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Notes on Vision Pro

notes.andymatuschak.org

121–130 of 700 posts

Re: Notes on Vision Pro

#121

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…

They have accessibility/alternative input features to help with that

Re: Notes on Vision Pro

#122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is pretty good: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFvXuyITwBI

While I do enjoy me some MKBHD, I'd like the opinion of someone who's not fully bought into the Apple ecosystem already. This is a good perspective to have, but it's an incomplete perspective. And I'd like to know how realistic this thing is for "not apple users". It's a VR headset, can I use it with Windows to play MS Flight Simulator or Star Citizen? Can I use it on Linux to get wall-to-wall emavs? More real world…

It’s not a VR headset, it is a computer with its own OS and M2 processor. I don’t think that VR or AR was mentioned a single time in the Apple event. They say this is the first device for spatial computing and that this is equivalent to the first Mac as far as changing OS UI goes.

This will be another part of the Apple system along with Macs, iPhones, iPads, etc. You will never be able to use this as just a monitor equivalent for any other OS.

Re: Notes on Vision Pro

#123
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…

As far as I know, Intellij doesn’t run on iPad, so they’ll need to fix that problem before I consider adopting one.

Though I do remember reading you can connect it to your mac, so who knows. You’ll just need 2 $2000+ devices instead of one.

Re: Notes on Vision Pro

#124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is pretty good: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFvXuyITwBI

While I do enjoy me some MKBHD, I'd like the opinion of someone who's not fully bought into the Apple ecosystem already. This is a good perspective to have, but it's an incomplete perspective. And I'd like to know how realistic this thing is for "not apple users". It's a VR headset, can I use it with Windows to play MS Flight Simulator or Star Citizen? Can I use it on Linux to get wall-to-wall emavs? More real world…

You should already know the answers to those questions.

Re: Notes on Vision Pro

#125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Moving your eyes doesn’t cause headaches. Eye strain certainly can. If the resolution is high enough and the lag issues are taken care of there’s a good chance that it can be used for longer periods of time.

Re: Notes on Vision Pro

#126
post #69
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fitness and gaming wasn't demoed much yesterday, but are going to be insane on the Vision Pro - so I guess it was just too obvious to demo. Or is it? Also Meta could catch up if it was just software. But how big of a deal is the M2+R1? Anyway the metaverse was already being retracted, else this Vision Pro could have hammered Meta. Clearly Occulus has to evolve to match VisionPro. Controller has to be optional. It has…

> I guess it was just too obvious to demo. Or is it? Gaming can't be good, because there's no controllers. Even if the hand and eye tracking is absolutely S-tier, you're never getting something like button input from swinging your empty hands around, twitching your fingers. Just the occlusion from the back of your hand would be enough enough for that to be impossible. Fitness might be more doable, but even then I thi…

I thought they showed a PS5 Controller being used?

Re: Notes on Vision Pro

#127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Entirely serious question: is this something that can be trained? That is, after a long enough time of use and strengthening of the appropriate muscles and neural pathways, the headaches and such go away?

Surely you are already moving your eyes to look at click/tap targets anyway. Why would there be any additional muscle strain or neural pathways needed? Clearly moving our eyes doesn’t cause problems because we move them all the time as it is.

Re: Notes on Vision Pro

#128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm disappointed even though it's entirely predictable that VisionOS is built on the iOS/iPadOS foundation rather than OSX. They’re the same foundation, iOS is a fork of OS X and was originally announced as such. I’d be shocked if there isn’t a well maintained internal build of iOS which keeps parity with macOS windowing etc. The difference in restrictions between the platforms is entirely arbitrary. If this device…

It certainly isn't arbitrary, macOS has swap and doesn't kill apps and iOS doesn't have swap and does kill apps. This makes everything very different, and one makes it easier to do real-time rendering than the other.

I guess I should clarify. It’s arbitrary in that the restrictions are policy-based, not limitations of the underlying technology. There’s no technical reason iOS couldn’t have swap, it’s not available because trade off decisions were made to enable use cases on much more limited devices.

Re: Notes on Vision Pro

#129
post #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,…

> It's insane that a billion-dollar company like Meta actually felt proud to release such a steaming pile of trash.

Can you name a better product in the price-bracket?

Re: Notes on Vision Pro

#130

I think the big usecase of the Vision Pro is just a larger screen and immersion. That's what it looks like Apple highlights in the demos. Imagine developing with the ultimate 10x setup: several files, documentation, and debuggers open at once, with a zen nature background. Or making music, or painting, or even writing a research paper. Imagine playing a video game but the environment wraps around you. Imagine watchin…

The pixel density appears to be about half of a no-frills monitor at a usual distance. There's plenty for movies and games but just not enough to emulate your 2-4 working windows at a reasonable angular size.
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