The inside of an Apple Vision Pro is a lonely place. My spouse and I can't watch movies together. It's hard to describe what the world is like there to curious friends. Even if I am standing next to you, even if there is a ghostly projection of my eyes on the front screen, there is a barrier between you and me.
Unless you also have a Vision Pro headset and have enabled Spatial Personas.
Apple introduced Spatial Personas last week. Release your strange digital avatar from the FaceTime window and in any SharePlay-enabled app, as well as in your virtual space. Call me intrigued. Loneliness was a drawback of the Vision Pro that one reviewer after another pointed out. Would this help that? I called our weekend editor, Wes Davis, who also has a Vision Pro, to find out.
I deeply know the Persona of Wes and his motionless virtual mustache. Still, it was disturbing to have a ghostly Wes in my office wandering. Like in a horror movie, sometimes I would look away from Wesona and then he would get into my business. Then I would have to pinch Wesona and place him on the other side of my office. It wasn't even his complete self either. People only project your head, neck, a pinch of shoulders and your hands. There is no body, legs or arms. That can cause your hands to appear in strange places. And when a person turns around, sometimes they disappear because Personas don't capture the back of your head. Sometimes you grow and shrink like Ant-Man. In those moments, the idea that your friend is not really there is reinforced.
Oddly enough, Spatial Personas are awesome. I usually sit still in Vision Pro, but having Spatial Personas encouraged me to move around more, especially when writing and doodling in Freeform. (I wish I had some kind of stylus to draw with, though. The various Kirbys I drew were… lumpy.) We played a game of virtual chess in the Game Room and I felt a little like a war general in a sci-fi movie. , walking around a table inspecting the location of my troops, thoughtfully stroking my non-existent beard. Sure, I led my troops to a crushing defeat in seven minutes, but the vibe was there.
They were fun experiences, but also ingenious. There are a lot of problems to solve, especially if eye tracking fails or you start to feel the weight of the headphones out of nowhere. We already share presentations and collaborative software through Zoom. During the height of Covid-19, we all found creative ways to connect remotely without needing a $3,500 headset. I was one of those people who got In fact in animal crossing, visiting friends' islands for that price of 600, shouting and kicking while we gossip over voice chat. That wasn't as technologically impressive as Wesona's ghostly hand checkmating my king, but it went a long way in making me feel less alone.
Using Spatial Personas with Apple Music was more fun. I did my best to convert Wes to K-pop with the excellent music videos “Back Door,” “Thunderous,” and “Case 143” by Stray Kids. He remained rudely impassive. We move on to Beyoncé cowboy carter album. We both agreed that it was a great album, but without a visual element, it was strange to sit there like ghosts and nod. Collaborating with music in Vision Pro, at least for our work as writers, is also strange. If I'm writing a draft on my Mac's virtual screen, why would I want to look and see Wesona clicking on the draft separate from it?
But there were a few moments where I caught a glimpse of what Apple thinks Spatial Personas might be, namely when we saw some scenes from Made to disappear on Wes's Plex server and the last jedi on Apple TV. (What better movie to watch than the one where Rey and Kylo Ren are essentially Spatial Persona FaceTiming each other?) That one felt closer to plopping down on your friend's couch and watching a movie together, where, if a sick scene, you can Turn around, look at your friend and say, “Did you just see that?” In our case, we entered into a deep discussion about the Star Wars Sequel trilogy and everything bad about it. In the end, I wished my friends on the other side of the world (who I only see once every few years, if I'm lucky) also had Vision Pros.
When Vision Pro works, plays. But when it's not, when you can see the seams, you can feel lonelier than before you put on the headphones. What you don't see are all the awkward pauses when Wes and I had to troubleshoot and figure out why something wasn't working; things that are more difficult when you have a headset on and for some reason that day, the Vision Pro was having problems with eye tracking. (Wes doesn't have that much trouble with eye tracking, but I need to recalibrate mine every few sessions.)
Then, there's the hurdle of being able to see things together. Apple spokesperson Zach Kahn confirmed that for subscriber-only content, such as Apple Originals on Apple TV Plus, both must have a subscription. (Unless you share a subscription through Family Sharing.) You are also limited to apps that support SharePlay. It would be better if you could put on the headphones, choose any app and go.
So, did Spatial Personas make the Vision Pro less lonely? Yes and no. Testing Spatial Personas is the most fun I've had with the headset so far. On the other hand, Wes is still the only person I know who uses his Vision Pro regularly. I don't feel comfortable asking my friends to shell out $3,500 to spend time with me virtually when that money could buy a round-trip plane ticket to in fact visit me. Hopefully some of this will improve over time. But for now, I'm still almost alone here.