Apple Vision Pro Musings

Last Monday Apple announced their entry into mixed reality, or what they call Spatial Computing. Having watched the presentation and followed the subsequent coverage, I have a few insights and observations I’d like to share.

Thoughts on Apple Vision Pro

Let’s get this out of the way: I was blown away by what Apple managed to pack inside this headset and the level of thought they put on the user experience. I’m not going to talk about specs, those were top-notch.

For me, the emphasis they placed on presence was key. The VR experience today is one of seclusion—you put on the headset and you’re off in your own world. Interacting with people around you is an afterthought and it’s hard at best. The decision to be passthrough by default stands out. No fake living rooms—you’re there, present and you can engage with people around effortlessly.

At the same time, people know when you are present and when you’re immersed. Having an outward facing display, which the person who spent the $3,499 is never going to see, might seem odd, but I believe was a really important decision. You see, VR is new and as a society we haven’t yet established any norms. Seeing a person, blindfolded, wearing a headset is rather a dystopian sight. Just as we had skeuomorphism with the first generations of iPhone, we need to have a way to signify presence and this screen is achieving that¹.

Vision Pro and the Meta Quest line

The obvious comparison here is with Meta’s Quest line. I do own a Meta Quest 2² and right after the announcement I went ahead and charged it so I can compare and contrast. Aside from the differences in immersion that I’ve already discussed, there’s a fundamental divergence in worldview between the two platforms.

Meta is focused on providing social experiences to as broad a set of people as possible. This means their primary constraint in terms of what they can include in their devices is the price. I’m not saying they couldn’t produce something like Vision Pro if they wanted to³—it’s just not their priority. That said, you can have a lot of fun with the Quest headsets today.

Sticking with the social aspect for a moment, I believe that this approach—or rather, this primary focus—is flawed. All the metaverse elements of Quest feel forced. It’s as though, simply because we now have the technology and tools, we feel compelled to materialize the science fiction dreams and experiences of the ’90s. Every era has its own set of aspirations, and I believe that if something had value, it would have been built one way or another.

Conversely, Apple is focusing on providing the tools developers need to build whatever makes sense today. I’m sure social experiences are going to emerge from this, although it’s hard to predict exactly what form they will take.

Building in public versus meticulous crafting

I believe there’s something to be said about Apple’s and Meta’s building philosophy. Meta is data driven; they want to ship what they build as quickly as possible, gather feedback, and iterate. They build in public. Contrast that with Apple. Like an artisan, Apple takes its⁴ time to think about the problem, refine it, and iterate internally. Nothing unfinished will see the light of day. And when they feel ready, they pull back the black cloth to reveal their creation.

Nothing’s inherently wrong with either approach. It’s just interesting to think about the differences. I don’t know that I’ve formed an opinion yet on what’s better, but I’d say that it’s much harder to follow Apple’s path. You need to have the talent and the experience to pull this off—and they certainly have both.

The Verdict

We live in exciting times, it would be definitely very interesting to see where the VR space is headed. I believe Apple is going to face many of the same challenges that Meta is currently dealing with, especially in terms of adoption. I do think however that they are uniquely positioned to succeed: they have the silicon, the libraries and frameworks, the developers, and certainly the prestige.

I do intend to get Vision Pro, very well knowing that it’ll be a V1 product with V1 flaws. I’m also excited to try developing for it, just for the fun of it. So, hopefully, I’ll be posting more about my exploration of SwiftUI and RealityKit in the near future.