A conversation with my dad on this post (before he eventually convinced me to post my thoughts here) went a little like this:

---

Here's my take on it.

The Apple Vision Pro was built for being a computer that encompasses space. Not meant to be a “headset”, and not approaching the problem as a “headset”, but more-so an immersive head-mounted computer. So all the preconceptions people’ve had about “headset” in the past are kinda thrown out the window. Sure, the Quest 3 is similar in that it’s got a focus on AR instead of VR, but it’s still built for gaming first - we can see by the app library and what the Quest store pushes for its apps - it’s gaming.

Similar story with other headsets - primary focus is gaming. Be it immersive experiences in gaming (KayakVR, etc.), competitive gaming (Breachers, Pavlov, etc.), or social (VRChat, Resonite, Rec Room, Bigscreen, etc.), it’s still gaming.

The Apple Vision Pro is built on a completely different foundation and philosophy from other headsets. That’s why, and how, I use mine. Otherwise, it would just kinda be in the corner as a “really high resolution, really good eye and hand tracked, but otherwise very uncomfortable and heavy headset with too many compromises” sorta deal.

My Quest 2 for example, I bought that simply to tear it apart and have fun with it. I did just that, and now it’s non-functional (I have to fix it up at some point). My Pico 4 Enterprise, I bought with the express intent of getting eye and face tracking working without needing to get a Quest Pro (with worse compromises in my mind, for my use-case at least).

My Bigscreen Beyond is my main headset for all VR experiences as it compromises on things I’m okay with compromising on, and shines in places I really want it to. Ultimately, it’s a great all-around social and immersive headset while also being great with being competitive due to its small form factor. However, it’s still all gaming. The compromise that stops me from using the Beyond over the Vision Pro in certain use-cases is:
- not wireless
- not running its own OS
- doesn’t have passthrough
- doesn’t have eye and hand tracking
- relies on SteamVR (which is great for gaming, but really janky for anything other than gaming)

My Apple Vision Pro is my main headset for being an extension of myself and becoming more connected with the tools I regularly use — my computers. I pretty regularly use it when connecting to my macbook and my desktop PC (via Moonlight) so I can bring the screens with me wherever I go in the house, or even have a significantly more convenient viewing experience for content being consumed. I.e.
- when doing things around the house like
- cooking food
- folding laundry
- cleaning around the house
- etc.
- when lying down in bed, it’s much easier to stare at the ceiling than crane my neck over to look at a laptop screen

Plus, the Vision Pro has significantly better (in my experience) hand-based interactions simply due to it having the selection laser based on eye tracking. While there are false negatives and false positives with eye tracking, or even hand tracking for finger taps, I’ve found it to be significantly less frustrating than the Quest 2 and Quest Pro hand tracking along with the Pico 4 Enterprise hand tracking too. This is mostly because, to select, you’d need to pinch your forefinger and thumb together (on quest) or move your thumb from a thumbs-up to a fist (on pico) to select. This inherently changes where the cursor is pointing, so I’d end up selecting the same button at least three times before it actually hits. Sometimes the cursor would show that I’m selecting it, but it doesn’t actuate the “click” because I — apparently — didn’t tap my finger hard enough.

So I basically find that the Vision Pro — while having so many faults in general — is the best that I’ve experienced in terms of system interaction by hand tracking, and also best in class for passthrough in terms of latency and camera distortion. It doesn’t make me regularly annoyed to use, and actually removes some distractions based on me needing to learn a whole different set of things because of inherent weaknesses in the hardware and software (in the case of Quest and Pico). VisionOS just makes a lot more sense to me, despite my understanding the technicalities behind the android-based operating systems a lot better than VisionOS (every day, I’m learning something new about VisionOS)

I think a lot of people rag on the Vision Pro just because
a) It’s Apple. It’s easy to rag on them for anything
b) It’s $3500
c) It’s not even got good software (they’re looking for something that Apple didn’t want to consider under their paradigms, but blaming Apple for being intentional and not pursuing those experiences)
d) It’s heavy (entirely fair)

I think, while I’ve been praising the Vision Pro, I’ve also been critical about a lot of aspects on it. I don’t see many people actually being critical about the Vision Pro, but more-so just whiny and complain-y. There are actual discussions that can go on and take place with this hardware, software, and experience, but people (and this is a pet peeve of mine) ignore all that and just complain because it’s fun to complain and not fun to actually discuss, understand, and bring forth ideas based on said discussion, on how this could benefit everyone — both in the VR / AR / HMD industry as well as outside of it.

anyway, </rant>

---

For context, I am a heavy user of VR, with nearly 400 hours in the Beyond since December 2023.