UPDATE: Some More Thoughts After Nine Weeks Using the Apple Vision Pro

You might have noticed that I haven’t been blogging much at all lately. There’s a good reason for that. I have been so completely occupied with my full-time paying job as an academic librarian during this busy fall semester that I have had little time or energy left over to write up blog posts when I get home from work.

I have, however, been making very good use of my new Apple Vision Pro VR/AR headset! I am currently using it anywhere from two to five hours a day. At work, I use the Virtual Display feature on the AVP to create a large, sharp, crystal clear virtual screen for my MacBook Pro notebook computer (and I often listen to playlists on an Apple Music screen set up to the right of my work screen). And at home, I am using the Apple Vision Pro as my primary means of consumption of 2D and 3D movies and television shows. It find that it is a great improvement over using my iPad! I have also been spending time in a few other AVP apps over the past two months, notably Explore POV and InSpaze.

Screen capture from the Explore POV website: the immersive videos are stunning

Explore POV (website) is a subscription service where you can download and watch stunning short immersive videos (only 2-5 minutes long) of various locations around the world. Unfortunately, over the past two months, I have encountered some problems with the service, twice losing all my downloaded videos when my Apple Vision Pro unexpectedly reset. Also, I have found it to be a somewhat expensive service for the still relatively small number of videos available. While I have thoroughly enjoyed the time I have sent in Explore POV, I simply cannot justify the cost (currently, CA$12.99 per month), and so I have decided to let my membership lapse. Even though the content is top-notch, and I want to support the creator who is traveling the world and sharing his videos, I cannot justify spending the equivalent of a streaming service subscription for such a small library of content. (Perhaps I can come back later when there is more to watch. Please note that there are free videos which you can watch in Explore POV, to let you get a taste of what is to offer.)

The other app which I have been using a lot is InSpaze, which is a way to connect with other Apple Vision Pro users (as well as iPhone users who wish to participate, although obviously the latter don’t get an immersive experience). InSpaze has become the gathering place where AVP users can compare notes on apps, report on and troubleshoot problems with the device, and just talk about anything. It neatly solves one problem most Apple Vision Pro users have: they are often the only person in their social circle who owns the device, so they have no other users to chat with (I myself fall into this category!).

InSpaze in windowed mode (seen in the Mount Hood environment in my Apple Vision Pro)
InSpaze in immersive mode (with apologies for the blurry picture quality; note that even in immersive, 3D mode, the Personas of the people participating are still appearing in flatscreen mode, in tiny windows). However, the Personas are “sitting” on seats in a circle in a three-dimensional room, and the sound is spatial (for example, the Persona sitting to your left, their speaking voice sounds as if it is coming from your left).

You can choose to either represent yourself by a cartoon avatar (using one of several built-in options), or use your Persona (your real-life head and hands, scanned by the Apple Vision Pro as part of the device setup). Most people opt for the latter. The avatars and Personas appear in flat-screen windows, as 3D Personas are still only available in FaceTime calls.

I actually had my very first FaceTime chat using 3D personas, and having the people you are talking with appear in your space as three-dimensional heads and hands was certainly a noteworthy and memorable experience! (I actually jumped in fright when one of them appeared to be sitting on my sofa, right next to me!! When we high-fived, there was even a flash of light between our palms! It felt like I had stepped straight into the future.)

I experienced by first-ever FaceTime call with 3D Personas with these gentlemen (we set up the meeting via InSpaze), and let me tell you, a simple 2D picture does not even BEGIN to do it justice! My mind was BLOWN.

Unfortunately, Apple is still keeping close tabs on its spatial Personas feature, and they have not (as yet) allowed other platforms (such as InSpaze) to make use of the technology yet. But there’s something inevitable about it, and I wouldn’t be surprised at all if it creeps into InSpaze and other apps as well. It’s just amazing. In fact, I would say that it’s one of the most amazing things about the Apple Vision Pro.

Another truly amazing feature, which officially rolled out with the update to version 2.0 of the VisionOS operating system used on the Apple Vision Pro (although it was available before that with third-party apps such as the Spatial Media Toolkit), is the ability to convert a two-dimensional photo or video and convert it into 3D! I have spoken with several InSpaze users who have been experimenting with this new feature, and they tell me how emotional it makes them to see an old photo of a long-lost relative or pet converted to three dimensions, and it somehow makes them feel that the person or pet is right there next to them again.

There are drawbacks, of course. People have run tests, taking 2D and 3D versions of the same picture, then converting the 2D image to 3D and comparing the converted and taken-directly three-dimensional images. These comparisons show small details where the conversion algorithm—as amazing as it is!—fails. For example, a flag appearing behind leaves on a tree in the foreground shows up as a rag hanging in the tree in the 2D-to-3D converted picture. But you have to really look to find these kinds of errors, comparing them to the shot-in-3D picture. (This is another topic we discuss in our rooms in InSpaze, of course!)

I have deliberately chosen to be an early adopter of the Apple Vision Pro, and I do not regret that decision one bit. I have been spending quite a bit of time in the r/AppleVisionPro and r/VisionPro subreddits since the device was first released in the United States in February, following along with every new development and debate. Some of these early subreddit users reported that the curved front glass of their Apple Vision Pros developed cracks, and showed us pictures. Of course, this occurrence, while still rare, happened often enough that it was dubbed “Crackgate” by Reddit users, who shared tales of how they had to navigate Apple support to get a repair or replacement unit under their AppleCare warranties!

Well, guess what?

I have spent a LOT of money on my Apple Vision Pro, and I have been treating it like gold. One morning at work, while unpacking it from its carrying case, I inspected the front glass as usual—only to discover a tiny crack right in the middle of the curved front glass! I immediately made an appointment with the Genius Bar at my local Apple Store and brought it in for them to look at (I was told I was the first person in my province to bring back an AVP with such a problem). Given that the crack was purely cosmetic (the device still worked flawlessly) and very small (about half a centimeter in length), we agreed that we would monitor it. They took pictures if the crack, and I decided—for now—not too opt for repair or replacement. (I did talk about it in a couple of InSpaze rooms, and I was told that I should follow up with a call directly to the Apple Vision Pro team in the Apple Support app, an option which I will probably follow up on, especially as it appears to me that said crack is growing slightly!)

Also, I am somewhat upset that a device on which I have spent a grand total of CA$7,700 (a 1-terabyte model Apple Vision Pro, with a carrying case and 2 years of AppleCare warranty, plus provincial and federal sales taxes), has ALREADY developed a half-centimeter crack after only 7 weeks of daily use! So stay tuned for further details on my own personal CrackGate…and yes, I have been told by people in the InSpaze rooms where I talked about this, that I should follow through on this, just on sheer principle!

The half-centimeter crack in the front glass of my Apple Vision Pro (see blue arrow)—and no, I don’t look this bad in real life, it’s just the reflection from the curved glass front!!!

I consider myself lucky that I am not among the many AVP users who have had problems finding a comfortable fit for their devices; I have been using the medium-sized solo knit band without issue, and my initial fit of the facial shield has been quite comfortable for extended periods of use. (It probably helps that I have been wearing VR headsets of one kind or another since January of 2017, so I am very used to the front weight!)

However, I have received regular warnings that my eyes were too close to the lenses, and I have also noticed a certain amount of eyestrain to set in after about 1-1/2 to 2 hours of continuous use (something which I had never really encountered much before with other VR headsets). After reading this document from Apple Support, I realized that I could swap out the light seal cushion on the facial shield to a slightly thicker version (which was included in the original box), and since I did that, it seems to have alleviated the problem. However, I only did this late last week, and I still do need to spend some more extended time in my AVP to confirm that this fix alone was enough to alleviate my eyestrain problem.

Overall, while I have had some pains and problems with my Apple Vision Pro, I have been quite happy with it. I’m not sorry that I jumped in early this time, despite the problems I have encountered to date. When I wear it, I feel like I have taken an important step into the future. Also, because the AVP is still so new and the community is still so small, there is a exciting feeling of being part of a small, vibrant community where connections to developers are still quick and easy. One fellow new user posted the following comment to the VisionPro subreddit, which I agree with wholeheartedly:

There are many issues with the Vision Pro at its current level of development. However right now is also a “golden time” which will eventually go away so I am going to savor it while I can.

What I find so “golden” is the interaction between the VP users and app developers. I had an issue which I posted to a developer’s post on another website. I received a response 5 minutes later and the issue seems to have been resolved. Yesterday I had a video conference with a developer in London and I was able to make some suggestions which he appreciated for making the app better.

When filing technical support issues (I have filed thousand of them over the years) the time to respond is normally measured in days or longer. I haven’t receive a response to a support request that I sent to one company over a week ago. Actual resolution of the problem once identified can take years. A MacOS bug which I reported over 2 years ago was only just fixed with Sequoia. Once the VP transitions away from this exciting development phase these interactions with developers and fast resolution time will go away. You will talk with support who will be the ones who talk with the developers. Fixes will appear in a software release at an unknown date.

I am going to savor these direct connections while they last.

Many new app developers hang out in InSpaze or post new apps and updates in the AppleVisionPro and VisionPro subreddits, sharing TestFlight links to beta versions of apps. In fact, I belatedly realized that I could even use the existing TestFlight invitation which I had already recevied for the mobile Second Life app on my iPad Pro!

I checked on TestFlight on my Apple Vision Pro (which uses the same AppleID), and sure enough, there was the link to the mobile iOS SL client! And so it was that I might just be the first and only person in the world who has run the iOS mobile version of Second Life in a flatscreen window in my Apple Vision Pro!

I might well be the first person in the world to run the mobile client for Second Life in a window inside an Apple Vision Pro! Old virtual worlds meet new virtual reality 😉

In short, my experience overall so far has been nothing short of magic! And I cannot wait to see where we go from here.

UPDATE Oct. 11th, 2024: I just wanted to add a couple of updates to my original blogpost. Unfortunately, both are not good news.

First, switching to the slightly thicker light seal cushion has meant that I no longer get warnings that my eyes are too close to the Apple Vision Pro lenses (and, in fact, every so often I now get a warning that my eyes are too far away!). However, I still do find that, after about two hours wearing the device, that a certain amount of eye strain still happens. I’m not sure what the exact cause of it is, but it is not something which I have experienced with previous virtual reality headsets (in those cases, the problems have been more with either the fit, or with VR sickness/nausea, and not with eyestrain).

It might be because of the mismatch between what my eyes and my brain are telling me. For example, the virtual screen hovering above my MacBook Pro is both superimposed over my machine and yet also appears behind it in the physical space in my office. I have been experimenting with turning on one of the virtual environments to fill in the space around the virtual screen (I tend to use the Mount Hood environment), while still leaving a view of the edge of my desk:

In this screen capture I just took in my Apple Vision Pro, I have turned up the Mount Hood environment so it surrounds the virtual display of my MacBook pro screen, but you can still make out the window in my office in the upper rightphand corner of the picture. I can continue to turn the right-hand knob on top of my AVP to completely replace my office view with Mount Hood, but then I wouldn’t be able to find my coffee cup!
You can just barely make out my blue coffee mug on my desk, next to my glasses. I can actually drink from the coffee mug while wearing my Apple Vision Pro, but find I have to tilt my head back to an awkward degree to finish the coffee, so I have added a metal straw, which works much better!

Sharing screen captures of what I can see in my Apple Vision Pro could not be easier; all I have to do is press both the top left and top right buttons on my device simultaneously to save a snapshot to the Photos app on my AVP. Then, I go into the Photos app on my Apple Vision Pro, select Share, then use AirDrop to transmit the image to my MacBook Pro to insert into this blog post!

The second piece of bad news is that the half-centimetre crack in the front curved glass of my Apple Vision Pro appears to be getting wider, so I am once again going to have to contact Apple Support. My new friends in InSpaze have advised me, instead of recontacting my local Apple Store, to talk directly to somebody on the Apple Vision Pro team via the Apple Support app. I’ve been told that they will have much more experience in dealing with such problems (and their possible solutions) than my local store (especially since, as I have said before, I’m the first person in my whole province of 1.4 million people to present them with a device crack!). And this time around, I am going to use my AppleCare warranty coverage to firmly insist on repair or replacement. A crack in such an new and expensive device is NOT okay.

But I am feeling a bit weary of having to face yet another verbal joust with Apple’s AI chatbot to get through to an actual, live, human support person. And—as I stated at the start of this blogpost—I am already feeling absolutely exhausted and completely worn out by the demands of my job, so I might postpone that battle to next week, after I have spent a relaxing (Canadian) Thanksgiving long weekend resting, and recharging my mental batteries.

UPDATED! A Review of the Apple Vision Pro at the Three-Week Mark: What Apps and Experiences I Have Used the Most (and what Matthew Ball Thinks of the AVP After Six Months)

UPDATE 10:37 p.m.: I actually wriote this review in two parts, and reading it back, I can see now it reads a bit disjointedly for that reason, so I am including a separator between the two parts to make it clearer. Also, I had misnamed the Encounter Dinosaurs experience, an error which I have now corrected. Thanks!

I have also added a link to a blogpost by metaverse blogger Matthew Ball, with his opinions after using the Apple Vision Pro for six months.

Since I received my prescription lenses for my Apple Vision Pro on July 29th, I am nearing the end of my third week using the device almost every day, usually for an hour or two each day. The prescription lenses are magnetically attached to the AVP, so I can very easily remove them if and when I decide to start giving demonstrations of the Apple Vision Pro to other people!

I’m still getting used to the device myself, and I want to make sure that I am comfortable enough with it before I start giving demos to other people. Also, I will be reviewing documentation that other AVP users have already written up (like this example), so I can make sure that I give demos in such a way that I (and the person who receives a demo!) don’t accidentally damage my very expensive device!

For example, you have to remember to tell new users not to pick up the device by the facial shield, because it (like my prescription lenses) is only magnetically attached to the actual, glass-and-metal Apple Vision Pro itself, and it will detach when you pick it up by that! You have to remember to pick it up by holding onto the edges of the actual, curved-glass-and-metal device itself. I’m probably going to have to write up detailed, step-by-step instructions, so that any staff who work in the University of Manitoba’s future virtual reality lab will be able to help university faculty, staff, and students have their first AVP experience!

Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention: I am so blown away by what I experienced these past three weeks (more details below), that I am 100% certain that, in addition to the Vive Pro 2 and Meta Quest 3, I will be asking the Libraries to purchase an Apple Vision Pro to make available to faculty, staff, and students at my university, to use for teaching, learning, and research purposes. In three short weeks, I have become an Apple Vision Pro evangelist! Come hell or high water, we are getting one. It’s just that good. I will repeat what I said in an earlier blogpost, written during my first week of using my Apple Vision Pro:

The Apple Vision Pro makes every single VR headset I have used to date feel like one of those red plastic View-Masters I used to play with as a kid in the 1960s. The “screen door” effect so evident in earlier VR headsets (where you can see individual pixels, making everything slightly blurry) is COMPLETELY, UTTERLY gone.

In fact, the Apple Vision Pro is such a leap forward in terms of technology, that it is going to be hard to go back to the once-formerly-state-of-the-art displays of the Meta Quest 3, and especially the Vive Pro 2, afterwards!

Anyway, let’s get back to the reason I wanted to write this blogpost: I wanted to talk about some of the apps and experiences I have had in my new Apple Vision Pro over the past three weeks, as well as give some more first impressions of the device itself.

Apple has lavished its usual slavish attention to style and construction on the Apple Vision Pro headset. It is beautiful to look at as well as to use! The front is one piece of custom curved glass, attached to a sleek, rounded metal frame, and it is the smallest VR headset that I have ever tried on (not as small as the Bigscreen Beyond, which I wrote about previously here, but then again, I have never tried that device).

Having worn other, bulkier, VR headsets, I found that the Apple Vision Pro sits higher on my cheeks, which feels strange at first, but you quickly get used to it. The AVP has many internal sensors and cameras, and it is smart enough to warn you when you are wearing the device too high or too low on your face, so you can adjust it accordingly for the best experience. Also, when you give somebody else a demonstration using the built-in guest mode, it automatically calculates the correct interpupillary distance (IPD; i.e. the distance between the pupils of your left and right eyes) so that you have an optimal view. (When giving demos on the Vive Pro 2 and Meta Quest 3 VR headsets, I now have a special app on my work iPad Pro 11 to measure someone’s IPD so I can dial in the correct value before they put on the headset.)

When you place your order for an AVP from the Apple website (or, if you were to purchase one in your local Apple Store), you will have to use a FaceID-enabled iPhone or iPad to do a scan of your face to determine the correct size of facial shield. The facial shield is highly customized to your face and your needs. For example, because I need prescription lenses, the facial shield has to be somewhat deeper to accommodate them (if I were to wear soft contact lenses instead to correct my vision, then I would need to purchase a separate, less deep facial shield, and my field of view would be a little bit wider than it would be with the prescription lenses).

Which brings me to something that I wish was better: the field of view. While I have found that the up-and-down field of view to be pretty good, I was less impressed with the side-to-side field of view. In particular, when recording spatial videos, it is disappointing when playing them back to see just how constrained they are. While they do offer you a wider-screen, “immersive” playback option for spatial videos, that, too, has its limitations, as the video tends to blur at the edges, instead of the crisp edges you would see when watching the video in a regular (small) window. But I have no doubt that this aspect of the technology will improve over time.

There are actually two different kinds of 3D videos that you can play in the Apple Vision Pro: spatial videos and immersive videos. The videos you can record and share using the Apple Vision Pro or a later-model iPhone (iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max models with iOS 17.2 or later) are called spatial videos; that is, you can clearly see the 3D effect, but it is not immersive. Immersive videos are recorded using more expensive equipoment, and the results are truly spectacular—you watch the video, and you feel like you are actually present!

In fact, one of the apps I signed up for is a monthly subscription service called Explore POV (Point of View), where I can download and play high-quality immersive videos, recorded in 180-degree 3D 16K resolution. The creators visit various locations around the world, and record either one long video scene, or an edited series of scenes in one video. For example, one Explore POV video is simply the videographer walking along a beach in New Zealand, watching the surf pound onto the sand under a blue sky. When you watch it, it actually is so realistic that it feels as if you are actually there—and when you lift your hand and look at it, it is superimposed on the video! Here is the Explore POV website if you want to learn more, and here’s a recent video by the creator himself:

Separate from spatial and immersive videos are the Apple Vision Pro’s built-in 360-degree Environments, which you can turn on and adjust using a knob on the upper-right of the AVP. Turn the knob all the way clockwise, and it completely replaces your space with a selected virtual-reality Environment. Turn it all the way counter-clockwise, you are in full augmented-reality mode, where your icons and app windows hover in and over your physical environment. You can also adjust the knob to somewhere in the middle, where your central view has an Environment, which fades away at the edges to your real world. It’s one of those things which is hard to describe but easy to experience, but Apple Vision Pro Environments in themselves are so well-done and so realistic, that I consider them, alone, to be a “killer app” for the Apple Vision Pro! Quite often, I will simply close all my apps and just sit and meditate (or listen to tunes from my Apple Music library) while sitting peacefully in front of Mount Hood, or halfway up Haleakalā volcano in Hawaii, watching the sun set behind the clouds.

Given this ability to surround you in various realistic environments, it is perhaps not surprising that one of the many use cases for the Apple Vision Pro is as a device to assist in calming, centering, and meditation. There are already numerous spatial meditation apps in the Apple Vision Pro Store, but the one that I have found myself using the most is called Tripp. Tripp’s main menu has five sections (Focus, Calm, Breathe, Ascend, and Sleep) where you can select from many different kinds of guided meditations, or mix and match pieces to create a customized meditation. The Ascend section features a truly psychedelic mini-documentary on the life journey of Ram Dass, the American psychologist and popularizer of Eastern spirituality and yoga, which everybody should try out, at least once!

And, of course, there is already a lot of video content to enjoy in the Apple TV+ app and the Disney+ app, including a small but growing selection of 3D videos. There is a short but extremely well-done app called Encounter Dinosaurs which really should be something anyone who tries on an Apple Vision Pro should experience! It’s definitely a showcase for the cutting-edge capabilities of the technology, where you feel you can almost reach out and touch a real, living dinosaur! Always a good demo.

And, speaking of demos, I finally gave my first demonstration of the Apple Vision Pro to another person, my brother. And this is where I have to say, things did not go so well.

I had difficulties in getting mirroring to work (that is, being able to cast what the other person was seeing in the AVP to another device, such as a MacOS desktop, iPad, or iPhone). Once I got that working, then I was able to set it up so that I could help talk my brother through how to use the Apple Vision Pro—only to forget that I had to turn mirroring off before he could watch any content on Apple TV+ and Disney+ apps! (At least he got to try out Encounter Dinosaurs.)

All in all, trying to give a demo to another user via the AVP’s Guest Mode was highly frustrating. Perhaps I have been too quick to judge the usefulness of the Apple Vision Pro for a multi-user environment like the virtual reality lab that I am currently working on setting up for my university library system. We’ll see what happens as I give other people their first taste of the device.

P.S. I forgot to mention that I have also made five or six forays into InSpaze, the Apple Vision Pro’s premier social app, and had some wonderful conversations with people from around the world! I will save that report for a later blogpost on my blog. In the meantime, you can read what I wrote earlier about InSpaze here (before I got my hot little hands on my own Apple Vision Prto!).

UPDATE 10:30 p.m.: I just discovered that Matthew Ball (whom I have written about before on this blog) has written up a blogpost titled 9 Takeaways from the Vision Pro after 6 months, so I have linked to it from my blog. I very much appreciate Matthew’s take on things, and I wanted to share what he said with you as well, as a sort of counterpoint to my own, obviously more limited, thoughts and impressions. (By the way, I agree 100% with Matthew’s take on the EyeSight feature of the AVP. While it’s cool, I also feel it’s a bit gimmicky.)

I agree with Matthew Ball; the Apple Vision Pro’s EyeSight feature (where you can see the user’s eyes while they are wearing the AVP, as shown here) is a cool gimmick, but, in my opinion, not really necessary.

Watching Disney on Haleakalā: First Impressions of the Apple Vision Pro, After Using It for One Week

Late last Monday afternoon, my prescription lenses for my new Apple Vision Pro arrived via UPS, and I was finally able to set up my AVP and download apps from the App Store (mostly educational and workplace stuff, because I’m not a gamer, and this is not a gaming headset). Here are some of my first impressions of the device, after using it for one week (and from the perspective of someone who plans to use it both as a productivity tool at work, and to consume media at home). Because I am a social VR blogger, I will also add some thoughts about the AVP and its potential applications to the metaverse.

But before I do that, I wanted to share with you what happened when I showed up at my local Apple Store on July 12th, 2024, to pick up Apple Vision Pro. As part of the process, they scanned my eyeglasses and fit a demonstration unit with the appropriate prescription lenses, so I could go through a one-hour walk-through with a store associate, who was monitoring what I could see in my AVP on a small iPad (see image, right). My first reaction when I was handed the demo unit at the Apple Store at Polo Park was: wow, it’s so small! It is a surprisingly compact unit. Compared to every other virtual reality headset I have worn, I find the device sits higher up on my cheeks, which takes a bit of getting used to at first (the Apple Vision Pro automatically determines the correct interpupillary distance/IPD, and will tell you if you need to adjust the headset up or down to get the best view).

There are only two buttons on the Apple Vision Pro: the first button is on the upper right, which you can use to pull up the apps/people/environments menus, and adjust how much of the environments you see (more on that below), and a second button on the upper left, which you use to start recording 3D video or to take a 3D photograph of what you see (you also double-click it to confirm any purchases you make in the device; it then scans your retinas to confirm that it’s you). That’s it: just two buttons! The rest of navigation is handled by eye gaze and hand gestures. You look at an app icon, and it subtly brightens; you then tap together your index finger and thumb, and select it to open the app. It is simple and intuitive, but I have found that my 60-year-old gaze has a tendency to wander a little bit, so I am still making some mistakes in my first week. I assume I will become a seasoned pro at navigation over time!

The Apple Vision Pro has what it calls environments, which are high-quality, 360-degree virtual spaces which can be used as a backdrop to your other activities in the headset, or if you just want to pause and take in the scenery. I personally think that they really are the hidden killer app of the AVP! In a message I shared with some of my friends in Second Life, I said:

As I’ve mentioned before, I got my first virtual reality headset (an Oculus Rift) back in 2017, and I’ve tried out numerous VR headsets since then: Valve Index, Vive Pro 2, Meta Quest, Meta Quest 2, Meta Quest 3, etc. In fact, I’m currently working on a project to set up a VR/AR lab for faculty, staff, and students at my university library system, for them to use in their teaching, learning, and research…

The Apple Vision Pro makes every single VR headset I have used to date feel like one of those red plastic View-Masters I used to play with as a kid in the 1960s. The “screen door” effect so evident in earlier VR headsets (where you can see individual pixels, making everything slightly blurry) is COMPLETELY, UTTERLY gone.

I sat at the lakeshore at Mount Hood, surrounded by forest, and listened to the rain fall gently onto the lake, causing tiny ripples in the water, watching the clouds gently cross the sky above the mountain.

It felt REAL.

I. WAS. THERE.

I almost started crying.

The following YouTube video created by another AVP user illustrates how these environments work, and takes you to two of them: a view high up on the Haleakalā volcano in Hawaii, and a wintertime scene in Yosemite National Park in California:

This video also illustrates how you can adjust the selected environment. As I said to some of my work colleagues when showing them the device, “See this knob on the upper right of the Apple Vision Pro? If I turn this knob clockwise all the way, I am rejecting your reality and replacing it with a different one.” Likewise, if I turn the same knob counter-clockwise all the way, the environment disappears, and I can see everything around me. If you wish, you can work away on an email or a spreadsheet while completely surrounded by the peaks of Yosemite!

At the moment there are only seven environments available in the AVP, but you have a choice of daytime or nighttime for all of them, so really, it’s 14 environments (you also have four “moods,” which superimpose a tint and some background sounds over your real environment). Last night, I re-subscribed to Disney+, and I watched the first 30 minutes of the 3D movie Wish on a large, theatre-quality screen while sitting on top of Haleakalā, under a full moon and a sky full of stars. (While the amount of 3D content in Disney+ is still small, it is still early days, and I have no doubt that more is in the pipeline over at the Disney industrial complex!)

But I got the Apple Vision Pro for more than just to watch movies and TV shows; I also plan to use it at work! All I have to do is take off my glasses and put it on, and when I stare at my MacBook Pro, it automatically asks if I want to connect! When I do, I have a large, beautiful screen hovering in midair above my MacBook Pro, which I can reposition and resize as I prefer. The screen is crystal clear, and text is sharp and very readable. I believe that I would easily be able to make the switch from my dual desktop monitors to the Apple Vision Pro!

Using my Apple Vision Pro with my MacBook Pro was a breeze!

By the way, there already is social VR in the Apple Vision Pro. There’s a promising program called InSpaze, which I have already downloaded and installed on my device, where you can meet up and interact with other AVP users (I wrote about it before on my blog here). Here’s a 15-minute YouTube video I had shared in my previous blogpost, to give you an idea of what InSpaze is all about, and how it works:

As part of the setting-up process for the Apple Vision Pro, you take off the headset and hold it in front of your face like a camera, to record yourself looking from side to side, up and down, closed-mouth and open-mouth smiling, raising your eyebrows, etc. These scans are then used to create a highly realistic-looking virtual recreation of your head, upon which I promptly slapped a pair of virtual eyeglasses to look more like me in real life! This recreation is called a Persona, and it can be used in places like Microsoft Teams—and InSpaze!

However, I chickened out before I even entered my first InSpaze room. Why? Well, as you know, I have visited a great many social VR experiences over the years, and written about them extensively on this blog. I mean, the tagline of my blog is “News and Views on Social VR, Virtual Worlds, and the Metaverse,” right? 😉 But, in every one of them to date, I have always hidden behind an avatar of one kind or another. Even if it was an avatar that I had styled to look like me (e.g. in the Meta Quest 3), it was a highly stylized, cartoon version of me. In InSpaze, you do have the option of selecting a cartoon avatar, but it feels somehow like cheating, when you already have a highly realistic-looking Persona of your head and shoulders that you can use. In other words, I hesitated in entering my first InSpaze room because I’m not used to sharing my actual, sixty-year-old face with other people in social VR! (I’ll eventually get there; you know I wouldn’t miss the experience for the world!)

To sum up, the Apple Vision Pro feels like magic, and I am particularly impressed with how sharp, crisp, and clear the visuals are in the device. It’s so good that you can easily forget that it’s not real! This feels very much like I got an early invite to the future, and I am particularly excited about the metaverse possibilities. In my message to my Second Life friends, I also said:

F#$%ing AMAZING tech. If you live near an Apple Store, I highly recommend you pop in for a hands-on demo. Expensive as hell, but in my opinion, worth every penny.

I just had a glimpse of the future, and lemme tellya, the future is gonna be interesting! Ready Player One is coming sooner than you think (both the good parts and the bad parts, in my opinion).

But if you can just slip on a headset and BE somewhere, anywhere, like it was reality, instead of just staring at a flat screen and wishing you were somehow there inside it, inhabiting your avatar—that magic we sometimes experience in Second Life—the people and companies who (successfully) make THAT magic happen in this new world are gonna get rich. Mark my words.

This is just a first impressions blogpost, a sort of mini-review; I have no doubt that I will write more about this amazing device in the weeks to come. I will also be working with the business office at my local Apple Store, to see if I can add an Apple Vision Pro to the mix of VR/AR headsets we will be offering in the virtual reality lab project I am currently working on for my university library system. I want as many faculty, staff, and students as possible to try out the Apple Vision Pro, and get them thinking about how this technology can be used to further their teaching, learning, and research!

Why I Bought the Apple Vision Pro—And Why I Am Returning It (UPDATE: NOT Returning It)

This is not the review that I was expecting to write for the Apple Vision Pro.

Last Friday, I took the day off work, and went down to the Apple Store in Polo Park, giddy as a kid on Christmas morning, to pick up my pre-ordered Apple Vision Pro. The demo and walk-through went very well, and I have nothing but praise for the store associate who led me through a basic tour of the AVP’s features. I picked up the eyes-and-hand navigation in no time. I marveled at the technology, declared it worth every penny I had spent, and walked out of the store, bags in hand, feeling on top of the world.

I was told that I was the first person in Manitoba to walk out of that store with an Apple Vision Pro. I wanted to be on the cutting edge of VR and AR. I wanted to be one of the cool kids. I was all set to go.

However.

I am currently at the point where, unless something changes quickly, I will soon be walking back into that same Apple Store, the same bags in hand, with a repackaged Apple Vision Pro and accessories (e.g. a carrying case), to return them all and get my money back.

Why? Well, I’m glad you asked.

I am returning the Apple Vision Pro for one reason and one reason only. During the order process, I scanned a copy of my eyeglasses prescription, since I will be unable to wear my glasses under the face-hugging, ski-mask-like design of the AVP.

When I showed up last Friday to pick up my unit, they cleaned and put my eyeglasses into a machine called a lensometer, which automatically measured my lenses and spit out a code, which then could then use to pull magnetic prescription lenses from the large collection of lenses they have kept in the back of the store, just for the purpose of demos. So, in other words, even though I didn’t have my prescription lenses ready yet, I could still go through the demonstration and walk-through process in store which, as I have said, went swimmingly.

The problem is, that I only have 15 days to return the Apple Vision Pro for a no-questions-asked, full refund. The clock started ticking the moment I left the store. And, as it turns out, my prescription lenses I ordered are currently still sitting in limbo in the United States, and I cannot get a hold of any real, live person at UPS to explain to me why they were unable to deliver them to me today, when they were promised:

All day, I kept refreshing the tracking page, waiting for it to move from “On the Way” to “Out for Delivery.” It never happened. The last status of my order was dated July 13th, showing that my prescription lenses were sitting in a UPS facility in Louisville, Kentucky, where apparently they have been sitting ever since. No word. No updates. No text or email messages with status updates (even though I had set them up).

This is when my nightmare started.

I spent the next few hours this evening trying, in vain, to connect to a real, live human being at UPS who could tell me why my prescription lenses were stuck in limbo. Every time, I landed up in an AI chatbot hell, which sent me in circles.

So I have decided to return my Apple Vision Pro and get my money back, because there is every possibility that my 15-day return window is going to close before I can even use the damn thing! I have assembled it, charged it, and put it on, once—and I can’t see a thing without the corrective lenses I need. I can’t even begin to set it up! The clock is ticking while I essentially have a useless, CA$7,700* paperweight on my hands. And I am getting angry.

Why Apple chose to partner up with UPS to deliver their prescription lenses, and why Apple forces you to order the device and the prescription lenses at the same time, instead of ordering the lenses ahead of time, is something that I do not understand. Maybe once I actually get my hands on my prescription lenses, then I will go back and buy one. But not before.

But I am not going to sit around and wait for UPS to get their shit together, and spring me from AI chatbot jail. I even tried to file a claim, only for it to be rejected, with a reference to the same telephone number with the same AI chatbot I had fought with all evening:

I was quite willing (eager, even) to pay through the nose to be a glorified beta tester for Apple, but not if I can’t even USE the device I bought! This whole sales process is screwed up for people who require prescription lenses, and until it is fixed, they can have their Apple Vision Pro back, and my money can sit in my bank account until they do get their act together. Enough. This is not the level of service I expect from a company like Apple, and the fact they decided to partner with UPS, and their shitty customer service, just blows my mind.

UPDATE Thursday, July 18th, 2024, 9:00 a.m.: My tracking page now looks like this:

Therefore, since I now have absolutely no idea when I can expect my prescription lenses, without which my Apple Vision Pro is useless, tomorrow I will be packing up my device, and returning it to the Apple Store to get a refund within the 15-day, no-questions-asked return period.

UPDATE Thursday, July 18th, 2024, 10:44 a.m.: I have just spent a very frustrating half hour on the phone with the Apple Store in Polo Park, which started by once again being interrogated by an AI chatbot who is pretending to type on a keyboard while telling me to please wait. When I finally got through to a real person, I could not find the original purchase receipt in my email at all, and I had to jump through several hoops in order for them to send me another receipt, which I will be printing off and bringing with me on Friday when I return everything.

I am getting angrier and angrier at this whole experience, and that anger has nothing to do with the specifications of the product itself; it has everything to do with how I am being treated as a customer. UPS gets most of the blame here, although my situation illustrates that Apple might need to rethink how the purchase process might need to be adjusted for people who require prescription lenses.

UPDATE Saturday, July 20th: So, I packed up my Apple Vision Pro and took it back to the Apple Store, where I spoke with both the business manager and the store manager. They told me that they wanted me to take advantage of the full 15-day return window, and therefore would not start the clock until my prescription lenses are released from limbo in Louisville and are in my possession!

Therefore, I took my boxes back home, and now we are working from both sides (mine and the store’s) to figure out why there has been a delay in delivery, and how to fix it. (Please note that all this happened before the Crowdstrike outage, which apparently is also affecting UPS. As of this morning, the status on my tracking page is still “The delivery date will be provided as soon as possible,” and they are still stuck in Louisville, Kentucky, where they have been sitting since July 13th.)

UPDATE Tuesday, July 23rd: Well, today UPS updated the tracking page for my prescription lenses to a status of Delay, with the message: “We’re sorry for the inconvenience. If you are the sender, please check with the receiver to confirm delivery. Otherwise, you may start a claim to provide a resolution.” In other words, UPS seems to have lost my lenses.

I once again tried to file a claim, filling out several pages of information on the UPS website, before I once again got the same error message as I did last week, which referred me back to their 1-800 telephone number and AI chatbot hell. After yelling at the chatbot for half an hour (which, apparently, has not been trained on the phrase I WANT TO MAKE A CLAIM), I finally got connected to a real, live human being in the Tracking Department, who referred me on to a woman in the Investigation Department, where I learned that it is now up to the sender (i.e., Apple, or perhaps Zeiss) to start an investigation into what went wrong. So, I have dutifully relayed all the information this women gave me to my contact at the Apple Retail Business office at their Polo Park store.

At this point I am ready to tear my hair out in frustration. It doesn’t help that I have also been fighting with both my bank and Canada Revenue Agency this week, over a mistake which my former financial planner made in 2022, leading to fines I have to pay for all three of the 2022, 2023, and 2024 tax years. This thing with Apple was the cherry on top of a shit sundae, a very bad week overall. But I digress.

So far, this has been a horrible customer service experience, easily the worst one since I tried to get my Valve Index VR headset repaired when it broke. As a result of that experience, I swore that I would never, EVER purchase a Valve Index VR headset for the virtual reality lab project I am currently working on for the University of Manitoba Libraries, because even though I like the Valve Index hardware, God help you if anything should go wrong, and you have to try and get support for a problem, or (God forbid) you want to talk to an actual person about the problem you are having.

Valve’s entire support system is set up to hinder, not help you, and keep you from talking a real person, much like the UPS setup (and, for that matter, the Canada Revenue Service). I might be able to forgive, but I will not forget, and my current experience with Apple, Zeiss, and UPS, is shaping up to be similar to my Valve Index debacle. (I note with a feeling of harsh satisfaction that my blogpost outlining my nightmare support experience with Valve shows up in the first page of Google search results when you search on “valve index support.” At least, it does for me. Your mileage may vary.)

You give Auntie Ryan a poor customer service experience, trust and believe that everybody will hear about it, sweetheart! (Or, as I often like to say, “I am that bitch.”)

At this point, Apple is going to work with the investigation team at UPS to find out what the hell happened to my first order, and we have already placed a second, replacement order, which is due to arrive July 27th to 29th. And Apple will issue me a refund for the first set of lenses, which we now assume are lost in Louisville. And I have received an apology both from the Apple Store, and from UPS, for the incovenience and hassle. So, now we wait.

*cost of a 1-terabyte Apple Vision Pro, two years of AppleCare warranty coverage, a carrying case, plus provincial and federal sales taxes (equivalent to US$5,628 at today’s exchange rate)