Almost-blind man shocked after Apple Vision Pro helps him see
Apple's new augmented and virtual reality headset has been in people's hands for a couple of weeks now, getting big reactions from almost everyone who tries it.
One less obvious use for the headset has been pointed out this week, though, by blind TikTok user James Rath.
He went into an Apple Store to try on the Vision Pro in a guided setting, something that anyone can do at their local store by making an online booking.
He discovered that the Vision Pro could be a more impressive accessibility tool than you might first assume, one that radically changed his ability to perceive the world around him.
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Rath is partially sighted and can see things blurrily but without definition unless they're incredibly close to his face. As he explained in his video talking about the experience, Vision Pro sits directly in front of his eyes and has video passthrough, effectively bringing everything it sees way closer to him.
This meant that during his demo Rath could see way better than he's used to, not just the windows and apps that the Vision Pro was running, but also just his surroundings in the store.
From there, he quickly explored some of the accessibility settings that the Vision Pro comes with, something that many creators using it haven't really addressed. He used a zoom tool to magnify his windows to the right level, which immediately made them even easier to read.
There are clearly multiple ways to control this zoom level, too, including by turning the headset's Digital Crown, which is handy.
Rath then used a setting to help with the headset's eye-tracking. This is in some ways a fundamental selling point for the Vision Pro, but Rath suffers from a condition called Nystagmus, which causes his eyes to move a lot involuntarily, messing up that tracking quite consistently.
Thankfully, a setting lets you track your movements by other methods, from moving your head to using just your hands, making the headset completely useable even without its eye-tracking features.
Unsurprisingly, the comments under Rath's video are full of impressed reactions, with one user saying: "I never even considered this, honestly it’s a better sales pitch for these devices than anything else I’ve seen. Get that ad revenue and get one!".
Another enthusiastic comment reads, "wait that's so cool I didn't even think about it being an accessibility tool!"
It's clear that Apple has done some impressive work on accessibility with the Vision Pro, then - it'll be interesting to observe whether it takes some time to boast about it down the line, as it typically does for safety features on the likes of the Apple Watch.