At Home with Tech

Is Apple’s spatial computing launch leading us to this vision of tomorrow? (Thanks to Adobe Firefly’s generative AI for helping me to visualize.)

No, I’m not running out to buy an Apple Vision Pro. Not yet. Not this year. Not at this price point. Yet I couldn’t be more excited about it. Yes, of course I really crave this mixed-reality headset. And I know that eventually, I’ll be wearing one. And that makes me so happy.

Believing this likelihood helps me reaffirm the possibility that we’ll make it to the promised future one day. Sometimes it still feels so 20th century.

1980, 1999 and 2001 are foundational science fiction dates that reality couldn’t live up to. We don’t have flying cars or undersea cities yet. Electric cars aren’t quite mainstream. We’re even having a hard time getting ourselves back to the moon without crashing.

Sure, I know that remarkable technological innovations do permeate throughout humanity every year. I sometimes just don’t feel it so much on a Monday morning.

Apple Changed my Life
You can say what you want about Apple as a marketing machine and its amazing ability to create an uncontrollable Pavlovian response for each of its new product lines. But its past shiny gear from the future did revolutionize how we computerized and accessorized.

Apple delivered big time.

Now, my Apple tech feels quite normal, and I’ve forgotten that I once existed without my Mac Studio, iPhone 15 Pro Max, Apple Watch, iPad and AirPods.

I couldn’t imagine how to live without these devices, unless I chose to be off grid and banish myself to a tech-free isolation. (Luddites may form a line on the left to debate me on this.)

I need my Apple gear.

The Era of Spatial Computing Begins
Will the Vision Pro eventually become a must-have device too? Well, that’s the question today. The entire VR/AR category has been struggling to go mainstream for years. Maybe rebranding it to ‘spatial computing’ will help. (hmmm)

The Vision Pro won’t benefit quite as much from the FOMO factor. It doesn’t seem so portable to easily transport around for others to see you wearing (even though an Apple commercial demonstrates a happy woman wearing one on a plane).

It’s probably going to be a while until I’m surrounded by an army of Apple Vision Pros on a city street the same way I once experienced hundreds of AirPods orbiting and taunting me while I walked to work.

Thousands of people moving together on the streets of New York City, wearing Apple Vision Pros and experiencing augmented reality.

Now, that’s a vision of the future.

Affordability is Relative
I know today’s Apple Vision Pro is not perfect. It’s version 1. But the reviews I’ve read all agree it’s a huge leap forward compared to past headsets.

Of course, it is. That’s what Apple usually does.

And I know Vision Pro is only going to get better, and hopefully less expensive than its current $3,499 starting cost. Apple isn’t exactly known for dropping its prices, other than creating parallel products with older tech (iPhone SE).

On the other hand, how many thousands of dollars did many of us fork out for those early plasma HDTVs?

And remember that Apple Vision Pro is also a complete standalone computer… not just a mixed-reality headset.

Still, the price point is undeniably a limiting factor. And Apple must know this.

The Future has Arrived
I couldn’t be more excited about a product that I’m not buying, and I expect that I’m not alone.

I’m sure that Tim Cook has a plan to make Apple Vision Pro the next iPhone. And something tells me that V1 is all part of a long-term plan to draft me into the Vision Pro ecosystem.

It’s just a matter of time until I’ll be wearing the future on my face.

Borg Barrett is ready to be assimilated. No resistance from me.

And I’ll be smiling.