Week 410 was posted by Charanjit Chana on 2025-09-01.
It's been over two years since I first posted about the Apple Vision Pro, they're Apple Silicon powered headset.
There were some stand out features announced, especially around spatial content but the price tag makes it prohibitive to most.
Then last week I got a chance to try the Apple Vision Pro for myself during a 30-minute demo in an Apple Store.
View on Instagram, Charanjit wearing the Apple Vision Pro
Experiencing it yourself is something else.
My only real experience with it previously had been with the Simulator app on the Mac when testing my own apps. I had clicked around a bit but without real content to dive into there wasn't really much to make of it. Moving around is a little clunky and not intuitive to me.
In contrast, real world usage is intuitive. You don't have to tap the physical buttons often and can just rely on your site and two fingers.
I did find that the pinch to tap gesture didn't work all the time for me. Maybe I'm falling into the same trap I did with AirPods where reviews made out like certain actions would be near instantaneous but the reality is you have to wait or be more intentional.
That aside, the content demos were spectacular. There was a general walkthrough, but viewing actual Spatial photos really was like being there. Zooming into panoramic photos really did drop you into the middle and converting flat photos into spatial photos was pretty effective. I hope that feature comes to my iPhone 14 Pro with iOS 26, but if not, then hopefully I can do something via Photos on my Mac.
There was a F1 demo video that did make me feel queasy given how realistic it was but it was an effective demo for some fast paced action. Entering the immersive cinema mode for movies was wonderful too. Truly blocking out the real world and putting you at the centre of a personal cinema. For that alone, I can totally see the appeal. Although I'd worry about my eyes if this was the only way I was consuming content!
The immersive demo was the one that really got me though as you get up close to the action, be it MLS or NBA content. There was a short, up close and personal, concert with Alicia Keys. All of these did make me wonder how far this could be pushed. You're so close and it's high fidelity enough to just feel real.
If the Apple Vision Pro was closer to £1,000 the demo would be enough to turn maybes into yeses. At £3,500 it is just so expensive. No matter how good it is.
Eager to try out a competing product now to see how it stacks up. I don't recall being impressed or not by the Home Screen being shown in the real world via pass through but my experience was short.
I think I'll need another demo again at some point. It would be lovely to bring up my own panoramic or auto-spatialised photos to experience those.
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