Apple's first major new product category in almost a decade launched today, with the Vision Pro now in the hands of consumers in the United States. We picked up a Vision Pro this morning, and spent the day testing it out and filming our first impressions.
Fit appointments at the Apple Store are useful because we've already heard of several situations where the initial Apple Store readings were off in terms of fit. If you're experiencing an issue with light leakage or comfort, Apple employees can get you a new Light Seal or help you adjust the straps to get the headset working the right way.
At over 1.3 pounds, the Vision Pro is undeniably heavy, but the weight is distributed well with the right fit. It can get heavy to wear over time, but you'll mostly notice the weight when you take it off and feel the relief of not having 1.3 pounds on your face. We've had some light leaking in around the nose even with a solid fit, but the displays seem to work well enough even with that little bit of light.
Putting on the Vision Pro for the first time is absolutely a "holy crap" moment because it's such a different experience, especially with the demo that Apple Store employees provide. The immersive content is mind blowing, especially when digging in to your own panoramas and spatial videos.
Navigation is intuitive for the most part, but the virtual keyboard is kind of a miss. You can enter text one character at a time and that's fine, but you're going to want a Bluetooth keyboard for any extensive writing. Poking at the keyboard to type feels the most natural, but you can also look at the letters and pinch.
The built-in speakers are great and do an awesome job with spatial audio, but be warned that people around you can hear what's going on so you might want to wear AirPods.
Anything you're seeing in the real world is being relayed through passthrough cameras, so if you're not in the best lighting, you're not going to have the best view. Passthrough video quality can be hit or miss for this reason.
Have you had a chance to try out the Vision Pro? Let us know in the comments below. Apple's retail stores are holding demos all weekend long, and starting Monday, you can book an appointment to get a demonstration if you don't have a Vision Pro yourself.
Top Rated Comments
Some initial thoughts and observations:
Text is crisp and video is amazing. The immersive videos are jaw dropping.
I grew quickly fatigued using the solo band. The dual solved that.
There's a little light leakage around the bottom of my nose. It's a little distracting. I can also see my eyes dimly reflected when watching movies. Also a little distracting.
Netflix and Hulu work in the browser, but you are limited to a fairly small "screen."
I couldn't sign into Peacock: sign in page wouldn't load. Paramount plus won't play videos. You start a video and it crashes back to the title page. I thought I read reviews where they watched football on Paramount, hopefully this will be an easy fix.
When it works, using it as a display for my MacBook Pro is great. But about 25% of the time I can't get it to sync.
Passthrough is adequate, but it's fuzzy when you are moving and it's not terribly clear when you are not. Definitely won't mistake it for real life.
Controlling things with eyes and pinching works pretty well, but doesn't work enough to be annoying.
I entered the wrong password for Disney a couple of times and it just froze on the sign in screen. I had to uninstall the app to get it to work.
It's hard to drink when you have the goggles on. I was watching Ready Player one through AppleTV in 3D in the theater environment. Looks and sounds amazing. I got some popcorn and a glass of soda. It's a little weird. You can see your hands, but you can't see the popcorn or the glass. I was very worried about setting the glass down on the edge of the side table. It's also difficult to drink with the goggles on. The upper rim of the glass hits the goggles. You need to tilt your head all the way back.