Apple Vision Pro

I succumbed, and a few days later I bought the Apple Vision Pro. I had a second demo session, and this time with a 22W Light Seal, which did fit better. There are some 3 dozen lightseal sizes, different in depth, width and height. I went with one size larger than the one I had in the store demo.

A 15 minute demo in the Apple Store really doesn’t do the device justice.

Using the device at home is a totally different experience to using it in a bright, noisy Apple Store. Because of the noise, you don’t realise the ambient sound the AVP makes on its Home Screen.

Dropping applications around your own home and seeing them interact with your own environment is magical, how they float in the air, and how you can walk around them. Put yourself in your comfy chair, and open an immersive environment, sitting next to a mountain lake or white sandy beach. Quite dystopian in a sense.

Installing other free apps from the AppStore, like JigSpace, and having a play with those in your living room, kitchen,… peeling apart a large jet engine, or building a tiny house.

Photos

Immersing yourself into your own panorama photos, photos you took at a place where you were impressed of the view, that you took yourself, triggers a reaction from your memory. The same with 3D photos, which is different to photos from the Apple family that you get in the Apple Store demo.

Just taking five minutes in one of the immersive environments relaxes stress. Listen to the wind or the frogs or the rain.

Guestmode

There’s a guest mode, (which wasn’t really handy to use in visionOS 1, as every time the guest needs to initiated the tracking set up). Enable the guest mode for a single app or for all apps and then within five minutes you need to handover the device to the guest guest goes through the tracking set up , of course there are three dozen of different light seal sizes, your’s might not fit the guest.

Cinema

The Cinema set up is fabulous just like a real cinema. You can sit in different locations front to back ground floor balcony. I was surprised to see 30+ 3D movies in my collection, movies I bought previously over the years on iTunes now had 3D versions for free . These were mostly Marvel movies, science-fiction movies, one James Bond. I rewatched Blade Runner 2049 and it was amazing. There’s a real sense of 3D. It’s crisp with deep blacks. I tried 3D TV once, when my TV came with these 3D glasses and you’d also need a 3D Blueray player (and 3D Blueray disks). Not quite the same thing.

I lost time while wearing Apple VisionPro. Like, all of a sudden we were an hour later. That was weird because for the rest of the day I was behind thinking it was 1pm while it was already 4pm.

I also noticed slight reflection in the lenses so whatever is displayed on the screen also tends to reflect in the lenses. You can change the way you look at the screen closer or farther way, which changes the reflection in the lens

AppleTV library doesn’t have access to iTunes Extras. Why not?

No 360 flyover in Spacial Apple Maps?

The Apple VisionPro has an internal fan. Sometimes you can feel a breeze across your eyes.

All this during winter time. I understand why the released it in autumn in Australia. Summer, and the muggy Sydney weather, isn’t the VisionPro’s best friend. You’d need to be in an airconditioned chilly office.

I also added an Annapro strap, which sits on my forehead (I have a big head), taking some of the load. It’s not perfect, there is a slight impact on the accuracy of the eye tracking. I notice they have a second version out, with more options, which may improve on this. But it also means you can use the VisionPro without a light seal, when it is too warm and you’re sweaty.

To be honest, for now, there isn’t a specific use case, a specific app that is the killer application for the VIsionPro, and that’s a bit sad.

EDIT:

So by now we’ve got visionOS 2. And there have been some improvements, especially the keyboard picking. That now works well (but still not very handy, there should be swiping in place).

In visionOS 2, Guest User profiles are now saved for 30 days so guests don’t have to do the setup process every time they try out the headset.

But with visionOS 2, the biggest improvement is the massive widescreen MacBook screen share. That is fantastic.

(*) that’s a screenshot from the Apple Vision Pro, showing my kitchen with Joshua Tree National Park “through the back window”, and ABC News playing in a floating window, while preparing veggies.

Apple Vision Pro Demo Session
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Apple Vision Pro Demo Session

My 30 minute experience with the Apple Vision Pro, a mixed bag of feelings.

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