Vision Pro, My Nephew, and the Future of Computing

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Remember Apple Vision Pro?

A bunch of us are still using it. Promise. It remains a fascinating device. It’s still uncomfortably heavy. Figuring out how to slot it into your working day is fun but ultimately confusing. Despite the numerous downsides, Apple’s headset still suggests that the future of computing lies far beyond the smartphone and laptop. It’s exciting, overwhelming, and thought-provoking.

Vision Pro has simply disappeared from the headlines because Apple hasn’t mentioned it, at all, since the headset officially went on sale in the US back in February. That doesn’t make it a failure, and it certainly doesn’t mean Tim Cook has turned his back on it. I expect we’ll see more of what’s in store for Vision Pro at this year’s WWDC in June.

In the meantime, I’ve been venturing outside of my home with Vision Pro. And, no, before you accuse me of being a hypocrite, I haven’t been wearing it on the Underground or while cycling the streets of London (because that’s stupid). I’ve simply taken Vision Pro on a couple of trips to see people who desperately wanted to try it out.

The results have been… fascinating.

I don’t envy Apple employees

If you head to an Apple Store in the US today, there’s a good chance you can grab yourself a thirty-minute demo of Vision Pro. I’d recommend doing so if you can; this is, after all, Apple’s punt at the future of computing, and I think it’s important that as many tech nerds and normal people as possible give it a go.

I have no idea how these demos are undertaken or how much training the Apple employees who administer them have had to endure, but I do not envy those guys at all.

I’ve now demonstrated Vision Pro to at least fifteen people and it is a surprisingly tiring experience. Some people get it, quickly, while others require far more coaching (the pinch gesture for selecting and dragging stuff is a common challenge). The fact that the guest mode on Vision Pro isn’t particularly reliable doesn’t help.

It would also be lovely to have the ability to stream whatever it is the wearer is seeing to your iPhone or iPad. You can do so with the Apple TV, but that’s not much use if there isn’t one to hand.

I love seeing the reactions to Apple’s headset, but I don’t like the process of showing it to people.

That is unless that person happens to be my nephew.

Thomas: the instant Vision Pro expert

Most adults who have tried my Vision Pro have required a fair bit of coaching during the experience. The automated eye tracking configuration and tutorial instigated by the device’s guest mode (this is the bit that is unreliable in terms of when it decides to be instigated) helps ease people in, but once they arrive inside visionOS, chaos often ensues.

Invariably, my friends and family throw their heads around, trying to make sense of their new AR-infused surroundings and in an attempt to interact with the user interface that has suddenly appeared in front of them.

“Let’s try out the environments,” I’ll say. “Look to your far left. No, not with your head – just your eyes. Look to the left of the icons, and you should… no, you don’t need to tilt your head; just look to the left with your eyes, beyond the icons, and you should see three additional icons organised horizontally.”

The room falls deadly quiet. More head turning ensues, along with inexplicable side shuffling and random hand waving. No one seems to know what to say or do. It all gets a bit uncomfortable.

“What can you see now?” I finally ask.

“Nothing,” says the wearer. “I’ve lost all the icons.”

And so on.

I knew my nephew wanted to try it out when we visited my sister’s house a few weeks back. Quietly, I was concerned that he wouldn’t be able to experience anything at all, given Apple’s public statement that “Vision Pro is designed to fit and be used by individuals 13 years of age and older”.

Thomas is seven.

I was also slightly concerned that, given the sheer weight of Vision Pro, I might inadvertently leave him with an irrecoverable neck injury.

If you thought Vision Pro looked comically big and Ski goggle-like on adults, you should see it strapped to the head of a kid. It looks as funny as you’re imagining. Thankfully, the weight didn’t prove problematic at all; in response to my panicked, “does that feel ok?”, Thomas simply replied, “yeah!”.

Predictably, guest mode didn’t work properly, so Thomas was immediately met with the first hurdle: entering my PIN number to access visionOS. He’s good with numbers, is our Thomas, so that was a blessing, but I wasn’t quite prepared for what happened next.

As I started to read out the number sequence he’d need to input, Thomas began reaching out and tapping an imaginary keypad – only, to him, it wasn’t imaginary, of course – he could see it right in front of him in all its augmented glory. He mistyped a couple of times but was able to backspace without any instruction from me.

Then, he was in.

I breathed in, hard, and prepared myself to either undertake one of the most challenging blind demonstrations ever or realise that the poor kid couldn’t actually use Vision Pro at all, due to his age.

Neither of those things happened. Instead, before I could say anything, Thomas was wandering around the room, poking at things, pinching and moving stuff, selecting apps, immersing himself, and, finally, settling down to watch something on Disney+.

He didn’t say much, apart from the occasional, “oh, cool”, before continuing his journey into spatial computing. I have no idea what he was doing or what he was seeing, but I know he was interacting with the user interface and entering apps because he occasionally referred to stuff about which a Vision Pro user would know.

It was more mesmerising, I think, for those watching than it was for him. It seemed natural, easy, and obvious for Thomas. He was operating in another world, but one which was inherently easy to navigate. Thomas knew what he was doing in visionOS, and his relatively tempered reaction suggested that he was in no way surprised by the experience. This was standard business for him – no hassles.

This is what Apple does so well, and it’s something I haven’t heard talked about regarding Vision Pro (possibly due to the age guidelines); they know which user interfaces will work for future generations. If you’ve got kids, you’ll know how intrinsic they find multitouch on the iPhone and iPad.

How one interacts with visionOS appears to be achieving the same feat, and, consequently, bodes well for that form of computing in the future.

YouTuber and VR expert reactions

My Vision Pro has been on a few trips recently. Beyond the family visit where Thomas showed everyone how it’s done, the headset also travelled to a VR company not far from my studio.

This was the result of a fortuitous meeting with a member of their team a while back who told me about his boss’s reluctance to invest in the expense and complication of importing Vision Pro into the UK. He needed convincing it was worth it.

An expert in all things VR and AR needed Vision Pro to prove its worth.

That sounds like a brilliant video idea, doesn’t it?

This resulted in the aforementioned trip to RiVR where we spent a couple of hours filming the reactions of said boss and a bunch of his team members to Vision Pro. Those reactions were a mixture of highly tempered, moderately underwhelmed, and absolutely amazed. The boss, I think (he was a bit camera shy), was impressed.

However, the most fascinating thing to come out of the trip was what he and his colleagues noted. The best image quality they’d seen on a headset. Tricky navigation via eye tracking. Uncomfortable amounts of image degradation if you move your head too fast. Acceptable – not outstanding – passthrough. Remember – these guys really know what they’re talking about.

The second visit was to see fellow YouTuber, Pete Matheson, earlier this week. Pete’s reaction to Vision Pro was similar to mine – he was bowled over by the quality of the image, and the immersive experiences (particularly Encounter Dinosaurs), but was left ultimately questioning how such a device would fit into his life and business.

While there, I also tried his Meta Quest 3 – and I’ll save my reaction to that for a future blog post.

If you’re wondering, these reactions will appear in a future Vision Pro video on my YouTube channel.

Wrapping up

As I’ve said countless times, we’re at the very start of Apple’s spatial computing journey. Vision Pro represents the first stop along the way and it demands both a large budget and copious amounts of patience if you’re to make use of it today.

However – despite the demonstration difficulties – one of the most pleasurable ownership experiences I’ve had with Vision Pro is sharing it with others. Every reaction has been different and fascinating, and I can’t wait to share it with more people.

I don’t think anyone is going to beat Thomas, though. Sorry.

Before you go