Finally gave it a try - my thoughts on vision pro

[mentaluproar]

I went to the Apple Store today to pick up an airtag for a family member and thought I would check out the wares. (The new iPad Pro is crazy light and nice to hold, BTW). I took advantage of the opportunity and tried a demo of the Vision Pro.

I tried it with the two point strap. There's a three point strap that's supposed to be better but I figure if I bought a Vision Pro this is likely what I would buy anyway. It's sort of the default option. While there was some heft to the unit, it's not as bad as people are making this thing out to be. I'm sure future versions will be lighter just like the iPads and iPhones get lighter, but for a first attempt product, this is an acceptable weight. The knob on the back to adjust tension is simple and well thought out. It fit to my face nicely.

The hand controls were true apple magic. They just worked. They required minimal explanation. They were very intuitive. It's brilliant how simple it is to use and how well it actually works. It's super easy and comfortable.

The brightness of the screen leaves something to be desired. I can only assume apple tried to make it as dim as they could while still usable to reduce strain on your eyes over longer usage periods but I would really like it to at least match the brightness of the store I was in. It felt almost like I was wearing sunglasses indoors.

The forward cameras on the Vision Pro aren't great. I noticed a sort of heat-coming-off-the-pavement haze when looking at anything far away, like the opposite side of the Apple Store. It was really annoying and very noticeable.

3D videos have a fantastic depth effect. You really do notice it. It's almost supernatural. But the framerate is atrocious. I'm not expecting anything crazy but it's obvious they aren't hitting the 29.97fps we are used to.

The demo unit may have had some sort of failure as there was a mild double vision effect. Edges of objects/icons/UI elements seemed to flicker in my brain, like they were in two places at once. I tried recalibrating the unit but it didn't seem to change anything. This really ruined the experience for me.

My peripheral vision definitely had some obnoxious issues with this device. It was explained to me that the unit prioritizes sharp images where your eyes are focused, but the periphery is at a lower resolution to reduce processing power needed for this thing to work. It's a clever idea, and Apple executed it well, but I still noticed it right away. If you put anything off to the side, you can't read it without turning your head and directly facing it. This really limits the usefulness of an expansive open "desktop" to place apps all over.

Speaking of reading, I looked at the back of the box of the AirTags and keychain in the real world I got for my sister in law. I couldn't read them. I couldn't read something on the table in front of me. I pulled out my phone. I couldn't read it either. The front facing cameras are just atrocious. If this device were significantly cheaper I would find that acceptable but this should be seamless at this price and that's what they advertise it to be.

I see some room for improvement in future visionOS offerings, especially regarding continuity. Imagine taking out your iPhone and unlocking it, going to the last thing you were doing and being able to flick it into a place on the Vision Pro in the augmented world. Nobody but Apple is in a position to do that and I'm reasonably certain this idea has occurred to them and will be coming in a future firmware release.

If not for the double vision and text blurriness, I would be more interested in this. The software is truly magical and if they can attract more developers to this it might have a future, but they really need to refine the hardware first. I have 20/15 vision so it's possible I'm noticing things others might not be able to see, and apple would be able to get away with optimizing other more noticeable things, but that would only excuse some issues like the heat haze effect on distant objects. I also found it strange that microsoft office apps were available designed for this UI, but Apple Pages, which I prefer over Microsoft Word, was just crammed in there as a compatible app.

If I had to summarize my complaints with this device to a single point, it would be that my flat screen TV delivers a sharper, brighter, easier to view image, as does my MacBook Pro, my iPhone, and my iPad Air. The main thing you do with this device, looking at stuff, is difficult and doubled.

 

[Roller]

Thanks for the detailed, honest write-up. I'll just address two instances where my experience over nearly four months has differed from yours:

1. Front cameras/pass-through mode: While it's certainly not the same as looking through glass, especially when my head or something around me is moving, I haven't had nearly as much difficulty reading text. I can read print on my Apple Watch and iPhone quite easily, not that I should have to. Your vision is better than mine, with the understanding that the AVP's optical chain has a lot to do with apparent acuity. But I don't understand how superior vision could account for this difference.
   
   
2. 3D videos: I'm not sure if you mean 3D movies or Apple's immersive material. If it's the latter, I just don't see the atrocious frame rate you describe, even with sporting events with a lot of motion.

I do agree a bit about brightness, though it depends on the content and background. This hasn't been a significant issue for me using my 65" OLED TV and Apple Studio Display as comparators.

I also concur about the software: It's crazy that Apple didn't release AVP-specific versions of apps like Pages and Clock. Lots of other things, like not being able to organize apps the way I want, are also annoying miscues. But all these things are addressable with app and/or OS updates.

I'll be interested to hear what other forum members who have real-world experience with the AVP have to say. However, I wonder if at least some of the problems you described might have been attributable to a faulty unit, maybe just the internal lenses. Did you ask the Apple employee about this, and if so, what did they say?

 

[Jensend]

The brightness of the screen leaves something to be desired. I can only assume apple tried to make it as dim as they could while still usable to reduce strain on your eyes over longer usage periods but I would really like it to at least match the brightness of the store I was in. It felt almost like I was wearing sunglasses indoors.

Apple is making the image as bright as they can. The screens are brighter than any other commercial OLED display.
But there are two things that massively reduce brightness.
The display is turned off most of the time. In order to reduce motion blur, the image is strobed. The Vision Pro already has a longer strobe on time than most other headsets. The shorter the strobe length, the less motion blur you get, but also the less brightness you get.

The image is magnified and there are inefficiencies in the optics.

The screens are something around 5000 nits, but after the strobing and optics, it is closer to looking like 100 nits.

My peripheral vision definitely had some obnoxious issues with this device. It was explained to me that the unit prioritizes sharp images where your eyes are focused, but the periphery is at a lower resolution to reduce processing power needed for this thing to work. It's a clever idea, and Apple executed it well, but I still noticed it right away. If you put anything off to the side, you can't read it without turning your head and directly facing it. This really limits the usefulness of an expansive open "desktop" to place apps all over.

I suspect you'd have the same issues even if the image were rendered at full resolution. Because of how the lenses warp the image, the physical pixels are visibly smaller and closer together in the center of the lens FOV. Also, the lenses may just be introducing more blur closer to the edges.

Foveated rendering is based on your pupil position, not your head position.

 

[masotime]

flat screen TV delivers a sharper, brighter, easier to view image,

Not for me.

as does my MacBook Pro,

Not for me.

my iPhone,

Not for me.

and my iPad Air.

.... ok I have to admit, the M4 iPad Pro's OLEDs are pretty good. I doubt that's true with the iPad Air without tandem OLEDs or mini-LEDs.

The main thing you do with this device, looking at stuff, is difficult and doubled.

Not for me.

 

[mentaluproar]

Thanks for the detailed, honest write-up. I'll just address two instances where my experience over nearly four months has differed from yours:

1. Front cameras/pass-through mode: While it's certainly not the same as looking through glass, especially when my head or something around me is moving, I haven't had nearly as much difficulty reading text. I can read print on my Apple Watch and iPhone quite easily, not that I should have to. Your vision is better than mine, with the understanding that the AVP's optical chain has a lot to do with apparent acuity. But I don't understand how superior vision could account for this difference.
   
   
2. 3D videos: I'm not sure if you mean 3D movies or Apple's immersive material. If it's the latter, I just don't see the atrocious frame rate you describe, even with sporting events with a lot of motion.

I do agree a bit about brightness, though it depends on the content and background. This hasn't been a significant issue for me using my 65" OLED TV and Apple Studio Display as comparators.

I also concur about the software: It's crazy that Apple didn't release AVP-specific versions of apps like Pages and Clock. Lots of other things, like not being able to organize apps the way I want, are also annoying miscues. But all these things are addressable with app and/or OS updates.

I'll be interested to hear what other forum members who have real-world experience with the AVP have to say. However, I wonder if at least some of the problems you described might have been attributable to a faulty unit, maybe just the internal lenses. Did you ask the Apple employee about this, and if so, what did they say?

The overly enthusiastic employee basically said I had super powers to be able to notice anything less than perfect.

 

[Rychiar]

Nothing is doubled so it sounds like your test unit was defective. The only visual issue with the AVP is the lens glare and the pass through cameras can only be so sharp with distant things… though they are plenty sharp enough to read a phone through or do anything up close. Sharper than anything else out there by far