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Notes on Vision Pro

notes.andymatuschak.org

41–50 of 700 posts

Re: Notes on Vision Pro

#41
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It should be relatively simple with a QR code or similar physical marker in the real world.

With yeah I agree. Without though it seems difficult

why do you guys say this? Amazon's "View in your room" feature does a decent job of placing a furniture in AR. We can even walk around/towards it. And that tech is just Apple ARKit right?

Re: Notes on Vision Pro

#42
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From reading/listening to reports of people who were able to demo the device, I think Apple may have nailed it, or come close. Everyone I've seen has absolutely raved about how accurate and intuitive the eye tracking + hand gesture feels.

I just went to echo this. Most of the reviews I’ve watched or read have raved about the eye tracking, regardless of if the reviewer was a fan of VR in general. It feels really cool that we might finally have a new computing paradigm. There is so much potential here and I can’t wait to see where things go.

No one has used it for an extended period of time. You don't get a headache right away, but after a while, you feel it.

Re: Notes on Vision Pro

#43

> But it does put an enormous amount of pressure on the eye tracking. As far as I can tell so far, the role of precise 2D control has been shifted to the eyes. I've been researching eye tracking for my own project for the past year. I have a Tobii eye tracker which is probably the best eye tracking device for consumers currently (or the only one really). It's much more accurate than trying to repurpose a webcam. The…

The eye tracking as the interface is what stood out to me as the most radical choice in the device.

I'm doubtful we really know how good it is yet. Without a few hours/days of hard use its just not going to be obvious the degree to which they've overcome all these long standing obstacles via "magic".

It's hard to think voice is anywhere near ready for this application, I still find it highly frustrating after decades of tries.

Re: Notes on Vision Pro

#44
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ultimately its more about the openness of the OS. If they built on iPadOS but they made a reasonable experience for freely sideloading apps, I'd be OK with it. Or even if they support WebXR really well, I might (just) find a way to be OK with that. But if they lock this down and position themselves as rentseekers to take a cut from every piece of software that runs there regardless of how much they contributed to it…

You don't think they are contributing something by creating this platform?

not as such no.

Part of (my) definition of a platform is that when you buy it you are fully paying for the cost and contribution the platform provider made when you buy it. If there's a residual financial (or other) obligation after that then you don't have a platform, you have a partnership. I know there's other definitions of platform but that's the one that's important to me.

Re: Notes on Vision Pro

#45
post #32

But it does put an enormous amount of pressure on the eye tracking. As far as I can tell so far, the role of precise 2D control has been shifted to the eyes. I've got one good eye and one bad eye. The bad eye is legally blind, has an off-center iris and is kind of lazy w.r.t. tracking. I'm extremely curious to know how Vision Pro deals with this. One certainly hopes there's some kind of "single eye" mode; certainly s…

I have pendulum nystagmus since birth. My eyes saccade and shake very rapidly, even when I'm focused on something. Folks who talk with me certainly notice. I really hope I won't be locked out of using vision pro just because its input modality isn't compatible with my body...

You might be SOL on version 1 or 2 but they'll figure it out eventually.

Re: Notes on Vision Pro

#46
post #19

Interesting notes. I'm disappointed even though it's entirely predictable that VisionOS is built on the iOS/iPadOS foundation rather than OSX. I guess we'll see how "walled in" it is but it's hard to see any reason Apple isn't going to be just as constraining and controlling about what happens on this OS as they are on iOS, if not more so. Which ultimately means I'll be very reluctant to ever adopt it in any meaningf…

It's a bit odd if you think about it: a desktop OS effectively creates a virtual 3d space for windows to live (move them in X and Y, or change their depth relative to each other), and the iPad or iPhone treats the surface as just a simple 2d plane with no depth or really even XY axes (you could sort of argue that the app switcher is an X axis).

So they're effectively recreating a lot of the elements of the macOS w/r/t window positioning, resizing, and depth, but building all on top of the iPadOS paradigm. If you consider the input methods are probably closer to a touch interface than a MKB interface then it kinda makes sense.

Personally I have zero interest whatsoever in living inside Apple's "only what we allow you to do" world, and the fact that they seem to be expanding it to what seems like a very powerful, desktop replacement computing device is kinda gross to me. But from an interface standpoint I think it's really interesting and actually makes some sense.

Re: Notes on Vision Pro

#47
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With yeah I agree. Without though it seems difficult

why do you guys say this? Amazon's "View in your room" feature does a decent job of placing a furniture in AR. We can even walk around/towards it. And that tech is just Apple ARKit right?

I don’t think it’s that good. “Decent” is accurate

Re: Notes on Vision Pro

#48
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't think they are contributing something by creating this platform?

not as such no. Part of (my) definition of a platform is that when you buy it you are fully paying for the cost and contribution the platform provider made when you buy it. If there's a residual financial (or other) obligation after that then you don't have a platform, you have a partnership. I know there's other definitions of platform but that's the one that's important to me.

I don't see why that should be. Obviously you have a right to do whatever deals you like and not buy this product, but it seems to me that one reason Apple is investing so much in this is because they expect to recoup a huge reward over time, not just from device sales.

I guess you can always buy an android based headset that allows sideloading but presumably it won't have the same level of investment.

Re: Notes on Vision Pro

#50
This is a bit of a rant, but I bought a Quest Pro last year, and I feel it was a total waste of money. It's actually embarrassing how much of an unpolished piece of garbage it feels like. Sure, it's fun as a PCVR headset, but as a productivity tool or as a multimedia consuming device, or as a social tool, it completely misses the mark.

And I'd say that 80% of its failure can be attributed to bad software. It's buggy, I constantly have to re-calibrate my work/play area, the hand tracking is janky, and even though it supports (incredible) eye tracking, almost nothing takes actual advantage of the hardware.

It's insane that a billion-dollar company like Meta actually felt proud to release such a steaming pile of trash. Do they seriously expect VR enthusiasts to build an entire operating system for them? Much like the reports we're getting about the Vision Pro, the eye tracking in the Quest Pro feels like magic, but nothing uses it—basically it's irrelevant to navigating the operating system and barely any games use foveated rendering. It's infuriating.

If I was Zuck, I'd fire all my product managers. I say good for Apple. I'll probably be selling my Quest Pro and buying the Vision Pro.

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