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A developer's view of Vision Pro

david-smith.org

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Re: A developer's view of Vision Pro

#101

Post by jedberg »

ladberg wrote: post #87
CrazyStat wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A major limitation for using VR devices as "virtual monitors" has been the screen resolution. Vision Pro appears to have significantly higher resolution than anything available on the market right now; in your experience, was the resolution high enough for the pixels to disappear and not be a distraction, especially when e.g. reading text? Have you used other VR headsets to compare it to?

I've used other VR headsets and it's significantly better than everything I've tried. You'll be able to put up virtual monitors at the same density as real life and read stuff fine, I couldn't really discern pixels at all. Reading physical monitors through passthrough is a bit harder (I increased text size a few points when I needed to do this) but isn't really something you'd do for actual work.

Lol this comment made a fun image pop into my head. Being in a work meeting with my Vision Pro on looking at the presentation through passthrough while browsing HN on my virtual screen. :)

The idea of looking at real screens in passthrough didn't even occur to me.

Re: A developer's view of Vision Pro

#102

Post by UI_at_80x24 »

ladberg wrote: post #27
Temporary_31337 wrote: post #4

I was kind of waiting for the day where a touchscreen based app would be more productive than a traditional laptop with keyboard. Yet, after many years all we got is fruit ninja and a concession from apple in the form of attachable keyboard for the iPad. So I’m equally sceptical that the investment in headset based interface is actually worth it.

I agree the keyboard will remain as the best text input device but I'm pretty confident that eye tracking will be categorically better than a mouse/trackpad. I'll expect that eye tracking solutions for normal monitors will also become more mainstream once people get used to it in the Vision Pro and want to use it elsewhere.

I primarily use i3wm with 4-40 terminal windows + firefox open. I'd LOVE it if the terminal that I'm looking at was the `active` one. I can't count the number of times I'd lookup some error code, type in more commands, hit enter; only to discover that I had been typing away in the wrong window.

Re: A developer's view of Vision Pro

#103

Post by bagels »

MBCook wrote: post #81
senttoschool wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a valid question and should not be downvoted. Are we going to be able to create a large software project using it without carrying around a MacBook as well? It’d be nice to be able to run macOS when I travel and not have to bring my MacBook.

We don’t know about running only on the headset. I suspect the downvotes are because the keynote literally featured someone using their Mac inside the headset. And another video (session? State of the union?) showed developing a Vision Pro app on the Mac and testing it right next to the Mac from inside the Vision Pro.

Right, it sends the message that the developer is better served by using a Mac, or that the Vision Pro is not capable. Maybe that was honest/intentional?

Re: A developer's view of Vision Pro

#104

Post by MBCook »

ladberg wrote: post #99
robert_tweed wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is it in terms of heat & condensation build-up? Is there a certain amount of time after which it starts getting uncomfortable? Also, is passthrough good enough for things like typing, so you don't get an uncanny valley sense of the keys being just slightly off visually compared to your proprioception & touch?

Heat and condensation build up is a complete non-issue due to the built in fans! I've never once felt hot or stuffy inside the Vision Pro, and I totally do on other VR headsets. I don't really look at my keyboard while typing so that's also a non-issue. For stuff where you really need hand-eye coordination it's totally fine at normal arms-length but gets worse as you get closer to your face. Finding a key on the keyb…

Is that because the ‘warping’/offset used to try to hide the cameras not being right where your eyes actually are starts to lose its effectiveness?

I wondered about that.

Great to hear about heat. That was always an issue for me in other headsets.

Re: A developer's view of Vision Pro

#105

Post by MBCook »

king_magic wrote: post #88
ladberg wrote: post #20

> In short, my brain has crossed a Rubicon and now feels like experiences constrained to small, rectangular screens are lesser experiences. I left Apple 1.5 years ago but was working on the Vision Pro while I was there. I have spend many hours working in the headset and I know exactly the feeling he's describing! Leaving felt like going back in time to using clunky technology and I've been waiting for outside world t…

I guess the big question I have is... what's the point of an extremely expensive headset when it looks like Quest 3 at 7x less the price is going to deliver a roughly similar experience, quality-wise?

We don’t know anything about the Quest 3, other than “better than 2”.

I seriously doubt it comes close to what Apple is doing. The price just isn’t anywhere near high enough.

Re: A developer's view of Vision Pro

#106

Post by the_overseer »

BulgarianIdiot wrote: post #38

> In short, my brain has crossed a Rubicon and now feels like experiences constrained to small, rectangular screens are lesser experiences. The funny thing about this statement is that Vision Pro is in fact the smallest rectangular screen of any device he's written code for. He's hyped up. That's normal. In time he'll understand Vision Pro doesn't provide any better UX for common activities. In fact it's worse in man…

These are just gen1 issues. I expect it will become lighter and lighter until it will probably be like some heavier/bulkier glasses.

For the common user it will be amazing for cooking (tells you what to take next and from where and mix in what order, all that fully with arrows on the screen). Or let's say you want to leave your home and it knows that you forgot your keys and it tells you where they are with directions on the screen like the objective marker in a game.

It will know where things are in your home even if you don't pay attention to them it will have object recognition in place and you will be able to say "Hey Siri where did I leave my glasses?" and it will point you to them.

Re: A developer's view of Vision Pro

#107

Post by iknowstuff »

ladberg wrote: post #62
highwaylights wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t want to be nosey but given that it sounds like you feel like it’s a paradigm shifting device, and you’ve actually worked on and with the device, I’d be interested to read about your motivations for moving on from Apple/the project when you did if you ever feel like writing about it. So many questions I’d love to ask you about this, but again, none of my business. Just wanted to let you know I’d upvote that bl…

Thanks! My motivations were mostly comp based (I'm in HFT now), I loved the product and the team I was on! Feel free to ask any questions here and I'll answer anything I can (e.g. no unreleased info, but maybe go into more detail about the kind of stuff that was shown to devs at WWDC). No blog right now but maybe in the future :)

Resolution aside most headsets kinda feel like wearing a scuba mask because of a narrow field of view. How was the vision pro? I assume this should be public info since it was shown to the press and devs.

Re: A developer's view of Vision Pro

#108

Post by ladberg »

iknowstuff wrote: post #107
ladberg wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks! My motivations were mostly comp based (I'm in HFT now), I loved the product and the team I was on! Feel free to ask any questions here and I'll answer anything I can (e.g. no unreleased info, but maybe go into more detail about the kind of stuff that was shown to devs at WWDC). No blog right now but maybe in the future :)

Resolution aside most headsets kinda feel like wearing a scuba mask because of a narrow field of view. How was the vision pro? I assume this should be public info since it was shown to the press and devs.

To be honest I don't know the actual FOV number. It feels better than some VR headsets I've tried and on par with others. The lenses are definitely a more exotic shape than the ones on my Vive so they're able to get closer to your eyes and have better quality in all areas of the FOV. I feel like for work stuff and entertainment it's definitely good enough, though you might struggle living in it full time haha.

Re: A developer's view of Vision Pro

#109

Post by MBCook »

sfpotter wrote: post #97
MBCook wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

David Smith is not a reviewer. He’s been a longtime app developer with a huge number of apps. Apple has even featured a few of them. He may be best known for Pedometer++ and Widgetsmith which was the app that went viral on TikTok when widgets first came out for the iPhone.

Apple gave him an exclusive invitation to be one of the first people to try the device on. Do you think Apple is unaware that he has a popular blog and is a popular developer of software that runs on Apple products?

It doesn’t surprise me that Apple would want to give a demo to someone who has consistently made high quality apps for their platforms, often on day 1 of a new platform.

It’s a developer conference. Yes there are media there, but it’s also to court developers.

Re: A developer's view of Vision Pro

#110

Post by sanderjd »

ladberg wrote: post #20

> In short, my brain has crossed a Rubicon and now feels like experiences constrained to small, rectangular screens are lesser experiences. I left Apple 1.5 years ago but was working on the Vision Pro while I was there. I have spend many hours working in the headset and I know exactly the feeling he's describing! Leaving felt like going back in time to using clunky technology and I've been waiting for outside world t…

I'm not very skeptical on the "doing work" side of the question. (Though I do wonder about the price point.) But I am skeptical on the "doing life" side.
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