Vision Pro: What we got wrong at Oculus that Apple got right • Hacker News Board

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

#231

Post by veidr » Fri, Mar 15, 2024, 4:20 PM UTC

evan_ wrote: post #89

dghlsakjg wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think, crucially, Apple also invented a price anchor for VR computing. Previously, only the extreme high end of VR broke $1.5k. Now if apple puts out an Apple Vision SE or non-pro or whatever at $1,999 it will be seen as an absolute steal.

No it won’t. It will still be seen as 4x the price of the Quest 3.

So what? the iPhones have 4x the price of mid-tier Android phones the whole time.

The point is, for now the AVP is the only iPhone-tier (Pro Ultra Whatever) VR headset. Meta's crap (I have all of them) is analogous to the mid tier budget phones, in this metaphor. (Even the fantastically expensive Quest Pro is just like... an insult, even though it does have eye tracking which is now absolute minimum table stakes (and Quest 3 doesn't have it))

The current price it too high to go mainstream, yes, for sure. But let's see the next. AVP 3Gs could fuckin' destabilize the fuck out of this whole nascent ecosystem.

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

#232

Post by falcor84 » Fri, Mar 15, 2024, 4:21 PM UTC

fouc wrote: post #203

The author of this article and quite a few people in this HN thread all seem to be mainly looking at Vision Pro through the lens of VR gaming. Why else would the author return his Vision Pro? What makes Vision Pro truly interesting to me is that we can replace our laptop screen with a view containing a larger display and multiple ancillary displays.

The author of this article is looking at it through the lens of wanting to get consumers to buy it. He spends a very large part of the post talking about consumer sentiment and willingness to pay for different use-cases, including why the current generation headsets (including Apple's) are not quite there yet for daily productivity.

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

#233

Post by Findecanor » Fri, Mar 15, 2024, 4:21 PM UTC

diffeomorphism wrote: post #138

throwaway74432 wrote: post #101

If people wanted to wear a phone screen taped over their eyes out in public, the technical limitations wouldn't barely make a dent in that desire. But the vast majority of people want to have real in-person human interactions when they're out in the world. That's what the makers of these devices fail to see. But they can't see that because they're self-described VR enthusiasts. If they talk to non VR enthusiasts (whi…

It used to be extremely rude to not take off headphones when people talk to you. Nowadays it is quite accepted for earbuds and "transparency mode" is even a selling point. My guess would be that once AR allows easy sharing, e.g. showing others a funny AR cat video, it will quickly become socially accepted to wear frequently.

I find that it is sadly getting socially acceptable to be worse than that: to talk straight out loud with someone over the phone over the airbuds while around other people, even making eye contact with other people. When someone makes eye contact with you and speak, you can no longer expect that they intend to speak with you.

The people with the worst behaviour are pushing the norm.

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

#234

Post by iambateman » Fri, Mar 15, 2024, 4:23 PM UTC

lm28469 wrote: post #230

germinalphrase wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m in my late 30’s, and I was a high school educator for about a decade. Teenagers have become quite comfortable holding an entire conversation while wearing earbuds. As an ancient and outdated old person, my initial gut reaction was that it was… a bit rude(?); however, these teenagers just internalized that audio pass-through was a thing, and wearing earbuds didn’t indicate a lack of attention to the conversant. My…

But that doesn't mean it isn't a bad thing. Being a crackhead in a crack house feels like being a fish in water...

Depends on your perspective.

People living in the 1920’s would say we are all crackheads.

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

#235

Post by treyd » Fri, Mar 15, 2024, 4:23 PM UTC

falcor84 wrote: post #150

> Launch high-definition room scanning and unlock teleportation using technology that has existed within Oculus Research for several years now; it is time for Meta to make this future a reality where people can be remote but feel truly present by visiting each other’s home, office or favorite place. This teleportation/telepresence is the thing that struck me the most. I'd love to pop into a friend's living room for a…

> I'd love to pop into a friend's living room for a beer without worrying about them living in another country.

The way a large number of young people do this is just by seeing their friends in voice chat on discord and then joining on their phone.

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

#236

Post by short_sells_poo » Fri, Mar 15, 2024, 4:25 PM UTC

diffeomorphism wrote: post #220

short_sells_poo wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's an important difference: the subtle face mimicry is extremely important for sub-conscious (and conscious) communication. Having headphones on is rude because it indicates that the other person is not interested in hearing what you have to say. The problem with having an opaque visor covering your face is not that it's rude, it's that you completely lose the non-verbal part of communication. This is why email…

It used to be rude because people understood it to signal that. With younger people earbuds seem more like a fashion statement (you also don't take off ear rings to talk to people) and the noise cancelling/transparency will actually do the opposite: filter out background noise so that you can be heard more clearly. Similarly taking out a Nokia used to signal that you will not be paying attention for a while. Nowadays…

My point is that with the current VR implementation the problem is not about rudeness, but fundamentally hampering personal communication.

If I go and meet with someone in person, I generally do it because I want to see them up close, face to face. If we are both wearing VR headsets that hide our faces, the whole premise goes out the window.

Eventually, VR headsets might overcome this problem by accurately portraying the other person's face in some way, but we are nowhere there yet.

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

#237

Post by ethanbond » Fri, Mar 15, 2024, 4:25 PM UTC

germinalphrase wrote: post #211

throwaway74432 wrote: post #101

If people wanted to wear a phone screen taped over their eyes out in public, the technical limitations wouldn't barely make a dent in that desire. But the vast majority of people want to have real in-person human interactions when they're out in the world. That's what the makers of these devices fail to see. But they can't see that because they're self-described VR enthusiasts. If they talk to non VR enthusiasts (whi…

I’m in my late 30’s, and I was a high school educator for about a decade. Teenagers have become quite comfortable holding an entire conversation while wearing earbuds. As an ancient and outdated old person, my initial gut reaction was that it was… a bit rude(?); however, these teenagers just internalized that audio pass-through was a thing, and wearing earbuds didn’t indicate a lack of attention to the conversant. My…

The AirPods are really the first mass-market augmented reality device. It's so well done that no one even thinks about them that way. That's how it'll need to be with visual augmentation, but there's no reason I've seen that we won't get there eventually. I'm bullish on Apple being the first major player here in part because they already are, by a huge, huge margin, the biggest player in augmented reality.

Apple is IMO the only company that seems capable of simultaneously tackling the form factor, outside-viewer perception factor (AirPods are fully socialized, as you mention), inside-viewer perception factor (AirPods on transparency really do feel 99.9% fully "transparent")

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

#238

Post by jncfhnb » Fri, Mar 15, 2024, 4:25 PM UTC

bunnie wrote: post #128

Maybe I'm old fashioned but one of the biggest barriers for me adopting VR/AR is there isn't a socially acceptable way to "duck out" of a VR experience you're just not into. I've been given a couple of demos of headsets by friends and more often than not by the end I feel trapped -- you're strapped into a thing that fully occupies your visual field, yet it's obvious and socially awkward when you take it off. And your…

You’re describing a situation where you’re physically co located and someone is giving you the only headset?

I don’t get it. Why not just tell them? What do you do if someone hands you a controller for a tv game equivalent?

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

#239

Post by _heimdall » Fri, Mar 15, 2024, 4:26 PM UTC

swores wrote: post #225

coldtea wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And they would be right. Television did fuck social connection. And the smartphone did it much worse.

No they clearly wouldn't be right. Even if we accept as fact the idea that both those things have had negative effects on society and on us, quite clearly huge numbers of people DO want TVs and smartphones, even if those things aren't leading to better, happier lives.

I'm not sure how we could possibly quantify and compare better, happier lives before and after TVs or smartphones, but it would be impossible to narrow down the metrics to peg the change over such a long period of time on just those technologies. The scale is just too big and the timeline to long to possibly know why happiness may have increased, if it did at all.

> quite clearly huge numbers of people DO want TVs and smartphones

This really ventures into the space of addictive behaviors. Do meth addicts really want meth, or are they using for some other reason? Can we assume that they DO want the meth and that's the primary driver simply because they keep using it?

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

#240

Post by veidr » Fri, Mar 15, 2024, 4:26 PM UTC

homefree wrote: post #53

whywhywhywhy wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's gone through so much reshuffling and clearly been kicked around internally between managers/PMs. The earlier versions were much easier to use and the later ones can become quite a nightmare to setup navigating the oculus/meta/facebook account silliness then ultimately it all feels a lot jankier than very early versions of the software both in Rift and Quest respectively. Think if Zuck believes in this going forw…

Yeah it's wildly, embarrassingly bad - to such a point it feels like Zuck must not be using it. Maybe most of his attention is on the AI stuff and the Ray Bans? There's a ton of half-baked old ideas in the UI, it's extremely confusing. Even basic stuff like trying to add my dad as a friend is super hard to do. Literally every person I've helped set it up has also had to do a full manual restore (holding down hardware…

Did Mark Zuckerberg ever actually use it? I felt like it got shitty after John Carmack left FB. I don't think he was direct in the UI side much (more like increasing framerate in software updates) but I got the sense that as VR CTO or whatever he was able to say "Hey — what, come on, fuck that shit get rid of it" but now there is nobody to do that job.