A Computer for your Face
It's a pair of goggles! It's a VR/AR headset! It's a gaming device! No, It's a computer for your face. Apple's Vision Pro - Apple Vision Pro Adventures Part 1
How on earth did I end up with an Apple Vision Pro?
I watched Apple’s keynote presentation on the Vision Pro - and I was impressed. But also: the price was high. I didn’t consider that I’d want to buy one to use, personally, in the first generation. I had original iPhone launch vibes. (author’s note: I did not buy the original iPhone, I waited for the 3G version that came out the following year)
My wife, Cindy, came home later that day and told me: “I know you are thinking you need to buy a Vision Pro but we do not need to spend that kind of money.” Of course I denied any such intention. (I thought she might need one - or several -for her event agency. I was definitely *not* going to buy one for myself… more on the event angle in part 2… )
At some point before pre-order day, Cindy told me we should get one so that we understand it, and what it might mean for events or experiencing events remotely. And that, my friends, is how I ended up writing this post on an Apple Vision Pro.*
*technically, I’m writing this on my laptop, but i’m looking at the screen by projecting it into my Apple Vision Pro…
This is the first of a two-part adventure in Apple Vision Pro.
Part One: what is this thing, why does it cost so much, and what’s the experience like?
Part Two: what can we use it for, and references to other sources of great information and background.
Okay, but what is it?
Well, it *is* a pair of goggles, like a ski mask, you wear over your eyes. Everyone knows this from the iconic imagery and shape. But I think the right way to think about it isn’t as a pair of “VR goggles” or “AR goggles”. The right way to think about it is that you’ve bought a computer for your face.
It takes that kind of computing power to implement pass-through vision in the way that Apple has. To implement the high resolution imagery for your eyes (virtual, augmented, or reality), to implement spatial computing, as Apple calls it, takes a lot of compute. At least an M2 chip, to be exact.
It takes two 4k screens to create those visuals for your retinas. And it takes a bevy of sensors and cameras to capture the world around you in real time, along with the gestures that control the spatial interface.
For a first version product, the build quality and design elements are amazing. Not that anyone is surprised, when it comes to Apple and design.
Why does it cost so much?
Isn’t it super expensive though, for AR goggles? Perhaps, but it depends on your budget and what you can anchor the price to. Neil Cybart’s comparison of Apple Vision Pro pricing to live events: compare to buying two tickets to the U2 concert in the Sphere…
As consumers contemplate how much value to place with a device like Vision Pro, one way of approaching such an exercise is to think about the cost to attend live events in various cities and countries. It is certainly possible that good tickets at two to three live events will equal Vision Pro headset pricing. Another exercise some people have done is to compare Vision Pro to the price of a large OLED TV ($3,000 to $4,000).
It is an interesting point that you can have your own private Sphere experience with Apple Vision Pro for $3500 - and watch many events for that price. That doesn’t mean that everyone should find that a reasonable price to pay for an Apple Vision Pro - any more than it means that everyone should find $1500 tickets to a concert to be a reasonable price.
But it means that for some people, there will be a way for them to anchor the price to experiences they find worth paying that much for.
What’s the Consumer Experience Like?
You might be asking if the experience could be evolved enough to justify a comparison to the Sphere - I would say, yes. Right now, the Apple Vision Pro is the best way to watch movies I’ve ever experienced.
2D Viewing Experience. For 2D movies it gives you a surprisingly immersive experience by making the screen as large as you like, at a distance that you can determine feels best to you. You can increase the immersion with an environment around that viewing screen, which helps you ignore the distractions around you and really focus on the movie. Watch from Tattooine, watch from an historic theater, watch on the moon. Watch it with dark all around - whatever your preference is.
In addition, the Spatial Audio is fantastic. The sound is so good that you forget people around you will hear it - these aren’t over-ear headphones but it has that kind of immersive feeling to it.
If 2D is great, what about 3D?
Movies that I’ve seen before in Theater 3D, like Avatar, seem more lifelike and immersive in Apple Vision Pro. Much more so than they ever did in a theater - where the “cube” of video was fairly far from your seat. I was always hyper-aware of where the boundaries of that cube were, and it felt like watching something in an aquarium (maybe especially for Avatar).
It is the best 3D viewing experience I have ever had.
In Apple Vision Pro, watching 3D content, I felt like I could touch the world of Avatar as I watched. It was almost disconcerting that I couldn’t touch it.
I have watched a few shows in 3D that I didn’t even know where available in 3D or that I missed in theaters - they all look stunning in Apple Vision Pro.
Immersive Content. What about “immersive” content? This is beyond 3D - this is 3D content where it isn’t in a frame or box, but it instead feels as if it is all around you. I don’t know when movie studios will start producing content for this format, but it will be game changing when they do. After experimenting with just a few of these experiences I’m wondering if it will be movie studios (telling a story) or game studios (offering interactive experiences) that will win the day in this medium, but it feels like game studios will have the upper hand for thinking about Point-of-View experiences.
As an example, I saw the MLS 2023 season recap - several of those scenes you just want to reach out and touch what isn’t there. What your eyes see is so convincing, you can’t perceive that it isn’t real.
One of the dinosaur virtual experiences is harder to watch because your POV(Point of View) moves as you are watching - but your body is staying still. Immersive POV motion feels different than POV motion in a 2D render. It doesn’t feel “right” somehow. Stationary point of view feels incredibly realistic.
There’s another immersive sample experience in the Apple TV+ app that is similarly astounding. I can’t wait for more.
My own content. Spatial videos that I took myself are also incredible experiences. I took video of a snow storm in Denver a few weeks ago and re-watching it - you really feel like you are there, rather than just watching it. I also took some spatial videos at a Madonna concert. Words can’t describe it, and even a picture doesn’t tell the full story, but I’ll include a few samples to give a hint.
Speaking of immersive… all those panoramic photos you’ve taken are also amazing. Any photo with wide enough ratio will convert to an “immersive” mode when you want it to. For some of my panoramic shots it fills my entire field of vision left to right and the only regret is that it can’t fill top and bottom. Example from a balloon ride in Central Mexico:
Trust me, it is even more impressive inside the Apple Vision Pro and gives new lift to old photos. I wish I had thought to shoot some Spatial video from the balloon ride!
First killer app? It seems clear that immersive content and sports content will be one of the “killer apps” for the Apple Vision Pro. I can’t wait. The samples show how good it could be - though I imagine there are a lot of challenges to deliver this kind of content at scale. And the challenge to capture this kind of content is non-trivial as well. Just as with standard 2D content, it isn’t enough to have one immersive camera angle for a soccer match - you need several angles and positions to really make the experience work for various parts of the game. I imagine the booth editing/directing will get significantly more complicated as well!
How does it feel?
Honestly, after more than a month of usage, it feels fine. The more you use it, the less you notice the weight of the device - the novelty of the feel of it wears off and you just ignore it. The weight seems to be everyone’s first concern, because you notice it right away, but like the weight of a phone, you just get used it quickly.
As an example of how much you get used to it… I just tried to rub my eyes with a finger and ran into the glass. Thankfully there is a nice cloth to wipe those finger prints off.
The separate battery doesn’t look great, but you put it in your pocket and then you forget it is even there. Much better than having that weight added to the existing headset.
The gestures don’t take too long to get used to. What did take me a while to get the hang of was to keep my eyes looking at what I wanted to do. In a manually driven interface, you can glance at something, and then your hands move to click there or do that or type whatever while your eyes can move away. In Apple Vision Pro, I realized how much I do that because the “click” action happens where your eyes are NOW, not where they were .1 seconds ago. It just takes some practice to slow down a bit.
Seeing the world around me while looking at content in Apple Vision Pro is useful. I’m at work and I don’t feel like people will sneak up on me!
That’s it for Part One. Part Two will cover more on use cases and experiences.
Summary:
It’s your best movie watching experience
It’s soon to be the best sports viewing seat in the world
It’s a future home for immersive content and games
It’s a way to relive memories in the form of spatial videos
It’s worth it if you relish the experience.
One more thing… Let me just get a plug in for Camunda Local San Franciso. I was recently in San Francisco for the Camunda Local event. It was a great event, and I had the chance to speak to the local audience about why building process-applications can be hard - and how to make it easier: “Bringing your Business Process to your Business Applications” - I really enjoyed the presentations from Jakob Freund, Frederic Meier and Daniel Meyer - but especially the presentation from Centric Software on their journey leveraging Camunda to transform their PLM business. It’s why I love these events!
A few photos from the CamundaLocal experience in San Francisco: