It’s a fancy computer you strap to your head. It’s mostly virtual reality but Apple’s idea is that the computer also encompasses the space around you.
The goggle-like device puts a super crisp-looking computer screen in your field of vision that you can use, in Apple’s imagination, to watch a movie or do office work.
The first thing you see when you strap on the Vision Pro is a cluster of app icons that appear to be floating in the room you’re in.
What’s good about the Vision Pro?
The best feature, according to several of the first Vision Pro reviews, is the sharp, incredible-looking screen.
My colleague Chris Velazco, who has tried the Vision Pro several times in Apple-controlled settings, said it was a joy to watch streaming TV or movies and scroll the web on what feels like the highest-definition TV set or computer monitor you can imagine.
Chris and some other Vision Pro reviewers also were wowed by a couple of subtle ways that Apple designed for you to interact with the Vision Pro.
While you’re wearing the Vision Pro, you can pinch your fingers together and just look at apps to control them — “like your eyes are the mouse, and your fingers are the button,” the Verge wrote. (The reviewer said the hand and eye gestures became distracting after awhile.)
New ways to control computers can become revolutionary. You’re used to it now, but it was a very big deal when the first iPhone had a relatively natural way to scroll and tap on the screen and enlarge images by pinching and expanding your fingers.
What’s bad about the Vision Pro?
No surprise, but several journalists who tried the Vision Pro said it felt uncomfortable and sometimes very warm to wear a computer on their faces. (It also messes up your hair and makeup.)
And like most head-worn computers, your field of view when you wear the Vision Pro is narrower than you probably expect.
Apple touted the ability to make immersive FaceTime video calls with other people who don’t have a Vision Pro. You appear as a 3D virtual version of yourself. The Wall Street Journal columnist said hers was so terrible — “like Botox from hell” — that it scared her family members.
The biggest question about the Vision Pro is whether it can someday convince you to use another type of computer — and an awkward-looking one — for some of the tasks you already do with a smartphone, computer or TV set.
Okay, but what is the Vision Pro FOR?
Apple executives have talked about the device for entertainment, filming immersive videos of your kid’s birthday party, as an external monitor for your Mac, for surgeons who need to look at images during procedures and for training mechanics.
In other words, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ . Even Apple doesn’t know what it’s for yet.
Lots of companies are betting that some kind of face computer will be the next phase of how we use the internet. There’s Meta’s line of Quest computer goggles, Snap’s Spectacles computer glasses and specialized gadgets like Microsoft’s HoloLens headset for business or military uses.
So far, few of us are sold on this future. About 8.1 million head-worn computers were sold globally in 2023, the research firm IDC has estimated. For comparison, more than 1.1 billion new smartphones are sold each year.
How much does the Vision Pro cost?
The list price is $3,499.
But I clicked on all the Vision Pro add-ons and accessories on Apple’s website. My shopping cart totaled $5,976.09 including tax.
- Extra digital storage space for 3D videos you take ($400)
- two years of the company’s AppleCare warranty ($499)
- an insert for prescription lenses ($149) if you wear glasses
- a travel case ($199)
- an extra battery ($199). Apple says the Vision Pro runs out of juice in about 2 hours.
- A belt-clip holder for the battery ($49.95). If you had a holster for your Blackberry in 2008, this will feel familiar
$3,500?!?! Who’s going to buy this thing?
Hardly anyone, by Apple’s standards. (If you do buy a Vision Pro, drop me a line and let me know what you think of it!)
Analysts who track Apple expect the company will sell a few hundred thousand Vision Pro devices this year. Apple’s iPhone sales will be at least 450 times that figure.
The Vision Pro is officially available to buy starting on Friday but Apple has been taking orders for about 10 days.
Apple hopes it can get you curious about the Vision Pro and persuade you to buy one years from now when Apple’s technology is better and cheaper.
For now, CNET advised most of us to “get a free demo at an Apple Store, marvel at its features and wait and see.”
How dorky and creepy is the Vision Pro?
Yeah, it’s a snorkeling mask-looking computer you wear on your face. You look like a dork.
Washington Post technology columnist Geoffrey A. Fowler also wrote that Apple’s device has the equivalent of four iPhones worth of sensors, microphones and cameras that track every hand gesture, eyeball flick and couch cushion in your living room.
It’s “more data than any other personal device I’ve ever seen,” he wrote.
Apple so far has given little explanation of how it might tackle the risks all this new data might create.
