Hacker News Reader

Comment by geysersam | Hacker News Reader

> VR is an awful, desperate, not fit for purpose replacement for even a single 1080p monitor.

But for how much longer? I can really see the benefit of having "more space" when working on a computer.

We're peeking through needle holes, small screens mostly covered by bars and menues. If we're lucky the context we need for our task fits on two large screens.

I believe this strains our working memory more than we understand. Making us do thing slower, worse and with more effort.

VR has the potential to unlock much more "space" that we can navigate in a way that is much more natural to us.

Not sure if the tech is up to the task today or if it will be in 10 years. But the value proposition is clear.

View on HN

Not to mention that the screen is becoming a bigger and bigger part of the mass of the computer. I wouldn't expect to like this first product but 5-10 years down the line it isn't unreasonable to believe that your computer is your phone, you take it everywhere with you, and your monitor is your glasses (benefit if you already wear glasses). That sounds pretty cool. Keyboard is the next big thing imo, because virtual typing sucks and I need something tactile. We'll probably need to rethink the entire concept though.

My main concern is about collaboration. Specifically, a fear with Apple lockin. When you pair program you can just sit down at either computer. Will we have an open protocol to share screens (or specific apps in screens like modern screenshare does)? Will is be semi-open like the current MMS system where Apple makes you look at a potato? My concern is about how these can be used to further isolate ourselves and break our fundamental social structure. But part of that will be how we use them, along with the decisions these companies make. I just hope Apple doesn't lock everyone in, but I'm not going to hold my breath.

voice replaces typing

Counter point: why hasn't voice controlled office apps or code editors taken off already? Is it inertia or is voice control just not that useful?

AFAIK it hasn’t been accurate enough until recently. I’ve heard OpenAI’s whisper is great text to speech and I think I read today iOS 17 is updating their speech-to-text as well.

Also, I’m not an office worker but I would imagine working with speech to text around everyone else using speech to text would be a hellish and annoying scenario. Work from home alleviates that.

It reads that a lot of the control of visionOS is speech based as well and Apple should be smart enough to know if it doesn’t work well the entire product will flop and Tim Apple’s entire legacy will likely be over.

I tested SwiftKey recently and works quite well with speech to text when whispering very silently when you put you lips close to microphone but worked even well with airpods. This still might be culturally weird to everyone whispering but in office with fans and aircon and other ambient sound i think would be hard to hear anyone whispering when 2m away.

Oh that sounds like hell to me if I'm being honest. It would be okay for stnadard routines "write a for loop that increments variable foobar" (LLMs help here) but be a fucking nightmare for debugging or fine grained work.

The same designers who are designing your web and app experience will also design your AR and VR experience.

I think designers are doing a good job. They just don't have great material to work with.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com