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Apple Vision Pro review: magic, until it's not

theverge.com

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Re: Apple Vision Pro review: magic, until it's not

#121

Post by tfandango »

Topfi wrote: post #103
tfandango wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Out of curiosity, what are you using for work on your Quest? I also have a Q2 and have tried, maybe not too seriously, several of the screen sharing apps to do work but couldn't quite get past the resolution and lag. Perhaps that has gotten better since, it's been some time. Instead now I use it for entertainment and very much like it, but if I could make that next leap it would be great!

For that purpose, the difference between the Q2 and Q3 was so vast that I cannot oversell it. While it's still not perfect due to the resolution, the switch to pancake lenses made screencasting to the Q3 something I could do for many hours at a time and enjoy it, whereas on the Q2 with the limited sweet spot in the center, it was really only for very specific use cases. On the Q2, even slightly off center becomes unr…

Thank you. Your experience with the Quest 2 mirrors my own. I'm undecided if I will try a Q3 or skip a generation. It definitely seems like things are moving in the right direction and I'm excited about that!

Re: Apple Vision Pro review: magic, until it's not

#122

Post by NegativeLatency »

causal wrote: post #69

Many HN'ers are probably like me, in that hearing about its imperfections is kind of a relief. If it really DID mean a new era of tech, well then frick I need to learn some new skills to keep up, have to buy one for myself, etc. etc. That being said, it feels like a few small things would make a consumer version of this really take off: - Cut the weight in half (i.e., use plastic). - Drop the gimmicky eye TV (save we…

They’ll probably never do this but the idea of not being able to play PC VR games on it is a nonstarter.

I’ve wanted a VR headset for a few years and if it was a bit cheaper and compatible with existing flight sims and stuff I’d be interested but the lack of compatibility is a deal killer for that price.

I know I’m not the target market apparently but I’m all in on the rest of the apple ecosystem.

Re: Apple Vision Pro review: magic, until it's not

#123

Post by jwells89 »

spywaregorilla wrote: post #89
causal wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair. In general I'm assuming the software piece will develop regardless, but you're right that there isn't really any killer app to draw people in yet.

well we're in 2024 now and people still try to suggest Beat Saber (2018) is proof that VR gaming is good.

The problem with VR gaming is that it’s been hamstrung by requiring either a substantially beefy gaming PC or limited onboard midrange smartphone with underwhelming developer buy-in.

If the rumors are true that Valve is working on a standalone VR headset based around an AMD APU, I think that might be the shot in the arm that VR gaming needs, with hardware more powerful than can be found in the Quest lineup as well as x86/Windows compatibility and greater general openness.

Re: Apple Vision Pro review: magic, until it's not

#124

Post by jyunwai »

teeray wrote: post #105

I feel like this will be a spectacular flop. It’s the first major new Apple product announcement that I completely forgot about (and I mean completely) in the time between announcement and ordering. Nobody I know is even talking about it, unlike when the Apple Watch came out, or the iPad. The experience needs to be as life-changing as the iPhone if you’re going to normalize people wearing ski goggles around the house…

To provide a contrasting anecdote, I've spoken to a couple of people who are already interested in virtual reality (VR) who have been very much looking forward to the release (we talked about it, and one forwarded me links to news articles).

One has worked with VR for research, and is familiar with the HTC Vive and Meta Quest headsets, but has not used VR for personal use. The other person used the Quest for gaming, and has been curious about Apple's approach.

Outside of people with past experience using VR, though, I haven't personally heard people talking about Apple's version. The price point is likely a major factor: a larger number of people could imagine owning an Apple Watch or iPad shortly after release (even if relatively pricey), in contrast to the Apple Vision Pro upon release.

Re: Apple Vision Pro review: magic, until it's not

#125

Post by ninkendo »

I ordered mine on day one and it'll get here Friday. I work from home and intend to use it at my desk for (1) a bigger display for my mac and (2) native apps for things like Slack/video conferencing/notes/imessage/etc and hopefully I can have a productive environment with it. I figure it'll be cool to work at a national park or on the moon or some such, and to have more real estate to put my apps. I plan to use my physical keyboard and trackpad as much as possible, so I'm not too worried about the inputs sucking.

My thought at this point is that I'm going to decide pretty quickly after using it whether this is actually going to work, and there's about a 50% chance I'm going to return it, because I'm starting to doubt whether it will.

Some things I'm worried about:

- The weight may make it so uncomfortable that the whole experience isn't worth it for 8 hours a day

- FOV and vignetting issues are likely going to be worse than I thought and a distraction

- App compatibility means it's possible that 90% of the work I'm doing is going to be on the mac virtual display anyway, meaning I paid $3500 for a bigger (virtual) screen that I have to put a heavy/uncomfortable headset on my head to see

We'll see what the verdict is. I'm hoping they have a software update at some point that lets you "tear out" macOS app windows into virtual space... that may put it over the edge from not-worth-it to worth-it if it happens.

Re: Apple Vision Pro review: magic, until it's not

#126

Post by whynotminot »

coffeebeqn wrote: post #43
monkeynotes wrote: post #29

I think this is like a modern example of the Apple Newton in the sense it's impressive, has uses, but it too soon to be widely adopted. I think this device will flounder, early adopters will struggle to make full use of it because of all the compromises. Take it on the plane? Why? It will run out of power in 1-2 hrs (if you remembered the full charge before you board). Lugging all that bulk just for a movie on the pl…

The plane thing is funny. I can’t imagine anyone actually using VR in economy. At best you’ll annoy people next to you and the flight attendants if they need you to move or respond. At worst you’ll hit your head on something or whack someone with the controllers

There's a lot to question about AVP, but this doesn't make sense. What are you hitting your head on sitting in your seat on an airplane? If you've got the aisle seat and someone needs to move, they do the same thing they do when you're wearing your noise canceling headphone or taking a nap--tap your shoulder. It's not rocket science.

The device has breakthrough--when someone comes near (eg a flight attendant), it breaks through the immersive VR and shows them to you. You can take off the headset at that point if you choose.

Again there's a lot to question about how this headset will practically work for people, but this ain't it. In fact I'd argue airplanes are one of the use-cases for this device that makes the most sense. How many places do I want to completely disappear from my environment and pretend I'm somewhere else? A long haul flight is tops on that list.

Re: Apple Vision Pro review: magic, until it's not

#127

Post by wharvle »

chris-orgmenta wrote: post #68
Topfi wrote: post #6

This is a very in-depth, informative and factual review. My hats off to the Verge; great job. I have racked up hours upon hours of actual, productive work in my Quest 2 and 3, so to say that I am a big proponent of the ideas that Apple is trying to advance would be an understatement. This makes me all the more disheartened to read that, for all their efforts, this release is mired by the same drawbacks that I have en…

Sorry for the slight tangent, but: What's the current state of VR&AR Headset friction / boot time? This is what I expected Apple to solve first. With VR/AR headsets, the friction to 'boot in' seems to be one of the biggest problems in adoption, and one that I feel Meta et al don't openly talk about. (Note, I am ignorant of this field in general). How close are we to seamless, quick boot, such that one puts on a heads…

What's booting?

Nothing I use with any frequency gets rebooted except for updates, more or less.

Exception: non-Apple stuff. Because those things tend to die while "sleeping" and unplugged, very quickly (my secondary work Windows laptop, which burns almost half its battery per 12 hours in "sleep mode"; my Steamdeck, which is barely better than that; the Switch though it's almost always on the dock anyway so that's rarely an issue)

Re: Apple Vision Pro review: magic, until it's not

#128

Post by chris-orgmenta »

wharvle wrote: post #127
chris-orgmenta wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry for the slight tangent, but: What's the current state of VR&AR Headset friction / boot time? This is what I expected Apple to solve first. With VR/AR headsets, the friction to 'boot in' seems to be one of the biggest problems in adoption, and one that I feel Meta et al don't openly talk about. (Note, I am ignorant of this field in general). How close are we to seamless, quick boot, such that one puts on a heads…

What's booting? Nothing I use with any frequency gets rebooted except for updates, more or less. Exception: non-Apple stuff. Because those things tend to die while "sleeping" and unplugged, very quickly (my secondary work Windows laptop, which burns almost half its battery per 12 hours in "sleep mode"; my Steamdeck, which is barely better than that; the Switch though it's almost always on the dock anyway so that's ra…

I agree that we should pretend that my question said "from standby" instead of "boot"

Re: Apple Vision Pro review: magic, until it's not

#129

Post by nox101 »

brookst wrote: post #39
bombcar wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone at Apple had to design the watch to detect certain hand motions and purposely ignore them . That's a thing that someone had to do, otherwise false positives would be embarrassingly pasted across the Internet for to be laughed at.

No, it’s all ML models. It is very unlikely that an ML model trained on wrist motions for walking and running would falsely report steps for… other activities.

One of the reasons I got rid of my apple watch is because it would congratulate me for successfuly completing my exercise for the day just from turning over on the sofa. It would also tell me how good I slept when I forgot to wear it to bed. So, at least for me, that ML doesn't work

Re: Apple Vision Pro review: magic, until it's not

#130

Post by nonfamous »

jsheard wrote: post #112
gr__or wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The battery is external, i.e. already next to you anyway, so plugging in power is rather simple. You could also have multiple batteries with you, though I don't know the price of an additional battery.

It's $200 for an extra battery, all of the accessories have a steep early adopter tax. Besides, has anyone confirmed whether or not the AVP has an internal backup battery so you can hotswap the external battery without rebooting it?

According to the linked review, hot-swapping is not possible - disconnecting the battery powers down the device.
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