Apple Vision Pro Is Apple's New VR Headset | Hacker News Reader

Apple Vision Pro Is Apple's New VR Headset

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186 pointsxNeil159 comments

They've absolutely blown Meta out of the water on their value proposition.

They've started with: here's how you would use this device to round off all the rough edges of work / travel / productivity etc.

Whereas Meta: why don't you try to replicate all the most meaningful human interactions here with Mark.

On price: it's a lot, but as they say toward the end: relative to a home entertainment system with a powerful screen + surround sound, it's less ridiculous, plus it's portable.

My prediction: people who have the money to spare will buy it in very good numbers. In fact, I don't think they'll be able to meet demand. If you're already the kind of person who takes flights a lot for work, and who would consider upgrading to the latest Macbook Pro, it will be appealing.

> They've absolutely blown Meta out of the water on their value proposition.

Agreed. But this is because Apple can leverage their existing ecosystem. They’re clearly leaning into that heavily, which is an excellent strategy. Zuck has no existing platform, so they need to reinvent 1p experiences (which feels like talking to Zuck), or rely on 3p devs (that are awkwardly constrained by lack of content and the app-silo model).

> relative to a home entertainment system with a powerful screen + surround sound, it's less ridiculous

This was a lie, and they knew it. A headset can only be used by one person at a time, and I suspect sharing it with others will suck because of the single iCloud account hegemony (this has been a huge problem with iPad already). Home entertainment systems is not targeting overpaid lonely tech workers, it’s for family and friends in the same space. Headsets are 100% isolating yourself from others and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. So this is a solo device for now.

> If you're already the kind of person who takes flights a lot for work, and who would consider upgrading to the latest Macbook Pro, it will be appealing.

I don’t doubt that there are enough tech enthusiasts to saturate demand, but I also don’t think an iOS-like platform is enough, currently, to replace Mac Pro use cases. I think if this was a pro workstation replacer they would have sold that story heavily. Apple has struggled for years to roll out sandboxed apps on macOS but most “pro” apps are still stragglers. But why bother? They make much more $ on the iPhones anyway.

Sharing: I'm not going to pull out and put in my prescription lenses even if they are magnetically attached.

I'll definitely be in the minority here but I'm not excited by this at all!

I'll give it a few years/generations but doing nothing for me.

Loving pretty much everything else Apple currently.

The price endangers it the same way the high price killed the Star Wars Starcruiser at Disneyland. Most of the people who want it won't be able to afford it, the people who can afford it mostly won't want it.

On the other hand Vision Pro's price will go down and quality will go up. Apple has the deep pockets to continue to invest until the technology really delivers at a mass market price. This wasn't really there for the labor intensive high-touch Starcruiser experience.

That’s a good point.

Even so I am not sure if we will see electronic prices dropping over time the way they have in the past. Probably the most important scaling in semiconductors was the price coming down from shrink to shrink and that seems to be over. That’s why the 40-series cards from NVIDIA don’t improve on the 30-series for performance per dollar.

Apple leads the world in powerful ARM SoC but they make high end parts that sell at high end prices and compete with Meta who is very concerned about selling price and sometimes willing to subsidize hardware in the hope they make it back on services.

I think it kinda goes back to "I'll ignore it for now and wait a few years if it's still around with a reasonable value proposition"

And I mean it in the most positive way: if it ever works out Apple will come out with a better headset year over year, and build a community around it, XR will have made it to the mainstream. If it doesn't pan out will have a data point on what fails, and get other products that skirt around these issues while providing compelling features on the parts that matter, we have enough competition to have the concept survive.

Either way it's a win, and I salute Apple for jumping in the pool.

I'd be surprised if we get a gen 3 of this (I bet we'll get a gen 2 to slash cost)

It feels like the initial launch of the Apple Watch as a luxury fashion accessory. Good thing they were able to pivot that to a Fitbit competitor. Will they do the same here?

What would they pivot to? I'd love to have a normal glasses style device with some cameras and sensors to give me Iron Man/Cyberpunk-style HUD for notifications and calls, etc.. I just... don't understand what they could pivot to.

Exactly that, I think. My prediction is we'll get a 'Vision Air' which is AR-only, like HoloLens, and priced more competitively. But unlike HoloLens you won't look like a dweeb wearing this at home or around the office. Combined with some sort of killer app for the magic leap style gesture recognition this thing seems to have, and you could have a whole new human-computer interface.

Or maybe it dies an early death, like the Apple Newton. :shrug:

I'm skeptical as well... all this VR/AR hype has yet to deliver something... anything... anything at all... It's been years since I trying a VR headset at a friend's place and I distinctively remember thinking "this is useless... cool, but useless". I have yet to walk into someones place and not see one of these things gathering dust in a corner...

Perhaps the only time I actually felt like getting one was when I got hooked into Elite Dangerous, but these days I don't have time for it anyway... so, yeah.

I had an O.G. Rift and Elite Dangerous was absolutely awesome on it. But the prep work I had to do to just play a little was insane:

1. Boot to Windows (Mac bootcamp)

2. Microsoft: It's been 6 months since you ran Windows. I need to force an update for 20 minutes!

3. Steam: LOL you need to update me too!

4. Find the device, the motion sensor/cameras in my cabinet, plug them in and position them in the room.

5. Display driver: Barf! Reboot computer.

6. Unplug/replug everything.

7. Oculus: Hahah new drivers, sucker!

8. Launch Elite Dangerous. Oops, somehow it's not in VR mode. Figure out how to change it in graphics settings...

By the time I got around to playing, I was already exhausted.

My experience is very similar, even still (boot from linux into windows, have updates shoved down my throat, some random thing doesn't work because reasons, etc.)

Most of it really feels like unforced errors though. As much as I am not at all excited about a $3500 device that's completely locked into Apple's restricted ecosystem, they are the kind of company to actually pay attention to those things and smooth out all the rough edges.

I'm really just hoping it brings more attention and effort into the wider VR ecosystem and we start getting better products and software support.

Had a similar experience with the Rift and it made me buy a different VR headset. The software stack is critical to these devices not being painful or pleasant. Devices that are steamvr native have been so much nicer to use, just plug&pay. I'm assuming Apple isn't going to make their headset SteamVR compatible so I wonder how things will shake out a few years from now - is Apple going to be in their own little world or will existing software really support it?

I have/had OG Vive. It was like, double click the headset button, point and call Lighthouse spinups, put on headset, long press menu buttons on controllers, take a deep sigh for not much reason and I was in VR.

It was easy to get started, but was still on my shelf after 6 months, until Alyx came out, then back on the shelf (haven't touched it since then)

It's just, not worth it. The discomfort of the headset (in a number of ways) coupled with mostly underwhelming and/or limited experiences.

imo it’s years past the point there got to be a head tracked goggle emulator, for “experts”. there are occasional moments I’d want to go back just for few minutes, or finally try VRC(haven’t), and while I’m aware that first impression of VR has to be perfect, the full gear seems like an overkill for those occasions.

> all this VR/AR hype has yet to deliver something... anything... anything at all

…in the consumer space. There have been some really incredible tools I've seen in industrial or medical spaces, and I think that's unlikely to change in the near term.

I’ve seen cool demos and proof of concept of professional tools but don’t know of any that have traction and good retention. Do you have examples of tools with significant adoption?

I'm not sure breadth of adoption and retention are the right metrics here — the use cases I've heard about are highly specialized, so I wouldn't expect it to be massively and quickly adopted, the same way it took a long time for robotic surgery tools or CAD to become widely used.

I've heard of it used in e.g. surgeries, for visualizing data like MRI scans, or building schematics for electrical/steam/wastewater/etc but don't know of specific instances where products are used.

This looks like a good overview of efforts in the medical space: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8455774/

And this looks like an okay high-level survey of use in manufacturing and construction: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S240589631...

There was a bit of staging going on in that demo.

Like when the fellow walks up in frame perfectly between two windows and hands the viewer something.

Or the FaceTime call where the woman was talking to 3 other people – why weren't they wearing the goggles?

But these would be great on an airplane and probably other circumstances. I doubt I will be buying any time soon though.

> why weren't they wearing the goggles?

Vision Pro uses an ML model to present you without the googles if you are using FaceTime.

They did a nice slight of hand to make it look more impressive.

The first FaceTime demo had actual people.

The second FaceTime demo showed the ML model and it lacked multiple people.

Yes - there are definitely questions around how good the ML model will look.

To me it wasn’t amazing.

I'm sure that will look super realistic.

> Or the FaceTime call where the woman was talking to 3 other people – why weren't they wearing the goggles?

I wondered about that too, but if you watch the whole announcement, they explain it. They create a 3D avatar of you for FaceTime.

Vision Pro wearers don't show up in FaceTime as wearing goggles though: they show a simulated face that responds to facial gestures (basically a high-res Memoji)

that's how it will be, because there will only ever be at most one person using one of these things. The others are on their phones or macbooks.

I would be surprised if it's the minority.

Obviously I don't buy every product Apple launches but up to now I could see me using every one of their products, even if I don't think it would make sense buying one because it's too expensive or I don't need it. The Vision Pro however is something I have doubts could be useful even if it works perfectly and despite its price tag.

I got a Valve Index 2 months ago for VRChat. Turns out there's a huge music and dance community on VRC that spends a rediculous amount of money on various things to make it more usable.

The Index is $1000. Then some people get extra base stations which are $200 a pop. Then if you dance with full body tracking most people get Vive Tracker 3.0 which you need 3 for feet and waist. Add the $2000 gaming desktop I use for powering it and you're already at the price of the Vision Pro.

Except the Vision Pro is stand alone and has some really nice quality of life hacks that I haven't seen before in the VR space.

Also dancing in a VR rave is a pretty good workout and you get to meet tons of cool people. It sort of self selects for cool tech nerds. So far I've met a ton of amazing people through it.

There's a bit of irony there though, in that the most compelling things in VR are from gamers creating awesome things (VR Chat, modding in Beat Saber, etc), and emphatically not from giant companies providing these "experiences" that they're positive everyone will love.

As incredible as Apple's hardware looks, you are absolutely not going to have the kind of freedom you have with a piece of Valve hardware connected to your own PC. We'll be lucky if they even allow VR Chat on the platform.

Some of the most intense users of the VRC platform are hacker furries so I have zero doubt that someone will figure out how to get it going. They said they are working with Unity in the keynote.

It would be weird if they totally blocked VRChat cause it's the top VR app on Steam.

They spared couple minutes on specifically Unity compatibility. That's definitely a codeword for VRChat, Virtual Desktop for SteamVR compatibility, and accommodations for local development for VRChat contents.

The VR ecosystem feel feels a lot like the early 90s all over again. FPS mods, small community on fanatics, 90s wild west internet... Just saying, a lot of the comments here are coming from people who have never used VR. It's the obsessive kids right now that will drive the next 10-20 years, like I bet, a lot of what we do now was driven by 90s kids.

Im extremely skeptical that Apple will let this be used with VRC via PCVR. It would need to be a new build for the device with support for tracking. Plus those body trackers don’t suffer from occlusion.

You forgot the cost of fursuit.

The only feature I want in an AR headset is for it to tell me the name of the person I'm talking to. I always forget. But I know the facial recognition database is a huge privacy liability, so it will never happen. As a result, I'm also underwhelmed.

I suppose this is good for those people you see walking around texting as they wander into traffic. They might be able to like some Instagram posts AND look both ways before crossing the street. A $3500 headset is cheaper than a $100k spine replacement or whatever. (I just ... stop if I need to text someone while I'm out walking, and do my Internet shitposting when I'm not out and about. But I guess that's only me.)

> But I know the facial recognition database is a huge privacy liability, so it will never happen.

That's fairly easily overcome—you just need to have a local facial recognition database, specific to your contacts, rather than querying some centralized one.

I’m probably in the smaller majority of people who are very excited about it, but still expect it to flop (or at least flounder for a while).

I used a Quest 2 as virtual monitors for a week or so of real work and it was uncomfortable and sweaty and I was isolated and had to keyboard and mouse by touch, but the viewing experience was amazing. And I do use my Quest 2 frequently for games and “workouts” and entertainment. So I’m solidly in the market for this.

But the main thing is that I want to try it, mostly for the AR. I’ll reserve any fanboy comments until I’ve tried it.

Someday, someone is going to get AR/VR right. This isn’t it, but it seems to be moving in the right direction.

I don’t have high hopes for free space holographic displays, a la Star Wars or Minority Report, but augmented reality fills the same niche (with many of the same drawbacks and benefits).

Once we start seeing celebrities going everywhere with them on at all times I suspect uptake will be huge in the upper/middle class.

For reference you can refer to the original airpod's announcement thread to see how Hacker News comments on new products look in hindsight

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12446094

Or when the original iPod was released.

Man, it's good to know I am not alone.

3500 is way too much when trying to introduce a new platform. I guess that's the cost of the display (two apple watches) and the chips (a Macbook and a half). But still.

Agreed. I’d like to have seen Apple use some of their massive cash warchest to subsidise the platform until it’s on its feet.

Seems like it’s already on its feet.

I agree that it's way more expensive than I expected, but calling the displays "two apple watches" is really understating how much resolution you're getting. By like two orders of magnitude.

The price can always go down, but it is hard to go up. The high price and the next year date means they don't want to sell a whole lot of it. They probably need more time to improve it.

If I had to bet between Meta and Apple getting it right first, I'd probably bet on Meta now, with apple playing catchup as they usually do, and really well. But so far, if Metaverse was a mistake, this is an even larger mistake.

If these end up being closed systems, Apple will likely win the race. They'll just sell it better and they'll integrate it way better with all their existing hardware. The network effect will ensure that this is pretty much what people end up buying.

It's about 120x the resolution of an Apple Watch. The displays themselves -- by far the most critical, make or break element of such a device -- are multiple generations beyond anything else.

Honestly perplexed why this has seen multiple downvotes. The device features 23 million pixels, or 3x 4K screens. That's 3X the Sony VR2. Over 2X the Vive Pro 2. And of course it's 120x the resolution of an Apple Watch Series 7. The angular resolution approaches the limits of the human eye.

> 3500 is way too much when trying to introduce a new platform.

"No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame." :)

* https://slashdot.org/story/01/10/23/1816257/apple-releases-i...

The price is not low, but note the "Pro" in the name. I think that the first two versions will be high-end, and in the third generation they will release a Pro and non-Pro variant.

It took until the third-gen iPhone 3G for that product to really hit its stride. Took a few revs for the iWatch as well (IIRC).

The same criticism was made towards the trashcan, and it sure didn't revolutionize the high end computing world.

I also don't see Apple taking the world by storm with this device, but it probably could fit into the same niche as the AirPod Max, a device that provides what a specific audience wants and won't care that much about what it costs. Which is arguably a sizeable amount of people when it comes to the Apple ecosystem, allowing niche products to survive.

They'll probably push payment plans for this, but it might take some enticement. We are getting used to higher sticker prices anyway because of inflation.

Considering an Apple monitor stand is $1000, I would say this is a great price.

~100 bucks a month financed over 3 years. IMO the question is "can most people wear this for hours on end for both work and play" If that is actually yes (skeptical) I'm probably a buyer.

Adjusted for inflation it's actually cheaper than most early computers (Apple II ~6500 to start at launch).

It's better than I expected so far. I think it's quite revealing that VR was not mentioned once.

Also - this paves the way to Mac Laptops (and desktops) without displays, which to me is the big win here.

Ah, the iBorg is finally out. How soon will we see people walking around Silicon Valley wearing this thing? The concept is intended for full time wear, although with a 2-hour battery life and rather bulky headgear, the hardware isn't ready.

The interesting part is the input side. It uses voice, eye tracking, and cameras watching the user's hands rather than a hand controller. Apple has advanced the user interface again.

iGargoyle

You're right, of course, but only the people who really read "Snow Crash" will get it.

“Gargoyles represent the embarrassing side of the Central Intelligence Corporation. Instead of using laptops, they wear their computers on their bodies, broken up into separate modules that hang on the waist, on the back, on the headset. They serve as human surveillance devices, recording everything that happens around them. Nothing looks stupider; these getups are the modern-day equivalent of the slide-rule scabbard or the calculator pouch on the belt, marking the user as belonging to a class that is at once above and far below human society. They are a boon to Hiro because they embody the worst stereotype of the CIC stringer. They draw all the attention. The payoff for this self-imposed ostracism is that you can be in the Metaverse all the time, and gather intelligence all the time.”

Apple has advanced the user interface again.

Remains to be seen. Even if it is 100% accurate in tracking, the lack of physical feedback on inputs is a big tradeoff.

I don't know how big the tradeoff is. AFAIK the modern narrative is - you need physical buttons for tactile feedback. The story generally goes - you are focused on something else like looking at screen while typing on the keyboard or changing volume/temperature while driving. A less common element would be pressing a button in the dark elevator... you really want to see it light up or elevator start moving. We've grew up to expect this... but how much tactile feedback do you get from a thought occurring or turning your head?

Given that headset literally controls your vision I think it might be possible to create visual effects that feel as satisfying as a click... Having said that, human experience OS is weird and real world testing is needed.

This seems like a device that could kill the monitor.

If you're upgrading your workstation to that new Mac Pro, do you get one big 5k display? Or get this headset, and have an array of displays in high resolution with built-in spatial 3D that follow you anywhere and don't take up any physical space.

Zero chance it replaces monitors for everyday people, if for no other reason than folks with long hair will not want to sit around with effectively ski goggles strapped to their head all work day. After a long day of work you'll have a ring around your face and totally messed up hair... that will not fly with people.

And who will see this messed up hair at night? The whole point is implementing 2009 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surrogates in real life.

The eternal issue with AR monitors is you need many multiples of the monitor resolution you're trying to imitate in the goggle display. It's doable but quite expensive

I’d buy a nice curved monitor for $1k, save $2.5k and enjoy not having a ski mask hanging off my face for 8 hours a day.

> This seems like a device that could kill the monitor.

No, this screenless laptop [1] is a device that could kill the monitor. Conventional keyboard, AR goggles for the monitor.

This Apple headgear is intended to kill the smartphone, but the hardware isn't there yet. As Carmack said after leaving Oculus, the headgear needs to get down to swim goggle size to get any traction, and down to eyeglass size to become pervasive.

This thing is bulkier than expected. Since it's tethered to a box on your belt, it's surprising that more of the electronics isn't down with the battery. Others are shipping smaller, lighter headgear. You'd expect something like this [2] from Apple.

Despite this, we'll probably see iBorgs on University Avenue in Palo Alto within days after this ships.

[1] https://www.tomshardware.com/news/this-ar-laptop-promises-a-...

[2] https://inmoglass.com/

Tested spacetop last year; it's not good for extended use. Glasses were dim, it's Chrome OS based so web apps for everything. You have infinite virtual desktop, readability is good, but ultimately it's just a consumption tool for reading and typing. But the cost is looking dorky.

Wont know until we get specs. They at least claimed it could present 4k movies, but, I already have a 4k VR headset and while it is one of the few headsets that can decently display text in the way they're suggesting, it's still not with the clarity of a monitor. Take 4k and stretch it to a much larger (virtual) width and suddenly 4k isnt enough.

Well, you better start some neck strengthening exercises if you plan on working with a headset 8+ hours a day.

I don't know, my decade old triple display setup has ~170 degrees FOV, there are very few options in VR that has it.

The main issue could be the passthrough quality. In the marketing material it's touted as "magic", we'll need to wait a year to see how it pans out in practice (especially with mixed lighting, darker environments etc).

In particular, the speed and quality of the feedback loop between the camera capturing your surroundings and the rendering to your eyes could be enough to kill the experience.

If it's not up to the task, we're back to the full shutdown VR experience, and this device will have to compete with the other next-gen devices (especially up to 3500 bucks)

At this point it's still vaporware, but I'll be excited to read the first actual impressions of the device in real world settings.

Incredibly impressive hardware, but Apple's distaste for games is almost comical. $3500 headset that plays shitty 2d arcade games with a controller.

Unity is 3D

I mean 2d as in "designed for a 2 dimensional monitor". Everything they demo'd was a 3d game, projected onto a 2d surface, projected into a 3d virtual space.

There was the Disney demo and the few developer demos, which were properly AR/VR.

I guess they’re hoping the game port stuff they also introduced today would bring some games over

If I can code with essentially infinite screen space with the full power and adaptability of my Mac then I’m excited. The price is too much to just go and have a go for me but it will come down, the MB Air was extremely expensive for what it was from memory and now it’s the intro product.

Looks amazing, but I'm not having anything on my face at my kid's fourth birthday.

You say that now, but bulky embarrassing camcorders at kids birthdays were a major thing in their day. Perhaps there will be some livestream type features to share the birthday with grandparents across the country in 3D.

Yep. Mine were filmed with one of these. But dad would film for a few minutes, put it down, smile and wave, hand it to mom.

Having something strapped to your face is a different beast.

I dare say one of the next iphones will introduce the 3d video/photo capture capability. Then you could capture with the phone and view it later on the headset.

The hardware looks beautiful, as is to be expected from Apple - I just don't think the appetite is there for a general purpose productivity headset, the big wins in VR/AR seems to be very specialized and mostly around things like manufacturing and design/engineering instead of just typical office work.

Who knows? It might look affordable if you compare it to the $5000 Pro Display XDR... And you can carry it with you.

I definitely can’t imagine myself with this thing on doing office work. Maybe the adult industry would embrace it though…

From the initial pic I thought it looked cool, but then when seeing how bulky it is from the side it looks fairly dorky.

Let's be honest here. If Steve were still alive this thing would never see the light of day in it's current form.

Does 24,000,000 pixels in total mean a resolution of ~3464x3464 pixels per eye compared to 2064x2208 of the quest 3?

That certainly seems to be the case.

I wonder what the FOV is? Assuming not great as it wasn't mentioned at all.

This seems very promising by being based on already existing experiences (support for iPhone and iPad Apps). Considering all the other features the price of 3499$ doesn't seem to crazy, especially because it can replace all of your monitors, TV and more while also enabling entirely new experiences for basically the same price.

Replace all that said for…one… person.

It’s cool. I’d rather buy something else.

Do we know it's just for one person, and that Optic ID can't be used to authenticate multiple users?

This will be a rare Apple L. I'm calling it.

The last major new product was the Apple Watch. The launch strategy for that was flawed. Many may have forgotten it was launched as a luxury product including a $10,000 version (which was ridiculous). This was when the former Burberry CEO was (briefly) at the helm of Apple Retail.

From the 2nd generation it pivoted to health and fitness, which has a market. But the market is still tiny. I'd still call it an eventual success.

But nobody wants VR. Like, literally nobody. It is and will remain a niche, at this or any other price point. Many see it as a stepping stone to AR. I remain skeptical that AR will be technically possible at all. If it is it will takes years if not decades for the tech to get there and there are fundamental problems (eg dealing with focus, rendering true blacks). It's one of these things that is a popular idea in sci-fi without considering the barriers.

I can actually see Apple pulling this within a few years, if it even takes that long. Maybe they'll hang onto it for the promise of AR but I'm skeptical.

I'm sorry, are you calling the Apple Watch, a $70 billion annual revenue sector of their business a failure?

It's hard to tell at this point if this will be a success - even with their financing options, $3500 is a big price, especially a first gen product.

They have definitely taken an existing market (Oculus - that has sold as much as modern consoles) and ramped up the quality of it, while polishing the UI/UX.

I am very excited to see where this goes in 3 years.

e: I guess eventual success isn't quite failure - but I dont think I would frame it the way you did, even with the slight stumbles.

> are you calling the Apple Watch, a $70 billion annual revenue sector of their business a failure?

First, where did you get $70 billion from? I see estimates of 40M Apple Watches sold per year. It starts at $249. I imagine the average selling price is pretty close to that. Let's assume $300. So that's a $12 billion business?

And no, I didn't call it a "failure". I called it a niche, which it is. To compare Apple sold 225M iPhones (at a significantly higher ASP) in 2022.

Tiny market? Apple rakes in ~$40 billion annually from Apple Watch, AirPods, Beats Headphones, and AirTags, with the watch itself being a $15 billion dollar annual segment. https://www.businessofapps.com/data/apple-statistics/

I mean, if you added up every gaming console (Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo, Meta Quest 2), Apple's wearables & accessories division is still far larger.

Nobody wants VR? Did Apple mention VR even once in today's talk? For all your skepticism around AR being technically possible, did you even watch the video? They are directly addressing all the key points around AR that everyone in that space has been trying to tackle for years.

Pretty cool to see a major company release an completely new product line; the whole portable/phone market has been pretty slow the last few years. This doesn't really compete with anything that already exist - the closest I think is the Simula One which hasn't shipped yet.

Hopefully, this will spur more AR/VR development and open-source/open-computing options will catch up.

Ooof, $3499 is a bit much to swallow. I would have considered if it were under $2k. Still, I might go for it considering how amazing it is.

Well, they specifically are calling this the Vision _Pro_. Presumably there'll be a non-pro version at some point (Vision Air? etc) that will address a wider audience.

I’m interested in it to replace my monitors at work and home, that’s about it. Not only would it allow for more screen space, but (I think?) it would allow my eyes to focus at infinity while working

> I’m interested in it to replace my monitors at work and home

You want to replace your monitors, with a VR headset? What's the appeal?

The cost see very high for something that has no apparent use case, I mean, Disney+ ... that's the best use they can come up with.

I did this for a while with my Quest 2. Floating in space on an asteroid while my main screen is bigger (virtually) than an IMAX screen and two other monitors float on either side plus tool windows I could grab and move around was awesome. Just the headset was heavy and sweaty after a while and there was no AR pass thru, so I couldn’t see my keyboard and mouse or find my coffee cup. This looks like a step forward in solving all those problems.

I mean, I'd love to just for the space savings alone. Multiple monitors take up quite a bit of space. If I could repurpose the space for other things without losing functionality that'd be great.

I don't think this is there yet. I'd need to see performance data, and I'd really prefer SteamVR integration (though I could probably reduce a PC+headset to a pretty small if necessary). But it's a step in that direction, and even if it's not necessarily Apple that gets there I think we will see that kind of device in the future.

The Ars live blog mentioned there seemed to be a battery tether, but I didn't see any mention about battery life, so I don't know how long you'd be able to use Vision Pro before you'd have to swap batteries/recharge.

They said 2 hours in the presentation.

You can plug it in for all-day life.

This seems to be the obvious killer feature (what NReal has been tackling for a while now).

What's interesting is they're marketing 4K for each eyes, which I assume means that a display taking a third of the vision area would have a third a third of that resolution to display text etc. That's not unworkable, but we currently already have actual 4K monitors, only for a screen, and having two 4K monitors on a table should give an uncomparatively sharper image than what the headset is offering at best.

Basically, a 4K resolution per eye is impressive, but actually not that much to work with if we're comparing it to real world equivalents.

When this is $1000 I will sell my monitors and buy this instead. It’s a no brainer. In fact at $1000 why would you even bother with an iPad?

  *  $3500 price tag
  *  2D / "Arcade" games support (lol)

I'm a buyer 3-4 generations in if price comes down significantly and I can replace my monitors with it. The seamless use with a mac for work will be really nice - but isn't worth $3500 to me for a gen 1 device / experience.

For now, I'm probably just going to get a Quest 3 when it drops this September. In terms of a virtual work environment - immersed is _almost_ there on a Quest 2. Maybe Quest 3 will be the ticket to a compelling experience. If not, well... I still have my library of dozens of VR games to make it worth $600 (or w/e).

Still, excited to see what Apple does with this platform over the next five or so years. The "macbook air" version of this a few years down the road will probably be more my speed!

The announcement video ad: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TX9qSaGXFyg

They absolutely nailed the marketing. Made the product feel like a family-friendly do-it-all device. Facebook needs to learn how to sell from Apple.

3500$ is pricey but I'm a bit more disappointed at the timeline, was really eager to try it out

"Apple's new VR Headset" not so much. It seems very much to be an AR headset. As a person who uses VR daily, I was curious if it would move VR forward, but it seems unrelated. Maybe one day they'll address tracking of peripherals such as is used for full body tracking and gaming, but for now it looks like just a virtual desktop & movie platform, which is fine since the competition doesn't do those particularly well, but time will tell if the difference is groundbreaking or just iterative. I do dream of a day when I don't need a monitor anymore, but unless their specs are out if this world, we're probably at least 5 years away.

You probably should watch the presentation video, it’s absolutely both AR AND VR, it’s just Apple are (quite rightly) betting that the real user interest lies in the AR side of things.

Switching to VR progressively with the dial is genius UI design imo

This looks amazing and what I am most excited about is that I will actually be able to physically test it thanks to Apple Stores.

Maybe Quest Pro is amazing but I don't even know where (if) I can experience it.

In the meta store :)

Went there, was the only customer for the hour of demo I had.

I suppose that later revisions will have smaller bezels and more of that face screen for other people to see. Eventually it'll look like you're wearing metal-framed safety googles. Maybe rose gold.

I'm glad to see Unity at the start, and a theatre experience. That'll do gaming and media. But at work, without a keyboard solution, I think it's stuck until that gets figured out.

The commercial they showed at the end showed the person using a regular bluetooth keyboard with the device.

Oh! I missed that! Thanks.

I thought it used the Apple keyboard? Or you could use your Mac with it.

Apple has made another revolutionary, "shut up and take my money!" product.

Sure, it'll take some time to get our hands on it and the platform to establish itself, but I'm sure that if anyone can pull it off, then it's Apple. And I'm confident that they can pull it off!

Wonderful WWDC, reminds the older times where surprising announcements blew my socks off (almost) yearly!

No partnership with Unreal - I wonder why :).

yeah esp since this is a new era of communications - but look its got a lot going for it - all day use when plugged in

For those of us not in the know, can you explain?

They partned with their competitor Unity for the VR googles.

Unreal is owned by Fortnite maker Epic Games - they are not very friendly.

A big court case around App Store monopoly.

Ah thank you!

Wondering how this is going to change the remote working experience. If the price point starts coming down, I can see this as really useful for digital "in-person" meetings that keep people more engaged than a Zoom call.

Intrigued to test this device out to see if it's really much different from the typical VR experiences.

It is like a deal killer for me that in meetings that you get swapped for a creepy uncanny valley version of yourself. The hardware seemed amazing, but the software was disappointing.

https://www.youtube.com/live/GYkq9Rgoj8E?feature=share&t=693...

Video timing has changed:

https://www.youtube.com/live/GYkq9Rgoj8E?feature=share&t=676...

Kinda blows away whatever it was that Zuck and Meta were doing. This is game-changing and so much more than VR.

I’m very surprised there was no Fitness+ app for Apple Vision Pro mentioned at all. The Mindfulness app even got quick reveal but no exercise feature? That’s been the most sticky feature for Quest 2/Pro for me (perhaps because their screens aren’t sharp and clear even for work)

It's because you have to wear a battery pack

If a $300-400 Oculus falls off your head, who cares, but $3500? Just nope.

You wouldn't want to get your expensive Vision Pro all sweaty now, would you

But it should be sweat resistant, no? All the top VR games involve movement.

If Apple really is going to treat the headset’s gaming story as connect a PlayStation controller and play Apple Arcade games on a virtual screen I’ll be disappointed

I'm thinking this would have been an incredible idea during the pandemic - don't get me wrong, it's still a great idea. I just think the pandemic use case simply made too much sense - they really could have changed remote work and quaranting forever.

If the main complaint here is the price, then Apple has once again succeeded with their marketing.

This looks like a device one would buy to be able to visit SF w/o seeing the homeless.

The killer app will be how it can blur out things you don't want to see in reality while walking around. Blinkers for humans.

If it can make London sunny all year round, I'm in.

Any one know how the finger gesture control works? I wonder how accurate it would be. That UI seems to be a big advancement compare to other VR devices.

So their 3d avatars seem really cool. Its kinda like an Apple approved DeepFake of yourself.

It's priced at $3499 - seems too expensive for a consumer device (maybe)?

Starts at $3499... I don't think this will be successful.

Apple's biggest mistake in years. This thing is DOA.

Will it let me block people, like in Black Mirror?

starts at US$3499, available early next year...

Starts at $3499 and is available early 2024.

Will they have a left hand version?

It's priced at $3499 = seems too expensive for a consumer device (maybe)?

I don't really think Zuck and Meta are any competition for this - will this end Meta's AR/VR prospects?

Starts at $3500 USD.

Quest 3 is $500 https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/1/23744576/meta-quest-3-vr-h...

This is $3500

You are correct, they are not competing in the same space.

Here's a demo: https://twitter.com/ijustine/status/1665787127815077888

Hmmm thats not particularly compelling.

I was expecting more. It seems like an oculus but with a software team that can actually do user focused software.

isn't this just a video of the video of the keynote?

Apple introduces a new Scuba Mask. iScuba will seamlessly blend underwater reality and the digital underwater, enabling Apple users everywhere to dive deep while staying connected.

iScuba is currently priced at $9999, making it the most affordable digitial Scuba mask produced by Apple in Apple's history.

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