Apple’s new Vision Pro mixed-reality headset goes on sale tomorrow, and the hype cycle has officially begun. The pricey product, which could be a giant bust or mark the beginning of a new era of spatial computing, was placed firmly on the heads of a first round of tech journalists and influencers earlier this week. WIRED’s Julian Chokkattu had a demo today and reported that the technology is impressive, even if the user experience is a little awkward.
Apple’s mixed-reality headset is both in an existing product category and distinct from it. Like Meta’s Quest headset, which originated from the Oculus line, it fully covers the eyes and forehead. Like Meta’s Quest headset, Apple uses (impressive) pass-through video tech so that the wearer can still opt to see the outside world through the goggles. And as with the Meta Quest, a lot of the apps run as 2D applications in a 3D environment, meaning the apps themselves aren’t fully volumetric, but they’re projected into your field of vision with apparent depth.
But Apple’s Vision Pro has one key differentiator from the Meta Quest: It has an external aluminum battery pack. This battery pack is tethered, via a cable, to the headset. That means whoever is wearing the headset has to carry around the external battery in their pocket, or place it next to them while they sit in the Appleverse.
Apple seems to not want you to notice the battery. The external battery pack barely appears on the product page on Apple’s website, showing up only at the end of a photo gallery at the bottom of the page. And in demo sessions this week, Apple told journalists they were not allowed to snap photos or capture any video of the hardware, an unusual rule for a press briefing. Instead, the company had its own photographer take photos during the Vision Pro demos. Every photo you’ve seen this week of reporters sitting on a couch while wearing the headset were shot by Apple.
Notably, the battery pack doesn’t appear in any of them. One attendee chose to run the attached cable down the back of his sweatshirt. In another shared image, of The Verge’s Nilay Patel, the cable is clearly visible, but the photo is cropped to avoid showing the battery pack. Chokkattu experienced this too; he set the Vision Pro’s battery pack on the couch cushion next to him during his demo, but in the photo Apple shared with us, the offending pack is cropped out of the frame.
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