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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

#501
post #486

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has been my main complaint with Oculus all the way since the Rift days. At that point I assumed it was forthcoming within a few years yet here we are 8 years later and somehow it's not all that different. I don't understand how Oculus/Meta isn't drastically ahead at this point on software.

They are drastically ahead. They have VR games, which are the only real reason to own a VR headset at the moment (and for at least 5 years).

They are drastically ahead in the VR gaming space. But the potential VR/AR market is hundreds fold bigger than that.

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

#502
post #481

Coming from a senior Oculus lead, the most interesting thing about this write up for me, is what it lacks: it says almost nothing about the software stack / operating system. Still 100% talking about hardware at the bottom and end user applications at the other end. But there is no discussion of the platform which to me is actually the highest value proposition Apple is bringing here. In short: Apple has made a fully…

If what you said were true then this is a fatal strategic error on Meta's side.

This entire time, they could have built a real OS, solidifying their first mover advantage.

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

#503
post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. Microsoft has taken a lot of effort in the last two years to empty out Control Panel and get everything into Settings, along with unifying everything into the Win11 Fluent (or whatever it is called these days) style. To be honest, in a lot of cases when you need “Advanced $ Settings” it still kicks you into the old Control Panel-style pop-up windows, but at least it’s almost all in one place now.

Let's not give them credit for having two subsystems called 'control panel' and 'settings'. That it happened even once is an embarassment, and I think they started that with Windows 8.

That is indeed when it is started, but that's the one and only time - it's just that this transition is still ongoing, after 11 years. By now everything that a casual user might need is in the "new" settings, and much of the advanced stuff is as well, but it's not complete.

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

#504
post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That interpretation seems pretty out of sync with their financial history across divisions, their operating margin across divisions, their customer loyalty across divisions, and pretty much everyone's experience of the world, but maybe you're right. You may not like their products, and you may think their customers are idiots hypnotized by villianous marketers or something, but that's kind of the point of it all: by…

>You may not like their products, and you may think their customers are idiots hypnotized by villianous marketers or something. Thats quite a stretch to assume that opinion from my comment? I actually love Macbook Pros. IMO they are the best Laptop ever built. However in the global market of laptops they are not patrticularly successful. The entiety of the MacOS ecosystem (of which Macbook Pros are a small percentage…

> Are their products more reliable, more fully featured, and objectivley better than their competitiors? No they are not.

This is your personal opinion. My personal opinion, is very much the opposite.

> The reason they are regarded as a more premium option in the market is not because they make less product with more profit margin, its because they have had an incredibly clever marketing department for the last 20 years meticulously curating their brand presence and public perception into being the most premium tech company which produces the best products.

I've heard this same boring claim now for about 20 years. It was wrong as a broad statement twenty years ago, and such a statement I would hazard is still wrong now.

I've had a twenty year career in IT. Starting with PC repair and working for a PC OEM, however the vast majority of my career has been spent in fields involving Linux. (Linux Administrator/Systems Engineering/DevOPS through to executive leadership). I know how computers work, I know how the hardware works, I know the relative value of parts that go into things, yes I can, always have, and still will build machines including using on a regular basis all major operating systems in place today and despite all of this, I still remain an Apple customer and its not because im some dumbo non technical individual tricked by apples fancy marketing voodoo.

It's because for those twenty years Apple has consistently conducted themselves in a way with me personally that for the vast majority of cases, has served me best as a user and as their customer. As opposed to some third party who is paying them to exploit me through their operating system or some mass of adware shipped with their operating system, not just this years profit margins, not just for as long as im in the store and to which afterwards im left alone once ive paid them with a "fuck you, got mine."

Just a few of the events of the past twenty years that have kept me as an apple customer:

* 2006ish era macbook. HDD dies at random just outside of warranty. No local apple stores at the time. Local authorised repairer spends two weeks dicking me around on a fix, nothing. I push it to Apple who was not even local at the time. A week later I have a BRAND NEW macbook, not just a drive, outside of warranty, complete with brand new warranty, an additional year tacked on top and an apology for the service I had received. (We now have apple stores so this would not occur again I imagine.)

* 2014ish iPhone. Much like the macbook I start having issues outside of warranty, it is unable to be debugged in store. Dude wanders away, comes back. "Have you got a backup?", "Yes?", "We'll just give you a refurb, newer model, with warranty, are you happy with that?" "lol, yes I am."

* 2012 15" MacBook pro retina battery replacement - Battery dies outside of warranty in around 2017 and im informed no stock currently exists in the country, and that i'll be waiting months if I wanted a replacement. I am immediately informed that if I do not want to wait, I can instead have a significantly more powerful, and higher specced refurb model, complete with brand new warranty in place of waiting the month for a replacement. I took the replacement. Again, this machine was OUTSIDE of the warranty window. That one retina MBP purchase due to this replacement saw my laptop needs covered for a decade.

This is only touching on a tiny amount of the circumstances that have led to me remaining to continue investigating the purchase of products from Apple. Not everyone will have had these interactions, or come away from Apple positively, and perhaps one day, I also will not and my opinions will change. But at this point, from the day I became a customer through now, I have received a better long term support experience as a customer from Apple, then I have from any other organisation on the planet.

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

#505

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Does it require light to work? What about space? Could you e.g. work in a dark closet, as an extreme example? Do those semi-realistic virtual avatars work for non-FaceTime apps like Zoom?

they do work for non-facetime

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

#506

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…

> Apple know full well that this is not a mass market product. I really feel like too many people are ignoring this. If anyone understands how to play the long game with a new product it is Apple. I mean the Apple TV was a "Hobby" for many years. Has Apple ever put out a "Pro" version of a product before the "normal" version? I think it also helps the clear sharing of technology between this and other products. From…

>> Has Apple ever put out a "Pro" version of a product before the "normal" version?

The Lisa before the (original) Mac

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

#507
post #486
post #481

Coming from a senior Oculus lead, the most interesting thing about this write up for me, is what it lacks: it says almost nothing about the software stack / operating system. Still 100% talking about hardware at the bottom and end user applications at the other end. But there is no discussion of the platform which to me is actually the highest value proposition Apple is bringing here. In short: Apple has made a fully…

This has been my main complaint with Oculus all the way since the Rift days. At that point I assumed it was forthcoming within a few years yet here we are 8 years later and somehow it's not all that different. I don't understand how Oculus/Meta isn't drastically ahead at this point on software.

What’s more insulting after the announcement of the vaporware known as “infinite office” is meta’s total lack of attention on their PC software. The work related features of Quest are near non-existent if it weren’t for 3rd parties

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

#508
post #404
post #76

"Apple intentionally calibrated the Vision Pro display slightly out of focus to make pixels a bit blurry and hide the screen door effect “in plain sight” Makes me think of the blurring effect of phosphors on a CRT.

This is shocking to read. I tried the in store demo and my main take away was that the display wasn’t as crisp or sharp as I expected for a $4k device.

That would be the case blurring or no blurring. Apple managed to cram 4K displays per eye there, which is very impressive when you compare it against Quest etc - but that's 4K shoved right against your eyeballs. That is, it is the rough equivalent of sitting so close next to a 4K TV that it covers your entire field of vision. If you've ever tried that, you know that it's not exactly retina, and you can still very much see the pixels.

But even that is a massive technological achievement when you look at raw numbers in the article - those 4K displays in Vision Pro are already 3386 PPI.

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

#509

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?

For me it is not a novelty, it has completely stuck.

Yes, on comfort for 10 hours. I have even worked 12 hours, then watched a long 3D movie (Blade Runner 2049, Dune I, etc.) without hesitation.

I cannot imagine going back to only physical screens. I have a 98" monitor with two 55" monitors in portrait angled towards me on either side (heights all match), all wall mounted. Truly wonderful! But this has replaced that for me.

I have even considered beheading a MacBook Pro.

I love the following:

• Never needing to put on or take off reading glasses to see far, or within inches.

• I can have my main Mac "screen" whatever size I want, typically large. Also that I can lean into it when focusing on a patch of code, and it always looks perfect.

• Having multiple Vision safari screens, or utilities, surrounding me. With the look and pinch interface being very nice for navigating.

• Being able to tune out 180 degrees of my space with a natural scene so I am completely undistracted. Wish I could go 360 degrees, and still leave keyboard visible. (Either by having an unobstructed low circle, or having the keyboard "punch through" like hands do.

• Flexible screen position lets me sit with great posture all the time. I tend to pull right up to my desk, push my keyboard far out and lean forward on my elbows a bit. Have the screen large but close enough that I can lean in to focus on something.

• Two environments in one! I will put project organization and context notes on huge screens behind me on a wall. Personal mission control. In thoughtful moments I get out of my chair, walk around the room and see the large screens from anywhere, walk right up to it, make small edits with pinch and zoom.

• The incredible ergonomics of being able to code comfortably in bed, on a couch, recliner, etc. with good ergonomics, due to the screens being flexibly placed. Being able to code in many places keeps my brain fresh.

• I use a holster for the battery. Geeky, but after dropping it as I walked away from my desk 100 times I realized I need that. That elminated inhibitions about moving, and feelings of being chained down.

• I haven't been in flow so consistently for so many hours for a long time. For me the Mac interface expansion/isolation chamber IS what Vision is for.

Issues:

• As noted, wish the keyboard and my drinks would "punch through" 360 degree scenes, or there was an optional lower circle of punch rough.

• Keyboard and trackpad pointer are fussy when switching between Mac and Vision screens.

• Wish I could have more Mac screens, and drag Mac windows out to their own screens. Also pull in iPad and iPhone screens. And push windows/app-states back out to those machines too. Or two other people's devices.

• Wish the Mac screen operated with look and pinch. I do this a few times every day when in flow.

• Wish I could disconnect/reconnect my MacBook Pro screen. The headless MacBook Pro for Vision would be absolutely great. But having the option to use it as a laptop too would be great. Maybe remove my MacBook screen, but set it up so I can clip my iPad Pro to it too?

• Need a Vision Spaces interface for setting up work then moving to a different context, but being able to come back to those screens. Being able to set up a space that is location sensitive, so always available in that room, seat, whatever.

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

#510

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Narrow FOV means you have to keep your eyes "locked forward" and people don't realize how much they look at things by moving their eyes.

When I did the AVP demo I was impressed by how quickly my eyes would relax and drift away slightly from looking at something after initially focusing on it. It took some conscious effort at first to maintain steady eye focus on an object whilst actuating it with a gesture.

This is, coincidentally, one of my biggest issues with the Vision Pro. I never got used to it. I'd very frequently want to select one thing while also moving my eyes around to look at other things.
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