[HN Gopher] A developer's view of Vision Pro
___________________________________________________________________
A developer's view of Vision Pro
Author : ingve
Score : 176 points
Date : 2023-06-12 17:31 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.david-smith.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.david-smith.org)
| zerr wrote:
| The name makes me remind Visual FoxPro.
| agentultra wrote:
| I'm curious how the economics work out. I don't think it's
| unrealistic to believe that the customer base that are going to
| be buying visionOS applications is going to be very limited
| compared to everything else. Very few people are going to shell
| out 3.4k for a niche product like this.
|
| HoloLens found it's niche in commercial sectors like
| manufacturing and logistics so there's a potential path to make a
| profitable software business in that direction.
|
| However I'm curious what makes this play exciting for indie
| developers who might not have enough cash for a "long play" here.
| For iOS it wasn't difficult to see what the benefit would be and
| iPad only expanded the audience (and breadth of applications
| having more power under the hood). This is quite a bit different:
| the technology has been here for a while but the audience seems
| to be missing (or not as big as you'd think).
|
| What's the play here for small businesses? Just use a portion of
| your budget to throw spaghetti at the wall?
| Krasnol wrote:
| Maybe this is supposed to become an arcade experience for those
| with normal wages?
| bee_rider wrote:
| I suspect the only play would be: develop developer tools for
| those developers who do have the budget for a long play.
|
| If Apple wants AR in their normal non-gaming, non-niche segment
| to work out, they are going to have to come out with a sleek
| $1000 device in a couple years. They'd have to be very stupid
| to not realize that, and it couldn't possibly be the case that
| you get a trillion dollars by being stupid, right?
| MBCook wrote:
| Don't forget the iPhone wasn't an instant hit. It got a lot
| of discussion but it took a few years/versions before it
| became THE phone. Same with the Apple Watch. And even the
| iPod didn't take off until it was on Windows after a few
| years.
|
| This will likely be similar.
|
| When the iPhone came out, not only was it limited it was $600
| and no subsidy at a time most people were getting free camera
| phones.
|
| It took a while (and a price drop) for people to see enough
| value to pay the price.
| greedo wrote:
| I don't expect the Vision devices to really drop much in
| price in the coming years. To lower costs, they'll have to
| go with lower quality displays, or cheaper cameras/sensors
| and less battery life.
|
| If you look at the iPhone, it hasn't gone down in price
| much if at all.
|
| I think we're at least 5 years away in terms of tech
| capability to provide the level of experience Apple is
| looking for at an "SE iPhone" type price point.
| agentultra wrote:
| Right, I think they will eventually come out with a non-Pro
| device eventually... and price is only one factor in
| adoption.
|
| They could be signalling that they only want a small number
| of users for these things.
|
| > it couldn't possibly be the case that you get a trillion
| dollars by being stupid, right?
|
| ... I mean, the fossil fuel industry likes to think it's
| smart but what it's doing is incredibly stupid. I'm not sure
| Apple got to a trillion dollars on merit alone.
| [deleted]
| threeseed wrote:
| Cost or demand is not the issue for Apple it's the supply
| chain.
|
| Right now it can't fulfil a $5000 product let along a $1000
| one.
|
| So they will need a dramatic ramp up across their partners
| before they even consider a consumer SKU.
| mcmcmc wrote:
| > HoloLens found it's niche in commercial sectors like
| manufacturing and logistics so there's a potential path to make
| a profitable software business in that direction.
|
| I mean... that may have been a niche they targeted, whether
| they found success is debatable. Seems like it was mostly kept
| afloat by bloated military contracts. And even there it pretty
| much flopped.
|
| https://www.theregister.com/2022/10/13/us_army_report_micros...
| prox wrote:
| This is their first iteration. I think like the Apple Watch is
| the version where they just gonna see where it's gonna go. I
| mean if anyone can make this more successful it's probably
| Apple.
| pazimzadeh wrote:
| The same way Tesla started out by selling a Roadster before
| working on mass market models
| hbarka wrote:
| I can't wait for Apple's Wearable Macbook I mean the Vision Pro.
| jmiskovic wrote:
| As a VR hobbyist dev I'm divided on how I feel about the device.
| Price thing is already well discussed, for me it's a tool worth
| investigating if I should invest time in the ecosystem.
|
| Without a doubt, the Vision Pro hardware is a marvel. Having the
| 3D capture camera in a consumer device would feel like living in
| the future. The headset design is top notch and seems
| comfortable. I do have slight worry about how these devices will
| look like after a year of use.
|
| The holographic eye reconstruction screen. A bit unsettling and
| strange design idea. We're messing around with people's eyes to
| make the headset friendlier?
|
| The frosted glass user interface is classy, aesthetically
| pleasing and very well put together. Lighting and soft shadow
| interaction with your environment is amazingly well done. I felt
| the UX the current user experience seems rather lackluster and
| limited to a 2D format. The first iPhone also had an old
| fashioned interface, so my guess is they are building the
| compatibility bridge for the first release. Maybe the next
| iteration would be actually spatial and not just panels floating
| in space?
|
| Moreover, the over-reliance on swipe and tap gestures is a point
| of concern. This design decision is focused on media consumption
| and limits the overall versatility of the interface. Feels like a
| very low-bandwidth control method.
|
| A significant drawback, for my use at least, is the lack of
| control over the hardware. Developers are restricted to building
| Unity applications within a sandboxed environment, which is a
| privacy feature intended to prevent apps from accessing the eye
| gaze point. Good idea, better than what Meta's doing. But too
| restrictive and frustrating for a developer wanting to run their
| apps on the bought device.
|
| Apple is once again marketing an expensive device-platform that
| caters mainly to larger corporations looking to offer their own
| 'immersive' experiences. Everything about this screams
| 'coorporate'. I would like to be proven wrong with some creative
| apps, but those will probably come through the web browser or
| streamed from Mac, and not as approved native apps running in
| gimped Unity engine.
|
| Nevertheless, the Vision Pro sets a new benchmark for future
| headsets. Maybe AR/VR is slowly entering the mainstream?
| jimbokun wrote:
| > When I sat down to write this article I was having trouble
| context shifting back from WWDC mode and wished that I could have
| gone up to a virtual cabin in the woods, opened a text editor and
| written it there. Or similarly while I was watching WWDC session
| videos in my hotel room on my 13" MacBook Pro I found myself
| wishing for a larger display where I could have the video, notes,
| documentation and Xcode open all at once.
|
| This reinforces the idea that Vision Pro is for a portable, fully
| immersive work experience. Which dovetails nicely with the post-
| Covid notion of working in various locations as
| convenient/affordable. Bring a Vision Pro with you to "the cabin"
| or hotel or remote working location, to have a more productive
| experience than just a small laptop. Or college dorm, where you
| don't have your own dedicated work space.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| Ah yes, because college kids have $3500 to burn on a novelty.
| jimbokun wrote:
| Price will come down.
| BananaaRepublik wrote:
| Btw, how do any of these work for people with glasses? My vision
| is too bad to survive without them and I'm sure half the city
| dwellers around me are too.
| andrewmunsell wrote:
| You have to purchase (rumored to be expensive) magnetic clip-in
| prescription lenses, or use contacts. The device is too close
| to your face to fit glasses
| BiteCode_dev wrote:
| To be honest I got excited with the SimulaOne for the exact same
| reason.
|
| But now, seing the Vision Pro, they are going to have a hard time
| to compete.
| racl101 wrote:
| Looks cool. Would like to try.
|
| Too expensive to buy however.
|
| Will wait for a substantial price reduction on later versions
| with bugs worked out ... hopefully in the magnitude of 2 / 3rds
| less before I'd even consider buying it.
|
| Thats' about it.
| thefounder wrote:
| I would buy this if it can replace my current monitor(s) for
| development/coding. Price is not issue for many people as long as
| it can do your daywork easier.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| I'm a "hybrid digital nomad". My wife and I travel six months
| out of the year and we stay in our "Condotel"[1] that we own
| the other six months. We can't buy anything that we can't carry
| in our four suitcases since we can't keep anything in our unit
| when it's rented out.
|
| I might buy it just for the multi monitor setup and to get rid
| of my extra USB-C video/usb-c portable monitor and my iPad for
| a 3 monitor setup in smaller spaces.
|
| [1] a Condotel is where you own the entire condo unit. But it
| gets rented out as a hotel room when you aren't there and you
| get the income minus the property management fees
| macintux wrote:
| I'm skeptical about the ergonomics but that definitely seems to
| be viable.
| andrewmunsell wrote:
| It could work, with a Mac (which is unfortunate, given the
| Vision Pro's HW is equivalent to the Mac you "need" just to run
| the right software). It's an unfortunate limitation that you
| can only run one 4k "virtual monitor" from a Mac, but
| presumably your IDE & terminal would live in the virtual Mac
| screen and all of your documentation, etc. would be "native" in
| the headset
| gpm wrote:
| For the vast majority of my work vscode stuffed into a
| browser-like window using SSH remotes would be fine, and
| would remove the "single 4k screen from a mac" restriction.
| andrewmunsell wrote:
| I tried this with the iPad for a while but it ended up just
| being too buggy (weird cursor and scrolling errors, in
| particular). I wonder if it'll be any better using eye
| tracking as a cursor
| BulgarianIdiot wrote:
| > In short, my brain has crossed a Rubicon and now feels like
| experiences constrained to small, rectangular screens are lesser
| experiences.
|
| The funny thing about this statement is that Vision Pro is in
| fact the smallest rectangular screen of any device he's written
| code for.
|
| He's hyped up. That's normal. In time he'll understand Vision Pro
| doesn't provide any better UX for common activities. In fact it's
| worse in many ways.
|
| Where Vision Pro may shine is tasks where you need to perceive
| and manipulate complex three-dimensional objects, as they would
| be in physical space. I see great uses in engineering, design,
| art. It'd be great to preview interior design, design cars,
| architecture, create machinery and so on.
|
| It'll also be great for previewing products, so online stores
| become a lot more viable than they are now, as you get a sense of
| size and style for an item in Vision Pro.
|
| It may also be great for education, training, simulations.
|
| It has many great uses. But basic apps isn't it. And most people
| won't care. This thing sucks to wear for more than 20 minutes.
| It's heavy and uncomfortable. You can't share your experience
| with others, either. It costs a lot. And you can't multitask with
| it. I can walk to a place and do something on my phone.
|
| The input model also sucks. To code, for example, you need to
| hook a bluetooth keyboard and mouse. Looking at symbols one by
| one to fingertap would be comically slow. At which point, you may
| as well just get 2-3 screens and work on a normal workstation.
| For less money.
| the_overseer wrote:
| These are just gen1 issues. I expect it will become lighter and
| lighter until it will probably be like some heavier/bulkier
| glasses.
|
| For the common user it will be amazing for cooking (tells you
| what to take next and from where and mix in what order, all
| that fully with arrows on the screen). Or let's say you want to
| leave your home and it knows that you forgot your keys and it
| tells you where they are with directions on the screen like the
| objective marker in a game.
|
| It will know where things are in your home even if you don't
| pay attention to them it will have object recognition in place
| and you will be able to say "Hey Siri where did I leave my
| glasses?" and it will point you to them.
| yellow_postit wrote:
| "Bulkier glasses" is a deal breaker for me -- LASIK was one
| of the best quality of life upgrades and I can't imagine
| rushing back to that experience for many reasons.
|
| Ambient computing of the style you describe I do think is a
| common use case and I look forward to less invasive form
| factors to tackle it.
| BulgarianIdiot wrote:
| Do you recall the wave of people breaking their TVs with the
| Nintendo Wii controllers?
|
| I'd expect a similar wave of people breaking their expensive
| Vision Pros if they try cooking with one. It's a terrible
| idea. First, most kitchens are cramped, full of low-hanging
| cabinets to break your Vision's fragile glass into.
|
| And then, keeping those open vents around vapors full of fat
| and tasty food bits is a great way to cover the circuits with
| grease.
|
| We already have a solution for something telling you what to
| do next, and it's called an iPad with a stand. A phone also
| does the job and has much lower chance of incidents than a
| headset, despite yes, you may need to wash your hands from
| time to time to scroll down. Or... you can simply use
| assistive features and voice for that. Siri is going to get a
| lot smarter thanks to LLM, much sooner than Vision Pro will
| become light and pragmatic for such purposes.
|
| Regarding this "it'll know where things are in your home",
| let's use basic logic here. It can learn the layout of your
| rooms and where your immovable furniture is. But no, it can't
| know where everything that moves is, because this means you
| literally can't move anything unless you have the headset on
| to track its location. Or slap expensive AirTags on every
| single jar and utensil maybe. All solutions would be
| hilariously impractical. And... we'll end up with where I
| started: a broken Vision Pro glass as you slam it in a
| cupboard while trying to fish out a jar of condiments.
|
| I don't know what is about VR that makes people pull out the
| fantasy scenarios. It's simply a (bulky) screen with pass
| through. It's not a wizard. It can't know things unless
| there's a way for it to find them.
|
| We can imagine a super-thin model that you can keep on your
| face 24/7 and sleep with it too, so it tracks your entire
| life forever and knows you better than you know yourself. And
| it synchronizes with your spouse and children who also wear
| their own headsets 24/7. And it's unbreakable. And the
| battery never runs out. We can imagine many things. They
| don't exist, and won't exist any time soon. "Not on the
| horizon" as Steve Jobs used to say.
| greedo wrote:
| Have you worn this? Yo use pretty explicit with your complaints
| about its weight and comfort. Your penultimate paragraph is
| really unfounded and inaccurate. You can multitask with in (in
| a computing sense). You can share with apps that have use the
| appropriate APIs. And I completely disagree that "basic apps"
| (whatever that is) will not be a great use case. Hell, I would
| buy this today so I could have a monitor replacement. And I'm
| just a lowly sysadmin who is at home with vim in a terminal.
| fooker wrote:
| >To code, for example, you need to hook a bluetooth keyboard
| and mouse.
|
| I have a hunch that coding as we know it is going to look very
| different in ~5-10 years.
| BulgarianIdiot wrote:
| Maybe, but not in terms of needing code.
|
| You see, the rules of formal languages that encode formal
| rules of system constraints pre-date computers by centuries.
| Think of math proofs, for example. Sure, we can encode
| symbols as emojis, or geometric figures or whatever. But in
| the end, it's sequences of symbols, that's the nature of it.
| And tapping symbols one by one with a headset will suck, no
| matter how programming looks.
|
| The rules of formal languages that encode formal rules of
| system constraints pre-date in fact our species too. Think
| about what DNA is. Oh yeah, spooky, isn't it. A sequence of
| symbols (GTCA) encoding a sequence of more complex symbols
| (proteins). Spooky! But yes, DNA is our code. And it works
| the same as our programming code.
|
| Now I know where you're going. LLMs. Let's assume an LLM
| writes the code for you. You still have to read it, which you
| can do fine with a headset (if it's not as encapsulating and
| heavy, and with short battery life as Vision Pro v1). But if
| you spot something's off, you need to adjust it. Go directly
| for the kill, and make that surgical series of edits. You
| know? Or... maybe you can spend the rest of the day
| hopelessly trying to explain to Siri 2030 year edition what
| you want to do, instead of going in and doing it, for that
| "last mile".
|
| Because if AI can do the last mile itself, to the point you
| don't need to even verify it... first, that's the fast way to
| AI shipping code we don't understand and basically giving up
| our entire civilization to it. And second... we don't need to
| code, but we also won't need to exist, and therefore not need
| headsets.
|
| So in the worldlines where we DO exist... Vision Pro sucks
| for coding, because it's a shitty human interface to editing
| code.
|
| And in the worldlines where we DO NOT exist... Vision Pro
| sucks for coding, because AI doesn't need headsets.
| fooker wrote:
| > But if you spot something's off, you need to adjust it.
| Go directly for the kill, and make that surgical series of
| edits.
|
| LLMs are still a really immature technology. The hype is
| about where it could go in future, not necessarily where it
| is now.
|
| Think about when compilers were immature technology, and
| the science of parsing/etc and optimizations were not well
| understood. You could make the exact same argument you have
| made now about the need of editing assembly or machine code
| by hand when the compiler doesn't get it right.
|
| It was indeed common practice to do this well into the
| 1980s. That, and inline assembly is increasingly
| unnecessary now.
| BulgarianIdiot wrote:
| None of what I said is restricted to the current state of
| LLMs. I was speaking very broadly about the nature of AI
| in our world, and going back to the creation of DNA...
| greedo wrote:
| You do realize you can use a keyboard with this? And that
| the VP can plug in for infinite power?
| BulgarianIdiot wrote:
| I realize yes. And do you realize if you'll be using
| keyboard and mouse you may as well not literally wear a
| computer *on your head*? Are you aware of displays? They
| can support themselves. On desks. Or wall mounts.
| Compared to Vision Pro it feels like magic. Self-
| supporting displays. It's the future. Everything is about
| to change when people learn about it.
| musictubes wrote:
| And do you realize that's by taking the displays off of
| your desk you can have more of them? Oh, at any size and
| any location you want. You can continue using the input
| devices you like but now have as many displays as you
| want and you can take it with you easily.
|
| You assume you will hate it, maybe you will. But maybe
| the future won't involve dedicated furniture to put
| things on and cables connecting them. Maybe you'll be
| able to work wherever you want and with the same amount
| of productivity. Or maybe even better productivity!
|
| But you're probably right, the future will never get any
| better, this device is pointless and will never lead to
| better versions of itself or point to other ways of
| working. Thank you, there's no telling where we might end
| up without true believers of the status quo like
| yourself.
| BulgarianIdiot wrote:
| Nice fairy tale you're spinning, but back in the real
| world, the Vision Pro display is roughly inch by inch in
| size, and no matter where you turn, it's the same
| display. You're not looking at "different displays".
| They're as virtual as Virtual Desktops on Windows and
| Spaces on macOS. Which exist, by the way.
|
| If I could have displays "any size" for real, I'd
| probably invite friends so we can see something together.
| I'd invite colleagues and give a presentation. That's
| what we use big displays for. Not to sit alone with them
| and be infinitely wowed. Vision Pro is not "any size".
| It's tiny and it's sitting on your nose. The optical
| illusion of looking at a cinema screen will get old for
| you in precisely 30 minutes, which is why the Apple demos
| were 30 minutes.
|
| Three large 4K displays, which is probably two more than
| you need, cost less than one Vision Pro. And have MUCH
| higher resolution than Vision Pro can reproduce by the
| way. Wait, what? Why? Well, because most of the
| resolution of Vision's 4K displays are wasted on your
| peripheral vision, what you see is DECIDEDLY BLURRIER
| than an actual 20-30 inch 4K display, you heard that
| right. Don't look at small text on your Vision Pro.
| You'll want your money back.
|
| Did I mention also I don't have to carry them on my head?
| Just thought I'd mention this again. Pretty important. I
| mean I can't use over the ear headphones for more than 30
| minutes either, it gets pretty annoying, especially in
| summer.
|
| But I'm sure the sticky, sweaty mess that Vision Pro will
| turn into after a good day's work will be so much more
| satisfying, because it provided the illusion of being a
| huge screen far away, instead of a small screen closer.
| Both of which cover the SAME EXACT FIELD OF VISION ANGLE
| on your retina. But only one of them makes your face skin
| red and wet in a characteristic VR goggles shape.
|
| Opinions like yours only come from people who've never
| tried a VR headset. Let alone work full time wearing one.
| If you do, you'll quickly go mad realizing everything you
| wrote up there is nonsense in practice.
|
| Imagining the bold new future, and telling me how I'm
| singlehandedly stopping progress is a classic, though.
| Guess what, I'm not telling Apple to not make ten more
| versions of Vision Pro. I'm merely telling you what they
| will ship in 2024, and what it's good for, and what it's
| bad for. Some things also will never change, no matter
| how good the hardware. One of them is wrapping your face
| in a computer will never be comfortable, unless it's
| something like Google Glass, but this also comes with
| much less spectacular visuals.
| thenayr wrote:
| [dead]
| euroderf wrote:
| It will absolutely rule for wargames (i.e. board-based
| simulations). High resolution, zooming into "counter" stacks,
| limited intelligence (yes!), calling up rules, procedure
| checklists, odds calculation & combat resolution, the list goes
| on and on methinks.
|
| Grognards with sufficient disposable income - rejoice! At last
| you can (for example) play Operation Barbarossa at regiment
| level - and retain your sanity!
| ftxbro wrote:
| > "Starting on Day One"
|
| > "I have been a "day one" developer for three of Apple's
| platforms"
|
| > "I'm going to be a "day one" developer for the Vision Pro."
|
| > "The Economics of "Day One""
|
| > "Look for Widgetsmith for visionOS from "day one"."
|
| it looks like a guy who is flexing his "day one" access and using
| it to advertise some vaporware, and the rest of the words in the
| blogpost are some fluff maybe gpt could make it
| armadsen wrote:
| It doesn't take much to get "day one" access like he's
| describing. I was some random kid with a couple years of
| (completely self-taught, solo, using free tools) Mac OS X dev
| experience in 2008, and I had beta access to the SDK and could
| have had an app out on day one if I had been more disciplined.
| Same goes for both the iPad and the Apple Watch. The SDKs for
| both were easily available before the devices shipped.
| ar_lan wrote:
| I'm interested to try it, but there's a few things holding me
| back:
|
| 1. I tried working in my Oculus Quest for about a week (two years
| ago) and gave up because the resolution is way too poor, and it's
| too heavy.
|
| 2. The price tag.
|
| It looks like the Vision Pro is not a monitor/headset, but rather
| a computer + monitor all in one. Is that accurate to say?
|
| -
|
| I am tempted by this future, but I don't see it becoming
| adoptable for any reasonable users for another 5 years minimum.
| Plus, for developers to truly adopt it, we'd need to be
| reasonably sure our workflows (e.g. keyboard/mouse sync and
| ergonomics, portability, etc.) are _increased_ in speed /comfort
| to ever consider adopting such a feature.
| waboremo wrote:
| Yes, it's not just a headset/screen. In their words, a spatial
| computer. This coming with a new OS also signifies how they
| really want people to view it as a standalone product rather
| than a Valve Index which requires a PC to use.
| crooked-v wrote:
| Going by the hardware and the announced features, the 2D app
| functionality of the Vision Pro is basically an iPad Pro with
| full multitasking support.
| bilsbie wrote:
| We're still constrained to 2d rectangles though.
|
| I wonder how we could code in three dimensions or make it feel
| more physical like wood working somehow.
|
| It's all text based so I can't really think of how you'd do it.
| mercutio2 wrote:
| What makes you think this? If you choose to use UIKit, yes, you
| get rectangles. But you are not constrained to UIKit.
| ladberg wrote:
| > In short, my brain has crossed a Rubicon and now feels like
| experiences constrained to small, rectangular screens are lesser
| experiences.
|
| I left Apple 1.5 years ago but was working on the Vision Pro
| while I was there. I have spend many hours working in the headset
| and I know exactly the feeling he's describing! Leaving felt like
| going back in time to using clunky technology and I've been
| waiting for outside world to catch up (and will still be waiting
| until it comes out at least).
|
| For the past week I've been trying to explain to people how
| certain I am that doing work in headsets will become mainstream
| but am (understandably) met with doubt, and I think you'd need to
| try it on to fully understand.
| tikimcfee wrote:
| I feel like I've been spamming this everywhere and any time I
| get the chance, but I really want people to join in and help
| define this experience with me for developers.
|
| https://github.com/tikimcfee/LookAtThat
|
| AR VR for iOS and macOS. Millions of glyphs. Instant control.
| There's magic here. If this excites you, work with me and help
| make this a reality! I don't have all of it in me.
|
| I wish I did. I don't. I don't have all the time and energy.
| But there are people here that if they spent just a little time
| to work on this, we would be in the future of a 3D code space
| in days, and not weeks or months.
|
| I owe a new readme for the project. If any of this makes you
| feel any feelies, get in contact with me star it, make noise,
| whatever!
|
| Lotta love to yall. Thanks for letting me vomit words.
| derefr wrote:
| You sound like you're measuring this leap as the Vision Pro vs.
| not using a headset at all. How much of a leap is it if you're
| already using e.g. an XREAL Air for display mirroring -- and
| you're planning to mostly use the Vision Pro for that same use-
| case?
| ladberg wrote:
| I haven't used the XREAL AIR personally but I've used similar
| devices and it's pretty night-and-day I think:
|
| - Sensors: It looks like the XREAL AIR doesn't have any
| sensors so just displays the monitor in a fixed position on
| screen, which is pretty different than loading up monitors in
| a fixed point in space and being able to look away at other
| stuff. Also eye tracking is a pretty killer feature that
| totally changes the game in my opinion, I wouldn't personally
| buy a headset without it after having experienced it.
|
| - VR vs AR display: As I'm sure you're aware, with AR
| sunglasses you can't really have anything darker than the
| actual light passing through so you're limited to only
| rendering stuff brighter than the surroundings. Maybe for
| text it's fine but not for images or video in my opinion. I
| can't find any footage taken through the XREAL AIR lens (and
| their website doesn't faithfully show this effect) so idk
| exactly how big the difference will be for you.
|
| - FOV: I'm not actually sure what the FOV is of the Vision
| Pro but it's significantly higher than 46deg. And because
| usable area increases with the square, you'd be able to fit a
| few times more displays and other stuff in.
|
| - Resolution: XREAL AIR looks to be 1080p, Vision Pro is way
| better than that (per-degree too), so you can have better
| looking and smaller text.
| sanderjd wrote:
| I'm not very skeptical on the "doing work" side of the
| question. (Though I do wonder about the price point.) But I am
| skeptical on the "doing life" side.
| ladberg wrote:
| Yeah I don't think I'll be using one at dinner or hanging out
| in-person with friends any time soon, but there are a lot of
| non-work things I'd happily use it for.
|
| Gaming, TV, casual internet browsing, stationary exercise,
| socializing with people remotely (e.g. VRChat instead of
| Zoom/FaceTime), passing time on trains+planes, etc.
| king_magic wrote:
| I guess the big question I have is... what's the point of an
| extremely expensive headset when it looks like Quest 3 at 7x
| less the price is going to deliver a roughly similar
| experience, quality-wise?
| MBCook wrote:
| We don't know anything about the Quest 3, other than "better
| than 2".
|
| I seriously doubt it comes close to what Apple is doing. The
| price just isn't anywhere near high enough.
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| As we all know, Apple would never offer products at an
| elevated price
| sleepybrett wrote:
| you think meta is offering oculus devices at cost or as a
| loss leader?
|
| Fact is there is a laptop chip stuffed into this headset,
| there is a mobile soc in the oculus line.
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| I'm mostly just amused that someone would say Apple
| selling a product for a high price means anything.
|
| Although I do think that facebook has sold a lot of their
| devices at a loss?
| chaostheory wrote:
| I love the Quest line: own a q2 and pro.
|
| The main difference is that Vision has a laptop grade
| processor (Apple M chip), LiDAR, and another separate
| processor to manage the LiDAR, a separate depth sensor, & all
| the other 12 sensors and cameras
|
| The Quest only has a smartphone processor. The pro doesn't
| even have a depth sensor. While the q3 will have a depth
| sensor, it will not have eye tracking or face tracking, in
| addition to only running yet another smartphone processor and
| only ~5 sensors and cameras
| k2enemy wrote:
| I think the simple answer is that the Quest 3 will not
| deliver a roughly similar experience, quality-wise.
| king_magic wrote:
| I mean maybe?
|
| My gut feeling is Quest 3 will be more than good enough for
| most people/use cases, and people will be more than happy
| to pay 7x less for what is - at the end of the day -
| basically the same experience.
|
| Vision Pro looks like a better version of HoloLens of
| yesteryear. Doesn't really seem all that groundbreaking to
| me, just more refined.
| Tagbert wrote:
| For what scenario? Gaming? What about use as a virtual
| screen? What about social interaction? What about some of the
| other scenarios that were depicted in the wedc demo?
| schaefer wrote:
| Hi Ladberg,
|
| When you worked with Vision Pro, did it have a device native
| terminal and/or a device native ssh client?
|
| What I mean by that is a terminal running under VisionOS, as
| opposed to getting terminal access by first connecting to a
| remote computer.
| joeman1000 wrote:
| Maybe for Apple development, but given that it's positioned
| as an iOS-type device, the public will never get a native
| terminal on this thing. It would be unprecedented.
| mmlkrx wrote:
| Thank you for answering all these little questions, hope I'm
| not too late :)
|
| 1. Could I take a disconnected cable keyboard and "anchor" the
| virtual keyboard to overlay the real one to get the haptical
| feedback when typing on the virtual keyboard?
|
| 2. I'm very excited about "hanging out in VR" but initial
| impressions of Persona avatars seem to be mixed. Do you think
| people will eventually get used to Personas after using them
| for longer or are we not quite there yet?
|
| 3. What is the focal distance for the eyes?
|
| 4. What are you most excited for using the Vision Pro again
| once it comes out :)?
|
| I definitely can't wait to upgrade from my original HTC Vive!
| ladberg wrote:
| 1. I don't really know of any feature like this but can't say
| for certain. I'd highly recommend investing in a bluetooth
| keyboard for work in the headset (or keep your cable keyboard
| plugged into your computer and mirror the screen into the
| headset).
|
| 2. Honestly no clue how the public will react to Apple's
| avatars, but keep in mind that third party apps are free to
| create experiences like that and I'm sure you'll see a dozen
| VRChat clones taking off.
|
| 3. Not sure! I never ran into any issues but I also don't
| need glasses.
|
| 4. I personally am a VR gaming enthusiast and despite gaming
| not being the core use case of the Vision Pro, I'm very
| excited to see what people do with it. If you've played Half
| Life Alyx you know how fun gravity gloves are, so imagine
| having games that have graphics and physics that can
| seamlessly blend with real life. Use your hands to toss
| around virtual objects that bounce off walls in the real
| environment! The cool thing is that this is all super easy to
| develop for now: all the scene understanding, rendering, hand
| tracking, physics, etc. is all handled by the device so you
| can probably whip up a gravity gloves prototype in a few
| lines of code.
| animatethrow wrote:
| > I've been trying to explain to people how certain I am that
| doing work in headsets will become mainstream but am
| (understandably) met with doubt
|
| Tech enthusiasts underestimate how much the general public
| hates having gear strapped to their faces and over their hair,
| especially more than half of women who put considerable effort
| into their face makeup and hair.
| remich wrote:
| This raises an interesting use-case, though, which is the
| idea of a person who is working remotely or otherwise
| engaging virtually could rely on the 3D-model version of
| them, generated when they were professionally attired, to
| avoid having to go through that whole rigamarole every day.
| sleepybrett wrote:
| I think this 1.0 is problematic and it will take several more
| leaps to get to where we need to be. Something more like
| swimming goggles (without the suction), visualized in the
| bladerunner sequel on the face of 'love' when she's calling
| in artillery on K in the 'junkyard'.
| hummingly wrote:
| Every headset I have seen looks really unfashionable. Even
| the Vision Pro looks kind of bad. It is too bulky for the
| relaxing atmosphere Apple was going for in its adverts. And
| too rounded to appear more edgy. It is not commiting to
| anything, kind of like the new Macbook Pro design. This
| stands in contrast to Airpods (small but bold shape) and the
| Apple Watch (practical and elegant).
| amelius wrote:
| This is what the Airpods look like to me:
|
| https://www.bbc.com/news/newsbeat-37306404
| zmmmmm wrote:
| I think it's one of the things they got right with the Quest
| Pro. It doesn't touch your face and is carefully designed so
| that all the support is via the forehead. It causes
| discomfort for some people but the upside is you put it on
| and off and it doesn't disturb your face or hair.
| doctorpangloss wrote:
| How did it compare to the Varjo XR-3?
| ladberg wrote:
| Unfortunately I haven't tried that one! $6,500 is a bit out
| of my personal price range haha and I didn't get a chance to
| try all the competitors while I was at Apple.
| yread wrote:
| So, 6500 is outrageously expensive but 3500 is alright?
| ladberg wrote:
| I'm not saying 3500 is "alright", it's definitely still
| expensive!
|
| I would say 6500 is too much for a better version of
| something I already have that doesn't really enable any
| additional usecases. The Vision Pro would be used pretty
| differently than my Vive (which is just the occasional
| gaming session right now). I'd think of it as more
| competing with iPads, external monitors, and laptops than
| a Varjo right now.
| prawn wrote:
| They were given and working on Vision Pro for work. So
| it's free vs $6500.
| _aavaa_ wrote:
| Both are expensive, but afaik that 6,500 only gets you a
| headset, you still need a computer to power it.
| judge2020 wrote:
| Supposedly same/better passthrough, which is great for a
| headset at nearly half the price. http://webcache.googleuserc
| ontent.com/search?q=cache:https:/...
| hebrox wrote:
| Did team members actually use it to develop it?
| ladberg wrote:
| I was developing stuff to be shown inside the headset that
| wouldn't have worked in the simulator, so I was frequently
| using the headset regardless. It was often easier to just
| leave it on and develop than constantly put it on and take it
| off to test things out.
|
| As for development of non-VR stuff I personally didn't
| because I already had a fully-featured desk setup and the OS
| at the time was buggy enough to not want to deal with it (as
| every OS is years before release, not a ding on Vision Pro at
| all). With a good OS (which it will be upon release) and more
| native apps (like Termius on iPad) I definitely would though!
| wincy wrote:
| Do you think it'll allow Xcode for development? When you
| say you were wearing it while doing dev work were you
| pairing it with a MacBook? From what I understand the OS is
| more similar to iPadOS (no Xcode, ability to compile
| binaries) vs MacOS.
| ladberg wrote:
| I honestly don't know that will be supported on the final
| version, but what I was referring to was developing on a
| Mac through the Vision Pro and deploying to the Vision
| Pro.
|
| FWIW the iPad supports dumbed down app development
| through Swift Playgrounds and presumably the Vision Pro
| will at the very least support that if it supports all
| iPad apps, but that's pure speculation.
| amelius wrote:
| Just wait until you get messages of "in-app purchases" and
| advertisements and they keep following you around.
|
| Then the real world will feel like paradise.
| highwaylights wrote:
| I don't want to be nosey but given that it sounds like you feel
| like it's a paradigm shifting device, and you've actually
| worked on and with the device, I'd be interested to read about
| your motivations for moving on from Apple/the project when you
| did if you ever feel like writing about it.
|
| So many questions I'd love to ask you about this, but again,
| none of my business. Just wanted to let you know I'd upvote
| that blog post to the moon should you ever decide to write it.
| ladberg wrote:
| Thanks! My motivations were mostly comp based (I'm in HFT
| now), I loved the product and the team I was on!
|
| Feel free to ask any questions here and I'll answer anything
| I can (e.g. no unreleased info, but maybe go into more detail
| about the kind of stuff that was shown to devs at WWDC). No
| blog right now but maybe in the future :)
| megaman821 wrote:
| Do you feel there are any large leaps left for this type of
| device or will it be incremental improvements to price,
| speed, battery life, etc from here on out?
| ladberg wrote:
| Not exactly sure at all, I wouldn't have been able to
| predict this large of a leap before finding out about it
| myself.
|
| I do think a bunch of incremental improvements will
| eventually allow different use cases though. E.g. you'd
| never take it on a run or a bike ride in its current
| state but with enough weight and battery improvements you
| could have a HUD for exercise stats + navigation when
| biking with stuff like a videogame-esque ghost of your PR
| to race against. Just a random idea, there's a lot of
| stuff you can dream up.
| yurishimo wrote:
| I do think we'll see a fitness related product in the
| future but holy crap the early adopters trying it out
| should be super careful! It might be easy to forget that
| your eyes are completely covered with a screen.
|
| Imagine riding a bike at 30kmph and accidentally
| unplugging the headset. Boom. Black. Instantly. That's a
| scary place to find yourself.
|
| I'm curious if Apple will utilize the gyroscope to try
| and detect movement faster than a certain speed and show
| a warning. Take the risk if you want, but at least people
| should be aware of the consequences!
| iknowstuff wrote:
| Resolution aside most headsets kinda feel like wearing a
| scuba mask because of a narrow field of view. How was the
| vision pro? I assume this should be public info since it
| was shown to the press and devs.
| pilsetnieks wrote:
| Gruber claims that it has the exact same FOV as actual
| human vision, and no discernible pixels.
|
| https://daringfireball.net/2023/06/first_impressions_of_v
| isi...
| wkat4242 wrote:
| That can't be right. The human FoV is huge, more than 180
| degrees. To cover that range without visible pixels
| requires much more than "4k" type resolution.
|
| Either one of those statements can be right. Not both at
| the same time.
|
| It's time someone with real measuring equipment looks at
| of these and gives a more technical review than just "wow
| Apple magic".
| rfgmendoza wrote:
| each eye is not getting "4k resolution" they are claimed
| to be each capable of rendering a 4k screen in natural
| resolution.
|
| meaning a couple 4k screens can be rendered in the
| visible area without a noticeable difference in quality
| to real screens at a similar "apparent" distance
| wkat4242 wrote:
| With Apple's marketing power, I really would expect them
| to claim a higher resolution number if it was that high.
| After all, why not? If it's actually 5K they would shout
| it from the rooftops. All they've said is "more pixels
| than a 4K screen", also we know this type of lens
| distortion causes some waste.
|
| We also know 23 million pixels for the whole system. So,
| 11.5 million for one display. a 4K display is 8.2
| million. So it's not a whole lot more than 4K, and lower
| than their own 5K display (which has 14 million), which
| matches what they claim ("more than a 4K display").
| That's not enough to cover the full field of human vision
| and still have pixels so small they can't be seen.
|
| With corner waste it's just barely enough for one 4K
| display this way (and stretched to the full limits of
| vision it will be pretty unwatchable so close). You can't
| display two as you mention, because AR/VR projection
| works by using the 2 screens to display the _same_
| content just from a slightly different position
| (parallax) causing the 3D effect. The more overlap
| between the eyes the better and more comfortable the 3D
| effect (some headsets try to get an ultrawide FoV this
| way but shoot themselves in the foot with low overlap).
|
| If it has a really wide FoV its sharpness will be pretty
| much on-par with a quest 3/Pico 4, if it's got the same
| FoV it will be a lot sharper. I expect the truth to be
| somewhere in between. Wider than a Quest and also
| sharper, but pixels visible if you look well and not
| quite full human FoV.
|
| What I expect Apple will have done is sacrifice a bit of
| vertical FoV for horizontal FoV. Vertical FoV is
| important in VR (especially 'roomscale') because of
| orientation issues, and not quite as important in AR.
| Also most of their marketing material promotes a seated
| position so moving around is not an issue. Most VR
| headsets have an almost-square resolution per eye, but I
| expect this one to be closer to 16:10 (maybe not quite
| that wide). I think it will come out at around 4300x2600
| pixels per eye which is slightly over 11 million pixels.
|
| Still very impressive (which it must be at that price
| point obviously!). But real-world and not magic. Makes
| sense because Apple's engineers, as good as they are, are
| bound by the same laws of physics we all are. Their
| marketeers would love us to believe otherwise though.
|
| It's really time for some real-world specs on this thing
| instead of marketing blah. But I think Apple specifically
| doesn't want this, it's no wonder they let only the most
| loyal media outlets (like Gruber) get as much as a short
| hands-on with this thing. And even those experience are
| white-gloved in detail (they even prepared custom
| adaptive lenses). They just want to keep the marketing
| buzz on as long as possible.
| jahewson wrote:
| Not sure why people are still repeating this erroneous
| line of thinking. Humans can't look in two different
| places at once like a chameleon. The eyes focus on the
| same point and the stereo images overlap almost entirely
| - the difference in point-of-view between your two eyes
| is tiny, they are next to each other! (Try alternatively
| closing one eye). If you're emulating a pixel from a
| screen in VR you're going to have to draw that same pixel
| in both eyes. You do not get 2x the pixels.
|
| The exception to this is at the edges of your vision,
| where each eye does see a unique portion of the field,
| but by definition that's not where you're looking.
| rcpt wrote:
| > Vision Pro and VisionOS feel like they've been pulled
| forward in time from the future. I haven't had that
| feeling about a new product since the original iPhone in
| 2007.
|
| tf? Did he miss everything about LLMs?
| hbn wrote:
| I'm still curious how things will look in low light. All
| the demos were in an optimally lit room, but what about
| when you dim the lights and the camera has trouble
| picking up the room?
| mlajtos wrote:
| There are infra-red illuminators.
| [deleted]
| iknowstuff wrote:
| I think he's mostly saying that whatever is in the
| visible field of view matches our eyes. Doesn't mean the
| actual FOV is 180 :)
| mlajtos wrote:
| The actual quote from Gruber was "There is no border in
| the field of vision -- your field of view through Vision
| Pro exactly matches what you see through your eyes
| without it."
|
| What does "border in the FoV" means?
| graftak wrote:
| I assume that you'd be able to look beyond the edges of
| the screen.
| [deleted]
| ladberg wrote:
| To be honest I don't know the actual FOV number. It feels
| better than some VR headsets I've tried and on par with
| others. The lenses are definitely a more exotic shape
| than the ones on my Vive so they're able to get closer to
| your eyes and have better quality in all areas of the
| FOV. I feel like for work stuff and entertainment it's
| definitely good enough, though you might struggle living
| in it full time haha.
| mlajtos wrote:
| 1. How about drinking stuff with it? Is it possible
| without getting it off?
|
| 2. What about sleeping with it? VRC people do that, so
| they might be curious.
|
| 3. Is it usable outside?
|
| 4. What was the longest time you had it continuously on?
|
| 5. Have you ever dropped it? :D
| ladberg wrote:
| 1. You can drink stuff but have to be careful. Hand-eye
| coordination gets a bit wonky the closer you are to your
| face. I've done it and it works though!
|
| 2. Never tried sleeping with it... I don't see why it
| would be any worse than other headsets though.
|
| 3. I've never used it outside, but that was for secrecy
| and not technical reasons.
|
| 4. Honestly not sure, maybe an hour without taking it off
| at all but I've definitely been in it for the majority of
| a few hour spans many times. At the time the main blocker
| was the beta OS and not comfort or battery (I would keep
| the battery pack plugged into the charger most of the
| time).
|
| 5. Nope! We were all super careful with them because
| prototypes are expensive, much more so than the consumer
| product. It's not something you could just casually drop
| while using like your phone though.
| mlajtos wrote:
| Thank you very much for your replies. :)
|
| 4. So the battery can be charged while plugged into the
| headset. What happens when you pull the battery from
| headset? I am guessing insta black. Does it have some
| power-saving mode where only R1 is feeding images from
| cameras to displays without any computing possibilities?
| CrazyStat wrote:
| A major limitation for using VR devices as "virtual
| monitors" has been the screen resolution. Vision Pro
| appears to have significantly higher resolution than
| anything available on the market right now; in your
| experience, was the resolution high enough for the pixels
| to disappear and not be a distraction, especially when e.g.
| reading text? Have you used other VR headsets to compare it
| to?
| ladberg wrote:
| I've used other VR headsets and it's significantly better
| than everything I've tried. You'll be able to put up
| virtual monitors at the same density as real life and
| read stuff fine, I couldn't really discern pixels at all.
| Reading physical monitors through passthrough is a bit
| harder (I increased text size a few points when I needed
| to do this) but isn't really something you'd do for
| actual work.
| jedberg wrote:
| Lol this comment made a fun image pop into my head. Being
| in a work meeting with my Vision Pro on looking at the
| presentation through passthrough while browsing HN on my
| virtual screen. :)
|
| The idea of looking at real screens in passthrough didn't
| even occur to me.
| ladberg wrote:
| Lol, I'll expect people will figure out tells for whether
| you're slacking off irl in a headset just like being
| distracted in a zoom meeting. Reprojected eyes jumping
| around too much? Holding your hands below the table to
| pinch out of sight?
| peddling-brink wrote:
| I am very excited for the front display to be jailbroken
| (assuming that's needed) to display other more creative
| imagery, a la snap chat.
| swader999 wrote:
| I'll be plunking down 3,500 if it lets me sleep through
| meetings.
| abracadaniel wrote:
| Is is comfortable for all day work like that? Virtual
| monitors seems like the critical app for me.
| ladberg wrote:
| It's more comfortable than other VR headsets I've tried,
| but still something strapped to your head that's
| significantly heavier than a pair of glasses. I think I
| could spend all day in it with no issues but I'm not sure
| how sick of it I'd get doing that 5x a week, every week.
|
| I'm sure as soon as it's released people will be doing
| that and reporting back though!
| avalys wrote:
| So in terms of information density and readability, how
| does it compare to a 5K retina display on an iMac or
| Studio Display?
| ladberg wrote:
| Just purely from a PPD perspective a 5K Retina display
| will beat the Vision Pro, but from a readability
| standpoint I think they're equal. Like at "normal" text
| editor scales you can read everything just fine but a 5K
| display might be crisper.
| cced wrote:
| Mind me asking how you got into HFT? Curious about this.
| EA-3167 wrote:
| From the blog this leaped out at me:
|
| > That shift is fundamental. The interface for Vision Pro
| felt like it was reading my thoughts rather than responding
| to my inputs. Its infinite, pixel perfect canvas also felt
| inherently different. I wasn't constrained by my physical
| setup, instead my setup was whatever I thought would be most
| productive for me.
|
| That DOES seem like a paradigm shift in the offing to me.
| Sure it might be iPhone 1 expensive and uncertain, but it's
| easy to imagine how incredible a lighter, more affordable
| version will be to MANY people within 5 years or so.
| Dudester230602 wrote:
| _> ...doing work in headsets..._
|
| Is it possible to use Vision Pro to build and publish a Vision
| Pro app?
|
| Because it seems to be another Apple device separating
| producers and consumers just like iPad and iPhone.
| bamfly wrote:
| > Because it seems to be another Apple device separating
| producers and consumers just like iPad and iPhone.
|
| The persistent framing of i-devices this way on HN, after all
| these years, is baffling to me. Tons of creation happens on
| them, or using them as a tool in service of creation, much of
| which would be harder or impossible with traditional
| computer. Just not a lot of software creation.
| madeofpalk wrote:
| The Mac is a "real computer" because it can be used to
| create new types of software and platforms, such as the
| Vision Pro.
|
| iPad is not because it cannot be used to create the Vision
| Pro. It may still have advantages where it's better for
| some uses cases, but it still doesn't make it a general
| purpose computing device in the same way that a TV is
| better for watching videos than a Macbook, but a TV is not
| a "real computer".
| bamfly wrote:
| They're not great for making software. That doesn't mean
| they're not a decent-to-great tool for a whole bunch of
| productive or creative activities, often in ways that a
| "real computer" _cannot_ be reasonably used as a
| substitute--that is, if they vanished tomorrow, in many
| roles they wouldn 't be replaced by a laptop, but by
| paper, a stack of single-purpose tools, and more human
| running-about or time-wasting.
|
| I think the real/not-real computer thing's not especially
| illuminating, but I don't take issue with it the same way
| I do dismissing phones and tablets as "consumption-only",
| a perspective I find simply baffling, because I see them
| used for creation and productive purposes _all the time_
| in a ton of contexts by ordinary people.
| robenkleene wrote:
| I've written about this
| https://blog.robenkleene.com/2019/08/07/apples-app-stores-
| ha...
|
| I think the disconnect is in the type of creation, the
| higher-end production quality you want, rarer iOS devices
| are. And the corollary is, if you only care about the
| highest-end of creation, they essentially become invisible.
| bamfly wrote:
| > I think the disconnect is in the type of creation, the
| higher-end production quality you want, rarer iOS devices
| are. And the corollary is, if you only care about the
| highest-end of creation, they essentially become
| invisible.
|
| For producing stuff for computers or for industrial
| design (e.g. CAD or architectural drafting), yes. In
| other areas, tablets and phones are ubiquitous tools, and
| if they vanished tomorrow they wouldn't be replaced with
| e.g. laptops--they'd be replaced with paper, with various
| single-purpose devices, et c.
| goosedragons wrote:
| Because with the exception of very few tasks like digital
| art the limitations placed on iOS make it worse. Some tasks
| are just straight up impossible (e.g compiling code),
| others are just hampered by things like file management and
| sandboxing or lack of support for hardware/accessories.
| Sometimes they can be worked around but often it's an
| exercise in frustration to do something that would be
| brain-dead on a desktop OS but requires a whole host of
| taps and trips through the share menu or whatever to get
| the same result.
|
| Even in digital art where the iPad excels doing something
| like having a reference photo open while you work is
| compromised and the only good way to do is to hope the app
| you're using supports it a reasonable way or else throw
| away half your screen real estate.
| bamfly wrote:
| All I can figure is difference in perspective is because
| such a large part of the potential of i-devices (or
| phones and tablets more broadly) for creation involves
| using them as a tool to get something done in the real
| world, and/or for the kinds of creative tasks that get
| overlooked by the hackerspace crowd (running an
| Instagram, say, _involves lots of creation_ ;
| tradespeople and home DIYers routinely use phones and
| tablets to help get things done in situations where a
| laptop wouldn't be a useful alternative; that kind of
| thing). Desktop computers are mainly good, outside of
| industrial uses, for creating _more stuff for computers_.
| I-Devices shine when most of your task 's _not_ on a
| computer, and the computer 's just one of many tools at
| your disposal. If "creation" is making stuff for
| computers, they seem bad. If "creation" happens in the
| real world and the computer's just a tool to help with
| that, and nothing more, they're pretty appealing. A smart
| slab of glass packed with sensors that can _become_
| different tools. Super handy, and a "real" computer
| couldn't replace it.
|
| For most creation-oriented tasks I do that aren't
| computer-centric, I'd much rather have an iPhone or iPad
| than a laptop. They're great tools for creation & work,
| just not so much for creating stuff _for computers_ ,
| certain exceptions aside, and for those they're mostly
| just about as good as a laptop, or even not-very-good but
| usable in a pinch, not better.
| archagon wrote:
| > _A smart slab of glass packed with sensors that can
| become different tools._
|
| ...as long as they're sanctioned by the platform owners.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| iOS shines when you create something, for while someone
| has already created software to create.
|
| Desktop shines when you create something novel.
|
| It's as simple as that -- there are tons of things people
| have created really polished iOS "happy path" software to
| create on, but they're not general purpose creators.
|
| Specifically because anything general purpose threatens
| Apple's App Store toll gate, and thus cannot be allowed
| to exist.
| robenkleene wrote:
| This adds a lot of great color to your perspective, but
| the summary becomes essentially: An iPhone makes a great
| metronome, but a terrible recording studio replacement.
| I'm not sure that's saying too much, because the latter
| is so much more ambitious than the former? That's really
| the dilemma for those of us disappointed in iOS creation,
| we want it to be more ambitious, and competitive with
| things laptops can do.
| [deleted]
| l33t233372 wrote:
| iPad had lots of producer-esque features, so I'm not sure
| what you mean by that.
| jayd16 wrote:
| If you count streaming a Mac running xcode, then yes.
| madeofpalk wrote:
| If we count that then we count an iPad remote-deskoping
| into a Mac, which severly limits the actual use.
| Asdrubalini wrote:
| But with the Vision Pro there is zero latency and the
| possibility of having many big screens, whilst when
| remote-desktoping into a Mac from an iPad you gain
| nothing and the high latency makes it worse.
| htag wrote:
| They said it runs xcode, so I'd assume so
| basisword wrote:
| They demoed this in the State of the Union I think. Vision
| Pro was on with Xcode + a live build of the app that was
| being developed side by side. I'm not sure if Xcode was
| running on device or on a Mac though.
| senttoschool wrote:
| This is a valid question and should not be downvoted.
|
| Are we going to be able to create a large software project
| using it without carrying around a MacBook as well?
|
| It'd be nice to be able to run macOS when I travel and not
| have to bring my MacBook.
| bun_at_work wrote:
| This seems more than a little likely, as Vision Pro has an
| M2 chip for processing, and the R1 for vision processing.
| If your work needs a fully-capable GPU, that's probably a
| different story, although most graphics work (like photo
| editing/video editing) should run well on the M2.
| MBCook wrote:
| On the other hand, the iPad Pros have M1s (M2s?) but so
| far Apple keeps them constrained.
| IggleSniggle wrote:
| From the ad, it looked to me like you get a iPad-esque
| computing device when standalone, but that it tethers and
| can act as a display for macOS. Just speculative of course,
| but in the ad they said something like, "connect to your
| MacBook to extend all your MacBook apps onto the Vision
| Pro."
|
| I suspect that, like the iPad, there will be ways to force
| it to function as a standalone device, but that the happy
| path will be heavily optimized towards you buying as much
| Apple hardware as possible.
| rfgmendoza wrote:
| yes, its the difference between the headset being a bold
| new computer form factor, or just another peripheral.
|
| basically is it a laptop (fully independent), an ipad
| (excellent secondary device that can do focused work on
| it's own), or a smart monitor (peripheral with some built
| in usability)?
| MBCook wrote:
| We don't know about running _only_ on the headset.
|
| I suspect the downvotes are because the keynote literally
| featured someone using their Mac inside the headset. And
| another video (session? State of the union?) showed
| developing a Vision Pro app on the Mac and testing it right
| next to the Mac from inside the Vision Pro.
| bagels wrote:
| Right, it sends the message that the developer is better
| served by using a Mac, or that the Vision Pro is not
| capable. Maybe that was honest/intentional?
| MBCook wrote:
| It's got a full M2 and (reportedly) 16 GB of RAM. In
| theory it's capable.
|
| That doesn't mean Apple will expose that. Maybe just not
| today. The original iPhone had a full OS capable of
| multitasking but it wasn't a feature given to the user
| due to memory and battery constraints. We've now had it
| for years.
|
| This was the first we've seen of it, and I suspect the on
| device development story was not one they wanted to spend
| limited time on. Plus knowing Apple it seems likely
| they'd want to make Xcode work better for the interface
| than just plopping the Mac app in.
|
| Time will tell. The iPad can do development. Apple has
| proven it with Swift Playgrounds. But they still haven't
| given us Xcode. So who knows.
| rfgmendoza wrote:
| apple is so determined to prevent any serious code
| execution that even ssh apps require janky workarounds
| just to provide a terminal emulation that still needs a
| second device to communicate with just to do any real
| work
| sleepybrett wrote:
| To correct the other sibling. It's got an M2 in it.
| MBCook wrote:
| I'll edit my comment. Thanks. I keep making that mistake
| for some reason.
| losvedir wrote:
| > _For the past week I 've been trying to explain to people how
| certain I am that doing work in headsets will become
| mainstream_
|
| This gets at my main question about this: does it feel to you
| like it will be great for "doing work", which generally happens
| at discrete places, or something which will apply to life
| generally, which is the kind of (some would say dystopian)
| ideal of "augmented reality"?
|
| Or put another way, I felt a huge increase in immersion and
| interest going from the original Oculus's three degrees of
| freedom to the "room scale" six degrees of freedom in Quest.
|
| I know this is "spatial computing" and you can put monitors in
| fixed positions in the environment, but is "desk scale" where
| you can kind of look around and pivot your head, or "room
| scale" where you can get up and move around the room, or "life
| scale" where you can leave the room entirely to check on the
| screens you left in the kitchen before coming back to sit down
| in front of the ones in your office?
| manuelflara wrote:
| > or "life scale" where you can leave the room entirely to
| check on the screens you left in the kitchen before coming
| back to sit down in front of the ones in your office?
|
| according to the videos they show, people move around a lot
| in a room with these things on, grab things (e.g. their
| phone, cup of coffee). and makes sense, if you see basically
| what you have in front of you, then there's no "boundaries"
| you should stay in not to bump into things.
| ladberg wrote:
| I think it'll be great for "doing work", but I'm not entirely
| sure if it'll immediately outclass my in-office setup that my
| employer has already spent thousands on. However, I don't
| have a wfh setup in my small apartment because I didn't want
| to dedicate space for that purpose, so when I occasionally
| need to wfh I just use a laptop on my couch or dining table
| and I would love it to replace that. I think if an employer
| were speccing out a new office it would definitely be a
| viable option to have a small laptop + Vision Pro instead of
| desktop (or bigger laptop) + multiple external monitors.
|
| I also don't expect it to be super dystopian or replace real
| life in general, but it could definitely replace the parts
| where you're already looking at a screen regardless.
|
| It is technically capable of being "life scale" in the way
| that you describe: it tries to keep a consistent coordinate
| system across multiple reboots and from room to room and real
| life objects can occlude virtual objects, but to be honest I
| have no clue what the average use case will be or how the OS
| will enforce it.
| enos_feedler wrote:
| Its interesting to hear it will replace the parts where you
| are already looking at a screen. My consumer oriented view
| is that it will first replace the moments where we
| absolutely cannot be looking at a screen but need to see
| the real world in front of us, perhaps even for safety
| reasons.
|
| To me its a bit like tap to pay vs magnetic credit cards.
| Eventually tap to pay replaces all other ways of paying
| much like AR might replace all other screen interactions.
| But FIRST it should replace something critical. In the
| payment space this was subway entrances where people needed
| to pay quick and get through.
|
| The reason it takes so long for full adoption is because
| its very challenging to replace something like magnetic
| credit card that "works pretty well". From my point of
| view, the iPhone "works pretty well" and its going to
| towards the END of the innovation cycle when other screen
| usage gets folded into these spatial platforms
| 8f2ab37a-ed6c wrote:
| Based on your experience with the device, do you feel like the
| first version will be good enough to replace a multi-monitor
| setup for software developers, and allow them instead to fully
| switch to using the Vision Pro instead? Or is that monitor-less
| future for developers still a few iterations away?
| ladberg wrote:
| Depends what you mean by "fully switch". I think it's good
| enough to replace a few monitors but at the same time there
| are use cases for monitors that it can't replace, like
| showing something on your screen to someone next to you.
|
| I'm sure some developers will switch over on the first
| generation, some will wait until it gets lighter/cheaper/more
| immersive (disclosure: I have no clue what's coming in the
| future), and some might never switch if they just plain don't
| like having something on their head.
| 8f2ab37a-ed6c wrote:
| Great insight, thank you!
| ren_engineer wrote:
| any opinion on why Apple isn't dogfooding this by allowing
| their software and non-hardware teams to work remotely? Seems
| like that would be one way to prove it is legit
| prawn wrote:
| They only just announced it and had many details well hidden
| prior to launch. I think over the next few months, they'll
| definitely have Apple staff using it around a controlled
| office and then later from home.
|
| At this point, I doubt they'd be letting them off campus.
| alpinemeadow wrote:
| would you buy it when it becomes available?
| ladberg wrote:
| I'm confident I'll buy a version of the headset at some
| point, but I don't know yet if I'll buy it right at release.
| I'm not saying that because I have any additional knowledge
| of future products (I don't), just that, like the rest of
| you, I want to see the ecosystem get fleshed out and not have
| to pay the early adopter tax. I think it _will_ be great for
| work but who knows when a great remote code editor and
| terminal will show up on the App Store, right?
|
| It's also not novel to me because I've spent a while using it
| already, so I'm not exactly in a rush to test it out just to
| see all the features.
| archagon wrote:
| I fear Apple's effort will be limited to an iPad-like content
| consumption experience without the platform opening up to a
| Mac-like degree. And that no other company has the chops to
| "cross the Rubicon" in such a comprehensive way, dooming AR/VR
| to a niche of limited usefulness.
| no_wizard wrote:
| would you recommend buying 2 and replacing your TVs with it?
| I'm legit thinking about this, because the home theater setup
| I'm looking at will cost nearly the same, but two of these + a
| great audio system would be amazing.
|
| The real question is, can you make two devices sync to each
| other simultaneously.
|
| Probably not I'm imagining
| PettingRabbits wrote:
| I hope it kickstarts more development in surround sound
| headphones. I live in a small condo and have a big 4K
| projector set up. But I can't reasonably do surround sound or
| turn up the volume. Apple Vision. + surround headphones would
| be awesome, or projector + many pairs of surround headphones
| for group experiences.
| zmmmmm wrote:
| Shared space interaction was notably missing from the
| keynote. I'm very curious what the vision for the platform
| for it will be. Meta has put a lot of focus on it so there
| are a bunch of Quest apps and games where people inhabit the
| same phyiscal space and all the virtual objects are shared. I
| feel like it's essential for a platform like this to
| ultimately succeed, and curious that Apple appears behind
| Meta on this front.
| ladberg wrote:
| The problem is that it puts a hard cap on how many people can
| enjoy your home theater, so that might be an issue. If you
| already have a space carved out for a home theater and were
| thinking of entertaining >2 people then I'm not entirely sure
| what the value add of the headset would be. In my opinion the
| benefit comes in getting a home-theater-like experience that
| you can bring anywhere and not have to dedicate space in your
| home for.
|
| Third party developers will definitely be capable of adding a
| sync feature like you're describing but I have no clue if
| they will.
| steveBK123 wrote:
| I see the productivity use case more useful than the
| entertainment ones, and without the social stigma of hanging
| around on your sofa weirding out spouse/kids.
|
| However most of the previews I read do point to some amount of
| weight/comfort ergonomics that I think play against the
| productivity use case.
|
| Basically my work compute needs to be ergonomic enough to use
| for 8-12 hours/day.
|
| I have a hard time believing we can live in this headset for
| anything north of 2-3 hours at best.
| sroussey wrote:
| Being able to watch movies in bed and let your spouse sleep
| without a lot of light is definitely a use case.
| macintux wrote:
| From your experience with it, what do you think about the
| fatigue factor, either visually or just neck strain? From all
| accounts it's quite heavy.
| jondwillis wrote:
| Unironically it might be smart to start 3d printing and
| testing some iNeckBrace designs.
| Vecr wrote:
| Or a bump helmet and hook the whole thing to the Night
| Vision Goggle mount on the front (like the new IVAS
| design), and put counterweights on the back to prevent it
| from shifting down. That could take a lot of pressure off
| your face and make the whole headborne system more
| balanced.
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| Counterweights are already a pretty common thing for
| existing VR headsets. Some people will strap a battery
| pack to the back strap of their headsets, and there's
| enough tethered players looking for plain counterweights
| that's there's a small cottage industry around custom
| made heavy metal counterweights.
|
| Here's the one that I bought to use with my
| "frankenquest" (Vive Deluxe Audio Strap on a Quest 2)
| setup: https://www.studioformcreative.com/product-
| page/vive-das-200...
| daemonk wrote:
| I actually would not mind a ceiling mounted design where
| the headset is counterweighted so it is essentially
| "floating" and you pull it down to put on your head. I know
| it will take away from the mobility of the headset, but I
| am okay with being stuck to a 6ft radius while working. It
| could also charge through the ceiling.
| ladberg wrote:
| For reference I was already pretty used to gaming in VR on
| inferior headsets before working on the Vision Pro, so I
| might be more forgiving of issues than your average person.
|
| I'd say that eye strain wasn't really an issue at all for me.
| When you take off the headset after a while inside of it you
| kinda get a jarring transition back to normal vision instead
| of passthrough, but passthrough doesn't have any noticeable
| issues when you're inside of it. It's almost like waking up
| from a dream where stuff feels different and you can't
| exactly place why.
|
| As for physical weight, it's lighter than other VR headsets
| I'm used to but obviously more than a pair of ski goggles.
| I'll echo MKBHD's thoughts that the most noticeable strain
| was on my nose because my lightseal (like the WWDC demos)
| wasn't as personalized as the version you'd get as a
| customer, so I fully expect that to be a non-issue.
| robert_tweed wrote:
| How is it in terms of heat & condensation build-up? Is
| there a certain amount of time after which it starts
| getting uncomfortable?
|
| Also, is passthrough good enough for things like typing, so
| you don't get an uncanny valley sense of the keys being
| just slightly off visually compared to your proprioception
| & touch?
| ladberg wrote:
| Heat and condensation build up is a complete non-issue
| due to the built in fans! I've never once felt hot or
| stuffy inside the Vision Pro, and I totally do on other
| VR headsets.
|
| I don't really look at my keyboard while typing so that's
| also a non-issue. For stuff where you really need hand-
| eye coordination it's totally fine at normal arms-length
| but gets worse as you get closer to your face. Finding a
| key on the keyboard with your eyes is not a big deal but
| if you try to drink from a glass of water you'll likely
| spill it on yourself the first time (and then eventually
| get used to it).
| MBCook wrote:
| Is that because the 'warping'/offset used to try to hide
| the cameras not being right where your eyes actually are
| starts to lose its effectiveness?
|
| I wondered about that.
|
| Great to hear about heat. That was always an issue for me
| in other headsets.
| ladberg wrote:
| To be honest I'm not entirely sure what reprojection is
| like on the final device or even if it exists at all, so
| my experience might be off. There may have been things
| that changed since I left and I'm not sure what the final
| plans were.
| MBCook wrote:
| I didn't necessarily mean reprojection but whatever
| 'trick' is done to hide that the cameras aren't in the
| same physical location the users eyes are without the
| headset on.
|
| Either way, very fair.
| musictubes wrote:
| Right, parallax will be more noticeable the closer you
| move your hand to your face.
| sleepybrett wrote:
| So you can pair bluetooth peripherals to it.. thats good
| to know, I assumed it but maybe missed that in the
| initial preso (i was watching while in a meeting). That's
| one thing i hate about my index. It's impossible to drink
| a soda while wearing it without a straw, the geometry
| just isn't compatible.
| fudged71 wrote:
| I have ADHD and can definitely say that I experience "time
| blindness" with technology, and being on the internet.
|
| I'm not sure how common this is for neurotypicals with VR
| headsets. With Vision Pro have you experienced losing track
| of time? Or does the AR passthrough seem to help with this?
| ladberg wrote:
| I have experienced what you're describing while gaming on
| my personal VR headset, but never with Vision Pro.
|
| I'm not sure if that's due to the passthrough or the fact
| that I was only ever using it to actively do work (and I
| usually mean work on stuff for the Vision Pro itself, not
| just "normal" dev work).
| jakemoshenko wrote:
| I've had a question that I haven't seen anyone else ask that
| you might be able to shed some light on: is there an internal
| battery to facilitate switching power sources without an
| instant loss of continuity?
| zmmmmm wrote:
| > When I sat down to write this article I was having trouble
| context shifting back from WWDC mode and wished that I could have
| gone up to a virtual cabin in the woods, opened a text editor and
| written it there
|
| I do this all the time with the Quest Pro. It's resolution isn't
| quite there but in most other respects it enables the same type
| of transportation out of current context to somewhere else. Given
| you can get these now for 1/4 the cost of a Vision Pro, I think
| dev interested in Vision Pro should pick up a Quest Pro now and
| then you have both ecosystems to play with / compare and
| ultimately, if you are building something where it works, ship it
| on both.
| sergiotapia wrote:
| I still haven't read one single account of a developer actually
| using it to write code in VSCode/Vim/Emacs. I need to know if the
| screens looks crisp and are actually a good replacement for a
| screen for work.
|
| I don't mean "powerpoint/drawing" work. I mean wall of text, code
| work.
| mellosouls wrote:
| _I still haven 't read one single account of a developer
| actually using it to write code in VSCode/Vim/Emacs_
|
| That's because it hasn't been released yet. All the accounts
| you are reading are strictly controlled and time-limited demos.
| daemonk wrote:
| None of the existing headsets I've tried has worked out in terms
| of working setup replacement. If it can replace a desk/monitor
| and lead to better ergonomics and flexibility, I would pay
| upwards of 5k for it. I really want Apple to succeed.
| gavi wrote:
| As an early developer (Day 1 of App Store launch in 2008 -
| iRetroPhone) there is some excitement of being the first on a new
| platform. Back in 2008, there was very little documentation on
| UIKit but it was fun to develop. The difference I see this time
| is we had access to the iPhone(released 2007) and this time[1] it
| looks like you need to either ask Apple to test the app for you,
| or go to one of the labs (not in NYC strangely) or be one of the
| lucky ones to be selected for developer kit.
|
| One more thing I found strange was the current Xcode 15 beta does
| not even come with Vision OS SDK (coming later this month) and we
| cant even play with the WWDC session videos in the simulator
|
| [1]https://developer.apple.com/visionos/work-with-apple/
| basisword wrote:
| >> The difference I see this time is we had access to the
| iPhone(released 2007) and this time[1] it looks like you need
| to either ask Apple to test the app for you, or go to one of
| the labs (not in NYC strangely) or be one of the lucky ones to
| be selected for developer kit.
|
| I'm pretty sure iPad's weren't available in advance of the
| launch day. And, it launched first in the US. I had an iPad app
| available on launch day and wasn't able to get my hands on an
| iPad for a month or two. Of course, developing only in the
| simulator for iPhone/iPad isn't a huge deal...visionOS is
| probably a lot harder to simulate particularly when it comes to
| understanding user interaction.
| Dudester230602 wrote:
| Enthusiasts will be asking to get access, while professionals
| will be paid to come and build.
| billconan wrote:
| I feel that it's difficult to develop any graphics intensive app
| as an indie developer.
| RugnirViking wrote:
| if you can 3d model in any capacity I reckon you can make VR
| apps, ive seen plenty of them done at game jams near here,
| including some that won. Don't need movie-quality textures or
| whatever, a cartoonly low-poly look works well. Don't let the
| player move, thats a can of worms.
|
| speaking of 3d modelling, I taught myself this year in my spare
| time over a few weeks, and feel im pretty good at it now, ive
| made scifi wargaming terrain im happy with and almost
| considering selling some. Blender is free and good and there
| are literally endless high quality tutorials for almost any
| specific object you might want to make and after ten or so you
| will be able to generalise to anything simple you choose. Of
| course human bodies are more complicated and I was intimidated
| but I found sculpting caricatures fun despite not being an
| artist in the slightest after following an excellent tutorial
| taeric wrote:
| It is difficult to develop any asset heavy application as an
| independent developer. Pretty much period. You have to find a
| way to contract out assets, or you will drown.
|
| Unless you mean the programming of 3d transformations and such.
| That is, of course, still hard. Most of the platforms have done
| a ton of that work for you, though.
| Groxx wrote:
| Is this somehow relevant to the article, or just an "indie
| games are hard" lament?
| billconan wrote:
| this is my reason for not being a day-one developer this
| time.
| Temporary_31337 wrote:
| I was kind of waiting for the day where a touchscreen based app
| would be more productive than a traditional laptop with keyboard.
| Yet, after many years all we got is fruit ninja and a concession
| from apple in the form of attachable keyboard for the iPad. So
| I'm equally sceptical that the investment in headset based
| interface is actually worth it.
| nektro wrote:
| i fully plan on using a keyboard with the vision pro, that
| doesnt make me any less excited for it
| crazygringo wrote:
| Well, touchscreens are generally smaller than laptop screens,
| and a lot of productivity requires a keyboard.
|
| But the screens on Vision Pro are larger, and it works great
| with a keyboard.
|
| So anything that requires larger/more screens seems like it
| might be more productive than a laptop.
| waboremo wrote:
| As usual, the devil is in the details.
|
| We can see this with voice to text, in which despite in theory
| being so much faster than typing things out, tends to not be
| due to these details (processing lag, clunkiness of handling
| different forms such as whether a word is part of a command or
| should be added to the text).
|
| Same will happen here. People will get over the hype period and
| then realize hey this isn't actually faster or more efficient
| than a traditional tool. Apple knows this as well, it's why
| they're marketing it as a media consumption device first and
| foremost, where a lot of these problems can be safely ignored.
| sebzim4500 wrote:
| I think some artists use an ipad with a stylus rather than
| tablet input to a laptop/desktop, but other than this I can't
| see how anything else could compete with a keyboard in terms of
| productivity. Maybe if someone makes a really, really good
| voice to text interface.
| elzbardico wrote:
| > Maybe if someone makes a really, really good voice to text
| interface. Maybe it could work, unless you're programming in
| APL :-)
| noelsusman wrote:
| Here's a short demo of a pretty good voice to text interface
| that's available for free:
| https://twitter.com/lunixbochs/status/1378159234861264896
|
| I had to use it for a while when I was unable to touch a
| keyboard or mouse while recovering from RSI and I was
| surprised by how quickly I was able to get to about 80% of my
| previous productivity using just my voice. I still use it
| sometimes even though my RSI is fully healed.
| bamfly wrote:
| I could see walking around the room thinking and doing
| clicky-stuff and looking at things, then sitting in front of
| a keyboard to type. Basically, what I do when I'm on a call
| and have wireless headphones on.
| mbesto wrote:
| It's all very well researched that touchscreens above our arms
| can't be used with longevity:
| https://www.wired.com/2010/10/gorilla-arm-multitouch/
| ladberg wrote:
| I agree the keyboard will remain as the best text input device
| but I'm pretty confident that eye tracking will be
| categorically better than a mouse/trackpad. I'll expect that
| eye tracking solutions for normal monitors will also become
| more mainstream once people get used to it in the Vision Pro
| and want to use it elsewhere.
| UI_at_80x24 wrote:
| I primarily use i3wm with 4-40 terminal windows + firefox
| open. I'd LOVE it if the terminal that I'm looking at was the
| `active` one. I can't count the number of times I'd lookup
| some error code, type in more commands, hit enter; only to
| discover that I had been typing away in the wrong window.
| sleepybrett wrote:
| This will be no problem at all in the sdk. Hell I saw
| someone do this as some point on the mac using the macbook
| camera popping windows to the front based on eye-dwell... I
| think they started with cursor control.. essentially eye-
| mouse.
|
| Oh wait some version of that is built into accessibility on
| mac already (eye tracking mouse):
| https://support.apple.com/lv-lv/guide/mac-
| help/mchl437b47b0/...
| henryfjordan wrote:
| How do I click though? Blink? What about a right-click?
|
| Asking me to "blink twice" or anything like that is going to
| make my eyes lose focus on the screen/content
| ladberg wrote:
| The pinch gesture on Vision Pro is pretty smooth and easy,
| about as much physical exertion as a mouse click. Right
| click is harder, I'd expect most app developers to do
| something similar to iOS and treat long clicks as right
| clicks but that's pure speculation.
|
| I'd love to have an eye tracking setup though on a normal
| desktop computer where I could devote a keyboard key to
| clicking and I'd never have my hands leave the keyboard.
| samwillis wrote:
| On the Vision Pro, tap your index finger and thumb
| together.
|
| Maybe they could add other features from just your face
| though for other platforms, wiggling nose, raise eyebrows,
| stick out tong, blow a raspberry?
|
| That or they add voice commands, "open", "select" and such.
|
| I suppose ultimately in spatial computing with voice
| interface and eye tracking the concept of a "click" may
| die.
| crooked-v wrote:
| There's also apparently other gestures and voice commands
| that can be selected in the settings, though I haven't
| seen any real detail on it other than "they're there".
| samwillis wrote:
| As we use an iPhone so close to our face, I would love to see
| an eye tracking system work for them. But maybe it really
| need that incredible close proximity, two cameras per eye,
| and IR illumination in the Vision Pro to work.
| throwuwu wrote:
| Voice input is going to replace the keyboard shortly.
| frant-hartm wrote:
| Sure, just right after Linux takes over desktop.
| chrisrogers wrote:
| Eye tracking will probably lose the productivity metric,
| though. When you remove the ability to look at one thing and
| interact with another, you get farther from the way that
| humans tend to interact with their immediate physical
| environment.
|
| I can cut vegetables without looking at them. I can use that
| dynamic to offset the planning and acting phases of my
| thought process. Falling short of that efficiency will feel
| limiting.
| htag wrote:
| I don't click without looking at my mouse pointer. I think
| it's possible eye tracking is just better than
| mouse/trackpad.
| yurishimo wrote:
| Interesting, I just tried to use my pointer with my
| peripheral vision, and while possible, it was indeed more
| difficult and harder to focus on. Something I hadn't
| tried before.
| CrazyStat wrote:
| I do, when gaming.
|
| I can think of some Portal puzzles in particular where
| timing is important, and you need to hold your aim but
| wait to click until something happens somewhere else on
| the screen (so the place you're clicking is not the same
| as the place you're looking).
|
| I think the same thing applies to e.g. recording network
| activity in Chrome dev tools. My eyes are on the page to
| see when the thing I'm interested in finishes loading; my
| mouse cursor is on the button to stop recording.
|
| It's not a super common pattern, but probably common
| enough that it would be annoying not to be able to do it.
| BakeInBeens wrote:
| I often am looking at another element before interacting
| with it with my mouse. With eye tracking enabled menus
| hovering over an element immediately because I'm looking
| at it becomes an annoyance.
| htag wrote:
| Yea, I don't think a 1-to-1 translation of mouse
| movements with eye tracking is the correct answer here. I
| do think it's probable that eye tracking + {X} can be a
| 1-to-1 translation for clicking for 80%+ clicks.
|
| Maybe X is a button on the keyboard. Maybe X is a
| gesture.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| Eye tracking has been $100 to own for many years now through
| a certain company. Why hasn't it taken off?
|
| The mouse is the superior input device. When people who
| actually need a better input device get one, they get more
| advanced mice:
|
| https://3dconnexion.com/us/spacemouse/
| ladberg wrote:
| I'm not sure what the SOTA is currently but the Vision Pro
| has much better eye tracking that other systems I've used
| in the past. Idk if the sensors are actually better or if
| it's just the native integration into the OS and apps, but
| it feels more seamless than a mouse and I've never
| "misclicked" on the wrong thing with my eyes. It kinda
| feels like if the mouse cursor instantly jumped to the
| right place every time with no travel time or physical
| movements required.
|
| I've used a 3D mouse for CAD but am not sure where else it
| would be helpful?
| jasonpbecker wrote:
| I definitely want to see a monitor with Vision Pro-style eye
| tracking and hand tracking. I'd love for eyesight and subtle
| gestures to fully replace pointer devices.
| thomastjeffery wrote:
| That was a lot of words for nothing to say... To sum up the
| entire article in one sentence:
|
| The author got to play with the thing, and is very excited to
| develop software for it.
| yokoprime wrote:
| You could further summarize it with one word: excitement.
|
| Excitement is good. It's not a revolutionary take on anything,
| but it can be interesting to know why a seasoned iOS developer
| finds this new platform worthwhile to invest in.
| Krasnol wrote:
| Also: don't cry about the price. Quality costs money.
|
| Altogether sounded like an GPT Apple Ad.
| chaostheory wrote:
| Apple miniaturized a laptop + MacBook into a visor
| sleepybrett wrote:
| Yeah, i was a little afraid of an iphone or ipad mini level
| of compute, was happy to see that this thing can run
| untethered with some actual muscle under the hood.
| TillE wrote:
| It's true though, the device is clearly intentionally
| overbuilt, it's not like Apple is adding some huge arbitrary
| markup.
| Krasnol wrote:
| We'll see about that.
| crooked-v wrote:
| From the previews people have had so far, I feel like they
| decided their target was "could plausibly and comfortably
| replace a computer day 1 even for someone who had never
| used a VR device before", then went backwards from the
| hardware needed for that to figure out their price point.
| wincy wrote:
| Can I write software using Xcode day 1 for this? Do I
| need to also have a Mac? I mean I do have a Mac but an
| extra $3500 is steep.
|
| That said I've planned to get one since I heard rumors
| years ago that this was in the works.
|
| I sort of expected it to be a full replacement for a
| MacBook though.
| Joeri wrote:
| Apple has an app developer story for ipad with swift
| playgrounds. It would not surprise me that their long
| term strategy is to grow that into the default app dev
| experience and have it be on all platforms, including
| visionOS.
|
| As for developing from day one, web development should be
| ok, as things like vs code online have really opened ip
| options.
| mhink wrote:
| I think this was an interesting point:
|
| > That intuition is developed by following a platform's
| development from its early stages. You have to have seen and
| experienced all the attempts and missteps along the way to know
| where the next logical step is. Waiting until a platform is
| mature and then starting to work on it then will let you skip
| all the messy parts in the middle, but also leave you with only
| answers to the "what" questions, not so much the "why"
| questions.
|
| I definitely think there's a lot of truth in this, not just for
| the Vision Pro but for many (if not most)
| platforms/frameworks/what have you. This could be an entire
| blog post in itself.
| badprose wrote:
| A lot of those words were explaining why they're excited to
| develop software for it.
|
| What did you want them to write about instead?
| thomastjeffery wrote:
| More of the "write about" and less of the "write about why
| I'm writing about".
| yokoprime wrote:
| I think you can expect some more detailed insights from
| David once he starts testing out things in the emulator.
| ftxbro wrote:
| this blogpost is the platonic ideal of hype
| thdespou wrote:
| It starts with the early adopters and spreads like a virus.
| [deleted]
| amelius wrote:
| Next episode:
|
| developer gets frustrated as Apple refuses to relinquish full
| control over the device.
| Dudester230602 wrote:
| I think reviewers who don't get excited about Apple products
| stop getting invited to new Apple products.
| Tagbert wrote:
| Marco Arment was invited to WWDC as he is north a developer
| and operates a Mac focused blog. He is frequently very
| critical of Apple's tools and actions. I don't think Apple
| just invites 'yes men'
| MBCook wrote:
| David Smith is not a reviewer. He's been a longtime app
| developer with a huge number of apps. Apple has even featured
| a few of them.
|
| He may be best known for Pedometer++ and Widgetsmith which
| was the app that went viral on TikTok when widgets first came
| out for the iPhone.
| sfpotter wrote:
| Apple gave him an exclusive invitation to be one of the
| first people to try the device on.
|
| Do you think Apple is unaware that he has a popular blog
| and is a popular developer of software that runs on Apple
| products?
| MBCook wrote:
| It doesn't surprise me that Apple would want to give a
| demo to someone who has consistently made high quality
| apps for their platforms, often on day 1 of a new
| platform.
|
| It's a developer conference. Yes there are media there,
| but it's also to court developers.
| Anonasty wrote:
| Someone said interestingly that with Vision Pro, Apple is giving
| solution to problem which does not exist.
| cdchn wrote:
| Not so sure I agree with the pricing strategy. It feels to me
| they aimed squarely for MacBook Pro pricing.
| replete wrote:
| Hololens 2 is the same price...
| 0zemp3c wrote:
| [flagged]
| [deleted]
| squeaky-clean wrote:
| It's basically a macbook pro with 2x near-4k oled screens and
| 12 cameras.
| swozey wrote:
| I play VR games like Skyrim VR quite often and my biggest
| disappointment, outside of the ridiculous price - is that it's
| completely gesture controlled. Are there going to be controllers
| at all? How would you play a game with guns? Make a pew-pew gun
| with your fingers?
| etchalon wrote:
| The SDK supports a gesture detection, but the "official"
| solution is to pair a Xbox or PS5 controller to the device.
| zmmmmm wrote:
| If Apple allows it then I fully expect 3rd parties to make
| controllers. Now that Meta has demonstrated fully self tracked
| controllers, you don't need much OS integration to make that
| work.
|
| Of course, it depends if Apple allows it.
| Vecr wrote:
| I don't think apple really likes guns, so it would probably
| have to be third party, but a training pistol with a real belt-
| mounted holster and an AR upper and lower without the FCG or
| barrel, both with some tracking markers the Apple goggles can
| pick up would probably work well. Shooting a rifle with VR
| controllers does not really work that well, because you can't
| brace them at all (because the two standard controllers are not
| attached) and there is no stock. Fix that with a hundred
| dollars of airsoft knockoff AR-15 parts.
| [deleted]
| eddieroger wrote:
| The promotional video on Apple's site shows a user picking up
| and using a PS5 controller. iPhones and iPads can pair with
| third-party controllers today as well as keyboards and mice, so
| there's really no reason to think that this wouldn't work with
| those as well, particularly since Apple showed it happening in
| their video.
| MBCook wrote:
| I think it's very clear this is _not_ positioned for gamers.
|
| It may be powerful. It may work very well in some ways (there
| may be limitations without hand held controllers like an
| Oculus or PSVR2).
|
| But that's not what Apple is trying to sell. And they clearly
| don't want to be pigeonholed as another fancy gamer device.
| [deleted]
| goosedragons wrote:
| They did show off using a standard PlayStation controller but
| nothing like an Oculus Quest or Index Give VR controller. While
| a PlayStation would be fine for something like Tetris Effect,
| for titles that get more out VR it does seem like it could be a
| problem.
| basisword wrote:
| VR gaming is already covered by multiple VR headsets...and not
| a lot of people are buying them. The people I know who did buy
| them found the novelty wore off quickly. Positioning the
| visionPro as a computer rather than a games console seems like
| a smart and very deliberate choice.
| musictubes wrote:
| Computer gamers are the only ones that still think that
| general use computers are also great gaming devices. I think
| it makes more sense to have dedicated gaming devices for
| those experiences.
|
| Apple has done very well while ignoring the gamer (as opposed
| to people that play games) customer. I don't anticipate Apple
| making big strides towards prioritizing the so called AAA
| gaming experience now.
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