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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

#771
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…

You don't know if Apple sees them as failures. We weren't building to v1. We were building a long lived product. We knew that. We understood our vision and that it might take years to see that through. I don't think anyone would be ashamed to have Apple Watch or HomePod on their resume.

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

#772
post #519

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

>So one app that is totally unknown to another app can introduce reflections into the objects it displays

Reflections of the real environment on virtual objects do not imply a global scene graph, or the ability of apps to reflect one another. It just means that each app gets fed the environment map that mostly had to be generated anyway because of SLAM. Neat but not some kind of radical form of IPC.

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

#773
post #532

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I categorically disagree that VR is going to have remotely this level of impact on humanity. This feels like a comment from Blackberry or MS making fun of the first iPhone.

Having actually tried the thing, and having used VR for several years before that, I’d like to think that my opinion is not just a simple knee-jerk response.

We should revisit this comment 10 years later :)

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

#774

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oculus is a gaming device and doesn't have a "productivity" ambition. I believe it is because 3D glasses has very limited productivity application. But who knows, for people who think that 13" laptop is okay for work, Vision Pro may become something better for comparable price.

> I believe it is because 3D glasses has very limited productivity application. AR has tremendous productivity applications if the device is small and wearable enough. Imagine being up in your attic running cables and seeing a projection of the floor plan of your house so you can see where the different rooms in your house are. Or driving a car, except all the blind spots disappear and are filled in with vehicle-moun…

>Imagine noticing a weird rash on your arm, but as soon as you look at it, your glasses immediately diagnose it as a potential MRSA infection and pop up a notification allowing you to call an urgent care clinic that’s open right this second.

This isn't really an application of 3D glasses, it's a "diagnose my rash" smartphone app. The 3D adds nothing. Your other examples similarly lean more heavily on the "always-on camera with problematic network connection" aspect, than 3D.

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

#775
post #481

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…

Software sells systems is the motto. Apple is enamored with vertical integration which gives them control on a whole other level compared to their competitors; feels like history repeating. What's different with AVP compared to previous products is that it starts off even better thanks to Apple's own custom chips. There's also the amazing network effects of their ever-growing ecosystem. Competitors don't have all thi…

It also 'starts off better' because they refined its components throughout the rest of their ecosystem over the last half decade (or more?). If you look at a variety of unprovoked UI changes in iOS and tvOS, or hardware changes in iDevices, they now look like field tests at scale for learning, before bringing together these new, now proven, things.

It's a way of development seen almost nowhere else.

Or I'm giving them too much credit ... but I don't think so. I think it's evident they seeded hard parts throughout the rest to learn at massive scale.

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

#776
post #619
post #481

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…

None of this matters compared to the number of apps available. Given the high price of the Vision Pro and the resulting low sales, it would make little business sense for app developers to invest in creating apps for it instead of for the Quest 3.

> None of this matters compared to the number of apps available.

There's a reason that iPadOS launched multi-window mode of arbitrary curved corner sizes with the same curved handle bar on the curved corner, several iPadOS iterations back.

Doing that ensured that VisionOS could launch opting all iPad apps in: most any iPad app respecting the ability to run in iPadOS's "stage manager" mode with multiple windows, works beautifully OOTB on VisionOS.

In fact, any iPad app run on Vision OS, if you "pull" the app close to you iPad sized, you can touch it as if an iPad screen, and your fingers and touch work as if touching an iPad.

The only apps that don't work as if native are those doing something special with multi-touch or touch gestures, but most apps "just work". It's pretty wild.

Press keeps comparing Vision Pro to MacOS. No, the 2D pass-through mode is a room sized iPad stage manager, infinite iPads.

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

#777
post #727

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> viable consumer product status (read: enough adoption for the device to be profitable) seems very far away He mentions a few short term use cases for the current hardware. For example: Productivity on the go (A laptop with the headset for multiple virtual displays) and Live Sports. > Apple Immersive on Vision Pro is a transformative experience in terms of video quality and its ability to deliver a real sense of pre…

I've heard the sport idea thrown around a few times, but I'm not sure I buy it. If you go to a sports event you are mostly buying the experience of being there, the energy of the crowd, the cheering all that stuff. The actual experience of seeing what's happening is not really better is it? That's why the stadiums have screens in them. Replicating that experience at home is more like getting people around to watch a…

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

#778
post #727

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've heard the sport idea thrown around a few times, but I'm not sure I buy it. If you go to a sports event you are mostly buying the experience of being there, the energy of the crowd, the cheering all that stuff. The actual experience of seeing what's happening is not really better is it? That's why the stadiums have screens in them. Replicating that experience at home is more like getting people around to watch a…

> I'm not sure I buy it. "legitimately better than a regular 4K TV broadcast by enabling hardcore fans to feel much closer to the action" sounds like it offers something new. People who are sports enthusiasts have a proven willingness to drop thousands of dollars on large screen televisions, streaming services like NFL Red Zone, or thousand dollar Superbowl tickets, so the potential for sales is there.

I think the question is, how many people watch sports to be close to the action, and how many watch sports to be close to their friends?

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

#779

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Are we gonna ignore the fact that VR pornography exists? On the Apple Vision Pro?

Through Safari, or forthcoming VR video player apps (Apple doesn't censor generic utilities).

I'm not saying they should (in fact I think the Valve approach is better), but Apple does seem to be strongly against porn. Why wouldn't or shouldn't they censor generic utilities? If it's keeping users safe in apps, wouldn't it be keeping users even safer in a browser or other content browsing app?

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

#780
post #762

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://digiday.com/media-buying/apples-expanding-ad-ambitio...

>In the meantime, Apple continues to work with ad tech vendors it trusts — or rather, those with stated policies it approves of — particularly when it comes to a cornerstone of the iPhone maker’s brand: user privacy. >However, a key question remains: how will Apple ensure user privacy as its ad ambitions expose the iOS ecosystem to a sector of the media landscape with a chequered record when it comes to a cornerstone…

Apple's "privacy" is really privacy from people that are not Apple. Apple has access to location logs via maps and location services, the contents of your photos, iMessage contents, the history of every app usage, etc as the default settings set for most things via iCloud backup, which the vast majority of users leave on. They were almost going to deploy on device scanning that you couldn't opt out of with the few photos that don't end up on iCloud.

All of their devices don't work if they don't constantly phone home to Apple. For the devices to be anywhere near useful, you need an apple id which requires KYC payment methods attached for them or a KYC phone number.

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