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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

#401

Post by rightbyte »

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.

Maybe it doesn't feel like you are staring at your nose as much in NASA's 92 head set?

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

#402

Post by alt227 »

Karrot_Kream wrote: post #379
alt227 wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>You may not like their products, and you may think their customers are idiots hypnotized by villianous marketers or something. Thats quite a stretch to assume that opinion from my comment? I actually love Macbook Pros. IMO they are the best Laptop ever built. However in the global market of laptops they are not patrticularly successful. The entiety of the MacOS ecosystem (of which Macbook Pros are a small percentage…

That's the difference in strategy. Apple only cares about profits not about market share. Market share only matters when margins are low and you need volume to bring revenue numbers up. When your margins are high, you can have a much smaller market share but also use that to create a more opinionated brand image and drive brand loyalty.

Thats fine until your revenue growth stagnates. Its then that your shareholders come knocking demanding growth, at which point market share becomes incredibly important. When that happens, opinionated brand image needs to become much more generic brand image to start attracting more of the market.

This is what happened with Xerox, IBM, Microsoft, and it will happen to Apple too.

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

#403

Post by alt227 »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #249
ryandrake wrote: post #121

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…

> Is it just the vast amount of money? No, it is the vast amount of risk they are willing to take. Microsoft/alphabet have vast amounts of money too, but no appetite for risk. Apple is willing to dump tens of billions and years into R&D for physical products, fail, and then try again. Microsoft half asses it, and then pulls back instead of plowing through (see them shutting down Microsoft retail stores and windows ph…

Please feel free to share what these amazing risk taking products are which Apple R&D have come up with.

As far as I can see its all the same thin, flat device with a screen, just different sizes.

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

#404

Post by rexf »

axus wrote: post #76

"Apple intentionally calibrated the Vision Pro display slightly out of focus to make pixels a bit blurry and hide the screen door effect “in plain sight” Makes me think of the blurring effect of phosphors on a CRT.

This is shocking to read. I tried the in store demo and my main take away was that the display wasn’t as crisp or sharp as I expected for a $4k device.

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

#405

Post by gen3 »

blunderchief wrote: post #110
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…

This actually helps me a little bit. I've also seen people say they can read screens, and that's not my experience. I also have the lens inserts, and I suspect that part of the problem is how they implement the prescription. I'm not knowledgeable enough about lenses to say this with confidence (please correct me!), but I wonder if this is because Apple prioritizes a farther away focal point for the inserts, so you li…

> I wonder if this is because Apple prioritizes a farther away focal point for the inserts, so you literally can't focus on anything close up

VR is interesting all because all manufactures (that I know of) have a fixed focal distance for the screens. This is why you need inserts in the first place, even though the lenses are right in front of your eyes. For example, on the valve index this is set to ~6ft, so if you can see up to 6ft perfectly, you do not need inserts.

Moving your phone around doesn't change this number, its a relationship between the lenses and the screens

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

#406

Post by philistine »

alt227 wrote: post #334
swatcoder wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That interpretation seems pretty out of sync with their financial history across divisions, their operating margin across divisions, their customer loyalty across divisions, and pretty much everyone's experience of the world, but maybe you're right. You may not like their products, and you may think their customers are idiots hypnotized by villianous marketers or something, but that's kind of the point of it all: by…

>You may not like their products, and you may think their customers are idiots hypnotized by villianous marketers or something. Thats quite a stretch to assume that opinion from my comment? I actually love Macbook Pros. IMO they are the best Laptop ever built. However in the global market of laptops they are not patrticularly successful. The entiety of the MacOS ecosystem (of which Macbook Pros are a small percentage…

Do you even realize that Apple owns most of the above-1000$ laptop market and makes something like 40% of all computer profits because it sells so few computers at such a high price?

I'd love to be not successful making a luxury product that sells at commodity volume.

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

#407

Post by Shawnj2 »

lostemptations5 wrote: post #400
noneeeed wrote: post #30

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…

Not sure what the nay sayers are about. Anyone remember the ORIGINAL MacBook Air? Hyper expensive, super underpowered, overheated alot. And yet -- as Steve demonstrated -- it fit in an envelope. THIS is Apple launching a new product line (and trust me I'm not a fan boi). And shortly after (2-3 years?) the MBAs were powerful cheap and barely powered up their fans. Mind you the MBA was maybe Steve's last obsession. Wha…

My problem with the vision pro is that it doesn’t do enough new, the iPhone and the MacBook Air let you use a computer in an area where you previously couldn’t and made it accessible to normal people. The vision pro isn’t that much better in terms of bringing the technology in a user friendly package to the masses than the quest.

A good measure of an Apple product is if you can pitch a version of it to your grandma or dad who can’t open PDF file. If something only appeals to tech enthusiasts it is not a good Apple product (except the professional line products intended to be used for serious work by professionals which the vision pro isn’t)

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

#408

Post by esafak »

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…

Apple is and always has been a product company. They invent technology to serve the product, and they don't particularly talk up the specifics of the technology, preferring to talk about what it enables. For example, the numerous interaction features introduced by the iPhone, such as swiping, pinching, and tapping. And the high resolution display they demanded for their Vision Pro.

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

#409

Post by whstl »

skydhash wrote: post #381
ryandrake wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 th…

Being pleasant to use also requires some courage to remove features, make compromises and spend extra time on the right things, rather than box-ticking.

In the end you need courage both to make it pleasant to use and to give it a big price.

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

#410

Post by alt227 »

x0x0 wrote: post #377
ryandrake wrote: post #121

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…

Their competitors are shockingly incompetent. Consider Google. A couple years ago, a reporter documented the nearly (iirc) 20 attempts Google has made at a messenger. Meanwhile, Apple made one and ground away at it until it became great. Google is a company that -- and this is true -- dropped trou and put apps on my phone called "Google Meet" and "Google Meet (Original)." And don't forget Duo. See also having "Google…

Are you aware that Google Pay and Google Wallet are completely different products, and that Apple has exactly the same counterparts even named the same?

https://www.apple.com/apple-pay

https://www.apple.com/wallet/

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