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Apple Vision Pro review

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731–740 of 1001 posts

Re: Apple Vision Pro review

#731
post #654

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love how people just rewrite history on the internet lol. Iphone 1 was a collosal PoC. Slow, most of web didnt work. Its only appeal was the full touchscreen, which of course sucked to type on, but looked cool (which is the reason people bought it mostly). Everyone that needed mobile compute functionality was still on Blackberry and some other devices. There was a time during early 2010s where the iphone was better…

Not sure what you are going on about, that the original iPhone was a PoC. Given what was available at that time (I was using a Windows Mobile O2 XDA AND a Blackberry at that time), the iPhone was simply magical. The ability to browse the full web on the go and a proper mail client, was amazing. Worth the money to travel to San Francisco from Singapore just to get one (and the cost of the AT&T SIM masker to spoof it o…

Again, no. You completely somehow forgot tech in late 2000s lol.

The internet on anything mobile was pretty painful when it launched in general. Websites weren't optimized for mobile, mobile data was unusably slow. Most people who wanted portability were using things like netbooks, which you could actually multitask on.

Blackberry was the goto for actual phone because it was much easier to type on due to the best keyboard at the time, well developed software for things like email, basic browser, e.t.c.

Ill leave you with this staplepiece of internet history: https://maddox.xmission.com/c.cgi?u=iphone/

Re: Apple Vision Pro review

#732
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…

I can’t get over how goofy and stupid it looks, and how awkward those gestures are. There’s a video circulating of someone cooking while wearing it and gingerly pinching a virtual timer and placing it on a pot of boiling pasta. It looks so stupid that I couldn’t help but laugh out loud. Maybe younger people might think differently but for me, this stuff is dead on arrival because of simply how uncool and stupid it ma…

I'm not really an Apple fan nor am I going to buy this thing, but this seems like a criticism that goes away as soon as everyone does it.

We all look stupid staring at our black rectangles, with notches at the top, with little headphone stems sticking out of our ears. It looks stupid at first and then you get over it

Re: Apple Vision Pro review

#733

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I checked a couple of those old reviews and a couple things that seemed to be a common take with the iPhone that definitely aren't holding now: - incredible amounts of hype - loving the design - loving the touchscreen and input (directly contrasting folks worrying about the eye tracking now) - a sense (at least from cnet and pcmag) that it's really just an overgrown iPod so they keep comparing it to an iPod (compared…

An addendum - I'm surprised at how spot on so many of these iPhone 1 reviews are outside of the not getting the browser thing (and even there folks complaining about how web2.0 is taking off and there's no js/java/flash support? Good point!). Keyboard should work in portrait mode, voice calling is bad, 3g support is needed, no multimedia messaging. No replaceable battery and not user servicable enough. Camera is OK b…

Before the 3g the web browser thing wasn't really that useful. If you have to be on wifi to get reasonable speeds, it's easier to just use your laptop vs a tiny screen with a slow processor.

Re: Apple Vision Pro review

#734

Apple failed to make a compelling argument for purchasing their device. Where's the "killer app"? The original iPhone was a better phone , and a general computing device with a web browser to boot. Is it to watch movies on a 100" screen on an airplane? The xReal weighs 75 grams and does that for four hundred dollars. It has a HDMI port too, so I can play my steam deck or switch. Where are the cool AR apps? Where is t…

> The original iPhone was a better phone...

?!? The audio quality wasn't somehow different, but the feature set surrounding the phone sucked: it didn't have ring tone profiles / called groups and so was pretty infuriating versus a basic Nokia phone in addition to having a fraction of the battery life, a worse form factor to hold up to your ear, and a fundamentally more fragile construction. It also was pretty pathetic at text messages, as it didn't have any support for MMS (which was already shipping on competing devices). Notably and critically, even a cheap Nokia candy bar phone could do the most basic texting feature of sending a single message to multiple people at once... somehow the iPhone shipped without that? Even the most basic things like "at least you will be able to store a ton of text messages finally as the device had a LOT of storage" somehow were thwarted: Apple implemented some stupid arbitrary limit of I think it was only 1000 messages before it started deleting old ones!! I just can't believe you think the original iPhone was a better phone than it's contemporary competitors.

Re: Apple Vision Pro review

#735
post #610

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love how people just rewrite history on the internet lol. Iphone 1 was a collosal PoC. Slow, most of web didnt work. Its only appeal was the full touchscreen, which of course sucked to type on, but looked cool (which is the reason people bought it mostly). Everyone that needed mobile compute functionality was still on Blackberry and some other devices. There was a time during early 2010s where the iphone was better…

That's the history I remember tho. I remember the first time I saw an iPhone. It was 2am at a house party with a bunch of 19-25 year olds. Pretty much everyone stopped drinking or dancing and played with this dudes phone for three hours.

I had the first Occulus when it came out. Big hit at my workplace. Anything flashy is going to get attention. The problem with Apple is that they have, do, and will continue on prioritizing flashiness over usability. Its actually pathetic that you can't install linux on Apple silicon (and no, REd hacked together Asahi linux does not count)

Re: Apple Vision Pro review

#736
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…

I can’t get over how goofy and stupid it looks, and how awkward those gestures are. There’s a video circulating of someone cooking while wearing it and gingerly pinching a virtual timer and placing it on a pot of boiling pasta. It looks so stupid that I couldn’t help but laugh out loud. Maybe younger people might think differently but for me, this stuff is dead on arrival because of simply how uncool and stupid it ma…

> It looks so stupid that I couldn’t help but laugh out loud.

I'm so old I remember the N-Gage 1st gen being ridiculed for the "sidetalking" feature.

Now we have millionaires on TV talking to their phones like it's piece of bread they are about to take a bite of and nobody bats an eye.

Re: Apple Vision Pro review

#737
Joanna Stern: Maestro!

I cannot imagine having to do this review. It's:

- Likely to be read and seen by a substantial number of people

- On the highest of high-tech devices

- From a company that splits the world into Fans and Haters

- Where the real question is how does it feel, and how do I look?

- And for heaven's sake should I spend $3,500+?

So much potential for embarassment!

She did a great job, and identified its killer app: home 3D movies.

Selfies are so passe, when you can actually re-experience something, and perhaps notice what you missed before, and reinforce memories. It's ideal oldsters to experience trips that their grandchildren take.

Gating factors: My concern is mainly that this will need another generation of chip miniaturization to get the headset lighter AND more performant AND using less power -- and may require a faster bus between the chips.

Win/lose factors: Probably enough people will buy it to make it not a financial mistake. But the big win is that developers will have to start solving the problems with this device, and only those using this device will have solutions under their belt. To get to VR + 3D media, go through Apple?

Re: Apple Vision Pro review

#738
post #537

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The better analogy is probably something like the Apple Watch. Apple certainly wasn't the first smartwatch, but anyone who owned one before that was obviously a geek (said lovingly). Apple made the first mainstream acceptable smartwatch by smoothing over a lot of the complaints about their competitors, while adding some of their own in the process, just like the Vision Pro. It took a few iterations, but today people…

> Apple made the first mainstream acceptable smartwatch by smoothing over a lot of the complaints about their competitors, Really? Why do Apple fanboys make these kinda claims.. same as wireless Bluetooth pods, or fingerprint readers, or faceID. There are ample examples of these done well on the hardware side prior. The main advantage Apple has is its seamless integration with software, which of course it pairs well…

You clearly missed my point entirely. I'm not a fanboy saying Apple's products are the best. I even specifically said their success is "due to their marketing prowess and the strength of their brand just as much as their technical expertise."

They weren't the first smartwatch, but Apple is the company most responsibly for changing arbitrary societal metrics of "mainstream acceptance" like the percentage of people who would wear a smartwatch on a first date. That seems like an obvious observation and a "win" even if smartwatches aren't as ubiquitous as smartphones. I think the Vision Pro will follow a similar trajectory of success in that it will take years before anyone uses that word "success", but a few years from now you'll get on a plane and notice more than a few people wearing headsets and that will be because of Apple.

Re: Apple Vision Pro review

#739

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There is a fundamntal tradeoff between FOV and image quality at any given pixel density (and there are other tradeoffs between pixel density and cost and compute power needed).

Re: Apple Vision Pro review

#740
post #688

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I imagine it's mostly a CPU/battery/bandwidth concern at this point — having one wireless 4.5k/60 (or is it 90?) stream from your Mac is difficult enough; having a potentially unbound number of them (for arbitrary number of Mac windows open) is a different problem altogether. But there are 3rd party solutions that will let you do just that though: https://github.com/saagarjha/Ensemble

This is it exactly. I’m surprised the HN crowd isn’t immediately picking up the bandwidth issues with streaming unlimited 4k screens from your MacBook.

Noted that this would be a non issue if you could just connect a cable between your Mac and the Vision. You already have the huge battery pack dangling off the side. This is an apple issue, not a technical one.
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