The Apple Vision Pro.
Where do I even begin?
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What's up, internet. I'm Brian MacDuff, AKA "BMAC," and welcome to another video!
So, yes, the Apple Vision Pro.
So many things
to cover. So I suppose the best place to start would simply be with the design
and what makes this Apple Vision Pro AR VR headset what it is. When you first look
at the Apple Vision Pro, there's no denying that this thing is beautiful. You get
this ever-so-beautiful, curved front glass with an outward-facing display built within
it that allows the user's eyes to be shown, which lets actual real life individuals
around you know when you're using apps or if you're immersed. It does work in the
sense that you can see where the user's eyes are if they're blinking or not, but
it does kind of come across as not quite at that level of quality that Apple promised
and showed to us pre-release. Another aspect of the Apple Vision Pro that's quite
different from other AR VR headsets that you might be used to is the detached battery.
To power the Apple Vision Pro, you do need to use the detached battery pack here,
which is going to be tethered to the Apple Vision Pro headset itself through a proprietary
connection here on the left side. And I found, right here, this whole system to be
somewhat non Apple-esque. I get that you need to reserve the front part for all the
cameras, the processing power, the displays, all of that. But, even still, I thought
that Apple would've figured out a way to actually implement the battery pack perhaps
somehow into the band itself, which could actually act as a counterweight to the
somewhat heaviness of the front of the headset because that in and of itself is another
thing worth talking about. The Apple Vision Pro is definitely an AR VR headset that
I would consider to be on the heavier side. It's not insanely heavy, but definitely
probably heavier than you would expect or want. And, at the end of the day, it does
play a factor into the overall comfortability. Luckily, the Light Shield cushion
padding itself is very soft around your eyes. It's pretty breathable, pretty comfortable,
but I haven't quite found that to be enough to alleviate the pressure that you're
ultimately gonna feel around your eyes, especially on your forehead or your upper
cheekbones. Now speaking of those bands we were just talking about, you do get two
different bands with the Apple Vision Pro. One is going to be the Solo Band like
you see right here, a one-piece band, while the other one is a Dual Loop band, which
is a two strap adjustment-style band. I've tried both and, to be honest, I really
can't tell all that big of a difference. I guess I lean a little bit more towards
the Solo Band just because it looks a little cooler. I feel like it's a little bit
more padded and a little bit more comfortable, and also because it has this knob-style
tightening adjustment here on the side as opposed to this strap-style adjustment.
For further customization, you do get two different sizes of the Light Shield cushions
included. So you could pick whatever one fits your particular head size and shape
best, but then you also have the Light Shield itself.
And this is probably one of the part of the Apple Vision Pro design that I actually
hate the most. I cannot tell you how many times over the last couple of weeks I've
grabbed the Apple Vision Pro by the Light Shield,
which runs the risk of dropping this thing completely out of your hands and allowing
the Vision Pro to fall to the floor where it could shatter. Luckily that hasn't happened
for me, but because of this magnet system we have here with the Light Shield, it's
very surprising to me why Apple didn't implement some kind of locking system because
it's not like you're going to be swapping out the Light Shield left and right as if
it's something you do on a daily basis. But to finish things off as it relates to
design, on top of the headset itself you do have a Top Button as well as a Digital Crown,
both of which are easy enough and simple enough to use, which makes your overall
physical interaction with the Apple Vision Pro
pretty easy. So design-wise, let's just say here, gotta give Apple some credit for
designing what is a very beautiful headset on their first generation attempt. But
once you get past the pretty looks, there is quite a bit of room for improvement
that's going to make the overall design that much better, especially when you're actually
wearing it. But now with Design out of the way, let's get into the nitty gritty of
how this thing works and how you can actually use the Apple Vision Pro in your day-to-day life.
The very first thing I noticed with the Apple Vision Pro was the passthrough video.
When I first tried this bad boy on, I gotta be completely honest here, I for a
second didn't remember if this was actually see-through or not with the front glass.
That's how realistic the video pass through mode is. But once you got used to it,
after a few minutes, a few hours, you kind of start to see it for what it is. It's
super realistic and really good, but you could still tell that it's a video re-representation.
So not completely seamless as Apple would like you to probably think, but still probably -
credit where credit is due - the best on the market right now. On the other side of
things, you do have your virtual reality environments, which are obviously going to
be environments without that pass-through video, which is going to fully immerse you in
different areas throughout the world, such as at Yosemite National Park. The attention
to detail in these Apple Vision Pro environments that are provided to you, nothing
short of stunning and it really feels like you're there. Now I think one other major
hurdle in delivering the overall best immersive spatial computing experience is going to
be bringing you to the closest you can to feeling like you don't have a computer
on your face while you have a computer on your face. And as it relates to the Apple
Vision Pro, you are going to see some black edges at the edges of your peripheral. Do
you get used to it? Yeah, probably. Is it a disadvantage? No, it's very much on par
with what you're getting from other AR VR headsets on the market right now. I was
just hoping that Apple was going to do a little bit more at widening that field of view,
overall immersing yourself in your spatial computing more than what the competition
is offering. But speaking of field of view, we do have to touch on quickly here,
one of the major advantages that the Vision Pro is offering, that being eye-tracking
which, truth be told, eye-tracking on the Vision Pro is nothing short of mind-blowing.
The fact that the Vision Pro knows where you're looking and allows you to actually
interact with your app windows, resizing them, repositioning them all with just your
eyes and using pinch gestures with your hands.
That to me is just awesome. Truly some next level technology that we're seeing here
in AR VR headsets and it completely, for the most part, eliminates any need for handheld
controllers. But, having said that,
it's not perfect. I personally found the eye-tracking on the Vision Pro to not always
be super accurate and super consistent. In fact, sometimes when I'm using the Vision Pro
and I'm looking at a certain button and I'm trying to select it, sometimes it
feels like the eye-tracking is "off by a few inches," if you will, within my environment.
Now, I don't know if this is because I wear contact lenses and from what I've read
online, there are other contact lens wearers experiencing the same kind of issues,
or maybe it's just a slight recalibration issue when I'm taking the Vision Pro off
and putting it back on again, I'm not entirely sure, but it is something I'm experiencing.
It's not all the time, but it's definitely more consistent than I would want it to
be. Even after redoing Eye Setup a few times, it's still something I'm actually witnessing.
That could probably be fixed in future VisionOS updates. But as it stands right now,
somewhat of a bummer to have that a factor at all when the Vision Pro is pretty
much reliant on that for the overall interaction. The other challenge here is undoubtedly
Going to be the learning curve, the pinch gesture on your hand is easy enough, but when
you're using that in combination with the eye tracking to make a selection within
the Vision Pro, you really do have to learn how to use this device and to do it in
a way that actually feels right. You really gotta make your eyes and your pinch gestures "one,"
and there is a slight learning curve
to actually doing that. The one area of the Apple Vision Pro, where I think it suffers
the most is with the typing experience. Now this is with the current Vision OS that
I'm running and things could change tomorrow with new updates to the keyboard and
the way it works. But as it stands right now with my experience over the last couple
of weeks, you have to interact with the keyboard within your Apple Vision Pro in
such a way where you look at each individual letter with your eye tracking and pinch
gesture with your hand to make the selection for each letter within a word. Or you
could pinch that bottom bar of a keyboard and bring it closer to you, at which point,
once it is close enough to you, you can interact with the keyboard pressing one key
at a time, which is a little bit faster and a little bit quicker, but still super
slow compared to what I could actually do on a physical keyboard. To fix this almost
instantaneously would be to implement swipe typing just like we have on the iPhone,
just like we have on the iPad. You just bring that keyboard closer to you, you use
your index finger to swipe type.
I feel like that would completely make the typing experience on the Vision Pro better. But as it stands right now without an external magic keyboard that you connect to
your Vision Pro or without using voice dictation, don't expect the typing experience
to be quick and easy. It's going to take some time and it's going to be a little cumbersome.
But as it relates to the display within the Vision Pro,
my goodness, stunning,
beautiful,
amazing, there really aren't enough adjectives to describe it. I mean, you're getting
a micro-OLED display composed of 23 million pixels delivering an effective resolution
of better than 4K for your eyes.
It speaks for itself. The display within the Apple Vision Pro is no joke. I don't
think app windows could get any sharper than they already are and at their current
resolution I think they look absolutely amazing. But I know what you're probably
thinking: With all this technology, all these cameras, all this coming together, how
long could you actually expect the Apple Vision Pro to last for?
What's your average session gonna look like with using the tethered detached battery
for battery life?" Apple's actually promising up to two hours of general use with
the Vision Pro with its included detached tethered battery and actually a little
bit more than that, probably closer to two and a half hours or even three hours, when
you're just watching video. And that seems pretty much on par with what I'm getting
for my general usage here. But, bigger picture, a
little disappointing. I just don't get why Apple didn't make this bigger to give
it a bigger battery capacity to provide a boost in battery performance and overall
longer battery life. If you're already detaching it,
why not beef this thing up to boast better battery life numbers? Now you do have
the ability of actually using the Apple Vision Pro when it's tethered to its battery
while you're charging the battery with the included USB-C to USB-C cable and the 30
watt power adapter. I suppose you could always use an external power bank to power
your Apple Vision Pro battery. So you'd have a battery charging a battery, powering
the Vision Pro. It's kind of crazy. You even have to think that way. I suppose you
could do that... Bottom line: I suppose if you're always going to be using the Vision Pro
while seated or stationary, you could always just plug it in and this is essentially
gonna be a non-issue for you, but for anyone who's going to be mobile or walking around
with the Vision Pro, you're going to care about battery life and I bet you're gonna
wish it was a little bit better
and you would've taken a slightly bigger tethered battery to get there. But with
all this having been said, this brings us to my overall thoughts on the Apple Vision Pro
and how I could actually use it in my daily life and with my creator workflow.
In the beginning, I was pretty much blown away by the Apple Vision Pro and arguably
I still am. But when I started to use the Vision Pro in my daily workflow for actual
work, that's where things started to change a little. Life without the Vision Pro
almost seemed a little easier. I found it easier to just read books on my Kindle
device. I found it a little more comfortable and arguably a little bit quicker and
easier to just flick on a movie or TV show on my 4K TV set. I found it much more
efficient to edit video on my MacBook Air with its display, even though it's drastically
smaller. I'm just finding it hard to fully embrace this AR VR headset, at least as
it relates to my life and what I would use this for in my daily workflow,
because I'm conflicted. The experience is awesome, the technology is impressive, but
ultimately what it comes down to is the fact that
I don't know what problems the Apple Vision Pro solves for me. Some of you might
need this, some of you might find many problems that this could solve for you. If
you need to be working with 3D rendering or augmented or virtual realities in general,
this is going to be pretty awesome for you. And if you could afford the Apple Vision
Pro and it's nothing to you, get it. You're gonna love your experience with it. But
for the price tag, and I very rarely, if ever like to use price as a huge component
of my reviews here on this channel, but I have to for this one because it is an expensive
product... And for its price tag, I don't think at this time, the AR VR experience you're
getting in the Apple Vision Pro - at the core - is all that different from other AR VR
headsets, some of which are a fraction of the price of what the Apple Vision Pro
has. In and of itself, is the Apple Vision Pro an awesome product? Yes. Do I love
it? Yes. Is it perfect? No. Is there room for improvement? Yes! It's going to take a
while for me to fully embrace this AR VR headset as a product that I would recommend
to anyone because right now it's still a very expensive product, arguably for a very
niche market. But those are my thoughts, don't forget to leave your own thoughts
in the comment section below. I would love to hear what you think. And as always,
if you want the latest prices, promos, deals, or information for the Apple Vision
Pro, you can of course always head to my affiliate link, BMAC.link/AppleVisionPro
Or, of course, there's always going to be clickable links in the video description
box and in the comment section below as well, so check those out! But with that having
been said, now it's time for me to go beat the next level of the Fruit Ninja game.
My goodness. That'll blow your mind. You wanna [slice]
some fruit? Download Fruit Ninja on Apple Vision Pro. It's nuts. I'll see you guys
in my next video!
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