Apple Vision | Hacker News Reader

Apple Vision

stratechery.com

393 pointssimonpure568 comments

This article is dead on, all the way to the end. Takes a few minutes to read, but its observations on the market position of the device, all the way to the individual/social ramifications and the relevance vis a vis Meta, are as sharp as anything I’ve read about this yet.

If it seems like he’s gushing, he is. He’s speaking as someone who has seen lots of these devices and, in his view, this hardware and software outclasses anything else available.

If that bothers you but you push past it, I think you’ll find that whether you like this device or not, it could reflect or represent changes in how we incorporate technology in our lives that we might not yet fully appreciate.

> If it seems like he’s gushing, he is.

This is how he writes. If you ever read him on a topic where you are an actual expert, you’ll probably never bother reading him again.

> This is how he writes.

Maybe, but Marques Brownlee gushed about it as well (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFvXuyITwBI), and he's not a person that pulls punches.

This is an extremely ambitious, qualitatively different device than anything that's come before.

Completely agree about MKBHD. My point was strictly that Stratechery is trash.

I cannot argue with Apple’s ambition but as has been hashed over in these, and many other comments I am skeptical of the adoption story.

The [i]VP is a snazzy product without a market. It remains to be seen whether it will create the market in the way gpt3 did or if it will be another flop like glass, oculus, and every other attempt in the space.

> This is an extremely ambitious, qualitatively different device than anything that's come before.

what exactly is different? I see high quality display, foveated rengering, and controller-less control... anything else im missing?

It's a bit dated really. His era is when VC was king and everything was about how this or that tech was truly disruptive or had a deeper moat than you think.

I've never been able to get anything from the whole west coast "startup intelligence" blogosphere, and now it seems increasingly irrelevant and archaic.

Does it make a difference that he acknowledges he is gushing?

No, it’s a tactic to disarm criticism by pretending to pre-address the obvious “don’t do that” response. “I know my behavior is bad but I am openly acknowledging it so you should trust me and look beyond it” is remarkable in its ability to disarm critics. To put it another way, “they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab them by the..”

Can you name one instance of this? I think he's incredibly fair provides good insights.

Who are other people recommend instead of him then?

To provide an alternative perspective, your comment convinced me to read the article and I didn't think it was substantive at all.

Can you give an example of an "sharp" "observation" he made?

That the device will, if successful, make us even more lonely.

That's certainly an observation (and one I agree with), but it's a stretch to call it "sharp".

Everyone and everyone's mother has already made the claim that VR is dystopian. Snow Crash was written in 1992. For literally decades before it's been even implemented, VR has been the quintessential symbol for the irony of technology both bringing us together while keeping us apart.

And to be clear, I'm not even criticizing the product. I think the Vision Pro could be very cool. I'm criticizing the idea that this blog said anything insightful.

As if the skyrocketing rate of anxiety, depression and self-harm that started with the release of the iPhone and Facebook weren't bad enough, now we're going to mediate human relationships even more immersively through silicon and megacorps. Mass alienation is rat poison for civilization.

Yes - that mental picture of a divorced dad watching old family photos come to life, while sitting alone on his couch - is just gutting. Like a literal punch in the gut.

But having said that, is "loneliness" the correct (or only) takeaway on that? I mean, there are people toying with the idea of uploading emails and documents of the deceased to an LLM so relatives can still "talk" to them.

I don't have a word for what that kind of world looks like.

I really worry that if AR/VR like Apple Vision takes off, we are going to find ourselves even more alone, isolated, and depressed than ever, separated from the physical humanity we all evolved to live in. Putting a screen between everything is the theme of so many dystopian movies I don't even know where to start.

I mean, I get it. I really, really do. But, man, is this healthy, really?

I’ve kept in touch with some childhood friends digitally. And I’ve worked while in coffee shops and offices.

I have much more authentic interactions with my friends over Discord than I do with strangers or pseudo-strangers in public. In public then interaction is intentionally inauthentic (which feels emotionally isolating to me, at least); the person wants to be nice to me to get a better tip, I want to be nice to my boss to get a better review. The online interactions with my friends are somewhat hampered by our inability to read body language over a mostly audio medium. The former will require deep societal changes to make into honest interactions. The latter can be fixed by Apple & co using cameras and gyroscopes, which they are already pretty good at. I’m much more optimistic about the latter.

I have much more real and honest interaction meeting physically people whome I don't know from childhood. Online it's all a pretentious character acting.

I think this is a generational and medium thing. We clearly have different definitions of "Online".

I'm guessing your online communication is done via something that uses pictures and videos like Instagram or Snapchat?

My main communication to my friends has been text-based chat for over 20 years, and I do have real and honest communication with them. When we meet physically, we continue where we left off online. Even if people have changed hairstyles, gained/lost weight etc. I wouldn't know, we don't share pictures or videos of each other regularly.

I think the other comment identified a mismatch there; I should have been more clear—by “online” I meant in video games and over Discord. Which is to say, individual conversations. If by online you mean something like Instagram or Facebook or other platforms broadcast out to the world, yeah, that can be a bit pretentious and fake.

> I want to be nice to my boss to get a better review.

What's dishonest, or "not authentic" about this?

I’ve honestly liked all of my bosses, but it is a relationship that is primarily rooted in financial needs.

It's not healthy. It's not healthy because as devices and software improves people who are in isolation use it as a further form of isolation. It's easier to escape into technology than it is to go out and interact with real humans. Life is messy, it's hard but it's entirely rewarding and what we need. But everything we've now come to know in the past three decades has taken us in a different direction. The technology has its valued when used for specific purposes. But when it becomes the all consuming thing that people use to attempt to solve those deeply troubling problems, that's when we have an issue.

So I think part of this only exacerbates escapism. Getting back to true reality is going to require a fundamental jolt to humanity.

>Getting back to true reality

I agree and disagree with this at the same time. Does true reality mean tossing ourselves out in the plains of Africa with a stick fighting off wild animals? I mean ever since that point human intelligence has been on a divergent path from animal intelligence. We create fields and towns and societies that subject us to new realities. Why is one particularly different from another?

At the same time individual divergent realities means society stops existing. What will society look like if we have our own individual universes we can occupy? If you want to take this to an extreme, one could imagine a matrix we voluntarily hook ourselves up to where the machines are left to care for the physical world.

I think there's a distinction between the physical and the digital. One might say it's electrons at the end of the day but if you think about how we came into this world and how we've operated for a millennia, putting a veil over our eyes to deny the real world is not part of that. It came much later.

Look I'm an engineer like everyone else here. I've grown up on the internet, I've played games consoles since I was a child. I've lost myself to endless hours watching TV, movies, roaming the internet and building software till the odd hours. I'm also closing in on 40 so what I value now is not the same as what I thought was important 20 years ago. Living in some sort of matrix was really appealing back then but as my mortality becomes more apparent I reflect more on our existence and reason for being. In my opinion it's not to defer all of our faculties to a screen strapped to our faces. We are so far from the truth is crazy. But hey we'll keep going in that direction and like all technology there will be the pendulum of extremes and moderation. I will likely not use one of these devices for a long time and only when there's a compelling reason to do so and for limited periods of time. I think that's how all technology should be used, in limited capacity for the betterment of our lives. I do not want to stare at a screen for hours on end anymore and spatial computing is basically taking us further in that direction.

This is a separate warning from the LLM/Humanlike agent crowd too. Yuval Noah Harari warns that the battle of the past was attention, the battle of the future will be intimacy.

It's going to be an interesting ride.

I don't agree with his comment, but he does address it:

In other words, there is actually a reason to hope that Meta might win: it seems like we could all do with more connectedness, and less isolation with incredible immersive experiences to dull the pain of loneliness. One wonders, though, if Meta is in fact fighting Apple not just on hardware, but on the overall trend of society; to put it another way, bullishness about the Vision Pro may in fact be a function of being bearish about our capability to meaningfully connect.

Anybody that goes to work alone in a home office room is isolating themselves more completely than sitting in a common area with an XR mask.

But a lot of the demo videos showed people sitting alone wearing the headset, which is even more isolating than both of the above.

Technology certainly isn't a substitute for real human contact, but it's a hard sell to argue that technology is worse than literally being alone.

I, too, share this fear. Most people are already so antisocial these days. We don't need tech making it worse.

Apple has managed to combine AR and VR, by simply re-creating the AR inside the VR.

The idea is simple but profound.

However, for a company that prides itself on "shared" experiences, the VR is for "lonesome" experiences (watching a movie, watching vacation photos, etc) in some cases, but bang on for others (especially at work)

This will spurn the industry, just like the iPhone did, and hopefully, we will have a lot of use cases. To list a few.

1. Watching your family from afar, by linking two VR devices in real time. 2. Incredible engineering and design advances, with the combination of real time sharing, AR and VR merging. 3. A whole new way to experience content. Honestly, the idea of an unlimited screen size is appealing. 4. Incredible potential for gaming.

Anyone with little kids who like to play outside who also happened to own an Oculus already "knew" this (maybe it's just my family): my kids' favorite game on the Oculus is to spray paint the "play area" in the combined B&W 'outside' rendering. They've always demanded to be able to play beat sabers but also to be able to "see the room", so they can see their friends when they play. They don't even care that it's crappy, low-quality B&W; actually, that's kind of a charming feature!

I think what's stopped other companies is that it was too damn hard; not that it wasn't the obviously superior way of doing things. (Obviously superior: render AR onto VR.)

Not just too hard, but also maybe too expensive. Vision is using 12 cameras, LIDAR, and a lot of processing power to deliver it. People thought it was crazy when Apple started trying to get 6+ cameras and using 3+ at once for single photos/videos on a single phone (before they started to emulate them after they achieved that). (In some respects the early critiques of, for instance, the iPhone 13 in retrospect maybe start to look like hints of some of Vision's early planning/testing stages.)

Apple seems to have prioritized AR in a way that Meta didn't and that led them to exploring all the costs to do it right. (You can argue that Microsoft was also paying attention as their Mixed Reality-focused playbook resembles what Apple seems to be playing at. Microsoft just saw the costs as a reason to focus first on Enterprise customers. Apple seems to have the gumption to try to make this a potentially accessible to consumers play from Day One, including involving Disney to signal that. That's an interesting bet that will be curious to watch play out.)

I'll say one of the best moments in VR for me is in the lobby of Star Trek: Bridge Crew just nerding out with a complete stranger while waiting for others to join... I think we even sat around and chatted while we had a the whole crew.

> Apple has managed to combine AR and VR, by simply re-creating the AR inside the VR. The idea is simple but profound.

The Quest Pro does that, just badly.

Also Varjo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23RS3RAg16k

The Quest 2 does it even worse.

That said it seemed to be a major upgrade point on the announced Quest 3, so we’ll see how it compares.

"simply"

So... what's the killer app for this thing? Best I can tell it's a status symbol for a particular type of computer nerd.

But blather about the Apple "Vision" has replaced blather about GPT based chatbots on HN, so I am thankful for that.

But I am not being facetious when I say that I don't see any application for the technology that justifies the $3500 price tag. But I'm more than willing to be educated.

Is BMW going to use it to train assembly line workers?

Is it going to be used to assist people living in memory care by recognizing faces of people in their field of view and displaying identity annotations?

Are construction workers supposed to wear it so they can view 3D plans overlaid on top of actual construction? Maybe it's cameras can create a 3d model of existing construction to beam back to the site architect to get input about how to proceed?

These all seem plausible, but none of them are consumer apps. Is Apple now not selling direct to consumers? I just don't get the business around these things.

The power in the headset makes it sound like it replaces your laptop.

So for $3,500 I get a new laptop plus a 100 inch screen. To buy those separately would be far more than $3,500.

In my case I plan to buy it on day one because I want it for working. I'm tired of having to choose enjoying the nice weather outside while using a tiny 15 inch laptop screen or being inside at my desk with my 3 32" screens.

With Apple Vision, I can have my 3 32" screen outside. Or on the road. Or in the office when I drop in for a day. Or anywhere else I may go. It will be a huge boost in productivity and definitely worth the price.

That is the killer feature for me -- portability of my most productive setup.

I kinda doubt it would be comfortable to wear it for 8+ hours...

I can't use Quest 2 for more than 30 minutes at a time: sweating, eye strain, etc.

Does it replace the laptop, or supplement it? From what I've seen it can project one monitor from your existing MacBook into the space.

Which means you'll also have to lug your MacBook around in order to use it on the go, and you won't be able to have your 3 monitors, just the one.

I think you get two 1.5" screens with half the resolution of my 34" monitor.

If your 3 32 inch screens are running collectively at 2.1k bits, they must be pretty old. Why not just keep them? They're fully depreciated.

And it runs an entirely new OS, so I have to buy apps for it again. Or cope with VisionSafari being slightly different than desktop safari and wait for Adobe to support it.

When I want to go outside, I just take my laptop outside. It's much easier to see in the full light. Plus, I can change the distance of things I focus on, which is supposedly good for vision.

But I was asking about the "killer app." What can you do with this thing that you can't do with a laptop, phone or desktop computer?

Apple positioning this for “Work” addresses that. It also conveniently diminishes concerns about things like the battery (if you’re at a desk, plugging in is no problem) and controls (if the gestures bother you, use a keyboard and trackpad).

The work scenario could just mean using it for meetings and collaboration, or it could just mean working with large virtual screens. In any case, if you’re working from your bedroom or from your drab office, a virtual environment could be, I dunno, refreshing?

What if we could /all/ work in a beautiful space with lots of natural material surfaces and huge windows with views of beautiful forests? Sure, it’s all fake, but maybe fake nature is better than real offices?

“Work” also gives you reason to pick it up every day, unlike my neglected Oculus and Vive. If it’s useful for work and easy to slap on, I might bother to keep it charged and handy on my desk.

And then it won’t really matter what I’m wearing when I get on a Teams call…

I have a VR headset, and it lives in a cardboard box. The reason is that the only thing I'd actually use it for it does poorly. That being immersive media consumption. By the time you have a virtual movie theater the resolution remaining for the actual movie might as well be a VHS. If this is as good as it sounds like it is, that problem is solved.

I won't be getting one for $3500, but if I was single or a higher earner I probably would. I'm sure they'll sell as many as they can make.

The killer feature is going to be triggered when cameras that can capture video that this device can put you into come out. I'll happily pay this price and more to be able to record moments in my life and relive them later.

>Apple "Vision" has replaced blather about GPT based chatbots on HN

Heh, this is where you're making a mistake... GPT agents + generated worlds + Apple Vision will be the blather in another year where people go into simulated realities to check out.

To be honest, I'm waiting for someone to train a backrooms-style environment based on NeRF to make horror games with these sorts of XR experiences.

As much as I hate all the bluster about chatGPT, an application like this could actually work. NeRF models are already fairly capable of generating indoor environments like this, and backrooms-style spaces lean on repetitive structured and uncanniness so having them be generated on-the-fly helps lean into the experience.

Imagine DeepDream (2015), but inside apple vision someday.

Heading toward whole new frontiers of traumatizing people.

Some general use cases: - training/education: say giving you tips and correcting you while cooking with checklist recipes and concurrent demos of the current step. Works for painting, fixing instrument finger positions, workout tips, STEM, or anything where you would want to use your hands instead of holding something. There was a keynote section about the watch helping with golf swings and the like. - Streaming: there were apparently some terrific sports/concerts front row seat demos. Some were willing to plunk down $1000 courtside subscriptions instead of $1000/ticket seats. TikTok but far more intimate in the room with them experiences. - decorating: there was a demo where a wall became a portal to a Jurassic period. Imagine the decorating possibility of an aquarium in your living room and a planetarium on your ceiling. Virtual pets cavorting and visitors just popping into your living room via a portal. Create a literal dream home on the cheap. -escape/relaxation: live in a noisy bright urban center? Just cut it all light and noise out with your private getaway helmet. If you are paying $2000 a month for a so-so living space it would be a good add on.

Personally I value having a great bed and a great car because treating yourself makes it worthwhile. Having a dream environment the times I am alone? Having a theatre experience stuck on the toilet? I am looking forward to when the hardware can simultaneously do all of this at once.

http://premiumblend.net/2009/01/13/flashback-to-feb-1984-joh...

https://m.slashdot.org/story/21026

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/gadgets-news/watch-micro...

https://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/29/technology/29apple.html

https://money.cnn.com/2015/02/04/technology/apple-watch-flop...

The idea of virtual displays seems practical, right now if you want another monitor (or to make your primary one larger) you need the desk space + the money to add that on, which virtual monitors solves.

However, how practical that really ends up being relies on how the OS is positioned and the kind of thing it can run. If it ends up like MacOS, yeh I can see that being very useful, but if it ends up like iPadOS (or god forbid iOS), well I can just say anecdotally after owning an ipad for however-many years this is the first time I've even considered using multiple monitors for that kind of thing.

I probably won’t buy Apple Vision for a while but will eagerly follow it. Like the author, I’m mainly excited about using this for work/ productivity.

I’ve tried out working in VR using oculus and immersed. I’ve really liked the experience but the blurry text was a deal breaker. From the reviews so far, that might not be a problem anymore.

I have already imagined myself tony-stark style viewing complex systems as a hologram going up and down in levels of abstraction at the flick of my wrist, having notes pop up, select the pieces of info I need and view everything holistically.

https://youtu.be/OdHbQpg4pOA

4K per eye could simply be a magical tech thanks which enables immersion, and we're in the midst of passing that milestone now, in 2023.

It's interesting that Magic Leap took $3.5 billion in investment, and had a very similar vision and almost identical demos. But they failed to deliver.

I wander what the R and D cost for the Vision Pro is, 10x Magic Leaps investment, $35 billion over last 5 years? Seems plausible...

Their total R&D expense is about €100B in same time period.

Could be hard to break it down. It’s clear that much of what we have already — Sidecar, Continuity, all the ML subject recognition, spatial audio, image processing… is likely spun out of the development of this thing, or at least co-developed.

This is the space program that brought us Tang, so to speak.

Even if this thing flops magnificently, the whole Apple ecosystem will have been enriched by its development. From that perspective, it seems like a pretty low-risk high-reward effort for Apple, whatever it might have cost all told.

> Sidecar, Continuity, all the ML subject recognition, spatial audio, image processing

I also wonder if the real time OS stuff is a byproduct of the Apple Car project. As soon as they mentioned the R2 chip I immediately was asking myself "Did this come from the car project or will this make its way to the car project". Even if they never ship a car the tech they have to build/discover/etc in the process can help other product lines. Just like throwing Lidar into the phones/iPad Pro or all the ML/AR stuff helped this headset.

Don't forget all the "neural" branding for chips - this product wouldn't yet be viable without M-class (fanless) chipsets.

So yeah, it's not just hard to pin down, but a lot of the work that led to this is foundational for other Apple products as well (either as core like Mac Ms or features like Continuity) so it's seamless with other products.

There's no way this has cost $35bn. Tech companies label a lot of stuff as R&D, it's almost more likely that the €100B value includes all the macOS/iOS/etc development as well.

I expect until the last year or so this has been well under $1bn per year (based on 1000 people at $300k/yr, $300m). This will have ramped up as they begin figuring out mass production, but I'd still be surprised if this is more than single-digit billions for the last year, as it's not like they're reserving enough manufacturing or supplier capacity to make 100m of these devices yet.

I think if you start to include the cost of developing Vision OS on top of iOS, and cost of all the custom silicone Apple have in this, then you can approach that figure.

They have the advantage that they had a lot of this in place for their portables. Magic did not and had to start from scratch.

I suppose it's hard to judge how much of the R&D cost for Apple silicone, their cameras, LiDAR and iOS should be counted as costs for the Vision Pro.

If you include the development of iOS and the A/M series chips then sure I guess it gets close, but it seems obvious to me they would have been doing those things anyway.

I guess it depends whether you want an all-in cost to compare to Magic Leap, in which case you could argue that most of the history of Apple has set them up for this – if you want to make a great VR headset, just make the best phone ever first – if you want to make the best phone ever, just make a great personal computer first, just acquire NEXT first, etc. I don't know where you draw the line.

More useful I think is to say what did it cost the companies above what they were already doing. For Magic Leap it's the whole business, for Apple it's not much, for Microsoft it's somewhere in the middle, for Meta it's maybe closer to Magic Leap.

As was pointed out elsewhere, we've seen some of the R&D show up in other places already. AR kit has been around for a while. All of the Apple Silicon has been in everything for a few years now (except the new R1 chip, but I'm sure that builds on their M1/M2 work).

Face unlocking tech on the iPhone applies to eye tracking (and eye unlocking). Battery tech applies across devices. All the new cameras on the last few years' of iPhones. And so on.

So it's totally reasonable that total all in is in the 10s of billions.

"Almost identical demoes" I doubt it.

Unless someone can confirm otherwise I assume all the demo videos are composited "mock-ups" and not shot through a vision device. They are incredibly similar to all the demo videos from Magic Leap.

This article is literally from a person who used the device???

The device is very real.

My bet would be completely the opposite. No matter how good these devices get they lack in input bandwidth. My keyboard beats all VR , and it seems to easily beat apple's VR too. The headset is clearly targeted to static environments, entertainment. The apps are like ipad apps, looking cute but when people want to do serious work fast, they use a laptop because it has a keyboard. It is overengineered. There are a lot of gimmicks in the device like the 3d avatars which imho are worse than simple zoom chats. We are humans, we like faces. And the (mandatorily positive) reviews from people who used it are not hinting to this new era of computing.

I see this as an early-era Tesla car, but without the long term prospect. A lot of people will buy it because it is expensive. It's something that happens with most apple products

Your keyboard works just fine in VR. What’s the problem?

I think a real display replacement (in terms of shrinking down your monitor/TV to something you can trivially carry around with you) seems like a real use case.

it doesnt exactly work as a screen replacement because it is stricly personal. Good for using in airplanes and maybe when alone but like other VR glasses, it doesnt fit well in other circumstances

You can see your keyboard and you can use it just fine. You can also use other devices, like your phone and watch.

You can even use your laptop and mirror the screen into a bigger one.

Oculus will even project your actual keyboard into the vr env... provided it's a model they have on file.

I imagine that in a couple of iterations you will be able to type in an imaginary keyboard and it will pick up the correct keystrokes

> It really is one of the best product names in Apple history: Vision is a description of a product, it is an aspiration for a use case, and it is a critique on the sort of society we are building, behind Apple’s leadership more than anyone else.

I agree that “Vision” is a good product name, but “Vision Pro” just feels intensely pedestrian. Why is it called “Pro?” Is there a non-Pro version?

"Pro", in AppleSpeak, means "the expensive one". They've actually done this before; the MacBook Pro (first Intel Mac) launched some time before the MacBook (first consumer-oriented Intel Mac). This feels like fairly clear signalling that there'll be a cheaper more consumer-oriented one along later.

Apple's problem is that the "pro" version is not just twice as expensive as the "consumer" version needs to be in order to be a market success, it's ten times more expensive than the consumer version needs to be.

edit: the fanatics are really out with the downvotes today

They probably plan on releasing a non-pro version later. Importantly, adding "Pro" also has the psychological effect of better justifying the higher price.

I found it odd that they started out with Pro. I think “Apple Vision” would have sufficed. Leaves room for the future to add “Pro” when they go to 8K/Retina or whatever. Plus just saying “Apple Vision” is kinda nice.

Seems like in this space, the Air version would be the premium one (smaller, lighter).

It implies a possible cheaper non-Pro version in the future (like iPhone Pro and Macbook Pro) without promising it might exist.

Or simply to distinguish from their existing Vision software that has nothing to do with the headset: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/vision

It seems lazy to me, do a Google search for "Vision Pro", excluding results from the past couple of days, and it seems there were already a ton of products and services with the same name.

Perfect time to bring back the "i", though they already have "iSight". "iBorg"?

Apple became a victim of their own success in relation to the “i”. It is now associated with Apple, but it is too pedestrian to be registered as a trademark.

Do this search a year from now and I’m sure Apple would’ve done (and gotten done) enough SEO for its device to be the top or among the top results.

iWear if it didn't clash with the watches. iBorg / "I, Borg" would probably not land well with Trekkies.

iPiece?

iGlasses, obviously.

iStrainAndNeckPain

iWon'tUseIt

iEyes

I forgot that Apple was having an event yesterday, and when I saw “Apple Vision Pro“ in headlines everywhere, my first thought was that they were opening an eyeglass store…

Well, if you normally wear glasses, you will need to order special Zeiss lenses to use the Vision Pro.

Yes, a non-Pro version is arriving later.

What will the non-Pro version not have, compared to the Pro?

There will also be the Apple Vision Bro.

Pro is consistent with other product lines that Apple produces. IPhone Pro, MacBook Pro, etc. They could change the convention, but weren’t y’all just complaining about how naming conventions for things like Windows, Intel, Nvidia, etc are not consistent?

It just means "more expensive" (implying a later "less expensive" version).

It's like adding "tactical" to a product that is black on the title on Amazon. You'll be able to charge more money for the same thing. It also signals you might eventually launch a lower end model.

Vision Air is a nice homonym for visionnaire.

The “Pro” moniker is mainly to make the price more palatable.

I guess the Apple Vision Pro Max Ultra will be $10,000

iView was better and more clever. Or iScreen. Literally anything that begins with i

The “i” stuff feels really outdated now. The Apple Watch was not the iWatch. There are too many competitors who use it to mean too many cheap things.

When was the last time they branded something with a little i?

> This system was, at the beginning, dismissed by most high-end camera users: sure, a mirrorless system allowed for a simpler and smaller design, but there was no way a screen could ever compare to actually looking through the lens of the camera like you could with a reflex mirror. Fast forward to today, though, and nearly every camera on the market, including professional ones, are mirrorless: not only did those tiny screens get a lot better, brighter, and faster, but they also brought many advantages of their own, including the ability to see exactly what a photo would look like before you took it.

Even in 2023 EVFs aren't as nice to look through as OVF from the 80s though. I'm always surprised when I pick up my old film nikon after shooting digital for a while.

No matter what you do, real life will always look better than a screen, especially if said screen sits 2cm from your eyeball

(Old) optical viewfinders are great in bright light. I’ll take my Z8’s EVF if a dimly lit situation any day though.

My first impulse when I come across a memory or photo in my camera log on my iPhone is to send it to my wife. Photos are really rarely a personal experience. A major reason why most famous paintings find their way from personal collections into museums so we can all enjoy them together.

It is that human nature that makes me believe that any device like this that doesn't have real-time interactions baked-in, no matter how cool they are, will always default to media consumption because media consumption is the main use case where you don't necessarily want to have a shared experience.

This device seems absolutely amazing and likely much more in the same vertical as home theater than personal computing. FWIW, I also don't buy into the work aspect of this, either. Partially because most people aren't in the Apple ecosystem for productivity apps, but mostly because as another person stated, nobody is going to use a digital avatar in a work setting. A static image or even just being on camera wearing the headset would feel much more normal. Sure, I could see it being great for certain applications like email but not enough of a catch-all to be the only device you use in a work setting.

All these "relive your memory" videos are incredibly awkward, because of how downright sad it is to strap this on your head during your kid's birthday just to relive it on repeat like Tom Cruise in Minority Report.

The real usecase is porn, but they're too tactful to say it.

Yeah, if this thing catches on, I think this will be my "old man gets left behind by technology" moment. Everything I see from the marketing of this just looks like a soulless dystopia. I hate it.

If the future is strapping a phone to your face and never leaving the house, I'm ready to be left in the past.

I am fairly cautious about tech in my own life but this still seems like an extreme Black Mirror episode take. The battery doesn’t even last long enough to have you never leave your house. It seems like something I might use two hours of my day maybe. I’m not sure how that makes it worse than any other media device or what it is about it that has people thinking they’ll never leave home again and feel completely socially isolated. I’m just considering the case of using it at home though and not walking around with it expecting people to interact with me normally.

You're going to lose days at a time in the retirement home to VR tiktok and VR candy crush.

Why wouldn't you use this in place of working on your computer, and then leave it behind when you go outdoors? Sounds pretty reasonable to me.

I played around a lot with VR180 when it came out. The experience is incredibly, almost uncomfortably intimate for personal videos. I felt so awkward watching demos of other peoples “blow out the birthday candles” moments. However, the fact that it was uncomfortable means that the technology itself is very good, otherwise it couldn’t produce such and emotional experience.

On the tech side, I’m just guessing, but it looks like Apple has an even better version of VR189. A 6dof version of VR180 seems entirely plausible for Apple to pull off with NeRFs and would be even more incredible.

Again, I agree that it’s a bit weird for personal memories, both on the recording side (possibly awkward to wear goggles in those situations) and even watching personal memories.

However, I’d expect Apple to make recording spatial videos possible w iPhone/iPad, which at least fixes the awkward recording issue.

Even with that possibility, I think Apple hurt themselves using this “personal memory spatial video” example.

For me, the far better use cases are for entertainment. Professional, live (and recorded) spatial video will be huge. Everyone can have front row, court side, or even birds-eye views of all forms of in-person entertainment. Sports, plays, comedy, concerts, orchestras. The experience of watching it is so intimate experientially I think it will be amazing. Looks like the tech to make it happen is finally here. Imagine them owning “the App Store” for spatial video pay-per-view…

Excited to see where this goes!

If you go to any concert or other public event, half of the audience will be recording on their smartphone instead of watching. I do not see any reason why an iphone of tomorrow won’t have a 3D camera to record and share any important moments the same way as we do it now. There will be the time when we will watch dashcam and drone videos of car crashes, natural disasters and soldiers dying on battlefield sitting on a sofa in those shiny glasses.

I can see a daft punk revival concert where everyone is wearing a helmet

This is where the 3D aspect is cool. The same way that we look at old newsreels and feel sort of chronologically alienated by how "retro" they look - simply because of the medium - the 2D recordings we are making nowadays will similarly look quaint to people that have become used to 3D. So, Vision Pro has the opportunity to set the tone for the next generation of fundamental media experience.

But is this really what we want ? Do we want to encourage people to do even more of that ?

People keep bringing this up, but are we really trying to compare a small rectangle that fits in your pocket and takes 3 button clicks to take a picture with (double power + volume button) to a full on VR headset strapped to your head?

The apple fanaticism on this site is really something special, I see no universe in which an idiotic product like this is touted as even somewhat desirable if it didn't have the Apple logo plastered on top of it (with the associated ludicrous price tag)

Nobody is strapping this headset on for their kid’s birthday party. There are incredible concert videos from professional crews, and that’s the direction this will go until the tech can be (if ever) made unobtrusive.

I'm hoping they're going to do this, but without them saying so, it makes me worry they created something amazing but with poor execution.

Seems like hyperbole, IIRC the recent concert I went to people used their phones for a few photos/videos to post on social media a few clips that they were there basically, and then mostly enjoyed the performance.

> All these "relive your memory" videos are incredibly awkward, because of how downright sad it is to strap this on your head during your kid's birthday just to relive it on repeat like Tom Cruise in Minority Report.

I mean, quite obviously the recording tech will be a standalone device (and maybe even an iPhone which are ubiquitous at these events already) someday. The Vision headset has all the hardware already so why not let it capture videos? Just set it on the counter or something...

This has become one of those meme-y dismissals that I see in all the discussions but it's so transitory I can't imagine it possibly mattering.

If you read the article, you'll see him mention this as well, and also call out that it uses some "Apple Immersive Video Format" (which is something I didn't hear in the keynote), so this is the clear intention.

I was thinking the same thing. Aren’t iPhones getting lidar? One will just record on an iPhone. Why is a person recording using a headset more dystopian than using an iPhone or camcorder? Camcorders were way more bulky and isolating than this headset will be.

Is it that different from using one of those gigantic camcorders from the 80’s where you had to put one eye up to a viewer stalk? People used those, but it’s not like they had it out the entire event (I assume, based on how short the videos I’ve seen taken with them usually are).

That's exactly what I'm thinking. SLR's and camcorders were always big bulky things that covered your face when using them.

This isn't much different from that.

Even the clip with recording the kids felt awkward as the kids did not ackowledge the presence of the parent at all. It felt they were Photoshopped into an empty movie.

Recording using an iPhone would an upgrade as your kids can now much better see your facial expressions and you would be able to turn around to make a "selfie" recording showing both you and the kids in the movie.

There’s lots of rumors that an upcoming iPhone model will include 3D recording.

> The real usecase is porn, but they're too tactful to say it.

I don't know why people keep projecting their own desires onto others, lol.

Leaving personal desires out of it, the relationship of porn and tech goes back at least to VHS vs Betamax, probably further. It’s not unreasonable to believe that does not stop with XR headsets.

Its not projection, rather well known cases that specifically porn enabled technologies like VHS to gather mass adoption, even over technologically superior tech.

Like it or not, doesn't matter if on extreme left or right or anywhere in between, people en masse like it. That they often don't admit it publicly is another topic. Can't beat a billion years of evolution baked into the very foundation of each of us.

Sexual desire is pretty universally human, not personal.

Or, here's a wild thought, the whole device will get smaller....And standalone cameras will exist. So it wont be awkward, as it will just appear to be glasses on your head that we've not found awkward in the last several hundred years.

> So it wont be awkward, as it will just appear to be glasses on your head that we've not found awkward in the last several hundred years.

That’s what Google Glass tried and it flopped anyway. People also found a camera on glasses (like the Google Glass version) to be highly creepy. Apple emphasized that the front of these glasses will clearly indicate when someone’s taking a photo or video (to the subjects who’re seeing it).

Apple has the walled garden approach to apps, and they don’t let porn in. (Except for reddit app, which has porn allowed, to the complaints of Tumblr)

But maybe it will be possible through the Safari browser or something.

The only thing an app needs to do is replay videos. No adult designation required.

I think the key will be if they can make it so the next generation of iPhones can record videos for Apple Vision. If they cannot do that, I think they're really goofing up.

It feels like a missed opportunity that the current generation doesn't already do that. All the talk is that Apple have been exploring VR behind the scenes for a while, and the devices all have 2+ lenses.

It would have been quite cool for them to announce that all your iPhone 14 videos were actually recorded in 3D and ready for Apple Vision all along.

Yes, i would bet on the next generation of iphones having this capability

I think 3D photos will catch on, but you'll take the photos with your phone, like you do now. This device will really be for viewing them later.

(iPhone 15 or 16 will include the ability to "...take spectacular 3D photos that are incredible when viewed with a Vision Pro!!!" -- sorry, that quote is me imagining an Apple presenter at a future iPhone event.)

Porn and games are often what drive new tech forward.

So it does seem like a VR/AR device fully focused on those use cases could be good for pushing the tech forward. Won't be Apple that does that, though.

Side note, it's so interesting that GPUs were pulled forward by gaming, and then GPUs ended up becoming a key enabler in AI.

The games part I get. For the right game, made explicitly for VR it does improve how immersive it feels.

The video part I don't understand at all. I've never watched a VR video that made me go "wow, I've gotta watch all videos in VR now." I found it annoying, the scale is weird, an annoying headset, with less freedom to view what's going on that a traditional tv.

I suspect the capture technology will eventually find its way to iPhone/iPad, with the best replay experience reserved for the Vision product line.

This removes the awkwardness of the capture experience, and creates demand for the Vision device.

I expect they'll announce that the phone will be able to record 3D video at some point. But they didn't want to announce that yesterday because it would give away future iPhone plans. They should probably have left it out altogether.

Is weird why he said that when a video or photo serves the exact same purpose, to view and relive past memories except in 2D. The world has been doing it it for a century

Can't you do that already with a 360 camera?

VR porn is generally meh, no? It's a nice gimmick but is it really better beyond the novely factor?

3d video would capture depth, so not really the same thing as 360 degree video. Think moving your head and seeing in 3D from that new perspective and feeling the depth, vs just being able to look in all directions (in 2D)

pretty sure capturing "spatial video" will come to the iPhone.

> I’ll be honest: what this looked like to me was a divorced dad, alone at home with his Vision Pro, perhaps because his wife was irritated at the extent to which he got lost in his own virtual experience. That certainly puts a different spin on Apple’s proud declaration that the Vision Pro is “The Most Advanced Personal Electronics Device Ever”.

> Indeed, this, even more than the iPhone, is the true personal computer. Yes, there are affordances like mixed reality and EyeSight to interact with those around you, but at the end of the day the Vision Pro is a solitary experience.

Absolutely. I can imagine myself using an Vision Pro from my home office. I can imagine myself using a Vision Pro while on a plane. So I can imagine using it either where I'm already physically alone or where I want to be physically isolated from other humans nearby.

I can also imagine myself using a Vision Pro to connect with other humans who are physically distant (the FaceTime demo).

What I cannot ever imagine is having the Vision Pro on my head while interacting with other people in the room (the dad watching his kids demo), nor can I even imagine using them as part of a shared entertainment experience. e.g., I cannot imagine my wife and I each having a pair of these and using them to watch a movie "together".

But, watching a movie with other people when we are all physically distant from each other? Yes, that I can imagine.

I can see myself buying a pair of these. I'm fascinated by the technology and by the ability to use them in my home office.

I don't really see them taking the place of my home theater, but maybe... 95% of the time I use it alone because my wife prefers to read a book.

> I am completely serious when I say that I would pay the NBA thousands of dollars to get a season pass to watch games captured in this way. Yes, that’s a crazy statement to make, but courtside seats cost that much or more, and that 10-second clip was shockingly close to the real thing.

Personally, I think that watching a game while being virtually part of the crowd would leave me feeling lonely and isolated. It's one thing to watch a game alone, seeing the other people cheering. It seems like an altogether different experience being part of the crowd while not really being part of the crowd.

My wife and I usually watch different shows/movies so I could see myself using a headset like this for a lot of content consumption. Rest of the use cases I agree with.

On the NBA games, I reckon it would be a matter of deciding whether being able to get a courtside experience for a far cheaper price counted for more than the isolation. And being able to get a drink from the fridge. And not having to deal with driving and parking. And for sports events which are otherwise sold out or on the other side of the world. I can see this being a huge thing if the price and functionality are right.

Show me you've never used non tactile responses for interfaces, without telling me you've never used them.

I love the VR experience of Gran Turismo for driving. It is truly immersive in ways that is hard to communicate and makes me glad I have the VR. Even with that, the game is not nearly as fun without a force feedback steering wheel. Not even close. To the point that a moderate screen with the steering wheel is a better experience than the VR without.

To the point that the idea that I will do any elaborate hand/arm gestures to interact with something I can't feel, just doesn't seem like something that will fly.

Do I like that it has the ability to work without a controller? I mean, sure? But I also have no problem using controllers for gaming, and I don't see that going away anytime soon for a lot of games.

In their demos they clearly show the pairing up of controllers to play games.

Not with VR controllers. They didn't even show a single VR game. It seems unlikely that a company would make a VR game for the headset if you can't even play it without VR controllers. For smartphones and tablets games also default to the imprecise touch controls, which are a poor solution.

Right, I didn't mean this to mean that it won't work. I meant it more that the gestures are almost certainly going to get very limited use. Much like gestures for your phone. Neat, and can be rehearsed for good demos.

So, the idea that you will have a mobile workspace that can go with you where ever you want it is unlikely to actually work. Is it easier than taking a monitor? I mean, sure. Probably not as easy as taking a laptop, though. Especially with how long the battery lasts. (And the laptop almost certainly fits more easily in a bag.)

Thankfully it does pair with a Bluetooth keyboard and trackpad for the scenarios where you want to use it to do “work”.

This makes me realize that the gestures it is being demonstrated with are going to be hilarious if they are misidentified. I'm /assuming/ that the thing will not pick up gestures between you and someone else. Such that if I pick up a paper with a similar hand shape as their "pinch and move things" gesture, it will realize it wasn't the same.

Or will this be akin to how siri does a shit job understanding anything that is not mechanical in speech? Will be absolutely hilarious if it has a hard time recognizing non-light skinned hands for the gestures. Really hope they don't make that mistake.

Hopefully the troubles with Siri are understood enough in Apple that they won’t make that mistake, because Siri is truly awful on my HomePods for thinking I’m talking to Siri when I’m not.

Thankfully many of the people in the demo videos were people of colour, so I’m fairly confident Apple has gotten that bit right and hopefully their gesture detecting cameras have IR or dot-pattern emitters to work in the dark as well.

Apple Vision Pro: Apple’s first spatial computer - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36201593 - June 2023 (2685 comments)

Also:

Apple Vision predictive bio-feedback - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36210133 - June 2023 (46 comments)

visionOS - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36208735 - June 2023 (58 comments)

First impressions: Yes, Apple Vision Pro works and yes, it’s good - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36207705 - June 2023 (437 comments)

Apple's Vision Pro headset deserves to be ridiculed - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36204653 - June 2023 (130 comments)

Ask HN: At $3500 entry point who can afford Apple’s new Vision Pro headset? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36202898 - June 2023 (28 comments)

Apple reveals Vision Pro, a AR/VR headset unlike any other - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36200958 - June 2023 (53 comments)

Apple Vision Pro Is Apple's New VR Headset - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36200884 - June 2023 (156 comments)

Apple Reveals 'Vision Pro' Headset - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36200777 - June 2023 (159 comments)

Apple’s Vision Pro AR headset is finally here - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36200708 - June 2023 (162 comments)

"The company was fairly mum about how it planned to make those cameras and its format more widely available, but I am completely serious when I say that I would pay the NBA thousands of dollars to get a season pass to watch games captured in this way. Yes, that’s a crazy statement to make, but courtside seats cost that much or more, and that 10-second clip was shockingly close to the real thing."

The author was shown a 10-second clip and is ready to hand over thousands of dollars.

A few paragraphs later he acknowledges that it was just a 10-second clip, but there was also another clip, so a total of 20 seconds - surely enough to write an opinion piece of thousands of words.

The reality-shaping power of Apple's demo maestros is truly admirable.

I'm an XR believer too and I'm very happy that Apple is entering the market with a high-end device that's not for gaming. At the same time, we have to recognize that the history of this form factor is littered with amazing 10-second demos that failed to deliver actual user value, from recent failures like Magic Leap going all the way back to the late 1980s and Jaron Lanier's VPL Research.

Thank you, I feel like I'm taking crazy pills or something. I have no idea how much of the footage in the long advertisements are actual in-headset recording vs highly editorialized made up aspirational CG. Additionally, I really don't think all the people here singing the praises of Apple's currently nonexistent headset (for actual customer use at least until 2024 or something) have ever used a headset. Headsets give me:

* Headaches

* Nausea

* Eye Strain

* Neck Pain

* Acne (from sitting on the same parts of your face all the time)

Etc. Also, reading text is incredibly difficult and exasperating which is this things whole value prop since it's targeting office work. Until anyone can actually try this and ensure that these are all non-issues, all the speculation is a weird cultic worship of Apple.

Just in case people forget, here's some misleading advertisements for Google Glass that didn't quite live up to the hype[0][1]. And some misleading advertisements about holo lense that didn't quite live up to the hype[2]. Full disclaimer, I have a valve index but haven't tried holo lens or Google Glass, but the fact that they're not ubiquitous today says something. It's especially funny that the holo lens looks very similar to Apple Vision, and then Apple makes these ridiculous claims about innovativing where no one else has. I swear I must be taking crazy pills or something.

[0]: https://youtu.be/4EvNxWhskf8

[1]: https://youtu.be/5R1snVxGNVs

[2]: https://youtu.be/eqFqtAJMtYE

If it’s as good as they say, then the market will show it. It’s not worth worrying about whether it will succeed or not; that’s Apple’s concern alone. We can all just enjoy the ride in the meantime.

My assumption is that Apple’s big innovation on a familiar looking form factor is addressing the issues you describe.

Apple generally succeeds with mass market friendly ergonomics. I understand skepticism about unreleased technology, but I personally wouldn’t make the assumption Apple has botched the ergonomics on this release. It seems like exactly the kind of thing they would have focused on reaching a high level of quality with.

This TechCrunch review where the reviewer had access to them says that the issues with headaches/nausea don’t happen: https://techcrunch.com/2023/06/05/first-impressions-yes-appl...

Tech history is full with product ideas that failed to take off for decades until they crossed the threshold of being actually nice to use

In 2005 people would have predicted a flop for smartphones given the many failures of the like of Apple Newton

I think it’s actually more reflective of the fact apple tends to be pretty thorough in product development and anything launched usually covers an awful lot of the problem domain. However their 1.0 launch of any product is usually an 80% complete product, for apple. For most other device makers it’s a 220% complete device at 1.0. So, I expect the first version will be a directional indicator that address more than twice the gap of other products but is itself not “done” by their aspirational standard. They then iterate in their respective cadences by product towards some converged state that reflects a “done,” then hit an iterative improvement cycle. It seems to be in the range of 4-5 generations.

Because this pattern is has been done again and again it’s fairly obvious. The first is the high bar for releasing at all and the willingness to let it die before launching something less than 220% better than industry standard despite tons of investment (apple car?). The second is the progressive improvement over the first several iterations that advances the product in the remaining gaps as their technology improves.

To me, this feels fairly objective and rational and not particularly cultish. It’s the benefit of an earned reputation and a clear and adhered to product development strategy.

And also to chime in on the most common argument for the "VR/AR for work" - the meetings. I actually DON'T need to see anyone's faces or avatars on the online meeting. I don't WANT to see them and I'm honestly tired of Zoom trying to shove me in my face their speaker thumbnails and constantly switching to full screen. I don't need that at all FOR WORK. For work I eithr want to see screen being shared pixel perfectly (so no floating pseudo screens in VR) or don't see zoom/meet interface at all, keep it in background and just listen, while doing work at the foreground.

VR people advertising to me a "real life like meetings along with a meeting room, whiteboard and full body avatars" are either clueless or delusional, because that stuff has actually a negative value FOR WORK. Sure, when you have something like an online party (yay... fun...) then seeing other can be entertaining. But not for actual work.

You might not be taking crazy pills - but your list of complaints is a very individual one. Headsets may give you personally headaches, nausea, eye strain, neck pain, and acne. But they don't for me, and they don't for any of my friends, or many of my colleagues. And I get motion sickness trying to play many video games.

The only thing stopping me from working for extended periods inside one of the headsets I currently own is the fact that the resolution they run at is too low for me to put enough text on the screen. I can absolutely believe that a headset with a higher resolution would make that use case viable for me.

It seems more likely to me that the reviewers who are hopeful about the product after their 30 minutes of use of the headset (some of whom are indeed very experienced users of AR/VR hardware) simply don't struggle with the individual issues that you have.

To add to your list, I was at a friends and used their headset for about ten minutes of gaming and the parts of my head that touched the headset were drenched in sweat, but that just may be a peculiarity of my physiology.

Assuming Apple’s product has all the deficiencies of failed products from the past will of course lead you to conclude that they will fail.

> Acne (from sitting on the same parts of your face all the time)

This might actually end up being the hardest bit to solve. VR has to create a dark room for your face, so removing facial contact is practically impossible.

There are very few things that normies will accept, if the compromise is more acne.

> Eye Strain

iStrain. You're welcome.

> The reality-shaping power of Apple's demo maestros is truly admirable.

It really isn't just the demos that wow us, and it isn't just the high-end device. The device is packed with tech, for sure. But 80% of the story here is Apple's strong design choices:

"Here's how you will interact with the world. Here's how other people fit in. This is how UI is going to display. We rewrote our entire UI stack on top of a physically based renderer so developers can comfortably recompile their millions of existing apps. Here's how we process-isolated the gaze tracking so no third-party app will be able to data-mine it for personalised Ads"

They didn't just build a headset and call it a day. They didn't show useless, aspirational demos (though during the keynote, Disney certainly showed a whole lot of rubbish). They developed the UI paradigms, human interface guidelines, put huge thought towards accessibility. Those of us impressed with this are not wowed by just hardware, we're amazed by the amount and strength of design thought put into every aspect of your interaction with this computer. There's so much _opinion_ about what this computer should be, and how we should use it, that's the exciting thing

Their opinions may not pan out in the future. But I'm so glad _someone_ is having strong opinions about human computer interaction in the AR/VR space, because Meta and the rest certainly don't

Pretty sure if I have my headset on and I'm in the middle of the room with my kids, I'm not a "hip father" doing cool shit with my kids. Consider if this was someone on a phone in the kitchen discussing something. We wouldn't think, "how progressive this person is to have work conversations while mostly ignoring his kids."

Granted, as a parent, the scene of the airline person upset that there is a kid on the flight is... off putting. To the extreme. Especially when the response is "ugh, thank goodness I can turn off all visual senses around me." SMH

And I am struggling to see any UI design/consideration that was new in this clip. Do you have a rundown on exactly what was amazing?

It’s obvious how a 10 second clip scales to 10 minutes or 10 hours or 10 days. You don’t need that much imagination or even a leap of faith.

A court side seat to an NBA game is north of $1000. If this creates 20% of the experience it will easily pay for itself in 1 season.

> It’s obvious how a 10 second clip scales to 10 minutes or 10 hours or 10 days.

A 10 second clip that will have been tuned to perfection by the very best editors for the demo is one thing. A live, un/rough-edited capture of a game broadcast in real time is quite different.

I've seen some truly amazing sports coverage to show off my OLED TV when I bought it. I still have the USB drive the TV came with and it does indeed look gorgeous. You know what doesn't look quite so good? Live broadcasts of those same sports. They are pixelated with some macroblocking and judder and posterization as the cameras quickly pan around the field and cut randomly.

It still looks pretty good but no way near as good as the minute long demo video LG used to show off how good their TV can look.

Obviously I've not used a Vision Pro so my comment isn't about the Vision Pro specifically, just that it is quite easy to make things look very good in a highly tuned demo for something vs real world broadcast quality.

Is "an unrestricted view of the game from close up" the only appeal to court-side seats? I think it's perhaps the least interesting aspect, since you can achieve this for free at almost any non-NBA level basketball game.

Or perhaps the appeal of court-side seats is the atmosphere, experience and social signaling, none of which are provided by these glasses.

Our desire for "cheap" court-side seats is understandable from an evolutionary sense. But it's almost like these glasses (and VR in general) are designed to provide the "feeling" of evolutionary benefit while carefully and completely removing any actual benefit.

Your value calculations are off.

* You can't do the math from a baseline of "not watching the game at all". If this creates 20% of the experience but a $1000 TV creates a different 20% of the experience (watching with other people next to you, for example), you haven't gained any value over the cheaper device.

* Unless you're regularly buying NBA tickets, this isn't going to "pay for itself". Solar panels can (in theory) pay for themselves because they cut back on a bill you'd have either way. A product like this can only pay for itself if it causes you to spend less money on NBA tickets than you otherwise would have.

Make no sense to sit courtside, the spectator should be able to be wherever they wanted, either in the air, on the nosebleeds, on the court itself, or under the court.

Having a courtside seat is a physical constraint that does not need to be respected in VR.

>It’s obvious how a 10 second clip scales to 10 minutes or 10 hours or 10 days.

Have you ever watched the announcement of a new videogame console? Or even new videogames?

10 seconds of marketing don't extrapolate well to 10 days of actual usage.

Why would NBA allow for this as they would lose an extreme amount of money if people can get the same experience at home?

That would be economic suicide for them. They need to keep the seats being a special experience.

You're certain you would wear a headset for 10 days based on a 10-second experience? That doesn't make any sense.

I'm on the fence about XR and I for sure won't buy a "Pro" grade device. But regarding your point about reality shaping: Sometimes it's just obvious. When I saw the presentation for the iPhone, I know this was the first phone I really really wanted - everything about it was compelling. I guess this what some XR enthusiasts feel about this device.

MKBHD mentioned the same use case in his video and how he would pay good money to NBA for it. And he used the headset for a good 30 minutes. Maybe it's a valid use case? Have you personally tried the headset to flat out dismiss it?

I'm not dismissing it. I'm actually considering shelling out the money for this Apple headset. I've just become wary of exuberant initial reports based on 10-second exposures to completely scripted demo apps.

These journalists who get this launch-day experience were selected for their history of writing nice things about Apple. They're being shown the device in ideal conditions under the watchful eye of Apple's world-leading PR team, and they've been primed for years to expect something amazing from the Next Big Apple Product. There isn't a tremendous amount of objectivity in these circumstances.

Apple benefits greatly from the fact that "journalists" are some of their most devoted fans. That gets them free coverage that's wildly disproportionate in both volume and positivity. Not to say they don't make good products - I have to admit that they do - but they escape a lot of harsh scrutiny that other companies have to deal with. Terminally online techies are another core demographic, resulting in a similar skew on social media sites like ... <looks around> ... um, Reddit.

> demos that failed to deliver actual user value

Does Apple have a a history of doing this?

I think that's why people are excited.

Newton, Power Mac Cube, iMac G4 "Sunflower", and solid gold first-gen Apple Watch come to mind as Apple hardware products that failed to live up to the hype.

On the software side there are more misses, but also the stakes are lower.

It's a great track record for thirty years, of course. All the other big tech companies have graveyards full of half-assed product launches.

More recently, the TouchBar and 3D Touch are both pretty massive market failures for Apple despite being engineered to perfection.

I think the killer was that in the Platforms State of the Union, they didn't show anybody wearing the thing, even while saying "and I can send it to the device and look at it there". Almost like they were embarrassed by it, or something...

The Quest has live VR NBA games, and it's not selling a ton of $500 headsets for that use case, so I somehow doubt that it's going to move a lot of $3500 headsets.

https://about.fb.com/news/2023/01/nba-games-in-vr-on-quest/

> Five games will feature celebrity broadcasters and be shown in 180-degree immersive VR, and WNBA games, NBA G League games and NBA 2K League games will be available to watch as well.

There's a big difference between just five games and all the games in a season.

I could totally see it moving $3500 headsets if it were actually all games. Also 180° is good enough for a lot of things but for this you'd want 360°.

180 degree VR. This is not the same thing.

The fact that "the author" is Ben Thompson is worth something.

The author was shown far more than a 10 second clip. He along with John Gruber got to do a full hands on demo. They talk more about it in their (paid) Dithering podcast.

> The reality-shaping power of Apple's demo maestros is truly admirable

I like the Marques Brownlee takes, he's one of the "30 minutes hands on" guys: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFvXuyITwBI

He seems fairly well impressed, at least in the first half of the video ...

<< The reality-shaping power of Apple's demo maestros is truly admirable.

One of the things we have dissected in our MBA class was Apple's Iphone reveal and how carefully choreographed[1] it was ( I am being very generous given my anti-Apple bias ). You could argue that Apple was simply lying since the product was not ready, but looking back, they were able to deliver on the promise of that reveal.

Oddly, it makes me somewhat hopeful that this product will work as well. I am not ready to shell out that cash on it just yet, but I will be looking at SDK as soon as they actually release it. Heavens protect me; I want to play with that toy.

[1]https://www.macrumors.com/2013/10/04/former-apple-engineer-g...

Can’t such recordings already be done with a special camera and be viewed with a VR headset? Yet afaik there is no such market.

Not least because we have been doing the courtside view of sports events for what... nearly a decade now? And it's not very compelling compared to proper coverage with camera angles.

He went into more details on the Dithering podcast. He was able to have a much fuller demo than a few clips.

> It’s going to seem pretty weird when dad is wearing a headset as his daughter blows out birthday candles; perhaps this problem will be fixed by a separate line of standalone cameras that capture photos in the Apple Immersive Video Format, which is another way to say that this is a bit of a chicken-and-egg problem.

It makes me think about the article's earlier reference to the iPad's launch:

> Jobs went on to list a number of things he thought the iPad might be better at, including web browsing, email, viewing photos, watching videos, listening to music, playing games, and reading eBooks.

You know what else the iPad is good at? Perhaps having a wide enough frame, while in landscape mode, such that multiple back-side cameras can be far enough apart to get as good a depth-of-field as the Vision has? And, potentially, at being a preview device with good enough eye tracking (perhaps via multiple front-side cameras) to at least mimic the 3D effect when previewing, before you put Vision on for the full experience?

Dad holding up this kind of "iPad Vision," or putting an iPad Vision that's capturing the memories on an (automatically swiveling and face-tracking) "TRiPod," is far superior to putting on the goggles!

(Apple, please please hire me as your product naming visionary. I have many more punny names where these come from.)

But I can see why Apple would sequence the releases so that Vision comes first; the iPad Vision and TRiPod and accoutrements are likely to be expensive and perhaps even clunky at first, more akin to a pro camera rig than anything previously released, and would need to be justified by a "magical" viewing experience.

Make no mistake, though - Vision is just the beginning of an ecosystem that will be built around these experiences, and one that I think can complement our in-person interactions in a profoundly social and human way.

> The Vision Pro as Novelty Device

Lord. Watch any of the D#'s and hear Walt, Steve and Kara talk about things. Steve's Apple is just matter of fact simple, no heady logic - just bare sense. Listen to how many times he says "you want to do this, how we want to do that" - everything at Apple was perfecting what we innately wanted to do but just didn't know how to. If you hear anything other than: 'We make the best things for the things we want to do everyday' - please reply it here.

There was also a moment where he spoke directly to not making a PDA because the phone is what we already had, already understand to use, and implicitly know what would be amazing if we saw it.

The PDA is VR/AR, glasses are the phone*

*one could argue glasses are not even the goal and to that I'm not sold

I doubt this tech will be the size and weight of regular eyeglasses anytime soon. Probably 2050 at the earliest. It would require sub-nanometer lithography.

In regular I disagree with your assertion. As long as these end up being cheaper than a couple 4K monitors, which I imagine will happen by the end of the decade, it would be worth it for that alone. And that is to speak nothing of the onboard compute.

This is a really good in depth review, the fact that the vision is recreating everything digitally is really amazing and creepy at the same time. I am in awe of the technology, but the last part of this article also highlights what will certainly be a one of its major drawback and weaknesses, how isolating it is (which previous VR headset also suffer from).

While the AR aspect of it helps somewhat, I did note also during the presentation the ridiculous clip with the father wearing the headset at his child's birthday party, and especially how all the examples uses except in a professional setting were for individual lonely users. Both exciting and terrifying at the same time.

Now I am a lowly programmer + VR enthusiast, so my opinion does not count. But, how do big companies allow Apple to get away with such easy wins !??

Apple said : "We are going to throw infinite money at a pilot product that's basically a tech demo, and convince the market that this tech is for-real-for-real."

Meanwhile, Facebook refused to create a balls-to-the-wall VR headset for years and still ended up with a conservative 1500$ device even though they knew no one will purchase it. T̶o̶ ̶b̶e̶ ̶f̶a̶i̶r̶,̶ ̶C̶a̶r̶m̶a̶c̶k̶ ̶h̶a̶d̶ ̶b̶e̶e̶n̶ ̶p̶u̶s̶h̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶f̶o̶r̶ ̶a̶n̶ ̶a̶l̶l̶-̶o̶u̶t̶ ̶d̶e̶v̶i̶c̶e̶ ̶b̶u̶t̶ ̶g̶o̶t̶ ̶s̶i̶d̶e̶l̶i̶n̶e̶d̶ ̶b̶y̶ ̶Z̶u̶c̶k̶'̶s̶ ̶p̶u̶s̶h̶ ̶t̶o̶w̶a̶r̶d̶s̶ ̶c̶h̶e̶a̶p̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶s̶c̶a̶l̶e̶.̶ (I might have mis-remembered)

Apple's strategy is dead obvious. Of course. When you want people to change how they have consumed information for decades, you HAVE to blow their socks off. Samsung understood this with the 2000$ Fold devices. The first computers cost tens-of-thousands of 2023 dollars. Car manufacturers understand this with Halo cars.

Facebook had a 7-8 year head start, and it never struck them to lead with a 'Halo VR device' ? Meta has among the best ML teams in the world who could produce 'Apple quality' face renders with ease. Sadly, the entire group was strapped down due to limitations of the kind of compute you can fit into a 400$ device.

    premature optimization is the root of all evil -Knuth

Amen Donald, Amen.

____________

What makes Apple great:

All big companies have competent employees. Competent employees come together in dysfunctional manners. 100 good ideas produce 1 terrible one and the final result looks worse than any of the initial solutions.

Apple somehow manages to preserve their obvious wisdoms & the brilliance of the best ideas across their development (product and software) process. The constant erosion caused by committees, meetings & standard communication friction does not atrophy the seed that was the initial idea.

It seems like faint praise. But, despite sounding easy, Apple seems to be the only company that's able to do this on a consistent basis with physical electronics. (video games, cars, construction projects achieve this in their field, but consumer electronics seems to completely lack this, barring Apple)

Apple seems to have two modes they do quite well, create tomorrow, refine today (as it pertains to technology/personal computing).

Some % of the company seems to be focused on extremely polished loooonngg term second market mover advantage of bleeding edge tech, and some % of the company seems to be focused on continuous improvement of what exists today.

Apple does a great job of working on cutting edge technology that is generally applicable, watching other companies implement that technology, and then leap frogging them. At the same time, they improve their current offerings and "future focused groups" learn from what "current focused groups" are doing. I guess it's why you see fits and starts from Apple.

Has Apple every introduced anything totally new? Has Apple really "invented" anything product wise? I think they're just masters of second market mover advantage.

This is a great blog post:

https://researchnarrative.com/thinkerry/the-company-that-cou...

"In 1979, a 24-year-old Steve Jobs struck a deal with the executives at Xerox: Jobs would allow the investment wing of Xerox to buy shares in Apple at a pre-IPO price, and in exchange Apple’s team of engineers would get to take an “open-kimono” tour of Xerox PARC. Over two visits, Apple engineers were given the ability to look under the hood of PARC’s most impressive innovations."

What a deal to strike, and at 24.

> Carmack had been pushing for an all-out device but got sidelined by Zuck's push towards cheap and scale

Is that true? From this article[1], it sounds like he had been pushing for cheap headsets, not expensive ones:

> There he talked about his internal efforts to push for the development of a "super cheap, super lightweight" Meta VR headset that could come in at "$250 and 250 grams." Instead, Meta has put its recent VR hardware efforts behind the heavily overdesigned and expensive $1,500 Quest Pro. "We're not building that [cheap, light] headset today, but I keep trying," Carmack said with some exasperation during the keynote.

[1] https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2022/12/john-carmack-leaves-m...

My hot take from a random person spending time in the trenches: Meta leadership is focused on a _meta_ problem, namely that they do not own a major platform and are constrained from further growth compared to Apple and Google who do own major platforms. They are perfectly happy to be the android to whatever the next iOS is. From that perspective, a halo device is a risky bet because it doesn’t let you onboard a lot of people quickly and start building platform.

I think only Apple could have released such a headset and not been laughed off the stage.

And beyond that, we're talking about a hardware platform that only exists for Apple. Meta isn't in a position to spin up a fab and out perform Qualcomm. What are the alternatives?

I think you're grossly underestimating how easy this win is.

> To be fair, Carmack had been pushing for an all-out device but got sidelined by Zuck's push towards cheap and scale.

You have that completely backwards.

> "I've always been clear that I'm all about the cost-effective mass-market headsets being the most important thing for us and for the adoption of VR," Carmack said. "And Quest Pro is definitely not that..."

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2022/10/carmack-wants-a-250-v...

I'm not sure it's fair to say that Facebook had a 7-8 yr head start because Apple has been developing every single component that goes into the VR headset for well over 10 yrs. They design their own cameras, displays, micro processors, lenses, speakers, sensors, etc. Apple has hundreds of engineers working on each of these components for various devices they sell. They've shipped a billion+ of their own custom processors and have a world class chip design team to make custom chips for specific products. Meta has no where near the level of hardware design expertise that Apple has. They've also been slowly laying a lot of this ground work for years now with ARKit and LiDAR on iPhones / iPad Pro, moving Mac's to Apple Silicon and supporting iPad apps on it (allows them to bootstrap the Vision Pro app store).

Even if Apple found the displays, cameras, sensors, etc. the one thing they won't find available is the processors(s). Apple is shipping an M2 chip, which they use for desktop computing as well as a custom new chip to handle sensor information. I read that the actual parts cost of the Vision Pro is $1500, and that's with Apple having huge contracts with their suppliers for other components and getting a discount. Add in R&D costs and even at $3500 Apple is likely not making much on this device. If Meta were to make a similar device I think it would cost $5k or they would have to sell it at a major loss.

> T̶o̶ ̶b̶e̶ ̶f̶a̶i̶r̶,̶ ̶C̶a̶r̶m̶a̶c̶k̶ ̶h̶a̶d̶ ̶b̶e̶e̶n̶ ̶p̶u̶s̶h̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶f̶o̶r̶ ̶a̶n̶ ̶a̶l̶l̶-̶o̶u̶t̶ ̶d̶e̶v̶i̶c̶e̶ ̶b̶u̶t̶ ̶g̶o̶t̶ ̶s̶i̶d̶e̶l̶i̶n̶e̶d̶ ̶b̶y̶ ̶Z̶u̶c̶k̶'̶s̶ ̶p̶u̶s̶h̶ ̶t̶o̶w̶a̶r̶d̶s̶ ̶c̶h̶e̶a̶p̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶s̶c̶a̶l̶e̶.̶ (I might have mis-remembered)

According to the Lex Friedman podcast interview with Carmack, Carmack has been pushing for lower spec, cheap VR, probably on a phone, IIRC. Something people can afford and use day to day

Then, using better use of hardware resources to push more performance out of vr/ar apps.

He believes more in optimization than ordinary programmers. Doom runs on modern conference phones and smart appliances

I think Apple might stumble over the same things as Meta and other AR/VR headset companies. The big issue for consumers is product differentiation. Put simply: How is the experience of using this product any different than another product that they already use?

Fundamentally, these companies have to show how their product is a) unique and b) useful in a way that differentiates the headset from using a laptop or a tablet or a smartphone. I think all of them are great at marketing point a but seriously struggle with point b. Getting widespread adoption, in any way, requires moving beyond novelty factor and into serious impact on how people work or go about their lives. Apple seems to be really focusing on domestic, 'casual' applications, or 'knowledge work' style arrangements, like meetings or co-operative creative work. I don't think people will find much benefit in that outside of their normal desktop workstations. AR in warehouse or construction or more labour intensive situations or (unfortunately) military applications is actually where I think something like these headsets could be more successful. Cheaper devices do have an advantage in that respect, so long as the tech matches the user need. To summarize my point, I think we're still a good decade or more away from the point when these headsets reach anything near moderate adoption. At some point the cheap devices, the amazing tech, and the clear use-case will converge; but I don't think we're there yet.

> Apple seems to be the only company that's able to do this on a consistent basis with physical electronics. (video games, cars, construction projects achieve this in their field, but consumer electronics seems to completely lack this, barring Apple)

It's funny watching the interactions between tech reviewers and (usually Shenzhen-based) consumer-electronics startups — think earbuds, "retro consoles", etc.

Almost inevitably, the reviewer gradually develops domain knowledge from reviewing dozens of entrants into the space that allow them to say exactly what would make for a good device. Then one of the startups invites the reviewer to collaborate on a product design with them. The model that the reviewer had design input on becomes wildly successful, because it actually does some stuff right. And then, as soon as the reviewer is gone, everything the company makes goes right back to having the same obvious flaws. As if they're constitutionally incapable of learning what made their one good product succeed in the market and just replicating it.

Meta doesn't have the marketing chops, consumer product mindshare, or retail channel that Apple does, so I'm not sure Apple's approach makes sense for them.

And it remains to be seen if Apple's approach will work (though I suspect it will, over time... as you suggest, the premium device will set the market and later Apple will make cheaper devices available that make different tradeoffs.)

I'm not convinced it is or will be an "easy win" because the entire space is still so fundamentally flawed. Everyone I know with a VR headset has one...and barely ever uses it (similar to the smart speaker, which Apple also failed at.) Not because of quality of hardware or software (Meta's stuff is actually pretty impressive now), but that it's awkward and it's strapped to your face. I don't see how this really addresses that aspect.

Apple can surprise you with how successful things they make can be, but I can't think of a product they have now that wasn't already in space with tons of successes. Phones, tablets, watches, earbuds, all were already fairly popular. Tablets maybe being the one they really brough into the fold of common use, but the others already existed they just "perfected" them. This is...mostly a failed space with very little penetration. It will be much harder.

This "Apple DNA" provides both advantages and disadvantages. The Apple Vision has a shell of metal & glass. On a product where weight is super important. How many grams could be shaved if they used plastic instead?

Has anyone ever thought of Facebook as a pioneer in anything? They've made some smart purchases and stole a few ideas. I feel like their entire existence is based on right place, right time.

Maybe it's because Facebook's "move fast" culture, enforced by their performance review processes, isn't conducive to making a "halo" product. Apple's more authoritarian culture has its downsides, I'm sure, but one upside is that engineers don't have to take detours twice a year to produce intermediate results that will survive selfish criticism from their more short-term-focused peers.

Quest 2 is the best-selling headset to date. This Apple device will have an even smaller addressable market at the $3500 price. Meta can add more pixels faster than Apple can drop their price by 2/3. Really, Apple does a lot of things well, but their market supremacy is primarily due to marketing. They are incredibly well-positioned as a necessary luxury brand. They are "cool" while Android and Microsoft are not.

One thing which ties this all together is that Apple has a full-blown legitimate OS that can run professional software that already exists. Throw it into a headset, driving up the price significantly, but potentially make a computer replacement.

The only other company in the world that has an extensive OS ecosystem like that is Microsoft.

Everyone else never really had a chance to make a new class of device.

VR "for the masses" has always been hobbled by the extreme prices, extreme hardware demands and incompatibility. Even very early tech like VRML died because of that.

I suspect Apple VR will lead to a short and shallow VR boom, followed by it going the way of Apple TV, 3D TV and (not quite comparable, so with reservations) AR glasses.

It's because Apple is a (top) hardware company (and a software one) and they have years of experience at it. Meta is a software company; they could become a hardware company, but that doesn't happen in just a few years.

Maybe... it's also entirely possible this will go the way of Google glass.

$3500 + tax device won't scale. It's not something that most people have a budget for.

What is amazing to me is that no matter how much a company makes, you can't change its DNA. Facebook can never build a good physical product, no matter how much money they throw at it. Google can never make a good piece of software, though they can have very strong backend engineering for it, and so on.

That is why people talk about culture a whole lot and why it is so important. I wonder if the culture is set and can never be changed though. Is it an immutable property of companies based on initialization?

Hottake having read the whole thing,

I think too much is made about the "personal vs social" binning of Meta vs Apple.

It's true off the bat, but, is more useful as a hook to hang philosophy about our isolated selves on, than a concrete projection of how this is going to develop.

To put a sharp edge on that, I will go so far as to say I think this is quite the wrong take, and I have receipts. Maybe.

The FaceTime bit about scanning your face, and presenting you sans mask in teleconferencing? Great, I look fine in FaceTime!

...the exercise left to the student to infer is that if you can appear in FaceTime, next you can appear in the space with me outside that frame. Or your AI-backed agent, which also you know, can replicate your manner of speaking and voice, because Apple has infinite hours new and old of your speech, written and verbal, on tap, right?

You and proxy-you are going to be in shared space with other wearers... soon.

And then well we have something world-altering to deal with,

because our monkey-minds fully accept such figures as "real" and our memories filter out the virtuality of our interactions, where our analytic mind does not.

The world of "Her" and Joe's "girl friend" in Blade Runner etc are all getting really close. See the clickbait about someone "marrying" their AI boyfriend yesterday?

Anyway I digress, but, yeah, I think Apple is quietly collecting cards for shared virtual presence, and as per usual will take their time to make it wow on disclosure.

Am I the only one that is surprised they went with the "all in the glasses" design? (Minus the exterior battery and cable.) I was expecting an extremely lightweight pair of glasses that wirelessly connects with a stationary device that provides most of the computing power for the VR/AR. That device could even be the new generation of iPhones...

The design as-is looks better than 95% of other headsets, but still strikes me as a bit clunky.

The tech isn’t there for “just glasses”. You need motorized optics, sensors to measure your eye movements, and a dozen cameras to capture your surroundings, hand movements, etc. Also, image processing in a separate device might increase the AR pass-through latency, which allegedly they got down to 12 ms.

Seems like they needed a plethora of cameras and sensors up in the glasses to watch your eyes, hand gestures, and the environment. This is too big to fit in a lightweight pair of glasses.

But if it's "extremely lightweight", where would you put the battery to power a high bandwidth transmitter/receiver? I can't imagine anything approaching the size of a pair of Wayfarers having space for the battery or electronics (not to mention all the optics and sensors!)

The display and optics are a lot of the bulk. Hard to move that off device.

Unfortunately reads like a massive paid ad.

When Ben Thompson writes something that you could also interpret as a massive paid ad, that says something really interesting about the product he’s writing about.

If he say the product sucks what are you gonna say? It was paid by Meta?

It’s definitely a theme of our times that we have all come to believe that any opinions contrary to our own must be for corrupt motives. I’m ready for that part to be over.

Fortunately it reads like one. Says a lot about the product.

The "relive your memories" is maybe less dystopian than commenters are thinking because you can presumably also view footage from other 360 cameras, like action cams used during sports, or simply placed more discretely in a room (yes, porn is the obvious use case that Apple won't say).

I'm definitely not going to be keeping my hands in the air to type on a virtual keyboard. I can tell you right now that won't work and your arms will get too tired. Must be only for minor tasks. But I can't afford the thing anyways so doesn't matter.

It supports the Magic Keyboard and I presume other wireless boards.

Also, hand movements lack tactile feedback. This makes them very useless for a lot of tasks.

Even with my Quest 2 I notice the lack of push back in the hand controllers during motion, for things like flying games, and fps makes it very difficult to use. You almost always need an attachment to make it feel better.

Anyone here that was there yesterday and used it, what's it like looking "through" it at the world, how does focusing on near and far work? Are the cameras adjusting focus based on where you are looking?

> Are the cameras adjusting focus based on where you are looking?

Yes. Marques Brownlee describes this in his latest video.

I was not there and have read a few media outlets first hand 30 minutes demo summaries. None answered your questions about focus.

One did say, I think either from CNET or from creative solutions, which you can find on YouTube, that pass through cameras where the highest quality they had ever seen. And they are experts. It was CNET, now that I remember. And he talked about looking at his wrist watch and being able to make out the detail on his watch's text.

https://youtu.be/_USrtT3chs0

I want to believe (invoking Skully/X-files here)

I'm viewing this release from Apple as, essentially, a public DevKit for more slick versions of the same kit in the future.

Something with the described functionality, but the form factor of something closer to Google Glass would 100% be game-changing

ie. You develop your AR apps on this, and then come out with something much more user-friendly in a couple of versions time.

I'm just not convinced that most people want to walk around with this thing on their face for any extended period of time, regardless of how amazing the tech is (and it is amazing!)

Time will tell, I guess.

Seems like most of the use cases he's raving about are novelty VR experiences (e.g. immersive experiences watching sports), and the benefit of the AR is simply you can exit/browse these experiences without feeling like you're inside a VR void. I guess it would be nice to have infinite monitors when I'm doing work for productivity purposes if its seemless but I don't see the killer general use case yet for AR.

as usual what matters is the user experience. technology is only a conduit for such. the difference between Apple and many other tech companies is they prioritize the former over the latter, and when the latter is available it exists mainly to amplify the former.

this problem is most obvious in video games, where eye watering graphics are prevalent but gameplay sucks. Once it gets to 8K per eye with decent FoV, it will truly look pretty close to reality.

My biggest issue with Vision Pro is the extension of the App Store model to a new platform, where we could start from scratch and strike a new deal on the percentages. Unfortunately Apple has the resources to seed the most prominent developers with any help they need and once the ball get’s rolling there’s no going back. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

I think the point that many are missing is that Apple doesn’t announce half-baked products at nearly the rate that Google and company does.

The fact that Apple took this bet isn’t indicative of the current product, it’s indicative of the future. They’re correct in almost every product bet they make. If you don’t see it, you’re probably not seeing the long game.

Throughout all this, I'm struck by the epic credibility of Apple. Any other company would have seen a much larger share price slump after making an announcement like this, but Apple managed to pull it off with only a slight dip. This is truly a super power and may very well be enough for them to achieve breakaway network effects.

I'm just still surprised that Apple made a heavy-duty massive VR/AR product instead of something more like Google Glass - something lightweight and fashionable as a peripheral for your phone just for showing notifications and turn-by-turn directions and other kind of status updates -- an Apple Watch for your face.

Just a side issue, but... can we drop the VR vs. AR terminology now?

It just leads to pointless arguments, e.g. about whether a person said VR when they meant AR, etc. and to the awkward MR and XR terms.

How much is real and how much is virtual is inherently variable, and good devices (at least for general purpose usage) will make it quite fluid.

Thanks for saying this. It is getting ridiculous.

Apple saying they are doing AR which does not mean anything. If you use the headset as a big "projected computer screen" I doubt people really care if the actual surrounding is there or if that makes any difference.

This is a really good article although i don't fully agree with the conclusion. Thinking that Meta's quest is a social headset whereas Apple's is a solitary ignores the fact that social interactions and integrations can and will be developed into the VisionPro.

I'm curious if anyone will be able to develop in it (i.e. write code with virtual desktops etc)

I'm also curious about how which unexpected consequences people will experience with such devices (nausea, etc... other unknown illnesses cropping up)

If it's comfortable enough to wear for prolonged of times it might be superior to most common multi monitor setups that users have these days. Nausea would be induced by lack of visual references and latency issues. AR with good responsiveness should address that. Eye fatigue and headaches might be another issue. Too early to tell but this might not be that much of an issue. Otherwise, it looks all good.

In the Platform State of the Union talk yesterday they actually showed how developing Vision Apps will work and it can be done through the device just by looking at your Mac. It will spawn your Mac screen and the Vision app you're working on in the air. It looked pretty slick.

A number of people have written blog posts about doing their work in VR with other headsets, including development. Unless Apple's walled garden gets in the way, then it'll definitely be possible in the Vision too.

It should be high res enough, and there should be no screen door effect.

See https://youtu.be/OdHbQpg4pOA for a discussion of related display panel types.

They didn’t show any virtual keyboard I think.

Gruber is even a fan, too! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36207705&p=2#36211404

I agree with the critique about recording videos using the headset — what an odd experience that will be. But I also assume a future iPhone will be able to record these 3d videos and photos.

funny, if one combines the (anti)social projections of this-and-related, and the (anti)social projections of the new generative models stuff..

so you buy a "skin-fixing" filter and your skin does not look that old and crappy anymore (to you - and also to all your registered friends if you buy the Pro version); hey lets attach a "mustache-adding" filter to that particular aunt (haha) ; f*, lets generate a new face for my partner - ah i always wanted a blondie..

yeah. but still Alone.

So are we at Minority Report yet ?

I note that nobody in the Apple presentation was using finger flicks to delete and rearrange windows. Which I think were kind-of-iconic UI gestures in MR.

Does anyone think the military would be interested in using vision for training purposes, like a fully immersive combat experience?

Seems like a market that the article missed.

I find it much easier to imagine commercial uses (perhaps visualizing a planned building in its real environment) than personal uses.

The Mil has Vision Pro 10 already.

When do people anticipate the Vision Pro will be available in an Apple Store to be tried? And is there another way to try one sooner.

When it goes on sale.

I don't think Apple has ever had public demos of products not yet available for sale.

They're going to have developer previews available in certain cities around the world. You'll be able to take your app and run it on the hardware to see how it works outside of a simulator.

> the ability of the Vision Pro to take “pictures” — memories, really — of moments in time and render them in a way that feels incredibly intimate and vivid.

This reminds me of the following two scenes from Brainstorm (1983 film):

https://youtu.be/cOGAEAJ4xJE?t=34m37s

https://youtu.be/cOGAEAJ4xJE?t=49m50s

It’s impressive, I admit, but I’m skeptical Vision Pro will outdo the legacy of iPod Socks.

Is stratechery still doing high quality content? I remember reading their content a couple years ago and really enjoyed it but it's a tough business building constantly interesting content on a consistent basis.

Honestly curious -- it's a challenge for most podcasts / content producers.

> Apple, meanwhile, isn’t even bothering with presence: even its Facetime integration was with an avatar in a window, leaning into the fact you are apart, whereas Meta wants you to feel like you are together.

[was with an avatar in a window]

And how Meta is fixing that exactly?

My understanding is that the term “presence“ is more about your feeling of being truly immersed in the VR space.

Presumably with an avatar outside of a window

Does this stuff work if you don't have 20/20 vision?

There are prescription glasses you can add. It was in the original presentation.

They should’ve called it eyeOS instead of visionOS

Basically I'm just not gonna wear it (the goggles) I know... UGH I know ... I'm sorry! It's just that I'm not gonna wear it is all hahaha

curious how typing on a keyboard will work

don't recall seeing that on the presentation..

also

2hrs battery, on a flight can you carry those...

inconvenient (impractical?)

> 2hrs battery, on a flight can you even carry those...

Most flights have plug sockets now don't they, you're sitting down in a confined space, it seems fine to plug it in.

Any even if you can't plug it in, I'd guarantee it'll be below the 100Wh restriction that almost all airlines use, there aren't really any consumer electronics batteries above this precisely because you can't travel with them. They would also be huge and heavy.

They showed it, but didn't really focus on it. They also mentioned pairing with their magic keyboards and other peripherals.

I experimented with a keyboard/mouse in an Oculus headset and having physical keys under your fingers is much better. Only problem was that I couldn't see the keyboard inside the headset which was a bummer.

You look at the letters on the keyboard, and "tap" by pinching your fingers. You can also just look at an input and start speaking.

Most planes have power at the seats though, I don't think it'd be too hard to wear this on a plane.

According to MKBHD’s video, you just look at the key you want on the on-screen keyboard and then click it by touching your thumb and index finger. They also mentioned in the keynote you can connect a Bluetooth keyboard and type on that.

A possible nice thing about it being an external battery is that (presuming they will sell them individually) you can carry more than one.

> Meta is focused on social

No, Meta is focused on intrusive advertising, abating the law, and recording history about people against their explicit desire.

That twist in the last section ...

Get back to me when the tech gets shrunk down to a normal pair of glasses I can use as every day eyewear.

See you in a decade then.

“Pro” just means there’s a cheaper one in the pipeline. I’d wait.

This is pretty bad for VR.

It will most likely flop because it has no reliable input.

So far FrankenQuest 2/3 is on top: http://move.rupy.se/file/FrankenQuest.png

Let's see what Valve can do...

Videogaming seems like such a small market for Apple to chase individually. They make almost as much revenue on airpods every year as Sony has ever sold in PS5s.

I feel like I’ve read this comment verbatim in at least one other thread in the last day or so…am I in the vr simulation already?

>It will most likely flop because it has no reliable input.

This reads like the critiques just after the iPhone was announced that it will flop because it didn’t have a physical keyboard…

I find his gushing about the centrality of phones to be annoying.

Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile choose not to serve the valley I live in, why should I reward them by buying an expensive plan? From time to time I've had a Tracfone but after a few years I wind up with 3000+ minutes because my average mobile call lasts under 2 minutes.

Practically I use an iPad to do almost everything people use phones for, even making telephone calls with Skype. I'm just waiting for them to shush me at the public library and point out the sign that says using a phone isn't allowed and tell them I'm not using a phone, I'm using a tablet. (My typical call is so short though they don't have time)

I constantly complain about "phonishness" invading the PC and other computing platforms, like Reddit trying to push you to use their mobile crapp. I still see the phone as a step backwards in computing, not a step forwards, particularly if you are forced to use that other mobile OS that has a trashcan as its logo.

Maybe it a step back for you but look around. The phone won. Tablets, laptops, etc will never make a comeback to be nearly as important or popular as the smart phone. The only question is when a new thing will replace it. IMO it is not going to happen for a really long time

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