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Notes on Vision Pro

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Re: Notes on Vision Pro

#611

Post by MR4D »

cubefox wrote: post #568
MR4D wrote: post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They never said you can’t use a controller. Remember, the iPad doesn’t come with a controller, but you can use a Pencil with it if you want. Same thing will likely happen with the Vision products.

The point is that most games would probably need a special VR controller (not a normal one!), unless they can be played point&click style. But Apple won't include them, so the respective games won't be made in the first place. There aren't even smartphone games which require external controllers, despite the install base of smartphones being orders of magnitude higher than what the sales numbers for the Vision Pro he…

An Xbox controller would probably work fine. I already have multiple connected to things like PC's, Macs, and even an AppleTV in my house.

I think Apple is playing the long game here. Moore's law and manufacturing improvements will cause the price to go down over time.

Remember, the first Macintosh cost $3,000 in 1984. Today most Macs cost less than 2/3 of that price before adjusting for inflation.

Re: Notes on Vision Pro

#612

Post by brookst »

sanderjd wrote: post #535
brookst wrote: post #484

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m confused. Are we judging a product category based on how it’s promoted, or how it’s used? I don’t think my opinion of smartphones would be any different if early promotions had shown the downsides, or bigger upsides, or bizarre and unrealistic scenarios. Am I wrong to be anchored on how they’re actually used, which literally nobody foresaw?

We're judging it based on the vision for how it will be used, as evidenced through its initial promotion.

Do you judge Viagra based on how well it reduces blood pressure?

I agree that demo was dumb and dystopian. But it's silly to latch on to one imagined usage, ignore the others, and have no interest in what the reality will be.

Re: Notes on Vision Pro

#613

Post by russellbeattie »

pzo wrote: post #434
russellbeattie wrote: post #15

> 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…

You have those problems mostly because your Tobii is external device much more far away - you won't get good enough accuracy comparing to any eye tracking that is just a camera few cm far away from your eyes. With Apple solution (or any VR with eye tracking): 1. You have very accurate head 6d location (gyroscope, compass, accelerometer + lidar for translation) at 100+ fps minimum and very computationally cheaply with…

Interesting. You might be right. I'll have to try it and see.

Re: Notes on Vision Pro

#614

Post by fio_ini »

zmmmmm wrote: post #30
wahnfrieden wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Be more specific what you mean by building on "OSX". AppKit is very old and crusty. Why would they build on AppKit? You want that?

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…

well i remember seeing you can bring your macbook or other devices into the space as a virtual window/screen/monitor (whatever they're calling it) so I already thought I can run vscode and any other apps at first at version 1 release. but I know what you mean.

Re: Notes on Vision Pro

#615

Post by astrange »

portpecos wrote: post #562
dointheatl wrote: post #554

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also, it's pretty clear that cities are too large for our social apparatus Citation needed? Humans have been living in cities for thousands of years.

At an extraordinary cost to human health. Sewage problems spread disease. Malnourishment due to only eating bread. The average height of a Paleolithic man far exceeded the height of a Neolithic man.

This is Berkson's paradox - Neolithic men may have been less healthy, but that could be because the hunter-gatherers died or stopped having children when they ran out of food rather than living off bread.

Re: Notes on Vision Pro

#616

Post by jodrellblank »

TheRealPomax wrote: post #539
jodrellblank wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quest Pro owner[1]: it's "a total waste of money", "embarassing how much of an unpolished piece of garbage it feels like", it's "a steaming pile of trash", "infuriating", "buggy", "janky". MKBHD on the Vision Pro: better image passthrough, better responsiveness, better hand tracking, better eye tracking, better image quality than any other headset he's ever used. You: "overpriced hardware". No, better hardware. [1] h…

Something can be both "more expensive because it's better" and "overpriced" at the same time. Those two are not mutually exclusive.

Someone can't say "let's wait until people have them for review before speculating" and then describe them as "overpriced" at the same time, those two are mutually exclusive.

Re: Notes on Vision Pro

#617

Post by MR4D »

pmontra wrote: post #496
MR4D wrote: post #432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A screen would be nowhere near as immersive. My point was that it would be like walking around Madurodam while playing a game. And standing would be optional. Apple showed most people sitting down, so I’m presuming you could do that.

You can walk up to the walls of the room you are playing in (or bed, or chairs or flower pots or a ball you left on the floor, ouch) but I guess that if this sticks somebody will build a 360° walking pad specifically for games. Meanwhile they can artificially limit how far a player can walk in a straight line. Mazes, small vehicles, etc

The already have one [0]. Pretty neat once you get used to it.

But you should be able to do VR while sitting down and "walk" using gestures or a controller.

[0] - https://www.kat-vr.com/

Re: Notes on Vision Pro

#618

Post by omnius19 »

sanderjd wrote: post #530
jstanley wrote: post #494

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're taking a backwards-looking view of this. Imagine if ancient man, living in the woods, saw people of today living in cities. "It feels very uncomfortable seeing all of these people isolating themselves inside buildings". In fact the very opposite is the case. Now, we go into nature to isolate ourselves. In the future, going into virtual reality will be where you go to interact with others, and you'll take the g…

> In the future, going into virtual reality will be where you go to interact with others, and you'll take the goggles off to isolate yourself. This sounds deeply shitty.

With that framing, I agree. However, I don’t think it needs to be. I’m hoping it’s more that virtual reality is where to go to interact professionally and you’ll take off the goggles for your personal time.

If, instead of needing to live in close proximity to work opportunities, often in an expensive and crowded city with a long commute, people could live wherever they want and commute virtually, that would be a huge positive in my book. That is already possible for some professions, such as software development. But good VR/AR will open the door to other professions that still require in person collaboration today and will improve those that are already remote capable. Then, at the end of the day, you take off your headset and live your life wherever/however you choose.

Re: Notes on Vision Pro

#619

Post by nerdbert »

alexvoda wrote: post #578
jstanley wrote: post #494

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're taking a backwards-looking view of this. Imagine if ancient man, living in the woods, saw people of today living in cities. "It feels very uncomfortable seeing all of these people isolating themselves inside buildings". In fact the very opposite is the case. Now, we go into nature to isolate ourselves. In the future, going into virtual reality will be where you go to interact with others, and you'll take the g…

> There are enormous advantages to living (as much as possible of) your life in VR: > - your home can be arbitrarily large at zero cost and without taking any land away from anyone else Except it isn't. > - you can change the decor whenever you want at zero cost Except you can't. > - you can paint walls as ornately as you like, at zero cost, immediately, without even any prep work required Except you can't. > - you s…

> Except you can't.

Some of these objections sound like saying we're not really listening to music on our phones, I guess because there's not really a band playing, or because of the lossy sound encoding or something.

In fact, we _are_ listening to music, in a way that people seem to enjoy and which has been democratized far beyond previous possibilities for listening to music.

Re: Notes on Vision Pro

#620

Post by cubefox »

ProfessorLayton wrote: post #609
cubefox wrote: post #563

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are other headsets without metal frame, so we pretty much know this is not necessary. And we also know with certainty that metal absolutely isn't necessary for laptop cases, but Apple still uses metal. The explanation is easy: aesthetics, feel, "haptics".

There are no comparable plastic laptops with similar performance, portability/thiness, battery life, and quietness — metal is rigid, and an excellent heat conductor that contributes to those goals.

There were many such laptops when they were still on Intel.
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