VisionPro or No Go Who Knows

“The Apple narrative is now escape velocity chamfered mid-century dystopia.”

I have no idea where this came from, and highly doubt I came up with this myself, but I suppose a smarter version of myself could have. In any case, I agree.

I certainly don’t need another bit of isolation technology and neither do you probably. None of us need more cocoons and more bubbles to hide from our neighbours and our families with. We already have doors and TVs and headphones for all that. And with those though, you at least know they’re half mentally there. This is what I self-satisfactorily have told myself.

It’s fine. I get it. Resolution. Better this, better that. All of this melts away when you realise what is happening. Years ago I tried the Magic Leap which was getting the same sorts of descriptions of fantasy worlds beamed directly into your eyeballs and all that. It’s cool for a couple of minutes and then, well, meh. You have a thing on your head still. You can see the table and then there’s some aliens behind it. You get used to it. Then, “huh.” That’s it.

But then a couple weeks ago I tried the Vision Pro and you know what. It was insane. I swear the dinosaur was going to bite me! It was right there! And Alicia Keys, also right there. And if they could do both of them, why not put them together, who the hell knows. But it was fleeting. I had about ten minutes and it was as stated above, generally insane. Truly engaging and as immersive as it says on the tin. But…and you knew there was one of them coming, I don’t know for how long I could handle it. But it made me think about TV and how easy it is. How the ergonomics on so many angles are comfortable. Your head, which you never think about having a non-trivial amount of weight on it, is free and light. And more importantly, so are your eyes. Our homes are tuned to having a big screen for set periods of time and your eyes can focus elsewhere, you can do other things and you can listen and sort of not watch, and then watch and then sort of not listen. And you can have another screen. This is not that. I know the idea is to replace all that, but it could be a bit too much, all on your head and pounding into your eyeballs all at once.

But it was amazing for those ten minutes.