I've Used Apple Vision Pro for a Year — Here's Where I Landed

It’s been a year. A full year of reaching for the Vision Pro case on my desk, strapping on the headset, adjusting the digital crown, and living inside Apple’s version of the future. I’ve used it for work, for movies, for FaceTime, for spatial photos, for apps that don’t exist anywhere else. I’ve also had plenty of days where it stayed in the case because I just… didn’t feel like it.

This isn’t a review from someone who tried it for a weekend. This is from someone who genuinely wanted it to replace a chunk of my computing life. Here’s where I ended up.

The Stuff That Stuck

Movies and TV. This is the killer app. I say this without hesitation. Watching a movie on Vision Pro — in a darkened virtual environment, on what feels like a 100-foot screen — is the best solo viewing experience I’ve ever had. Better than my 65-inch OLED. Better than a movie theater, honestly, because there’s nobody on their phone two seats away.

Disney+ immersive content, 3D movies from Apple’s library, spatial video from concerts — all of it is incredible. I watch something on Vision Pro probably four nights a week. This alone keeps the headset in regular rotation.

Mac Virtual Display. I covered this in my productivity apps article, but it bears repeating. Having a massive Mac screen floating in space is genuinely useful. When I need deep focus work — writing, coding, spreadsheets — the isolation Vision Pro provides is hard to match.

Spatial photos and video. Looking at spatial photos from the past year is emotional in a way I didn’t expect. My partner’s birthday, my nephew’s first steps, a random Saturday cooking breakfast — they feel more like memories than photos. There’s depth. There’s presence. I’m getting sentimental about a tech product, which should tell you something.

The Stuff That Faded

General app usage. For the first couple months, I tried using Vision Pro for everything. Browsing, email, social media, messaging — all floating in windows around me. That faded fast. For quick tasks, picking up my phone is faster. The friction of putting on the headset, adjusting it, waiting for it to boot — it adds up. I don’t put on Vision Pro to check my email anymore.

FaceTime Personas. I was excited about this. Digital avatar of my face for video calls? Cool concept. In practice, it’s still in uncanny valley territory. My Persona looks like a wax museum version of me. Close enough to be recognizable, off enough to be distracting. I stopped using it for calls after a few months.

Gaming. Look, I have to be honest here. Vision Pro is not a gaming device. The game library is thin, the controllers are your eyes and hands (no physical controllers), and most games feel like tech demos. If I want to game in VR, I grab my Quest 3. Every time.

The Weight Problem

This is the thing nobody solved over the past year. Vision Pro is heavy. Around 650 grams on your face with the Solo Knit Band, slightly more with the Dual Loop Band. For comparison, Quest 3 is about 515 grams.

After a year, here’s my honest comfort timeline:

• 0-30 minutes: fine
• 30-60 minutes: aware of the weight
• 60-90 minutes: actively uncomfortable
• 90+ minutes: I’m taking it off

I’ve tried third-party straps, counterweights on the back, different face cushions. They help. They don’t fix it. Apple needs to make this thing lighter, and I suspect that’s a Gen 2 priority.

visionOS 2 — Did It Help?

visionOS 2 brought some welcome improvements. The home screen redesign is cleaner, the spatial photo conversion (turning regular photos into spatial photos using ML) is neat, and the SharePlay improvements made watching stuff with remote friends better.

But it didn’t address the fundamental issues. The app ecosystem is still small. Many developers pulled their iPad apps from the Vision Pro store because downloads weren’t justifying development costs. Netflix still doesn’t have a native app. That’s embarrassing for a device that excels at watching content.

The $3,500 Question

Was it worth the money? I go back and forth on this. I’m a tech journalist. I write about this stuff. For me, owning it is partly professional. I’d find it hard to recommend a $3,500 device to someone who isn’t either a tech enthusiast with money to spare or a professional who needs it for work.

The experience-per-dollar calculation doesn’t favor Vision Pro. A Quest 3 at $499 gets you 85% of the fun for a seventh of the price. What Vision Pro offers beyond Quest 3 is refinement — better displays, better hand tracking, a more polished OS, and that movie-watching experience. Whether refinement is worth $3,000 extra depends entirely on your finances and priorities.

What I Hope Changes in Year Two

A few things that’d push Vision Pro from “impressive but niche” to “actually recommended”:

1. Weight. Cut 100+ grams. Whatever it takes.
2. More apps. The ecosystem needs to grow. Aggressively. Where’s Netflix? Where’s Spotify with a native app? Where’s YouTube with a proper visionOS experience instead of the Safari workaround?
3. Lower price. Rumors suggest a cheaper model is coming. Good. The technology needs to reach more people to attract more developers to build more apps. The chicken-and-egg problem is real.
4. Better Personas. Make them look human or drop them entirely. The current state is worse than just showing a profile picture.

Where I Landed

Vision Pro is the most impressive piece of technology I own. It’s also not the most useful. Those two things can be true simultaneously.

I use it every day — but not all day. It’s my movie theater, my focus-work tool, and my spatial camera viewer. Everything else, I do on other devices. That’s not the vision Apple sold — “your entire computing life in spatial” — but it’s the reality after a year.

Am I keeping it? Yes. Would I buy it again? …probably. Am I recommending it to normal people? Not at this price. Not yet.

Apple built the future. It just needs to make the future lighter, cheaper, and with more reasons to visit.