A bit of both.

I used to be a relative Apple-fan in the past, for more years than I would confess you in person.

I say relative, because, while I used everything-Apple from iPhone, iPad to iMac and services like Apple Music, iCloud (paid extra storage), Podcasts, I never was a crazy, toxic fanatic who attacks everyone and anyone that dares to criticise anything that comes from the sacred company annually. No. Hell, certain moments I did criticise Apple too if I didn’t agree with them on something, being that about a device’s design, or a software change, service quality, whatever. I generally liked their stuffs, until I became more of a reasonable person, but I never worshipped a $ trillion height company and its executives. Why the fuck would I do that?! They don’t care about anyone either (contrary to some Apple-fans’ believes).

But, after a while the grass didn’t seem to be that green and didn’t feel that soft in the walled garden and I longed for more freedom, less costs and a wider perspective in technology. Besides freedom, there wasn’t much going on with Apple for a while to get excited about, and everything I had seemed to bore me. I got rid of them all, at once!  I went back to Windows, Linux and Android. Linux (desktop, laptop PCs) and Android (phone) these days, exclusively.
All my devices gone, and turned my back to their services as well.
I always had my music album collections (yes, purchased ones, hundreds) to listen music offline, and later that got expanded with YouTube Music as that is included with our YouTube Premium Family subscription, no extra charge. We, me and my wife, watch YouTube regularly, it is a part of our life for a very long time, an essential service, so a Premium, ad-free YouTube experience is a no-brainer for us, really. And we just couldn’t bear those ads. Too many these days. It was easy to abandon iCloud too. Relatively, after downloading some stuffs from. I maintain a home server and we have a cheap 200 GB Google Drive storage for non-sensitive crap. Drive is cheap from this location, as is YouTube Premium Family. Indeed, we don’t live in the United States, and I’m eternally grateful for that. The more news I read, the stronger that sentiment gets 😀

Phew, that was a long prologue…but to what end? Good that you ask!

After last year’s announcement on Apple’s new innovation (and I mean it, no sarcasm intended), January of 2024 is full with Apple Vision Pro related news items. It is everywhere, every day. What?! Lately basically hourly! Vision Pro this, Vision Pro that, on all tech news sites, on social media (especially Twitter, which I never will call X). There is virtually no place on the web without it. And that’s fine, I do understand why. It’s new, interesting, and writing a lot about is good for clicks, visits. Ergo, earnings.

Not me, this is not a commercial space, I’ll remain poor. For the time being

Apple is breaking into a new product category, first time, after so many companies failed and still failing to captivate the greater audience with their “visions” in the VR/AR tech segment. And it seems Apple might be the one that will do it right. Sure, being a first generation Apple hardware in a category they just stepped into, is not without its drawbacks, but their first attempt and experiment in this area might become the leading one, especially over a little time. Or after a second generation perhaps.

Pros:

– high quality device with great display for applications and content in VR/AR mode
– the well performing and established M2 SoC (System On a Chip, its chipset)
– Nice set of applications and use cases to start with. Not a wide range yet, but a good start, and developers can begin right away as Apple, of course, supports 3rd party app development for the device’s visionOS. And they made that clear from the get go. Developers that are account holders in the Apple Developer Program or Apple Developer Enterprise Program can apply to receive a complete Developer Kit. A device on loan from Apple. Juicy. Now that is support!

Cons:

– an utterly high price of $3500! I would say shocking, but that would be a stretch. Knowing Apple’s pricing schemes on anything that coming from their side, this price shouldn’t be such a surprise. Even for a first generation product. I mean this is the company that upgrades RAM and SSDs for hundreds of euros/dollars. Or thousands if you want both a bit higher when you order a shiny little MacBook.
– many tech reviewers from different outlets, from Verge to MKBHD, reported incredible discomfort while wearing the device, even for a shorter period of time. It seems to be heavy, pushing earlobes so much that it becomes quickly painful. #Eargate tag, anyone?! 😀 Well, that sucks for $3500. I’m sure Apple designers and engineers could have found a better way to compensate on its weight with something better than an extra headband. For $3500, they should’ve tried at least.
– It’s early for this brand new Apple product, so use cases and application avalaibility are limited right now, of course. Such things always need time. It will pick up. Just remember the early times of the iPhone and iPad! And these days it’s easier for their ecosystem as they have millions of smaller-bigger app developers worldwide. And once this product reaches second generation state, app development will go to rapid mode, especially if Apple figures out a way to make a Vision VR/AR headset for us, the plebs, far under the current price. I would bet a testicle on it :-O
– You look like you want to start scuba diving.

 

Did I forget anything, from pros and cons?
Who cares…this is what is important right now, in my humble opinion.

Is it worth all the fuss and press? All the videos about “Look how warm, fuzzy and big it is inside”?
I think so.

After years of stagnation, inventing only new marketing terms for existing products with small iterative updates, utterly boring keynotes (to the point of being cringey and unwatchable) and shitty software updates, finally, Apple came with hope for the entire VR/AR tech genre. This is something interesting, promising, a start of a platform development where the virtual environment won’t look like a toddler’s sketch and you keep you virtual limbs intact (right, Meta?!).
Hooray!

 

17th of January in the year 2024