Apple announced the Vision Pro mixed reality headset back in June of 2023 before making it available for preorder on January 19. It's now available for sale as of February 2, and those who were able to place an order quickly have already received their headsets. Those people have been reporting on the internet and social media as to how their first few days of Vision Pro usage have gone.
While there have been plenty of success stories and we've seen some truly impressive use of the headset in videos posted online, it's fair to say that the Vision Pro's launch hasn't been flawless. As is often the case with brand new products, especially ambitious entries into new product categories, the Vision Pro has had its fair share of bugs specifically relating to its new visionOS software.
A number of posts on social media and elsewhere show that the Vision Pro has a number of bugs currently, although it isn't always clear whether these people are using the visionOS 1.0 software that the Vision Pro shipped with or the updated visionOS 1.0.1 software that is already available.
Time to squash some bugs
The first report of notable Vision Pro bugs that I saw came from Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. Writing on the X social network Gurman said "The Vision Pro software makes the device the buggiest first-gen Apple product I’ve used," adding that "Some things don’t work properly or consistently."
There was good news though — Gurman believes that "software updates will need to come more rapidly and often than on prior products. And when they do, I believe it’ll be incredible."
This mirrors similar reports on Reddit with one user outlining six individual bugs that they are dealing with. Those bugs include windows that cannot be closed unless they are forced to quit while others seem downright infuriating. "On Safari I'm browsing a forum and making a post, during the typing on a physical magic keyboard, when I press "enter" to change line, Safari will automatically switch to another tab, I have to manually switch back," the Vision Pro owner says. Other examples include Safari refusing to open websites and then seemingly fixing itself "automatically."
Another Vision Pro owner posted to say that system updates keep failing with no indication as to why, suggesting they're still using visionOS 1.0. They also report that the Mindfulness app refuses to launch while downloads from the App Store "stall and won’t complete their installation."
One notable bug suggests that visionOS might have an issue that causes the headset to struggle after being used for a long period of time. "The system massively slows down after using it for about 4 hours," the Reddit poster says. "Feels like a memory leak."
The good news is that none of these issues sound like hardware problems which means that a future visionOS software update should improve matters. We don't know when we should expect visionOS updates to be released, however.
It's important to note that the majority of early experiences I've seen have been largely positive and people who spent at least $3,499 on their Vision Pro seem to be happy with their lot. Now we wait to see what Apple announces at WWDC in June with the possibility that yet more new features could be unveiled ahead of a likely September visionOS 2.0 release.
