An Exciting Spatial Future
I'm currently writing this in VSCode, with my Mac's screen mirrored into my Apple Vision Pro (AVP), listening to Gabriel Fauré's 3 Romances sans paroles, Op. 17: No 3 in A-Flat major. I'm overlooking a beautiful landscape of Mount Hood in Oregon, with just enough immersion enabled to be able to see my hands as I type. Being able to virtually teleport to Mount Hood to do my writing makes not being in the physical comfort of my own home so much more tenable. It's become a device that, despite its many flaws like its weight and durability, I actually look forward to using on almost a daily basis.
Ever since the launch of the Vision Pro, there have been a flurry of reviews, opinions and speculations that have come out about what spatial computing means for the future ahead. There's been a lot of noise out there, about how this technology is going to change the world. I wouldn't have started this blog if I didn't think this stuff would change the world, and it's always fun and interesting to think about the future in a deeper way.
One of the first things you immediately notice about the AVP that puts it miles ahead of previous headsets I've tried is the display resolution - text is extremely clear. I tried using the Remote Display app on the Meta Quest Pro in the past, and although it was wonderful to have a very large display for my Mac wherever I went, the text was not clear which made doing any sort of reading or writing for long periods of time quite straining on the eyes. I have not experienced any sort of eye fatigue.
The AVP's Personas at first started out in uncanny valley, but it makes perfect sense to me why something like this is necessary for people who take video calls in their headsets. The realism of the faces makes it great for talking to people close to you, but unlike Meta's avatars that are more cartoon-y and customizable, it's not great for meeting and talking to strangers on the web. I think it would make sense for one person to have multiple avatars - one for talking to people close to you, and another for talking to those you don't really know.
It was easier for me to wear the AVP around other people, thanks to Eyesight. Nobody actually said it was any good or that it looked "normal", but it gave people a good laugh and let us talk about how hilarious it looked. Making eye contact with people through an aluminum computer on your face is weird if you think too long about it, but it conveys information about the wearer that could never be conveyed with headsets that don't have a screen at the front.
I watched a good chunk of Killers of the Flower Moon in the AVP with Apple TV+, and being able to have an IMAX-sized screen in my home was incredible. The audio would adapt to sound like the movie was being played in the virtual environment you chose to be in. Movies are probably the best uses of the headset thus far - the ability to create space for virtual things where there was not enough. For people that may not have enough room in their homes to place a movie theatre for one (most of us), it's a real luxury.
One of the most interesting apps has been one called CellWalk, which gives the user an immersive view into the biology of a cell, to learn about how protein synthesis worked and the cell's molecular structure. Being able to pinch, rotate and zoom things that would normally require a microscope to visualize gave a glimpse into spatial's potential for educational content.
I'm eagerly waiting for Spatial Personas, which combined with SharePlay will enable the realistic avatars to be in the same space at the same time. Currently this is not possible and the workaround is to have the users call each other through FaceTime in the headset, and to have the caller place each callee in the location they should be. For board games or collaborative apps, this is a huge point of friction and I'm looking forward to what is announced at WWDC this year. It's a limitation that Meta currently doesn't have, thanks to its Avatars SDK.
The culmination of the multiple sessions that would span anywhere from 15 minutes to 2-3 hours have given me a better sense of where I think this technology may be going. A lot of it from here on out will begin to depend on developers to find ways to make the headset more appealing and useful to mainstream consumers. Though Apple already has a very large compendium of 2D apps that have been ported over from iPad and will launch in windowed mode, they don't take full advantage of the 3D affordances that come with having apps that can float and interact with your space. There's a big opportunity for developers here and I look forward to writing more about the ecosystem that will emerge here.