I walked with the urgency and excitement of an addict trying to get his fix.
I ignored the fact that my flight was set to take off in a few hours. I ignored the fact that my backpack weighed 300 pounds. I ignored that the weight was a direct result of its contents: a fully tricked-out laptop, an iPad, two phones, a camera, chargers, battery packs, wires, and adapters.
At the Apple Store in Santa Barbara, I was greeted by a fellow geek without taking a breath. “Can I help you with something?”
“Oh yes,” I laughed. “Do you have a fully tricked-out version of the Vision Pro?” It had been just hours since the Vision Pro was released, and my optimism about getting my hands on it naturally outweighed reality. So far, videos and memes of people wearing the Vision while riding the metro, working out, driving cybertrucks had gone viral. It was clearly a runaway hit, or at least it was a hit for the tech bros who could afford it and weren’t afraid to wear social awkwardness on their faces in public.
Kids can sometimes get hurt because their brutal honesty shines through their character. They say things that adults often actively try to avoid. Once, when I asked my daughter if she could check the settings on my phone, she replied, “Why? Do you want it because you want to tech it?”
When my teenage daughter is in her eternal teenage mood, she often attacks me by calling me a tech bro. So I respond with a quick and careful comeback. “You are the techie,” I say, retreating like an aging lion.
Back to the Apple Store.
“You need a demo appointment first, and there’s nothing available for three hours.” I saw the shiny new device on the table next to him, and he immediately caught the look of cowardice, panic, and despair in my eyes. “Please wait here for a moment,” he said, his tech bro sympathy pouring out.
I waited with bated breath as he had a quick conversation with his manager. Ten minutes later, I was sitting with the Vision Pro perched on my head, immersed in an experience that even my overly fertile brain couldn’t conjure up in the roughest of fantasies.
A few hours later, I returned home with a large tremor and an apple box.
I was welcomed by a happy dog and a growling wife.
My wife’s questions mimicked Zuck’s congressional hearings. “How are you paying for this? When is this junk coming back? When are you going to apologize to everyone around you for putting this on your face?”
As a media-trained tech executive, my biased muscle memory kicked in: “Think of this as a cost-benefit analysis. This isn’t a fad. This is how we all use computers. Oh, and I sold my soul to pay for this.”
My wife’s facial expression seemed to malfunction even more.
Secretly, I wanted to test whether the Vision Pro would be a media consumption device or a creativity device.
In other words, is this a new poop device or a work device?
Media Consumption Experience
If you hate other humans, for example, if you’re under house arrest or in a very luxurious prison, enjoying media in pure isolation is an amazing media device.
You can watch movies, videos, or photos immersively, and the experience is sometimes much better than reality.
Well, now hold on to your pitchforks. I’ll explain.
My wife and I recently attended my daughter’s choir performance. It was a packed space, and I found myself sitting in the last row in front of a friend who was six feet taller than me. I had to crane my neck constantly to spot my daughter on stage, but it conveniently came back to me when I recorded the performance with five times zoom and watched the video at home on the Vision Pro. Every nuance of the performance - the nervous laughter, the quick glances at friends, and of course, the magical voice.
On the other hand, when watching a video or movie, you can’t lean over to your spouse or partner and whisper creepy comments or ask dumb questions in a horror movie like, “Why isn’t she calling 911?”
With the Vision Pro, you can be alone in emotional dramas, alone with your creepy comments, and you’re alone as a fool laughing at jokes that others around you can’t experience. Also, the current app store is comically lacking in apps without Netflix, YouTube, or Sling TV. This will clearly be remedied over time.
In terms of sharing, you also can’t share the Vision Pro experience with everyone around you due to the inappropriate guest experience and the burden. You’ll soon realize that while you think it’s possible to record what it’s like to watch a movie and share a video with someone, making a movie recording is not allowed on the Vision Pro. In fact, when you try to record, it turns the movie into the most confusing dark screen possible.
For me, as a consumption/bathroom device, it’s a big no, with other hardware limitations like carrying an iPhone everywhere like a battery.
Creativity Experience
I write in Google Docs, take photos in Lightroom, and edit videos in Final Cut Pro. This experience is unmatched on any device other than a MacBook Pro.
Using the Vision Pro turns your MacBook into a virtual monitor of your chosen size. But here’s the kicker - you can enter immersive mode, and the background disappears into your chosen environment while you work, allowing for ambient noise.
The ability to customize your own virtual workspace and shut out the world while summoning your muse is not revolutionary.
Also, when you’re working, the people around you can’t care less about what you have on your face in various ways, making you unavailable to everyone around you. However, since you can see everything around you while working, you can interact with people entering your workspace. You can control your attention.
Creating, editing photos and videos, and coding for applications is a pleasure as long as the laptop is convenient. I’m confident that as native Vision Pro apps become richer and enhanced, this experience will condense into a Bluetooth-connected keyboard and/or a very powerful mobile phone.
This is magic, and for this, I would say this device is a first-generation device, but it costs an arm and a leg to own. I’m sure the next generation of this new category will be better in many ways, but even now, it’s making a significant leap in computing experience, and I haven’t even touched on how generative AI will change this.
I’m not yet brave enough to wear it publicly, and when my daughter called me a techie again while embracing this new identity, I was shot down again. “You mean vision.”
Her response was quick and cutting.
Sigh! Kids - the truth tellers of a reality expanded and devoid of vision.