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

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

#261
post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a pretty strange complaint to me. When you use a VR headset you don't really put it on and take it off frequently during a session. When you take it off you can plug it in and it'll stay in standby, which is similar to phone standby. Its also not any slower than Playstation standby.

It's not a complaint (from me or my acquaintances), it's something that I thought (possibly incorrectly, but as mentioned I am ignorant hence me asking) was a hindrance to the success of the market. I.e. when I speak to most people re: VR/AR, they say something like "It sounds like a lot of faff", or "I have one gathering dust, I can't be bothered to use it". I have no skin in the game and no intention of buying anyt…

It takes substantially more effort to put it on than it does to "boot up"

And while it may sound weird that putting it on is such an ordeal, keep in mind that there's a lot of inherently fiddly bits and many have compromises. Like the PSVR2 requires me to go turn the lights on, because it uses inside-out tracking which doesn't work well in a dark room. But also you have to fiddle around with the position of it, get it in a comfortable spot, wiggle it a bit so the lenses line up with your eyes as you had it last configured, etc... Then realize that you smudged the lens with your forehead so take it off and clean it and do it again but more carefully this time.

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

#262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't your dominant hand be on your mouse?

There's either got to be a big generational gap on preference for this, or a lot of folks out there have developed mousing ambidexterity.

I'm a lefty through and through in my sixth decade going around the sun. Mousing with my left hand is weird. Like completely wrong. Even on a touchpad I tend to "mouse" with my right hand.

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

#263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s also a good summary of the 1st iPhone’s reviews.

Its not comparable. At that time, phone was already a necessity for most folks and most had one. VR (they are not AR from outside)? Still 90% of folks around me (doctors, IT, rest of reality) think whole concept of VR/AR is for kids and... big old kids lets say. Also it costs 10x as much with huge drawback above. Inflation makes this a smaller number but the difference is still massive, for a plastic toy soon to be o…

> Its not comparable. At that time, phone was already a necessity for most folks and most had one.

A cell phone was necessary, but a smart phone was not. At the time, most people were still using non-smart cell phones. It’s still a valid comparison.

> Still 90% of folks around me (doctors, IT, rest of reality) think whole concept of VR/AR is for kids

This is exactly why Apple insists on only using the term “spatial computing” in order to fight the strange bias people have for something they haven’t even tried yet

> But if they persist, which all reviews seem to hang their overall positive rating on, magic we all hope for might eventually happen

Yes, it mirrors the reviews for the original iPhone

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

#264
post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The vision pro is far cheaper than an Apple Pro XDR, and input glitches shouldn't be a problem as I'm using a physical mouse and keyboard. Plus I get to add additional apps outside the screen if visionOS natively supports them (Slack, email, and iMessage are good examples. Plus the web browser can be a native app. You can seamlessly move your mouse/keyboard between them and copy/paste too.) The weight is definitely o…

Yes but it doesn't hurt your neck or make you sick after a few hours while also having better resolution and easier usability for basic computer interactions. Vision pro as desktop computer replacement sounds like a Rube Goldberg solution to a problem that doesn't exist. Possibly Vision Pro as laptop screen replacement sounds plausible but I still don't think the UX will be comfortable nor do I think the virtual scre…

It feels like you’re arguing with me, but I’ve already said twice that the comfort level is still an unknown and that if it’s too uncomfortable I’m going to return it.

Also worth pointing out that the mouse seamlessly moves from your Mac screen to any native Vision Pro apps. So if I do all my web browsing in “native” Vision Pro, then add in Slack and Messages and Mail as native vision pro apps (using the same keyboard and mouse for input, mind you), I will likely only be using the virtual Mac screen for my IDE. Being able to put everything but my IDE in arbitrary virtual space around me is a step up from my single screen today, absent other comfort issues.

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

#265
post #153

This review confirmed this is exactly what I need. I don’t care about my hair messing up, I work from home. I don’t care if the display doesn’t look as good as reality, that was never my expectation anyway. The display just needs to look good enough to work with fine text and hi-res images. I don’t care if it’s too heavy to wear for hours at a time, I always work in 25 minute blocks anyway. Breaks are good. I don’t c…

Same for me but there was a single sentence that more than halved my interest in buying this: you can’t have multiple floating windows of MacOS. It’s all in one single floating window. This is by far the biggest flaw for me, and a really stupid one. Hopefully a software update changes this

VSCode native app when

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

#266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, per their video take. Didn’t realize how limited the field of view and the color coverage was. But all the popular reviewers are pretty skeptical. I think when another company offers a less ambitious VR headset they have given them a pass because the market target is more limited. Apple’s not getting a pass. It’s impressive but not magical and there are a lot of unoptimal design characteristics for a general…

> general purpose face mask computer I hope this term takes off more than "spatial computing device" GPFMC

facial computing

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

#267

If I'm an executive at Meta, I'm not sure whether I should be happy or sad reading this review. By all accounts, Apple is at least 5 years ahead of Meta in terms of hardware. With all of Apple's compute/display tech, and at 8-9x the price point of Quest, it still seems like the Vision Pro falls short of delivering the breakthrough experience needed to make AR/VR mass market. Not to mention that it still doesn't seem…

If their price was 8-9x higher, I’m sure meta could pull off something similar.

The reason they can’t is their target price is much lower.

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

#268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If this was $500 I’d call it a game changer, and hopefully it gets there in 5 years

I wonder what the BOM cost of the device is. At $500 they'd sell 100x as many. Hell, even at $999 they'd sell quite a lot of them. I'd probably give it a try for that price, but I'm hesitant to blow $3500.

I heard the display alone costs $1000. And thats with apples supply chain know how

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

#269
post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if an iTV would sell. All mondern smart tvs are covered in ads and spying. monitors of similar sizes cost 3x to 4x. so to me there might be a market for a non spying iTV with bultin Apple TV for say 1.5x. Or not, not sure enough people care about those issues.

What I do is buy a smart TV, never connect it to the network (thus making it a dumb TV), and plug an Apple TV (or other devices) into it. So far, this has worked - I haven't seen any ads from the TV itself (the apps running on the Apple TV are another story), and it can't phone home about what I'm watching or otherwise doing with the TV.

> and it can't phone home about what I'm watching or otherwise doing with the TV

Are you sure?

The old idea of giving TVs built-in cellular backup connection is probably still too risky/expensive - dealing with people extracting and repurposing the SIM card with a free (for them) data plan is a hassle. But what about eSIM?

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

#270
post #159

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…

Having used a Quest 2 and owning a Quest 3 personally I can tell you the delay is essentially zero. It takes 2-3 sec to get the headset fully secured around your head, and the Quest will wake up the very moment it starts to get moved. That's part of the reason it annoys me so much-- just moving the controllers will wake it up, even if it's sitting on my desk.

> just moving the controllers will wake it up, even if it's sitting on my desk.

Odd that it doesn't work that way for me with controllers, maybe it's a setting you chose? For me no amount of moving the controllers or even pushing the buttons or triggers will wake the headset, it only wakes up if I put it on or through the power button.

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