[HN Gopher] The Apple Vision Pro's missing apps
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The Apple Vision Pro's missing apps
Author : mooreds
Score : 171 points
Date : 2024-01-29 14:53 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (stratechery.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (stratechery.com)
| tiahura wrote:
| That's some of the most fact-free pontificating I've ever read.
| apples_oranges wrote:
| I bought a Meta Quest 3 and it also seems to miss apps that were
| there before on the Oculus Rift a few years back.. at least I
| recall having a Google Earth app, now I can't find it.
| cableshaft wrote:
| Because Google never updated the app to support the Quest or
| released it on the Quest store, which is a different store than
| the Rift, and probably has different requirements.
|
| You could try the Wooorld or Wander apps, though, as
| alternatives, which are on the Quest store.
|
| Good example, though.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| You can use the MQ3 as a PCVR headset by plugging in a very
| fast USB 3 cable and in that case you can use the Rift
| version on the Quest to run Google Earth. I was also looking
| at this model
|
| https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/m2020-zcam-bettys-rock-
| sol-4...
|
| which I am about to publish in an A-Frame world.
| cableshaft wrote:
| I know you can use a Quest Link cable to play some things
| on the PC store and almost included it, but I didn't see
| Quest on the supported platforms for the store page and
| assumed it needed to be on there explicitly if it was going
| to work.
|
| I'm now cross-referencing it with Lone Echo, which I know
| works on Quest 2 and 3 since I played it recently, and it
| also only says Rift and Rift S for supported platforms, so
| yeah Google Earth probably still works on Quest 3 via a
| Link cable, especially since it still has new reviews as of
| January 2024 on there. Haven't tried it myself though.
| alberth wrote:
| This might be Apple's first product launch in 20-years that
| doesn't solve a customer problem/need (at time of launch).
| wateralien wrote:
| What problem did Apple Watch solve?
| zitterbewegung wrote:
| High fidelity fitness tracking for workouts and data
| collection of your own personal health.
| robterrell wrote:
| The first watch wasn't that -- I think Apple Watch 3 first
| really delivered on this.
| mafuyu wrote:
| The first couple AW gens didn't really have much of a
| fitness angle, though. The hardware and software for health
| tracking was very lacking. It was only later on that they
| pivoted hard on fitness and did a big marketing push with
| the "three rings".
| rahoulb wrote:
| While it did some fitness tracking (especially the heart
| rate stuff which couldn't be done with a phone), it
| certainly wasn't promoted as a fitness device.
|
| There was all that stuff about "connecting" (where you
| could send doodles and heartbeats to your Apple Watch
| wearing friends) and they made a big deal about watch apps
| and notification management. And of course the "luxury
| watch" aspect (gold watches that go out of date in a couple
| of years - sheesh).
|
| It's only after a couple of iterations that Apple doubled
| down on the fitness side of things.
| zitterbewegung wrote:
| I am only commenting of what the Apple Watch actually
| solved. The marketing was bad and I agree. The Apple
| Watch series zero was useful for me and others but it was
| something concrete that the watch does solve while the
| Vision Pro is different.
| gwill wrote:
| pulling your phone out of your pocket
| alberth wrote:
| Especially for women who typically don't have pockets in
| their clothes and their phone is in their purse - which
| causes them to miss calls/texts.
| steveBK123 wrote:
| The ability to tell time while giving Apple more money?
| apercu wrote:
| Only partially in jest, but checking your email during in-
| person meetings?
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| I beg to differ. People dicking around on their e-watch
| during in person meetings or social settings where they
| should be paying attention to who is speaking, is just as
| socially rude as those on their phone.
| goldenchrome wrote:
| Other people can't tell I own Apple products when my phone is
| in my pocket and I'm not listening to music.
| adolph wrote:
| Do you not where you're Apple Sneakers everywhere?
|
| https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/_Omega-Sports-Apple-
| Computer...
|
| (It'd have been funny if Sotheby's had titled the size
| "Leopard.")
| the_sleaze9 wrote:
| Woz said it best, the thing the apple watch did was put tap-
| to-pay on your wrist. It is awesome, but I still don't wear
| one.
| temdisponivel wrote:
| Which problem did the Apple Watch (specially the first version
| that launched) solve? Or the HomePod? Genuinely curious. I can
| personally understand the problems that all other products did
| solve, but not for these 2 examples in particular.
| alberth wrote:
| Apple Watch:
|
| * People for over 100 years, wore mechanical watches to tell
| time.
|
| * This solves that same customer need + (digital
| enhancements).
|
| ---
|
| HomePod:
|
| * people want to play their music for others (not just for
| themselves), for parties/events/hanging out.
|
| ---
|
| EDIT: replaced "hundreds of years" with "over 100 years"
| SllX wrote:
| You're overplaying the hundreds of years part. While the
| first wristwatch dates back almost 200 years (developed for
| the Queen of Naples), pocket watches were the rule until
| World War I, when they were mass produced and marketed at
| soldiers in the trenches. The mass market wristwatch
| industry developed from that point on.
|
| I like my Apple Watch, but it's an iPhone accessory. It
| doesn't fulfill a specific need, but provides a suite of
| enhancements to my phone and can take over a few functions
| from it.
|
| (This comment was written in response to an earlier version
| of your comment, but the main part still seems to be there
| but reformatted).
| temdisponivel wrote:
| I mean.. sure, but those are hardly "problems" that needed
| solving with an Apple Watch. Another digital watch, simpler
| / cheaper would do just fine. Same for the HomePod,
| solutions to those "problems" have been around for a while.
|
| If you compare the solution/problem pairs you described and
| take into account how good of a solution those products are
| to those problems, I don't see how they "solve" the
| problems significantly better than an already existing,
| cheaper alternative, which is not the case for the iPhone,
| iPod, AirPod, mac book, etc where they (on their initial
| launch) addressed a particular market need significantly
| (very significantly) better than the alternatives.
|
| And I'm speaking this as someone that owns 1 of every
| product category Apple currently ships, so I'm by no means
| dismissing the quality of the watch or homepod, etc.
|
| [edit/addition]: Furthermore, the Vision Pro could just as
| well solve similar problems to similar results as the ones
| you described -- for example, the need for a incredibly
| high quality media consumption device, portable. Or an
| infinite canvas that seamlessly pairs with your other Apple
| devices, etc. If that's true, then I would say the Apple
| Vision Pro should has the same utility to its target
| audience as the other products Apple's released on the last
| decades years.
| alberth wrote:
| > Another digital watch, simpler / cheaper would do just
| fine
|
| You're conflating being unique vs solving a problem.
|
| You don't have to be unique in what you solve.
|
| There's lots of blue cars sold every year, why does
| Ford/GM/Toyota exist if they all do the same thing -
| which is sell blue cars? Then Tesla 10-years ago starting
| selling their version of the blue car and are doing
| exceedingly well.
|
| It's because the fundamental problem being sold is
| actually, people wanting transportation.
|
| What fundamental problem/need is the Apple Vision Pro
| solving?
|
| Again, I'm not being a hater of the device. I'm genuinely
| curious to understand.
| chaostheory wrote:
| " _What fundamental problem /need is the Apple Vision Pro
| solving?_"
|
| Screens are too small especially portable ones.
| alberth wrote:
| That's interesting, maybe that's it.
|
| Hypothesis:
|
| People want/need larger displays, and larger display
| would allow for full immersion experiences on whatever
| task it is they are doing.
|
| And since 99% of people have never participated in full
| immersion digital experiences, they don't know they
| want/need it - until they try it.
|
| That's possibility it.
| temdisponivel wrote:
| I don't think I was.
|
| I do agree that one doesn't have to be unique. My comment
| was more about the grandparent point about Vision Pro
| being the only product in the last 20 years to not solve
| a problem. My point was that if Vision Pro addresses no
| problem, neither does the Watch or HomePod. If Watch or
| HomePod do address problems, I don't see how the Vision
| Pro doesn't.
| saagarjha wrote:
| Nobody bought an Apple Watch because they wanted something
| on their wrist that told time and were underserved by that.
| I say this as someone who bought the first version and
| actually does like something on my wrist that tells time.
| People bought it for the digital enhancements, which
| started out kind of confused but got more clear with time
| (health, notifications).
| skywhopper wrote:
| Notifications and the current weather on my wrist. I don't
| have to take my phone out or even have it with me.
| temdisponivel wrote:
| Sure. I would say that's fairly minor thing, although I
| admit that's subjective. But given the comment I grand-
| parent comment, I presume they were referring to more
| substantial problems / solutions.
|
| [edit] Don't mind to downplay how useful that feature is to
| you, as it is also very useful to me. Just wanted to make
| it clear I was trying to find more substantial problems
| that the Watch/HomePod has solved.
| ghaff wrote:
| My Apple Watch is definitely the most optional of my
| Apple devices. I mostly just wear it hiking. Day to day I
| don't get a lot of notifications and I just wear a cheap
| Timex that goes years on a battery.
| zie wrote:
| The apple watch is a health device masquerading as a watch
| with digital enhancements(Apple Pay, Notifications,
| Messaging/Phone calls, etc)
|
| You may not remember(or been alive), but in the 90's there
| was a whole slew of these Life Alert type devices that would
| call 911 for you if you were an old person that fell and hurt
| themselves. The Apple Watch is basically the ultimate
| replacement for that, along with exercise/health features AND
| it happens to tell the time.
|
| The first version you had to call 911 yourself, but they
| quickly figured out how to let the device just do it for you,
| which is where it sits today.
|
| I don't know anything about the HomePod, so I won't comment
| on that, but Amazon seems to sell a bunch of those speaker
| devices, so someone must be using it for something?
| tomjakubowski wrote:
| Yuppies in city apartments watch videos, probably on their
| phone on the sofa or in bed, don't really have space for a TV
| or surround sound setup. This brings them a compact alternative
| to that, if Om Malik's review is to believed.
| michaelt wrote:
| People whose homes are too small for a TV, but who have a
| spare $3500 to spend? Or $7000 for a couple who want to watch
| together?
|
| Modern TVs are thin and easily wall mounted.
|
| Doesn't sound like a big market to me.
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| Millions in NYC alone. Asia has tons of people in
| apartments too, although $3500 may be too steep for the
| vast majority.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| I thought a TV was already redundant when everyone has
| their own iPad to watch whatever they want.
|
| I'm going to hold judgement until I can try it, though.
| Philpax wrote:
| Yes, especially in high-CoL areas, or with people who
| frequently travel, or with people who just don't want to
| have a huge TV and associated hardware in their space.
| UniverseHacker wrote:
| This is literally what people say with every Apple launch. I
| remember people including myself talking about how useless the
| iPhone was. This was written from an iPhone :/
| alberth wrote:
| > myself talking about how useless the iPhone was
|
| The need people had is, wanting a phone you can carry with
| you anywhere (not tethered to a wall).
|
| While the original iPhone might have had limited
| functionality (no 3G), it still solved the fundamental need
| people had - which was a phone they can carry anywhere.
|
| What fundamental problem/need is Apple Vision Pro solving on
| Day 1?
|
| (I'm not being a hater, I'm genuine curious to
| know/understand)
| dpkonofa wrote:
| Cell phones existed before the iPhone came out. The iPhone
| didn't solve that problem any better than a regular Nokia
| phone at the time. It's not about the problem it's solving,
| it's how it solves it. Apple solves problems in ways that
| actually make using the product enjoyable.
| nicolas_17 wrote:
| "a phone you can carry with you anywhere (not tethered to a
| wall)" was a problem solved by the Motorola DynaTAC in
| 1983.
| mrep wrote:
| A: It was a phone which is a useful too.
|
| B: Are you ignoring having unlimited data and a useful
| browser that you can use anywhere? I bought the first iphone
| the day it came out because I had been looking for a product
| like that for ages but all the browsers were kinda clunky
| and/or they were limited to wifi/extremely terrible data
| prices.
| mlajtos wrote:
| I am Apple customer and owned multiple VR headsets since 2016.
| Stepping outside the Apple ecosystem is always painful. They
| are definitely scratching my itch.
| mouzogu wrote:
| it's an expensive toy for day 1 douchebags.
| post_break wrote:
| I have a VR headset, I think it's amazing. The game play is
| incredible, it's like the Wii all over again but so much more
| immersive. I will never watch a full movie from start to finish
| due to discomfort. It's just not worth it. Unless they made the
| Vision Pro like the Bigscreen headset I won't be in the minority.
| mtmail wrote:
| I've read the tweet people will start using VR headsets on
| airplanes. Is that realistic? I mean due to size of the
| battery, size of the whole device (on your backpack or such),
| comfort etc?
| sroussey wrote:
| I think the xreal is more likely. It's way smaller and can
| connect to laptop or phone.
| escapecharacter wrote:
| I was using the Gear VR on planes in 2015/2016 and it rocked!
| Philpax wrote:
| I've watched movies for ten hours with a VR headset on a
| flight, only stopping for food and bathroom breaks. The AVP
| should comfortably tackle all the issues I had with that
| (rear-mounted battery, resolution, facial interface comfort,
| controllers, tracking), and I'm looking forward to taking it
| on my next flight :-)
| shmatt wrote:
| >There are, to be sure, valid business reasons for all three
| services to have not built a native app; the latest prediction
| from Apple supply chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo put first-year sales
| at around 500,000 units, which as a tiny percentage of these
| services' user bases may not be worth the investment
|
| Except for the fact the iPhone users spend 7x more on apps than
| Android users[1]. And it would be safe to assume Vision Pro users
| are on the higher end of having extra money to spend.
|
| Apple has made a clear definition for "Rich AF" iOS users and app
| makers are trying to look the other way? Their loss. Hell, even
| having a list of iPhone users that pre-ordered the Vision Pro is
| worth targeting $$$$
|
| [1] https://9to5mac.com/2023/09/06/iphone-users-spend-apps/
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| _> Except for the fact the iPhone users spend 7x more on apps
| than Android users[1]._
|
| Sure, but rich people with frivolous spending habits are a
| finite resource. After a while you run out of rich people you
| can monetize so your growth slows to a crawl.
|
| Who is richer? Toyota or Porsche?
| shmatt wrote:
| From that same article it was 650 million active iphone users
| vs. 2.5 billion android
|
| I think Apple is *very* happy to be Porsche in this story
| anileated wrote:
| > After a while you run out of rich people you can monetize
| so your growth slows to a crawl.
|
| Neat trick: create an ecosystem that genuinely helps your
| users live well & prosper, increasing their wealth so they
| can spend more money. It's a circle of something!
| jitl wrote:
| Toyota has about 4x the profit per second compared to
| Porsche, but at 36,996 employees compared to Toyota's
| 375,235, I think I would rather try to build a Porsche shaped
| business which seems more sustainable and obtainable.
| skywhopper wrote:
| Apple's not quite as upmarket as Porsche. But it doesn't
| really matter. We've already tested iPhone vs everyone else,
| and Apple has been winning for well over a decade. The unit
| count doesn't really matter. The profit is what matters, and
| Apple is making 80% of the profit with 20% or less of the
| units.
| sleepybrett wrote:
| Apple is the VW<->Audi spectrum of the market. You can get
| whatever the Rabbit from the 90s has become
| (ipad/macbookair) all the way up to an a4 type (think mac
| pro tower).
| UniverseHacker wrote:
| Toyota and VW (e.g. Porsche) go back and forth every few
| years as to which is the biggest/richest.
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| VW is a mass market brand in the same league as Toyota.
| Which si why I specifically restricted Porsche, and not the
| whole group of VW.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| If Porsche is relying on technology developed by VW then
| the profit numbers they post are inflated.
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| Luxury/performance car brands like Porsche, Lambo,
| Ferrari, Rolls, Bentley, etc. can't exist stand alone,
| they just wouldn't be profitable enough if they had to
| develop everything in house.
|
| Hence why most of them brushed with bankruptcy and had to
| be bought out by bigger conglomerates that give them
| access to the supply chains and economies of scale the
| likes of VW or Fiat enable.
|
| It's how the famous Swedish SAAB went bankrupt. They were
| spending most of their budget on developing a decent
| media infotainment unit, instead of using a terrible
| already developed one form the GM parent company.
| UniverseHacker wrote:
| kind-of... When Ferdinand Piech ran VW he turned it into
| a high end brand from the late 90s until 2010 or so, with
| quality actually higher than high end luxury brands at
| the time and some crazy high end models like the V10 twin
| turbo Touareg, and the W12 Phaeton. Even the Bugatti
| Veyron supercar, the fastest street legal car in the
| world at the time, was initially planned to be released
| as a VW model. Weirdly, VW was selling higher end models
| than the affiliated Audi/Porsche brands for a while. A
| spec'd out VW from that time period makes a high end BMW
| or Mercedes from that era feel really cheap. Even the
| cheaper models like the Beetle and Golf felt really high
| quality compared to just about any other car at the time.
|
| Customers couldn't really bring themselves to pay the
| high end luxury prices VW was charging for something with
| a VW badge, so they went back to making low end cars...
| the current VW lineup are again all pretty low end cars.
| criddell wrote:
| Are you suggesting that Netflix, for example, could charge for
| their app? I hadn't thought of that, but you might be on to
| something.
| pjmlp wrote:
| In countries where iDevices are available, which is always
| forgotten precodition in a planet where 80% is dominated by
| Android and feature phones.
| lapcat wrote:
| > Except for the fact the iPhone users spend 7x more on apps
| than Android users[1]. And it would be safe to assume Vision
| Pro users are on the higher end of having extra money to spend.
|
| Here's the crucial question, though: are Vision Pro owners
| actually going to spend extra money on third-party software, or
| are they just going to demand that their current iPhone/iPad
| apps be supported by the developers for free on Vision Pro?
|
| Apple will see extra revenue from Vision Pro, but will third-
| party developers?
|
| Neither iPad nor Watch (or Apple TV) have been big revenue
| generators for most developers.
| knodi123 wrote:
| > are they just going to demand that their current
| iPhone/iPad apps be supported by the developers for free
|
| With what leverage? You can't just "demand" something of a
| developer that you've already paid.
| ukuina wrote:
| Yeah, like the Instagram iPad app.
| lapcat wrote:
| There are several forms of consumer leverage:
|
| 1) Refusing to pay for other platforms and walking away,
| thus making it difficult for developers to charge
| separately for the other platforms
|
| 2) Leaving bad App Store reviews and ratings
|
| 3) Clogging the developer's support channels with
| complaints
| threeseed wrote:
| > Vision Pro owners actually going to spend extra money on
| third-party software
|
| It doesn't make sense that you would spend $3500 on a device
| and then buy no apps for it.
| dwaite wrote:
| > Here's the crucial question, though: are Vision Pro owners
| actually going to spend extra money on third-party software,
| or are they just going to demand that their current
| iPhone/iPad apps be supported by the developers for free on
| Vision Pro?
|
| > Neither iPad nor Watch (or Apple TV) have been big revenue
| generators for most developers.
|
| I think the answer is "it depends", but for many apps having
| a separate iPhone and iPad version has been something their
| user base has disliked. An iPhone app which is separate from
| an iPad app but otherwise identical is subtractive - I get
| less value being limited to my phone. Its not subtractive
| enough for them to say "lets pay double my original purchase
| price to get the iPad version".
|
| Likewise, having the iPhone app work on iPad is additional
| value - I have selected and paid more for an app for having
| good ecosystem support.
|
| Chances are your Apple TV or Apple Watch app has greatly
| limited functionality due to the interactivity limitations of
| those platforms, so you simply cannot charge much for these
| incrementally. Again, providing proper support (depending on
| your app) is instead a differentiating factor.
|
| I don't have a first-party app that I can port to AVP.
| However, I would not be doing so to get some of those
| exclusive AVP dollars based on them buying something
| equivalent to a mid-tier pro laptop. Instead, I'd be there as
| a differentiating feature and for the potential promotional
| aspects of being present.
|
| Some of this comes from personally being more
| subscription/services oriented in thinking; I really dislike
| the idea of selling someone software with dubious unpaid
| support, fueled by a decreasing amount of new sales as I
| reach saturation for my software.
| simiones wrote:
| So you think it's likely people will get a new Netflix
| subscription for their Vision Pro?
|
| Also, even if Vision Pro owners spend 70x more than Android
| users, with 500k VP users vs 2.5 billion Android users, there's
| still not that much reason to invest in VP.
| Erratic6576 wrote:
| All that I want is Google Earth on VR. I've been waiting for
| years but I don't know which headset to buy. Sadly, Meta is a no-
| no for me
| dandrew5 wrote:
| Same. I bought a Vive a few weeks ago but it is currently in
| the mail being returned. The technology as it is today is just
| not quite there yet, in my opinion. The biggest letdown was the
| lack of peripheral vision. To see something clearly, I'd have
| to move my whole head to face it head-on directly. Doing some
| research, I discovered that is just the way it works right now.
| It will be interesting to see if the VP has an answer to this
| problem.
| chaostheory wrote:
| Vive is the worst option because they insist on using bad
| fresnel lenses instead of fish eye lenses. As you've pointed
| out, fresnel lenses tend to be terrible and HTC's are the
| worst in that class.
|
| The Big Screen Beyond is really the only affordable choice
| for PCVR that isn't out of date and isn't Meta.
| copirate wrote:
| There is one[0] that works on all PCVR headsets and it's great,
| but unfortunately it's been abandoned by Google.
|
| [0] https://store.steampowered.com/app/348250/Google_Earth_VR/
| Erratic6576 wrote:
| Last update in February 2018. Can't blame them; they must be
| short of cash
| chaostheory wrote:
| Meta is still the best all round value. If you refuse to go
| with it, then the next best option is the big screen beyond.
| Total cost would likely run $1500 with controllers, assuming
| you have a VR capable PC
| Erratic6576 wrote:
| It took me hours and a lookup to understand what you meant.
|
| the big screen beyond Is a device. It seems fantastic. Like,
| great. Way better than Apple Vision Pro
| mrguyorama wrote:
| Don't buy a VR headset just to experience Google Earth for
| twenty minutes. It's a terrible, old as crap VR app, the
| fidelity of global scenery is terrible and will never be good
| enough to be any more than a novelty, and it is by far the
| worst app for motion sickness, which is insane because it's
| worse than doing loops in flying games!
| ghaff wrote:
| Google Earth was cool back in the day especially hooked up to
| a Logitech 6 DoF controller. But it hasn't been materially
| updated in years AFAIK. I'm not even sure which of my Macs
| it's installed on at this point. And the controller drivers
| don't work any longer.
| Erratic6576 wrote:
| Well, I've been wishing this for so long... more than 6 years
| now. And the app has not been updated ever since. It's sad
| because I'd like to use it to discover geography
| nxobject wrote:
| The article ends on an interesting note - another Apple/Disney
| partnership. The two companies have always had an interestingly
| close relationship...
| piconanomicro wrote:
| Disney hasn't been doing so well content wise so I don't think
| such a partnership would matter much. After the last Avengers
| movie and the unsuccessful star wars trilogy, no-one really
| cares about disney IP anymore.
| steveBK123 wrote:
| I don't think Steve Jobs would have launched this product.
|
| Apparently the main use case Om sees this is replacing the family
| TV in the living room?
|
| To me it seems to be pushing people to retreat further into
| isolation.
| shmatt wrote:
| The sales numbers so far are pretty much on par with the iPhone
| 1, which wasn't that great a product either with no app store
| or 3g connectivity
| steveBK123 wrote:
| It's going to be a typical new category release for Apple
| where v1 has some very obvious flaws that prevent it from
| mass market penetration, which quickly get cleaned up in v2.
|
| But I'm talking more like culturally / philosophically, I
| don't think Steve Jobs would have marketed it this way or
| wanted it framed this way. To that point I'm not sure he'd
| have green lighted the product at all. It can be very
| dystopian. The silly eyes thing seems like someone along the
| way realized that and is trying to mitigate it poorly.
| al_borland wrote:
| I had an iPhone on launch day. Compared to phones of today it
| wasn't great, but compared to some of the phones it was
| replacing, it was fantastic. I was coming from a Moto Razr,
| so it was pretty much better in every way. For the smart
| phones of the day, there were a lot of things they could
| technically do on paper, but no one did, because they were
| too clunky to use. The iPhone solved this. The features it
| did have were a joy to use and easy to figure out and
| discover.
|
| There were also some pretty easy jailbreaks after not too
| long, which allowed for 3rd party apps before Apple had an
| official store.
|
| I think the only things holding back the original iPhone were
| the price and production volume. As I remember, it sold out
| quickly. And everywhere I went people were every interested
| in it. The guys selling cell phones at the mall were trying
| to stop me to see it, a girl at the bar said having that was
| better than a puppy. Pulling it out to use it was like being
| a celebrity, everyone started paying attention and trying to
| get close to it; it was a very strange time. I don't recall
| anyone saying they didn't want it due to a lack of features,
| other than people online looking for clicks or who had a
| history of Apple criticism.
| tomjakubowski wrote:
| Yeah I could see that. But he also introduced the iPod, which
| people listened to 95% of the time with headphones. Granted,
| you could still plug it into a speaker at a party or in
| somebody's car.
|
| Maybe the flopped iPod HiFi was a reaction to Jobs' feelings
| about the iPod isolating people. Who knows?
|
| I think he mostly cared about selling a lot of products.
| wharvle wrote:
| The collaborative-working-environment, potentially on the go
| (from your hotel room, not a dedicated space or something)
| stuff looks really cool, but also very niche (and is only cool
| if it actually works well, obviously).
|
| They may find enough of a market to prove out and further-
| develop the tech. I'm pessimistic about AR in general
| until/unless the hardware develops _a lot_ further, but it 's
| possible they'll carve out enough of a market with this to use
| it as a testbed and proving ground for later, lower-priced
| (and/or far more capable) versions.
|
| Decent PCs used to cost this much or more, inflation adjusted.
| CharlesW wrote:
| > _I don 't think Steve Jobs would have launched this product._
|
| Jobs wanted, and presumably thought a lot about, "headphones
| for video".
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WO0OGmNDKVg
|
| > _" You know, the fundamental problem here is that headphones
| are a miraculous thing. You put on a pair of headphones, and
| you get the same experience you get with a great pair of
| speakers, right?_
|
| > _" There's no such thing as headphones for video,
| right?There's not something I can carry with me that I can put
| on, and it gives me the same experience I get when I'm watching
| my 50-inch plasma display at home."_
| beska wrote:
| I am pretty sure Steve would not have launched the Vision Pro.
| I remember his 1997 WWDC fireside chat where he said:
|
| "You've got to start with the customer experience and work
| backward to the technology. You can't start with the technology
| then try to figure out where to sell it."
|
| Given that, I don't think having a large screen strapped to the
| front of your face is a great customer experience.
| threeseed wrote:
| Apple has been working on the Vision Pro since iPhone [1].
|
| So he absolutely knew that the project was being worked on.
|
| And not sure why you think Apple isn't going to allow multiple
| AVP headsets to watch movies together.
|
| They already have the technology with SharePlay etc to do it.
|
| [1] https://9to5mac.com/2023/08/23/working-on-vision-pro-
| since-2...
| strict9 wrote:
| Much of this discussion is centered on how the headset will
| replace theaters and TV.
|
| I may be an outlier but in our house the only time we watch shows
| or movies is a social context--usually Friday or Saturday nights
| as a family. I'm struggling to see how the headset could replace
| what is in my experience a mostly social activity.
|
| Will it ever be comfortable enough for the binge watcher to watch
| it all day? I have my doubts.
|
| I think it will be a coexistence and replacement of flat screens
| will be a very long time away.
| curiouscavalier wrote:
| I'm in the same boat. The idea of everyone watching TV in
| isolation defeats the purpose for me. Even (maybe especially)
| for sports, where for large swaths of a game it is essentially
| background content to a cultural gathering. Not to mention
| issues around comfort and battery life.
| agumonkey wrote:
| Soon they'll add a `presence` feature so that you can see
| others watching stuff at the same time too
| nixgeek wrote:
| It kinda already exists via SharePlay but who knows if the
| Vision Pro supports that today or will in the future.
| SquareWheel wrote:
| For you, VR likely wouldn't be able to replace that social
| context. However for those kilometers apart, it might allow
| them to simulate it. See for example Big Screen[1] which lets
| you enjoy a group watching experience.
|
| It might not be as good as sharing real popcorn, but it can be
| a surprisingly convincing imitation.
|
| [1] https://store.steampowered.com/app/457550/Bigscreen_Beta/
| aranelsurion wrote:
| We have tried this with a friend recently with that app, and
| I can tell you it was miles better (in terms of feeling
| natural) compared to, say having a video call or Discord.
|
| We played a few flat (not VR) games, on a super large screen
| in a cozy virtual room, with directional audio that is always
| on. With your attention being taken on what is happening
| within the game, it's -almost- as convincing as sitting
| together and playing the same game.
|
| I can already say that this is my favourite way of playing
| couch co-op remotely. Haven't tried movies, yet I wouldn't
| expect the experience to be any different.
| criddell wrote:
| I don't think anybody believes it will generally replace
| theaters and TV, just that it will carve out some portion of
| that. I think it's the same as how in some contexts, watching
| Netflix on your phone makes a lot of sense. You wouldn't do it
| on a Friday night with your family, but it isn't absurd to
| think some TV and movies are watched on a phone screen.
| strict9 wrote:
| That's the vision I see.
|
| But I was specifically responding to the article which opens
| with this quote by Om Malik:
|
| > _With that caveat, I think both, the big (TV) and biggest
| (movie theater) screens are going to go the way of the DVD.
| We could replace those with a singular, more personal screen
| -- that will sit on our face. Yes, virtual reality headsets
| are essentially the television and theaters of the future._
|
| And the rest of the article lays out a mostly supporting case
| with the missing apps argument.
| rickdeckard wrote:
| I think that describes the dream-scenario of Apple: Making
| a controlled AR/VR in front of your eyes so ubiquitous that
| not only TV-sales and cinemas disappear, but companies no
| longer advertise on screens and billboards and instead pay
| Apple to rent advertising real-estate on "personal screens"
| of their target-group...
|
| The scary thing is that noone is better equipped to achieve
| this dystopian goal than Apple, already entering the space
| with a fully protected walled garden...
|
| If I'd be Netflix (or even Disney), I wouldn't rush to
| support such a future...
| criddell wrote:
| I'm a fan of Om's work, but I don't really believe that's
| what he really thinks. He also says he doesn't understand
| why people own televisions. Om has been on many hours of
| video podcasts (TWiT). Apparently he understands why
| somebody would watch a podcast but not why they would own a
| television? I don't buy it.
| FireBeyond wrote:
| Family movie night being replaced by everyone sitting
| plugged in to their headsets sounds very dystopian,
| something out of Snow Crash.
|
| And that's after you buy a VP for you, your partner and
| your 2.2 children... only $14,000!
| duped wrote:
| I used to work in the space about 6-7 years ago (not directly
| on XR hardware, but software that was adjacent to it in the
| content creation world).
|
| The phrase I kept hearing from film studio/director types was
| that they didn't know how to tell a story with VR that could
| only be told with VR (profitably). Note that didn't stop them
| from trying and there wasn't a shortage of ideas. The point was
| that they hadn't figured out what would actually resonate with
| audiences (and make more money than doing what they already
| knew).
|
| But things are different now. Back then, the problem was that
| VR in your home was a dead-end. What seemed promising was using
| it for theme park rides and people at Universal/Disney were
| super excited about it. So the "story" they were trying to
| design was something that was mass marketable with IP tie-ins,
| short enough not to tire the average American and maximize
| throughput while also minimizing floor space in the places
| they'd install. That's a very different kind of experience than
| a film or video game.
|
| I think with cheaper/lighter hardware the profit model could be
| different and the kind of content you consume with it would
| become different. I don't think people have figured it out yet,
| but with hardware changes there's a different kind of story
| that can work and it just needs the right storyteller to figure
| it out.
|
| All that said, the problem all these tech bro led companies
| forget is that content is king in this space and you can't just
| make some cool gizmo and expect people to buy it when no one
| knows how to create for it. For all their flaws, Magic Leap was
| actually smarter about that than their competition.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| I've been thinking there could be a market for place-based
| experiences with XR headsets. Like you go to the Paleontology
| museum and it gets turned into something like "Jurassic
| Park". Something like that ought to be a lot cheaper to
| develop and deploy than a typical theme park ride. I was a
| little disappointed when I got the MQ3 and found it didn't
| have the same persistent SLAM https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S
| imultaneous_localization_and_... that Hololens does, mainly
| on the pretext of privacy, but that does make it a little
| harder to make an app bound to a specific place.
|
| I see that kind of thing having a window of opportunity
| between when it is possible and when everybody has an XR
| headset and there is nothing special about it. The slower XR
| is to catch on, the wider the window.
| duped wrote:
| > I've been thinking there could be a market for place-
| based experiences with XR headset
|
| You're not far off, the industry buzzword is "LBE" for
| "location based experiences." There was a startup that was
| killed by COVID/mismanagement called the Void that was
| building some great LBE stuff with tie-ins to Disney IP
| (Star Wars, Marvel, etc) and had locations in their parks.
|
| There is definitely a market for it, and even "cheap" LBE
| like escape rooms have kind of proven that there's a market
| for entertainment that works like a ride.
| dylan604 wrote:
| > The phrase I kept hearing from film studio/director types
| was that they didn't know how to tell a story with VR that
| could only be told with VR (profitably).
|
| This was my exact same complaint within my group creating VR
| content around the same time. Gaming is a no-brainer. It was
| the live action that was the blocker. Directors want to
| control the narrative with various techniques like blocking,
| depth of field, framing, etc. Within VR, all of that control
| is lost. Within VR means that it is possible the viewer isn't
| even looking in the right direction as the director intended.
| Putting the camera in motion is weird for the viewer since
| the viewer did not initiate it (unless it was something
| obvious like being in a car/roller coaster/etc).
| duped wrote:
| I think if you ask the question, how do you make a
| compelling narrative when there's one camera, it can move
| anywhere on set, and it's sentient? One answer is "that's a
| video game." And there's definitely a lot of ways to tell a
| story through gameplay.
|
| But a lot of filmmakers don't _want_ to make video games,
| and finding new answers to that question is something that
| VR struggles with today.
| jacksontheel wrote:
| > I think if you ask the question, how do you make a
| compelling narrative when there's one camera, it can move
| anywhere on set, and it's sentient?
|
| There's live theater too. Could be an interesting way to
| experience front-row tickets for a play. But what could
| AVP provide that a live play couldn't? Maybe putting the
| viewer in the middle of the stage, but it would be a pain
| to keep rotating to witness the action.
| duped wrote:
| My understanding is the economics don't work out for live
| theater. Most productions struggle to fill seats and have
| pricing issues. The productions that don't struggle (eg:
| Broadway) don't want to lower the demand for seats. That
| said, there is a financing issue with Broadway where
| productions are getting more expensive but audiences are
| price sensitive after some point, and with the finite
| number of seats available there's essentially a cap on
| the revenue they can bring in.
|
| That's also ignoring the artistic issues with convincing
| actors/directors to design and conduct performances for
| audiences in a completely new way, which is the problem I
| was alluding to earlier.
|
| > Maybe putting the viewer in the middle of the stage,
| but it would be a pain to keep rotating to witness the
| action.
|
| This has been done before (I've even been to a few local
| productions where this is the norm) but you have to keep
| in mind the production is designed for the venue its
| performed in and where the audience is located.
|
| I think there's a _kind_ of theater production where you
| could use VR as a tool to a lot of success but I think
| the work has to be written for it, a production team that
| 's down with it, a cast that can be trained to do it, and
| pricing model that makes it profitable.
|
| It's a very hard problem domain that isn't technical.
| It's artistic, social, and economic.
|
| ---
|
| I think ballet would be a much better fit than theater,
| for what its worth.
| dylan604 wrote:
| > But a lot of filmmakers don't want to make video games,
| and finding new answers to that question is something
| that VR struggles with today.
|
| Part of me flippantly says that most directors are making
| nothing but a demo of a video game since it's all CG
| anyways.
|
| Another part of me says this is also where the generative
| AI characters will not be something a traditional
| director will even be interested in. Part of being a
| director is working with actors and getting them to
| deliver the performance they want. There are different
| types of directors, and the type that are an "actor's"
| director will not be interested in it at all. Those that
| are more technical and just want tech to tell a cool
| story might be interested since it takes that weird human
| interaction out of the equation.
| pwthornton wrote:
| If you live with other people, the appeal is limited. I can see
| the appeal for my friends who live alone in small apartments.
| They can get this and a nice pair of headphones and have a
| great home theater experience. This is something that would be
| difficult to do in their current situations.
|
| I also see the appeal for people who travel a lot for work.
| This is probably an amazing way to watch movies on a plane or
| in your hotel room at night.
|
| I have a wife and two small kids, so I will not be buying this
| to watch movies at home.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| This is indeed a great use case for people living alone. But
| then they they'll also get way cheaper options if it's just
| to watch streaming services. I'd assume devices like the
| xreal are lighter and cheaper, and the Vision Pro's extra
| resolution is less an appeal if it's just to watch Netflix.
| FemmeAndroid wrote:
| I'm hoping there is a better selling point than a really good
| home theater for single people. When I was single, having a
| TV and couch was valuable so that even though they were 95%
| used alone, they could be shared with guests.
|
| If I was into media enough to spend $3,500 to have a great
| experience, it would be a bummer if I couldn't watch a movie
| with someone else occasionally.
| crazygringo wrote:
| I mean, you can still have the TV to watch things with
| guests.
|
| Or if you're both into the big screen VR experience, you
| can both wear headsets. Watching movies in a shared virtual
| movie theater is already a thing and works great. Even
| better is that you can be in your home and your romantic
| partner can be in their home (or traveling) and you can
| _still_ watch together.
| simiones wrote:
| > Or if you're both into the big screen VR experience,
| you can both wear headsets.
|
| For the low low price of 7000$, vs 1000$ for a TV.
| crazygringo wrote:
| I mean, right now it's for the low low price of $500 for
| a pair of Oculus Quest 2's. Just as big screen, but
| you'll effectively get 1080p quality on the virtual
| screen rather than 4K.
|
| Obviously for the Vision we'll wait for prices to come
| down.
| jacksontheel wrote:
| If I'm watching a movie with my romantic partner, I'd
| like to be in the same room as them lol. Not really
| interested in a VR Chat relationship.
| Philpax wrote:
| Yes, that's preferable when it's an option -
| unfortunately, that's not always possible, especially
| when life intervenes. Wouldn't you still want a way to
| share a space with your partner and watch a movie with
| them?
| solardev wrote:
| You can just share the headset and each look into one eye.
| Remedwme wrote:
| We have a projector at home.
|
| Still my wife watches her stuff on a phone.
|
| People actually don't care about quality more often than not.
|
| But the quest 3 should be cheap enough already for this and
| good enough and still is not the mass market
| jayd16 wrote:
| Quest 3 doesn't get you a 4k image and you can get a 4k Tv
| for less than the Quest. It's almost just sharp enough for
| text but not quite. I don't think you can really make the
| claim that the Quest 3 is good enough. Probably the Quest 4
| though.
| nsxwolf wrote:
| It provides immersion. Your brain eventually filters out
| what little bit of screen door effect there is when
| watching a movie. Sometimes when I go to the movie
| theater I forget to bring my glasses, but I still have a
| good time.
|
| I'd be surprised if anyone thought the Quest 3 didn't
| render sharp text. I find everything very readable.
| greedo wrote:
| We too have a nice 4k projector. Wife prefers to watch in
| the living room on an old LCD. She doesn't even mind
| watching DVDs (no upscaling on this TV). That makes my eyes
| bleed, but she doesn't care one bit.
| whstl wrote:
| Putting on my doomer glasses: with the so-called loneliness
| epidemic and the rising prices of property (forcing people to
| co-habit with non-family/friends), I can definitely see
| something like this becoming as popular and perhaps as
| necessary as mobile phones.
| kllrnohj wrote:
| At $3500 though you can easily put together a decent-to-great
| 75-80" home theater system with the latest gaming console(s)
| and have plenty of money left over for multiple rounds of
| pizza & beer with friends over. 77" OLED TVs from Samsung &
| LG are only around the $2000 mark these days, after all.
| Compromise even just a smidge to a full array local dimming
| mini-LED QLED TV and you're now down to under $1k for the TV.
| Surround-sound soundbars that sound fantastic are plentiful
| below the $1k mark as well and require next to zero setup.
|
| It seems like you need to live alone _and_ be rich enough to
| afford it such that you likely already have a great home
| theater _anyway_ and still be interested in the Vision Pro.
| Or you actually don 't want a TV at all for some reason but
| still want a home theater experience.
|
| That seems like a quite small market?
| simmerup wrote:
| You're forgetting just how much space that all takes up
| kllrnohj wrote:
| It takes a wall. Most people that can afford a $3,500 VR
| toy usually have _at least_ one wall - often at least 4
| of them, even!
| pwthornton wrote:
| A lot of homes are not built with an obvious spot for a
| TV, especially a big one. Hence all of the people
| sticking TVs over their fireplaces (which is way too high
| for proper viewing).
| macintux wrote:
| A wall. And power. And furniture to hold the 50 cables
| and 5 auxiliary devices that go with the TV. And a place
| to comfortably sit that works with all of the above.
| bfeynman wrote:
| I don't think those are really comparable. Spending a ton
| of money on a home theater is a large and static purchase.
| You put it in your home, and that's it, you can't move it
| easily or adapt it much. The Vision Pro, on top of having
| other functionalities, lets you have that home theater
| experience anywhere. Want o watch in bed? on the couch?
| outside on porch? waiting at the airport? People spend a
| lot more on phones because of the portability aspect.
| LoganDark wrote:
| Another HN commenter[0] speculated that the R1 chip could
| be part of the path towards an Apple self-driving car.
| Since they're no longer trying to do level 5 FSD, I think
| one of the absolute coolest things could be using the
| Vision Pro to see straight through the car into what
| would otherwise be blind spots. Obviously there are
| implications to wearing Vision Pro while driving,
| especially since if the device loses power you will
| entirely lose the ability to see. The idea still
| fascinates me though.
|
| [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39108792
| filoleg wrote:
| I can afford a 75-80" home theater system, but I cannot
| afford an apartment in NYC large enough to justify buying
| such a system.
|
| Most people who rent also move at least every few years, so
| having that large of a thing to move is a bit annoying. Not
| even mentioning people who travel for work and obviously
| cannot bring such a system with them.
|
| It isn't just all about the money when it comes to device
| purchases.
| Kirby64 wrote:
| Presumably in a smaller apartment setting, you don't have
| any need for such a large TV (or sound system). It should
| scale appropriately and provide the similar experience at
| an even cheaper price. A 48" OLED TV, for instance, is
| much much easier to move.
| brandall10 wrote:
| Something I've noticed in the past few years is the number
| of homes I've been in without a TV and the use of smart
| speakers placed throughout instead of a fixed
| stereo/surround system.
|
| Seems quite a few folks are opting to randomly binge-stream
| on their laptop as vegging out on the TV is a thing of the
| past for them, so no need to have their living space
| dominated by these types of electronics.
| kllrnohj wrote:
| Are those folks going to suddenly find it appealing to
| strap on a headset with a battery pack for $3,500 but
| don't want to try that out today for $500?
|
| The appeal of the laptop/tablet/phone veg is the speed at
| which you can plop and start watching. Futzing with VR
| headset is kinda not that.
|
| The "personal home theater!" angle has been tried, and
| failed, so many times now. It doesn't seem like the
| Vision Pro changes anything to suddenly make it a
| motivating feature on its own. Which I think is the more
| telling thing about Netflix's response here. They've been
| pushing VR movie watching since day 1. And yet now they
| aren't doing so for the AVP. That seems less likely to be
| a snub of Apple and more likely to be an admission of
| "this just isn't something people do or want currently"
| pwthornton wrote:
| The $500 headset can't really do this well. They may have
| demoed one in a store and realized this isn't a great
| experience. You will also not find a lot of people online
| recommending it either.
|
| I have a Quest 3, and I would much rather watch movies on
| a laptop or iPad than it. The screen quality is not
| great. You can see the pixels due to the low-ish
| resolution. The contrast ratio is not great.
|
| The screen quality is generally good enough for VR games
| and other VR-specific experiences, however.
| brandall10 wrote:
| It's too early right now and I feel the device needs to
| make strides for it to be viable for most. The various
| youtubers pointing out neck strain issues underscore
| this. We can't gauge much from early gripes on a low
| production device that hasn't launched yet.
|
| Netflix's engineering staff is expensive and I imagine
| they learned some interesting lessons from experiments
| like Bandersnatch. No need to make bets for the sake of
| innovation, let things play out first. I'm sure there is
| some signaling involved for the sake of investors showing
| they're prudent here.
|
| All I'm saying is - to your point - the market may be
| shifting to where personal consumption devices like this
| make sense. It's not replacing a TV so much as a laptop.
|
| For some early adopters the experience may be far
| superior, and if so, a next generation device that cuts
| the cost and size in half may be the thing that launches
| things forward. Like the iPhone 3G.
|
| Or it could be sort of a wash and go the way of the 3d TV
| craze from 15 years ago.
| worldsayshi wrote:
| I'm somewhat of a VR enthusiast. But my headset is mostly
| gathering dust.
|
| There's one use case that I do think I would actually use
| once it's good enough though. It's using glasses as
| replacement for computer monitors when doing work. But I'd
| prefer the Nreal/Xreal Air form factor and price point.
|
| My inner VR enthusiast thinks the Apple Vision is cool but my
| inner realist wonders if anyone is really going to use
| anything beyond smart glasses.
| filoleg wrote:
| > My inner VR enthusiast thinks the Apple Vision is cool
| but my inner realist wonders if anyone is really going to
| use anything beyond smart glasses.
|
| My personal prediction - smart glasses as a smartphone
| replacement, AR/VR headsets as a poweruser workstation
| machine replacement.
|
| The market segments map out nicely with your prediction as
| well - almost everyone has a smartphone of some kind (just
| like i expect almost everyone to have some sort of smart
| glasses in the future), while a relative minority (even
| though it is a large one) has poweruser workstation
| machines (just like with AR/VR headsets in my prediction).
|
| That is, until at least the tech gets insane enough to
| allow packing full functionality of an AR/VR headset into
| the form factor of glasses, with an insane battery life to
| boot. I don't see that happening in any foreseeable future
| though, sadly, barring some transformational and unexpected
| battery chemistry breakthroughs.
| sho_hn wrote:
| > My personal prediction - smart glasses as a smartphone
| replacement
|
| I still struggle with seeing smart glasses as a viable
| smartphone replacement unless paired with some sort of
| peripheral to perform input privately. Doing everything
| by voice or expressive gestures around others isn't going
| to work for people.
| filoleg wrote:
| That's a really good point I totally forgot about. I
| would expect it to be controlled by a combo of gestures
| using eye tracking + some auxiliary input device, like a
| ring or a smartwatch or something like that.
|
| I agree, for now we have no good or even barely
| established UX/HCI paradigms for hypothetical standalone
| AR glasses.
|
| Not that we even have those types of paradigms
| established for currently existing AR/VR devices, but we
| are getting there slowly. With each year since I first
| tried the original HTC Vive, every new device and update
| slowly but surely made the interactions better, simpler,
| and feel more "worked out".
|
| What gives me hope is seeing how the touch-only UIs have
| changed since the original iPhone release. At first,
| everyone was scoffing big time at touch-only interfaces
| ever becoming functional, viable, and widely used. The
| first third party apps on the App Store were also
| extremely disjointed and had almost nothing in common
| between each other in terms of UI/UX. Felt like
| everything was just spliced together and stamped with "we
| think this should work." Not casting shade at devs of
| those apps, everyone was in that position back then, as
| there were no established UI/UX for touch-only interface
| smartphones.
|
| In 2024? While there are still continuing changes, things
| slowed down overall as the general cohesive UI/UX
| principles for touch-only smartphones have been
| established. And they indeed became functional, viable,
| and widely used devices.
| zonkerdonker wrote:
| Wrist wearables that can track micro-muscle movements in
| your fingers (pinching, scrolling, etc) are in
| development as a pair to these devices
| ImPostingOnHN wrote:
| Pupil tracking is in consumer VR devices, I can see it
| being further miniaturized, especially with advances in
| waveguiding.
|
| In fact, this might be a great use for Zeiss's holocam
| tech _[0]_ : high resolution, low definition, grayscale
| "window" that waveguides some of the light passing
| through, down to one of the edges, where an image sensor
| picks it up and decides it.
|
| _0:https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38881981_
| proamdev123 wrote:
| Agree, but it's trivial to add support for bluetooth
| controllers or keyboards.
| filoleg wrote:
| This isn't for in-home use, I believe they were talking
| about use cases similar to using smartphones outside of
| home. I am not pulling out a bluetooth keyboard out of my
| pocket on the street when I need to navigate using GPS or
| look something up.
|
| Btw, pretty much every AR/VR headset I am aware of these
| days already supports bluetooth controllers and
| keyboards. For some keyboard models, you can even have
| them visible and physically tracked in your VR space (I
| tried it with Quest 2 and apple's wireless keyboard,
| worked like a charm).
| worldsayshi wrote:
| > That is, until at least the tech gets insane enough to
| allow packing full functionality of an AR/VR headset into
| the form factor of glasses, with an insane battery life
| to boot. I don't see that happening in any foreseeable
| future though, sadly, barring some transformational and
| unexpected battery chemistry breakthroughs.
|
| It's not that far fetched if you move most of the
| hardware to a fanny pack or similar. You can probably get
| pretty close with current smart glasses (or Bigscreen
| Beyond) and a (next gen) Steam Deck.
| nradov wrote:
| VR glasses aren't very practical if much of your work
| consists of Zoom meetings with webcams.
| hydroxideOH- wrote:
| Are there a lot of people who live alone in a small apartment
| that are willing and able to buy a $3500 headset?
|
| I feel like this entire thread has a blind spot to the fact
| that this device is very much a luxury item. A 55-inch TV is
| ~$300. A high-end laptop is ~$1000. High-end noise-cancelling
| headphones are ~$250. You could buy all of those and still
| not reach half of the cost of this device.
|
| The only people I can see buying the device are rich people
| looking for another toy, not as a serious competitor to other
| entertainment tech.
| jimbokun wrote:
| The price will come down. This version is for wealthy early
| adopters.
| DetroitThrow wrote:
| >The only people I can see buying the device are rich
| people looking for another toy, not as a serious competitor
| to other entertainment tech.
|
| I'm surprised at how consistently people think that a
| technology that is so expensive and serving such a niche
| will end up having adoption asides from a few wealthy
| enthusiasts. iPhone 2 suggested retail price was $300
| (~$425 in todays dollars) and provided "smart" replacement
| for your cell phone matching its features 1-to-1 while also
| providing more than what was available.
|
| If someone imagines themselves buying this to watch movies
| "on the go" or at hotels or something, they're part of an
| extremely exclusive club.
| ok123456 wrote:
| It's 10x the cost of an entry Oculus device. And no one
| wants that either.
| pwthornton wrote:
| Meta Quest's are basically video game devices. It's a
| much different market than AVP.
|
| Meta is selling hundreds of thousands of units a month,
| so I don't know if I'd say no one wants it either. It
| seems to be selling pretty well overall, but Meta way
| overinvested in some of the stuff and is having a hard
| time making enough money.
| ok123456 wrote:
| They're both primarily for media consumption.
|
| Just because one device is from Apple doesn't make media
| consumption any more virtuous or productive.
| LordDragonfang wrote:
| The Quest 2 has sold 5-10x as many units as the first
| iphone did. Apples to oranges, but that's not no one.
| ac29 wrote:
| > iPhone 2 suggested retail price was $300 (~$425 in
| todays dollars)
|
| This was back when most phones were still carrier
| subsidized and required long term service contracts. Per
| Apple's press release, the $299 pricing required "a new
| two year contract with AT&T". Unsubsidized price was
| about double.
|
| https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2008/06/09Apple-
| Introduces-th...
| pwthornton wrote:
| Sure, there are in any of the global cities. I'm in the DC
| area, so I know plenty of people who have money and live in
| apartments/condos. NYC is the same way. There are plenty of
| people in the Bay Area that this describes as well. And
| then you talk about Western Europe and Asia, and home
| theater setups are a lot less common.
|
| Even if you have a lot of space in your apartment, it's
| hard to justify much of a home theater setup, as you will
| be really limited by sound issues.
| threeseed wrote:
| > $3500 headset?
|
| Nobody is buying the _Pro_ version of the headset just for
| watching movies other than the early adopters, YouTubers
| etc we have today.
|
| The idea is that when a normal version launches for $999 it
| will be a far more compelling proposition.
| jayd16 wrote:
| With the AVP we can actually have the game on while the wife
| and kids control the living room TV.
| dylan604 wrote:
| If you live with other people, it could still be appealing.
| Not everyone wants to watch the same thing at the same time.
| Also, living together does not mean everyone is family.
| nsxwolf wrote:
| I am curious to see the image quality of the VP, because the
| Quest 3 already does a pretty good job as a home theater
| replacement for $500.
| lm28469 wrote:
| > They can get this and a nice pair of headphones and have a
| great home theater experience. This is something that would
| be difficult to do in their current situations.
|
| For that price you can get 3 of your friends a nice 1080p
| short throw projector and studio monitors which will outlive
| the vision pro and won't cause neck/head pain after an hour.
| unusualmonkey wrote:
| The other problem here is that the is very little moat here -
| all you need is a good screen and decent headphones, both of
| which are commodity.
|
| The AVP is vastly overpriced and overspecced for basic media
| consumption.
| sunnybeetroot wrote:
| Moat like water around a castle?
| raydev wrote:
| > have a great home theater experience
|
| We'll have to see how people handle 1.5lbs of headgear for
| long periods. Maybe it'll be fine, but the Quest is already
| heavy enough.
| trjordan wrote:
| I don't think you're an outlier, but on the other side, "I
| watch Netflix on my laptop / iPad" is a _huge_ market. Yes,
| there's plenty of social watching experiences to be figured
| out, but solo watching is an entire industry unto itself.
|
| I'm a bit like you. I don't watch TV by myself, and the idea of
| plugging into a VR device to do so seems weird.
|
| But I carry my AirPods everywhere and mostly listen to music
| solo. It's not unreasonable to think that the same happens with
| TV/movies.
| 0x457 wrote:
| I have a 75" OLED in the living room where I watch things
| while wearing AirPods Max. Image quality and sound is superb,
| but I also often watch movies on my iPad Pro in the bedroom
| (no place to put tv there).
|
| I still get Dolby Atmos and Dolby Vision on both devices and
| with iPad being much closer than TV screen size is alright.
|
| People that watch movies on their phones and smaller ipads
| are wild. I tried watching movies on Quest 2 - too bulky.
| prng2021 wrote:
| I agree with it coexisting with a flat screen. We go movie
| theaters with friends and family and watch in silence. Simply
| having people around you rather than being alone seems to be
| enough. I think VR will be something in between. In your
| situation, you're not planning a night out but you're also not
| just flipping on the tv because you're bored. You have a family
| ritual to watch a show/movie at a designated time. I do
| something similar and would be fine with putting these on if it
| makes watching something more immersive.
| crazygringo wrote:
| Of course it's not going to replace your family's shared
| viewing experience.
|
| But a _lot_ of people watch a _lot_ of TV solo.
|
| And headsets are actually _extremely_ comfortable for binge-
| watching because you can lie back in your reclining chair or
| lie totally flat on your bed or long couch. You just drag the
| virtual screen up to your ceiling. You can also loosen the
| headband in these cases.
|
| There's no reason to sit upright for viewing unless you want
| to.
| ano-ther wrote:
| Fully agree.
|
| Just using it for consumption is also very unimaginative.
|
| I look forward to seeing developers explore the potential of
| spacial interactions that are different than just strapping a
| 2d display on your head.
| jillesvangurp wrote:
| There are lots of people living by themselves or at least
| spending a lot of time consuming content by themselves.
|
| As for comfort wearing this for extended periods of time, we'll
| have to see. I think that will be the key deciding factor.
| There was a lot of marketing speak in the original announcement
| suggesting that they did work quite hard on this issue and made
| some progress. A light enough device that can provide the
| experience of having a ginormous screen in front of your nose
| without inducing headaches, motion sickness, etc. could be a
| nice thing to have. If somebody delivers such a thing, people
| will be reluctant to turn them off possibly.
|
| As for replacing existing things, there's a long history of
| people thinking about new products in terms of how the old one
| worked. The more interesting question to ask is what new
| content will emerge for this thing.
| sho_hn wrote:
| > There are lots of people living by themselves or at least
| spending a lot of time consuming content by themselves.
|
| Is this great? It's a market, maybe, but it is it one we want
| to incentivize and grow?
|
| Increasingly I feel like we, as an industry, lean too hard
| into providing lesser-resistance substitutes for mentally and
| socially healthier lifestyles, and that "we are not making
| the choice for them, the root problem has to be solved
| somewhere else" is a cop-out.
|
| The massive amount of effort we spend on boyfriend/girlfriend
| replacement tech, meet-up-with-friends replacement tech,
| experience-interesting-places replacement tech is starting to
| worry me.
| notamy wrote:
| It's depressing. It feels like we keep making technological
| solutions to maximise profit at the expense of people's
| mental/emotional health.
| LoganDark wrote:
| That's exactly what they're doing. And as a side effect,
| everyone wanting to maximize profit means that everything
| costs money, and that means everyone wants money, and
| that means money is hard to get!
|
| At least, it's hard to get for people who don't happen to
| already be at the top of some empire.
| jmull wrote:
| Why assume people spending a lot of time consuming content
| by themselves is bad?
|
| It can certainly be done at an unhealthy level but you can
| say that about a lot of things.
|
| If it is bad, then you'd have to discourage things like
| reading books. And I guess, depending on what you think is
| wrong with it, maybe discourage other mainly solitary
| pursuits.
| crazygringo wrote:
| > _but it is it one we want to incentivize and grow?_
|
| Why on earth not? Reading books is solitary. Programming is
| usually solitary. A lot of hobbies are solitary.
|
| But you can watch a show on your own and then talk about it
| the next day with your friends.
| jillesvangurp wrote:
| Who is the royal "we" here? You don't have to buy this
| thing if you don't want to. Why are you judging others that
| might decide otherwise?
|
| I think it's very simple. If this thing works more or less
| as advertised, lots of people might buy it. I don't think
| it's a given Apple has another winner here but I wouldn't
| exclude the possibility. And I was kind of impressed with
| what they announced last year.
| jandrese wrote:
| I'm not sure what the killer app for this headset will be, but
| watching movies/tv shows on it is not it. The most obvious
| reason being that a passive movie/tv watching experience is
| already possible on a much cheaper Quest headset and it has not
| been a success.
|
| For me a killer app needs to make use of the AR capabilities of
| the headset to justify the cost.
| gwbas1c wrote:
| > I may be an outlier but in our house the only time we watch
| shows or movies is a social context--usually Friday or Saturday
| nights as a family.
|
| There's a very clear cultural divide here. You missed a very
| important point in TFA:
|
| > If you live in Asia, like you live in Taiwan, people don't
| have big homes, they don't have 85-inch screen televisions.
| Plus, you have six, seven, eight people living in the same
| house, they don't get screen time to watch things _so they
| watch everything on their phone._
|
| (Emphasis mine.)
|
| Basically, the point is that watching TV in VR will probably be
| very popular in Asian markets.
| kemayo wrote:
| Perhaps worth considering that the Nintendo Switch is the best-
| selling game console of the last several console generations
| (#3 all-time!), and a core part of its appeal is that you don't
| _have_ to take over the TV when you 're using it. In fact, it
| really shines as a "people are watching TV, but I want to do
| something else" device.
|
| (Particularly for kids, of course, which isn't a market that
| works well with the $4k price of the current Vision Pro. But a
| hypothetical cheaper future generation...)
|
| I'll admit that some of my perspective here comes from being
| extremely not a TV-watcher, so "the social joy of watching a
| show" mostly fails to motivate me. :D
| dwaite wrote:
| I think if the price comes down there will be a low double-
| digit percentage of people who have a Vision Pro and no
| television. This would not be too surprising based on the
| portion of people who do not own a TV today, watching media on
| laptop, tablet or desktop computers or on their phone.
|
| I suspect there will be a larger portion of people who have
| both a Vision Pro and a television, and use the Vision Pro for
| some portion of their viewing.
|
| The "replaces TV" is likely a mental connection between the
| cost of a higher end TV and the cost of a higher end AR headset
| being in a similar range where media consumption is a major
| feature of both. One could maybe justify the price of a 85"
| OLED or justify the price of a Vision Pro, but not both.
| Towaway69 wrote:
| I assume everyone said the same about television, especially as
| the VCRs came out - no more theater and cinema.
|
| But: the iPhone did replace the rotatry phone! /s
| zitterbewegung wrote:
| There is a tweet reference by the Author that
|
| "Apple can't convince streaming video companies to check the
| "allow iPad app" box."
|
| If you saw what happened to the music companies and you are big
| enough you can get around all of the nonsense that Apple can
| leverage against you why do what apple wants?
| PaulHoule wrote:
| If people are still talking about the AVP in six months then
| Netflix can tick that box or they can port the Netflix VR app
| _which already exists on Meta Quest_ to the AVP.
| Philpax wrote:
| They haven't touched that app in years, and it's not very
| good. I'd prefer they enabled using the iPad version over
| using that app - at least I'd be able to use Apple's window
| placement for the video!
| PaulHoule wrote:
| (1) All of these video apps, including Netflix, are on Meta
| Quest, which makes it all the more of a snub. (It's a dirty
| little secret that apps are highly portable between VR and AR
| headsets because they are almost all written in Unity anyway)
|
| (2) If you're thinking about buying an AVP and not thinking about
| buying an MQ3 at 1/7 the price you're _not thinking_ or at least
| you 're not an technology enthusiast you're an Apple enthusiast.
|
| (3) So far all the video apps (not to mention remote desktop apps
| like Immersed) I've seen have a poor user interface for situating
| and controlling the virtual screens. It doesn't seem like an
| insurmountable problem but it's somewhat startling that it hasn't
| been addressed. Maybe AVP will point the way to something better.
|
| (4) I tried the "VR camera" view of NBA games on Xtadium. I've
| lately taken a shine to sitting in the front row at college games
| (Newman Auditorium is rarely full so usually I can sit courtside
| with a $8 ticket) so the "courtside view" was appealing to me
| but: (a) my 20Mbps DSL connection is not slow enough to support
| it (though every normal streaming service works fine) and (b) the
| perception of space around the camera is really strange. I just
| can't say it is really any better than watching an NBA game on an
| ordinary TV.
|
| Once you get your AVP (or if you "think different" and get an
| MQ3) you will realize there are some troubles when you try to
| synthesize views out of multiple cameras in different spots and
| even a camera like
|
| https://us.kandaovr.com/products/obsidian-pro
|
| that shoots great pano video will get strange results when people
| get close. The problems I am having w/ it have to do with the
| network and camera so I don't see it being better on AVP.
| Kerrick wrote:
| "If you're thinking about buying an iPod and not thinking about
| buying a Sansa Clip at 1/6 the price you're _not thinking_ or
| at least you 're not an music enthusiast you're an Apple
| enthusiast."
| PaulHoule wrote:
| Back then I got an iRiver which didn't require me to install
| malware on my Windows machine to transfer music to it.
| neogodless wrote:
| As someone who loved his $10 Sansa Clip and never owned an
| iPod Shuffle, you make a good point. There was no point in
| the iPod Shuffle, except for Apple enthusiasts.
| mellosouls wrote:
| _All of these video apps, including Netflix, are on Meta Quest,
| which makes it all the more of a snub._
|
| Yep, its a bit of an elephant in the room in both this and the
| linked blogpost that the authors seem completely unaware that
| this is an already well-established medium use case that Apple
| is very late to.
| empath-nirvana wrote:
| I don't think it really needs to be stated that everything
| Apple does is an already well established medium that they're
| late to. They didn't event smart phones or smart watches or
| set top boxes or smart speakers or the personal computer or
| or or
| titanomachy wrote:
| ...or mp3 players or wireless headphones.
|
| But all those markets became much bigger after apple
| entered them.
| sebzim4500 wrote:
| >(2) If you're thinking about buying an AVP and not thinking
| about buying an MQ3 at 1/7 the price you're not thinking or at
| least you're not an technology enthusiast you're an Apple
| enthusiast.
|
| I don't think this follows. I haven't used an AVP myself but
| apparently they are much nicer to use than an MQ3. If $3.5k is
| not a significant expense for you then you might as well get
| the premium product.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| The weird part is the MQ3 does more.
|
| I'd assume people with this kind of purchasing habits are
| just buying both and some more anyway.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| Hard to say.
|
| I think the most interesting feature of the AVP is the eye
| tracking which could not only project your avatar to the
| front of the device but might be able to make an avatar
| good enough that you could jump into a Zoom call from an
| AVP. That's one of those things that would make it possible
| to travel and pack an XR headset instead of a laptop
|
| That eye tracking though also supports dystopian scenarios
| such as being able to change the world right from under you
| by only changing things you're not looking at, "reading
| your mind" by seeing what catches your eye, etc. The kind
| of thing that makes people afraid that Facebook is involved
| with this.
|
| The Quest controllers work great for a range of
| applications. Hand tracking has come a long way since the
| painful experience of holding your arms up high so the
| Hololens 1 can see them but I don't know if AVP's hand
| tracking will really be as versatile as the Quest
| controllers and Apple's the sort of company that will go
| down with the ship because they think there is something
| unclean about a design... But on that other hand they've
| got _that battery pack_.
|
| The Quest has really good VR games and also the kind of
| media apps that this article is talking about. MQ3 came
| with a great MR demo game: they opened up the API for MR
| apps as soon as the MQ3 hit the street but they have been
| slow to get third-party MR apps through the app store, I
| just got my first one the other day.
|
| The Quest's graphics capabilities aren't that great by
| modern standards, certainly if you are a serious gamer with
| a powerful gaming PC you have seen games that are much more
| detailed and impressive... I would say that the graphics of
| _Asgard 's Wrath 2_ are pretty similar to those of _Metroid
| Prime_. On the other hand there is something really special
| about being in a space.
|
| The AVP is a lot more powerful and on paper could
| synthesize better graphics but it's not so clear to me how
| it works out in practice. I think how the 2004 game _Grand
| Theft Auto: San Andreas_ lets you travel in a huge world
| with no loading screens in a Playstation 2 with 36MB of
| RAM... An experience which is still uncommon despite having
| phones with 1000x the RAM because it is a lot of work to
| tune up graphics. Similarly you see most of the games that
| are on Xbox and Playstation and PC are also on the much
| less powerful Switch.
|
| Part of the reason _Horizon Worlds_ has failed is that they
| were trying to make an easy authoring experience that would
| be accessible to people who don 't use traditional 3D tools
| which comes with all sorts of limitation, not just in the
| amount of geometry you can have or the number of players,
| but that you can't bring in your own textures. In the end
| it all has to fit in RAM in the headset. Maybe you pay 7x
| as much for 7x the capacity on an AVP (so a world could
| have 140 max players instead of 20) but often you give
| people more resources and they just waste them... Look how
| cloud gaming never developed exclusive titles that did
| anything that you could only do with cloud gaming.
| jsheard wrote:
| > That eye tracking though also supports dystopian
| scenarios such as being able to change the world right
| from under you by only changing things you're not looking
| at, "reading your mind" by seeing what catches your eye,
| etc.
|
| For better or worse Apple isn't allowing this kind of
| thing, the eye tracking "cursor" is only ever known to
| the OS itself and apps only receive "click" events with a
| snapshot of where you're looking when the OS detects the
| relevent hand gesture. Apps are never allowed to know
| what you're gazing at passively.
|
| It's a good move for privacy, but it's very limiting for
| games since they will only have (accurate) head and (not
| so accurate) hand tracking data to work with.
| sebzim4500 wrote:
| I suspect there will be ways of getting this information
| though, it would be incredibly hard to design the
| foveated renderer such that you can't figure out where
| the eye is by e.g. positioning different amounts of
| geometry on the screen and then timing frames.
| jsheard wrote:
| Apple hasn't made it exactly clear AFAICT, but I suspect
| that foveated rendering might only work in the managed
| RealityKit environment where Apple controls the entire
| rendering pipeline, and not inside applications which
| implement their own rendering from the ground up using
| Metal, for exactly that reason. There's nothing in the
| documentation about foveated rendering in Metal apps, and
| it is something that engines would have to be explicitly
| aware of if they do any kind of off-screen rendering.
| dwaite wrote:
| I don't believe you get mouseover/"glanceover" events;
| you have to define your focus visual behavior
| declaratively. Rendering of that behavior is then not
| visible to an app with default entitlements.
|
| Of course, Apple's store means they can just forbid
| gaming the system.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| Thanks !
|
| BTW I find Apple/Meta's focus on meetings so fascinating.
| As a mere employee I can't imagine being excited to do
| meetings in a more immersive way, when we collectively
| agreed to disable cameras on most of our calls for stress
| reduction.
|
| That would be better with family, I guess, but then $3500
| of material and getting kids and elderlies in VR is quite
| an hurdle.
|
| On AVP's performances, I fully agree. Currently, running
| the Quest as a PCVR headset, and thus aleviating the base
| computing part, still requires a pretty beefy PC to run
| the games at full quality. And even laptops have a hard
| time getting enough power and cooling to run at decent
| speeds for sustained periods.
|
| While the AVP has an M2, I wonder how far that would go
| when it comes to games that actually push the envelope
| (or apps that are as underoptimized as VRChat ?).
| Philpax wrote:
| Regarding the meetings: VR meetings are much less
| fatiguing because you aren't staring at 12 people who are
| staring back at you. The spatiality and body language
| make a _huge_ difference.
|
| The corporate implementations are bad, but they'll
| eventually take some lessons from VRChat.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| VRChat stands out as one of very few "multiplayer"
| experiences in VR that are successful. Sure you might
| have somebody jump into tutorial island yelling "I am a
| furry! I am a furry! I am a furry" but I also had
| positive interactions with people right off the bat
| whereas there was no way I was going to get somebody in
| _Horizon Worlds_ how to work the stupid fishing rod.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| I think we're not talking about the same thing. The main
| sources of "zoom fatigue" (camera on) I see are:
|
| - having to show you pay attention to people speaking
| when you're actually looking at documents (or doing
| something completely different if you didn't need to pay
| attention).
|
| - being stuck where you are as you can't just go to the
| kitchen or feed your cat while someone else is
| presenting.
|
| VR solves none of that, and having your whole body
| captured makes it worse (to note, the AVP doesn't allow
| moving past some small boundary I think ?). We're still
| in the fantasy that meetings are something you should be
| focused on, and double down in a "it doesn't work because
| we aren't doing it enough" cross training way.
|
| I truely believe the appropriate future of meetings are
| holographic slabs floating in space representing each
| participant audio only, Evangelion style.
| Remedwme wrote:
| Based on what?
|
| The Q3 is a 100x better device for market entry than the avp.
|
| It has also very good resolution.
|
| For just watching movies etc it would be a game changer for a
| lot of people and still it's not a thing everyone just owns
| creaturemachine wrote:
| Meta has captured the home and family segment with the Quest
| devices, as evidenced by the number of kids you hear in
| social spaces and games. No parent is going to hand a $3.5k
| device to their kids when a $300 Quest will do the same job.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| Note that that consumer is still buying the Quest 2 instead
| of the Quest 3 so save a few hundred $.
|
| https://mixed-news.com/en/quest-2-vs-quest-3-amazon-sales-
| fi...
|
| Although _Asgard 's Wrath 2_ is a pack-in game for the MQ3
| it plays fine on the MQ2 and doesn't take advantage of the
| more powerful processor of the MQ3 and only includes a tiny
| amount of MR gaming as an afterthought.
| jsheard wrote:
| If your primary interest in VR is for gaming then the AVP is
| mostly a downgrade from the MQ3, due to the limited input
| options. There's no proper VR controllers with IMUs, sticks,
| buttons and triggers, just your bare hands. You're not going
| to be able to play something like Beat Saber or Half Life
| Alyx on the AVP to any satisfactory level.
| madeofpalk wrote:
| Maybe your primary interesting in VR _isnt_ gaming.
| jsheard wrote:
| If you want to do spreadsheets in VR then that's your
| prerogative, but it's still not accurate to say the AVP
| is a more premium substitute for the Quest in general.
| threeseed wrote:
| So the only options are spreadsheets and gaming.
|
| Even though it's obvious to _everyone_ that content
| consumption will be the killer app.
| chaostheory wrote:
| Netflix is barely on the meta quest. They haven't updated their
| app in years despite everyone begging them to do so. Netflix
| didn't even develop their app on meta.
|
| I'm not sure what Netflix is thinking when they are releasing a
| video game that no one wants instead fixing their meta client
| simiones wrote:
| Probably because VR glasses are barely even a tiny drop in
| the bucket for Netflix. And the amount of people who are
| _only_ watching Netflix on a VR glass (and thus would cancel
| their sub if it 's not nicely viewable on the glasses) is
| tinier still.
| chaostheory wrote:
| You have a valid point. I'm complaining because Netflix is
| developing a Stranger Things VR game that no one wants,
| instead of updating their streaming client.
| creaturemachine wrote:
| Because video is a terrible use for a headset, especially
| feature-length movies or TV series. I'll bet the number of
| people willing to watch for that long with a brick strapped
| to their face, unable to comfortably drink or eat, is
| extremely low. Netflix is probably seeing this app used for a
| couple minutes before consumers realize it sucks and go back
| to some real VR experiences, or resume on the TV. No wonder
| they're not launching on apple vision.
| chaostheory wrote:
| How would you know if you've never tried it?
| audunw wrote:
| > (2) If you're thinking about buying an AVP ...
|
| At the low production volume they have right now they're
| clearly targeting the super premium market and developers who
| want to get in early, so they have good apps ready when the AVP
| hits the mass market.
|
| It's not like the first revision of iPod or iPhone was a global
| phenomenon over night either. They were also full of
| compromises and flaws. I know maybe one or two people who got
| the first iPhone. I'm the only one I know who got the second
| gen iPod. But with the third gen of each of those I know dozens
| who got into it.
|
| I think in the next two generations, the Meta's headsets will
| go up in price and functionality to be closer to AVP in both.
| Apple's will stay stable (letting inflation "reduce" the price)
| or come down a bit. By the third generation AVP will still have
| a hefty premium, but maybe more in the 2-3x range, and it's not
| like that has been a problem for Apple in other market
| segments.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| Developers who wanted to get in early could have snagged a
| Hololens 2 or a Meta Quest 2 and gain a whole year over the
| AVP. (I did get a Hololens 1 real cheap and found the
| software story was absymal, when MQ3 came out and got really
| good reviews but startling little buzz I concluded I couldn't
| afford _not_ to get an MQ3)
| Philpax wrote:
| Apple's APIs and UX guidelines are very different. There
| are some ports (like Rec Room), but building a visionOS-
| native app means the only thing you'll be able to take with
| you is your spatial design awareness. (Not nothing, but a
| far cry from being able to develop your app ahead of time.)
| skazazes wrote:
| > (2) If you're thinking about buying an AVP and not thinking
| about buying an MQ3 at 1/7 the price you're not thinking or at
| least you're not an technology enthusiast you're an Apple
| enthusiast.
|
| I bought the Quest 1 when it was an Occulus product and stopped
| using it the moment they started enforcing Meta anything within
| the device. I could not care less if it is a 1:1 hardware
| equivalent as long as it has anything to do with the Meta
| empire. The last I checked, my Quest 1 refuses to function on
| my home network because of the filtering I enforce on my
| router...
|
| The "technology enthusiast" crowd is highly heterogeneous
| ozten wrote:
| > (2) If you're thinking about buying an AVP and not thinking
| about buying an MQ3 at 1/7 the price you're not thinking or at
| least you're not an technology enthusiast you're an Apple
| enthusiast.
|
| It depends on the use-case. For productivity, Quest 3 doesn't
| have the pixels per degree so it is "almost usable" as a
| desktop replacement, but not quite there.
|
| A better comparison is a Varjo headset for $4k - $12k which has
| similar capabilities.
| jayd16 wrote:
| Porting a Unity game is way harder than you think, especially
| on a VR headset where Netflix would have had to tune things to
| specific hardware to get video frames syncing properly. The
| entire UX has to be redesigned. Not to mention that Unity apps
| are second class citizens until they're rewritten as "immersive
| apps."
|
| It's not trivial.
| pwthornton wrote:
| This is true, but also these apps tend to be poor quality.
|
| I have a Quest 3, and I suspect a lot of the people who are
| thinking AVP and not Quest 3 haven't liked Meta's pitch. A lot
| of the metaverse stuff is silly. It was a poor pitch, and it
| wasn't remotely ready.
|
| Beyond that, the Meta Quest 3 doesn't have the best screens, so
| things like watching video aren't actually very good. The
| passthrough is comically bad, so any AR stuff is really a no
| go.
|
| The only things the Meta Quest 3 does well is video games and
| video game fitness experiences. The reason to consider the
| Quest 3 is almost 100%, "do you want to play VR video games
| without breaking the bank?" That's it.
|
| The Vision Pro is not making that pitch at all, and doesn't
| even support motion controllers.
|
| I don't think there is a lot of cross shopping between the two,
| and I don't think people looking at the Vision Pro are just
| Apple enthusiasts. They simply aren't that interested in video
| games, but are interested in the other experiences Apple is
| touting.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| Hard to say about the passthrough. The MQ3's passthrough is
| terrible from an eye chart perspective but the latency and
| spatial perception are good enough you can throw and catch a
| ball without any trouble. The Apple Vision has cameras far
| away from the eye centers to support the front screen so it's
| going to have to work harder to reproject images and it may
| be functionally worse. We'll have to see.
| lapcat wrote:
| > The iTunes Music Store does still exist, although its revenue
| contribution to the labels has long been eclipsed by streaming.
| It's more important contribution to modern computing is that it
| provided the foundation for the App Store.
|
| I'm glad that Ben mentioned this. I discussed it at length in my
| own blog post "App Store is neither console nor retail but
| jukebox": https://lapcatsoftware.com/articles/jukebox.html
|
| The App Store was a carbon copy of the iTunes Music Store, thrown
| together _very_ quickly, as shown in evidence and testimony from
| the Epic trial, but a store for selling 99 cent songs is an
| extremely bad fit for selling computer software. A lot of the
| problems with the App Store today stem from its origins in the
| iTunes Music Store, and unfortunately Apple has done very little
| to reshape the App Store to be more suitable for software.
|
| As a software developer myself, I have very little interest in
| Vision Pro right now. One major problem, especially for indie
| developers of paid apps, is that customers have come to expect
| _free_ support for new platforms. Last month I finally gave in
| and made my Mac and iOS apps a universal purchase instead of
| separate purchases, but to me it 's ridiculous to give away a new
| version for free on Vision Pro when consumers are giving $3500+
| to Apple for a new device. Consumers are resentful if they have
| to give third-party developers _any_ extra money. The level of
| consumer entitlement for free software is over the top. Apple
| gets to make all the money from expensive hardware, and we 're
| supposed to be indentured servants supporting any and all new
| Apple hardware for no profit.
| pm wrote:
| Consumers find it easy to justify a hardware purchase: it's
| tangible, and save for requiring an electrical outlet (which is
| ubiquitous in our society), runs anywhere. Software is, in some
| regards, intangible, and is constrained to certain platforms.
| It makes it easier to dismiss, even though it's no less work to
| make great software.
| skydhash wrote:
| And that has not been helped by freemium and ads supported
| platforms. When I first got into computing (around windows XP
| SP2) if something was free and not open source, it was viewed
| with suspicions. Piracy was rampant, but they're already not
| your market. It's easy to buy software when it's fulfilling a
| real need.
| dwaite wrote:
| IMHO this has been one of the reasons the push for
| subscription-based pricing has been successful - it helps you
| pitch services that provide value, rather than software the
| user can leverage to create their own value.
| rickdeckard wrote:
| > One major problem, especially for indie developers of paid
| apps, is that customers have come to expect free support for
| new platforms
|
| This is an interesting aspect indeed. Not just the increased
| customer expectation but also the resulting increased dev-cost.
|
| It looks alot like Apple aims to repeat what they did on the
| iPhone: Deliver a solid barebone experience, watch and observe
| what the dev-community does, build your app/service feature-
| backlog / adjust your revenue-share model based on the 3rd
| party apps that succeed.
|
| But now the ramp-up complexity to make a good app is much
| higher than it was back then for the $1 Flashlight App, the
| $2.99 iBeer App or Fruit Ninja.
|
| The question is whether there are again enough devs who are
| eager to do all the upfront invest to "throw stuff against the
| wall and see what sticks" on behalf of Apple...
| TheJoeMan wrote:
| It's very funny you mention Fruit Ninja, because I got a
| email that seems like Apple specifically ensured Fruit Ninja
| is ported to VP. BeatSaber alternative?
| dpkonofa wrote:
| I don't know that this is entirely true. Statistically, Apple
| users are far more likely to spend money on apps and in-app
| purchases than on any other application platform. Mainstream
| users may feel entitled to free apps but Apple users typically
| don't fit that mold. Also, you just kinda made the same case as
| the author in that shareware and other trial apps are probably
| what's needed here.
| lapcat wrote:
| > Statistically, Apple users are far more likely to spend
| money on apps and in-app purchases than on any other
| application platform. Mainstream users may feel entitled to
| free apps but Apple users typically don't fit that mold.
|
| Yes, Apple users are willing to pay for software... _once_.
| But then they want that one payment to apply to _every_ Apple
| device: iPhone, iPad, Mac, Watch, Vision Pro, etc. They don
| 't want to pay _separately_ for each Apple platform.
| saagarjha wrote:
| Apple sells the story that with their technologies it's
| easy to port apps between platforms. Sometimes they do the
| work themselves to make it seem like that's the case, too.
| So the reason that users expect it is that Apple has
| conditioned them to think that it is the case.
| dpkonofa wrote:
| What's your source for that? Apple subscriptions also dwarf
| the next closest provider. I don't think Apple users care
| about paying once or more than once so long as they have
| access on all their devices.
| lapcat wrote:
| > What's your source for that?
|
| My source is myself! I _am_ an App Store developer. Did
| you miss the part where I said, "Last month I finally
| gave in and made my Mac and iOS apps a universal purchase
| instead of separate purchases"? This was because
| customers were constantly confused and complaining about
| it.
| tcmart14 wrote:
| I wonder if this could be changed some if Apple allowed
| some different pricing models. I've never pushed an app
| to the app store, but I imagine it isn't granular enough
| for this. But if you could offer 3 price points. One
| price point for the software on each platform then
| perhaps like a bundled price point. Say, $5 for the mac
| version and $5 for the phone version. But $8 for both
| platforms.
|
| I can see some frustration with idea of paying for the
| app full cost separately. But I think I would be less
| annoyed if I can pay for both in a single transaction.
| Even if it wasn't at a discount for the bundle, $10 for
| both.
| lapcat wrote:
| > One price point for the software on each platform then
| perhaps like a bundled price point. Say, $5 for the mac
| version and $5 for the phone version. But $8 for both
| platforms.
|
| Apple doesn't support this:
| https://lapcatsoftware.com/articles/2023/12/4.html
| dclowd9901 wrote:
| It was my understanding that Apple bridged this gap with Apple
| Arcade. But maybe you aren't in the gaming space?
| mayoff wrote:
| He's not in the gaming space. You can find his apps here:
| https://underpassapp.com
| dwaite wrote:
| > Last month I finally gave in and made my Mac and iOS apps a
| universal purchase instead of separate purchases, but to me
| it's ridiculous to give away a new version for free on Vision
| Pro when consumers are giving $3500+ to Apple for a new device
|
| Depends on your model.
|
| If you are charging individually for new features, it wouldn't
| make sense to have an entirely new platform as a free thing.
|
| If you are rolling features into incremental paid version
| upgrades, it could make sense to have AVP support be one of the
| features of a new version. Product v1 has an iOS app, v2 is a
| universal app with iOS and Mac support, v3 includes iOS, Mac
| and AVP.
|
| If you are charging for ongoing maintenance which includes new
| features, it makes sense to give your entire user base an ever-
| increasing value. AVP support may just gets rolled in as a
| feature their subscription gives them.
|
| To do it the other way and require two product purchases or
| split subscriptions for AVP is a tiered model. Tiered models
| IMHO are more something that comes from necessity, when the
| price to support development with a single tier increases the
| base price to the point where you are pricing out too much of
| your market. You justify customers paying more by giving them
| more features, which in turn gives you more revenue to support
| development for all users.
|
| Tiering is often more of a large development team problem than
| an indie problem, but for workplace-oriented apps (where you
| may have personal or corporate buyers who are willing to pay
| different amounts) it still winds up being a pricing
| consideration for indies.
|
| I suspect tiered pricing to be a thing for AVP for a while for
| this reason - developers deciding an AVP owner will have extra
| spending capacity. I'd recommend pricing though to recognize
| that the platform success will be defined by it managing to
| cannibalize some iPad sales, and that on a five-year timeline
| you may again be pricing out sales by requiring a "Pro" AVP
| purchase. Plan the pivot.
| sub7 wrote:
| If businesses don't buy these in bulk, this will be an Apple
| Newton v2. Likely to be uncomfortable/look stupid and be stupidly
| overpriced as well for what you get.
|
| I'm sure Apple is in a much better position than in the mid 90s
| so they can probably absorb bad sales and these headsets will
| shrink down soon enough and get killer apps and get cheaper so
| the real question is who's going to build the Android of VR and
| take the non-walled garden market?
| PaulHoule wrote:
| Meta Quest. It even runs on Android. For that matter, so does
| Magic Leap 2. If they deign to do so all the "usual suspects"
| who make Android phones could make Android-based VR headsets.
|
| As much as the media has been obsessed with the train wreck
| that is Horizon Worlds, it's a well kept secret that Meta Quest
| has an app store that works like the app store on a game
| console. You can even sideload phone, tablet and TV apps and
| they "just work" most of the time.
|
| There is no working "metaverse" and even meaningful multiplayer
| games are thin on the ground, but no shortage of good single-
| player games and what I'd call game-adjacent apps.
|
| It's little recognized that XR apps are highly portable because
| they are almost always based on portable frameworks like Unity.
| In fact, just about every XR headset supports WebXR which makes
| it outright easy to make web-based virtual worlds
|
| https://aframe.io/
|
| these work with desktop, phones and tablets as well as most of
| the AR and VR headsets. All it takes is that you "think
| different" and choose to live life outside the app store.
| jitl wrote:
| > If businesses don't buy these in bulk
|
| When was the last time Apple's success depended on business
| bulk purchase? Apple didn't become the highest market cap
| company in the world selling expensive phones to businesses in
| bulk orders.
| junipertea wrote:
| Doesn't meta quest literally run on android?
| righthand wrote:
| Luckily the fanatics don't care about looking stupid as proven
| with the wireless ear buds. There's also probably a large
| enough fanatic culture where this will be a niche product for a
| generation or two. While they claim it's the best selling
| headset or something.
| ewzimm wrote:
| As great as the hardware seems, the Quest 3's support of
| basically every Android app ever made plus native apps plus PCVR
| apps which are free with the purchase of their native Quest
| counterpart makes it much more appealing to me. Now that they
| seem to be adding native support for converting Apple's spacial
| video, I'm having a hard time seeing any advantage other than
| increased clarity that I would get from moving from a Quest 3 to
| a Vision Pro right now, but like everyone else, I'm eager to see
| what they do for the next iteration. Seems like a great dev tool
| for now.
| dpkonofa wrote:
| There is a non-insignificant number of people that would never
| buy or use a Meta product because of their data and privacy
| issues. The Quest 3 is nowhere close to the AVP simply because
| of that.
| ewzimm wrote:
| I respect that point of view, but Meta has over 3 billion
| monthly active users. This is a large enough potential
| customer base for any product. I also find the privacy
| options on the Quest perfectly adequate, and I'm curious if
| there's any specific option you feel is missing or if it's
| just their tarnished brand reputation that causes the lack of
| trust.
| Philpax wrote:
| How do you get those Android apps without sideloading? How do
| you find them? How do you participate in the wider Android
| ecosystem?
|
| The AVP has a much stronger OS and software ecosystem play; you
| can just download and use your regular iOS apps, and multitask
| with ease in a variety of scenarios.
|
| I want the Quest 3 to be able to compete with that, but it's
| not there yet. Perhaps Google and Samsung will be able to pull
| it together for their take?
| ewzimm wrote:
| You do have to sideload, and that will turn off plenty of
| people, but probably not most of the people here. It's just a
| matter of following the instructions on the Sidequest
| website. For my use, just putting F-Droid on it gives me
| access to everything I would want, including other app
| stores. After that, everything is installed and updated like
| any other Android device. I wish the interface supported more
| than running 3 apps side-by-side, like pinning apps to walls
| of environments, which Apple seems to be doing. I'm sure that
| Meta will end up copying popular features of the Vision Pro
| in time, just like Android and iOS have been copying each
| other for years now.
| no1youknowz wrote:
| One use case this would immediately solve for me. Is travel.
|
| When I travel I'm usually in an airbnb, hotel room or temporary
| rented apartment for months at a time.
|
| Usually I may not even have a desk or a tiny one in the corner.
|
| Having the ability to increase my area of productivity via this
| device from a 14"/16" laptop. Intrigues me quite a bit.
|
| However, the current weight factor and fov (rumoured 100deg) puts
| me off right now.
|
| Should apple do something similar (or another competitor) like
| the big screen beyond and 210 deg (starvr) with a much later
| iteration. The value proposition for me would make it an instant
| purchase.
|
| I'm more than happy to sit this round out. But the new product
| segment is something that I and probably many people are
| interested in. I know Apple will innovate and more importantly
| push the whole industry forward. I'm watching and waiting with
| interest!
| simiones wrote:
| Even for travel, most people travel in groups, even those who
| live alone or with non-friends. So, media consumption while
| traveling is even less likely to be happening alone (except on
| the plane) than at home.
|
| I'm not saying your own use-case is invalid. But it doesn't
| sound like a good strategy for Apple.
| threeseed wrote:
| > Even for travel, most people travel in groups
|
| For ordinary travellers, sure.
|
| But there is a lot of business travel where people are flying
| just for a day or two for sales meetings etc. And given they
| power frequent flyer programs clearly there are a lot of
| them.
|
| Having done many such flights I would much rather a Vision
| Pro than a cheap LCD hotel room TV.
| sf_rob wrote:
| I agree. Granted it's out of my price range for the time being,
| but a device to make a plane more bearable while giving me a
| screen that doesn't require craning my neck on the other side
| would be a huge deal.
| joshstrange wrote:
| My #1 use case for the AVP I ordered is productivity followed by
| consumption. If I can get my MBP as a large 4K screen in the AVP
| and I'm productive in it then I can do away with my 3-4 monitor
| setup I have at 2 locations and open up the places I can work
| productively to nearly anywhere.
| sschueller wrote:
| It's too heavy for prolonged use so although the work features
| are very interesting this seems to kill it as a replacement for
| a multi monitor setup.
| joshstrange wrote:
| Ehh, you can get used to almost anything. People complained
| about the weight of the AirPods Max but there are plenty of
| people who use them all the time/all day. I think any
| discomfort with be temporarily and worth "powering through",
| or at least that's my hope. I'm probably going to be wearing
| my 8hrs a day as soon as I get it and if it doesn't work or
| if the productivity isn't worth it (and/or the consumption
| isn't breathtaking) I'll consider returning it for sure.
| chaostheory wrote:
| IMO you need to try it first. Headsets are too personal for a
| "one to rule them all" model.
|
| The Quest Pro is one of the most comfortable headsets that
| I've ever used and it weighs 100g more than the Apple Vision
| Pro
| PaulHoule wrote:
| It's not the weight, it's the balance. The MQ3 plus the
| elite strap weighs more than the AVP by quite a bit and I
| did some 5+ hours days playing _Asgard 's Wrath 2_ over the
| Christmas break easily though I did take breaks to recharge
| myself and the headset.
| chaostheory wrote:
| My Quest 2 and 3 were also both balanced with a battery
| in the back. Neither of them felt as great as the Pro. I
| feel that the main difference is the halo form factor
| instead of ski goggles hugging your face tight. Of
| course, this preference isn't universal since some people
| hate the halo style.
|
| I feel that like with meta headsets, Vision Pro's comfort
| problem will be sold by 3rd party straps
| whatwhaaaaat wrote:
| I seriously question this each time this is brought up.
|
| I needed multiple monitors when we had 1024x768 and smaller. I
| now code on a dqhd that could fit 10 of those old monitors. I
| still use 2 other displays. Why? Reference. Nothing will be
| faster than the flick of your eyes to the alternate display.
| When constructing optimal copy pasta it's impossible to beat.
| FumblingBear wrote:
| But the obvious use case to augment a large mirrored macbook
| screen is native vision apps (safari, etc.) with windows open
| to the documentation / references that you'd naturally have
| on other screens.
|
| Generally there's 1-2 apps that are native MacOS apps that I
| require when developing, and the rest could easily be
| independent windows of safari, slack, teams, whatever to
| supplement the main screen.
| joshstrange wrote:
| Ideally we would have a large curved screen or support for
| multiple virtual monitors in AVP but for now it looks like we
| just get 1. It will be a change but with window management
| utilities (like Magnet and friends) I don't think I'll have a
| huge issue tiling my windows on just 1 monitor. I use 3x2K
| monitors now so 4K (that I can make whatever size I want)
| should cover my needs.
|
| Also, like the sibling comment says, I plan on seeing if I
| can pull some of the apps I run out of the virtual display
| and use the iPad apps instead. Copy/Paste/Drag support will
| make or break that for me though as I don't plan on accepting
| anything but exactly what I can do on my computer. But maybe
| iMessage, Slack, and Discord (and definitely Home Assistant)
| can run their iPad native apps instead of needing to be on my
| virtual display. Heck, maybe I just fall back to the desktop
| if I need to. I'm also not sure yet what the story is on
| using a wireless keyboard/mouse/trackpad with your laptop, as
| in can I use it in AVP or is it only for use on my virtual
| monitor? Maybe continuity comes into play there? It should if
| it doesn't already.
| jmull wrote:
| BTW, I bet HN would love a candid review from someone trying
| the AVP out for this purpose after they've worked with it a
| while. (I know I would.)
|
| Just sayin' in case you want to document your experience for
| those of us who are curious. :)
| joshstrange wrote:
| I have no doubt HN will be inundated with AVP posts like this
| but if I don't see anyone beat me to it I'll dust off my blog
| and post something after I've given it a try. I love my Apple
| products but I won't hang on to a $4K paperweight if it
| doesn't meet my expectations.
| codeulike wrote:
| _We could replace those with a singular, more personal screen --
| that will sit on our face_
|
| Its not going to happen. Strapping something to your face is fun
| for a little while but its not going to become the primary means
| of doing _anything_. It's just damn uncomfortable, no matter how
| light and expensive you make it.
| xixixao wrote:
| Cannot upvote enough. I had the first Rift, Quest 1, I have a
| Quest Pro: the experience is always a short-term novelty.
| Fluorescence wrote:
| Yup. I just want to fast-forward through the "omg this
| changes everything" hype articles from first time VR users in
| the grip of peak novelty euphoria and get to the "I've not
| touched my AVP for 6 months" dehype phase.
|
| I enjoy VR but I feel really done with headsets. I find them
| more irritating to wear than covid masks and look how folk
| feel about those. Itchy sweaty forehead, dig into your
| cheeks, head straps messing your hair, can't lie down on your
| side, scuba face when you take it off. Once the genuinely
| awesome experiences get old and passe, it becomes pretty
| tiresome.
| dpkonofa wrote:
| You do realize that billions of people wear glasses all day,
| right?
| tempaway14751 wrote:
| Its not the same. Glasses perch on your nose. VR headsets
| have to have the edges pushed up against your skin to avoid
| light bleeding in from outside. Its great for thirty minutes
| or so but mainstream consumers are not ever going to use
| these headsets as the primary means of watching movies or
| bingeing on boxsets.
| PetitPrince wrote:
| I think this was more a reference to the current ski-mask
| like VR goggle rather than a lightweight think like Google
| Glass (or indeed, a regular prescription glass or sunglass).
| Having my fair share of VR hours under my feet, I would
| agree: it's tiring !
| ukuina wrote:
| We are at least a decade away from bringing this to glasses-
| weight, but how do you solve the light-blocking in that form
| factor?
| tptacek wrote:
| I read most of this, and it's interesting, but carrots-and-sticks
| aside, is it not possible that nobody is doing native apps for
| this thing simply because it's a $3500 product in an entirely new
| category that (to a first approximation) nobody owns or will own
| in 2024, and that could vanish from the market in a year or two
| if there's no uptake?
| tomjakubowski wrote:
| Apple still has a lotto' cash. Maybe enough to keep the product
| line going without much initial uptake.
| tptacek wrote:
| Absolutely. But why would Netflix rush to get a native app
| for a platform that 0.007% (I looked this up!) of their
| customers use?
| realusername wrote:
| It's even worse than that, this product is additional to
| smartphones or computers and by not supporting it you
| aren't even losing a single customer since they have other
| main devices.
| tptacek wrote:
| They can also still watch Netflix on the headset with the
| browser!
| arielweisberg wrote:
| I think the main pain point is going to be that you can't
| download content to watch on a plane. I checked and I
| can't do that in MacOS Safari.
| sleepybrett wrote:
| Well I think there is also the 'what does a netflix app
| look like in vr and specifically vision pro' to contend
| with. Sure they could cross compile the current app and I
| assume you'd have a rectangle with the current ipad
| interface floating in the middle of your vision... not very
| exciting.
|
| The disney app with native 3d movie support is exciting, i
| haven't read the description enough to say if they place
| the screen in an environment or if you have the ability to
| just 'stick it in a window' off to the side of a web
| browsing session or what.
|
| I've played around a bit with a Valve Index and various
| virtual desktop software. There is _something_ there. Most
| of them allow you to put app windows all around your 3d
| bubble etc. I have yet to see anyone talk about actual
| productivity software on the vision pro. A couple of videos
| of people browsing photos etc. But what does xcode look
| like, how does it change, is the pixel density high enough
| to code on. As someone who has done a lot of multiweek on-
| site trips where I spend a lot of time pounding out code on
| a laptop with no extra monitors in a hotel room, being able
| to have virtual multi monitors has some appeal.
| TillE wrote:
| I think it's totally reasonable for developers not to invest in
| the platform at this point, but Apple is definitely in this for
| the long term. Everyone is aware this is not a mass-market
| consumer product; the hardware is probably great, but in every
| other respect this is effectively a public beta.
|
| If Apple scraps the idea, it'll be because the second and third
| gen were huge failures, and that's probably at least five years
| away.
| bhpm wrote:
| They don't have to do native apps though. They just have to
| check "Allow iPad app."
| bparsons wrote:
| The iPhone is a pro-social technology, enabling, at least in a
| virtual sense, for you to connect with people through the
| interface. You can argue whether it has reduced a lot of in-
| person socialization, but the function remains the same.
|
| This VR stuff is completely anti-social. It is a dystopian vision
| of the future where your sensory system is sealed off from the
| world, controlled entirely by corporate entities. There is a
| reason that it has not taken off yet-- nobody other than the tech
| executives want it to succeed.
| chaostheory wrote:
| 1. You can do the same thing in VR. Many VR apps are online and
| multiuser with voice
|
| 2. VR's higher immersion makes #1 more appealing. I regularly
| play ping pong with relatives who live thousands of miles away.
| Mini golf and bowling are also popular options. The immersion
| also makes it easier to interact with multiple people at the
| same time compared to a phone.
|
| 3. We're already transitioning to mixed reality
|
| You really need to at least try a modern VR headset for
| yourself before coming to a strong conclusion.
| rpmisms wrote:
| The real question isn't being asked: will it be good for porn? I
| think it probably will, so it'll likely see tons of usage.
| becquerel wrote:
| The Quest 3 is pretty admirable for that purpose. The
| resolution of the Vision Pro will probably make the experience
| a little better, but not significantly so. You're still going
| to be bottlenecked by the quality of the content itself.
| rpmisms wrote:
| Depends on if the Vision Pro can record well enough to seem
| lifelike. If it can do both, it will absolutely take off.
| becquerel wrote:
| Ah, for amateur content creation people will probably be
| using the newer iPhones, no? A focus of Apple's marketing
| has been 'record 3d video on your phone, play it back on
| the headset'.
| crazygringo wrote:
| > _It's certainly possible that I'm reading too much into these
| absences: maybe these three companies simply didn't get enough
| Visions Pro to build a native app, and felt uncomfortable
| releasing their iPad versions without knowing how useful they
| would be._
|
| I think it's just that simple. It's a low-volume device for now
| that doesn't justify native apps. Even enabling the iPad app
| requires testing and, likely, modifications. It's quite possible
| the Netflix web experience is better than the Netflix iPad app.
|
| Apps are probably not going to come out until Apple releases a
| lower-cost Vision for the masses.
| lukeschlather wrote:
| Also given how draconian Apple is around NDAs and app store
| terms, I wouldn't be surprised if the companies read the terms
| and decided "we will wait until the legal/business side of this
| is as simple as developing for iOS." Only getting one headset
| and being required to pay $3500 is annoying, but Apple also
| imposes a lot of soft costs for this kind of prelaunch
| hardware.
| spcebar wrote:
| Some thoughts.
|
| YouTube and Spotify not having an app at launch is really
| surprising to me, more surprising than Netflix. Could well be a
| case of "we'll wait and see before we sink money into a native
| app," and I don't think YouTube, Spotify, and Netflix are the
| killer apps that will sell the Vision, but a surprise
| nonetheless.
|
| I think the vision of the Vision is what's going to sell the
| Vision. First to really wealthy people, and then, if and only if
| the price comes down _dramatically_, to those wealthy people's
| friends who see it and think it's cool/useful.
|
| The part in the beginning of the article...
|
| > If you live in Asia, like you live in Taiwan, people don't have
| big homes, they don't have 85-inch screen televisions. Plus, you
| have six, seven, eight people living in the same house, they
| don't get screen time to watch things so they watch everything on
| their phone. I think you see that behavior and you see this is
| going to be the iPod.
|
| ...isn't very compelling to me, because, at this price point,
| someone who has to live in a house with 8 people isn't going to
| be able to afford the Vision. Maybe the Vision will prove the use
| case and create an industry of knockoff competitors, but I don't
| know. Personally, I'd rather watch a movie on my phone than have
| a headset on for 2 hours at a time, completely blocking out the
| outside world.
|
| Later in the article...
|
| > with a VR camera at every game it televises would, in my
| estimation, make the Vision Pro an essential purchase for every
| sports fan.
|
| ... That's a bold prediction. Are sports fans bullish enough on
| VR, or primed to be primed to become bullish on VR, to want to
| watch games on a headset? The 8 people in the house, with users
| already watching on their phones, situation doesn't seem to apply
| here, and "watching the game" is itself often a social
| experience, which would preclude shutting yourself away in a
| headset.
|
| All of the discussion of streaming service buy-in is muddled
| somewhat by the state of flux the streaming industry is in right
| there. There's been a lot of consolidation in the last few years
| and the business models of streaming are changing. Building a
| device on the current landscape of streaming seems like a risky
| idea to me at the moment. They should really put a DVD player in
| the Vision just to be safe /s.
|
| All of this kind of assumes what the primary use case for the
| Vision will be. We don't know yet exactly what consumer adoption
| and acceptance is going to look like, whether it be a media
| consumption platform, a productivity platform, a gaming platform,
| or a combination of the three and more.
|
| I still have low expectations for the Vision, but if anyone can
| sell and normalize a new technology it's Apple. We'll see.
| dclowd9901 wrote:
| Did anyone see any of the tv ads for this thing yet? I don't
| think they make this thing look appealing. It comes off as
| dystopian and creepy.
| idopmstuff wrote:
| I think this whole thing is fairly overwrought - after all, the
| iPhone launched with zero third party apps (maybe there were a
| few, but I don't recall that being the case).
|
| Given the volume of VP sales, it feels more like a production-
| ready dev kit and tool for enthusiasts. It's really the version
| that people will use to build apps on, so that v2, v3, etc.,
| which will be lighter/cheaper/whatever else is needed to make
| them more mass-market, won't have the same problem when they
| launch.
|
| If you're Netflix et al, why support the VP now? Even if it's
| just checking a box, it still means you'll get some support load.
| You'll also have to make some design and implementation decisions
| that will be less-informed than if you wait a while and see what
| other apps are doing on there.
|
| At the end of the day, is having Netflix on the VP going to
| generate any incremental revenue? Tough to imagine that everybody
| buying it doesn't already have a Netflix subscription.
|
| Building for it right now is zero upside and some downside. We'll
| see a Netflix app eventually, though.
| jandrese wrote:
| The iPhone was even worse, it launched without support for
| third party apps. Steve Jobs said that web apps would take
| their place. The original iPhone was also overpriced and
| underspecced in some areas and forced you on a crappy phone
| provider, but it had a significant price drop shortly after
| release and the iPhone 3G fixed most of the performance issues
| (mostly around the slow cell modem). Plus Apple released the
| app store and it was an enormous success, far more than the
| existing app stores on the Symbian phones.
| idopmstuff wrote:
| Is that right? Man, did not recall that... funny how the
| state of apps today has colored my recollection.
| mandeepj wrote:
| > Is that right?
|
| Absolutely! I also remember those chain of events exactly
| that way. They are also documented in Steve Jobs biography
| as well.
| mh- wrote:
| Matches my recollection of it. iOS 3.0, which launched
| alongside the iPhone 3GS, is when it got _copy-paste_
| functionality.
|
| Apple has historically been _very_ comfortable shipping
| devices without "table stakes" functionality - waiting
| until they have an implementation they like.
|
| Or sometimes never shipping it, and leaving it to third
| parties. My iPads still don't have a calculator app.
| izacus wrote:
| It also kinda needs to be said that iPhone really took
| off after AppStore (and 3G and copy/paste and other
| stuff) became a thing. Before that the market share
| wasn't that great.
| threeseed wrote:
| The market share wasn't great because it wasn't sold
| globally.
|
| Once that happened market share really took off.
| jdminhbg wrote:
| And in the markets it did exist, the carrier options were
| limited, usually to the worst carriers, because those
| were the carriers who were desperate enough to accept
| Apple's terms.
| rahoulb wrote:
| Even John Gruber (Daring Fireball) described it as a shit
| sandwich from Apple.
| mongol wrote:
| > Steve Jobs said that web apps would take their place
|
| Yes I remember this. But he must have known their plans and
| basically lied about it.
| justinator wrote:
| Sounds convenient, but I remember the backlash was so bad
| from this news, they rushed out a dev SDK to add that
| support in. Different time. "No Flash" sounded like a WTF,
| too.
| jdewerd wrote:
| Yeah, "webapps are all you need" is the one time I can
| recall Steve Jobs getting booed on stage.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| And now developers (not end users) are whining about not
| being able to do good [sic] PWAs
|
| Edit: _Users_ may not know what a PWA is. But they do
| know what web apps based on Electron and I have never
| heard any user say that they love Electron apps and they
| would really love to have the same experience on mobile
| dnissley wrote:
| I mean users do complain about not being able to sideload
| apps, which is an issue that is at least
| partially/minimally addressed through PWAs.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| How many users outside of geeks complain about side
| loading?
| dnissley wrote:
| Whenever a family member bitches to me about not being
| able to buy kindle books through the kindle app I count
| that as a non-geeky complaint about sideloading :)
| threeseed wrote:
| I imagine users care far more about how bloated and slow
| Slack, Teams etc are.
|
| Rather than whether they can side-load some apps that
| don't already exist on the App Store. Which apart from
| gambling, porn and crypto I can't exactly think what they
| are.
| fauigerzigerk wrote:
| Porn is a significant share of device/internet usage
| though (not sure how big gambling is).
| threeseed wrote:
| And plenty of people watch porn on iPhones today.
|
| This is more about having specific apps for it.
| fauigerzigerk wrote:
| This is about whether or not people might complain about
| not being able to side-load apps.
|
| As a significant content category is excluded from the
| app store, it seems very likely that some people would
| like to side-load those apps and complain about not being
| able to do so.
|
| [Edit] Another reason why people might want to side-load
| is to circumvent restrictions or censorship in
| authoritarian countries (e.g VPNs).
| scarface_74 wrote:
| I really hate to ask this question because it may lead
| down a road that I don't want to go.
|
| But what could a porn app do that you can't do by going
| on a website?
| fauigerzigerk wrote:
| If you can answer this question for Youtube and TikTok,
| you have already answered it for porn tube sites as well.
| Other categories would probably be erotic themed chat
| apps, social networks and of course games. And the
| reasons are just as valid or invalid as for the
| respective non-porn equivalents.
|
| As far as I'm concerned, almost all apps could be
| websites.
| maxsilver wrote:
| To be fair, they're only whining about PWAs, because
| Apple artificially locked down all native apps. Apple
| forced the developer shift, their own preferences didn't
| necessarily change.
|
| If you could install + sell iPhone apps freely, like you
| can with OSX / macOS apps, 99% of developer complaints
| about PWAs would vanish.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| No because the reason that developers want PWAs do that
| they can have the same shitty experience across all
| platforms - much like Electron apps
| nottorp wrote:
| > "No Flash" sounded like a WTF, too.
|
| No Flash saved a lot of power worldwide.
|
| Until people started to do javascript apps.
| ok123456 wrote:
| Hackers figured out how to put together a GCC toolchain and
| make their own apps, and that jumpstarted it.
| OnlyMortal wrote:
| I remember Cydia on the 2G iPhone.
|
| I was living in Belgium at the time so had to jailbreak a
| UK O2 iPhone. Worked fine for the time.
| olliej wrote:
| The plan was always web apps, they're vastly more secure
| than any other option. That's a significant part of why
| safari for windows ever existed.
|
| The problem was developers just wanted to write native
| apps, presumably believing that the only _secure_ apple
| platform would be converted to the Mac-like experience,
| complete with malware, etc.
|
| So with no one making actual web apps, in part because the
| web standards of 15+ years ago were not as powerful, and in
| part because developers all thought web apps were bad, and
| ongoing "we want real apps" noise, you got the initial
| UIKit APIs, which lacked _a lot_ of functionality, and made
| a lot of things very hard.
|
| Or you can just go all conspiracy theory and say "they
| would never change their plans in response to market
| pressure, who would do such a thing?"
| jandrese wrote:
| Also, although the original iPhone had a full browser, it
| was pretty slow. Not only was the data slow, but the
| phone itself was hamstrung by insufficient RAM which
| caused way too much swapping on complex webpages. Making
| a webapp that performed adequately was difficult to say
| the least.
| grumpyprole wrote:
| Further evidence for this is that Apple ported their
| widgets, like stocks and weather, to native apps instead
| of using the web-based ones from OSX.
| lm411 wrote:
| Apple used to push web apps pretty hard.
|
| E.g. if I recall correctly, in the early days of the App
| Store, the guidelines were that if your app could easily be
| a web app, it should be, and you could have your app
| submission rejected for that reason.
| ynx wrote:
| I worked with a couple of people who worked on the original
| iPhone and they basically corroborated this: the writing
| was on the wall but the phone wasn't quite ready for it.
| They needed an out to ship the phone first and the SDK
| later.
| Retric wrote:
| It forced you in a crappy phone provider _with unlimited
| data._
|
| Having a better than average phone browser wasn't such a big
| deal, having a browser you could use without thinking about
| it was huge.
| matwood wrote:
| > having a browser you could use without thinking about it
| was huge
|
| This right here. People forget things like roaming and data
| charges. $500+ phone bills were not uncommon for business
| travelers. Data charges made smartphones almost a non-
| starter for the average person. Apple broke that logjam.
| myko wrote:
| and they weren't crappy everywhere, though admittedly they
| were extremely bad in Silicon Valley until iPhone opened up
| to other providers, so they get that reputation among tech
| enthusiasts from sites like HN that are SV-centric
| scarface_74 wrote:
| It was 2G. It was crappy everywhere. My dumb phone on
| Sprint had faster internet speeds
| Exoristos wrote:
| They worked great in NYC.
| matwood wrote:
| It was Edge, ie 2.5g. It was very slow everywhere it
| worked at all. But, as the poster said, internet all the
| time with a flat rate plan was huge. For me, it really
| changed how I thought about the internet when I had it
| always with me with zero cost concerns.
| altcognito wrote:
| The browser itself was ground breaking imho. Everything
| seemed to require a mobile specific browser and those
| versions of websites looked like garbage.
|
| The iPhone was (as far as I know) the first device that
| really and truly let you have real websites on your phone
| (even if it was just a tiny version of it)
|
| I had been waiting for such a device for a long time, and
| this was the thing that got me over to Apple in any real
| sense.
| Hamuko wrote:
| Yeah, the iPhone was the first phone where it felt like
| it was actually possible to browse the web on it. The
| Symbians I had previously didn't feel like usable
| browsers.
| Retric wrote:
| There was a wide range of mobile browsers. From what I
| recall Windows Mobile 5/6 smart phone's browsers were
| arguably better than the 1st gen iPhone. Though the
| phones where overall worse.
| 0x457 wrote:
| Absolutely not. Even without App store iPhone was
| significantly better than Windows Mobile 5/6.
|
| This is 5: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Mobile?u
| seskin=vector#...
|
| this is 6: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Mobile_6
| .0?useskin=vec...
|
| Devices were much worse compared to even first gen
| iPhone. Ironically, it only for worse because the
| industry decided that using their shitty resistive
| touchscreen with UI even worse than previous models -
| menus had large buttons, but apps were built for stylus.
| Retric wrote:
| I agree the devices were worse overall, however IE on
| Windows Mobile in 07 could render more websites well at
| the time including Flash support etc.
|
| The browser's UI was also worse thus the ambiguity.
| 0x457 wrote:
| Oh, I remember what flash on a mobile looked like in 07.
| In fact, I remember how taxing flash was on PC in 07. I
| also remember how vulnerable flash was.
|
| Yeah, it could render more, but it was unusable because
| no one designed for mobile back then. IMO mobile world
| was sad until Apple came in.
| gandalfian wrote:
| I had an HTC TyTN II windows mobile 6 CE mobile phone.
| Basically same year as original iPhone. IE was rapidly
| abandoned and unusable. But with Gmail + activesynch it
| was like a blackberry with instant email. Opera mobile
| worked as well as modern browsers, probably better than
| iPhone. 3G. GPS. Load a multitude of apps self contained
| onto the huge SD card. It was a much more powerful
| capable device than an iPhone almost even up to today's
| standards. But it was clunky as hell and setting up the
| mobile internet was an insanely complicated process. I'm
| not suprised the iPhone won out.
| mlindner wrote:
| Funny how now the internet is now regressing itself to be
| "mobile-first" and almost all websites have become
| "websites that look like garbage". Even on my phone I
| still often switch to the desktop versions of websites as
| they're easier to use. Let alone trying to use a mobile
| website on a desktop.
| SkyPuncher wrote:
| Sure, but that was at a time when there weren't really apps
| CharlesW wrote:
| There definitely were, but feature phone apps weren't great
| (for reasons involving hardware, app platforms, and
| carriers), and smartphone (Windows Mobile, Palm OS,
| Symbian) app distribution was mostly decentralized. Apple's
| innovation in the mobile app space was the App Store
| ecosystem.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| The original iPhone though did come with the YouTube app
| built in and it's major use cases were according to Jobs were
| - a phone, an internet device and an iPod.
|
| The day the iPhone was introduced, the CEO of Google was on
| stage.
|
| One of the major use cases for the Vision Pro is video and
| there ars no native apps for the two most popular video
| sites.
|
| The day that the iPad was introduced. The CEO of Netflix was
| on stage.
| shawnc wrote:
| Wasn't the CEO of Disney on stage when the Vision Pro was
| introduced/announced? From an IP standpoint having Disney
| on stage over Netflix seems like the better choice...
| jwells89 wrote:
| I wish so much that YouTube would allow fully featured,
| non-hacky third party clients again, even if only for paid
| users (similar to how Spotify used to). The clean platform-
| convention-respecting straightforwardness of the Apple iOS
| YouTube app is missed.
| ribosometronome wrote:
| Apple directly competes with Netflix, and to some extent
| Google, considerably more today than they did then.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| And they compete with Disney in streaming.
|
| The fact is, Google doesn't really compete with Apple.
| The amount of money that Google makes from Android, pales
| in comparison to what they make from YouTube.
| mrcwinn wrote:
| Underspeced? What? Compared to what? This is not even
| remotely defensible.
|
| In its spec it offered a full color multi-touch gesture
| display --instead of a 132x65 pixel black and white screen.
|
| Like Steve Jobs said, products are a series of choices.
| snowwrestler wrote:
| The original iPhone had 2G cellular connection which was
| slow for the time, and especially silly since, as you point
| out, it was well powered otherwise. The iPhone 3GS caught
| it up to other smart phones in the market.
|
| It also launched without cut and paste available in the UI,
| which again, was silly given how it was otherwise an
| impressive mobile computer.
| ghaff wrote:
| While there were obviously people who bought the iPhone
| as soon as it became available, it was probably the 3GS
| when it really took off. That's when I replaced my Treo.
| (I also think I was starting a new and more secure job by
| then.)
| jandrese wrote:
| It was EDGE and didn't have enough memory to run the
| browser well, which caused significant slowdowns. Granted,
| it was still better than literally every other phone
| browser at the time, but that didn't mean it was a good as
| it could have been. The iPhone 3G was a significant
| upgrade.
| manquer wrote:
| New sales is not only source of revenue
|
| Netflix sells plans for higher resolutions for example
|
| If some just have say a laptop screen and a phone you consume
| content on there is little need for higher resolution plans.
|
| However let's say you buy VP then it is possible you would
| consider upgrading to higher resolution.
| curiouscavalier wrote:
| The iPhone launched with a phone, email and an internet browser
| (not limited to the mobile internet) in your pocket. I think
| those were the killer apps, where each one had already proved
| their value in other form factors.
|
| I think part of the focus on apps is because while portable
| connectivity is an easier feature for most people to understand
| and appreciate (though I appreciate this may not have been
| quite as clear in 2007), wearability is less so, especially
| where the form factor is socially and ergonomically awkward.
| Working in AR/VR I know my team is constantly asking variations
| of "how can we convince someone to put this on their face?" My
| interpretation of pieces like this is often that they echo
| underlying concerns over the efficacy of use-cases, and
| decisions by players like Netflix to port their apps is some
| (albeit noisy and incomplete) data around it.
| cloogshicer wrote:
| And Maps. Don't forget about Maps. That was one of the killer
| apps too.
| pwthornton wrote:
| Just having a full Web browser in your pocket was huge.
|
| Also, a touchscreen iPod! That was another massive killer
| app.
|
| I used to carry around a phone, PDA, and an iPod. Day 1,
| Apple allowed me to carry one device.
|
| And then add in a great Web browser, and you can see why it
| was great even before 3rd party apps.
|
| I am not convinced Apple has come up with any killer 1st
| party apps for the Vision Pro, and that's concerning.
| screye wrote:
| The Vision Pro is Apple selling a combination of a tech demo,
| fashion item and dev kit.
|
| It isn't meant to be useful. Rather, it gives them bragging
| rights for being first to market (in AR) and they now control
| the narrative around it.
| Nullabillity wrote:
| > Rather, it gives them bragging rights for being first to
| market (in AR) and they now control the narrative around it.
|
| Magic Leap says hello.
| ftio wrote:
| Magic what?
|
| Nobody outside of a very small, niche bubble has any idea
| what that is. I'm _in_ the bubble and had to look it up.
| OJFord wrote:
| I think Google Glass would've been a better example.
| Magic Leap doesn't seem to be targeting the same market
| at all.
|
| Fwiw though AVP had somehow passed me by (I think I'd
| heard of it, but didn't know what it was) until this
| submission. I'm not sure the general awareness is that
| high, outside of people that follow Apple
| news/WWDC/product launches/etc., which is also a bubble.
| sleepybrett wrote:
| Google glass was the most anemic product i've even
| experienced.
| phreeza wrote:
| The situation is completely different from the iPhone launch
| though, 99% of mobile devices at the time probably had zero or
| at most one crappy Symbian app installed. The concept of an App
| store wasn't even really invented yet.
| EduardoBautista wrote:
| Netflix hasn't updated the Meta Quest's app in a while. The
| video quality is awful. Netflix is ignoring this market
| completely, it's not specific to the VP.
| 1000100_1000101 wrote:
| Haven't bothered with PSVR2 either, and have not updated the
| original PSVR app to the point where it no longer functions.
|
| Netflix is clearly saying "We don't want to be a 3D/VR movie
| service". Perhaps Apple will pay for 3D licenses and serve
| them as part of your AppleTV subscription, which would suck,
| because it would mean no 3D movie support on any other
| headset.
| taeric wrote:
| I'm curious what they have to do to support PSVR2? You can
| watch videos with the standard app, right?
|
| Is there a market for 3d movies? I'm intrigued...
| 1000100_1000101 wrote:
| This is a sore spot.
|
| On PSVR1, Sony's "Media Player" app's only VR option was
| to display 360 degree mono videos with head-looking.
| There was no option for stereoscopic playback. YouTube
| did add a PSVR capable player, but streamed the videos at
| a very low res. A 3rd party player, Littlstar was capable
| for playing various 3D video formats (full 360 degree,
| VR180, and 3D bluray style 3D video), but demanded a
| subscription, even for local files... It also only worked
| on one or two codecs with very specific encoding
| options... and the decoding was poorly optimized, so
| large videos (only a subset of which is visible at a
| time, so you need a high-res video), didn't really work.
| Not ideal.
|
| PSVR1 could support 3D blu rays.
|
| On PSVR2, Sony still has no built in VR video playing app
| at all. Littlstar has rebranded as Rad, and has been
| struggling to get playback working. They also plan to
| make their subscription based on payments via some
| proprietary blockchain crap.
|
| PS5/PSVR2 Sony dropped 3D BluRay support. It's not clear
| if it will ever return.
| pwthornton wrote:
| I used the Netflix app on my Meta Quest 3 and never tried it
| again. It's a bad app, the video quality isn't good, etc.
|
| Apple is going to have to prove to Netflix to support them
| (or build the app for them). If Apple sells several million
| of these and watching video is big on it, Netflix will change
| their tune.
| Someone wrote:
| > the iPhone launched with zero third party apps (maybe there
| were a few, but I don't recall that being the case).
|
| I think Google Maps was the only one, sort-of. It shipped with
| the OS, but used Google's data, and, I expect, needed Apple to
| negotiate with Google.
| samstave wrote:
| I am sure there are plenty of companies we are not aware of who
| have been building apps for the platform in partner with Apple
| Marketing Dollars for some time.
|
| If Autodesk and Blender don't have a whole team pointed at
| this, I would be highly disappointment.
| Kluggy wrote:
| The thing I don't get is why Netflix won't allow their iPad app
| to be used. They had to go out of their way to disable the
| platform from using their existing app.
|
| I get not building a new one, but reusing the existing one
| makes more sense imho.
| cloogshicer wrote:
| Probably because support volume still increases even if it's
| not "officially" supported. And then you can't just tell
| those people to go away, because they'll be pissed off.
| pxeboot wrote:
| > why Netflix won't allow their iPad app to be used
|
| Support costs? Bad PR when it doesn't work well? There are a
| lot of reasons they may not want it to be used yet.
| xu_ituairo wrote:
| Maybe if Vision Pro takes off they'll charge a higher fee for
| it like they do for higher resolution subscriptions.
| evilduck wrote:
| If they wanted to start producing 3D content and charging
| extra for that, I'd see the reason but I'd balk at them
| charging more for delivering the same 2D content to a new
| system.
|
| I wouldn't expect a Vision Pro app delivering a 2D content
| experience to be dramatically more expensive to build and
| maintain than their vast array of apps for set-top boxes,
| hotels, streaming sticks, or the Meta Quest they've already
| supported but not charged extra for. Why would they draw
| the line here?
| fauigerzigerk wrote:
| Companies often charge as much as they think customers
| will pay, regardless of costs. Apple's RAM upgrade prices
| are a prime example. But I doubt that Netflix would do it
| on this occasion.
| crazygringo wrote:
| For whatever technical reasons, it might just not work as
| well as the website.
|
| E.g. maybe it will only display video on an emulated "iPad
| screen" whereas the website uses Safari's video player that
| might have many more VR-friendly playback features.
| bradgessler wrote:
| Yeah, this reminds me of the Apple Watch launch. I think
| Twitter & Slack launched watch apps, but they performed poorly
| on v1 and they learned people really just want notifications on
| their watch, so they pulled their apps. Today we just have
| notifications and it's completely fine.
|
| That and dev teams are running leaner these days, so it makes
| sense to wait-and-see for companies with content leverage like
| YouTube and Netflix.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _If you 're Netflix et al, why support the VP now?_
|
| It's a nice beachhead they're exposing. There might be a niche
| for someone to build an AI that converts flat video into
| immersive content, and then plant a bunch of patent land mines
| around it.
| georgeecollins wrote:
| I completely disagree. There are a bunch of mixed reality
| headsets and I think the one with the best apps will win. Good
| news for APPL, META is messing up their store as well.
|
| https://www.reuters.com/legal/transactional/meta-platforms-s...
|
| Disclosure: I own APPL / META stock.
| aeturnum wrote:
| I think this is somewhat overwrought, but I think the iphone
| comparison obscures more than it reveals.
|
| The Vision Pro isn't in a new hardware category. It's actually
| entering a somewhat crowded field of companies offering
| headsets of various kinds. The VP is different in a few ways of
| course, but it's not clear exactly what prevented previous
| offerings to get wide adoption. If this product is going to be
| "successful" (whatever that ends up meaning) you would expect
| something about the VP to diverge from the trajectory of
| previous offerings. So far, at least as far as apps go, it
| seems like it's doing worse.
|
| > _v2, v3, etc., which will be lighter /cheaper/whatever else_
|
| I understand what you're gesturing at here, but this isn't v1
| at all. This would be the equivalent of entering the smart
| phone market in 2015. If Apple isn't able to offer a noticeably
| more compelling experience with this realease, it does not
| speak well for their overall vision.
| roughly wrote:
| At the time of the iPhone release, Blackbirds were widely
| available, as were high-spec phones from Nokia and others. We
| don't recognize them as smartphones today because the iPhone
| redefined the category, but at the time, we did.
| raydev wrote:
| You are underselling the original iPhone, it entered a very
| different cell phone market, where the same quality tech
| existed but was hard to find, and the UX on all smartphones
| was, to be generous, poor, especially for the mass market. Even
| beloved Blackberry was in need of improvements that RIM didn't
| even have on their roadmap until the iPhone showed up.
|
| Despite all its initial shortcomings, the iPhone _still_ raised
| the bar for the entire market, set a new standard that every
| other manufacturer /developer would be chasing for years.
|
| The Vision Pro is being watched by the mass market and it will
| be competing against Meta for better or worse. Apple has put in
| zero effort into removing that appearance. They are not selling
| a devkit, they are advertising a mass market device at an
| absurdly high price.
| sleepybrett wrote:
| Watch was the same way. They weren't generally available so any
| third party that wanted to make an app either had to have an
| _in_ with Apple to get access to even a simulator under heavy
| NDA or just wait until the thing hit the streets. I think you
| 'll see the same thing here. Of course in this case with the
| price point being where it is it will probably take a bit to
| explore the possibility space and get some killer apps that
| propel the platform.
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| Don't forget that visionOS 2.0 is about 18 weeks away
| cowboyscott wrote:
| So much spilled ink reading tea leaves, i.e., tortured historical
| analogies. We have market data on existing headset efforts, and
| we will have data on the adoption of the Vision Pro very soon.
| I'm not sure who this analysis benefits other than firms catering
| to day traders.
| helpfulContrib wrote:
| I have multiple Macs in my house, a couple iPads and tons of
| iPhones .. what I really want more than anything is to be able to
| access any/all of them with virtual screens.
|
| If Vision Pro provides this experience - seamless displays of all
| devices on a single headset - then that is the point where I
| immediately invest.
|
| I'm too old for 3D games, they make me puke. But if I can sit
| comfortably in a lounge chair with this thing strapped to my
| noggin and access all the machines in my house, for work (code),
| then I'm sold.
| jumploops wrote:
| Isn't traditional streaming kinda missing the point of this
| device?
|
| Consuming traditional 2D content is like using a PS2 to watch
| DVDs, sure it's possible, but is that really the target market?
| michael1999 wrote:
| Apple is at its best when serving me, and building software like
| Safari that protects me from predatory conglomerates like Google.
|
| Apple is at its worst when acting like a predatory conglomerate
| itself, shoving crappy payola recommendations in Music, and
| squeezing the app store as a revenue-maximizing monster.
|
| Netflix would be crazy to spend a penny supporting Apple in any
| kind of new-media venture.
|
| I'd love to see an anti-trust breakup of the media side of Apple
| from the systems + hardware side.
| swozey wrote:
| Not having controllers is absolutely ridiculous with this. I know
| it's focused more on AR, but what, can you not plug it into steam
| and use it in an FPS? What would you do, make finger pointy gun
| gestures? Is it only Apple Store apps and they're going to not
| allow anything like that?
|
| My friend wants to buy one and use his Xbox controller. Just
| stupid.
|
| I have 3 VR systems. Vive, Q2, Q3.. I have Skyrim installs with
| 300-500 mods, Assetto Corso with my racing sim wheel/seat. How am
| I doing any of that with this? How do I swing a sword? My Q3
| supports hand gestures. They're nice when using virtual desktop
| sort of things, but in a game? no way. No tactical feedback
| sucks.
| Philpax wrote:
| It's not really for "traditional" VR gaming. The Quest is a
| console; the VP is a computer you can work on, with an OS
| designed for it. (I own six VR headsets and have an AVP on the
| way.)
|
| I love gaming and would like Apple to support it more, but it's
| not the reason I'm interested in the AVP. They're looking into
| it [0], but it's just not that relevant to them right now, and
| that's OK.
|
| [0]: https://www.roadtovr.com/apple-vision-pro-xr-controller-
| pate...
| swozey wrote:
| Do you have a specific use case in mind or are you going to
| get it and figure out how you'd like to use it?
|
| I'm sure it'll be great for AR stuff like training people in
| surgery and things of that nature. AR in education will be
| amazing, being able to walk through Rome, etc in History
| classes.
| Philpax wrote:
| Movie watching (I've been holding off on watching Dune for
| this!), general-purpose computer-y stuff (browsing,
| writing, media consumption, etc), game streaming, using it
| as a larger display for a MBP, seeing what people build,
| and (maybe) building some things myself.
|
| In general, I want to treat it like an iPad / MBP hybrid
| with enormous virtual screens that I can take around with
| me. There's a lot of potential for what _could_ be built
| (especially with the AR stuff you mention), but having
| access to the majority of the iPad ecosystem, MBP
| mirroring, and other miscellaneous features already makes
| it an enticing device to me.
| audunw wrote:
| I don't see why Apple should ship the device with controllers
| when they don't ship iPhones or MacBooks with controllers.
|
| And while many games are better with controllers on
| iPhone/iPad, most games work without them. And I'm sure that's
| what Apple has in mind for gaming on AVP. Based on my
| experience with VR so far I'd actually be more excited for
| controller-less games. I think there's a lot of potential for
| innovation there. Half-Life Alyx was amazing experience. But it
| was a one and done thing for me. Beat saber I could keep
| playing for a long time and if you have good hand tracking -
| and it seems AVP's is excellent - you could just hold a stick
| or nothing at all.
|
| I'm sure there will be third party controllers for AVP down the
| line. But like anything gaming related, it's not Apples first
| or even second priority.
| swozey wrote:
| Every VR system ships with controllers.
|
| I need to see this in person before I pass judgement. Maybe
| they'll knock it out of the park. I haven't seen much at all
| of it in actual use.
| nottorp wrote:
| Are they shipping the thingamajigs yet? The hype seems to have
| died completely.
| jedberg wrote:
| I think the premise of this article is flawed. It will not hurt
| Netflix or YouTube or Spotify's business one bit to not have a
| native app. It's not like they will be locked out of the
| platform. The web experience exists and is good enough.
|
| However, it also costs those company nothing for development
| because it's already there. Even converting the iPad app would
| take development, testing, and adding extra QA cycles to every
| release thereafter.
|
| This way those companies can get great data on which customers
| actually have a headset and how many and how much they pay now
| (because everyone will probably try it at least once).
|
| Then they can make a data driven decision on if there are enough
| customers to justify the expense of dev and maintenance. The
| consensus estimate is that they sold 200,000 units. That is
| _nothing_ in terms of customers, even if every one of them has a
| Netflix subscription.
|
| Apple had such low sales expectations that they opened up Vision
| Pro for employee discount _before_ the launch. Usually employees
| don 't get a discount until 4-5 months after launch after
| interest has died down.
|
| This decision does not signal that those companies don't believe
| in Vision Pro -- it signals that they want to wait until there
| are enough users to justify it since everyone already has access
| to their product on Vision Pro.
| pwthornton wrote:
| I think this is 100% it for many companies. Predictions are
| Apple sells in the hundreds of thousands of units this year.
| There is no market any of these companies/products care about
| that has that small of a user base.
|
| Once Apple starts selling millions of these, and the demand is
| there from users, we will see companies change their tune.
|
| Spotify, in particular, doesn't make that much sense. Even
| amongst Apple Vision Pro users, I would be surprised if music
| listening is a big use case for this device. All of these users
| will already have their phones and other devices to listen on.
| There is nothing about the Vision Pro that is particularly good
| for music.
|
| Video, however, may be something the Vision Pro does
| exceedingly well.
| Philpax wrote:
| > Even amongst Apple Vision Pro users, I would be surprised
| if music listening is a big use case for this device. All of
| these users will already have their phones and other devices
| to listen on.
|
| The main application would be to listen to music alongside
| whatever else you're already doing, similar to using Spotify
| on any other kind of computer. I'll begrudgingly use the
| website, but I'd prefer to have a native app.
|
| > There is nothing about the Vision Pro that is particularly
| good for music.
|
| I am curious about the spatial audio solution, especially as
| it's integrated with all of the other environmental sensing
| (i.e. the audio can "bounce" around your room). I have a
| quadraphonic mix of Dark Side of the Moon that I'm looking
| forward to listening to :-)
| gigel82 wrote:
| It's surprising Apple went ahead and released this product that
| will 100% be a flop in the market. Many hoped Apple would have
| the "killer feature/app" that would make AR/VR relevant, but
| instead they launched yet another uncomfortable doodad: 8 years
| after HoloLens, at the same price, and only marginally smaller,
| with the same exact number of killer apps - zero!.
| hendersoon wrote:
| The real problem isn't that giant companies aren't supporting the
| Vision Pro with AR-capable innovative apps. The real problem is
| they aren't even releasing their existing iPad apps with the
| "works on Vision Pro" flag checked.
| aksss wrote:
| I just want glasses that will give me a solidly good experience
| of one >= 27" monitor (or more), ideally dual 32", for remote and
| airplane work on text based content. Wake me up when that
| happens.
| SigmundA wrote:
| Feel like a mistake that Apple makes dev opt in/out to iPad app
| support, same issue on M-series Macs there are iPad app that just
| don't show up in the app store on Mac because the dev didn't
| check the box to allow it.
|
| They could perhaps warn that the app isn't tested for the device
| but otherwise allow all iPad apps on Vision Pro and Mac's.
| karaterobot wrote:
| I don't see the use case for Vision Pro being watching TV or
| movies. A lot (most?) people watch while doing other things, and
| many do it with someone else in the room. Are a husband and wife
| each going to have separate Apple Vision Pro headsets, put them
| on, and watch TV side by side in a virtual space? It's hard to
| imagine this.
|
| The use case I like is working _by myself_ in VR--being able to
| take a fast computer and large display with me on the road. As a
| remote worker, I can theoretically work from anywhere, but in
| practice I miss my 35 " monitor, and can't effectively change my
| workflow to swap in a 13" laptop screen instead. But with the
| Vision, I could have everything, for one high price, and it's
| appealing enough that I've at least thought about trying it.
| iteratethis wrote:
| I think "really great TV" isn't good enough for mass appeal. I
| think even for a group of wealthy early adapters, the novelty may
| soon wear off. It's heavy and you're constrained, can't do much
| else whilst watching TV.
|
| And let's face it, the way people consume "TV" is quite different
| from what the ad suggests. Most video is consumed in short
| format, rapidly, whilst messaging someone. I'm sure watching some
| epic movie using this device is incredible, but that doesn't mean
| this device has a use case for lengthy daily usage.
|
| Consuming media on a larger screen is also not really a game
| changer. I upgraded my TV by 20" in size, and you get used to it
| in a single day. At home I have giant monitors but I don't mind
| working with the smaller screens at work. I have the time/money
| to watch lots of movies in a cinema but can't be bothered as my
| home screen is good enough.
|
| Note also how most people that have an iPhone, also have an iPad,
| but the iPad is only marginally used as the tiny iPhone screen is
| just so much more practical and flexible.
|
| Bigger screen doesn't cut it. You need top notch VR content that
| is spatial. Problem with that is 99.99% of app developers cannot
| deliver it. It is extremely difficult and costly to produce.
|
| In general, I don't believe anything that is heavy and worn and
| still largely isolates you from your surroundings will work. And
| I'll admit that I hope it fails. We need less screen time and
| less isolation, not more.
| onyxringer wrote:
| LOL at people who think VR will be a mass thing anytime soon.
|
| All these tons of app developers on the market that can do
| JS/Java UI code will not start writing 3d or even 3d enhanced
| graphics apps anytime soon. So the VR is just inconvenient screen
| that you can only see yourself and gives you headaches, with
| nothing that a normal screen couldn't do.
|
| On top of it no one has any motive to start supporting Vission
| Pro - either as a big tech competitor of Apple, or just
| independent developer to get rekt by 30% fees for a handful of
| users.
|
| I have two Quest devices and even kids don't ever use them
| because they suck in their very nature. Terrible hassle for
| everyone involved, can't use it for all that long and so on. And
| if the kids don't use some tech it has no future, because an old
| geezers like me are even less likely to do it.
| diebeforei485 wrote:
| Vision Pro ships with Safari, so people can just go to
| Netflix.com to watch content in fullscreen.
|
| Really no reason for Netflix to implement a native app. But yes
| if Apple treated their developers better we would likely see a
| Netflix app.
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