February 12, 2024
When Will We Be Designing Magazines on the Apple Vision Pro?
You might have heard of this company Apple, and their new product, the Apple Vision Pro. It's been over a couple of years of build-up to the product release. Excitement for the product seemed muted compared to other Apple product introductions, but it still sold out on the day of release. During the run up to release, and the launch event, the use case seemed to focus on entertainment and mild productivity - emailing, some writing tools, browsing the web, looking at photos, and watching movies in your personal 3D space. But doing real work on the Vision Pro doesn't seem to be an option - yet.
You can mirror your laptop screen on the Vision Pro, so a graphic designer could use - for example - Adobe InDesign while wearing the headset, but would still need their laptop present for keyboard and mouse access. Basically, they could show what's happening on their laptop on a much larger, virtual screen. That's not really a step forward in terms of design. However, if Adobe decide to make versions of their Creative Suite native to the Vision Pro, taking full advantage of the massive viewing area available, tool bar windows that could be summoned rather than having to move your mouse pointer across the screen to get them, extremely tiny and accurate typographic adjustments, more dynamic and accurate use of layers, and more, that could be a game changer.
Hopefully Adobe would make the desktop and Vision Pro versions of each app one and the same, and not start double-dipping with separate apps for each product with their own associated cost. But hey, it's not like they're a walled garden or are monopolizing the design industry, right?
I definitely won't be getting a Vision Pro soon, but once app developers start making tools for use in this medium, and designers start seeing the benefits of designing in and for the same, it'll open up a whole new world of possibilities. Yes, all these individual pieces already exist in the world, but Apple knows how to bring them together in a user experience that is friendly, dynamic, and engaging. Once the Vision Pro starts getting smaller, cheaper (LOL, okay), less complicated and heavy (looking at you, external battery pack), I think it will be as everyday a tool as the laptop.