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00:00All right.
00:01So you've seen the unboxing.
00:03Now it's time for the breakdown.
00:05What is using the Apple Vision Pro actually like?
00:10♪ I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I ♪
00:13This is easily one of Apple's craziest,
00:17most radical, possibly dystopian products of all time.
00:21And I have a lot of thoughts here.
00:23Like I've been using it for about a week now.
00:25There are some parts of this thing
00:26that are absolutely incredible
00:28and some other parts that feel weird
00:31or borderline unfinished.
00:33There are all kinds of new technologies
00:35from a new operating system to infrared eye tracking
00:38to virtually reconstructed versions of you.
00:41I feel like there are so many actually new things
00:45that you have to understand in order to get a sense
00:47of what this headset actually is and what it does.
00:49So I'm gonna break this down into two parts.
00:52This video is all about using the Vision Pro.
00:56It's everything I've learned from the past week
00:57of wearing and getting used to this thing every single day.
01:01But I'm also working on a more wide ranging,
01:04possibly more existential review video.
01:07But let's just start with the more
01:09hardware fundamentals, right?
01:11Like what is this thing that I'm holding, literally?
01:14Apple Vision Pro at its core, well, it is a VR headset.
01:19Now Apple would never say that
01:20and they probably won't like that I'm saying that word.
01:23You know, I made an entire video
01:24about why they refuse to use those words
01:26and they're calling it spatial computing instead.
01:30We'll get there.
01:30But the truth is it's a really, really,
01:32really high end virtual reality headset.
01:35It's something we've seen before, right?
01:37It's got displays and lenses and speakers
01:40and fans and buttons.
01:42And this is a form factor.
01:44This is a thing that we have seen before.
01:46But before I even turn this thing on,
01:48there are clearly several things
01:50that are a little different about this one.
01:52So first of all, it's made of metal,
01:54lots of metal and glass here,
01:56which are high quality but heavy materials,
01:59relatively speaking.
02:00So there's this precisely machined aluminum frame
02:03around the outside.
02:04And yes, those are intakes for fans at the bottom
02:07and then vents for those fans at the top.
02:09On the right side, there's your digital crown
02:11that can be pressed in or turned.
02:13And then on the other side is just a single larger button.
02:16So kind of basically the same two buttons as an Apple Watch.
02:18And then when you get a little further back on this band
02:20here, these little pods with downward facing grills,
02:24these are speakers which are pointed straight at your ears
02:27and work surprisingly well.
02:29Though, of course, it also means that people around you
02:32can hear a little bit of what you're hearing.
02:34There's a little bit of bleed.
02:35And I have a lot to say about spatial audio,
02:37so stay tuned for that.
02:39But the main event is at the front.
02:41There is an enormous piece of glass,
02:44which yes, is very easy to fingerprint and smudge.
02:47And then behind that thing,
02:48there's this outward facing OLED display
02:50and a bunch of sensors all the way around,
02:52outside facing sensors that go forward, sideways,
02:56and straight down.
02:57There's depth sensors, infrared illuminators,
02:59LIDAR scanners, and just regular old RGB cameras,
03:03all being processed by an M2 chip
03:05and an R1 chip inside this thing.
03:07And then maybe the craziest part, inside the headset,
03:11there are a bunch more sensors facing your eyes,
03:14tracking your eyes in real time for all the eye control
03:17and everything that comes with that.
03:18And also then to display a representation of your eyes
03:23on the outside of the headset, kinda, we'll get there.
03:26But overall, when you put it all together,
03:28you get a very well-made, very high-end,
03:32but also pretty heavy computer to wear on your face.
03:36So officially, this headset with this solo knit band,
03:39when I weighed it, showed up as 638 grams,
03:43which some of you on Twitter have already pointed out
03:45is actually slightly less than the plastic MetaQuest Pro.
03:49But that Quest Pro also has a lot of battery
03:52on the back of your head as a sort of a counterbalance.
03:55So the weight distribution is very different.
03:58Also, the Quest Pro is not that comfortable anyway.
04:01But the point is, this, for Apple,
04:04made the choice of taking the battery off of the headset,
04:08which means, okay, now there's nothing
04:09on the back of your head,
04:10so you can wear it and lean up against things.
04:12And that might be an upside,
04:14but that also now means you have to deal
04:16with this cable all the time running up to your head.
04:20And the fact that it's very front-weighted now.
04:22All of the weight is on the front of your face.
04:24So this is the battery, as you saw in the unboxing.
04:27If you haven't already seen the unboxing,
04:28that just went up, I'll link it below the like button.
04:30But this battery is a surprisingly small 3,366 mAh.
04:35I say surprisingly small because a normal battery bank
04:38of this size, you might expect to be 10, 15, 20,000 mAh.
04:43I suspect there's a lot of heat insulation happening here,
04:46but it comes with a non-removable four-foot cable
04:49and a proprietary connector at the end of the cable
04:52that will twist and lock to the headset.
04:54And so the lock is really solid.
04:55It makes sense that it's not just straight USB
04:57that could get disconnected easily.
04:59Once you connect it, it starts glowing,
05:01and then it starts booting up,
05:02and there's even a little Apple logo
05:04that displays on the outside screen
05:06while it takes a little under a minute to turn on.
05:09So there is no on or off button
05:11or switch anywhere on this headset,
05:12maybe kind of like AirPods Max, something like that.
05:14So if you ever take the headset off and put it down,
05:17it will enter a standby mode after some time,
05:20but it won't turn off.
05:21If you want to turn it off,
05:22you literally have to twist and unplug the cable.
05:26That's the only way to actually turn the headset off.
05:29Now, famously already,
05:30the battery life with this included battery
05:33is not super long on this headset.
05:35Two to four hours is actually realistic
05:37for what you can expect for just like this built-in battery.
05:41But that's also kind of right in line
05:42with a lot of other VR headsets.
05:43Battery life on VR headsets is not that great in general.
05:46If you do want to use it longer,
05:48the only way to do that is there's a USB-C port
05:50on the battery, and you have to plug the battery in.
05:53So you could plug the battery into the wall
05:55for infinite battery life,
05:57or I guess you could plug it into like a,
05:58you could daisy chain another battery
06:00into the other pocket or something for even longer life.
06:03But yeah, two to four hours.
06:04Now, at first, it seemed weird to me
06:06that the port is on the same side of the battery
06:08as the non-removable cable,
06:09but I think it's because they just want you to default
06:11to putting this battery like in your pocket,
06:14probably in your back pocket.
06:15So even if it's plugged into the wall,
06:17it can still be in your back pocket.
06:20You're just going to want to get a longer USB-C cable.
06:22So there are no controllers that come with this headset.
06:26Now it does support other input methods
06:28that are like game controllers and mouse and keyboard,
06:31and those can be incredibly useful.
06:33But by default, the primary input method
06:35for everyone using the Vision Pro
06:37is your eyes and your hands.
06:40So the first time you put on this headset,
06:42it goes through this calibration process,
06:45and it's pretty interesting.
06:46So the first time you ever put it on,
06:48it first adjusts the distance between the lenses,
06:51physically moving them inside the headset
06:53to match the distance between your eyes.
06:55Then it does a sort of a hand scan
06:56so it understands your hands.
06:58And then you go through this process
06:59of basically looking at a bunch of dots
07:01all the way around the screen
07:02and then tapping your fingers together to select them.
07:05Kind of feels like an eye test or something.
07:07And then you're in.
07:08So first thing you're going to notice
07:10is you can actually kind of put your hands anywhere
07:12as long as the headset can see this,
07:15just your fingers touching together.
07:17So there's a lot of pictures of people
07:19like using a headset with their fingers
07:20like out in front of them, pinching like that,
07:22but you actually don't have to do that.
07:23It's such a wide angle
07:25because of the sensors facing forward and sideways and down.
07:28You can kind of just rest your hand
07:30anywhere in front of you, in your lap.
07:32As long as you pinch like that,
07:34it can generally pick it up, which is impressive.
07:36So you're pinching to control
07:37anywhere in that 180 degree bubble in front of you.
07:40And then the digital crown, you hit that once
07:42and the app drawer comes up, pretty simple.
07:45Doesn't seem that impressive,
07:46but this is actually a peek
07:47at the first really impressive thing
07:49about this headset to me,
07:51which is it seems to have
07:52incredible spatial positioning lock.
07:56And like, it's really hard to show,
07:59like have you appreciate this through a YouTube video.
08:02Reviewing VR headsets is hard,
08:03but like turn around in the room you're in
08:05and like picture a wall or a window
08:08just appearing locked in place in 3D space in your room.
08:14And no matter how much you move your head or move around,
08:16it stays exactly kind of floating where it's supposed to be.
08:19But when I say floating,
08:20I think you're picturing like a soft float, but it's locked.
08:24And that's how it starts.
08:25So now you're in Apple's new Vision OS.
08:29I would describe this as kind of similar to iPad OS,
08:33but way more glassy.
08:35And like, of course, with the extra dimension of 3D space.
08:39So hitting a digital crown
08:40will always get the app drawer back in front of you.
08:42And then simply look at the icon you want
08:45and pinch your fingers together to select it
08:47and open that app.
08:48Scrolling is basically as you'd expect.
08:51You just kind of pinch and grab in the air
08:53and then pull as if it's on a string
08:55and physics let you pull things through the air.
08:57It's pretty intuitive, it's responsive, it's fluid.
09:01Sometimes it's kind of bouncy even.
09:04I would say the biggest adjustment
09:05is only being able to control exactly what you're looking at.
09:09And I don't think people realize
09:11how often they're controlling things
09:12that they're not exactly looking directly at
09:15with other computers and other UIs.
09:16But with this, you can look at the button to select it.
09:20And if you look at the next thing you're gonna do,
09:22you're no longer controlling the button.
09:23You have to look exactly
09:25where you're trying to interact with things.
09:26It takes a few extra brain cycles to remember
09:29to always be looking exactly at the thing you're controlling.
09:32So when you open a window of a Vision OS app,
09:35like any one of the default Apple apps here,
09:37it locks into place, it's floating there.
09:39It kind of looks, again, like an iPad app,
09:41but very glassy, like this frosted glass around the UI
09:44sort of lets you see through a little bit
09:46to the color behind it.
09:47And it even sometimes casts a shadow on the ground
09:50in the correct Z space.
09:52So it really solidifies that it's floating in front of you.
09:55All this makes it feel like the window
09:57is in the space around you.
09:59Then if you look at the bottom of the window,
10:01you get a little bar.
10:02You can always just look at that bar
10:04and pinch to drag it around.
10:06So drag it forward, backward,
10:08anywhere you want in X, Y, and Z space,
10:11and then let go, and it just stays absolutely locked.
10:13And then you can look at either bottom corner to resize
10:16to make it bigger or smaller.
10:18And then finally, there's a little X at the bottom.
10:20You select that, that closes it.
10:22So that is the basics of Vision OS and just using an app.
10:27Now, this entire time, by default,
10:29and almost anytime they can, pass-through is on,
10:32which means you have the headset on,
10:34but you can see with the cameras
10:36right through to everything around you.
10:37And I think this is where Apple really wants
10:39to normalize the term spatial computing,
10:42because it feels like augmented reality.
10:45It feels like you're always able to see
10:47the space around you.
10:48But technically, it's not actually AR
10:50because you are still looking at a reconstructed version
10:53through a camera feed of the world around you
10:55instead of the actual world around you.
10:57But maybe it's all just semantics.
10:59I will say this is the best pass-through
11:02of any VR headset I have ever used,
11:04and it's not even that close.
11:05Now, again, it's so hard to get this
11:07through a YouTube video.
11:09It does have screen recording built in,
11:11so I'm gonna try to use that.
11:12But imagine putting a headset on
11:14and not really feeling like you're looking at a screen
11:18with the real world.
11:19Because of the pixel density,
11:20because of the 90 Hertz refresh rate,
11:22and because of the impressive dynamic range of the cameras
11:25and the correctly adjusting shutter speed,
11:28you almost just feel like you're looking at the real world,
11:32not through a headset.
11:33Also, the pass-through is so close to real time
11:36that I could legitimately interact with all kinds of things.
11:39I could catch items flying at me.
11:41I even tried playing ping pong.
11:43It was easy, no hesitation.
11:45So officially, the R1 chip is doing all the processing
11:48of all this stuff and adjusting the shutter speed
11:50for different lighting conditions
11:51and always keeping pass-through latency
11:53under 12 milliseconds, which is the lowest in the industry.
11:57But it's really combining that with how close to reality
12:01the colors and brightness and everything are
12:03that keeps it feeling kind of real.
12:06Basically, the only noticeable restriction
12:08is super close-up items and objects can get a bit blurry.
12:12And then you can't quite make out
12:13like really small or fine texts.
12:15So you can't like read an email
12:17or tiny text on your phone in your hand,
12:19but you can absolutely text people
12:21or read your notifications while keeping the headset on.
12:23If you've tried other VR headsets,
12:25you know how impressive that is.
12:26It's just, it's really good with the tech
12:29that exists now for VR headsets.
12:32But you can definitely still take the headset off
12:35and be like, oh, it's way brighter in here
12:37than I thought it was.
12:38Either way, that's all pass-through.
12:40But if you ever wanna fully immerse yourself,
12:43I mean, it is a VR headset after all,
12:45all you gotta do is rotate this digital crown clockwise,
12:49just keep turning it,
12:50and it will slowly dial your environment
12:53more and more into your field of view
12:55until you dial it all the way up to fully surrounding you.
12:58So all of the windows you might've had open
13:00will still stay stuck where they were,
13:01but everything you're doing is just on the moon now.
13:06So yeah, there's a couple environments
13:07Apple has built in here.
13:09Most of them relaxing scenic locations
13:12like in California somewhere,
13:14or one really nice one is Mount Hood
13:16with a little bit of rain falling.
13:17They're not quite photorealistic,
13:20but they're just short of photorealistic.
13:22Like they're the most realistic digital environments
13:26that I've seen.
13:26So then the last two big quirks of the UI,
13:31control center.
13:32So the only way to get to control center is to look up,
13:35and you can't just look up,
13:36but you have to physically turn your head up
13:38and look at this arrow that appears above you.
13:39So once you see that, you select that,
13:41and then you get your control center
13:42for things like battery life and notifications,
13:45focus modes, and screen recording.
13:48And pairing to a Mac.
13:49But the other big quirk is text input.
13:52So you might be wondering how does text input work
13:55with no physical controllers?
13:58So there's basically three ways to do this.
14:00So let's say you're in Safari
14:02and you wanna go to mkbhd.com.
14:04You really want one of those shiny new Chevron hoodies
14:07for the rest of winter.
14:08Great.
14:09How do you do it?
14:10So the first way is to literally hunt and peck,
14:12poking the keys on the keyboard
14:14that appears in the air in front of you.
14:17So this one is tough because it literally only reacts
14:20to your pointer finger on each hand.
14:22So you actually can't type fast,
14:24like with home row or anything like that.
14:26Not great.
14:27The second way though,
14:28I think is actually kind of good.
14:29It's at least faster,
14:30which is looking at the key you want to interact with
14:33and then pinching to select it.
14:35So just looking around the keyboard like this
14:38and selecting the keys.
14:39And you might be surprised how fast you can type like this
14:41if you actually know your way around a keyboard pretty well.
14:44I actually prefer this to poking the virtual keys
14:47because I at least get a little bit of haptic feedback
14:49from my own fingers tapping together.
14:51But then in Safari,
14:52the last way to do it is literally
14:53to just look up at the microphone
14:55and say the URL out loud, mkbhd.com.
14:58And then it just hears you
14:59and goes to the site pretty quick
15:01if it's a URL that you can actually say out loud.
15:04So what can you actually do with this thing?
15:09Like now that we know what it is,
15:11it's the M2 chip, a computer on your face
15:14with the displays and the lenses inside
15:16and all sorts of sensors everywhere.
15:18What can this thing actually do?
15:20And I feel like the most common way to phrase that is
15:22what is the killer app?
15:23Because we feel like we need some sort of justification
15:26to spend three, $4,000 on this thing.
15:30Like applications made the iPhone what it is as we know it.
15:33Like apps made the iPad.
15:35So what is the app situation on the Vision Pro?
15:39So there are two types of apps on the Vision Pro actually.
15:43The first is apps that are built specifically
15:46for the Vision Pro to take advantage
15:48of its awesome experiences.
15:50And there are a few of those right now.
15:53And then there are all the other apps,
15:55which basically are iPhone and iPad apps
15:57that happen to be compatible
16:00because the developer didn't opt out.
16:03And the first kind is way cooler.
16:06So these are Apple's stock apps here
16:08that come with the Vision Pro.
16:09And so these are all of course made just for Vision Pro.
16:13So they're gonna have stuff that takes full advantage
16:16of what this thing is capable of.
16:17Apple Music is a pretty classic one.
16:19Like it has all the same functionality
16:21of any other Apple Music app,
16:22but in this super glassy frosted window
16:25and shows the colors of whatever's behind it.
16:28And you have the sort of sorting menu on the left-hand side
16:31instead of across the bottom.
16:32That's the basic layout.
16:34Same thing with the Notes app and the Settings app,
16:36very glassy, almost looking like an iPad app in the air,
16:39just rebuilt with this new material design.
16:42And then there's the media apps.
16:44So Apple TV and Disney Plus, they both come pre-installed,
16:48which they have built entire environments
16:50inside of them for watching media.
16:53And there's even a small collection of videos
16:55on the Apple TV app that are shot
16:57on a new proprietary format specifically for Vision Pro.
17:00So it drops you into a space with a full 180 degree video
17:05and Alicia Keys walks right up to you
17:07and starts singing right to your face.
17:09It's crazy.
17:10There's also the Photos app,
17:10which will let you look at like panoramic photos,
17:13for example, in this fully immersive view.
17:16So you can blow them up to full screen
17:18and then it gives you a bit of a parallax effect
17:20around the edges.
17:20So it feels like you're like looking into a window
17:23of your own photo and looking around.
17:25It's kind of incredible.
17:26And then there's also some other really fun third-party apps
17:29that I've tried that were built ahead of time.
17:30So Sky Guide, this is a good one.
17:32You can look around a real representation
17:35of the sky around you
17:36or any of the constellations would normally be.
17:39You can look at it a little longer and it'll pop it out.
17:42You can pull it out of the sky
17:44to get more information about it.
17:45It's a pretty great idea.
17:47There's another one called JigSpace,
17:49which is, it's a sick app.
17:50I don't know if I'd ever use it,
17:51but basically it lets you load 3D models
17:54into the space you're in and mess around with them,
17:57take them apart, view them in actual size.
17:59And this really takes advantage
18:01of how good the placement lock is on the Vision Pro.
18:03And you can walk around
18:04and really gets you a better understanding
18:06of the scale of things
18:08that you don't get to see up close very often.
18:10And then Keynote is another funny one.
18:12So you can, of course, go through and edit a keynote
18:15just like normal if you want to,
18:17but then they've built this whole environment
18:20for practicing your presentation skills.
18:22So you press that and it says,
18:24oh, would you like to go to a conference room
18:25or the literal Steve Jobs theater?
18:28So you can rehearse talking to your audience
18:30with your keynote slides behind you.
18:33It is genuinely incredibly immersive.
18:35And there's already a bunch more apps like this
18:37and the apps are already at launch
18:38that are specifically built for Vision Pro.
18:41So they'll take advantage of its various strengths.
18:44Now, are any of these a killer app?
18:49Not really.
18:49I mean, I don't, if you're looking for any one of these
18:52to be the reason why you spend like $4,000 on this headset,
18:55I don't think we have that yet.
18:57But then at least there's all the other non-native
19:00but technically still compatible apps
19:03that are in the app store.
19:04And these are gonna look just like iPhone and iPad apps.
19:07Actually, there's a pre-installed folder on the home screen
19:10when you get this thing, literally called compatible apps.
19:14And there's a bunch of them from Apple here.
19:16They look exactly like iPad apps.
19:18I'm surprised actually that more of them
19:19aren't fully built out to take advantage of Vision Pro,
19:23but like Apple Maps is just the iPad app.
19:26And so it would be cool if there were some like fun
19:29augmented reality overlay walking directions type stuff,
19:32but nope, it's all the exact same functionality
19:35that you would find if you open this app on your iPad.
19:37And you can go to the app store
19:38and search a bunch of the names of apps
19:40you already know and love and find them by name
19:42and grab them and they'll work the exact same way.
19:45Crazily enough though,
19:46there are already some notable exceptions.
19:50No Netflix app for the Vision Pro,
19:52no YouTube app for the Vision Pro,
19:55no Spotify app for the Vision Pro.
19:58Apple has a kind of a contentious relationship
20:01with a lot of developers right now,
20:02especially some of the bigger ones.
20:05And so some have made the active choice to opt out.
20:08They're like, we don't wanna be there.
20:10This won't be a big enough platform to matter to us
20:13to justify the work, so they're not there.
20:15Now I totally get it, but also now as a Vision Pro owner
20:18and someone who's using it, I'm like, oh,
20:21it's kind of a bummer.
20:22I really wanted to be able to watch like a Netflix show
20:25offline downloaded ahead of time,
20:28but you can't do that now.
20:29But at least, at least for now, for the record,
20:32you can use the browser
20:33and anything that would work in the browser.
20:35So if you pull up Safari
20:36and you get a full screen 4K YouTube video going
20:39and locked in space or even in an environment,
20:42it looks great, it's razor sharp.
20:44Like I could totally watch YouTube videos like this,
20:47but you will definitely be missing
20:49like the features of having a dedicated app
20:51like offline video.
20:52Honestly, to me, the killer app of the Vision Pro
20:56isn't just an app, it's actually the ecosystem.
21:01And we knew this was coming,
21:02but the second you log into a Vision Pro
21:05with your Apple ID immediately,
21:06it starts pulling all the services
21:08and all the stuff that you're used to
21:09from all the other Apple devices you already have.
21:12And I said this before the Vision Pro was announced.
21:14I was like, this is the most obvious strategy for Apple
21:16because there are lots of people out there
21:18who have never considered buying a VR headset
21:20that are considering only this one
21:22because they have an iPhone
21:24and this is the one that works with the iPhone
21:26and none of the others are particularly close.
21:28So all of your iMessages are already here.
21:30All of your photos are already here
21:32and loaded up and backed up.
21:34All your notes are already at your fingertips.
21:36You already saw the Keynote app,
21:37but okay, easily my favorite feature
21:40is connecting to your Mac, right?
21:42So anytime your Mac is in front of you
21:44and it's turned on, hit that arrow.
21:46And then there's this little icon
21:47to become my Mac's virtual display.
21:50So I click that and then pick my Mac
21:52and it pretty much instantly,
21:53it actually blacks out the display of my Mac
21:56and then turns that display into a 4K window
22:00inside of the headset.
22:02So now my keyboard and trackpad still work,
22:05even if it is a desktop,
22:06the keyboard and the trackpad still control everything
22:08and you can continue using it just like a normal computer,
22:11but with the ability to make your new 4K monitor
22:14as big or as small or close or far away as you want,
22:18which is super sick.
22:21And then the bonus is you can still open up
22:22and place other Vision Pro apps around your Mac computer.
22:27So like you can have your Mac in the middle here
22:29and maybe you're editing or doing some work on the Mac app.
22:32And then you have a Safari window or messages
22:35or whatever else you want right next to it, around it.
22:38And then your keyboard and trackpad
22:40can move seamlessly between them all
22:43to control all of them.
22:45This to me, as a Mac user,
22:48the ease of use for setup to make this happen,
22:50this feels like the biggest game changer,
22:52like the most compelling, futuristic feeling use
22:56of this headset to me, especially on a plane.
22:59Oh my God, I can't tell you how many times
23:00I've had an awkward conversation
23:01because like I'm editing a video on the plane,
23:03the person next to me sees I'm editing a video of myself
23:06and it's kind of weird and hard to explain,
23:08but I'm picturing putting the headset on,
23:11the display blacks out,
23:12but now I can do all the editing I want
23:14and I can make the screen as big as I want.
23:16So I've really enjoyed using that feature.
23:18Again, the biggest challenge though,
23:19is still remembering to look exactly
23:22at the thing you want to control.
23:24So aside from typing on the real keyboard
23:27on whatever windows open,
23:29if you want to control something,
23:31you have to be looking at it.
23:33Again, it doesn't sound like a big deal,
23:34but when you try it, you'll see what I mean.
23:37And then also, odd limitation,
23:39one monitor only from the Mac,
23:41one virtual monitor only at a time.
23:44So if you usually run like a dual display setup,
23:46like I do for Final Cut Pro,
23:48big preview on one side, timeline on the other side,
23:50you can't do that.
23:51You have to use the big one monitor version of your setup.
23:55All right, so you might've realized
23:57I've left one thing out this whole time.
24:00One thing, you could call it one more thing, sure.
24:03It's one more huge, crazy thing,
24:06but it's kind of the defining characteristic
24:08of this product and that is personas.
24:12So in all the advertising you've seen of Vision Pro,
24:16there's these eyes on the outside of the headset
24:19that looks like they're kind of in like a pass-through,
24:22like in a dark astronaut helmet type of thing.
24:25Easily the most memed,
24:26most unique aspect of this headset, right?
24:28It's the only headset with an outward display.
24:31And I mean, it's very, very prominent in those videos.
24:34But in real life, as you've started to see
24:37from some of my footage, it is very different.
24:40And I think I figured out why.
24:42So first of all, it's not actually see-through, right?
24:45There's a whole bunch of computer
24:46in between me and you right now.
24:48So the eyes aren't on the outside.
24:50It's a representation of my eyes
24:53based on what all the sensors on the inside are seeing.
24:55It's reconstructing it on the outside.
24:57So those sensors are tracking at 90 frames per second,
25:00and they give you optic ID,
25:02which is, it's how you log into the headset
25:04and keep things secure.
25:05It's basically the same as face ID or touch ID.
25:09It's just looking at and identifying your eyes.
25:11And it also powers the one beta feature of this headset,
25:16which is personas, which is,
25:19it's the most impressive and weirdest thing
25:22about this headset at the same time.
25:23I'm calling it right now.
25:24So the purpose of the eyes on the outside
25:26is really not for you, the wearer of the headset.
25:29In fact, you'll never see it,
25:31but it's for the people around you.
25:32So when you're in a pass-through mode,
25:34your eyes will shine through to indicate
25:37that you wearing the headset can see the person outside.
25:41So that right there is already pretty unique.
25:44But then when you're in something immersive
25:46and you can't see what's around you,
25:47it covers up your eyes
25:48with this sort of like a blue, purple, glowing animation.
25:52So that intuitively makes sense.
25:53You can see the eyes when they can see you.
25:54You can't see the eyes when they can't see you.
25:56But crazily enough, there's also a feature
25:58where if you have someone who's outside the headset
26:01looking at you, talking to you, and you are in an immersion,
26:04but you want to talk to them through that,
26:08they will kind of appear through the fog
26:11of whatever immersive environment you're in.
26:14So you just start talking and looking in their direction.
26:16It detects that and sort of parts a little bit of a fog
26:20and that person's eyes will show through the fog.
26:23It's pretty decent.
26:24It basically only shows one person at a time.
26:26And when this is happening on the outside of the headset,
26:30it shows a little bit of your eyes
26:31poking through the purple and blue glow.
26:35It's, as you can see, it's all working,
26:38but also I think it looks nothing like the eyes from the ad.
26:42So in an effort to make the eyes as presentable as possible,
26:46two things, first of all,
26:48this screen is actually behind a lenticular film,
26:52which I didn't even realize that
26:53from the initial media they've published.
26:55But if you've ever heard of that,
26:56it's sort of what gives it like this 3D depth.
26:59You might've seen this on other like holographic display
27:02and stuff, but the point of that is to make the eyes appear
27:05to be sunken into the display, like on your actual face,
27:09instead of like glued to the front of the headset,
27:12which would look a little more weird.
27:13But then two, to represent your actual eyes,
27:16they've built in a way to scan in
27:19and create a digital representation of your face,
27:23which is called your persona.
27:25And it looks like this.
27:26So to get those eyes on the outside
27:29of the Vision Pro headset,
27:30you have to do something called registering your persona.
27:33This is how it creates the digital version of you
27:36that includes your eyes that will show up here.
27:40So let's do that now.
27:42It's actually kind of a cool process.
27:43So I'm gonna put it on
27:44and hopefully the screen recording works
27:46so you can see exactly what I'm doing.
27:47I'll hit the digital crown.
27:48I'm gonna go to settings
27:50and you can do this when you first set it up,
27:52but I'm going to persona and I'm gonna hit get started.
27:57So let's refine my hands real quick.
28:01This is capturing detail from the front of the headset
28:03of the hands in front of me.
28:07Once it's done with that,
28:10it's gonna ask me to take it off.
28:12So this is how it works.
28:15Hold Apple Vision Pro at eye level.
28:18Keep your arms and shoulders relaxed.
28:21Align your entire face within the frame.
28:23My face shows up like face ID.
28:25Slowly turn your head to the right.
28:28Now, slowly turn your head to the left.
28:34Now, tilt your head up.
28:39Then tilt your head down.
28:44Next, let's capture your facial expressions.
28:47Smile with your mouth closed.
28:50Then make a big smile with your teeth showing.
28:54Now, raise your eyebrows.
28:58Close your eyes for a moment.
29:02Capture complete.
29:04Put Vision Pro back on to continue.
29:09I will do that.
29:10So now I have a menu that says creating persona
29:15and it says it's in beta and now there's,
29:19there's my persona right there.
29:22Kind of uncanny.
29:25Uncanny.
29:27The hair is a little bit different, but the face.
29:33Wow, wow.
29:34Okay, so there's different lighting.
29:35You can choose it to always be in studio lighting
29:37and always be in contour lighting.
29:39I'll just leave it at natural and hit next.
29:43You can change the color temperature of your skin tone.
29:47Cool to warm.
29:50I think I'm around there.
29:52Brightness, darkness.
29:54I think I'm around there, near the middle.
29:59Next.
30:01And then I can add glasses.
30:02So if I typically have glasses,
30:03which obviously I wouldn't be able to wear in the Vision Pro,
30:05you can still look like you have glasses
30:08anytime you're on that FaceTime call.
30:10And then next, save.
30:14And that's it.
30:16So I think now you should see my eyes.
30:22Maybe.
30:24And that's the thing.
30:28It barely shows up.
30:30You can barely see my eyes when I'm wearing the headset.
30:34Now, I've tried a couple other scans subsequently.
30:36So I've tried different lighting conditions.
30:38I've tried different backgrounds, simple backgrounds.
30:40Tried different shirts and things like that.
30:42It doesn't really ever appear any brighter.
30:45I think if you have a darker skin tone like me,
30:47just don't expect the eyes to show up very brightly
30:50on the outside of the headset.
30:51It's pretty subtle.
30:52Even when it does show up, it's a little weird looking.
30:56The eyes are a little too far apart sometimes.
30:58They're a little dim.
30:59You see like one eye at a time.
31:01It's kind of weird.
31:02But that persona though,
31:05that is some pretty interesting stuff.
31:07It's crazy that this is actually a real thing being shipped.
31:11Like first Meta started doing it.
31:13Now Apple's doing this.
31:15This is, again, it's technically in beta.
31:17So, I don't know, there's room for improvement,
31:20but it still works.
31:21But as of right now,
31:22I feel like this is both incredibly impressive
31:26and slightly unsettling.
31:29Like it's very impressive that this thing,
31:32this headset I'm wearing on my face
31:33is tracking every, all these little micro expressions
31:37and little movements from my eyes and my cheeks
31:40and my mouth and everything.
31:42But at the same time, it's just quite, not quite human.
31:47It's right at the edge of the uncanny valley
31:49of I'm not looking at a person.
31:52So, yeah.
31:54But the crazy part is,
31:55you can now use this persona as your camera feed
32:00for any apps in Vision Pro
32:02that require a front-facing camera like FaceTime.
32:06And so I've tried,
32:08I've been using FaceTime a few times in the Vision Pro
32:11and it is technically speaking, incredible.
32:15So I've made a few FaceTime calls in the past few days
32:18with some fellow reviewers
32:19who you'll probably recognize from their personas,
32:21who are also testing the Vision Pro.
32:24And universally, once we all got past the shock of,
32:27oh my God, it's you.
32:29It looks like a digital version of you.
32:30This is crazy.
32:31I've never seen anything like this before.
32:33Once we got past that, there is a ton happening here.
32:37So you can see the FaceTime windows
32:39literally appear as just that.
32:41They're just like glassy windows floating in space
32:44with people looking through them.
32:46And then the angle that you look into the window
32:49is gonna match the angle that they see you looking at them.
32:54Meaning if we're all in Vision Pros on this call,
32:57unlikely, but hear me out.
32:59If we're all in Vision Pros
33:01and you've got a bunch of people on this FaceTime call,
33:03so there's somebody to the left and somebody to the right.
33:06If I look to the person
33:07and make eye contact with the person to the right,
33:09the person to the left sees like the side of my head
33:13because I'm looking at somebody else.
33:16That's already pretty cool.
33:18And then the same thing is true for hand gestures.
33:19So we try this out.
33:21Turns out you can reach out and make hand gestures
33:24that are tracked by the cameras
33:25in this bubble in front of you.
33:26And they show up at the correct angle
33:29towards the person that you're gesturing at.
33:32So not towards everybody else on the call.
33:34Oh, wait, wait.
33:35Okay, good test.
33:36So wait, Justine, do you see this?
33:37Yes.
33:38I don't see that.
33:39I don't see that, Marques.
33:40Now wait, so now Brian, do you see this?
33:42Now I can see that, Marques.
33:43And then on top of that,
33:44spatial audio here is incredibly well-developed.
33:47So again, you're on the call.
33:49The voice of the person to the right
33:50comes from the right side.
33:52The voice of the person to the left comes from the left.
33:54But also you can just pick up and move the window around
33:57and that angle will match where the people are in the room
34:01and where their sound and video comes from.
34:03If I put you on the other side of the room,
34:06it sounds like they're further away.
34:09And if I turn up the environment
34:12and bring them into the moon or some other 3D space,
34:16it actually sounds much more like I'm in a gigantic space
34:20with no echo versus in the actual room.
34:22It's all very subtle, but very well-considered.
34:25So once you're in this a while,
34:26you start to notice all these little smaller things.
34:29Again, it's not quite human-like.
34:31It's not like looking at a video feed of a human face,
34:35but it is still, it has a lot of,
34:37this would be the best avatar anyone's ever made in 2K.
34:40No one's ever done a 2K face scan
34:42and had it look this good,
34:43but it's still not as good as like a perfect reality.
34:46It's a, you've heard the Uncanny Valley thing before.
34:49I think the number one weakness for the avatars
34:52or the personas that I've seen is hair.
34:55So basically everyone I've talked to
34:56has like a frozen lump of hair
34:59instead of flowing, realistic hair.
35:01And that's true about all flowing things.
35:03Like however your hair was when you did the scan,
35:05it's frozen that way.
35:07And so is any necklace you're wearing,
35:09whether it's crooked or not,
35:10or I guess technically also any makeup you had on
35:14or however you looked when you did the scan.
35:15Maybe that could be a good thing.
35:16Maybe you did a scan when you were looking all dolled up
35:19and then you get on a 7 a.m. call
35:20and you still look perfect
35:22even though you look like you just woke up in real life.
35:24So I guess there's that too.
35:26But anyway, all that is to say FaceTime,
35:28FaceTime is the most well thought out,
35:33like most futuristic Vision Pro experience.
35:38It just is.
35:39So I'll end this video with this.
35:40Now you know what it's like to use
35:44and operate the Vision Pro.
35:46But there's still a lot more to consider
35:48when actually considering if you should buy
35:50and own this thing from the use cases
35:53to the things that work well and don't work well,
35:56the philosophy behind it, the prices, all of that stuff.
35:59That's what's gonna be for my full review.
36:02Like there are parts of this thing
36:03that are absolutely amazing, unparalleled,
36:07best I've ever seen.
36:08But the reason it's so interesting
36:09is because it's actually a young category.
36:12Like we're so used to this slow, boring iteration
36:15in mature categories like smartphones and laptops.
36:18And you always see the comments
36:19talking about how tech is so boring,
36:21but now they're actually jumping into something risky
36:23and it's actually fun.
36:25And there is downfalls and flaws
36:27and it's fun to actually weigh the pros and cons.
36:30So I'll be expanding on all these way more
36:31in the full review, but I'll leave you with this.
36:33I've got my upsides and downsides to Vision Pro.
36:37It's been a week.
36:38Upsides, some of the stuff
36:39that's the best I've ever seen in a headset,
36:41immersion, placement in space,
36:44eye tracking and hand control,
36:46pass through, ecosystem and spatial audio.
36:51And the downsides, weight and comfort,
36:54the eyes on the outside, app selection right now,
36:58battery life and price.
37:01So the full reviews and the works,
37:03definitely get subscribed
37:04to be among the first to see that when it drops.
37:07Either way, till the next one.
37:09Thanks for watching.
37:11Catch you later.
37:12Peace.
37:13♪ And the... ♪