tl;dr
- The Vision Pro conjures fair share of magical moments. It’s truly a feat of engineering and a glimpse into a future brimming with potential.
- It is also undermined by a web and app experience that is not ready and is unlikely to improve for years to come.
Background and Evaluation Criteria
I’m sharing my thoughts as a user hoping to fundamentally change my work-from-home experience. I am not personally enticed by court side sports views or front row seats at concerts. I am entrenched in the technology sector — I studied computer science and built products for 15 years. I developed a location-based Pokemon-style application for the iPhone, spent a couple of years at Apple, and currently run an AI-centric B2B startup. My views are solely my own. Yes, I’m an Apple ecosystem user and use a MacBook Pro, iPhone and AirPods. I also prefer Spotify and Google Nest Hub — I prefer to evaluate each product on its own merits. My benchmark for AVP’s success was straightforward: could this device supplant my traditional computing setup?
Mixed Feelings on Mixed Reality
The Apple Vision Pro (AVP) is a leap forward for the human computing experience. I sit now on my office La-Z-Boy on a Sunday morning facing a serene lake, a gentle ripple on the water’s surface. My AirPods envelop me in my R&B background focus music. I am at peace and solely focused on the floating window as I type out these words on my MacBook Pro.
I am also a workhorse with blinders on, a shroud of black surrounding my field of view. As I move my arms I feel the web of wires pinning me down — one connecting the battery pack to the AVP, another charging the battery itself. I have an iPhone in my right pocket and third wire charging my MacBook Pro. I am a walking Apple Store display, not organized neatly in pristine displays but haphazardly thrown together in a practical reflection of day-to-day use.
I love this gadget as a magical new technology, but cannot justify the current inconveniences or price point.
Crack in the Facade
Let’s start with the digital experience. Apple’s onboarding is beautiful and seamless. It guides me through the new eye tracking and hand gesture experience. I’m asked to touch dots in my periphery, as if the flicker test at the optometrist were designed by Jony Ive. It calibrates and locks onto my retinal movements, and I feel a sense of wonder as I leave behind all peripherals for the first time.
And then… the passcode. As a gamer and casual athlete, I consider myself to have above average hand-eye coordination. Yet as I’m faced with the 12-button numerical keypad in front of me, frustration and despair sink in. I cannot for the life of me touch the same sequence of 6 digits twice in a row. I squint, then widen my eyes dramatically, compelling myself to keep them unblinkingly open as I mentally urge the “cursor” to precisely target and tap the elusive number 5. It jumps to 3. Now I have to tap the backspace in the bottom right. I accidentally type in another 9. After 3 tries I take off my headset in frustration, take a deep breath, and type in an overly simplistic passcode. Apple flashes me a warning “This Passcode Can Be Easily Guessed”. I know, Apple. I give up.
An Unforgiving and Uncaring Ecosystem
I can finally access the primary OS and home screen now. The experience once again becomes magical. The app icons are all large and well-spaced, allowing me to easily navigate the experience. Apple TV and the much discussed Dinosaur experience truly showcase what this platform has to offer. I am transported through time and space. I kneel down to pet a dinosaur, knowing it’s nothing but a collection of pixels. I’m a silent ghost in the room, watching Alicia Keys jam with her band. I play with the Landscapes, teleporting from Hawaii to Yosemite to the Moon with a snap of the fingers.
This [innovation] only happened because people were lining up around the block to buy iPhones in droves, and companies couldn’t afford to support a subpar experience for millions of users. User demand drove innovation and improved experience. How will that happen for the AVP?
And then I open Safari. I sign into my Gmail account. Or rather, I attempt to. I try clicking on the box to type in my email address, and I inadvertently navigate to Forgot Password. They’re too close together. When I finally click on the right text fields I slowly poke at the keyboard like a 3 year old. I’m finally in my inbox. Here, I encounter a fresh set of challenges. The Archive button is pixels away from the Report Spam button. Reply and Reply All are far too close. Desktop sites are not designed for this interface.
Remember when the iPhone first came out, and we had to navigate the cnn.com desktop site on our portrait mode touch screens? “Sports” and “World News” were far too close for our clumsy fingers. It took a couple of years for web developers to begrudgingly create separate desktop and mobile websites. It took a million designers working across the world to come up with mobile-centric innovations like the hamburger menu or swipe to refresh. This only happened because people were lining up around the block to buy iPhones in droves, and companies couldn’t afford to support a subpar experience for millions of users. User demand drove innovation and improved experience. How will that happen for the AVP? Its price tag and use case seems aimed squarely at hobbyists and developers. Google has no incentive to help the AVP ecosystem and its users. Why would Gmail bother creating and maintaining a separate, non-desktop and non-mobile interface? Only sufficient mass of user adoption can force its hand. But if users like me continue to face a subpar web and app experience, AVP adoption will be slow.
When I heard that Spotify, Netflix and YouTube would not be developing native apps for the AVP I dismissed the news as political drama. I could always use them via web browser as I do on my laptop. What I missed at the time is that a native, AVP-centric design and experience is key. Spotify is near unusable for me — putting artists next to song names is fine when I have the precision of a mouse, but aggravating when trying to harness my gaze.
The eye tracking and hand gesture system is an ambitious foray into leaving peripherals behind but is impractical in the current state of the web.
Peripherals to the Rescue
My entire perception of the AVP changed when I discovered Mac Virtual Display. It’s a few gestures into the Notification Center, but I can connect my MacBook Pro and essentially Airplay my entire desktop onto the AVP display. I can also maximize the window size, so I’m effectively working on a 50-inch monitor. And most importantly, I can navigate my familiar sites through the trackpad and keyboard! This was the redemption for productivity I’d been seeking. Granted, you need to be able to touch type without looking at the keyboard, but I could now be 100% productive in the AVP. Indeed, in longer sessions, I’ve found myself even more productive. I’m focused on a single screen, and the rest of the world just fades away.
Neck Strength
A lot of conversation has focused on the physical aspects of the device. This mattered less in my assessment, but I’ll share my experience here.
The weight is noticeable, but as long as I have back and neck support, it’s comfortable. I can spend 2–3 hours with it on with no issue. Then I tried doing a couple of chores around the house with my headset on. I threw a YouTube video on the wall and spent 20 minutes folding laundry, and my neck was fatigued. Some of the exciting promises of mixed reality include cooking and vacuuming, and I can confidently say I would forego any digital enhancements to those experiences to just remove the strain on my head and neck.
The device is also an isolating experience. The Guest mode is highly inconvenient and frustrating to set up, and my wife has to undergo dot calibration every time she wants to try the device. EyeSight completely misses its mark — a person in the AVP just feels unapproachable, lifeless eyes on screen or otherwise. And I mostly FaceTime friends with my Persona as a jump scare.
What’s next?
Several critical enhancements are on my wishlist for the next iteration of this device. There are the obvious improvements that stem from Moore’s Law and the like: a reduction in price, a decrease in weight, and an extension of battery life. I expect a significant expansion in the Field of View, which would dramatically enhance the immersion experience. Equally important is the development of a more inclusive multi-user interface, enabling both my wife and me to seamlessly share and enjoy the device, helping to justify the purchase.
I struggle to imagine the “killer app” for the device. I really enjoyed watching Pixar’s Elemental in 3D. But even so, it was a solo experience — I’d rather watch the movie with family on a 30" screen than have a marginally improved viewing experience for myself. Apple has the benefit of drawing on a mature developer ecosystem, but even those relationships have been strained of late.
Ultimately, time and technological advancements could address most concerns, except one: the web and app ecosystem presents a fundamental threat. The iPhone flourished due to a virtuous cycle of demand and supply. Until the AVP can achieve the same, its Vision will never be fulfilled.
