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Comment by mellosouls | Hacker News Reader

Excellent article, I look forward to the updates.

As a Meta Quest 2 owner, and Android user, I'm a bit of an Apple-skeptic when it comes to their pricing on some products; but I have to acknowledge that while the Vision Pro seems mad-expensive on first reveal, it doesn't seem to be poor value going by the previews and specs, which seems to match the article's conclusions.

That is where the Quest Pro seems to have failed - at least at its initial pricing it was very difficult to see the added value matching the price premium.

Apple - at several times the price of the Quest Pro here - has me rooting for it as a considerably more serious product at a relatively-justified serious price in what is an uncertain undertaking.

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Yes, the Apple headset is miles more advanced, but to me, the massive selling point of the Quest 2 was also how easy to sideload stuff was. The Side Quest store is full of amazing apps and ports, like Doom 3 for example, that for reasons don't meet the Quest Store approval criteria or because the devs don't want to pay the 30% fee to Meta.

I doubt we'll see such freedom on the Apple headset as it looks more of a "VR iPad" than a "VR iMac". If I know Apple well, sideloading apps will be a huge no-no and you'll only be able to run what Apple approves on it, so those hoping for immersive VR porn or other wild fantasies, might be left hanging.

Apple is being forced by the EU DMA law to allow support for alternate app stores by 2024 - I imagine the same would hold true for the vision pro. I guess it depends if VR goggles are viewed as an entirely separate category of product, or if they are essentially just "smart phones with a fancy display".

>Apple is being forced by the EU DMA law to allow support for alternate app stores by 2024

As always, I'm waiting to see the final implementation before rejoicing prematurely.

Appel can always intentionally maliciously screw with the implementation of this law in so many ways, in order to make sideloading an unattractive proposition for the majority, but that is still compliant with the law, like they did with the self repair program, or like the implementation of many GDPR cookie banners use dark pattern to annoy you into just giving up and accepting tracking.

A law is one thing. It's the implementation that makes or breaks it.

Meta left sideloading relatively open without a law having to drag them kicking and screaming into it, which is much better IMHO from a hacker perspective, as it means our vision & goals for the product usage are slightly more aligned.

Re: GDPR, enforcement matters. GDPR enforcement was left to the DPA of the country where the EU HQ of the company is located, and the Irish DPA clearly sees itself as an arm of the Irish Development Agency tasked with making Ireland as congenial a venue for multinationals as possible, not on a mission to defend consumers' privacy. The EU learned its lesson and the implementation of DSA and DMA will not be left to compromised national authorities.

How do you game on it?

Developers would have to port their games, but I don't see any reason why it wouldn't work. The only real obstacle is a lack of first-party input devices.

The Vision Pro? I'm not a game player generally, I bought my Quest 2 for exercise apps and as a platform for investigating developing for VR and working inside the new medium.

I agree with your implication this is not an appropriate price format for gaming, but I would have thought the Vision Pro is aimed at more of that latter market; though presumably future less premium models will aim at the gaming and more natural consumer markets, or gaming will emerge as a secondary use for the more expensive models like this.

It has no controller, you can't game on it

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