Apple just posted this video today, showing everyday people (that can afford the extravagant expense of $3500 first-generation tech) wearing a Vision Pro AR headset around the house while they're doing everyday things.
While standing in his kitchen, a long haired bearded guy looks at a Powerpoint err I mean Keynote presentation for a surf shop for a split second before getting distracted by a text message.
Cut to a guy sitting down on his couch about to watch Napoleon, a movie with a runtime longer than the 2.5 hour Vision Pro battery life (in best possible conditions, watching [low res?] media only).
Cut to a woman in a hotel packing her clothes into a suitcase while inexplicably wearing this obnoxious headset with a 2 hour (at best) battery life interrupted with a video call err I mean FaceTime call (iPhones only!).
Cut to a quick take of a guy walking in his living room into an ugly, smog filled panoramic photo of Los Angeles, because that's something worth $3500 and tax.
Back to surf kitchen guy working on the presentation, finding some attention span, before being distracted by his kid throwing a soccer ball at him. This is probably the best marketing bit, showing you can be in your own world doing tasks but not completely disconnected from everything else. Of course you can do this more effectively with a laptop, but they're not selling you a laptop in this commercial. A $3500 (or less, much less) Apple-branded laptop would not only give you far more capability, memory, and processing power, it would have literally 10 times the battery life too. But you wouldn't look like you were a ski-robot with a cord coming out of your head, so there are definitely tradeoffs.
And then there is the woman on a plane. Watching Everything Everywhere All at Once on a plane, a 2h19m movie while the rest of the screen turns into a sunset landscape background, isolating her from her surroundings. This almost makes a good case for the Vision Pro, except again pushing the limits of the battery life, which might be stretched further by simulating the background. And with a ~2 hour battery life, only short haul flights will cut it. The background/isolation is a trick that comes by default with VR headsets, so it's not a feature unique to the VP.
I realize Apple's marketing department has their work cut out for them with this product but trying to delude potential customers into thinking this is something practical for everyday use seems exceptional. It reminds me of a term once used regarding iPhone and other smartphone overusers: pod people. Apple does have the vision to understand that tech like this needs to keep people connected to the real world to have a chance at wide adoption, but at the same time it's a more severe disconnection than staring at a phone or laptop screen.
As it continues to develop, several generations down the line these sorts of everyday uses might make more sense. And presumably you won't look like some sort of ski-robot with a cord coming out of your head. But today, on today's bleeding edge hardware, it's ridiculous.
