Apple Vision Pro — Further considerations

This serves as an addendum to my previous piece. It takes into account some feedback I received, includes things I forgot to mention previously, and other odds and ends.

The ‘First-generation’ excuse is starting to seriously get on my nerves

In my previous article I wrote about how Apple’s constant mantra when they introduce something — We can’t wait to see what you’ll do with it! — annoys me because it actually feels like a cop-out on Apple’s part. It signals lack of ideas, and lack of a truly thought-out plan for how to take advantage of the product’s potential. It also shows… how can I put it? Lack of proactivity? Show me a wider range of use cases, but most importantly tell me why this product should matter to me — what seems to be the problem you have identified and how this product was created to address it.

But even more annoying is the response from many tech enthusiasts, that this is a first-generation product, that you have to imagine it three iterations later, five iterations later… This is an awful excuse that further normalises this idiotic status quo in tech, where everything is in a constant ‘beta state’. When you’re at your next job interview, try telling the interviewer (clearly not impressed by your résumé) that they shouldn’t look at your qualifications today, that this is just the 1.0 version of you, that they should imagine what you’ll become in the company three years from now, five years from now. Good luck with that.

I understand how iterations work in hardware. As I perfectly understand that “Apple has already the next two iterations of the Vision Pro on their project table internally”, but that’s not really the point. Apple excels at hardware manufacturing, but ever since Jobs passed away, Apple’s excellence in also delivering a vision, a plan, a clear purpose for their products hasn’t been so great. So, I can accept that a product may not be perfect in its first-generation state. But I’m not equally tolerant when it comes to its fundamental idea and purpose. When there’s an excellent idea behind a product, when you can feel the eureka moment during its first presentation, you tend to be more forgiving if it’s a bit rough around the edges hardware-wise, because that kind of refinement is a bit easier to execute than having to find new ideas and additional purposes down the road. And Vision Pro is astounding technology with a meh fundamental concept and plan behind it. As Jon Prosser aptly observed in his video, It is Apple’s responsibility to tell us why and how this matters. On this front, Vision Pro is as unconvincing as an Apple TV and as unconvincing as an iPad as the perfect substitute for a traditional computer.

A missed opportunity

Speaking of purposes for the Vision Pro — and this is something I had in my notes for my previous article but eventually forgot to add — I was surprised Apple didn’t mention one obvious use case and a great opportunity to demonstrate Vision Pro’s potential utility: computing for people with disabilities. Vision Pro could have tremendous assistive capabilities for people with physical impairments. Eye-tracking and minimal hand gestures is the perfect interface/interaction for those with reduced mobility and coordination who usually struggle with traditional devices like computers, tablets, phones. Adding this aspect to the keynote presentation would have had a stronger impact and would have made the Vision Pro feel more human than this dystopian appendage I see every time I browse Apple’s marketing materials.

It’s a device for pros — is it really, though?

Among the responses I’ve received after publishing my previous piece on Vision Pro, a few people reached out to ‘reassure’ me regarding my doubts on how Vision Pro fits in the daily routine. Their feedback can be summarised as follows: Don’t worry about people using this device for hours on end and getting lost in the Matrix — This is a device for pros, aimed at specific uses for limited time periods. The starting price, for one, should be a dead giveaway.

Yeah, no. I’m not convinced. In many promotional videos and images, you don’t see Vision Pro in use by professionals doing critical work. You see it in use by regular people either doing lightweight work-related stuff, or just for personal entertainment. Everything is made to look and feel very casual. The purported use cases seem to put Vision Pro very much in a consumer space… but the price is premium. This is ‘Pro’ like an iPad Pro, if you know what I mean.

From Apple’s general message and the examples in their marketing, users seem to be encouraged to spend extended periods of time inside Vision Pro. How can this be ‘the future of computing’ if you spend just an hour or two each day in it, right?

Incidentally, that’s another missed opportunity: Apple could have presented Vision Pro as a truly pro device, unconditionally embracing the niche segment of AR/VR headsets, and showcase a series of specific, technical, professional use cases where Vision Pro could be employed and become the better alternative to, say, Microsoft’s HoloLens. Clear examples that demonstrate a clear vision — that you’re working on making something specific way better than it currently is; way better than all the solutions provided by your competitors. Instead we have a generic, vague proposition, where the main takeaway seems to be, Vision Pro is yet another environment where you can do the same stuff you’ve been doing on your computer, tablet, phone; but it’s an even cooler environment this time!

“This other AR/VR headset can do basically the same things and costs a fraction of the Vision Pro is not the point” is not the point

Then we have the usual Apple fans, the starry-eyed “Only Apple can do things like this” crowd. Who get annoyed at those who say, I have this other AR/VR headset, and it can do essentially the same things Vision Pro does. Yes, maybe a bit worse, but it also costs 15% the price of Apple’s headset. And they reply something like, That’s not the point! Look at the Mac, look at the iPod, look at the iPhone, look at the iPad, at the Watch… All products that did most of the same stuff other products in their respective categories already did, but Apple’s innovation was in making a better experience.

I can agree to an extent, but in the case of AR and VR, Apple had a unique opportunity to present an innovative fundamental concept rather than a somewhat fresh-looking approach to what has already been tried. The AR/VR space is interesting and peculiar because on the one hand there’s a decades-long literature about it, with so many concepts, ideas, prototypes to study and understand what worked and what didn’t work. On the other hand, if we look at other headsets currently on the market and the actual use cases that have had some success among their users, what we see are comparatively limited scopes and applications. My educated guess is that, as Quinn Nelson pointed out in his video essay, AR/VR devices require intentionality on the user’s part. They really aren’t ‘casual’ devices like tablets, smartphones, smart home appliances, etc. You can’t use them to quickly check on stuff. You can’t use them to compose an urgent email response. And even in the case of a FaceTime call, especially if it’s not planned and it’s just a spur-of-the-moment thing, you don’t scramble to take your headset out, calibrate and wear it just for that call. You grab your phone. Or you’re already in front of your laptop. (This is also why I don’t buy the argument that with Vision Pro you can definitely get rid of all your external displays.)

And all this could be a valid starting point to assess how to implement a more refined core idea. Apple’s message could have been, We have studied the idea of how to move inside a mixed-reality space for years, and we think that what has been tried so far has failed for these and those reasons. We think we can offer a much better, more useful perspective on the matter.

What I saw at the WWDC23 keynote was the above but only from a mere technological, hardware design angle. And once again with this Apple, the result is a truly groundbreaking engineering feat, but not a truly groundbreaking concept. Maybe I’m wrong, and maybe everyone will soon want to lose themselves and literally be surrounded by the same operating system windows and apps they’ve been losing themselves so far on their computers, tablets, and phones, and ‘spatial computing’ will be a thing. I don’t know. For me, that is the least appealing aspect of an AR experience. I want to be immersed in fun activities, not in work. We are all busy and immersed in work today already, even without AR/VR headsets. Do we really want more of that?