I tried out Apple's new headset.This is how it feels to use it

CNN
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It's rare to find new technology that feels groundbreaking. But last night, as I sat on a couch in a private demo room on Apple's campus wearing the newly announced Vision Pro mixed reality headset, I felt like I had seen the future, or at least an extremely expensive prototype of its early days. did.

During the demo, which lasted 30 minutes, a virtual butterfly landed on my finger. A dinosaur with fine scales tried to bite me. I was standing inches away from Alicia Keys' piano when she serenaded me in the recording studio. While watching another immersive video, when a small bear cub swam beside me in a calm lake, it felt so real and reminded me of an experience with her recently deceased loved one. I was allowed to. I couldn't wipe my tears inside the headset.

Apple announced the device, its most ambitious and riskiest new hardware product in years, at a developer event earlier in the day. This headset combines both virtual reality and augmented reality (technology that overlays virtual images onto live video of the real world). At the event, Apple CEO Tim Cook called Vision Pro a “revolutionary product” with the potential to change how users interact with technology, each other, and the world around them. I advertised that I was there. He called it “a product that you don't see, but see first.”

But it's clearly a work in progress. Apps and experiences remain limited. The user must keep her iPhone-sized battery connected to his pack for just two hours of battery life. And the first few minutes of using the device may feel uncomfortable. Apple also plans to charge $3,499 for the device when it launches early next year, which is more expensive than rumored and far more expensive than other headsets on the market, which have struggled to gain widespread adoption. be.

With its loyal following and impressive track record with hardware, Apple may be able to convince developers, early adopters and some business customers to pay for its devices. But if you want to attract a more mainstream audience, you'll need what the industry often calls a “killer app,” or apps.

Based on my demo, Apple still has a long way to go, but it's off to an attractive start.

Private building and optometrist

A few hours after the keynote event, I arrived at Apple's expansive campus in Cupertino, California, to a building specifically constructed to hold demos and information sessions about the new headset.

An Apple employee greeted me, scanned my face, and helped me customize the fit of the headset. I then went into a small room where the optometrist asked if I wore glasses or corrective lenses. I had LASIK surgery years ago and people around me were scanning my glasses so the headset could show me my specific prescription. This is an amazing feat that sets Apple apart from its competitors and ensures that there is no need to shoehorn a frame into the headset. But it's unclear how the company plans to handle this process at scale if millions of people buy the device.

The initial setup process was somewhat unpleasant. As I got used to the device, I felt a bit nauseous and claustrophobic. It tracked my eyes, scanned my hands, and mapped the room to better tailor my augmented reality experience.

However, Apple has taken steps to alleviate the motion sickness issues that plague other headsets. The headset uses the R1 processor, a custom chip that reduces potentially nauseating lag issues found in similar products.

As many viewers were quick to point out on Monday, the headset itself looks like designer ski goggles. It features an adjustable soft strap on the top, a “digital crown” on the back (a larger version of the one found on the Apple Watch), and another digital crown on the top that acts as a home button of sorts. There are also wires that connect to an external battery pack.

The headset itself felt light enough at first, but despite Apple's significant design tweaks, I never wavered from the idea of ​​having a computer on my face. Fortunately, unlike other computing products, the headset stayed cool on my face throughout the experience, thanks in large part to the quiet fan and airflow flowing through the system. Ta.

Unlike other headsets, the new mixed reality headset displays the user's eyes outwards, so “you're not isolated from the people around you, you can see the people around you, and you can see the people around you.” We can see you,” said Vice President Alan Dye. He spoke about human interfaces during his keynote speech.

Sadly, I wasn't able to see what my eyes or other people's eyes looked like through the headset during the demo.

When I put the device on, I was presented with an iOS-like interface. I was able to easily enter and exit apps like Messages, FaceTime, Safari, and Photos using just my eye movements and touching my thumb and index finger together to act as a “select” button. This was more intuitive than I expected and worked even with my hands on my lap.

However, the experience with some apps was better than others. It was beautiful to see images displayed larger than life in the Photos app, but it's hard to imagine feeling the need to do this often from your couch at home. Vision Pro also offers a spatial photography option that allows users to view images and videos in 3D, giving them the feeling of being directly there. Again, cool but unnecessary.

During another demo, an Apple employee wearing a Vision Pro headset FaceTimed me from across campus. As we were talking about the event earlier in the day, her “persona” (a digital representation of her not shown wearing her professional vision) appeared in front of me. She looked real, but it was obvious she wasn't. She was a kind of pseudo-human. (Apple didn't scan my face to create a persona for me, otherwise it would have been created using her OpticID security feature during the setup phase.)

Apple employees then shared a virtual whiteboard and dragged and dropped interior design images to highlight them. Cook is focused on his AR's potential to foster collaboration, and it's clear how this tool can be used in meetings to deliver on that promise. What's less clear is why most employers would spend $3,499 per device per employee to accomplish this, rather than simply using Zoom.

Like so many things about product announcements, this pitch felt like mistimed. At the beginning of the pandemic, when we were working and socializing almost entirely from home, more people may have jumped at the chance to create these virtual experiences. Now, as more employees return to the office and companies seek to cut costs amid widespread economic uncertainty, the case for this expensive device seems less clear.

But Vision Pro's real appeal lies in its immersive video. For example, when I watched the underwater scenes in Avatar 2 in 3D, I felt like I was in the ocean with the fictional creatures. It's easy to imagine Hollywood filmmakers buying in to create an experience specifically for the headset.

Apple is also in a unique position here in terms of enhancing its devices with these experiences. He has close ties to the entertainment industry, including former Apple board member and Disney CEO Bob Iger, who announced in a pre-recorded video during the event that Disney+ would be available on headsets at launch. Apple also teased new experiences on National Geographic, Marvel, and ESPN headsets.

From the iPhone to the Apple Watch, nearly every new Apple product promises to change the way we live, work, and interact with the world, with screens of various sizes. Vision Pro has the potential to do all of this in even more amazing ways. But unlike the first time he picked up an iPhone or smartwatch, he used the Vision Pro for 30 minutes and was so happy he put it down and returned to the real world.