Apple Vision Pro - Did we just witness the beginning of a major new era of personal computing?
In my pre-WWDC column, I wrote the following:
“We’re on the verge of either a significant misstep for Apple, or the launch of something that will transform lives and industries, and that alone makes this a can’t-miss WWDC.”
We still don’t know which path this product is going to take, but today’s announcement of Apple Vision Pro feels significant. I watched the full keynote live, but then later showed the segment featuring Apple Vision Pro to my family. My wife, who is not really a tech-y person, turned to me early in the presentation and said, “This is the first thing they’ve shown in a long time that feels like it’s going to change things.”
And despite being on record as being firmly in arms-folded “impress me” mode regarding Apple’s VR headset, I was impressed by the introduction of this new device. I don’t know quite what’s going to become of all of this, but there’s something exciting about writing a column breaking down my first impressions of the first major new Apple hardware category in years.
First, let’s get this out of the way: Yes, it looks goofy seeing people wear this. We thought it would based on how other VR headsets look on wearers. Although Apple imbued this product category with all of its trademark design sensibilities and taste, there’s no getting around that you’re looking at a human being wearing a great big thing on his or her face. (As an aside, there’s something quintessentially 1980’s Nintendo about the way the product looks in the PR photo above. I quite like that.)
In addition to the aesthetic shock of seeing someone wearing one of these, headsets are inherently isolating devices, in ways that can be both good and bad. Apple is clearly aware of this drawback, which is why they designed the EyeSight feature, which projects the wearer’s eyes and the part of the face obscured by the headset onto the front display. I think it’s something we’re all going to have to see in person to know to what degree this minimizes the awkwardness of this product (heck, maybe it enhances it), but it’s at least Apple going to a great deal of work to try to compensate for a downside inherent to this type of device. It’s, dare I say it, innovative.
The external battery pack is ungainly as well. To Apple’s credit, they don’t shy away from this in their marketing of this device. It is what it is. You’re going to have a wire extending from the headset into either a wall plug or this battery pack in your pocket. You’re just going to look like a member of the Borg, or at least the Borg if they had a sense of aesthetics. But by not integrating the battery into the headset itself, Apple is saving weight that you’d otherwise have to carry on your head.
One of two things is going to happen: either this product and this entire product category is going to become a passing moment that we all look back on like we do the Newton, or we’re entering a world in which it’s just going to become normal to see people wearing these things on a regular basis. Remember how odd we all thought AirPods looked when Apple first introduced them? Now we just accept that that’s what modern earbuds look like. I don’t know if we’re headed there with VR headsets, but… maybe?
Here’s something else I wrote last week:
“…what will the primary focus of its software be? Gaming? TV, movies, and sports? Office work? Something more niche?”
The answer we now know, is all of the above! As should probably have been obvious, Apple Vision Pro is like Mac, iPhone, and iPad. It’s a personal computing device for everything. In the demo we saw a man in an office setting using his Apple Vision Pro mostly in place of a Mac (though also briefly alongside one). He stood at a table and had three virtual screens in front of him and to either side of him. It’s like having multiple external displays that are all resizable. He had a Magic Keyboard for long form typing, and a Magic Trackpad for fine input positioning.
We saw a woman using an Apple Vision Pro at home to play Apple Arcade games and watch TV shows and movies. The pitch here is that you can make your virtual TV as big as you want. You can superimpose it on top of your real world, or you can invoke a digital environment. It reminded me of Battlestar Galactica in which the Cylons would move about their ships, but project a fantasy environment around themselves. Obviously the holodeck from Star Trek: The Next Generation also comes to mind.
We saw a dad using Apple Vision Pro to record a 3D home movie of his kids and playing it back later.
We saw Keynote. We saw Safari. We saw FaceTime.
Honestly, perhaps the most impressive thing about Apple Vision Pro was just how much thought Apple has put into the software experiences. This isn’t a device meant to do one thing. It’s a device meant to do everything. And a wide range of possible uses has been pretty thoroughly preconceived.
Let’s talk about the price. The rumors had this thing coming in at $3,000. Remember in 2010 when everyone thought the iPad was going to start at $999 and Apple instead announced it at $499? Yeah, that’s not happening here. At $3499 it’s actually going to retail for more than most people expected, even most people who think pretty deeply about this stuff.
It’s expensive. It’s going to sell in small quantities, at least relative to a typical Apple product. It’s not being priced for the mass market. Yet. It’s expensive because it’s crammed full of cutting edge technology. The task for Apple is to sell enough of them to start getting people excited and to get enough third party developers on board to create compelling software for this thing. Apple clearly pitched the value proposition this way: you could theoretically replace a Mac and external monitor with one of these. It could also replace your TV and home theater system. When you think of it that way, the price doesn’t seem outrageous at all.
Can it replace all of those things? Well, maybe. Eventually. TVs are cheap, and the entire family can gather around one TV set. Unless you’re single, this probably isn’t a great replacement for your home theater equipment. Sure, you could buy four of these and everyone could watch a movie together via SharePlay, but that’s not going to happen. At least not until some future point at which these things are a lot less expensive.
Can it replace your Mac? The demo of the guy in the office was really compelling. I think the question is, are you going to want to wear one of these things on your face all day? Apple mentioned that the combination of the M2 and R1 chips in Apple Vision Pro cut down on lag which is a main thing that people find disorienting about VR. That’s great, but I still wonder how comfortable it’s going to be to wear one of these for an hour, let alone eight. Also, the demos looked cool. Very cool. But is visionOS a compelling enough environment that you’re going to want to spend all of your time there instead of just looking at a Mac, iPad, or iPhone with your real eyes? Eh, we’ll see.
I know I’ve said a lot (too much maybe) about how awkward these things look. As a dad I couldn’t help but think that there’s something sad about the promo video of the day kicking the soccer ball with his child. Yes, EyeSight helps minimize the weirdness of this. Yes, we may just be heading to this future no matter the cost. But we all know that it’s easy for family members to be sucked into our far less immersive iPhones and iPads. How much more so when the device is on our face and covering our natural human eyes?
Look, I still don’t know if we just witnessed the birth of something huge, or if Apple just announced their own Virtual Boy. But it’s exciting to start out on a journey to find out.