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Honest feelings about the Vision Pro after nearly 5 months

turbineseaplane

turbineseaplane

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Original poster
Mar 19, 2008
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Matt Birchler with a rather scathing review after 5 months

"...right now, my feeling about the Vision Pro is that it was the worst way I could have possibly spent $3,500 on upgrading my computing life."

"It’s simply not comfortable to wear, and I don’t like having it on my face."

"anything more than 10 minutes leads me to have serious VR-headset-face, to the point I watched a movie on it before a family event recently and my mom asked me if I got hit in the face because the rings around my eyes looked like double black eyes."

"The battery pack is annoying"

"I dislike Mac Virtual Display"

"Spatial personas are very cool, but...the classic VR problem (“I love this! I’ll never do it again, though!”)."

"the Vision Pro makes the iPad look like a productivity powerhouse in comparison."

"Eye tracking as the only input method is too imprecise and can be frustrating"

"I still watch a movie or two each week on the headset, but it’s mostly out of obligation to use the $3,500 thing I bought."
 
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Expected honestly. It’s not a consumer device and pretty sure it was just a way for Apple to help offset costs for a cheaper version. The simple act of putting it on and getting situated to wear it is inconvenient which people don’t like that.

It’s expensive, niche, takes effort, reduces one of your main senses, and really isn’t good at anything.
 
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My main thought is mine has become mainly a movie consumption device but 5 months in I'm still genuinely excited to put it on and use it and it added new life and excitement to movies and tv. my biggest tissue is still not being able to get some of the major streaming services on it. if all content was available on it it and with nice atmos sound, environments, and ability to make the screens as big as possible that would be amazing.
 
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I love mine and wear it almost daily. It’s completely replaced my iPad and I’ll still put it on to this day and experience “holy s%#*” moments where I can’t believe I’m computing in 3D.

The thing is I’d made up my mind well within the 14 day period you have to take it back. For that kind of money if you’re not sure I wouldn’t be dropping that amount of cash.
 
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I use it nearly everyday. I personally don't even notice I'm wearing it most of the time. I was mirroring my Mac screen the other night and wanted to watch a movie and went to grab my AVP only to realize I was already wearing it. I don't tighten the head strap at all so it's very comfortable when I wear it. I mainly use it for the Mac mirroring and watching movies, occasionally messing around with a native AVP app. I travel a lot for work so it's the perfect invention for my lifestyle! I love having a digital 150 inch screen wherever I want.
 
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SunMac said:
I use it nearly everyday. I personally don't even notice I'm wearing it most of the time. I was mirroring my Mac screen the other night and wanted to watch a movie and went to grab my AVP only to realize I was already wearing it. I don't tighten the head strap at all so it's very comfortable when I wear it. I mainly use it for the Mac mirroring and watching movies, occasionally messing around with a native AVP app. I travel a lot for work so it's the perfect invention for my lifestyle! I love having a digital 150 inch screen wherever I want.
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When Im tired & exhausted from work I goto sleep with it cause its so comfortable. Also when going to gym & boxing/training its super comfy. I hardly notice its there.
 
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Agree on ALL counts, I need to read the full review but I agree on every point you quoted. Actually really surprised he had a similar conclusion I did after spending time with Vision Pro: "the Vision Pro makes the iPad look like a productivity powerhouse in comparison" I gave my iPad away long before the Vision Pro came out because I wasn't really using it but using Vision Pro made me appreciate the iPad again (maybe Matt didn't see it that way though). Turns out the 13" iPad, while really nice in some circumstances, was too big and cumbersome to manipulate or hold over my head and that's why I didn't enjoy using it. I don't think I'll buy any size other than 11" again. I suppose iPad is one of the rare Apple products where optimizing for thinness and lightness really matters, at least to me. Vision Pro is absolutely in that bucket.

I thought at the bare minimum the expensive purchase of a Vision Pro could be justified by the virtual Mac display experience because I really can't work without at LEAST one big 4k or ultrawide display, but virtual display fell really short of my expectations. It does not hold a candle to a real 4k display. Honestly I wouldn't even use it as a substitute for a real external display while traveling, and that says a lot to me. Also the foveation trick they were forced to implement is noticeable which is another annoying quirk that never lets you forget you've got two displays beaming a video feed into your eyeballs.

The Vision Pro will be complete once using it is no more cumbersome or irritating than picking up a thin and light M4 iPad. Right now it's an epic poem just to put the thing on and get as comfortable as you can be (which is to say, uncomfortable). It's not just weight either: so long as wearing a Vision Pro feels like wearing a VR headset in terms of FOV, passthrough quality, etc. my brain refuses to immerse myself in the experience. It's not magical yet, it's just the best implementation of VR I've used and I'm not interested in VR. My bar for AR/VR is that you have to convince me I'm still in the real world, Vision Pro doesn't do that.

Vision Pro has a long way to go. I think the news of Apple suspending work on Vision Pro 2 is not because they've given up on the product or even because they're focusing on a cheaper model (that's probably part of it), but because they know there's no point releasing gen 2 until they can make a major leap away from "Apple Vision Pro is a mixed reality headset" to the ideal "Apple Vision Pro blends your real world with the digital world." I think there's a significant difference between those two statements. In some ways an argument could be made that using an iPad is closer to "holding the content in your hand" rather than "using a tablet computer", at the very least it's a lot more compelling to use than Vision Pro to me.

I am still beyond excited for the ultimate "regular pair of glasses" product way down the line but I'll probably be retired and over the hype by that point :(
 
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Replace Vision Pro with Mac Studio and reread the comments. Despite Apple's marketing a $3500 device was never meant to be a piece of consumer electronics. Yeah, you can watch movies on a $4000 desktop but its a bit of a waste when a $400 iPad would do the same job.
 
Ctrlos said:
Replace Vision Pro with Mac Studio and reread the comments. Despite Apple's marketing a $3500 device was never meant to be a piece of consumer electronics. Yeah, you can watch movies on a $4000 desktop but its a bit of a waste when a $400 iPad would do the same job.
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Yet from Dinosaur Encounter, to the Alicia Keys experience to taking Spatial Photos of loved ones - everything suggests this IS a consumer device.. everything except the price.
 
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There's no doubt this device needs to improve a few things before one could expect mainstream usage. In the meantime, if you have a good workflow for one, it's a great device. If you want to use your existing workflows on this device, you may find yourself disappointed.

I'm about 2 weeks in and have normalized to working in VR about 90 minutes to 2 hours a day on highly focused productivity blocks. I've also watched some sports and a movie with it... which was awesome.

There's no software update alone that would make me want to wear this twice as much as current, the comfort simply isn't there yet.
 
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TriApple said:
There's no doubt this device needs to improve a few things before one could expect mainstream usage. In the meantime, if you have a good workflow for one, it's a great device. If you want to use your existing workflows on this device, you may find yourself disappointed.

I'm about 2 weeks in and have normalized to working in VR about 90 minutes to 2 hours a day on highly focused productivity blocks. I've also watched some sports and a movie with it... which was awesome.

There's no software update alone that would make me want to wear this twice as much as current, the comfort simply isn't there yet.
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Give it more time. You may find you get used to it. I used to think there was no way I’d need a second battery because there was no way I’d keep it on for long enough to require it. But here I am now with two. One connected to the device and the other on the charger waiting for this one to get low on power. I can wear mine for hours now without feeling at all uncomfortable and I thought there’d be no way even a month in. After about 2 months with it and getting tired of having to make sure I had it plugged in when it was getting low because I still wanted to wear it I bit the bullet and found another one at a great price on eBay. I don’t usually burn through two full batteries but it’s not uncommon at all for me to have to swap them out when I’m using it. I probably do it more often than not. Especially when I’m getting caught up on the TV shows and movies my wife has no interest in watching with me on our TV. She’s second shift and I’m first so I’ve got plenty of time to kill after work most nights.
 
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Macaholic868 said:
Give it more time. You may find you get used to it. I used to think there was no way I’d need a second battery because there was no way I’d keep it on for long enough to require it. But here I am now with two. One connected to the device and the other on the charger waiting for this one to get low on power. I can wear mine for hours now without feeling at all uncomfortable and I thought there’d be no way even a month in. After about 2 months with it and getting tired of having to make sure I had it plugged in when it was getting low because I still wanted to wear it I bit the bullet and found another one at a great price on eBay. I don’t usually burn through two full batteries but it’s not uncommon at all for me to have to swap them out when I’m using it. I probably do it more often than not. Especially when I’m getting caught up on the TV shows and movies my wife has no interest in watching with me on our TV. She’s second shift and I’m first so I’ve got plenty of time to kill after work most nights.
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I'm certainly open to that. I have decided not to return it and enjoy the things I enjoy with it... and see what happens. There's zero doubt that it helps me focus for work during those intense focus sessions. Put on noise cancelling.. use environments for vision cancelling, essentially, and I get pretty locked it.

Multiple monitors in Mac virtual display will be a nice add as well. I'd love to have my windows VM running in one window and then my Mac desktop in another window - just how I use dual monitors in reality.
 
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Macaholic868 said:
Give it more time. You may find you get used to it. I used to think there was no way I’d need a second battery because there was no way I’d keep it on for long enough to require it. But here I am now with two. One connected to the device and the other on the charger waiting for this one to get low on power. I can wear mine for hours now without feeling at all uncomfortable and I thought there’d be no way even a month in. After about 2 months with it and getting tired of having to make sure I had it plugged in when it was getting low because I still wanted to wear it I bit the bullet and found another one at a great price on eBay. I don’t usually burn through two full batteries but it’s not uncommon at all for me to have to swap them out when I’m using it. I probably do it more often than not. Especially when I’m getting caught up on the TV shows and movies my wife has no interest in watching with me on our TV. She’s second shift and I’m first so I’ve got plenty of time to kill after work most nights.
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Why don’t you just plug in a portable battery so you don’t have to turn off the AVP?
 
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