It’s Friday, February 2, 2024. Today is the day. You’ve been keeping an eye on the Vision Pro since Tim Cook took the stage with the product at last year’s WWDC. Longer than that, really, if you consider the years of rumors, leaks and renders. The price was not close to what you were hoping for, but it is a first generation product. The manufacturing is not at full consumer scale and you have to consider the millions that go into seven or eight years of R&D.
After a few months of waffle, you hovered over the “Buy” button, held your breath, closed your eyes, and committed to the $3,500. Congratulations, you are an early adopter.
The box arrives. It’s huge. It’s also quintessentially Apple — it’s premium, designed with intent. Tear the tabs from the other side and slide from the top. The visor is inside, anchored to a small platform that is more display case than container. Dig deeper and you’ll find another strap and a second “light seal” insert.
Me, I’m currently partial to Dual Loop Band. It doesn’t look as nice as the Solo Knit Band, but the top strap does a much better job of distributing the weight (the Vision Pro is not a lightweight headset). As for the light seal inserts, I advise those who wear glasses to go with the larger of the pair to create more distance between your eyes and the inserts.
Last, of course, is the now famous battery pack. Plug it into the port on the left side and give it a spin. A small white light pulses before turning solid. Boot-up has started.
After eight months, what’s another 60 seconds between friends? There is a bit of a setup process. Understandably so. Vision Pro needs to orient its sensors, learn about your space and lighting. If you had Zeiss optical inserts for your sight, now is the time to magnetically snap them on. If you wear glasses, don’t freak out too much about the image until you register your lenses by holding up a piece of paper with a QR-like code on it. Pairing the device with your iPhone works in much the same way.
You’ll be asked to take the handset out for a moment to take a scan of your face. But first, a short introductory video.
The face scanning process uses the camera on the front of the visor to create a 3D avatar with shoulders. The process is extremely similar to signing up for Face ID on your iPhone. Look forward. Turn your head to the side. Then the other. Look up and spin down. Look down and spin up. Find good lighting. Maybe a ring light if you have one. If you wear glasses, take care not to squint. Apparently I did, and now my Persona seems to have spent the last week celebrating the passage of the Ohio Issue 2 ballot measure.
Image Credits: Brian Heater (Sorry)
The Personas that have been released so far have been a mixed bag. All the influencers nailed theirs. Is it the lighting? Good genes? Maybe it’s Maybelline. Hope yours goes well and don’t worry you can try again if you didn’t stick the landing the first time. Mine? This is actually the better of the two I’ve created so far. I still look like a talking thumb with a buzz addiction, and the moment really highlights the lingering Bell’s palsy in my right eye. Or maybe more of a vague Max Headroom? I’ll try again tomorrow, and until then keep in mind that the feature is essentially still in beta.
This is your version of talking to people over FaceTime and other video conferencing apps. This is meant to get around the fact that 1) You have a visor over your face and 2) There is (presumably) no external camera pointing at you. It definitely takes some getting used to.
Oh, you’ll also have to take it again if you want to change your hair or shirt. I was hoping for something a little more customizable à la Memojis, but that’s not in the current feature set. However, it will respond to different facial expressions, such as smiling, raising your eyebrows, and even sticking out your tongue (handy for work Zoom calls). The scan is also used to create an image of your eyes for the EyeSight feature on the front of the visor to alert others in the room when you’re looking in their direction.
Put the headset back on and hold your hands up so the hand tracking feature knows what to look out for. Then, three circles of dots will appear, each with a brighter light than the last. Here you should look at each while pinching your thumb and forefinger together. This helps calibrate the eye tracking.
Access has long been a big question mark in the world of augmented reality. You can pair Bluetooth game controllers, keyboards and trackpads with the headset, but in Apple’s vision for the future, the lion’s share of interaction uses your eyes and hands. Look at an object to highlight and pinch your fingers to select. Pinch also comes into play when zooming (pinch with both hands before zooming out) and scrolling (pinch and drag).
The digital crown is your friend. It’s basically a bigger version of the one on your Apple Watch. Tapping it brings up an app screen, similar to Launchpad on MacOS. The app sidebar also shows different contexts and people/contacts. Pressing and holding the crown centers visionOS where you’re looking.
My biggest tip for you, the owner of a shiny new Vision Pro, is to give yourself time to adjust. This will be the last thing you want to hear. Listen, I got it. You spent a car down payment on a device you’ve been waiting more than half a year to try. But coming face to face with a new version of reality can do strange things to your brain if you don’t take breaks. People have reported headaches from the weight. Personally, I’m prone to nausea and feel a bit tired at the end of my first day with the device.
Watch an episode of a TV show. Play a quick game (you can play the iPadOS versions of Fruit Ninja and Angry Birds with an Apple Arcade subscription). If this is, indeed, the dawn of a new era for computing, you have plenty of time to acclimatize.
See you tomorrow.
