521–530 of 863 posts
No matter how much I contemplate about it, there was still no “killer” app that affords me to buy a VR set. I’ve tried them, it’s nice. But it really has no place in my life. And how could this change? Even with better displays etc. the whole idea of disconnecting my main sense - the eyes - from my surroundings is so strange to me that it seems irreconcilable. Can anybody relate?
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This has been my main complaint with Oculus all the way since the Rift days. At that point I assumed it was forthcoming within a few years yet here we are 8 years later and somehow it's not all that different. I don't understand how Oculus/Meta isn't drastically ahead at this point on software.
They are drastically ahead. They have VR games, which are the only real reason to own a VR headset at the moment (and for at least 5 years).
Because the rest of the experience is so unpolished.
I have a Meta Quest 3 and overall it doesn't exactly feel like they invested tens of billions into that ecosystem. The headset's UI is basically a 2D desktop with taskbar and app launcher covering a small fraction of the field of view, including some buttons that are so small it's tricky to aim at them with the controllers. The Oculus desktop client fails to recognize it via USB and the official remote desktop app is still in Beta while Steam lets me play games or use the desktop remotely with two button presses. To this day I have not managed to just copy files directly onto the device, no USB connection (other than to Steam) works. Only some semi-reliable wifi transfer from a third-party application worked but that required enabling developer mode.
On top of that they decided to ship it with a head strap that never fits well and gets painful within 30 minutes, and then made it unnecessarily complicated to swap. Yes, of course people aren't going to do more on that thing than play a few rounds of Beat Saber, because many simply don't want to jump through hoops like that. I think it's a great device overall but some things are just so...unnecessary.
Apple not focusing on games might be a good thing because it means they can't just rely on games for free sales numbers.
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> Apple has made a fully realized spatial operating system I'm not sure what you mean precisely. Apple doesn't seem to have done more than windows with persistent positions. This isn't nothing, but it's also not something that has tremendous value for a headset that you only wear 30 or 45 minutes at a time. And they have little to no management of these floating windows. I'm really not holding my breath for Apple to…
It's kind of fascinating, because as you say, many of the capabilities are barely surfaced in the user layer yet. But the fundamentals are there. Take a look at this Reddit post for example: https://www.reddit.com/r/VisionPro/comments/1ba5hbd/the_most... The user is pointing out that that the real fridge behind them is reflected by the surface of the virtual object in front of them. And consider on top of that, the f…
The most fascinating thing to me is how we've gone from Apple being the pragmatic and real world product focused company, moving slower but making sure what they ship has undeniable practical value, and not promising much beyond ("we don't talk about future products and roadmap").
Compared to the "wow look at that technical prowess, not much useful right now, but such potential !" that we're getting with this device. I don't see it completely fall flat, but it feels it's on the same course as the Apple Watch or the HomePod, to be the biggest in the niche category it defines (whatever it ends up be), and a smaller presence in the general space ("smart eyewear ?") with better fitted and more practical devices taking 70% of the market.
The clunkier XReal probably keeping chugging along, being to the AVP what the Xiaomi or Huawei smart bands are to the Apple Watch. And Meta probably being the Samsung shooting at the target from 5 different angles.
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When I did the AVP demo I was impressed by how quickly my eyes would relax and drift away slightly from looking at something after initially focusing on it. It took some conscious effort at first to maintain steady eye focus on an object whilst actuating it with a gesture.
This is, coincidentally, one of my biggest issues with the Vision Pro. I never got used to it. I'd very frequently want to select one thing while also moving my eyes around to look at other things.
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Agree. And in a world where most technical people assume differentiation means better specs, Apple repeatedly prioritizes better UX: easier and/or more fun to use.
Except when you will try to use Finder on MacOS. That whole thing is just a massive UX failure
But they do have a history of disrupting markets by leveraging superior UX. Mainstreaming the GUI, the click wheel, the all-glass multitouch phone, etc, etc.
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They are drastically ahead. They have VR games, which are the only real reason to own a VR headset at the moment (and for at least 5 years).
There's a real chicken-and-egg recursion there: VR headsets are only good for VR games because the only thing made for VR headsets is VR games because VR headsets are only good for VR games because...
Coming from a senior Oculus lead, the most interesting thing about this write up for me, is what it lacks: it says almost nothing about the software stack / operating system. Still 100% talking about hardware at the bottom and end user applications at the other end. But there is no discussion of the platform which to me is actually the highest value proposition Apple is bringing here. In short: Apple has made a fully…
If what you said were true then this is a fatal strategic error on Meta's side. This entire time, they could have built a real OS, solidifying their first mover advantage.
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Genuine question, what are you doing for 10 hours a day in there? Can you comfortable code all day in that? If you don't mind my asking, is it purely novelty or is it genuinely better than coding on a 5k monitor?
For me it is not a novelty, it has completely stuck. Yes, on comfort for 10 hours. I have even worked 12 hours, then watched a long 3D movie (Blade Runner 2049, Dune I, etc.) without hesitation. I cannot imagine going back to only physical screens. I have a 98" monitor with two 55" monitors in portrait angled towards me on either side (heights all match), all wall mounted. Truly wonderful! But this has replaced that…
Can you expand on this? Does it basically have built in vision correction? This actually sounds like a 'killer' feature if you don't need to mess with glasses.
Coming from a senior Oculus lead, the most interesting thing about this write up for me, is what it lacks: it says almost nothing about the software stack / operating system. Still 100% talking about hardware at the bottom and end user applications at the other end. But there is no discussion of the platform which to me is actually the highest value proposition Apple is bringing here. In short: Apple has made a fully…
He talks about how "Gaze & pinch is an incredible UI superpower and major industry ah-ha moment" but... if that's really the case, then it's quite an indictment of the VR industry: > The hardware needed to track eyes and hands in VR has been around for over a decade, and it’s Apple unique ability to bring everything together in a magical way that makes this UI superpower the most important achievement of the entire V…
Its very difficult to change a mindset or culture in big companies. Existing VR companies were too invested in using a controller. Similarly back in the early smartphone days all the big companies thought that smartphones must have physical keyboard.
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If they can't fix the ever so slight blurryness for everyone it will continue to be a niche product simply because only a small niche wants to accept such a thing. Or only a small niche of people has eyes that can deal with it. Btw I consider my Meta Quest 3 to be a terrible product in almost every way, from hardware to software, from blurryness, from weight, from app availability, from PC compatability, from having…
> the ever so slight blurryness for everyone As the article mentions, this is an intentional thing they've done to cover up the remaining vestiges of the screen door effect. The better the screens get, the less and less they'll have any reason to do it.
With the questionable state of Moore's law, and the battery powered nature of the device, it might be awhile before tech catches up. Faster components would use more energy. We need to balance performance with battery capacity, and I expect the product that really catches on will have more of both.