Apple Vision Pro and the importance of tinkering

I am preemptively disappointed by the Apple Vision Pro. Not because it isn’t an absolute marvel of engineering, but because of what its operating system affords user to do.

For a while I have been reading the book The Innovators by Walter Isaacson, which goes into depth on the history of the personal computer and development of the internet. One thing that was common throughout the majority of the founders of these tech companies was that they grew up tinkering with hardware and later software.

As I have experienced this tendency in myself while I was younger (around 12, which translates to around 2012) to start tinkering with computers, I think this is absolutely crucial in the development of a young mind to become fluent in working with these machines.

However, being raised many years later than these later to be entrepreneurs of the bay area, I grew up with software and devices that were much more closed off and user friendly.

I created incredible things with computers, but was always working at an abstraction level slightly higher than what would have been ideal to truly grasp the workings of computers.

Now that I’m a bit older (23) and finally took the plunge from the safe environment of games and game engines to the “scary” C++ without abstractions, I realise how much quicker I could have developed if I hadn’t been so spoiled with closed of devices such as iPads and game consoles.

I feel like I broke free.

iPadOS-ified #

The operating system of the Apple Vision Pro is a glorified version of iPadOS, which hides away so much of what a computer is able to do and how it works, that if a new generation of children get exposed to these types of devices, they won’t be able to tinker, explore and learn.

These devices are glorified app and game launchers, with at most a dumbed down controlled environment, perfectly didactically responsible, “Swift Playgrounds”. Children need to tinker with software. Break things apart. They need to see what makes it tick.

I’m not asking for an unsafe, unpleasant to use operating system. I’m asking for the openness of macOS, on the Apple Vision Pro.

XR devices should be general purpose computers #

We should treat XR and spatial computing devices as general purpose computers. Not as glorified game and app launchers. It will increase productivity and enable children to become the next wave of entrepreneurs.