Live data from Hacker News

Apple Vision Pro review

wsj.com

371–380 of 1001 posts

Re: Apple Vision Pro review

#371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder given all this... what the expectations are at Apple from a higher up/board/executive standpoint are Most of Apple offerings are good: Watch iPad Mac iPhone services Are they really expecting this to just be a hard problem initially that they get better at over time? When is the last time they launched a "so so" product?

The first iPhone was pretty terrible. I couldn't get my Marketing peers to take it seriously (which they came to regret). The first Watch was awful. I love my Series 8. Don't get me started on the first Mac...

> The first iPhone was pretty terrible.

I definitely do not think that opinion was widespread. If anything I think that the biggest discussed shortcoming of the first iPhone was that it was only available on AT&T.

Re: Apple Vision Pro review

#372
post #276

Lots of surprises on the downside from all the reviews. Pass through much more limited in quality with motion blur, pixelation, distortions, limited color and dynamic range. The eye tracking driven input method which was seen as holy grail turns out to be annoying after a while because people don't naturally always look at what they want to click on. Personas straight up aren't ready. The lack of AR features is the b…

My launch day Apple Watch was unbelievably bad. Not even good for telling time as the raise-to-wake feature was so flaky. So by the sound of it, the Vision Pro might be starting in a better position than the watch.

Re: Apple Vision Pro review

#373

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

> What's the killer app? Movies on airplanes. I’m guessing these will become virtually ubiquitous in the front cabin within a few years.

Currently you can’t use Quest/Vision Pro in any moving vehicle, as they rely on accelerometers to capture head movements.

Re: Apple Vision Pro review

#374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder given all this... what the expectations are at Apple from a higher up/board/executive standpoint are Most of Apple offerings are good: Watch iPad Mac iPhone services Are they really expecting this to just be a hard problem initially that they get better at over time? When is the last time they launched a "so so" product?

The first two iWatches were borderline pointless/bad. The first two iPhones weren't as innovative as they make them,just more polished than other symbians with cameras and internet, it took off with apps really in third iteration. I think visionpro has lots of opportunities in the next iterations, early users will provide feedback this gen.

To each their own perspective! As for me, as a user at the time of fairly cutting-edge cell phones from other manufacturers, my first hands-on with the first iPhone was one of the most memorable technological experiences of my life. Just using the Maps application with multi-touch was magical. Yes, it was slow, limited, etc., but it felt like an entirely different class of device, and that proved to be true.

Re: Apple Vision Pro review

#375
post #276

Lots of surprises on the downside from all the reviews. Pass through much more limited in quality with motion blur, pixelation, distortions, limited color and dynamic range. The eye tracking driven input method which was seen as holy grail turns out to be annoying after a while because people don't naturally always look at what they want to click on. Personas straight up aren't ready. The lack of AR features is the b…

Every hit from Apple had lots of initial (VALID) gripes, but the experience was worth it to advance the core product and eventually eliminate or accept those limitations.

iPod was the size of a beefy wallet, but was good enough.

iPhone was glorified plastic and websites looked like crap, no app store. But hey, it worked well enough.

That said... this isn't accessibly priced and what's the hook? Like if this launched the same time as Pokemon Go or WoW were taking off alongside it it'd get the social momentum all the other options had.

Also it's better than the competition in key was, but differentiable ways...? AR/VR could very well take off but it's not this year.

Re: Apple Vision Pro review

#376
post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Apple sent zeiss lens inserts for reading glasses, but I just used my soft contacts and it was fine." lol what kind of review says that. It would be like someone who doesn't even use any kind of vision correction saying "I just used it without glasses and it was fine." (edit: the review is actually quite good. but that line was bizarre)

Apple said that contact lenses might interfere with eye tracking (or maybe with the iris scanning). So it’s a data point if he says he had no problems with soft contacts.

Only some kinds do (mostly cosmetics). If you go through the purchase process there's a questionnaire on if you actually need the inserts.

Also, I don't think people with only near/far vision issues or prism correction know how this interacts with VR. IIRC in general you always use your far prescription and there is no support for prism.

Re: Apple Vision Pro review

#377

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…

The "killer app" here is to have an infinity-sized 'screen' for anything the average user was already going to do with an iPad or Apple TV. The hardware's just not good enough yet, in terms of lightness and comfort, for the average user to put up with as more than a novelty.

Re: Apple Vision Pro review

#378
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

[dead]

Re: Apple Vision Pro review

#379
post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s the first new product category made under his leadership and he’s eyeing retirement, as context I've been wondering how much this is part of the context here. He may feel some pressure that he hasn't really launched a new major product category from scratch in all his time as CEO and if this has been running 10 years as a project now, that it would be a blemish on his legacy to not get it out the door before h…

Apple Watch, HomePod, AppleTV+, Apple News+, AirPods. And I would argue the M-series CPU are pretty major as well.

Apple Watch began before he became CEO, it wasn't under his direction. He just continued the existing initiative.

Wikipedia's citation that the Watch began in 2011 after Steve's death is incorrect. It began in 2010 under Steve's direction after the acquisition of Bob Messerschmidt's Rare Light, which brought hearth rate monitoring tech to Apple. Messerschmidt was assigned a team by Steve. Don't blindly trust Wikipedia, folks...

As for the others I just meant platform products, none of those have their own OS until homeOS later this year. None of them defined new product categories for Apple - for instance the AirPods were an iteration on EarPods, not a new product category. Apple was already shipping a home speaker product before HomePod, which was an iterative product without its own software platform for developers. M-series is iterative tech, not a new product category. The Motorola ROKR wasn't an Apple product. But sure HomePod is perhaps Tim Apple's one original new product category before Vision if the 2006 Apple Hi-Fi counts as a distinct product category.

Re: Apple Vision Pro review

#380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first two iWatches were borderline pointless/bad. The first two iPhones weren't as innovative as they make them,just more polished than other symbians with cameras and internet, it took off with apps really in third iteration. I think visionpro has lots of opportunities in the next iterations, early users will provide feedback this gen.

Are current watches good? I genuinely don't know and am interested. I hadn't gotten one because I was an early iPhone adopter (Gen 1), but haven't been willing to be an early adopter since then. But I would like a watch, if they are good now.

I find them exceptional for a somewhat narrow range of activities (I love going on a run or hike navigating by my Apple Watch while streaming whatever music I want in the world to my AirPods - no phone, nothing to carry), and only slightly useful for a broad range of other things (notifications, weather, etc - conveniences).
Post reply on HN