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

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

#421

Post by cheschire »

goatlover wrote: post #392
gpm wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The cynic in you is overly cynical. Ten years ago was pre oculus rift. We weren't saying anything about VR headsets. Five years ago was pre valve index. We didn't have CPUs in a headset. Nor a battery. Cameras were only used for tracking. The things we were saying would improve is "screen door effect" and "tracking", both of which have.

There's been talk about VR and some kind of headset since the late 90s, even if it was cardboard, or some computer science professor wearing large goggles and backpack around campus. Google Glass came out in 2013.

Heck, nintendo even tried marketing a stereoscopic gameboy headset as virtual reality in '95.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_Boy

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

#422

Post by cyberpunk »

Nevermark wrote: post #414
noneeeed wrote: post #30

I think the description of the VisionPro as a dev kit is spot on. It's also a beta product in many way. Apple know full well that this is not a mass market product, they have made no attempt to make it even remotely affordable to most people. But they also know that every aspect of the hardware will improve over the next decade, and as it does they will have ironed out many of the problems with how we use AR/VR and w…

> (I hear FoV is pretty poor at the moment) I thought it was pretty good - but nowhere near ideal of course. But discovered I could dispense with both of Apple's "Light Seal Cushions" and simply line the light seal with some 1/8 adhesive foam. It took a little experimenting to avoid hard pressure points, and then make it comfortable. It is now very comfortable with the following benefits: 1. The field of view is noti…

Genuine question, what are you doing for 10 hours a day in there?

Can you comfortable code all day in that? If you don't mind my asking, is it purely novelty or is it genuinely better than coding on a 5k monitor?

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

#423

Post by WWLink »

noneeeed wrote: post #160
ryandrake wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My question is why does it seem like only Apple can do this, over and over? Why are they the only ones who seem to be able to knock a product category out of the park and legitimize it? Is it just the vast amount of money? Are they the only ones who can create products? Is everyone else that bad? Competitors work for ages and ages fighting each other, refining v1, v2, v2.1, v2.2, v2.25, and then suddenly Apple comes…

They seem prepared to go in at higher price points. Most other manufacturers seem to take the approach of getting as many features on the side of the box and then compete on price. They cost engineer the crap out of everything and it ends up being somewhat disappointing. I often maintain that so much technology is 80% of the way to being amazing, but is stymied by commercial concerns that cause companies to cut corne…

TL;DR: Apple builds to a standard while everyone else builds to a price.

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

#424

Post by WWLink »

skydhash wrote: post #381
ryandrake wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of the replies are pretty vague, like they’re just “good at product” or they just “understand this or that” as if it’s some kind of mysticism. But why, and how? What is the formula? I think this reply chain starts to get at why. I’m imagining a typical business school 2-axis chart where one axis is “willingness to take and commit to risks vs unwillingness/noncommittal” and the other axis is “acts independently…

As someone who is deep inside the Apple ecosystem after making enough to afford the devices, it’s because they make it pleasant to use. Before my first MBP, I had a Dell Inspiron which has good specs, but it was heavy, the plastic was flimsy and the screen was not good. The trackpad was abysimal. In my last work position, I got a Dell XPS and it was the same, so in the span of 8 years, nothing changes to show that th…

Apple makes devices for the users. Dell makes them to sell as part of a service contract to a company. Microsoft makes an OS to sell to enterprises to provide a heavily managed experience for their employees so they can maximize productivity and profit. Apple makes an OS for people to use. (and get a 30% cut on almost every purchase the users make with it lol)

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

#425

Post by wahnfrieden »

Nevermark wrote: post #414
noneeeed wrote: post #30

I think the description of the VisionPro as a dev kit is spot on. It's also a beta product in many way. Apple know full well that this is not a mass market product, they have made no attempt to make it even remotely affordable to most people. But they also know that every aspect of the hardware will improve over the next decade, and as it does they will have ironed out many of the problems with how we use AR/VR and w…

> (I hear FoV is pretty poor at the moment) I thought it was pretty good - but nowhere near ideal of course. But discovered I could dispense with both of Apple's "Light Seal Cushions" and simply line the light seal with some 1/8 adhesive foam. It took a little experimenting to avoid hard pressure points, and then make it comfortable. It is now very comfortable with the following benefits: 1. The field of view is noti…

Doesn’t wider FoV also decrease pixel density…

Btw it’ll be a few years before they update the Vision Pro

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

#426

Post by onethought »

cyberpunk wrote: post #422
Nevermark wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> (I hear FoV is pretty poor at the moment) I thought it was pretty good - but nowhere near ideal of course. But discovered I could dispense with both of Apple's "Light Seal Cushions" and simply line the light seal with some 1/8 adhesive foam. It took a little experimenting to avoid hard pressure points, and then make it comfortable. It is now very comfortable with the following benefits: 1. The field of view is noti…

Genuine question, what are you doing for 10 hours a day in there? Can you comfortable code all day in that? If you don't mind my asking, is it purely novelty or is it genuinely better than coding on a 5k monitor?

It’s genuinely better than a 5k monitor.

In the recent update it now lets you mouse off your Mac and onto vision apps just like iPad hands over. It made me switch my desk setup to have the desk attached to my chair so I can have 360 range of screens. The resolution is stupidly high.

I’ve attempted a coding workflow in all of the quests and it just wasn’t possible. It’s awesome in vision

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

#427

Post by quitit »

ryandrake wrote: post #121
joenot443 wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There were a lot of tablets before the iPad but it wasn’t until the iPad that tablets really took off as a serious market segment. Ditto with AirPods and Bluetooth earbuds. In the past, once Apple started pouring R&D money into a specific product type, the entire industry around it tends to advance very quickly. I’m optimistic about the Vision Pro, and I actually think the n+2 Meta release will be much better off for…

My question is why does it seem like only Apple can do this, over and over? Why are they the only ones who seem to be able to knock a product category out of the park and legitimize it? Is it just the vast amount of money? Are they the only ones who can create products? Is everyone else that bad? Competitors work for ages and ages fighting each other, refining v1, v2, v2.1, v2.2, v2.25, and then suddenly Apple comes…

It’s because the majority of tech firms with sufficient capital are not willing to invest in the development of a full product, nor frankly, do they have the leadership to do so. I also believe they don’t have the smarts to capitalise on disruption, so they’d much rather maintain the status quo by swatting competitors.

However the c-levels at those companies are happy to chase $$$, and will closely copy whichever hardware and software is deemed the best in the market at the time. Some also do this because they see the product as a threat to their core business.

There will also be various cheerleaders who exalt that apple’s ideas are trivially obvious and were always the pre-destined pathway for the category. Seemingly ignoring the long floundering that occurred before Apple’s entry.

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

#428

Post by sroussey »

noneeeed wrote: post #30

I think the description of the VisionPro as a dev kit is spot on. It's also a beta product in many way. Apple know full well that this is not a mass market product, they have made no attempt to make it even remotely affordable to most people. But they also know that every aspect of the hardware will improve over the next decade, and as it does they will have ironed out many of the problems with how we use AR/VR and w…

I see the Vision Pro more like the Apple Lisa.

The original Apple Lisa, which cost $9,995 in 1983, would cost approximately $27,905 in today's dollars, adjusting for inflation over the period up to 2023.

So the VisionPro seems downright cheap.

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

#429

Post by onethought »

alt227 wrote: post #402
Karrot_Kream wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the difference in strategy. Apple only cares about profits not about market share. Market share only matters when margins are low and you need volume to bring revenue numbers up. When your margins are high, you can have a much smaller market share but also use that to create a more opinionated brand image and drive brand loyalty.

Thats fine until your revenue growth stagnates. Its then that your shareholders come knocking demanding growth, at which point market share becomes incredibly important. When that happens, opinionated brand image needs to become much more generic brand image to start attracting more of the market. This is what happened with Xerox, IBM, Microsoft, and it will happen to Apple too.

It already happened to Apple in the 90s and Jobs explicitly killed it as a strategy and culture in Apple.

I think if they went back to that they’ve lost a serious bit of their DNA.

You mentioned Mac only having a 20% market share. Who has the bigger one?

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

#430

Post by al_borland »

_heimdall wrote: post #374
zitterbewegung wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I personally used a HoloLens for a few minutes and it had severe problems with field of view and brightness of the display. AR works for enterprise or the military to train people or present information at least the US military for the HoloLens [1]. Google finally axed the Glass Enterprise project in 2023 which was much longer than the original version. [1] https://www.theverge.com/2023/9/13/23871859/us-army-microsof…

Google Glass was pretty slick honestly, ahead of its time. I had a friend that worked on the team for a couple years when it first started. The use case of a headsup display for directions while driving was a great experience.

I had a friend get Google Glass. I tried in on for a few minutes and was pretty disappointed. It was a tiny Android window stuck in the upper right of my FOV. Looking at the hardware, I guess it makes sense, but it’s not what the marketing seemed to be selling, and I expected a more custom UI that would get out of the way, rather than what looked like a tiny phone screen.

It wasn’t mine, so maybe there was more to it that I didn’t get from my brief interaction, but it didn’t leave me wanting more.

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