While I have put in my usual best effort to remain cloistered,
the Apple Vision Pro has been absolutely unavoidable
in the news if you're even remotely connected to tech. So I already know all kinds of stuff about this thing,
like someone apparently got Steam Link working on it
so you can play your games with a gigantic screen.
The good news is everything I've seen has made me more excited about this device.
If you were hoping for the PC guy just hates on the thing,
you'll probably have to wait for the full review over on LTT. For now, I just want to see these displays.
And good Lord, have they ever done a good job
of making this thing feel like a few thousand dollars?
Wow!
Look, we develop a lot of merch around here, okay? And this is a really cool material.
Ifixit has done a teardown already, which I'm sorry, I couldn't resist.
So I already know that removing the strap,
wow, really is that easy, which is important for, I don't know,
cleaning the device and also for swapping out to one of the other straps.
That came off a bit more easily than I was expecting. To their credit, it's really easy to get a line,
really fast to put back in place. I do like the magnetic mount, man.
The materials, they feel really good. It's got almost like a gel filled kind of feel
for the face cushion. This is my first time putting on a spatial computer.
Oh, one sec. Okay, I really wanted that to go a lot more gracefully.
Ooh, it pumps against the bridge of the nose
a little bit there, which could be a concern for certain experience, but if you're using it
to expand your Mac with a virtual desktop,
then that's less likely to be an issue. And I've gotta say, even though I have seen some users
talking about wearing it without the light seal,
just to get it in closer to their face and closer to their eyes to help with the weight distribution
and the field of view, I don't really feel at least initially
like that's necessary. Maybe part of it is that a lot of the press
and a lot of the users who are covering this are not VR enthusiasts necessarily,
but even though it's heavy, what they've done a really good job of is keeping the weight in quite close to the face,
which is something I talked about in my big screen beyond review. Okay, what else we got in terms of accessories?
Does it include a charger? I love that some reviewers complained about messing up their hair.
Not an issue for me, baby. Ah, your size, but more cushiony.
Oh, that's something I wanna try. I'll have to see how it affects FOV before I make a decision, but that is more comfortable.
Ah, the other band. So my understanding is this one's a touch heavier,
but is a little bit easier to kind of get it on there. Let's try the dual loop band real quick.
Not gonna lie, guys. There's no denying that this costs a lot of money,
but that doesn't necessarily mean that it is overpriced.
We've known Apple has been working on a mixed reality headset for many years.
Somebody's gotta pay for all that research and development. And like them or not, this has got a MacBook in it.
It's got an M2 processor with an eight core CPU and 10 core GPU along with their new R1 spatial processor,
which is supposed to handle near zero latency pass through. I think they're claiming about 12 milliseconds.
So that's less than one frame per second at 60 Hertz.
So it's about one frame at 90 Hertz, I think. Incredible.
That doesn't necessarily mean it's worth spending the money on.
See, there's three different answers potentially for this thing.
Is it expensive? Yes. Is it overpriced? No.
Is it worth it? That remains to be seen. I definitely like the face hug fit of the default band.
If I can see how if you were wearing it for a very extended period of time,
this could be good-ish. Personally, I prefer the angle
to go a little bit more to the back though, like a little bit more wrapping around the back of the head.
I think this is the first time in as long as I can remember,
but I've actually done a proper unboxing
and really looked at everything that's in the box because I care.
See, people think I'm some kind of Apple hater, but guys, you can like a product without necessarily agreeing
with everything that a company does. I love my AirPods Pros.
Look, there it is. A charging brick. So they can do it.
I mean, all the laptops come with charging bricks. So I guess the precedent is there for it.
Unboxing the battery. The first thought that I have is thank goodness
this isn't also strapped to your face. This side uses that hidden lightning connector.
We will never be free of it. Some removal tool, we'll pop that out. And then you've got a USB-C input that handles charging
for the compute and displays that are all in here. Apple boasts that these displays
have a total of 23 million pixels, allowing you to use this not only as a virtual private theater,
but even to expand your desktop and use it for productivity.
That is the use case I'm most interested in. We were just working on a review of a foldable laptop
and I loved the idea of being able to quickly do something
or unfold my screen, put it on its little kickstand
and really get to work. Well, that's basically this. I'm gonna switch over to the other band.
Let's fire this thing up. There is no way that at the price this thing shouldn't come with a carrying case
that includes lens protectors. That is an essential accessory,
especially when you consider that Apple obviously knows that because they do include a protector for the front.
Like they don't mind if you damage it in a way that affects the user experience,
but heaven forbid you damage it in a way that affects how good it looks to other people
while you're wearing it. Just Apple priorities, man. Everything about this comp anyway.
Doesn't matter. The point is, let's fire it up. Please tell me it makes the Mac boot up sound.
Please tell me it makes the Mac boot up sound. It does nothing if you don't plug in the battery.
One moment, please. Hey, little Apple logo. Man, the iFixit teardown of this thing is something else.
All the different layers that they had to put into this front glass to achieve that look.
Not gonna lie, would have preferred the old boom.
There's a massive array of infrared LEDs and IR cameras inside to help with eye tracking.
So that's gonna be one of the big pros and cons of this device.
Pro, you don't need controllers. Con, you don't have controllers.
At least for the time being. All right, press and hold to align.
Whoa, it automatically adjusts the IPD for you.
This pass through is f***ing incredible.
I really wanna adjust this angle right here.
And I cannot. It doesn't, it's sitting really hard against here.
There it is. Boom. Here we go, screen cap.
You guys get to see what I'm seeing now? Saw quite a few complaints about the field of view.
You know what? Obviously it's not as good as the top headsets on the market,
but to their credit, Apple doesn't have nearly as much
internal pancake lens glare as I saw on the big screen beyond.
And if that's the price they had to pay, I'm okay with it.
Oh man, we've got cargo pants coming. LTTstore.com, boom.
Apple Vision Pro Pocket, got him. Oh wait, wait, hold on, hold on, hold on, please.
Oh my God, this pocket's perfect for it.
We're ahead of the curve, baby.
Coming soon. Hey, here we go. Let's get creepy.
Oh my God, I'm you.
Stop, stop. Ha ha ha ha.
This is great. Hi, I'm Jake Povant.
I have a deep voice. Subscribe to short too.
I can't even bake it. Refine your hands though, okay? Sure.
Capture complete. Oh boy, I have a feeling.
Got a feeling that's not gonna look too good. So you're gonna notice, oh, that is terrible.
Do I look like that? I mean, they really captured my totally crooked eyes.
So that's an accomplishment.
Check this out, Bill. Well, I'll see you in the FaceTime. Oh yeah, okay, okay, okay, okay, FaceTime.
That is really something. You know, it does look like KQ.
Oh, well that's a disappointment.
Oh yeah, oh, I didn't know that you can see my hands. So if I was like this, then yeah,
thanks for your compliments. Knowing Apple, I'm surprised they don't censor it.
You know how they like censor stuff if you dictate to Siri and it has swear words in it?
Hello, call controls at some point?
Looking at the dot does not bring up the controls.
I have to look at the call. Can I actually resize it myself?
Doesn't really look like it.
Why? This reminds me of how when you're viewing a picture
in Apple's Photos app, you can only zoom in so far
and then it'll just be like, no. Why? Who cares?
Just let me make it bigger. I want a giant movie theater-sized Jake Belivance.
Here we go, here we go. This, I'm pretty excited.
Wow, does that ever look good? Holy crap balls.
Oh, micro OLED, baby. Got those deep blacks.
That resolution though.
Wow. Now we saw some cool stuff at CES this year
around future micro OLED tech in terms of brightness and pixel density
that is gonna make this even better. But today, right now, that is pretty usable.
You can only have one window? Why? Oh, you know what?
It's probably a link speed issue. Cause that's pretty high res.
So this one I get, cause you're wirelessly linked.
I can see why they don't want you putting up like four different monitors.
It would just choke the connection out. But there are some arbitrary limitations.
I like the fact that Bluetooth keyboards work. Bluetooth magic trackpad works,
but Bluetooth mice apparently don't work, at least officially.
Okay, I wanna watch it. Can I watch an HDR video?
Now, just a gosh darn second here. I want my audio to come through this.
It's not showing up. Is there any way to interact with this with gestures?
Doesn't really look like it. Seems like I just have to use the trackpad, which if all you really want is a gigantic virtual display,
I mean, mission accomplished, I guess, right? Okay, let's say I wanted to browse my photos now though.
So I could move this, I don't know, over here.
So now, can I just,
oh yeah, there it is. And it acts like a little iPad accessibility dot mouse thing.
Oh, okay, spatial video. Ooh, spatial video of a car.
Ooh.
Ah. It makes sense that something so far away
would have less depth to it.
In this case, I don't think the spatialness of it is really adding a lot, but this Vista.
Ooh, this picture though, this panoramic picture, that is cool.
That's less like, I remember taking this picture. That's more like, I remember when I was there.
Very cool. I would like to watch an HDR video.
Oh wait, this is not available in Canada yet? It's not available anywhere, so you can see it.
Ah, figures. Give me that HDR.
Can I use this?
Oh no, I unpaired it. Hold on, let's see if I can...
Hello? No? I don't know, I thought maybe if I tap it, NFC.
I'm kidding, relax.
It's really a shame that the MacBook display doesn't stay lit.
Oh, I want to change my environment. I want to be in VR so I can really see
the deep blacks of this OLED. Can you just put it in just VR mode?
What? If I just block the cameras.
Then it's just the inside of my hand. Oh yeah, there we go.
Okay, I'm 100% on the moon now. Good gravy is this display ever good.
Still work to do for text if you're used to, you know, a retina display or something like that.
Not the best I've seen for an automatic background removal. But it's still solid.
Here we go, HDR.
Why is it defaulting to 720? Fine, 720 HDR there.
That we end up making almost entirely by accident. Meet the Alexa 35 on Ari's website.
They break that most big production for sure.
That's pretty good. The eye tracking is pretty amazing.
Something to note, guys, is the Vision Pro uses foveated rendering,
meaning it renders at a higher resolution where you are looking.
So in our screen capture, if you're looking where I'm not looking,
it might be a little blurrier. Your mileage may vary.
There's just a couple more first impression things. The speakers did not wow me.
I would use my AirPods Pros. And in the time that I've been sitting here using it,
we managed to use up about a quarter of the battery.
That's not bad. If all I want to do is just experience it for a little bit,
but it's not going to be great if you're trying to get through a workday with it. Ooh, it's warm.
Wait, did you see my eyes in the past, you think? It's pretty honest.
Oh, okay. Apparently there's a lot of reflections. Hello, Linus.
I'm here in the void. Oh, wow.
I can see your eyes. It's weirdly 3D. Okay. It's like looking at a 3DS screen.
Cool. You know what else you can do a little bit? Subscribe to ShortCircuit.
And make sure you're subscribed to LTT for the full review. I'll be spending realistically a while on this.
Is it going to be worth switching to a MacBook? Guess I'm going to find out.