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visionOS feels also designed for an eye tracking system that\u2019s just slightly more precise than it actually is \u2014 a lot of controls are just a little too small and a little too close together to let you quickly bop around the system. You have to look, make sure<\/em> you\u2019re looking at the thing you want, and then<\/em> tap, or you might end up clicking on the wrong thing. Sometimes the fastest way to select what you want is to look away entirely and try again.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n
It works until it doesn\u2019t. It\u2019s magic until it\u2019s not.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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Think about it like this: The keyboard and mouse on a Mac directly<\/em> control the Mac. The click wheel on an iPod directly controlled the iPod. A lot of work has gone into making it feel like the multitouch screen on an iPhone directly<\/em> controls the phone, and when it goes sideways, like when autocorrect fails or an app doesn\u2019t register your taps, it\u2019s not pleasant.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n
Your eyes and hands aren\u2019t<\/em> directly controlling the Vision Pro: cameras are watching<\/em> your eyes and hands and turning that<\/em> into input, and sometimes the interpretation isn\u2019t perfect. The best example of this is the hilarious on-screen keyboard, which you use by staring at each letter and pinching your fingers to select it or henpecking with two fingers at the floating keys in front of you. It\u2019s not worth using for anything beyond entering a Wi-Fi password \u2014 for anything longer, you\u2019ll want to use dictation or connect a Bluetooth keyboard. Why? So you can directly control the input.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n
It\u2019s not a given that the Vision Pro can always see your hands, either. There\u2019s a pretty large bubble around the front of your body where the cameras can see your hands \u2014 it basically extends the length of your arms in a semicircle around the front of your body. But if you lean back in a chair with your arm at your side, it can\u2019t see your hand. If you\u2019re sitting at a table and your hands are on your legs, it might not see your hands. If you\u2019re lying down in a dark room and the IR illuminators can\u2019t reach your hands, the cameras might not be able to see them. If you\u2019re simply standing up with your arms at your sides, it might not be able to see your hands if they drift too far backward.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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Photo by Vjeran Pavic \/ The Verge<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n
I recognize that it is fundamentally silly to complain about a hand tracking system needing to see your hands, and it is<\/em> possible to navigate quite a lot of visionOS with Siri and dictation: you can manage apps, open different virtual immersions, and so on. If you squint, you can see a glimpse of how a computer that you use by talking to it and manipulating things in space might one day work.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n
But right now, the limits are obvious. Using the Vision Pro makes you constantly aware of what you are looking at and where your hands are in a way that is unlike any other computer I\u2019ve ever used. When it fails, it\u2019s maddening. (Oddly, Apple\u2019s newest watches can detect a pinching gesture<\/a>, but there\u2019s no ability to use those as control devices on the Vision Pro.)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n
The flip side is that a system that\u2019s constantly watching your hands for input tends to register a lot of extra inputs, which can be very funny. I talk through writing video scripts to make sure things flow, and I talk with my hands. So as I was writing the video script for this review in the Vision Pro, the system kept catching my hands moving and started scrolling and clicking on things by accident. I cracked up the first time I realized what was happening. But eventually, it meant that I took the Vision Pro off and wrote the rest of the script on my Mac, which only does things when I actually want it to.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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Just as with the displays, I think this is the best eye and hand tracking system anyone\u2019s ever shipped. It really can feel like magic\u2026 until it doesn\u2019t. And if you want people to do their computing