Andrea Iriarte
Staff Writer
Last June, Apple promised its users a glimpse into the future with its announcement of the Apple Vision Pro, the company’s new mixed reality headset. However, early demonstrations of the device left many perplexed with its mysterious simplicity and stunned with the attached $3,500 price tag.
With the official release of the Apple Vision Pro on February 2, 2024, while much of the secrecy enshrouding the Apple Vision Pro has dissipated, the device’s impact on computing, the virtual reality market, and society as a whole, remain to be seen.
Unlike many other virtual reality headsets, which aim to replace physical reality with an immersive digital experience, the Apple Vision Pro integrates the physical with the digital in order to create a “spatial computing” environment.
Users can use the built-in eye-tracking and hand-tracking features to size, place, and interact with applications anywhere in their mixed-reality space. This liberates users from the physical constraints associated with traditional forms of computing, such as static screen size and immobility.
While many have praised the Apple Vision Pro for its sleek aluminum design, effortless eye-tracking, beautiful micro-OLED display, and revolutionary approach to computing, the device has not gone without criticism.
Many users have complained about the headset’s weight, which is poorly distributed by the default single-loop strap. Others report frustratingly buggy hand and eye-tracking experiences and windows blurred by movement. Some users are disappointed by the lack of meaningful experiences and use cases available at launch.
Loneliness has also been a concern for new users of the Apple Vision Pro. Although loneliness has been a common problem for most VR headsets, Apple has attempted to keep users connected to the outside world by focusing on synthesizing the digital with the physical both by including software features such as Passthrough and Personas, and hardware features such as Eyesight.
Despite these attempts, many users still feel alienated from their real-world environments due to the exclusive and singular nature of the headset. Though the Eyesight and Persona features help the user communicate with others more personally both offline and online, the features have been criticized for creating uncanny and awkward digital representations of the user.
The largest criticism facing the Apple Vision Pro, however, is its immoderate $3,500 price tag. This is especially highlighted by Meta’s competitive Quest 3 headset, which retails for only $500.
In an Instagram video uploaded earlier this week, after trying on the Apple Vision Pro, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg exclaimed that “before this, I expected that Quest would be the better value for most people…but after using it, I don’t just think that Quest is the better value, I think that Quest is the better product, period.”
Zuckerberg points to the Quest being a more comfortable headset, as well as providing crisper passthrough visuals, a vast library of virtual reality and augmented reality games and experiences, and support for highly precise controllers and hand-tracking.
While those who have tried both headsets may not fully agree with Zuckerberg’s statements, the Meta Quest 3 still benefits from its focus on gaming and other physical and engaging activities, offering a more dynamic experience, overall.
Despite its early criticisms, the Apple Vision Pro still offers an impressive glimpse into the future. Its unique approach to VR will help make the technology more accessible and useful for a larger variety of people. Ultimately, this is just the beginning for the Apple Vision Pro. It will be up to developers to really bring the headset to life.
Like the Apple Vision Pro, the Meta Quest 3 offers impressive passthrough and spatial computing functionalities that allow users to work and consume media in the same flexible and immersive environment. However, in contrast to the Apple Vision Pro, the Meta Quest 3 is fully capable of providing fully immersive gaming experiences.
