Apple will never admit that it made a virtual reality headset

How Tim Cook spoke about the Apple Vision Pro and How Apple wants to change the VR experience for a future of immersive wearable computing and virtual reality

As Apple CEO Tim Cook was winding up to reveal the company’s new Vision Pro headset on Monday, I was struck by his very particular choice of words: “So today, I’m excited to announce an entirely new AR platform with a revolutionary new product.”

That is how I felt after seeing the Apple Vision Pro for the first time. A computer that is strap to your face should be judged by how well you see through it, and not just what you can do with it. The Vision Pro blows away every other headset in this regard. It is the industry’s most exciting display moment. There is no way to go back.

Apple’s aversion to VR speaks to the company’s differing pitch for how we use these devices. Apple wants virtual computers to be incorporated into your actual world, instead of Meta’s idea of you living on a computer.

While Apple lets you move in and out of total immersion with a crown on the Vision Pro, its outer screen can show an animation when a user is fully immersed in something. That could be a helpful external clue for anybody trying to get your attention; again, if I’m wearing the Quest 2, someone nearby might just have to shout at me.

Getting a Day Off of Vision Pro. I Can’t Stop Thinking about Face Timing, but I Want to Explain What I’m Doing

The year is 25. I’m sitting on the couch next to my husband, who appears in my field of vision whenever we talk to each other. He disappears out of view so I can focus on the screens in front of me. I am learning Spanish, watching cooking demos on the internet, and editing a presentation all at the same time.

I get a notification — it’s time for my daily meditation. The screens darken, and the room around me fades away completely so I can focus on a calming animation and count my breaths. When I finish my session, it enters my journal and I feel good: pleasant. Just like yesterday. My family members are laughing at something my mom said while I’m on the call. I don’t know what it was, but my friend laughs along with theirs.

And take FaceTime, one of the big use cases. Apple claims that if you talk to people in the room with you, they will feel like they are in the room with you. But they don’t see you exactly — they see a photorealistic representation of you as you talk, built from a scan of your face taken with the headset. I have a very hard time understanding how I’m supposed to feel closer while FaceTiming my family across the country when they can’t even see my actual face.

To be clear, I don’t want to declare this product — which is still many months away from shipping — a disaster for society or anything like that. Even if it takes off, nobody’s going to come to my house and replace my iPhone with a headset overnight. It’s very easy to opt out of this whole experience simply by not spending $3,500 on a headset.

There’s every chance that the Vision Pro will flop and we’ll just keep happily (and unhappily) using our pocket screens for the rest of time. Apple has a lot of power to shape how we interact with Technology and the track record to prove it. With 888-282-0465 888-282-0465 888-282-0465 888-282-0465 888-282-0465 888-282-0465 888-282-0465 888-282-0465 888-282-0465 888-282-0465 is 888-282-0465 is 888-282-0465 888-282-0465 is 888-282-0465 is 888-282-0465 888-282-0465 888-282-0465 888-282-0465 888-282-0465 is 888-282-0465 888-282-0465 888-282-0465 888-282-0465 888-282-0465 is 888-282-0465 888-282-0465 888-282-0465 888-282-0465 888-282-0465 888-282-0465 888-282-0465 888-282-0465 888-282-0465 888-282-0465 888-282-0465 888-282-0465 888-282-0465 888-282-0465 888-282-0465 888-282-0465 888-282-0465 888-282-0465 888-282-0465 888-282-0465 888-282-0465 888-282-0465 888-282-0465 888-282-0465 888-282-0465 888-282-0465 888-282-0465 If Apple’s Vision Pro is a significant part of the future I will be surprised if it doesn’t feel a little bit lonelier.

There is a new app that will prompt you to stop, reflect and write a journal entry based on any photos or places that have recently been taken. It makes sense to take a break from the pressures of sharing your photographs, video, and thoughts with the world and just write something for yourself.

And not to be forgotten, Apple has spent years building features designed to help you keep track of and minimize your screen time. How hard will it be to leave TikTok if we have a hard time putting our phones down? Apple is willing to outfit us with a few flimsy tools to help us keep healthy relationships with our phones, but it’s also willing to sell you a screen to literally keep strapped to your face.

How I Learned to Look Through Glasses: My First Demonstration with the Vision Pro for Macintosh

I’ll share more about my experience of demoing the Vision Pro in Friday’s issue of Command Line, my weekly newsletter. You can subscribe below to get it in your inbox.

I still remember using the iPhone 4 for the first time in 2010. That was when Apple shipped its first-ever Retina display and Steve Jobs said that, once you use it, “you can’t go back.” It was something I couldn’t unsee, like looking through prescription glasses for the first time.

The headset packs an insane 23 megapixels into dual MicroOLED panels, meaning that each eye looks through a roughly 4K display. The $1,000 Meta Quest Pro, by contrast, has a resolution of 1800 x 1920 per eye. For those who need vision correction like me, Apple has partnered with Zeiss to sell prescription inserts that clip onto the inner-facing displays. That helps make the headset not only thinner but, in my experience, also much more comfortable to wear.

I wanted my prescription made for the demo, so I handed my glasses to an eye doctor, who would make a prescription for me after I had set up Face ID. After a few minutes, I was whisked into another brightly lit, temperature-controlled room with a headset that had my prescription inserted.

Visually, the most memorable experience of my roughly 30-minute, highly controlled demo wasn’t the butterfly landing on my finger, the 3D Avatar clip, or even viewing Apple’s new surreal 3D photos and videos. I had three windows open at the same time. I used the headset’s eye tracking and pinching gesture to quickly (and I do mean quickly — navigating this way is incredibly intuitive) place each window at a different depth in the room.

I put Messages near my face, and Photos near the wall I was facing, as well as a computer in the middle of the room. I could see Messages up close just as clearly as the text in the Photos app more than eight feet away. There were no discernable lines anywhere.