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Developer tools to create spatial experiences for Apple Vision Pro

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Re: Developer tools to create spatial experiences for Apple Vision Pro

#441

Post by leejoramo »

NovaDudely wrote: post #278
leejoramo wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In 1981, I received a computer as a birthday gift at the young age of 13. Likely the first micro-computer in my small California town. When I took it to my Junior High science fair people were like stunned by a kid with a computer. When you turned on the computer, all you got was a flashing cursor wait for you to program in BASIC. The next year, a successful local business person asked me, if I thought in the future…

This is all true but it can be a little bit of survivor ship bias at play. Look at all the technology conferences over the last 40 years and for the most part you will see a grave yard of tens of thousand of ideas that looks promising but ended up going nowhere - sometimes simply due to being out maneuvered business wise. Bill Gates once said that in some ways Microsoft was lucky to be as succesful as they where, tha…

> a little bit of survivor ship bias at play

I am not sure why you are focusing on "survivor bias". My comment was about being a programmer and the fun of seeing a new technology that is an undefined territory to explore.

But I did directly mention that many of these do not workout as as I referenced: amiga, os/2, palm, and VisiCalc and Lotus 123

However, so that you may have some idea of my personal "survivor bias", here is a super simplified multi-dimension history of my over 43 years of computing smashed into a linear list with massive things forgotten:

  TRS-80 Model III, LDOS, BASIC, VisiCalc, 
  modem-to-modem
  TRS-80 Model 100
  CompuServe
  MS-DOS compatible, MultiPlan, TurboPascal, dBase
  Windows 3.0
  DesqView  
  Delphi Online 
  OS/2, REXX
  Macintosh System 7 --> 1993 to OS X
  Dial-up ISP
  Solaris, Perl
  BBEdit
  Windows 95
  Palm Pilot 
  Linux for Servers --> 1998 to Today
  Linux Desktop
  ColdFusion
  Apache 
  Python --> 1999 to Today
  Always on Internet (ISDN, DSL, Cable) --> 2004 to Today
  Nokia cellphones
  PHP
  Zope/Plone
  Mac OS X --> BETA to Today
  Windows XP
  Nginx
  iPhone --> 2009 to Today
  SublimeText
  Windows 10 --> 2018 to Today
  VS Code --> 2018 to Today
  NodeJS --> 2018 to Today
  SvelteKit --> 2021 to Today
  KDE Neon --> 2022 to Today (the year of Desktop Linux arrived for me)
The longest thread is from 1993 to Today is what is now known as macOS, but for about the first 15 years of my usage Apple was considered at risk of failure. MS Windows was always a part of my world, but seldom my primary focus, it has only been since 2018 that I use it on an extended daily basis. Some of the above are clearly dead. Some I still use lightly (Nginx, BBEdit) but are no longer the focal point of my work.

As far as Apple's Vision Pro, I have no clue if it will be successful. For myself personally, it is the first headset I am even interested in playing with.

Re: Developer tools to create spatial experiences for Apple Vision Pro

#442

Post by Aerbil313 »

sneak wrote: post #357
thesuperbigfrog wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That depends on your view of VR entertainment and Las Vegas-style (adult) attractions. The Vision Pro was showcased with Disney as a content partner. While Disney has historically featured "family friendly" entertainment, there is definitely a market for adult entertainment that the Vision Pro could excel in. Is it "an exciting Las Vegas adventure in the privacy of your home" or "a lonely person in a dark room trying…

Apple won't allow porn-focused applications in their stores. Apple won't allow alternate stores on Apple-branded mobile devices, or sideloading. This is a fundamental disrespect of their customers who have purchased the device. Apple regards their brand image more than allowing their customers to display what they want on the device they own.

I consider this to be hugely beneficial to Apple users. It’s beneficial to Apple too - if everyone was mentally and physically sick from pornoghraphy even more than today, who is going to work, earn money and buy Apple products?

Re: Developer tools to create spatial experiences for Apple Vision Pro

#443

Post by scarface_74 »

enraged_camel wrote: post #280
skeeter2020 wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your computers were tools for building... anything, and the manufacturers (especially Apple back then) actually educated, promoted and rewarded amazing things. This is a consumer device tightly coupled to the most restrictive ecosystem we've ever seen. Doesn't seem like a hackers' playground.

You know, open-mindedness and being curious about new things is part of the hacker ethos. If you are dismissing something without even experiencing it, based on nothing other than preconceived notions about it, maybe you aren’t really a hacker in the true sense of the word? Just a thought.

I guess I’m also not a Scotsman…

Do you also want to run an IDE on the Apple Watch?

Re: Developer tools to create spatial experiences for Apple Vision Pro

#444

Post by Terretta »

taeric wrote: post #314
jedharris wrote: post #226

I'm surprised that none of these comments address the completely new interaction paradigm -- eye tracking + hand gesture tracking. Previous devices couldn't track accurately enough to provide high quality user interaction this way. All the ones I know about required holding controllers. If this is successful it will be the first completely new interaction paradigm since the mouse. Of course so far interactions are ma…

The PS5 also does the eye tracking really well. It still sucks compared to using controllers. The tactile feedback of the buttons along with the very subtle activation motions is a touch beyond gestures. (In particular, they work together. Without the tactile feedback to know you have released a button, it is hard to reengage it fast enough.)

> "… does the eye tracking really well. It still sucks…"

Perhaps re-calibrate "really well"?

> "very subtle activation motions is a touch beyond gestures"

(We see what you punned there.)

> "tactile feedback to know you have released a button"

With the VisionPro, a click is a touch of forefinger and thumb. That's literally twice the touch feedback of a button.

Re: Developer tools to create spatial experiences for Apple Vision Pro

#445

Post by taeric »

Terretta wrote: post #444
taeric wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The PS5 also does the eye tracking really well. It still sucks compared to using controllers. The tactile feedback of the buttons along with the very subtle activation motions is a touch beyond gestures. (In particular, they work together. Without the tactile feedback to know you have released a button, it is hard to reengage it fast enough.)

> "… does the eye tracking really well. It still sucks…" Perhaps re-calibrate "really well"? > "very subtle activation motions is a touch beyond gestures" (We see what you punned there.) > "tactile feedback to know you have released a button" With the VisionPro, a click is a touch of forefinger and thumb. That's literally twice the touch feedback of a button.

Ha! I didn't actually do that pun on purpose. Does work, though.

With a controller, though, you don't have to lose contact with the buttons for activation. Even with a keyboard, where you do lose contact, you feel for the activation of the buttons to do so.

More immediately, though, you also have more fingers for rapid fire activation. Some silly math, but if you type upwards of 70wpm, that puts you at about 400 button presses per minute. Not sure how easily that would translate to gestures, as far as speed is concerned.

Re: Developer tools to create spatial experiences for Apple Vision Pro

#446

Post by luxuryballs »

Jeff_Brown wrote: post #2

To paraphrase The Economist, "This device is amazing, and now Apple needs developers to figure out what it's for." https://www.economist.com/business/2023/06/06/apples-vision-...

guess they’re going to have to send me one so I can get crackin

Re: Developer tools to create spatial experiences for Apple Vision Pro

#447

Post by Applejinx »

_Tomas wrote: post #381
codethief wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I'm not sure that > we [will] all have headsets in a decade you do mention a couple things I hadn't considered or heard of before. > The company I work at has a smoking-cessation VR app This sounds very intriguing! Could you possibly provide some references and/or the name of your company? (I don't smoke but I'd love to understand better how this works.) More generally, how do you stay on top of what's happenin…

>While I'm not sure that >> we [will] all have headsets in a decade I'll take that bet. I'm a kind of tech-cynic, have a Nokia 8110, ten year old thinkpad and listen to minidiscs. But in January I'll fly to the states and buy a Vision pro day 1. The last time I was this excited about a technological innovation was with OS X. My brother was a CS guy and he recommended I buy an iBook when I started university because h…

So, I can see just how this would work super well and make people quit smoking. The power of headsets to induce extreme nausea is surely ever-present.

Will it also cause aversion to headsets and to VR? :)

Re: Developer tools to create spatial experiences for Apple Vision Pro

#448

Post by simiones »

_Tomas wrote: post #303
NovaDudely wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is all true but it can be a little bit of survivor ship bias at play. Look at all the technology conferences over the last 40 years and for the most part you will see a grave yard of tens of thousand of ideas that looks promising but ended up going nowhere - sometimes simply due to being out maneuvered business wise. Bill Gates once said that in some ways Microsoft was lucky to be as succesful as they where, tha…

>This is all true but it can be a little bit of survivor ship bias at play. Look at all the technology conferences over the last 40 years and for the most part you will see a grave yard of tens of thousand of ideas that looks promising but ended up going nowhere Survivor bias is real, but the interesting failures (in comparison to VR) are things like 3D TV. 3D TV has a very weak effect, the 3D effect is basically dis…

You may be right about what you're describing, but this sounds incomparably more like bullshit than any chance of being right.

I've played with VR, and it's really not that immersive - no more than any other good media.

In particular, VR is definitely not as immersive as actual reality, so anything that could be done in VR to convince someone of non-fantastical things can also be done (at a higher expense, for sure) with actors and props. So, your claim about 5 minutes to quit smoking has no reasonable chance of being true from where I'm sitting.

Re: Developer tools to create spatial experiences for Apple Vision Pro

#449

Post by gpm »

jimmySixDOF wrote: post #412
pavlov wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s pretty boring because it boils down to “I can totally imagine myself doing X with a headset” and “I can’t imagine myself doing X with a headset” — the operative word being “imagine.” I’d love to read a comparison between visionOS SDK and OpenXR from someone who has actually used the latter. I gather that OpenXR is lower level, but what exactly does that mean for an app developer? How much more work would it be t…

A lot is still just becoming more clear now the SDK is here today but as usual there are definitely fine print gotchas. There are waay more restrictions in the MR Shared space mode so whatever (Unity/webXR) exports only to RealityKit for rendering with tight Apple conditions. In Full VR mode without Passthrough you have full control so custom shaders but no gaze and a 1.5m motion range limit. The MR mode itself has t…

> but no gaze

In the WWDC unity-metal demonstration they definitely seemed to have gaze tracking. Have you checked looked through the sdk and confirmed that there is no public way to do this?

Re: Developer tools to create spatial experiences for Apple Vision Pro

#450

Post by brookst »

rob74 wrote: post #436
brookst wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure? Why would you do anything to help someone who’s trying to tear down your business? Don’t expect long term love for UE from Amazon or Sony or Microsoft, either. They all know that Epic’s end game is to get regulators to force platforms to allow Epic as a competing app store. Let others take the risk, swoop in and undercut once there are profits to be had. Nobody is going to want to fund that. It will take a deca…

Wow, you seem to have a lot of love for walled gardens... Take the risk? What risk? By now both surviving mobile platforms (iOS and Android) are well established, and especially the iOS app store is raking in obscene profits for Apple out of the work of others. I would have been ok with a 30% "app store tax" a few years ago, but nowadays it just feels like milking the cash cow...

No need to get personal.

I’m just saying that Epic is using a legal strategy to attack markets with vertically integrated hardware and software distribution (phones, consoles). The owners of these platforms are not thrilled, and we should expect UE to be a casualty.

I’m surprised that’s emotionally charged for you.

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