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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

#381
post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, "stymied by commercial concerns" is a great way to put it. I get the feeling that many companies/managers don't have enough courage to make a different set of tradeoffs.

A lot of the replies are pretty vague, like they’re just “good at product” or they just “understand this or that” as if it’s some kind of mysticism. But why, and how? What is the formula? I think this reply chain starts to get at why. I’m imagining a typical business school 2-axis chart where one axis is “willingness to take and commit to risks vs unwillingness/noncommittal” and the other axis is “acts independently…

As someone who is deep inside the Apple ecosystem after making enough to afford the devices, it’s because they make it pleasant to use. Before my first MBP, I had a Dell Inspiron which has good specs, but it was heavy, the plastic was flimsy and the screen was not good. The trackpad was abysimal. In my last work position, I got a Dell XPS and it was the same, so in the span of 8 years, nothing changes to show that they care for me as a user.

Most people don’t want to think about how to do something or care about optimizing it when they can get it done and not think further about it. But companies seems to want to put a lot of barriers into what I want to get done, like popups, complicated screens, ugly interfaces. For the majority of user workflows, Apple offers a simple, unobstrusive way to do them. Starlink routers are almost the same in that regard (the mobile app could use some work, and perhaps add a desktop interface)

My advice (as a user) is for to simplify the usual workflow to the point you only ask the few (0,1-3) indispensable questions, and then get out of the way. Further options can be buried inside Preferences and Settings. And then you perfect the apperance, ease of use, and general enjoyment of using the application/device.

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

#382

I think the description of the VisionPro as a dev kit is spot on. It's also a beta product in many way. Apple know full well that this is not a mass market product, they have made no attempt to make it even remotely affordable to most people. But they also know that every aspect of the hardware will improve over the next decade, and as it does they will have ironed out many of the problems with how we use AR/VR and w…

> I think the description of the VisionPro as a dev kit is spot on. A devkit prepared for lock down. It's the old formula: let devs make the platform great, then pull a Sherlock or increase the platform fees. Count me out.

Aren't they already charging the 30% app store tax for the privilege of running software on the device you bought? I doubt that fees going to go up from there.

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

#383
post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 have spent decades building a brand which most people see as premium and desirable. Doesnt matter what the product is now, if it has an apple logo on it the majority of people will want one. Other companies trying to compete with Apple in any space will automatically have this disadvantage that they are seen as the inferior choice because Apple have repeatedly positioned themselves as the most premium pl…

Have you seen the competitors?

OS: Windows is a add-riddled and always ignoring your preferences and getting in the way of your work.

Tablet: Android tablet are slow (or soon to be) and not much applications designed for them

Laptop: Windows and never a good mix of great components, perfomance, and weight.

Phone: Only a few do not add uninstallable junk, and these days, they all try to copy the iPhone which is not something I want is I’m trying to move away from the iPhone.

Speaker System: If I want a homepod alternative, I will not be looking to get inside another closed ecosystem. And I’d want lifetime support (airplay has been reversed-engineered). The last time I used Sonos, it wanted me to use its music player or something.

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

#384
post #380
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.

> Ten years ago was pre oculus rift. We weren't saying anything about VR headsets. Rift DK1 was released in ~2013, and lots of gamers bought it throughout 2014. We got the first "consumer release" for the original Rift in 2016. I think its more than fair to say 10 years - we were absolutely talking a lot about Rift DK1 in 2014. > Five years ago was pre valve index Valve's first consumer VR headset was the HTC vive, r…

I don't get your second bullet. The Vive is not the Index.

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

#385
post #369

I'd add to the list (1) Quest is a game console Quest is clearly a gaming device. It boot straight into the store. The re-opens the store at every opportunity. This means, trying to use it for non-gaming means you're constantly reminded your on a VR game console. It'd be like trying to use a PS5 for work. I kind of get why they did it but I hate it. I'm happy my iPhone does not boot into the store and does not go bac…

The Quest is a gaming device because productivity just doesn't work on screens that are so low res that it becomes annoying to read text

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

#386
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hopefully you're right, but the cynic in me thinks we've been saying the same thing about every VR headset that has come out in the last ten years.

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.

This is wrong. VR =/= AR

I’ve been in AR since 2010

The AVP is leaps and bounds ahead of where we were collectively technically back then

But I don’t see us appreciably closer to the goal of ubiquitous persistent headworn see through visual computing

It’s a social expectations and data problem it’s not a “technical” problem

It’s probably gonna be decades before we see any regularized mainstream adoption, because the form factor is such a different thing that we’re not even close to make it a simple transition for the least savvy consumer

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

#387

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…

> AI changes the way you work

AI does a whole lot more than that. I imagine that the vast majority of content people consume will at some point be created by AI perhaps with some marginal human input. Probably before your VR vision becomes a reality.

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

#388
post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ten years ago was pre oculus rift. We weren't saying anything about VR headsets. Rift DK1 was released in ~2013, and lots of gamers bought it throughout 2014. We got the first "consumer release" for the original Rift in 2016. I think its more than fair to say 10 years - we were absolutely talking a lot about Rift DK1 in 2014. > Five years ago was pre valve index Valve's first consumer VR headset was the HTC vive, r…

I don't get your second bullet. The Vive is not the Index.

It demonstrates Valve have been at this longer than the ~5 years of the Index, and closer to a decade again (the point OP disputes and uses Index as evidence of).

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

#389
post #369

I'd add to the list (1) Quest is a game console Quest is clearly a gaming device. It boot straight into the store. The re-opens the store at every opportunity. This means, trying to use it for non-gaming means you're constantly reminded your on a VR game console. It'd be like trying to use a PS5 for work. I kind of get why they did it but I hate it. I'm happy my iPhone does not boot into the store and does not go bac…

Quests screen isnt good enough for reading so productivity is out. Its a gaming device because it cant really be anything else.

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

#390

I'm going to go against the grain a bit here and say that in my experience, the description of the Vision Pro as a dev kit feels pretty reductive. I was a day 1 purchaser who bought it fully expecting the device to just be an early access "dev kit" and have been shocked at how well it's fit into my day-to-day uses for a huge variety of things. Some of the things I like to do with it: 1. Gaming with friends: I play Ba…

> 180 SBS videos like SliceofLifeVR's content I thought the Vision Pro didn't support SBS video? And that that was the reason why the people who like to bring up porn in every conversation about VR said it would fail.

It doesn't natively support it in the Photos app but 3rd party apps like Moon Player work for the content. None of the solutions are as robust as their implementations on other platforms (i.e. Meta Quest 3) but they're perfectly functional and are constantly getting improved.

I anticipate within 3-6 months, other major offerings will have been ported over and have relative feature parity with their counterparts but with the benefit of the increased resolution and no screen door effect.

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