This is such a wild product unveiling. The dystopian scenes of a dad photographing his playing children through the mask that separates him from those same children; the FaceTime with an avatar that looks merely okay, making the idea of FaceTiming with an avatar on both ends of the call seem oddly pointless; the high cost; … and then the fact that it does look like an incredible piece of technology. The subtle hand gestures, the almost trope-y at this point potential to have a giant screen wherever you are, the reality dial, etc. all looked amazing. But then again, the size, intrusiveness, battery life, etc. It was an unveiling with incredible downsides to go with seemingly every bit of appeal.
I like that it has those highs and lows. Maybe it’s not for me, but it’s a real swing at something.
I’ve always said that I prefer any kind of venture that shoots for the moon and fails compared to something that plays it safe and succeeds.
We have the moonshot, though whether or not it will fail remains to be seen.
Dystopian is an apt description. It does look like something straight out of a black mirror episode. A lot of recent technology is really embracing the uncanny valley feeling.
I won’t lie, I dig this. Yes, there appear to be some issues that make it less than perfect, but it’s a gen 1 product. When I buy into this, it’ll likely be around gen 3, same as it was with iPhone.
But I don’t like what Apple is. I don’t like how quickly they’re making formerly class-leading products obsolete these days. I think of the iPhone X, and how it was “the most advanced iPhone yet”, and their promises of how future-proofed it was, only for it to suffer from OS rot just a few short years later. It’s not planned obsolescence as such, it’s just tech rushing along at a breathtaking pace. But it still leaves me uncomfortable at how expensive it is to feel like the device you use is still relevant.
So it leaves me feeling that people who spend $3500 on a Vision Pro will have a very expensive paperweight within four years. A paperweight whose pretensions to ‘Pro’ work will never really reach any further than the iPad Pro. Because until Apple can refine the tech to make it more profitable and mainstream than a Mac, they will nerf the software somehow, making users need both. They did it to iPad, they’ll do it Vision.
