If Apple wants me to ditch my MacBook for a Vision Pro, it has its work cut out.
I’ll admit, when Apple first showed off its Vision Pro headset, I was less than impressed. I’ve used various virtual reality (VR) headsets over the years, and while many have impressed me, I never felt like VR has reached its full potential.
There’s a part of me that also feels it never will. The world seems to have mostly moved on from VR. As a PC gamer, it seems like there hasn’t been a decent VR game for a long time, and while Sony is pushing PSVR 2 for the PS5, sales haven’t been all that hot. A few years ago, you couldn’t move without bumping into companies like HP releasing ‘mixed reality’ headsets for PCs. Those days are long gone.
Also, while Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta is one company that is still releasing new headsets, its vision for an all-encompassing Metaverse seems like it’s dead.
So, Apple’s timing with the Vision Pro appeared unfortunate. I’m used to Apple hanging back and letting other companies wrangle with a new product category before sweeping in with a ‘definitive’ version (the iPad wasn’t the first tablet, nor was the Apple Watch the first smartwatch), but here it felt like the Cupertino company had left it a little too late.
As the presentation at WWDC 2023, where it was announced, continued, we were shown various concepts designed to show how the Vision Pro would be used. These varied from impressive (watching TV and movies in your own private cinema) to the downright creepy (fake eyes to make it appear you’re looking at someone), but throughout I had a nagging feeling that I just couldn’t see a reason why I’d use this.
It seems like even the mighty Apple can’t escape one of the biggest issues of demonstrating the potential of VR: you really need to try it for yourself to get a good idea of what it will actually be like to use.
My colleague Lance Ulanoff was at Apple’s headquarters to witness the Vision Pro announcement, and he got to try on the headset, and came away much more impressed with it than me. When I hopefully get a chance to try it for myself, I may see the appeal.
However, I’m still struggling to see the appeal of having work meetings where my colleagues faces float above my bed, and where my face is digitally recreated due to the fact I’m wearing a headset.
And, while having a headset that can make it feel like I’m watching movies on a huge screen with spatial audio replicating a surround sound setup is a cool idea, what happens if I want to watch something with someone else? Do we both need Vision Pros and sit in our own little bubbles? Watching movies can be a communal thing, and that will get missed.What does the Vision Pro actually replace?
It’s fair to say, then, that I wasn’t totally sold by the end of the WWDC 2023 keynote, and the reveal of the $3,500 price tag pretty much confirmed that I was never going to buy one.
But, in the days since the launch, I’ve been thinking about how I might have missed Apple’s intentions with the Vision Pro – at least initially.
