The Apple Vision Pro’s Killer App Might Surprise You

It feels like forever ago that Apple unveiled the Vision Pro at WWDC and I got my first experience wearing the mixed-reality headset (or “spatial computer”). Fast forward seven months and the release of the Vision Pro is now imminent: Pre-orders start this Friday, January 19th (tomorrow) and it’ll be available on Friday, February 2nd.

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Ahead of its release, Apple invited me into New York City to experience the Vision Pro again. During the roughly 30-minute demo, I experienced many of the same things again — such as spatial photos and videos, immersive experiences, watching 3D movies and web browsing — and some new stuff, too.

I was able to stream Marvel and Disney flicks in special “environments.” For example, I watched a clip of Star Wars: A New Hope in a hovercraft on Tatooine and The Avengers from the top of Stark Tower. I tried Keynote’s new environment that lets you to practice a presentation (with slides and everything) in a virtual conference. And I talked to someone else wearing the headset to experience what EyeSight — where the outside display reveals the wearer’s eyes so you know to interact with them— was like from the other side.

Plus, for the first time, Apple allowed me to get a photo actually wearing the Vision Pro (above). I look great, I know.

Afterward, I took the ferry home to New Jersey and had time to reflect. If anything, this second demo reinforced my view from several months ago: The Vision Pro is undoubtedly cool. It’s a fantastic piece of hardware, looks gorgeous and works extremely well. I bet most people will be blown away just by the eye-tracking navigation and finger-tapping controls — it really is incredible.

Of course, there are still so many questions left to answer. How will people use it? Is there a killer app? Will people use it mostly for entertainment or productivity? Is it comfortable? Do people even want to wear a headset? Are you willing to spend $3,500 on it? The list goes on.

Out of all these questions, I think I can address a few very pertinent ones with the following fresh observations.

Photos might be the Vision Pro’s killer app

Looking at your own photos and videos on the Vision Pro is pretty awesome on its own. The detail that its dual 4K displays deliver is superb and panoramas, which aren’t great to look at on your iPhone, are especially immersive and fun to view. That said, nothing comes close to spatial photos and videos.

The Vision Pro delivers a wide variety of “spatial” experiences that insert you into a virtual environment. You can watch a movie in a virtual movie theater, do a presentation in a virtual conference room, play a fully immersive game (like Encounter Dinosaurs) or have an immersive experience (like with Wild Life, you get up close and personal with various animals). But in my mind, a lot of those things feel fleeting — like you’d do them once for the novelty and not go back.

Spatial videos and spatial photos are a definite outlier here — they’re awesome. They are personal 3D videos and photos that put you back in that place in time and they kind of allow you to relive a memory — similar to a Pensieve from the world of Harry Potter, I imagine. They sound and look incredible, and you can access them anytime via the Photos app.

Of course, the act of capturing these spatial photos and videos is the tricky part. The best way to do so is while wearing a Vision Pro headset … but I have a hard time imagining somebody spontaneously donning a Vision Pro during a holiday party and not having everyone else look at them like they have two heads. You can capture spatial videos (but not spatial photos) with the iPhone 15 Pro or Pro Max, but it doesn’t look quite as good; it lacks the same depth and aspect ratio of videos captured on the Vision Pro.

The Vision Pro is heavy, but not too heavy

A lot early reviewers of the Vision Pro have said that the headset is heavy. You can count Marques Brownlee and The Verge‘s Victoria Song among them. And they’re not wrong. Even after a 20-minute demo, I had to fight the urge to not touch or adjust the headset. If you’re not used to wearing a headset (really, who is?), the Vision Pro is going to take some getting used to.

That said, I didn’t find the Vision Pro that heavy. The bigger concern for me will be finding the right fit. The Vision Pro will ship with two different straps. There’s a Solo Knit Band that goes over the back of the head (what I tried during the demo), and there’s the Dual Loop Band which adds a headband for a even more secure fit. If you don’t have the right fit, the Vision Pro will sag on your face, the image will be blurring and you’ll get eye fatigue — that’s bad.

Again, I haven’t worn the Vision Pro for longer than 20 minutes in either of my two demos, and thus I’m not sure how I’ll react to wearing it for longer periods. I’m really interested in experiencing a concert (they’ve shown me a brief clip with Alicia Keys) or a live sporting event (like an MLS or MLB game), where you’re sitting right in the front row. I hope I won’t feel weighed down over a couple hours of wear. But only time will tell.

The Vision Pro and Mac experience is still a mystery

Apple

There are still a lot of things I have yet to experience on the Vision Pro. The aspect I’m most interested in, however, is how it plays with my existing Mac. If you have a Mac with Apple silicon (which I do), you can supposedly just look at it while wearing the Vision Pro headset and the two will wirelessly connect. From there, you can use your Vision Pro as a virtual monitor, placing different browsers and apps around you in a virtual space, resizing them at will. You can also connect and use your wireless keyboard and mouse for a more desktop-like experience.

Obviously, this seems like the ultimate productivity feature and one that I’d actually use. Of course, I typically use a max of two displays — my laptop and an external monitor — and being able to have more screens open at once might be overwhelming. But I can’t wait to try it.

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Apple Vision Pro

• $3,499.00 at Apple

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