Thoughts from an Apple Vision Pro demo

On Saturday, I found myself in an Apple Store doing a Vision Pro demo (about 10 minutes setup & prep and 15 minutes of actual use). I went in not expecting much since I hate the Oculus.

• Navigation was fine, but somewhat wonky; I’m guessing this was due to a less-than-optimal eye tracking setup along with me not keeping my hands within view.
• The difference between regular video and spatial video as similar to the difference between regular photos and Live Photos; Spatial Video adds a nice layer of realism, but it’s obviously limited to the captured viewpoint (you can’t move much beyond the original view).
• For 3d video, I watched the Super Mario trailer rather than the Avatar trailer; I couldn’t tell much difference from a regular trailer.
• Panoramas were nice.
• Dinosaurs were neat.
• Tightrope walker and mountain climber were very impressive.
• Immersive view was indeed immersive and the dial-in/dial-out was smooth.
• The snippet from the baseball game was awesome, but i’m not interested in watching old games (Apple needs to get some broadcasting rights for live/near-live major league sports with a handful of well-placed cameras).

To me, Vision Pro is so much better than Oculus in terms of use, navigation, and motion lag (not getting motion sickness). Vision Pro feels like a very nice build quality, but it’s hobbled by a lack of content, especially when the existing content is available elsewhere. I can’t imagine Vision Pro is good for gaming since it’s limited to basically iPhone game catalog. I can’t see myself watching a movie on the Vision Pro rather than via Apple TV or even an iPad.

In general, I’m a sucker for Apple devices, but to me, Vision Pro is too expensive for a novelty device with a limited use case. I look forward to seeing the non-Pro version and what the price point would be for that, but for Vision Pro, for now, it’s a meh.