[HN Gopher] Vision Pro teardown part 2: What's the display resol...
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Vision Pro teardown part 2: What's the display resolution?
Author : mzs
Score : 119 points
Date : 2024-02-07 16:23 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.ifixit.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.ifixit.com)
| kj99 wrote:
| "friend of iFixit Karl Guttag has a blog post explaining why
| using the Vision Pro as a replacement for a good monitor is
| "ridiculous."
|
| ...
|
| This, says Karl, makes for a virtual Mac display with low enough
| PPD to see individual pixels--not quite the standard desktop
| display"
|
| So rather than just trying it for themselves and realizing Karl
| is wrong, they quote this uncritically?
|
| For what it's worth, there's nothing wrong with Karl's math. He's
| just not taking into account the fact that the Vision Pro isn't
| mounted in a fixed position and that your brain integrates
| information over time.
|
| In practice it certainly is as clear as my 4K display when I use
| it for mirroring.
|
| It's definitely not as good as a 5K studio display, but then
| Apple never makes that claim.
| lukev wrote:
| Eh... it's extremely good and more than I expected, but it's
| not quite 4k quality IMO. Not because I can see the pixels (I
| can't), but just because of very slight inconsistency across
| the field of vision, and motion blur when I move my head.
| WhatIsDukkha wrote:
| I've wondered how it looks with a very large spreadsheet
| filled with figures?
|
| That big span of numbers should be fairly revealing of its
| display capabilities, with all the lines and columns.
|
| How is the fringing and aliasing as you look at different
| angles?
|
| Is a large pdf filled with math and tables comfortable to
| spend a few hours with taking notes?
| phonon wrote:
| Here you go! It's not great.
|
| https://kguttag.com/2024/02/05/spreadsheet-breaks-the-
| apple-...
| WhatIsDukkha wrote:
| Haha I hadn't checked my rss feed!
|
| I love it when someone smarter and more diligent than me
| does the work :)
| steveklabnik wrote:
| One of my friends who got a Vision Pro is disappointed in its
| use as a monitor, but only because he has multiple large
| monitors on his Mac, yet you can only set up one 4k display
| inside the Vision Pro, so it ends up being effectively much
| smaller _and_ lower resolution for him.
|
| Slightly different problem, but related. I'm sure it'll get
| there over time.
| ballresin wrote:
| This was going to be my complaint with the headset as well. I
| use 2x 49" super ultrawide displays, as well as 2x 27" 4k
| displays. Lots of real estate.
|
| But then I started to think harder about what I was consuming
| display space with, and started to peel those things out into
| their Vision or iPad app equivalents. I'll not get into the
| obvious trade-offs of using iPad apps, but it largely suits
| the need.
|
| Once I had Slack, Outlook, a Terminal, and TablePlus floating
| separately from the Mac display, I started to see a path
| toward potentially not caring if I even had the Mac display.
| elliotbnvl wrote:
| How did you manage the terminal? How do you use it?
| kj99 wrote:
| Blink works great. Not as a local terminal, but it's very
| good for remote shells.
| kj99 wrote:
| Apple only ever promised it would mirror one 4K display. They
| announced that clearly when they introduced it.
|
| It does that as well as the promised, but nothing more.
| steveklabnik wrote:
| Sure, I (nor they) am not accusing Apple of being
| misleading. That doesn't change that there's room for
| improvement.
| kj99 wrote:
| True - I just found it surprising that someone bought it
| and was then disappointed that it didn't do something
| that was never suggested it would do.
| steveklabnik wrote:
| He didn't buy it for that specifically, he bought it
| because he wanted to see what it was like. This is like
| one sentence of many discussions we've had about it. Lots
| of pros, lots of cons.
| threeseed wrote:
| Apple is rumoured to be testing multi-monitor support:
|
| https://www.macrumors.com/2024/02/06/vision-pro-virtual-
| disp...
| danpalmer wrote:
| Karl Guttag has a history of getting a lot of excruciatingly
| difficult details right, and missing the literal big picture
| right in front of him. I think he makes great technical
| contributions to the field (at least from my perspective as a
| layman), but every one of his analyses that I have read ends
| with something to the effect of "and this is why it is
| physically impossible for AR/VR to ever work", which is far
| beyond skepticism. It makes it hard to take the rest of his
| analysis seriously because it shows an irrational bias against
| the technology.
| kj99 wrote:
| Yeah. It's weird. Even the analysis of passthrough is so off.
| If I look out of my window with AVP on, it's obvious that I'm
| looking at a comparatively low res screen, but if I look at
| digital content, passthrough seems perfect because it's not
| in my fovea, and given that the point of the device is to
| interact with digital content, passthrough is definitely at
| the level of being good enough.
| threeseed wrote:
| Karl Guttag: "As per last time, since I don't have an AVP."
|
| For a device like this where there is so much more than just
| raw hardware impacting user experience anyone who doesn't own
| one should have their opinion immediately discounted.
| phonon wrote:
| He owns one now.
|
| https://kguttag.com/
| jkubicek wrote:
| > The Vision Pro comes in at a stunning 3,386 PPI.
|
| Sweet jesus.
|
| I know that PPD is the actual important measurement here, but
| still, a display with 3K PPI is outrageous.
| michaelbuckbee wrote:
| Agree, but also the closer the screen gets to your eyeball the
| more it matters.
| nomel wrote:
| How so? The light coming into your eyes is taking the exact
| same physical path through your lens, and inside, as if the
| virtual display _actually_ existed*. It 's a physical
| requirement that the optics achieve this, for you to be able
| to see the image.
|
| * Assuming the virtual display is virtually positioned at the
| focal plane of the lens, which is usually around 3m.
| bongodongobob wrote:
| How does pixel density not matter the closer the display
| gets to your eye? What?
|
| No idea what focal length has to do with anything, we're
| talking apparent pixel density which is directly related to
| screen distance.
| dnissley wrote:
| Simple: Pixels appear larger when they are closer to your
| eye.
| mciancia wrote:
| So, given their comparison with iphone/65 inch TV we would need
| 10k PPI to get similar PPD.
|
| I wonder if that's possible with todays technology
|
| Edit: Seems like there are some news from last few years about
| samsung having 10k PPI displays
| Gare wrote:
| Seems like even 60 PPD in the central region would already be
| "good enough" for most.
| fsh wrote:
| The DLP/LCD chips inside 4K video projectors have about the
| same pixel density.
| huslage wrote:
| Reflective displays like that are much simpler to make than
| an OLED.
| newzisforsukas wrote:
| https://news.stanford.edu/2020/10/22/future-vr-employ-new-ul...
| modeless wrote:
| > they also offer bifocals, and progressives
|
| Wow, really? I don't see how that makes any sense. Bifocals are
| for things that vary in distance, but the displays are at a
| constant distance from your eyes. Are people really so used to
| looking through bifocals that they need them in a headset just to
| feel comfortable even though they aren't necessary to focus?
|
| I'm disappointed there is zero detail about the eye tracking
| cameras. Where they're located, what kind they are, how they see
| around/through the lenses, where the infrared illumination is.
| Has anyone else been investigating this?
| pram wrote:
| I've found a lot of recent teardowns from them are light on
| interesting details. They seem to be making short YouTube
| videos now that don't really cover everything.
|
| The screen analysis was interesting but they rushed through the
| rest, and didn't even look at any of the cameras???
| daemonologist wrote:
| I'm not aware of any information on camera details, but you can
| see the locations of the cameras and illuminators in this image
| from Apple:
| https://web.archive.org/web/20240206041049/https://www.apple...
|
| The tracking system is inboard of the lenses, so it doesn't
| need to look through them. There are two cameras per eye, below
| and on the inside (near the nose), and infrared illuminators
| (not sure if they're just LEDs or something more complex)
| surrounding the lenses on all sides.
| outworlder wrote:
| > but the displays are at a constant distance from your eyes
|
| Nitpick, but the focal point is about 6 feet away, which is the
| important thing for this discussion.
| jrockway wrote:
| I don't see how bifocals could possibly work in this; the
| display is always a constant distance away. What I bet they do
| is interpolate between your distance and close-up prescription
| to guess what prescription you need to view the constant-
| distance displays.
|
| You can ask your optometrist for "computer glasses" if you want
| to see this in action.
| heisenzombie wrote:
| That brings up a question for me: Are there people with
| wildly different near and far prescriptions whose vision
| would be improved by looking at the world through this device
| which reprojects it at a fixed optical distance such that a
| single prescription can be used?
| banana_giraffe wrote:
| Not mentioned, but Apple also has help pages for what to order
| if you only wear/need reader eyeglasses. I'm equally confused
| why this would be necessary.
| thomastjeffery wrote:
| It's a contextual communication choice: the intended reader is
| someone who is concerned about their bifocal prescription. I
| would assume that whoever makes the lenses will simply choose
| the correct focal measurement corresponding to the Vision Pro's
| fixed 6ft focal distance, and manufacture a lens for that
| specific focus. What needs to be communicated to the intended
| reader is that a bifocal prescription will be properly
| accommodated.
| xnx wrote:
| Whatever the strengths and weaknesses of the Apple Vision Pro as
| a product, this is a marvel of engineering. The APV seems to
| include the most advanced version of the output from several
| industries (semi conductors, display, materials, assembly, etc.)
| mastax wrote:
| Also textiles. The solo knit band is a technical marvel. A
| single 3D knit with embedded mechanical parts and hidden cables
| to adjust tension. It's not my wheelhouse but I'd love to read
| a textiles expert's take on it.
| jsheard wrote:
| It's a shame the solo knit band seems to be form-over-
| function, it looks cool and a ton of work clearly went into
| developing it, but nearly everyone seems to find the much
| simpler dual loop band to be more practical.
|
| e: I stand corrected, the reviewers I've watched mostly
| preferred the dual loop but there's plenty of solo knit fans
| here. I guess that YMMV factor is why they include both.
| ericlewis wrote:
| Anecdotally the solo knit is much more comfortable on my
| head than the dual loop. The dual loop seems designed for
| people with more elongated heads.
| ribosometronome wrote:
| >The dual loop seems designed for people with more
| elongated heads.
|
| As the owner of a long head, I definitely struggled with
| feeling like I couldn't get the VP to sit right for my
| eyes with the solo loop. The dual resolved that easily.
|
| Then you get to have the single loop as new fidget toy.
| dawnerd wrote:
| Dual loop hurt. Once you figure out the solo knit needs to
| be worn higher up it's way better.
| fumar wrote:
| I prefer the solo band over the dual loop. I've used it
| since launch with the solo band. It should sit slightly
| high on the back of your head.
| Psillisp wrote:
| I'm immensely enjoying the solo knit.
| amiantos wrote:
| Joining the chorus of voices who say they found the solo
| band horrible, switched the dual loop, and the ended up
| switching back to the solo band.
| notum wrote:
| I just wanted to say hi to the Apple surveyors gathering
| this data for v2. /wave
| maxglute wrote:
| Can you link to some expert take? Sounds interesting.
| KRAKRISMOTT wrote:
| Same as juicero, many people bash the product but the
| engineering is world class.
| cqqxo4zV46cp wrote:
| Like, maybe, not same as.
| jrockway wrote:
| I am not sure that I agree. Engineering is a world of
| tradeoffs. Juicero said "we are going to overbuild every
| component even if it means the company goes out of business".
| Welp.
|
| Most impressive to me is when every unnecessary component has
| been removed, and every remaining component is as simple as
| possible. (The example that sticks in my mind is the humble
| $5 drip coffee pot. No moving parts except the switch to turn
| it on!)
| ycombinete wrote:
| I'm currently looking at getting a drip coffee pot. Can you
| recommend one?
| emptybits wrote:
| I'll jump in here and suggest a Technivorm Moccamaster.
| As simple as possible but no simpler. It has an "ON"
| switch. Excellent drip brewer. Widely available. Handmade
| in EU. Five year warranty. All parts available and
| serviceable. Design has not changed materially for
| decades. Certified by European Coffee Brewing Center and
| the Specialty Coffee Association.
|
| Where I'm coming from: I'm picky about coffee making and
| am not interested in the espresso investment for home. So
| I made delicious Chemex and Hario pourovers for myself,
| family, and friends for 15 years because I never thought
| I'd enjoy the compromises of a drip coffee maker. I was
| wrong. The Moccamaster makes an excellent half or full
| carafe, consistently, every time. And I don't suffer
| Pourover Interruptus on busy mornings. The thermal carafe
| version was my choice. No regrets.
| ghc wrote:
| I'll second this. I've had a Moccamaster for 15 years and
| I suspect it'll last another 15. The version with the
| thermal carafe is simple, durable, and makes excellent
| coffee.
| olliej wrote:
| I'm not a coffee connoisseur (and honestly could only
| spell that because of autocarrot), but for me beans are
| hands down more important than any other part of the
| brewing process until you get to absurdly expensive.
|
| So we got a Krups grind and brew unit, though the exact
| model we have isn't available anymore, it's been going
| strong for maybe 7 years without any issues. It has a
| hopper you can just fill with beans and it grinds an
| approximation of the right amount for home much coffee
| you want (and you can put water in the night before and
| set it to have coffee brewed when you get up). My only
| complaint for our particular model is the burr is really
| loud, but I don't recall if it's always been that loud or
| it's just beginning to get old.
|
| [edit: this is an addendum because I saw u/emptybits
| suggestion and just wanted to acknowledge that it's a
| nicer brewer but I'm a pleb and here's the reasoning I
| have for preferring my lazy-omatic brewer (maybe I should
| trademark the name?) :D] It's not as expensive (or as
| nice looking) as the Technivorm that u/emptybits
| recommends, and I would absolutely expect better
| extraction from the technivorm as well (at least vs our
| model, which has the very old school single drip point),
| but the convenience of a single appliance is honestly
| more important to me than the price difference. I think
| there's also an element of how much the ritual of coffee
| making matters to you? I don't care at all, so it's just
| an appliance in the corner, and there's the other extreme
| where people have millions of gadgets and/or siphon
| brewers (which I admit do look super fun, but they also
| apparently don't even produce good coffee?).
|
| One thing I do wish is there was a thermal carafe option
| for our unit, even though it does keep the element going
| to keep the coffee warm I do think that even I can taste
| some harshness after it's been sitting on the warmer for
| a while, and then when the warmer does disengage it
| becomes cold very quickly.
| nicolas_17 wrote:
| Speaks really badly of the Vision Pro if there's anything
| that can be compared to Juicero.
| LASR wrote:
| > Same as juicero, many people bash the product but the
| engineering is world class.
|
| Absolutely not. Juicero was absolutely terrible engineering.
| Any mechanical engineering intern can whip up a big chonking
| hunk of a juicer or any other kind of product in SolidWorks.
|
| Filleting every edge does not mean "engineering".
|
| The vast majority of the work and difficulty in engineering
| is NOT getting something to work, but doing so while also
| working within constraints. There were no constraints in the
| Juicero. It was impressively manufactured. But terribly
| engineered. Which is why the entire thing went down despite
| an absurd level of fundraising.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| Eh, sometimes the Nuremberg defense is valid. The engineers
| were just doing what they were paid to do. As I recall from
| the Bolt teardown [1], if it had been a useful and
| desirable thing to build in the first place, it would have
| worked well.
|
| 1: https://blog.bolt.io/juicero/
| jiggawatts wrote:
| There is a great tear-down video of a juicero on YouTube
| where the guy makes comments the whole way through about
| how every part is ridiculously over-engineered:
| https://youtu.be/_Cp-BGQfpHQ
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| Have to remember that this was a "give away the razor,
| sell the blades" scheme. If you're the proprietor of such
| a scheme, you really, really don't want the razor to
| break.
|
| The ballsy thing about Juicero was that they didn't give
| away the razor. It was priced at something like $400.
| They were awfully high on their own supply.
| antman123 wrote:
| I prefer the solo band
| mrcwinn wrote:
| I agree. As much as tech communities tend to dump on
| achievements, we really should applaud this work. I can't wait
| to see breakdowns of versions 2, 3, 4. As you begin to master
| your own creation and manufacturing process, it will be neat to
| see how much simpler it becomes.
| monkeynotes wrote:
| I do wonder about the actual material constraints. My thought
| is, will it even be possible to make something so slight that
| it becomes an everyday piece of tech like the iPhone, or is
| it destined for entertainment and casual work?
|
| Batteries are heavy, the optical aspect is bulky, heat
| dissipation is challenging. I haven't seen any tech on the
| near horizon that can answer those challenges. I wonder what
| Apple has in their R&D plans.
| seydor wrote:
| Didn't all VR devices before it do the same?
| pornel wrote:
| Similar, but all the components in it are a notch better --
| higher resolution, better pass-through video, more precise
| hand tracking, and much faster CPU.
|
| However, my impression from iFixit's teardown is that there's
| a ton of tiny boards, screws, and ribbon cables. I bet in v2
| they'll figure out how to package it even more densly.
| 0x457 wrote:
| Early VR of this wave had some remarkable displays, not in a
| sense that "wow they are so good", but "wow HMD displays were
| pure trash before". Quest 1 while it was a very silly device,
| it was a pretty good inside-out HMD. Q2 was a lot better.
|
| All of those devices still suffered from the same issues:
| they can put only whatever Qualcomm can make for them. XR2
| Gen 2 is slower than Snapdragon from the same generation.
| This is due to how "inefficient" Qualcomm SoCs compared to
| what Apple makes for themselves. (not M2 is meant for
| desktops and XR2 Gen2 is based on SoC used in mobile phones,
| so they were created with different power and thermal budgets
| in mind)
|
| I find it interesting how apple went about the "number
| crunching" part of AVP by making a separate coprocessor just
| for that. Yeah, XR2 Gen2 has similar capabilities on SoC, but
| I want to see benchmarks.
| MBCook wrote:
| Boy when they showed the shot of the Vision Pro Display density
| vs the iPhone 15 I literally laughed out loud.
|
| That screen is simply incredible as a piece of technology.
| Krasnol wrote:
| I'm just going to leave this material review here:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmcWMjBpYBU
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| > we estimate the Vision Pro to have an average of 34 PPD
|
| I'm not sure that is interesting though. I would expect tradeoffs
| on PPD for my peripheral vision, higher density for the center of
| my vision.
|
| I want PPD numbers like perhaps an average PPD for the center 30
| degrees FOV.
| hnuser123456 wrote:
| Issue is that you can look around with your eyes at any part of
| the display, so the whole display needs to be able to show very
| high PPI/PPD, if you look at it. They can save on compute by
| detecting where your eyes are looking and reducing render
| resolution on the edges of your eye's FOV though.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foveated_imaging
| akamaka wrote:
| The potential of the display is what convinces me that Vision
| will be a breakthrough device.
|
| If Apple has a roadmap to keep scaling up the resolution, while
| only incurring a fixed manufacturing cost of producing a small
| 2cm display, there will soon be no other device category that
| will be able to offer such image quality at so low a cost, not
| laptop screens or desktop monitors or TVs or movie theatres.
| holman wrote:
| After using it since launch, the displays are still startling
| every time I step back to really look at them. They look _so
| good_. There 's a few things that could be improved upon -- let
| me look at my phone, or project a digital display _over_ my
| phone screen -- but the UI and virtual displays you see in
| Vision Pro feel just like reality. It 's startling, and bodes
| well for future Vision Pro devices (and other VR handsets,
| too).
| losvedir wrote:
| I agree they feel like reality, but I don't know how much of
| that is the display quality vs the absolutely astonishing way
| they stay fixed in space.
| esskay wrote:
| Long term I dont think they _want_ Vision to be a breakthrough
| device. It's only supposed to be a stepping stone towards a
| true AR/MR device. The ultimate and likely not possible for
| decades goal is a contact lense based solution. The main goal
| is a normal looking pair of glasses capable of true AR/MR (not
| Google Glass or Nreal style attempts with hardware thats not
| really capable of a truly usable experience).
|
| Long term wide adoption cant really happen with a VR device,
| the pitfalls (Weight, long term pain, hair being messed up, red
| marks on your face, poor battery life, etc) are too high of a
| barrier.
| steveklabnik wrote:
| Tim Cook is famously pretty negative on VR, but positive on
| AR. I would agree with you.
| akamaka wrote:
| I agree 100%, I think the potential is in a future Vision
| device which is smaller, lighter, and cheaper, while having
| an even better display.
| TillE wrote:
| That's been their plan in the past, but I wonder if they'll
| reconsider. You can't do stuff like virtual environments in
| AR glasses. Apple may never care about games, but there are
| other VR features which users might really love.
|
| I wouldn't be surprised if the headset continues even in the
| future where amazing perfect AR glasses are possible.
| threeseed wrote:
| > The main goal is a normal looking pair of glasses capable
| of true AR/MR
|
| You can't consume media e.g watch sports, movies etc or do
| any real work with those glasses which is a huge part of why
| Apple built Vision Pro in the first place.
|
| And the battery technology doesn't exist for them to last
| anything longer than a few minutes in such a form factor
| unless you have it tethered.
| monkeynotes wrote:
| I agree, but how will this device ever get beyond home
| entertainment or light office work if it's always going to
| be a big screen strapped to your face, not to mention the
| social aspect. I dread to live in a world where people are
| walking around self absorbed prodding and poking at things
| no one else can see. It just seems so selfish and
| antisocial.
| danielbln wrote:
| > I dread to live in a world where people are walking
| around self absorbed prodding and poking at things no one
| else can see.
|
| Phones?
| gfodor wrote:
| You're confused. Vision Pro is a true AR/MR device. It uses
| AR passthrough. A lot of people for a long time have assumed
| there's some inherent reason people would never accept
| passthrough AR devices. A few people like myself have been
| consistent saying that's not the case, that passthrough AR is
| actually the right solution. Vision Pro is just the first
| version of what I expect to be a long line of passthrough AR
| devices from Apple.
| paganel wrote:
| I don't think the physics will ever be there in terms of
| battery/energy consumption of said future devices, meaning
| that I don't think Apple (or any other company) will ever be
| able to build a processing-device that won't have to depend
| on a big enough battery.
|
| You could try to miniaturise it all (up to a point) and
| include it as part of the device itself, similar to Google
| Glass, but who would want such an energy "bucket" so close to
| one's eyes and face? That's just disaster (and a big lawsuit)
| waiting to happen.
| mastax wrote:
| If I understand your point, I don't think it makes as much of a
| difference as it may seem. Display panels are typically made
| from large "mother glass" panels out of which smaller display
| panels are cut. So you can make many different sized panels
| from a single type of mother glass (all with the same PPI of
| course). And the TV/monitor industry has delivered remarkable
| improvements in quality and cost very quickly, so it's not as
| if our current methods aren't working.
|
| It's an interesting thought though, let's see how it develops.
| jsheard wrote:
| The process used to make Micro-OLED displays is very
| different to the processes used for large OLEDs or LCDs, it
| has more in common with silicon manufacturing than
| conventional display manufacturing. AIUI that means the panel
| size will always be limited by the maximum reticle size of
| the silicon process, which is usually at most ~800mm2.
|
| That lines up with the 27.5x24mm size of the panels in the
| Vision Pro - that's 660mm2, already close to the largest
| silicon die you can make.
| megaman821 wrote:
| I thought Sony makes the display (and cameras for that matter).
| It's odd that there are two critical pieces of tech that need a
| lot of R&D for the Vision Pro to keep progressing, and Apple
| has nothing to do with them. The screens need to get brighter
| and have higher resolution. The cameras need to work faster in
| low light and capture more accurate colors.
| phonon wrote:
| It's Sony's display. You can see a very similar version here.
| [1]
|
| [1] https://www.sony.com/content/sony/en/en_us/SCA/company-
| news/...
| jijijijij wrote:
| > The potential of the display
|
| ... will never be manifested, because Apple won't let you have
| it. Use your imagination to tease you, but you won't ever get
| it. Lock'n'lol. iPad paperweight. Maybe next time, tiger.
| dyno12345 wrote:
| discussion of Part 1:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39246664
| robg wrote:
| Can someone explain why they think the AVP version in 2034 will
| be light years ahead of v1? I see amazing engineering but not
| many places to shrink everything into a lightweight pair of
| glasses.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| What other physical tech product doesn't meaningfully improve
| in a decade?
|
| (Maybe the TI-83 calculator?)
| nomel wrote:
| You should ignore anyone claiming unquantifiables like "light
| years ahead".
|
| In 10 years, my hopeful list is: * More
| custom/specialized silicon for XR. There's aren't many players
| here currently. * Retina/~60 PPD. * Micro LED (not
| OLED), making varifocal and HDR possible. * Varifocal
| lenses, which are just as important for comfort as high res.
| * Cameras optimized for passthrough, rather than borrowed from
| cellphones. * Lighter weight. They're almost tolerable,
| rather than acceptable, as is. This almost certainly involves
| offloading some of the compute.
|
| But, a powerful untethered XR system and a lightweight set of
| untethered glasses will necessarily be very different, in
| capabilities. I imagine I'll end up with a tethered device, as
| a display replacement, in the next 10 years.
| robg wrote:
| Thanks for this list, doesn't seem like the pair of glasses
| that people are envisioning, more like iPhone X, lots of
| incremental improvements but not a major difference from v1
| to v10 or even v15.
| nomel wrote:
| > lots of incremental improvements
|
| As should be expected. This is the only way tech has ever
| progressed, without exception. The only perceived
| exceptions involved shifting existing tech into a space
| that it wasn't present before.
|
| > from v1 to v10 or even v15.
|
| I think it's a little more than that. I think most would
| agree that it's not usable, in its current state, for a
| screen replacement, or as a primary computing device. Even
| Apple suggested so, in their announcement, saying something
| like "short trips". I suspect that V15 will be the
| _primary_ computing device, for most people.
| grecy wrote:
| > _Can someone explain why they think the AVP version in 2034
| will be light years ahead of v1?_
|
| Think back to when the iPhone first came out - could you have
| predicted how it would improve over the next 10, or 15 years?
|
| Sure some things are obvious like faster networking, higher
| quality screen, better camera and just faster processor. But in
| all honesty I'd say some of the biggest improvements are apps
| that now define _how_ we use it and _what_ we use it for. It 's
| obviously so much more than a phone.
|
| I'm not sure anyone quite knows what the future of VR/AR truly
| is, but I'm betting it will apps which will change _how_ we use
| it and _what_ we use it for that will make it "light years
| ahead" of where we are now.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > Looking like a bulked-up first-gen iPhone, the case is milled
| out of a single chunk of aluminum, and the lid snaps into place
| with firm perimeter clips, leaving little to no seam for us to
| pry at. We needed a hammer and chisel to open it up! Adhesive
| also lines the lid, just to make sure you get the message: this
| pack is not designed to be opened.
|
| > Currently, iFixit engineering intern Chayton Ritter has Apple's
| proprietary battery cable splayed out on a breadboard, and is
| trying to determine what sort of electronic handshakes are
| required to make the Vision Pro accept battery packs.
|
| Apple _really_ dropped the bar on this one. It 's high time the
| EU forces companies to design their hardware in a way that allows
| the user (or a recycling company!) to replace the batteries
| inside without destroying it in the process, and for fucks sake
| what happened to the USB-C requirement for electronic devices?
| lawik wrote:
| The brick/battery charges via USB-C from what I have seen.
| Casey Neistat ran that into a battery pack for extended use. I
| think that makes them plenty compliant.
|
| I asusme the custom connector on the head unit is better fit
| for purpose (comfort, not getting snagged) than USB-C would be.
| duskwuff wrote:
| Or, to put it even more simply -- the battery pack _is_ the
| replaceable battery. Which is fine; it 's little different
| from the similarly sealed battery packs on electric power
| tools, for instance.
| ribosometronome wrote:
| The battery charges via USB-C. The battery connects to the
| headset with a weird side-snap connector that's rather flat.
| As designed, there's not anywhere obvious that a USB-C port
| could really fit on the headset and assuming they hope to
| make it smaller in future years, the problem only amplifies.
| I think other headsets have cables coming out of them when
| they need to connect to other things, rather than relying on
| a port. It's not particularly aesthetic.
| threeseed wrote:
| USB-C makes zero sense on the headset which is why it's on the
| replaceable battery.
|
| You need a connector that can tightly lock and be capable of
| withstanding significant angular loads on the cable ends.
|
| Twist locks have been proven to work well.
| outworlder wrote:
| > It's high time the EU forces companies to design their
| hardware in a way that allows the user (or a recycling
| company!) to replace the batteries inside without destroying it
| in the process
|
| Why? The battery pack is external. I have not ever seen a
| requirement that battery packs themselves need to be
| repairable. Not many devices come with external batteries these
| days, but do you really want to open them up to replace the
| cells? Where are you going to source reputable prismatic cells
| to use with such a device? They are also pretty delicate, you
| don't want most people handling them. If it used standard 18650
| cells I could kind of see the point, but it would be much
| larger.
|
| A recycling company can destructively open it up to recover the
| material.
|
| A better 'mandate' would be to require it to accept third party
| power supplies.
|
| > for fucks sake what happened to the USB-C requirement for
| electronic devices
|
| USB-C would suck for this application. It already does for
| headsets like Meta's Quest, where you can use a link cable to a
| PC. You need to secure any USB-C cables pretty well if you
| don't want to risk damaging the port.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > I have not ever seen a requirement that battery packs
| themselves need to be repairable.
|
| Indeed it is, but it would make the life of recyclers way
| easier. Having to use a hammer and pin to open it risks
| puncturing the pouches.
|
| > Not many devices come with external batteries these days,
| but do you really want to open them up to replace the cells?
|
| Uhhh... yes? That was the state of the art for decades before
| removable batteries were sacrificed for optics. You can even
| do watertight devices that way, Samsung's Active Tab 3 is
| watertight and supports swapping batteries.
|
| > Where are you going to source reputable prismatic cells to
| use with such a device?
|
| The aftermarket supply chain for devices has gotten pretty
| well in serving that market, although I'd _also_ love some
| standardization effort in that space.
| mac-mc wrote:
| From what I've seen recyclers push ewaste including
| batteries through a grinder and then extract from the
| sludge. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2xrarUWVRQ
| kccqzy wrote:
| You already can replace the batteries. Apple will gladly sell
| you another battery:
| https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MW283LL/A/apple-vision-pr...
| But there's no use case for a consumer to disassemble the
| battery or to replace parts inside the battery.
| fumar wrote:
| Living with the Vision Pro is much easier than I expected. I
| thought it would feel bulky to manage with the external battery
| -- it hasn't. I put the battery in my pocket and pop into
| visionOS without any hassle. I found the max time is about 1.5
| hours before I feel slight eye and physical pressure fatigue from
| the headset.
| nomel wrote:
| > and physical pressure fatigue from the headset.
|
| Is this double loop, or cloth band?
| fumar wrote:
| Solo band, not the double loop.
| joshstrange wrote:
| The displays on the AVP are truly amazing, the best I've ever
| seen. In fact I noticed zero issues relating to the displays
| themselves. Where this device stumbles is the passthrough
| (cameras) and the Mac Virtual Display (AirPlay). If/when those
| get better I'll buy another one but for now I'm planning on
| returning mine before the 14 days are up.
| dwallin wrote:
| One thing the article doesn't get quite right is you can't
| compare ppd of a virtual display directly to an IRL screen. The
| virtual pixels are not 1:1 to device pixels. Your perspective is
| constantly shifting slightly and the virtual pixels being sampled
| from is constantly changing. This is providing your eyes and
| brain a lot more data to sample from and means the perceived
| resolution can be higher than the actual resolution.
| garbageman wrote:
| This is an interesting perspective. Genuine question: would it
| not be the other way - seeming lower than actual resolution
| when slightly moving? Why?
|
| Could this be used to simulate a higher pixel density? Maybe
| doing something crazy vibrating the display in some kind of
| circular motion or something silly?
| axoltl wrote:
| There are projectors that do this trick! The technology is
| called XPR: https://www.projectorjunkies.com/4k-dlp-
| projectors-is-it-rea...
| layer8 wrote:
| The issue is that the original Mac pixels get 3D-projected
| and thus interpolated onto the VP panels pixel grid. This
| invariably loses some sharpness and detail. Even just
| 2D-rotating a Mac screenshot by some non-orthogonal angle
| will make it more blurry.
| monkeynotes wrote:
| I am not convinced. Your eyes are literally magnifying the
| pixels compared to being at a distance from a modern 2k
| display. You may have dense PPD in AVP but being that close to
| them doesn't do it any favours.
|
| I mean, if you can see a pixel you can see a pixel, there is no
| getting around that. It's like once you notice a blemish you
| can't not notice it anymore. From what I hear from users is you
| can absolutely see the pixels.
| ninkendo wrote:
| My 2C/, not an expert, etc etc...
|
| I think the key detail here is that each eye is getting its
| own set of pixels for looking at the same virtual content.
| This can lead to more detail, because the pixels aren't 100%
| redundant (they're both looking at the content from a
| slightly different angle.)
|
| If I'm looking through the AVP at a "square inch" of my
| virtual Mac display, it may be that each eye is getting say,
| a 100x100 grid of pixels in this angular area. But since each
| eyepiece is giving me a slightly different _projection_ of
| that same inch of space, the pixels themselves are going to
| be of subtly different values, essentially contributing more
| information to what I 'm looking at. This is a lot different
| from a "real" display, when both of my eyes are staring at
| the same physical pixels. I think the idea is that my brain
| will be combining this information into a perceptual image in
| a way that will appear slightly more detailed than the
| equivalent-sized pixels in meatspace.
|
| > It's like once you notice a blemish you can't not notice it
| anymore
|
| Interesting that you say this... because when you move your
| head towards a virtual object to _inspect_ any pixels you
| saw, the image literally gets clearer (because you 're
| getting "closer" to it) and you don't see the pixels any
| more. IME this goes a long way towards tricking my brain into
| thinking the pixels aren't real and therefore aren't there.
| (I've been using my AVP for real work all day today and I've
| been mostly very happy with it. The resolution is absolutely
| the least of my concerns, and it looks subjectively
| phenomenal to me.)
| ShamelessC wrote:
| I feel like the article covered this.
| crazygringo wrote:
| I've noticed this as well. I kind of think of it like when you
| look through a chain-link fence, there's a lot of visual data
| that gets blocked.
|
| But if you're in a car driving past, the chain link fence gets
| blurred out and you can see everything again.
|
| Something similar happens with the constant resampling
| happening in a VR headset. The hardware pixels are constantly
| shifting over the image pixels, as your head constantly moves
| just from breathing and whatnot. So not only does the signal-
| over-time counteract any blurriness from resampling in a single
| frame, but I find myself wondering if it enhances the
| resolution slightly.
|
| (After all, you can buy 1080p projectors that "jiggle" the
| image by half a pixel diagonally, several times a frame, to
| effectively double the resolution and claim it's halfway to 4K.
| And what is the constant movement of pixel resampling if not a
| similar jiggling?)
|
| I'm curious if there's an image processing term for this
| effect? The effective signal resolution from a constantly
| shifting pixel grid over time, and how to calculate it
| mathematically.
| CarVac wrote:
| Multi-frame super-resolution.
|
| What matters is illuminated pixel aperture size, in the end.
| The smaller the pixel aperture, the less smearing you get
| from overlapping.
| dwallin wrote:
| I put together a simple gif to roughly demonstrate the effect:
| https://giphy.com/gifs/JImONk8V5YK6iGBFkH/tile
|
| While it still can't fully resolve shapes smaller than a pixel,
| it definitely helps with identifying forms.
| CobrastanJorji wrote:
| This article does a fantastic job of explaining how good the
| screen is in clear, easy to understand language. Good job!
|
| Is it a good display? It's incredibly good, far beyond the DPI of
| your phone or monitor. Does it look as good as your phone or your
| computer monitor when used? No, at the distance you'd look at
| them from, it looks much worse.
| mrcwinn wrote:
| The display may be 3,386 PPI, but wow my laptop screen has never
| looked sharper after taking the AVP off my head. Screen sharing
| from my Mac looks distractingly bad, which is a huge bummer. (AVP
| apps, by contrast, look fantastic.) No matter how I scale or
| where I place the space, it just never looks very good.
|
| I'm really hoping this improves because it's nice to turn my 14"
| MacBook Pro into a theater screen of sorts alongside native apps.
| For the moment, though, AVP doesn't seem very useful apart from
| watching movies (which is amazing).
| dvdhsu wrote:
| Agreed. I find my AVP actually quite bad for using my Mac. I
| use a MBP instead of a MBA because 120hz makes a big
| difference. The MBP screen within AVP is probably something
| like 30hz (likely because it's using Airplay, and it doesn't
| have enough bandwidth). And I can't change the resolution
| either! It's kind of like working on a TV -- I don't see why
| it's any better than the 14" MBP screen.
|
| Overall, the AVP is a disappointment for me. Most of the new UX
| patterns I find far worse than keyboard shortcuts. (For
| example, a window manager is _much_ easier to use than having
| to pinch to drag windows around. For example Vimium is much
| easier to use than looking at elements and pinching at things.)
| I don't consume much content (e.g. TV), but of the content that
| I do consume, it feels lower resolution to me. The demos they
| have (e.g. the Alicia Keys video) feels nothing like real-life
| to me. As a parallel to what you said -- real life has never
| looked better (after taking off the AVP), haha.
| bookofjoe wrote:
| I agree with much of what you wrote -- except I found the
| Alicia Keys video staggeringly good. It felt like I was in
| the studio with her and her band.
| Sephr wrote:
| You can combine paradigms for the best of both worlds (e.g.
| physical keyboard + your apps). I imagine that IDE
| experiences will only improve as time goes on.
| zerohp wrote:
| How is your wifi network? Have you tried changing the display
| resolution on the Mac while you're connected to the Vision Pro?
|
| The virtual display doesn't look as good as the laptop screen,
| but it looks as good or better than the 1440p monitor I
| normally use at my desk.
| mrcwinn wrote:
| Thank you, I'll fiddle with that. WiFi is good and my 14" M3
| is using its native resolution, whatever the default is.
| gpm wrote:
| For comparison purposes can you share the size of your
| monitor and how far away you sit from it? Trying to decide if
| it's worth getting one of these (which would be a bit of a
| pain since I'm in Canada).
| jolt42 wrote:
| Disappointing to hear. I was hoping laptop work to be on par
| with a 27" 4k monitor, otherwise can't see I'd use it "enough".
| mil22 wrote:
| Matching the 60deg FOV of a 27" monitor at close distance,
| it's equivalent to 1080p or less. It gets even worse at FOVs
| equivalent to more reasonable distances.
| matsemann wrote:
| Given that the screen inside the AVP is basically 4k, your
| screen would then have to fill your entire vision to have the
| same resolution. So almost like having your nose touching the
| screen.
| mil22 wrote:
| It's not surprising. The AVP has a PPD of 34. A 14" MBP screen
| with a resolution of 3024x1964 already has a PPD of 66 at a
| close 14" viewing distance and it gets higher as you move
| further away [1]. Retina is considered 60+ at 20/20 vision. Of
| course a real display has no resampling or micro-OLED smearing
| to overcome either.
|
| To achieve the same effective pixel count as a MBP, a virtual
| screen at the AVP's PPD would have to be resized to 90deg
| horizontal FOV, which is just too big to be comfortable,
| equivalent to sitting 6" from a 14" MBP screen.
|
| The technology just isn't there yet. We need at least another
| doubling of PPD. See you in 10 years.
|
| [1] https://qasimk.io/screen-ppd/
| jsheard wrote:
| That's the great irony of Apple trying to make AR work as a
| monitor replacement, their existing users will be some of the
| hardest to please in terms of resolution since they've been
| spoiled by retina displays as standard on every Mac for the
| last decade.
| sitzkrieg wrote:
| yea i truly do not understand. not to mention cranking your
| neck for more than 2 seconds a workday is going to make
| this a nonstarter once most people get over the cost
| justifications
| Ericson2314 wrote:
| Nice website. I got a 27" 5K UHD LG monitor at 90 PPD, so
| I'll never be able to use these things. So sharp I have to
| wear glasses not contacts.
| mil22 wrote:
| That's my kind of monitor. :) It's not wasted either.
| Foveal cone angular density is actually around 12,000
| cones/deg^2, or 110 PPD, so anything up to that is
| achievable with perfectly corrected vision. That's a lot
| higher than the 60 PPD typically claimed for retina PPD,
| which is at an imperfect 20/20. 110 PPD is more than 3x the
| PPD of the AVP...
| Ericson2314 wrote:
| Good to hear! I wonder how many people kinda need glasses
| and don't get them, making the popular opinion of what
| the retina is capable of much too low.
| mac-mc wrote:
| Has anyone done studies showing how much people notice
| the difference between 60 and 110 PPD photos for example?
| There are many people who have a hard time articulating
| 30 vs 60 PPD as it is with computer monitors. How much of
| a diminishing return is it to go beyond 60 PPD?
| cubefox wrote:
| I don't know about studies, but I'm pretty sure there is
| a large difference between very high contrast edges
| (worst case: text rendered without anti-aliasing) and
| photos or even videos, where there usually aren't any
| high-contrast high-frequency edges (black pixel next to
| white pixel). Since anti-aliasing is standard in font
| rendering and pretty common in computer games, I don't
| think very high PPD content would often be noticable.
| Ericson2314 wrote:
| On the monitor I mentioned, this text is about 15-20
| pixels tall mostly-white on mostly-black, and I can read
| it from ~4 feet away.
|
| (website says that is ~186 PPD)
| mil22 wrote:
| That makes sense. Given that the smallest legible fonts
| are around 5 pixels tall, that's 3-4x less PPD than your
| monitor offers at 4 feet, so you'd need ~46-62 PPD
| eyesight to be able to read the text. 20/20 at 60 would
| be more than sufficient.
| mil22 wrote:
| This study popped up:
| https://www.techhive.com/article/578376/8k-vs-4k-tvs-
| most-co...
|
| In summary, with an 88" screen at a distance of 5 feet,
| some viewers rated 8K content (118 PPD) higher on average
| than equivalent 4K content (59 PPD), particularly those
| with better than 20/20 vision (~60 PPD). Most would not
| notice. It wasn't directly tested but I'd guess most
| people do notice the difference between 30 and 60 PPD,
| but only those with above average eyesight will see
| improvements beyond that.
| Ericson2314 wrote:
| Nice find. TV image quality is usually so imprecise
| (compression, lack of text), I would suspected computer
| displays to be more noticeable.
| theshackleford wrote:
| I use a 27" 5K display as well, only with contacts. I'm
| short sighted at -6.75 in each eye. Why would I be unable
| to wear contacts when using it? If anything its an improved
| experience as my lenses significantly shrink whatever i'm
| looking at which the contacts do significantly less.
| mil22 wrote:
| At -6.75, the impact of the shrinkage caused by
| eyeglasses would very likely exceed any slight visual
| imperfections caused by contacts (glare, halos,
| instability, rotation misalignment for astigmatism, etc.)
| I'm at -4 and prefer contacts for computer use, but it's
| right on the point of almost indifference for me.
| Ericson2314 wrote:
| -2.5 (IIRC, I'm long overdue for a new prescription) for
| me
| Ericson2314 wrote:
| Maybe I had bad contacts, but I found that my vision was
| just worse with them. Couldn't really explain it or
| describe it. It wasn't like the fuzziness of near-
| sitedness.
| mil22 wrote:
| At -2.5, you probably don't get much shrinkage or
| aberration with your glasses, so they work better for
| you. For me, at -4 plus strong astigmatism, wearing
| glasses makes everything look tiny, and circles look like
| ovals... contacts are a better experience. That said I
| have tried over a dozen types of contacts over the years
| and it took me many many attempts to find both a product
| and a set of lens parameters that worked well enough for
| my eyes to want to switch from specs. Now I found that, I
| don't even own spectacles any more.
| lukev wrote:
| I for one don't notice any quality/resolution difference
| between native apps and a mirrored Mac screen.
|
| I agree it feels "worse" than a physical screen - it is
| certainly less crisp. But I ran an experiment, and created a
| doc with font sizes from 1-15 pt, then viewed it on my physical
| 24" 4k monitor, and on a mirrored Mac display in the AVP set to
| the same (virtual) dimensions and distance away.
|
| Interestingly, text became illegible (without leaning closer in
| either case) for me at around the 6pt mark _for both of them_.
| Objectively speaking, the size of font I can read is pretty
| equivalent, although I find myself preferring fonts about 2pts
| larger on the AVP than on my physical monitor.
|
| I suspect this is because the physical display is able to
| benefit from precise pixel alignment and subpixel rendering,
| which the AVP can't. But the "average density" feels pretty
| equivalent... it somehow feels more an issue of optical
| sharpness than of "pixel size" (even I know the two are
| related.)
| cubefox wrote:
| > I for one don't notice any quality/resolution difference
| between native apps and a mirrored Mac screen.
|
| I wonder how so different opinions exist on things that
| should be pretty much the same for everyone.
| Retric wrote:
| People's eyes vary quite a bit even with corrective lenses.
| jeppester wrote:
| > Screen sharing from my Mac looks distractingly bad, which is
| a huge bummer. (AVP apps, by contrast, look fantastic.) No
| matter how I scale or where I place the space, it just never
| looks very good.
|
| I think a big part of the difference is that your feed is
| rotated and skewed raster graphic. That might work fine for
| photographs and movies. But UIs and text will quickly suffer
| from washed out edges when you apply transformations to
| otherwise "perfect" pixels.
|
| The resolution of the pre-transformed image would have to be
| vastly higher to counteract the fuzzyness.
|
| An even better solution would be if the UI could be rendered
| directly to the AVP rather than being a screen capture.
| lancesells wrote:
| The thing I wonder is can't you fix the screen to be straight
| relative to your head at all times? Or is it always fixed to
| the environment?
| jeppester wrote:
| The pixels of the AVP display are wrapped around your eyes,
| so pixel perfect rendering would result in an out of shape
| screen (although it would likely be much sharper). Also -
| from my experience - it doesn't feel good to have a large
| object unnaturally fixed to the center of your view in VR.
| theogravity wrote:
| > The Vision Pro has another small problem for spectacles
| wearers. Contrary to some reports, Apple says that corrective
| lenses are available for most conditions, including astigmatism
| (which we weren't sure about in part one), and they also offer
| bifocals, and progressives. But if you have a prism value
| included in your prescription, you're out of luck. Prism
| correction is used to correct for diplopia, or double vision. The
| easiest way to see if your vision prescription is supported is to
| use ZEISS's online tool.
|
| As someone that has prism in their glasses, that sucks. I do have
| custom lenses with prism for my Quest 2. Not sure why apple can't
| offer it as well, especially if the lens comes from ZEISS.
| mac-mc wrote:
| I think it's because of eye tracking issues. If you need a
| prism then you probably have other issues with how your eyes
| move around and they haven't developed for that yet. They are
| thinking about it although as shown with the accessibility
| options. I think they will figure it out eventually.
| LoganDark wrote:
| I suspect I might need prism lenses, but there's already an
| eye tracking option that tells it to only use my left eye.
| Used that option during the in-store demo, and it worked
| pretty well. If the image in the right eye were adjusted to
| match my condition then that would've been even better, but
| my brain already mostly ignores the image from the right eye
| so it didn't matter that it wasn't.
| seydor wrote:
| Perceptible resoultion is what 's missing from all these VR
| goggles. The density of the screen doesn't matter much if the
| angular resolution isnt great. I was hoping Apple would be the
| first to rival our actual Retina
| FredPret wrote:
| It will be so cool once these are miniaturized to those big
| square 70's glasses or smaller. Maybe contact lenses in some sci-
| fi future.
|
| I imagine popping on a pair and suddenly you have a huge wrap-
| around workstation in front of you.
| LASR wrote:
| I've said this before, but until we have gimballed screens that
| can reposition a very high-density portion of the display to
| always be on the eye's fovea, we will not have a good
| productivity tool headset.
|
| AVP v1 does the eye tracking quite well. I bet real $ that v2
| will have motors internally to reposition the screens.
| jxy wrote:
| So the PPD means we only need a factor of 2 denser pixels and we
| can throw all other 4K screens away. Wait for a factor of 3
| higher PPD (~ 100?) and we may get rid of all of our single-
| person-use monitors. I guess I'll wait for Vision Pro 4 to get
| the "retina display."
| gpm wrote:
| Disappointing that more analysis isn't put into the lense effect
| on PPD.
|
| SimulaVR (a competitor) has an extremely good blogpost about this
| [1] where they argue that the PPD in the central 30 degrees is
| far more important than the average PPD over the whole headset
| (because you very rarely turn your eyes more than 15 degrees off
| center, and your eyes have the highest resolution right in front
| of them), justifying the same sort of lenses that Apple appears
| to be using. They claim that this allows them to reallocate
| pixels for ~45% higher "foveal PPD" than would otherwise be
| expected.
|
| [1] https://simulavr.com/blog/ppd-optics/
| gattr wrote:
| I'm waiting for a "monitor-replacement glasses" - show me a
| device which simulates an equivalent of my current 24"/4K/60 Hz
| monitor (same amount of pixels, same angular size in my FOV).
| Since I can touch type, I don't need AR/motion sensing, just the
| display.
| bredren wrote:
| Vision Pro is not capable of delivering the level of low-strain
| fidelity needed to work long hours on anything related editing
| text. I think it is fair to say a 4k display or near equivalent
| is the minimum generally needed for this now, particularly for
| programming. [1]
|
| Spatial Computing is not about arranging windows and using
| interfaces designed for flat surface devices.
|
| It is about addressing problems using a three dimensional space.
| Instead of dashboard panels showing graphs in a window floating
| in the air, there are zones laid out in front of you showing data
| illustrated using 3D infographics
|
| Apple has had to provide many examples and artful ways to work
| with windows because it is the only way people understand multi-
| tasking applications today.
|
| "This device has to be good at window management or it isn't a
| useful device" is the reasonable thinking of a person who will
| continue to spend most of their time in flat-land, relating to
| others who also live in flat-land computing.
|
| I think Apple knows very well that traditional application
| presentation is not actually where visionOS / spatial computing
| aspires to be. You can almost derive this from the types of games
| they put in the Apple Arcade of the app store. These do more than
| anything else to show where productivity will go.
|
| Even for programming, spatial computing will shine by providing
| intuitive and interactive visualizations of software systems and
| infrastructure. Not because it renders an IDE in a window really
| well. That's what monitors are for!
|
| In some way, how we solve problems has to evolve to make use of
| what spatial computing can provide.
|
| Focusing on how the Vision Pro falls short of presenting the old
| interaction model served via hardware designed for that model is
| missing the true intent of the product and where it is all
| headed.
|
| Apple is in a tough spot with this, because without handling some
| of the old way, the Vision Pro doesn't solve any "real world"
| problems. However, spatial computing solutions to old problems do
| not really exist yet. Most VP apps are just rebuilt iPad stuff in
| windows.
|
| I think this is why the home screen apps are locked and Apple is
| so careful to subjugate apps not designed for VP. Also, why the
| App Store doesn't just show you a list of all apps published with
| VP entitlements.
|
| I suspect they already have internal disagreement between product
| and marketing on what the low bar should be to qualify for an app
| getting to be listed as a Vision Pro-ready at all.
|
| [1] I use an XDR Pro at my home office and a Dell U2723QE at my
| coworking space and the 4k is cringe-worthy in comparison. The VP
| comes nowhere near the experience of the Dell.
| paganel wrote:
| Has anyone done any studies on what the corresponding carpal
| tunnel-like diseases will affect the eyes of the people that will
| start using this device quite a lot.
|
| Meaning that our eyes (and the associated "mechanics" behind
| them) for sure weren't meant to fiddle with computer windows on a
| "screen", the same as our hands weren't meant to type on a
| keyboard/click on a mouse for hours on end, that's why I'm
| curious about the potential side-effects.
| fckgw wrote:
| How would it be any different than the normal eye strain from
| looking at a computer screen? It's essentially the same
| movements.
| paganel wrote:
| Never used this thing but as far as I understood you have to
| "move" your eyes in order to drag a window, or to click on
| something, or to do anything of the sorts, while when I'm
| looking on a screen I generally read stuff (which doesn't
| involve that "much" of an eye movement) or watch a video
| (which doesn't involve eye movement almost at all).
| it wrote:
| Isn't it going to give people a terrible case of myopia to have a
| screen this close to their eyes?
| gpm wrote:
| The actual distance doesn't matter at all, only the apparent
| distance after taking into account the optics, your eyes can
| only see the latter. I don't know the number for the Vision
| Pro, but it's probably similar to most VR headsets at ~2 meters
| away, far better than most computer screens that people work at
| all day.
| holoduke wrote:
| You need 2x 32k screens per eye to have no pixel visibility.
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