Apple Vision Pro: Initial Thoughts

Some pros, some cons

I remember when the first iPhone was released. As someone who had been using smartphones including touch devices since the late 1990s, I actually didn’t see much groundbreaking. The day it was released, my Nokia E90 arrived funny enough. The E90 was a brilliant device that already allowed apps, had Excel, and was a business phone powerhouse. The iPhone probably had a better web browsing experience for the few websites that supported it at the time. It wasn’t until the iPhone 4 that I really felt an urge to get one and that it surpassed other phones available on the market. I even owned an Android before I got my first iPhone since I needed things like SSH that work better with a physical keyboard.

So today, when I tried out the Apple Vision Pro, I appropriately tempered my expectations around the fact this was a first generation device that will be vastly improved in software, hardware, and available apps over the next few years.

And I was still very impressed.

My initial impression of the 3d environment is that it’s very realistic, but I immediately noticed it was dimmer than the very bright Apple Store. The salesperson informed me this was a common remark. However, after adjusting a little bit, I got dropped into the navigation environment. I have never, ever seen any eye device with such intense and insane resolution. Everything from images to text were crystal clear with bright colors and sharp edges. As we toured around the photos app, I immediately realized this would be a fantastic way to edit photos and Lightroom is indeed compatible on the AVP.

Hand and eye tracking almost immediately felt natural and worked brilliantly. So does scrolling and even the two handed zooming. It’s all very clearly well thought out and highly tuned. Not once in my entire demo did the device miss a tap from my fingers.

I also noticed that the sound was shockingly better than I expected. Spatial Audio has come a very long way and I was impressed by the 3d feel of almost all the sound I heard, although when playing music it definitely could not get as loud as I wanted which was disappointing.

Navigating apps, placing them in 3d space, and running multiple apps was astonishing. I can definitely see using it for light productivity, web surfing, or watching videos while multitasking on say replying to messages. They keyboard is not as bad as I was expecting but I would definitely connect it to a bluetooth external one.

Keynote was a surprising highlight in that they had a slide with a 3d model in it. The model popped off the slide and into 3 dimensions where you could make it bigger and smaller and move it around in 3d space. I can definitely see many applications for this, shopping for instance. You could decorate a whole room with furniture and then place your order right from the headset. There are a myriad of other uses that come to mind when interacting with the room and 3d space. The shadows that the windows cast onto the furniture below was another fairly impressive trick that added to the sense.

In fact, as I think about it, probably the most impressive feature was the fact that the apps I interacted with really felt like they were in my vision. I was totally immersed. It’s all extremely natural in a way the Quest devices I’ve owned are not. I would attribute this to the impressive hardware, especially the displays and fast processors, that are all combined to make the environment so fast and reactive. Similarly, it was very comfortable and not once did it really occur to me I was wearing something on my face, which I always feel in VR devices.

Turning the Digital Crown brought me from the Apple Store to a lake I believe on Mount Hood. It did a perfect job of separating me from where I was since it also had sound of the rain falling, which I had not seen mentioned in other reviews. Immersive environments are very impressive and I can definitely see using them on a plane for instance.

Then I watched a clip of Avatar in 3d. Honestly, that was disappointing. To me, the video stuttered and looked low resolution. I was a bit surprised as this is thought to be such a good content consumption device. It was better than a laptop but not nearly as good as a big beautiful tv. I will say it definitely depends upon how you normally experience content at home. You may enjoy it much more.

But the most impressive demo of all came near the end with Apple Immersive Video.

WOW

It’s a brilliant 8k video that takes up 180 degrees of your field of view. It took me from various places on Earth to extreme sports to drone shots to sporting events to nature and back again in great 3 dimensional sound. The drone shows made me immediately want to buy a drone. They were so beautiful as to be very calming, just like Apple does with the Apple TV screensaver.

This is definitely the killer feature and they know what they have on their hands if they end the demo on this. I immediately wanted to get a device and watch nature documentaries on it. Sadly, only a few titles are available so far.

However, a few clips were of sporting events. One was from right above a soccer goal in a huge stadium as a goal was scored after initially hitting the crosspost. My heart was pounding. I’ve sat on the field and in the owners’ box watching LAFC games and this was wildly better. If Apple can figure out live sports from multiple viewing positions in this format, it’s game over for any other way of watching sports and the AVP becomes a must buy. There are rumors Apple is trying to buy up the rights to stream F1 racing around the world at great cost and I have no doubt it’s to set up the most insane and impressive live sporting experience the world has ever seen.

So, I went from a maybe to a probably will buy after the demo. I would use it for casual productivity, editing photos, meditation, and watching immersive video including sports.

This has to be the most impressive first generation device I have ever seen. Current estimates are that it’ll never reach the size of the iPhone but could surpass the iPad in 5-10 years, and I don’t doubt it. Absolutely groundbreaking. Kudos to Apple.