Some More Thoughts After Eight Weeks Using the Apple Vision Pro – Ryan Schultz

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.

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 (as well as iPhone users who wish to participate). 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!).

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 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.)

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!)

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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!

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 InSppaze 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!

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

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