[HN Gopher] Apple VisionOS Simulator streaming wirelessly to Met...
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       Apple VisionOS Simulator streaming wirelessly to Meta Quest headset
        
       Author : ozten
       Score  : 264 points
       Date   : 2023-07-10 16:30 UTC (6 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (github.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
        
       | sourcepluck wrote:
       | Still not entirely sure how the people on here seem to largely
       | continue to support companies like Apple. I get it - they have
       | the high-paying jobs, they make shiny toys, they have slick
       | marketing and symbolism, caring about things like privacy,
       | freedom, education, empowering people, etc, seems oh so very naff
       | - but at the same time, technologically aware people know what
       | Apple are doing.
       | 
       | Right? Or not? Is the argument just - oh, but the stuff is cool,
       | so... whatever?
       | 
       | Not attempting to flame here, I genuinely am curious on the take
       | people have that permits them ethically to continue buying Apple
       | stuff and fan-person-ing over it. I know not everyone is, but it
       | seems really very common, even on here amongst the technically
       | literate. Maybe especially on here?
        
         | Waterluvian wrote:
         | Many people, at some point, begin to truly grok the fact that
         | nobody but themselves exist in their specific life context.
         | That what matters to them-- what they value, can be so
         | different.
         | 
         | The moment you can liberate yourself from the "it seems really
         | very common" trap, so much about, well, everything, begins
         | making more sense.
        
         | yodsanklai wrote:
         | I don't get the point you're trying to make. Why shouldn't we
         | buy Apple products? They make some good products. What's the
         | ethical problem?
         | 
         | I can see some ethical problems (e.g. consumerism,
         | environmental concerns) but nothing specific to Apple.
        
         | zmmmmm wrote:
         | > permits them ethically to continue buying Apple stuff
         | 
         | you need to be more specific about what your ethical objection
         | is.
         | 
         | I avoid the iOS ecosystem because I see it as a monopolistic
         | lockin that restricts fundamental freedoms. It is hostile to
         | its user's interests by taking those freedoms and achieves it
         | by exploiting their lack of technical understanding of what
         | they are giving up.
         | 
         | But is that your ethical problem?
        
         | micromacrofoot wrote:
         | Can you include some more detail about what technologically
         | aware people know?
        
           | tiahura wrote:
           | That it's literally 2023 and they still don't have a
           | touchscreen MacBook.
        
             | jwells89 wrote:
             | I hope no touch continues to be an option even if Apple
             | adds touchscreens to MacBooks.
             | 
             | When buying a PC laptops I look specifically for models
             | that have a no touch version, because unintentional touches
             | triggering things is annoying and for some reason, in my
             | experience large touch screens almost always either lack
             | antiglare coating or if they have it, it's so weak that
             | they're practically mirrors. The antiglare coating on
             | current MacBooks is quite good and I wouldn't want to trade
             | that for touch... same goes for my matte PC laptop.
        
         | Angostura wrote:
         | "Shiny toys" = effective high-performance machines
         | 
         | "caring about things like privacy" - I'm not clear - are you
         | saying this is a bad thing?
         | 
         | You're not really clear, I don't think about _exactly_ what you
         | think the unethical aspects of buying Apple are. Perhaps you
         | could clarify.
        
         | daedrdev wrote:
         | I feel that Apple makes products that are superior to the
         | alternatives for many people.
         | 
         | For those people, whats wrong with liking Apple?
        
         | stetrain wrote:
         | They make good products that people like to use, so people pay
         | them money to use those products.
         | 
         | There are definitely things to disagree with Apple about, and
         | the crowd here leans towards those values a lot more than the
         | general consumer market.
         | 
         | But a lot of the ethical issues can be debated about basically
         | any technology product not soldered and coded by your own two
         | hands in your garage (and even that solution has ethical
         | quandaries from an accessibility standpoint).
         | 
         | Personally I give Apple money and they give me high-quality,
         | stable tools that let me get my work done in a way that feels
         | nice. The alternatives all have most of the same moral issues
         | (made in China using who knows what labor and material
         | sourcing), but I like the Apple ones so I use them. I don't see
         | the huge conflict there.
        
         | gehsty wrote:
         | For the low end iPhone and iPad have a super simple interaction
         | model. My grandma uses both, and she's 88. If it breaks she can
         | take it to the Apple Store and they'll fix it or help her. No
         | one else comes close to them in this regard.
         | 
         | From a tech perspective owning the full stack from silicon /
         | hardware / OS / service allows them to make things no one else
         | can. Can anyone else make vision Pro right now? Even at the
         | $3.5k I'm not sure they could.
         | 
         | The marketing / distortion field thing is bs in my opinion,
         | when apple release a shitty product it fails, when it's good it
         | does well. Look at Ping, Apple Watch Edition, and to a lesser
         | extent Siri and homepod.
        
         | whimsicalism wrote:
         | > Not attempting to flame here
         | 
         | Really? Because this is perfect flame-bait.
        
         | isatty wrote:
         | What are you referring to? I'm a power user that buys lots of
         | apple products.
         | 
         | - Best products for what I need: every MacBook since the fat
         | ones in the early 2000s has been solid and living up to abuse.
         | iPhones do not need me to fiddle with configuration or
         | customization, just works (it's not just a meme, it's important
         | to people without time), gets software updates for a _long_
         | time, and works very well in the ecosystem. The iPad Pro is the
         | best tablet I've used, ever.
         | 
         | - iMessage is a solid messaging system and FaceTime has the
         | best A/V quality of all the other apps I've tried.
         | 
         | - the ecosystem works seamlessly with each other and I can
         | onboard my non techy aging parents into new devices and usage
         | patterns without much trouble
         | 
         | - Apple Home and secure video are a joy to use and it doesn't
         | feel like you're using it just because you're already in the
         | ecosystem
         | 
         | - I do most of my work over plain SSH and tmux/vim, for which
         | iTerm is a great terminal emulator. For the occasional GUI app,
         | the macOS looks fantastic ootb and requires minimal fiddling
         | around to get right. I've been there and done Linux ricing and
         | I'm glad I don't have to anymore. Just dwm/i3 on my workstation
         | works for me.
         | 
         | Now one of the most important things
         | 
         | - Apple support is the best. I've broken my phones, laptops,
         | etc. and I've never had a bad experience in the Apple Store and
         | I've been in an out with a replacement or fix in a few hours
         | tops in multiple countries.
        
         | brigadier132 wrote:
         | They have the best product for what I need.
        
         | satvikpendem wrote:
         | Are you talking about gatekeeping what software I can run on my
         | own device? If so, yes, that's one reason why I don't buy Apple
         | products, generally speaking. I would love to use an iPad Pro
         | as a VSCode machine just as one can do on a Mac but in a much
         | slimmer package, but no, Apple doesn't want me compiling my own
         | software for some reason, so I'm stuck with a laptop.
         | 
         | Same with the Vision headset, it is absurd that the only way to
         | do real software work on it is to literally stream a Mac
         | display onto the device. At that point, why not use the Mac
         | itself?
        
           | zwily wrote:
           | Cause the Mac doesn't have a 360 degree immersive interface?
        
             | satvikpendem wrote:
             | The Mac screen that's mirrored to the Vision Pro is not 360
             | degrees and immersive either, it's just...a screen. It
             | would be cool to see stuff like files and connections in 3D
             | space, but it's nerfed pretty hard all so that Apple can
             | keep that sweet 30% fee.
        
         | madeofpalk wrote:
         | > Is the argument just - oh, but the stuff is cool, so...
         | whatever?
         | 
         | Do you find it that strange that "company makes things people
         | like to pay money for"?
         | 
         | I'm unsure which "objective" ethical framework disallows Apple
         | products but allows any other consumer tech device. Apple does
         | very well at some things, average at some others, and very
         | poorly at other things, which isn't particuarly insightful.
         | Whether you would like to spend money on an Apple product
         | depends on how you value each of these things, and you can't be
         | surprised that other people might prioritise different things
         | than you.
        
         | Dalewyn wrote:
         | I'm not an Apple fanboi, I generally dislike their stuff, but I
         | am also going to give credit where credit is due because that's
         | what any fair person should do.
         | 
         | Apple makes stuff that _will_ work, that _will_ satisfy the
         | common man, that _will_ (or at least _should_ ) have quality
         | meriting their price.
         | 
         | Apple's products are good, and that is an objective fact
         | separate from whether I personally like their stuff or not.
        
         | prox wrote:
         | Your perceptions are wrong from a consumer point of view. They
         | don't make shiny toys (well they do but that's not the point)
         | 
         | They make extremely frictionless ecosystems. Everyone on HN
         | loves to tinker I would wager, but that is never going to be
         | your average consumer. Apple knows that.
         | 
         | That is why Linux will never become mainstream, the friction of
         | using it (from installing to daily driving it) is _INSANE_ . No
         | one can use it outside of a select few. Same with Android. Lots
         | of idiosyncrasies when you start digging deeper. I wanted to
         | use Samsung version of Airdrop today. It was a disaster trying
         | to get a picture over to another device.
         | 
         | That's where Apple shines. Get that and you might make a dent
         | in Apples market share.
        
           | 76SlashDolphin wrote:
           | For your Airdrop example, my iPhone has just as many silly UX
           | idiosyncrasies as any Android phone. For example, recently I
           | needed to translate the text in an image on my iPhone and
           | there is no way to do it(from what I know) other than paying
           | for a dedicated app and giving it Photo permissions. On my
           | Pixel (and any Android phone) the same thing can be done by
           | long pressing the image in my web browser -> Share -> Google
           | Lens -> Done.
           | 
           | IMHO, phone OSes are mature enough nowadays that both options
           | can achieve the same things and whether you prefer one UX
           | over the other depends on what you "grew up with".
        
             | prox wrote:
             | Your usage is already in the intermediary stage of
             | interfacing. Still is a bit cherry picking, I stand by the
             | overall assessment that Apple products are greatly
             | frictionless and easy to use, and work together.
             | Anecdotally, older relatives need a lot less help, almost
             | none with their iPads.
        
             | jwells89 wrote:
             | In apps using the native UI framework (UIKit), text in
             | images is automatically locally OCR'd and is selectable.
             | Apps built in third party toolkits like Flutter won't have
             | this, but that can be worked around by taking a screenshot
             | and selecting the text in Photos.
             | 
             | Lens can be used by going to images.google.com or the
             | official Google app. Nothing is stopping the same share
             | sheet flow you mentioned from being possible but for some
             | reason Google hasn't added a share sheet extension to their
             | iOS app.
        
             | filoleg wrote:
             | > I needed to translate the text in an image on my iPhone
             | and there is no way to do it(from what I know) other than
             | paying for a dedicated app and giving it Photo permissions
             | 
             | Save Image => highlight text in the saved image from the
             | native Photos app => click "Translate". No third-party apps
             | involved. All done locally too, no need for internet
             | connection even (after the image is saved, ofc).
        
         | scarface_74 wrote:
         | Your hands must hurt from clutching your pearls.
         | 
         | I bet you never took a vow of poverty or decided not to use
         | tech. Do you use computers? Do you own a phone? Do you spend
         | all of your time feeding starving children?
        
       | zmmmmm wrote:
       | Amazing work!
       | 
       | Very curious what the limits on performance would be for it.
       | Could it ultimately offer a way to run Vision OS apps in a
       | realistic way without having the hardware? Quest 3 could make a
       | super compelling package for it (admittedly, not having the eye
       | tracking is a big problem).
       | 
       | I guess we can't really know yet how Apple will handle it, but
       | does seem unlikely that Apple will allow the simulator to install
       | arbitrary apps from the app store.
        
       | cheerioty wrote:
       | 224 points and not single positive comment in the comments, sigh.
       | 
       | I think this is awesome, as the Quest Pro is almost on par with
       | the features of the Vision Pro (except Lidar), e.g. hand & eye
       | tracking + color passthrough. Sure, these might be not of the
       | same quality (especially when it comes to passthrough), but this
       | allows people to verify their experiences/concepts for the Vision
       | Pro before they actually get their hands on one.
       | 
       | I don't think that Meta, nor Apple will have a problem with this
       | tbh. Maybe because of the assets/icons used in the HUD, but those
       | can easily be replaced if needed.
        
         | yreg wrote:
         | This is a great idea even if the hardware was quite different.
         | I honestly can't imagine developing for visionOS armed only
         | with a simulator. And since Apple afaik doesn't have a hardware
         | devkit, this sounds miles better.
        
       | dvh wrote:
       | Now I finally understand the purpose of virtual reality desktops.
       | I put it on and my room is tidy.
        
         | JKCalhoun wrote:
         | How long until a slasher film features teens sitting around VR
         | gaming while, unbeknownst to them in their tidy VR living room,
         | Freddy Krueger is having a field day.
         | 
         | That jump-scare when the one teen lifts up their headset to see
         | Freddy inches away.
        
           | bradgessler wrote:
           | I picture the person is dressed in a QR code suit. Encoded in
           | it: "nothing to see here you lookie Lou!"
        
             | jayd16 wrote:
             | Reminds me of Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex. A
             | hacker is able to obscure their face in public by
             | overlaying a logo into every onlookers' passthrough feed.
        
               | jerlam wrote:
               | The modern version of this is playing a Taylor Swift song
               | so that anyone taking a video will have its audio muted
               | when uploaded.
        
               | trafficante wrote:
               | For those not in the know, this is an actual thing that
               | was happening a few years back.
               | 
               | https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/02/cops-using-music-
               | try-s...
        
               | birdyrooster wrote:
               | Ghost in the Shell is so ahead of its time we will be
               | catching up for many decades.
        
               | bee_rider wrote:
               | It was so cool, I want it to happen even though
               | realistically we'll all be background technician losers
               | that exist to show how great The Major is.
        
               | sobkas wrote:
               | We all here dabble in technology(doesn't matter which
               | one) so possibility of being some brainwashed meat puppet
               | taking part of some covert war between powers that be is
               | more likely. And there are fates that are even
               | worse(think what was in that ship on international
               | waters). GitS is a nightmare and cyberpunk for a reason.
        
               | bee_rider wrote:
               | Personally I always thought Togusa had some good points.
        
               | mensetmanusman wrote:
               | We are all extras in someone else's movie.
        
         | xattt wrote:
         | Coupled with object recognition and a UWB-tagged laundry hamper
         | and garbage bin, room cleanup could be game-ified.
        
           | wpietri wrote:
           | Honestly, this makes sense to me. One of the reasons people
           | don't tidy is getting overwhelmed. Either at an emotional
           | layer, because they see everything. Or at a visual layer,
           | because they stop seeing anything. If you could trim it back
           | to first visualizing the room as clean and then showing them
           | one activity (e.g., see only dishes, so you can focus on
           | collecting those), you might help people retrain.
        
             | jbverschoor wrote:
             | Or yours "someone" never got to learn how to clean in a
             | structural way, similar to someone who never later learned
             | how to write.
             | 
             | Don't blame lack of knowledge or skill, or any other thing
             | on physiological issues
        
               | wpietri wrote:
               | Good thing I didn't do that!
               | 
               | Actual people actually report actually feeling
               | overwhelmed. They describe the experiences as I describe
               | them. Blogs give strategies to deal with these specific
               | feelings.
               | 
               | Is it possible that learning some particular skill will
               | help with that? Surely! Are there other reasons that
               | people might also not clean, ones related to not learning
               | something? Also yes. But that's no reason to show up and
               | be aggressively contrary. Some people's experiences are
               | different than yours and you don't have to leap in to
               | deny that just because it's different for you.
        
         | TillE wrote:
         | I assume you're mostly joking, but honestly that's a really
         | good insight into how something like Vision Pro might appeal to
         | people.
         | 
         | Your environment is super important to your mental/emotional
         | state. If you can jump into different virtual environments for
         | work or relaxation, that'd surely help your brain switch
         | context and focus.
         | 
         | I've heard a ton of chat from Apple fans about how most people
         | don't have rooms or work spaces with three meters of empty
         | space in front of them, contrary to Apple's product demos.
         | Environments like Mount Hood sound like a gimmick, but they're
         | probably going to be a huge part of what makes this device
         | work.
        
           | trafficante wrote:
           | > Your environment is super important to your
           | mental/emotional state. If you can jump into different
           | virtual environments for work or relaxation, that'd surely
           | help your brain switch context and focus.
           | 
           | Absolutely crucial observation and one that unfortunately
           | either gets ignored or is attached to negative dystopic
           | connotations like "live in the pod".
           | 
           | This past winter was particularly gloomy here in the Pacific
           | Northwest (which is saying a lot). One of the most impactful
           | strategies I used for dealing with seasonal affective
           | disorder was to sit under a red lamp, put an oscillating fan
           | on low, and load up a hyper-realistic photogrammetry "nature
           | tours" app called Brink XR[1].
           | 
           | Being able to have a modern Calgon Moment with a virtual
           | stretch-out-and-relax in a cloudless Arches National Park did
           | absolute wonders for my overall mood after dealing with yet
           | another miserable day of cold rain with no end in sight.
           | 
           | [1] https://youtu.be/j2AdT9C2CK8
        
           | drdaeman wrote:
           | Fake/relaxation environment that stretches out to infinity
           | with nothing to focus on may be a somewhat usable workaround
           | for vergence-accommodation conflict. I suspect that's also
           | why all the demos have all the windows equidistant and
           | there's no depth to the UIs, and why camera passthrough
           | imagery is frequently shown blurred out (so you don't try to
           | focus on it).
        
       | codybontecou wrote:
       | Is there support for pass-through/AR simulation?
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | m3kw9 wrote:
       | Should name it poor man's Apple Vision
        
         | ZiiS wrote:
         | Given you need to be at least a millionaire to have an Apple
         | Vision outside Apple I am not sure you assume this is only for
         | poor people.
        
           | Takennickname wrote:
           | Poor Man's X is just an English idiom.
        
         | varispeed wrote:
         | Should name it Pear Vision (read with an accent to sound like
         | poor vision).
        
       | bredren wrote:
       | I'd guess Meta has better reasons to shut this down than Apple
       | does.
       | 
       | The project reinforces the idea that the Quest products are of
       | low quality (evidenced by comments here).
       | 
       | It also improves the developer experience the ecosystem of Meta's
       | competitor.
       | 
       | Thus, providing greater pre-release momentum to the Vision Pro at
       | Facebook's cost.
        
         | smoldesu wrote:
         | Meta _can 't_ shut this down. Sideloading has been a feature of
         | the Quest since the start, stopping this would represent a
         | paradigm shift for developers of the platform.
         | 
         | > The project reinforces the idea that the Quest products are
         | of low quality (evidenced by comments here).
         | 
         | They are. That's why they cost $400 (game console territory)
         | instead of $3,500 (OLED TV or iMac territory).
         | 
         | "Comments here" will tell you the Quest is a failed product
         | after 20 million units sold. The people on this website have
         | never been representative of the market at-large.
        
           | georgespencer wrote:
           | > "Comments here" will tell you the Quest is a failed product
           | after 20 million units sold. The people on this website have
           | never been representative of the market at-large.
           | 
           | It's amazing how many people miss this crucial point. Apple
           | and Meta share a high level ambition - to dominate the next
           | wave of computing platform -- but that's pretty much the only
           | similarity between them.
           | 
           | If you look at Quest and Vision Pro and think about the
           | constraints placed on the teams building them it seems like:
           | 
           | 1. Apple's teams are given the constraint of producing an
           | amazing user experience in terms of screens, gesture control,
           | etc. Price flexes upwards to deliver this.
           | 
           | 2. Meta's teams are given the constraint of achieving a mass
           | market price, and the quality of the product flexes down to
           | achieve this.
           | 
           | Apple's position makes sense to me. They are no longer an
           | underdog[^1] and can fast follow anyone who has a more
           | compelling vision for AR/VR which launches before they get
           | theirs out the door.
           | 
           | Meta needed to get this going before Apple for obvious
           | reasons. That's why, for example, of the 20 million units you
           | referred to as being sold, 5 million of them (!) had safety
           | recall notices because the fabric of one of the components
           | caused such serious skin irritation that some number of users
           | were hospitalised.
           | 
           | Meta can move fast and break things (& people), but Apple
           | can't do that any more. (No judgement of either company.)
           | 
           | That all makes sense... but the bit I can't fathom is why
           | Facebook didn't take the approach of building from the high
           | end down? I don't know of any complex consumer electronics or
           | hardware companies which don't take the approach of launching
           | massively expensive "pro" hardware which is the beachhead for
           | driving down price over time. E.g. autofocus in cameras began
           | life on the giant cameras which sports photographers used to
           | use, but over time it became cheap enough to manufacture that
           | all cameras shipped with it.
           | 
           | Do you think Meta genuinely thought they were just a few
           | years away from delivering a mass market-ready device (for
           | playing BeatSabre and talking to cartoon versions of your
           | friends)?
           | 
           | My guess is that Meta saw themselves as being curators of the
           | best bits of the existing AR/VR proposition: tie all the best
           | bits of the existing field of hardware and software companies
           | and put them into a package at a $400 price point. Just
           | iterate on the existing ideas a bit and focus on getting the
           | price down.
           | 
           | Apple seems to have looked at the existing ideas around UX
           | (input and screen quality especially) and scope (what do I
           | use this for?) and decided that there needed to be
           | dramatically different (better, in Apple's view) solutions.
           | 
           | Given Meta's internal rhetoric about Quest not retaining
           | users, I'd say Apple was wise to approach this from first
           | principles. But I really don't know what Meta has been
           | working on for so long?
           | 
           | If I think back to the original iPhone launch, it made
           | literally every other phone on the market look preposterously
           | antiquated (to the point that RIM execs famously believed it
           | was "impossible" for Apple to actually be delivering the
           | phone they demoed). Vision Pro does that to the Vive Pro
           | gathering dust in my cupboard, but I'll need to use one to
           | say for sure whether it does the same to the Quest 3. My
           | hunch is that the disparity isn't as huge as it was with cell
           | phones, but it doesn't seem like Facebook can simply ignore
           | Vision Pro and continue with their current product roadmap: I
           | would bet on Apple (a hardware company with a lot of scale
           | advantages) figuring out how to make the baseline experience
           | achieved with Vision Pro cheaper for a consumer device _much_
           | faster and more easily than Facebook will figure out how to
           | achieve that same baseline experience starting from their
           | $400 price point.
           | 
           | Wdyt?
           | 
           | [^1]: Inside Apple around the time iTV / Apple TV was
           | introduced, it was characterised as a "foot in the door":
           | Steve Jobs kept calling it a "hobby" in public, and the
           | strategy changed around a lot. Since then they've introduced
           | several products which have either seen strategy shift over
           | time (iPadOS multi tasking...) or which were known to be a
           | "foot in the door" (Apple Watch), but they don't acknowledge
           | them as such, they just pretend that the plan all along was
           | for Apple Watch to be a fitness tracker, and that they did
           | not in fact spend 30 minutes of the keynote talking about
           | sending digital heartbeats to each other as if it was the
           | most meaningful thing ever.
        
             | smoldesu wrote:
             | > That all makes sense... but the bit I can't fathom is why
             | Facebook didn't take the approach of building from the high
             | end down?
             | 
             | High end VR already existed. There were dozens of Windows
             | headsets that lifted the performance ceiling far beyond
             | what the Quest or even the Reality Pro will ever be capable
             | of. The harder challenge is pushing in the other direction
             | - building a minimum viable product that _doesn 't suck_
             | and can make it to mass market. Meta has proven they can do
             | that, Apple cannot. You're right to highlight that the
             | pressure is on them to do better, but maybe they should
             | have considered that before announcing a headset this
             | early. Apple's history is rife with visionary products that
             | were too early and too expensive: the Lisa, the Newton, the
             | 12" Macbook, the list goes on. I won't chide them for their
             | ambition, but that won't save them from their fated
             | failure.
             | 
             | Imagine if Steve Jobs' "phone, iPod, and internet
             | communicator" moment culminated in a product that cost more
             | than all 3 of those things combined. That's what the Vision
             | Pro's announcement felt like.
             | 
             | > but it doesn't seem like Facebook can simply ignore
             | Vision Pro and continue with their current product roadmap:
             | I would bet on Apple (a hardware company with a lot of
             | scale advantages) figuring out how to make the baseline
             | experience achieved with Vision Pro cheaper for a consumer
             | device much faster and more easily than Facebook will
             | figure out how to achieve that same baseline experience
             | starting from their $400 price point.
             | 
             | I guess I just fundamentally disagree. The high-end market
             | for VR is not desirable yet, and there's no indication it
             | ever will be. Low-end VR sells like hotcakes though, and
             | Apple will struggle with that more than Meta will with
             | retina graphics or eye tracking. If the leaked BOM for
             | Reality Pro is real, Apple would need to cut costs by 8x to
             | maintain their current margins and beat Meta in pricing.
             | That's _ludicrous_ ; meeting Apple at their price point is
             | comparatively trivial.
             | 
             | It will ultimately depend on where market forces lie. I
             | think most people will see the headset as redundant if they
             | already own an iPhone though.
        
           | throwawaymobule wrote:
           | You still do need to make an account and give them a phone
           | number/credit card to get into developer mode and enable adb.
           | They'd be dumb to, but stopping people is entirely within
           | their ability.
           | 
           | Really wish sideloading was a thing you could do on your
           | own/offline like most other android devices.
        
         | makomk wrote:
         | That'd be a little tricky and probably have undesirable
         | collateral damage. The Oculus side of this is a general-purpose
         | streaming VR app called ALVR that's mainly designed to stream
         | desktop VR apps running under SteamVR (which Oculus do dislike
         | enought that it has to be sideloaded, but there's not really a
         | clean way to do the same with the desktop Oculus runtime). This
         | also means that in theory you should be able to stream to other
         | headsets like the Pico or even an Android phone used Cardboard-
         | style, though the set up and compatibility on that last option
         | is a bit of a pain.
        
         | mensetmanusman wrote:
         | Something 10x cheaper better be lower quality.
        
       | ozten wrote:
       | Demo Video https://twitter.com/zhuowei/status/1678226947560579072
        
       | jansan wrote:
       | Additionally get holographic stickers of a pair of eyes, attach
       | them to the front side of your Meta Quest and you are 99% there.
        
         | OptoContrarian wrote:
         | Even better https://youtu.be/po6piXWU1TI
        
       | floomk wrote:
       | How long until apple blocks this? They are famous for protecting
       | their walled garden and hostility towards cross platform
       | development tools.
        
         | riscy wrote:
         | You can code in Swift using VSCode on any platform:
         | https://www.swift.org/blog/vscode-extension/
        
           | ra wrote:
           | It's not about the language, it's about access to APIs.
           | 
           | Apple's MO is to keep some APIs for itself, making them
           | unavailable to third-parties.
        
             | scarface_74 wrote:
             | You mean like every single operating system that has ever
             | existed?
             | 
             | Even if you do conceivably have access to "private APIs"
             | that are not documented, you still shouldn't use them.
        
         | tw600040 wrote:
         | //They are famous for protecting their walled garden and
         | hostility towards cross platform development tools.
         | 
         | Trying to deconstruct this to understand better.
         | 
         | 2 possibilities.
         | 
         | 1. Supporting cross platform development tools is actually in
         | Apple's interest/business and they are being stupid not to
         | support them. But so far it doesn't seem like they are losing
         | anything by not supporting it going by their financials.
         | 
         | 2. Supporting cross platform development tools is not in their
         | interest - in which case they are doing the right thing by
         | doing what's good for their business.
         | 
         | So, where is the disconnect?
        
         | JamesUtah07 wrote:
         | Probably after launch. It'sa good way for developers to build
         | and test apps for VP so they won't go after it for now.
        
           | vaxman wrote:
           | * * *
        
         | andsoitis wrote:
         | > hostility towards cross platform development tools
         | 
         | LLVM and clang are both cross platform
        
           | smoldesu wrote:
           | LLVM was Open Source and supported GNU from the get-go, it
           | didn't make sense to remove support after Apple bought up the
           | core contributors. Clang is indeed an Apple original, but
           | developing it without support for multiple platforms would be
           | paramount to removing features supported in the underlying
           | compiler.
           | 
           | If either LLVM or Clang tried removing multiplatform support
           | or totally relicensed itself, it would divide the community
           | and make life hard for Apple. They could probably make WebKit
           | a fully proprietary browser engine by rewriting the KHTML
           | stuff, but what would they gain by removing features from an
           | Open Source product they developed?
        
           | floomk wrote:
           | Let me know when I can use those to develop an iOS app from
           | Windows or Linux
        
             | cjensen wrote:
             | iOS is a supported target in Visual Studio Professional on
             | Windows.
        
               | moron4hire wrote:
               | It requires you have a macOS machine somewhere on your
               | network to use Xcode to do the actual build.
        
             | seba_dos1 wrote:
             | AFAIK building iOS apps on Linux is possible if you try
             | _really hard_ , but deploying isn't.
        
             | riscy wrote:
             | If you write it in Swift or Objective-C, you're using LLVM
             | and clang.
        
               | afavour wrote:
               | But you're still not building it on Windows or Linux.
        
               | dymk wrote:
               | [flagged]
        
           | mhh__ wrote:
           | AppleClang is both closed source and (I assume?) only for Mac
        
             | riscy wrote:
             | It's open source: https://github.com/apple/llvm-project
        
               | smoldesu wrote:
               | LLVM and Clang both are. Apple Clang is not.
               | 
               | https://developer.apple.com/xcode/cpp/
               | 
               | https://cmake.org/cmake/help/latest/policy/CMP0025.html
        
       | Scalene2 wrote:
       | Now stream PCVR to the vision pro and the cycle will be complete.
        
       | naillo wrote:
       | I wonder what the latency is
        
         | nomel wrote:
         | For wireless VR stuff, it's usually 25-40ms range. I believe
         | the encoder hardware is the bottleneck at this point. New Quest
         | 3 is supposed to have better hardware accelerators.
         | 
         | I don't notice, with a couple virtual screens.
        
           | throwawaymobule wrote:
           | The headset itself does the reprojection, IIRC. Which is way
           | more noticable than most measures of latency.
           | 
           | Never got alvr working, myself.
        
           | MikusR wrote:
           | Quest does only Decoding.
        
             | [deleted]
        
             | nomel wrote:
             | Oops, meant to write decoder.
        
           | jayd16 wrote:
           | There's also the specifics of how this is grabbing the
           | simulator output and copies it out to the ALVR server. So
           | possibly another frame or two of lag is introduced.
        
             | nomel wrote:
             | I'm talking desktop screen to VR eye, with desktop
             | streaming. So yes, that, plus simulator latency. I would
             | think input latency should be pretty small.
        
           | trafficante wrote:
           | Quest 3 will (hopefully) allow for higher bitrates and maybe
           | AV1 support but I don't see it having a huge impact on
           | overall wireless latency. Decode time on the old SoC is only
           | a few ms with h264 and really the only thing h265 brings to
           | the table on a bandwidth unconstrained local network is 10bit
           | color.
        
             | [deleted]
        
             | nomel wrote:
             | Here are some latency measurements, showing you are
             | correct: https://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/jgfoco/oc
             | ulus_link_...
             | 
             | I guess my notebook is the bottleneck, at higher bitrates,
             | not the Quest!
        
       | normand1 wrote:
       | Hell yeah, I've been hoping for this, thanks!
        
       | jimmySixDOF wrote:
       | There is also a free to download Vision Pro UI panel simulator
       | made by Nova, who have an excellent UI dev package on the Unity
       | Asset Store. The demo is for the Quest Pro and source code with
       | APK is on GitHub.
       | 
       | https://github.com/NovaUI-Unity/AppleXRConcept/releases/tag/...
        
         | trafficante wrote:
         | I was extremely impressed at how well this demo functioned on
         | my Quest Pro. Obviously I haven't used the Apple HMD, but I was
         | able to easily eye-select nearly every UI element in the demo
         | (resize boxes were a bit wonky) and could even do the whole
         | "pinch with hand in lap" thing from the Apple reveal.
         | 
         | Surprisingly enough, I came away preferring where Meta is going
         | with the whole "Direct Touch" thing (Quest users should have it
         | under the Experimental tab in Settings). Lack of physical
         | feedback (when using hand tracking only) is definitely an
         | issue, but treating the virtual displays like physical
         | touchscreens actually isn't too bad. It's definitely my
         | preferred control scheme when I'm not using the controllers.
         | 
         | I can even sorta type at a reasonable enough speed for
         | emails/instant messaging - though nowhere near good enough for
         | coding. Essentially you input text like a Boomer on an iPad
         | (ie: slow one finger pecking) but at twice the speed because
         | you can use two hands.
        
           | [deleted]
        
       | joshstrange wrote:
       | Honestly Apple should have considered something like this and
       | supported it from day 1. It's only upside for them.
        
         | madeofpalk wrote:
         | I think by limiting the simulator to an _obviously_ non-
         | realistic output, they avoid the uncanny valley and
         | unrealistic-judgement of using their operating system in lower-
         | speced hardware.
        
         | dagmx wrote:
         | What upsides are there to promote a competing platform as a
         | development story for their own platform?
        
           | joshstrange wrote:
           | It's not like anyone who wants to develop for the Vision Pro
           | is going to get a Meta Pro and decide they don't care about
           | the Vision Pro. Also it opens the door to people who already
           | have Meta Pros who want to develop/port apps to the Vision
           | Pro.
           | 
           | If I was serious about developing for the Vision Pro I'd eat
           | the difference between a Meta Pro now and then selling it
           | after the Vision Pro ships.
        
             | mensetmanusman wrote:
             | Home brew devs will certainly work with 10x cheaper
             | hardware, compile on the mini, and ship.
             | 
             | If you can get something working this way, it might be a
             | good paradigm because you know it would run smooth as
             | butter on the VP.
        
             | dagmx wrote:
             | but what's the upside still? They'll have developer units
             | available this month supposedly so availability isn't the
             | big barrier.
             | 
             | It's like saying they should enable iOS development on
             | windows. It doesn't make brand sense to do it. The slight
             | upside of a few devs who won't buy a Mac isn't worth the
             | deterioration of brand prestige by pushing people to
             | multiple platforms.
             | 
             | Also there's a not insignificant cost associated with
             | maintaining tooling on multiple platforms when they rely so
             | significantly on the vertical stack
        
               | joshstrange wrote:
               | I guess it really depends on who gets the developer
               | devices. I have a feeling they will be more locked down
               | than the Arm mac developer units (which they gave to
               | almost anyone). If they are stingy then it'd make some
               | more sense to allow lessor hardware to be used by
               | everyone else but I totally see you point. I forgot about
               | the dev units since I had assumed when they were
               | announced that it would be very hard to get one. You make
               | a good point.
        
       | breakpointalpha wrote:
       | I just bought a Quest Pro this weekend and was hoping to get
       | something like this running.
       | 
       | Apple should do the right thing and support early VisionOS
       | development using the Quest Pro.
        
         | candiddevmike wrote:
         | You must be new to the Apple developer ecosystem? It'll take an
         | anti-trust judgement to get them to allow development on non-
         | Apple platforms.
        
           | scarface_74 wrote:
           | Yes, the government should force Apple to release an SDK for
           | other platforms.
        
           | ChuckNorris89 wrote:
           | Yeah, I'd love to see the day when I could build iOS apps on
           | Windows and on Linux, just like I can for Android.
        
         | asadm wrote:
         | What was your reasons for buying it. Just curious.
        
         | foxandmouse wrote:
         | I disagree it's the right thing to do, why do you think it is?
        
           | ZiiS wrote:
           | Because it solves the chicken and egg allowing none Apple
           | software at launch.
        
             | dagmx wrote:
             | Not really a chicken and egg scenario imho.
             | 
             | 1. It runs iOS and iPad apps.
             | 
             | 2. The simulator is available and several devs have already
             | ported and added visionOS specific feature support with it.
             | 
             | 3. They're supposedly making developer units available to
             | applicants starting sometime this month.
             | 
             | 4. They've already had several third party developers
             | they've showed in their press releases
             | 
             | ---
             | 
             | Which is to say , I don't think they will necessarily have
             | a chicken and egg problem at launch which is still months
             | away.
             | 
             | So there's no real motivation to open up their development
             | to competing platforms.
        
             | jbverschoor wrote:
             | Ah you mean your quest is useless because it has no useful
             | apps
        
           | [deleted]
        
         | soligern wrote:
         | That's not the right thing at all, why would they do that?
        
         | ArtWomb wrote:
         | I am hear to lend support for "build once, run everywhere". But
         | I already feel the divide: Quest for Games. Apple for Minority
         | Report ;)
        
         | actionfromafar wrote:
         | NEVER cross the streams
        
         | andsoitis wrote:
         | > right thing and support early VisionOS development using the
         | Quest Pro
         | 
         | Why would that be the right thing?
         | 
         | Quest Pro doesn't have the same capabilities as Vision.
        
           | mikered wrote:
           | It does have the most important one - eye tracking
        
             | cheerioty wrote:
             | And color passthrough, albeit not a great one. Still good
             | enough to build and test experiences already!
        
           | cowsup wrote:
           | Neither does a Mac, yet it's the only device that's allowed
           | to develop for the headset.
        
             | andsoitis wrote:
             | But the simulator is designed to help you test your app,
             | just like iOS apps that require touch/gestures/low
             | battery/etc. can be tested on a macOS machine. If I were
             | Apple, I wouldn't voel their building tools that run on
             | Quest in order to test your Vision app. What would be the
             | point? It seems like such an opportunity cost that's better
             | spent on other things.
        
               | p1necone wrote:
               | You think testing VR apps in a simulator on a laptop is
               | more indicative of the final experience than another VR
               | headset that almost has feature parity?
               | 
               | I imagine you'd probably still want to use the simulator
               | to ensure your code will _run_ on the actual Apple
               | hardware, but for verifying actual UX /behaviour I'd take
               | the Quest Pro over that any day.
        
           | MikusR wrote:
           | The only thing Quest Pro lacks is lidar.
        
             | chaostheory wrote:
             | ...and a depth sensor. Not sure why they cut it last minute
        
               | dagmx wrote:
               | Lidar and depth sensing are the same
        
       | dag11 wrote:
       | Is this stereoscopic? I don't see any mention in the readme or
       | demo video link but based on the description of hooking the
       | compositor, unless it's translating rapidly for left/right eyes
       | or the simulator gives left+right textures in real time, this
       | would be monoscopic right?
        
         | coder543 wrote:
         | The description of the repo: "Take 3D stereoscopic screenshots
         | in the visionOS emulator."
        
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