Raise your hand who was there during the first boom and doom of VR/AR headset/glasses in the 90's? A cycle or couple of more and we'll be there, maybe.
I was there in the 80s when it made the mall arcade circuit and again in the 90s when it made the college student union circuit. I was there in the 00s when 25,000 devices made the Silicon Valley circuit. I was there in the 10s when Oculus stirred things up again. I'm here in the 20s when Apple is trying. I'll be here in the 30s when the next round hits AND FAILS AGAIN. People care about their faces. They're not goin…
I don't think Apple expected to move a ton of these. It's more a proof of concept that they can iterate on. In five years, it may look a lot different.
A counter point on premium VR headsets. They are teleportation devices. I've used every popular VR device, but one Vision Pro experience stood out - 'The Haleakala environment'[1] It was literally like being transported there. I know because I had been in that exact spot a few years before. I have a rich visual memory which served as reference, and no exaggeration, it felt like was there. I was immediately in tears.…
> I have family with disabilities. This has an interesting history. I’m struggling to find it and hope I have it right. John Gruber or maybe Accidental Tech Podcast did a segment on an podcast ages ago in relation to accessibility settings on the iPhone. Whoever it was credited a particular Apple engineer who pushed hard with accessibility features arguing that at some point, everyone has some sort of issue (sight, h…
This is awesome, and this type of accessibility (noting that it can be temporary, permanent or situational) and consideration is known as inclusive design in modern parlance.
There was a time when you didn't "need" a PC, either, and they were seen as just nerd toys and things yuppies used to balance their checkbooks, back when "balancing your checkbook" was a thing you had to do. This changed with the advent of the Web, and held until desktops gave way to smartphones. If you could time-travel back to the 80s and 90s, plenty of folks would have scoffed that anyone would ever "need" a compu…
> If you could time-travel back to the 80s and 90s, plenty of folks would have scoffed that anyone would ever "need" a computer, let alone a computer in their pocket. Is that true? I feel like people have imagined portable communication / computing devices forever[1]. People maybe couldn't imagine that they could ever be small enough to be practical, but the utility of such a device was pretty obvious. Similarly, I t…
There are people alive today who can’t fathom why anyone ‘needs’ a computer/smartphone.
The thing is that I don’t really see the Vision Pro as Palm OS. Palm OS was out for years and years and was really successful, all things considered. Sure, it wasn’t as ubiquitous as iOS or Android now, but it obviously filled a niche for a large enough number of people that it stuck around and pioneered that market. I had a Kyocera 6035 Palm “smartphone” over half a decade before the iPhone came out, and the Handspr…
My hope is that the Vision Pro is like the Apple Watch. It launched without a clear idea of why people would buy it--originally Apple tried to sell their bland aluminum box as a fashion accessory--and it was only after multiple iterations that they found out health and fitness was the main appeal and focused on it. If they pay attention to how people do use VR headsets, maybe they can do that again.
Exploration seems like an interesting use case. Probably more than gaming or wearable monitors in spite of the bubble here.
I'm still a bit meh on the Apple Watch in spite of buying an early one and then an Ultra that I got a good deal on. I don't care much about the quantified health thing and the battery life is still an issue even with the Ultra. Like for hiking though.
Isn't it simple why AVP isn't moving? They don't treat anime-loli-porn content, chiefly VRChat, as first class citizens, if they support those at all. Tons of people have bought and are buying Quest 2 and 3 as well as its competitors with sole intent of using it with VRChat. Don't you guys all remember that iPhoneOS had YouTube since version 1.0, before it even had App Store? Where would you think iOS would have been…
The problem is less that they don’t serve games natively and more that it just sucks for the intended usecase. $3,500 VR headset, $3,000 more than the aforementioned Quest 3, and while some of that is due to the differing specs you have to wonder how much is due to an Apple charge. As for weight, compared to the Quest 3 it’s around 6oz heavier, which isn’t great, and from reviews I’ve read that 6oz and the general design makes a large difference. It should be noted though, AVP is 2oz less than the Quest Pro and may be more comfortable than that, but considering Apple has always been on the forefront of miniaturizing tech (for good and bad) I’m surprised they went for a premium weight in this instance. And finally, app support is minimal and they didn’t allow for enough direct access to ease development, leading to an expensive device that can’t even attempt to find a solution for the problem it’s trying to find.
A counter point on premium VR headsets. They are teleportation devices. I've used every popular VR device, but one Vision Pro experience stood out - 'The Haleakala environment'[1] It was literally like being transported there. I know because I had been in that exact spot a few years before. I have a rich visual memory which served as reference, and no exaggeration, it felt like was there. I was immediately in tears.…
I had such an emotional experience using the visionOS 2 beta to spatialize old photos. It was already amazing seeing it take a photo from 15 years ago and turn it 3D; but then when I "pinched" into it to make it become immersive and was suddenly in a place I hadn't been in years, with my (then young) kids looking just as they did back then, seeming to be standing there in the room with me… it was profound. I can't th…
Is there a future proof way to capture photos today to view in 3D/VR devices of the future?
A counter point on premium VR headsets. They are teleportation devices. I've used every popular VR device, but one Vision Pro experience stood out - 'The Haleakala environment'[1] It was literally like being transported there. I know because I had been in that exact spot a few years before. I have a rich visual memory which served as reference, and no exaggeration, it felt like was there. I was immediately in tears.…
> I have family with disabilities. This has an interesting history. I’m struggling to find it and hope I have it right. John Gruber or maybe Accidental Tech Podcast did a segment on an podcast ages ago in relation to accessibility settings on the iPhone. Whoever it was credited a particular Apple engineer who pushed hard with accessibility features arguing that at some point, everyone has some sort of issue (sight, h…
I think it's been said better elsewhere but it might be:
https://atp.fm/483
John for a bit @ 1:11:44
Casey and John @ 1:15:30
"The more time you spend on this planet the more likely one of these features will be useful for you"
A counter point on premium VR headsets. They are teleportation devices. I've used every popular VR device, but one Vision Pro experience stood out - 'The Haleakala environment'[1] It was literally like being transported there. I know because I had been in that exact spot a few years before. I have a rich visual memory which served as reference, and no exaggeration, it felt like was there. I was immediately in tears.…
That is not unique to the mixed reality though. Which is what this is about.
But the Ray-bans aren't AR or VR. They're just glasses with a camera, microphone, and speakers plus connectivity for streaming the camera's feed. How is that AR or VR in any way?
If I'm going about my day and a voice in my ear gives me context about my surroundings, identifies people and objects, answers questions, tells me which direction I need to walk in, records and live streams my POV and more, that's AR. The experience doesn't always have to be visual.
That’s a phone. You are describing a smartphone. Does this make all phones “AR” devices?
Honestly, this is a shame, because I think a lot of the vision pro's flaws are Apple problems. That said, meta seems to have found a sweet spot in price/performance, so maybe in a few generations we will have something with the quality of vision pro that is not locked down
I still can’t believe they expected people to be excited about a floating iPad OS UX as the main experience.
It is just a launcher for your applications.
The main experience are the apps just like on every other device.