Sean Everett, who builds AR for Fortune 500 companies, finally tried the Vision Pro and watched a spatial video of strangers playing in a field. It made him cry. He thinks authentic spatial video, not cartoon metaverse stuff, could be social computing's killer app by letting people feel genuinely connected to each other's real lives.
Okay, so I just left the Apple Store and it's December 2025. And isn't it funny that it took me this long to get, to get my first demo of the Apple Vision Pro, even though I was working on an industrial AR device almost 8 years ago? So, um, yeah, why? I guess we should probably cover that. Why? Because I get it in my mind's eye. So the real question then is like, after I did the demo, what was different than my expectation given I have helped like build some of this technology and also commercialize it and take it to market and get adoption by industrial enterprises that are Fortune 500 companies? The immersive video is super cool. You feel like you're there, a sport match, a concert, you're inside the movie. That's cool. Like moving the windows, you sort of like get it before you even do a demo. But the thing where I actually felt an emotional response, where I was a hairline away from crying, was when I saw the Uh, spatial video of a woman and her child playing in a field with bubbles and you were there. And it, it literally grabbed my heart out of my chest immediately and I had to make a concerted effort. I mean, all this stuff happened absolutely instantaneously, but I had to make an effort to stop myself from crying. Like, it was a real emotional resonant response. I didn't even know these people, like they weren't even my family, they weren't like even the same culture as me and yet I felt connected in a way as if they were my family. That's insane! That is one of the most powerful mechanics, soulful connection points. Everybody on this planet is looking for connection whether they realize it or not, whether they're saying it or not. Humans, animals, we need to connect with each other and one another. So the fact that I connected with complete strangers to the point where I felt like they were my family immediately, that like, that, that, that's hard to understate. You don't— I, I couldn't have concepted that in my mind's eye. And that's kind of what I was looking for. And one of the reasons I waited so long to do the demo, because I wanted the software to be far enough along. I wanted the M5 chip in there. I wanted the field of view to be wide enough, and I just wanted it to be at a space. And I felt like with iOS 26 that they updated, the new M5 chip in there, and then, you know, it's also funny I did this on a Monday morning. After getting a haircut and getting a recommendation for a peanut mocha latte, which is interesting but also really good. And then I ran into this woman and we started talking about psychedelics and like pulling back the veneer like randomly. So that was crazy. Anyways, this, this connection point is really strong. I mean, this was This was the essence of why we built Story App in the first place and came up with this, like, stories mechanic. It was to connect with other people. And so given our world, our society needs to pass this great filter and we don't blow each other up in this debate about AI, like, is it going to blow us up? Like, the fact that we could connect with humans of different cultures, different languages, different times, right? Which is also super interesting. Like, given this is 100 years in the future and you're like connecting with your ancestors from the past, like, that's wild. And the social networks, like, they've lost this soul. They lost it a long time ago. It's just monetize ads and like just dial up engagement to a certain level where it doesn't turn into spam. Just right below that level where we're still optimizing growth and monetization, but not enough where people reject it because of the sugar high. This, I think, is, um, this is the, the killer app. If Excel was the killer app for desktop computers and Instagram and Facebook were the killer app and Uber of the mobile phone, and, um, the health tracking was the killer app for the watch, I think human connection may actually be the killer app for spatial computing, AR, VR, multiverse, et cetera. And you have to have realistic imagery. It has to be as close to real life as possible. You can't do this cartoony stuff. I mean, maybe, but even watching the movie, Didn't give me the same impact. It has to be real life. So, um, I'm in my car right now, so you're probably— I don't know if you're hearing like me driving and turn signals and whatever, but I think it has to be real life. I think that's why this multiverse like Facebook thing just fricking flopped and it just looks stupid. And like, yeah, Roblox and Minecraft and everything, there's a space for that, but You're not going to get that emotional, instantaneous emotional hug and connection point to the point where you're at tears instantaneously. Not after taking you through a story and like a love of a character and rooting for them instantaneously, real life, in a real life situation that you can relate to and connect to. Like something, something about it. So then the question remains, What is the application for that? And I, I'm hard-pressed. I don't want to say it's social media as we've defined it in the past. I hope it's not. I think you need to rethink it from the ground up, and I think it needs to be centered around this emotional connection between individuals, um, and animals and the earth and just nature in general. So that is, that is the key finding, and we'll see how this plays out over time. All right, that's it. Sean Everett signing out. Peace.
