The Vision Pro has landed in Australia five months after the US launch, retailing at $5,999. At that price, it’s perhaps no surprise that Apple staff present it on a wooden platter like we’re in a five-star restaurant.
Next, the staff at Apple’s Chadstone store in Melbourne fit the device to your head, match your glasses prescription and get it up and running.
Once you’re set up, it’s easy to use. It tracks your eyes to point to what you want to click on. You tap your thumb and index finger to click, similar to Apple Watch gestures. You can gesture to scroll and zoom very easily.
In the short demo, I was taken through panoramas rendered fully within the Vision Pro screen space, spatial photos and videos shot on both iPhone 15 Pro and with the Vision Pro. One included a young family blowing out candles on a birthday cake, where it felt so close I could almost smell the candles.
When Apple first decided to get into the watch market, I didn’t really get it. More notifications on your wrist and you have to charge it a few times a week? No thanks.
Now it’s indispensable for me, and has transformed my exercise regime and fitness tracking.
It may end up being the same way for the Vision Pro. After my first try, it’s clear it’s an excellent device with very impressive features – but I’m not quite sure what the ultimate purpose is.
The most obvious function is for watching movies or TV shows. The device has a cinema function that makes it feel like you’re in the cinema – and this at a time when fewer people are going to cinemas. There are already more than 300 3D movies available on Vision Pro, including films from Disney Plus.
I’ve tried other goggles, headsets and various attempts at digital eyewear that always felt very gimmicky. They often felt very heavy and impractical.
It’s not that the Vision Pro has overcome all these obstacles – after half an hour wearing it, it left as deep an impression on my forehead as it did in my mind, to paraphrase a great film.
But it is impressively intuitive and works well to immerse into the Vision Pro environment while still leaving you with awareness of what is going on around you. The fact it matched my glasses prescription perfectly made it much easier.
Where it may come in handy is around work. For all the mocking of the so-called laptop class that emerged after Covid – those working from home on their laptop – I could see a premium tier of this class emerging: the Apple Vision Pro class.
I could see a class of worker with multiple screens open in the Vision Pro, allowing them to dial into Zoom calls all from the Vision Pro without the need for a desktop set up at home.
Just watch out for the “Sent from my Vision Pro” emails coming in.
As I was leaving the store, the Apple staff clapped – a signal that someone had bought one.
I have long been firmly lodged within Apple’s ecosystem, with iPhone, iPad, watch and a couple of subscriptions. In theory, Vision Pro would be something I could easily slot into my life, but at the current price and offering, it is extremely unlikely I will be an early adopter of the Vision Pro.
As with everything Apple, it will come down to the apps, so we will need to wait and see what developers come up with.