If you’re someone who consumes online media, and it’s probably fair to say that you are since you’re reading this, you’ve probably read a thing or a few about the Apple Vision Pro headset. [Ed Note: Apple prefers the device simply be called “Apple Vision Pro,” no “the,” but we don’t care.] Apple is marketing this thing as bringing humanity a touch closer to science fiction. We’re not quite at the level of Ready Player One yet, but some are hailing the $3,499 device as the best consumer-grade headset on the market. Now, thanks to the Apple Vision Pro, you can turn mundane tasks like doing the laundry into something filled with apps and such floating in your vision. Still, that’s a lot of money. Would you spend $3,500 on the Vision Pro or on a car or motorcycle? How would you spend that cash, if that’s your choice?
I’m equal parts fascinated and a bit hesitant. Imagine being able to fix your motorcycle while having the instructions or the service manual right there in your “vision,” like so. That’s great! Then, I think about all of the recent viral videos and articles about people driving cars and flying planes while wearing these things. At first, that sounds exciting. I mean, what if a pilot had ForeFlight right there without having to mess around with an iPhone or iPad screen? That’s neat! Then I remember that these are still VR goggles and the world you’re seeing through them is just a video feed.
If something glitches out while you’re fixing your car, that’s not a super big deal. But, if the device conks out while you’re driving or worse, trying to land a plane? Oh that can go south pretty fast. So, I don’t recommend operating a vehicle while wearing these unless it’s low stakes like a Honda Motocompacto or something.
At the same time, $3,499 is a lot of money. Where I live, that can buy you a fantastic Buell motorcycle, a daily driver condition Audi TT, or an entire running and riding Suzuki RE-5. Or sure, a very nice Dodge Omni, if that’s your thing.
I couldn’t tell you the exact car I’d buy with this money, because there’s only one of them for sale right now for about this price. But I will suggest other cars. You could buy and then import a rough, but running kei truck from Japan for about $3,500. You can buy an old crapbox Volkswagen Golf GTI, a first-generation Honda Insight, or a massive Honda VTX1800 cruiser.
Speaking of bikes, just open up Facebook or Craigslist in your local area, set vehicle type to “motorcycle,” and start cruising. There are lots of interesting bikes to be had in that range from Royal Enfields and Honda Groms to the occasional Harley. Here’s a 2006 Harley-Davidson V-Rod (above), one of the coolest motorcycles Harley has ever built, for $4,000. It’s been for sale for 13 weeks. I bet the seller would take $3,500 or something pretty close to it.
If you look hard enough, there are some $3,500 deals out there. So, lay it down for me. If you had $3,500 to spend right now, would you buy an Apple Vision Pro, spend it on a car or bike, or something else?
If I could find a super clean Ominrizon with the 2.2 I’d buy it in a heartbeat.
100% I’d buy a motorcycle.
$3500 is right around what I like to spend on a bike, including parts to fix it up.
Doing all the wrenching myself and being thrift with parts, I’ve had great luck getting old bikes running reliably for about that much.
I have two in the stable right now, both around that price range.
2006 Suzuki GS500. Bought for about $1800 4 years ago. Put about another $1000 into it to refresh the rubber bits and a few cosmetic fixes. It’s been a great touring and commuting machine since then.
1996 Honda XR400R. Bought for $700 2 years ago. Was hoping for a cheap dirt bike. I couldn’t leave well enough alone and have rebuilt almost everything on it. Even with a top end engine rebuild, I’ve spent around $4000 additionally on it. At this point, I’m over the $3500 mark, but I got a full season of riding out of it after spending about that much money on it.
You can get a solid,fun motorcycle for $3500
Let’s assume that $3,500 has to be spent on something frivolous as opposed to going to savings, paying down debt, etc. because yeah, that’d be my priority.
I’m betting $3,500 would cover the headliner and door panel repair on my GTO and get rubber back on the factory rims.
My daughter has a Meta Quest 2 VR headset. I’m okay with the games that are stationary, like Beat Saber. But introduce ANY kind of movement and I’m incredibly nauseous within a minute. I’d be worried that any VR experience worth having would just make me ill.
Of course, the Quest 2 was $300, not $3500.
The Vision Pro looks cool (well, not on you — the experience looks cool, the headset looks silly). I’ll take the money, provided that I can spend it on my existing fleet.
Eh, I’m definitely a tech enthusiast so I won’t say I’m not interested in the Vision Pro, but also, literally the only business I do or have ever done with Apple pertains to iTunes, and I dunno how comfortable I actually would be giving them my money for any hardware.
But yes, something like “instructions for repairing your vehicle” does sound like an amazing use case in the future.
But at this point, I really don’t know what I’d do with that kind of money. Probably too little to buy a fully functioning car, and I’m not a project car kinda guy.
My trash-picked LCD monitor and my 4-year-old retired HP laptop make for a wonderful machine to bring up the PDF version of the FSM, as well as YouTube videos, and sits literally within arm’s reach of my “repair bay” in my garage.
I’ll gladly save $3500 for the “inconvenience” of not having it strapped to my face.
I mean, if the headset option means I don’t have to turn to a computer to reference every other step (or to play the next 10 seconds of a YouTube video, etc.), I’d still see it as a process improvement. I wouldn’t like to get the keyboard/mouse dirty while working, either. Although then again, not like the headset wouldn’t be at risk for getting dirty, too…
Still, if future iterations are thinner, I don’t see why it wouldn’t be a benefit in many fields.
With proper development and testing, it’d be cool to see things like surgery made more accessible because the parts and instructions are labeled. “Cut here.” Suddenly it could be a matter of just needing steady hands and the ability to follow directions, rather than however many years of medical school.
That’s obviously overly optimistic for right now, but that could be a future sort of ideal. Obviously the stakes are mostly lower for car repairs.
I can always put a membrane cover over the keyboard, and I generally have an infinite supply of free mice.
Meanwhile in my infinite clumsiness I would find a way to face plant into the intake manifold while wearing a Vision Pro, and shatter the crap out of it. and my nose.
I’d get my Honda ruckus!
08 volvo v70 brown so it has an automatic, I’ll cope
> a very nice Dodge Omni
Those don’t exist. The Omni was a suppurating fistula on America’s taint. $3.50 for one is too much money. $3,500 is reason enough to call a 5150 on the seller.
I love small-cc motorcycles and scoots so I’d just buy a 5th bike.
I’ll take the car. Any car as long as it’s exactly $3500. Then I can sell it, get a Pimax Crystal which is half the price of the Apple headset and better, and put the extra money into sprucing up the MR2.
Pretty sure no one has chosen the Apple Vision Pro…everyone here has good taste in cars
Dammit, you HAD to made me go look for Datsun pickups again, and now I’m enamored with this Wrigley chewing gum colored cutie. Maybe I could tow it home behind this eggplant D21.
Car 100% I already have a VR headset, so I know I’m not really interested in Apple’s take on VR/AR. $3500 would buy a project MG or something like that, I’m way more interested in that path than driving down the interstate while I watch youtube videos.
A cursory search of Facebook Marketplace within 40 miles of my location for cars and trucks priced between $2800-$4000 with less than 150,000 miles turned up:
– A loaded 129k-mile 2001 Grand Cherokee for $3900
– A sweet 1994 Buick Roadmaster sedan with 115k miles for $4000
– Multiple solid Panthers, including a swanky 1997 Town Car
– A 120k-mile 2006 Acura TL with a new engine for $2800
– A clean 2003 Xterra for $3500
– An impossibly clean 1995 Thunderbird with the 4.6 V8 and 88k miles for $2999
– A 2006 fleet-spec 128k-mile Corolla with a 5-speed for $3850
And that’s where I stopped looking on page 2 of 7.
If you made me this offer six times in a row, I would buy all six of these cars. Any of them would add more real value and enjoyment to my life than any product Apple has ever made, with the exception of the iPod.