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Apple Vision Pro review

wsj.com

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Re: Apple Vision Pro review

#211

Post by ehsankia »

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…

> But is the Vision Pro like that as well?

It's actually far worse. There's a single user and a "guest mode", but for AR/VR to work with, there's a calibration step, which means that the guest has to go through that step every single time they want to use the device. It might be fine for a real guest using it once, but it would be basically impossible to share the device with someone else. Having to setup the device every single time you use it sounds absolutely terrible.

Re: Apple Vision Pro review

#212

Post by theshackleford »

spogbiper wrote: post #11

What's the killer app? Quest headsets have been out for years and haven't seemed to find one. Well.. besides 3d porn

Sure they have, it’s funny how often this is repeated. It’s anything social. It absolutely destroys every other technology for interacting with others over distance. There is nothing else like it and when the hardware catches up it will do a lot to shrink the distance you feel between those who live an ocean away from you.

Re: Apple Vision Pro review

#213

Post by theshackleford »

MegaDeKay wrote: post #147
patchorang wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cooking sounds like a nice application, but as soon as the headset steams up/get condensation on the glass it will be quite annoying. I can't imagine cooking in ski goggles.

Worse than that would be when you fry something and the front of your $3500 headset gets splattered in grease. No thanks.

It’s called a cloth and they cost almost nothing.

Re: Apple Vision Pro review

#214

Post by Vegenoid »

AlexandrB wrote: post #166
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 w…

I see headsets like this as a way to have multiple, large, monitors that go away as soon as you aren't using them. After having a big dual-monitor setup for years, about a year and a half ago I got rid of them and work with just my laptop's display. I do this so that my desk doesn't have to have monitors on it, and is more conducive to artistic work and mechanical tinkering.

I don't miss multiple monitors so much, but I do often wish for a larger screen. Not enough to put one in my space, though. That's where my interest in the Vision Pro lies - simply a way to project large, high-fidelity, 2d screens.

Re: Apple Vision Pro review

#215

Post by miohtama »

travem wrote: post #191
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…

> 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. I have a similar complaint with my Apple Watch and my corporate issued laptop. When I am using my own computer (mac mini) I love how easy it is to use my watch to login, use it to approve actions, etc. However when it comes to my company laptop I have to type my password in repeatedly. I…

Apple’s solution is that your corporate should buy you a second watch.

Re: Apple Vision Pro review

#216

Post by sleepybrett »

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.

It will be less of an issue for me if we start seeing native builds of popular IDEs like xcode, intelli-j/goland, etc for vision pro (and other apps for other people say photoshop). I think of the 'projected screen' feature more like a compatibility layer like Rosetta 2. You use it until you get a native build then it stops being a thing you bother with.

Re: Apple Vision Pro review

#217

Post by quonn »

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…

> there is nothing to convince users to put the headsets on.

So the hardware is not good enough yet. It will be good enough when I basically don‘t care, just like I don‘t care with glasses.

Re: Apple Vision Pro review

#218

Post by jsheard »

crooked-v wrote: post #209
jsheard wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For #3 the question is how you're going to control the games, when the overwhelming majority of existing VR games are built for dedicated VR controllers rather than hand tracking. Streaming games from a PC to a standalone headset over WiFi has been proven to work with the Quest, but that has proper controllers.

I feel like the simple hacky solution there is to use Joycons connected directly to the PC for the buttons/thumbsticks. Attach the control inputs to whatever virtual tracking points the vOS app is supplying and voila.

Joycons don't have absolute positioning, only relative, they're not good enough for VR. There is one way you could do it, if you have a Valve Lighthouse setup then you could use Index or Vive controllers, but that would require manually calibrating the two independent tracking systems to align with each other and it's not exactly a cheap solution if you don't already have the gear.

It's a very niche setup, but a few people already use it in order to combine Lighthouse-based body trackers with a non-Lighthouse headset.

Re: Apple Vision Pro review

#219

Post by npunt »

oflannabhra wrote: post #146

I really like Joanna Stern, and how she approaches reviews like this. I’ve watched her review, The Verge’s, and MKBHD’s unboxing video. However, the best review I’ve found that actually transmits what is possible and what it is like to use is Brian Tong’s 55 minute review video: https://youtu.be/GkPw6ScHyb4 I’m not familiar with him, but unlike other reviews I’ve seen, he spends less time evaluating or summarizing, a…

Good review. Most interesting part was at 43:00 discussing the ergonomics and weight, which is the real question for everyone hoping to make this a daily driver.

He said he could wear it 45 mins before needing to take it off, that it was overstimulating so you need to slow down how quickly you use apps and move things on screen, and that gestures also were fatiguing. You could tell he was trying to be fair but positive.

Headsets just haven’t cracked this nut yet, and tho tech may advance somewhat, they may be limitations inherent to the form factor. Even if it gets really light weight, the issues of overstimulation, headaches, and the amount of neck movement implied may keep these products in a niche. (I say this as someone super excited about AVP)

For everyone used to using their computers all day long wanting to do it in a headset, don’t throw your macbooks away just yet.

Re: Apple Vision Pro review

#220

Post by theshackleford »

spogbiper wrote: post #80
danso wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me it’s movies. But the fact that Netflix and Amazon haven’t updated their Quest apps in years — nor has Meta bothered building its own movie streaming solution (e.g. making the Quest Browser compatible with streaming services) leads me to think that the active user base might be slim. Can’t imagine doing work is the killer app, not while wearing a headset is more cumbersome than opening a laptop.

I'm not sure how Apple can make watching movies in VR that much better than they are already on the Quest series and other existing VR headsets. And as you noted it doesn't seem to be a popular use for those devices. Maybe the higher resolution on Apple's headset will win people over?

It’s an incredibly popular use for the quest, Amazon and Netflix just don’t own the market, people are watching content elsewhere like big screen/vrchat/various vr players.

Almost NOBODY uses the Netflix app because it’s terrible, terrible software.

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