Last October after Apple announced the Vision Pro in 2023, based on Apple’s advertising campaign, I wrote an article for Mind Matters News. I claimed there were four false promises: False Vision, False Connection, False Control, and False Spirituality. Apple’s new “era of spacial computing” seemed to come with many unexplored risks.

I’ve explored these topics for years, for example in my book [Un]Intentional: How Screens Secretly Shape Your Desires, and How You Can Break Free (Credo House 2021)

So, finally, I got a chance to try one. I signed up for the Apple Store’s Vision Pro demo.

What Was it Like? A Concierge Experience

The demo was luxurious. When I arrived, I was immediately met by a guide named Molly, who led me through the 30-minute experience. She scanned my eyeglasses to get my prescription and asked me a few questions. While we visited for a couple more minutes, another Apple Store employee brought my customized Vision Pro out on a platter (not sure if it was silver).

Molly taught me the choreography needed to pick up the Vision Pro and put it on correctly. I quickly adjusted the strap and completed the initial calibration exercises.

Every step was carefully scripted to ensure the best first impression of Vision Pro. By just glancing at her iPad, Molly was able to see everything I saw, so if I got off the rails, she could help me back.

And wow. It really was impressive. Amazing technology. Everything worked as scripted. The gesture-driven interface was so intuitive that I was waving my hands and pinching my fingers in the air to direct my virtual world without thinking about it.

The ability to place apps over certain physical spaces “just worked.” I could turn my head to the left and see a browser overlaid on the wall, then to the right and see the photo app over the door. I felt like Iron Man. (Though I always wanted to be Captain America.)

The “digital crown” dial let me crossfade between my view of the Apple Store and various immersive landscapes. I remember a forest, a lake, and the surface of the moon. As easy as turning a dial, I felt like I was leaving the store and going somewhere — else. Very much like a theme park ride.

The immersive 3D photos and videos were especially amazing. One panoramic photo was of a man standing on the Oregon Coast, where I lived for about twelve years. (Did they know I had stood on that very spot?) A video had me experiencing a baseball game as if I were a coach or umpire on the field.

I thought of my dad, who died of multiple sclerosis in Y2K. He loved the Chicago Cubs for decades. Dad spent most of his last ten years in a hospital bed. But might a Vision Pro have helped him feel like he was on the field?

When I left the store, I felt like I had had an experience. A memorable one. I had smiled a lot as the pleasure centers of my brain were activated, and I felt everything the script intended for me to feel.

A Flood of Questions Followed

Aas I walked back through the mall to my car, I recognized I had just seen and felt things that most of the people around me never had. I had been away — somewhere that was not here — and was just returning to everyone else’s sights and sounds.

So I sat down to capture my impressions, most of which turned out to be questions.

● My Vision Pro experience “felt good.” But was it good in an ultimate sense?

● Is spacial computing with a “passthrough video” device like Vision Pro good for me? For my family? My coworkers? For humanity?

Neil Postman (1931–2003) said, “No medium is excessively dangerous if its users understand what its dangers are… This is an instance in which the asking of questions is sufficient. To ask is to break the spell.” (Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business (1985 p. 161).

And in the final sentence of the book, media theorist Postman warns against using the way a technology feels to determine its value. “For in the end, Huxley was trying to tell us that what afflicted the people in Brave New World was not that they were laughing instead of thinking, but that they did not know what they were laughing about and why they had stopped thinking.” (p. 163)

Postman and other media theorists like Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) and Jacques Ellul (1912–1994) help me interpret my demo experience and where Vision Pro might take us. These prophetic commentators recognized the impact of past technological change, and accurately predicted a future they never saw. We’re living in that future now.

More Questions to Help Us “Break the Spell”

● What does time in Apple’s “reality” do to my perception of the real world?

Vision Pro is designed to be worn for hours at a time. And it’s comfortable enough to forget that you’re wearing it. I did. And I’m sure it’ll only get lighter and better.

What we do for hours at a time shapes us. Think of practicing a musical instrument or playing a sport. Our practices become habits, and change us. We are “transformed by the renewing of our minds” by “presenting our bodies as living sacrifices.” Our minds are renewed (for good or ill) wherever we “sacrifice” our bodies (through hours of practice).

Adam Rogers recently wrote about the Vision Pro’s “scary side effect” (Business Insider February 2024) He describes initial studies into the effect of wearing Vision Pro for hours at a time: “Researchers have found that widespread, long-term immersion in VR headsets could literally change the way we perceive the world — and each other. Meaning: Our brains are about to undergo a massive, society-wide experiment that could rewire our sense of the world around us, and make it even harder to agree on what constitutes reality.”

We were already struggling as a society to agree on “what constitutes reality” before the rise of LLMs and passthrough headsets like Vision Pro. Apple’s new “era” may be more reality-bending than ever.

What happens when people perceive reality differently? It seems like our painfully divided culture will be even more fractured, leading to more loneliness, mental health problems, and political stalemates.

Next: Apple Vision Pro: When Other People Are Not Fully There

Follow Doug @thatdougsmith