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Apple Vision Pro available for pre-order

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Re: Apple Vision Pro available for pre-order

#251
post #220
post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think they are in part counting on it as a status symbol. iPhone, iPad, and a few others are ubiquitous in the US market. Additonally, they kinda "blend in" amidst competitor devices with similar designs. But the Vision Pro will be eye- catching and hard to miss, with a large profile and unique design. Time will tell if it works.

A status symbol is something you are regularly seen in. Apple Watch would be that thing, as it's basically a form of jewelry. A Vision Pro won't be seen in public. Nobody's going to be wearing this heavy thing in an airport or on transit.

You would be surprised [0]. I've watched movies on flights with a VR headset, and I'm excited to do that with the AVP - it should be a much more usable experience.

[0] https://www.theverge.com/23920102/meta-quest-3-in-public-pri...

Re: Apple Vision Pro available for pre-order

#252
post #26

I’m curious how well this could work for using it as a portable multi-monitor setup. If that works well in combination with my MacBook, I’ll buy it in a heartbeat. Imagine just sitting anywhere, but immediately having 3 large vertical screens with code and documentation.

Resolution is the killer for that application. The panels in the Vision Pro are dense, but through the distortion of the optics and with those pixels stretched over your entire field of view only a fraction of them will actually be displaying your virtual monitor(s), and as you scale a monitor down in virtual space it also becomes lower resolution. For comfort and ergonomics you don't actually want a giant monitor th…

23 million pixels, divided by two, makes 12.5 MP per eye. Let's assume it's nearly square, so taking the square root gives us 3535 pixels in height and width.

This graphic claims 3400x3400 resolution, so we're not far off:

https://i.redd.it/apple-vision-pro-resolution-vs-other-heads...

Frustratingly, the spec sheet doesn't list FOV, but let's assume it's on the order of 110 degrees. That gives us about 31 pixels per degree.

Right now, I'm sitting about 30 inches from a 24" diagonal 1920x1200 monitor. That gives a vertex angle of about 45 degrees, and it's 2264 pixels corner-to-corner, so I've got 50.3 pixels per degree. That's not high DPI, but it's acceptable. I also have a 4k, which is lovely, but given the chance I'll take more real estate over a small, high-DPI display. And with Vision Pro you can put monitors anywhere.

Re: Apple Vision Pro available for pre-order

#253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was thinking about that, and that is true when one of the monitors is generally Safari. The question will be can I easily copy something from Safari on the Vision Pro to my Mac for example? Or move the mouse from my Mac Display (which will likely just be the trackpad of my laptop on my lap) to that Safari and use it that way. It would need to operate as an extension of my Mac for it to be useful in this scenario.

Since that's basically how Sidecar works, I would imagine that this will work the same way. Copying between Apple devices is seamless with iCloud and Sidecar automatically connects displays via Bluetooth/WiFi discovery. Same goes for AppleTV and that's way more underspec'd than a Vision Pro.

Sidecar is isolated though isn't it?

Like I know I can use my mouse on my computer to control the Mac screen on my iPad, but I didn't think I could move my mouse over to control iPad apps?

I honestly have not used that feature much so if it can do that... that makes me rethink the usefulness of this.

Re: Apple Vision Pro available for pre-order

#254
post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not like the criticisms for the iPhone were wrong. The iPhone launched at what would in today's prices be about $2000. ($700 is $1000 today, plus you had to sign a contract that would otherwise have given you a "free" phone worth a similar amount). Plus it didn't have an app store. Both of those would have prevented the iPhone's success, but both were very quickly corrected. The 2007 iPhone was a limited niche p…

It's hard to appreciate today but, early on for most people, the iPhone wasn't a "OMG, I have to get one of these right now" product. I had bought a Treo in late 2006 I think because I had a foot injury that meant I had to travel super-light. While I did get a 3GS a few years later, I don't recall any pressing urgency and there tons of stories related to carrier coverage etc.

The timing sucked for me, though. In 2007 I was between jobs and after the announcement was ready to jump into making apps but thwarted because it was not possible. By 2008 I was employed again and missed the gold rush.

Re: Apple Vision Pro available for pre-order

#255
post #24

Must admit, as this got closer I contemplated getting it more and more. Especially as I find myself using my laptop a lot on the couch and bed. Just the ability to have a larger screen without worrying about my physical Mac screen is a fairly large selling point, plus any other features. I assume there has not been anything about the ability to have multiple virtual Mac screens has there? That would likely make this…

XReal Air are pretty good for that purpose. I can just plug them into my laptop or any phone that supports DisplayPort over USB-C and mirror my full screen. The clarity is good enough for dev work, but my eyes feel a little strained after a few hours of use. I'm curious whether Apple's product will be more comfortable for longer use.

I coded on one of them. It was ok for a short period. The blurriness and ghosting, especially on the corners and edges made it pretty tiring after a while.

They're great for watching videos, movies, TV, etc. though!

Re: Apple Vision Pro available for pre-order

#256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same reason I don't just have an ultra widescreen monitor on my desk and I have 3 monitors instead. Separate monitors allows for better organization of different app windows than a single monitor, especially with different spaces on different monitors. I can keep my main screen on whatever it is I am working on while switching to a different space on another monitor to check email or teams for example. Or just being…

Hmm... so you use multiple monitors to emulate a tiling window manager, but with far less flexibility (you can't divide your workspace into four equal parts, for example).

I've never seen a window manager that treats subdivisions of the screen like 1:1 physical monitors at the OS level.

They generally just resize windows, take over the entire monitor when you click "fullscreen", and display errors/prompts in the middle of the monitor, overlapping your other windows. Similarly, these subdivisions can't themselves host virtual desktop spaces.

Surely there's some Linux window manager that does all of this and more, but I'm never going to fuss with that when I can plug in a few cheap monitors and they work the same way immediately and consistently, out-of-the-box, on any OS.

Re: Apple Vision Pro available for pre-order

#257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

VR enthusiast here. A heavy thing hanging off the front of your face is extremely different to a helmet on top of your head. Wait for reviews and pay particular attention to how Apple have approached that issue.

My guess is that the primary goal would be balance front to back, assuming you use their stronger over-head strap. Then it shouldn’t be pulling you forward.

There doesn’t seem to be anything balancing the weight on the vision pro, the weight appears to be all in the front. You’re going to be feeling torque rotating your head forward about the axis of your neck, regardless of how good the strap is.

Re: Apple Vision Pro available for pre-order

#258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was considering those. Is there some sort of accelerometer in there so the screen moves in your field of vision as you turn your head, or does it just kinda float there? I haven't been able to understand that from their product pages.

I believe that's the functionality added by the "Beam" adapter (which I haven't tried). The glasses on their own just display a static "dumb" display that doesn't respond to one's movement.

It is. I bought a Beam with my Airs.

The screen fills up the entire FOV, which is great. The problem is that there's a lag between head movements and the glasses adapting. That means unless you stay very still, there will pretty much always be a part of the screen that's not visible. Furthermore, the lag is (to me) really bothersome.

I sent the Beam back and kept the glasses.

Re: Apple Vision Pro available for pre-order

#259
post #9

The last time Apple introduced a new general purpose computing device was the iPad, 14 years ago. This one just doesn’t feel as big. When the iPad was introduced, everyone was shocked by the very low price and the sleek form factor compared to previous Windows tablet devices. Those are exactly the weak points of the Vision Pro: it’s very expensive and very heavy, according to reports. The hands-on sessions that Apple…

> When the iPad was introduced, everyone was shocked by the very low price and the sleek form factor compared to previous Windows tablet devices. I remember history a bit differently. I recall lots of people dismissing the iPad as " just a big iPod Touch".

> ‘I recall lots of people dismissing the iPad as "just a big iPod Touch".’

The interesting point here is that Apple’s competitors at the time didn’t even have a product that could come close to the iPod touch, and yet Apple was already taking the product into a completely new direction.

The iPod touch doesn’t exist anymore. Turns out the paper-like size combined with the simple UI made all the difference. And nobody scaling down from $2k Windows tablets could have figured that out. That’s how Apple created a beautifully designed tablet for only $499 and everybody else was left scrambling.

With the Vision Pro, Apple doesn’t seem to have that kind of advantage. But I’d be very happy if it exceeds my expectations and is also successful in the market. I’ve been waiting for VR all my life. The Quest has come tantalizingly close but still misses the applications that would make it a part of my daily routine.

Re: Apple Vision Pro available for pre-order

#260
post #87
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The marketing showed that use case if i remember correctly

They showed multiple apps, but only one Mac screen.

Correct. The way they showed it, the Mac screen is mirrored once in the Vision Pro.

The whole Mac becomes essentially its own 1 app in the virtual space.

It's possible they will add the option to have multiple virtual displays for 1 computer but I haven't seen any indication of that.

I would have preferred if each Mac window floated in the virtual space as its own thing instead.

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