Apple Vision Pro Tested | Tom's Guide
Mark Spooner tests the Apple Vision Pro; reality headset with immersive 3D video and sleek design - AR experiences like Mindfulness and Encounter Dinosaurs. But it needs killer apps to justify the $3,500 price and the EyeVision and Digital Personas features are both creepy.
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00:00 (upbeat music)
00:03 I'm one of the first people to try
00:04 the Apple Vision Pro headset,
00:06 and at $3,500, you're probably wondering,
00:08 is it worth the hype?
00:10 I can't tell you if it's worth the high price yet,
00:12 but I was amazed by some of the experiences
00:14 that I got to go through.
00:16 (upbeat music)
00:18 The first thing you need to know
00:22 about the Apple Vision Pro headset
00:24 is that it's customized to you.
00:25 I went through an iVision check,
00:28 where I put in my reading glasses and they scan those,
00:30 and there's also a light seal,
00:31 and I got fitted for that through a scan of my face
00:34 that is very similar to Face ID,
00:35 so it is definitely customized to you.
00:38 Compared to other VR headsets that I've used,
00:40 the one thing that I definitely liked
00:41 is that the light seal is for real.
00:43 I didn't get any light leakage
00:44 that was coming in from the sides.
00:46 The spatial audio experience setup
00:47 is very similar to the AirPods,
00:48 and all you have to do is just turn your head
00:50 from side to side, and from there,
00:52 the headset can deliver 360-degree sound.
00:54 When I got a chance to put the Vision Pro on my head,
00:56 I noticed that it was fairly lightweight.
00:58 It's about a pound.
00:59 Even after a half hour of use,
01:01 I would say I didn't feel any pressure,
01:02 and it was not uncomfortable,
01:04 so I could see using this for two hours at a time,
01:06 which is about as much time as you get for battery life.
01:09 So what is it like to use the Vision Pro?
01:11 I would say it's immediately intuitive.
01:13 You don't need a controller.
01:14 All you need is your hands.
01:15 You put them in front of your face, they get mapped,
01:18 and then all of a sudden, you're just staring at items
01:20 and selecting them with a pinch.
01:22 You press your fingers together,
01:23 and you can even do so in your lap
01:25 because there are cameras underneath the headset
01:27 that are aimed down.
01:29 Part of the creepiness factor is just how accurate it is.
01:32 As your eye goes around the screen,
01:33 you can see that the icons light up.
01:36 I've tried eye tracking on gaming laptops, for example,
01:38 but it didn't work nearly as well as this.
01:40 Going back home is super easy.
01:42 All you need to do is just press the digital crown
01:45 so you can always see the main menu from wherever you are.
01:48 In terms of the interface itself,
01:49 one of the things that I like
01:50 is how easy it is to move apps around your virtual space.
01:54 So if I stare at the bar at the bottom of the screen
01:56 and I put my fingers together,
01:58 I can then drag that app or window
02:01 to any side of the display that I want and keep it there.
02:04 The interface works so well,
02:06 I definitely think that Zuckerberg is nervous.
02:09 One of the biggest selling points of the Vision Pro
02:14 is entertainment, and that starts
02:15 with an immersive video-watching experience.
02:18 I'm actually not a big fan of 3D movies,
02:20 but I had a chance to watch "Avatar, Way of the Water."
02:23 It was like the characters were leaping off the display,
02:26 and it's a movie screen, by the way,
02:27 that can grow to 100 inches.
02:30 With the Vision Pro, it's not just about
02:32 viewing content that's made for you.
02:34 You can be part of the action.
02:35 There's a content capture button
02:36 built right into the headset,
02:38 and the idea is that you can capture
02:40 both 3D videos and photos
02:42 that you can relive within the headset.
02:45 I saw a couple of examples, and one really blew me away.
02:48 There were some girls at a birthday party,
02:49 and they blew out the birthday cake
02:51 and really felt like it was right in front of me.
02:52 The trade-off is that you have to be that geeky dad
02:55 who's wearing the headset in front of a bunch of teenagers,
02:58 and they will definitely laugh at you.
03:00 I wish that Apple would add this sort of feature
03:02 to the iPhone.
03:03 Imagine if you had a 3D camera,
03:05 and you didn't have to wear a headset to get that content.
03:08 With the Vision Pro, Apple is trying to reinvent
03:10 the FaceTime experience with what's called a digital persona,
03:13 and what you do is you use the headset
03:15 to scan your face during the setup process.
03:17 So I did a FaceTime call using the Vision Pro,
03:20 and it actually looked like they were out of NBA 2K,
03:22 so definitely not realistic, but close.
03:26 Although, to be fair, Apple has several months
03:28 to enhance this feature,
03:29 and I think it will get better over time.
03:31 If you're not just calling someone to catch up,
03:33 there are some benefits of FaceTime within Vision Pro,
03:36 and one of those is collaboration.
03:37 Using the free form app, you can collaborate in real time
03:40 on projects and even see 3D models in front of you.
03:43 The other people on the call do not need
03:45 to be using a Vision Pro headset.
03:46 They could be on an iPhone, Mac, or iPad.
03:49 While the Vision Pro supports plenty of iPad
03:51 and iPhone apps, things get really interesting
03:53 with apps that are designed from the ground up
03:56 for augmented reality.
03:57 One of those apps is Encounter Dinosaurs.
04:00 During that, I saw a butterfly fly out
04:02 and land on my finger, and it seemed like it was there
04:05 in real time, and then it flitted away.
04:07 And then a dinosaur entered my virtual living room
04:09 and started peeking around at me,
04:11 and I thought I should be really quiet.
04:13 This is an experience that definitely blew me away,
04:15 and I can't wait to see what other developers do
04:18 with the Vision Pro.
04:20 So let's talk about some of the things I don't like
04:21 about the Vision Pro, and one of those is the battery pack.
04:24 It's about the size of an iPhone, and it's not too big,
04:27 but it is something that's always tethered to the headset,
04:29 and you have to remember to bring it with you.
04:31 And it only lasts for about two hours.
04:34 The other very important bit is the price for the Vision Pro.
04:37 So at $3,500, that is a lot of money,
04:39 and you could spend that on anything from a 4K TV
04:43 to a couple of MacBook Pros.
04:45 Rumor has it that Apple is already working
04:47 on a cheaper Vision Pro model,
04:49 but that's likely years in the future.
04:52 I really do feel like the Vision Pro headset
04:54 is similar to the Apple Watch when that came out.
04:56 Apple threw a lot of stuff at the wall to see what stuck,
04:59 and they're doing the same thing here
05:00 because they don't necessarily know
05:02 what the killer apps are going to be yet.
05:04 But that's where the developers come in.
05:06 For a version 1.0 product,
05:08 the Vision Pro headset is revolutionary.
05:12 I was really blown away by a lot of the experiences
05:14 that I saw, and the video playback,
05:16 the intuitive interface, and the design
05:19 are all where they need to be.
05:20 But I really want to see what apps
05:22 come out of this developer conference at WWDC
05:25 to see if the long wait was worth it.
05:28 The good news is that we have plenty of time
05:30 for developers to get their hands on this device,
05:32 and it's not shipping until early 2024.
05:35 I, for one, am excited to be one of the first
05:37 to fully review the Vision Pro headset when it goes on sale.
05:40 For more of our coverage on the Vision Pro headset,
05:42 make sure you check out my full hands-on coverage
05:45 at tomsguide.com, and be sure to follow us @tomsguide
05:48 on TikTok, YouTube, and other social channels
05:51 so you can get the full 360-degree view
05:54 of this very promising device.
05:55 For Tom's Guide, this is Mark Spoonhauer.
05:57 (upbeat music)
06:00 (upbeat music)