of the coolest features of the Vision Pro: timers. She set timers above the items she was cooking. Neat! Unfortunately, thanks to the lighting and lack of detail in the display itself, she couldn’t read anything in the kitchen well. Other users report annoying motion blur, especially in darker lighting situations. They can’t read things in their physical world, or see anything clearly. Some reviewers point out that it’s less sharp than an iPad.

The iPhone doesn’t have a single piece of glass over their lenses. This is because it increases the length of glare that could appear in photos. However, for the Vision Pro, they forgot this lesson. The cameras that you use to see the world around you are all behind the same pane of glass. Every reviewer mentions the large lens flares and glare when wearing their Vision Pro.

This is the largest fault of the Vision Pro: it’s not actually augmenting reality. It’s taking what it sees, and adding some data to that. It’s not your vision, your reality, plus something else. It’s a tradeoff. You’re losing sharpness, clarity, real-time accuracy, field of view, color accuracy, and many other aspects of your lived experience, all for this lesser one. But, hey, it has a few apps!

This is VR that wants to be AR, but just can’t do it. Apple clearly spent a fortune making it possible to project the real world into this headset, and it just doesn’t do the trick. There’s no replacement for reality.

Where is This For?

Mr. Neistat said he didn’t want to do much of a detailed review, but his jaunt about the city showed more of the experience of using the Vision Pro than most reviews. Notably, he couldn’t use the Vision Pro on the train. Every time the train began moving again, his windows would slide away. Perhaps the headset was tracking the station through the windows. Perhaps it was messed up by the motion itself. However he discovered a sad truth: the Apple Vision Pro doesn’t work on trains.

Trains.

The future of transportation, currently in use all over most of the developed world, and it’s enough to confuse the Apple Vision Pro.

See, Apple? This is what happens when you do return to office and make everyone drive to your campus in Cupertino: no one takes the train and realizes it’s busted!

You may be able to use it on a plane, as Apple showed in their ads. Neistat found it was a nice way to bring the office to the park, although you’ll need an office’s worth of batteries to stay out there for a day’s work. You can certainly take your little virtual screens more places than you could take the large monitors in your office. But not everywhere you can use an iPhone.

What about at home? Well, you’d spend less if you just covered your office walls with monitors. On top of that, the Vision Pro has no inputs. No HDMI for movies, USB or SD cards for productivity. Nothing. Just your hands, eyes, and Bluetooth. It’s missing the productivity angle at home too.

No Killer App, Not Many Apps at All

“The closest thing to a killer app the Vision Pro has is its cinema-level video playback.”

– Scott Stein, CNET

One thing I noticed is that everyone tested their Vision Pro headsets with the same apps. They all showed off the same dinosaur, the same butterfly, the same F1 car in their living room, and the same night sky. Many of these apps can be found on either other platforms or your iPad. I’ve been using Sky Guide for years! It even has an AR mode and night vision filter.

Reviewers have pointed out the lack of apps. Scott Stein of CNET said “cinema-level video playback” was the closest the Vision Pro comes to having a “killer app,” and even that’s flawed. There’s DRM, you can get a similar experience in a dark room (which you can share with friends and family), and the Vision Pro doesn’t have Netflix or YouTube. Apple pissed off many large app developers, Epic to Spotify, Mozilla to Netflix. These third party developers could have been essential to Apple. Epic could have used their experience creating 3D games to make immersive experiences. Netflix could have added to that cinema experience. Instead, there’s no real killer app for the Vision Pro. Nothing you can do with it that isn’t better done with something else.

Persona Beta? It’s All Beta!

You can take the Vision Pro off and face it towards you to create a scan of your face. It works a little like Face ID. Once it has that scan, it’ll use it to slap some eyes on the outer display and give people on a FaceTime call an uncanny valley version of your face. Apple says it’s in beta. However, the external display doesn’t work as well as Apple’s advertising made it seem, with people reporting that its dim light and reflections make it impossible to see into anyway. Other reviewers noted it doesn’t work on darker skin tones.

The Personas feature has some cool eye tracking to keep conversations feeling natural. You’ll appear to look at and make gestures to the people you are actually looking at. However, the versions of people look weird, hair is unnatural, makeup unnatural, and people feel uncomfortable with them. That honestly feels like a great way to sum up the Vision Pro: in beta, will inspire all kinds of discomfort. Reviewers noted that it feels unpolished, like a developer preview, or a beta before a first generation. All the ideas are there, they’re just not working as expected yet.

The Vision Pro isn’t the Future, It’s a Sneak Preview, and a Disappointing One at That

“So my bottom line on the Vision Pro is that it’s definitely revolutionary, but it’s a revolution very much in progress.”

– Mark Spoonauer, Tom’s Guide

“very much still a work in progress”

– Brian Heater, TechCrunch

“I was surprised and disappointed to find that I don’t like it as much as I was hoping to.”

– u/imatowell, in r/VisionPro

“Overall, I am simultaneously impressed with the device and disappointed. The technology is amazing, but there are still many inherent limitations of a VR headset that cause issues. If any company could overcome them, it would be Apple, but I had expected more improvements than what was released.”

– u/helpimalive24 on r/VisionPro

“A little glimpse into the future of what computing could be like down the road.”

– Casey Neistat, YouTube

The Right Idea, the Wrong Direction

At the core of it, Apple has a lot of great ideas here. Spacial computing definitely seems like the future of computing. But it’s most certainly not here yet, and when we do get it, the “future of computing” will look nothing like Apple’s Vision Pro hardware. The software and interface? Perhaps. But the hardware is looking down the wrong path.

The Apple Vision Pro is VR that pretends to be AR. It doesn’t have true passthrough, which means you’re always looking into a simulated environment. Your field of view gets distorted, colors muted, detail lost to the point that someone can’t read the labels on their spice rack in their kitchen. True AR is augmented reality. It makes it better. It doesn’t have massive tradeoffs that could damage your eyesight, reduce your reaction speed, or separate you from the real world. You know some idiot is going to wear these driving and cause an accident. It’s going to happen! Releasing something like this is almost irresponsible. This is not augmented reality. It’s not the future of computing we need to pursue. It’s a dangerous toy that makes us dream of the future Apple wants.

We won’t have spacial computing until you can wear it safely. Until you can cook with it on and read directions and measurements on the package. Until you can safely wear it while walking on the street at night. We won’t have true AR until we let real reality in.

The truth is, I’ve never been attracted to the idea of VR. The framerates are too low, the resolution noticeably low, and I just know that combination will be disorienting. I am, however, excited for AR. Augmenting the world around you with information available with a glance is something my sci-fi-loving heart has dreamed of. But this isn’t that. It’s VR pretending to be AR, with all the issues of VR stacked on something else. Apple over-engineered it because of the existing limitations for true AR, and I believe they ended up with a worse product for it. Hopefully it can pave the way for something better, rather than sour our view of what I believe is the future of computing: truly passthrough augmented reality.

 

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