What’s great about movies, shows and games in Vision Pro

After a full day of toiling inside Vision Pro, I often keep my headset on for evening entertainment — shows, games or looking at photos. Vision Pro has almost completely replaced my television. It enables a new way of watching videos as well; I watch video all around the house as I wander about doing chores.

The Vision Pro also excels for perusing my photo library. It’s the best way to view photos ever — and by a huge margin. Spatial photos are unbelievable. Videos look fantastic. Panoramas, a largely forgotten feature, are mind-blowing.

In other areas, Vision Pro disappoints. I’ve played some super fun games, but gaming isn’t a serious thing on Vision Pro yet. And while Apple’s own immersive 3D movies on Apple TV+ are super cool, it feels like we’ve only been given an appetizer.

Watch our video or keep reading for more detail.

How I use my Vision Pro for entertainment, games and photos

Table of Contents:

1. TV shows and movies
2. Games
3. Photos
4. What’s next

Watching TV shows and movies in a Vision Pro

The Vision Pro is transformative as an entertainment device … but not at all in the way I expected.

The biggest game changer is how I watch ordinary 2D content. I can take a virtual floating video player wherever I go. I don’t have to put in earbuds, carry my phone around or worry about anything spilling on an iPad on my kitchen counter. I can clean dishes with a YouTube video floating above my sink or eat pasta with a giant screen on my table.

I can watch TV while laying down in bed without drilling a screen into my ceiling, or watch 60-year-old black and white television on a screen as big as my wall.

3D immersive video is cool and all … for the hour or so of content Apple has put out. Apple has its own in-house streaming service and production company, which makes it baffling why there’s so little content, or even a regular schedule. If people knew that every Thursday there’s a new short film to see, they’d have a reason to look forward to putting on their headset every Thursday.

3D movies also sounded promising. In theory, Vision Pro is the best way to watch 3D movies like Avatar, Gravity, Edge of Tomorrow and the like. Apple licensed a bunch of these movies for Apple TV+ … for about a month. And now they’re gone.

The Vision Pro is the best way to watch TV shows and movies … alone. The trouble is no one else can see what I’m seeing or watch things with me. If you live with your partner or family or close friend, Vision Pro is isolating.

When I have people staying over, I’m sad that my Vision Pro is a solitary experience.

I can imagine a future Vision-based product that’s closer to regular glasses. They would be smaller, lighter weight and less powerful, but could comfortably be worn casually around the house. And crucially, they would enable two or more people in the same room to always see what the other person is seeing.

The effect would be that it truly becomes a shared experience. Just as easily as I can turn my phone around to show someone a video, I can show them anything I’m watching, or we can watch a show or movie together.

Games for Vision Pro

Augmented reality really can elevate the gaming experience to create something brand new.

An example of this is a game called Zombiez AR/VR. The menus are incredibly clunky. The game crashes and needs force-quitting constantly. All of the zombies are completely identical. If this were a game on the iPhone instead of the Vision Pro, it would be one of those crummy Java games that used to litter the App Store.

But the simple fact that it’s in augmented reality means that it’s one of the most terrifying games I’ve played. A friend who has played all kinds of zombie games was eager to try it and within ten seconds screamed so loud that a dog in the room freaked out and bit their hand. Of course, this really elevated the reality of the experience!

Trouble is, there aren’t may good games for Vision Pro yet. Big companies aren’t interested in a potential market of only a few thousand customers. The economics just don’t work. Aside from ports of old games and oddities like Marvel’s What If…? (which really shows the potential of spatial gaming), most Vision Pro games are independent passion projects.

There’s a few games from Apple Arcade that have been ported to spatial 3D. But if you’ve played a lot of Apple Arcade games, you know that their brand of artsy fun isn’t exactly what people buy an expensive VR headset to play.

I have two truly immersive VR games on my Vision Pro. Job Simulator and About by PCalc are both pure VR fun. But neither of them are challenging games, they’re more of a playground experience. Both of these games are also ports, not original titles — Job Simulator is eight years old. The Vision Pro, as powerful as it is, it not yet regarded as a serious gaming platform.

I really, really want a full 3D racing game, like the Asphalt series. I can play Asphalt 8: Airborne on a giant screen (and I do … frequently) but it’s not 3D. It’s pretty much the same experience as playing it on a Mac or a TV or an iPad.

There’s enough to show you what’s possible but not enough to satisfy gamers.

Browsing photos in Vision Pro

The Vision Pro is easily the best way to browse through your photo library. Bar none.

Images and videos are crystal-clear and look absolutely gorgeous.

You can peruse your photo library on the biggest screen imaginable. You don’t have to constantly rotate between portrait and landscape. There are never black bars from watching something in the wrong aspect ratio.

Panoramas totally envelop your field of view. Looking at an immersive panorama feels like traveling through space and time. Ever since iOS 5, people have been taking panoramas, not really knowing what the point would be. Most screens are too tiny to appreciate panoramas and it’s not like everybody can easily print out massive 18 × 48 prints.

Well, Vision Pro is what’s landscapes are for. If you have children, take a panorama of your kids’ bedroom so that in ten years, you can go back.

Spatial Photos, a new feature to visionOS 2, intelligently converts ordinary 2D images to 3D. It works so well it’s like magic. This is also the sort of feature that needs to be seen to be believed; I can’t show you how good a 3D effect is through a 2D screen. But it’s simply incredible.

What’s next

The Vision Pro is undergoing a slow and steady rollout. I feel like I’m one of the first television owners in the 1940s. There aren’t a lot of shows, the shows aren’t very high budget, but I have a kind of entertainment that no one else in my town does. And I’ve made it irreplaceable in my daily life.

Be sure to read the other side of the story — how I use my Vision Pro for work.