https://1ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.vanityfair.com%2Fnews%2Ftim-cook-apple-vision-pro

Disturbingly Woke Atlantic magazine often does great work in non-political areas, and this longish article/review of Apple's new face-hugger is excellent. In the last section, author Nick Bilton describes the main "glaring problem" he sees with the device: Addiction

“I’m sure the technology is terrific. I still think and hope it fails,” says one Silicon Valley investor. “Apple feels more and more like a tech fentanyl dealer that poses as a rehab provider.”

In the middle of my DJ set, an Apple employee said it was time to wrap up. I took the Apple Vision Pro off, and that’s when it hit me. The problem. It happened again at home, scrolling through the spatial videos I’ve taken of my kids over the last few weeks, seeing them as if they’re actually in front of me. And it’s going to happen in a few minutes, when I finish writing this article and the Word document in front of me the size of an IMAX screen goes away.

When I take it off, every other device feels flat and boring: My 75-inch OLED TV feels like a CRT from the ’90s; my iPhone feels like a flip phone from yesteryear, and even the real world around me feels surprisingly flat. And this is the problem. In the same way that I can’t imagine driving a car without a stereo, in the same way I can’t imagine not having a phone to communicate with people or take pictures of my children, in the same way I can’t imagine trying to work without a computer, I can see a day when we all can’t imagine living without an augmented reality. When we’re enveloped more and more by technology, to the point that we crave these glasses like a drug, like we crave our iPhones today but with more desire for the dopamine hit this resolution of AR can deliver.

I know deep down that the Apple Vision Pro is too immersive, and yet all I want to do is see the world through it. “I’m sure the technology is terrific. I still think and hope it fails,” one Silicon Valley investor said to me. “Apple feels more and more like a tech fentanyl dealer that poses as a rehab provider.” Harsh words, but he feels what we all feel, a slave to our smartphone, and he’s seen this play before and he knows what the first act is like, and the second act, and he knows how it ends.

. . . The question is, is the place we’re about to go, into the era of spatial computing, going to make our lives better, or will it become the next technology that becomes a necessity, where we can’t live in a world that’s not augmented? I think Joswiak had it half right when he said, ​​*“It feels like we’ve reached into the future and grabbed this product. You’re putting the future on your face.”* I think it’s the other way around. Apple is taking us into the future, into a new era of computing. Some of us are running as fast as we can to get there, and others are being dragged, kicking and screaming. But we’re all going. We’re going to the moon, and we’re going to look around at the ghostly luminescence of ancient dust under a black, star-studded sky, and we’ll just know that this is the future of computing and entertainment and apps and memories, and that this apparatus wrapped around our head will change everything.