Your senses are about to be played with
Nothing could have prepared me for my Vision Pro demo in London the other day.
I went into it ever so casually thinking I knew what to expect. After all last year, I must’ve written 10s of thousands of words talking about it both before its release and subsequently after it went on sale in the US earlier this year.
But that 30-minute demo of the Vision Pro is an experience I’ll not be forgetting for a very, very long time.
Love or loathe Apple they know how to market the heck out of a device and the demo they have put together highlights all the strengths that the headset has to offer.
The demo, which by the way is free – is over all too quickly and left me thinking what next! Where do we go after that?
One of the first thoughts to cross my mind was being annoyed at having just bought the M4 iPad Pro! Having banged on about how brilliant it is – and don’t get me wrong, it is a great tablet, it all of a sudden felt like yesterday’s tech. For £1000 more this could have been mine is all I was left thinking.
The brand-new tandem OLED display felt old in a heartbeat. How tech marches on right?
VisionPro – well oiled
Apple has the demo for the Vision Pro well arranged in that typical Apple way we’ve come to love. After a quick fitting session – you are taken into another world.
They start by getting you used to the gestures that are needed to operate the headset. They are fairly intuitive – but I freely admit I made that rookie mistake of putting my hands out to ‘touch’ or ‘grab’ the screen and apps. I was politely reminded that you can keep your hands down by your sides sir…
I did know that, I mean I’ve watched all the videos on it, but once you have it on, all reasonable logic rapidly leaves your body.
They start you off in the Photos app and get you used to the idea of eye-tracking to pick the images that they want you to select. That in itself is bloody amazing, but once you start to unpack what’s to come, that little feat pales into insignificance.
Of course, all the images and videos you are about to see have been shot by top-flight pros, so you are seeing the best of the best…but even so…
The skin tones have to be seen to be believed – I don’t know how to get it over to you, but it’s almost more realistic than being with someone in real life! The depth of feeling you get – you immediately feel immersed.
There is a scene at a kid’s birthday party where a candle is blown out on a cake – and I swear I could smell the smoke. I know that sounds daft, but your senses are quickly scrambled (a recurring theme). As the mum gets up and her dress moves it’s as if you can feel the waft of breeze coming your way. It’s all so real. OK, so this is my first AR/VR headset – but this experience is pretty sense-numbing!
A baby was playing with something in its mouth – and the line of spittle under the baby’s chin shimmers it’s so life-like. I know that sounds an odd thing to recall – but again, it is all so damned real.
Environments
How special could these be – right?
I thought they were just a background image to your workspace or apps – errr – wrong! They are called environments for a reason – they take you to another place – another environment.
As with the pictures you feel as if you are in the moment. When in the Arctic you feel cold, when on a beach with sun and sand…you’ve guessed it, you feel warm and relaxed. When you look down at the ground you can feel the sand on between your toes and the breeze on your back. You know what it’s like on a seashore as the tide washes gently over your feet – that’s about the best I can describe the experience to you within environments.
What a potentially great way to work – how much better could a stressful day at work be made to feel than as if you are in the most beautiful place on earth?
Finally, I get it!
Movies
As for watching movies – WOW!!
“I really want this to be the future, I really do, but I just wonder if we are ready for the future. Are we ready for Vision Pro?”
When you start the part of the demo where you are about to watch a movie it’s almost as if you are taken into a movie theatre. It’s a black room with a movie screen at the front – just like a cinema. If they added the smell of popcorn you’d swear you were at the movies!
You get to choose if you want to sit at the front, middle or back and if you want to sit centrally or to the left or right. The most stunning effect you get is that rake you get from the cinema – you kind of look down at the screen.
We had no AirPods on but the audio from the onboard speakers was just amazing – and equally as amazing was the fact that there was no audio bleed. I went with my intern (Daisy) and there was no audio bleed at all. Everything is so well-engineered.
Again your senses are being played with!
The picture quality that you get from the Sony 4K displays – 4K on each eye so you’re kind of getting an 8K experience – is like something I’ve never seen before.
It’s certainly better than going to the movies or watching TV at home and it’s even better than the iPad that I just bought.
As I said earlier, how quickly that tech seems old!
All change
Sports or live sports will never be the same again – period.
You get to see extreme sports such as roof-jumping, football, mountaineering and basketball – and yet again your senses get fully tested.
When the roof-jumpers and mountaineer nearly fall or lose their footing as they scrap to keep balance and you glance down, you get a rush. You know that sick feeling you get in your stomach when you look suddenly down from a height…well that’s exactly what you get with the Vision Pro. I got an adrenaline rush!
As a basketball is about to bounce out of court a player’s hand appears as if from nowhere to bring it black into play. You can feel the vibrations of the court as the players run – you can feel their breath.
Guess what – your senses are being played with!
I hate to say it, but it’s almost better than being there live. When the stadiums start to catch up and the required spatial infrastructure is in place watching sports from home is about to be taken to another level. Somehow you even feel the atmosphere of a live event.
Everything about this experience is at another level.
As the dust settled I tried to grasp what had just gone on. One thing that was good to know though was that it wasn’t a generational thing. I mentioned I’d gone to London with my intern Daisy and even at 17 – with many years between us her mind was just as equally blown. It must’ve been almost 10 minutes before we could have a proper conversation. I think we were both in jaw-dropping awe of what had just gone on.
I really want this to be the future, I really do, but I just wonder if we are ready for the future. Are we ready for Vision Pro?
Even Apple can’t crack open the AR/VR market. I think the Apple haters were secretly hoping that Apple, with all their mighty clout, might be able to finally make augmented reality mainstream yet it’s still not. When did you last hear about someone using the Vision Pro? They all seem to be sitting dormant now after the initial clamour, and that’s a crime.
Possibly it’s because it’s another barrier – you have to reach for it and put it on. Your phone, your Mac or iPad are to hand – they are a natural extension…but the Vision Pro, well that remains this alien ‘thing’. It’s not as if I found it heavy or uncomfortable but would I think to reach for it?
I want one, but don’t know why. I want one but would I use it?
One over-arching takeaway was that it is a very insular and singular experience, that’s for sure. I work alone all day but working for any period in this headset would take that to a new level. I like to see the sun outside – I might be alone but I like to know I’m not alone. Does that make sense?
I don’t think it’s the headset that’s at fault. The more I think about my time in it, I think it’s us that are not ready for it.
Is it our last grasp at trying to hold technology at bay? Are we scared? Do we resent it? Maybe it’s a mixture of all those elements. Apple has delivered the best experience possible – whether we want it, well that’s another thing.
Is the Vision Pro – a stretch too far? Time will tell…
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