First impressions: Yes, Apple Vision Pro works and yes, it’s good

https://techcrunch.com/2023/06/05/first-impressions-yes-apple-vision-pro-works-and-yes-its-good/

by thatsso1999 • 3 years ago

282 543 3 years ago

thatsso1999• 3 years ago

This is the first actual hands-on demo I’ve seen, and apparently it’s actually really good. Really want to try out the auto 3d-scanning tech.

threeseed5• 3 years ago

I assume it is derived from their RoomPlan research:

https://developer.apple.com/documentation/RoomPlan

https://machinelearning.apple.com/research/roomplan

WastingMyTime893• 3 years ago

Apple is notorious for retaliating against “news” companies giving them bad reviews especially for demo and preview. At this point, an article is worth approximately as much as a marketing copy straight from them.

reportgunner4• 3 years ago

It's clearly an advertisement.

GeekyBear7• 3 years ago

How well the new user interaction method works (eye and hand tracking) was the thing I was most interested in.

I’ve used essentially every major VR headset and AR device since 2013’s Oculus DK1 right up through the latest generations of Quest and Vive headsets. I’ve tried all of the experiences and stabs at making fetch happen when it comes to XR.

Here’s what Apple got right that other headsets just couldn’t nail down:

The eye tracking and gesture control is near perfect.

https://techcrunch.com/2023/06/05/first-impressions-yes-appl...

seydor3• 3 years ago

But how precise is it? Eye tracking may be good enough for foveated rendering, hand tracking good enough for pushing buttons, but how does it compare to handheld controllers for drawing something in Photoshop?

MrScruff3• 3 years ago

Marques Brownlee picks out the quality of the eye tracking as a standout feature.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFvXuyITwBI

orbital-decay• 3 years ago

I'm sure it's good enough with that resolution and other high tech stuff. But can you work in it for extended periods of time?

I never wear wristwatches or smart watches unless I have to (hiking, running etc) because I dislike any trinkets that touch the skin 24/7, regardless of the material. This thing is almost like a diving mask, just not airtight. How about wearing it several hours straight?

MacsHeadroom8• 3 years ago

I regularly wear my Quest for 9-10 hours a day. It's plenty comfortable with the right equipment. I forget I'm wearing it after a while.

celeritascelery• 3 years ago

Why so long? Are you using it for work?

olliej2• 3 years ago

As a friend pointed out, the stated battery life would have o just barely been enough for the keynote O_o

seydor3• 3 years ago

Quest 2? You re some kind of world champion, most people get tired

theodric2• 3 years ago

I managed maybe 45 minutes at a go before face sweat/itch, eye strain, muscle ache, and nausea set in. The novelty wore off rapidly, it sat around for a year, and I sold it off. I wanted to believe.

threeseed5• 3 years ago

People ski and snowboard for multiple days at a time. And the mask is typically not the limiting factor.

And most people can wear glasses, wedding rings and watches all day without issue.

Laremere• 3 years ago

Weight placed on the face makes a qualitative difference. More weight means bigger straps and more pressure against the face to keep it there. If the Apple vision is light enough then it might not be an issue, but the size of the strap they're using hints that it's much more significant than most everyday wearable objects.

vikramkr• 3 years ago

My guess is that if you dislike even wristwatches then something like this is just going to be a nonstarter right? For me, I'm comfortable with nearly 24/7 wear of watches and an hour or so in the quest on beatsaber - if they manage to improve image quality I think k that's a major factor for making it more comfortable. Beatsaber is fine, but I couldn't imagine doing anything that actually required reading or the like, that would hurt my eyes pretty fast

andrewstuart4• 3 years ago

At USD$3500, who is it for?

And who will develop software for something with such a small user base?

GeekyBear7• 3 years ago

It's priced just like Microsoft's Hololens and aimed at the same target audience that the first version of Hololens was: developers and early adopters.

The cheaper mass market consumer version comes later. They've been iterating for years now on something in a thick framed glasses form factor, and haven't gotten anything they think is worth shipping so far.

https://www.tomsguide.com/news/apple-glasses

WastingMyTime893• 3 years ago

But HoloLens has pretty much entirely abandoned the consumer market and is now targeting the lucrative segment of professional usage where there is obvious gain to me made using AR, a segment Apple has always been mostly uninterested in.

MacsHeadroom8• 3 years ago

At USD$3500, who is it for?

Everyone. It's a laptop replacement.

Realistically this "Pro" version is for early adopters. There will surely be a regular/SE/Lite version in a couple of years for the price of a MacBook Air.

And who will develop software for something with such a small user base?

Everyone will, if they're smart. Being first to market on a new platform is huge, even if it will take a few years to have significant market penetration.

Angry Birds became a multi-billion dollar franchise for being one of the first iPhone games. Who knows what the equivalent will be for XR.

dotcoma• 3 years ago

Yeah, first-mover advantage. Heard that before…

poulsbohemian• 3 years ago

Everyone. It's a laptop replacement.

Respectfully, even the iPad hasn't fully evolved into a laptop replacement, so why should we think this device will fit all the multitude of use cases that necessitate the computing power represented by a laptop / desktop device?

robear• 3 years ago

In the presentation today, Apple specifically mentioned connecting to your macOS device as a seamless experience. In my opinion, this will be another "content consumption" device like an iPad that integrates with macOS devices and is not a replacement for them.

nottorp2• 3 years ago

Everyone. It's a laptop replacement.

It is? As in it acts like a normal Mac OS machine that happens to be attached to your head, holds all your files and stuff without communicating to another PC?

Can I just run IntelliJ on it and write code?

Or does it just replace your monitor(s) ?

veidr2• 3 years ago

Some day, yes, some one will make a VR headset that outclasses the laptop for many computing roles.

I'm one of those people who wants that day to arrive while I am still working, so I follow this space with interest and buy some of these devices.

So far, no headset has gotten close. The Quest Pro is probably the closest, but still very far from the goal.

This Apple device looks like it will get closer still, but it likely will fall short -- at least for a few product generations.

So I think the big question is will this product achieve enough traction to keep existing until the tech gets better and the price gets lower.

A VR headset that focuses on being really good at web apps (including complex ones like GitHub codespaces) would get a lot of the way there.

chx• 3 years ago

Angry Birds became a multi-billion dollar franchise for being one of the first iPhone games.

It's sobering to think this has now been so long ago but still: this is absolutely not true. Angry Birds came out end of 2009 and games were available for more than a year by then. See top 2008 here https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2008/12/apple-reveals-most-do... and top 2009 here https://www.ign.com/articles/2009/12/09/the-most-popular-iph...

maxgashkov• 3 years ago

It's no more a laptop replacement than iPad is. Almost 4 years down the road after the release of iPadOS and it's still a failure as a laptop replacement save for a few well-selected niches.

And the new VisionOS (or whatever Apple will decide to call it) will have to be even more restricted than iPadOS was compared to MacOS just because of the tighter coupling to your body.

madeofpalk5• 3 years ago

Everyone. It's a laptop replacement.

Can you build apps on it?

asimpletune3• 3 years ago

I agree with your general sentiment, except with one small caveat. I don't think it' s a laptop replacement per se. It's more like an immersive glue that will allow your laptop, if you have one in the future, to remain as a standalone device, but through handoff/side-care/R1 it'll stitch everything together into a virtual environment.

When you take it off, your laptop, phone, whatever will still work great as normal.

It's a caveat because for a lot of people, I don't think laptops will be necessary in the future. My mom doesn't have one but is obsessed with her phone. Probably one day laptops will mostly be for pros.

But yeah, in general I agree with everything you said.

carabiner• 3 years ago

I mean who would pay $600 for a cell phone?

esafak• 3 years ago

For the young ones in the audience, here's the visionary CEO who said it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eywi0h_Y5_U

aidenn03• 3 years ago

The $600 price was with AT&T subsidies; some phones were free, or nearly free, when carrier subsidized. The Palm Centro was a contemporary smartphone you could get for under $200 with Sprint subsidies.

threeseed5• 3 years ago

It is targeted at developers and companies who want to build apps. But there will of course be a huge contingent of early adopters.

The reason it is priced at $3500 is because Apple does not have the supply chain to build more of these things. There is simply no point pricing this at $300 and being perpetually Out of Stock which would devalue their brand for no benefit. Hence the Pro tag and release at WWDC.

Eventually there will be a non-Pro version that everyone can buy.

inconceivable• 3 years ago

is it really this difficult to project 3-5 years into the future where this thing is cheaper, more powerful, and has an app library ... because all of the actual pros bought the launch model to develop software for it in 2024? then give it a 24-36 app dev cycle and you're going to hit the adoption curve. in about 5 years.

this is literally how every single thing has worked in this industry for like 50 years now. are there really people on this site so young that they don't remember how this works beyond a single product hype cycle? is it that hard to remember how compact discs, dial-up internet, laptops, multi-CPU/cores, DVDs, mp3 players, broadband, smartphones, bluetooth, wifi, flash, SSDs, GPUs, plasma, lcd, led, smartwatches, EVs took 5-10 years to hit mass market? "well, that's different, those were obviously going to be hits" -- no. wrong. all of this stuff was atrocious and atrociously expensive when it first came out. anyone remember the first orinoco wifi cards? or bluetooth? the shit didn't even work.

here are some current things that sort of suck but will probably also continue get better: satellite internet, smart home tech, solar tech, LLMs. this stuff will get better. it's the housing, education, healthcare, financial services that are going to get worse and worse because all of the money flows to the people making the tech. talk about missing the forest for the trees.

i mean is it REALLY that hard to remember this stuff? am i REALLY that old? am i taking crazy pills?

WastingMyTime893• 3 years ago

Professional don’t buy new technology out of the goodness of their heart. They do it because there is a market to address generally business users. Yet Apple seems to be mostly positioning the Vision as an entertainment centred device targeting a large market. At this price point, it is quite surprising.

I think significant questions remain at this point about their actual go-to-market strategy (unsurprisingly considering they have only been given a short keynote presentation) which make people suspicious if not sceptical when you take into account the other notorious failures in this market.

pier25• 3 years ago

It's not going to get significantly cheaper though. Even at half the price it would still be quite expensive considering the roi.

andrewstuart4• 3 years ago

>. am i REALLY that old? am i taking crazy pills?

What you are, is snarky.

The only times Apple ever did this in the past, the product flopped because it was too expensive.

Maybe other companies have been leading with expensive tech waiting for the market to catch up, but Apple hasn't - not since the Lisa anyway.

And yes I am on old fogey - ol enough to remember that the industry has been waiting for consumers to "catch up" to VR for many many years. It's not happening - VR is a niche. Ordinary people don't want to put a VR headset on - they just don't - there's no catching up because 99% of the people I know would never put on a headset except for one impressive demo and never again.

This thing will at best do "okay" - it's too expensive - there won't be a critical mass of software for it, and VR is a niche.

zakki• 3 years ago

I don't think Apple will bring their price down in the next 3-5 years. Just look at how their current product price. No product price goes down.

holoduke• 3 years ago

Iphone wasnt 3.5k. Imac neither. Ipad not. Ipod wasnt. The Macintosh maybe? No it wasnt.

elorant2• 3 years ago

It is difficult because Apple has never dropped the price in any of its products, aside from one time offers.

philwelch• 3 years ago

is it that hard to remember how compact discs, dial-up internet, laptops, multi-CPU/cores, DVDs, mp3 players, broadband, smartphones, bluetooth, wifi, flash, SSDs, GPUs, plasma, lcd, led, smartwatches, EVs took 5-10 years to hit mass market?

Zoomers don’t remember a time before any of those things. Hell, they don’t even remember some of those things.

veidr2• 3 years ago

Well, I've paid something like $200/year for a fitness app in VR. So I can easily imagine a small number of rich Apple users paying $500/year. If you can get a few thousand users paying $500/year, pretty soon you're talking about decent money.

But so far, that is the only app category I can think of that would justify me quitting my job and trying to bootstrap a business based solely on an app for Vision OS. I feel like I am probably overlooking a couple, though... :-D

jjtheblunt• 3 years ago

Surgeons with DaVinci surgical robots?

p_l9• 3 years ago

You're not going to use consumer VR/AR for that, but carefully paired setup to ensure predictable latencies etc.

stocknoob2• 3 years ago

Who will develop software for wealthy users willing to spend money on new experiences?

pantulis2• 3 years ago

At USD$3500, who is it for?

I thought it would be absurd to be wearing these goggles in the street. Then I thought that at home it would also be strange being with the family with those things on the top of your head. I thought "This is perfect for people who live alone". And then it dawned on me: the killer app for this is p0rn.

akmarinov5• 3 years ago

p0rn has always been the driving force behind most tech - VHS, DVDs, HDTV, 3D, etc

thinkingemote• 3 years ago

there is a huge amount of comfortable people who are bought into the whole Apple ecosystem. Everything they use is Apple, it all looks, is built and works together very well and they have spent multiple amounts over the years than what this costs on its own. Cost is not important for them. Even monitor stands can never be classed as expensive.

Brand loyalty, consumerism, platform lock in. It's the reason why Apple is so wealthy.

People will defend the investment of their time and money by investing more.

kaba03• 3 years ago

It’s part but I think you disregard many of its “pro” userbase that prefers the often best-in-class hardware with okay software, which is much more privacy oriented than the alternative.

At least on the phone market, iphones have much longer lifetime and can often be used second-third time as well (I also use a used iphone, which I plan on passing down to my mother when I upgrade). Their M-series laptops are unbiasedly the best and it is not even funny by how far. There is simply no competitor that would be anywhere near on the performance-battery life plot, and for that its price is really not high (especially an M1 air, used or new).

Android’s wearables are toys compared to an apple watch also.

sebzim45005• 3 years ago

Sure, there won't be that many users but the ones that exist will be very willing to spend money. Like the early days of the appstore.

andrewstuart4• 3 years ago

To be clear, for Apple, I would consider the Apple Watch a flop.

Sure the product exists and people buy them, but it's no earth shaker - in contrast, a success for Apple is iPad, iPhone, Macintosh - products that if you ask some random person in an affluent country, there's a pretty good chance they own one, two three or more of these products.

The Apple VR headset will not be a flop in the sense that Apple probably won't kill the product, but it also won't be any huge success by the measures above. It will at best be a niche, which is a flop for Apple.

trafficante2• 3 years ago

It’s quite obvious that this will effectively duplicate 1440p monitors since the much lower resolution Quest Pro is (mostly) able to do so with 1080p. Hopefully it can do even better than 1440p, but honestly that might be “good enough” when comboed with multiple virtual displays. Multiple effectively-1080p virtual displays don’t really cut it on the QP, but it’s annoyingly close.

My bigger concern is comfort. Ski mask style HMDs went the way of the dinosaur for a good reason: they’re nightmarishly awful to use for extended periods of time. I did see an image of an attachable side-to-side head strap, which implies Apple is aware of the problem but prioritized aesthetics.

Also for anyone interested in FoV: this guy on Twitter mentioned that it’s similar to the Quest Pro [1]. Lower than I’d like for that price, especially with an enclosed face gasket.

1. https://twitter.com/benz145/status/1665894522658910213?s=20

GeekyBear7• 3 years ago

It’s quite obvious that this will effectively duplicate 1440p monitors since the much lower resolution Quest Pro is (mostly) able to do so with 1080p.

It doesn't sound like prior efforts work well for that use case at all.

The resolution means that text is actually readable. Apple’s positioning of this as a full on computing device only makes sense if you can actually read text in it. All of the previous iterations of ‘virtual desktop’ setups have relied on panels and lenses that present too blurry a view to reliably read fine text at length. In many cases it literally hurt to do so. Not with the Apple Vision Pro – text is super crisp and legible at all sizes and at far ‘distances’ within your space.

https://techcrunch.com/2023/06/05/first-impressions-yes-appl...

trafficante2• 3 years ago

It doesn't sound like prior efforts work well for that use case at all.

Fwiw, this is essentially correct for all consumer grade HMDs prior to the end of 2022. Fresnel lenses meant you could only achieve (relative) text clarity inside a small sweet spot.

Pancake optics made this more of a question of panel resolution due to their nearly edge-to-edge clarity. The problem is that the two currently available pancake lens devices are the Pico 4 and the Quest Pro: neither of which have quite enough underlying pixels to make the “working in headset” dream viable.

I absolutely DON’T recommend the Quest Pro as a replacement monitor for that very reason. It CAN reasonably approximate a 1080p monitor, but not at a visual distance most people would be comfortable with using for extended times. Similar experience to using a large TV as a monitor (though not quite THAT bad). When you’re that up close and personal with your virtual display, adding extra desktops doesn’t really help much.

“Vision Pro” has pancake optics and a very dense display panel so the “sitting in front of a TV” thing shouldn’t be an issue. I’m very excited to try one out.

creativenolo• 3 years ago

I have been hunting for hours to get details on the field of view and pass through quality.

sowbug• 3 years ago

24 million pixels across the two panels, orders of magnitude more than any headsets most consumers have come in contact with

The Quest 2 has about 4 million, which is undoubtedly more than 0.24 million. Has "order of magnitude" joined "exponential" as another math expression stolen as a synonym for "rilly rilly rilly"?

olliej2• 3 years ago

But in base 2 it’s many orders :D :D

More seriously the repeated quote-the-marketing in this article was annoying. You’re explaining your use of it, and your experience is the only thing that matters. Everyone has read the specs at this point.

lstamour• 3 years ago

I think the problem is the plural. You could convincingly say that 24 is _an_ order of magnitude bigger than 4, even if technically log(24) is 1.38 … it’s a close enough approximation.

7e5• 3 years ago

It's more than one order magnitude, less than two. So, plural!

eesmith3• 3 years ago

It's less than one order of magnitude. 4 million vs. 24 million is a factor of 6, not 10.

tpmx• 3 years ago

The Quest 2 has about 7 million pixels across the two panels (1832 x 1920 x 2), so about 3x less than Apple Vision Pro. That's not a magnitude.

hayst4ck• 3 years ago

When you're talking about computer systems, it's pretty normal for a bit to represent an order of magnitude.

Even the Wikipedia page makes reference to this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_magnitude

"Similarly, if the reference value is one of some powers of 2, since computers store data in a binary format, the magnitude can be understood in terms of the amount of computer memory needed to store that value. "

int(log2(n)) is a perfectly acceptable order of magnitude, especially when considering computers, at least to me.

geysersam5• 3 years ago

Hahaha yes I'm sure that's what they meant.

nbittich• 3 years ago

Same pattern over and over, futuristic hardware, closed source software. This looks boring to me. I don't expect anything ground breaking from it. It's gonna be an iphone sticked to your eyes. Those big tech companies remove all the fun and excitement we used to have with new hardware. We know how it's gonna behave and it's limitation before it's released to the public.

eternityforest2• 3 years ago

When Apple does something new, everyone else generally has it in a few years.

There's gonna be Android for Eyeballs eventually and anyone will be able to make their app have virtual space widgets or something.

Of course that doesn't guarantee anyone will actually do anything cool with it, but they'll be able to.

jdironman• 3 years ago

I think with the Oculus, at least when developing with Unity, you target the Android platform. I'll admit I've never actually looked at what is under the hood in the Quest.

RobotToaster• 3 years ago

There's gonna be Android for Eyeballs eventually

Google glass?

AshamedCaptain• 3 years ago

There's gonna be Android for Eyeballs eventually

How many Android for eyeballs has Google released already? I count at least 3.

- Whatever Cardboard was using (2013ish)

- Daydream platform (2016ish)

- Whatever Samsung Gear VR used (2018ish)

All of them nice gimmicks, but also commercial failures and abandoned.

7e5• 3 years ago

Open source software developers could never approach the masterpiece of software craftsmanship is on display here. Only exceptional, highly paid professionals with intense focus can achieve this. Generally, those who can, do and get paid handsomely, those who can't, pretend by volunteering their open source. We're talking Hollywood composer vs. music teacher, here.

wickedsickeune• 3 years ago

The best software I've ever used is git and it's FOSS. The closed source alternatives don't even come close, even on niche usecases.

pharmakom• 3 years ago

don't check the license section of your latest iGizmo.

Onewildgamer• 3 years ago

A polished UI is only what you are looking at, not what is underneath. You have failed to understand the years and years of hardwork poured by vast majority of OSS that helped building all the systems that underpin every single system out there.

Your comparison of OSS developers as tinkerers who can't reach the Megacorp scale is totally absurd. I've worked at these corporations, and out of 10 only 1 or 2 would reach a scale of a great developer. But, OSS developers innovations, contributions and impact surpasses any company out there.

Also, nobody in their right mind wants to work 80 hours a week competing with a team who's trying to better you, if you pit the developers against each other it doesn't matter how much you get paid, your time is owned by the large corp at the end of the day. Easy to undermine the work of OSS developers who go unappreciated and hail the rat racing corporations.

bagels• 3 years ago

1) I'm sure there's a lot of open source software hiding in every apple device. 2) I know Facebook and Google contribute to open source, probably Apple does too? 3) Of course you can get a lot of well qualified people working on a project if you pay them.

akmarinov5• 3 years ago

You say you don’t expect anything groundbreaking and then compare it with arguably the most groundbreaking product ever

Mordisquitos• 3 years ago

But the comparison is that it is "[arguably the most groundbreaking product ever] sticked to your eyes", and the property of groundbreakingness is not necessarily transitive.

dandellion3• 3 years ago

If you make a list of groundbreaking products that would include the light bulb, the bicycle, the refrigerator, the radio, the car, printed books, the newspaper, the TV, personal computers, mobile phones... The iPhone is great, but I doubt it could even make it to the top ten.

reportgunner4• 3 years ago

You mean more than the invention of fire or the printing press ?

Animats• 3 years ago

The display resolution is apparently acceptable for the simulated monitor case. So that threshold has been reached. Still too bulky, though. It's niche at this size.

Washington Post negative review.[1]

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/06/05/apple-gog...

ftth_finland• 3 years ago

It appears to be an opinion piece, not a review.

The author carefully avoids saying they haven’t actually used it.

USB5• 3 years ago

Did they really say "Jim Cameron?" Lol.

7e5• 3 years ago

Has Apple solved the existing "lack of a light field screwing up children's brains" issue with VR?

deadbolt• 3 years ago

Can you elaborate?

7e5• 3 years ago

https://www.audioholics.com/editorials/warning-3d-video-haza...

khazhoux• 3 years ago

They did not mention this topic in the keynote

joak• 3 years ago

It could be that in 3-5 years a mass market emerges from this. Or it could be like apple's newton handheld computer, released in the early 1990s and discontinued without successor. The smartphone eventually arrived but a good decade later.

JellyBeanThief• 3 years ago

I'm seriously hoping it's a success. I grew up on Apple, but five years ago I jumped to Linux and ThinkPads and haven't looked back until now. I want a Linux-based XR environment, but that won't happen unless the hardware becomes cheap and common and hackable enough for a developer community to even think about seriously trying for it. So the range of headsets that have been offered until now have left me disheartened, focused as they are on entertainment. The HoloLens gave me some hope, but Microsoft can't touch Apple for hardware, and they wisely limited themselves to specialized use cases.

Apple isn't playing, though. They're targeting all use cases--entertainment, socializing, and working, even collaboratively. They don't want this just in the office, they want it in the home. If they succeed (on the second generation, mind you) then Microsoft and PC makers will be in the same position phone makers were when the iPhone took hold. They'll have to work together if they want to catch up, and they'll have to work fast, which means working openly.

So I'm hoping. But I ain't betting.

willis9362• 3 years ago

They're targeting all use cases

Except for the one use case where there has actually been demand for VR: gaming. Apple's plan is to eat Meta's lunch. Meta's lunch consists of two peas and a leaf of wilted lettuce.

matsemann5• 3 years ago

I've always dreamt of a good AR goggle. I'm just a bit apprehensive about Apple being the big player. My country isn't thaaat big on Apple. So I would never use facetime to call people, for instance. So I'm afraid that if it's locked down, as is typical for Apple, I won't get to experience it fully.

I want it hackable, not because I myself is gonna do anything with it, but because I want that kind of innovation. Not the boring, polished, exec-vision thingy. Let other people invent new ways of doing stuff!

PostOnce3• 3 years ago

I don't understand why there is no AR or VR killer app for this thing.

Their sales pitch was "it makes it amazing to read articles in safari"?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYkq9Rgoj8E&t=5410s

$3500 to... look at a floating web browser? Surely they can come up with something. Give me UV/IR vision, let me see the pipes under the ground, show me how to assemble the furniture I'm looking at, give me a template to paint by numbers of a real canvas -- why is this basic concept of "a $3500 novelty device should enable me to do something _new_" so hard for a 3 trillion dollar company to grasp?

Are they just hoping someone comes up with all the above in the next 6 months? If they did, would anyone care? $3500 is relatively a lot of money if you're already giving them iPhone and Macbook money. The supermajority of the world doesn't make more then 60k a year, pre-tax. Actually, the supermajority makes vastly less than that.

I guess I'll wait and watch and see if they prove me wrong, but I suspect no matter how good it is, it'll flop.

stocknoob2• 3 years ago

You don’t make money targeting those without money to spend.

By that logic, Tesla shouldn’t be the top selling car, why would you buy them instead of a 25k Corolla? Many are willing to pay a premium for a best-in class-experience, which is what this headset is.

There’s a lot, lot of disposable income in the world, but not held by the supermajority.

Demmme• 3 years ago

Car prices like Tesla are a no brainer because the market was already here.

With iphones you suddenly had a multipurpose device for relative little.

With this, we know the market and it's not strong by any means

diffeomorphism• 3 years ago

That kinda misses the question. It might very well be the best in class headset (at that price it kinda needs to be). The question was: okay, the hardware is great, but what is need-to-have app?

Other headsets highlighted gaming, metaverse, industrial/medical applications,....

easeout• 3 years ago

You can draw users with a killer app but you can also draw developers with a killer user base. I believe they're leaning on iPhone/iPad app compatibility and Mac screen display to launch it as a peripheral first with existing third party apps, then establish it as a place your customers are waiting for you.

Early adopters first, of course. Maybe it really is too early? Depends on the response.

mschuster91• 3 years ago

Apple is IMO attempting to brute-force create a market here. Facebook/Meta couldn't do the job - for one, Zuck has no idea what he's doing other than chasing buzzwords, for other, they have destroyed a lot of user trust over the past years. And I'm not sure if the stock could take more billions sunk.

Apple in contrast? They deliver a whole different game in terms of quality and capability, and now others will take up developing stuff for the platform, just like it happened with every new class of device Apple pushed out. And financially, Apple doesn't have to take care of anything, they have more cash on hand than the GDP of entire countries (165 billion $ [1], more than Kuwait, Ukraine or Venezuela [2]).

And even if there don't appear any VR apps - movie addicts will love it.

[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2023/04/05/how-markets-biggest-companie...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nomi...

theodric2• 3 years ago

Yeah I can't wait to spend €11000 so my family can strap a screen to each of our faces and watch movies like that rather than staring at a dumb old TV like some kinda poor people

hooch• 3 years ago

If you look more closely at the keynote such AR apps are demoed; a factory process visualisation, and a human heart, if I recall correctly.

cjlacz2• 3 years ago

To me, it wasn't that I could use Safari that was killer app, but the fact I can use it as a monitor that impresses me. I don't think most VR setups allow you to read text as easily as on a monitor and that is what Apple is claiming. (First impressions seem to support). The second part is not requiring a controller. If I can control this with my eyes, hand and voice. That means I can use a keyboard with it. I assume they'll have some virtual version too. With those two things, a whole lot more use cases open up around it. I don't plan on getting one right away or anything, but an actual usable computer is far more interesting than something that plays games, moves some models around in space and does video conferencing with avatars.

turingfeel2• 3 years ago

It doesn’t run any desktop apps yet though, only Safari and Photos and a few content apps. They also demoed mirroring only a single Mac display. I think people are overlooking this and expecting to get multi monitor displays for heavy workload apps like on the Meta Quest Pro, but Apple are committed as always to making this a standalone system.

elorant2• 3 years ago

Because it requires greater integration. For VR the whole environment has to participate. At least if we’re talking about VR glasses that you can wear outside, every store, road, building block and what not should provide information. Who would create all that info, and for what purpose. Adoption is non-existent. There is no platform to submit your data. All we have is the interface. If you’re to wear them only inside then all you can do is the things you already do with a slightly modified UI. Which defies the purpose. I don’t want a virtual keyboard because I get no feedback from it. Virtual screens might be good if I’m in a hotel room, but then again I’ll have my laptop which has better interface. Text reading is an interesting use case but what happens with eye strain if you look at those screens for prolonged time periods. And by the way, what happens if you're wearing eyeglasses? Will they fit?

Perhaps they can find application is e-commerce. Sites could start building virtual stores and you get a feeling that you’re browsing wardrobes. I don’t know if that’s a thing but it kind of makes sense as a use case.

kaba03• 3 years ago

I am also not too optimistic about vision pro’s success, but regarding your glasses question: you would order specific lenses for it. They may even do that inside app stores from what I’ve seen in the video? Hopefully it won’t add an extra charge as lenses are expensive.

username_my1• 3 years ago

actually what about immersive 3d experince design ? imagine being a game developer and having this in debth experince with your game visuals.

same goes to vx effects in movies.

what about designing App UI / UX where you're completely in the flow and don't want to be disturbed.

how about complex data anylsis ?

If the price was not an issue and apps are mature, I could defenitly imagine lots of use cases around immersive work tasks ...

ChildOfChaos• 3 years ago

I think 'killer app' is missing the point.

Looking for a killer app you are looking at this to be a traditional VR or even AR device, that is not what this is.

This is about having a screen anywhere, multiple screens and turning anything into a screen and any environment into one, hence the name Vision Pro, that is how Apple are trying to sell it.

If you watched the keynote I think that was clear, everyone else seems to missing the point and comparing this to traditional headsets.

The fact when they showed gaming, it wasn't a VR or AR game, it was a traditional game on an AR screen says it all.

kwanbix• 3 years ago

I don't see myself wearing that huge thing on your face if not for a brief moment and a killer app. Much less for 3500 (+ TAX!!!!) dollars.

charcircuit2• 3 years ago

This is about having a screen anywhere, multiple screens and turning anything into a screen and any environment into one

Which is what traditional VR and AR devices offer. Being able to use apps in VR or AR isn't new.

magnusmundus• 3 years ago

That comparison comes with the form factor though -- it's a headset. It's not something you can wear and mostly forget about. It needs a purpose to make me want to wear it, otherwise it's just an iPad without the nice tactile association.

PostOnce3• 3 years ago

But that's silly, it can do all that and also have a killer app.

I can already do all that traditional stuff on a macbook or ipad, and "have a screen anywhere", and those things are more portable because I can just sit it on the table instead of having to untangle A CABLE from my clothing and then find somewhere to place a headset that doesnt sit flat like an ipad or macbook.

Then there's the fact that ipads and macbooks have keyboards.

With no killer app, this is a boondoggle, I think.

easytiger2• 3 years ago

Paradigmatically that's of little to no value to anyone beyond an amusement.

It's Project Looking Glass 2.0

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

op00to6• 3 years ago

It could have a million screens, if there’s nothing good on the screens what’s the point?

SamoyedFurFluff• 3 years ago

I don’t think it’s about having a screen everywhere though: I would be uncomfortable going out in public with it, for fear of being mugged for it.

makeitdouble5• 3 years ago

everyone else seems to missing the point and comparing this to traditional headsets.

I think most people are trying to find better value in the product.

Headsets focused on providing a screen already exists, NReal is a decently selling product. Sure the Vision Pro has way better resolution, but we're also assuming that NReal and co will have better resolution in their next iterations.

To jest, if a VR screen dedicated device comes to market in 2024 with a tad lower resolution than the Vision Pro at half or a third of the price, will the Vision Pro still have a market as a virtual screen ? At that point it will need to justify the price with all the other things, the hand tracking, the surroundings integration etc. All the stuff people are trying to find value in outside of it being a screen.

Gareth3214• 3 years ago

This was a reported rumour prior to the reveal yesterday: no significant use case. This is a significant departure from Apple's usual MO: find a USP and NAIL the implementation. They're using a scattergun approach here and it's risky. They better be sending these headsets free of charge to thousands of studios in the hopes that some of them develop THE killer app, because this is the only way I see this succeeding. Especially because this is a first gen product from Apple with a maximum of two hours of battery life, a wire hanging off the headset, and no controllers. I'd be much more confident about the future of this device if it weren't $3,500 + tax. At this price I don't understand who will be buying it.

ttul3• 3 years ago

I will buy it for my entire team just for the video conferencing - assuming it is actually as good as promised, of course. Anything beyond that is gravy.

prawn3• 3 years ago

Anyone who flies a lot will be able to use it as advertised now for entertainment and work.

And this is WWDC. They’re getting this in front of developers to build the first third-party apps. Years ago, we applied to get Apple TVs for $1 and then came up with an app to launch on it. If you’re early, you have limited competition and can rank in the charts relatively easily (obviously at the risk of fighting over a smaller market).

madeofpalk5• 3 years ago

Meh, this is the same thing they did with the Watch - the last "new thing" they released. The initial Apple Watch release was a pretty scatter gun approach. I mean, one of the headline features was "send your heartbeat to someone else".

They didn't really find a unique selling point, and they didn't really nail the implementation. Few versions later they refined the product and their messaging for it, and carved out a decent market for it. I actually think the original iPhone announcement was pretty close to this VR headset. It's only selling point was that it did everything nicer and better than the competition, and then it relentlessly iterated. iPhone was an easier sell though than expensive ski goggles - barrier is much lower with it.

It's clear(ish) they have some impressive tech in it, and are 'best in market'. I wouldn't be surprised if "Vision Pro" became a lot more of a compelling device in 5 years time. But right now it doesn't really seem to give me $3500 worth of benefit.

tsojer2• 3 years ago

I feel like this is the original Apple MO that has worked for them for all their most innovative products. Looking at iMac, iPods, iPhone, Apple watch - it was never a perfectly polished product they were pushing, it was a paradigm shift.

When they launched the firs iMac, the paradigm shift was personal computers are for everyone, and belong to every home and should fit into your surroundings. There were a lot of things you could not do with your iMac that you could do with a lot of much cheaper PCs, especially outside the US. You could do a lot more with your BlackBerry than you could with the iPhone, but here we are.

This seems like a similar strategy. They are trying to win the space by changing the paradigm and moving xr from metaverses to visual computing.

That said, they have had a lot of flops with this strategz as well (Pippin, Newton, eWorld, iTunes Ping) so it's not a given that this approach will work.

But I'm definitely happy to see this strategy reemerging, as opposed a gazillion versions of iphone with a slightly better battery, one more camera, and less or less periphery in the box.

King-Aaron2• 3 years ago

What killer app did laptops have that made them the success they are today? Does new technology necessarily need a killer app if the ergonomics end up being more desirable to a broad range of users?

I don't necessarily know the answer here, but my gut feeling is that defining this device based on a "killer app" is like trying to define the original iPhone as needing a "killer app". It didn't necessarily have such a thing but it did end up being pretty big.

stevenwliao• 3 years ago

Laptops' killer apps are arguably Word, web browsers, and Photoshop.

m4rtink• 3 years ago

Spreadsheets and word processors.

PostOnce3• 3 years ago

That's a good point.

Those form factors were massive improvements in portability and accessibility, without necessarily having a killer app compared to its predecessor (laptop not doing anything a desktop didn't do, iphone didn't do much new at first but now has translator apps and GPS and stuff)

The headset, though, seems clunkier (awkward non-flat shape, has cables, no keyboard) and you trade that off for... a bigger, 3D screen that shows you mostly the same thing.

I could be wrong, but it feels like an expensive regression in portability.

If it has no killer app and isn't a revolutionary form factor in terms of portability and ease of access, can it win? Maybe it's easier to access than I'm imagining. Maybe I'm wrong. We'll have to wait and see, I guess.

hdctambien• 3 years ago

The iphone was full of killer apps at release.

The Maps app was so much better than printing MapQuest maps or trying to use the flip phone version of MapQuest.

Being able to access the real internet from anywhere was futuristic.

You could use iMessage without paying $0.10 per text?!?! Can you even imagine paying $0.10 per text (and $0.25 for every text after the first 100 per month?)

Visual voice mail was also a game changer at the time.

And you got an ipod along with all that. (The iphone was my first "big" ipod device)

himinlomax2• 3 years ago

What killer app did laptops have that made them the success they are today?

Very literally Excel, for business users. That's what most laptop users were running in the 90s.

Then Word for personal use, typically students writing their thesis/homework.

mrguyorama11• 3 years ago

The killer app of laptops is portability. That killer app was so damn powerful it worked even when laptops were called "luggables" because they were fifty pounds and you couldn't use them without a power outlet.

The original iPhone's killer app was an affordable data plan. At the time, data was stupid expense, priced almost as a velben good. But by 2007, AT&T launched a $60 unlimited data plan for their iPhones. Feature phones have been using the web since the turn of the millennium, but nobody could afford it. Nobody bought the smart phones that existed because nobody could afford it. The Motorola Sidekiq was an unattainable toy for most families, but that unlimited data plan suddenly made smart phones viable to most of the population.

For reference, that plan with unlimited data still had a limited number of calling minutes and texts per month!

contrarian1234• 3 years ago

Because no one will really do the stuff you suggest. All the things you describe just take too much effort to make

Assembling furniture

- 1d written description : 1 person half a day

- 2d illustration : ~2 people and a 3 days

- 3d animation : ~3 people and 2 weeks

- 3d interactive thing : a small team and a month.. At least ?

Is it really going to yield a ton more sales?

You can see it in other media. Zillions of creative people write books, a lot fewer shoot movies, and fewer still make interactive narrative video games

All the 3D experiences you end up having are quite simplistic bc no one wants to invest in it. Could you make an Avatar level narrative in VR? It'd be super tricky, but maybe with enough money you could. (arguably there aren't enough people at the moment who know how to make compelling 3d interactive experiences). Will it be worth the extra cost ? Unlikely. It's hard to imagine it being more than marginally better at best

Maybe AI will somehow help speed up the process substantially (and lower the costs), but I'm a bit skeptical it'll help enough

The only thing I can think of where VR would make a huge difference is maybe horror. I'm not into horror, but I could see VR being a huge step up in terms of spookyness

geysersam5• 3 years ago

But people still do shoot movies and make video games.

It takes more work, but also (hopefully) provides an additional value. At sufficient scale it might make sense to do this (something like IKEA).

himinlomax2• 3 years ago

You can already very easily animate an assembly in modern CAD programs by setting up connectors and constraints, which you normally do as a matter of course anyway. There's literally nothing to do, you just click on the "assembly" tab and start dragging parts around.

causi2• 3 years ago

Yeah if only 3D scanning went through the same revolution digital photography did.

phkahler• 3 years ago

> - 3d animation : ~3 people and 2 weeks

Given the design already in CAD, how about 1 person in a day.

ztrww8• 3 years ago

https://www.ikea.com/au/en/customer-service/mobile-apps/say-... should be pretty nice though

of course still a gimmick

I’m more exciting about a new version of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmFk0AKbXlQ

numpad0• 3 years ago

There's no killer app specific to this headset because this is just a supercomplicated me-too product, and also because there is no point in half baking a potential killer.

But it's okay, I think. It has the browser, Unity integration, okay visual passthrough, etc. Ticks all boxes.

johlits• 3 years ago

Just give me lightsaber battles and I'm sold.

hellweaver666• 3 years ago

literally the only thing I use my Quest 2 for is Beat Saber

jayd166• 3 years ago

Even if they somehow nail the hand input, without controllers for haptics, I'm a bit disappointed.

mrguyorama11• 3 years ago

It doesn't work, because you can't constrain the user's hand to match what's happening in the game, meaning it completely removes any immersion benefit you get from VR in the first place.

Melee in VR feels awful. It feels like swatting flies.

Shooting in VR is amazing. There are multiple games that let you play Star Wars battlefront knockoffs so you can cosplay the droid army.

DonHopkins2• 3 years ago

You can't see the killer app for the nurturing ecosystem.

mrguyorama11• 3 years ago

What nurturing ecosystem? We've had ten years or so to find an actual use case that every average person is willing to spend hundreds of dollars on, and we have come up empty handed. There's nothing magical or so new in this headset. The people who have an actual use for VR, simulation game turbo nerds, have been mostly satisfied, nobody else cares about VR. Most people who try the "floating web browser and custom theater and infinite monitors" experience quickly realize how unergonomic it is. VR is still an experience that one in ten cannot adjust to.

This is the same problem we saw with the metaverse. It's all hype and no substance. Their best ideas to put into the presentation were looking at web sites.

Why would web sites be better to look at in VR?

wildpeaks• 3 years ago

Ironically we had floating web browsers 16 years ago already (and there have been AR versions over the years as well): https://techcrunch.com/2007/06/05/spacetime-3d-browser-eye-c...

At this point, floating pages and waypoints are the "Hello World" of AR platforms.

qbasic_forever2• 3 years ago

When they seriously started designing this thing 2+ years ago they probably assumed Facebook's metaverse play would be a smashing success and get VR (and apps like its horizon metaverse) into the mainstream.

Oops.

f6v2• 3 years ago

I bet it took them much more time to make it. Don’t think metaverse had anything to do with it.

ENGNR2• 3 years ago

Two large screens in a hotel room - so sold (plus on a plane, if that's not socially annoying)

Being able to stand side by side with people to work on something rather than broadcast my face into their face. It's just... so much more natural. All of the social cues like concentration, wandering away to think, nodding your head along with a group conversation you stumble upon and are now actively engaged in. If I can bring my data/apps in but keep them private - sold

Interacting digitally with the environment - this is a new one but I think it's going to be huge. Anything involving maps or layouts, you can plan it prior, and then overlay it on the day when you get on site. AR on a phone is meh because you have to hold it up, but when it's just a gesture I think it's going to open up whole new use cases that were just out of reach (pun intended)

4111111111111112• 3 years ago

It's 4k per eye. That's great compared to current headsets, but please remember that the screen of your normal screen likely already has 4k, and that's just a rectangle a few cm of everything you see. The 4k per eye means that it's likely going to be <fullhd depending on just how gigantic you want to make the screens

It could be great, but productivity will likely need over 4k per eye to be anything beyond a novelty.

Depending on how the hardware develops, it could become something great for sure. most people calling it a novelty are taking about the device as it's been announced, not the theoretical future it could potentially have if it was different.

tinus_hn• 3 years ago

Certainly without the device, there’s never going to be a killer app for the device. It’s the first step, it’s not even in stores yet.

ttul3• 3 years ago

The first iPhone was pretty crappy. No apps. 2G only. Poor battery life. Limited global distribution - not even Canada could get it. But it captivated people who didn’t own it yet, and it proved out some essential ideas like multitouch. And when the iPhone 3G came out, improving on some of the original device’s shortcomings, it was wildly popular. The rest is history.

There is no doubt that AR will eventually get good enough that the devices are paper thin, weigh nothing, and have no external battery (of course). Everyone wants _that_ device, but you have to start somewhere. Apple can afford to be patient in this space and their considerable moat of intellectual property will allow them to carve out the high end of the AR market and then work down as they did with iPhone.

It would not surprise me if they are earning 90% of the gross margins in the AR device space within three years.

omeze• 3 years ago

The first iphone let you have a real web browser anywhere you had cell coverage. This lets you have a web browser floating at home. Its not the same (and I love VR)

saiya-jin4• 3 years ago

First iphone had this WOW effect, before there were clunky crappy Microsoft-OS powered boxes with pens and crappy slow imprecise displays. I recall, I had one, it was a massive shift and basically a new type of device.

This... judging by extremely careful wording of a web which needs to play very very nice with vendors to get these early access peeks, seems to not have it. More like nicely polished hammer looking for nails everywhere. Yes, many aspects fine tuned above competition, but competition is not asleep and the gap is not that big. In some aspects, it will be objectively worse (constant powerbank cable which lasts barely 2 hours, realistically a bit above 1 hour breaks immersion very effectively compared to ie Quest, plus you want to have 4 powerbanks and furiously swapping over one longer evening? Not even going into sharing ultra expensive device with rest of household).

Phones are absolute must in modern world, they were already 90% there when first iphone arrived. VR/AR goggles are still considered idiotic by majority of population, maybe Apple can change that but it will take few years at least.

bombcar• 3 years ago

The first iPhone was an iPod that could make phone calls; that was all it needed to be (for the people who were already carrying a phone and an iPod).

TexanFeller• 3 years ago

The first iPhone was pretty crappy

It had some must have killer features for the time. Blackberry and feature phones had some pathetic "mobile web" while the original iPhone would load real websites.

xtiansimon• 3 years ago

I recall not long after the iPod was released in the early 00’s that peeps were clamoring for an Apple phone. It took seven years before Apple fans got their wish. IPhone landed in the world of Nokia, Blackberry, Motorola. All juggernauts in the mobile phone industry.

Just not the same scenario and game plan. Brilliant design is one thing, but Apple has landed at the intersection of Hardware & Software in a developed field. Right? Steve Jobs pulled back from running OS on clone hardware, because Apple’s winning scenario was to do both to make great designed products.

At 3k+ this is classic early adopter scenario. Maybe there are enough people with stupid money who will work out issues for the later ~1k version…provided another company doesn’t sweep in and eat Apple’s lunch

ohgodplsno2• 3 years ago

The first iPhone was the first phone with a proper touch screen.

The Vision is about the 50th VR device, in a market that's already quite busy with the Vives, Indexes and Quests. It brings nothing new, and is just one more high resolution VR device (which existed before for cheaper).

CyberDildonics4• 3 years ago

The first iphone was the first time most people could actually use the internet on something they could carry around, even if it was just with wifi. It did everything phones did but much better since it was all touch. Interfaces to alarms, the calculator, the camera etc was entirely different. Anyone who used it knew that everyone else would either copy it or go out of business.

philistine4• 3 years ago

To add to the appeal of iPhone's original release; do not forget the iPod Touch. Released in late 2007, it was available far more broadly and was a great entry point into the world of those crazy new iPhones.

It was my first iOS device and I even paid the 14.99$ for the update to get mail, calendar and contacts. I played way more games back then than I do now since I was often without a Wi-Fi network.

nathanasmith• 3 years ago

The first iPhone was fantastic. The instant people saw it they wanted it and when they laid hands on it they needed it. The Apple Vision on the other hand is.. a screen strapped to your face.

fennecfoxy• 3 years ago

Lmao, but the first iPhone was a major improvement over other phones at the time and offered a form of consistence/stability versus the often very experimental models other companies had.

The difference here is of course that VR/AR has been thriving already. Apple is late to the game as they are most of the time, but the reactions I have seen so far in YT/Twit comments are the amazed reactions of the tech illiterate general public, they don't care what it does, but it does have an Apple logo!

Apple is not bringing anything new to the table. No virtual objects, no 3d anything, just 2d planes showing video/photos which non-Apple VR/AR has had for the longest time.

This is just from the briefest search: https://www.vrdesktop.net/. Already exists and looks more fully featured than Apple's stuff.

Apple is a 1T company, the "richest and most technologically advanced company in the world", so why don't they act like it?

They do seem to have an impressive resolution on the thing, but only Apple can ask for 3.5k, no other headset bothers to have as high a resolution atm because they know consumers will balk at such a high price...

Apple's press release shows it as if some rando people are using the thing at home as if it's not going to be art studios, etc that buy the headset and a couple of hardcore Apple fans. No regular person is buying a 3.5k VR/AR set to look at a crappy 2d photo gallery app.

Other VR/AR software for existing headsets like the Vive/Oculus etc already do actual virtual objects/interaction as baseline and Apple couldn't even be bothered to include something like that for their press release. Because they don't need to, I suppose. People will eat it up anyway.

perardi• 3 years ago

As people below have pointed out, arguable it was crappy. Sure, lacked 3G, lacked apps, but the utter ease of connecting to wifi and flicking through Safari…

…anyways, arguable. What’s inarguable is that the iPhone 4, which came along only 3 years later, was a damned miracle. Beautiful design, Retina screen, something approaching a “real” camera—just remarkable progress in that time.

I’m unsure if Apple is going to be able to pull off that hyperspeed progression this time. The Vision Pro seems to have truly wild capabilities, but for a lot of money and with very little battery life. Are we going to have a big leap in price/performance soon? I dunno.

noelrock• 3 years ago

Spurious enough comparison given there were phones, a developed phone market which was 150m+ globally even at that stage, and demonstrated clear use cases for an iphone (an ipod, a phone and an internet browser combined).

Yep it iterated and yep app store really rocket charged it beyond where it was envisaged on day one. But it was also an existing market, albeit one that was at the foothills of its potential.

AR/VR too is at the foothills of its potential. But the fundamental problem is: even when its potential is realised, it'll still just be relatively niche and relatively fringe. This stuff simply is not going to be mainstream in a serious way. And without being mainstream, there is no real revenue stream of utility for a company of Apple's size.

I have no idea why people are doing such backflips to come up with potential use cases but most of them just aren't runners. This will sell to an extent for Apple but it'll be a rounding error on their balance sheet at best - even in future versions - though I imagine a lot of the tech will end up elsewhere, so it won't be a complete lost cause for Apple.

mattfrommars• 3 years ago

The first iPhone was pretty crappy.

Holy sht. Can people really* stop comparing launch of VR and with Iphone?

I have been reading tons of comments here and only to see the OP, and folks with similar post here to be proven wrong. Again after again, proven wrong!

The fundamentals question is where is the killer app! Like original poster, this shouldn't be hard for a three trillion dollar company!

Only if there was a way to filter out post that go along the lines of

"....The first iPhone was pretty crappy.... "

GeekyBear7• 3 years ago

No apps. 2G only. Poor battery life.

This particular song has gotten pretty familiar.

No Wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame.

rchaud2• 3 years ago

Apple cut the price of IPhone 2G by 33%, and got AT&T to subsidize handsets for $200. It was dead in the water before then.

Even if Apple made a similar price cut here, the device would still cost over $2000.

matt-attack3• 3 years ago

Exactly this. It's taken 14 iterations to get the iPhone to where it is. Apple Watch has taken 8 or so. Apple has taking a long time iterating to get to where we are today on this platforms. Baby steps really. Each version introduced things we totally take for granted today. I remember just getting the Retina screen on the iPhone 4 was a massively big deal.

Just think what Vision will be after 10 iterations and a decade of time.

gehsty4• 3 years ago

Safari was the killer app for the iPhone and iPad & it’s where people spend an awful lot of their time.

This is a general purpose computing device, so seeing it have a great browser setup is a big deal.

matsemann5• 3 years ago

Is it "general purpose", though? So far I've seen no mentions on how I or other developers can run our own stuff on it. Will it be a walled garden?

petesergeant2• 3 years ago

Does it need one at launch? The Apple Watch wasn't specifically a health-tracker at launch, but that's what they've really leaned into now. When they launched the iPhone, one of the most vaunted features was "Visual Voicemail", which I'm not even sure still exists?

It's a platform. It'll get cheaper, it'll get better, and developers and the market will do the rest. There's a lot of time between now and "early next year" for 3rd party devs to come up with a lot of apps and ideas.

As someone else said, this is the first release of something that'll end up the size and weight as a pair of sunglasses; at that point, I think it will be as ubiquitous as iPhones are.

Alex3917• 3 years ago

I don't understand why there is no AR or VR killer app for this thing.

Because if you go outside wearing this you're going to get instantly mugged. If they were to release something like Pokemon Go before the price comes down, that would likely just result in a bunch of kids getting murdered on the subway or whatever. Much better to drive down the costs by first selling it to people who are excited to use it for coding or whatever.

dontlaugh2• 3 years ago

Correct, it is pointless.

It could have had a killer app: games. Most VR headsets suck in one way or another, Apple could make one that's actually nice to use.

Sadly, for some bizarre reason Apple still don't understand games. They even have pretty good GPUs now and they're still not making an Apple TV Pro to compete with the PS5.

Even just the Vision could've been announced along with a couple exclusives, but instead they have an offhand mention of Arcade.

bobo_legos• 3 years ago

What's strange to me is that they roll out Hideo Kojima to talk about some gaming thing for the Mac OS, yet when it came to the headset all they can give is some creepy demos of a fathers wearing this thing while their kinds play at home.

Could they really not have given some units to some game devs and tell them to come up with some cool ideas?

This thing just feels incredibly rushed. It's like Apple felt left out of the all the AI hype the last couple months, so they were forced to show this thing before it was really ready.

Waterluvian• 3 years ago

If I had to live in a VR context for any reason, this really feels like the product I’d want to have to do it in. But I can’t think of a reason why I’d have to.

JohnAaronNelson• 3 years ago

The killer app will be porn and/or virtually undressing the people around you.

ChuckNorris894• 3 years ago

With $3500 you can go on an epic drug fueled sex party with high quality real live escorts that will make your mates jealous and will be an experience you remember for life.

Spending $3500 just to wank at VR videos is crazy.

mrguyorama11• 3 years ago

You should try VR porn. Like actually try it. I have heard it loses it's gimmick really fast. It's extremely limited because the camera rig required for video content is restrictive, and the only ones who can afford it are really boring studios, and it's not actually "VR", but merely "3D with a large field of view", which turns out to not be that great, and the "games" that let you interact are often cash grabs, and plenty more often just store bought 3D assets with extremely mediocre animation.

Go look at the VR porn subreddit. It's really not impressive. Also the story that VHS won because of porn is a lie. Porn doesn't drive innovation like most people claim.

analog31• 3 years ago

What lessons have we learned from the killer apps for smart phones? The killer app has to be addictive to children.

lijok• 3 years ago

This is what's concerning. A team that just spent years creating revolutionary hardware that is leaps and bounds ahead of the competition, who by far have the most context to come up with a killer app, could not come up with one. The best they could offer is reading articles in safari an enhancing the viewing experience of movies/shows/live sports.

They should be bursting at the seams with out of this world ideas that this amazing hardware could support. And yet, nothing.

WillAdams• 3 years ago

I think that we need new tools --- I'd love to see a 3D sculpting tool which uses this to show the 3D object to me in real space --- it'd be great for furniture design.

plagiarist• 3 years ago

I am also waiting to see what the killer app is.

I think it may be positioned more for professional use and then, "oh yeah, you can have a great movie and game experience, too."

jayd166• 3 years ago

Well, yes. This is the early adoption device they expect to bootstrap their app store with all the niche things you described.

Cthulhu_2• 3 years ago

Counterpoint, there's always been a desire to have a virtual environment as first shown in 80's sci-fi films like Hackers, Johnny Mnemonic, etc; immerse yourself in a system, have it become like a natural extension of yourself.

There was someone on here some time ago who showed and talked about his setup, he had been doing his job as a software developer reclined in VR for years at that point.

Here's the thing though: smartphones didn't have "a" killer app per sè I don't think, but they became part of everyone's daily lives in a really short timeframe. PCs and laptops didn't have "a" killer app, but pretty much everyone here has it as their day job.

I don't think it's about whether it has a killer app or not, I think it's whether it can become normalized and mainstream, and be listed alongside the TV, PC, smartphone, the car, etc; something everyone will have in one way or another.

That said, I'm cynical myself; modern-day VR and AR has been tried for a decade now or thereabouts; Google wasted billions on Google Glass, Facebook bet their whole company on the metaverse / AR / VR and has had to backtrack, Magic Leap was a mystery company that raised billions and failed to deliver, Oculus and Vive have their place now as a somewhat niche and pricey gaming implement - popular as arcade / events (I went to one for a birthday party this weekend) and middle class households that have the money and space for it.

So there's a market, mostly in gaming, but it's not become as mainstream yet as e.g. the smartphone. I don't personally believe it will, but if anyone can take an existing concept, iterate on it and make it mainstream, it's Apple.

alach11• 3 years ago

The killer app for smartphones is being a phone.

duped• 3 years ago

smartphones didn't have "a" killer app per sè I don't think, but they became part of everyone's daily lives in a really short timeframe

The smartphone's killer apps were messages, phone, email and calendar. By the time the iphone came around it was just to eat Blackberry's lunch because it gave us multitouch as the killer interface.

JediWing• 3 years ago

The smartphone had multiple killer apps: web browsing, maps when you needed them most instead of having to print MapQuest directions, and device consolidation (iPod, cell phone, GPS, and web browser all in one!)

The touch interface elegantly solved the problem of not having a full keyboard and mouse.

The ultimate vision for these headsets is not yet realized: to unintrusively overlay enriched visual information over our surroundings. This doesn't hit the unintrusively piece by a longshot, nor are the apps that realize this vision even announced.

Vision Pro does, however, provide a first step platform to develop those apps when the tech does shrink to an everyday wearer.

querulous• 3 years ago

the smartphone killer app was that it fit in your pocket and was useable almost everywhere you were

tootie• 3 years ago

I worked for a digital creative agency that partnered with a few AR/VR companies including the big ones creating demos and POCs for conferences or events. We spent so much time brainstorming and testing with some really bright people and never really came up with more than diverting bits of motion art. We made one pretty decent mini game. Nothing substantive.

And think about the mainstream industry. It's been years and the peak of AR is still Pokemon Go and VR is Beat Saber. Apple Vision looks to be twice as good as the Meta Quest for 10x the price.

AndyMcConachie• 3 years ago

Shopping.

Walk into a physical store and stand in an aisle. How many products can you see in a 360 field of vision?

Visit any webstore. How many products can you see on your screen at once?

To me this is the completely obvious application for VR. But in order for it to be actually useful you would need an online shopping experience that worked with it. At the very least you would have to 3D model every product.

mrguyorama11• 3 years ago

This is laughable. Walmart literally has a demo of an "AR experience" shopping experience and it is absurdism, on the same level as that pepsi logo design document.

Nobody wants that. People shop online to avoid the annoyance of a physical location. I can shop for things while I squeeze out turds, why would I ever exchange that for strapping an overpriced screen to my face? The average person favors convenience and cheapness above all else, to a huge extent.

adamsmith1432• 3 years ago

Isn't the actual killer app for Advertisers? "Glue this thing to peoples faces and you now have the most effective most intrusive way to slam ads in front of people ever created!" Don't see why any consumer would buy this for 3500 though.

rchaud2• 3 years ago

The game console industry shows that even having a killer app isn't enough to avoid selling hardware at a loss and making it up with ecosystem rent.

This has no killer app and is being sold at full price.

tambourine_man• 3 years ago

I think this will be one of those “iPod, less storage than a Nomad, lame” comments in a few years, but I guess we'll see.

I'd love to work comfortably lying in a hammock, couch or bed. The monitor part is solved, it seems, I just need one of those split keyboards where each half attaches to one hand.

I'd also love to feel like I'm in a colossal movie theater without all the viruses, noise and popcorn from other people.

I'll pay good money for either.

mickdarling• 3 years ago

None of the Apple apps they showed for the VisionPro had any substantial photogrammetry mapping. They didn’t paste virtual TVs to the walls, or place furniture into an empty room. All the Apple apps were contained to virtual floating screens, even the keyboard (instead of placing in on a surface).

They did show a few third party apps interacting with real world objects (the train moving on a table) but I wonder what amount of that was concept and what was real.

Connecting the virtual objects to those in the real world I feel is a killer feature that will open up a huge set of opportunities. If this doesn’t have that yet, it’s still more VR than AR in my book.

bwb• 3 years ago

The killer app is replacing my giant monitor with this device.

When I travel this is a game changer for me. Right now I lug a small second screen so I can work. I will happily drop $5k to fix this problem and just travel with this plus a small laptop.

simonebrunozzi• 3 years ago

Are they just hoping someone comes up with all the above in the next 6 months?

Yes.

If they did, would anyone care?

Also yes.

jojobas2• 3 years ago

They claim 4k resolution over some 120x70 degrees FoV.

This makes for some ~800x600 resolution for a focus area such a page of text in the middle of the field. How can it be sharp enough?

Does it use some sort of uneven pixel distribution?

kaba03• 3 years ago

I believe they can use practically uneven pixel distribution by lenses. So if they render the “middle” over a larger area and later correct for that with lenses than in effect that part will be of higher pixel density.

jojobas2• 3 years ago

I highly doubt it. The average pixel density is 33 pixels per degree (compared 60+ ppd of a no-frills monitor at a typical desk distance). Concentrating pixels in the centre to make a reasonable display would leave something like 10ppd for the periphery, which is like 1/5 of eye's resolution.

jve2• 3 years ago

To everyone complaining about the price, let's add Steve Ballmer to the studio, he will give some weight to your words: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qycUOENFIBs

ricardobayes• 3 years ago

It never made sense back then and neither does now. The new iPhone is what, the best part of 1300 Euros here in Spain. A full monthly salary...

jve2• 3 years ago

It never made sense back then and neither does now

Well, Apple was the first 1T company. I don't know which grade they were learning me that companies maximize profits and minimize expenses. Until it works for Apple, they will happily put whatever price tag. It makes no sense to complain. People will either complain with wallet (not able to buy it) or Apple will just continue to be a behemot.

spaceman_20203• 3 years ago

Here in India, they've been handing out discounts. Got a new iPhone 14 after exchange for $600. The competition is almost the same price.

The Macbooks look expensive too until you compare them to similar Windows laptops with equivalent screens, trackpads, and battery life.

asimpletune3• 3 years ago

Apple's position, in so many words, is that if you want a cheaper iPhone, buy an older model. Their products are so good, that the budget model is just the old one.

For example, I have an iPhone 11. I got it the day it came out, and I really don't need another phone. I will continue to use this one until it breaks, or probably for another 5 years, whichever comes first.

Maybe for some people, it's beneath them to buy an older, even if it's professionally refurbished and warranted, but to me that says something about the quality.

Last example. My brother in law was once complaining to me about how Apple is trash and that they purposely slow down their phones and that it's all a conspiracy. I asked him what phone he had and he told me an iPhone 5s! I was so impressed that he didn't even notice how outrageous this was.

sfpotter• 3 years ago

Apple Watch was useless but looks cool and is just a watch so people bought it as a fashion accessory. This is useless but looks dumb so will flop.

npteljes• 3 years ago

Apple Watch was useless

Apple Watch 7 and SE 2022 scored on the top for tracking sleep data[0]. So it's very far from useless, we bought it for this functionality alone.

[0] https://youtu.be/ogJ8uEUjW_8?t=1009

blitzar• 3 years ago

Apple Watch told the time. That itself made it a viable product - you remove the thing you were wearing to tell the time before and add their thing.

nabla9• 3 years ago

How many degrees field of vision? Somehow this is not mentioned by Apple or reviewers.

makeitdouble5• 3 years ago

Namely, 5,000 patents filed over the past few years and an enormous base of talent and capital to work with.

It was mentionned in the keynote as well...should Apple really brag about their patent minefield in a field that is in need of more players and more efforts to push it forward ?

In many cases it literally hurt to do so. Not with the Apple Vision Pro – text is super crisp and legible at all sizes and at far “distances” within your space.

That's the part I was most intrigued with, and on one size given the 4K resolution per eye, text being readable was expected, but I can't wait to have more details on how "crisp and legible at all sizes" it is. I have no idea of what's M.Panzerino's threshold is for "crisp", hope it's better than just Full HD level.

frant-hartm• 3 years ago

They advertise the "4K per eye" as some kind of an advantage. They need to do this to have 3D vision, but it doesn't improve the resolution, it's still just 4K.

And the 4K is across your whole FOV, I would like to see a comparison with some standard monitors (4K at 27" and 32") at particular distances from your eyes.

I suppose because they didn't publish anything it is still significantly worse than hi-res monitors (just better than all previous headsets).

lhl2• 3 years ago

At 90-100 degrees, a 4K/eye display will likely end up being around 35-40 PPD (pixels per degree). This is about equivalent to what a FHD display would like like (27" monitor at 60cm: https://qasimk.io/screen-ppd/).

There are a lot of other factors like fill factor (screen door effect) and there are definitely some optical designs that can increase PPD as well. Apple bought Limbak recently, btw, it's possible they use a similar design as what is described here: https://simulavr.com/blog/ppd-optics/

saiya-jin4• 3 years ago

Why the wondering, there are already devices on the market with higher resolutions than what Apple will bring in near future. It may not be comparable for some high FPS use case, but as virtual desktop, especially crispness of image is very much comparable.

akmarinov5• 3 years ago

For comparison the top of the line PSVR2 does 2K per eye, hooked up to basically a PC made for gaming

chippiewill2• 3 years ago

I think 4k might really be a bare minimum for this kind of thing. For the text heavy use cases that apple are pushing things like pixel density are going to be much more important than the gaming usecases VR has been used for thus far.

Once those virtual displays show text at any sort of angle the aliasing effects will be much higher too.

I think the tech might need to get to 8k+ before it starts feeling as good as "retina display" did when Apple launched that.

mkozlows• 3 years ago

It's not 4K per eye. They say 23M pixels across two eyes, which is 11.5M for each eye. 4K is 8.2M. It's 40% more pixels than 4K, with the intent presumably being to be able to display a 4K-resolution display within a larger space.

PinguTS• 3 years ago

> Namely, 5,000 patents filed over the past few years and an enormous base of talent and capital to work with.
It was mentionned in the keynote as well...should Apple really brag about their patent minefield in a field that is in need of more players and more efforts to push it forward ?

That I didn't understood. Should that be a message to the competition? What should that tell me as a developer? What should that message tell me as a consumer?

As a consumer may I don't care how many patents are there. Because I don't have a benefit at all.

As a developer may it means, that a develop for a consumer base, but it is hard to predict how big that will be. Competition needs to work around those patents or will not exists at all because of possible licensing fees. So, should I start development or not?

Cymrukicks• 3 years ago

The message is to shareholder/investors;"This is defensible, We have moat".

LexGray• 3 years ago

Having a patent moat is also a message to the consumer. Apple has had promised features pulled because it ran into somebody else’s patent minefield and it can affect device price considerably. Having a software update pull features for legal reasons is also a terrible experience.

cloverich• 3 years ago

Many non software folks I meet look at patents as a sign of ingenuity, a reward, and evidence of successful creations / engineering. Its not viewed as a negative. It also suggests Apple's version will be better than others, for a long time, because all of the good parts are patented.

(It makes me sick to the stomach personally)

nnx• 3 years ago

The patent brag isn’t a first for Apple though.

Steve Jobs himself during the first iPhone presentation bragged “oh boy we’ve patented it” about multitouch technology.

rospaya• 3 years ago

IIRC that was only half-true since multitouch existed before the iPhone. Don't know the details though.

mike_tyson• 3 years ago

Interesting to see hardly any comments on the 2hr battery life.

I think any other company would get roasted on that.

jansan2• 3 years ago

It's an external battery anyway, so you can use an arbitrarily large battery or multiple backup batteries. It's not really a problem, but the battery being external is.

madeofpalk5• 3 years ago

If you swap the battery does the device shut down?

spaceman_20203• 3 years ago

I like the MKBHD review he just posted. It seems more balanced and nuanced.

machdiamonds2• 3 years ago

I'm curious if anyone's tried using the Varjo VR-3 as a monitor replacement? The Vision Pro seems like it might be in the same league. It's got this unique setup where the central focus area (27° x 27°) is a uOLED display with 70ppd and 1920 x 1920 px per eye, while the rest of the view is over 30ppd on an LCD display with 2880 x 2720 px per eye.

While they're not directly competing (given that the Varjo is entirely wired and lacks the key attraction of Apple's software and ecosystem), they do seem to be somewhat comparable in terms of price and resolution.

https://varjo.com/products/vr-3/

auggierose2• 3 years ago

Apple says they have 23 millions pixels, the Varjo seems to have only about 7 million pixels? That's quite a difference just in terms of resolution.

makeitdouble5• 3 years ago

The Varjo would be more around 12 million per eye, but I think the actual feeling could be affect by the optics and how the central focus area is handled.

The central 70ppd feels like a pretty solid number. Funnily enough it's price not that far from Apple's headset.

machdiamonds2• 3 years ago

Yeah, but given that the central focus display is 70 PPD on the Varjo, it's probably higher PPD compared to the Vision Pro in that part of the screen. So, I'm curious if that 70 PPD area truly matches up to the clarity of a real monitor.

sazz2• 3 years ago

Is anything known about health risks? I could imagine that if the eye no longer has to focus on distance, that this could lead to refractive errors more quickly with excessive use.

Or did I miss here something?

Etheryte• 3 years ago

As covered in the original announcement discussion, it has lens inserts that increase the focal distance.

charcircuit2• 3 years ago

if the eye no longer has to focus on [different distances]

The same problem exists with monitors. The recommendation is take breaks to focus at different distances.

sazz2• 3 years ago

I don't know - monitors are physical objects in space that you are aware of. I would classify Vision Pro more as glasses.

I wear glasses myself. And sometimes I forget to take them off because they become part of my perception. That doesn't happen to me with my monitors :-D

makeitdouble5• 3 years ago

It's a risk mostly to small children as far as I understand. There's been a few case of semi-permanent eye issue I think in pretty young kids (6 or so ?), and temporary issues in older kids (10-13?), but I can't find the papers back.

Since these studies, it has become harder to experiment on small kids as it would be unethical, but on the other hand there's no specific report on kids older than 13 if I remember well.

Then a decent number of adults have been using the headsets for prolonged periods without anything critical reported at this point. It should still be used with awareness of potential risks, but I don't think there's any strong evidence of long term effects.

rowanG077• 3 years ago

Honestly if this can replace my valve index in addition to my monitors I'm sold.

Gareth3214• 3 years ago

I'm waiting for the rumoured AR glasses in reading glasses format in 2026. That seems useful for me; integrating computing into my typical workflow. I won't be wearing this thing around the office or for any extended period of time.

layer8• 3 years ago

That won’t be happening this decade, and maybe not even the next.

sgt101• 3 years ago

Target market : young people (so not the majority of commentators)

Target market : rich people (again...)

Enterprise market : military / financial services & trading / cyber defence

I think that they will hit the intersection of rich and young; and they will also get traction from their enterprise niches. This will create a beach head for developers and an onramp that doens't rely on someone just pouring money into it all endlessly.

If the market doesn't grow and evolve then it'll be clear that consumers don't want this, there will be no excuses like "wait for better kit, better designs, a functioning market"...

theklr3• 3 years ago

I think I’m noticing what people do all the time with Apple launches, not listen to the marketing. They told you exactly where they’re positioning this. Spatial computing. Not quite tvOS not quite iPadOS. If they’re lucky this is the watch all over again. If they’re truly lucky, this the new iPlatform. I’m just excited they’ve now confirmed this will be a market for at least another decade. I am bummed to see though that it is a queued release and not a global preorder.

lvl102• 3 years ago

I see big potentials for this device with DIY contents among others. Imagine putting this on to fix your car? It can guide you through exploded views and help you pin point problems. That could be big in professional settings too.

HOWEVER, I still believe it will be very niche. It’s still putting on a sizable headset and placing two screens right up your eye balls. We don’t yet know the health effects from doing that for an extended period. I imagine it is not good at all.

Olreich2• 3 years ago

Unless there’s some radio wave danger, I don’t see how headsets could be harmful. Your eyes are not actually focusing on a close screen, they’re focused however far away the objects appear to be. Is there a danger to letting your eyes be unfocused and placing an iPhone right next to them (letting the screen be blurry, not trying to focus on it).

Maybe it’s the inner ear that is going to get hurt after prolonged disorientation, but astronauts should surely have that worse and I haven’t heard of any studies about it. Maybe something will show up about it.

I don’t see an obvious mechanism where this is harmful and VR headsets have been around long enough that this should be a well-understood safety space.

gizzlon2• 3 years ago

Looking forward to trying this. Could be great!

But:

- Why are no of the other people in the meeting using a Vision? :P https://www.youtube.com/live/GYkq9Rgoj8E?feature=share&t=560...

- The see-through of your eyes from the outside looks super creepy.

bees_buzz• 3 years ago

Why are no of the other people in the meeting using a Vision?

Check out Marques Brownlee's video on this - they probably _were_, it renders your face using the internal cameras in real time and displays that.

gizzlon2• 3 years ago

Huh? You see their cloths and environment ..

Do you mean the avatar thingy?

throwaway485• 3 years ago

This reminds me of the problems I saw using Simula VR as a daily driver. Being able to spawn windows in midair at any angle is cool, but because of the odd angles it's not comfortable for viewing text. I'm a text-heavy person. The 4k screens per-eye might change this. Wasn't expecting micro-oled either, and I love OLED.

I don't want to spend time arranging windows around me at ideal viewing angles. I wanted the device or windowing system to align windows (at least vertically), perpendicular to my view. Straight up and down. I wanted to walk around them like phantom objects in this space, with silly stuff like the memory/resource usage and metadata about the window on the back of it.

What I really wanted to see here was a virtual workspace augmented by the physical space around you. I want to snap or 'throw' a window to a wall or a ceiling or tile them across my floor and walk around like I'm touring miniature golf. I'm sure the gestures and virtual anchors or snaps to do this will appear over time. 1st-generation woes I suppose.

As an alternative I wanted to create a series of nesting-doll-like orbs around myself, where windows fix themselves with equal gaps at optimum viewing angles around this orb and I'm only moving them around inside this sphere-layer, and up/down layers to inner/outer spheres. "Move to back" / "Move to front", etc.

Apple's probably further than any OS on preserving application state. Not just window geometry/placement, but application state. I want to put on these goggles and see 10+ windows "surface" from beneath the physical world around my room. I love the idea of my house/office being like the movie "Her" where it looks minimal and devoid of technology and putting on these goggles brings the virtual world out. Even just having dynamic art persist on the walls when virtual.

Further thought: I want to see 2+ of these goggles in action viewing the same content and applications and allowing for simultaneous/group/mesh controlling. Can I get 2 of these and have my boyfriend and I watch the same movie? Play the same game? I really hope it's something like wifi-direct or mesh networking for local AR stuff.

I think this is the start of something really pivotal and done with enough polish to launch the industry - finally. I just want more sooner, and I'm puzzled why they announced it so early if it's marketed next year.

Asahi Linux for Vision Pro soon? In at least 1 of the Apple videos I saw a window fixed to a wall. Linux needs devs that can build this AR/gesture/interface/compositor stuff.

I actually love the oddly buggy/bubbly design of the goggles. I like how they hid the cameras, and try to reproduce the face of the person, and the fade-in effect to show someone outside the goggles interacting with you. I'm really hoping the downward-facing cameras + sensors allow for speedy typing on a table surface with a virtual keyboard. I was so shocked I could type 80wpm on an iPad virtual keyboard when those were new. I love keyboards, but I want the movie Her with minimal/no tech visible.

They've got my purchase if I can play some reasonable percentage of Steam games on this thing. Vampire Survivors <3

jmull• 3 years ago

I think headsets like this one, will replace screens for sit-down cases… working at your computer, watching movies, browsing the internet, etc.

But it’s going to take time. The uptake on this particular device will be small due to the price (very small by Apple’s standards).

For V2 maybe they can save a chunk of money by dropping the wearer pass-through display, and just indicate the wearer’s status with some LEDs (You’ve got a big headset on. People around you being able to see a representation of your eyes isn’t going to make them feel more comfortable/connected to you.)

treprinum2• 3 years ago

All these optimistic articles without showing a single AR application - is Apple allowing access to devices only to pre-vetted publishers that would never criticize their products? 4k per eye sounds good but if it's only used for displaying 2D stuff it's kinda pointless as the resolution is still too low for that and the GPU is too weak for 3D stuff at that resolution (that would need like a minimized 5090 to make it work).

cal85• 3 years ago

How do you know the resolution is too low, and what do you think is needed? I find the Oculus Quest 2 (1920x1832 per eye) to be passable for working on virtual monitors. Not great, but feels 60% of the way there. I would expect 4K per eye to be a huge difference.

treprinum2• 3 years ago

I have HP Reverb G2 which is 2048x2048 per eye and it's great for the MS Flight Simulator 2020 or Automobilista 2 but utterly terrible for virtual desktop. Imagining 2x denser pixels still doesn't cut it for working with text, i.e. one still will see jagged lines/edges. Also the lens are unfocused towards edges which would require head movement instead of eye movement to keep focused area sharp. Imagine programming a foot away from a 55" monitor.

Vision Pro is supposed to be 23Mpx so let's assume it's evenly distributed per eye, making it 11.5Mpx per eye, and with a square resolution per eye, so that's approximately 3391x3391, i.e. 1.65x denser than Reverb.

reportgunner4• 3 years ago

Parent is right. VR/AR looks amazing on a physical display in a youtube video but looks terrible through the headset.

dorkwood• 3 years ago

They showed an AR application. It was dragging a 3D object from iMessage onto the desk in front of you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENtxJcI5Ll4&t=1088s

sensanaty• 3 years ago

Thank you, Generic Advertisement Camouflaged as an Article for Shiny New Thing from MegaCorp Inc!

Those conspiracy theories about chemicals in American tapwater must be onto something if people are genuinely (aka not obvious shills) excited about this clownery.

gigatexal• 3 years ago

Both John Gruber (daringfireball.net) and Ben Thompson (Stretechery et. al) showed strong praise for the headset after trying it at the event. John was a skeptic but he was won over. Ben, much more bullish on the headset, was also blown away. This bodes well.

mensetmanusman3• 3 years ago

Homepod for the eyes.

dangus• 3 years ago

What remains to be seen is whether this is the greatest product in a product category with mainstream appeal, or whether this is the greatest product in a niche category that many people feel no need to be a part of.

Most of Apple’s other successful products are part of the former. Music players were a proven market. Headphones were a proven market. Cell phones were a proven market. Watches, fitness trackers, and jewelry were a proven market.

VR and AR are really not that. That market has sold an impressive amount of units mostly on the back of a cheap $300 device that its owners consider to be a toy, but the volume is nothing compared to all the other devices I mentioned.

This could very easily be the next HomePod (1st generation): an over-engineered niche product with a price that is too high to be palatable.

One thing is certain: people are getting fired over at Meta.

dreamcompiler2• 3 years ago

This thing reminds me of the Segway.

1. Seems quite cool in the demo but dorky in the real world.

2. Solves a problem no one really has.

3. Costs 10x more than most people are willing to spend.

4. Actual use case: Mall cops and tourists.

5. Some rich fanboy will buy out the entire inventory, use it outdoors, and fall off a cliff.

portpecos2• 3 years ago

If augmented reality can provide me with step-by-step guidance on diagnosing and fixing a car leak, replacing a diverter valve on a faucet, installing roof-customized solar panels, and various other DIY tasks, while also showing me the necessary tools, then I would be inclined to purchase this product. I'm growing weary of watching YouTube videos for car repairs and struggling to align the locations of bolts or parts with my own vehicle.

The concept of augmented reality also appeals to me when it comes to recipes. I've been considering investing in a Thermomix device, which costs around $1500, because I appreciate the convenience of their on-screen guided instructions rather than attempting to figure out the correct temperature, cooking time, slice size. If augmented reality can guide me through cooking two or three dishes simultaneously, that would be a very convenient time saver. For example, while the onions are sautéing for 5 mins, the software knows that I have enough time to prepare a 2nd dish like chopping romaine leaves for a salad. I’d end my subscription to Soylent pretty quick for something like that.

dreamcompiler2• 3 years ago

You bring up some good points. Mainly that teaching you to work on your car, your house, or cook is highly specific to your particular environment. Maybe that's an example of the missing killer app for XR.

OTOH these also sound like things a remote teacher could help you with if they could talk to you in an earpiece provided they could immerse themselves in your environment. So the remote teacher would be wearing the AR headset. But now maybe you'd need a robot avatar in your kitchen.

Just brainstorming here but these might be business opportunities.

reportgunner4• 3 years ago

This sounds nice on paper but it's far easier to just read the recipe rather than fumble around with a headset while your hands are dirty.

Terretta4• 3 years ago

So, #3, you're saying this should be $349?

How would this, which has the hardware of two iPhones in it and stands in for a 100" screen and Dolby Atmos surround system, cost less than an iPhone Pro Max?

It was obvious as soon as they listed the cameras involved, the M2 chip, and the micro-OLED screens (plural), this was going to cost 2x a single top of line iPhone plus headset, so $3000+.

aidenn03• 3 years ago

GP didn't say how much it should cost, just how much most people are willing to spend. Right now this is just a portable, private screen (maybe a really nice one, but without any killer XR app, that's all it is) . There are few people who have a use for that to make it worth spending $3.5k on. If an app comes out that enables something people want to do, but you can't do with a laptop, then it may start to become worth it.

SecretDreams3• 3 years ago

Maybe it's not obvious, but this thread is lowkey being brigaded lol.

Some of the use cases people are espousing and the timelines are.. ambitious.

So far, this product looks like it was made for stockholders to go try to sell to the general public lol.

542458• 3 years ago

"Brigaded" usually means (in an online context) a coordinated attack from an outside source. I don't think there's any evidence of that - just sounds like a bunch of independent commenters who like the Apple or VR (both groups are common on HN) and want to say good things.

SecretDreams3• 3 years ago

I guess I used brigaded loosely.

To me, it looks like a somewhat coordinated effort to give positive vibes to a relatively pointless (in its current state) product that likely nobody in this thread has had a chance to use.

Maybe it's not even coordinated - just a lot of like minded simps.

BiteCode_dev• 3 years ago

The author says he used all the VR systems that exist under the sun, but he doesn't mention SimulaVR.

Since for my use case it's the most direct competitor (using VR as working tool, not gaming), anybody got a comparison of the early test devices for both?

cesarb• 3 years ago

The author says he used all the VR systems that exist under the sun, but he doesn't mention SimulaVR.

I don't think SimulaVR counts, since all they have so far is a few prototypes and a single pre-release build sent to an external reviewer (https://simulavr.com/blog/review-unit-in-transit/). And unless the author is that reviewer (or works for SimulaVR), he can't have used it.

snarfy2• 3 years ago

They mention 12ms, which is 83.3fps. It's a bit too slow for my tastes at $3500 price tag. It might be good for more stationary images, but anything moving will have ghosting/stutter. I'll wait for gen2/3. Still, I'm very happy there is new competition in this field.

ryanwaggoner• 3 years ago

My understanding is that the latency is 12ms, but that's orthogonal to the framerate. You could be updating at 240fps (doubtful, admittedly), but those frames are 12ms delayed from what's entering the camera.

snarfy2• 3 years ago

Yes you are right. It's not clear what the 12ms represents, input delay or framerate or something else. Hopefully we will get better tech specs soon.

javier_e06• 3 years ago

The words that comes to mind when I see the pictures of a person wearing that in a room with another person: Prank. Carnival. Grotesque. Dystopian. My prediction is this device is joining the hall of fame of technological misdirection's along with such products like the NES Power Glove.

suddenexample• 3 years ago

It's interesting that HN seems so divided on Vision Pro. Lots of skepticism, and also lots of acknowledgement that Apple has a habit of shutting down its doubters.

Personally, I'm still skeptical. They announced 2 hours of battery life, which basically means this needs to always be plugged in. And while this is much more useful and technologically superior to everything that came before, it suffers in other ways. It looks goofier and more dystopian than Google Glass (though maybe Apple's brand status can carry it through this), and is heavier and has a weaker exclusive value prop than Meta's Quest headsets.

For all the hate it gets, Meta at least has a core use case for its Quest headsets - VR gaming. If you want to play VR games, get a Quest. If you want to ??? get a Vision Pro. Still not sure what belongs there. Watch a movie in VR instead of on your TV? See your monitors in VR instead of on your desk? Record precious memories that you want to relive over and over with a huge chunk of tech strapped over your face instead of living and enjoying the moment with those around you?

I guess it's the HomePod strategy on steroids - release an ultra-premium device, then release the mass market version later, once you figure out what people actually want from it.

Either way, there's only so much that speculation can cover. Right now, no one can speak to very basic factors like comfort over extended periods of time, which can make or break this product.

kaicianflone• 3 years ago

The fact that Tim Cook didn’t wear the display once during the demo is all I needed to create my opinion on the device. They also didn’t show any developers using the device - why? Probably because this is a glorified iPad and Apple continues to artificially lock down their Apple Silicon on some devices to not cannibalize the lower-tier MacBook offerings.

jackdeansmith• 3 years ago

My guess is Tim Cook didn't wear one because Apple's media team didn't want every news article to use the screen grab as the header image (which is what happened with Zuc). They want the their manicured marketing material front and center.

mmlkrx• 3 years ago

I was HIGHLY doubtful that Apple could pull off a workable digital avatar based off of just a scan of your face using the Vision Pro headset itself. Doubt crushed [...] It’s not totally perfect, but they got skin tension and muscle work right,[...] and the brief interactions I had with a live person on a call [...] did not feel creepy or odd. It worked.

One of the things that shocked me most from the keynote, was the Persona avatar demo. Meta has demoed what they call codec avatars[1] which are super impressive, but still very much in development and not anywhere on the horizon yet.

To see Apple demonstrate realistic avatars was honestly super impressive and will be imo one of the features that you just need experience to truly realize the world of a difference it makes to talk to someone on a flat video screen or feel like you're in the same space together thanks to these avatars and spatial audio.

Immersion is so powerful in VR, I can't wait to hang out with friends and family abroad, play tabletop games, watch a show together, or just shoot the sht.

[1] https://yewtu.be/watch?v=SDxMZ9zjqMs

skimdesk• 3 years ago

They should have branded it as "headphones for your eyes". To me, this seems like the closest analogy of what the value of the product is.

ikekkdcjkfke• 3 years ago

Well there is the in-house proprietary market. Imagine how billion dollar companies coulf leverage this. It's not really for mass consumption, just like microsofts AR glasses too. Army bought a bunch of those and make in-house killer apps

First impressions: Yes, Apple Vision Pro works and yes, it’s good

Related Stories