The Real Reason To Care About The Apple Vision Pro

What is the Apple Vision Pro actually for? THIS…

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You’ve seen the Apple Vision Pro. But this isn’t a product review. In this video, @mkbhd and I take a dive into what the future might actually look like with this category of tech - and why you should care. (With a cameo from @ryan !)

Honestly, with all the jargon and hype (VR! AR! Spatial computing! Metaverse!), I’ve been tuning out the news about these devices for a while. But now, I think it’s time to turn the volume back up and pay attention. There is a deeply optimistic future that’s possible here. Not Ready Player One, but something else entirely. I’m going to try to show you what it might really look and feel like. If the Apple Macintosh helped unlock personal computing, and the iPhone unlocked computers in our pockets, what is this device supposed to unlock?

My optimistic take is that this kind of tech is the most direct path to a totally sci-fi ability I never thought I’d see in real life. Something physically impossible in the real world… but maybe not in a digital one…

(Note: Apple did not sponsor or pay for this video in any way. I bought my Vision Pro and got it on Friday. Was it worth it? Watch and find out!)

Chapters:
00:00 The Apple Vision Pro is here
01:25 What is the Apple Vision Pro really FOR?
03:09 How to use the Apple Vision Pro
04:49 Teleporting to new places inside the Vision Pro
06:00 How the Vision Pro tricks your brain
07:25 The future of YouTube
09:20 Digital objects in real life
11:33 The problem with personas
12:59 Teleporting to see people we love
15:11 Why care about the Vision Pro
16:50 To support our show, please consider subscribing

Additional reading and watching:

Bio:
Cleo Abram is an Emmy-nominated independent video journalist. On her show, Huge If True, Cleo explores complex technology topics with rigor and optimism, helping her audience understand the world around them and see positive futures they can help build. Before going independent, Cleo was a video producer for Vox. She wrote and directed the Coding and Diamonds episodes of Vox’s Netflix show, Explained. She produced videos for Vox’s popular YouTube channel, was the host and senior producer of Vox’s first ever daily show, Answered, and was co-host and producer of Vox’s YouTube Originals show, Glad You Asked.

Gear I use:
Camera: Sony A7SIII
Lens: Sony 16–35 mm F2.8 GM and 35mm prime
Audio: Sennheiser SK AVX
Music: Tom Fox and Musicbed

—
Welcome to the joke down low:

Why can cutlery teleport but not time travel?
It's silverwhere, not silverwhen.

Use “teleport” in a comment to let me know you’re a real one who made it to the end of the description :)

[mkbhd]

Can't wait for the future of shared experiences in these. Might be my #1 highest anticipated feature. Ready Player One AND Two please

[master_rafiki]

When Marques lifted the rear panel of the F1 car, Cleo should have been able to see that. Two people in the same room have to be able to interact with the same virtual object collaboratively.

[danieljankowski]

Cleo, is undeniably addressing one of the most important issues of our time -- connection. Not connecting in the meme, text, or 5 second social media way, but getting back to slowing down and spending quality time with others. For technology to actually help with worthwhile and meaningful connection would be huge. Im excited to see if this type of tech can bring us closer as family, friends, and society.

[jitujoshi]

Am i the only one that feels relaxed when i get my work finished and get relief that i dont have to look at another screen for the rest of the day?

[NukeMarine]

Had a number of "made me smile" moments in Japan when I'd show off VR headsets to the elderly community. With them, it wasn't about games or talking to people. It was watching 3D 180 videos of festival events or fireworks which due to their age or physical limitations could not go to anymore. Another big demo were the underwater or aquarium style settings and there's this 92 year-old Japanese lady grabbing at small fish and smiling at how much enjoyment she's having.

Yeah, it's basically the "teleportation". What I also see it, based on when I was an instructor in the US Navy, is overcoming the practical laboratory limitations most training schools have. If like the F1 car, I could bring in satellite communication equipment and get people training virtually up to a standard before spending precious time of in person practicals, that would be far more effective. Now extend that concept to labs for colleges.

[garrithsmith]

As a maintenance engineer dealing with breakdowns, I could imagine using this to assist in fault finding. I could even have the diagram and manual of the machine in front of me whilst working!

[isaacsayolpiedra]

Technologists assume that more tech is the solution to the problems created by tech itself. The promise of social media was more connection, but we ended up feeling lonelier.
Also, we can imagine a world with “digital teleportation” but not without soldiers.

Will this tech be the exception?

Huge fan of Cleo's, great content as always.

[MminaMaclang]

My great fear is that being literally glued to a screen like that versus something you could easily walk away from may have effects on attention disorders, sleep, possibly risks for dementia/alzheimer's down the road, and we wouldn't really know anything about that until 50 years later when the bad things have already happened.

[thelouisjohnson]

My query is the touch element. You know, like how children need a high level of physical contact during the first six months or they’re developmentally compromised.

Touch starvation is a thing and physical presence is something we often overlook. While we may have many more ways to connect to each other, we rarely end up regularly using them. Loneliness has only gotten worse over the last couple of decades.
Casey Neistat’s video on the Vision Pro was also really great, but it was as terrifying as it was cool. As with most tech, the potential is awesome and theoretically limitless. But day-to-day use can often boil down to the lowest common denominator.


I know how that’s a bit of a doomer take, but I don’t often see the fields of technology and positive psychology overlapping.

Regardless, love the video Cleo! More great and thoughtful insights, I always look forward to seeing them.

[perge_music]

I remember back in the late 70s / early 80s where computers were the new thing and they were becoming inexpensive enough that you could have one at home. It was amazing, however what was obvious was that no-one really knew what they were going to be used for, the concepts of what could be done with a PC was quite limited (spreadsheets, word processors, organisers, maybe games), there were loads of interviews with the likes of Apple, Commodore, Atari, Acorn and the journalist is constantly asking 'this new kit is amazing but what's it for and the manufacturers didn't really know how they'd be used either, just that they were providing the hardware for people and for them to tell the world how it'll be used. I think with VP and similar it's a bit like that as how it's going to be used, why someone would want one, how it could end up being something that will become as indispensable as a smartphone has become is a journey that's yet to be mapped. Looking forward to seeing how this plays out.

[JaapvanderVelde]

This is mostly Cleo and Marques demonstrating major shortcomings of the current generation of Vision Pro, which shouldn't be too hard to fix: #1. replace the heads of others in your field of view that are also wearing a Vision Pro with their animated avatar, #2. allow two headsets to share the world state, with the same rendered environment, objects, windows, etc. - there'll be some limitations, but a lot could be done today, and #3. which will probably require far more capable hardware and clever rendering: send what Cleo's headset is recording to Marques' headset, and give him the option of seeing it from his position relative to hers (instead of through her eyes).

[yarieemoore]

0:55 props to the editor, that transition was super cool!

[TwistedMexi]

While it's exciting, the things like "if I could go back and see family in the headset" definitely feels like a plot for a black mirror episode or other dystopian scifi where people become shut-in, preferring to live in virtual "ideal" world.

[randomperson-gobr]

I’ll say one thing, we are distracting ourselves from reality more and more every day…

[thetrainingguy]

For a practical application, I think of technical training or other classroom experiences. Something I missed during the Pandemic was the ability to be in a classroom while teaching a class. My dream for this type of technology in the future is to have a “Jedi Council” moment where folks can be in a “class” and see everyone around them, even if they are at home. Imagine being able to attend a class from anywhere, and feel like you are in class with everyone else.

[VadersFirst]

Imagine if this was not only a shared app experience like with the car (would be cool to be able to see what each other are seeing like it's the same car) but a shared ENVIRONMENT. Imagine you're walking downtown (hopefully with a smaller headset by then) and your friend calls. They "teleport" next to you as you walk. They are able to see you as you walk as if they were next to you in that moment. The cameras are able to pick up so much detail already, it wouldn't be that far off for them to use the sensor as well to make you feel like you're next to the "host". Or in someone's house, it would be awesome to feel like your friend is sitting on your couch and they can also see your house. Stuff like that would probably need some kind of 3D scan before to be able to walk around the house but it would be awesome.

[Sadlander]

I've been watching a TV show called Quantum Leap. It's about a guy who travels in time to change something that happened in the past. He gets help from someone who didn't travel with him but he can see this person as a hologram. It would be cool if you could do that! Like mentioned in this video, imagine you're at home, you get a call from a friend and instead of having a "normal" video call, you would see your friend sitting right next to you on your couch and your friend would see him/herself in your house, sitting on your couch.
*_P.S. Isn't it funny how we can talk about having a "normal" video call, like it's nothing special but just a few years ago, if you'd tell someone about video calls, it would sound like total science fiction to that person!_*

[reallemonboi]

i think that being able to move on from memories is also a part of life that we cannot lose. It's good to always remember a good time or a previous moment, without being so obsessed with it that we forget to move forwards.

[lecolintube]

14:14 “Technology has connected us, and yet studies show that we feel more isolated than ever. Can new technology help make that better?”

This question feels like it contains the answer.

However, thank you so much for the video Chloe, I appreciate your different approach to the Vision Pro’s applications & experiences.

[carmatic]

as a bit of a scientist and engineer myself, I am intrigued by having the cameras and screens basically replace your regular eyesight
what if these cameras not merely match our natural eyesight, but exceed them? the shortest conceptual leap would be a military night and thermal version of the Vision Pro, but what if you go beyond that ...
imagine having a Mars Rover style spectrometer built into the front of the headset, the data it gathers would be integrated into the AR processing... in this mode, the world would be shown in greyscale, and objects get 'painted' with colours as they get scanned to represent what type of material is detected