Cruise Vacation with Apple Vision Pro
And it was wonderful …
I brought my Apple Vision Pro (AVP) on my cruise vacation from Singapore to Phuket for over 3 nights. This is with the 1.3 Vision OS for AVP. I brought the AVP in a nice carrier bag. You may find more information about the accessories I have for AVP here.
Traveling by ship is going to be different when compared with by air, bus, or rail. AVP has a travel mode that you can set if you are not stationary; you might be seated but where you are is moving. This is necessary as any application windows you open in AVP remember their position relative to you at the time of opening them. And if you were to move away, the windows would still stay at the same positions. So, if you are on a ship, when the ship is moving, your opened windows will simply disappear (or float away depending on the speed of your ship). The difference in using the travel mode on air, bus/rail, or ship is the break in the movement. For air, once travel starts, it only ends when the plane reaches the destination. For bus/rail, the movement starts and stops at each bus/rail stop. For ships, the stops are much further apart. So, you would need to change the travel mode whenever the movement changes if you want the windows to stay at the same place.
Network connectivity is also a very important consideration. It is best that you download all the content you need on your trip. For me, I downloaded many Apple TV+ content before departure. Online connectivity by Wifi would depend on your cruise operator. In my case, there are two subscriptions available from my cruise at a pretty high cost (about S$33 for 4 days of use for the standard option per device) and about $50 for the premium option per device). I chose the standard option which cannot even deliver smooth YouTube video streaming. I suppose the ship is using some kind of satellite transmission and hence is costly. I have to switch my Wifi connection between my AVP and iPhone.
Here is a photo taken with the AVP. This image is converted from its 3D version originally captured in the AVP. You take a 3D photo using the buttons on the AVP (press the Top button to open the Capture application which supports both still 3D image and video recording). It is kind of difficult to focus using your eye/head when taking the shot. This is taken at a cafe lounge facing the bow (front) of the ship at the highest level. If you were to view the recorded image in AVP, it would look the same as if you were wearing the AVP and looking at the exact location. That’s how amazing the 3D photos can be. I do not have an iPhone 15 Pro so I could not take pictures with that for comparison.
You can also do a screen capture looking through the AVP (pressing both the Top button and Digital Crown) but the 3D photo is better.
Here is another 3D picture of the same lounge looking towards the port (left) side of the ship. So, despite the constant movement of the ship, you can still take reasonably good shots.
Here is another image taken at an acrobat performance in a theatre. Since there is no zoom lens on the AVP, it is not ideal to take moments like this. I have recorded 3D videos with the AVP as well, but they cannot be readily shared here as the video image format is not supported. The video also appears pretty small (for the two performers) but when viewed in AVP, it still looks pretty good.
Here is an image captured at one of the many restaurants on the ship. This 2D version certainly does not do justice to viewing it in the AVP.
Although the cruise provides many interesting recreational activities (swimming, table tennis, rope climbing, etc.), due to the high cost of AVP, it does not merit using AVP in those activities. Most of my time was spent watching movies in the AVP, catching up on the internet, writing medium.com articles (I brought a portable keyboard for AVP), eating and dining, walking around the ship, and of course sleeping. AVP has been proven to be a great content consumption and work device; I no longer need my iPad and laptop when I travel.
