Apple Vision Pro finally delivers a killer feature justifying the VR headset's price – see my test results

I’ve been waiting to test the promised wide and ultra-wide screen monitor features of Apple’s VisionOS 2.2 since the Vision Pro first shipped almost a year ago. When the Release Candidate became available, I rushed to install it on my head-mounted headache generator.

In this article, I’ll be exploring VisionOS’s Mac virtual display capabilities, testing the standard display, wide display, and ultrawide display variants, and comparing them to my current physical widescreen setup. This new capability could be a game-changer for the Vision Pro. 

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I have no real idea how I’m going to demonstrate this to you. VisionOS is limited when it comes to screenshots and video captures, and trying to demonstrate an ultra-wide screen monitor in a tiny little screenshot window seems like a fool’s errand.

So you’ll have to let me paint a picture of this experience primarily through words. The few screenshots I’m going to show you, as usual for the Vision Pro, don’t do justice to the experience.

And with that, let’s dig in.

Table stakes

I decided to treat this test like a monitor review. I am a bit of a monster about my monitors because they are so key to my productivity. The configuration of my current “main machine” is a 38-inch LG 38WR85QC-W, with two suspended side monitors, each lightweight 15-inchers.

Even the monitor in my second office, where I sometimes go to write when the “real” office is too noisy, has another 38-inch monitor, along with an old Apple 27-inch monitor as a supporting display.

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That’s partially why Apple’s original introduction of the 27-inch virtual monitor in VisionOS did nothing for me. Why would I tether a 27-inch virtual monitor to my Mac by slapping a brick onto my face, when I already have a perfectly comfy setup with a much bigger monitor?

The introduction of the VisionOS virtual wide-screen monitor allowed the Vision Pro to keep parity (sort of, because it doesn’t support side monitors) with my current setup. Of course, again, there’s the uncomfortable weight on my head, so maybe it’s useful if I have to spend an hour writing in the kitchen while the window guy (not the Windows guy) is putting in new windows in the office.

It all comes down to the ultra-wide screen virtual monitor. That could well be a value add to my productivity setup. With the amount of hours I work, I’m always looking for some kind of productivity benefit. Even if it involves grafting a $3,500 over-designed movie prop wannabe on my head, it might be worth it.

So there you have table stakes for this test. Can I derive productivity value with the ultra-wide screen monitor? Can I even use it? And, at the bare minimum for a test, can I write this article on it?

TL;DR: I did write this article on it.

Using a release candidate

I’m writing this using VisionOS 2.2 Release Candidate 2. You can get this by enabling beta downloads in the System Preferences General section. The final release of VisionOS 2.2 should be out sometime this month, but this gave me a head start so I could share my impressions with you.

Initially, I was able to get the Mac virtual display to show up, but only in the basic screen format. I wound up also having to update my Mac Studio to the Mac OS 15.2 Release Candidate to enable the multiple display configurations. If you don’t see this little menu at the top of your virtual screen, you’ll need to update.

Using the Standard Display

Using the Standard Display virtual display on the Vision Pro was a fine experience — except for the heavy headset pressing into my forehead and the inability to take sips from my coffee cup.

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When I first began using this display, the Displays control panel on MacOS had my resolution set to 1920×1080. I adjusted it to the default of 2560×1440, which is also quite readable. I found that the 5120×2880 display option listed as a default was blurry and completely unreadable.

Using the Wide Display

Switching to the Wide Display changed my resolution to 3360×1440. I found the default resolution usable for most things, but difficult to read. For example, I couldn’t actually read the resolutions on the Display control panel when I was in 5040×2160 mode. I had to switch back to 3360×1400 to read the resolution options.

This virtual display is nearly identical to my real-world LG 38-inch wide display. It was functional, but I did lose the two side monitors I have when I use my physical wide display.

Using the Ultra Wide Display

The Ultra Wide Display is also quite usable, but I did find its virtual edges conflicted a bit with my physical side monitor when in passthrough mode. Here, I found myself still using the x1440 vertical resolution, although I did take advantage of the much wider display.

As a trick, I tried the 10240×2880 resolution, just to be able to someday tell my granddogs that I used a monitor with more than 10K pixels across. But, to be fair, I used it for just as long as it took to type this sentence. Readable? It was not.

With the Ultra Wide Display in passthrough, I was able to see my keyboard, mouse, and Elgato Stream Deck. But I wanted to see what the experience was like using one of the environments.

Unfortunately, there’s no environmental cutout for a keyboard or other desktop devices when in a custom environment. I can touch type, but I’m not able to see the keyboard while typing this — although I can see my hands.

It was also interesting, because I wanted to reach for my AirPods Pro 2, but couldn’t see them. I had to enable passthrough using the digital crown to find them.

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Connecting them was also a bit confusing. I expected to be able to connect them to my Mac, since I was using the Mac. But since they were already bound to the Vision Pro, it took priority. I got my Mac’s sound via the Vision Pro, and then via the AirPods Pro 2 bound to that Vision Pro. Still, it worked.

Then I launched Final Cut Pro, my video editing application of choice. I spend a lot of time in Final Cut each week. Screen real estate is super-important when video editing because you have to work between many different control and viewing panes.

It honestly took some getting used to. Having the timeline stretch ultra-wide was glorious. But the placement of the browser, preview, scopes, and control panes took a little while to dial in. Most of the time, I think my physical wide-screen monitor will be fine. But I can certainly see where having that extra wide timeline for editing complex videos might sometimes mean everything to productivity in certain projects.

The same is true for research. I can easily put three side-by-side windows on my 38-inch display. That’s why I bought it — because I do a lot of side-by-side research while writing. But the extra width on the Vision Pro Ultra Wide virtual display allows for four windows (or five, if I squish some of them). That can be a major benefit for some projects where I’m comparing a ton of sources against each other.

Overall Vision Pro experience

Normally, when using the Vision Pro, its unique immersive experience is the star of the show. It’s all about the Vision Pro. But when using Mac virtual displays, it’s your work productivity on the Mac that’s the raison d’être of the experience. The Vision Pro is, quite literally, a peripheral.

And, the overall Mac experience is just so-so. I’ll enumerate the annoyances I found, mostly in order of when I experienced them.

To be able to get the most out of my Vision Pro, I had to customize its assistive features. One feature I rely upon is the little blue assistive cursor. Usually, VisionOS just slightly brightens or dims whatever you’re looking at and about to select. I find that very difficult to use, so I turned on the little round blue cursor. It helps a lot.

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I also turned on wrist tracking rather than eye tracking. I have eyes that VisionOS finds very difficult to track, but once I turned on wrist tracking (using my wrist as my pointing device), VisionOS became much more cooperative.

Unfortunately, the little blue circle assistive cursor doesn’t work when selecting a screen type. The cursor is visible until it gets close to the screen-type menu. Then it goes away.

As it turns out, I wound up having to turn off the assistive cursor entirely. That’s because my wrist moves as I type. It moves a lot. That, in turn, made the little blue cursor bounce all over the place, which was incredibly distracting. When I turned the assistive cursor off, I lost a feature I relied upon, but gained the ability to type on the Mac’s virtual screen without all the bouncing.

After about two hours of dedicated Mac use inside the Vision Pro, my head hurt. It wasn’t just a normal headache, although I had one of those, too. But my forehead area over the frontal skull bones really ached after a few hours. My eyes also felt quite strained.

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I have one more complaint. It’s a minor one, but with a company of Apple’s size and resources, it shouldn’t be something I have to discuss. Why are there so few virtual environments? There are a ton of great coffee shops around Cupertino. You’re telling me Apple couldn’t send a film crew out for an afternoon to capture one? A nice library? Even a nice office on campus? C’mon Apple, get out there and add some environments.

Returning to the Mac

As far as the Mac is concerned, the Vision Pro is just another monitor. When you enable virtual displays on the Vision Pro, the Mac interprets that action as connecting to another monitor. The only difference is that the Mac no longer recognizes the additional monitors connected to the system. All you have is the Vision Pro.

When you disconnect the Vision Pro’s virtual monitor, the Mac interprets that as removing the monitor. The problem is, the Mac does not handle this gracefully — or at least it doesn’t on a machine with multiple monitors.

Coming back to my desktop leaves my Mac in a bizarre state. The main screen is off, and everything is squeezed on the small vertical screen to its right.

On that small vertical screen, there’s a mirror setting dialog.

Clicking it provides another mirror dialog, this time to enable my main screen to be mirrored. To be clear, I don’t want my main screen to be mirrored, but this is the path that I have to take to get my computer back to functioning order.

At this point, all three screens were arranged incorrectly. Just finding my cursor was interesting, because it jumped from one display to another, but not the one you’d expect from their physical arrangement.

So, then I had to go into Displays and reset both the arrangement of the screens and all their resolutions. Because the screens were all mirroring each other, all the application windows were moved to one screen. So once the arrangement and resolutions of the various displays are restored to their correct settings, it’s time to corral all the windows and applications and move them back to their correct screens.

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The process involves a bunch of clicks, and is both confusing and annoying. Worse, you have to do this every single time you exit using the Vision Pro as a virtual display.

Get BetterDisplay

Fortunately, there appears to be a solution. I’ve only tried this a few times on my own configuration, so I can’t promise it will work for you, but it’s got potential.

There’s an app called BetterDisplay that you can download from GitHub. There is a $20 pro version, but as best as I can tell, the feature I’m going to suggest to you works in the free download.

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Once you install BetterDisplay, it will give you the option to control your monitors. There are a lot of options.

Make sure your monitors are set up exactly as you’d like them. Click into the settings panel (the little gear way at the bottom of the menubar menu). Then click on Groups. Create and enable a group.

Notice the option that says “Activate this display group when” and then “All configured group member displays are connected.”

Here’s what happens (I think). When you use the virtual display on the Vision Pro, your Mac thinks there’s now only one display. But when you take the Vision Pro off and return to the Mac, then all your displays (in my case there are three) are connected, which causes the group to activate, and reset the display configurations.

No guarantee, but it seems like BetterDisplay may fix the biggest pain point (apart from the one on your forehead) of using the Vision Pro as a virtual monitor for your Mac.

What’s it all mean?

Using a 27-inch virtual display on a Vision Pro isn’t all that interesting. But when you can use it as a wide-screen or ultra-wide-screen display, this feature becomes a killer app. There is no doubt there were times in my life when this capability alone would have been worth every bit of the $3,500 the Vision Pro cost.

While laptops help make you mobile, the kind of work I do requires big screens and lots of screen real estate. Working just on a MacBook Pro screen is productivity-sapping.

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I can see this as a huge benefit to people traveling. During my move to Oregon, when I was cobbling together screens to keep up with work while traveling and moving in, the Vision Pro would have been a massive boon. I also spent the better part of three years commuting three hours each way down to my parents during their end-of-life period when they needed my help and I had to simultaneously keep up with work. Again, the Vision Pro would have made it possible to keep up with my work while helping at their home (and even in the lobby of the care facilities I spent so much time visiting).

Apple makes some incredible mainstream computers for the rest of us. But to support a platform where professionals need to get certain jobs done, the company has, for years, provided pro-level tools. The $6,000-$52,000 Intel Mac Pro made sense to certain professionals with certain workloads. Likewise, the $6,000 Pro Display XDR serves a purpose for those professionals who need its capabilities.

While some are skeptical of these expensive devices, most people understand that very high-end gear has a place in the professional world.

The problem with the Vision Pro, when it launched, was that it was hard to find a compelling application for the device. When the biggest value was entertainment, the cost of the thing at $3,500 was pretty excessive. But as a productivity device, as a tool that lets you take your ultra-wide screen display everywhere you go, it’s a killer app. With that capability, the Vision Pro can be more than justified, at least for a certain set of pros who know what they need to get their jobs done.

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It’s just a shame Apple didn’t prioritize for this functionality. The device had to incur a year and a half of mediocre, bemused, and ridiculing publicity because there was no good reason to spend so much on a novelty.

Now, there is a compelling reason for this device. You know who you are. You know if you need this. And if you do, you really do. Now, the Vision Pro is a workhorse. Now, it makes sense. Any other immersive VR features or spatial computing whatevers are mere gravy.

This feature needs some work. It needs to return to the Mac with less disruption. It needs to allow non-Apple keyboards and other interface devices to be seen through VR environments. It needs more virtual environments. Eventually, it needs to get lighter. But even as it stands, right now, this one feature fully justifies the cost to a certain category of professional customer.

That’s big. That’s new for the Vision Pro. It’s also promising.

What do you think? Are you someone who could truly benefit from a big virtual display anywhere you go? Do you use a big physical display for your job? Do you own a Vision Pro? A Meta Quest? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

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