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I'm a big fan of VR. I own a couple of Oculus headsets. I have the original Oculus Rift and the Quest 2. I'm still very 
happy with my Quest 2 and I haven't felt compelled yet to upgrade it. That said the Quest 3 looks like it's a decent 
enough upgrade that I am thinking it's likely that I will be buying it on release. But the headset that I and a lot of 
VR/AR enthusiasts have been waiting for is the Apple one and finally yesterday we got to see if for the first time. 

Apple call their new headset the Vision Pro and well let's just say it's definitely more than a little bit extra! This 
looks to be the most technologically advanced headset to ever hit the market. There is so much about this headset that
excites me.

Over 4K in each eye. Meaning you can essentially just draw yourself a 4K screen as big as you like, anywhere you like. 
Plus it's fully 3D so you can have a full immersive, 3D movie cinema experience in your own home or anywhere else you 
might be. I've been watching movies like this in big virtual cinemas in VR for years but never in this quality and this 
enables you to remain in your own environment with the virtual screen augmented into your own reality. I've been looking 
forward to this since Microsoft teased it with the [HoloLens](https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/hololens) years ago. 

I've also tried to use various virtual office environments in VR but they also fall down when trying to type on the 
keyboard. I think the Apple Vision Pro headset will finally make this possible because you can just look down at your 
keyboard like normal now because you can use your computer in AR rather than VR. Imagine that you can just carry your
new office environment around with you and just sit down and start working with big virtual 4K displays. Code on 1 virtual 
screen, web browsers on another, Apple Music/Spotify on another. No need to carry anything else around except your 
MacBook.

I'm also intrigued by the fact it can record Stereoscopic 3D video. I would love to have had this kind of tech when my 
Callum was a baby, being able to essentially go back in time to the exact moment and see it all over again as if you are
back there in full 3D is pretty amazing. I just don't think recording this on the headset itself is the best thing. I hope
they update the iPhone to enable this kind of recording instead and then use the Vision Pro headset to play those memories 
back again. 

So all of that has me very excited but oh boy I do not think I'll be rushing out to by this Version 1 product. Firstly 
the price is utterly insane. Starting from $3499 in the US so probably £3499 in the UK. That's like 7+ times the price 
of existing competing products. In what can be described as a pretty turbulent time for VR/AR in general and in the 
middle of the worst inflation in recent memory. People are struggling right now and frankly not even interested in VR and 
Meta-verses. Apple said they had courage when they took the iPhones headphone jack away, but pricing this thing like 
this is what I call courage!

The Battery life is also pretty pathetic. Around 2 hours I think, and something like 4 hours if you use the external 
(sold separately naturally) pocket-sized battery pack. Considering this is a device that's being sold for professionals 
trying to work and be productive and for winding down watching movies, this isn't good enough. The MacBooks battery lasts
all day. I think they say something like 18 hours now, why is this so bad by comparison?

I also don't like the giant glass screen on the front. Not only do I see these breaking but they actually show a digital
version of your eyes to other people in the room. It's weird and I don't like it. It's creepy. 

The creepy doesn't end their either. The headset actually creates a 3D avatar version of your face which is then used in
apps like Facetime meaning we will no longer actually see each other, but instead just see weird uncanny valley 3D avatar
versions of each other. It's so Black Mirror if you ask me.

My big concern is again related to the fact that this headset is a recording device and that it renders those creepy eyes. 
I wonder what negative effects this is going to have on small children. Babies and toddlers growing up in a world where 
their parents are constantly wearing these creepy headsets with weird digital eyes looking back at them just so they can 
record. Like I said earlier, I think this needs to be reconsidered. Use the headsets for future playback but let us record
as we always have with our existing Cameras and iPhones. 

I have also heard that the headset is very heavy. Not something that's going to be comfortable for much longer than an
hour or so to wear. This isn't good enough, not to convert the mass market. We're going to need multiple revisions and
iterations of this product to get the headset right down in size/appearance/weight etc. When all of this tech fits into
something closer to a normal pair of glasses, that's when I think people might be interested. If we get there I fully expect AV/VR
headsets to become the standard and be sold on rolling subscriptions, replacing the iPhones cycle we have today.

APPLE WWDC23 - VISION PRO

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