Apple Vision Pro, One Month Later: It's in My Life, Sometimes
What it gets right, what I use it for and what I want next.
- Nearly 20 years writing about tech, and over a decade reviewing wearable tech, VR, and AR products and apps
Apple's Vision Pro has become more normalized after a month of use.
Hey Siri, open Apple Music. Play the Godzilla Minus One album. Music on, I open my MacBook and connect to the Vision Pro and float into work as the movie I was watching flips into the background.
I used to think of the Apple Vision Pro as a device of the future; now, it's just a thing that's part of my life. Demystified after using it for a month, a new device normalized in my home.
After years of experience with AR and VR, I can see where an advanced device like the Vision Pro can evolve, what it can be. But those aren't all there yet when I'm using the Vison Pro right now as an everyday device. I'm using it in ways that feel very clear, delineated and limited. Even more interestingly, its uses don't really overlap much with the Meta Quest 3.
For all my dreams of a mixed reality future where magic 3D things dance around in my home and create impossible experiences, the Vision Pro is more about being a fantastic wearable display right now, a way to relive movies, and my own photo library and a work-oriented, Apple-connected iOS computer. That's what I thought when I reviewed it, and it remains true now. The Vision Pro is a tool, not necessarily always a magic machine. Still, I use it nearly every day, and there are still moments where the device amazes me with its bleeding-edge features. But I use the Quest 3 nearly every day too…for things I love just as much but can't be done with Apple's headset.
The normal feel of the headset and its apps and user interface -- at times, nearly boring -- could be by design. I think Apple's also trying at times to normalize the experience of a mixed reality face-worn headset, not make it futuristic. Then again, I've also been living in headsets for a long, long time, and I'm still trying to figure out some of the Vision Pro's mysteries.
Movies: Yes, all the time, sometimes
I'm still impressed with how the Vision Pro plays movies. I'm lucky to live with one and enjoy it for that purpose, but of course, the average person wouldn't pay $3,500 just for that privilege. It has, however, become my home movie theater of choice. Mostly.
Catching up on all the Oscar-nominated films in the Vision Pro, I loved the freedom and the fantastic sound quality. Apple TV purchases, like Poor Things and The Zone of Interest, are particularly stunning. Past Lives on Paramount Plus didn't shine as much, because Paramount's non-optimized app doesn't have its own cinema mode, and the video quality is a bit more grainy-looking with the black levels not black enough (maybe that's something to do with the iPad version of the app, I don't know). Maestro looked great on Netflix, but Netflix had to run in Safari, which was fine but a little annoying to launch.
I do find myself watching movies in installments in the headset, maybe an hour at a time. It's not as easy to casually lie down and watch with Vision Pro on. An iPad is a very convenient thing, even if the screens are smaller, and I slip in bits of films that way too. And of course, if I'm watching with my family, I use a TV.
Although I prefer the Vision Pro above all, my eyes get tired sometimes, and I occasionally see the effects of glare or reflection from the display on the lenses. This happens with my own glasses every day, but it's still more than I'd prefer for perfectly crisp, dark movie theater moments in the headset.
Also, while I'd love to take this movie-watching marvel everywhere, the headset is still too large-feeling, with its battery pack, to take on a commute or even on a plane flight. I skipped taking it on a trip to Disney because it would've eaten more than half my backpack. I took an iPad instead, which was great on the plane. No regrets. Maybe when the Vision Pro gets smaller, like a folding pair of goggles (see HTC's Vive XR Elite). But not yet.
This is still how I work at home: Mac monitor, with a few side windows.
Work: Ideally, yes, it's my everyday magic monitor at home
I love putting on the Vision Pro and casting my MacBook display on a big screen. I'm writing this whole story that way, multitasking and opening up other app windows for fun.
The Vision Pro paired with a MacBook Air is my work setup nearly 100% of the time now, seated at my desk with the battery pack connected to a power outlet. I work tethered, essentially. I like the keyboard/trackpad control on the MacBook, and having my office apps function properly; Okta FastPass isn't available on Vision Pro right now, which my workplace uses, so I run things through the MacBook Air.
I prefer this setup to the Quest 3 because more services are already hooked in. Siri is here, notifications go directly to my iOS apps, I can play Apple Music, and it's easy to respond to messages. Also, the display looks better. It's wild to open up multiple apps, bring them close to me and scroll through them with my fingers, like floating iPad displays. I'm doing that now with my social media flow as I work on my Mac. I just need more tiny windows like this and better multitasking, and maybe it'll feel like iPads everywhere.
I miss the flow of all these screens when the headset's off, for sure.
I do leave the headset behind, sometimes: I'm extremely fine to work on my MacBook and my iPhone with a pair of AirPods. The Vision Pro hasn't yet added enough to the equation here. It's a great way to extend displays into what seems like the real room I'm in, but it's not transforming the idea of work yet. There are few magical 3D work apps or transformative interfaces for the most part. I'm keyboarding and trackpad-swiping through 2D windows.
The Vision Pro's fit has grown on me, but I still wish it didn't feel so snug.
Where are all the magical new apps?
Indeed, where are they? This is what I keep waiting for, but I know I have to be patient: it's been only a month. A new generation of phone apps didn't define the iPhone until years into its existence. A handful of interesting games and apps are here already: Blackbox, a 3D puzzle app, is whimsical and immersive. A game where I control fish through bubbles that float in my office, called Tiny-Fins, is adorable. Wisp World, a mysterious AI-powered conversational creature game that has a floating glowing ball that hovers around a pollen-making plant, is whimsical. Meditation using Apple's Mindfulness app or Tripp Vision is mesmerizing and calming. I don't do these a ton, though. The Vision Pro's "there's an app for that" moment is still to come, and I tend to go back to the Quest 3, which has a bigger library of magical immersive experiences I love to play with.
The Vision Pro can open up 3D apps while I'm also using 2D ones (called "volumes") so why am I not doing this more? Maybe because I find these apps have a hard way of working in my environment. If I'm at a desk, the 3D apps feel like they're overlapping oddly. I don't stand up with Vision Pro as I do with Quest 3 because its battery pack feels awkward, and it makes me want to sit down. Or there's not a purpose for them. I'd love a Vision Pro Maps app that could show me locations in detail in 3D or GarageBand with real instruments or ways to instantly pop objects I'm browsing into 3D everywhere. But those everyday uses are hiding now or don't exist.
But also, these are very early days. I still don't find these new apps as compelling as I'd like them to be, and I wonder, over time, if discovering and using them along with the rest of my workflow will feel more natural.
And when will this start really blending my realities? I expect an AR future where my floors, furniture, my whole body, everything becomes blended with the virtual. Apple's headset is continually scanning an incredible amount of things, including hands and arms, the dimensions of my room, and my own eyes. And yet, it doesn't invoke a lot of mixed reality tricks except for very subtle ones. Apps mostly feel like they're floating in space, not truly integrating with it, although the Vision Pro is sensing the whole room and my hands continuously and could clearly be doing even more.
The best way to use Vision Pro is still sitting down.
Fatigue? After a couple of hours, yes
I can last well over an hour and a half while wearing the Vision Pro, sometimes even more. I lose track of time because I'm usually working and multitasking. I do check my watch, so I know the time but I forget I still have the headset on. And that's when I know I need a good break for my eyes.
It's easier to know I've been in the Quest 3 because it simply doesn't blend with my workflow so seamlessly. That only makes me more aware that I'm dipping in to play games or do fitness.
The head strap I use with the Vision Pro most of the time is the Dual Loop. Properly tightened under the back of my head, it feels perfectly secure and comfy enough. It's like my CPAP strap when I sleep at night, sort of. I don't feel like the headset gets heavy, but I do feel pressure against my cheeks. And my eyes sometimes feel dry. I haven't experienced crying in the headset much (sorry, it takes a lot to move me), but it's annoying to find my eyes get itchy and unable to easily rub them. I like the easier slip-on feel of the other strap, but neither one is perfect. Maybe that's why there are two.
My Persona looks better now with VisionOS 1.1, but it's still far from perfect.
Better, but still buggy
Even using VisionOS 1.1, which has improved how my virtual Persona avatar looks (my digital me for FaceTime and other chats in-headset) and has made connections to the Mac Virtual Display more stable, I still find quirks everywhere. Eye tracking is still imperfect, often causing me to find it hard to select targets on the edges of my vision. Sometimes, I calibrate the eye tracking again after putting the headset back on, but will I need to do this all the time? It's not good enough yet to handle precision controls like my iPhone, iPad or MacBook. Maybe in time, but I need a MacBook trackpad or Magic Trackpad for finesse controls for work.
Sometimes my MacBook connection stops working or -- like today -- my cursor is oddly slow to respond. Sometimes an app quits. Sometimes I find I can't easily select things in Control Center, which hovers overhead like a magic fairy dot. Most of the time it's great, though, and overall it's far more reliable than Meta's Quest OS, but it needs work to be perfect like I need it to be.
The iPhone and iPad Pro models have depth-sensing lidar, too: why not have these devices share AR experiences with Vision Pro?
When will this start working with my iPhone, Watch and iPad?
One thing I really want to see sooner than later is cross-device interaction with iPhones and the Apple Watch. The MacBook is fine and useful, especially for apps that maybe can't even run in iOS or the Vision Pro, but the device I have next to me all the time is my phone. And my watch. There's already a clever iPhone app called Typos that lets you type on the iPhone and have it easily generate text in Vision Pro. Apple already does this with the Apple TV, and yet it's not on the Vision Pro yet. That would help a ton with text input, and that's just the beginning of what should be a whole universe of interactions. The iPhone is a controller with haptics. Why can't it be that for the Vision Pro, too?
The same goes even moreso for the Apple Watch. For fitness, for gestures and controls, for using the Watch screen as a touchpad for the Vision Pro. I hope this gets introduced this year, because I think it'll help make the headset feel more seamless.
The iPhone should also have its own app to help launch and manage the Vision Pro experiences for guests who try it out, but I already discussed that a few weeks ago.
The iPad would be a great partner for Vision Pro, too. The Magic Keyboard and Trackpad case for the iPad Pro are a lot smaller than a MacBook, and could let me easily lap-control things using another non-MacBook alternative.
But also, I think about collaboration with others. FaceTime collaboration with others who have Vision Pro feels limited to pop-up windows and apps that don't work consistently. With others using iOS or Macs, there are even more seams. I'm hoping that pop-up AR experiences will work with iPhones, iPads and Vision Pro much like a demo I tried of an AR sports game at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference back in 2019.
I don't see EyeSight, and mostly neither does anyone else.
EyeSight: I barely think about it
One final note: the external EyeSight display that shows my eyes, which seemed so weird and magical, it's almost an afterthought for me. Maybe it's because I usually use the Vision Pro alone. Maybe it's also because the EyeSight display is usually so dim that people around me seem to not see it easily in normal light. My wife says she barely notices it. I forget it's there, and I take the headset off when I need to speak to someone anyway. In a sense, it's not part of my everyday life. I do like that other people can bleed through the Vision Pro's immersive experiences so I can see their faces, if nothing else, for my own awareness and safety. But I don't expect to have conversations with people in the real world while I'm wearing the Vision Pro. At least no more so than I would with the Quest 3 or any other VR headset.
The Vision Pro is impressive, but it also clearly still has limits. How much will that change over the next few months or year? There's no clear indication. Apple's WWDC should tell us more, but until June (or whenever WWDC is), we won't know a lot more about the Vision Pro's future potential. I can tell you now that it's lovely, way too expensive and something I use only sometimes. But yeah, I do have a movie viewing tonight in-headset, which I'm looking forward to.