My Apple Vision (Pro)

I've been asked by a few people what I think about the upcoming Apple Vision or talking about it in Apple's marketing words: "The first steps into spatial computing".

I imagine a world where your content (apps, photos, music) have a place around you, adding digital assets to your personal surroundings without bothering anyone else. Apps can take all the room around you without anyone noticing, photos can be enjoyed as personal memories and movies watched as intended. Fascinating!

Before we dive in, if you haven't seen Apple's keynote yet about it, check out what The Verge posted to get you up to speed:

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In case you are interested in how Apple presented it in marketing 'speak', check out their video:

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The verge made a phenomenal review that you should really watch to understand the 'first iteration' of AVP (Apple Vision Pro):

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And one freeze frame I caught from Joanna Sterns' review:

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The use case is of course very limited, but being able to put a timer on top of a cooking pot really stirred the pot on the socials when it was first shown!

1. The battery life is a problem, but this limitation is quickly solved with enough power bricks and spare batteries until the next generation(s) of glasses demand less and less. As confirmed by Apple, 2D 'movies' can be watched for about 2,5 hours, anything else will keep the battery going for about 2 hours. it seems this is a floor, not a ceiling, average use brings it up to 3 hours
2. Motion sickness will be an issue, even though Apple said it will not. I haven't seen any mention here of motion sickness except for the verge mentioning it when you transition too much and want to things too quickly, especially when moving around..
3. First impressions are it's not as marketing tells us it is. There is some 'blackness' in the corners. reviews confirm that the FOV is only about 90 degrees, you're looking through binoculars
4. There is no killer app yet, but we'll get there with the attention it got at WWDC. The killer app is the UX itself. Everything combined makes it frictionless, easy to use and understandable. Just as the iPhone did for Smartphones, Vision is doing for 'spatial computing' (read: AR/VR) - I still agree on my opinion here, but I'd like to see what our 'average persons' will tell us after they experience it.
5. Gestures are kept simple and easy. See below, and you can add custom ones yourself

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The vision pro enables more opportunities and possibilities to work 'on the go', regardless of where you are. A bit of travel like I do on a train for 4-5 hours or even on a plane would be a great place to use the AVP, even though it is pretty large to carry around.

Right now, I am typing this on a way too heavy 16" intel macbook Pro M2 max macbook pro 14", which I fell in love with, but having to converse with chatGPT, managing messages and JIRA together is still a lot of window management. That will be gone, you'll have a lot of screen estate space with spatial computing. And those pesky colleagues that keep on watching your screen? They're gone.

And let's make a positive example out of that, having to do work with confidential information is no longer a problem since that only exists in your headset (and activating or putting it on needs your 'pupil ID' to be recognised)

The vision headset would give me much more serenity and focus to work. I could easily lay out ideas in front of me, gather information using different apps and browse not in tabs but in a virtual world more fluidly than the awkward interactions a trackpad and keyboard give me, especially as the app ecosystem develops over time.

If I were travelling by S-bahn or tram in Berlin, I would hesitate to put it on. Yes, we also got used to headphones and camera(phones) there, but privacy is big in Germany. Who knows what people secretly do within their spatial computing context with what they see around them? Even though I can imagine 'blurring out' people's faces to get more serenity in the S-bahn is kinda cool a gimmick.

The vision Pro could also be an extension of my personal being – a way to express myself by showing what I'm watching or listening to on the front screen, not that different from the clothes I wear or the gadgets I use (airpod or similar like these headphones below)

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Being back home, I'd be happy to ignore the big screen in the living room to watch a show I only like or have a little gaming session after work, even using Xbox or GeForce now for some 'real' games that run in the cloud. I could turn a small desk or kitchen table into a productive environment. I'm also curious in how it can enable garden planning, a DIY project or assist me in repairing things that don't take place in an office setting.

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A simple interaction such as the one above is a great example of a 'layer' of interactivity living around you. I still love F1 (see below, that concept didn't take long to become reality!) and football, I would see statistics, live timing and more than one screen when watching sports. We could even still watch it both on the same screen (passthrough is there) but have added statistics that I personally find more interesting.

https://youtube.com/shorts/-vIP_1WFQu4

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Where other headsets have found a fitness niche, Apple is not at that point yet. I wouldn't want to wear any more gadgets I already do during training, and they need to be solid when throwing around weights or going all out in a rowing session. Vision Pro is fragile. Vision fitness will be much better for this – I can imagine a rayban meta form factor with Apple Tech would be great to deal with this.

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Yeah so the rayben meta and a little bit of AVP I can imagine to have a really nice AR baby together.

What if apple vision would be able to enable the following for everyone of us?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZvI9wgCQsU

What would a regular 'day-to-day' look like for me when I would include vision?

Time	Activity	Vision Pro Use Case
🕖	Getting up, making breakfast. This is quiet time.	If I want to stretch it and make a proper breakfast, this could still be fun - adding a few timers, watching the news, learning some new cooking recipes.
🕗	The dog needs to walk. I drink my coffee, catch up with the news, and prepare for the day.	I would catch up on news and prepare for the day if I were alone that day.
🕘	Daytime, mostly meetings.	More space around my meeting would be fun if I'm working from home (which I usually are) - the digital avatar is currently messy, but that will clear up.
🕛	Some blocked time to work.	Being able to focus and forget the world around me would be great. I love to focus (especially in the office) and get some stuff done. Mostly this is thinking these days, and it could do wonders for that. It could also reduce the friction we have for meeting people online, issues with screen sharing etc. The limited battery time would also limit my productive time, but I currently see that as a benefit, at some point I would need to grab a coffee, go to the bathroom or meet with colleagues.
🕔	"Free time", sometimes spent with some more work or sports.	Won't impact my sports life right now with this iteration, but it could help with cooking, again?
🕖	"Home time", Enjoying a movie or a game, solo or with the misses.	Could replace some of that, but it would only be relevant for me in person. Perhaps when doing some chores like washing or ironing?
🕚	Time for bed. No digital devices around, except an ebook	If my mind is strong enough I won't take it with me. Really.

1. Training/education ➡️ It's perfect for learning new things, engaging young people more and professional training too – especially more complicated things (e.g. mechanics, electrical engineering, doctors/surgeons etc.)
2. Collaboration ➡️ Things become more hands-on, more 'touchable' instead of working with text, emails or Slack: visual designers, developers, or project management benefit. I'm striking collaboration. It is a solo tool.
3. Architecture, real estate, interior design ➡️ I want to design the interior of my next house with vision. (IKEA was already mentioned in the marketing material)
4. Retail/e-commerce ➡️ Putting your car in the house is one thing, but being able to drive the vehicle you configured in VR would be amazing! I was enthusiastic about this at first, but the device will never be this powerful. That requires a stand-alone solution to demonstrate the car you want to buy.
5. Sports coach ➡️ Picking the easy thing here, but combining the data generated on an Apple Watch or the pitch (e.g. a football match) and presenting it in Vision is fantastic when you're a coach!
6. Gardening ➡️ Imagine walking through the garden and instantly seeing the soil conditions in your garden, knowing precisely what to do next.
7. DIY / home repair ➡️ I'm horrible at this. Vision, I need your help!

• John Gruber's Daringfireball.net --> https://daringfireball.net/2023/06/first_impressions_of_vision_pro_and_visionos

Vision Pro and VisionOS feel like they’ve been pulled forward in the future. I haven’t had that feeling about a new product since the original iPhone in 2007.

What you see at first is just ... your world. You just see the room you’re in. There’s no status information, no metadata, no indicators.

It is simply uncanny how Vision Pro makes virtual elements as spatially stable as the walls and furniture and people in the room around you.

It’s spatial computing, and some aspects of spatial computing are AR or VR.

Using a Mac, you are in a physical place. There is a display in front of you in that place, and on that display are application windows. Using VisionOS, there are just application windows in the physical place in which you are

• djay designing for visionOS (DJ app) --> https://developer.apple.com/news/?id=q0cq9dv9

In the end, this incredible use of technology serves a very simple purpose: interacting with the music you love. Morsy — a musician himself — points to a piano he keeps in his office. “That piano has had the same interface for hundreds of years,” he says. “That’s what we’re trying to reach, that sweet spot between complexity and ease of use. With djay on Vision Pro, it’s less about, ‘Let’s give people bells and whistles,’ and more, ‘Let’s let them have this experience.’”

Do I want one? ✅ Yes. I'm a gadget freak, an early adopter. Although I won't pick one up from the US, I'd leave the first months to them.

Do I need one (professionally)? ✅ Only to have the first mover advantage. To show productivity is an art form, to allow people to share these experiences with. It needs some mind blowing experiences to go with that though. It will make traveling to other locations much easier and more exciting.

Do I need one (personally)? ❌ Maybe. The use cases at home are far and in between, it will create a gap between me and the people I'm with. If I'm alone at home it will be fun, but even the dog won't know what's happening anymore.

Do I see risks? ✅ Of course - developing interesting applications will take a lot of iterations to find out what sticks and what does not. Every company person interested needs to start developing now.

Digitally interacting with the physical world needs to feel empowering and effortless. If this doesn't work as expected, people will stop using it. There is no longer a screen in your hand, creating technical limitations. That change in paradigm needs a lot of thinking and adoption. The younger generation will just use this technology if it's always been there, give them these tools to find out how they can work with it and learn from them.

The one more thing that gave me the feeling we've finally arrived in the spatial future is the thought Apple put into informing the world around you about your virtual awareness. You are in the 'virtual world' and the real world. Displaying your eyes (or hiding them) is simple and powerful. I loved that detail. even though the reviews agreed the gimmick value is much bigger than the real value.