Apple Vision Pro turned me back into a bona fide Glasshole

I’m still working on it, and space computing and wearable computing in general. But two weeks ago, as I packed the device into its oversized case to demonstrate to my colleagues in our office, I had a grim realization. Like every other headset that’s come before it (be it Oculus, Meta Quest, HTC Vive, PlayStation VR, Google Cardboard—the list goes on), the only real use case it’s seen is showing it to people who have never seen it before. It was a devastating realization.

I am a futurist, not necessarily by choice, but by compulsion. I have an incurable case of severe optimism. But also, a very critical filter for hype. And four months ago, when I got my hands on the Vision Pro at launch, I believed I was looking at our collective future. VisionOS felt inevitable. It felt like, Of course, this is how we’ll all be using computers soon.

Finally, some of the core problems that plagued previous generations of headsets (be it virtual, augmented, or mixed reality) were solved. The Vision Pro’s resolution, frame rate and eye tracking were revelatory. Gone is the almost constant fear of motion sickness. Gone is the need to manually map out a “safe zone” to avoid breaking furniture. Gone are the awkward controllers.

I was a vocal supporter of Apple’s attempt to bring freshers into the blended physical and digital world. I made counterarguments against the overwhelming chorus of why? Why so expensive? Why so heavy? Why so creepy?

It’s four months later though, and I honestly forgot the thing existed for two whole weeks. The reality of spatial computing is that there is almost no room for it in everyday life.

How did we get here?

The core of the problem is the name and positioning of this device in the market. In reality, the Apple Vision Pro is a bulky, heavy, expensive, but ultimately groundbreaking developer kit. In this context, it is a home job. But instead, Apple’s marketing team pitched it as consumer-ready Pros product (despite Steve Jobs’ warning about what happens when marketing takes over a product-led company). And so, we are forced to judge it through this lens.

Google Glass suffered a fate similar to what I feared for the Apple Vision V1. It was released with fanfare, heralded as the future of personal computing and promising to free people from the shackles of their neck-strain-inducing smartphones, all while allowing intrepid futurist early adopters like myself to behave more naturally among muggles. However, the opposite happened. Get over the terrible battery life, the shockingly steep price (about half the cost of the Vision Pro), and the limited set of apps and functionality. What actually killed Google Glass was how people recoiled in disgust when they caught someone wearing it in public.

Vision Pro is no different. The sheer aversion I face wearing it is a clear indication that society has made its choice between headphones being a glimpse of our inevitable future or a shrill and obnoxious piece of technological nonsense. At least Google Glass was physically comfortable to wear. The Vision Pro is so heavy, unbalanced, and painful that in the first week, while trying to wear it as the productivity-enhancing device it was meant to be, I barely lasted 2.5 days with it. And that’s despite the face scan they run during the ordering process to determine which light shield is “my perfect match.”

Here’s the unfortunate truth: Except when I’m showing the Vision Pro to people for the first time, I’ve become completely indifferent and unfazed by the prospect of turning it on.

It wasn’t meant to be, and I can’t help but reflect on where this headset went wrong, along with the dozens of devices that filled the timeline before it, disappearing like dead trophies of progressive innovation. Apple has always been known for launching new devices with reduced functionality and oversimplified controls, but the Vision Pro takes this to the extreme. And the supposedly next-gen visionOS 2, which Apple announced last week, delivers incremental updates at best. Reports this week of Apple suspending work on the next version of the device due to a lack of demand and instead prioritizing a cheaper model indicate that the company may be backtracking and that there is internal tension for this launch which is a case of technology. placed before customer experience (ironically).

While the intuitiveness and design of the Vision Pro are certainly industry-defining standards, the public shaming, inconvenience, price, and missing functionality are very hard pills to swallow. It is unlikely that Vision Pro will achieve any significant market penetration or create a foundation of content and experiences that deliver the lasting emotional impact necessary to make it a “must-have” investment for individual consumers.

My eyes are still lifting to the horizon with hope. I hope for much lighter and cheaper devices. Hope for a solution to the painful loneliness that comes when you hold it with others and realize they can’t share what you’re seeing. Hope for a killer app or use the case around remote telepresence to catch fire and drive the huge improvements in cost and miniaturization of the technology that are currently barriers to its mass appeal.

As I watched another slickly produced and sterile WWDC demo at Apple headquarters last week and watched all the inside jokes about software chief Craig Federighi’s hair, one thing was certain: No one higher up at Apple i wear this every day.

With the pending launch of Vision Pro in Canada in a few weeks (I’m based in Toronto), I’ve resigned myself to the fact that when friends, family and colleagues ask if they should pay a significant chunk of disposable income to get one, my answer will be, unfortunately, no.

Not yet at least.

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