The cat is out of the bag. We finally have a name for Apple’s much anticipated VR headset, and it’s called Vision Pro.
Apple revealed its most ambitious product, arguably ever, today at WWDC 2023: a virtual and augmented reality headset that allows you to basically live within beautiful landscapes, your favorite media, and the perfect desk setup, all without moving from your couch.
It looks like the future. It looks incredible... but I don’t want to live in what I feel is moving towards a dystopia where we communicate through headsets. Will I have a choice?
Vision Pro: More disconnected than ever
Apple calls Vision Pro its first “spatial computer.” It’s a revolutionary product that “blends digital content with the physical world, while allowing users to stay present and connected to others.” But I can’t help but feel that a step further towards a world where we live in a headset couldn’t be more disconnected.
In the keynote, Apple used lots of video footage of parents interacting with their children through the eyes of the Vision Pro, and it just filled my heart with sadness. Are we moving to a world where children communicate with imagery of their parents’ eyes through a beautifully expensive headset? Apple sure wants us to be.
Regardless of how amazing the concept of working in a spatial operating system, managing windows, and choosing to work from a beach in the Bahamas appears to be, I don’t want to live in a headset for 12 hours a day. Not only does that sound incredibly uncomfortable, but it also goes against Apple's own push for more mindfulness when it comes to our tech with features like Screen Time and the newly revealed Journal app and mental health features in iOS 17.
I can just imagine the Journal app on iOS becoming entries of days spent at home, barely moving because the defining invention of the 21st century means that no one needs to leave the house ever again. It’s terrifying, and while I want to see a Vision Pro, and I’d probably want to own one if it wasn't going to cost $3500, I just can’t fathom a world where I sit on the couch next to my partner all evening without being disconnected from an ultra-high-resolution display system that packs 23 million pixels across two displays.
A Sci-Fi horror
Obviously, I'm over-exaggerating here, but the Vision Pro reveal really did feel like something from a Sci-Fi film and even more like a Sci-Fi horror when the person’s eyes popped up on the glass frame of the headset. It wasn't reassuring — it was uncanny, and the introduction of Digital Persona — the VisionOS approximations of Vision Pro's users as avatars — was deeply unsettling for me.
I’m really interested to see how Vision Pro is perceived and if it can bring virtual reality to the mainstream. If Apple thinks everyone wants to live in a headset, then they’ve maybe misjudged how much people want to disconnect from technology these days. To go from the last hero product reveal in the Apple Watch, which allows you to live more, to a product that actively removes you from reality is depressing, and I don’t know if I ever want to live in a world where it’s better to be in a headset.
