"Oh My God"

Will Apple Vision Pro Be Our New Overlord?

“Virtual worlds need not be second-class citizens. They can be first-class realities.”

— David Chalmers, philosopher and neuroscientist

Last week, my 54th birthday coincided with Apple Vision Pro’s launch day. It seemed like an opportune time to investigate the new-new thing. Late afternoon on Groundhog’s Day, I headed to The Short Hills Mall in New Jersey to pick one up.

Turns out, you don’t “just pick it up.” Apple Vision Pro is billed as a revolutionary thing. Such novel products require time with them.

Before buying, a Genius guide leads a thirty-minute edutainment session. We customized the device for my eyes (1.5x readers installed), learned a new, from-the-future user interface (an adaptation of hand-driven, floating media screens in Minority Report), and dove into hyper-real "spatial" experiences (living in a computer).

While reports bag on spatial computing lingo Apple's attached to it, it begs for a new language. It's startling when you first encounter what comes at you. While experiencing my own sensory overload, others demoing around me repeatedly screamed, "Oh My God!" as we traversed through true-to-life worlds.

What delivers such spastic reactions is a herculean feat of engineering. The Micro‑OLED screen features 23 million pixels presented through a 3D display system. It's got Apple's M2 and R1 chips, powering a 3D central camera system, two high‑resolution main cameras, six‑facing tracking cameras, and four eye‑tracking cameras. In a feat I still can't understand, it delivers spatial audio with "audio ray tracing" that delivers hi-def sound without headphones. 

If the iPhone ate things like maps, calculators, and wallets, Apple Vision Pro could make big-screen TVs, stereo systems, and mobile phones obsolete.

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THE MEDIUM IS THE MESSAGE HERE

But enough about the device. The more enduring story will be this medium invented by Apple. Vision Pro captures, preserves, and depicts reality in a revolutionary way.

Alicia Key's studio set blends 180-degree, 3D recordings in 8K quality with spatial audio. It's a jam session with Keys, musicians, a few of her friends—and you—in the scene. Imagine what immersive video will do for concerts, fan engagement, and acts of creation.

The Encounter Dinosaurs app allows you to interact with prehistoric reptiles in a hyper-real setting. The dinosaurs see and respond to you in a virtual world you explore together. Think about what this might bring to the future of education, museums, or travel. 

The most arresting experience for me came when stepping into thin air with a highliner named Faith Dickey. In the short film Adventure, you join her on a tightrope walk 3,000 feet high across jagged Fjords in Norway. It takes you above the scene, at her side preparing, and on the rope (spoiler: there’s a fall). Consider what it'll be like to sit on the bench of the NBA Finals, at the goal line at a World Cup shoot-out, or on the Red Carpet at the Academy Awards. 

If those don’t throw you into a weird space, there’s One More Thing. Keynote, Apple’s PowerPoint, now allows you to practice your presentations in the app. On Apple Vision Pro, you do it in a true-to-life rendition of the Steve Jobs theater.

The range of applications could lead to a revival of highly original, blockbuster films. A new way of experiencing sports. Games that finally mirror the fidelity of real life. A way of making immersive experiences the centerpiece of learning.

In ways we can’t yet imagine, spatial computing will carry weight and gravity.

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SENSING SOMETHING’S DIFFERENT HERE

There’s a strange sensory undercurrent when experiencing the potential of Apple Vision Pro. I can’t escape a weird feeling putting it on, independent of how it looks.

For me, strange sensations amplified when reading a wall-sized PDF, living in a spatial 3D photo, or turning my office into a YouTube viewing room with a 100-foot screen.

The sense isn't the uncanny valley, that unease or discomfort looking at an almost, but not wholly life-like thing. It's more of a slightly agitated feeling that the thing’s maybe too real. That the interaction doesn't match a previously sensed reality.  When I spend time in it, l feel like something inside of me is being ever-so-slightly rewired.

Maybe it’s because I’ve entered a transitionary place, moving from one state of mind into a new one. Maybe it’s a sensorial glitch in the system. Only time will tell.

Reality-bending is front and center in social critiques—that it will perpetuate media addiction, isolation, and mental health crises. Ian Bogust, one of the better tech writers around, said in his Atlantic headline, "Apple Vision Pro is Spectular and Sad." 

While these warnings have merit, there’s something deeper going on. Something more fundamental in how we’ll make sense of things.

In hyper-realistic virtual worlds, what's authentic? Are making mirror worlds taking technology too far? Or, maybe, can alternative realities actually be good for us?

The revolutionary vibe going on here has people naturally spooked. 

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DO CRITICS HAVE THE RIGHT PERSPECTIVE?

In his book Reality+, David Chalmers thinks deeply about the alternate universe we will soon inhabit—and if it’s one we should indeed dread. He's a professor of philosophy and neuroscience, best known for formulating the “hard problems” of consciousness.

Applying his philosophical questioning to reality-bending technology in Reality+, Chalmers depicts a world where virtual realities soon become indistinguishable from non-virtual ones.

He argues that, in this sense, virtual reality becomes a genuine reality. Virtual worlds need not be second-class citizens; they should be first-class realities.

He says living a fused life can be a good thing, far more than escapism projected by doomers. With the right perspective, Chalmers suggests virtual worlds could become full-blooded environments for living a genuine life. 

Apple's Vision Pro may rocket us into such alternative worlds, eventually delivering full-bodied experiences Chalmer prophesizes. It makes me wonder when we get there if we’ll ever want to come home.

Reflecting on the birthday trip, Apple Vision Pro wasn’t the best gift of the day. That goes to a fantastic new Music playlist assembled by my daughter. Turns out the best things in life are free. Or, in Apple’s case, $16.99 per month.

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