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Apple Vision Pro’s Biggest Missing Pieces

Commentary: Apple’s AR/VR «spatial computer» pushes the upper limits of immersive tech. But it has some notable omissions.

The evolution of VR and AR is in major flux, and right now Apple’s bleeding-edge, ultra-expensive Vision Pro headset is sitting at the top of the heap — and it’s not even expected to arrive until 2024.

After a demo at WWDC, I came away instantly impressed at how the Vision Pro hardware synthesized so much of what I’ve seen in VR and AR over the last five years. But this time it was all done with Retina Display-level resolution and smooth, easy hand-tracking finesse. At $3,499 (around £2,800 or AU$5,300 converted), Apple’s hardware is priced far beyond VR headsets like the Meta Quest 2, and also aims to be a full computer experience in AR (as well as VR, even though Apple doesn’t outright acknowledge it).

Even so, there are notable absences from the Vision Pro, at least based on what Apple presented at WWDC. I had expectations as to what Apple might make the killer apps and features for its spatial computer headset, and only some of them materialized. Maybe others will emerge as we get closer to Apple’s 2024 headset release, or get introduced via software updates much like Meta has done with the Quest over time.

Still, I’m surprised they’re not already part of the Vision Pro experience. To me, they’ll eventually make everything I saw work even better.

Read moreBest VR Headsets of 2023

Fitness

The Meta Quest’s best feature, other than games, is its ability to be a portable exercise machine. Beat Saber was my pandemic home workout, and Meta’s acquisition of Within (maker of Supernatural, a subscription fitness app that pairs with the Apple Watch) indicates how much fitness is already a part of the VR landscape.

Apple is a prime candidate to fuse VR, AR, fitness and health and take the experience far beyond what Meta has done. Apple already has the Apple Watch and Apple Health and Fitness Plus subscription workouts. And yet, the Vision Pro has no announced fitness or health apps yet, except for a sitting-still Meditation app that’s more of a breathing prompt. 

Apple Watch Ultra Apple Watch Ultra

When will the Apple Watch become part of the Vision Pro experience?

James Martin/CNET

Even more puzzling: The Vision Pro seemingly doesn’t work with the Apple Watch at all. This could change. Maybe Apple is waiting to discuss this aspect next year. Or, maybe, it will arrive with a future version of the Vision hardware.

Some VR sporting game app makers are already announcing ports for the Vision Pro, including Golf Plus, an app that works in VR with controllers. The assumption, for now, is that these apps will find a way to work just using eye and hand tracking.

Apple didn’t even demonstrate that much active motion inside the Vision Pro; my demos were mostly seated, except for a final walk-around experience where I looked at a dinosaur up close.

Is the dangling battery pack part of the concern? The headset’s weight? Or is Apple starting with computing interfaces first and adding fitness later?

iPhone 14 Pro vs. iPhone 13 Pro iPhone 14 Pro vs. iPhone 13 Pro

The iPhone in your pocket should ideally interface with Vision Pro, too.

Lexy Savvides/CNET

iPhone, iPad and Watch compatibility

Speaking of fitness and the Apple Watch, I always imagined Apple’s AR headset would emphasize seamless compatibility with all of its products. Apple didn’t exactly do that with the Vision Pro, either.

The Vision Pro will work as a monitor-extending device with Macs, providing high-res virtual displays in a similar way that headsets like the Quest 2, Quest Pro and others already do. I didn’t get to try using the Vision Pro with a Mac, and I didn’t get to use a trackpad or keyboard, either. The Vision Pro will work with Magic Trackpads and Magic Keyboards to add physical trackpad/typing input options, again, like other VR/AR headsets, in addition to onboard eye- and hand-tracking.

And yet, the Vision Pro won’t interface directly with iPhones, iPads or the Apple Watch. Not yet, at least.

The Vision Pro primarily runs iPad-type apps. This is why the iPad Pro seems to be the best computer companion to the Vision Pro: it has a keyboard, a trackpad, built-in motion tracking that’s already AR-friendly, front and rear depth-sensing cameras that could possibly help with 3D scanning environments or faces, and it has a touchscreen and Pencil stylus.

A man with AR glasses on, holding a phone, seeing a floating window with a person speaking to him A man with AR glasses on, holding a phone, seeing a floating window with a person speaking to him

Qualcomm’s software tools for AR glasses extend phone apps to headsets. The Apple Vision Pro bypasses the phone and works on its own.

Qualcomm

Apple is emphasizing that the Vision Pro is a self-contained computer that doesn’t need other devices. That’s understandable, and most of Apple’s cloud services, like FaceTime, will work so that the Vision Pro will essentially absorb most iPhone and iPad features. Yet I don’t understand why iPhones, iPads and Watches wouldn’t be welcome input accessories. Their touchscreens and motion controls could help them act as remotes or physical-feedback devices, in a similar way to how Qualcomm is already looking at the relationship between phones and AR glasses. I hold up my iPhone all the time to enter passwords on the Apple TV. I seamlessly drop photos, links and text from my iPhone over to my Mac.

Touchscreens could act as virtual keyboards. Drawing on the iPad could mirror a 3D art interface. With Apple’s already excellent passthrough cameras, iPhone, iPad and Watch displays could become interactive second screens, tactile interfaces that sprout extra parts in AR. Also, there’s the value of haptics and physical feedback.

Sony Playstation VR 2 virtual reality headset Sony Playstation VR 2 virtual reality headset

The PSVR 2 controller: One advantage to physical devices is physical feedback.

James Martin/CNET

No haptics

The buzzing, tapping and rumbling feelings we get on our phones, watches and game controllers, those are feedback tools I’ve really connected with when I go into VR. The PlayStation VR 2 even has rumbling feedback in its headset. The Vision Pro, with eye and hand tracking, has no controllers. And no haptic feedback. I’ve been fascinated by the future of haptics — I saw a lot of experimental solutions earlier this year. For now, Apple is sitting out on haptic solutions for Vision Pro.

When I use iPhones and the Watch, I feel those little virtual clicks as reminders of when I’ve opened something, or when information comes in. I feel them as extensions of my perceptual field. In VR, it’s the same way. Apple’s pinch-based hand tracking technically has some physical sensation when your own fingers touch each other, but nothing will buzz or tap to let you know something is happening beyond your field of view — in another open app, for instance, or behind you in an immersive 3D environment.

Microsoft made a similar decision with the HoloLens by only having in-air hand tracking, but former AR head Alex Kipman told me years ago that haptics were part of the HoloLens roadmap. 

Apple already has haptic devices; the Apple Watch, for example. All those iPhones, too. I’m surprised the Vision Pro doesn’t already have a solution for haptics. But maybe it’s also on its roadmap? 

logitech-vr-ink-lifestyle-final logitech-vr-ink-lifestyle-final

Logitech’s VR Ink, released in 2019, is an in-air 3D stylus. How will Apple handle creative tools in 3D?

Logitech

Will there ever be other accessories like the Pencil?

One of the wildest parts about a mixed-reality future is how it can blend virtual and real tools together, or even invent tools that don’t exist. I’ve had my VR controllers act like they’re morphing into objects that feel like they’re an extension of my body. Some companies like Logitech have already developed in-air 3D styluses for creative work in VR and AR.

Apple’s Vision Pro demos didn’t show off any creative apps beyond the collaborative Freeform, and nothing that showed how 3D inputs could be improved with handheld tools. 

Maybe Apple is starting off by emphasizing the power of just eyes and hands here, similar to how Steve Jobs initially refused to give the iPad a stylus. But the iPad has a Pencil now, and it’s an essential art tool for many people. Dedicated physical peripherals are helpful, and Apple has none with its Vision Pro headset (yet). I do like VR controllers, and Meta’s clever transforming Quest Pro controllers can be flipped around to become writing tools with an added stylus tip. As a flood of creative apps arrive on the Vision Pro in 2024, will Apple address possibilities for dedicated accessories? Will the Vision Pro allow for easy pairing of them? Hopefully, yes.

The Apple Vision Pro is a long way from arriving, and there’s still so much we don’t know. As Apple’s first AR/VR headset evolves, however, these key aspects should be kept in mind, because they’ll be incredibly important ways to expand how the headset feels useful and flexible for everyone.

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Tariffs Explained: Latest on Trump’s Shifting Import Tax Plan, and What It Means

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Apple, I’m (Sky) Blue About Your iPhone 17 Air Color

Commentary: The rumored new hue of the iPhone 17 Air is more sky blah than sky blue.

I can’t help but feel blue about the latest rumor that Apple’s forthcoming iPhone 17 Air will take flight in a subtle, light-hued color called sky blue.

Sky blue isn’t a new color for Apple. It’s the featured shade of the current M4 MacBook Air, a shimmer of cerulean so subtle as to almost be missed. It’s silver left too close to an aquarium; silver that secretly likes to think it’s blue but doesn’t want everyone else to notice.

Do Apple employees get to go outside and see a real blue sky? It’s actually vivid, you can check for yourself. Perhaps the muted sky blue color reflects a Bay Area late winter/early spring frequent layer of clouds like we typically see here in Seattle.

«Who cares?» you might find yourself saying. «Everyone gets a case anyway.» I hear you and everyone else who’s told me that. But design-focused Apple is as obsessive about colors as they are about making their devices thinner. And I wonder if their heads are in the clouds about which hues adorn their pro products.

Making the case for a caseless color iPhone

I’m more invested in this conversation than most — I’m one of those freaks who doesn’t wrap my phone in a case. I find cases bulky and superfluous, and I like to be able to see Apple’s design work. Also, true story, I’ve broken my iPhone screen only twice: First when it was in a «bumper» that Apple sent free in response to the iPhone 4 you’re-holding-it-wrong Antennagate fiasco, and second when trying to take long exposure starry night photos using what I didn’t realize was a broken tripod mount. My one-week-old iPhone 13 Pro slipped sideways and landed screen-first on a pointy rock. A case wouldn’t have saved it.

My current model is an iPhone 16 Pro in black titanium — which I know seems like avoiding color entirely — but previously I’ve gone for colors like blue titanium and deep purple. I wanted to like deep purple the most but it came across as, in the words of Patrick Holland in his iPhone 14 Pro review, «a drab shade of gray or like Grimace purple,» depending on the light.

Pros can be bold, too

Maybe the issue is too many soft blues. Since the iPhone Pro age began with the iPhone 11 Pro, we’ve seen variations like blue titanium (iPhone 15 Pro), sierra blue (iPhone 13 Pro) and pacific blue (iPhone 12 Pro).

Pacific blue is the boldest of the bunch, if by bold you mean dark enough to discern from silver, but it’s also close enough to that year’s graphite color that seeing blue depends on the surrounding lighting. By comparison, the blue (just «blue») color of the iPhone 12 was unmistakably bright blue.

In fact, the non-Pro lines have embraced vibrant colors. It’s as if Apple is equating «pro» with «sophisticated,» as in «A real pro would never brandish something this garish.» I see this in the camera world all the time: If it’s not all-black, it’s not a «serious» camera.

And yet I know lots of pros who are not sophisticated — proudly so. People choose colors to express themselves, so forcing that idea of professionalism through color feels needlessly restrictive. A bright pink iPhone 16 might make you smile every time you pick it up but then frown because it doesn’t have a telephoto camera.

Color is also important because it can sway a purchase decision. «I would buy a sky blue iPhone yesterday,» my colleague Gael Cooper texted after the first rumor popped online. When each new generation of iPhones arrive, less technically different than the one before, a color you fall in love with can push you into trading in your perfectly-capable model for a new one.

And lest you think Apple should just stick with black and white for its professional phones: Do you mean black, jet black, space black, midnight black, black titanium, graphite or space gray? At least the lighter end of the spectrum has stuck to just white, white titanium and silver over the years.

Apple never got ahead by being beige

I’m sure Apple has reams of studies and customer feedback that support which colors make it to production each year. Like I said, Apple’s designers are obsessive (in a good way). And I must remind myself that a sky blue iPhone 17 Air is a rumored color on a rumored product so all the usual caveats apply.

But we’re talking about Apple here. The scrappy startup that spent more than any other company on business cards at the time because each one included the old six-color Apple logo. The company that not only shaped the first iMac like a tipped-over gumdrop, that not only made the case partially see-through but then made that cover brilliant Bondi blue.

Embrace the iPhone colors, Apple.

If that makes you nervous, don’t worry: Most people will put a case on it anyway.

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Astronomers Say There’s an Increased Possibility of Life on This Distant Planet

Using the James Webb Space Telescope, astronomers are working to confirm potential evidence of life on a distant exoplanet dubbed K2-18b.

Astronomers are nearing a statistically significant finding that could confirm the potential signs of life detected on the distant exoplanet K2-18b are no accident.

The team of astronomers, led by the University of Cambridge, used data from the James Webb Space Telescope (which has only been in use since the end of 2021) to detect chemical traces of dimethyl sulfide (DMS) and/or dimethyl disulfide (DMDS), which they say can only be produced by life such as phytoplankton in the sea. 

According to the university, «the results are the strongest evidence yet that life may exist on a planet outside our solar system.»

The findings were published this week in the Astrophysical Journal Letters and point to the possibility of an ocean on this planet’s surface, which scientists have been hoping to discover for years. In the abstract for the paper, the team says, «The possibility of hycean worlds, with planet-wide oceans and H2-rich atmospheres, significantly expands and accelerates the search for habitable environments elsewhere.»

Not everyone agrees, however, that what the team found proves there’s life on the exoplanet.

Science writer and OpenMind Magazine founder Corey S. Powell posted about the findings on Bluesky, writing, «The potential discovery of alien life is so enticing that it drags even reputable outlets into running naive or outright misleading stories.» He added, «Here we go again with planet K2-18b.Um….there’s strong evidence of non-biological sources of the molecule DMS.»

K2-18b is 124 light-years away and much larger than Earth (more than eight times our mass), but smaller than Neptune. The search for signs of even basic life on a planet like this increases the chances that there are more planets like Earth that may be inhabitable, with temperatures and atmospheres that could sustain human-like lifeforms. The team behind the paper hopes that more study with the James Webb Space Telescope will help confirm their initial findings.

More research to do on finding life on K2-18b

The exoplanet K2-18b is not the only place where scientists are exploring the possibility of life, and this research is still an early step in the process, said Christopher Glein, a geochemist, planetary researcher and lead scientist at San Antonio’s Southwest Research Institute. Excitement over the significance of the research, he said, should be tempered.

«We need to be careful here,» Glein said. «It appears that there is something in the data that can’t be explained, and DMS/DMDS can provide an explanation. But this detection is stretching the limits of JWST’s capabilities.»

Glein added, «Further work is needed to test whether these molecules are actually present. We also need complementary research assessing the abiotic background on K2-18b and similar planets. That is, the chemistry that can occur in the absence of life in this potentially exotic environment. We might be seeing evidence of some cool chemistry rather than life.»

The TRAPPIST-1 planets, he said, are being researched as potentially habitable, as is LHS 1140b, which he said «is another astrobiologically significant exoplanet, which might be a massive ocean world.»

As for K2-18b, Glein said many more tests need to be performed before there’s consensus on life existing on it.

«Finding evidence of life is like prosecuting a case in the courtroom,» Glein said. «Multiple independent lines of evidence are needed to convince the jury, in this case the worldwide scientific community.» He added, «If this finding holds up, then that’s Step 1.»

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