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Apple Vision Pro review

wsj.com

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Re: Apple Vision Pro review

#161

Post by parhamn »

aloer wrote: post #132

It is interesting how many here are excited about this for productive computer work. It’s also what Apple advertises with. But what is the account situation like? For years I’ve been complaining that I can’t easily use my private iPad with my company Mac because they have separate Apple IDs. Things like sidecar for a quick virtual whiteboard are basically impossible. AirPods have gotten better over the years where to…

I have this issue in a consumer single tenant setting too. I couldn't figure out how to remove photo access from AppleTV.

Ended up creating a new account that was part of my family.

Re: Apple Vision Pro review

#162

Post by realslimjd »

ncr100 wrote: post #68
andrewmcwatters wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They can already do this with the desktop composition software they use today. All the windows are virtualized onto backing layers that you can draw anywhere and add effects to. It’s how window shadows work, and how certain window effects are done. They just haven’t done it.

So Apple could have done this, but did not. Why? (Speculation and leaks welcome) - [Profit on basic innovation] Did they want to wait and see how their customers would adopt VisionOS's native free-floating windows, so as to avoid cognitive overload by commingling with MacOS windows? - [Benevolence to fellow competitors] Did they not want to takeover the existing market of virtualized VR desktops?

I'm reasonably certain it's a combination bandwidth and tech issue.

The Vision Pro is effectively using AirPlay to mirror the whole screen. If you used AirPlay to mirror each window as a whole screen, you'd run out of bandwidth pretty quickly.

The windowing system in MacOS, Quartz Compositor, also isn't built to stream window information. Right now it has a big built in assumption that any windows its displaying are on a screen it also controls. It was probably too big a lift across teams to also re-write the graphics stack for MacOS for the launch of the Vision Pro. Hopefully they get it working in the future, but neither of these problems are easy to solve.

Re: Apple Vision Pro review

#163

Post by methodical »

steelframe wrote: post #155
methodical wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What types of data exactly are you implying that this device may capture that would be any more extreme than the data which would be captured by any other existing Apple device? I would think the Apple Watch alone has the ability to capture more data about habits and personal information than the Apple Vision Pro possibly could, considering its countless additional sensors on top of its existing ecosystem integration…

Did you read the article for the post I linked? I don't care about the data it captures on the wearer. If you're inclined to hand over all that telemetry on yourself to other people, I don't know what to tell you. I care very much about the high-resolution cameras it has pointed at me. I don't think that's okay.

Unfortunately no I didn't read the article you linked, I still don't see how this device collects any additional data over what is already available for other devices in the Apple ecosystem. Anybody who has used a Mac, iPhone, or iPad has had HD cameras pointed at them.

To clarify, my point with this comment and my first one was never that data collection (and as far as I can tell mass surveillance as well to you?) was okay, rather that I don't see how this device captures any more data on a wearer than the other devices they likely own.

Re: Apple Vision Pro review

#164

Post by pmarreck »

tiltowait wrote: post #98
tunesmith wrote: post #7

One of the aspects of the device that has been under-realized is that when mirroring your desktop/laptop display to the AVP, you can't break out its applications into different areas. You can't pull them away from the desktop window. This is one of those things that Apple never claimed was supported, and yet there's something about that behavior that feels like such a natural intuitive implication to the technology t…

The inability to break out Mac windows curbed a lot of my enthusiasm for the AVP. I hope Apple will eventually add it, but I'm not going to spend $3500 on that hope.

The fact that pretty much everyone who owns both a Vision Pro and a Mac would want that feature means it's probably going to happen.

Re: Apple Vision Pro review

#165

Post by refulgentis »

cududa wrote: post #116
andrewmcwatters wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They can already do this with the desktop composition software they use today. All the windows are virtualized onto backing layers that you can draw anywhere and add effects to. It’s how window shadows work, and how certain window effects are done. They just haven’t done it.

I'm aware. I've worked in the space. It isn't as simple as you're making it out.

Yes, it is.

In fact, there's already a project for it on GitHub. https://github.com/saagarjha/Ensemble

480 lines total, including comments, headers, whole shebang.

Re: Apple Vision Pro review

#166

Post by AlexandrB »

patapong wrote: post #26

I think we are now at a stage where VR hardware has surpassed software. Between this and the Quest 3, we have powerful, polished and consumer friendly devices, but beyond a few niches (fitness, simulation, gaming to some extent), there is nothing to convince users to put the headsets on. I am hoping we will see a lot of experimentation in the coming years, and I am excited for what the Apple ecosystem will bring to t…

Underlying a lot of these discussions is the assumption that there is a future where this is an actually useful, mass-market device. I'm still not convinced this is true.

For example, "killer apps/content" never arrived for 3D TVs and they have largely disappeared from the market. Same with various "waggling" input technologies like the Wiimote and Kinect. There were some compelling uses, like Wii Sports, but these were pretty limited and many other uses of these in games was a case of Nintendo shoehorning the technology into the game.

I think the best pessimist argument is the one offered by Folding Ideas in his metaverse video[1]: Text is really, really useful, and a virtual 3D space is not a good environment for either creating or consuming textual content.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EiZhdpLXZ8Q

Re: Apple Vision Pro review

#167

Post by wharvle »

ildjarn wrote: post #135
aloer wrote: post #132

It is interesting how many here are excited about this for productive computer work. It’s also what Apple advertises with. But what is the account situation like? For years I’ve been complaining that I can’t easily use my private iPad with my company Mac because they have separate Apple IDs. Things like sidecar for a quick virtual whiteboard are basically impossible. AirPods have gotten better over the years where to…

I think Apple want to discourage sharing to increase device sales. It’s a great question though.

Its wireless operation seems to depend on Hand Off in some capacity. Most companies probably wouldn’t want to grant a personal device access to that on a work laptop, and I bet there are some thorny questions about what to do with incoming Hand Off data from multiple accounts.

Re: Apple Vision Pro review

#168

Post by CharlesW »

ahmedfromtunis wrote: post #77
monkeynotes wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not VR though. The AR angle of this device is why it's compelling. VR is completely blind to your surroundings, Apple Pro could in principle make your public park look like Jurassic Park with full size dinosaurs etc. Blending our reality with an overlayed real time rendering is a massive benefit over straight VR.

It is VR, though. Sure, Apple built the headset so that it mimics AR devices, but it definitely is not one itself. The technology to build an AR device with the capabilities that Apple boasted is simply not here yet. I'm sure that Apple top-talent is hard at work trying to break the barrier (if it didn't yet), but that'll be for a future version, just not this one.

When you say "AR devices" I think you specifically mean AR devices that do optical compositing vs. AVP's digital compositing, yes?

> I'm sure that Apple top-talent is hard at work trying to break the barrier (if it didn't yet), but that'll be for a future version, just not this one.

To me, it feels like AVP is the final nail in the coffin of the optical compositing evolutionary branch of HMDs. Even if it's someday possible to do well, devices would still need the same realtime subsystem necessary for digital compositing in order to do 3D mapping, object detection, environmental lighting integration, etc.

I understand that in the short-term, camera sensors and displays don't exceed what the human eye can perceive, but those seem straightforward (if not easy) to address.

Re: Apple Vision Pro review

#169

Post by pmarreck »

aloer wrote: post #132

It is interesting how many here are excited about this for productive computer work. It’s also what Apple advertises with. But what is the account situation like? For years I’ve been complaining that I can’t easily use my private iPad with my company Mac because they have separate Apple IDs. Things like sidecar for a quick virtual whiteboard are basically impossible. AirPods have gotten better over the years where to…

If your company Mac is locked down to the point where you couldn't just create a separate account on it that is tied to your iCloud account, then it is also unlikely that they would allow you to hook up another device to their network and your work computer in order to have this convenience.

(My partner is corpo; I'm startup, but have worked at corpos. No thanks.)

Better to keep it all owned by the company, in my opinion, and have them issue you an iPad for this express purpose.

Re: Apple Vision Pro review

#170

Post by AshamedCaptain »

cududa wrote: post #116
andrewmcwatters wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They can already do this with the desktop composition software they use today. All the windows are virtualized onto backing layers that you can draw anywhere and add effects to. It’s how window shadows work, and how certain window effects are done. They just haven’t done it.

I'm aware. I've worked in the space. It isn't as simple as you're making it out.

Sorry but almost 10 years ago I could do this on Xorg where the worst problem is that compositors cannot redirect input (so you had to kludge new events from scratch). I cannot imagine it would take more than _half an hour_ for someone with macOS display compositor experience to implement it.
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