I will confess that when Apple introduced its mixed-reality Vision Pro headsets on Monday, one of my first thoughts was: Man, that thing looks weird.

I was not alone. On social media, the reaction to the Vision Pro was less than kind. Sceptics mocked the device’s snowboard-goggle-like appearance, its steep price tag – US$3,500 (S$4,719) and Apple’s lofty pitch about the “spatial computing” era its arrival heralded. There were comparisons to the robot WALL-E, and Twitter memes about people watching pornography in virtual reality (VR).