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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

#681

Post by brookst »

kilroy123 wrote: post #648
jjfoooo4 wrote: post #635

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me the interesting bit is that an even a VR executive a decade plus into working in the field doesn’t find this device compelling enough to own it. I get that the thesis is that this version is the devkit etc, but viable consumer product status (read: enough adoption for the device to be profitable) seems very far away

It's the crappy version 1. Just like iphone and ipad v1. They sucked. It's very obviously better to wait a little longer for a future version.

> very obviously

And yet people buy v1. It really depends on how much your time is worth. I bought v1 and I expect to sell it for $1000 or so when v2 comes out. $3000 to use this product for 12-18 months is totally worth it to me.

So, not “obvious”. At least to people with different priorities.

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

#682

Post by brookst »

iamtheworstdev wrote: post #657
kossTKR wrote: post #652

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. Macrumors reports 200.000 sold vision pro's a few month's ago. So maybe 300.000 today? It's a type of gadget that hasn't become widely adopted yet and the usecases and killer features are almost non existent compared to the iPhones phonecalls + web browsing, music, videos, notes and many others. Really hard to gauge what success means here, but if we say that in a year it will sell 500.000 units, that's…

there is no killer feature where it sees mass adoption.. 99.9% of the population cant afford to drop $3,500 on a computer screen for their computer.

99.9% of the population can’t afford to drop $100k on a sports car. They still exist.

The first Apple Mac was $7500 in today’s dollars.

Armchairs are way over-indexing on price.

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

#683

Post by Eric_WVGG »

zmmmmm wrote: 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…

I was saying the same thing back during the first five years of the iPhone. There were so many ostensibly serious people who thought that BlackBerry or Nokia would have an “iPhone killer” just around the corner, and it’s like… do you chumps have any idea how difficult it is to build an operating system?

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

#684

Post by cade »

lynndotpy wrote: post #672
zmmmmm wrote: 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…

For me personally, it's definitely the platform. Requiring a Meta / Facebook account for already-purchased Oculuses, retroactively bricking devices and deleting software which was bought before that requirement, has put Oculus firmly in the "hardware I will never consider in my life" camp. It's an incredible amount of goodwill to burn from a company with so little to spare, and I'm surprised it hasn't come up yet in…

100% this. I paid the increasingly common "privacy and control premium" for a Valve Index (which I'm very happy with) to avoid the entanglements of borrowing a headset from Meta for a large, up front, non-refundable fee.

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

#685

Post by brookst »

parasubvert wrote: post #667
jonny_eh wrote: post #611

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Are we gonna ignore the fact that VR pornography exists? On the Apple Vision Pro?

Through Safari, or forthcoming VR video player apps (Apple doesn't censor generic utilities).

The players are already there. Those who want VR porn have been able to view it on AVP since days after release.

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

#686

Post by gcanyon »

speg wrote: post #661
gcanyon wrote: post #659

A very interesting video take: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQKMoT-6XSg tl;dw -- reviewers are understandably focusing on the technical specs, but ignoring the much more simple metric: conceptually, does the device fool the mind into accepting what it sees as "real"? And the answer for the Vision Pro is yes. It will get lighter, better, cheaper, but even now, it's important to realize that the AVP can transport yo…

I found the demo a bit underwhelming, if only because it was guided. However I must admit the scene on the mountain, in front of the piano, and on the football pitch were amazing. If that is the future of content, sign me up.

Free advice for anyone going in for the demo: be comfortable in VR, read up on how the AVP works ahead of time, and tell the Apple person that. I got to see/experience a lot more during my demo than a friend did because I was always jumping ahead and pushing the pace.

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

#687

Post by brookst »

sunshinerag wrote: post #634
devit wrote: post #548

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To support copy&paste all you need is a common format for 3D objects, like HTML is for 2D documents; glTF might be a reasonable candidate. The problem with the Apple approach is that there are no apps and games, and there probably won't be many given it's a 3500$ device with few users that Apple exerts its tyrannical grip over (or if there will be, they will be ports of Unity/Unreal, PC or Android VR apps, not using…

Tyrannical grip on users who paid 3500$? That indicates no understanding of said users.

“This all inclusive resort has a tyrannical grip on all the poor visitors who spent $10k to travel and stay at an all-inclusive resort!”

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

#688

Post by Eric_WVGG »

jimbokun wrote: post #580
skydhash wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

My personal machine is an M1 Air, and have to use PCs for work. The time it takes the PCs to wake from sleep until I can do actual work is a constant annoyance. The MacBook Air wakes just as quickly as an iPhone. It’s details like that, which set Apple apart.

There’s a Jobs story about that one.

The MacBook team had this whole presentation planned for him, a usual dog and pony show about better specs and batteries and whatnot. Instead he just put an iPhone and a MacBook on the table, “woke” them both up, and said “why can’t this (the MacBook) do that (the iPhone)?” End of meeting.

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

#689

Post by Nevermark »

ryandrake wrote: post #354
fouc wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, "stymied by commercial concerns" is a great way to put it. I get the feeling that many companies/managers don't have enough courage to make a different set of tradeoffs.

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…

I think they view design, especially of new products, as an intensely iterative process to identify and solve every problem they can find. And let that process lead them to a new very cohesive product definition.

That takes a very wide set of skills, to follow the series of discovered problems to be solved wherever they lead.

Other companies look at what parts are available, define a product from that, design have different teams build the different parts, each maximizing specs and reducing cost.

For the vast majority of already well defined products, the second path is the right one.

So that path is very familiar to every level of management at every corporation, and doing something completely different from the ground up isn’t easy or natural in that context.

For Apple, the other holistic discovery path is their mission.

Even “big” differences like being super vertical are a second level strategy for Apple, in service of being able to more easily follow problems to product definitions.

But even for Apple, that path is very risky. They have had a few half baked lemons in products that didn’t get as much discovery and attention as they needed.

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

#690

Post by dan-robertson »

gcanyon wrote: post #659

A very interesting video take: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQKMoT-6XSg tl;dw -- reviewers are understandably focusing on the technical specs, but ignoring the much more simple metric: conceptually, does the device fool the mind into accepting what it sees as "real"? And the answer for the Vision Pro is yes. It will get lighter, better, cheaper, but even now, it's important to realize that the AVP can transport yo…

I’m not sure that’s the link you intended? I see the iPhone keynote from 2007.
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