Apple Vision Pro: Day One

t’s Friday, February 2, 2024. Today is the day. You’ve been eyeing the Vision Pro since Tim Cook stepped onstage with the product at last year’s WWDC. Longer than that, really, if you factor in the years of rumors, leaks and renderings. The price wasn’t anywhere near what you had hoped, but it’s a first-gen product. Manufacturing isn’t at full consumer scale and you’ve got to factor in the millions poured into seven or eight years of R&D.

After a few months of waffling, you hovered your cursor over the “Buy” button, held your breath, closed your eyes and committed to the tune of $3,500. Congratulations, you’re an early adopter.

The box arrives. It’s huge. It’s also quintessentially Apple — it’s premium, designed with intention. Tear the tabs on other side and slide off the top. The visor is inside, anchored to a small platform that’s more display case than shipping container. Dig deeper, and you’ll find another strap and a second “light seal” insert.

Me, I’m currently partial to the Dual Loop Band. It doesn’t look as cool as the Solo Knit Band, but the top strap does a much better job distributing weight (the Vision Pro is not a light headset). As for the light seal inserts, I advise glasses-wearers to go with the larger of the pair to create more distance between your eyes and the inserts.

Last, of course, is the now-infamous battery pack. Plug it into the port on the left side and give it a twist. A small white light pulses before turning solid. The boot-up has begun.

After eight months, what’s another 60 seconds between friends? There’s a bit of a setup process. Understandably so. The Vision Pro has to orient its sensors, get to know your space and lighting. If you had Zeiss optical inserts made for your vision, now is the time to snap them in, magnetically. If you’re a glasses wearer, don’t freak out about the image too much until you’ve enrolled your lenses by holding up a piece of paper with a QR-like code on it. Pairing the device to your iPhone works in much the same fashion.

You’ll be asked to pull the headset off for a bit, to take a scan of your face. But first, a short introductory video.