Ultimately a lot of it is subjective, but I can imagine many others sharing your perspective. EyeSight and passthrough could definitely be much better from what I’ve seen and heard, but I’m also curious how much people can/will get used to it enough to the point where it’s just acceptable. It will be interesting to see how the VP will be viewed and used by people in a year or two.
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Apple Vision Pro Owners: Keep or Return. And why?
- Thread starter KPOM
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I think you are right, i find the passthrough to be more than adequate. No its not real. Yes I know I am wearing the AVP, but isnt that sort of the point? As for the quality of the passthrough, here’s an anecdotal story… the other day i was rearranging my windows and got frustrated that no matter how many times i tried, I couldn’t get one window showing a youtube video to respond. Then i realized it was my widescreen tv.
as for my wife… chuckles.. she has no issue with me wearing mine. Maybe she has seen enough of my face in 42 years, but she is also just glad we aren’t fighting over the tv remote.
Adequate is a good word for it, I agree with your sentiments. I may be back when it's extraordinary, which could be 5-10 years easily. I feel like passthrough is one aspect of the device that was massively oversold to those of us without much VR headset experience. I can believe it's the best version ever done, but it's nowhere near clear and crisp to my eyes. I admit to being a PPI snob, but I found it straight up grainy unless it was in blasting bright light.
100% agree with you.
1 week left before the return window closes...
Decisions, decisions, decisions.....
They asked why I was returning it, but gave me absolutely 0 hassle returning it and the case both. I factory reset it before I got there, so it was a 30 second interaction.
Eh, I’ve been around the block enough to not pay attention to marketing sorry… and so i went in to it with an open mind knowing it was a version 1. Version 1 by definition, means rough around the edges, more a glimpse of what can be, and so I spend more time trying to figure out how to make it work than maybe I should. I find pass through to be fine, nope, never thought it would be as good as my eyes. I like that the floating windows stand out. I dont spend my time looking at the background. But then, as a photographer I spend a lot of time with depth of field trying to minimize the background so maybe i am just not as critical. To me passthrough does its job. I am aware but not distracted by my surroundings. I can move about the house to get a drink or whatever. And the PPI is where i need it, this reply for example
I gave it 7 days of use, but there were just too many shortcomings for the price. Does anyone know if I can return the Zeiss lenses? It says they are not returnable on the Apple website. I’ll probably call Apple tomorrow. Just want to get this whole thing take care of.
Still have a week and a half - but I’m leaning towards a return. Honestly if this was a $2500 product I’d keep it. That’s about what I think its actual fair value is. I get that it’s new and exciting and fun to be part of the community of early adopters, but for me personally is that worth $1000? Idk yet…
I’ve heard if you just take em with you Apple will accept them with return.
I contacted Apple tonight and they sent me a return label for the Zeiss lenses. It was super easy and ill be shipping them back tomorrow. I’m glad to move on from the Vision Pro experiment. It’s just not ready for prime time for my use case.
Maybe taking a survey for corporate to see what can be improved on for the future. I don’t make many returns to Apple but they never asked why when I did.
Honesty I think a higher than normal return rate was probably factored into the price tag for this one.
Im now on day 4 of having the AVP and I'm about 90% sure I will return as well. First off I will say I LOVE this thing, the immersion is great, and its super comfortable compared to other AR/VR headsets I have used but as of right now it's just not worth the $4,000 I paid for it.
First of all the passthrough is NOT as clear as what these YouTubers and Apple were making it out to be, When I did my trial in the store they told me the "fuzziness" I saw was due to the lights that the store used, As a Quest 3 user I know this is true as lighting played a major roll in how well you could see. It seemed like fluorescent lights gave users the most issue so I wasn't bothered by it in the store, While yes they were correct the passthrough is not as clear as I was expecting it to be, In my head the way Apple made it out to be was the passthrough was going to by Crystal clear like I'm looking at a phone screen in a camera view that is simply not the case. Everything is very fuzzy HOWEVER the AVP does in fact have the best passthrough I have seen on a headset before, At least I can look at my phone and navigate it with the AVP on which can't be said with the Quest.
Second is the tracking, if you have a light source the tracking on this thing is simply insane, and even pinches that I do when I think my hands are out of view it picks up but turn down the brightness and those simple pinches now become multiple wide taps with your fingers then if you get to dark or if you just touch the headset on the top or bottom for just a second the whole screen goes black with a message saying tracking lost and sometimes after it regains tracking your windows will be recentered but most of the time I found myself having to hold the digital crown to recenter everything for me. Some might think this is not a big deal but for me one of the use cases I bought this for as a Firefighter I wear this thing in our bunk room where we share bunkbeds with multiple different guys and I simply just can't turn a light on to help the tracking.
I could probably add as well as the "Look to select" works I found myself yesterday having issues on a web video when I was trying to change the quality of the video from SD to HD the little "Gear" icon in the video player was so small I was staring right at it but the AVP kept thinking I was looking at the video ad so every time I would look at the gear icon to change the resolution of the video and taping my fingers it kept thinking I was tapping this ad and would open up a new browser tab, so it does have issues selecting very small elements at times.
Third is the disappointing Screen mirroring feature, I just purchased an M3 Max MBP and thought the AVP would do great mirroring my display so I can be looking at a much larger display vs the 16in and I would have thought Apple would have invested in this feature strongly but in reality, it seemed to me at least as more of an afterthought, In my head in true Apple fashion I would think if you just look at the Mac you want to connect and a little icon will pop up and ask if you want to connect to it, instead I have to either go in the control panel on my AVP or Macbook and manually set up Screen Mirroring so not a major pain but not the seamless Apple Fashion either, once connected you can resize the window to whatever size you want however I noticed the text would come in blurry at times and then, of course, you will get the lag/FPS drops that kind of make you get motion sickness for a few seconds, using screen mirroring was the first time since I got the AVP that I actually found it so unpleasant I had to take it off and stop using the screen mirroring.
Battery life is ok, but not great only get about 1H20M of Disney 3D streaming before I reach 5% battery and have to charge it up, While I understand there is a TON of electronics on this headset I would not of minded if Apple provided us a larger battery pack to at least get users up to 2H of use bare minimum, if you play any of the Apple Arcade games expect even less. The reason I'm not terribly upset with the battery is I have an external battery package (Anker 737) that not only charges the battery while in use but keeps it going for around an extra 4 hours before my Anker Dies and then the battery for the AVP got back down to 10% however it's now an extra battery pack I'm having to carry with a separate USB-C cable feeding the AVP battery so its kind of a mess to carry.
Then lastly is the lack of content and generalized bugs, While yes most iPad apps can support the AVP, I have an iPad and I want apps that can take advantage of what the AVP can do. Synth Riders is an amazing representation of the hand tracking the AVP offers, But then apps like Carrot Weather if you shrink the window too small it gets locked into a tiny little box where you can no longer increase the window size and it doesn't display any information and the only way to fix this is with a uninstall and then reinstall of the app. Dinsey+ has some glitches where if you're sitting in a themed environment the movie screen will sometimes glitch and it acts like it's behind the environment. None of these are big deals and can easily be fixed with software updates so I'm not going to knock the devs but I wanted to at least mention it, Luckily I have NOT experienced any issues with the OS on AVP like crashes, resets, or errors. But its the lack of content that's getting me, sure it's going to expand in the future but who knows when that may be, I find myself using the AVP 85-90% of the time to watch movies which while nice I didn't spend $4,000 just to use this a my movie player.
Overall the AVP is a massive step in the right direction, And I can not wait to see what Apple will do with this moving forward, Hands down has the best images and everything is just so clear but for me, as of right now I am having a massive time comprehending spending $4,000 on a device that just doesn't do what I had hoped it was going to do, If this was cheaper in let's say the $2,000-$2500 range I would be way more understanding but not at this price point.
Can I see the AVP as a future product for everyone to have? Yes I really do and getting major "Ready Player One" Vibes from this it just feels more of a beta product than anything. I will say this, If I do return this which like I mentioned I'm almost positive I am and Apple releases more software updates down the road to improve on the issues that bothered me, I will have ZERO issues rebuying it, Im just not going to buy/keep a product for what it could have instead I go off what it currently has because who knows how long it may take for my gripes to be fixed.
First of all the passthrough is NOT as clear as what these YouTubers and Apple were making it out to be, When I did my trial in the store they told me the "fuzziness" I saw was due to the lights that the store used, As a Quest 3 user I know this is true as lighting played a major roll in how well you could see. It seemed like fluorescent lights gave users the most issue so I wasn't bothered by it in the store, While yes they were correct the passthrough is not as clear as I was expecting it to be, In my head the way Apple made it out to be was the passthrough was going to by Crystal clear like I'm looking at a phone screen in a camera view that is simply not the case. Everything is very fuzzy HOWEVER the AVP does in fact have the best passthrough I have seen on a headset before, At least I can look at my phone and navigate it with the AVP on which can't be said with the Quest.
Second is the tracking, if you have a light source the tracking on this thing is simply insane, and even pinches that I do when I think my hands are out of view it picks up but turn down the brightness and those simple pinches now become multiple wide taps with your fingers then if you get to dark or if you just touch the headset on the top or bottom for just a second the whole screen goes black with a message saying tracking lost and sometimes after it regains tracking your windows will be recentered but most of the time I found myself having to hold the digital crown to recenter everything for me. Some might think this is not a big deal but for me one of the use cases I bought this for as a Firefighter I wear this thing in our bunk room where we share bunkbeds with multiple different guys and I simply just can't turn a light on to help the tracking.
I could probably add as well as the "Look to select" works I found myself yesterday having issues on a web video when I was trying to change the quality of the video from SD to HD the little "Gear" icon in the video player was so small I was staring right at it but the AVP kept thinking I was looking at the video ad so every time I would look at the gear icon to change the resolution of the video and taping my fingers it kept thinking I was tapping this ad and would open up a new browser tab, so it does have issues selecting very small elements at times.
Third is the disappointing Screen mirroring feature, I just purchased an M3 Max MBP and thought the AVP would do great mirroring my display so I can be looking at a much larger display vs the 16in and I would have thought Apple would have invested in this feature strongly but in reality, it seemed to me at least as more of an afterthought, In my head in true Apple fashion I would think if you just look at the Mac you want to connect and a little icon will pop up and ask if you want to connect to it, instead I have to either go in the control panel on my AVP or Macbook and manually set up Screen Mirroring so not a major pain but not the seamless Apple Fashion either, once connected you can resize the window to whatever size you want however I noticed the text would come in blurry at times and then, of course, you will get the lag/FPS drops that kind of make you get motion sickness for a few seconds, using screen mirroring was the first time since I got the AVP that I actually found it so unpleasant I had to take it off and stop using the screen mirroring.
Battery life is ok, but not great only get about 1H20M of Disney 3D streaming before I reach 5% battery and have to charge it up, While I understand there is a TON of electronics on this headset I would not of minded if Apple provided us a larger battery pack to at least get users up to 2H of use bare minimum, if you play any of the Apple Arcade games expect even less. The reason I'm not terribly upset with the battery is I have an external battery package (Anker 737) that not only charges the battery while in use but keeps it going for around an extra 4 hours before my Anker Dies and then the battery for the AVP got back down to 10% however it's now an extra battery pack I'm having to carry with a separate USB-C cable feeding the AVP battery so its kind of a mess to carry.
Then lastly is the lack of content and generalized bugs, While yes most iPad apps can support the AVP, I have an iPad and I want apps that can take advantage of what the AVP can do. Synth Riders is an amazing representation of the hand tracking the AVP offers, But then apps like Carrot Weather if you shrink the window too small it gets locked into a tiny little box where you can no longer increase the window size and it doesn't display any information and the only way to fix this is with a uninstall and then reinstall of the app. Dinsey+ has some glitches where if you're sitting in a themed environment the movie screen will sometimes glitch and it acts like it's behind the environment. None of these are big deals and can easily be fixed with software updates so I'm not going to knock the devs but I wanted to at least mention it, Luckily I have NOT experienced any issues with the OS on AVP like crashes, resets, or errors. But its the lack of content that's getting me, sure it's going to expand in the future but who knows when that may be, I find myself using the AVP 85-90% of the time to watch movies which while nice I didn't spend $4,000 just to use this a my movie player.
Overall the AVP is a massive step in the right direction, And I can not wait to see what Apple will do with this moving forward, Hands down has the best images and everything is just so clear but for me, as of right now I am having a massive time comprehending spending $4,000 on a device that just doesn't do what I had hoped it was going to do, If this was cheaper in let's say the $2,000-$2500 range I would be way more understanding but not at this price point.
Can I see the AVP as a future product for everyone to have? Yes I really do and getting major "Ready Player One" Vibes from this it just feels more of a beta product than anything. I will say this, If I do return this which like I mentioned I'm almost positive I am and Apple releases more software updates down the road to improve on the issues that bothered me, I will have ZERO issues rebuying it, Im just not going to buy/keep a product for what it could have instead I go off what it currently has because who knows how long it may take for my gripes to be fixed.
Almost a week for me, and while I keep trying to fool myself that I am still 'testing' it, I don't fool my wife. She knows they will have to pry it out of my dead cold hands. I will not be returning.
The price doesn't bother me that much.
The passthrough as it stands doesn't bother me. I never thought it would be crystal clear, not even sure I want it to be. I like that my actual windows 'pop.'
Every day I get better at tracking.
I can wear the thing easily for 5 hours. Never tried more. Never got a headache. Never got motion sickness.
being able to place my own windows anywhere is intoxicating.
I keep learning new things to make it work better. Last night I learned if I pull my app window near me, I can actually use my hands like they do in the movies to control things. Pull pictures out of photos and surround myself with them. A great way to weed them out (I take several of the same thing to get the best).
It has the apps I use every day. Word. Discord. Safari. Photos. Mail.
I love how easily it integrates with my MBA. I look at it and it connects. Love I can have a huge monitor anywhere, any place, any time.
do I wish it was only $2000? sure. but I see the value at $3500 so I cant really complain.
The price doesn't bother me that much.
The passthrough as it stands doesn't bother me. I never thought it would be crystal clear, not even sure I want it to be. I like that my actual windows 'pop.'
Every day I get better at tracking.
I can wear the thing easily for 5 hours. Never tried more. Never got a headache. Never got motion sickness.
being able to place my own windows anywhere is intoxicating.
I keep learning new things to make it work better. Last night I learned if I pull my app window near me, I can actually use my hands like they do in the movies to control things. Pull pictures out of photos and surround myself with them. A great way to weed them out (I take several of the same thing to get the best).
It has the apps I use every day. Word. Discord. Safari. Photos. Mail.
I love how easily it integrates with my MBA. I look at it and it connects. Love I can have a huge monitor anywhere, any place, any time.
do I wish it was only $2000? sure. but I see the value at $3500 so I cant really complain.
I have had the AVP for 3 days.
I have been waiting for such a device for decades bc it’s the closest I can get to a holodeck visuals. I was an early adopter of the Apple comp MacBook iphone iPad Apple Watch airpods Pro etc. Love all of them and never returned any apple product.
I initially bought AVP just to try bc I thought no way for 3,800 dollars Will I keep it.
(I have tried the Q2 and Q3 in the past but the meh graphics controllers and required boundary were deal killers)
my favorite uses
- Watching media is far beyond anything. Having an imax theater anywhere is incredible. my OLED Tv looks puny now. For me that alone justifies it bc an equivalent projector would run 4K but I would also need to buy speakers screen and a dedicated big space. This thing is portable anywhere anytime.
- Environment. I love them
- Spatial videos. Can’t wait to take some at family events or when I travel
- I easily dictate texts and read the news. Although I would not buy this device to do these tasks.
I didn’t even bother setting up a persona. Don’t care about crisp pass through. Not sure why people care so much. I can see and read my iPhone Fine.
the only flies in my ointment are the weight (ordered a contraption designed for Quest to try) and lack of Netflix.
Only reason to return would be fomo when the next version is released. Since I don’t want to spend 4K again. Balance that against fomo on 2 yrs of Vision Pro 😂
I have been waiting for such a device for decades bc it’s the closest I can get to a holodeck visuals. I was an early adopter of the Apple comp MacBook iphone iPad Apple Watch airpods Pro etc. Love all of them and never returned any apple product.
I initially bought AVP just to try bc I thought no way for 3,800 dollars Will I keep it.
(I have tried the Q2 and Q3 in the past but the meh graphics controllers and required boundary were deal killers)
my favorite uses
- Watching media is far beyond anything. Having an imax theater anywhere is incredible. my OLED Tv looks puny now. For me that alone justifies it bc an equivalent projector would run 4K but I would also need to buy speakers screen and a dedicated big space. This thing is portable anywhere anytime.
- Environment. I love them
- Spatial videos. Can’t wait to take some at family events or when I travel
- I easily dictate texts and read the news. Although I would not buy this device to do these tasks.
I didn’t even bother setting up a persona. Don’t care about crisp pass through. Not sure why people care so much. I can see and read my iPhone Fine.
the only flies in my ointment are the weight (ordered a contraption designed for Quest to try) and lack of Netflix.
Only reason to return would be fomo when the next version is released. Since I don’t want to spend 4K again. Balance that against fomo on 2 yrs of Vision Pro 😂
It’s a bit disappointing to hear about the poor hand tracking in low light. It seems like a common usage scenario, such as your bunking situation, or not wanting to bother a sleeping spouse in bed, or a dark airplane cabin, etc. It’s also strange to hear because I thought the VP had all the sensors like True Depth and LIDAR which I thought were supposed to help it work in the dark like Face ID does. Maybe it doesn’t have the IR sensors. If not, I hope the next one will. As a workaround for now, maybe one can use a trackpad in some situations.
For issues selecting small items, hopefully tracking gets more accurate and/or software just gets more optimized. Maybe at some point websites will know you’re using VP and make bigger targets. As a workaround are you able to pinch to zoom into the area to make the gear button bigger?
Strange your MacBook didn’t automatically show you a button to connect and show your virtual display, and that the display came out blurry and laggy. Other reports I’ve seen seem to say it worked very well. It might be misbehaving in your case.
I would expect third parties to make battery cases for the battery, which would take care of wire clutter but of course make the battery bigger and heavier.
Just offering thoughts, not to dissuade either way. $4000 is a ton of money so one should be sure it will give enough value.
Well, the initial shine has worn off and it's now packed up for return to Apple after having it for 7 days.
I was genuinely impressed with many aspects/elements of it but at the end of the day, too many issues or compromises for me to keep it, especially at the current price. To be honest, some of my issues are dealbreakers regardless of the price.
I love the immersion, ability to have a huge display for my mac and just how the UI works and is laid out. It far more crisp and clear than I expected and the limited field of view really didn't bother me.
What didn't work for me is comfort (just could not get a good fit with either band), utility (after the initial oohs and aahs, there's not a lot that draws me back to use it, at the moment), lots of bugs (black screen video playback in multiple apps, environments that also stay black--only recourse is to reboot the entire device0, but most importantly, eye tracking just doesn't reliably work for me. I've re-set up the eye tracking numerous times and no matter what, it just doesn't accurately track. I find I have to look above an element for it to highlight it, consistently throughout the UI. Just can't use it when its doesn't reliably highlight my target. I realize this is likely something specific to how my eyes track and focus but it clearly makes the AVP nearly unusable.
I'll revisit likely with the next iteration of the hardware, whenever that may be but for the moment, AVP just is a no go.
I was genuinely impressed with many aspects/elements of it but at the end of the day, too many issues or compromises for me to keep it, especially at the current price. To be honest, some of my issues are dealbreakers regardless of the price.
I love the immersion, ability to have a huge display for my mac and just how the UI works and is laid out. It far more crisp and clear than I expected and the limited field of view really didn't bother me.
What didn't work for me is comfort (just could not get a good fit with either band), utility (after the initial oohs and aahs, there's not a lot that draws me back to use it, at the moment), lots of bugs (black screen video playback in multiple apps, environments that also stay black--only recourse is to reboot the entire device0, but most importantly, eye tracking just doesn't reliably work for me. I've re-set up the eye tracking numerous times and no matter what, it just doesn't accurately track. I find I have to look above an element for it to highlight it, consistently throughout the UI. Just can't use it when its doesn't reliably highlight my target. I realize this is likely something specific to how my eyes track and focus but it clearly makes the AVP nearly unusable.
I'll revisit likely with the next iteration of the hardware, whenever that may be but for the moment, AVP just is a no go.
My first day, I had to manually connect to my M3 MBP, but ever since then, the look at and connect has worked flawlessly for me. Have used this feature for an hour or two a day this week.
I have a preorder to pick up tomorrow. I might just ask if I can cancel my purchase after the demo if it doesn't absolutely blow my mind.
After 6 continuous hours in this thing, my observations:
1. The display and lenses are a big step forward, but not "retina". While there is no screen door effect, there just aren't enough pixels yet for me. The "retina" moment is yet to come, this feels more like the "HD" moment. I am reading this now and it looks like a monitor from 2006. There is a sort of vibrating aliasing going on around the text. When you are looking at small stuff like text, you get the sense that the display is not rock solid, everything is wobbling around ever so slightly. The lenses and FOV are ok but not a truly meaningful improvement over what we've already seen apart from the bad old fresnel lenses. There is absolutely eye strain. There is blur over the entire screen anytime you move. Pass through is really good, I didn't expect to see reality through cameras, this does the job.
2. The UI overall is annoying. Hand tracking frequently fails or has false positives. Launching apps by pressing the digital crown is a painful way to launch apps, you feel the device shift on your face and it's too slow and out of the way. Window management is a mess, and gives you a bit too much freedom. I figured out only after a couple hours that you don't want any of them too far away. Keep them close.
3. Typing is an awful experience. It pops the keyboard right in your face, blocking your content, every time you select a text field. Moving the cursor around to insert text inside existing text is a real chore with hand and eye tracking. If you use an external keyboard, there are frequent cases of false positive pinches while typing on it, which can cause unintended cursor reinsertion into a previous paragraph. Also, with an external keyboard, it is unacceptable that it doesn't get matted in with your hands, you need to see it sometimes, and finding a halfway point in the immersion dial is not a good solution to that. Also, every time you use an external keyboard, it still pops the virtual keyboard in your face until it registers a keystroke from the keyboard. This is super annoying, and a problem that had already been solved with iPad + Magic Keyboard.
4. The Moon is the only place to watch movies. The lighted monochromatic floor cancels the very prominent lens glare, and the chill background doesn't distract from the movie in your eyeline. Unfortunately you can only position video large and over the moon crater (you'll see) when using Apple TV app. It doesn't give you the best experience in other apps.
5. The movie experience is not that great, simply because of the comfort. I never stop being aware that I'm wearing this thing on my face, so my mind is distracted from the actual content. Also, it does NOT look like a 100 foot or IMAX screen. At best, it feels like maybe a 60+ foot screen, like you're watching a "movie in the park", and the best experience is in the Apple TV app, other apps don't go as big. I don't feel like lugging this in a giant case and juggling power supplies just to watch movies on the moon while I'm on a plane.
6. Mac Virtual Display with my M1 Macbook Pro has been my preferred mode of using this over long sessions. It works shockingly well like a large 40" display without ProMotion, looks best placed close to your face (like 4-5 feet away). But my M1 Air cannot connect and drive it without tremendous lag, you sit there and watch windows draw sometimes.
7. Keyboard and trackpad sharing from a connected Mac into the Vision environment works great when it works and enables actual productivity in the VisionOS apps, but often fails to work with Vision and the cursor gets trapped inside the Mac window.
8. Environments in general are not all they're made out to be. They look like fairly low-res wallpapers painted on the floor and around you. There isn't enough resolution and depth information to make rocks or grass look anything close to real. I hate to say it because I'm sure tremendous work went into these. But this seems like a job for generative AI to improve.
9. When I was first setting the device up, I kid you not, it asks you to hold up your iPhone, and then your iPhone triggers FaceID while you're in your ski mask. Did the same company not make both devices?
10. The device looks absolutely iconic, but it's uncomfortable. It uses compression around your head, especially against your facial bones, to stay on. The facial interface feels hard, like a stiff sports car rather than a softer Camry. My PSVR2 is far more comfortable, choosing to put the weight on its halo band on your head, and let you snug up the scope to your face on a slider with no pressure at all, just enough contact to seal out light. In the long run this is the way to go. Weight is not a big issue, but pressure is. I don't see Apple's ID team solving this for a long time, since the good head mounts probably look super dorky, but the third party ecosystem will.
11. The battery is SO BEAUTIFUL. I want one as my powerbank for all my devices. The soft material engineering on the Vision Pro is insane, the fabrics are just out of this world and the solo strap with its smooth fine-grained adjuster knob is a marvel for what it is.
12. I hate the digital crown. I never know which way to spin it. The grooves don't catch my finger well enough, and given the amount of resistance, I'm often just rubbing it and not getting anywhere. I wish it were just a dedicated volume knob, and it's a bummer that immersion does not change instantly as you rotate the crown, it waits for you to stop rotating before it changes the actual immersion level.
Verdict:
I am convinced this is going to be fabulously successful in a few years as the resolution, lens quality, and comfort increase and the price decreases, and as hardware and software enable professional use cases for AR. For average consumers, if this is priced at like $1800, it will sell like hotcakes and cannibalize iPad sales.
For now it's a giant projector screen, a massive desktop monitor, and unlimited iPads rolled into one device. That's how I would Steve Jobs position it. A movie theater. A giant computer screen. Unlimited iPads in your face. Are you getting it?
I will sadly be returning this beautiful device that I have nothing but reverence for right now, because of the pain and the low resolution, be back later for the @2x Retina version and a more mature UI. This is a stunning direction for Apple, I think it's going to be the future of the company and in the nearer term the killer third category device the iPad only sorta is.
1. The display and lenses are a big step forward, but not "retina". While there is no screen door effect, there just aren't enough pixels yet for me. The "retina" moment is yet to come, this feels more like the "HD" moment. I am reading this now and it looks like a monitor from 2006. There is a sort of vibrating aliasing going on around the text. When you are looking at small stuff like text, you get the sense that the display is not rock solid, everything is wobbling around ever so slightly. The lenses and FOV are ok but not a truly meaningful improvement over what we've already seen apart from the bad old fresnel lenses. There is absolutely eye strain. There is blur over the entire screen anytime you move. Pass through is really good, I didn't expect to see reality through cameras, this does the job.
2. The UI overall is annoying. Hand tracking frequently fails or has false positives. Launching apps by pressing the digital crown is a painful way to launch apps, you feel the device shift on your face and it's too slow and out of the way. Window management is a mess, and gives you a bit too much freedom. I figured out only after a couple hours that you don't want any of them too far away. Keep them close.
3. Typing is an awful experience. It pops the keyboard right in your face, blocking your content, every time you select a text field. Moving the cursor around to insert text inside existing text is a real chore with hand and eye tracking. If you use an external keyboard, there are frequent cases of false positive pinches while typing on it, which can cause unintended cursor reinsertion into a previous paragraph. Also, with an external keyboard, it is unacceptable that it doesn't get matted in with your hands, you need to see it sometimes, and finding a halfway point in the immersion dial is not a good solution to that. Also, every time you use an external keyboard, it still pops the virtual keyboard in your face until it registers a keystroke from the keyboard. This is super annoying, and a problem that had already been solved with iPad + Magic Keyboard.
4. The Moon is the only place to watch movies. The lighted monochromatic floor cancels the very prominent lens glare, and the chill background doesn't distract from the movie in your eyeline. Unfortunately you can only position video large and over the moon crater (you'll see) when using Apple TV app. It doesn't give you the best experience in other apps.
5. The movie experience is not that great, simply because of the comfort. I never stop being aware that I'm wearing this thing on my face, so my mind is distracted from the actual content. Also, it does NOT look like a 100 foot or IMAX screen. At best, it feels like maybe a 60+ foot screen, like you're watching a "movie in the park", and the best experience is in the Apple TV app, other apps don't go as big. I don't feel like lugging this in a giant case and juggling power supplies just to watch movies on the moon while I'm on a plane.
6. Mac Virtual Display with my M1 Macbook Pro has been my preferred mode of using this over long sessions. It works shockingly well like a large 40" display without ProMotion, looks best placed close to your face (like 4-5 feet away). But my M1 Air cannot connect and drive it without tremendous lag, you sit there and watch windows draw sometimes.
7. Keyboard and trackpad sharing from a connected Mac into the Vision environment works great when it works and enables actual productivity in the VisionOS apps, but often fails to work with Vision and the cursor gets trapped inside the Mac window.
8. Environments in general are not all they're made out to be. They look like fairly low-res wallpapers painted on the floor and around you. There isn't enough resolution and depth information to make rocks or grass look anything close to real. I hate to say it because I'm sure tremendous work went into these. But this seems like a job for generative AI to improve.
9. When I was first setting the device up, I kid you not, it asks you to hold up your iPhone, and then your iPhone triggers FaceID while you're in your ski mask. Did the same company not make both devices?
10. The device looks absolutely iconic, but it's uncomfortable. It uses compression around your head, especially against your facial bones, to stay on. The facial interface feels hard, like a stiff sports car rather than a softer Camry. My PSVR2 is far more comfortable, choosing to put the weight on its halo band on your head, and let you snug up the scope to your face on a slider with no pressure at all, just enough contact to seal out light. In the long run this is the way to go. Weight is not a big issue, but pressure is. I don't see Apple's ID team solving this for a long time, since the good head mounts probably look super dorky, but the third party ecosystem will.
11. The battery is SO BEAUTIFUL. I want one as my powerbank for all my devices. The soft material engineering on the Vision Pro is insane, the fabrics are just out of this world and the solo strap with its smooth fine-grained adjuster knob is a marvel for what it is.
12. I hate the digital crown. I never know which way to spin it. The grooves don't catch my finger well enough, and given the amount of resistance, I'm often just rubbing it and not getting anywhere. I wish it were just a dedicated volume knob, and it's a bummer that immersion does not change instantly as you rotate the crown, it waits for you to stop rotating before it changes the actual immersion level.
Verdict:
I am convinced this is going to be fabulously successful in a few years as the resolution, lens quality, and comfort increase and the price decreases, and as hardware and software enable professional use cases for AR. For average consumers, if this is priced at like $1800, it will sell like hotcakes and cannibalize iPad sales.
For now it's a giant projector screen, a massive desktop monitor, and unlimited iPads rolled into one device. That's how I would Steve Jobs position it. A movie theater. A giant computer screen. Unlimited iPads in your face. Are you getting it?
I will sadly be returning this beautiful device that I have nothing but reverence for right now, because of the pain and the low resolution, be back later for the @2x Retina version and a more mature UI. This is a stunning direction for Apple, I think it's going to be the future of the company and in the nearer term the killer third category device the iPad only sorta is.
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Very good recap and I agree with a lot of your points and honestly why I am also looking at returning.
I have faith Apple will fix some of these issues, such as the keyboard issues and the little UI bugs. But for me it's the glare. I don't watch movies all that often, but was hoping the VP would allow me to. But that damn glare. Once you notice it, I can't unsee it and it drives me crazy. So now I'm at the point where I won't really watch movies on this except as a "background" window while I'm doing something on my Mac or another app.
I’m officially 7 days in and I’m about 55/45 in favor of keeping it. The initial novelty wore off for me a few days ago after looking through all of the immersive content in Apple TV and watching a few 3D movies in my Library and via Disney Plus+. I’ve downloaded apps but found the keyboard made actually doing something as basic as posting into a forum like this, which I consider an essential experience, a total PITA with the built in keyboard. It was pretty cool using it as a virtual display for my laptop but part of the appeal of this device has to be to minimize how often I need to use my laptop if I’m going to justify the cost. Today I connected a Magic Keyboard that came with my 2017” iMac to my Vision Pro and that made a huge difference. I don’t know why I waited so long to do it since that keyboard had just been sitting there. I previously had a full USB based Apple Keyboard and I’ve had that hooked up to iMac so I could access all of the keys including the number pad which this magic keyboard doesn’t have.
Needless to say the keyboard has made a huge difference in my ability to use this thing for productivity related tasks. I wish it was compatible with the magic mouse as I have one of those I could swap out for a wired USB keyboard on that iMac as well. I’m now seriously considering buying a magic trackpad to put this over the top for me.
Occasionally I need to use a VPN client plus RDP to connect to my Windows PC at the office and I’ve got both OpenVPN and the Jump RDP client for iPad (that I’d purchased years ago but ditched in favor of Microsft’s RDP client) installed on the AVP so I’d really like to connect a magic trackpad so I can use that to connect to my system and move around using RDP. I’ve tested connecting to my Mac laptop and using the AVP as a virtual display so I’ve had the chance to do that and fire up the OpenVPN app and the Jump app while using the trackpad on my laptop with those apps moved to the side of the virtual display and it worked pretty well for me. If I do spring for the magic trackpad and it works in a similar way then I’ll be at 65 / 35 or more and will definitely keep it.
My issues are primarily with the software and apps as they exist today in a product that’s been on the market for 8 days. As VisionOS improves and the amount and quality of the apps you can run increases that number is sure to go higher. I can’t justify $4,000 on a “what if” but if I can get that Jump RDP client or find another one that works with the magic trackpad then I can certainly justify the cost and simply pass on the next iPad Pro coming later this year which helps justify the cost of it. That’s the best way for me to describe this device. It’s like an iPad and AR/VR headset in one but without the iPad’s touch interface and given the virtual keyboard that’s there you really need an external keyboard and trackpad to get the best productivity experience on the device in many cases until some apps that run an iPad are rewritten to work in the AVP with the limitations of it’s virtual keyboard and new vision and gesture based interface.
Needless to say the keyboard has made a huge difference in my ability to use this thing for productivity related tasks. I wish it was compatible with the magic mouse as I have one of those I could swap out for a wired USB keyboard on that iMac as well. I’m now seriously considering buying a magic trackpad to put this over the top for me.
Occasionally I need to use a VPN client plus RDP to connect to my Windows PC at the office and I’ve got both OpenVPN and the Jump RDP client for iPad (that I’d purchased years ago but ditched in favor of Microsft’s RDP client) installed on the AVP so I’d really like to connect a magic trackpad so I can use that to connect to my system and move around using RDP. I’ve tested connecting to my Mac laptop and using the AVP as a virtual display so I’ve had the chance to do that and fire up the OpenVPN app and the Jump app while using the trackpad on my laptop with those apps moved to the side of the virtual display and it worked pretty well for me. If I do spring for the magic trackpad and it works in a similar way then I’ll be at 65 / 35 or more and will definitely keep it.
My issues are primarily with the software and apps as they exist today in a product that’s been on the market for 8 days. As VisionOS improves and the amount and quality of the apps you can run increases that number is sure to go higher. I can’t justify $4,000 on a “what if” but if I can get that Jump RDP client or find another one that works with the magic trackpad then I can certainly justify the cost and simply pass on the next iPad Pro coming later this year which helps justify the cost of it. That’s the best way for me to describe this device. It’s like an iPad and AR/VR headset in one but without the iPad’s touch interface and given the virtual keyboard that’s there you really need an external keyboard and trackpad to get the best productivity experience on the device in many cases until some apps that run an iPad are rewritten to work in the AVP with the limitations of it’s virtual keyboard and new vision and gesture based interface.
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every Apple podcast told me the input was "magic" and like reading your mind.
I'm not seeing it. sometimes it does work but it's so wildly inconsistent. if I have to think about how brightly lit my room is for it to work right, that's a pretty big fail.
I'm not seeing it. sometimes it does work but it's so wildly inconsistent. if I have to think about how brightly lit my room is for it to work right, that's a pretty big fail.