I’m closing in on 5 months with the Vision Pro and I thought it was a good time to post an update on how I’m feeling about the product. I know I’ve talked about it on and off since launch, but this is where I left my initial review:

For my part, keeping the Vision Pro past its return window is a gamble on the future. As I think I’ve pretty clearly laid out above, I have serous issues with this product and I remain skeptical of its utility in the short run. That said, it might turn into something special and I want to be there to experience it if it does. It’s not fully rational and I would not expect everyone to feel this way, but if there’s a chance to get a foothold in the next big thing, I want to be there in the mix.

Months later not much has changed for me, and I do hold out hope that one day I’ll be really happy I have this. But right now, my feeling about the Vision Pro is that it was the worst way I could have possibly spent $3,500 on upgrading my computing life.

I’m not going to get too deep here, and you can read that review for many of my thoughts which still hold up, but here are a few issues I have with the product today.

1. It’s simply not comfortable to wear, and I don’t like having it on my face. This actually acts as a multiplier on all of the other issues below, so add “and I’m uncomfortable when I’m doing it” to each issue below.
2. Wearing it for anything more than 10 minutes leads me to have serious VR-headset-face, to the point I watched a movie on it before a family event recently and my mom asked me if I got hit in the face because the rings around my eyes looked like double black eyes. I wore it as comfortably as possible, please don’t “well actually” me on how “I’m wearing it wrong” ✌️
3. The battery pack is annoying. It’s not the absolute worst thing, but god damn does it feel like a downgrade compared to my lighter, more comfortable, truly wireless Quest 3.
4. I dislike Mac Virtual Display and prefer the reduced screen space I get from my 14” MacBook Pro’s physical display, even for things like video editing. The latency, lower refresh rate, and greatly reduced clarity add up for me.
5. Spatial personas are very cool, but I did them once and haven’t felt compelled to do them again, the classic VR problem (“I love this! I’ll never do it again, though!”).
6. Marvel What If…? was kinda cool, but not really notable compared to other gaming experiences on the Quest.
7. The apps I use to get things done both at my day job and at home don’t exist on visionOS, and the ones that do are harder to use than even their iPad versions. Yes, the Vision Pro makes the iPad look like a productivity powerhouse in comparison.
8. Eye tracking as the only input method is too imprecise and can be frustrating, even in Apple’s own apps where buttons are close together and I have to move my eyes unnaturally to get it to focus on the right thing.
9. I still watch a movie or two each week on the headset, but it’s mostly out of obligation to use the $3,500 thing I bought. I enjoy watching on my TV more. I was traveling alone and in a hotel recently, and I watched a movie on the Vision Pro. I will say that was nice, but that’s useful to me like 3-5 days a year.

I’m not selling my Vision Pro or anything (not least because they’re selling for far below what I paid for mine), and I do hope that something happens that makes the physical annoyance of wearing the headset worth it for me. If it works for you, that’s great and I don’t want to take anything away from you, but I have to be honest about my own experience, and this is just where I’m at today.

In case this is the first thing of mine you've read and you think I'm hating on Apple stuff for the memes, I'd highly recommend scrolling through the archives, because if anything I'm overly generous to Apple products. If this were from most other companies, I would have tried it for a couple of days, realized it wasn't worth it for me, and returned it on the spot.