Editor Note: I wrote this review in February and finished it while on a trip to my grandmother’s funeral. Then I never published it. I later returned the device with a promise to myself to give it another go in a couple of years. Sorry it took 5 months to finally publish this:
This 3-part series will share my experience as an Apple Vision Pro Owner. Part 1 will cover consuming written, oral and film media. Part 2 on the setup and getting started. Part 3 Productivity and Living with this device day to day. Part 4 focuses on my thoughts on Apple Vision Pro’s generation 1 and what this platform means long term in a very crowded world of devices.
48 hours after picking up my Apple Vision Pro (AVP), I arrived at an AirBNB in Madison Florida with my usual motorcycle travel tech. A helmet comm system so I can listen to podcasts, iPhone, AirPods Pro, Canon R5, Apple Watch Ultra and iPad Pro 12.9” I plugged everything in but the iPad and watched some Internet videos published while I was riding for 8 hours over 500 miles in the rain. I tapped on a video and it took a few seconds to regret not bringing the AVP with me. It would have been a tight fit in my 70 liter pannier boxes but I would have made it work and I haven’t even watched an entire movie on the device yet but it’s already re-wiring how I select items on a screen to where I look at the thing for far too long before clicking the trackpad (a common interaction model on AVP).
I am a cinephile. I’ve been watching feature-length movies with my dad since I was a kid and spend whole weekends watching movies at home or in theaters. I’ve driven 6 hours many times to see 70mm film releases from Nolan and Tarantino. The movie watching experience on an AVP is like having your own private theatre with the finest digital projectors, zero light bleed and a perfect seat minus the smell of popcorn or properly turned surround sound. Apple’s Spatial Audio coming from the two beam forming speakers do a great job of producing great sounding personal audio at the loss of privacy since those around you can hear it but what’s missing is true Atmos surround sound and more importantly, the rumble of subwoofers. So while the video is next-level, the audio has a way to go and with Apple’s “upgrade” choice being a pair of AirPods Pro, I think the only thing I can recommend would be to send the video to an Airplay 2 enabled receiver with true surround sound in order to make AVP the perfect home cinema experience greater than nearly any display or projector money can buy.
Part of this can be attributed to the displays and spatial OS AVP ships with but a YouTube video at 2160P in full screen mode (still a user adjustable floating window) doesn’t hold a candle to apps like Apple’s own TV+ app which lets you watch movies in an actual recreated theater or on the moon (during the day or night) or Disney+’s various scenes. Also credit to IMAX group for putting you in an IMAX theater for some of their free on-demand titles. Being immersed is necessary to fall deeply within a movie theater experience.
Watching Hollywood films are the single best thing you can do with an Apple Vision Pro today. It makes for a pricey personal theater especially if you have a family or friends who you usually watch these things with or a normal job where you get home at 7PM and the last thing you want to do is sit in a recliner all alone and watch Star Wars while your family wonders why you hate them. Future VisionOS software can solve for shared viewing experiences with AVP but the entry level price is currently the limiting factor.
Reading via apps like Instapaper, Safari, iBooks is great on AVP. I have spent a few hours doing just that and if your head and face don’t tire of the weight, it’s great because you don’t have to hold anything like a book, iPad or eReader. The pinch and scroll is finicky sometimes for me and I’ll blame user error for now but it’s a fantastic reading experience and you can do it immersed or not. Some iPad apps allow you to toggle between portrait or landscape such as writing app Byword just like you would on an iPad which makes reading or writing easier.
Reeder RSS does not work on VisionOS as the developer won’t release it. I assume that means a native app is coming.
Spoken word audiobooks and podcasts work well but again in a quiet space, everyone can hear what you hear but opening Music, Overcast or Spotify.com (via Safari) and throwing that window off to the side is easy. I’d love a hand gesture or pausing music. Turning the volume up or down or selecting the app then clicking pause can take a few seconds which is why AirPods are great. You remove one and the audio pauses just like it does on iOS. This is much faster than gestures or asking Siri to pause the music.
Apple Vision Pro is the best media consumption device Apple has ever made assuming two things. First, that you don’t want to share the content with someone else which is possible on every single device Apple makes with the last one being an iPod Shuffle but even then, you could use an audio Y-splitter. Second, you’re okay with the setbacks of limited battery life, being fully immersed and being anti-social…oh and having $3499 to spend.
I think highlighting media as part 1 makes the most sense. For 2024, this is the killer Apple Vision Pro app. Apple and 3rd part developers might pull something else off in the future but right now, this is it. This is the best part of AVP.
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Part 2 on the setup and getting started.
I haven’t felt like a rock star buying an Apple product in a very long time.It’s not fake energy when Apple employees are dropping by to congratulate you and hoping you have fun and it’s something I have felt many times before with MacOS, iPhone and Watch releases but the last 5+ years, that excitement has faded. Apple has 2 billion active devices in the world with roughly 450 million sold every single year across the lineup, it’s easy to understand why no one thinks your fully maxed out MacBook Pro purchase is worth a pat on the back. But with only 100-200 thousand Apple Vision Pro (AVP) devices sold the first weekend, that’s about 550 per store on average across 271 stores and that’s assuming 100% of purchases were for store pickup. I was in the Charlotte Apple Store for an hour and I was the only person picking up a device with many employees interested to hear about my decision to purchase.
The box size is very un-Apple but the packaging is not. I expect the box to shrink over time but the headset was on full display ready to put on as the lid is removed. Other than folding the device up or asking the user to assemble the head strap, there isn’t a lot of space to spare in there.
The battery came 50% charged so I worked on the strap fitment while plugged into my 100 watt USB-C adapter. I then plugged the spare battery into my MacBook Pro and connected the power cable to the AVP quickly learning that if I could wear the device for 10 hours straight, I’d just have to be close to my laptop, wall charger or carry a much larger USB-C battery pack. It’s 3,166 MaH and with a 2.5 hour battery, I could connect AVP to my 20,000 MaH Anker USB-C PD battery and get almost 16 hours of battery.
The setup wizard is fast and Apple races you to into the interface after just a few screens. I was quickly frustrated with passwords. I use very complex passwords generated by 1Password and I’m an old Apple customer who has separate iTunes & iCloud accounts. At one point, I was entering via the on-screen keyboard 30 character long passwords that were being displayed in large font on my MacBook Pro’s screen. It took 3 attempts per password to get it right followed by Apple’s 2-Factor authentication just to begin installing apps from the store and setting up email.
The first thing I did was install 1Password.
I live in email and was disappointed that Microsoft did not have Outlook ready to go on day one but Apple Mail is fine. The issue is all of my accounts (except iCloud which is not my email host) are hosted on a paid Office 365 plan. I pay $5 a month and all of my domain MX records point to Microsoft and I have aliases setup so it all goes into one account. It works for me. The issue is, Apple Vision Pro doesn’t support Office 365 Email at launch. I KNOW, RIGHT!??!
When you open settings and add an account, the screen looks identical to iOS, iCloud, Gmail, Outlook.com, Exchange, AOL, etc. Yet when I select Outlook.com as I would on iOS/iPadOS, I’m taking to the Microsoft OAuth screen but entering my email address doesn’t open a prompt asking me if this is for Home or Work. This prompt is key because it’s the user telling Microsoft they want to authenticate with Outlook.com, Live.com or a paid Office 365 Business account. The thing is, that doesn’t appear, just an option to enter my password. When I do, I’m told my password is wrong. That’s because my Outlook/Live account (used only for Xbox) has a different password than my O365 account despite having the same email address. So as of now, I can’t get email on AVP unless I open Outlook’s O365 (OWA) via Safari. A few years ago I tried to migrate to iCloud+ and I may just do it again to save myself $60 a year and headaches.
I was continually frustrated with the amount of iPad apps like Reader, Adobe products and more that have developers who omitted their apps from running on VisionOS. I can only hope that means they’re working on native apps but my typical iPadOS workflow is handicapped at the moment with developers opting out or late to deliver native apps.
A few highlights in bullet points:
- Personals are weird but will improve. My wife refuses to talk to me via FaceTime video calls from the AVP
- Apple still does not optimize iCloud Photo Libraries for edge-cases like me with 3.6 terabyte photo libraries fully of 40-60 megapixel images. It took 2 days for the photos experience to be decent enough to feel “buttery smooth” even with a 512GB model that I intentionally kept turned on plugged into power to allow for iCloud on-device ML to process
- About that, the device has a very small whirring sound from the speakers during setup and gaming
- The device is warm at the top. Apple does a good job of moving the air up your face (intakes are on the bottom) and out of the top efficiently but some heat will touch your hair / forehead
- While plugged in for 2 days on a desk in a house set to 68 degrees, the AVP was always warm to the touch just sitting there, I assume getting iCloud Photos setup for me since this IS the most intensive task every new Apple device does and for me, takes about 1 month to complete even on an M1 Max MacBook Pro
- These are cameras giving you a display of the world around you so expect white-noise in low-light environments
- Looking at your Apple Watch or iPhone while in VisionOS is wonky and looks very strange but you can get by just reading a notification. I would like continuity to see iPhone notifications in VisionOS even without an app installed and a “respond on iPhone” kind of like AppleWatch does
- FaceID and even unlock with iPhone do not work when wearing AVP. All of my services are protected by Authenticator apps which are all locked with FaceID so it was about an hour of logging into a service, receiving an Auth push, taking off AVP, unlocking iPhone, putting AVP back on, receiving another push and repeating which was pretty annoying
- I would highly recommend anyone with animals, kids or plans to travel with AVP especially to and from work to purchase the $500 AppleCare. This device doesn’t feel fragile but a lot of expensive stuff is on display. I do not want to pay out of pocket for an accidental claim
I’d recommend anyone purchasing one of these to allocate a weekend before taking it to work. Pick it up on Thursday and do a 2 hour sprint setting it up which will be uncomfortable and have some eye-strain. Friday just play with the device, Saturday get everything the way you want it and Sunday let the device sit plugged in and on cranking away at background tasks. Because VisionOS is slow (if you’re not using an input device), you’re going to need a few days. It’s not as fast as setting up a brand new iPhone if you have a lot of online productivity services all backed by good encryption.
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Part 3 focuses on my thoughts on Apple Vision Pro’s generation 1 and what this platform means long term in a very crowded world of devices.
2024’s Apple Vision Pro is a generation one device. There’s no doubt about it. Apple doesn’t’ know what the killer app is yet and they don’t need to. Their job is to create a new computing paradigm that will be nearly identical to the way this device is used for the next 10+ years so developers and consumers can learn and utilize the interaction model without it changing for a while. That task was done expertly. Apple has created a new way to compute in an intuitive interface that opens up the entire world to you as a computing platform. There are small cracks limited to either software or hardware but hardware will get better and improve. You can completely redesign hardware. Just look at Macintosh over the last 40 years but the operating system has roots that have been consistent over this same time despite all of the hardware advancements.
Of note, the complaints I have about a lack of apps, the cracks in hand and eye controls, the weight, the battery life, the delicacy of the hardware, the price and how you type on it. These are all fixable problems and the only deal they would break would be dissuading someone to avoid the first version. If you’re a professional who makes money creating content on iOS/iPadOS/MacOS, the VisionOS platform has a place in your life in the future but probably not right now. Remember how you spend your first year owning an iPhone and have no 3rd party apps with Edge cellular service or dual-booting MacOS 9 and 10 side by side because all of your Adobe and Microsoft software was still sitting in the classic environment or you needed to print a document? Remember how slow and painful it was to use the first AppleWatch and the product so bad that Apple unofficially renamed the 1st watches “Series 0” just a few months after with the release of Series 1 with a faster chip?
I expect VisionOS 2 will be previewed at WWDC and I expect Apple Vision (non-pro) will debut in 2025 with VisionOS 2 along with tens of thousands of more apps, the loss of Eye Sight and some other features but with exactly the same hardware we have today and a cost of $1999. The Pro in 2025 or 2026 will live on in generation 2 but will be $2999 and have everything doubled….battery life, cameras, M4 Pro chip and even software improvements exclusive to the pro like multi-touch keyboard and support for multiple MacOS displays or pulling Macintosh apps out and making them spatial all powered by M3 Macs or newer. The pro is not going away and you can still spec it up to $4,000 with storage and AppleCare but the VisionOS device most people will buy in 2025-2030 will be the non-Pro.
I also think Apple will solve for the social isolation of VisionOS making SharePlay more entrenched so you can sit with your friend side by side and share your experience with multiplayer games, collaborative productivity and a shared cinema experience along with APIs allowing developers to easily add this functionality. You invite your friend via iMessage to a shared AVP session and any app that supports it will have you both sharing a document, collaborating, cutting fruit and watching Avatar all at the same time with device to device sharing up to, let’s say, 4 people.
Remember too that despite the cost being inaccessible to many Americans….example I’m sitting in a cafe in Florida right now where the median household income is $32,000 USD a year in 2024, iPhone upgrades are longer. Someone is spending $799 and financing it for 36 months and keeping the phone for 5 years needing just a $99 battery swap in year 3-4. VisionOS doesn’t need a Mac, iPad or iPhone to work but a family could decide to forgo replacing their current television and extend iPhone upgrades a bit longer and purchase one of these. Only the serious nerds or pro users have issues like mine where they have iPad, Mac, Watch, Phone apps and devices all around them. I’m thinking more socially how everyone is already staring at phones all day while the world goes by. Adding a headset isn’t a far stretch once Apple gets the weight and comfort nailed.
With about 4,000 words spent so far, I’ve decided to return my Apple Vision Pro. It’s only partially about the money. Yes, $4,000 even if financed over 12 months is about $330 a month which is groceries, utilities and more for most Americans and it is a stretch for me but that’s not the reason. The cracks and issues highlighted in this article are going to be fixed by the improvements in hardware and software Apple has coming in just 24 months. I think the 2nd generation Apple Vision Pro is the device to buy and skipping the non-Pro model that will arrive in the next 12 months. You and I can get by using our iPads, iPhones, Macs and Watches for a bit just as we have for the last 10-40 years and wait just a little bit longer for what’s next. I think AVP’s killer app will be the ability for a high-income household to purchase more than 1 since I doubt multi-user support will ever arrive (remember only Macs support multiple users) and for those devices to connect and share experiences. Design studios, coders, production houses, families and friends will be able to spend about $1500-$2000 and be social by themselves in an immersive spatial OS full of many thousands of native apps.
When that happens, AVP sales will be measured in millions, not thousands and I’m ready to buy that version. Hopefully, my return of the AVP will make this device more accessible to someone who gets to save 15% by purchasing a model that’s refurbished in a few months.
