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Vision Pro: What we got wrong at Oculus that Apple got right

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Re: Vision Pro: What we got wrong at Oculus that Apple got right

#321

Post by wolverine876 »

jncfhnb wrote: post #238
bunnie wrote: post #128

Maybe I'm old fashioned but one of the biggest barriers for me adopting VR/AR is there isn't a socially acceptable way to "duck out" of a VR experience you're just not into. I've been given a couple of demos of headsets by friends and more often than not by the end I feel trapped -- you're strapped into a thing that fully occupies your visual field, yet it's obvious and socially awkward when you take it off. And your…

You’re describing a situation where you’re physically co located and someone is giving you the only headset? I don’t get it. Why not just tell them? What do you do if someone hands you a controller for a tv game equivalent?

> What do you do if someone hands you a controller for a tv game equivalent?

I'm not the GP, but as they said you have all your other body language for communication. In VR-world, you have your eye direction and hands - not even your full eyes, with all the muscles around them that may communicate more than anything else on your body. I suppose you could flip them off. :)

It's an interesting point about how VR avatars, for all their 'presence', are very limited. VR video chat seems much better.

Re: Vision Pro: What we got wrong at Oculus that Apple got right

#322

Post by j2bax »

hedora wrote: post #95
65 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll only buy a VR device if it's in the form of glasses, not big goggles I need to strap to my face.

My main concern with the vision pro is that all use cases I know of (other than gaming) work better with some sort of pass through HUD display like the HoloLens. They spent a ton of company resources, weight and power making the wrong form factor emulate the right form factor, and are shipping with zero killer apps. You can’t even let your friends play with it without getting it re-fit to their head at the Apple Stor…

My opinion, and its very naive because I've only really tried the Vision Pro for this type of content, but immersive video is the current killer app for the Vision Pro. Sitting in the studio with Alicia Keys warming up for her tour was almost equal parts uncomfortable and amazing.

Re: Vision Pro: What we got wrong at Oculus that Apple got right

#323

Post by euroderf »

wolverine876 wrote: post #307
bradly wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple has a history to sticking with things like this. Watch and HomePod were both seen as over-priced and sold poorly the first iterations. Apple leadership had the confidence to see through those initial versions. This was part of the internal culture during my time at Apple.

> This was part of the internal culture during my time at Apple. From a management perspective, how do they handle the people side of that - keeping good people on the team and keeping them motivated to do something extraordinary? People don't like spending time on unsuccessful projects and don't want their names associated with them, and don't want to work extra hard on something that won't come to fruition. Maybe A…

So basically they have the patience, the cash stockpile, and the management culture to support large multi-year product field testing with non-employees.

Re: Vision Pro: What we got wrong at Oculus that Apple got right

#324

Post by kjkjadksj »

masfoobar wrote: post #39

I remember being sooooo tempted to buy a devkit just so I could play about, see if I can get it to work with my own 3D games. Would it be a pointless exercise? Yes. However, would I learn from it as a programmer? Yes. To this very day, I still dont have a VR headset. I am actually a tad behind with the latest ones, if I am honest about it. There is a VR place in our City which I take my children to (and myself) for s…

Just do what everyone else does and teach your kid to drive your car in a parking lot whenever they can reach the pedals. I knew to drive by like 10.

Re: Vision Pro: What we got wrong at Oculus that Apple got right

#325

Post by ok_dad »

Jasper_ wrote: post #94
gpm wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The cynic in you is overly cynical. Ten years ago was pre oculus rift. We weren't saying anything about VR headsets. Five years ago was pre valve index. We didn't have CPUs in a headset. Nor a battery. Cameras were only used for tracking. The things we were saying would improve is "screen door effect" and "tracking", both of which have.

The optical pathway is pretty much locked in. LEEP was invented in the 80s, and that's still the optical system used today. Compare the size to NASA's VR system from the early 90s. https://images.nasa.gov/details/ARC-1992-AC89-0437-6 It's been 30 years of massive improvements to all of the rest of computers, and VR has only shrunk a couple inches. There's not much else we can do to make it smaller.

Look at the bigscreen vr headset!

Re: Vision Pro: What we got wrong at Oculus that Apple got right

#326

Post by whynotminot »

whynotmaybe wrote: post #266
whynotminot wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People keep vastly overestimating the amount of content that is consumed in group settings. I watch a show / movie with my girlfriend a couple times a week. A nice TV is still better for that obviously. But I watch stuff on my own every single day. Personal media consumption for me is probably 8x my group-based consumption. I would wager most people these days have similar habits.

It's the opposite for me so I'm outside of your "most people"

Most people !== everyone by definition :)

I do think my situation fits current society more though. Families under one roof consuming media only through the shared TV is less and less how the (at least Western) world operates.

Re: Vision Pro: What we got wrong at Oculus that Apple got right

#327

Post by e28eta »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #300
eggbrain wrote: post #65

His point on the significant motion-blur / image quality issues that exists with pass-through is my biggest complaint with the device hardware-wise. I got the prescription lens inserts that Apple had suggested, and when I first put on the device I thought that either my eye doctor had gotten my prescription wrong, or something was defective with my device. The blur is distracting -- and looking further away makes it…

> but also for anything that requires Face-ID (which doesn't work well when the Vision Pro is covering your face, which feels like an Apple ecosystem fail). At some point don't we need to accept the laws of physics and biology? That is, The VisionPro covers a significant part of your face, much more than a pair of glasses. Face-ID already has the challenge of needing to recognize you in tons of different conditions (…

I think the complaint is that the vision pro can’t authenticate the wearer to the iphone. Just like using your apple watch to unlock a mac, the vision pro will probably eventually be able to set up a trusted relationship between the user and their phone, and fix this issue. That’s what I understood from “ecosystem fail”

Re: Vision Pro: What we got wrong at Oculus that Apple got right

#328

Post by veidr »

outworlder wrote: post #267
Jasper_ wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The optical pathway is pretty much locked in. LEEP was invented in the 80s, and that's still the optical system used today. Compare the size to NASA's VR system from the early 90s. https://images.nasa.gov/details/ARC-1992-AC89-0437-6 It's been 30 years of massive improvements to all of the rest of computers, and VR has only shrunk a couple inches. There's not much else we can do to make it smaller.

I am looking at that picture and to me it definitely looks like way more than a couple of inches.

lol, indeed, that is the full monty

Re: Vision Pro: What we got wrong at Oculus that Apple got right

#329

Post by generalizations »

ryandrake wrote: post #121
joenot443 wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There were a lot of tablets before the iPad but it wasn’t until the iPad that tablets really took off as a serious market segment. Ditto with AirPods and Bluetooth earbuds. In the past, once Apple started pouring R&D money into a specific product type, the entire industry around it tends to advance very quickly. I’m optimistic about the Vision Pro, and I actually think the n+2 Meta release will be much better off for…

My question is why does it seem like only Apple can do this, over and over? Why are they the only ones who seem to be able to knock a product category out of the park and legitimize it? Is it just the vast amount of money? Are they the only ones who can create products? Is everyone else that bad? Competitors work for ages and ages fighting each other, refining v1, v2, v2.1, v2.2, v2.25, and then suddenly Apple comes…

Because they're able to understand what is actually valuable to their customers, and they'll go the extra mile to make sure that what matters is done properly.

It's comparable to why 'Google Video Search' lost out to youtube way back in the day. The google engineer nerds couldn't understand why no one liked their product: it had all these options for uploading video with the best quality and all these formats, while youtube had worse quality and few options. They missed the point and didn't understand the users, and were caught up in the tech rather than what was actually valuable to the users (basically: dead simple to 'just upload a video' - quality doesn't matter as much as that).

Kinda like how Mark Z. has been talking about how the Oculus has similar resolution. It's not the tech specs that make the product - those are necessary but not sufficient. If the product is supposed to be AR: then it needs to actually be AR. And that means. e.g., that details like virtual shadows on real surfaces MUST be included, and must actually work properly. If it's not, then it's only kinda-AR. That's the kind of long tail that Apple understands, and other companies don't. The tech must fit the users, and the experience must be complete.

Re: Vision Pro: What we got wrong at Oculus that Apple got right

#330

Post by skor »

partiallypro wrote: post #272
lefstathiou wrote: post #245

My two cents (as an owner of a Vision Pro): 1) This is a beta product and I wouldnt recommend it to anyone that is not a developer or in a position to create apps for it, 2) this is going to have as big of an impact on humanity as the computer or the internet did and every engineer or aspiring entrepreneur should pay it attention. This device is magical. Yes it's too heavy, yes there are not enough apps, yes sharing…

> this is going to have as big of an impact on humanity as the computer or the internet I don't see how anyone can say this with a straight face. VR/AR just isn't there and won't be there for a lot longer than people think. Everyone always acts like we're -so close- but then we just aren't. Hololens and Oculus are over a decade old, and honestly when I first demo'd both ages ago, they were incredible (especially Holo…

Totally agree. Best thing about working a life-long career with computers is that you can get away from them quite easily, leave your phone at home, turn off your monitor.

Every time I see an intent by companies to increment my time spent with a computer, to watch their ads, buy another thing I don't need ... I know that I should be doing the exact opposite.

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