Is the Vision Pro a Consumption Device or a Creativity Device?
I walked with the urgency and excitement of an addict about to get his fix.
I ignored the fact that my flight was about to take off in a couple of hours. I ignored the fact that my current backpack weighed 300 pounds. I ignored the fact that its weight was a direct outcome of its contents — a fully tricked-out laptop, an iPad, two phones, a camera, and an assortment of chargers, battery packs, wires, and adapters.
As I breathlessly entered the Apple Store in Santa Barbara, I was welcomed by a fellow geek — “Can I help you with something?”
“Oh yes, I said grinning. Do you have the fully tricked-out version of the Vision Pro?” It had been barely a few hours since the Vision Pro was released, and my optimism of getting my hands on one naturally outmatched the reality. By now, videos and memes about people wearing Vision Pros on the metro, in the gym, on the street, and while driving a cyber truck had gone viral. It was clearly a runaway hit, or at least for the tech bros who could afford it and were not afraid of wearing their social awkwardness on their faces in public.
Children can sometimes say hurtful things because their brutal honesty shines through their personalities to point out the obvious. They say things that adults are often trying to actively avoid. Once, when I asked my daughter if I could check her phone’s settings, she quipped, “Why? Because you want to tech bro-fy it?”
When my teenage daughter is in her perpetual teenage mood, she often attacks me by calling me a Tech Bro so I respond with my quick, pithy comeback — “You are a tech bro” and retreat like an aging lion.
Back at the Apple Store.
“You need to have an appointment for a demo first, and there is nothing available for another three hours.” I glanced at the shiny new device on the table beside him, and he immediately caught the fright, panic, and look of despair in my eyes. “Wait here for a second,” he said, his cup of tech bro sympathy flowing over.
I waited with bated breath as he had a quick conversation with his manager. Ten minutes later, I was sitting with the Vision Pro perched on my head, immersed in an experience that even my overly fertile brain could not have conjured in its wildest fantasy.
A few hours later, I was back home with an outsized feeling of trepidation and an Apple box.
I was welcomed by a happy dog and a scowling wife.
My wife’s volley of questions mimicked Zuck’s congressional hearing — “How are you paying for this? When are you returning this garbage? When will you apologize to everyone around you for putting this on your face?”
As a media-trained tech executive, my deflection muscle memory kicked in- “I think of this as a cost-benefit analysis. This is not a fad. It is how we will all be using computers going forward. Oh, and I sold my crypto to pay for this.”
The look on my wife’s face seemed to malfunction further.
Secretly, I wanted to test if the Vision Pro is going to be a media consumption device or a creativity device.
In other words, is this the new pooping device or a work device?
The media consumption experience
It is no doubt an amazing media device… as long as you hate other humans, and enjoy media in pure isolation, for example if you are under house arrest or in a very lavish prison.
You can watch a movie, a video or even pictures immersively and the experience is sometime even better than reality.
Well, now hold on with your pitchforks. Let me explain.
My wife and I recently attended our daughter’s choir performance. It was room full of people and I found myself sitting in the last row in front of a dude who was six feet taller than me. I had to constantly crane my neck to spot my daughter on the stage but my tech bro-ness came in handy when I recorded the performance in 5X magnification and when I came back and watched the video at home on the Vision Pro, I could catch all the nuances of the performance — the nervous laugh, a quick glance at her friends and of course, the magical voice.
On the other hand when watching video or movie, you cannot lean over and make a snarky remark to your spouse or partner, or ask a dumb question in a horror movie, like “Why is she not using her phone to call 911?”
With the Vision Pro you are alone in the emotional drama, alone in your snarky remarks and you are alone as an idiot laughing at jokes no one else can experience around you. In addition, for now the app store is comically short of apps — no Netflix, no YouTube, no Sling TV. This is obviously going to be remedied over time and some non-ideal workarounds.
In terms of sharing, you also cannot share the experience of the Vision Pro with anyone around you as the guest experience is inadequate, and buggy. If you think you can record what it is like to watch a movie, and share the video with someone, you soon realize that making a recording of the movie is not allowed on Vision Pro. In fact, when you try to record, it inexplicably makes the movie into a dark screen which is confusing at best.
For me, a big NO as a consumption/bathroom device, other hardware limitations like carrying around an iPhone like battery everywhere notwithstanding.
The creativity experience
I find myself writing on Google docs, working on photographs on Lightroom, and on videos on Final Cut Pro. The experience is unmatched on any other device other than the Macbook Pro….until now.
With the Vision Pro, your Macbook turns into a virtual monitor with a size of your choice. But, here is the kicker — you can go into an immersive mode so that the background disappears into an environment of your choice and you can play ambient noise while you work.
The ability to customize one’s virtual workspace, to shut out the world and summon one’s muse, is nothing short of revolutionary.
In addition, when you are working, people around you don’t care what you have on your face and in many ways, it is even better if you have a Vision Pro on because it sends out a signal to everyone around you that you are not available. However, you can choose to engage with some who walks into your work area since you can see everything around you while you work. You have control over your attention.
Writing, editing on pictures and videos, and coding to build applications is a sheer pleasure as long as you have your laptop handy. When the native Vision Pro apps become richer and better, I am sure this experience will then condense into just a bluetooth connected keyboard and/or just a very powerful phone.
This is magic and for this I am keeping this device even though this is a first gen device and it costs an arm and a leg to own it. I am sure the next generation of this new category of device will be better in many ways but even for now it is a huge leap into the computing experience and I haven’t even touched on how generative AI will change this.
I am not brave enough to wear it in public yet and as I embrace this new identity, the other day when my daughter called me a Tech Bro again, I shot back — “You mean a vision bro.”
Her response was swift and cutting -“Well, at least you are becoming more self-aware.”
Sigh! Children — Truth tellers in a world where reality is augmented and the Vision Bros roam free.
