I worked exclusively in Vision Pro for a week, and here's how it went

You can get a lot of work done while wearing Apple's Vision Pro and have fun doing it, but we're not yet at the point where most of us want to fully embrace spatial computing as a new way of working.

I spent over a week working almost exclusively in Vision Pro. I continued Slack conversations, connected on Zoom video calls, edited Google Docs, wrote articles, and did everything I do within my day-to-day responsibilities as an editor at Ars Technica.

Throughout this experience, I never stopped to think about how cool it was, as if I were a character in a cyberpunk novel. The Vision Pro opens up some new ways of approaching daily work that can appeal to people with certain sensitivities, and provides access to some conveniences that someone who hasn't already invested a lot in their home office setup might not have. .

However, at the same time, I was never focused on a specific application or use case that made me think that my usual habit of working on a MacBook Pro with three external displays would be replaced. If you don't have a setup like this already — that is, if you're just working on a laptop alone — the Vision Pro can add a lot of value.

I plan to explore more use cases in the future, such as gaming, but this is the last major part in a series of sub-reviews of the Vision Pro that I've done on different applications, such as entertainment or as a practical application. Go to mobile device.

My goal was to see if the Vision Pro's myriad use cases add up to $3,500 of value for today's computing enthusiasts. Productivity is priority and center in how Apple markets the device, so this is important. Let's see how it holds up.

basics

Outside of entertainment, VisionOS and its apps mostly revolve around flat windows floating in 3D space. There are very few apps that take advantage of a device's 3D capabilities in new, productivity-relevant ways.

There are two types of VisionOS apps: spatial apps and “compatible apps.” The former are apps designed to take advantage of the Vision Pro's spatial computing capabilities, while the compatible apps are simply iPad apps that work nicely as flat windows within the VisionOS environment.

Either way, you'll usually get the ability to place windows around you. For example, I started by sitting at my kitchen table with my writing app in front of me, Slack and my email app to one side, and a browser window with a YouTube video playing on the other side. This was a bit like using several large computer screens, each with a magnifying application. It's great, and the ability to switch between your real environment and fully immersive virtual environments can help with focus, especially if you're doing intense creative work like writing.

If there's one thing Apple has managed to do better than any of its predecessors in the mixed reality space, it's the interface. Wherever your eyes look, the widget will glow to let you know it's the one you'll interact with if you tap. Tapping is done simply by tapping two fingers together almost anywhere around your body; The headset has cameras all around, so you don't have to hold your hands up or in front of you to do it. There are also simple gestures for scrolling or zooming.