Vision Pro Reviews: Surprising Battery Life, 'Weird' Personas, and More

[MacRumors]

The first full-length reviews of the Apple Vision Pro were published today, revealing some new details about the headset before it launches in the U.S. on Friday.

To learn more, check out our roundup of Apple Vision Pro reviews and unboxing videos.

Battery Life

Apple says the Vision Pro provides up to two hours of battery life overall, and up to 2.5 hours for 2D video playback specifically. In his review, however, Brian Tong said he achieved nearly 2.5 hours of battery life for general usage, and separately was able to watch the three-hour movie Avengers: Endgame on a single charge.

Daring Fireball's John Gruber also said he has consistently got at least three hours of battery life on a full charge, but he did not list any specific use cases.

All in all, it seems that the Vision Pro may last up to 30 minutes longer per charge than Apple's advertised battery life claims, but results will vary.

Home Screen

According to Tong, third-party apps on visionOS are listed alphabetically starting on the second page of the Home Screen, and cannot be reordered like they can be on the iPhone and iPad. Apps cannot be placed into folders either.

Image Credit: Brian Tong​

He also confirmed that websites cannot be added to the Home Screen via Safari, which is inconvenient given that some popular services like YouTube and Spotify will only be accessible via the web on the Vision Pro at launch.

Apple could add these options in future visionOS updates.

Personas and EyeSight

Since the Vision Pro covers your face during video calls, Apple allows you to create a digital version of yourself called a Persona.

Apple refers to a Persona as an "authentic spatial representation" of a person that shows facial expressions and hand movements in real time. The feature is still in beta, and it seems that Apple has a lot of room for improvement.

Image Credit: Brian Tong​

The Wall Street Journal's Joanna Stern:

On FaceTimes with friends and family, the reviews were unanimous: "You look awful," my sister said. "It's like Botox from hell," remarked the always-kind Jason Gay. "Frightening," said my dad.

Calling other Vision Pro reviewers was slightly better because we all looked ridiculous. But everyone agreed I looked the worst. And this was after I remade my Persona numerous times, with professional lighting.

Poor Joanna! (She's still amazing, nothing can change that!)

The Verge's Nilay Patel:

I won't go into that much detail on Apple's deeply weird and extremely uncanny 3D persona system here […] You can see why Apple put the beta label on them; there's a long way to go before using a persona on a call isn't distracting at best and, at worst, extremely rude.

Personas extend to the Vision Pro's outer display, allowing others to view a digital recreation of your eyes. This feature is called EyeSight, and it has mostly been panned on social media since Vision Pro reviews were first published earlier today.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1752368311302795404

Mac Virtual Display

Many reviewers shared their thoughts on using the Vision Pro as an external display for a Mac.

CNET's Scott Stein was impressed:

What if my desk was just floating monitors? What if I didn't need anything but a headset? Vision Pro gets close to that feeling when all the apps are open and the flow is going. I'm doing that now. I'm in my virtual floating computer as I write this. There are glitches, and sometimes the controls feel too floaty, but in its first form, I'm shocked at how good it already is.

However, he mentioned a caveat:

And while the Vision Pro's display is great as a monitor, staring into 3D space for a while puts my eyes into a different focus zone than actual reality. Taking the headset off to work on my laptop, my eyes need time to settle and refocus. I feel myself slipping into long sessions in Vision Pro, but my eyes want me to take breaks.

Tom's Guide's Mark Spoonauer:One of the options in Control Center is the ability to connect with your Mac, but you can also bring your Mac desktop into the Vision Pro just by looking at it. I saw a Connect button floating above my MacBook Pro 14-inch, pinched my fingers together and saw my laptop's screen go blank, popping up on the wall in front of me instead.

You don't get multiple desktop views, but you do get a crystal clear 4K display that renders... Click here to read rest of article

Article Link: Vision Pro Reviews: Surprising Battery Life, 'Weird' Personas, and More

 

[zach-coleman]

I’m very curious how personas on the screen will look irl. They don’t look great in review stills but I don’t think studio lighting shining on very reflective + the quirks of a camera are doing the external display any favor. Doubtful they look acceptable in any case…

 

[TxExCxH]

Honestly, Im kinda disappointed in the quality of the outer display. Eyesight doesn't look anywhere near as good as in the marketing pics on Apples web site.

 

[Ghost31]

They’ve only been working on this headset for a decade. Definitely not enough time to make it so you can move icons into a different order or folders.

 

[antiprotest]

I’m very curious how personas on the screen will look irl. They don’t look great in review stills but I don’t think studio lighting shining on very reflective + the quirks of a camera are doing the external display any favor. Doubtful they look acceptable in any case…

They look like how in the movies when a friend who has passed away comes back to speak to you, telling you it's not your fault and you should move on with your life. A little ghost like is what I mean. I wonder if that can be improved in future versions? Right now it can be little distracting, or maybe people will get used to it.

 

[cwosigns]

There is something off about Justine's face. MKBHD looks a little cross-eyed in his persona, and Joanna Stern looked like the Wish.com version of the Mona Lisa.

 

[antiprotest]

They’ve only been working on this headset for a decade. Definitely not enough time to make it so you can move icons into a different order or folders.

I complained about an issue in Safari for a decade before they fixed it. There are several other bugs that I tracked that were fixed in around that 10-year mark. I think that's their timetable for bug fixes and features -- AFTER release though. So the 10 year count down is just starting now.

 

[zach-coleman]

There is something off about Justine's face. MKBHD looks a little cross-eyed in his persona, and Joanna Stern looked like the Wish.com version of the Mona Lisa.

iJustine got done the dirtiest of any of the ones I’ve seen so far. Marques looks the closest to normal imo. All of them look like they’re auditioning to be Bethesda NPCs in any case.

 

[zach-coleman]

They look like how in the movies when a friend who has passed away comes back to speak to you, telling you it's not your fault and you should move on with your life. A little ghost like is what I mean. I wonder if that can be improved in future versions? Right now it can be little distracting, or maybe people will get used to it.

I’ve been calling it “dead wife flashback vision” to my friends for weeks lol

 

[JapanApple]

Nice first impression stories. influencers I can careless about. Need to try myself.

 

[Silver78]

Gen. 4 will be the one to buy.
Apple will need to cut back on their greedy prices.
Remove the front display. Lighter plastic version, make the 2 headbands optional. And also battery optional (that 3700 miliamp battery is just way way way too expensive).
Remove the charger and maybe even the cable also.
Cut back on all the accessories and not because they say its to save the environment but to cut the price.
I want the headset but not the super crazy overpriced accessories.

 

[anthogag]

I watched the reviews. I don't like the fuzziness of the personas. It looks pastel-ly.

When I get a chance I will demo it in an Apple store, then eventually buy one.

Reviews from the more normal people were better than the 'influencers'. Dan will probably make a better review than the 'influencers'.

 

[rnizlek]

At the end of the day, all I care about is being able to connect my Mac, and even then, only while traveling. It will be really interesting to see where this space goes over time. The Immersed Visor looks interesting - smaller, cheaper, and built around what I need. But it is still a paper product. We will see when/if it is actually produced. Until then hopefully I like the AVP.

 

[Kevin2055]

They’ve only been working on this headset for a decade. Definitely not enough time to make it so you can move icons into a different order or folders.

Someone said it is based on iPadOS so they did make effort to remove those features

 

[Harvey Zoltan]

Eyesight definitely isn't there yet going by this footage, maybe it can be improved with a software update. Personas make people look like wax models that have been slightly melted but it is a beta. Also there seems to be a lot of screen blur going hopefully it looks better than this when your actual wearing it. The Joanna Stern review was a lot more positive than I thought it was going to be

 

[mrNiftYpAnts]

I wanted to love and buy this device. I see now that it's in NO way worth the money unless you watch movies alone. Then I would totally buy it.

 

[trusso]

I can’t wait for this to crash and burn. I’d call it Tim’s folly, but his entire tenure of steering Apple toward maximizing shareholder (and not user) value is his true folly.

 

[AeroEd]

These “reviews” show that this product will be returned en masse and is not ready for its $3500 price tag

 

[Muramasa]

I can’t wait for some of the more technical tests and reviews. Like I want to know if the cable can be removed from the battery entirely, and be connected to some kind of extension cable directly to the power brick.

I really don’t intend on being very mobile with it, and would love to have just a 15 foot cable that goes to a power supply.

Accessory makers are gonna have a field day with this device!

 

[Le0M]

I can’t wait for some of the more technical tests and reviews. Like I want to know if the cable can be removed from the battery entirely, and be connected to some kind of extension cable directly to the power brick.

I really don’t intend on being very mobile with it, and would love to have just a 15 foot cable that goes to a power supply.

Accessory makers are gonna have a field day with this device!

What do you mean? Of course you can use it without battery!

 

[japanime]

I knew those "weird" personas reminded me of something. 🤣

 

[NewYorkRanger]

Thanks and shoutout to the Rich Beta Testers!

 

[vantelimus]

Honestly, Im kinda disappointed in the quality of the outer display. Eyesight doesn't look anywhere near as good as in the marketing pics on Apples web site.

Are you disappointed because you feel the quality is objectively bad? Or are you disappointed only because Apple's marketing material set higher expectations than the product met? Either or both or one more that the other or something else entirely? I'm curious because I couldn't form an opinion based on the videos I saw. Normal rooms don't have video-production-studio lighting. The images I saw all had lights reflecting off the front and that changes the appearance.

 

[till]

The lack of multi-monitor Mac support is really unfortunate, that seems like it should be the killer app for Vision Pro.

I can't think of any hardware limitation, a decent WiFi 6 network should easily have enough bandwidth for 2-3 displays. So maybe that'll come in an update.

 

[THE VATICANTS]

And remember - these are the "paid" reviews. Wait til next weekend when the honest reviews come..... this thing is DOA. Gen 2-3 will be the one to get assuming apple gets real with a lot of Tim's insecurities.....