Apple Vision Pro Review – A Long Road Ahead!

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The wait is finally over; on my desk sits Vision Pro – Apple’s Next Big Thing.

At least, that’s what Tim wants it to be. Desperately.

I understand why. As we’ve learned over the last few years, there’s only so much you can do to the iPhone. The Mac remains the best computing experience on the planet (no arguments), which means there’s little to improve there, too.

The iPad? Well, it’s the best tablet on the planet, and the extent to which it can evolve is dictated by the safe distance Apple clearly wants it to tread behind the Mac.

The Apple Watch? It’s the best… ok, you get the picture.

Apple needs something new. Cook needs his ‘iPhone Moment’. That’s why they’re pinning everything on Vision Pro – and that isn’t hyperbolic; I firmly believe this is intended to be the replacement for everything I’ve just mentioned (bar, possibly, the Apple Watch).

However, now that I have one, it’s clear that it’s a very long road ahead. It’s also clear that I was wrong to dismiss Vision Pro from the offset last year.

My first experience with Vision Pro

If Apple knows how to do one thing very well, it’s the first experience it delivers for any product. Everything from the unboxing to the setup process and those first tentative steps into the world of your new device is designed to be delightful.

Vision Pro epitomises this. It arrives in a huge box featuring a typically minimalistic design. ‘Vision Pro’, it reads on the side, with a front shot of the headset proudly painted onto the front.

Everything inside is meticulously wrapped. Just like the Apple Watch Ultra, Vision Pro also comes with a beautifully crafted introduction and instruction booklet (which I didn’t bother reading, obviously). It wouldn’t look out of place on a posh coffee table.

The headset itself didn’t feel as heavy as I was expecting. The battery pack was another matter – that felt comically weighty when I unearthed it from its packaging and was, unexpectedly, the first indication that Vision Pro is unlikely to be a breeze to live with.

The setup process for Vision Pro involves your iPhone, which means there’s no faffing about inputting WiFi passwords or iCloud credentials. You’re also treated to an eye and hand configuration process which involves looking at dots around the display and pinching your thumb and forefinger to select them.

That’s where it hits you. This is next-level computing. The speed and accuracy with which you can navigate items on the display using your eyeballs and fingers are breathtaking and immediately intuitive. It’s the new multi-touch and it quickly becomes completely normal.

You’re also encouraged to set up your digital persona, which is what visionOS uses to represent you when using Vision Pro for FaceTime calls. It’s spookily accurate (bar a weird head bulge on my first attempt), and brilliant for scaring the living bejesus out of your girlfriend when you first try it out without warning.

Then, the problems start.

Immediate problems with Vision Pro

Vision Pro is so heavy on your head. That perceived lack of heft during the unboxing process turned out to be nothing more than a ruse, I’m afraid.

The problem I’m experiencing with Vision Pro is the weight of the device on my nose. The pressure it exerts on that area of my face is the same, whether I opt for the Solo Knit Band (the one that’s in all of Apple’s Vision Pro marketing) or the Dual Loop Band. It’s uncomfortable.

I’ve also experienced a numb head while wearing Vision Pro. To clarify, I’m referring to the top of my baldpate, and, specifically, the area that resides within the circular form of Vision Pro. After thirty minutes or so of wearing the headset, there have been a couple of occasions where I’ve lost all feeling up there; scratching an itch feels like I’m scratching someone else’s head.

I’m not selling this thing, am I?

I should counter these troubles by explaining that I’m not a VR veteran. My experience with devices like Vision Pro extends as far as a brief go on PlayStation VR at CES and a review of XREAL’s AR glasses. I’m aware that some level of discomfort is almost part of experiencing VR. I’ve just not experienced it properly before – until now.

I need more time to find the best fit for Vision Pro. There’s an outside chance, of course, that I’ve inadvertently ordered the wrong size light shield (although I did as I was told and went through the iPhone face scanning ordering process), and that I simply need to play around with the bands to find a comfortable, secure fit.

There are other issues with Vision Pro. It’s almost impossible to drink a cup of coffee while wearing it, unless you enjoy the unnervingly expensive sound of ceramics smashing against display glass. I’ve found that I have to lift Vision Pro momentarily away from my nose in order to have a sip of my beverage (at least my nose gets a moment’s respite, as a result).

The battery life does feel restrictive, but given the concerns I have over comfort – along with the fact that it isn’t a good idea to immerse yourself in such environments for too long – that isn’t a bad thing. Plus, you can plug the battery pack into the mains and use it ‘all day’, if you want.

visionOS feels a bit beta-ish at times, too. The peripheral sharing with Macs (I’ll get to that in a second) is a bit hit and miss, iCloud integration seems flaky, and there have been a few instances where windows have disappeared, or I’ve had to recenter everything to reorientate myself. Thoughts of this being a publicly available developer unit have only intensified since I started using Vision Pro.

However, there are some incredible trade-offs if you’re willing to put up with these first-generation issues.

What I like about Vision Pro

First out of the gate is the quality of the hardware. I needn’t dwell too long on this, because we’re looking at an Apple product – and we know what that means. It is beautifully designed, solidly constructed, and a delight to behold in pretty much any setting. It looks and feels exotic and expensive. Which is nice.

However, Vision Pro is an isolating device. It also looks weird in modern society – we’re still not quite ready for it. At least, my girlfriend wasn’t quite ready for the sight of me wearing it at the breakfast table this morning when she came down to make a cup of tea.

But that isolation is what Vision Pro is all about. The headset provides a window into another world of entertainment and productivity. It’s impossible to explain what it’s like unless you try it, but the volumetric environment Apple has created within visionOS is simply stunning. Thanks to the grunt of the M2 chip powering Vision Pro, and those incredibly sharp 4K micro-OLED displays (one for each eye, no less), the experience is utterly breathtaking.

This is epitomised by what Apple calls ‘Environments’ – spaces into which you can immerse yourself either fully or partially.

At launch, there are a bunch of real-world locations available, including Mount Hood, Joshua Tree, and the moon. Spin the Digital Crown to immerse yourself fully in those places, and you’re treated to 360-degree 3D depth, reflections, changing lighting and weather, and Spatial Audio. I visited the Sphere in Las Vegas in January, and that blew my mind. Vision Pro is another level up from that.

However, the killer feature for me during these very early days with Vision Pro is how it interacts with the Mac. With the headset on, you simply look at your Mac’s display, click the ‘connect’ button and marvel as the display is ‘detached’ from the Mac and placed into the visionOS landscape. From there, you can move it around your virtual space, resize it, and place it next to visionOS apps for multitasking and referencing.

As noted earlier, you can also share your Mac’s mouse and keyboard with Vision Pro. Niggles aside, it’s super intuitive and similar to how you can share those peripherals with other Apple devices; just move your mouse to the edge of the Mac window and it quickly detaches, becoming a pointer in visionOS, instead.

Navigating visionOS is still, at times, rather fiddly (bar the window management, which is brilliantly intuitive). For that reason, and given that I’m a Mac guy, through and through, I suspect that this element of Apple’s headset is going to be the main use case for me, at least in the short term.

What Vision Pro ISN’T for

It was inevitable, wasn’t it? As soon as Vision Pro reviews began to drop, we were treated to my fellow tech content creators walking around cities and shopping centres wearing the headset. Some even took to public transport, with one guy now infamously ‘caught’ pinching and waving his arms around on the subway much to the confusion of his fellow passengers.

This isn’t what Vision Pro is for. Sorry. It’s a neat trick to drive engagement in content during the early days of the device’s life, but when you strap Vision Pro to your face, you realise that you’d have to be mad to walk around in public wearing it.

This is for three reasons. Firstly, the aforementioned weight makes it rather unpalatable to wear while walking around. Secondly, it looks stupid – the world is not ready for this yet (I don’t think it ever will be until the tech reduces in size). Thirdly, it’s dangerous; despite being able to see through Vision Pro thanks to those cameras, your peripheral vision is severely limited.

That’s why I won’t be walking around Tesco’s wearing one for the sake of views. Well, that, and the fact I’m British and therefore too self-conscious to do so.

Sorry.

Wrapping up: about those Vision Pro returns…

At the time of writing, the tech headlines are awash with news of people returning their Vision Pro headsets – in droves, apparently.

I’m not surprised. I doubt Apple is surprised.

No one should be surprised.

Apple continues to offer a very generous 14-day returns policy – no questions asked. That promotes the casual purchase of devices like Vision Pro, for which you need oodles of disposable income and a genuine use case. My guess is that a large proportion of people who pre-ordered the device didn’t fall into that bracket. They were just curious.

Equally, it is a very cumbersome, intense experience. This isn’t Apple’s fault – it’s where we are with this technology right now. It’s going to take years to make it socially acceptable and more comfortable to use.

That’s what excites me. I’m in this for the long run. I’m going to use Vision Pro as much as I can and stay close to Apple’s updates to visionOS. I want to see where this goes. I want to see how they ram spatial computing into the national consciousness. Because they absolutely will, one way or another.

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