Apple Vision Diary: Hands-on with Vision Pro, ahead of the UK launch

I’ve tried a lower-end headset, and I’ve tried a higher-end headset, but the US-only launch of Vision Pro meant I was having to wait impatiently for my chance to go hands-on with Apple’s spatial computer here in the UK.

I wasn’t going to have very much longer to wait, with walk-in demos likely available on June 28, but UK-based developer Maze Theory offered me a chance to try one a little earlier …

Despite never having seen Vision Pro in the flesh before, constant exposure to photos and videos meant that it felt rather familiar.

Indeed, the only thing that still looked alien, perhaps because Apple has carefully avoided including it in its own photos, was that external battery pack.

I got an unexpected experience of Apple’s accessibility features when the device successfully calibrated to my eyes, but then refused to actually allow me to highlight anything by looking at it. A childhood eye injury means I have a greatly-enlarged right pupil, and I suspect that’s what was confusing it.

However, Maze’s chief gaming officer Russ Harding dug into the settings and found an option to control Vision Pro with one eye. We selected my left eye, and things then worked fine.

The user-interface, and AR environment

Again, because I’d seen so many photos and videos, the overall look of the main VP screens felt familiar.

The graphics look amazing! Though somewhat sensitive to headset position – I had to make small adjustments from time to time when things in the corners went out of focus. However, bear in mind that I was using a shared device which we’d spent only a few minutes adjusting for me. A personalized fit will likely solve this.

The user-interface is very simple – almost too simple! Because most things don’t require you to touch or manipulate any buttons, just look at something and then pinch anywhere, I found it wasn’t immediately intuitive. But it took only a very short time to get used to it, and then it’s just fantastically easy to use!

Before I tried it, I wasn’t really sure what I was going to make of the augmented reality approach. In particular. On my Quest 2, the background to virtual monitors is an artificial one, so you’re essentially in a VR environment rather than an AR one.

With Vision Pro, it defaults to an AR experience, with your app windows floating in your real-world environment – with the option of turning down the opacity, or replacing it with a VR background.

Ahead of time, I was somewhat skeptical of the benefit of this. After all, my focus is going to be on the screens, so a real-world review of my surroundings seemed like it might feel pointless or even actively distracting.

However, once I experienced it, I was totally sold! Partly for the practicality of things like being able to see a keyboard and trackpad, and partly just for the massively-reduced sense of being cut off from the world around me.

It’s also really good to be able to see when someone enters the room, so anyone around you doesn’t feel they’re being ignored.

EyeSight is just a pointless gimmick

However, the other way around – people being able to kind-of-but-not-really see me, aka EyeSight – struck me as just a pointless gimmick. When Russ was wearing the device and I was seeing his eyes, it didn’t feel remotely like I was actually seeing his face, and when I looked at a photo of my eyes on it, it was the same thing – just a waste of tech.

Apple has reportedly dropped plans for a Vision Pro 2, and is instead focusing all of its efforts on a lower-cost Apple Vision product. The company is said to be struggling to find ways to reduce the cost to a more consumer-friendly level, with many suggesting that it needs to cut the cost by more than half to hit a price point of $1500. Dropping EyeSight is a complete no-brainer here.

Much as Apple touted this as a key feature, intended to mitigate the sense of isolation between a VP user and those around them, I’m pretty sure it won’t hesitate to remove it.

I have to say that watching someone use VP is somewhat comical, typing on the virtual keyboard especially so! The same was true when I caught sight of myself in that reflective wall. But hey, I’ve used plenty of tech in public likely to cause eye-rolls among the non techerati.

Comfort

In all, I got to wear the device for around an hour, and based on that experience, I’d say that comfort is one of the biggest challenges with this tech right now.

It was a relatively warm afternoon by UK standards, and I was definitely feeling the heat with my upper face enclosed by the unit. This mirrors my experience with the Meta Quest 2, which also feels warm.

Vision Pro’s weight is also something I felt after about the first 30 mins. I use my Quest with the optional rear battery-pack, and although that increases the total weight, that mass is evenly split between the front and rear. Vision Pro, in contrast, is very front-heavy, and I was definitely starting to feel that, especially when looking down and then back up.

I do think all AR/VR headset makers need to work hard to reduce weight, and would say that Apple also needs to address the weight balance of the device.

The graphics

I mentioned that the graphics are great, but the real test was trying out Maze Theory’s upcoming game, Infinite Inside.

The Vision Pro version isn’t finished yet, and I’m not allowed to say very much about it, which is probably for the best, as I’m no gamer! I’d warned the company ahead of time that I was only coming to try Vision Pro and experience the graphics quality of the game, so that all worked out.

Here’s the trailer (note that the virtual hands seen here are from the Quest version, not Vision Pro):

One interesting thing about the game is the way that you switch back-and-forth between AR and VR environments. For example, a giant plinth appears in AR form in your room, and you need to manipulate objects in this environment in order to unlock VR environments. Switching back-and-forth between the two environments definitely feels like it adds interest.

The quality of the graphics is very, very high. Virtual objects don’t quite look as real as, well, real ones, but it’s very close. Once I was immersed in the AR environment, then my brain very quickly started to treat actual and virtual objects as equally real – or perhaps equally unreal!

There was a time when I handed Russ my phone to take the photos seen above, and when he handed it back I did a kind of double-take before putting it back onto the table. Was that a real table, or was I about to drop my phone on the floor?! Similarly with the plinth, while I could have walked through it, my brain definitely interpreted it as a real object in the room which I’d have to walk around.

There are some issues with the handling of objects in the half-completed VP version, so the company let me experience the game on the Quest 3 as well, to see how the handling would be once complete.

One small-sounding but dramatic difference

Comparing Vision Pro and Quest 3 versions was really helpful as I got the chance to do back-to-back comparisons between the two headsets – and the Vision Pro graphics felt dramatically better.

I very carefully say ‘felt’ rather than looked, because I don’t think it was necessarily about resolution or frame-rate; rather, there was one small-sounding difference in the capabilities of the devices which made a huge difference.

In Vision Pro, the objects in the game reflect the real-life light in the room. So when, for example, I turned an object in my hands, it reflected the light coming from the real window off to one side. Quest can’t do that.

That might sound like a relatively minor thing, but for me personally, I cannot overstate just how much impact that had in convincing my brain that virtual objects were real.

Infinite Inside will be available on July 12, in time for the UK launch of Vision Pro.

Will I buy one?

Prior to the original launch of Vision Pro, I’d confidently predicted I wouldn’t be buying one, and suggested I’d likely skip the next version too – before opting for a 3rd-gen device. Once it was launched, I said it looked hugely impressive, but my guess was unchanged.

At that point, I suspected that Apple was going to need to get a future Vision Air model down to around a thousand dollars before it would get my money – and I saw that as quite a few years away yet.

Has anything changed now that I’ve tried it? Yes, and no.

No, I’m still not going to be buying Vision Pro. My primary interest is in using it to either completely replace a Mac for work while travelling, or at least have it be my multi-monitor setup. Even allowing for a personalized fit, the comfort just isn’t there yet to have me wear it for a working day. As an entertainment device, for having a home cinema experience anywhere, I’m perfectly happy with Viture One XR glasses.

But yes, I think I’m now willing to pay more than I had been prior to trying it. If Apple can manage to achieve a device sufficiently light, balanced, and cool enough for all-day use, then I will absolutely want one. The idea of being able to travel with only my MacBook and Apple Vision for work is massively appealing.

Having my external monitors be virtual instead of physical, and stay put in the room without getting in the way when not working, is a really big selling point for me. Yes, having multiple Mac monitors on the latest model Viture glasses is a big improvement, but having those monitors stay put in space is just a night-and-day difference.

So if Apple can crack the all-day comfort problem (and I still see that as a rather big ‘if’), then I think I’d be ready to press the button at $2k rather than $1k.