Last week, an Apple employee walked me through a security gate, across a manicured lawn, down a flight of stairs, and into a beautifully decorated mock lounge inside the Steve Jobs Theater to get a preview of the company’s new Vision Pro headphones.
My demo, like the early Vision Pro tours given to other journalists, was far from exhaustive. I spent about 45 minutes wearing the device under the supervision of two watchful Apple employees, who guided me through a curated demo while I sat on a mid-century gray couch next to them. I was not allowed to take photos or videos of the device itself or take one home for further testing.
Given how limited my testing was, I can’t in good conscience tell you whether the Vision Pro is worth $3,500 — yes, three thousand five hundred United States dollars – Costs. (This price does not include tax or the cost of any additional accessories, such as the $100 Zeiss lens inserts required if you wear glasses or contacts, or the $200 travel case.)
I also can’t say if the Vision Pro solves what I call the “six month problem”. With many VR headsets I’ve tried — and I’ve tried a lot — the initial novelty wears off, and small annoyances like blurry graphics or a lack of compelling apps start to pile up. Six months later, every headphone I try always ends up in my closet collecting dust.
But I can say two things about my first impressions of the Vision Pro.
First, in many ways, Vision Pro is an impressive product, many years and billions of dollars in the making. It’s leaps and bounds better than the previous best VR headset on the market, the Meta Quest series, in terms of eye tracking and gesture controls, the quality of its displays and the way it combines immersive virtual experiences with the ability to see the world around you. a feature known as “pass-through”.
I was prepared for skepticism in my demo—Apple’s aggressive stage management made me wonder what the company was trying to hide—but there were several moments while wearing the Vision Pro when I felt a real sense of wonder and a sense that I was there for what it could be. turned out to be a major change in computing.
The second thing I have to say about the Vision Pro is that even after trying it, I have no idea who or what this thing is for. At $3,500, it’s not a device for the masses, or even the wealthy. It’s a big, honking statement piece — a status symbol for your face.
Which isn’t to say that the Vision Pro isn’t exciting, or that I didn’t enjoy trying it out. It is, and I did. But after my experience, I have a better idea of the kinds of people who might be tempted to buy one now and who might be better off waiting.
If you’re one of the estimated 40 percent of Americans who have never tried a VR headset, the Vision Pro is likely to blow your mind.
If this is your first foray into VR, it’s really worth getting a demo of the Vision Pro at an Apple store once they hit the market on Friday, or hating a friend to let you use theirs. (VR headsets, like boats, are often better to borrow than buy.)
Early VR headsets were plagued by issues like blurry screens, headache-inducing motion tracking, cheap controls, and the fact that you couldn’t do anything else while wearing them.
Apple has solved many of these problems, starting with its Vision Pro displays: two screens about the size of postage stamps. They are amazing: clean, bright, detailed. When you look at them, you feel like you’re looking out of your eyes, not at a screen.
I was also impressed by the Vision Pro’s immersion toggle, which lets you see more of what’s going on in the room around you by turning a dial on the top of the device.
Unlike other VR systems, Vision Pro does not require controllers. To navigate, just look at an icon. Then pinch your thumb and one finger together to select it. The learning curve isn’t steep, but it took me a few minutes to get the hang of it.
Wearing the Vision Pro is comfortable. I say “ish” because while it felt pretty light on my head and didn’t give me a headache like other VR headsets, I did feel some slight discomfort while my eyes adjusted after putting them on and taking them off. (A colleague who also got a demo compared it to the feeling you get when you leave a dark movie theater on a sunny day.)
I don’t know if these are temporary problems or if I would just get used to them. But they weren’t bad enough to ruin the experience.
Emotional parents
After a brief setup process, my Apple reminder guided me to the Photos app in Vision Pro. There, I found several examples of what Apple calls “spatial photos and videos.” These are made using a 3D camera built into the Vision Pro itself. (The newest high-end iPhones, the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max, can also get them.)
I’ve been excited – and disappointed by – the promise of 3D photos and videos for years. I’m a bit of a camera-obsessed dad, and I’ve long awaited the day when 3D images are good enough to make me feel like I’m actually recalling a family memory, rather than looking at a grainy snapshot.
Looking at spatial photos and videos in Vision Pro, I realized that this moment had arrived. The photos and videos in Apple’s demo — which included a scene from a child’s birthday party, a video of a mom making bubbles for her daughter, and a family gathered around a kitchen table — were gorgeous, and the depth added by the 3-D camera made them unusually realistic. In my eyes, it felt no different than being part of the scene. I put a bump on my neck and thought about rewatching my son’s first steps this way years from now.
Not everyone is so emotional. But Apple’s spatial photos and videos blew my mind, and I imagine other camera-obsessed parents will almost be able to justify the Vision Pro’s steep price for its home movie capabilities alone.
White collar worker
I was less impressed when it came to work related tasks.
Apple has billed the Vision Pro as an office worker’s dream: a spatial computer that lets you create your perfect office setup and take it with you anywhere. Users can open any number of virtual windows, resize and move them in space, and combine them with a real-world Mac screen.
I didn’t get around to trying to write a column or host a podcast on Vision Pro. But I did try some basic web browsing and typing, and found the experience underwhelming.
The pinch-and-drag gesture you use to scroll on a Vision Pro was painful compared to using a regular mouse or trackpad. And typing on the Vision Pro’s virtual keyboard was a slow, clumsy mess. (Just typing nytimes.com into Safari took me the better part of a minute.) Anyone who wants to do real work on the Vision Pro will likely need to connect a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse, which takes the portability part out of the ballpark.
Video calls may not be much better. I wasn’t able to test FaceTime in Vision Pro or in third-party video conferencing apps like Zoom, but other reviewers gave a thumbs up to Personas—Apple’s attempt to create a lifelike avatar it can represent on video calls. .
I did get to try out a workplace tool that wasn’t part of the official demo, a version of Keynote, Apple’s slide show app, that lets you rehearse a presentation in a simulated conference room or on a virtual stage. But it felt more like a gimmick than a real productivity enhancer.
Movie buffs and gamers
Apple is also trying to make the Vision Pro appealing to fans of immersive movies and games.
My demo included several movie clips, including a scene from “Super Mario Brothers 3-D,” a trailer for “Star Wars,” and some Apple-produced clips from various immersive movies, including footage of a soccer game and a scuba diver that swims. with sharks I also saw an interactive video in which a butterfly landed on my finger and a dinosaur seemed to come out of the screen towards me.
Some of these clips were impressive and the technology required to render them on such small screens is nothing to sneeze at. (One clip, of a tightrope walker balancing herself while suspended high above a canyon, was so realistic it triggered my fear of heights.)
But I’ve seen similar things in other VR headsets, and the Vision Pro’s movie-watching experience wasn’t superior enough to those models to justify the cost of the device. It doesn’t help that many top entertainment companies like Netflix and YouTube don’t offer apps for the Vision Pro, so you’ll have to use Apple TV or another compatible service like Disney+ if you want to get the full immersive experience.
I also can’t see myself wanting to play games on a Vision Pro, at least not with the meager selection of games available for the device today. With no external controllers, the device isn’t good for subtle movements or rapid button presses, making it a poor choice for serious gamers. And forget about exercising in it. do you think I’m going to risk ruining a $3,500 computer with the sweat of my face?
Demonstrations and closing
The clearest takeaway from my demo — aside from the fact that I need to spend more time with this thing to get a fuller picture of its capabilities — is that the Vision Pro doesn’t blend into its surroundings the way Apple wants it to. her.
Apple has avoided promoting Vision Pro as something that replaces the real world or isolates you in some kind of sci-fi metauniverse. She wants using a Vision Pro to feel as discreet and discreet as pulling out an iPhone or a pair of AirPods.
But that’s not going to happen, at least not for a while.
That’s because most of what’s impressive with Vision Pro happens in fully immersive VR environments, not in the “augmented reality” situations that Apple envisions, in which virtual objects are overlaid on your physical environment. And while Apple has made it much easier to switch between virtual and physical worlds, there’s still some friction.
VR headsets are still niche enough to attract attention, so the target market for the Vision Pro right now includes both demos (people who I want getting noticed wearing the latest high-tech Apple gadget) and closure (people who rarely leave their homes anyway, so why does it matter if the device catches the eye?).
The novelty factor may wear off, but for now, it’s a real draw for anyone hoping to fly under the radar wearing a Vision Pro. Like it or not, Apple has built a device that’s too wild to ignore.
