Apple Vision Pro

Apple is incredibly good at detecting the exact moment when technology transitions from niche things aimed at early adopters and geeks to something with mass market appeal. They let their competitors struggle, trying to get things off the ground. Meanwhile, they engineer the shit out of that product, file off all rough UI edges until it's all smooth curves and pleasant experiences. Then they release it, and make everybody else look like absolute morons.

I don't think Apple Vision Pro does that. I'm saying this with all the kindness, as somebody who absolutely loves VR goggles and AR glasses, as somebody who thinks that these devices are the future, and will eventually replace most screens in our lives, and most electronic devices we own: the Apple Vision Pro looks almost as dumb as all other devices in this market. Not quite as dumb, to be sure. What Apple achieved here, integrating Apple Vision Pro into its ecosystem, is incredibly.

Of all current devices in this market, Apple Vision Pro is the most useful, the most well thought out, the one with the clearest reason for existing. It's quite obvious that even just having a larger screen on your MacBook (or maybe a second and third screen) will, by itself, be tremendously useful. And if that sounds appealing, why not have a MacBook that is just a keyboard and a trackpad? Using a laptop on a plane has never been more convenient.

But Apple Vision Pro doesn't do for VR and AR devices what the iPhone did for smartphones.

There will be a tipping point where these devices become as common as smartphones. It's not today.

Maybe that's what the "Pro" in "Apple Vision Pro" stands for: a niche device aimed at a specific group of people. After all, it's their "first spatial computer." Me, I'm looking forward to the "just Apple Vision, no Pro" in a few years.