The agony of a battery
Let’s start with the most basic and salient fact: Apple Vision Pro is not wireless. It has an external battery I have seen, touched, and sat beside. It’s not a secret. It should not be a surprise. Somehow, though, it is generating more interest and controversy than almost any other component of the about-to-ship product.
It’s been nearly seven months of covering Apple’s Vision Pro mixed reality headset (which ships on February 2). This includes four hands-on experiences and considerable deep dives into the specifications and use of the world’s first « Spatial Computer. » Apple’s created a remarkable piece of hardware that, despite similarities to other mixed reality and virtual reality headsets I’ve worn over the years, is also unlike any of them. I like it and wish it was a whole lot cheaper.
From the moment I first saw the headset in June at Apple Park where Apple had positioned a dozen or so of them in a circle and frenzied journalists carouseled around them, angling to get good photos or videos of the products we could not touch, there was the cable and battery. I took pictures of it and noted how the brick looked like the aluminum back of an original iPhone (I still don’t think that’s an accident.)
Later that same day, I took my first Vision Pro test drive. Apple had me sit down and helped position the cable that ran from the left side of the headset so it wasn’t in the way. My eyes traced that cable down to the battery brick that was sitting casually on the cushion beside me. When I stood up to stand « nose-to-nose » with a dinosaur, someone handed me the battery so I could carry it with me.
During my most recent demo, I stood up again but this time someone held the battery for me, and, for the first time, my arm caught the battery cable when I went to reach for some virtual object.
I never thought Apple was trying to hide the battery, though I will grant that it’s doing its Apple best to market it to the sidelines.
At the prospect of this last test drive, and having spent so much time with Vision Pro, I wondered what I might do or see that was new but I knew one thing: Apple was finally letting us photograph ourselves wearing it.
