For the first time, I felt the scarcity and powerlessness of words.
WWDC23 On the second day, I represented Aifan and became one of the first people in the world to experience Vision Pro. Since video recording is not allowed on site, in the face of such a high-dimensional computing device, I can only use two-digit bytes to outline some of the only imagination space for everyone.
Q: What kind of preparation is required before wearing?
For this Vision Pro media demo, Apple built a white house called Fieldhouse in the northwest area of Apple Park, although it is a temporary area, I don't see that this is a mobile panel house.
After entering, the enthusiastic Apple staff demonstrated how to complete the preparation, using the iPhone to scan the facial information and pinna information, the facial information is used to select the most suitable eye mask for the face, the process is very similar to the iPhone FaceID input, the pinna scan is used to calibrate the spatial audio experience, just turn the head 90° left and right. The whole process takes less than a minute.
Q: Is myopia affected by users?
Does not affect.
I brought my own contact lenses. However, on site, the staff measured the power based on my spectacle lenses and customized a lens, which was magnetically attached to the inside of the Vision Pro eye cup.
▲ZEISS customized lenses
Q: How do I wear Apple Vision Pro? What settings do I need to make when I turn my computer on?
The Vision Pro's eye mask is magnetically attached to the body and can be replaced, because my face is like a basin, the eye mask is not too snug, and like most VR devices, there will be light leakage under the bridge of the nose. Staff said that the retail version will be adapted to more face shapes.
When wearing, the staff will recommend pinching the narrow area in the middle of the glasses to avoid fingers contaminating the camera.
There is a knob on the right rear of the head beam to adjust the tightness of the head.
Unlike the official website and promotional video, a strap is also installed on the top of the fuselage to distribute the weight, but it will inevitably crush the hairstyle.
On the left rear of the fuselage, there is a white braided cable more than one meter long, which is connected to the external battery. The external battery provides two hours of battery life.
However, under the shackles of battery life, I think that this split is a better solution in existence.
The external battery is not removable and is estimated to have the role of variable voltage power supply, but it is equipped with a Type-C port, which can continue to power through an external power supply.
After wearing, the machine needs to first set up the eyeballs and gestures, and Vision Pro dries out the handle and relies entirely on eyeballs, gestures and voice for control.
First, I need to keep an eye on the successive bright spots in the center of the screen, which form a hexagon, the first time it is completely black, the second time it will be bright. Because of different brightness, the pupil of the human eye shrinks to a different degree.
Palm setup is simpler, just extend your hands.
Then long press the digital knob in the upper right corner of the machine, and the whole setting is completed.
At this time, the screen will appear the same dynamic Hello picture of iOS and macOS, floating in the air in a three-dimensional posture.
Q: Is Vision Pro sinking? Pressed head?
Noticeably lighter than the Quest Pro (722g), and probably about the same weight as the Pico 4 Pro (458g), without noticeable indentation. After wearing it for half an hour, I felt no discomfort.
To add the background: I have a head circumference of 63cm, and I am a leader even if I look at five kilometers.
Q: How is the immersion?
The graphics are very sharp, there is no screen effect, no grain and pixels are visible, and it is undoubtedly the sharpest headset I have ever experienced, for reading documents and browsing the web, no problems at all.
Penetrating the field of view, i.e. seeing the external environment through the Vision Pro, is as clear as the Sony a7RIII electronic viewfinder I have in my hand, and I can even read the phone screen through the device. Both color, clarity, and frame rate are far better than the Meta Quest Pro and Pico 4 Pro, but they are still very different from the world seen with the naked eye.
Occasionally slight picture shaking is visible through the field of vision, as long as it is not a particularly quick turn of the head, almost no delay can be felt, I try to quickly wave my hands in front of my eyes, only then will there be some "gang wearing", such as the freezing effect, and the problem of incomplete keying.
There will be some green and purple casts around the edges of the frame, but they are not easy to notice.
It should be mentioned that the ambient light on site is not bad, and it has not been tested in low light.
During the half hour of the experience, I did not experience vertigo.
Regarding FOV (Field of View), the official data has not been announced, and as far as my own feeling is not completely reliable, it may be similar to the FOV of Quest Pro and Pico 40 Pro, and the field of view will be blocked by black edges, just like looking at the world from a telescope.
Overall, I think the Vision Pro is very immersive, and it is the No.1 of all the headsets I have experienced.
The immersion of the headset
The core of the headset experience is immersion, and the core indicators are:
- Resolution: This is easy to understand.
- FOV (Field of View): The range of angles at which vision can accept an image. The field of view of the human binocular reaches about 188 degrees, and only the human eye can focus and focus at a front of 60 degrees, and the remaining residual light of about 128 degrees is the key to affecting VR immersion.
- Passthrough field of view allows users to see images of the real world while wearing a headset. However, penetrating the field of view is usually achieved by transmitting images through the camera, so its quality and stability may be limited by the device and camera.
- Sound: The sense of orientation of the sound.
- Latency: We also need low-latency inward-looking tracking and "real" interactions with the world around us. The helmet should be able to sense and react quickly and accurately to the movement of your head. When you turn your head to the left, the perspective in the screen also immediately shifts to the left. If the process is delayed, you may feel dizzy or uncomfortable.
Q: How do I interact with eye tracking and gestures? How effective is it?
After completing all the settings, long press to enter the main page, round app icon, familiar taste.
Eye tracking and gesture manipulation work together: the eyeball is used for positioning, which is equivalent to where the mouse stays, while there are only two types of gesture operations - open and drag.
Among them, the action of pinching the thumb and index finger is "opening", and the pinching movement is dragging.
There was a small episode in between: at first I instinctively put my finger in the air to control the graphical interface, but in fact my hand could easily control it in any gesture.
The whole set of interactive learning is very low, and you can adapt in one minute.
The results of eye tracking are amazing: the sensitivity, precision, speed are very high, there is no lag, and I have a feeling of where to hit.
A typical example is when the staff asked me to look at the little dot at the bottom of the screen to close the page, and I saw that the good guy was so small, and there was a very close bar at the bottom of the screen (for dragging the window position). Unexpectedly, there was no misoperation.
This great experience also comes from the blessing of visual and sound effects, when I focus on the graphic elements, the icons will have very flexible bulges, shadow layer changes, and even sound effects.
And when I pinch my fingers and shake it out, the window will be extremely silky like the trajectory of the real world.
In fact, eye tracking is not the first of its kind to Apple, but Apple is the first company to use it in its entirety for human-computer interaction.
Q: What is the experience of looking at photos on Vision Pro?
Same application, completely different taste. I can zoom in to the size of the entire room by dragging the zoom control in the lower right corner of the photo, and when I view the panoramic photo, I feel like I am on the scene.
Q: How effective is Persona when I use it?
Apple arranged for an employee who had set up Persona in advance to FaceTime with me, and after answering the call, the video interface was like a picture frame, with a 3A masterpiece protagonist inside, the realism was not bad, but the mouth shape and facial muscles were still unnatural. Although it is not perfect, the communication distance is much closer.
Q: What are the impressive features?
Eye tracking and gesture control definitely count as one.
If you've never had a VR experience, a 3D camera is a feature that can make you sow.
Apple showed me some photos and videos taken directly with Vision Pro. In one of the videos, a little girl blowing out a candle, I could really feel the smoke coming in my face after the candle was extinguished.
If there is any scene that can be compared to, it is the "meditation basin" in Harry Potter.
Similar experiences can actually be found in other VR headsets, but higher clarity undoubtedly brings better immersion.
I think this feature can be called Vision Pro's Killer app, and its value is that it can not only watch, but also shoot and create.
From this point of view, it adds the dimension of information dissemination, such as industrial designers holding remote meetings, they can take a 3D photo of a product and share it with each other. The other person doesn't have to imagine what it looks like in reality in front of a 2D screen.
On the other hand, this is also a very poking function of human nature, those people and things that you can't give up, those spaces and times that can't be left behind, are all frozen in an instant, in a real sense.
Unfortunately, the scene does not provide a shooting experience, and I am curious whether my casual shooting can create the same immersion as the official proof.
Q: How do you transition between real and virtual?
Through the knob switch, you can adjust the immersion, you can understand whether to present the external environment when watching virtual content, in the processing of spatial interaction, Apple fully borrows the sensory experience of the physical world, the dynamic effect of the transition is very good, there is a feeling of gradually retreating into the black fog or the black fog dissipating.
Q: What else is this knob for?
- Press briefly to return to the home page, similar to the Home button.
- Double-click to force quit.
- Long press the screen to return to the correct.
Q: How is the movie-watching experience?
Apple played me a clip of "Avatar", the picture quality is clear, the 3D effect is excellent, with the spatial audio of head tracking, it can also achieve very good surround sound, although it is not as good as IMAX, but it has surpassed the viewing experience of most TVs.
The movie screen can also be switched to cinema mode, similar to the viewing effect of a movie theater, and even the front and back seats can be selected.
Apple also showed me Apple TV+ content for Vision Pro, and a three-dimensional Apple logo slowly appeared at the beginning of the film, showing various outdoor landscapes, such as sea surfing and cliffs.
Q: What are the AR experiences?
The only demo that qualifies as AR is an interactive video: a window is slowly opened on the wall, and then a dinosaur sticks its head out of the wall, and when I walk up to the dinosaur and wave at it, the dinosaur responds.
Then a butterfly flew out from a distance, and I stretched out my finger, and the butterfly stayed on my fingertip.
Q: What other interesting details are there?
During the viewing process, when I turn my head to the person I am talking to, this person will gradually develop from the picture, please pay attention to the word development, the gradient is very silky.
Q: How is the sound experience?
Spatial audio has become the AR of the sound dimension in a sense, and when I turn my head and the picture follows, the orientation of the sound will change accordingly, in line with the experience in reality.
Q: What other official app experiences are there?
"Mindfulness", the dynamic effect of virtual breathing fills the entire space, there is a feeling of enveloping me, with the spatial audio, it is like being in Teamlab.
Q: What exactly is Vision Pro?
In fact, after a short experience, I'm not sure if it's an MR device or a top-of-the-line VR device: on the one hand, it has the underlying hardware for AR modeling, and on the other hand, it continues the desktop experience more to the space.
Interestingly, in the promotional video for this product, Apple did not mention AR, but emphasized the concept of "spatial computing" more.
One plausible explanation is that Apple wants developers to come up with great ideas in AR scenarios.
▲Heart AR model made by the developer
Q: What are the applicable scenarios? Can it be used outdoors?
Mainly home and office environments, but also more suitable for travel occasions such as planes or trains. Imagine "carrying" multiple high-resolution displays anywhere; Imagine coding at Starbucks and enjoying a cappuccino while getting a full desktop experience with multiple large screens.
This is the biggest significance of spatial computing.
Q: The official promotional video is rendered, what is the difference between the actual experience and the official promotional video, will it be like Google Glass back then?
The overall fidelity is high, but the immersion is not as good as the rendered video, as the black edges are still visible in the field of view and the light leakage under the blindfold immediately pulls me back to reality.
When it comes to the experience of 3D imagery, I think it goes beyond the promo video. It's like you can't feel the shock of a 3D cinema with your phone.
Q: Do you feel strange to wear?
Overall, I'm not sure if everyone can accept wearing a pair of external glasses, or whether it can undergo a design reversal like AirPods and become a meme.
You can ask yourself if you would like to sit by the Starbucks window wearing it and enjoy the surprised eyes of passers-by.
Q: Vision Pro has a beautiful external screen, what is it used for?
Apple doesn't want the headset to isolate users from the outside world. When someone is nearby, Vision Pro's exterior screen becomes transparent, allowing people around to see the user's eyes.
For example, if you are looking at an app, people around you can know that you can see them. But when fully immersed, the mask becomes blurry, and those around you know you can't see them.
This function is called Eyesight, which fully demonstrates Apple's human attributes.
Unfortunately, I can't see what this screen shows.
Q: Will Vision Pro be successful?
Whether Vision Pro is positioned as a MR or a spatial computing device, it is essentially a wearable product, and the primary problem that such products solve is whether the user is psychologically and physically willing to wear it and whether it can be worn for a long time. That remains to be seen.
The second point is whether the unique value it brings can offset the burden of wearing. The unique value here doesn't include the novelty of entering a new platform, but rather the Killer app that actually retains users.
Browsing the web, watching movies, these in my opinion are more new bottles of old wine, the icing on the cake, logically not enough to completely subvert the traditional experience of TV and computer.
But "3D camera" is definitely the original application of the AR platform, and a hundred years after the birth of color images, we can finally freeze time through another display technology.
Unlike other apps, 3D camera is a unique experience exclusive to this platform, and you can't replicate that feeling on any traditional medium.
Human values are often the lowest reason for technological success.
Welcome to a new universe
Vision Pro is Apple's integration in the field of personal computing, I can see many shadows of Apple's human-computer interaction and technical layout in the past ten years - graphical interface, Apple Silicon, spatial audio, FaceID, LiDAR...
It is the best headset in existence: it brings the highest picture quality ever and revolutionizes the home entertainment experience; It completely kills the headset's handle and provides revolutionary spatial interaction in the most natural way; It takes content creation away from the two-dimensional plane and makes freeze-frame time and space a reality.
Even though it stacks so many cutting-edge technologies, it still has unavoidable drawbacks:
It's still not light enough, and it's still questionable whether it can attract users to wear it consistently;
It's still an indoor mobile device, and the distance of the LiDar means it can't be used in outdoor spaces;
The external battery, presumably this is the best solution under the existing technology, but it can also immediately pull you back to the era of kicking the walkman in your trouser pocket and backpack;
It doesn't have too many real-world based applications, and it lacks some killer apps in broadening the boundaries of information input and output.
These are not so much shortcomings as it is against time.
Vision Pro at least opened my eyes to a possibility, a possibility to make computing ubiquitous, a possibility that doesn't rely on smartphones, a possibility that makes science fiction more than just science fiction.
Welcome to a new universe.