The Apple Vision Pro is NOT what you think it is

over the past five years I've gotten to try and review dozens of VR headsets ranging from the cheapest of cheap to the most ridiculous of $88,000 military combat simulators but in all that time I can easily say that the Vision Pro is the most nuanced and divisive VR headset I have ever used and I get it on one hand this headset is in some ways just miles better than any of the near 50 headsets I've used in the past and in a few particular places it's so good that it'll have just about anybody speechless looking at reality a little different for at least a couple seconds but on the other hand for every one thing the Vision Pro does better than anything else there's something that it disappointingly is just missing or does worse and so I know this video has taken a while but I really wanted to take my time to get to know this headset and after using the Vision Pro every day going back to using my other headsets getting steam VR working and even dedicating myself to make this video in the headset I feel I have a pretty good understanding of what the Vision Pro really is from the very real magic that the Vision Pro provides to the very real things that the Vision Pro just sucks at and I also want to have a serious conversation about the quest 3 value and I think most importantly what this means for the future of VR and so before we get into the good in bad let's start with the basics I think we've all heard that the vision Pro's Hardware is impressive but I don't think it's really been put in the proper context almost every video I've seen has compared The Vision Pro to other headsets from the bottom up taking the cheapest headset of available and seeing how they all stack up which is extremely valuable and don't worry I've dedicated a whole section to the quest 3 in this sort of comparison but I don't think it's entirely fair to either the quest 3 or the Vision Pro to only look at it from this approach they are very different devices in different categories that just do some of the same things and so we're going to do something a little different I think it's better to start by looking at things from a top down perspective and once you see the full context from both sides The Vision Pro just makes a little more sense as especially considering that this is legitimately the first time that this level of Hardware has ever been actually available to consumers in total with 23 sensors including six microphones and 12 cameras with eye tracking face tracking hand tracking automatically adjusting ipd a liar scanner true depth camera flicker sensor then on top of that throw in some of the most advanced displays ever put in a headset those being tiny near 4K micro OLED panels providing some of the highest resolution of any headset at 3 times the pixel density of a quest 3 and 7 and 1 half times of the iPhone 15 Pro Max when you actually just compare the raw specifications of the Vision Pro to any other VR headset available I think it's pretty easy to say that technically this is the most advanced VR headset that is currently available and that's not really my opinion it's just the raw Hardware specifications and this is kind of a big deal because just 2 years ago the only device that came anywhere close to the Vision Pro in terms of that raw Hardware capability would cost you over for $77,000 plus a yearly ,000 subscription if you could even buy one up until now basically all headsets in this level of Hardware capability at least sensorwise have been exclusively available to Enterprise customers only but then you also got to think that all these other expensive Enterprise headsets also require you to have crazy powerful multi thousand computers on top of that for them to even function while the Vision Pro of course has its own M2 and R1 ship that actually performs surprisingly well in benchmarks and when you put all this Hardware together and look under the hood from the developer perspective the vision Pro's understanding of its spatial environment is significantly more advanced and accessible than anything else out there and I know I said I'd save this for later but the quest 3 for example is often compared div Vision Pro for its similar looking mixed reality but when you actually look at how the headsets are processing information about their environment from the sensor array Vision Pro simply knows a lot more about what's going on in your space but okay now that we got some of the hardware context out of out of the way let's talk about the good parts of actually using Vision Pro before I tear it apart a little bit and I got to say one of the absolute best parts of this entire headset package is Vision OS and it's probably the biggest component to the entire magic recipe and after dealing with VR user interfaces for a long time from Oculus to steam VR to Pico to Modern Quest UI the core experience of menu navigation is by far the most intuitive and I guess solid feeling V I've ever felt because of small details like Shadows cast by panels that appear in your real environment partially because of the resolution and contrast ratio of the panels but mostly because Vision OS is entirely navigated through hand and eye tracking and once you get used to it you hardly even think about navigating through VR menus which is normally one of the worst Parts about VR in general and I think the crazy part is that it's not like apple reinvented the wheel here in terms of UI ux every single chance that apple had they just took existing things on iOS and Mac OS that that already worked and applied it to Vision OS apps are organized just like they are on a phone control center is exactly where you'd expect it the settings menu looks and acts just like every other Apple settings menu and that familiarity is something we haven't had in VR it's easy to use at least most of the time because look the software experience on Vision OS is not perfect we'll get into its limitations a bit later but when it works it really works and when you put together powerful Hardware with a seamless software experience there are a few special moments where everything comes together in a way that as a VR Hardware nerd I can't help but geek out about and it seems like when people refer to Vision Pro anything as magical this is what they're talking about and I think one place where the whole package shines just is in the environment using the crown of the headset you can transition your play space from Full pass through to being in a variety of pre-made beautifully detailed scenes and the amount of thought put into every single one of these environments is a little mind-blowing and it might sound ridiculous but the environments alone are arguably one of the most immersive VR experiences I ever been in even the audio changes to match and replicate what the audio would probably sound like if you were in that environment and I don't think I'll ever forget the moment I was sitting in my room at about half immersion level so I could see my room Fade Away into a cliff while I was still able to see my real hands because of the hand occlusion and once I changed to the night version of the environment the lighting of my actual physical room and real hands adjusted to the virtual environment as well and I don't think that'll ever forget that a fake Moon seemingly shining fake light on my real arms in the fake Dark gave me very real chills this got to be one of the coolest things I've ever seen holy cow but it gets a little crazier than that and I kind of get why so many people have been using Vision Pro outside because for a split second it's kind of mind-bogglingly surreal to have the full experience of the real Sun hitting my body and the smell of being outside while the Vision Pro switches between these hyper realistic environments that almost look as real as the real world and I realize this is a small thing that a lot of people wouldn't even notice or really care about it's just an environment with hand occlusion with some light changes it's basic stuff but that's exactly the point after testing all these different headsets there's not a single device out there on the planet that is capable of providing that exact experience right now some have come kind of close but only for a lot more money and under very specific circumstances like building an entire group room for this and that's kind of the point of why it's important it's basic but Apple nailed it but I want to move on from environments they're cool and a little trippy but I definitely wouldn't say it's worth $3,500 for a 2C long existential crisis I think the much more compelling argument for the price is how Vision Pro operates as a tool and after using the headset to make this video I kind of get it I mean I've got my Windows PC right here a Macbook window over there Discord on my left Twitter on my right right YouTube down Center and three docks open where I'm writing the script all while sitting on a freaking Lake oh and I've got a full virtual synth right here for whenever I just want to take a break for someone that sits at a computer way too much and also likes VR way too much this is a ridiculous experience it's a little overwhelming it's way overpowered but it's freaking awesome I have never had this much power in one place with just a couple pinches and I don't think just saying the Vision Pro is good at itivity really captures how powerful and different this really feels from anything else I legitimately have the capabilities of my phone an iPad MacBook PC all put together in a way that breaks down every wall of computing that has ever existed and after really getting into a workflow it's pretty easy to see that the Vision Pro is a powerful tool that's fun to use and provides a very real reason for me to put on a headset every day other than beat Saver in VR chat and I'm going to be honest the hard Hardware on the Vision Pro isn't revolutionary a lot of it isn't even proprietary we've seen headsets with similar sensor packages these beautiful displays aren't even from Apple they're Sony displays and we'll probably see them in future headsets and the software itself isn't really that special either but when you put everything together that's whenever it becomes even close to revolutionary but I think we've talked enough about the good stuff now is where things get interesting because the Vision Pro is far from perfect so let's talk about the bad and I'm just going to start with the least of the bad and progress to the terrible so first off I have had a few issues with itracking and hand tracking just not working as expected 98% of the time it's smooth sailing but that 2% of the time when I pinch and clearly interact with something I was not looking at just gets old pretty fast on top of that you may have noticed that in a few full-on VR games that are available for Vision Pro like synth riders that the hand tracking just looks awful now this isn't because the hand tracking is is n accurate the headset knows full well where your hands and fingers are instead it's because the hand tracking is limited to run at just 30 HZ and without developers adding some sort of significant smoothing it just looks and feels bad it's almost like apple didn't want people to use hand tracking to emulate controllers and I will say as great as the UI is I occasionally really miss the option of having controllers the operating system also experiences a few annoying hiccups like apps won't download occasionally requiring a full system restart which is pretty annoying but I expect a lot of this will be patched pretty quickly there have already been a lot of updates that have fixed other issues there are however a few things that can't just be fixed over the air and while the Vision Pro may have beautiful displays with a super high resolution and great contrast ratio Apple still operates under the same laws of physics that every other headset manufacturer does which means that the one really ugly side of micro OLED displays is still present here there is high persistence this is a common trait of microa displays in VR headsets like the big screen Beyond if you put the brightness up really high it leads to a slight motion blur like effect which may not be a big deal for everyone I for example notice it but it's only occasionally annoying some people though are really sensitive to high persistence and it's something that immediately triggers motion sickness and there's so much persistence with the Vision Pro that I'm a little surprised Apple even shipped it like this but it also shows me that micro oleds still have a long way to go go and speaking of laws of physics The Vision Pro is just a very heavy device to put on your face now I've used this thing for 10 hours straight and it's doable especially if youve built up some VR endurance but it's definitely not the most comfortable thing in the world and while the Vision Pro does come with two head straps a solo nit and dual Loop and people have found the Dual Loop strap to be a bit more comfortable I found that it personally causes much worse hot spots during long sessions than the solo band and I have a feeling that the second strap was very much so an afterthought after complaints but I think the most frustrating thing about Vision Pro is that this is at least on paper the most powerful technologically advanced VR headset that you can buy right now as a consumer just looking at the specifications and it's got arguably one of the best user interfaces out there for VR and it could potentially do so much but like a cruel mean joke as of now some of the main applications I have to choose from are Fruit Ninja Cut the Rope and a bunch of timer applications and if you ever thought that the quest store is just full of a bunch of mobile games the vision store is quite literally just full of a bunch of mobile games and that's not to say that there aren't a few really great hidden gems available anog is a surprisingly powerful spatial synthesizer that's a blast and blackbox is a must-play mixed reality game for anybody that likes this sort of stuff and that's also not to say that just having iPad apps are bad either sitting on the couch playing slay the Spire with hand and eye tracking while having Discord to the side and IM message open is awesome and I do think Apple absolutely did the right thing by making basically the entire App Store available on day one but again it's a little painful that after watching 8 years of VR app development and seeing what the Vision Pro really is capable of that it's not being used anywhere close to its full potential and that's entirely because of Apple's own decisions and it's also their reluctance to really embra race where things are at right now and don't get me wrong the hand and eye tracking on Vision Pro is super powerful and I wish that I could navigate every vrui using this sort of hand and eye tracking but Apple ignoring any sort of motion controllers today is sort of like if they removed the headphone jack before the iPhone was already popular it's pretty shortsighted and does nothing besides fracture the already fractured VR user base and its developers and I think the empty Baron app store is proof enough that this probably wasn't the smartest decision at least if they were ever going for a prosperous cross-pollinating ecosystem but then again we all know that that's just not the apple way and I think really the most disappointing part of the Vision Pro is that it could be so much better than it already is it could be a legitimate platform for developers to port and bring all their stuff to that they've been working on for years and it could be more than an amazing productivity tool but also an amazing immersive device for these immersive experien but instead at least for right now it's only one of those things and it's a little confusing and you know what while I'm here I got one more gripe look I kind of understand why the Vision Pro is $3,500 between the displays power of the onboard compute and build materials and the sensor package itself if you directly compare the Vision Pro to similarly spec headsets the vario xr4 for example Vision Pro actually weirdly starts looking like a decent deal but I have to to ask Apple why the hell are you charging $200 for a replacement face gasket and $300 for a developer USB connection it's things like this that make it really hard for anyone to justify buying or even developing for this headset and it's just kind of sad to see but let's move on to something pretty positive before we talk about the quest 3 and my final conclusions so I mentioned earlier that I did get steam VR working with the Vision Pro and right now even in its early State as long as you have base stations and Knuckles already steam VR on the Vision Pro is perfectly playable just like on any other headset which is huge and I will say right now it's a pain in the butt to set up I mean you have to build the alvr app in xcode yourself push it to the headset with a developer account and then at the end of it you have to use OVR Place base combiner to sync the controllers with the headset but steam prr does in fact work but I also got to say that Apple deserves none of the credit for opening up this possibility steam VR working on Vision Pro is entirely thanks to the open source community and a few passionate people so now I get to finally talk about the quest 3 and some of the future of VR and warning this is about to get a little spicy with some hot takes now we've already compared everything in the VR industry from the top down but now let's go from the bottom up because I think in some ways what meta has done for $500 is just as impressive as what Apple has done for $ 3500 and just to put this into perspective for the same price as a 512 GB Vision Pro you could buy a quest 3 and build a full PC with an RTX 490 ryzen 7800 x3d 64 GB of RAM a motherboard a 2 TB nvme a case power supply cheap monitor keyboard and mouse look the quest 3 is by far the best value VR headset that has ever existed and I don't think anybody's challenging that and it's true the quest 3 is perfectly capable of doing a lot of the things that I and a few others have raved about on Vision Pro I mean it can watch videos and movies it's got passed through a browser steamlink virtual desktop immersed yeah it's lacking the raw hardware and specifications and ey tracking but it can do a lot of the same things however one thing that is just hard to really explain is that it wasn't until I actually got to use the Vision Pro for a long period of time and then come back to the quest 3 that it became EX extremely clear that pretty much everything the quest 3 does poorly is what the Vision Pro excels at and it just happens to be that the Vision Pro excels at all of the basics it gets the fundamentals down really well and I'd say that probably the best investment meta could make right now is to buy a Vision Pro for every single one of their uiux Engineers working on Quest and have them steal all the good things to completely rebuild the quest why and look this isn't even saying anything bad about meta I don't blame them they've been building VR headsets in a complete vacuum for about a decade now they've had no one to bounce off of and no one to really call competition but they do have it now and I think this is the most exciting part of Vision Pro of course as a hardware geek that's obsessed with trying every VR headset I can and then analyzing it I can say without hesitation that the Vision Pro is an awesome VR headset and I think it's the golden standard where displays resolutions ease of use productivity hardware and software all need to be and as a whole package this seems to be a threshold where VR shifts from being a play thing to being a really viable tool but that being said unless you plan on using the Vision Pro as a tool then in no way would it ever be worth $3,500 in the same way a vario xr3 just also isn't worth $7,000 a couple years ago but I do think we're moving in the right direction and when you look at it from both ends of what the entire VR industry has to offer The Vision Pro on the high end and the quest on the realistic attainable end they are both Prime examples of the fact that we're going in the right direction and they're not even in direct competition there are two devices in two different segments that clearly Target two different audiences but they do complement each other in a way that we haven't had before in this industry there's a lot of things that the Vision Pro is missing that the quest 3 is great at but there's also so many things that the quest 3 can learn from The Vision Pro and it really makes me think what does VR really need in the immediate future is it big 60-hour long AAA games is it higher resolutions or better processors with better comfort and lower prices or is it just to get the basics of a VR user interface right to where it feels good and I think if there's one thing that I've learned from using Vision Pro is that it's going to have to be a combination of all of them and I'm really sorry to say it but Vision Pro while technically impressive just is not there yet and it's just as far from The Mark of being a perfect headset that does it all as the quest 3 is just in totally opposite directions and it may sound a little ironic but using the Vision Pro probably the best VR headset I've used yet made me really realize that we still got a long way to go before we actually hit that Mark before we have that piece of Hardware that kind of does everything we wanted to we quite literally are only just getting started but I'm going to go into unity and xcode and see what this thing's really capable of there's still a lot to explore and I hope I can share that with you guys and so thank you so much for watching and thank you to my patreon supporters for making this review possible I still have one kidney left thanks to you guys until next time much love thrill out

Channel: ThrillSeeker

Views: 247,094

Keywords: Quest, Quest 2, QUest 3, Apple, Apple Vision PRo, Vision pro, VR headset, VR headset review, vision pro review, Thrillseeker, Tuesday Newsday, VR news, Best VR headset, Meta QUest, Oculus Quest, Valve Index, Ar, Augmented Reality, Apple Headset

Id: REo1ugX5GSI

Length: 20min 58sec (1258 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 14 2024