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AVP “long term” use reviews and discussions
Hitting the 1-month mark from launch, this week we are bombarded with reviews and discussions that are more in-depth based on daily usage. A ton of great experiences shared and thoughtful reflections. I have tried to capture the highlights below along with my own commentary.
Literally the ONLY Apple Vision Pro Review You Need (by fpt.)
Ignoring the clickbait title, the review does have high production value combined with a much needed introspection that is severely lacking in most AVP reviews I have seen.
“… and you know what it's the same trap that every tech reviewer falls into about every tech product ever always. I'm telling you we look at these things too technically and sometimes we are so blinded by our own understanding of how the technology works that we rob ourselves of the experience and the meaning it delivers. It's like working at Disney World and knowing how all of the rides work sometimes that can rob us from seeing how truly and utterly magical that experience is and can be for someone that just wants to be on the ride man. I don't know can we can we do something together just for a second can we ignore how the rides work can we just talk about how it feels?”
It is no coincidence that Apple and Disney has a long intertwined relationship. Fundamentally these two companies sell experiences. Magic, the word so often used in Apple marketing-speak, has unfortunately been diluted over the years. It’s hard to describe or put a value to the first time experience of trying a graphical interface, or multi-touch, or spatial computing. But it remains as compelling today as it did 40 years ago with the first Mac.
Another quote:
“…that is when it's magic. When you're on the moon you're not just visually in space. The sound from your real world environment drops off. You hear the nothingness you almost feel yourself struggled to breathe. You feel existential dread and you'll find yourself on the moon looking back at Earth feeling your stomach drop as if you are actually 240,000 M away.
Apple Vision Pro, a machine with an enormous list of flaws typical of a first-generation product, has not deterred customers from demonstrating incredible ingenuity and determination. There's an endless amount of hacks, tips, and tricks being shared to tackle each challenge the device presents, ranging from DIY comfort mods to software workarounds. This creativity and persistence is the ultimate testament to the "magic" of an Apple product, a factor so often overlooked in reviews.
Perhaps a little less enthusiastic, is WSJ’s one month review. And that’s a completely a reasonable take considering she is basing it off her personal work experience. I do however find her comment on ‘flow’ another often overlooked value proposition. Sometimes constraints can translate to more productivity, not less.
DAVID HALL/THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
Another reason the headset can beat a TV: When I wear it, I can’t see my phone well. While I should be focused on my ever-twisting British spy plot, I’m not tempted to start scrolling some social-media feed. It’s just me and the big screen. Similarly, the best time to use it for work is when I need to focus on a single task, like writing a column.
Probably the highest profile review in today’s list. I’m not sure it entirely addresses the existential question the title sets out to ask. But I do find this tidbit interesting:
“…and also it is really freeing now that you can actually video call someone without needing to get dressed up without needing to hold anything or find a surface to prop your phone up with and knowing that they can hear you with genuinely studio quality audio it sounds better than this mic here and see you front and center at all times it's meant that I've been able to talk to people while cooking while packing bags while walking on the street
I’m sure many users (myself included) did not have the chance yet to try personas video call. But I do find it surprising that the audio from AVP is as good, or better, than a studio mic. This has been reported by a few others, including in Gruber’s podcast where he mentions:
“It's just uncanny how intimate you sound when I'm dialed out to the moon, and it's not trying to bounce your voice off these walls in this room. It is, it's intimate, really. I honestly, this is something I'm just spitballing here, but just to break the fourth wall a little bit, you and I are close personal friends, right?
You're like a dear friend. And I don't know that I would like doing this with a guest on my show who I don't consider as dear a friend, you know what I mean? And I know most of the people I have on a regular basis are my friends, and so most of them would work.”
Apple Vision Pro - A PC Guy’s Perspective (Linus Tech Tips)
Some have found Linus’s review somewhat controversial (perhaps due to his video style) but I thought it was a completely balanced review. Except for one point he emphasized on, which I take issue with:
“…they're going to put touch screens on Mac. This is it mark my words and if it doesn't happen then it is only because of Apple's complete and utter stubbornness there's no other reason”
He makes that remark as he is mirroring the mac screen onto AVP. I can assure you that despite how cumbersome it is to require a keyboard/trackpad to use a mirrored Mac screen, enabling touch on Mac is not the solution. This has always been the wrong solution, going as far back as 14 years ago when Jobs himself said
We've done tons of user testing on this, and it turns out it doesn't work. Touch surfaces don't want to be vertical.
It gives great demo but after a short period of time, you start to fatigue and after an extended period of time, your arm wants to fall off. it doesn't work, it's ergonomically terrible.
Touch surfaces want to be horizontal, hence pads.
And the vertical form factor is not the only issue. Touch targets and mouse targets are nothing alike. I’m working on a longer piece to really explore this AVP topic in depth.
Circling back to the point made earlier by WSJ. Jerad makes a real life reflection on why AVP can be a productivity boost with less distractions. Personally, I find myself going to my AVP for the most concentrated tasks. AVP Environments is an under appreciated productivity app.
I was plugged into power but I was on it for 5 hours and I knocked out so much work and was in such a flow state I had a window up and I was working on stuff I had my music up I had text messaging up and I never had to like leave a screen to go to another screen which I think tends to break my productivity or break that flow at least and because I get distracted I might be looking at something else because I'm jumping between Windows and Stage manager on my Mac
Why did you buy an Apple Vision Pro? - Mac Address
Mac Address offers a compelling perspective on how the Apple Vision Pro could significantly transform attitudes towards working from home.
Persona calls but I got to say like for for doing a call inside the headset where you're both wearing it um it's it's meaningfully different and it's been part of this bigger discussion of like work from home versus back to office and stuff there you might not need to make that trade-off in the future
Another quote that will not bold well in the long run. I’ve stated my arguments in the last LWIAVP. Claiming that optical will supersede passthrough devices is akin to wrongly predicting 40 years ago that desktops would become obsolete with laptops being the ultimate replacement.
I don't think personally that this will ever be mainstream unless it's glasses if you can put on a pair of glasses where they have transparent displays you put this on then you can interact with this then absolutely people will use it but in its current form I just don't see it being a mainstream
I worked exclusively in Vision Pro for a week—here’s how it went (Arstechnica)
It’s been mentioned many times before (myself included) that windows management is a huge miss for the v1 AVP. However, I’ve been thinking about the solution in depth for a while and I don’t think it’s as straight forward as one would assume. My prediction was that Apple design team is acutely aware of the need for a better system. But due to the complexity of the problem, they simply ran out of time before the launch cutoff. I’m putting my thoughts on a more lengthy piece.
Samuel Axon@Arstechnica
The placing-windows-around-the-house approach marked the first time I felt like using the Vision Pro allowed me to do something that I couldn’t do before.
AVP Around the Web
Inside a Vision Pro Store Demo: How Apple Makes You Want It - (CNET’s Bridget Carey)
Canon: No Currently Available Camera is High-Res Enough for Apple Vision Pro (source)
“In order to reproduce video for Vision Pro, you need to have at least 100 megapixels,” Yasuhiko Shiomi, Advisory Director and Unit Executive of the Image Communication Business Operations at Canon, says.
“So at the moment, we can’t cater to that level of a requirement. But what I presume what companies who will be providing images for the Vision Pro will be required to have 100-megapixels with 60 frames per second,” Shiomi explains.
Measuring a stockpile using apple vision pro (source)
I Tested EVERY SINGLE Apple Vision Pro App! - (nbtjacklyn)
