Apple Vision Pro: 5 things you can’t do in Cringey in a $3,500 VR/AR headset

I was watching with interest on Monday when Apple introduced Vision Pro Mixed reality headset in WWDC. It’s not in the same ballpark as simplicity Meta Quest 2 Which I use to play bowling in the living room. Maybe not on the same planet. When it comes out in 2024, it will The cost is $3499 – 10 times the cost of MetaQuest 2.

Let’s pause to read that again: $3,499. Almost four thousand dollars. I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t bring one of those on a Saturday trip to Best Buy.

CNET’s Scott Stein is one of the few people who has actually given the headset a try. He says the Apple Vision Pro is stunning, with a smooth interface and amazing cinematic fidelity when you’re at it watching a movie. Our WWDC summary Unlocks complex items That makes the headset expensive.

“Technically, the Vision Pro is a PC, with the M2 chip found on Apple’s high-end computers,” the CNET feed notes.

I’m old enough to remember when the thought of owning a PC seemed as laughable as paying that price for a headset seemed to me today. So eventually, I’m sure production will be refined and prices will come down. The immersive entertainment sounds unreal, and some of the other Minority Report/Star Trek-style uses of the device are really impressive.

But in the meantime, I’ve been watching 9-minute Apple video on the headset (I feel like I have to say “the $3,500 headset” every time.) And there are certainly some uses for the Vision Pro that I won’t attempt, even if the day comes when I can afford it.

Watch this: First impressions of Apple’s Vision Pro mixed reality headset

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Work in Excel

The most interesting element of the Vision Pro promo was the fact that Apple showed how Microsoft Excel, Word, and Teams could be run inside a headset, with your eyes dominating the user interface. Look, there are some really cool things that headphones can do, but nudge you first into pivot tables isn’t one of them.

“I want Excel injected directly into my retina” is not something I’ve personally considered, One Twitter user cracked.

Talk to real people without taking off your headset

In the promotional video, a headset-wearing woman is (presumably) joined by her teenage daughter, who is perching on the couch and chatting to her as if it were a perfectly normal mom’s eyes behind tinted ski goggles. They barely say more than one word to each other (of course, it’s “sushi”), but I still want to scream across the screen and tell mommy to take a second, push the headset up Just talk to her baby face to face.

Thanks to Apple’s EyeSight feature, you can at least see mommy’s eyes through the headset, which you can’t do with the Meta Quest 2. But even that one Super-duper creepy featureas CNET’s Corinne Richert points out.

Looking at pictures of the house – alone

There is a scene in the Apple video where someone sits on the couch and starts scrolling through family photos. Admittedly, it’s pretty cool to get a panorama of what an iceberg looks like around them, especially if you’ve always wondered what you saw on the Titanic on April 15, 1912.

But the guy seems kind of lonely, looking at the pictures alone. If he can share what he’s seeing with his family, it can be a great experience for memories. For now, I’m fine with looking at digital photos on my phone or laptop, since I can share them with others.

take pictures

There’s another scene in the Apple video where the wearer of the headset is teleported to where two young girls are blowing soap bubbles (inside the house, but that’s a whole other issue). Instead of sitting next to them to play and interact, kneel in front of them, headset on, to take 3D photos for fun. Why use your eyes to look at your children when you can stay one level away?

Flight mode

The promotional video showed a woman on a plane watching a luxurious 3D movie, as if she was living behind the scenes of the movie. I couldn’t get over the impracticality of it all. There are a million little distractions on the plane — flight attendants serving drinks, pilots announcing turbulence, people in my class telling me to get up so they can sneak out.

I could dive into a 3D movie at home, but it seems pretty presumptuous to dive into your cinema at 33,000 feet and expect no one to disturb you. But then, I fly as an instructor, and people with $3,500 to drop on a headset might be flying solo.

But if the Vision Pro is your dream device, start saving. There is no set release date yet, but 2024 is only half a year away.

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