The Apple Vision Pro Lives Deep in the Uncanny Valley

Michael Calore: Right.

Lauren Goode: So you’re supposed to rest your arm, I’m doing it now, on your right thigh. And then just pinch your fingers together. I couldn’t comfortably do that. If anyone who’s listening right now, just do this thing, where you sit back in a chair, could be a desk chair, could be your couch. Mike’s doing it now, he’s straightening up. And try to put your forearm, rest it on your thigh. If you have maybe a shorter torso, you might be able to do this. I can’t do it. Can you do it?

Michael Calore: Yeah.

Lauren Goode: Are you resting comfortably? I’m hunched over.

Michael Calore: Yeah, you are.

Lauren Goode: I’m like—

Michael Calore: You look uncomfortable. You look like you’re reaching.

Lauren Goode: It’s very uncomfortable. So I have to do a thing where my arm is kind of in the air, floating in the air, to use the pinch control. It was fine for the half-hour demo that I did it. I could see it getting tiring over time. That said, to Julian’s point, this is all very, very impressive technology. Out of the gate, it just feels extremely awkward.

We should also note that WIRED has not yet published a full review of these products. The first round of reviews were out this week. There are a select number of journalists who have spent, and YouTubers, who have spent hours with this thing. We haven’t had that experience yet. So we can’t really comment on it.

Michael Calore: You both got to try it back in June?

Lauren Goode: Yeah. Yes.

Michael Calore: And then you tried it—

Lauren Goode: Right, Julian? It was June, that we tried it? WW, DC.

Julian Chokkattu: Yeah, I think it was just you in June. And then my first experience was in January, where Lauren also got that second experience.

Lauren Goode: Yeah. And Julian tried it in New York City, where he was able to walk around and hang out in coffee shops like a nerd, with it on your face. Right, Julian?

Julian Chokkattu: No, no. I was still in a very, very, very controlled demo. Which, I wish, that would be fun. I wish I could have left that and just walked around New York with a Vision Pro—and not get mugged.

Michael Calore: Yeah, definitely not. OK, so I wear prescription glasses, and I know that there’s special consideration inside the headset for people who wear prescription glasses, right?

Julian Chokkattu: Yeah.

Lauren Goode: No, sorry, you can’t get a Vision Pro.

Michael Calore: I’m not allowed.

Julian Chokkattu: You’re just boxed out.

Lauren Goode: No, Apple has thought of that. Julian, do you want to say more?

Julian Chokkattu: Yeah. I basically had to give Apple my prescription, and there’s a similar function that’ll work when you’re just ordering off of Apple’s website. You provide your prescription, and then they have a partnership with Zeiss, where they’re making these little magnetic inserts, I think, that pop right into the Vision Pro headset. So once you place your order, I think for reading glasses, it’s like 99, and then for a prescription, it’s 150. And you just pop those into your Vision Pro, and that’s sort of it, and it worked perfectly. I didn’t have to keep my glasses on. I think it would’ve made it 10 times more uncomfortable if I had my glasses on, so it was kind of a pretty seamless approach.