I hope that Apple Vision Pro will fail. It has to. And I say that as one of its biggest fans.
For decades, Apple and other tech companies have been in a race for resources: money and attention. This time, with a new way to capture our most important resource - attention.
We've got the screens strapped to our hands; we are taking our phones everywhere.
We use them to find meaning, fall in love, break things up, connect to strangers, and disconnect from reality.
We pay attention to screens when we work, travel/drive, cook, and exercise; we even use them when we are supposed to relax, meditate or fall asleep.
This new proposal is to strap a screen to our head.
Let that sink for a minute.
The ultimate proposition from Apple is to give up reality altogether and surrender 100% of our attention in exchange for an illusion.
It is an illusion designed well in a context where relationships fail at a crazy rate, and productivity is the only metric attached to a career. In a context where loneliness is a pandemic, we have become unable to manage our attention and boredom.