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Notes on Vision Pro

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Re: Notes on Vision Pro

#221

Post by ehnto »

ChristopherDrum wrote: post #134
JohnBooty wrote: post #21

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…

From Apple's visionOS page, re: Accessibility ( https://developer.apple.com/visionos/ ) "And for people who prefer a different way to navigate content, Pointer Control lets them select their index finger, wrist, or head as an alternative pointer." This reads to me like they've got you covered (at least in principle).

Hopefully you can just set one eye as dominant. I as well have one good eye, so just using that one for tracking should be fine.

Re: Notes on Vision Pro

#222

Post by spartanatreyu »

acdha wrote: post #159
spartanatreyu wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) Console controls are not a suitable alternative to proper VR controllers 2) What makes you think the PS5 controller was connected to the headset, and not the headset being used as a TV showing the output of a PS5?

Re: 2, they showed it being used to play Apple Arcade games and since they already have support for that it’s unlikely that they have deep philosophical objections. Re: 1, it’ll be interesting to see how well the camera system works in practice. All of the reviews are quite positive about precise movements so it might be that they’re throwing hardware at this problem but I’d also be surprised if they were not very ca…

Using controllers isn't about accuracy, it's about occlusion and haptics.

Using only gestures means no haptic feedback and it gets de-synced as soon as the camera can't see what you're doing.

Take Apples gestures for example (e.g. tap your thumb and index finger together to click). As soon as your hand is rotated in such a way that your own fingers are hidden from the camera, you actions stop being applied. This will also happen should one hand cross the other, or resting your arms down while standing, or reaching up for something, or even resting on a couch with your knee up.

Re: Notes on Vision Pro

#223

Post by ElFitz »

skydhash wrote: post #144

> What if programs live in places, live in physical objects in your space? For instance, you might place all kinds of computational objects in your kitchen: timers above your stove; knife work reference overlays above your cutting board; a representation of your fridge’s contents; a catalog of recipes organized by season; etc. I'd prefer an OS that spans multiple devices. Something how computers behave in “The Expans…

Reminds me of some descriptions of Bell’s Plan 9.

Re: Notes on Vision Pro

#224

Post by o1y32 »

dvt wrote: post #138
sangnoir wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

If you have a product that's 5x as good, but 2x as expensive, literally everyone will buy it. The iPhone is the perfect case study.

...if you are in the US. Outside US iPhones are nowhere nearly as popular. In many markets Android phones have about 90% of the market share

Re: Notes on Vision Pro

#225

Post by glhaynes »

mikenew wrote: post #114
glhaynes wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They talked about and briefly showed using game controllers and keyboards/pointing devices with it.

I saw a traditional gaming controller and a keyboard. Was there some kind of tracked-in-3d-space pointing device that I missed?

At 1:31:50 in the Keynote video they mention “Bluetooth accessories like Magic Trackpad and Magic Keyboard” and show those on a table and a person typing on the keyboard. I don’t believe the cursor of the trackpad is shown (but I’m on my phone and my eyes aren’t as good as they used to be!). I bet it’ll work like on iPadOS.

There are a LOT of WWDC sessions on visionOS; hopefully it’s shown off in one of them. EDIT: Trackpad usage shown here https://developer.apple.com/wwdc23/10076?time=914

Re: Notes on Vision Pro

#226

Post by ehnto »

xattt wrote: post #87
JohnBooty wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, 100%. The interfaces in Minority Report were spectacular in terms of cinematic movie appeal. Artistically it was a great choice, and they certainly weren't intending to inspire a bunch of wrong-thinking UI choices in the real world.

The dystopian future has a bustling physiotherapy and occupational therapy industry.

I can't speak for working in VR but I think us desk jockeys tend to underestimate what other people are doing for work. The lack of movement is what does thought workers in.

Re: Notes on Vision Pro

#227

Post by MBCook »

cubefox wrote: post #63
dvt wrote: 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,…

The Quest Pro has actual VR games and proper VR controllers though. I doubt that such games are possible or probable with eye pointing and finger clicking alone. Apple also didn't include any VR games into their presentation.

I’m sure people can come up with games or interfaces that would work just fine.

But they also showed full support for pairing standard Xbox and PlayStation controllers and playing with those the way you can on any other Apple platform (except the watch, of course).

Re: Notes on Vision Pro

#228

Post by ehnto »

JohnBooty wrote: post #213
XorNot wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple don't need you to defend them here. They presented what they presented, and whether we're interested is based on that. It's a legitimate concern and a valid point of discussion.

The interaction paradigm you describe (where it's literally impossible to look at one window while actively using another) makes so little sense that we can almost certainly rule it out. Certainly no press members who demo'd the unit are describing the interface that way. That's not "defending Apple", that's just... gosh, I can't think of any word besides common sense. From all of the presentations and press accounts…

> The interaction paradigm you describe (where it's literally impossible to look at one window while actively using another) makes so little sense that we can almost certainly rule it out.

I think the implication is that the window you are looking at is focussed automatically. Which wouldn't work for say, typing up a document to a text editor while reading from a reference doc. That's just the beginning, I use a mouse-to-focus window manager and that happens all the time with all sorts of things.

Re: Notes on Vision Pro

#229

Post by MBCook »

kalleboo wrote: post #88
cubefox wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Quest Pro has actual VR games and proper VR controllers though. I doubt that such games are possible or probable with eye pointing and finger clicking alone. Apple also didn't include any VR games into their presentation.

VR gaming is a flop. Lots of people bought headsets, played with them for a day and now they're all gathering dust. Apple is right to ignore it.

I’ve played VR games. They can be a lot of fun and very immersive.

But there are clearly still problems to solve. And some of them do involve hardware capability. Basically for the mass market they’re just not there yet.

The apple headset certainly appears to have significantly more power and capabilities in many ways. It will be interesting to see what pops up.

Though obviously a future version with a lower price will be necessary for it to truly go main stream.

Re: Notes on Vision Pro

#230

Post by hackernewds »

mdorazio wrote: post #205
lukevp wrote: post #133

From years of observing first-hand how hard it is to develop software, I’m shocked that Apple continually makes products that fit their aesthetic (eg. The crown and headband evoking the Apple Watch) and have coherent and mostly-baked software on launch like this. Is there a book about how they’re able to operate at scale and deliver such consistent things? Do they just have an insanely good product team? How do they…

I know it's a joke, but I think it's still a good illustration: https://i.imgur.com/XLuaF0h.png From everything I've heard, Apple's org structure is a lot more focused and UX-driven from the top down than basically any other large tech company. That means you get a lot less compromising and in-fighting. The other side is how Apple makes money compared to other companies. Meta makes money mostly by selling you (the us…

If you just draw the org structure for Apple differently in the link, it's same as Amazon..
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