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Apple Vision Pro review

wsj.com

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Re: Apple Vision Pro review

#821

Post by Cthulhu_ »

saagarjha wrote: post #784
Takennickname wrote: post #693

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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"

Almost every outlet is calling it a better Oculus Quest but one that is fantastically expensive.

I mean it's been over ten years since the new generation of VR headsets (I'm thinking of the Oculus Rift) came out; if at this point in modern VR development it wouldn't be better than existing offerings, I'd be deeply disappointed in Apple's R&D.

Anyway, I bring that up because when the iphone came out, it really did do something different than the locked-in feature phones of the time; I did have to look it up to refresh my memory (https://www.cnet.com/pictures/original-apple-iphone-competit...), but its competition in that year was a lot of Blackberry-style physical keyboard and resistive touch screens running Windows Mobile. I do want to highlight the LG Prada, the first capacitive touch screen smartphone - came out in the same year the iPhone was announced, and it along with the HTC Touch on that page had a similar screen focused form factor.

Re: Apple Vision Pro review

#822

Post by wkat4242 »

slg wrote: post #716
SirHound wrote: post #699

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No you’d be sitting at a desk with a mouse and keyboard, like today

But that isn't 'The whole room is your "desktop".' If you are restricted to having your desk in front of you, you might as well be looking at virtual screen(s) on your desk.

Of course you could hang the displays freely into space as you can now with the existing Vision Pro apps. You'd hang the productivity ones close to your desk but some of them you could hang in other places and use a virtual keyboard.

Re: Apple Vision Pro review

#823

Post by matsemann »

huytersd wrote: post #700
klausa wrote: 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.

Because I don't care about the technical limitations. I care about if it's a useful gadget for me or not. It doesn't matter why a feature isn't there, that just becomes a "you're holding it wrong" thing.

Re: Apple Vision Pro review

#824

Post by wkat4242 »

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…

Huh cool, thank you! I had no idea this existed. And I actually have had a Rift since the start (I was an original Oculus Kickstarter backer so I got one for free). But to be honest I never really used it for productivity as the Rift's resolution was too low anyway. Even with the Quest 2 I didn't think it was high enough to use comfortably. But now with the Quest 3 it might be worth it.

But I'll give it a try, thanks!

And yeah Apple would need to do some changes to macOS to make this work well, but as you say they control it. If they really view this as the future of computing they should really make it work.

The idea of SimulaVR is that it replaces your window manager so they avoid some of these issues by taking direct control. But that's something that only works on Linux.

Re: Apple Vision Pro review

#825

Post by fouc »

jojobas wrote: post #787
saagarjha wrote: post #775

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How did you get those numbers? They seem quite low, considering that they do 4K mirroring and all.

They don't do 4k mirroring. A 4k monitor has 8 million pixels while the googles have about 11 million pixels per eye. True 4k is only possible if you use 85% of vertical and 85% of horizontal FoV, like when staring at a 24" monitor from 15cm.

8/11 = 73% not 85%. so should be a lot more comfortable distance than 15cm/5.9 inches.

Re: Apple Vision Pro review

#826

Post by mns »

spaceman_2020 wrote: post #728
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…

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…

Yeah, saw the WSJ review with that video, but in all fairness, I think only someone who doesn't cook would think that cooking with this thing on your head might be a good idea.

Re: Apple Vision Pro review

#827

Post by wkat4242 »

redsoundbanner wrote: post #708
nox101 wrote: post #690

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yeah that's why I never used the whole desktop either, only if I need to change a setting during VR gaming like the audio output device that doesn't always auto-switch to the Oculus Audio output. I never noticed you could show apps separately like this, cool!

Re: Apple Vision Pro review

#828

Post by Gazoche »

masfoobar wrote: post #815

The technology of what we see with Meta/Vive/etc VR headsets, as well as what with see with Apple Vision, will be nothing more than a pair of glasses so light you will hardly notice it This is what it will be like in 10 years. The current generation (teens and adulets) wondering around the streets with their head sinked to their phones, will be replaced wearing "specs" 24/7. In the next 20-25, I would not be surprise…

> In the next 20-25, I would not be surprised if it becomes no more than contact lenses.

I can see the current XR headsets shrinking down to the size of a pair of glasses within a couple decades, but contact lenses would require a giant leap forward in technology.

You'd need displays, electronics, sensors and batteries that can all fit together inside a paper-thin plane, and also, somehow, be invisible. Not saying it will never happen but we are really talking sci-fi tech at this point.

Re: Apple Vision Pro review

#829

Post by fouc »

Roark66 wrote: post #743
TaylorAlexander wrote: post #589

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well there’s FOV and there’s pixel density which are both too low right now and antagonistic to one another feature wise. There’s also display brightness which is an issue and I’m not sure how that fits in to the FOV/density spectrum. And then more pixels means more compute… That prototypes exist doesn’t necessarily mean much in a space that is full of prototypes showing off one particular feature. The very hard thin…

>Well there’s FOV and there’s pixel density which are both too low right now. Exactly. You know what is the best "goggle" type display I ever saw (and I tried quite a few)? Recent FPV goggles (hdzero) that have 1930*1080 OLED displays at approximately 46 degrees fov. I'm very glad the manufacturer decided to use the his low fov instead of increasing it to 55deg and more like others. The picture is insanely crisp, and…

for those who don't know: FPV = first person view. Used for drone racing and things like that.

Re: Apple Vision Pro review

#830

Post by theK »

habitue wrote: post #732
spaceman_2020 wrote: post #728

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Yeah, new things will look weird until culturally appropriated. Two things that seem to differentiate AR/VR stuff from previous tech

1. They are more "worn" than "used"

2. They conceal your face while wearing

So maybe cultural acceptance might take a while...

EDIT: typos

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