Vision Pro — iMatthewCM

Last time, I talked about why I bought a Vision Pro, which ultimately came down to “because it was actually a bargain.” By and large, you can spend your $3599 (or more in increments of $200 for more storage) on a Vision Pro and be all set to go - it doesn’t need anything else. Frankly I think Apple was rather generous with what came in the box this time - besides the headset (sorry not sorry, Apple. That’s what it is) and the required battery to power it, you also get the Dual Loop Band, a cover, a polishing cloth, an extra light seal cushion in a different size, a power adapter, and a charging cable. Here’s a few notes on those:

Dual Loop Band

For the first two weeks, I swore by this band and greatly preferred it over the Solo Knit Band. It made it a little easier getting acclimated to the weight of the Vision Pro by better distributing it to the top of my head instead of just the back. However, I grew out of this phase quickly and I don’t find it very comfortable anymore. The individual straps are too small and wind up exerting a lot of pressure in a small area. I also find that I have to secure the bands quite tightly in order to alleviate pressure from the headset on my face, which ultimately makes it a less comfortable experience. I do still occasionally swap the bands around for short periods of time just to change it up, but I really prefer the Solo Knit band for full comfort in my 8-hour workday sessions of us.

Cover

I’m honestly surprised Apple didn’t charge me an extra $40 for this, because I absolutely would have ponied up for it. It’s really good, and protects the front screen very well. Whenever I’m not using the Vision Pro, I always have this on.

Polishing Cloth

Apple sells these for $20 already, which is absurd but whatever. Hilariously enough though, the one for sale in the Apple Store does not list the Vision Pro as a compatible device! I guess that means it’s basically sandpaper and will destroy your Vision Pro. Luckily, you get an exclusive, unavailable in stores version of the polishing cloth that is compatible with the Vision Pro “free” of charge. Don’t say Apple never gave you anything!

Extra Light Seal Cushion

My Vision Pro Light Seal size is 21W, and it came already set up like that in the box. However, tucked away is an additional light seal cushion that (for me) was a W+. Based on various prompts that visionOS can display, I’m given to understand that no matter what size light seal you get originally (whether that’s the normal or +) you get the opposite one tucked away. (Meaning, if your Vision Pro comes set up with, say, a 23W+ light seal, you’ll have a W cushion in the box) I like that they do this, and it probably saves them some amount of returns due to sizing issues, but for me it’s unfortunately a total waste due to (what I think are) arbitrary visionOS constraints. To my senses, the W+ cushion is significantly more comfortable and I really prefer it. However, I get very frequent “you’re too far away from the display” prompts when I have that on, to the point of annoyance. I wish there was a way to tell the Vision Pro “I know what I’m doing, leave me alone” because aside from those prompts, there’s no issues - I can see everything fine, eye tracking works great…but visionOS just isn’t having it. So the W+ sits in the box, unused but very loved.

Power adapter and charging cable

I mean, not much to say here but in an age when Apple isn’t including chargers with iPhones anymore, once again I think they could have “pulled an Apple” and charged me separately for this. Their restraint is admirable.

Okay so that’s what’s in the box. What have I added, though, and why?

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It’s a pretty dramatic design, but I’ve grown to love it!

First and most important to how I use this is…I bought that $200 marshmallow case that Apple made for the Vision Pro. I haven’t regretted it for a moment. I knew I was going to be traveling with this, even just to and from a physical office location. But I also had some air travel coming up and I wasn’t about to just throw the Vision Pro in a backpack and cross my fingers. Thanks to some helpful staff at the Apple Store I picked up my Vision Pro from, we were able to eyeball that a DualSense controller would also fit in the case in addition to the included accessory bag. What this ultimately means for me is I can get my entire Vision Pro setup in this (comparably, to my backpack at least) small case and be good to go for an extended period of time. In the case, I have:

The Vision Pro, with the Cover on and Solo Knit Band attached
The accessory bag, containing:

The power adapter and charging cable
The polishing cloth
The Dual Loop Band
An AirTag
An external battery pack (more on this in a moment)
AirPods Pro 2

A DualSense controller
The Vision Pro battery pack

The amount of stuff you can fit in this case is phenomenal.

Again, literally everything I need. Was the case expensive? Yes. Did I find it to be a worthwhile investment? Also yes. Frankly, I’m also just appreciative of it in the sense that I’ve gone all-in on Apple’s first-generation offerings. It’ll be nice to look back on this in 10 years and see how far their designs have come. (I still like to do the same with the original iPad and it’s incredibly sharp-edged wraparound case!)

Let’s talk about that external battery pack. I mean no offense to anyone, but you’re a fool to buy an additional Vision Pro battery pack from Apple. Why? They’re $200, and you can’t hot-swap them. You’ve got to power down the Vision Pro and reconnect your replacement. Did I mention they’re $200? Absurd. The Vision Pro battery pack charges via USB-C, and there are a myriad of external battery chargers that are well suited to this task. Plus, since they’re just charging the battery pack already connected to your headset, there’s no need to hot-swap! Just keep going! I got this one from Anker off of Amazon and my goodness do I highly recommend it. It’s excellent, and it works perfectly with my case setup. I really love the always-connected USB-C cable coming out of the top of it which serves both to recharge the Anker unit itself (which can use the Vision Pro’s power adapter because USB-C is great), but also is what you’ll connect to the Vision Pro battery pack to recharge it.

There’s also a small button to see how much of a charger the Anker pack has left, and the standby time on it is INCREDIBLE! I charged it up to 100% two weeks before I left on a trip, and it was still at 100% when I left. This is how I’ve come to use this pack - I charge it up, throw it in the case, and have full confidence that it’s ready to go whenever I need it. As far as performance goes, watching only movies on Vision Pro I get about 3 hours out of the Vision Pro battery pack. When I’ve taken it on a plane with this Anker battery pack, I let the Vision Pro battery run down to about 40%, then I’ll attach the Anker pack and it will both keep the Vision Pro afloat for awhile, but also recharge it. In my testing, the Anker pack will exhaust itself recharging the Vision Pro in about 45 minutes, and get it back up to around 80%. For every flight I’ve taken, this is a godsend and absolutely perfect. That’s 45 extra minutes of use during the recharge plus a nearly-full battery to keep going with afterwards. And of course again because USB-C is great, this same Anker battery pack can also be used to recharge my DualSense or AirPods Pro 2 in a pinch, as well as my future iPhone when I upgrade to a USB-C model. $40 (at the time of purchase) well spent.

I do recommend getting the AirPods Pro 2 with the Vision Pro if you don’t already have a pair. I love my AirPods Max and I was really hoping to be able to use them with the Vision Pro, but it’s just not a good experience no matter which headband you use with the headset. It doesn’t fit quite right, the seal around your ears won’t be good, and the latency is noticeable to me - and I’m not one to typically notice such things. The AirPods Pro 2 resolve all of this, and I’m actually really impressed with how good they are, especially how much better the noise cancelling is compared to the AirPods Max which I already thought was pretty great. Another $190 well spent.

The DualSense is an interesting addition to the case and really unlocks a ton of value for me in travel situations with the Vision Pro. Games like Divinity: Original Sin 2 and Disney Dreamlight Valley (both available on iPadOS, and they run in compatibility mode on Vision Pro) are great with controllers, and provide a lot of entertainment especially when I don’t have an internet connection available. But where having a DualSense really shines for me is using an app called MirrorPlay. This is also an iPad app running in compatibility mode on the Vision Pro, and it allows me to use the Remote Play functionality of my PS5 since there’s no official support for this from Sony yet. For whatever dumb reason, the Remote Play app is not available to run in compatibility mode. I think Apple made a mistake letting developers opt out of this unless it truly breaks an app to do so. But thanks to MirrorPlay, I can beam my PS5 directly to my Vision Pro and I’ve been able to play Baldur’s Gate 3 and have a great experience when I’m literally across the country from where my PS5 is. I already had an extra controller laying around so technically this didn’t cost me anything extra, but normally they’re $70.

An absolute game-changer for comfortable productivity!

So that’s the majority of my accessory kit so far. There is, however, One More Thing, and I wish I would have gotten it sooner because it was a total game changer for me. This is a Magic Keyboard and Magic Trackpad holder, which is just absolutely excellent for sitting on the couch or in a recliner and using the Vision Pro. There are two ways that I’ve wound up using this…for work, and for personal. For work, I’ve got a Magic Keyboard and Trackpad that my job has provided me, and I can lean back at my desk, put my feet up, and hold these peripherals in my lap just like I was using a laptop computer, with my Mac desktop beamed into my Vision Pro. The experience is phenomenal. Then on the personal side, I have a Magic Keyboard and Trackpad that I’ve purchased awhile back for myself, and I’ve since re-paired them from an old personal Mac directly to my Vision Pro instead. This really enables the Vision Pro to be its own computer for me - and I’ve actually written this entire blog post using this method. I’m in my recliner, with my Vision Pro on and my peripheral holder in my lap with no Mac paired whatsoever. I’m using the built-in Safari app to double-check prices and generate the Amazon Affiliate links, and Pages to write the text. I strongly suggest you take a look at ordering one of these if any of that experience sounds interesting to you. I will personally vouch for how comfortable it is to use - and, it looks pretty fantastic as well. The keyboard and trackpad are both easy to pop in and out thanks to holes in the bottom of the holder, and they fit just perfectly - not so tight that it’s hard to swap them around, and not so loose that they rattle and move. (Although if you flip it upside down, yeah they’ll fall out. Don’t do that. It’s not that kind of holder.) These run for $40 on Amazon.

The final tally for my accessories then comes out to:

$540 (And I might even argue that it’s more like $280 since I already had the DualSense, and the AirPods Pro 2 aren’t only used with the Vision Pro)

So that’s it for the rundown of the Vision Pro accessories I use regularly! I hope you’ve found this enlightening and enjoyable, and perhaps you’ve even found some suggestions of items to try out! Next time I’ll be back to talk about how I get work done with this device, and why I think it has the potential to be an absolute game-changer in the future for the enterprise. Until then!

I was there on Day One. I took the afternoon off of work to drive to the nearest Apple Store and pick up my order of a 256GB Vision Pro…and while I was there, actually swapped that out for a 512GB instead (and I am so glad I did!) Why did I spend $4,000 sight-unseen on a generation 1 product? Why do I have absolutely zero buyers remorse and would gladly do it all over again? Read on - I have some thoughts!

I’ve been in a weird state with my personally owned Apple products for the last several years. You see, my employer keeps me up to date with a new MacBook Pro every 3ish years, and before that, I was holding on to my own Macs for about a decade. (Fellow listeners of the Accidental Tech Podcast - you could say I’m on the Siracusa plan) Since work was taking care of my laptop solution, and I had a perfectly serviceable iMac 5K (2014) for my occasional personal Mac needs, I was largely using my iPad Pro as my daily driver outside of work. But then the Apple Silicon processors came out, bringing a wide array of awesome and powerful features. My own iMac fell out of hardware support for the latest macOS versions, and for a lot of well-reasoned enterprise security reasons, there was a much harder stance of using a work laptop for personal use, and even moreso using a personal device for work use. I was heading into a big period of technological change, and I had some decisions to make.

I knew I’d need some sort of personal Mac. I wanted another 27” iMac, but it’s clear Apple isn’t interested in making or selling me one of those. I have limited space for my home office as well, so it wouldn’t work for me to have even a 24” iMac on my desk and still have room for a monitor for work. That brought me to looking for a large external monitor solution, and the two obvious choices for me, an Apple purist, were the Studio Display, and the Pro Display XDR. I crossed out the XDR right away because that thing is ridiculously expensive and I’m still mad that you have to pay an extra thousand dollars for the stand. And frankly, I don’t love the Studio Display either. It’s literally the same panel that was in my 5K iMac…which again, was working perfectly well up until I couldn’t run the latest macOS on it anymore for seemingly arbitrary reasons. So, that didn’t feel good either to spend a bunch of money and not get one bit of upgrade out of it. So what I really needed was a good monitor that I could plug my work and personal Macs into and use interchangeably.

But then, in the midst of this conundrum, just as I was getting a little desperate and beginning to contemplate the LG Ultra “Fine”, Apple decided to throw me a (very expensive) life preserver at WWDC ‘23 in the form of the Apple Vision Pro.

Here was a brand new category of product for Apple, and it was promising to offer me a way to show my Mac screen on a massively resizable virtual display, while being a computer itself capable of running apps on-device with great performance, and it would run my iPad apps too? I was instantly sold. Doing some napkin math here:

Studio Display: $1600
Mac Studio (the Mac mini didn’t offer all that I was looking for): $2000

That’s $3600 right there, more than the entry cost of $3500 for the Vision Pro. Plus the Vision Pro was offering that whole “new category of device” vibe, as well as the opportunity to be there right away and experience the evolution of a generation one device. I’ve always regretted not having been able to do that for the iPhone; AT&T wasn’t in my area at the time, so I just flat out could not get one until the iPhone 3G came out. I enjoyed watching the iPad evolve (I was there at the beginning for that, too!) and was excited to see Apple do it again.

I was also very interested in upgrading my home theatre system. I was looking into projector displays, and surround sound systems, and all of the physical space constraints that went along with all of that. And I tell you what, I was shocked at how expensive home theatre products are. So once again here comes Apple offering me a product that was going to take care of all of these desires: a flexible monitor system, a computer, and a home theatre system…and they wanted $3500 for it.

And so, dear reader, to answer the opening question of this post of “why did I get a Vision Pro?” The answer may surprise you: “because it was actually a bargain for me.” The Vision Pro is just a massive green check mark all the way down the page of things I want, and after 2 months of daily use (I’m not kidding - during the work week, I use it for at least 8 hours a day, and on the weekends a bit less but still multiple hours) I can confidently say it was worth every penny I spent, even after splurging for the additional storage capacity and accessories.

Coming up on this blog, I’m going to talk about what accessories I’ve been using and would recommend, the apps I use (both iPadOS compatibility apps, and native visionOS apps), and how I get work done on this device. I actually have a lot of thoughts on getting work done on visionOS, and I absolutely believe Apple and agree with them when they say this device will revolutionize the enterprise. Stay tuned for future posts, and I’ll explain myself!

Until then - have you thought about purchasing a Vision Pro? What are your thoughts on it? Let me know in the comments below!

Unleash Apple Vision Pro with these Accessories

Why did I get a Vision Pro?