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Notes on Vision Pro

notes.andymatuschak.org

381–390 of 700 posts

Re: Notes on Vision Pro

#381
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Why do you say there are no controllers? I was reading about bluetooth keyboards and interacting with a laptop, so why wouldn't a bluetooth controller be feasible (say, before launch)?

They are feasible and I dare say already working given its essentially a modded iOS, which already has support for game controllers.

Re: Notes on Vision Pro

#382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't disagree, however when was the last time you walked into a room where at least one person wasn't solely focused on their phone. The 3D photo thing is super weird, they could release a stand alone camera in future, BUT, I think this is a v1 product, imagine where it'll be in 5 years time, or an SE model which isn't wrap around. I already wear glasses so having AR glasses is no big leap.

Strapping on goggles to record a family moment feels super weird to me too. I wonder if future iPhones will have the sensors required to take 3D photos.

I don't think this is something most "normal" people will do. However, I can see use cases in industry where grabbing a quick photo of some equipment etc might be useful, or in sports where for example cyclists could have a heads up display and use the camera to capture a beautiful view they discover.

As a parent myself, the idea that someone would stop what they are doing to put on goggles to take a photo seems crazy. You would miss the moment. The only reason I use my phone for most photos over a DSLR or Mirrorless is because the phone is right in your pocket and instantly available at all times. I'm pretty sure the newer iPhones already have lidar sensors don't they?

Re: Notes on Vision Pro

#383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple's goal is surely to get away from the google form factor asap, and once we're at a pair of slick glasses I don't think you'd even think twice about it.

It feels like another pretty Apple device which is purely for consuming content, and of little use for serious work (or serious play). And $3500 is way too much to pay for that sort of device. A UI that relies entirely on eye tracking and arm motion tracking, without a single button for 'accept' or 'back' or 'fire' in the case of games seems incredibly limiting. They didn't demonstrate text entry, did they? I expecte…

What I find interesting about apple devices is that despite what you said, the engineering is usually top notch and beats most competitors. For example, I use an iPad Pro for hand writing notes. I don't care about iOS or any other fancy feature there might be, I have this device purely for writing notes. But the interesting thing is that I haven't found any other tablet that does specifically the hand writing as good as this one. It turns that specific aspect into a unique selling point for me and it almost seems like the competition has given up in terms of that. With this device I could see a similar thing. Regardless of whether this brings any new features over the competition, the engineering seems to be outstanding. Because of that I could see people buy this for a specific use case that it excels at, all the while not using it for "everything". Somewhat of a ramble but I hope I could bring my point across.

Re: Notes on Vision Pro

#384
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 kind of funny that meta stock didn’t drop on the vision pro announcement. What does that say about the market’s assessment of meta’s vr/ar prospects?

I actually expected the opposite TBH.

Not because Meta had a better product, but Apple putting its might into this product category means that "Meta" is vindicated in investing here -- that there exists / will exist a viable market for this technology in coming years.

All the damage done by the poor quality 3D renders of AR/VR worlds from Metaverse -- that made a layperson laugh at the concept of AR/VR -- is probably partly offset by the positive press and marketing budgets that Apple will bring to the table.

Re: Notes on Vision Pro

#385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't disagree, however when was the last time you walked into a room where at least one person wasn't solely focused on their phone. The 3D photo thing is super weird, they could release a stand alone camera in future, BUT, I think this is a v1 product, imagine where it'll be in 5 years time, or an SE model which isn't wrap around. I already wear glasses so having AR glasses is no big leap.

I don't see phone as being equivalent to a VR headset. Phone is just a few sq. inches of distraction whereas the VR stuff is a 360 degree false world full of delusion.

And people get completely sucked into those few sq. inches of screen, tuning off from the real world.

In my life it got to a point with some friends where I introduced the idea of everyone taking their phones out and putting them face down on a stack on the table, if you really need to check your phone for something important one has to voice out "I need to check my phone", taking a break from hanging out to check it. It annoys me to no end when in the middle of a conversation someone takes their phone out just to check a message, or Instagram, or any kind of trivial notification, and end up lost in it for a few minutes, it's been really great to make them more aware of the behaviour as it completely tunes me off from a conversation seeing someone you're trying to communicate with staring intensely into their screens.

At least in VR I know that they aren't present, easier to adjust, with phones it just annoys me absolutely.

Re: Notes on Vision Pro

#386
post #315

I use quite a few Apple products every day of the last 10 years, and I’m very impressed with certainly all the technology and reviews and explanations of how this device works and what the user experience will be. However, this is the first Apple device that really makes me pause. All of the marketing material, the WWDC videos, all of it feels very uncomfortable to see all these people isolating themselves in a room…

I don't disagree, however when was the last time you walked into a room where at least one person wasn't solely focused on their phone. The 3D photo thing is super weird, they could release a stand alone camera in future, BUT, I think this is a v1 product, imagine where it'll be in 5 years time, or an SE model which isn't wrap around. I already wear glasses so having AR glasses is no big leap.

> however when was the last time you walked into a room where at least one person wasn't solely focused on their phone.

Do we want more of that ?

Re: Notes on Vision Pro

#387
post #139

Reading through his notes, I couldn’t help but think “I don’t know this guy, but it seems like he has spent years thinking deeply about interfaces. Also, he sounds ex-Apple.” It made me smile when I got towards the end and my suspicions were confirmed. Andy’s thoughts were infinitely deeper than anything else I’ve read about the device+interface so far. In particular, I liked his observations that so far it’s mostly…

Reading through it, I was struck by the contrast of how broken the web page was with what the author was saying about UX. The author seems experienced in the field, but the site felt completely broken. I don’t know if it’s a device or browser issue, but reading on my iPad, if I tried to use my right thumb to scroll, the page acted as if I had reached the end of the article, even though it was clear there was more bec…

If you visit his top level website, you can see that it uses a columnar layout. I agree that it compromises the experience if a single article is linked like this, especially on smaller screens, but it isn't broken, this is how it is intended. It just doesn't cater to all formfactors.

Re: Notes on Vision Pro

#388
post #315

I use quite a few Apple products every day of the last 10 years, and I’m very impressed with certainly all the technology and reviews and explanations of how this device works and what the user experience will be. However, this is the first Apple device that really makes me pause. All of the marketing material, the WWDC videos, all of it feels very uncomfortable to see all these people isolating themselves in a room…

It'll become accepted I'm sure, if it breaks through; could anyone have imagined walking into a living room 30 years ago [0] and seeing everyone hunched over a phone? Or 80 years ago and seeing everyone around a television?

I mean I get what you mean, but I also think that some things get normalized in subsequent generations. Our 15 year old and his gf have their phones out at all times, frequently switching to interacting, glancing at random videos, messaging, games, etc. Unthinkable 20 years ago, but for them it's tuesday.

That said, VR headsets have been a thing for a while now, at all price ranges; Google Cardboard and clones would make any smartphone into a rudimentary 3d headset, but as far as I know nobody normalized that into their daily life to e.g. watch videos. Head-mounted DVD players were a thing as well for a while I think, but again, never became normalized. Google Glass was the first 'big' AR system, and it was hated for being so obvious and its wearers being so blatant in glancing one way and having a camera aimed at you (which might have been recording) at all times; it might be interesting to see what today's iterations, Snapchat's Spectacles [1], Facebook / Ray Ban's Stories [2], Bose Frames or Amazon Echo Frames will do, I think they'll be much more accepted because they're not as obvious.

[0] I had to edit that one a few times, had to think about when mobile phones became daily use items

[1] https://www.tomsguide.com/us/snapchat-spectacles-2-0,review-...

[2] https://www.tomsguide.com/reviews/ray-ban-stories

Re: Notes on Vision Pro

#389
post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a good point, maybe eventually some of the tech will leak out and not actually require wearing the goggles. Regarding phones, I see your point there too, but at least with phones people can still look up make eye contact, easily set the phone down when needing to interact with someone; unlike these, there is a definite wearing-them and not-wearing barrier that many will probably not cross on a whim, so we'll j…

You can just flip the goggles up if you’re talking to someone. That’s often what people with tinted safety goggles, like welders, do. Having to take AirPods out of your ears is more obtrusive I think.

> Having to take AirPods out of your ears is more obtrusive I think.

I don't own airpods but I don't mind if someone comes to talk to me with airpods on. I think it would be stranger having someone come up to me and talk to me with the goggles on.

Re: Notes on Vision Pro

#390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strapping on goggles to record a family moment feels super weird to me too. I wonder if future iPhones will have the sensors required to take 3D photos.

I don't think this is something most "normal" people will do. However, I can see use cases in industry where grabbing a quick photo of some equipment etc might be useful, or in sports where for example cyclists could have a heads up display and use the camera to capture a beautiful view they discover. As a parent myself, the idea that someone would stop what they are doing to put on goggles to take a photo seems craz…

Not enough people have seen the movie Strange Days.

Watching recordings of people doing interesting things could be the killer feature.

Porn is obvious, but even just experiencing the recording of someone walking through some beautiful place will be a treat.

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