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Vision Pro Review: Apple's First Headset Lacks Polish and Purpose

nytimes.com

31–40 of 76 posts

Re: Vision Pro Review: Apple's First Headset Lacks Polish and Purpose

#31
post #8
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does the version in 2040 look like? We’re 17 years on from the first iPhone, and it’s still the same basic device. Incrementally better every year hasn’t meant any radical changes.

That is like saying doom and cyberpunk 2077 are fundamentally the same thing.

as a game developer: they really are. the finer details are different, but the primary mode of interaction is pretty much the same. you bob and weave around rapidly while shooting at enemies who shoot back at you and a lot of the locations you fight your way through are pretty similar structurally to classic doom levels. they even have somewhat similar music styles.

it's not bad for them to have the same fundamentals! it's important to recognize our roots and know the difference between something truly and fundamentally different vs something that is just extremely refined and iterated.

Re: Vision Pro Review: Apple's First Headset Lacks Polish and Purpose

#32
post #30

Derek Guy, menswear writer: "Aesthetically, this is basically how you have to dress to make things like the Vision Pro and Cybertruck look cool. These things mainly look bad in public bc there's no congruity between the business casual gear most ppl wear and these futuristic designs" https://twitter.com/dieworkwear/status/1755425085580869834

Vision isn't really designed for urban outdoor use, which is obvious from the more detailed videos of people trying it (ie, moving backgrounds turning off windows, the motion stuff walking etc). Influencers were just doing it for attention or randoms with friends as a joke. But everyone seems to be treating it like it's supposed to be Google Glass 2.0 because they saw some viral photos,

I'm just surprised we haven't seen more people rocking it while in a Cybertruck. Also, if these items really spontaneously mainstream cyberpunk fashion, pizza effect style, all of this extravagance and impracticality will have been worth it.

Re: Vision Pro Review: Apple's First Headset Lacks Polish and Purpose

#33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can I get one of those for my iPhone as well? It has more than enough power for general purpose computing.

If you're not bound to iOS: yes. Samsung DeX is just that. I can plug it into the Lenovo dock at work and have a personal pc on the go. Id imagine this kind of thing is way too geeky for Apple to make though.

Microsoft could have given the Windows phone some significant value with this kind of functionality. We’d be living in a different world.

Re: Vision Pro Review: Apple's First Headset Lacks Polish and Purpose

#34
post #4
post #2

People will look at this article in 20 years and laugh at the NY Times for being ridiculously wrong.

What does the version in 2040 look like? We’re 17 years on from the first iPhone, and it’s still the same basic device. Incrementally better every year hasn’t meant any radical changes.

Same as the iPhone: thinner, 4x resolution, much bigger screen (means much larger FOV for the AVP). A budget SE version.

I think it's going to become very normalized for consuming movies, TV, and console gaming (2D). Super popular on planes, trains, even car trips for kids.

Re: Vision Pro Review: Apple's First Headset Lacks Polish and Purpose

#35
post #3

As a media consumption device it seems really cool, but I don’t see how the 10th or 20th generation version is relevant for daily life or work. Magic Leap spent over $4 Billion on the physics of high definition light onto the retina. There just doesn’t seem to be any way around the reality of the limitations in the AR approach. In 20 years it will still be a bulky headset with battery life limitations preventing the…

I agree. AR is dead in the water until we invent magic displays that may be decades away. VR has some nice gaming and fitness applications and I think like handheld gaming as a niche, VR gaming will never take over completely but will always be its own little corner of gaming.

There is an entire generation of kids growing up with VR now, much like the NES a long time ago. Many of them spend more of their free time in VR than real life.

Re: Vision Pro Review: Apple's First Headset Lacks Polish and Purpose

#36
post #6

Just take a look at this teardown video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVJPAYwY8Us There are like 50 captive screws and a gajillion ribbon cables in that thing There's vast room for improvement and slimming down, and I'm not just referring to the silicon and battery! Maybe an alternative using passthrough lightfield displays will come along eventually, but that's not going to happen for a while. Shrinking this tech…

Improvement for whom? It's obviously not designed to be taken apart. They are packing a ton of stuff in a very small space, which is why the layers of screws and seals are also packed in tight. And it's not designed to take a beating because it's really just something you use in your house, not an rugged outdoor phone case type thing.

I'm sure if the lenses get simpler and the chips get smaller they'll be able to simplify construction, but they were probably under immense pressure to keep it as thin as possible.

Re: Vision Pro Review: Apple's First Headset Lacks Polish and Purpose

#37
What a hit piece. He’s absurdly negative right from the beginning. I guess we can see why Apple declined to provide them an early review unit.

The device is not perfect, but this ‘review’ borders on absolute bullshit.

Harping on about ‘vision bros’ and ‘scaring children’ and the ‘games aren’t fun’.

They clearly have an agenda.

Re: Vision Pro Review: Apple's First Headset Lacks Polish and Purpose

#38
post #2

People will look at this article in 20 years and laugh at the NY Times for being ridiculously wrong.

People also said the iPad would replace laptops and it hasn't except for the 0.1% that have complement adapted to its limitations. Doesn't mean the iPad is bad, but it's inherently much better at being a content consumption device. I think this is how we should view the vision pro. It's not "the new laptop", it's something entirely new that has its own pro and cons that are not necessarilya complete match with existi…

They never opened up iPad for general purpose computing. iPad and iPhones for that matter could easily power laptop and desktop devices if Apple wanted them to.

Re: Vision Pro Review: Apple's First Headset Lacks Polish and Purpose

#39
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vision isn't really designed for urban outdoor use, which is obvious from the more detailed videos of people trying it (ie, moving backgrounds turning off windows, the motion stuff walking etc). Influencers were just doing it for attention or randoms with friends as a joke. But everyone seems to be treating it like it's supposed to be Google Glass 2.0 because they saw some viral photos,

I'm just surprised we haven't seen more people rocking it while in a Cybertruck. Also, if these items really spontaneously mainstream cyberpunk fashion, pizza effect style, all of this extravagance and impracticality will have been worth it.

There will always be people who take a small subset of functionality of your product and push them to the limit to create new use cases. So there will definitely be the nerdy types trying to see how far they can push it outdoors and IRL. Even if it's off label use.

I believe that video of the cybertruck + vision thing turned out to be a skit by a youtuber though.

Re: Vision Pro Review: Apple's First Headset Lacks Polish and Purpose

#40
> Apple declined to provide an early review unit to The New York Times

I really wonder if Apple's PR department really knows the major tech reporters at various publications inside out, knows their general attitude towards Apple, and then decides whether or not to provide them with a review unit. Brian X. Chen is a long time reporter and Apple could have predicted in advance that his review would be mostly negative. Perhaps that's why they didn't provide a review unit for him. Certainly Apple is shrewd enough to pull this off.

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