Apple Vision Pro Review 2024: Is It Worth the $3,499 Price Tag?
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This morning I met a dinosaur*, got up close and personal with a hot Alfa Romeo F1 race car, and sat among the clouds at Haleakalā. This isn’t a normal Thursday for me, but it could be with the help of the Apple Vision Pro. I had a rare opportunity to demo Apple’s new spatial computer before it’s available to pre-order on January 19 and I was blown away by what I witnessed. I’ve tested my share of VR headsets and visual wearables created by big tech companies, but nothing comes close to the elegance and innovation that the Apple Vision Pro will soon bring to your living room, office, or wherever you are.
*The dinosaur snapped at me when I tried to pet it, but it later defended me from another dinosaur. We’re on good terms now.
What exactly is the Apple Vision Pro?
The Apple Vision Pro is a spatial computer that allows you to blend your favorite digital content into your IRL physical space. After you set up your headset (which is custom-fit to your head and eye prescription), you use your eyes, hands, and voice to navigate through the elements of your virtual world. It transforms you into an artist and architect, allowing you to customize your existing field of vision into a canvas of infinite possibilities. Go ahead and place your emails on the ceiling while you scroll through photos of your dog for 15 minutes or replace the Safari window featuring a recipe you’re cooking with a movie while your pot comes to a boil. The Apple Vision Pro doesn’t need to remove you from the real world—it wants to integrate your digital life into the real world, but it can send you to far-away places if you’re dreaming of an escape, too.
It can transport you across the world, back in time, or ~inward~.
When you look at photos and videos on the Apple Vision Pro, you enter—in whatever room you happen to be in at that moment—into what is essentially a projection of the 2D gallery mode that you’re used to viewing on your phone, but that’s only the beginning. Panorama photos envelop you, wrapping around your body in incredible resolution. Seriously, it brings you back to the place where you took the photo. However, I believe the most breathtaking feat of this technology is the 3D camera.
Product demos are objectively very fun and interesting, but they rarely make you feel much more than a glimmer of superficial excitement that often comes with trying something new. Viewing spatial photos and videos on the Apple Vision Pro was a borderline emotional experience for me. When I opened a spatial photo of a family celebrating a birthday outside in their backyard, I audibly gasped at the depth and quality of the photo. The piñata in the foreground was as crisp as the gate leading out the backyard, probably a quarter of a mile behind them. Watching a spatial video was reality-altering. It dropped me inside a memory that I didn’t technically have, but I felt like I did. I sat in a family’s kitchen while the parents prepared something for their children and felt as if I could reach out and steal a snack from one of their plates or ask mom a question.
As someone who works on social media for a living, I understand that although we may be *too* connected to our phones at times and take *too* many photos or videos when we should be living in the moment, we also live in an age that affords us the privilege of capturing frames of life in high definition compared to the sepia family photos from our grandparents. We are connected to much of our digital content for its sentimental value. When I see people share videos of a parent before they were impacted by Alzheimer's or of a friend that was taken away too soon, I know that it’s an attempt to keep their presence alive in brilliant color. They want to hear their voice or see their mannerisms on demand. Apple’s 3D camera is the closest thing I’ve witnessed to freezing a moment in time.
We’re urged to escape technology for the sake of mindfulness and mental health, and ironically, Apple Vision Pro helps you do just that. When you open the Mindfulness app and begin a guided meditation, it dims your surroundings into pitch black to help you go inward while flower petals dance around your head. Getting into a routine of introspection can become a part of your spatial technology workflow.
Yeah, watching TV and movies on this thing is pretty wild.
When you use Apple Vision Pro, you can partially or fully immerse yourself in an “Environment” at any time. The Environment I tested was a view of the volcano Haleakalā, above the clouds in Maui. Using the Digital Crown, similar to the crown on the Apple Watch, you can turn up the opacity all the way, so your actual environment completely disappears, or you can turn it down, so it feels more like a light wallpaper around you. You can also watch movies or TV shows in an Environment—meaning that the movie window is floating among clouds with you. Apps like Disney+ will also provide themed Environments, like the Avengers Tower or Tatooine (and attention superfans: they’re full of Easter eggs!). I was able to watch a few minutes of the masterpiece that is the Super Mario Bros. Movie in an Environment and wished that I could bring it with me on every plane ride I ever go on. If you and a friend both have Apple Vision Pros or your friend has another compatible Apple device, you can both watch the same movie in your respective custom Environments together.
It’s conversation-friendly.
If you have the latest AirPods, you know that they have the Conversation Awareness feature, where the volume of your music turns down if you talk to someone nearby. EyeSight is a similar feature on the Apple Vision Pro and is meant to ensure that you’re never alienated from the people around you and lets them know if you’re focusing on something. For example, if you open an app or enter an Environment, the front of your glass will shimmer in color. But if you’re having a conversation, the glass will become transparent so the other person can see your eyes.
I really can’t shut up about this thing: the Apple Vision Pro is a glimpse into the future.
This is the part where I lose my chill a little bit. I could write many more sentences to help you understand what it’s like to try this technology, but, like, hello? Have you ever selected an app from a floating menu with your eyeballs? You literally just stare at an app’s icon, pinch your fingers together, and it opens. It’s sorcery! I even opened Cosmopolitan’s homepage in Safari by typing on a keyboard suspended in thin air. (It looked great, natch.) With apps like Encounter Dinosaurs and Apple Immersive Video, fantasy is within grasp. When I was a kid, I would imagine that I could look at something and take a picture of it by blinking. Now, you pretty much can by using the Apple Vision Pro’s 3D camera.
One thing to chew on: according to Apple, “like every Apple product, Apple Vision Pro was designed with accessibility in mind. The flexible input system lets you use your eyes, hands, and voice individually or in any combination with features like Dwell, Voice, and Pointer Control.” We will have to listen to feedback from users who rely on the accessibility features to understand how successful Apple's execution really is.
From set-up to shut-down, I was genuinely amazed by the capabilities of this product in its first public iteration. At a base price of $3,499, the Apple Vision Pro is a splurge+ and will likely belong mostly to folks who have a really, really nice salary. If you can’t justify buying one against your current budget, I strongly urge you at least set up an appointment at an Apple store to try one on when they hit stores. You will leave looking at the space around you in an entirely different way.
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