The Apple Vision Pro is Here, and to be honest, just from viewing the stuff I’ve seen online, The Product has potential.

From the User Interface to the Control Scheme, this device is really got me interested on Apple’s take on what a Augment should be. Now, I’ve had a passing chance with Meta’s Quest Pro, and I’ve yet to try the Quest 3 (Though I believe that this could be a repeat of the Quest Pro, but with a better headband.), so I have a good idea of what Augmented Reality should look like.

Before continuing further, please note the following:

- I am a Active VR User.
- I've had Experience with Augmented Reality before outside and inside a Headset
- (And Most Importantly:) I've Never had any Previous Experience with Apple Vision Pro, only expectations on what to expect *with* Apple Vision Pro.

The Following was Written After the Demo Experience.

The Experience

The Demo Took me through a few parts of Apple Vision Pro, Excluding stuff like Persona’s, Apple’s way of recreating your face to use with Facetime and on the outside of the headset.

The Demo Staff Member didn’t seem to be that knowledgeable about Persona’s outside of it not being in the demo, and now that I think about it, they didn’t seem that trained on Apple Vision Pro outside of the main way to interface with Apple Vision Pro.

Photos

Honestly, this was already the High moment for me.

Although I was not able to stand up and Fully Enjoy the Panorama’s, I was still able to pull the window close to me, and enter immersive mode by myself. note this for later.

Looking at photos was nice, and Honestly the Panorama’s were the best thing about this section as they looked incredible. Both Photo’s really made me feel like I was kinda there, and that will carry onto the Environments later.

The New Dedicated Photo and Video types however, didn’t catch me that much.

Parallax Scrolling is a very essential part of life, and Apple Vision Pro was severely lacking that necessary part of experiencing these moments that Apple wanted me to experience. Sure, it’s a novelty, but it’s a novelty that I never even put on in the first place. The videos didn’t pop to me either.

Environments

I only got to see one Environment, as the demo path didn’t allow me to even see what Environments are in Apple Vision Pro. We will get back to the Demo Path a bit later.

though the Environment I was given really did make me think somewhat that I was in there.

Apple Vision Pro is the Exception in Raw Power compared to other Head Mounted Devices that I’ve tried, as the M2 Chip is also used in Desktop and Laptop Computing, which allows Vision Pro to Not only cut out my hands and arms with little to no Environment Bleed, but also color corrects that cut-out so it can sell the fact that I am in that Environment.

Multitasking

I quickly got to experience “Multitasking”. Note how I said Quickly.

That’s not really something you want to rush when it’s one of your main selling points of the headset.

I was told to move the Photo’s window to the Right, and Open Safari, which admittedly had crisp text, that was extremely readable, which was amazing seeing as I was not able to bring in my Glasses and try on the Zeiss Optical Lenses. Compared to the Quest 1 that I Daily-Drive, I was Easily able to read text at and a little bit farther then normal laptop / desktop screen - head distance.

After that, I was told to open some Blue Apron / Hello Fresh Clone, and was told “Yep, that’s Multitasking on Apple Vision Pro!”.

Entertainment

1 Snippet of the SMBMovie, and a 180º VR Video.

Honestly, if there’s one thing I hated about Apple Vision Pro, it was the 180º Video.

Why?

Well theres a fundamental thing that you never, ever do if you have a 6DOF Device that is mounted to someones head, and that’s Lock Content to the head when it’s absolutely not necessary. You only do that with 3DOF, since with a 6DOF Device, people expect to be able to move their head around, and not be entirely stationary, and if the content moves with them, that could induce motion sickness. and the golden rule of any HMD is that you never want to give your user motion sickness.

The Whole Demo: My Thoughts

Multitasking, and Productivity as a whole is a big part of Apple Vision Pro’s Marketing. This is a Productivity First Device, like Meta Quest Pro, If a team that understood Productivity made that headset.

The Multitasking section of the Demo was Painfully Short, and this is tied to 3 Things.

• App Selection
• Linearity
• Demo Time

30 Minutes is frankly not enough for what Apple Vision Pro has to offer, especially for it’s main selling point. Everything else can be seen as a gimmick but Multitasking is the whole point of the headset and its woefully cut short after 4 - 5 minutes of having 3 windows open. If the Demo was 45 Minutes Long, Apple could not have more slots, but the quality of the user’s demo experience would drastically increase, as this could allow the user some time to get used to actually using Apple Vision Pro. The one good thing about my Meta Quest Pro demo was the fact that I was literally left alone to go ahead and try a (frankly small yet) curated list of Productivity Applications.

TribeXR, OpenBrush, Gravity Sketch, Immersed, and some others were all select-able and I was given the chance to actually try these applications out for myself.

And that was lacking on Vision Pro. I’m Definitely not saying to dump users straight in, but to allow users to actually try out the software on the demo unit a bit, and then steer them back into the linear path, or build on-top of that experience that the user is having to further sell Vision Pro.

Honestly, Vision Pro is Worth The Price for that it provides, it’s just extremely out of reach for the masses, but that’s not the point. Eventually, We will see this tech go down in price. but if the Demos today give a bad experience, people are not going to be excited for the next Spacial Computing Device from Apple is announced.