Last Friday marked the conclusion of my Digital Strategy lecture series at the Hamburg School of Business Administration (HSBA). Following sessions on business models, digital organization, and product strategy & marketing, the final one always focuses on the Metaverse and its implications for businesses..

Typically, Pico Interactive joins us with their headsets, allowing students to experience XR firsthand. But this time, we had an additional special guest: the Apple Vision Pro - courtesy of Future Candy !

After reading so many reviews, it was amazing to finally be able to try out Apple's new gadget for myself. Here are three first impressions after just 20 minutes:

1. The Vision Pro is not as heavy as I expected. It was actually quite comfortable to wear out of the box. But having played around with VR headsets for over 5 years now, I know that things change quickly once you wear a headset for more than 30-40 minutes.

2. The displays are amazing - although I couldn't fully appreciate them without prescription lenses. Everything looked completely natural. Field of view was no problem at all. The dinosaur MR demo makes you feel(!) like the dinosaurs are actually in the classroom. Really cool.

3. The UI works well - most of the time. After learning a few basics the Vision Pro is pretty easy to use. Are the eyes really the best pointing device? Not fully convinced yet.

What makes the Apple Vision Pro so special?

The combination of extremely powerful processors with superior displays. This is not just another XR headset, but a fully fledged new computing platform. Using it solely for gaming or watching Apple TV alone on your couch might seem excessive.

But for B2B applications such as digital twins or the industria lmetaverse, the Apple Vision Pro will most certainly enable use cases that no other headset can...