On Feb. 2, Dr. Aarish Syed Ishaqi arrived at the Apple store on New York’s Fifth Avenue early in the morning—around 5:30 a.m.—to pick up the much-anticipated Apple Vision Pro.
Ishaqi, a self-described “crazy Apple fan” and small shareholder in the company, had preordered the $3,500 mixed reality headset to add to his collection of Apple products. But he still wanted to be first in line to pick up the Vision Pro—and he was. Later that day, Ishaqi’s face would be plastered across the internet and TikTok as he emerged from the store with a big grin and a box, posing for photos and videos amid a cheering throng of Apple employees as he triumphantly held his trophy aloft.
“It was pretty surreal,” Ishaqi says, noting he met Apple CEO Tim Cook at the New York opening, his third encounter with the Apple boss in the past 12 months.
Cook has billed the Vision Pro as a “revolutionary device” in Apple’s product lineup. And while the company has explicitly kept expectations modest for this first version of the device, positioning it primarily as something for superfans and developers, Apple’s ultimate goal is for the Vision Pro to create an entirely new product category for its business, similar to the iPhone.
The big question is whether the Vision Pro will fare any better than past generations of virtual reality and mixed reality headsets, from Meta’s Quest 3 to the ill-fated Google Glass, which have struggled to catch on outside niche audiences such as gamers. Early reviews of the Vision Pro have marveled at its capabilities, but flagged shortcomings like the strain it can place on a wearer’s eyes and neck after long durations, and the limited number of apps currently available. Perhaps most worrisome for Apple are reports that many consumers have returned the Vision Pro after playing with it for a few days, deciding it wasn’t what they expected, or that it wasn’t worth the not-insignificant price they paid for it.
So Fortune tracked down the person who may be the most famous Vision Pro user: Ishaqi, the first person in New York to get his hands on the device and the unofficial poster boy for the Apple Vision Pro. What does he think of his purchase after several weeks? How often does he wear it? Has he returned it? Has it changed his life? His reality?
Here’s what Ishaqi told us.
He expected some hiccups with a first-generation product
Ishaqi, who lives in New Jersey, carted the device back for his whole family to try. (“It was a pretty heavy box,” he says.) His sister and both his parents all tried it on. His sister and mother, in particular, said they had a slight neck strain while wearing it, and Ishaqi agreed it is “a bit heavy.”
“The whole weight is on the front of your face. It’s unbalanced,” he said, though he noted it didn’t personally bother him much.
So far, Ishaqi has used the Vision Pro primarily for entertainment: to watch movies and play games like the immersive Synth Riders on Apple Arcade. Ishaqi describes using the device as similar to having your own “personal theater” with extraordinarily crisp imagery—although the battery life is limited (it has lasted him about three to four hours, he says, which he hopes will improve over time). His other main complaint was that the dark scenes in some movies he watched had a glare, with a reflection in the lenses.
“These are the downsides that I’ve seen,” he says, though he notes he expected some hiccups with a first-generation product and expects Apple will improve the device over time.
As a doctor doing oncology research and pursuing a medical career, Ishaqi is inspired by the potential he sees in certain medical applications, including Insight Heart and SurgicalAR Vision, which offer 3D medical animation technology.
“It is a first-gen product. So there are some quirks, but the potential is pretty crazy … It is a breakthrough in my opinion,” he says.
So was it worth it?
Ishaqi says he was a bit nervous that he wouldn’t like the Vision Pro technology. After all, he had tried on Meta’s Quest 3 headset, but struggled with distortion issues. He says his hands would become wavy through the lenses when he moved them up and down.
“It is a bit annoying,” Ishaqi says of the Quest. “With Apple, there was zero such issue.” Overall, he’s very impressed with the technology, compared with other headsets.
Still, Ishaqi admits that he uses his Vision Pro less frequently than anticipated. He didn’t expect it to be so heavy or to be so isolating. When there’s company over, Ishaqi says it feels odd wearing the headset even though a Vision Pro wearer can see everyone around them by adjusting the so-called passthrough feature. And using it in a public setting, like on the train or at the library, attracts stares—not least because of the in-the-air hand gestures involved.
“So far, I haven’t used it much,” Ishaqi told me. The Vision Pro is mostly strapped on and switched on for watching videos, which, he says, ends up being about one hour a day on average.
When I asked Ishaqi whether it was worth it, he said it depends.
“For someone like me? Yes,” he says. “But I don’t think someone really needs it. Like I said, it’s a great experience, but $4,000 just for movies—I think it is a bit much.”
If the technology becomes cheaper and lighter in the next few years, and as app developers continue to introduce more applications, Ishaqi says it will make more sense for the average consumer, and that “everyone’s going to have this,” he notes.
As an early adopter, Ishaqi has no plans to return the Vision Pro. He’s glad he bought it. And besides—the 14-day return window has lapsed.
More Apple Vision Pro coverage from Fortune:
A working parent’s review of the Apple Vision Pro
If Apple can’t make smart goggles happen, nobody can. So, what happens if Apple fails?
