I bought the base model shortly after launch. It went from the coolest piece of tech I had ever handled to in a drawer untouched for at least a couple weeks. It probably would have mostly stayed there or been sold on eBay, until... right at a year ago I was in stopped traffic and hit by a distracted driver at highway speeds. Two broken hands, fractured sternum, head injury with vision issues, life changed in an instant. Fast forward a few weeks - hurt, bored, unable to use a computer comfortably I started using it to mirror my Mac with a lap desk & a Magic Keyboard/trackpad. It was a godsend, I was able to comfortably use my computer, communicate, watch TV, etc. Now, today, I'm mostly recovered, but I still use my VP daily, when not in meetings it's my preferred interface to my Mac, working without it feels like I'm missing a critical piece of the interface.

I demoed the Apple Vision Pro. It demos incredibly well. And there's very little to do with it.

This isn't a problem unique to the Apple Vision Pro. There's still relatively little to do with an Oculus, PSVR2, and many other headsets.

Honestly, my favorite part about my PSVR2 is the ability to cut off most everything other than what I'm doing just then.But it's kind of a lot of work for that feature.

Just to be clear, the Vision Pro does have its niche. As an example, SadlyItsBradley (VR leaker guy) keeps talking on Twitter about how he uses his daily.

Also, if the people who say it hurts would get a third-party strap, I bet they would feel better. I use a halo strap on my Quest 3 and it makes it way more comfortable.

Personally I would use this for live sports. Imagine being court side for the NBA finals? Have cameras / AI that would let you do a 360 view.

This is flagged while an apple product announcement is trending on the frontpage now. Sus.

Bah, clickbait.

It's a $3500 VR headset, so a niche bit of kit from the jump. Nobody's made this work in a meaningful way, and the initial reviews of the Vision Pro made it clear this was no different (though there were kinds words about Apple's implementation of this level of tech).

Another commenter notes that it's beautiful, does what it does well, but there's little to do with it. That's utterly true. Maybe in a few years, that'll be different, but I think the real problem is that Apple brought it to market before the rest of the market was ready to jump forward. It's too expensive for the level of mass adoption that would jumpstart a VR software ecosystem (ie, in the same way the iPhone catalyzed phone apps).

Apple seems to have focused way too much on the hardware and totally ignored the whole "what do we do with it". Having a bunch of floating ipad screens is not enough justification.

The movie watching is nice and I often watch movies on my meta quest. It's comfortable to watch for hours. But the quest was 400$ not 3500$. It needs much less justification.

Also I game a lot in VR. It's so fantastic. Even old games gain a totally new dimension such as half life 2, gta san Andreas. This is not even possible with the vision pro despite being more than 7 times as expensive.

I would absolutely buy one if it was about half the price. I can think of lots of uses for it.

My kids love our Quest 3. It’s a great system for gaming. They’ve clocked hundreds of hours playing Beat Saber and Gorilla Tag.

If Apple can lower the price significantly and make it more comfortable I think there is potential for this to be a successful product.

What I always think about with VR: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5KRTr-QRLk

I wonder if there's enough interest to push the tech so that these devices are cheap and light enough to be interesting outside of a niche.

I saw a YouTube review of new generation absolutely tiny be goggles. Looked much more viable.

Again as with Post Steve Jobs Apple. They have all the wrong timing on technology.

>Apple is a company that doesn’t have the most resources of everybody in the world, and the way we’ve succeeded is by choosing what horses to ride really carefully – technically. We try to look for these technical vectors that have a future, and that are headed up, and, you know, different pieces of technology kind of go in cycles. They have their springs and summers, and autumns, and then they, you know, go to the graveyard of technology. And, so we try to pick the things that are in their springs.

And, if you choose wisely, you can save yourself an enormous amount of work vs. trying to do everything. And you can really put energy into making those new emerging technologies be great on your platform, rather then just okay because you’re spreading yourself too thin.

I dont think Vision Pro is wrong, but it is definitely 5 years too early. Just like Apple's self driving cars. Clearly when you have more resource than what you know what to do with it. This is what happens.

I'm honestly surprised by this. I still use my AVP about once a week or more, it's my preferred method for watching shows, movies and YouTube. I would be interested to hear what others are using for 3rd party straps and I also wish there were more apps and more environments. But I'm very happy with what there is so far.

I ordered mine on launch day, and received it about a week later. Somehow, I even managed to convince my employer to buy it for me.

It's fair to say that the "new" has worn off the Vision Pro for me many months ago. That's a relative statement, though; when I first got it I used it every day. Now I use it 2-3x weekly at home for the entire day. It's nice to be able to wait in the vehicle while one of my kids is at an activity and have a virtual monitor that fills my field of vision.

My argument was that it would increase my productivity while away from my actual desk; while I don't travel much for work, my family is fairly non-traditional. Neither of us have in-person jobs. We homeschool our kids. We're constantly traveling, either for my wife's side hustles or our kids interests.

One of the best things about it is using it while traveling. A couple of weeks ago we bought a used livestock trailer that was six hours away. The whole family loaded up in the truck, my wife drove, and I spent the next six hours in VR. I got more done than a typical day, it allowed more flexibility in our lives, and - believe it or not - I was actually a part of the conversations in the car the entire time.

To my knowledge there is no other device on the market that can let me seamlessly work on a huge virtual monitor while traveling at 75 MPH down the interstate, while simultaneously allowing me to hold a conversation with my wife about the things around us. Everything else aside, it's pretty incredible to be able to go from reading logs to looking at the pretty entry gates for a ranch we're driving by, by moving my eyes a few degrees to the right.

Even if the only use case for it were as a monitor for my Macs, it has more than paid for itself. My 512GB VP was $4,700 with upgrades, prescription inserts, AppleCare+, etc. Add a decent carrying case (not the Apple one), Apple keyboard and trackpad - call it $5,000 total. How is that any different from someone buying an Apple Pro Display XDR?

Obviously, the monitor has much higher resolution, and features targeted at "creative" professionals. I get it, I've been a professional(-ish) photographer for decades. It's also only 32", and I'm a software engineer. I need screen space. I don't need color fidelity, or dynamic range. As long as the resolution is high enough for me to be able to read small text well, I don't care about that either. The Vision Pro's resolution is better than my eyes' ability to see small text.

No, I have no regrets around the Vision Pro. I still think Apple's "Spatial Computing" will eventually take off, but I'm satisfied with the purchase even if it ends up being abandoned and never receives another update.

I bought one at launch, a lot of the critiques here ring true.

Nags:

* It's absolutely too heavy. I'm really not sure how this got out of the door given how sensitive Apple is to the dimensions and tactility of their products. I'm guessing they were insistent on material choice and EyeSight over all else. I think that was the wrong bet.

* The Vision App ecosystem is a dumpster fire. I recall developers complaining about Apple's developer relations, I can't imagine this will change course any time soon.

* The displays are outrageously high quality, but the foveated rendering becomes really obvious when you use features like the Mac Virtual Display. I can't use it as an external display for more than an hour or so.

* Speaking of which; it's annoying to put on/take off. I find myself hesitating to use it for that reason. And this is mostly down to the weight.

Pros:

* The displays/speakers/airpods integration make this the single best individual media consumption device on the planet. Yeah, a bigscreen beyond or similar are great options too, but I can slap the VP on in bed (nullifying the weight problem) and toss on something from either a streaming service or my SMB share.

* And because it's portable, it's the perfect device for airplanes.

TL:DR; VP is too heavy, but there are some great things about it, and the faults don't really matter to Apple because they knew this would be a low-volume product.

They REALLY do need to shore up developer relations before launching the next face computer, but that's unlikely as they are the most prideful company I can think of.