Ask HN: Are you still using your Vision Pro?
I have a couple flights soon and I was thinking about picking one up to ease the cross-country trips.
Are you using yours on flights or for work or not at all? I used it pretty regularly for non-work things (primarily really great TV or movies I wanted to watch, or live soccer games). Found I couldn't really use it for work stuff (the interactions, though not fatal, aren't in a state that I found a net benefit currently). Am I using it now? Not at all. But I blame a new puppy in the household upending my schedule rather than the Vision Pro. Big fan of the puppy release, though, definitely one of my favorite innovations as of late. I would feel like an alpha-dork with a Vision Pro strapped to my face sitting in coach. I would hate to be in some VR experience when the doors pop off the Boeing. I have it, and am barely using it. It can't do much of anything without being paired to a Macbook, due to being restricted to only running iPad apps (ie no software development tools, only a tablet-oriented browser with weird tablet quirks). This makes it not very portable in practice. The one place where I would want to use it is in the back seat of car rides, but it's entirely nonfunctional in that context. I had someone throw up next to me during the first few hours of a 10 hour flight after using Oculus Quest. Not fun. The plane motion did not match the VR motion, that really messes with your head. Bad VR can do that, but so can good VR on a bouncy plane. the immersion control in Vision Pro should help Haven’t used it in over 2 months? Flying to Japan tomorrow and, although it’d be great for the flight, don’t want to lug it around. If you put it in a locked suitcase Japan has very safe luggage storage. Has p0rn been successful with VR headsets yet? Asking for a friend. ... Seriously, though, p0rn has been remarkably successful in predicting tech/internet adoption. I've seen some pretty OK porn via the browser on the latest quest. Problem is there's not nearly enough of it, there are only specific studios that do half decent studio-grade first-person VR porn shoots. These actors have to wear camera rigs on their heads, which I'm sure makes the production process much more of a logistical challenge. And that's not many porn consumers' bag really-- if you want amateur, relatable feeling people and scenarios, the best you can do is maximize a normal video window. Onlyfans performers aren't strapping rigs to their faces during regular sex just yet. With Quest yes, because Meta aren't prudes like Apple. With Vision Pro, not likely. A couple of flights per month or just one round trip flight? I don’t have a Vision Pro, but it seems like overkill to get one just for a couple flights. How would you use it after the flights? Would you use it at all? If NY to LA is 6 hours, you’re talking almost $300/hr vs just watching some of the in-flight movies. Not to mention it taking up a significant portion of your carry on bag. I’m not anti-Vision Pro, I plan to get a future version if it keeps progressing, but it seems like you’re looking for an excuse to get it. This doesn’t seem like a great excuse, but if you want one and can afford it, get it for that reason. You don’t need the flight as an excuse. I do not use it for work; I've considered taking it on a few upcoming flights but honestly considering taking my iPad instead due to the sheer size of the Vision Pro. I absolutely love it for home cinema though, great surround sound and the 3D movies are a cool benefit. I do have to mention, it would benefit me if the weight were lowered a bit. Also, unless you have it frequently plugged in or are swapping out batteries, you may have to spend a large amount of time charging your Vision Pro. Yes, I spend hours in it daily. I use it primarily for work as a monitor. It is nice to have all my apps (music, YouTube, etc) accessible in a virtual workspace. Got mine on launch day. I use it once or twice a week for content consumption. Very similar to how I would use an iPad. I use my xreal on flights; it’s very light so no issue taking it everywhere. Vision Pro is just too big to take everywhere imho, even though it’s much better in general. Never heard of those. How do you like them? Can you comfortably watch Netflix or play games on them? $300 is a lot more palatable. And it's nice that it's just a display, not a whole system like Quest. For flights it seems massive overkill. When I was doing a lot of flying some years back I took the Google Daydream product -- a minimalist device that you inserted your phone into, and then used a small wireless controller. Coupled with decent headphones it was a significantly better experience than the in-flight offerings, of course, but the logistics of it all meant I only bothered with this arrangement a handful of times. I’m still using it for watching movies on flights, pretty decent at that. Best in flight entertainment I have ever experienced. I tried to use it for work too and that did not work out, for me the text was too fuzzy and it became frustrating. Reddit forum made me think I was nuts but recently has been shown to be deliberate to reduce screen door effect. > I have a couple flights soon and I was thinking about picking one up to ease the cross-country trips. And there's the rub... a $3,500 novelty for rare trips. Why not consider one of the other portable VR headsets - they'll do everything you're going to want/need on a long flight but will save you $3,000... I use it regularly for work and watching sports. Projecting my laptop screen several feet in front of me reduces eye strain. Mac Virtual Display would be improved with support for dual screens. I’m also excited for Jump to release a Vision Pro app. My next MacBook will be a 13" - I just don't need the 16" screen anymore. Day 1 buyer, I am using it on flights. I expect gpt4o/gpt5 to be a killer app with it, basically it will have 180 degree realtime video I can chat about at low latency. It’s not comfortable enough to code with, but it’s the best portable movie theater ever made for sure. > but it’s the best portable movie theater ever made for sure So are the $500 VR headsets, by the way... Nope. I own an HTC Vive, HTC Vive Pro, Oculus Quest 2, Oculus Quest Pro, Magic Leap 2; the Vision Pro is a completely different animal. Of those I think the quest 2 is the best product, fwiw. But the vision is a dev kit for a totally new platform, and I don’t believe any of the others is a fair comp. Besides marketing, I fail to see how the Vision Pro "is a completely different animal." OP will be watching a movie... perhaps the most basic VR experience imaginable. It's not a novelty only the Vision Pro delivers... Have you owned one? The immense amount of work that went into making it a spatial compute platform stands out to me. It's not just something with low latency delivery of video to two eyes and a bunch of head and balance tracking. It's a compute platform that knows where things are in space, and what you're doing in that space as well. To me, it's a totally different animal than a VR headset. I really, really hope Apple sticks with the platform; in 10 years, the hardware could be COMPLETELY different. It probably should be in a lot of ways. But, the software and technology built that lets the OS maker, app makers and consumers engage with something that's spatially aware is huge. Huge. And that's a pretty hard thing to build, and will be a difficult moat to cross for new entrants. It seems likely to be the backbone of a major firm eventually. To my eyes, the Pro demonstrates the (very early) viability of making spatially aware hardware and software, and sketches out the reasons it might be incredibly compelling for a variety of use cases, not just entertainment. Anyway, I'm not too hung up on hardware here, although I stand by what I said, great entertainment experience, tantalizing work experience. All this work by Apple now could easily be re-pointed at, say, environmental cameras and microphones embedded in an office/living room, and work with projectors, thinner glasses, whatever. To me, the thing is the first viable steps toward a Spatially aware full stack operating system + hardware, and that is unique. Sorry, but this reads like marketing fluff or someone desperately trying to justify their purchase. It's VR... and OP will be watching a movie. OP isn't going to be "spatially computing" anything on an airplane. This thread is filled with owners saying they hardly use it after the novelty wore off. We've seen this fever frenzy with other VR platforms - people are amazed, throw down a lot of dough, then after a few weeks/months the device sits on the shelf collecting dust. Notably you're avoiding the question of whether you've owned or indeed ever even used the device. Kind of odd to be sufficiently motivated to battle someone's first-hand report if that's the case. > Kind of odd to be sufficiently motivated to battle someone's first-hand report Someone's first-hand report that reads like marketing ad-copy? Go ahead and read what was written... a lot of hand-wavy stuff that the rest of this thread says nobody uses it for anyway... "spatial computing"... what a farce. For watching a movie, Vision Pro is a scam. It is no better than the other options for this task... and the rest is a gimmick. One does not need to prove themselves a sucker by buying Apple's Juice to understand this device for what it is. You're just wrong about this, sorry -- your comments make it sound like you haven't put time in with one, and if you haven't, then it might be you could become more informed by talking with someone who has. To respond to how you imagine me, I have no need to "justify" my purchase; for reference I don't use it that often, and I'm glad I bought it for a peek into the future. You may notice that I said I have a Magic Leap 2 -- significantly more expensive, and used for under 2 hours -- I would not recommend someone even try it out. And I wouldn't even say I regret buying that -- it's useful to see what $8bn of early tech development gets you, and they did some things amazingly well. Further, I am fully aware of the use cycle of VR goggles, see my above list of devices I've purchased. These goggles are really not VR, and it's a mistake to think they are without using them. For instance, on a plane, wearing the vision pro, when a stewardess approaches you, the AVP notice a human is entering your field of vision, and blur them in to the scene, regardless of what you're doing. Is this world changing? No. Is it "VR with passthrough"? Nope. It's a much harder thing, a spatially aware pipeline (one that can recognize humans) interjecting itself into a rendering pipeline. There are a number of these little moments with the AVP that show Apple did the hard, very hard work to build a new OS pipeline. Right now, they're using it for entertainment, and if you're wealthy enough, they're a great purchase for a plane ride. They cost less than a business class upgrade, and they make the flight go away. Later, I predict if they stick with it, the IP and knowhow they're building here are going to be super valuable. You've probably been saying similar things about VR in general over the past decade... and yet here we are, still a novelty that collects dust. It's ok to be excited about tech toys. But let's not pretend these things are going to change the world or anything. Nobody is going to walk around with these glued to their face... we already stopped seeing these folks in public. It's well established that it has the most advanced display of any headset and its not a secret that a better display typically leads to a better viewing experience. I get that people feel like a $300 device is good enough, but if Apple were to drop the price and match the Oculus, and you purchased it at a reasonable price to you, your opinion would be different. Which is to say, its not based on any objective measure of experience with the device or the technology. But how much expendable income you have compared to others. Agreed that this is a super luxury super early adopter purchase -- on those terms, I recommend it wholeheartedly. Otherwise -- wait four years. The hardware needs two revs, and the software needs two revs, plus an app ecosystem. That said, it could become absolutely indispensable very quickly if OpenAI builds a quality spatial app. Like, this summer. We'll see. Can you elaborate why it is better than a 4K 65” TV? Well, I did say portable.. :) That said, it offers a wider field of view, better color accuracy and more immersion than a 65" TV at most sane viewing distances. Downside: uncomfortable, dorky looking, not social - can't watch with friends/family. I very rarely reach for it at home over the large OLED TV in my home theater. Oh yeah, I’ve been so much of a homebody I forgot people go outside ;) try taking your 65" tv while you run to the bathroom or kitchen real quick. Apparently you can return it after a couple of weeks, so might as well try it out? Sent mine back. Can’t watch a movie and eat popcorn without triggering pinch detection. Hilarious! I just spitted my coffee, because i couldn't resist to laugh out loud. I actually didn't have a spare kidney to sell so never really bought one in the first place, sorry