[HN Gopher] Apple Vision Pro review: magic, until it's not
___________________________________________________________________
Apple Vision Pro review: magic, until it's not
Author : Handy-Man
Score : 276 points
Date : 2024-01-30 14:32 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theverge.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theverge.com)
| Mindwipe wrote:
| This strikes me as the best review I've seen if you read the text
| (I'm not sure x/10 is useful). I learned a lot about it,
| including quite a few things Apple has been quite coy about.
| browningstreet wrote:
| Agreed, per their video take.
|
| Didn't realize how limited the field of view and the color
| coverage was.
|
| But all the popular reviewers are pretty skeptical. I think
| when another company offers a less ambitious VR headset they
| have given them a pass because the market target is more
| limited. Apple's not getting a pass. It's impressive but not
| magical and there are a lot of unoptimal design characteristics
| for a general purpose face mask computer.
|
| The travel case is stupid and costly but necessary. Can you
| imagine buying the travel backpack that can hold it, and then
| unpacking everything in economy plus, and then having to store
| it away most of it for a flight, and then repack at landing?
| Even in business class it'd be conspicuous and bothersome and
| busy.
| polyterative wrote:
| I would prefer to bring an iPad on the plane.
| akmarinov wrote:
| Depends. On a 2 hour flight - yeah. On a 16 hour flight
| (with power in the seats) - no.
| browningstreet wrote:
| On a 16 hour flight you can watch the onscreen
| entertainment, use your wireless laptop, your wireless
| tablet and your wireless phone. I've travelled a bit and
| usually alternate among them.
|
| But the Vision Pro would need two cables (power brick and
| battery pack, which is required even when plugged in to
| the brick) and when you get up to use the bathroom your
| neighbor will absolutely trip crossing your seat and land
| their ass on the Vision Pro you left behind.. that you
| don't want to wear into the cramped airplane bathroom.
| rcarmo wrote:
| I just take a Kindle or buy a random analog book in Duty
| Free.
| coffeebeqn wrote:
| The Steam deck or Nintendo switch are even better than
| either. You can get good headphones and play real games
| for 16 hours. And when you need to move they are easy to
| stow away
| macintux wrote:
| One advantage: more privacy with the Vision Pro. Even for
| innocuous content I feel self-conscious about people seated
| nearby being bored and watching over my shoulder.
| ImPostingOnHN wrote:
| Indeed: better to let them _think_ you 're viewing
| pornography, than to remove all doubt.
| whycome wrote:
| > general purpose face mask computer
|
| I hope this term takes off more than "spatial computing
| device"
|
| GPFMC
| vczf wrote:
| "Hold up, let me take my face off real quick."
| PaulHoule wrote:
| The really funny thing is that people never notice how bad
| the color gamut of their displays is. The usual way people
| draw the color charts make it look like there are all kinds
| of greens you are missing but they are not the green of money
| or living plants but rather the green you see when you get
| hit by a green laser pointer.
|
| https://tftcentral.co.uk/articles/pointers_gamut
|
| The charts obscure it but it is reds/purples/blues you are
| missing, not the reds and blues that occur in naturally lit
| scenes but rather colors you might see in fireworks or CGI
| effects. The "Pointer Gamut" of naturally occurring colors is
| relatively small compared to the colors you might see
| hypothetically. There has been a lot of progress in the
| greens for formats like Display P3 but more saturated red and
| blue primaries are difficult because the sensitivity of the
| eye drops off and you need a lot more light to get equivalent
| perceived brightness.
| asmallcat wrote:
| Wonderfully written review. Happy to have read it and
| disappointed with some of the takeaways. I wish that there were
| more of a "mac-centric" approach taken for powerusers, rather
| than barreling forward with visionOS. Once their OS is truly
| consolidated I may have more use for this device.
| samstave wrote:
| > _...more of a "mac-centric" approach taken for
| powerusers..."_
|
| I think this the Apple Business plan in its entirety.
|
| But we shorten it to "Lock-in" for brevity. (or platform, moat,
| walled garden, etc)\
|
| _Not that theres anything wrong with that!_
| purpleflame1257 wrote:
| I don't know about that. MacOS remains a general-purpose
| computing experience in a way that iOS simply hasn't ever.
| samstave wrote:
| I have this awesome HP Omen AMD Rizen RTX GPU Laptop.
|
| Cant run MacOS.
|
| Lockin, HW.
| brookst wrote:
| Decent review, but it is Nilay Patel, who sees himself as a
| kingmaker. I'm interested to read reviews from people just
| focusing on how it is to use the device.
| htk wrote:
| Absolutely, he kept trying to coin a phrase, and telling us
| how it's not an ideal version he imagines.
| testfrequency wrote:
| It's been pretty disingenuous of Apple to have all their
| marketing photos with the single strap, when the unanimous
| opinion is that strap doesn't work at all for comfortability or
| longevity.
|
| Similar to AirPods Max, they oddly chose heavy materials just for
| the sake of finish - rather than functionality. If they truly
| cared about the user experience of the actual software/hardware,
| they would have went with better materials.
|
| In general, Vision Pro feels to me like another weird prototype
| showcase product, released years before they actually had a real
| viable solution
| bitcurious wrote:
| > It's been pretty disingenuous of Apple to have all their
| marketing photos with the single strap, when the unanimous
| opinion is that strap doesn't work at all for comfortability or
| longevity.
|
| "I found the solo loop much more comfortable" - direct quote
| out of the article you're replying to.
| testfrequency wrote:
| The solo loop is more comfortable on the head, but it's not
| practical for longer than a few minutes.
|
| My point is this band just looks good in marketing photos,
| but it will not be what the vast majority of people will be
| using once they've put the common dual loop band on
| deadbabe wrote:
| It looks like something designed to look good in photos.
| Something like a Quest 3 with the upgraded head strap is
| probably way more practical and comfortable.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| Note the strap that comes with the MQ3 is atrocious and I
| find it hard to wear for more than 30 minutes. I find Meta's
| "Elite Strap" is really nice although it's expensive and I
| know other people have had problems with it.
|
| Current XR headsets are all too big to really be "mobile"
| devices (you're really going to take it on a plane or use it
| in a hotel?) but once you add something like the "Elite
| Strap" you know you aren't taking it anywhere. Still the MQ3
| is a nice self-contained package that you can walk around the
| house with and do activities that involve a lot of motion
| without having a battery pack to worry about.
| deadbabe wrote:
| I don't see myself taking any headset anywhere unless it
| just looks like a pair of glasses.
| soco wrote:
| And we did have for a while a few AR glasses, then all
| seem to have disappeared. No apps for them? No idea why.
| When I picked on the idea (late, I know) it seemed to me
| everything was in the stage of "almost there" and shortly
| after that, nothing was available anymore.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| It's desirable but really hard. Remember how the Magic
| Leap put the brains in a really awkward puck like the
| really awkward battery pack on the AVP?
|
| My understanding is that XReal's displays are really good
| for a compact device
|
| https://us.shop.xreal.com/
|
| but those devices also tether you with a tail. They are
| really focused on the "watch TV" angle and even support
| HDMI at the expense of real spatial computing. (so far)
| swozey wrote:
| Check out the BoboVR stuff some time I have it on all my
| quests they make really great stuff even though their name
| sounds fake.
|
| They're making upgrade parts to my mq2 stuff will work on
| my mq3 which is really awesome of them so I can drop
| another $20 not $70.
| jwells89 wrote:
| I wish more headsets would ape the design of the Vive Deluxe
| Audio Strap.
|
| Have never owned a Vive but have that head strap connected to
| a Quest 2 with 3D printed adapters (a setup dubbed by the
| community "frankenquest") and it works quite nicely.
| Topfi wrote:
| This is a very in-depth, informative and factual review. My hats
| off to the Verge; great job.
|
| I have racked up hours upon hours of actual, productive work in
| my Quest 2 and 3, so to say that I am a big proponent of the
| ideas that Apple is trying to advance would be an understatement.
| This makes me all the more disheartened to read that, for all
| their efforts, this release is mired by the same drawbacks that I
| have encountered across numerous headsets over the last decade:
|
| > [..] there's a little bit of distortion and vignetting around
| the edges of the lenses, and you'll see some green and pink color
| fringing at the edges as well, especially in bright environments.
| [..] If you're looking at something bright or otherwise high
| contrast [..] you'll see highlights reflecting in the lenses.
|
| Prior to this review, I was actually willing to understand
| certain seemingly odd decisions, such as the concept of putting
| an OLED display on the outside, the potential for weight
| distribution issues, and an external battery, as I was hopeful
| that, similar to the iPhone, there'd be a cohesive whole in the
| end that wasn't fully understandable until reviewers got to use
| it.
|
| I also was, somewhat naive, I admit that, under the impression
| that their handling of vignetting, etc. would be less noticable
| then what seems to be the case and, again naively following their
| marketing videos, had higher FOV expectations.
|
| To draw a parallel, the initial iPhone made some major tradeoffs
| and at the time odd choices, to say the least, many of which were
| laughed at for arguably justifiable reasons at the time, but I
| could see something in that that went beyond then-available
| touch-only smartphones and PDAs in terms of usability and
| cohesiveness.
|
| I fail to see the same in this review. Neither as an actual user
| nor as an enthusiast, do I see anything here that has not been
| done before. While your then-PDA may have supported 3G and came
| with many other capabilities the first iPhone lacked, there were
| certain things in regard to build, design, usability and
| intuitiveness that were unparalleled in the products at the time.
| Comparing an iPhone and an iPAQ Pocket PC made the latter seem
| ancient, even though it could do a lot the iPhone couldn't.
| Compare a Vision Pro to a Quest 3, I am saddened to say I don't
| see the same.
| theNJR wrote:
| You captured my feeling perfectly. In particular
|
| >> While your then-PDA may have supported 3G and came with many
| other capabilities the first iPhone lacked, there were certain
| things in regard to build, design, usability and intuitiveness
| that were unparalleled in the products at the time. Comparing
| an iPhone and an iPAQ Pocket PC made the latter seem ancient,
| even though it could do a lot the iPhone couldn't. Compare a
| Vision Pro to a Quest 3, I am saddened to say I don't see the
| same.>>
|
| I too was hoping for the sum of the parts to be something
| special.
|
| I'm picking my AVP up on Saturday. I'll give it an honest go
| but expect to return it within a week. I've owned most VR
| headsets and they sit in a drawer, rarely used. For a few
| hundred dollars I'm ok with that. For a few thousand I am not.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| I got a Hololens 1 that turned out to be a white elephant and
| I read a lot of stories about people buying VR headsets and
| abandoning them so when I got an MQ3 I was quite deliberate
| about getting a variety of games and apps and spending enough
| time with VR to succeed at it.
| theNJR wrote:
| I co-founded a (failed) vr startup so I've got my 100 hours
| in the Oculus and Vive
| bombcar wrote:
| The whole thing feels very ... "original xbox" to me. Hear me
| out.
|
| It was argued that a big part of the original xbox for
| Microsoft was making sure they had a toehold in the gaming
| console market _because that market had a change of disrupting
| the personal computer_ - and if that happened, they wanted to
| be there for it and have something ready to go.
|
| They did something similar with phones, and we can see how it
| spectacularly _failed_ - they have zero say or relevance in the
| massive smartphone market.
|
| I almost feel the Vision Pro is Apple's attempt to put a toe in
| the water _just in case_ this VR stuff takes off and destroys
| the smartphone market.
| mhh__ wrote:
| I could imagine that might have been why it came about
| originally but that line of thinking doesn't seem to justify
| the R&D spend alone. I'd imagine they have some belief in it
| being able to make new business of its own.
|
| If I'm not mistaken this is the first properly post-Steve
| product?
| ketzo wrote:
| I think AirPods were post-Steve? And they were both widely
| mocked at launch and wildly successful.
| wharvle wrote:
| Like so many Apple things, I thought AirPods were dumb
| until I got some (as a gift). I'd tried some Logitech
| wireless earbuds just a couple months before first trying
| AirPods. Those _were_ dumb. God they sucked.
|
| I've avoided the Watch for that reason. The little
| conveniences of various Apple-thingies are the sort of
| stuff you can't un-experience, and then you're stuck
| buying the damn things forever.
| hbn wrote:
| I think about this frequently while using my AirPods.
| It's annoying that we're all becoming accustomed to
| spending anywhere from like $130 to $250 on in-ear
| headphones that aren't guaranteed a particularly long
| lifespan, to replace wired headphones that an acceptable
| quality pair can be had for like $15.
|
| But I'll be damned if the AirPods experience isn't far
| more convenient, and has me using them more than I ever
| did with wired headphones because they're so quick and
| easy to use. I can pop one in an ear and immediately I'm
| listening to a podcast while doing laundry. No cord
| tethering my head to my pocket, nothing to get snagged on
| a doorknob, it just works. When I pull one out of my ear
| it pauses, and resumes when I put it back in. When you
| only have one AirPod in, it knows and automatically
| converts the audio stream to mono so you still hear
| everything.
|
| Still would be nice to have the 3.5mm jack back, but I
| certainly haven't felt a desire to go back to wired
| headphones since I got AirPods.
| bombcar wrote:
| If it makes you feel any better, I think the watch is
| more of a "pickup or put down" device, especially if you
| do _not_ usually use a watch. I sometimes wear it
| religiously, meaning all the time, and sometimes
| religiously, meaning only for an hour on Sundays and holy
| days ;).
| jes5199 wrote:
| I got an Apple Watch in 2019, and I don't wear it
| anymore. It was just another thing that needed to get
| charged every day, and none of the apps are very useful,
| and most of them are buggy and poorly supported.
| ninkendo wrote:
| The Apple watch was 100% post-Steve, conception to delivery
| [0]. This is definitely the first post-Jony Ive product
| though. (Rumors are that Ive was against the idea of doing
| a headset from the start, so it happened either without
| him, or after he left, depending on when it started.)
|
| - [0] https://www.wired.com/2015/04/the-apple-watch/
|
| > Ive began dreaming about an Apple watch just after CEO
| Steve Jobs' death in October 2011.
| Topfi wrote:
| > This is definitely the first post-Jony Ive product
| though.
|
| Ironic considering, if there is a product whose design
| arguably should be driven by an obsession with reducing
| weight and thickness, the AVP is it.
| mcphage wrote:
| > that line of thinking doesn't seem to justify the R&D
| spend alone
|
| I'm sure they're also looking to use the technologies they
| develop for this in other products, too.
| CharlesW wrote:
| > _If I 'm not mistaken this is the first properly post-
| Steve product?_
|
| Jobs publicly bemoaned the lack of, and presumably thought
| a lot about, "headphones for video". I think it's a safe
| bet that he set the stage for Apple Vision (and probably
| sketched out a 50 year plan) with current Apple leaders
| before his death.
|
| 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."
| Topfi wrote:
| Yeah, I honestly hadn't thought about those statements in
| quite a while. Thanks for bringing them back to mind. It
| makes me ponder whether they had a very rough, early
| prototype of an FPV display device at that time, and if
| so, what that looked like. The interviewer briefly
| mentions what was available at the time, which Steve
| calls "lousy", so it could also be that he was more
| fascinated by the inherent concept.
|
| As is often the case, I'd give a lot for companies such
| as Apple to be more open with their ancient prototypes
| once a new device gets launched. Sometimes brands, such
| as Microsoft[0] in the console field showcase iterative
| prototypes or even produce full-on documentaries of their
| history, but rarely for new device categories.
|
| I understand why that's not possible, but still, one can
| dream.
|
| [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJYsA1jXf60
| rylittle wrote:
| https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/15z92if/apple_won
| _a_...
| PaulHoule wrote:
| Good analysis.
|
| Part of it too is that Apple feels pressure to do _something_
| innovative. They made some big bets in the 2000s that paid
| off very well but a company that has a hit like the iPhone
| becomes profoundly conservative. The trouble is that there
| aren 't many market opportunities bigger than smartphones,
| there's a possible iCar and an iHouse and that's about it.
|
| Apple's worst fear might be being successful as a niche
| product: what if every seat of _Dassault 3Dexperience_ ends
| up with an Apple Vision Pro? Apple might be left with the
| maintenance burden forever but no real prospects for a
| mainstream product.
| nox101 wrote:
| I wonder if an iTV would sell. All mondern smart tvs are
| covered in ads and spying. monitors of similar sizes cost
| 3x to 4x. so to me there might be a market for a non spying
| iTV with bultin Apple TV for say 1.5x. Or not, not sure
| enough people care about those issues.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| 10 years ago I thought Apple would fail if they tried it
| because they'd have a chauvinistic attitude about having
| HDMI or any other ports that aren't Ethernet. (You can't
| plug your phonograph into an iPod) For that matter I'd
| expect them to have a chauvinistic attitude about
| connecting to my home theater.
|
| Back then you were just going to have to deal with the
| rubbish cable box but I think Apple wasn't going to stand
| for it.
|
| Today Blu Ray seems to be on the way out and so is the
| cable box (now we have the spectacle of seemingly
| competitive vMVPDs that are all priced the same within a
| few dollars), it now is going to be a fight over game
| consoles.
|
| TVs though have a serious race to the bottom and the TV
| with an Amazon Fire TV built in is going to be attractive
| to a lot of people.
|
| (Also already Apple makes a "TV" removes the tuner and
| replaces the HDMI ports w/ something else and calls it a
| "monitor" and charges 5x. No way are they going to
| cannibalize that market to sell something that only costs
| 1.5x)
| Someone wrote:
| I think a problem with TVs for Apple is that they'd be
| under pressure to build them in a zillion different
| sizes. That's not in their DNA.
|
| A good beamer might be more fitting for them; they would
| only have to build them in 'small', 'medium' and 'large'.
|
| In either case, like you I'm not sure the market is large
| enough for a company of Apple's size and DNA (it's
| unlikely that they'll try to find not one huge next big
| hit, but lots and lots of smaller ones. They're not Ikea)
| Aaronmacaron wrote:
| Not really. The vast majority of modern TVs are 43, 55 or
| 65 inch sizes. That's three sizes.
| throw0101d wrote:
| > _I wonder if an iTV would sell. All mondern smart tvs
| are covered in ads and spying._
|
| Probably best to just connect TVs to some box (Apple TV,
| Roku, _etc_ ) via plain HDMI and leave it that. There's
| no technical reason to connect TVs to an IP directly
| anymore IMHO: what would that actually provide over and
| above what you get with some box/stick?
| bombcar wrote:
| Ethernet over HDMI exists, luckily it hasn't taken off
| ...
| PaulHoule wrote:
| I like wall-mounting TVs but it sure is a mess to have a
| power cable and two or three HDMI cables and a composite
| cable (got a VCR, rubbish Denon receiver won't convert
| composite to HDMI) and an Ethernet cable and who knows
| what else hanging below it.
|
| Now that I think about it it wouldn't be hard to cut a
| few holes and route the cables through the wall and have
| them come out in a spot that's not too conspicuous but
| who's going to do that?
|
| People who believe in aesthetics uber alles (Apple fans?)
| might appreciate a TV that has just a power cable and
| connects through WiFi but you could mostly accomplish
| that with the right kind of stick. You might say in 2024
| who needs a cable box or Blu Ray but game consoles are
| still a reason to have HDMI. (Though somehow I think
| Apple would think plugging a Playstation into an Apple TV
| is as unthinkable as plugging a phonograph into an iPod.)
| hbn wrote:
| Apple won't even make a consumer-targeted dedicated
| monitor, I can't see them doing a TV.
| bombcar wrote:
| Apple TV already exists as a set-top box.
|
| And even something similar embedded in some TVs.
|
| What I _could_ see Apple doing is some kind of "Made for
| Apple TV" feature that combines eArc, HDMI, etc, and
| makes the TV turn into a "dumb TV" for the Apple TV when
| it is connected and detected.
| mynameisvlad wrote:
| > And even something similar embedded in some TVs.
|
| I don't believe there is an "tvOS Embedded". "Apple TV+"
| is just an app within the OS; there isn't really any
| similarity between the embedded app and tvOS.
| smaccona wrote:
| What I do is buy a smart TV, never connect it to the
| network (thus making it a dumb TV), and plug an Apple TV
| (or other devices) into it. So far, this has worked - I
| haven't seen any ads from the TV itself (the apps running
| on the Apple TV are another story), and it can't phone
| home about what I'm watching or otherwise doing with the
| TV.
| kogepathic wrote:
| _> Apple might be left with the maintenance burden forever
| but no real prospects for a mainstream product._
|
| This seems unlikely. Apple has not hesitated in the past to
| exit market segments they felt did not suit them. To name a
| few: servers, displays, routers.
| bombcar wrote:
| And to be fair to Apple, on those sunsetted products,
| they supported them quite well during the sunset and even
| after, especially the Xserve.
| timcederman wrote:
| Do you not feel Apple has been successful with the Watch
| and AirPods? Their wearables revenue dwarfs the revnue of
| most top tech companies.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| Both of those are accessories to the phone.
| bakje wrote:
| Actually, I find airpods to be very usable as bluetooth
| earbuds for all kinds of devices, these days I mostly use
| them behind my desktop PC when playing games and they
| work just fine. When I pop them out of the case they
| automatically connect to my PC just like they would an
| iPhone or other apple device. They won't automatically
| switch to the PC like they would for apple devices but
| they also won't just switch from the PC so I don't mind.
| Taking them out doesn't pause media but the play/pause
| controls do work.
|
| I do think that most people without an iPhone won't buy
| them so they're essentially still bought as iPhone
| accessories, but they don't have to be!
|
| I agree about the watch though, that's definitely an
| iPhone accessory.
| pjmlp wrote:
| Originall XBox was also a money sink for Microsoft, bleeding
| money, bringing everyone on board to develop for it.
|
| Modern Apple is anything like that.
| monkeynotes wrote:
| No way will this tech destroy phones as you know them today.
| What is going to destroy phones is natural language. Maybe,
| maybe in the distant future this tech will be mature enough
| to provide the visual support to a natural language first
| device.
|
| xBox addressed a very well defined product sector with a
| couple of big players doing stuff that is well understood.
| xBox wasn't a toe in the water, they planned a whole strategy
| around it using known facts about the industry, how people
| play, what kind of games work, they didn't break much new
| ground with the xBox. All they had to do was make a
| compelling, affordable gaming device that had amazing games
| on it. The rest takes care of itself. Apple Vision Pro is
| nothing like that. There is no existing market to put your
| toe in, there are no real competitors, we haven't even found
| a killer use case for these devices.
|
| No one really knows how these AR/VR devices can fit into
| everyday life. Currently Apple is working on finding the
| water to put their toe in. Right now they are at an exclusive
| oasis when they really need an ocean.
| chrischen wrote:
| Making interfaces natural language is like making all
| buttons touch screen. Versatile, yea, but in practice it
| can be less efficient than dedicated controls or more
| tactile interfaces.
| monkeynotes wrote:
| Bare in mind I am not anticipating the Google Home level
| of interaction, I am talking full sophisticated natural
| language. And there is no reason touch cannot play a
| role, I'm just saying these devices will be unlike our
| current phones. I've listed some use cases that I think
| beat out touch easily elsewhere in the comments.
| mostlysimilar wrote:
| Hard disagree. Phones and computers do text/images/video.
| Voice input and audio output is a poor substitute for text
| and not at all a replacement for images/video.
| orangecat wrote:
| Right. And there are too many scenarios where audio I/O
| isn't usable (quiet libraries, loud streets) so you
| always need an alternative.
| monkeynotes wrote:
| I didn't say there wouldn't be a screen. But natural
| conversations will be much more fluid and efficient than
| a keyboard and google search. Having a conversation is so
| much better for all sorts of applications.
|
| Today's smartphones have to evolve this way, imo. I don't
| know what the most efficient hardware realization would
| look like but I imagine it's something that isn't in your
| pocket most of the time, more of a sleek wearable. It
| will need to be able to hear and see what you do.
| m3kw9 wrote:
| Natural language really sucks as a UI because a lot of
| things can be done faster than when you speak it. Like
| volume control as a tip of the iceberg example
| vel0city wrote:
| > they didn't break much new ground with the xBox
|
| I kind of disagree with this. They made networking and
| online gaming on consoles finally a thing most home
| consumers were interested in. Sure, there were some earlier
| forays into online gaming/networking on previous consoles
| (SegaNet, for example), but those were generally pretty
| niche. Sega only included a dial-up adapter by default,
| while the Xbox shipped with an Ethernet adapter. Shipping
| the Xbox with Ethernet made networking on the box pretty
| simple right at the time when people started buying home
| routers and broadband internet and opened up the console to
| easy LAN gaming.
|
| Microsoft made Xbox Live a pretty massive feature of the
| console a year after launch. While Xbox Live launched a
| year after the console shipped, I'd still say the planning
| of it and including the Ethernet port was something nobody
| else in the console gaming world was doing and ended up
| defining the console gaming future.
| bombcar wrote:
| A big part of the success of the Xbox (and maybe it's not
| the Japan destroyer the fanboys wanted it to be) was that
| they really _really_ let it be its own product, and
| develop an ecosystem. They not only made it a "PC for
| your TV" which was widely what it was held as on release,
| but also expanded the capabilities of what a console was
| expected to do.
|
| Sadly they also popularized and solidified the "pay to
| play games online" feature of consoles, vs the "online
| play is free except for MMOs" that PCs normally have.
| tverbeure wrote:
| Natural language is even worse than video for quick content
| consumption: you can't quickly skip through content that
| way the can fast scroll through a blog post.
| monkeynotes wrote:
| Natural language in place of other inputs, the command
| can result in summoning up a video for you, or a blog
| post to view.
|
| If I am cooking and can hold a whole conversation with my
| virtual chef,that beats a video though. Talking through
| ideas at my desk would be great. Talking for navigation
| while I drive, yes please. Shopping with my headphones on
| and the device seeing everything I see and making
| suggestions about deals, recipe options, what's low in
| your pantry, and so on. I'll take that. I see technology
| becoming more and more transparent in our life. User
| interfaces will feel awkward when all you need to do is
| say "show me a video of cats" and it serves it to your
| companion screen without ever needing to touch tap any
| UI. No need to even have a web UI for youtube. Just an
| API and your device does the rest. It can show you a list
| of related videos without YouTube themselves providing
| anything more than the data model.
|
| The cost cutting of not needing sophisticated front ends
| will be a big driving factor if this is as effective as I
| think it could be.
|
| Anyways, my head is full of ideas like this.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| > What is going to destroy phones is natural language.
|
| Then the Watch is the future.
| bombcar wrote:
| Dick Tracy _will_ have his revenge, in this model or the
| next.
| throwuwu wrote:
| Mobile phones and VR are different non competing markets.
| AR might eventually compete with phones once you can wear
| an AR device all day everywhere you go. AR and VR should be
| treated as distinct; a good VR headset is bad for most AR
| usecases and vice versa. Maybe at some distant time there
| will be hardware capable of doing both really well but not
| for many years. VR fits into daily life as a social
| experience and will be obvious once eye, face and full body
| tracking are included with the headset. Even before that if
| someone solves the network problems with concurrent users
| and delivers an experience that handles audio well enough
| to work with multiple people having conversations within
| earshot of each other. AR is really just putting screens
| and overlays everywhere, conversational interfaces will
| have more and better impact than that.
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| Natural language wont work as the main control until we
| have a nueralink type product. I dont want to be talking at
| my computer constantly.
| Ancapistani wrote:
| > No way will this tech destroy phones as you know them
| today.
|
| This device? No, absolutely not. I see it as a speculative
| play by Apple: release a very capable device with a bare-
| bones ecosystem at a high price.
|
| "Early adopters" will buy it because that's what they do.
|
| "Influencers" will buy it, because that's what _they_ do.
| Their social media posts about it will give Apple all the
| data they need to nail down the size of the potential
| market.
|
| Finally, developers will buy it, because it's cool tech.
| We'll tell ourselves that it's an emerging market, and we
| can get it early. The launch of the iOS App Store spawned a
| gold rush for app developers; I expect that the launch of
| the AVP and its visionOS App Store will do the same. The
| size and profitability of that opportunity will be
| determined by how well Apple develops and popularizes the
| product.
|
| This is where I'm at on it. I expect the AVP to be best-in-
| class in terms of hardware and OS-level integration
| (though, to be fair, I expect the latter will be limited at
| first in odd ways, in the grand Apple tradition).
|
| I'll get one. I plan to use it for productivity, and as
| long as that justifies the cost I'll be happy with it. I'll
| also work on some minimal apps for visionOS. The purpose
| there will be to "skill up". If Apple releases a more
| consumer-focus headset that gains adoption, I'll be in a
| good position to take advantage of that by selling paid
| apps that are already mature by the time the general public
| are getting on the bandwagon.
|
| > What is going to destroy phones is natural language.
|
| Maybe?
|
| We've heard about "wearable computing" and "personal area
| networks" for decades at this point. While it still feels
| like something in the near future, the truth of the matter
| is that for a large segment of the population, it's already
| here. I already have an iPhone with me whenever I'm away
| from home, and usually an iPad as well. If I'm going to be
| away from home for a while, I've got an MBP in my backpack.
| All of those devices can hand off tasks between each other
| to an increasingly large degree - it's not uncommon for me
| to pull out my phone to show someone a website I had open
| on my laptop before I left home, then pull out my iPad if
| they're interested in it so they can interact with it more
| easily. Until recently, I had an Apple Watch surfacing an
| integrated notification stream from all of the above.
|
| Today, smartphones are the central "wearable computing"
| device that ties everything together. They act as a hub for
| a computing experience. There's no guarantee in my mind
| that it will continue in that role forever. Maybe the hub
| will end up being the descendant of the AVP. Maybe it will
| be something more akin to a Humane AI Pin, or a Rabbit R1.
|
| In other words... phones have already destroyed phones.
| Smartphones are really wearable computing hubs that we just
| happen to still _call_ "phones", because that's what they
| used to be. They're very rarely used for telephony, and
| many other devices are capable of doing so.
|
| > Maybe, maybe in the distant future this tech will be
| mature enough to provide the visual support to a natural
| language first device.
|
| My hope is that it ends up being a "spatial" interface that
| provides a generic interface so it can be used by pretty
| much anything.
| bombcar wrote:
| > They're very rarely used for telephony, and many other
| devices are capable of doing so.
|
| This is a really important distinction. And if you
| calculate your phone bill by actual minutes used for
| talking, it's an insane number of dollars per minute.
|
| I'd be completely unsurprised if the amount of "talking
| on Zoom/Teams/voice chat" is soon to surpass the total
| number of minutes talking on phones.
| kemayo wrote:
| > No way will this tech destroy phones as you know them
| today. What is going to destroy phones is natural language.
|
| I'm extremely skeptical of this, just because of the vast
| number of situations where speaking-out-loud isn't going to
| be desirable. It'll have a place, for sure, but I think
| it'll be more of a supplement to our current phone
| paradigm.
| m3kw9 wrote:
| But it isn't hard to see that people who are constantly glued
| to their phones scrolling wouldn't want to just have the
| screen on their faces instead of holding it. To me it's the
| natural evolution of the way we absorb digital
| info/entertainment
| penjelly wrote:
| it feels like theyve been doing RnD on VR/AR, bleeding cash,
| and theyre making a product to "justify" this cash burn to
| me. That plus shipping a product is the only way you can
| iterate, and a common mentality in tech companies is "to
| ship". IMO theyre late to the game, and excited to see if
| they can offer anything new
| tfandango wrote:
| Out of curiosity, what are you using for work on your Quest? I
| also have a Q2 and have tried, maybe not too seriously, several
| of the screen sharing apps to do work but couldn't quite get
| past the resolution and lag. Perhaps that has gotten better
| since, it's been some time.
|
| Instead now I use it for entertainment and very much like it,
| but if I could make that next leap it would be great!
| swozey wrote:
| Virtual Desktop for desktop work
| Topfi wrote:
| For that purpose, the difference between the Q2 and Q3 was so
| vast that I cannot oversell it. While it's still not perfect
| due to the resolution, the switch to pancake lenses made
| screencasting to the Q3 something I could do for many hours
| at a time and enjoy it, whereas on the Q2 with the limited
| sweet spot in the center, it was really only for very
| specific use cases. On the Q2, even slightly off center
| becomes unreadable; on the Q3, you can move your eyes right
| to the panel border and still read text at the edge. The main
| use case is heavy multitasking with Confluence, Jira and an
| IDE in full-sized windows.
| tfandango wrote:
| Thank you. Your experience with the Quest 2 mirrors my own.
| I'm undecided if I will try a Q3 or skip a generation. It
| definitely seems like things are moving in the right
| direction and I'm excited about that!
| tinyhouse wrote:
| Same. I find it useless for work stuff. I have a large screen
| at home and in the office. I don't need to look at a large
| screen through a heavy headset on my face that I feel bad
| after wearing for more than 30 min. I also don't find the VR
| meeting experience better than a zoom call.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| > I have racked up hours upon hours of actual, productive work
| in my Quest 2 and 3
|
| I have a lot of questions. Would you recommend them? Do you
| work primarily in VR? I haven't tried VR but the use-case I
| envision is to put on a VR headset and be "at work".
| Topfi wrote:
| > Would you recommend them?
|
| Yes, no, maybe. Thing is, I've never used a device or
| software that I haven't found faults with. Overall, the Quest
| has turned into a solid, though still imperfect, platform,
| with Meta pushing updates at a consistent, but also breakneck
| pace, sometimes at the expense of addressing existing issues.
| Hand tracking from the early days of the Q2 has made massive
| leaps and has become my preferred method of navigation for
| its reliability and ease, yet at the same time, the changes
| in camera placement between the Q2 and Q3 lead to a decrease
| in controller tracking performance in very specific
| scenarios. Essentially, they are constantly experimenting,
| both on the hard- and software front, trying to optimize what
| they can within their very low price point. Still, if you are
| interested and have an idea what you'd like to use the
| headset for, I'd recommend trying one within the return
| window, though I'd strongly suggest adding a "halo-style"
| strap (BoboVR is my current favorite) for comfort.
|
| > Do you work primarily in VR?
|
| No, a more healthy mix between a single 27" JOLED and the
| Quest 3 for workloads that require more screen real estate
| but can go without as much overall resolution. About 60/40 in
| favor of the regular panel.
| jbellis wrote:
| I use my xreal air as my airplane display. I would love the
| Quest 3's higher resolution but my understanding is that
| compared to the XA the Q3
|
| - Requires controllers - Requires wifi instead of plugging
| in the cable and it just works* - Has fairly limited
| battery life
|
| Am I mistaken on these points / do you think it would work
| on an airplane despite them?
|
| * To be fair, the XA only "just works" in vanilla display
| mode, the fancy xreal multiple virtual monitors feature
| called Nebula doesn't work well enough to be worth the
| hassle.
| Topfi wrote:
| Tried my hand at a Viture One for two weeks, but the
| diopters did not work with my specific vision, perhaps
| I'll give the new XA2 a shot now that they are more
| available in the EU.
|
| Concerning your question, it's very different. While VR
| content can be cast both over USB or wireless, for flat-
| screen casting, wireless is the preferred and most
| comprehensively supported way, which, whilst tether-free,
| can be less seamless when out-and-about than just
| plugging in a cable. Note that wireless does not require
| a local WiFi router or internet connection but can also
| be handeled directly from a host device, still, less
| reliable than a plain cable carrying video signal.
| Furthermore, as the Quest has its own full on operating
| system based on Android, rather than receiving an HDMI
| signal like the Viture or XA, there is an additional
| point of complexity to consider, and it looks a lot less
| inconspicuous than the XA. Lastly, tracking via the
| cameras is a great advantage in general use, though a
| very inclosed, darkish space such as an aeroplane may
| push the small sensors to their limit and yes, battery
| life can be a limit as well, though I do hot-swap BoboVR
| battery at the back of my skull for that. Still not as
| convenient as just using your phones power and having
| that charged.
|
| Quest does not require an controller at this point, hand
| tracking is currently my prefered way of navigating the
| system day-to-day.
|
| Overall, I'd agree, on an airplane I'd consider the Quest
| to be of marginal usability.
| chris-orgmenta wrote:
| Sorry for the slight tangent, but: What's the current state of
| VR&AR Headset friction / boot time? This is what I expected
| Apple to solve first.
|
| With VR/AR headsets, the friction to 'boot in' seems to be one
| of the biggest problems in adoption, and one that I feel Meta
| et al don't openly talk about. (Note, I am ignorant of this
| field in general).
|
| How close are we to seamless, quick boot, such that one puts on
| a headset and are 'immediately' immersed? (Compare to my phone,
| which unlocks before my eyes even have time to focus on the
| screen).
|
| (My admittedly poor) web searching of this question just tends
| to offer webpages on common boot issues (e.g. 'Quest boot
| time'/'Vive startup time' just leads to complaints and support
| forums.)
|
| I suspect this also to be a primary issue with the true
| 'metaverse' taking hold. GTA6 will, in my opinion, be the
| luxury 'hang-out' metaverse, but will likely take many minutes
| to access. I feel that Microsoft could have made Minecraft the
| de facto metaverse (by implementing certain features), but will
| never quite get there. Perhaps a WebGL game that can take you
| to a bookmarked 'spacial' lobby within 3000ms can get real
| traction.
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| boot time is not nearly as relevant as with a phone where
| you're constantly turning it off.
| Topfi wrote:
| Cold boot time on a Quest is roughly half a minute, though
| most of the time, you'll just wake it up from standby. For
| testing, I just put my Quest 3 on my head, and without
| pressing the power button, I counted five mississippis
| (seconds) before I was fully in their heavily customized
| version of Android with hand tracking recognizing my digits.
| swozey wrote:
| I have a MQ3 I haven't used in a few weeks sitting on the
| charger. I picked it up, spent 10 seconds finding the power
| button, hit button, put it on, waited 25 at the meta logo
| then was in VR. Didn't test opening a game but for a big one
| it's probably the same 10-45 seconds to start I'd imagine.
|
| It's not something I ever really thought about, you boot it
| once a session and it goes idle/wake, not hibernate if you
| just put it on your desk for a minute.
|
| The MQ3 is WAY better than my Vive and better even than the
| MQ2 at being a "throw on and gun" quick device. It's way
| lighter, less work to get going with.
|
| The MQ3 is an awesome device, I love it.
| jayd16 wrote:
| This is a pretty strange complaint to me. When you use a VR
| headset you don't really put it on and take it off frequently
| during a session. When you take it off you can plug it in and
| it'll stay in standby, which is similar to phone standby. Its
| also not any slower than Playstation standby.
| chris-orgmenta wrote:
| It's not a complaint (from me or my acquaintances), it's
| something that I thought (possibly incorrectly, but as
| mentioned I am ignorant hence me asking) was a hindrance to
| the success of the market. I.e. when I speak to most people
| re: VR/AR, they say something like "It sounds like a lot of
| faff", or "I have one gathering dust, I can't be bothered
| to use it".
|
| I have no skin in the game and no intention of buying
| anything for another couple of years at least, FWIW.
|
| Anyway: Sibling post says ~5 seconds from standby - Which
| seems very reasonable to me, so I suppose it's just lack of
| compelling features (subjectively to the people in
| question, not regular users) that result in the 'gathering
| dust'... Which means the people I have spoken to haven't
| wanted to bother keeping it on standby (thus increasing the
| barriers further).
| kllrnohj wrote:
| It takes substantially more effort to put it on than it
| does to "boot up"
|
| And while it may sound weird that putting it on is such
| an ordeal, keep in mind that there's a lot of inherently
| fiddly bits and many have compromises. Like the PSVR2
| requires me to go turn the lights on, because it uses
| inside-out tracking which doesn't work well in a dark
| room. But also you have to fiddle around with the
| position of it, get it in a comfortable spot, wiggle it a
| bit so the lenses line up with your eyes as you had it
| last configured, etc... Then realize that you smudged the
| lens with your forehead so take it off and clean it and
| do it again but more carefully this time.
| wharvle wrote:
| What's booting?
|
| Nothing I use with any frequency gets rebooted except for
| updates, more or less.
|
| Exception: non-Apple stuff. Because those things tend to die
| while "sleeping" and unplugged, very quickly (my secondary
| work Windows laptop, which burns almost half its battery per
| 12 hours in "sleep mode"; my Steamdeck, which is barely
| better than that; the Switch though it's almost always on the
| dock anyway so that's rarely an issue)
| chris-orgmenta wrote:
| I agree that we should pretend that my question said "from
| standby" instead of "boot"
| wharvle wrote:
| If it's like iOS devices, I'd assume less than a second
| to interactive, potentially so fast that most people
| don't notice it isn't instant.
|
| If it's like macOS, maybe 2-3 seconds to interactive.
| s3p wrote:
| Having used a Quest 2 and owning a Quest 3 personally I can
| tell you the delay is essentially zero. It takes 2-3 sec to
| get the headset fully secured around your head, and the Quest
| will wake up the very moment it starts to get moved. That's
| part of the reason it annoys me so much-- just moving the
| controllers will wake it up, even if it's sitting on my desk.
| treprinum wrote:
| Never buy version 1 I guess (unless the company is fighting for
| survival and has to deliver, with 100% focus).
| KronisLV wrote:
| > I have racked up hours upon hours of actual, productive work
| in my Quest 2 and 3...
|
| I have a Quest 2 right now and attempting to use it for desktop
| computing just doesn't work all that well for me (their Quest
| Link app with desktop windows, or SteamVR desktop feature;
| might also have to use the Meta Workspace app or whatever it
| was called in the future). All of the text feels a bit blurry
| and it's like the resolution just isn't there.
|
| I don't even have that high of a resolution dev setup outside
| of VR, just four 21.5" monitors running at 1080p. I do catch
| myself squinting a little bit at them sometimes, but 10, 11 and
| 12 font sizes (in JetBrains IDEs and VS Code) seem too small in
| VR and going bigger decreases the lines of code per screen to
| an annoying degree.
|
| Best I can do in VR for that ends up being one huge monitor in
| front of me, two on each side, as well as a huge overhead one,
| but that leads to a lot of turning my head, maybe just a bit
| more than I'd like to.
|
| I'm not sure whether it's the headset with the lenses that's
| messed up, whether it's my eyes that are just bad, or the fact
| that the distance between the lenses should be _a little_
| higher than the headset allows for (at least based on what an
| IPD test I read online suggests), but the end result is that
| the experience isn 't very good... yet.
| rubicon33 wrote:
| Good points for sure. VR gaming has always had an edge because if
| you value physical immersion (the feeling of being in the game)
| then it DOES have a significant leg up over traditional gaming.
|
| Can the same be said for productivity and general computing yet?
| I don't think so. Will I prefer a Vision Pro over 2 4K monitors?
| Highly unlikely. Will I grab my Vision Pro as I head out the
| door, rather than my laptop? No.
|
| There are some fundamental technology problems that need solving
| before that becomes a reality. Size and weight need an order of
| magnitude reduction, and the pass through has to be better which
| will require advancements in dark scene video processing.
|
| Realistically speaking, if AR does "take off" as a productivity
| and general computing tool I don't see it happening for another
| 7-15 years.
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| > VR gaming has always had an edge because if you value
| physical immersion (the feeling of being in the game) then it
| DOES have a significant leg up over traditional gaming.
|
| Good controls on a 2D screen are far more immersive than bad
| controls on a VR headset. VR makes good controls very hard to
| do.
| pivo wrote:
| Oh boy: "Listen to me, do you want to use a computer that is
| always looking at your hands?" It took a second for that warning
| to sink in.
| bombcar wrote:
| Someone at Apple had to design the watch to detect certain hand
| motions _and purposely ignore them_. That 's a thing that
| someone had to do, otherwise false positives would be
| embarrassingly pasted across the Internet for to be laughed at.
| Hamuko wrote:
| Shouldn't the watch be on your non-dominant hand?
| addandsubtract wrote:
| Wouldn't your dominant hand be on your mouse?
| Hamuko wrote:
| There's actually data on this!
|
| https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1357650X.202
| 1.2...
| swozey wrote:
| lol, it doesn't show in the shortened url. I clicked this
| and read other things then went to that tab and went "wtf
| was I looking up here?"
|
| possibly nsfw if you work for the puritans and love
| kelloggs
| wharvle wrote:
| There's either got to be a big generational gap on
| preference for this, or a lot of folks out there have
| developed mousing ambidexterity.
| brewdad wrote:
| I'm a lefty through and through in my sixth decade going
| around the sun. Mousing with my left hand is _weird_.
| Like completely wrong. Even on a touchpad I tend to
| "mouse" with my right hand.
| Eric_WVGG wrote:
| Why? (I switch wrists every six weeks ago because I think
| the tan line starts to look weird, it's similar usable from
| either)
| Hamuko wrote:
| Because it allows you to use your dominant hand to
| control it, and also your non-dominant hand is more often
| free than your dominant hand, so it's free to swing
| around when you walk and better count your steps.
| michaelt wrote:
| That's all very well for the folks who only need one
| hand...
| brookst wrote:
| No, it's all ML models. It is very unlikely that an ML model
| trained on wrist motions for walking and running would
| falsely report steps for... other activities.
| planede wrote:
| They possibly had to include training data tagged with
| "inactive" though, including _that_.
| nox101 wrote:
| One of the reasons I got rid of my apple watch is because
| it would congratulate me for successfuly completing my
| exercise for the day just from turning over on the sofa. It
| would also tell me how good I slept when I forgot to wear
| it to bed. So, at least for me, that ML doesn't work
| ThalesX wrote:
| I didn't give it up, but I did laugh one morning at
| 2:30AM, laying in bed, dozing off and getting startled by
| the watch telling me I've been sitting for awhile and it
| suggests I get up and move a bit.
| bombcar wrote:
| It's rare, but I've been woken up at least once by a
| "congratulations on completing your stand/exercise!".
| chaostheory wrote:
| "Hands"
|
| Yeah, but at least Apple focuses on privacy
| addandsubtract wrote:
| The video also offers a solution. Obscure the view of your
| hands from the camera(s).
| LeafItAlone wrote:
| I'd wager most people take their phones in into the bathroom
| with them and use them on the toilet. I've even seen people on
| video calls in public restrooms!
|
| I honestly don't think the general public is all that
| concerned.
|
| (But I am)
| solarkraft wrote:
| I think we're past that. Our phones have already seen so many
| things we could find embarrassing.
|
| One smart thing Apple usually does when using cameras for
| sensing (see Face ID) is never showing you the image, making it
| feel a lot less creepy.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| The large carrying case means it is not a "mobile" device. Sure
| you can take one on an airplane but it is going to be awkward.
| (What is the stewardess supposed to say? Are you supposed to take
| it off for takeoff and landing? Are you supposed to stow it?
| Where?)
|
| I was thinking you might use a device like this as a laptop
| replacement while traveling. Maybe I would because I'm a
| notorious overpacker but I think most people wouldn't. The
| carrying case for my Hololens 1 is crazy big and I know a grad
| student who sometimes shuttles a Meta Quest Pro to work and it
| fills his whole backpack.
| akmarinov wrote:
| On the MKBHD video it looks like you can disassemble most
| things and the only thing you care about is the actual display
| and glass. So you might get a smaller case from a third party
| vendor just for that part and then the rest - light seal,
| spacer thing, band - you can squish those in your bag.
| seydor wrote:
| Looks like you can skip the $3500 and buy this instead
| https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/71ceiw0-DxL.jpg
| pornel wrote:
| According to the review Mac is limited to one screen at 1440p.
| jitl wrote:
| It's 1440p of "screen real estate" logical resolution, like a
| 27" monitor with 5k pixels like the Apple studio display or LG
| UltraFine, full 4K video feed - not as high res as the LG
| UltraFine.
| shmatt wrote:
| This sounds pretty great for a first iteration. My first iPhone
| was a 4S, but I can definitely see the "buy everything first"
| crowd enjoying this vs. the first iteration from every other
| company, as Apple usually succeeds doing
|
| I would bet the version announced in 4 years will be naturally
| usable all day
| monkeynotes wrote:
| > will be naturally usable all day
|
| What do you imagine that device to look like, and cost?
| ThalesX wrote:
| Not GP but... thinner, lighter and maybe 1k cheaper?
| swozey wrote:
| Ha, I was downvoted and told "why do we need controllers, the
| iphone and macbook dont come with controllers" yesterday when I
| said this is stupid without controllers.
|
| I have a vive, q2 and q3. Look at him trying to type on that
| keyboard. I have hand gestures on my q3. They're nice for a few
| certain things, but thankfully I can forget they exist for 99% of
| what I do, that isn't flinging windows/screens left and right and
| expanding them in front of me. Or turning wifi on and off, etc..
|
| And.. you can't do multiple screens and it has less resolution
| than my real life monitor when connecting to a mbp.. hm. I
| thought that was a super cool feature when I thought you could
| just add monitors wherever. I hadn't even thought of it before
| they showed it in the demo.
| nickthegreek wrote:
| Pains me to think about what this sucker would cost with
| controllers (which I agree are needed for many VR experiences).
| jayd16 wrote:
| Who knows what Apple would charge but the BOM for a bluetooth
| controller with LEDs is not a lot when they already have
| good-enough hand tracking.
| jsheard wrote:
| Yeah, the way the non-Pro Quest controllers are implemented
| isn't expensive at all. The tracking hardware is just
| commodity accelerometers/gyroscopes for high resolution
| (albeit only relative) motion sensing, and a constellation
| of IR LEDs to give a clear reference point for the headset
| cameras to follow in absolute space and correct the IMU
| drift.
|
| Knowing Apple they would more likely follow the lead of the
| Quest Pro controllers though, which have their own set of
| cameras and perform their own inside-out tracking
| independently of the headset. It's expensive and power
| hungry but more robust since they work just as well when
| the headset can't see the controllers.
| swozey wrote:
| I'm so bummed that this is what they came out with. If it was
| some insane res better than pancake lense with no screen door
| effect or color wash out at all and had some amazingly well
| researched controllers that finally rocket shipped VR AND AR
| they'd have much more of a market and I'd consider one.
|
| But maybe in my 5 years these will be in every single
| hospital, school, etc. Who knows.
| hbn wrote:
| > And.. you can't do multiple screens and it has less
| resolution than my real life monitor when connecting to a mbp
|
| I think there's still appeal in that you can take this monitor
| with you and float it in front of you wherever you want. That's
| worth the reduced resolution imo
| janeshchhabra wrote:
| > And.. you can't do multiple screens and it has less
| resolution than my real life monitor when connecting to a mbp..
| hm. I thought that was a super cool feature when I thought you
| could just add monitors wherever. I hadn't even thought of it
| before they showed it in the demo.
|
| That's the main feature I would have bought this device for -
| seamless window sharing between apple devices/macbooks. Sad to
| see it isn't the case. Hopefully the immersed visor [0] pans
| out for work! Excited to try vision pro, but seeming likely
| that I'll end up returning it by the 2 week period.
|
| [0] - https://www.visor.com/.
|
| Disclaimer, I have a preorder for both Visor and Vision Pro.
| gamblor956 wrote:
| _Hopefully the immersed visor [0] pans out for work!._
|
| $40 monthly membership. And that's the cheaper option to get
| the cool features like multiple work spaces and the extended
| battery.
|
| I get the feeling that the Visor will not be long for this
| world if they don't change their business model.
| monkeynotes wrote:
| I think this is like a modern example of the Apple Newton in the
| sense it's impressive, has uses, but it too soon to be widely
| adopted.
|
| I think this device will flounder, early adopters will struggle
| to make full use of it because of all the compromises. Take it on
| the plane? Why? It will run out of power in 1-2 hrs (if you
| remembered the full charge before you board). Lugging all that
| bulk just for a movie on the plane while you look like a black
| mirror drone.
|
| Then there is TV, it's great if you live by yourself, but what
| couple has $7k to drop so they can watch TV together. For ~2hrs.
|
| Office work? No thanks, I can't wear that all day and actually be
| productive.
|
| It's an amazing accomplishment, but who is it for? The ~200k
| wealthy people who mostly live by themselves isn't going to
| fulfill an AR revolution for Apple.
|
| I wonder what Jobs would have done.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| When all plane seats seem to have power these days, is the
| battery in a plane really a limitation? Can't it charge while
| being used?
| zerbinxx wrote:
| Doesn't it have some weird and Very Apple design flaw where
| it's hard to charge and use at the same time?
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| I don't know, which is why I'm asking. I can see it not
| charging as fast as it's being used.
| monkeynotes wrote:
| It's basically a laptop on your head, so a meaty 60w
| charger could be needed to power and charge it.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| Then I guess that is fine, since airlines are typically
| providing 75 watts per seat.
| bearjaws wrote:
| _cries in magic mouse_
| swozey wrote:
| That'd be fitting. Maybe the charging port is inside of it
| right between your eyes so you have to charge it like their
| old mouse you had to flip over dead.
| gr__or wrote:
| The battery is external, i.e. already next to you anyway,
| so plugging in power is rather simple. You could also have
| multiple batteries with you, though I don't know the price
| of an additional battery.
| jsheard wrote:
| It's $200 for an extra battery, all of the accessories
| have a steep early adopter tax. Besides, has anyone
| confirmed whether or not the AVP has an internal backup
| battery so you can hotswap the external battery without
| rebooting it?
| nonfamous wrote:
| According to the linked review, hot-swapping is not
| possible - disconnecting the battery powers down the
| device.
| jsheard wrote:
| In that case if you want to use it for many hours without
| access to wall power you're better off buying a generic
| USB power bank and plugging that into the Apple battery.
| Very elegant.
| naravara wrote:
| No. When it's plugged in it just passes the power through.
|
| The annoying Apple limitation is that you can't hot-swap
| the battery.
| coffeebeqn wrote:
| The plane thing is funny. I can't imagine anyone actually using
| VR in economy. At best you'll annoy people next to you and the
| flight attendants if they need you to move or respond. At worst
| you'll hit your head on something or whack someone with the
| controllers
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| I can see it being used on a long haul in economy after
| dinner service and before breakfast. Most of that doesn't
| really apply, except for the occasional bathroom run.
| monkeynotes wrote:
| And that's my point, it's such a tiny niche usage window,
| why bother to bring it?
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| If you have to take a lot of trans Pacifics in economy,
| you get desperate quickly. This is only the price of one
| discounted business class ticket.
| whynotminot wrote:
| There's a lot to question about AVP, but this doesn't make
| sense. What are you hitting your head on sitting in your seat
| on an airplane? If you've got the aisle seat and someone
| needs to move, they do the same thing they do when you're
| wearing your noise canceling headphone or taking a nap--tap
| your shoulder. It's not rocket science.
|
| The device has breakthrough--when someone comes near (eg a
| flight attendant), it breaks through the immersive VR and
| shows them to you. You can take off the headset at that point
| if you choose.
|
| Again there's a lot to question about how this headset will
| practically work for people, but this ain't it. In fact I'd
| argue airplanes are one of the use-cases for this device that
| makes the most sense. How many places do I want to completely
| disappear from my environment and pretend I'm somewhere else?
| A long haul flight is tops on that list.
| whamlastxmas wrote:
| Using it in economy is actually a top use case for me.
| Working on my laptop is miserable for multiple reasons, the
| biggest of which is that I can't even tilt the lid open past
| 90 degrees out of fear the person in front of me will recline
| and catch my screen in the seat crevice and smash it. Lots of
| photos of this happening online
| monkeynotes wrote:
| I wonder how that will work out. It just looks so clunky
| and bulky, with limited FOV. I'd feel blinkered and
| constantly wanting to check my surroundings. For me an iPad
| is the best thing for movies on a plane. It's small,
| versatile, and I am aware of my surroundings.
|
| I guess we'll see how people use it, but right now it is
| too expensive and full of compromises for me to consider.
| pmontra wrote:
| > what couple has $7k to drop so they can watch TV together
|
| Together and alone at the same time. Eye contact and unhindered
| vision of the face of a partner are important things.
| LeafItAlone wrote:
| There's no requirement to wear them 24/7...
|
| You can get an awesome 2-3 hour immersive movie experience
| and still look at your partner after. A good cinema
| experience already envelopes me and makes me forget I'm
| surrounded by a hundred others.
| seydor wrote:
| Glad i got an oculus before they spike the price
| GeekyBear wrote:
| Some other early reviews that are up:
|
| CNET - Apple Vision Pro Review: A Mind-Blowing Look at an
| Unfinished Future
|
| https://www.cnet.com/tech/computing/apple-vision-pro-review-...
|
| WSJ - Apple Vision Pro Review: The Best Headset Yet Is Just a
| Glimpse of the Future
|
| https://www.wsj.com/tech/apple-vision-pro-review-39f2d82e?mo...
|
| Tom's Hardware - Apple Vision Pro review: A revolution in
| progress
|
| https://www.tomsguide.com/computing/smart-glasses/apple-visi...
|
| CNBC - Apple Vision Pro review: This is the future of computing
| and entertainment
|
| https://www.cnbc.com/2024/01/30/apple-vision-pro-review-the-...
| htk wrote:
| It's interesting to see a common theme of "It's great, but not
| there yet."
| GeekyBear wrote:
| Can you think of examples where a company starts making a
| product in a new category and nails it on the first
| iteration?
|
| Experience shows that they will keep on iterating on it year
| after year.
|
| The thing I was most interested in was if they could nail an
| intuitive UI right from the outset.
| browningstreet wrote:
| VR headsets have been around for many years now and why
| does anyone believe a somewhat better version of those
| things would hit critical mass? It seems like the form
| factor is as much the problem as any of the
| implementations. Many people really wanted an _Apple_
| version to be a game changer. Maybe this game can't really
| be changed?
| whamlastxmas wrote:
| If this was $500 I'd call it a game changer, and
| hopefully it gets there in 5 years
| rootusrootus wrote:
| I wonder what the BOM cost of the device is. At $500
| they'd sell 100x as many. Hell, even at $999 they'd sell
| quite a lot of them. I'd probably give it a try for that
| price, but I'm hesitant to blow $3500.
| GeekyBear wrote:
| This isn't the mass market version of the tech. This
| iteration is a developer kit that early adopters can also
| buy.
|
| Apple has always said that they want a version that fits
| in a glasses style form factor as their mass market
| product, but the tech wasn't there yet.
|
| > Apple CEO Tim Cook said that it will be a while before
| the technology available for augmented reality glasses
| rises to Apple's standards, according to British Vogue.
|
| "There are rumours and gossip about companies working on
| that, and we obviously don't talk about what we work on.
| But today I can tell you that the technology itself
| doesn't exist to do that in a quality way," Cook told
| Vogue.
|
| https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/11/apple-ar-glasses-tim-
| cook-sa...
|
| They keep iterating on it in-house, and keep finding that
| the tech still isn't ready.
|
| https://www.tomsguide.com/news/apple-glasses
|
| I think the current plans are to focus on a cheaper
| version of Vision Pro in the short term.
|
| https://www.tomsguide.com/news/apple-glasses-reportedly-
| dela...
| browningstreet wrote:
| When they released dev kits, that's what they called
| them.
|
| This is a Pro product release. I'm personally inclined to
| believe that this product is more likely to kill off the
| entire VR/goggles dream than lead to a $500-$1000
| iteration that's at least as big as iPad.
|
| Glasses? Like the ones I have on my face? Not in my
| lifetime...
|
| This is Tim Cook's trash can Mac.
| smoldesu wrote:
| The original Oculus Quest was pretty much that. Granted,
| they had an unrealistic amount of talent on their side and
| a decent history taking stabs at the whole "consumer VR"
| thing.
|
| But I mean, look at it - the first Quest was $300-400,
| fairly comfortable, self-contained and standalone _with_
| tethering capability. If you just wanted to watch TV or
| browse the web in VR, that 's what you'd want to buy.
| Oculus made the Steam Deck of VR, and all the other
| business models seem kinda extreme by comparison. I doubt
| we'd be seeing the reservation towards Vision Pro today if
| there weren't cheaper entertainment-focused headsets
| already on the market.
| chaostheory wrote:
| That's also a good summary of the 1st iPhone's reviews.
| saiya-jin wrote:
| Its not comparable. At that time, phone was already a
| necessity for most folks and most had one. VR (they are not
| AR from outside)? Still 90% of folks around me (doctors,
| IT, rest of reality) think whole concept of VR/AR is for
| kids and... big old kids lets say.
|
| Also it costs 10x as much with huge drawback above.
| Inflation makes this a smaller number but the difference is
| still massive, for a plastic toy soon to be obsolete
| looking like kids ski googles.
|
| But if they persist, which all reviews seem to hang their
| overall positive rating on, magic we all hope for _might_
| eventually happen
| chaostheory wrote:
| [delayed]
| oatmeal1 wrote:
| Joanna Stern is an incredible reviewer.
| oatmeal1 wrote:
| > Apple is so incredibly capable, stocked with talent, and loaded
| with resources that the company simply went out and engineered
| the hell out of the hardest problems it could think of in order
| to find a challenge. That's good!
|
| I think they knew before halfway through that it was not possible
| to build a practical product, but Apple thinks it's important to
| stay relevant and appear innovative, so they went along and built
| it anyway. Maybe that was the intention from the start.
|
| I'm not sure why they created and marketed so many dystopian
| features though. The part of the demo where the dad played with
| his kids while wearing the Vision Pro and then watched the
| playback alone later was disturbing. Same with people talking
| using the EyeSight feature instead of taking of the goggles and
| making real eye contact.
| causal wrote:
| Yeah it's interesting how the Quest seems like a less-creepy
| product by just owning the fact that users will be isolated.
| npteljes wrote:
| >The part of the demo where the dad played with his kids while
| wearing the Vision Pro and then watched the playback alone
| later was disturbing.
|
| I'm glad I'm not alone who feels the same. To me, that scene is
| so out of place, so dystopian that it's outright ridiculous
| that it's presented in a demo like this.
| naravara wrote:
| Every parent I've talked to has found that pretty appealing.
|
| We're already looking at pictures and videos of our kids on
| the phone a lot of the time anyway. Which required us to be
| holding our phones in hand while playing with our kids.
|
| It only seems weird because it's unfamiliar. But it's not
| more dystopian than trying to capture special moments with a
| camcorder.
| erklik wrote:
| > We're already looking at pictures and videos of our kids
| on the phone a lot of the time anyway. Which required us to
| be holding our phones in hand while playing with our kids.
|
| A phone in the hand is objectively far less intrusive than
| a full on mask on your eyes that prevents half of your face
| being seen by your kids.
| saynay wrote:
| Everyone I have heard talk about that initial demo mentioned
| it was weird and creepy.
|
| But I do not think it was ever the plan that you would create
| spatial videos primarily from the headset. You can also take
| them with the latest gen of iPhones, but the VisionPro demo
| predated the iPhone announcement.
| tsunamifury wrote:
| I was told Jony Ive personally quit over this project. He felt
| it was fundamentally wrong, and the first product Apple made
| post Jobs that directly contradicted the vision of the company.
|
| And not in a Porsche shouldn't make an SUV sort of way --
| rather on the way out he shared some pretty well articulated
| moral issues with the product and how Jobs would release buggy
| products, but rarely fundamentally flawed ones.
|
| This IMO is Tim Cooks first totally original product. The Watch
| was an Ive product. It will mark whether or not he can find
| original needs in the market, or simply will fall into what
| Jobs accused every bad CEO of doing -- SKUs for SKUs sake.
| alexawarrior3 wrote:
| The only wearable headset so far has been Google Glass. It was
| great for wearing around 24x7 with only pauses to recharge. I
| even had mine in prescription glasses so I could wear them as my
| primary.
|
| Then, as Google does, they dropped it, and no one took it up
| again. I'd have to imagine that in 10+ years of display and
| battery improvements an even better Glass is waiting to hit the
| market. It seems more a social issue rather than a technological
| one: we as a society are not ready for universal AR.
| whycome wrote:
| > It seems more a social issue rather than a technological one:
| we as a society are not ready for universal AR.
|
| At one point talking on the phone in public (video chats,
| bluetooth earpieces, etc) would have been weird. Now it's
| annoyingly common.
|
| Maybe this release is a longer term play at "culture/social
| change" rather than a true non-just-prototype device. Soften up
| the market and make "spatial computing" more acceptable. And
| then integrate a "non pro" version for general consumers.
| causal wrote:
| Many HN'ers are probably like me, in that hearing about its
| imperfections is kind of a relief. If it really DID mean a new
| era of tech, well then frick I need to learn some new skills to
| keep up, have to buy one for myself, etc. etc.
|
| That being said, it feels like a few small things would make a
| consumer version of this really take off:
|
| - Cut the weight in half (i.e., use plastic).
|
| - Drop the gimmicky eye TV (save weight, and probably make the
| whole thing thinner).
|
| - Make it thin/modular enough to collapse into a headphones-sized
| case.
|
| - And then if its light enough, a magnetic strap might be strong
| enough, making the transition in/out smoother and less likely to
| mess up hair.
|
| - Drop the price $1k.
|
| That is, simply paring things down might be enough to take this
| product out of the awkward-nerd-goggles category and into
| something more like a cozy-interactive-sleepmask for travelers.
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| - have worthwhile apps
| causal wrote:
| Fair. In general I'm assuming the software piece will develop
| regardless, but you're right that there isn't really any
| killer app to draw people in yet.
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| well we're in 2024 now and people still try to suggest Beat
| Saber (2018) is proof that VR gaming is good.
| jwells89 wrote:
| The problem with VR gaming is that it's been hamstrung by
| requiring either a substantially beefy gaming PC or
| limited onboard midrange smartphone with underwhelming
| developer buy-in.
|
| If the rumors are true that Valve is working on a
| standalone VR headset based around an AMD APU, I think
| that might be the shot in the arm that VR gaming needs,
| with hardware more powerful than can be found in the
| Quest lineup as well as x86/Windows compatibility and
| greater general openness.
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| eh. disagree. as someone with a beefy gaming pc there's
| nothing good.
|
| Alyx is very well made, but its not hard to see that they
| designed around fundamental limits that make VR suck.
| they don't overcome them. They perhaps manage to cover it
| with enough polish to get people to not notice. but its
| hard for anyone with design or, let's call it "gamer
| sense"
| RockRobotRock wrote:
| Why does the age matter? It's a popular game for a
| reason, but VR gaming is still obviously niche.
|
| I think that HL:A is easily the best VR game that exists,
| but it doesn't have a lot of replay value and can only be
| played on desktop.
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| Platforms with so few noteworthy games in the past 6
| years are a red flag of the health of it. Nothing wrong
| with that, but plenty of folks argue that VR gaming is
| great.
|
| HL:A, as I said in another comment, is just a case study
| on why VR won't work. With no disrespect to the devs
| because I think they really did do a good job with what
| they had, but it still sucks if you dare to peek under
| the hood. It coddles you (because it needs to).
| RockRobotRock wrote:
| The people I know that are heavily into VR all play
| VRChat. The games might not be that fantastic, but the
| social immersion is really amazing.
|
| During lockdown, I was playing 8 hours a day. It became a
| problem.
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| sure. VR chat is good. Closer to the metaverse and its
| defining features as described in the actual book than
| any self proclaimed metaverse fan seem to know.
|
| But yeah, not really game.
| ramesh31 wrote:
| >Drop the gimmicky eye TV (save weight, and probably make the
| whole thing thinner).
|
| Strong disagree. This is the single best idea they had with the
| headset. VR isolation is at the very top of things keeping back
| mass adoption, and Eyesight is a brilliant solution to that.
| causal wrote:
| Maybe if done well, but the article makes it seem that
| sticking googly eyes to the front would work better under
| most lighting conditions.
| oatmeal1 wrote:
| Sticking googly eyes on the front would be much better than
| the existing solution because that would be disarming and
| joyful instead of disturbing and dystopian.
| NegativeLatency wrote:
| They'll probably never do this but the idea of not being able
| to play PC VR games on it is a nonstarter.
|
| I've wanted a VR headset for a few years and if it was a bit
| cheaper and compatible with existing flight sims and stuff I'd
| be interested but the lack of compatibility is a deal killer
| for that price.
|
| I know I'm not the target market apparently but I'm all in on
| the rest of the apple ecosystem.
| JeremyNT wrote:
| I just don't know if it'll ever happen, at least not until
| there are truly massive advances in miniaturization and display
| tech.
|
| I have much lower spec'd VR goggles and they mostly gather
| dust. There's just something about having a screen pressed up
| against your eyes that's _weird_ and _uncomfortable_ in a way
| that is hard to articulate.
|
| No screen door? Cool! Great motion tracking? Awesome! Premium
| materials? Eh, OK! But as long as I still need to strap a
| little box around my eyes with screens in it, I'm going to be
| limiting my exposure time. My eyes like air, and "better than
| the competition at all the things" doesn't actually make it
| solve any real problems I have.
|
| For me, such a thing just can't be more than a toy.
| poulpy123 wrote:
| I'm sure apple will manage to sell it by the millions, but both
| the price and the lock-in in the apple ecosystem are a no for me
| poulpy123 wrote:
| well maybe not millions but "a lot"
| LeafItAlone wrote:
| Supposedly they've already sold ~200k. Before release. Before
| reviews of it.
|
| That's still a far cry from "millions" (plural), but I
| wouldn't be surprised.
| B56b wrote:
| Odds are word of mouth is not going to be kind to this
| though. I can see pre-order statistics being overly
| optimistic.
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| > The goal is for the Vision Pro to be a complete device that can
| sit right alongside the Mac and the iPad in Apple's ecosystem of
| devices and let you get real work done. You can use Excel and
| Webex and Slack in the Vision Pro, and you can also sit back and
| watch movies and TV shows on a gigantic virtual 4K HDR display.
| And you can mirror your Mac's display and just use the Vision Pro
| to look at a huge monitor floating in virtual space.
|
| As someone who used a living room tv with a wireless keyboard as
| a monitor for a while, I felt it sucked. Can't see why this would
| actually be a plus.
| swozey wrote:
| That's like when I visit a friend who is an accountant and
| they're working on a laptop in the kitchen 8 hours a day, and I
| just.. "that's your whole office? You aren't miserable? You can
| work like that?"
|
| I would riot without my 49", mouse and kbs, and aeron.
| pmontra wrote:
| Everybody has very different subjective preferences and is
| subject to somewhat objective tradeoffs. I worked in two
| different places of my house today, with the same laptop. One
| location when the sun heated up an external room with no
| heating, another location in a heated room before and after
| then. I couldn't do that if I had to move around a large
| monitor, a mouse and a keyboard: too much troubles. I didn't
| move my chair, that stays in the main working location for
| the period of the year.
| schmorptron wrote:
| Honestly, as someone who isn't an apple fan and uses a quest 3,
| this is still very cool. Obviously a first-gen hardware product,
| but the software and UX seems on point. eye-tracking and hand
| tracking combined for UX seems like a very good idea.
|
| one thing I'm super surprised about is that it doesn't use their
| stage manager window management. When they introduced that to the
| mac os, it seemed like it was _designed_ for this, and
| introducing it on the mac would get their users ready to already
| know how to use the vision pro before it even releases.
| boringg wrote:
| Having used the meta 3 and having been blown away by the step
| function in capability. I have to imagine that even if this
| product itself isn't a homerun future iterations will be very
| successful.
|
| As much as I don't love VR - it makes me nauseous, it leaves
| marks sometimes on my face I can't help but notice how amazing
| the immersive quality is. It isn't going to replace everything
| and it won't replace a computer - its a different product
| vertical and it will certainly be around in the future. It's been
| around since the 90s and will last a long time.
|
| Early innings still...
| teeray wrote:
| I feel like this will be a spectacular flop. It's the first major
| new Apple product announcement that I completely forgot about
| (and I mean completely) in the time between announcement and
| ordering. _Nobody_ I know is even talking about it, unlike when
| the Apple Watch came out, or the iPad. The experience needs to be
| as life-changing as the iPhone if you're going to normalize
| people wearing ski goggles around the house... I'm not convinced
| that it is.
| selimnairb wrote:
| Not to mention, there is no chance I would ever wear this at
| home in front of my family. My guess is that many feel the
| same; it's just too anti-social and weird. If it can be used
| for VR/AR, there might be some industrial applications, but
| Apple seems to be positioning this more as a replacement for
| monitors.
| jyunwai wrote:
| To provide a contrasting anecdote, I've spoken to a couple of
| people who are already interested in virtual reality (VR) who
| have been very much looking forward to the release (we talked
| about it, and one forwarded me links to news articles).
|
| One has worked with VR for research, and is familiar with the
| HTC Vive and Meta Quest headsets, but has not used VR for
| personal use. The other person used the Quest for gaming, and
| has been curious about Apple's approach.
|
| Outside of people with past experience using VR, though, I
| haven't personally heard people talking about Apple's version.
| The price point is likely a major factor: a larger number of
| people could imagine owning an Apple Watch or iPad shortly
| after release (even if relatively pricey), in contrast to the
| Apple Vision Pro upon release.
| spacemadness wrote:
| People already invested in VR are not a big market at Apple's
| scale.
| fshbbdssbbgdd wrote:
| They don't need the average consumer to buy it. It's
| practically a developer platform. It includes a bunch of parts
| that have never been manufactured at scale before. Based on
| rumors, Apple is projected to produce 400k of these and already
| sold >200k.
| gamblor956 wrote:
| Microsoft sold around the same number of Hololens and that
| was considered a huge market failure.
| PKop wrote:
| I stare at screens way too much already. I can't imagine
| strapping one on my face inches from my eyeballs as substitute
| for getting real work done on a laptop. My eyes would suffer more
| than they already do.
|
| This really is an amazing tech "solution" looking for a problem
| to solve.
| ninkendo wrote:
| I ordered mine on day one and it'll get here Friday. I work from
| home and intend to use it at my desk for (1) a bigger display for
| my mac and (2) native apps for things like Slack/video
| conferencing/notes/imessage/etc and hopefully I can have a
| productive environment with it. I figure it'll be cool to work at
| a national park or on the moon or some such, and to have more
| real estate to put my apps. I plan to use my physical keyboard
| and trackpad as much as possible, so I'm not too worried about
| the inputs sucking.
|
| My thought at this point is that I'm going to decide pretty
| quickly after using it whether this is actually going to work,
| and there's about a 50% chance I'm going to return it, because
| I'm starting to doubt whether it will.
|
| Some things I'm worried about:
|
| - The weight may make it so uncomfortable that the whole
| experience isn't worth it for 8 hours a day
|
| - FOV and vignetting issues are likely going to be worse than I
| thought and a distraction
|
| - App compatibility means it's possible that 90% of the work I'm
| doing is going to be on the mac virtual display _anyway_ ,
| meaning I paid $3500 for a bigger (virtual) screen that I have to
| put a heavy/uncomfortable headset on my head to see
|
| We'll see what the verdict is. I'm hoping they have a software
| update at some point that lets you "tear out" macOS app windows
| into virtual space... that may put it over the edge from not-
| worth-it to worth-it if it happens.
| PKop wrote:
| I don't see a virtual screen being as nice or productive as an
| Apple Pro XDR for actually doing computer work. Too many layers
| between your eyes and the pixels, and then all the drawbacks
| like weight and finicky input glitches.
| ninkendo wrote:
| The vision pro is far cheaper than an Apple Pro XDR, and
| input glitches shouldn't be a problem as I'm using a physical
| mouse and keyboard. Plus I get to add additional apps outside
| the screen if visionOS natively supports them (Slack, email,
| and iMessage are good examples. Plus the web browser can be a
| native app. You can seamlessly move your mouse/keyboard
| between them and copy/paste too.)
|
| The weight is definitely on the "let's see how big of a deal
| this becomes" list though.
| PKop wrote:
| Yes but it doesn't hurt your neck or make you sick after a
| few hours while also having better resolution and easier
| usability for basic computer interactions. Vision pro as
| desktop computer replacement sounds like a Rube Goldberg
| solution to a problem that doesn't exist. Possibly Vision
| Pro as laptop screen replacement sounds plausible but I
| still don't think the UX will be comfortable nor do I think
| the virtual screen will actually hold up as good for
| typing/reading text.
|
| A mouse, keyboard, and proper monitor/screen work likely
| work better than a virtual screen without all the well
| known negatives that come with the latter. We'll see how it
| plays out though.
| madeofpalk wrote:
| I can't imagine this being a good computer monitor. Low
| resolution + pixel scaling issues would make this be a pretty
| uncomfortable experience.
|
| But, i haven't tried it (nor do I plan to any time soon), so I
| can only guess.
| whamlastxmas wrote:
| Review said text was perfectly readable and not blurry and
| when combined with multiple floating windows it seems like
| it'd be serviceable
| SushiHippie wrote:
| I'm not really interested in apple and its ecosystem.
|
| But this review got me really hooked, and I didn't even notice
| that it was 30 minutes long. Easily the best tech review I've
| ever seen. And it also felt very well-balanced between the good
| and the not so good things about the vision pro.
| TillE wrote:
| The Verge is great, especially Nilay himself. I don't listen to
| a ton of tech podcasts, but Vergecast and Decoder are some of
| the best.
| AISnakeOil wrote:
| I agree, but they tend lean too heavily on Apple as their
| tech overlords and compare everything to their products.
| SushiHippie wrote:
| I don't watch/read the verge that often, but I don't find
| that this the case for this review.
| rcarmo wrote:
| Nilay batted it out of the park on this one, for sure. The best
| video I've seen on the Vision Pro yet (and I've been watching
| all the usual suspects in a row).
| jayd16 wrote:
| Interesting that gaze-to-focus is panned and not because it
| doesn't track well. I've worked in VR games for a while and gaze
| tracking excites designers but I find it a very annoying input
| mechanism and we usually don't ship it. Maybe it's still the
| right call for the AVP but being able to interact with things you
| aren't looking at is important.
| igammarays wrote:
| This review confirmed this is exactly what I need. I don't care
| about my hair messing up, I work from home. I don't care if the
| display doesn't look as good as reality, that was never my
| expectation anyway. The display just needs to look good enough to
| work with fine text and hi-res images. I don't care if it's too
| heavy to wear for hours at a time, I always work in 25 minute
| blocks anyway. Breaks are good. I don't care if personas look
| creepy, Zoom virtual backgrounds are also creepy. I don't care if
| the eye/hand tracking isn't up to par for "serious" work, I plan
| to use it with a keyboard and mouse anyway (at least while
| working, not in entertainment/writing mode). Every single "fault"
| which this reviewer mentioned doesn't matter to me, I was never
| expecting this device to replace reality for me anyway.
|
| What I want is, the ability to have large displays laid back on
| my bed/couch, and the ability to walk around the room and place
| different open Safari windows and apps around my physical space
| as I think and study some new topic. That's all. The new virtual
| world stuff is just a cute addition for me, it's not what I am
| buying it for. I am buying this thing to have an infinite number
| of screens placed anywhere in my space, and that's all I wanted.
| walteweiss wrote:
| My train of thought was similar to this, but I'm worried about
| my eyes. Although I'm not sure whether it's worse than me
| looking at a regular screen all day long.
| whamlastxmas wrote:
| Same for me but there was a single sentence that more than
| halved my interest in buying this: you can't have multiple
| floating windows of MacOS. It's all in one single floating
| window. This is by far the biggest flaw for me, and a really
| stupid one. Hopefully a software update changes this
| igammarays wrote:
| But you can have one floating macOS window (for your
| workhorse app) and then infinite other visionOS and iPadOS
| windows. For me, that's good enough, most of my other
| monitors are just Safari tabs or something that can be
| replaced with iPad apps anyway. Anyway the fact that you can
| continue to use your phone with the headset on means you
| could theoretically use another computer with external
| monitors for desktop apps while having lots of extra virtual
| space for iPad/Safari apps.
| hbn wrote:
| The 1 monitor cap and the fact that it's only a 1440p
| resolution makes me think it's a bandwidth/latency
| limitation, I wouldn't hold my breath on software fixing it.
| janeshchhabra wrote:
| Yeah, you would likely need a hardwired connection over
| thunderbolt to do more. It's unlikely such a connection is
| possible with the specs today (only usb-c is on battery,
| and unsure if that can transfer data).
| janeshchhabra wrote:
| +1, this makes it harder to interop with mac working
| environments which was my biggest usecase for this device.
|
| Sure, I can do other safari windows for research and stuff,
| but what I really want is different windows of IDEs, code
| search, docs, and _work_ artifacts. Many of which may not be
| accessible through the vision pro (VPN, device certs, etc.),
| but are through my macbook.
|
| If we could have at least 4 or 5 mac windows, it would be
| much better, otherwise it's akin to a macbook + external
| monitor. Hopefully they figure out a way to add it in, but
| it's hard to buy with such an obvious usecase missing.
| strunz wrote:
| Can you describe the tasks you will actually be doing like this
| and why this headset is actually helpful?
| saiya-jin wrote:
| There is always an idea what one needs, the idea itself is
| perfect, flawless. Then there is reality. Those never meet,
| good luck with getting them at least close
| kccqzy wrote:
| The hand tracking system is among the faults in the review. I'm
| not sure whether this will be addressed by having a real
| keyboard and mouse. The reviewer never tried the device with a
| real mouse. Do you know how the experience will be when using a
| mouse rather than the hand-tracking system?
|
| Anyways this sounds infuriating:
|
| > you have to be looking at something in order to click on it,
| and that means you are constantly taking your attention away
| from whatever you're working on to specifically look at the
| button you need to press next. I spent some time playing a
| lovely little game called Stitch that quickly became maddening
| because I kept looking away from the piece I wanted to move to
| the place I wanted to move it, which meant I wasn't picking it
| up when I tapped my fingers.
|
| And also:
|
| > I talk through writing video scripts to make sure things
| flow, and I talk with my hands. So as I was writing the video
| script for this review in the Vision Pro, the system kept
| catching my hands moving and started scrolling and clicking on
| things by accident. I cracked up the first time I realized what
| was happening. But eventually, it meant that I took the Vision
| Pro off and wrote the rest of the script on my Mac, which only
| does things when I actually want it to.
| elicash wrote:
| Brian Tong's review shows use of it with a trackpad, 9:09 in:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkPw6ScHyb4&t=549s
|
| This seems, to me, the only possible way to use this as a
| productivity device and wish more reviews would have tried it
| to get a better sense of whether it changes things.
|
| Gruber's review also talks about the trackpad a bit:
|
| https://daringfireball.net/2024/01/the_vision_pro
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > the ability to walk around the room and place different open
| Safari windows and apps around my physical space as I think and
| study some new topic
|
| That right there might be worth the price of admission.
| surfingdino wrote:
| I guess Apple had to do Vision Pro to make investors shut up, but
| I have a feeling it will be the next Pippin or Lisa. Apple does
| exceedingly well when there already is a growing mass market and
| they can offer something "better". Home computers (Apple II), PCs
| (Macintosh), smartphones (iPhone), tablets (iPad). They don't
| always succeed, e.g. servers, gaming consoles. There isn't a
| growing mass market for heavy and expensive VR headsets. And as
| the review states, their AR may be best in class, but it is still
| lacking. Ultimately, I don't know what question/need does Apple
| Vision Pro answer? Anyone has an idea?
| happyopossum wrote:
| > tablets (iPad)
|
| There effectively wasn't a tablet market before the iPad.
|
| You also forgot 'mp3 player' - which was a market not created
| by Apple but there wasn't really a "growing mass market" - it
| was niche at best.
| surfingdino wrote:
| There was a massive portable analog audio player market
| before MP3 players came along. So Apple could improve on the
| attempts to offer a digital audio alternative. And they did.
| This supports what I wrote about the purpose of Apple Vision
| Pro. There is none. VR has forever been a solution looking
| for a problem.
| s3p wrote:
| >There isn't a growing mass market for heavy and expensive VR
| headsets.
|
| According to Statista, there is[0]. The market is expected to
| grow by about 10% annually for the next half decade. Moreover,
| if this weren't a growing mass market, I don't think FB would
| have renamed to Meta and gone all-in on VR headsets. They just
| dropped the Quest 3 which undercut their 3x as expensive Quest
| Pro. The tech is rapidly improving and the market is definitely
| growing so I think it's natural that Apple wants to enter it.
|
| [0]https://www.statista.com/outlook/amo/ar-vr/worldwide
| lukev wrote:
| Interesting that almost all his critiques relate to the concept
| of a head-mounted VR-passthrough device _itself_ , not the Vision
| Pro specifically.
| annexrichmond wrote:
| I haven't used VR/AR in a while, so I don't know if I should have
| expected this, but those black borders seem pretty large, and I
| think Apple made it seem the field of vision is much larger than
| it really is.
|
| The Verge hit the nail on the head with hand gestures. The input
| device is critical for a new computing platform. This is too
| awkward to be something you do all day.
|
| I wouldn't be surprised if this is the most returned Apple
| product.
| mouzogu wrote:
| > "it's magic, until it's not"
|
| apple can use this on their next keynote.
|
| VR falls apart for me when you realise there is no tactileness or
| depth to anything. no touch, no smell, no feeling, nothing.
| sentientslug wrote:
| I suppose haptic feedback provides some sense of touch/feeling,
| but other than that you're correct. Smell is probably the next
| in line technology-wise but not sure anyone is asking for that
| one.
| jsilence wrote:
| Was recently kajaking in KayakVR in the Arctic scenery. Wife
| snuck by and opened the window. Felt real.
| crakhamster01 wrote:
| If I'm an executive at Meta, I'm not sure whether I should be
| happy or sad reading this review.
|
| By all accounts, Apple is at least 5 years ahead of Meta in terms
| of hardware. With all of Apple's compute/display tech, and at
| 8-9x the price point of Quest, it still seems like the Vision Pro
| falls short of delivering the breakthrough experience needed to
| make AR/VR mass market.
|
| Not to mention that it still doesn't seem like AVP answers the
| "killer app" question that Meta has been trying to answer. If the
| value prop at this point is "a big virtual screen", I guess their
| work over the next few years will be getting the price point down
| to a level where consumers buy this over a monitor?
| erickhill wrote:
| 200 points in 4 hours, yet someone has flagged it so it isn't on
| the homepage where more can join the conversation? The anti-Apple
| reflex by some can be so petty, and so annoying.
| apozem wrote:
| Right? Even if you don't like Apple, a perfectly valid
| viewpoint, the Vision Pro is a huge deal. It should be on the
| homepage.
|
| Also, if you don't like Apple... read the review! Nilay Patel
| has a lot of really good critiques of the headset. He concludes
| by basically saying he's not sold.
| dang wrote:
| Related video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdwaWxY11jQ
|
| Related ongoing thread: _Apple Vision Pro review_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39190468
| jug wrote:
| > Basically, I keep asking if I prefer using a computer _in
| there_ rather than _out here_. And as interesting as the Vision
| Pro is, there's a long way to go before it can beat _out here_.
|
| I have to agree with this. We're getting more and more physically
| lonely as we find ourselves represented by personas on social
| networks and messaging services. I find the thought of viewing
| even the real world through a lens an extension of the wrong path
| we're already onto. Letting technology improve our daily lives
| and to connect doesn't have to be done this way. It's ironic,
| because mental health is plummeting in the western world and
| loneliness has been seen as a major contributing factor. That
| isn't letting technology help us, but letting technology consume
| us.
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