Brief Thoughts on Apple Vision Pro as a Product Designer, Technologist, and Digital Nomad

Needs a gesture to get into Control Centre. I would propose a pinch and pull down gesture.

To get into Home Screen quickly I propose pinching both hands and the same time.

Passthrough sucks. It's better than Quest but still muted colors, grainy, and not the full color spectrum. This will improve over time. To be a successful AR headset Apple needs to reach human eye passthrough. It must feel like looking through a pair of glasses with zero latency and no visual quality degradation.

To succeed as an AR headset AVP needs human eye quality passthrough. To succeed as a VR headset AVP needs positional controllers. To succeed as either AVP needs to be lighter, cheaper, more comfortable, and use a built-in battery.

Needs a physical volume adjustment like on quest 3.

Hand tracking in an app like Fruit Ninja is horrendous to the point of being useless and it's not possible to play the game.

Would like to have a built-in OS tool similar to screen snapping tools on macOS for creating a fixed grid of screens at the same resolution and screen size that I am used on my MacBook. This would make it easier to create a multi-monitor setup for work purposes without needing to delicately place screens they would snap to the nearest grid container.

Absolutely needs a more comfortable rigid headstrap. Fabric head straps have always been inferior, for me, to hard plastic head straps which provide more structure and better distribute weight around the user's head.

Need a way to use AVP's persona in macOS.

Need a way to pin apps in a specific geospatial location and not have them move when the Digital Crown is pressed to recenter.

Can't move around in virtual environments.

I'd like to see the animation sped up or the resize corners always present. It's annoying that I'm slowed down by the animation and can't immediately look at a corner to resize.

Here are my initial thoughts on Apple Vision Pro as an avid user of VR technology since 2016, when I purchased the original HTC Vive and as a Product Designer with 8+ years of experience. Previously I have owned the Valve Index, Quest 2, and currently use a Quest 3. I've been using Apple Vision Pro for the past week since its release day.

First, as a user, I feel there is a need for a gesture to get into Control Centre more quickly. I propose a pinch and pull-down gesture. Similarly, it takes too much effort to get into the Home Screen quickly—for which I propose pinching both hands at the same time. Both of these gestures maintain Apple’s pattern of initiating an action with a pinch gesture.

The passthrough on AVP needs improvement. Although it's better than the Quest 3, the colors are still muted, the rendered image is grainy and does not display the full-color spectrum. This is something I hope will improve over time. For AVP to be a successful AR headset, Apple needs to ensure it reaches human eye pass through quality. It must feel like looking through a pair of glasses with zero latency and no visual quality degradation.

For AVP to succeed as a VR headset, it requires positional controllers of some kind for gaming. However I don’t believe Apple has VR on their product roadmap for this device.

For it to succeed at all, as an AR headset, XR headset, or VR headset, it needs to be lighter, cheaper, more comfortable, and use a built-in battery. As someone who has experienced both true wireless VR and wired VR, there is no going back to having a wire once you’ve experienced a wireless VR setup. The wire gets in the way of immersion too frequently.

I found hand tracking in an app like Fruit Ninja to be embarrassingly bad to the point of being unusable. This is something that Apple needs to address if they insist on not supporting any kind of positional controllers.

I would like to see a built-in OS tool similar to screen snapping tools on macOS for creating a fixed grid of screens at the same resolution and screen size that I am used to on my MacBook. It requires too much effort to place windows in space. Windows can easily get lost when placed in front of each other. It is a challenge to find the right application. There needs to be some equivalent of an app switcher on iOS or Command-Tab on macOS. There also needs to be a way to pin apps in a specific geospatial location without those windows moving when the Digital Crown is pressed to recenter the user’s view.

The current fabric head straps are not comfortable enough. In my experience, hard plastic head straps provide more structure and better distribute weight around the user's head.

I would like to see Apple add support for using AVP's personas in macOS.

Lastly, the animation could be sped up for resizing windows or have the resize corner UI always visible. It's frustrating that I'm slowed down by the animation and can't immediately look at, and grab, a corner to resize.

These are my initial thoughts on the Apple Vision Pro. As a technologist, I look forward to seeing how Apple will iterate and improve upon this product. I will be returning AVP as it’s not a product ready for consumer use yet. It has major issues with all of the following use cases: work/productivity, AR or VR gaming, and media consumption. Until then, I'll continue exploring the virtual and augmented worlds with my Quest 3.

One life, one planet. | LeoVogel.com

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