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Notes on Vision Pro

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Re: Notes on Vision Pro

#371

Post by gampleman »

It's a strange time to be releasing this product. Not from a technological perspective (clearly the hardware Apple managed to put together is extremely impressive and they seem to believe that it finally got good enough to have real appeal albeit at a rather hefty price), but from a political perspective.

It seems like the last few years have generally had a technological backlash with worries about both invasive spying and surveillance capitalism on the one hand and mental health issues (especially in teens) sprouting on the other.

So it seems strange to react to all that by offering a product that glues a computer straight on your eyeballs. Now of course Meta has already been going down that road, but let's just say that company doesn't have much to loose in the reputation department.

To be fair, Apple seems to have made a few interesting design choices. They seem to have gone out of their way to create an illusion of two way transparency to their headset making casual human communication at least theoretically possible (although how much conversation you can have with someone actually wearing these due to distraction is an open question - if it's like trying to talk to someone on their phone that it will be at best half their attention).

Re: Notes on Vision Pro

#372

Post by bluescrn »

danielbln wrote: post #348
jb1991 wrote: post #315

I use quite a few Apple products every day of the last 10 years, and I’m very impressed with certainly all the technology and reviews and explanations of how this device works and what the user experience will be. However, this is the first Apple device that really makes me pause. All of the marketing material, the WWDC videos, all of it feels very uncomfortable to see all these people isolating themselves in a room…

Apple's goal is surely to get away from the google form factor asap, and once we're at a pair of slick glasses I don't think you'd even think twice about it.

It feels like another pretty Apple device which is purely for consuming content, and of little use for serious work (or serious play). And $3500 is way too much to pay for that sort of device.

A UI that relies entirely on eye tracking and arm motion tracking, without a single button for 'accept' or 'back' or 'fire' in the case of games seems incredibly limiting. They didn't demonstrate text entry, did they?

I expected to see Apple's headset being demonstrated as a product for professionals, perhaps for architects, product designers, and engineers to visualise their designs for clients. Maybe it could have also found a niche in education.

But no, they seem to have iPad-like use cases in mind, and for that, the price is way too high.

Re: Notes on Vision Pro

#373

Post by esskay »

jillesvangurp wrote: post #310

I think Apple is doing smart things here with their software: - leverage existing content means they won't have an empty room problem or a big "now what?!" moment for users after the novelty wears off. Without Steam, most existing VR platforms would be completely pointless. So far VR is for games and most of those are published on Steam. That's because most VR hardware vendors suck at software and end up outsourcing…

Leveraging existing content from the iOS/macOS app store is going to be key I think. The "now what" is a common issue with the Quest. It's a fun little toy but once you realise they're charging AAA prices for what are essentially tech demos in many cases it becomes a bit of a hard sell.

That combined with Meta boasting "over 500 titles" like it's a good thing really do put into perspective just how devoid of content the quest really is.

Re: Notes on Vision Pro

#374

Post by esskay »

loeg wrote: post #195
vlovich123 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you tried a Quest? I found the SW on that fixed all neaseau I experienced on earlier headsets and I think the Quest 2 was even better but I don’t recall at this point.

I had plenty of nausea with the Quest 2.

Same experience here. For stationary position games I found it fine, but anything with any kind of walking handled by the controllers it felt awful.

Interestingly I tried out F1 2022 in PCVR mode with it and was surprised to find that didn't make me feel ill. A lot of it comes down to the refresh rate and quality of tracking as its the lag that causes a lot of the nausea.

Re: Notes on Vision Pro

#375

Post by esskay »

jayd16 wrote: post #173
kalleboo wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

VR gaming is a flop. Lots of people bought headsets, played with them for a day and now they're all gathering dust. Apple is right to ignore it.

Games are successful and making millions on the platform. If some people churn out of the experience is that equivalent to it being a flop?

I'd attribute part of that to there being so few games available that you've got a captive audience and limited content.

Meta was proudly boasting about how the Quest 3 will have "Over 500 titles" - thats not something to boast about, it's just highlighting how incredibly poor the platform has been from a developer adoption standpoint.

Re: Notes on Vision Pro

#376

Post by esskay »

pmontra wrote: post #293
MR4D wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that so far that is where we've been, but imagine a Sim City or Civilization game on the Vision Pro. THAT would be a ton of fun. I'm sure Sid Meier could make something interesting on it. Frankly, I would love it if Apple would throw money at him to make one of his games on it.

One problem to solve is that probably we don't want people to stand for hours and having to walk through the city or the world. They might not have the space at home to do it. They could sit on an office chair and rotate themselves 360°. If they spend 3k on the visor they can spend $100 on a chair. However you don't even have to do that kind of exercise on a screen.

Yes this is where lack of controllers is going to be an issue. I guess you could use a PS/Xbox controller but then you may as well be playing on a pc.

I get why they didn't want to go the controller route, but they'll surely be very aware that it greatly limits what can be done with games.

Re: Notes on Vision Pro

#377

Post by ftxbro »

> "Something in the Apple omertà makes me uncomfortable naming my collaborators as I normally would, even as I discuss the project itself."

I don't understand this. It's things they made them sign? I saw another article saying they make them sign a promise to not show they are wearing the headset, allegedly because they might look like huge dorks and cause brand risk.

Re: Notes on Vision Pro

#378

Post by iainmerrick »

bluescrn wrote: post #372
danielbln wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple's goal is surely to get away from the google form factor asap, and once we're at a pair of slick glasses I don't think you'd even think twice about it.

It feels like another pretty Apple device which is purely for consuming content, and of little use for serious work (or serious play). And $3500 is way too much to pay for that sort of device. A UI that relies entirely on eye tracking and arm motion tracking, without a single button for 'accept' or 'back' or 'fire' in the case of games seems incredibly limiting. They didn't demonstrate text entry, did they? I expecte…

For “serious play” I imagine you could hook up a Bluetooth game controller, just like you can with an iPad (and it sounds like this will run iPad apps).

Likewise for work you could use a normal keyboard. I think they did mention that in the presentation.

Re: Notes on Vision Pro

#379

Post by esskay »

ukuina wrote: post #338
MBCook wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Based on the hands-on impressions I’ve read it sounds significantly more than twice as good. Five times the price, yeah. Today. This really feels like a product aimed at developers right now not the mass market yet. Which fits. The iPhone took a few years to really take off. The Apple Watch took a few years to really takeoff.

Has Apple ever released a Developer Edition product before?

They've had developer units but not a publicly released one as far as I know.

When Apple TV was being developed they were handing them out to devs for free like they had millions they were trying to get rid of. I was a lowly single app creator and they happily sent me one.

For the Intel to M1 migration they did something similar but required them to be returned this time, and limited which devs they sent them out to.

Re: Notes on Vision Pro

#380

Post by iainmerrick »

ehnto wrote: post #228
JohnBooty wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The interaction paradigm you describe (where it's literally impossible to look at one window while actively using another) makes so little sense that we can almost certainly rule it out. Certainly no press members who demo'd the unit are describing the interface that way. That's not "defending Apple", that's just... gosh, I can't think of any word besides common sense. From all of the presentations and press accounts…

> The interaction paradigm you describe (where it's literally impossible to look at one window while actively using another) makes so little sense that we can almost certainly rule it out. I think the implication is that the window you are looking at is focussed automatically. Which wouldn't work for say, typing up a document to a text editor while reading from a reference doc. That's just the beginning, I use a mous…

I don’t know how it will actually work, but the Mac has always been click-to-focus, which would avoid that issue.
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