Apple Vision Pro review • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple Vision Pro review

#701

Post by huytersd » Wed, Jan 31, 2024, 5:51 AM UTC

hamburglar wrote: post #583

askonomm wrote: post #579

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was curious about this so I tried surfing the web and seeing how I click on things. I am literally unable to click on buttons or text inputs without actually looking at them. If I try to only use a corner of my eye, I miss the buttons 90% of the time. How do people not look at what they are clicking?

My guess is that people actually do look in order to aim their mouse but by the time they click, their eyes have already moved onto wherever they’re looking next.

Yep, focused on the play button on a YouTube video to get my mouse there and then my eyes immediately went back to the center of the video a fraction before I clicked the mouse button.

Re: Apple Vision Pro review

#702

Post by redsoundbanner » Wed, Jan 31, 2024, 5:55 AM UTC

tsunamifury wrote: post #687

volemo wrote: post #674

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s a double edge sword though. Were they to make it 180°, we would critique it for spreading the precious pixels. “With those 4K your virtual monitor is 1080p at most!”

Apple used to excel at making the right trade off here. Choosing what feels right over numbers.

Idgi. What feels right has always been very high numbers.

Re: Apple Vision Pro review

#703

Post by huytersd » Wed, Jan 31, 2024, 5:55 AM UTC

Takennickname wrote: post #693

kj99 wrote: post #664

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can you assure us that Vision Pro is nowhere close to that? Do you have one? As someone who bought the original iPhone, it was extremely impressive, but had many many flaws. The browser was practically unusable over 2g and the whole pinch to zoom the New York Times desktop site was never actually practical. I think the parallels are clear. I also bought the original MacBook Air. Now that truly was terrible and st…

Except when the iPhone came out all the reviewers were like "holy shit, this is mind blowing" while with this one everyone is like "it's a shittier oculus quest with some apple polish"

No one is saying shittier oculus quest. It has a much higher resolution and I presume people will get used to letting their eyes linger a bit longer on what they want to click. We’re so used to a mouse paradigm we try to immediately apply that here.

Re: Apple Vision Pro review

#704

Post by yellow_postit » Wed, Jan 31, 2024, 5:56 AM UTC

kalleboo wrote: post #667

wkat4242 wrote: post #658

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Instead of having multiple virtual screens I would prefer a lot more if I could simply spread individual Mac windows around my virtual space. In mixed reality the whole concept of a virtual monitor makes no sense, it's just an unnecessarily limiting abstraction you could easily do without. The whole room is your "desktop". It's basically what the SimulaVR guys are aiming at, and I'm surprised Apple didn't go this way…

I don't think Apple wants you to use Mac apps. They want developers to make Vision Pro apps. That's why the Mac integration is the minimum they could get away with.

VisionOS is pretty limited right now and seems like a much larger leap to justify that iPad vs iOS was.

Re: Apple Vision Pro review

#705

Post by wraptile » Wed, Jan 31, 2024, 5:57 AM UTC

Nifty3929 wrote: post #504

My main objection to these type of technologies (I feel similarly about voice control) - is that I don't WANT to use large hand gestures (or verbal expression) to control my device. It's exhausting, and too much interference with the ambient experience. I can control my whole desktop experience with very little wrist motion using my speedy mouse. I have a bunch of extra buttons under my thumb for a variety of tasks a…

That has been my biggest pet peeve with scifi depiction of futuristic inputs. Why would anyone want to move _more_ not less? Better tech should be more sensitive and accurate allowing us to do more with less not the other way around.

That's also the main reason nobody uses Quest 3's hand tracking despite it being really good. Why would I wave my hands around when I can achieve this with micro movements of my thumb.

Re: Apple Vision Pro review

#706

Post by lelandfe » Wed, Jan 31, 2024, 5:58 AM UTC

WheatMillington wrote: post #620

KolmogorovComp wrote: post #158

For me the two takeways from the various reviews are that: - The Vision Pro is the best VR set that can be done today, with massive investment (rumoured 5e9 USD) and competent staff, and hefty price. It is miles ahead of the competition. - It’s still not enough for most if any practical use, apart from films maybe. The technical requirements for a really useful VR are still largely out-of-reach, and will be for at le…

>It is miles ahead of the competition I really don't think this is correct. It's a bit better at some things than any of its competition, and it's a little worse in some ways too. Other than the displays I don't think you can say it's substantially ahead at all.

Quotes from The Verge’s review:

> the Vision Pro has the best video passthrough I’ve ever seen on the sharpest VR displays any normal person will ever come across

> the eye and hand tracking control system… is light years beyond any other consumer hand or eye tracking systems

It calls out other aspects similarly.

Re: Apple Vision Pro review

#707

Post by wraptile » Wed, Jan 31, 2024, 6:00 AM UTC

riversflow wrote: post #300

willio58 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen a few ideas that seem really interesting, just not at the price point Apple is offering. And honestly I'm just going to wait for these headsets to be smaller and lighter too before buying one. I don't think anyone at Apple is under the impression this device is going to be a money maker, but more of a gen-1 device to provide a place to start from for further work. - Learning instruments in a guitar-hero way…

> virtual workouts Or real workouts. I want to be able to have floating text to read on my runs, and real time biometric data directly in my field of view rather than on my watch would be cool too.

I'm not sure if this satire that I'm missing but some people consider running with a kilogram of sweat on their brow?

Re: Apple Vision Pro review

#708

Post by redsoundbanner » Wed, Jan 31, 2024, 6:00 AM UTC

nox101 wrote: post #690

wkat4242 wrote: post #658

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Instead of having multiple virtual screens I would prefer a lot more if I could simply spread individual Mac windows around my virtual space. In mixed reality the whole concept of a virtual monitor makes no sense, it's just an unnecessarily limiting abstraction you could easily do without. The whole room is your "desktop". It's basically what the SimulaVR guys are aiming at, and I'm surprised Apple didn't go this way…

I know the implementation needs a lot to be desired but just in case you were not aware, the Oculus Rift shipped with this feature and it still exists via the link on Quest AFAIK. You pick the last icon on the UI bar that appears and it lets you select any window to pop out separately Here's a screenshot of 4 windows plus the deskop. https://pasteboard.co/hPKLrKgp5vjy.jpg This features has been there for nearly 9 yea…

I think people know about that but aren't interested because the resolution is obviously too low on current headsets.

Re: Apple Vision Pro review

#709

Post by youssefabdelm » Wed, Jan 31, 2024, 6:00 AM UTC

zmmmmm wrote: 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…

> people want to enjoy photos, videos, movies with other people and it can't include them

Eh... I prefer empty cinemas

No loud babies, no popcorn sounds, no people explaining the plot to people not paying attention, just me and the world of the film. Bliss.

Re: Apple Vision Pro review

#710

Post by yellow_postit » Wed, Jan 31, 2024, 6:00 AM UTC

electroly wrote: post #331

MuffinFlavored wrote: post #314

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?

Apple Maps falls in that category. Maps was bad when it came out but after years of effort (and a lot of money), it's pretty good now. That was no small feat given how good Google Maps already was when Apple Maps started.

There’s a clear strategic reason for that — reduce dependence on Google for more vertical integration.

I don’t see the VisionOS play here and wonder if it’ll be Tim Apple’s first major fail at the helm. There’s no clear set of competitors or established industry for Apple to just polish like they have with most products. There’s not an obvious large tam for VR headsets and I’m skeptical optical ar is close. I don’t get it but I’m sure the internal Apple and board view it as a strong thesis.

Still glad it’s this and not a car.

Looking forward to how it plays out.