Apple Vision Pro First Thoughts

ByDon

I feel a little bit like Geordi from Star Trek when I am wearing my new Vision Pro and sorta wish it was as light as his visor.   But my first week with the Vision Pro has me in a bit of future shock as I had a rhino eating out of my lap, a dinosaur following my every motion and a ten foot wide desktop from my Mac.

 

There have been many virtual reality headsets but they are all just toys compared to the Vision Pro.  It is a substantial piece of tech that I think has a tremendous future.  Like almost all new tech, it will depend upon the apps and content that are made for the device but Apple made it easy with and incredibly intuitive interface and controls.   No external controller is needed when you have your eyes and hands.  The Vision Pro follows your eye movements to select and item and your pinch to activate.   A bar on the bottom of each screen allows you to enlarge and place a window in space.

One of the most useful and great features of the Vision Pro is the ability to activate a virtual display of your Mac.  By simply staring at your desktop on the Mac you will see a “connect” button floating in space and when you click on it you suddenly have a gigantic external display of you Mac’s desktop which you can interact with by your Mac’s peripherals i.e. keyboard or mouse.  You can also use gestures to manipulate your desktop.

There are a number of compatible apps already for the Vision Pro so if you get a text, messages is a pinch away, your Photos library is there and using two hands to spread, zooms in the image or move your hands back together to compress.  Mail, Safari and Apple TV are there too.

The biggest wow factors are the immersive 3D videos from Apple or others.  I have watched the one about the Rhinos about a dozen times and it does not get old.  This may be one of the key uses of this device, experiencing things in immersive video and audio that you might never experience otherwise.   There is a video of the International Space Station that takes you inside in incredible detail. I can imagine quite a few immersive video experiences some real and some AI generated.  Imagine going to the Gettysburg address or visiting Antartica or a trip to the moon or Mars!

Photos really comes alive as you view your photos on a gigantic high resolution screen.  I watched the recent Celtics game with the NBA app and the players were nearly life-size as I sat back and watched on a 15 foot virtual screen.  I have never been much of a fan of 3D movies with the silly  glasses but with these silly glasses it is truly like being on the holodeck of the Enterprise!

Since I have mono vision – ie. one eye is good for close and one eye for far, I opted to get the Zeiss lens inserts which vastly improved my experience!  They clip in magnetically and if you want to share the Vision Pro with a guest user they pop out easily.

I created a Persona with the Vision Pro to use on Zoom and FaceTime calls so you can take those calls with the Vision Pro.  That experience was less that satisfactory.  Artie said I looked like a corpse on our management call and I have to admit the Persona is a bit creepy!

My initial reactions are mostly all positive.  It is a good thing the battery only lasts a couple hours because after that time you begin to notice the 1.5 pounds on your head despite the comfortable adjustable headband.  I did buy the Belkin battery clip and I am glad that I did as I have accidentally  dropped the battery a couple times as I move my head.  It is a completely new computing experience and the tremendous potential of mixed reality headsets have taken a huge step forward with the Vision Pro!

Similar Posts

  • Lift Objects from Photos on the iPhone

    Have you ever wanted to extract an object from a photo for use in another context? Starting with iOS 16 on a relatively…

  • iOS 26 Can AutoFill Credit Card Details

    Sadly, not all websites and apps support Apple Pay, so we’ve become accustomed to manually entering our credit card information into fields, like…

  • Medgar Evers

    Medgar Evers (1925-1963) was an African-American civil rights activist whose murder drew national attention. Born in Mississippi, he served in World War II before going to work for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). After applying to the segregated University of Mississippi Law School in 1954, he became the NAACP field secretary in Mississippi.

    As early as 1955, Evers activism made him the most visible civil rights leader in the state of Mississippi. As a result, he and his family were subjected to numerous threats and violent actions over the years, including a firebombing of their house in May 1963. At 12:40 a.m. on June 12, 1963, Evers was shot in the back in the driveway of his home in Jackson. He died less than a hour later at a nearby hospital. The accused killer Byron De La Beckwith initially escaped conviction.

    In December 1990, Beckwith was again indicted for the murder of Medgar Evers. After a number of appeals, the Mississippi Supreme Court finally ruled in favor of a third trial in April 1993. Ten months later, testimony began before a racially mixed jury of eight blacks and four whites. In February 1994, nearly 31 years after Evers’ death, Beckwith was convicted and sentenced to life in prison.