The Vision Pro is a marvel and, this might be a hot take, but they were right to not call it “AR” or “VR”. It is something different than either of those terms, something more. Even though their term definitely isn’t new, it is the first stand alone HMD that I’ve seen actually deliver on the notion. The notion is “spatial computing”. A lot of people have just written this off as “Apple marketing speak”. I understand the sentiment but think it’s a short-sighted conclusion. Personally, I think it is the truest description of the category that Apple is aiming to create here with the Vision Pro and more specifically its operating system, the Vision OS.
The next device they ship in this category could be true pass through (as in no camera reprojection, think glasses) but it could still run the same Vision OS and have the same design language, interaction model, and affordances. Many are betting that this is their long game as the technology matures. And what they’re doing with Vision OS is laying the groundwork this new computing paradigm will use…
As innovative as the device and operating system is, it is still a v1. After a week with the device, I’ve noticed some points of friction with general usage. Here is my list of features I’d suggest as feedback to help make Vision OS truly a computing platform.
- It can be tedious to lay your windows out in your space, especially if you’re moving around your house. Window layout or grouping tools would be great to have. A lot of possibilities here but here’s a few.
- Rail/bar/shelf: attach windows to a linear plane
- Grid: attach windows to a plane in space and allow it to auto layout child windows in a grid on the same plane
- Dome: attach windows to a concave dome so that all those windows are arranged on the inside of a sphere and pointed to a common point in your environment
- “Spaces” or “Modes” - save open windows and relative positions for quick loading later
- “Pin” windows to user relative xy position and have them follow you as you move through your environment
- Sort of related, but hand or wrist pinned mini windows/widgets would be useful. Could gesture to check your watch or something and the OS shows that window.
- Instead of just floating in your space, better affordances for placing windows on real world environment surfaces (walls, tables, etc..) would go a long way to actually have them in your space.
- There should be an alternate view of windows obstructed by environment entities (walls, doors, etc).
- Clock app. It is kind of a pain to load control center to see the time. Let me throw a clock anywhere in my space. Every OS exposes the ability to see the time easily, seems like a basic thing.
- Bring watch, iPhone, and iPads as a window into your space, just like your Mac.
- On the subject, allow connect to Mac to pull full screen apps into their own window. Would go a long way to make this great feature even better.
- Bring the Apple HomePod, HomePod mini and any other Home smart devices into your environment. Would love to see spatial UI pinned to the physical object.
- Let control center or settings show you what apps are open and where they are relative to your current position.
- Summon specific window/app (or if they add groups, that too) to your current location
- Photos has ability to pull items out of a window and create a new window but Safari doesn’t. I think this should be a OS level gesture/pattern.
- This one is for Safari; PWA style save to home screen please! 🙏
Apologies if how I explained any of these don’t make sense, describing this stuff is hard and we don’t really have a common language to communicate about spatial user interfaces yet. In any case, some of these are really hard, some are easy, but I think they’ll all positively impact the user experience.
Have any other ideas? Reach out to, I’d love to chat about them! [email protected]