Picked up mine yesterday afternoon. The first Apple person that I spoke to in the store didn’t really know what to do, scanned my QR code three times, and then went to consult someone. They then located one of the people who were trained in demos and I sat down with them. They were incredibly helpful!
They took my glasses and scanned them after first cleaning them with some lens wipes. They then got me to re-measure my face with my own iPhone. This was interesting as you scan a QR code on the Apple persons device, this then opens up the Apple Store app and tge measurement application. After you do this it then creates a new QR code on your own phone, and the Apple person scans this, and then someone prepares a demo AVP for you. The Apple guy was at great pains to stress this was so they both have no knowledge of my facial measurements or the extent of my eye prescription - both of which I wouldn’t care about (but I understand their position as it’s health information and is therefore sensitive personal information under GDPR).
The demo was impressive, especially in the well lit environment of the Apple Store (I found the pass through very sharp, but when I got home especially in the lower light my own unit was less so).
You do a brief setup for hand tracking and eye tracking and then the Apple person will take you through a few things. They asked what I was most interested in (cinema and video) so after doing some basic stuff around basic controls, photos, we concentrated on that.
The demo photos were really impressive - both the panoramas and the spatial pictures and videos. Having got home, I can confirm your own panoramas work equally as well, as did some spacial video that my brother shot at a family event a couple of weeks on his iPhone (he knew I was getting one of these). Can’t wait to see the spacial feature coming in 2.0. I’ve also looked at some older panoramas I have in my photos from much older iPhones and they also continue to look great.
We demo’ed cinema mode which was good - I put myself on the balcony and genuinely got a feeling of height! We then also looked at the immersive video demo. I’ve since done this again at home and I think the streaming video now is a little different - I’m a big NFL fan and there is stuff in there from the Chiefs Super Bowl win that I definitely would have remembered if it were in the store version.
After completing the demo we chatted for a bit while someone got my actual unit. They were really interested in whether I was likely to use this for business use (the answer being no - hardly anyone I work with knows what an AVP is and we are issued bog standard HP laptops!). We also discussed cases - I’ve already bought the Spigen case but he got me to open up and look at the Apple one. I got the impression that they are being monitored quite carefully doing these demos to ensure they cover these things (he also noted that when I was demoing I had the nose flap down (which I was fine with for the demo) but he noted that while i was in the immersive environments two of his colleagues had been gesturing to him to suggest I sort that out!!
Setup at home was easy - I put my own lenses in and the setup was straightforward. It took a few attempts to recognise the QR code but once it got there the setup is simple and intuitive. It’s slightly longer than the demo setup in store. Most of the rest of the setup is identical to setup of any other Apple product. Sync to iCloud was incredibly fast so my own photos were there and ready almost immediately, as were emails, iMessage etc etc.
I downloaded Disney Plus and tried a few 3D movies which are really impressive. I have seen a number of these films in the cinema in 3D but the colour was so much more vibrant without cinema 3D glasses. After the flop of 3D TV this is certainly the future of 3D home viewing I think.
Overall I am incredibly impressed. This genuinely feels like something new. To the extent I realised I’d spent a load of time just scrolling through emails - something I would never do on my phone!
Only downside at the moment is the lack of support for some key apps for me - Sky Go and BBC iplayer. Iplayer on the web looks fine and you can pop it out, but there’s no solution for sky.
Am looking forward this afternoon to trying it out for a longer session with the tennis on!
