Apple Vision Pro reviews: What you need to know, & what the experts are saying

Firstly, you can’t get an Apple Vision Pro in Australia just yet – but here’s what you should know while you wait.

So I really can’t get an Apple Vision Pro in Australia?

Weeeeellll… not officially.

Kogan has got its hands on a bunch of Vision Pro units that it’ll sell to Aussies for $6399, which is a post-GST $600 markup on the $5290 figure you get when converting the Apple Vision Pro’s official US$3499 price. Capitalism, baby!

And then, even if you buy one from ol’ Koges, it won’t be much use to any but the most committed users, as you’ll need a US-based Apple ID to log in and an American credit card to use the App Store, and so on. You’re also advised to do a proper fitting at the store, if possible, so that’s another hindrance. The Apple warranty wouldn’t cover you, either, and prescription lenses won’t be available… the list of burns goes on. So, sure, getting one is doable, but is it worth it? 🙅‍♂️ Pass.

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When will the Apple Vision Pro come to Australia?

🤷‍♂️

Apple hasn’t said when the Vision Pro will go on sale in Australia, but renowned insider Ming-Chi Kuo claims a wider global launch will begin in June 2024.

JUMP AHEAD

• Vision Pro = just a more expensive Meta Quest?
• Will there be a cheaper Apple Vision?
• Apple Vision Pro pricing breakdown
• Weight
• Power and cameras
• Displays and controls
• Sound
• What can the Apple Vision Pro do?
• What third-party apps are available?
• What the experts think!
  • The Verge
  • CNET
  • Wall Street Journal
  • MKBHD
  • Casey Neistat
• Should I get an Apple Vision Pro?
• Is the Vision Pro good for family sharing?
• Wanna see the inside of the Vision Pro? Check out the ifixit teardown!

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Is the Vision Pro just a more expensive Meta Quest?

Yes! But also, no.

Many certainly feel you’d get as meaningfully useful experience with the vastly cheaper Meta Quest (and get a few extra for the kids without coming near the Vision Pro’s price), but the view from people who’ve used both really seems to suggest you can’t truly appreciate the price difference until you’ve experienced the Vision Pro.

Of course, the unspoken part is that most people buying the Vision Pro are doing well in life. They know it’s a lot of money, and they’re probably among those grousing about the price, but it’s also a lot less to them than it is to others. They’re not saving up for the tech they buy.

Apple obviously knew this, too, with reports suggesting it sold around 200,000 units in the late January two-week preorder period. That’s about US$700 million in revenue, or 1.75 billion dollaridoos. The margin on each unit is believed to be around 45%.

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Apple Vision: Will there be a cheaper version of the Apple Vision Pro?

Apple doesn’t sell any Pro products that don’t have a more affordable sans-Pro option, so it’s absolutely possible we’ll see an Apple Vision somewhere down the road.

After all, the only way to dominate the market is to reach everyone – and the Meta Quest 3 must be quite a tempting rival for Apple to crush.

Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman wrote in 2023 that a cheaper version is already in development, expected to have “lower quality screens, either an iPhone-grade chip or an older Mac chip (the Vision Pro has an M2 chip), and fewer cameras.”

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Apple Vision Pro price & specs: The basics

Price: US$3499 (AU$5400)

• 📦 The Vision Pro’s retail price of US$3499 gets you 256gb of storage, with no upgrade options. You also get both a Solo Knit Band and a Dual Loop Band, an external battery pack, USB-C charging cable and power adapter, two light-seal cushions, a cover, and Apple’s hilarious US$19 polishing cloth.
• 👓 If you need prescription lenses, there’s an additional US$99 (AU$150) for the required Zeiss Optical Inserts and US$149 ($230) for the Zeiss Prescription Optical Inserts.
• 💎 The high cost of the Vision Pro is mainly due to the premium materials and the tiny micro-OLED displays with crazy pixel density and resolution. The Vision Pro is made of magnesium and carbon-fibre, with an aluminum enclosure and, like all Apple products, some insanely exacting build quality.

Weight: Heavier than Meta Quest 3 and big iPad Pro

• The Apple Vision Pro weighs around 600 to 650 grams (21.2 to 22.9 ounces), with the exact figure depending on the Light Seal and headband choices. By comparison, the Meta Quest 3, with its more plastic build, weighs 515g (18.2oz), while the PlayStation VR2 headset weighs 560g (19.8oz).
• If you’ve never held any of those, the iPhone 15 Pro weighs 187g (6.6oz), the Samsung S24 Ultra weighs 233g (8.2oz), and a 12.9-inch iPad Pro weighs 623g (24oz).

Processing power & cameras

• 💪 Processing is done by a very fresh M2 chip (the latest Macs have an M3), along with a new R1 chip to manage input from…
• 12 cameras, five sensors, and six microphones.
• Apple hasn’t offered more detail than that, but Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman claims the Vision Pro’s M2 is a match for the version used in the 15-inch MacBook Air and Mac Mini (8 CPU cores, 10 GPU cores). Memory is believed to be at 16gb, although that version of the M2 chip can support up to 24gb.
• 🔋 The battery pack for the Apple Vision Pro Headset lasts two hours, but the option to plug it into an outlet for all-day use is there if you’re happy to stay nearby.

Displays & control

• 📟 Users will stare at two ultra-high-resolution displays with a combined 23 million pixels and a 4K resolution. Apple says you can generate a virtual display that appears 30 metres (100ft) wide, and you won’t see a single pixel anywhere in the experience. Sharp text? You bet.
• 🚀 The Vision Pro boasts just 12 milliseconds of latency (Meta Quest Pro, for comparison, ranges from 35 to 60ms), making it incredibly fast and high resolution.
• An eye-tracking system inside the lenses uses cameras and LEDs to fire invisible patterns onto your eyes, allowing the Vision Pro to know – very accurately – where you’re looking and what you’re focused on.
• Hand-tracking is also featured, allowing you to point at and ‘click’ on objects in the virtual display or type on a virtual keyboard – albeit with your index fingers only, in a very grandpa-spec ‘hunt and peck’ way.
• Controllers! Users will be able to pair the PlayStation DualSense and Xbox Wireless Controller to play controller-based Apple Arcade games in a window or web browser.
• Pass-through is the standard display mode, meaning that you can very clearly see everything around you in the real world while the virtual display is overlaid on your view. It’s all in real-time, too – as demonstrated by Casey Neistat, who performed “the world’s first ollie while wearing the Vision Pro”.
• If you want to completely block out the world around you, at least visually, simply turn the crown on top of the Vision Pro to slowly blur out the pass-through effect and replace it with a virtual environment.
• When you’re using pass-through, people around you will see a computer-generated ‘EyeSight’ version of your eyes on the front of the Vision Pro, copying everything your eyes do in real-time. If you’re looking at the person in front of you, that’s what they’ll see. But if you switch to a fully virtual space, that image will be replaced with a trippy purplish-blue effect.

Sound

• The Vision Pro sends sound through a pair of external audio pods that fire directional audio down towards your ears, using Personalised Spatial Audio to make the sounds seem like they’re coming from all around you. Of course, if you turn it up, people around you will be able to hear what you’re hearing.

What can you do with the Apple Vision Pro?

A lot, and not much at all.

It’s still very new, of course, but Apple has over 600 ‘optimised’ apps for with VisionOS, along with over 1 million ‘compatible’ apps – while developers are flocking to the new device in search of wealth and acclaim. Some are staying away, however, including YouTube, Netflix, Spotify and Instagram – but you’ll be able to use those just fine in a browser, along with any other service that works in a web browser. In fact, one enterprising developer has already made an app specifically for playing YouTube videos.

What third-party apps will the Apple Vision Pro have?

• So far, Apple has specified sports apps like PGA TOUR Vision, along with apps from the MLB and NBA, and Red Bull TV.
• For regular media streaming, Apple highlighted Disney+ and Max in its presentation (although Max isn’t offered in Australia).
• Games already confirmed include new versions of Super Fruit Ninja, Game Room, What the Golf, Cut the Rope 3, Jetpack Joyride 2, Bloons TD 6+, Stitch, Patterned, Illustrated, and Wylde Flowers. There’s no XBox or PlayStation apps, however, and no way to connect a console to the Vision Pro, but you should be able to use XBox Game Pass in the web browser. Probably?
• Available productivity apps will include Microsoft 365, Numerics, and Fantastical, while video meetings will be possible with Zoom, Teams, and WebEx. Yep, no Google Meet.
• Creative apps haven’t been talked about much yet, but Apple highlights the J.Crew Virtual Closet to see clothes on a 3D model (if not on yourself), and DJay to use 3D virtual turntables. Adobe Lightroom and Adobe’s Firefly generative AI system will also be offered, which The Verge reported on just this week. From what I can tell, the Lightroom app for Vision Pro is effectively the mobile version, as featured on iOS/iPadOS and Android. That’s still a massively capable app, though. I use it a lot.

User experience

• 🌌 The Vision Pro’s spatial tracking allows for a high level of immersion, making it possible to feel like you’re in a different location while still being in your own space.
• 🧊 Users can capture spatial 3D videos and photos using the headset’s cameras, opening up new possibilities for immersive content creation. What does this mean? If you’ve snapped a panorama or a 360-degree clip with something like an Insta360 One X3, you’ll basically be able to revisit that moment in a very immersive way. There’s also an update in iOS 17.2 specifically for spatial video and photos.
• 🖥️ You can use the Vision Pro as an extension of your Mac display. Simply hover your view over your Mac, and it’ll invite you to connect. Bam, 30ft-wide virtual Mac display.
• 🤗 Want others to see what you’re up to? The Vision Pro’s display can be mirrored to any AirPlay‑enabled device, including iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple TV, or an AirPlay‑enabled smart TV.
• 👤 A headline feature of the Apple Vision Pro is Personas. Your face and head will be scanned by holding the device up in front of you (so it uses the external cameras), and it then makes a 3D model of you that you can then use on video calls.

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Now, since I can’t yet review it myself…

Apple Vision Pro reviews: What the experts think

The Verge: 7.0/10

“The Apple Vision Pro may be a simulator, a dream factory for hardware yet to come, as the technology to build true AR glasses is simply not there.”

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CNET: 7.8/10

“The Apple Vision Pro pushes the boundaries of technology with its fantastic display quality and seamless integration with the Apple ecosystem.”

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Wall Street Journal (paywalled)

Joanna Stern: “The Vision Pro headset offers a unique and immersive spatial computing experience, but it has limitations and characteristics of a first generation product.”

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MKBHD

“The Apple Vision Pro is one of Apple’s craziest, most radical, possibly dystopian products of all time, with some parts feeling weird or borderline unfinished.”

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Casey Neistat

“The Apple Vision Pro made the real world and virtual world seamlessly blend together, creating a profound and immersive experience.”

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And one last chunk of effusive praise…

From Vanity Fair: “I would say my experience was religious,” the director James Cameron told me when I asked him about his first encounter with the Apple Vision Pro. “I was skeptical at first. I don’t bow down before the great god of Apple, but I was really, really blown away.”

Another prominent filmmaker, Jon Favreau, offered a similar sentiment, telling me he was “blown away” by the technology and what it will do to storytelling. (Favreau created content for Apple specifically to showcase the device’s 3D capabilities, where a dinosaur climbs out of a screen and looks like it wants to eat you.) “I’m excited by what kind of story I can tell now that I couldn’t tell before now,” he said.

And when I called Om Malik, who has been writing about tech since tech reporters used to write about calculators, he was even more effusive. “It’s amazing! It’s incredible!” he enthused. “You can feel a vibration in the universe!” Everyone else I’ve spoken to who has had a chance to try out the Apple Vision Pro: investors (“Whoa!”) and designers (“Wow!”) and analysts (“Ooh!”) and producers (“Ahh”).

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Should I get an Apple Vision Pro?

To buy or not to buy…

Realistically, this thing is prohibitively expensive for most people. If it meant going into debt, I’d only say that you should be really damn sure you won’t be harming your family’s financial security – because this is not a critical device for the vast majority of users.

And remember: Even if it turns out to can’t afford the debt, these things won’t be going down in value. You could probably even make a profit if you sold it.

If it’s a fairly safe spend for you, or if you’re a ‘desktop’ worker who could genuinely benefit from more and bigger displays, this thing seems like a must-have. The response from tech experts – usually a fairly jaded bunch – has been massively positive. They have their complaints, as noted above, but it really seems most are intensely excited for what the Vision Pro can achieve in the coming weeks and months.

I won’t be getting one – financially it’s not a move I’m confident making, and on a technical level I’m mostly an Android user (Android phone + a MacBook Pro but possibly moving to Windows) and this isn’t enough.

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A good family device?

Not really.

Most portable Apple products are intended to be tied to and used by only one person – it’s a big part of their revenue model.

So, letting your kids use your Vision Pro will require them to use it with your profile, and with the lenses at your settings, unless you want to do a factory reset every time.

If your aim is to just have some fun, and for your kids to be involved to… get a few Meta Quest 3 units.

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A little more…

iFixit teardown

No surprises, the teardown of Vision Pro reveals a complex and “effortful” job, making it a virtual nightmare to work with.

If you bust yours, it might be best to leave repairs to the Apple store!

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