There's been a lot of hyperbole – in both directions – around Apple's much-anticipated first-steps into VR. I feel this write-up from MartianCraft does a fairly good job of weighing up some of the immediate pros and cons, but largely I just really liked this sentiment:
No one should be writing the Vision Pro’s epitaph — no one knows how the market will respond to a new category. (For the same reason, no one should be proclaiming it as the next iPhone.) But many seem to be seeing the Apple Vision Pro and visionOS with blinders on (see what I did there?).
There definitely does seem to be a hint of "haven't we been here before?" around the doomerism to do with the new product. And as someone who is distinctly not an Apple fanboy, I feel like the Vision Pro may well be the next big hit. But then I just really want it to be. XR is so obviously a solution to many computing problems that I've believed in it since the Google Glass days.
(I'll caveat this by saying the rest of the article is good but I don't agree with many of the takeaways. I don't think people will ultimately care that much about the isolationism of the device, nor do I think that will be much of a talking point outside of certain tech circles. And I also don't think many of the much-lauded applications will ever come to fruition. People seem to forget that most of us already have capable XR devices in our pockets, but you don't see fancy apps letting plumbers X-ray building schematics onto walls or helping chefs get real-time updates on customer allergies. Those applications are already possible, they just rely on infrastructure which would be incredibly costly and far too restrictive to ever make sense, and a fancy new VR headset won't change that. But immersive gaming, home cinemas, and Zoom calls? Yeah, this'll do those things pretty darn well, hopefully as well or better than existing solutions. Because that's where I see the real benefit of these devices: the ability to replace dozens of existing hardware decisions around your home. No more TVs, no more multi-monitors, no more iPad, no more home automation hub. That's the future I want.)
