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It’s been a while since Apple did something unique. The last time was the launch of the iPhone in 2007. It was at that moment that we saw a hard shift in interface design, usability, and communications.
The interceding years haven’t been very interesting, especially for Apple. Laptops, wearables, and even VR devices from every manufacturer weren’t very well-designed or well-engineered. The cellphone eventually settled on the black rectangle model and new ideas in mobility were rare. Wearables were either nerd jewelry or dumb devices that measured your heart rate and little else. And VR, was an also-ran, a simple extension of the mobile device that you strapped to your head.
The last decade of computing was defined by the screen and the battery. The screen mediated your connection to the outside world via the Internet. You tapped it, you brushed against it, you checked it constantly. The limited battery, in turn, meant that your screen couldn’t be too big or too bright. These two limitations maintained a literal glass wall between us and the experience of computing.
What Apple does best, however, is create seamless experiences. It took them a while but now your iPad, your iPhone, and your Apple TV share inputs and user interfaces. You can cut and paste across devices, share files seamlessly, and talk to anyone, face-to-face on almost any device. The Apple Vision Pro, then, is the culmination of that vision.
Apple Vision Pro is a seamless environment in which all your other devices can coexist without a square of glass. Rather than be hunched over a laptop or a phone, you use the Apple Vision Pro as a unifying space.
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Gone is the endless tapping and the grotesque, anti-social staring at TikTok or Twitter. Instead, Apple’s scuba goggles – a product design Steve Jobs would have never OKed, by the way – bring the outside world in. They integrate your work, your play, and your relationships into one device that (and this is big) that won’t pull you away from the rest of humanity.
And, more important, they connect you to humans in meatspace, at least in theory. Why is this important? Because, until now, the glass through which we accessed the Internet was opaque. It forced us to lock out others.
This changes how we interact with our devices in a very special way and may just help us all escape the clutches of a mediated world.
I remember talking to a physiotherapist a few years ago and he mentioned cellphone neck. The idea behind this malady is that we are simultaneously rewarded and scolded by the device in our hand. We look down at it, excited about what we’ll see, and we’re tense because we’re worried it will be something bad. Like a wizard staring into a crystal ball, we’re simultaneously enthralled and disgusted.
The result? Our necks are constantly craning forward but the musculature is tight and closed. Basically, the last time Apple changed our world it actually changed our bodies.
Apple Vision Pro: Something Big
Apple, in the Vision Pro, is letting us back up for air.
The Apple Vision Pro is ridiculously overpriced. It looks silly. But it will sell out. I assure you that the digerati are already slavering over this thing and we will see people wearing these things in offices, on planes, and in restaurants. It sounds ridiculous but everything Google Glass got wrong – especially in terms of design and simple cachet – the Vision Pro will get right.
And I’m fully sure that this new device will cause even more weird physical and mental changes in us as humans. But until Apple is able to jack directly into our heads, something Elon Musk will never achieve commercially, this is going to be the next best thing. It’s a scary prospect – that one company can control our eyeballs and minds so thoroughly – but I feel like we’re on the cusp of something big, interesting, and, dare I say it, amazing.
