My biggest issue with Vision Pro is the extension of the App Store model to a new platform, where we could start from scratch and strike a new deal on the percentages.
Unfortunately Apple has the resources to seed the most prominent developers with any help they need and once the ball get’s rolling there’s no going back.
It will be interesting to see how this plays out.
Apple Vision
421–430 of 582 posts
Re: Apple Vision
#422Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you go to any concert or other public event, half of the audience will be recording on their smartphone instead of watching. I do not see any reason why an iphone of tomorrow won’t have a 3D camera to record and share any important moments the same way as we do it now. There will be the time when we will watch dashcam and drone videos of car crashes, natural disasters and soldiers dying on battlefield sitting on a…
But is this really what we want ? Do we want to encourage people to do even more of that ?
Moloch doesn't care what you want, it cares what the system wants.
Re: Apple Vision
#423I really worry that if AR/VR like Apple Vision takes off, we are going to find ourselves even more alone, isolated, and depressed than ever, separated from the physical humanity we all evolved to live in. Putting a screen between everything is the theme of so many dystopian movies I don't even know where to start. I mean, I get it. I really, really do. But, man, is this healthy, really?
I’ve kept in touch with some childhood friends digitally. And I’ve worked while in coffee shops and offices.
I have much more authentic interactions with my friends over Discord than I do with strangers or pseudo-strangers in public. In public then interaction is intentionally inauthentic (which feels emotionally isolating to me, at least); the person wants to be nice to me to get a better tip, I want to be nice to my boss to get a better review. The online interactions with my friends are somewhat hampered by our inability to read body language over a mostly audio medium. The former will require deep societal changes to make into honest interactions. The latter can be fixed by Apple & co using cameras and gyroscopes, which they are already pretty good at. I’m much more optimistic about the latter.
Re: Apple Vision
#424Earlier quoted context omitted.
Isn't apple like one of if not the largest videogame retailers because of the App Store? A quick search suggests they made more money on videogames than Activision Blizzard, Sony, and Microsoft combined in 2019. It's still a big piece of money pie. And with this headset they control both the hardware and software platform so they get to double dip on profits.
Apple makes a lot of money from games on iOS, but nobody would say the iPhone is a gaming device. I expect the headset to be the same: it will have the GPU power to support games third party devs will make games, Apple will make money from distributing games, and it will still not be considered a gaming platform.
I disagree, I consider the iPhone to be a gaming device. By many metrics it might even be the most popular gaming device ever. It's not only a gaming device, but it can be more than one thing. That said, I suspect that the price tag on this generation of the Vision is probably gonna shut out most casual users; maybe we will see marquee, platform-selling games on it in later generations but I have a hard time imagining many people buying it for that until they become more affordable. I suspect that this will be a hard sell to the crowd that has $3K to spend on a gaming device (which granted, lots of people who play PC games spend that much), so it may be a chicken-and-egg problem.
That said, having used Hololens 2 and Magic Leap I saw the potential for AR to be something really cool. I'm certainly rooting for Apple to finally deliver something polished and compelling, both for professional and consumer users.
Re: Apple Vision
#425funny, if one combines the (anti)social projections of this-and-related, and the (anti)social projections of the new generative models stuff..
so you buy a "skin-fixing" filter and your skin does not look that old and crappy anymore (to you - and also to all your registered friends if you buy the Pro version); hey lets attach a "mustache-adding" filter to that particular aunt (haha) ; f*, lets generate a new face for my partner - ah i always wanted a blondie..
yeah. but still Alone.
Re: Apple Vision
#426So... what's the killer app for this thing? Best I can tell it's a status symbol for a particular type of computer nerd. But blather about the Apple "Vision" has replaced blather about GPT based chatbots on HN, so I am thankful for that. But I am not being facetious when I say that I don't see any application for the technology that justifies the $3500 price tag. But I'm more than willing to be educated. Is BMW going…
Apple positioning this for “Work” addresses that. It also conveniently diminishes concerns about things like the battery (if you’re at a desk, plugging in is no problem) and controls (if the gestures bother you, use a keyboard and trackpad).
The work scenario could just mean using it for meetings and collaboration, or it could just mean working with large virtual screens. In any case, if you’re working from your bedroom or from your drab office, a virtual environment could be, I dunno, refreshing?
What if we could /all/ work in a beautiful space with lots of natural material surfaces and huge windows with views of beautiful forests? Sure, it’s all fake, but maybe fake nature is better than real offices?
“Work” also gives you reason to pick it up every day, unlike my neglected Oculus and Vive. If it’s useful for work and easy to slap on, I might bother to keep it charged and handy on my desk.
And then it won’t really matter what I’m wearing when I get on a Teams call…
Re: Apple Vision
#427Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not sure it's fair to say that Facebook had a 7-8 yr head start because Apple has been developing every single component that goes into the VR headset for well over 10 yrs. They design their own cameras, displays, micro processors, lenses, speakers, sensors, etc. Apple has hundreds of engineers working on each of these components for various devices they sell. They've shipped a billion+ of their own custom proces…
I'd be curious to know more about what has been done with ARKit since launch. I know it's a thing....I just don't know if it has been used for any major purpose or at any major scale and, by extension, if it is forming the ground work for anything.
There are some really cool apps, but likely not ones that you and I would use on a daily basis. Most of it is like seeing furniture in your living room in AR, or products on amazon, etc. There's also some cool ones for scanning objects, generating blueprints of a house, and more. Even if the apps themselves aren't that useful right now, they've been working on the software & hardware to do this work for years and iterating on it. So when they finally launch Vision Pro they're not starting from scratch and a lot of the code is tested in the real world.
Re: Apple Vision
#428> It really is one of the best product names in Apple history: Vision is a description of a product, it is an aspiration for a use case, and it is a critique on the sort of society we are building, behind Apple’s leadership more than anyone else. I agree that “Vision” is a good product name, but “Vision Pro” just feels intensely pedestrian. Why is it called “Pro?” Is there a non-Pro version?
The “Pro” moniker is mainly to make the price more palatable.
I guess the Apple Vision Pro Max Ultra will be $10,000
Re: Apple Vision
#429So... what's the killer app for this thing? Best I can tell it's a status symbol for a particular type of computer nerd. But blather about the Apple "Vision" has replaced blather about GPT based chatbots on HN, so I am thankful for that. But I am not being facetious when I say that I don't see any application for the technology that justifies the $3500 price tag. But I'm more than willing to be educated. Is BMW going…
Some general use cases:
- training/education: say giving you tips and correcting you while cooking with checklist recipes and concurrent demos of the current step. Works for painting, fixing instrument finger positions, workout tips, STEM, or anything where you would want to use your hands instead of holding something. There was a keynote section about the watch helping with golf swings and the like.
- Streaming: there were apparently some terrific sports/concerts front row seat demos. Some were willing to plunk down $1000 courtside subscriptions instead of $1000/ticket seats. TikTok but far more intimate in the room with them experiences.
- decorating: there was a demo where a wall became a portal to a Jurassic period. Imagine the decorating possibility of an aquarium in your living room and a planetarium on your ceiling. Virtual pets cavorting and visitors just popping into your living room via a portal. Create a literal dream home on the cheap.
-escape/relaxation: live in a noisy bright urban center? Just cut it all light and noise out with your private getaway helmet. If you are paying $2000 a month for a so-so living space it would be a good add on.
Personally I value having a great bed and a great car because treating yourself makes it worthwhile. Having a dream environment the times I am alone? Having a theatre experience stuck on the toilet? I am looking forward to when the hardware can simultaneously do all of this at once.
Re: Apple Vision
#430It's interesting that Magic Leap took $3.5 billion in investment, and had a very similar vision and almost identical demos. But they failed to deliver. I wander what the R and D cost for the Vision Pro is, 10x Magic Leaps investment, $35 billion over last 5 years? Seems plausible... Their total R&D expense is about €100B in same time period.
Could be hard to break it down. It’s clear that much of what we have already — Sidecar, Continuity, all the ML subject recognition, spatial audio, image processing… is likely spun out of the development of this thing, or at least co-developed.
This is the space program that brought us Tang, so to speak.
Even if this thing flops magnificently, the whole Apple ecosystem will have been enriched by its development. From that perspective, it seems like a pretty low-risk high-reward effort for Apple, whatever it might have cost all told.