WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:09.360 Hello, it's been a while, and if you're wondering what happened, it's this. 00:00:09.360 --> 00:00:16.560 I got into a motorcycle accident. 00:00:16.560 --> 00:00:22.640 I'm fine. I broke a few bones, namely this one, the pinky toe, and the worst being my right shoulder 00:00:22.640 --> 00:00:28.200 scapula. And so the last two months have had me recovering from a screw getting drilled in, I guess right 00:00:28.200 --> 00:00:33.760 here. A lot of things have happened with Apple in the intervening time, and when I crashed 00:00:33.760 --> 00:00:36.760 I was in the middle of making this video. 00:00:36.760 --> 00:00:42.480 The Apple Vision Pro is one of the most anticipated and biggest launches in the company's history. 00:00:42.480 --> 00:00:47.280 And yet in the months of my recovery, people have largely gone silent on it. 00:00:47.280 --> 00:00:54.240 And I know exactly why. It's because despite it feeling amazing, it only takes less than an hour for reality 00:00:54.240 --> 00:01:01.160 to set in. This thing doesn't do anything. 00:01:01.160 --> 00:01:06.280 This headset is probably the most first generation Apple product they have ever made. 00:01:06.280 --> 00:01:09.840 It's well designed, but you'll know it'll soon be better. 00:01:09.840 --> 00:01:15.880 But there are frustrating limitations that you don't know will be addressed or not. 00:01:15.880 --> 00:01:20.200 What I can see is how Apple has laid a foundation for their mixed reality headset. 00:01:20.200 --> 00:01:23.840 They focus solely on questions of how will the interface look like and how will you 00:01:23.840 --> 00:01:27.960 interact with it. And it's in these areas where the Vision Pro excels. 00:01:27.960 --> 00:01:30.960 The feeling. Controllers? Ugh. 00:01:30.960 --> 00:01:37.280 You got controllers right here. It's remarkable how Apple can make pinching my fingers together feel like such a physical 00:01:37.280 --> 00:01:42.600 action in the interface. It feels like my hands themselves are actually controlling things so much that I end up trying 00:01:42.600 --> 00:01:46.880 to pinch with my hands under my arms forgetting that the headset can't see them. 00:01:46.880 --> 00:01:53.440 We have to do it one more time. I actually got my friends toddler to try a Vision Pro, and I have to say kids pick up 00:01:53.440 --> 00:01:57.760 on these interactions fast, though his little head was too small for the eye tracking to 00:01:57.760 --> 00:02:03.520 stay accurate. But how do I grab those two guys? 00:02:03.520 --> 00:02:07.720 It's not just pinching, I also love walking up to the interface and controlling things 00:02:07.720 --> 00:02:12.880 that way too. It's funny to command these giant Windows by waving one's hand like they're at a white 00:02:12.880 --> 00:02:21.960 board. Now we are in the theater, so you really get a chance to feel like Steve Jobs, I'm on 00:02:21.960 --> 00:02:27.040 a stage to do a presentation. 00:02:27.040 --> 00:02:31.280 This is also how the keyboard works too, though you won't be typing very fast because this 00:02:31.280 --> 00:02:35.600 interaction method only recognizes your index finger. 00:02:35.600 --> 00:02:41.200 And the keys look like buttons. And look at the inner drop shadow on the text fields. 00:02:41.200 --> 00:02:44.280 There's dimension in window chrome. 00:02:44.280 --> 00:02:48.000 VisionOS is just so beautiful. 00:02:48.000 --> 00:02:54.920 It's so much more serious than the cartoony blue vibes I get from Meta's offerings. 00:02:54.920 --> 00:03:01.600 The pass through too. This really feels like real life, okay real life through a cellphone camera. 00:03:01.600 --> 00:03:05.440 And if you want to leave real life, simply twist the digital crown and you're taken 00:03:05.440 --> 00:03:14.160 to beautifully recreated scenic outlooks. 00:03:14.160 --> 00:03:18.640 With birds chirping and clouds moving, this really is a refreshing take on the desktop 00:03:18.640 --> 00:03:24.240 wallpaper. These environments are probably my favorite thing about the headset. 00:03:24.240 --> 00:03:32.120 They're beautiful, peaceful, and really take you out of the messy real world. 00:03:32.120 --> 00:03:36.520 The only things you'll actually see in here are your own hands and other people looking 00:03:36.520 --> 00:03:41.720 at you. There are no phones or exploring to be had here. 00:03:42.680 --> 00:03:46.720 Because playing a video content and you've got a giant screen to enjoy it on, especially 00:03:46.720 --> 00:03:50.400 when you play anything from Apple TV Plus as it reflects beautifully on Trillium Lake 00:03:50.400 --> 00:03:56.840 near Mount Hood. And because this is a 3D display system, 3D movies look really cool, whether from Disney 00:03:56.840 --> 00:04:06.160 or your iPhone 15 Pro. 00:04:06.160 --> 00:04:10.960 As you might have heard, the Vision Pro is heavy. It pushes almost one and a half pounds. 00:04:11.080 --> 00:04:15.480 Considering everything this contains, I have no problem lugging the battery pack in my 00:04:15.480 --> 00:04:21.960 back pocket. Battery life is around two hours, which is short, but that's twice the amount of time 00:04:21.960 --> 00:04:26.960 I can handle in this thing. 00:04:26.960 --> 00:04:31.800 Now for the weird. This is what my persona looks like. 00:04:31.800 --> 00:04:36.000 I don't think this was taken in the best light, and I got a haircut since then, so I'm gonna 00:04:36.000 --> 00:04:43.720 do a re-scan and see what we get. This looks best if everyone is using their persona in a call, since comparison is the 00:04:43.720 --> 00:04:51.560 thief of joy. And these are definitely in the uncanny valley, but in a funny way. 00:04:51.560 --> 00:04:58.960 Eye sight is funny too. My friends say I look like Dr. Carol from Perfect Dark, albeit with a whole body attached. 00:04:58.960 --> 00:05:02.760 Come on, I have vital information! 00:05:02.760 --> 00:05:07.640 Do I look like a dork with this on? 00:05:07.640 --> 00:05:12.000 Did you know that for less than the price of this Vision Pro, I got laser eye surgery? 00:05:12.000 --> 00:05:16.240 And it's a good thing too, because if you wear glasses, you need to order special corrective 00:05:16.240 --> 00:05:20.080 lenses from Apple when you order the Vision Pro. 00:05:20.080 --> 00:05:27.000 Even with those inserts, the optics aren't perfect. I've been reading Karl Guttag's analysis of the screens and optics of the Vision Pro 00:05:27.000 --> 00:05:31.960 online, and he demonstrates that the optics in contrast are worse in the Vision Pro than 00:05:31.960 --> 00:05:35.560 the Quest 3. And I can kind of see what he means. 00:05:35.560 --> 00:05:40.120 Despite Apple using these sharpest OLED panels on the market, there is still a softness in 00:05:40.120 --> 00:05:43.880 here. It's amazing for the environments and the movies you play in them, but when it comes 00:05:43.880 --> 00:05:47.240 to computer work, the trade-offs start to bubble up. 00:05:47.240 --> 00:05:54.040 App Windows are really big. If you resize Safari to fit a web page, it becomes very large, and bringing it closer 00:05:54.040 --> 00:06:00.240 to you doesn't make it any more compact. 00:06:00.240 --> 00:06:04.400 This is because if it was smaller, it would be noticeably blurrier. 00:06:04.400 --> 00:06:09.240 This is exacerbated when you're using the virtual display with your Mac, which I've 00:06:09.240 --> 00:06:14.320 been having trouble connecting on this Vision Pro if I'm logged into someone else's user 00:06:14.320 --> 00:06:20.040 account. Once connected, the small text and interface elements of the 5K output will make you think 00:06:20.040 --> 00:06:23.640 that something's wrong with your new laser eye surgery. 00:06:23.640 --> 00:06:27.320 The clarity size issue is really demonstrated by the fact that the Vision Pro team's app, 00:06:27.320 --> 00:06:30.760 for instance, cannot be sized smaller than the MacBook's screen. 00:06:31.120 --> 00:06:34.520 And this is weird too because I'd hope that the Vision Pro's mixed reality concept would 00:06:34.520 --> 00:06:38.080 let me spread my Windows and computing beyond a screen. 00:06:38.080 --> 00:06:41.920 But I'm quickly running out of space, and this narrow field of view isn't helping. 00:06:41.920 --> 00:06:45.200 Apple has not used the Retina branding anywhere on this Vision Pro, and I'm sure they're 00:06:45.200 --> 00:06:50.240 saving it for the future. 00:06:50.240 --> 00:06:55.560 Let me be clear, this is amazing hardware for the technology we have right now, but it's 00:06:55.560 --> 00:07:00.320 quite interesting how far away and how hard getting it right is. 00:07:00.320 --> 00:07:07.640 The headset needs to be lighter for comfort. The screens need atomic pixels for clarity, and the computer needs to be powerful and 00:07:07.640 --> 00:07:16.160 efficient to run all that. The Vision Pro isn't all those, but Apple is known for pushing towards precisely those 00:07:16.160 --> 00:07:19.560 aims. So what about the elephant in the room? 00:07:19.560 --> 00:07:26.880 The reason why I say you should just try this? Well, it's because you'll instantly find out there's nothing to do. 00:07:31.320 --> 00:07:35.680 The Vision Pro is as empty as the environment it puts you in. 00:07:35.680 --> 00:07:43.080 It's not that you can't do anything in it. It's just that, like the iPad, it's another audiovisual consumption device. 00:07:43.080 --> 00:07:47.320 Apple built Vision OS off the iPad, and I don't agree with that decision. 00:07:47.320 --> 00:07:51.360 You can see it throughline to the Vision Pro from features added to iPad OS over the past 00:07:51.360 --> 00:07:58.240 few years, like stage manager window resizing and the mouse cursor button behavior. 00:07:59.160 --> 00:08:02.640 iPad apps do work on the Vision Pro, though not perfectly. 00:08:02.640 --> 00:08:07.360 UI elements get hidden, and the expectation of multi-touch makes the eye tracking feel 00:08:07.360 --> 00:08:13.880 bad. It's not just in iPad apps either, because navigating some websites is a real pain, especially 00:08:13.880 --> 00:08:19.760 if they're designed for desktop. All the weird things that make the iPad annoying are kind of magnified here, right in front 00:08:19.760 --> 00:08:23.960 of your eyes. 00:08:23.960 --> 00:08:28.840 It makes me wonder how different things would be if the Vision Pro was based off macOS. 00:08:28.840 --> 00:08:33.240 Imagine how useful a proper file system and fully established library of professional 00:08:33.240 --> 00:08:37.120 apps that you could spread out into space would be. 00:08:37.120 --> 00:08:41.280 Game developers too could more easily port the already made VR games to the platform 00:08:41.280 --> 00:08:45.520 and maybe distribute it through Steam? 00:08:45.520 --> 00:08:49.760 It's clear after using this that a Mac Vision Pro would be much harder to make. 00:08:49.760 --> 00:08:54.160 The screens would have to be even clearer and the eye tracking more precise. 00:08:54.160 --> 00:09:03.880 But it's a vision I can see clearly, and it's the one I'm waiting for. 00:09:03.880 --> 00:09:07.880 The Vision Pro's biggest weakness is the restrictive nature of the exclusive app store 00:09:07.880 --> 00:09:11.560 model and the lockdown nature of Apple's mobile operating systems. 00:09:11.560 --> 00:09:15.560 It's so impenetrable that it doesn't even have a USB-C port for God's sake. 00:09:15.560 --> 00:09:39.440 That's a $300 dongle for developers by the way. 00:09:39.440 --> 00:09:43.160 Unlike the removal of the headphone jack, it's taken real courage for Apple to develop 00:09:43.160 --> 00:09:49.000 and release this headset. The irony here is that Apple and their locked app store model could ultimately be the ones 00:09:49.000 --> 00:09:55.320 that compromise the Vision Pro. 00:09:55.320 --> 00:10:01.840 This is too niche to be locked down. Everyone needed a phone when the iPhone came out, but no one needs this, so getting developers 00:10:01.840 --> 00:10:06.880 on board to make the next great gamer application is a really tall order. 00:10:06.880 --> 00:10:28.680 This is a huge step forward in the headset space, but man is it ever hard.