Apple Vision Pro: What to consider after trying demo, before it releases

After Apple unveiled its most ambitious new product in years — the $3,499 Vision Pro — I got 30 minutes to try it out.

Apple folks ushered me to a small building filled with blond wood next to its basketball and volleyball courts in a golf cart. Inside, an employee took my glasses and plopped them into a machine to suss out my prescription so someone behind the scenes could add the right lens inserts.

After that, someone else used an iPhone to scan my face (to get a sense for fit), then my ears (to tune the headset's spatial audio.) Then, it was finally time to strap in Apple's first headset — a device that manages to feel elegant and a bit clumsy at the same time.

Apple's Vision Pro demos were so short and so tightly curated that it's all but impossible to tell you what life with this thing is like after that new-gadget sheen wears off. But, because we know you have lingering questions, here's what we can tell you before we review the real deal in 2024.

Apple says you’ll go through a setup process similar to mine involving head and ear scans either at an Apple Store, or in the Apple Store app. Expect a process similar to setting up Face ID: There's a lot of staring into an iPhone's camera and moving your head around.

If you wear glasses, you’ll also have to provide your prescription to get custom lens inserts that magnetically attach to the headset — there's no word yet on how much that will cost. (You could, of course, always wear contacts.)

When you actually strap on a Vision Pro, you’ll also have to set up features like eye tracking — essentially, you just look at dots that appear in different parts of your field of view. This bit is crucial, because unlike most headsets out there, the Vision Pro doesn't play with controllers at all — most of the time, you’ll use your eyes and hands to navigate things.

At some point, you’ll also have to hold out your hands in front of you so some of the Vision Pro's many cameras can learn about their sizes and shapes.

When it's time to communicate with people — say, on a Zoom call — you’ll hear your colleagues through a set of speakers built into the main head strap. (Quick word of warning: Unless you’re wearing AirPods, people around you will probably be able to hear at least a bit of what's being said to you.) To respond, just talk aloud normally — the built-in microphones should pick up your voice without a fuss.

Apple built the best face computer, but it's still a face computer.

By current standards, the Vision Pro isn't bad — it doesn't feel much different from headsets like Meta's $999 Quest Pro. (Apple told my colleague, columnist Geoffrey A. Fowler, that it weighed "a little over" a pound — that's not far off from the 1.5 pounds the Quest Pro weighs.

Ultimately, though, it boils down to your personal tolerance. Once I strapped on the Vision Pro, and after I adjusted both the cushy headband and the support strap on top, I never really noticed it again. Geoffrey, meanwhile, felt more pressure on the bridge of his nose and his cheeks than I did, and also had to deal with a gap that let stray light in. (You can read more of our early hands-on impressions here.)

Let's face it: At $3,499 a pop, you almost certainly won't be buying a headset for everyone in your home.

That said, because the Vision Pro needs to be customized for your use — from using the correct "Light Seal" to keep the headset pressed up against your face, to accounting for lens add-ins for other people who need to wear glasses — sharing your headset with someone else at work or home will be pretty tricky.

Apple says the Vision Pro will have a "guest" mode for this kind of pass-around use, but wouldn't elaborate on how it works, or what its limitations are.

It's also worth noting that, at least based on what we’ve experienced, the Vision Pro can feel a little isolating. Nearly every demo Apple showed me felt centered around things I could experience for myself. That's fair for now, but one of life's joys is sharing things with people you love, and I just couldn't get a feel for that yet.

Apple is pitching the Vision Pro at least partially as a machine for work, and in our demos, setting up multiple app windows — and reading the tiny text inside them — was surprisingly easy. But what happens when you have to type out some documents?

Eventually, according to Apple's keynote presentation and a video it released to educate developers, you’ll be able to type on a mostly full-sized virtual keyboard that floats in front of you. Unfortunately, we couldn't try that experience — when Geoff did get to take the virtual keyboard for a spin, he had to interact with it the same way we could interact with everything else: by looking at each individual letter and pinching his fingers to input each one.

When the headset launches, you’ll also be able to use physical accessories like Bluetooth keyboards and mice for precision control, but we couldn't try that either.

These gadgets paved the way for Apple's ambitious headset

For the first time, Apple has built a product designed to follow the movement of your eyes. But who can actually see what you’re looking at while you’re wearing the headset?

Apple says the Vision Pro doesn't share your eye movement with apps or websites you use, or with the company itself — it just shares the selections that you make when you pinch your fingers. Imagine perusing products in the Walmart app while wearing the headset; by Apple's logic, Walmart doesn't have a way of knowing everything you glanced at, just what product listing you pinch to learn more about.

Apple says the Vision Pro was designed for people 13 and up, which makes sense — that's how old you have to be to create an Apple ID. Broadly speaking, that's in line with the rest of the industry, too. Meta also says products like its Quest headsets shouldn't be used by people under 13, while Sony puts the age cutoff at 12 for its PlayStation VR headsets.

The full spectrum of effects that virtual reality use has on children isn't clear yet, but the potential for neck- and eyestrain means we’d suggest you stick to Apple's age recommendation. And really: Would you want a kid, even a responsible one, playing with anything that cost $3,499?

Geoffrey A. Fowler contributed to this report.

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