A developer's view of Vision Pro

https://www.david-smith.org/blog/2023/06/12/new-post/

by ingve • 3 years ago

237 345 3 years ago

david-smith.org

billconan2• 3 years ago

I feel that it's difficult to develop any graphics intensive app as an indie developer.

Groxx• 3 years ago

Is this somehow relevant to the article, or just an "indie games are hard" lament?

billconan2• 3 years ago

this is my reason for not being a day-one developer this time.

taeric• 3 years ago

It is difficult to develop any asset heavy application as an independent developer. Pretty much period. You have to find a way to contract out assets, or you will drown.

Unless you mean the programming of 3d transformations and such. That is, of course, still hard. Most of the platforms have done a ton of that work for you, though.

RugnirViking• 3 years ago

if you can 3d model in any capacity I reckon you can make VR apps, ive seen plenty of them done at game jams near here, including some that won. Don't need movie-quality textures or whatever, a cartoonly low-poly look works well. Don't let the player move, thats a can of worms.

speaking of 3d modelling, I taught myself this year in my spare time over a few weeks, and feel im pretty good at it now, ive made scifi wargaming terrain im happy with and almost considering selling some. Blender is free and good and there are literally endless high quality tutorials for almost any specific object you might want to make and after ten or so you will be able to generalise to anything simple you choose. Of course human bodies are more complicated and I was intimidated but I found sculpting caricatures fun despite not being an artist in the slightest after following an excellent tutorial

gavi2• 3 years ago

As an early developer (Day 1 of App Store launch in 2008 - iRetroPhone) there is some excitement of being the first on a new platform. Back in 2008, there was very little documentation on UIKit but it was fun to develop. The difference I see this time is we had access to the iPhone(released 2007) and this time[1] it looks like you need to either ask Apple to test the app for you, or go to one of the labs (not in NYC strangely) or be one of the lucky ones to be selected for developer kit.

One more thing I found strange was the current Xcode 15 beta does not even come with Vision OS SDK (coming later this month) and we cant even play with the WWDC session videos in the simulator

[1]https://developer.apple.com/visionos/work-with-apple/

Dudester2306023• 3 years ago

Enthusiasts will be asking to get access, while professionals will be paid to come and build.

basisword3• 3 years ago

> The difference I see this time is we had access to the iPhone(released 2007) and this time[1] it looks like you need to either ask Apple to test the app for you, or go to one of the labs (not in NYC strangely) or be one of the lucky ones to be selected for developer kit.

I'm pretty sure iPad's weren't available in advance of the launch day. And, it launched first in the US. I had an iPad app available on launch day and wasn't able to get my hands on an iPad for a month or two. Of course, developing only in the simulator for iPhone/iPad isn't a huge deal...visionOS is probably a lot harder to simulate particularly when it comes to understanding user interaction.

gavi2• 3 years ago

Agree, the visionOS is harder to simulate, but the SDK not being available is a bummer.

Temporary_31337• 3 years ago

I was kind of waiting for the day where a touchscreen based app would be more productive than a traditional laptop with keyboard. Yet, after many years all we got is fruit ninja and a concession from apple in the form of attachable keyboard for the iPad. So I’m equally sceptical that the investment in headset based interface is actually worth it.

sebzim4500• 3 years ago

I think some artists use an ipad with a stylus rather than tablet input to a laptop/desktop, but other than this I can't see how anything else could compete with a keyboard in terms of productivity. Maybe if someone makes a really, really good voice to text interface.

noelsusman• 3 years ago

Here's a short demo of a pretty good voice to text interface that's available for free: https://twitter.com/lunixbochs/status/1378159234861264896

I had to use it for a while when I was unable to touch a keyboard or mouse while recovering from RSI and I was surprised by how quickly I was able to get to about 80% of my previous productivity using just my voice. I still use it sometimes even though my RSI is fully healed.

elzbardico• 3 years ago

Maybe if someone makes a really, really good voice to text interface. Maybe it could work, unless you're programming in APL :-)

bamfly5• 3 years ago

I could see walking around the room thinking and doing clicky-stuff and looking at things, then sitting in front of a keyboard to type. Basically, what I do when I'm on a call and have wireless headphones on.

ladberg33• 3 years ago

I agree the keyboard will remain as the best text input device but I'm pretty confident that eye tracking will be categorically better than a mouse/trackpad. I'll expect that eye tracking solutions for normal monitors will also become more mainstream once people get used to it in the Vision Pro and want to use it elsewhere.

henryfjordan• 3 years ago

How do I click though? Blink? What about a right-click?

Asking me to "blink twice" or anything like that is going to make my eyes lose focus on the screen/content

samwillis2• 3 years ago

As we use an iPhone so close to our face, I would love to see an eye tracking system work for them. But maybe it really need that incredible close proximity, two cameras per eye, and IR illumination in the Vision Pro to work.

chrisrogers• 3 years ago

Eye tracking will probably lose the productivity metric, though. When you remove the ability to look at one thing and interact with another, you get farther from the way that humans tend to interact with their immediate physical environment.

I can cut vegetables without looking at them. I can use that dynamic to offset the planning and acting phases of my thought process. Falling short of that efficiency will feel limiting.

jasonpbecker• 3 years ago

I definitely want to see a monitor with Vision Pro-style eye tracking and hand tracking. I'd love for eyesight and subtle gestures to fully replace pointer devices.

UI_at_80x24• 3 years ago

I primarily use i3wm with 4-40 terminal windows + firefox open. I'd LOVE it if the terminal that I'm looking at was the `active` one. I can't count the number of times I'd lookup some error code, type in more commands, hit enter; only to discover that I had been typing away in the wrong window.

mrguyorama3• 3 years ago

Eye tracking has been $100 to own for many years now through a certain company. Why hasn't it taken off?

The mouse is the superior input device. When people who actually need a better input device get one, they get more advanced mice:

https://3dconnexion.com/us/spacemouse/

throwuwu• 3 years ago

Voice input is going to replace the keyboard shortly.

waboremo2• 3 years ago

As usual, the devil is in the details.

We can see this with voice to text, in which despite in theory being so much faster than typing things out, tends to not be due to these details (processing lag, clunkiness of handling different forms such as whether a word is part of a command or should be added to the text).

Same will happen here. People will get over the hype period and then realize hey this isn't actually faster or more efficient than a traditional tool. Apple knows this as well, it's why they're marketing it as a media consumption device first and foremost, where a lot of these problems can be safely ignored.

nektro• 3 years ago

i fully plan on using a keyboard with the vision pro, that doesnt make me any less excited for it

crazygringo• 3 years ago

Well, touchscreens are generally smaller than laptop screens, and a lot of productivity requires a keyboard.

But the screens on Vision Pro are larger, and it works great with a keyboard.

So anything that requires larger/more screens seems like it might be more productive than a laptop.

mbesto• 3 years ago

It's all very well researched that touchscreens above our arms can't be used with longevity: https://www.wired.com/2010/10/gorilla-arm-multitouch/

thomastjeffery2• 3 years ago

That was a lot of words for nothing to say... To sum up the entire article in one sentence:

The author got to play with the thing, and is very excited to develop software for it.

Krasnol3• 3 years ago

Also: don't cry about the price. Quality costs money.

Altogether sounded like an GPT Apple Ad.

TillE3• 3 years ago

It's true though, the device is clearly intentionally overbuilt, it's not like Apple is adding some huge arbitrary markup.

chaostheory2• 3 years ago

Apple miniaturized a laptop + MacBook into a visor

mhink• 3 years ago

I think this was an interesting point:

That intuition is developed by following a platform’s development from its early stages. You have to have seen and experienced all the attempts and missteps along the way to know where the next logical step is. Waiting until a platform is mature and then starting to work on it then will let you skip all the messy parts in the middle, but also leave you with only answers to the “what” questions, not so much the “why” questions.

I definitely think there's a lot of truth in this, not just for the Vision Pro but for many (if not most) platforms/frameworks/what have you. This could be an entire blog post in itself.

badprose• 3 years ago

A lot of those words were explaining why they're excited to develop software for it.

What did you want them to write about instead?

thomastjeffery2• 3 years ago

More of the "write about" and less of the "write about why I'm writing about".

Dudester2306023• 3 years ago

I think reviewers who don't get excited about Apple products stop getting invited to new Apple products.

MBCook14• 3 years ago

David Smith is not a reviewer. He’s been a longtime app developer with a huge number of apps. Apple has even featured a few of them.

He may be best known for Pedometer++ and Widgetsmith which was the app that went viral on TikTok when widgets first came out for the iPhone.

Tagbert3• 3 years ago

Marco Arment was invited to WWDC as he is north a developer and operates a Mac focused blog. He is frequently very critical of Apple’s tools and actions. I don’t think Apple just invites ’yes men’

yokoprime2• 3 years ago

You could further summarize it with one word: excitement.

Excitement is good. It's not a revolutionary take on anything, but it can be interesting to know why a seasoned iOS developer finds this new platform worthwhile to invest in.

ftxbro3• 3 years ago

this blogpost is the platonic ideal of hype

thdespou• 3 years ago

It starts with the early adopters and spreads like a virus.

amelius4• 3 years ago

Next episode:

developer gets frustrated as Apple refuses to relinquish full control over the device.

kasdi• 3 years ago

Thanks for saving my time. Always read the comments first.

cdchn2• 3 years ago

Not so sure I agree with the pricing strategy. It feels to me they aimed squarely for MacBook Pro pricing.

replete• 3 years ago

Hololens 2 is the same price...

squeaky-clean• 3 years ago

It's basically a macbook pro with 2x near-4k oled screens and 12 cameras.

cdchn2• 3 years ago

A feel like a ton of what they demo'd were "things you'd use a macbook pro for otherwise" as well. Video conferencing, productivity things, etc.

agentultra2• 3 years ago

I'm curious how the economics work out. I don't think it's unrealistic to believe that the customer base that are going to be buying visionOS applications is going to be very limited compared to everything else. Very few people are going to shell out 3.4k for a niche product like this.

HoloLens found it's niche in commercial sectors like manufacturing and logistics so there's a potential path to make a profitable software business in that direction.

However I'm curious what makes this play exciting for indie developers who might not have enough cash for a "long play" here. For iOS it wasn't difficult to see what the benefit would be and iPad only expanded the audience (and breadth of applications having more power under the hood). This is quite a bit different: the technology has been here for a while but the audience seems to be missing (or not as big as you'd think).

What's the play here for small businesses? Just use a portion of your budget to throw spaghetti at the wall?

Krasnol3• 3 years ago

Maybe this is supposed to become an arcade experience for those with normal wages?

bee_rider• 3 years ago

I suspect the only play would be: develop developer tools for those developers who do have the budget for a long play.

If Apple wants AR in their normal non-gaming, non-niche segment to work out, they are going to have to come out with a sleek $1000 device in a couple years. They’d have to be very stupid to not realize that, and it couldn’t possibly be the case that you get a trillion dollars by being stupid, right?

agentultra2• 3 years ago

Right, I think they will eventually come out with a non-Pro device eventually... and price is only one factor in adoption.

They could be signalling that they only want a small number of users for these things.

it couldn’t possibly be the case that you get a trillion dollars by being stupid, right?

... I mean, the fossil fuel industry likes to think it's smart but what it's doing is incredibly stupid. I'm not sure Apple got to a trillion dollars on merit alone.

threeseed• 3 years ago

Cost or demand is not the issue for Apple it's the supply chain.

Right now it can't fulfil a $5000 product let along a $1000 one.

So they will need a dramatic ramp up across their partners before they even consider a consumer SKU.

MBCook14• 3 years ago

Don’t forget the iPhone wasn’t an instant hit. It got a lot of discussion but it took a few years/versions before it became THE phone. Same with the Apple Watch. And even the iPod didn’t take off until it was on Windows after a few years.

This will likely be similar.

When the iPhone came out, not only was it limited it was $600 and no subsidy at a time most people were getting free camera phones.

It took a while (and a price drop) for people to see enough value to pay the price.

mcmcmc• 3 years ago

HoloLens found it's niche in commercial sectors like manufacturing and logistics so there's a potential path to make a profitable software business in that direction.

I mean… that may have been a niche they targeted, whether they found success is debatable. Seems like it was mostly kept afloat by bloated military contracts. And even there it pretty much flopped.

https://www.theregister.com/2022/10/13/us_army_report_micros...

prox• 3 years ago

This is their first iteration. I think like the Apple Watch is the version where they just gonna see where it’s gonna go. I mean if anyone can make this more successful it’s probably Apple.

pazimzadeh• 3 years ago

The same way Tesla started out by selling a Roadster before working on mass market models

racl101• 3 years ago

Looks cool. Would like to try.

Too expensive to buy however.

Will wait for a substantial price reduction on later versions with bugs worked out ... hopefully in the magnitude of 2 / 3rds less before I'd even consider buying it.

Thats' about it.

thefounder• 3 years ago

I would buy this if it can replace my current monitor(s) for development/coding. Price is not issue for many people as long as it can do your daywork easier.

macintux2• 3 years ago

I’m skeptical about the ergonomics but that definitely seems to be viable.

andrewmunsell3• 3 years ago

It could work, with a Mac (which is unfortunate, given the Vision Pro's HW is equivalent to the Mac you "need" just to run the right software). It's an unfortunate limitation that you can only run one 4k "virtual monitor" from a Mac, but presumably your IDE & terminal would live in the virtual Mac screen and all of your documentation, etc. would be "native" in the headset

gpm• 3 years ago

For the vast majority of my work vscode stuffed into a browser-like window using SSH remotes would be fine, and would remove the "single 4k screen from a mac" restriction.

scarface_74• 3 years ago

I’m a “hybrid digital nomad”. My wife and I travel six months out of the year and we stay in our “Condotel”[1] that we own the other six months. We can’t buy anything that we can’t carry in our four suitcases since we can’t keep anything in our unit when it’s rented out.

I might buy it just for the multi monitor setup and to get rid of my extra USB-C video/usb-c portable monitor and my iPad for a 3 monitor setup in smaller spaces.

[1] a Condotel is where you own the entire condo unit. But it gets rented out as a hotel room when you aren’t there and you get the income minus the property management fees

ladberg33• 3 years ago

In short, my brain has crossed a Rubicon and now feels like experiences constrained to small, rectangular screens are lesser experiences.

I left Apple 1.5 years ago but was working on the Vision Pro while I was there. I have spend many hours working in the headset and I know exactly the feeling he's describing! Leaving felt like going back in time to using clunky technology and I've been waiting for outside world to catch up (and will still be waiting until it comes out at least).

For the past week I've been trying to explain to people how certain I am that doing work in headsets will become mainstream but am (understandably) met with doubt, and I think you'd need to try it on to fully understand.

macintux2• 3 years ago

From your experience with it, what do you think about the fatigue factor, either visually or just neck strain? From all accounts it’s quite heavy.

jondwillis• 3 years ago

Unironically it might be smart to start 3d printing and testing some iNeckBrace designs.

ladberg33• 3 years ago

For reference I was already pretty used to gaming in VR on inferior headsets before working on the Vision Pro, so I might be more forgiving of issues than your average person.

I'd say that eye strain wasn't really an issue at all for me. When you take off the headset after a while inside of it you kinda get a jarring transition back to normal vision instead of passthrough, but passthrough doesn't have any noticeable issues when you're inside of it. It's almost like waking up from a dream where stuff feels different and you can't exactly place why.

As for physical weight, it's lighter than other VR headsets I'm used to but obviously more than a pair of ski goggles. I'll echo MKBHD's thoughts that the most noticeable strain was on my nose because my lightseal (like the WWDC demos) wasn't as personalized as the version you'd get as a customer, so I fully expect that to be a non-issue.

highwaylights2• 3 years ago

I don’t want to be nosey but given that it sounds like you feel like it’s a paradigm shifting device, and you’ve actually worked on and with the device, I’d be interested to read about your motivations for moving on from Apple/the project when you did if you ever feel like writing about it.

So many questions I’d love to ask you about this, but again, none of my business. Just wanted to let you know I’d upvote that blog post to the moon should you ever decide to write it.

ladberg33• 3 years ago

Thanks! My motivations were mostly comp based (I'm in HFT now), I loved the product and the team I was on!

Feel free to ask any questions here and I'll answer anything I can (e.g. no unreleased info, but maybe go into more detail about the kind of stuff that was shown to devs at WWDC). No blog right now but maybe in the future :)

EA-3167• 3 years ago

From the blog this leaped out at me:

That shift is fundamental. The interface for Vision Pro felt like it was reading my thoughts rather than responding to my inputs. Its infinite, pixel perfect canvas also felt inherently different. I wasn’t constrained by my physical setup, instead my setup was whatever I thought would be most productive for me.

That DOES seem like a paradigm shift in the offing to me. Sure it might be iPhone 1 expensive and uncertain, but it's easy to imagine how incredible a lighter, more affordable version will be to MANY people within 5 years or so.

Dudester2306023• 3 years ago

...doing work in headsets...

Is it possible to use Vision Pro to build and publish a Vision Pro app?

Because it seems to be another Apple device separating producers and consumers just like iPad and iPhone.

htag4• 3 years ago

They said it runs xcode, so I'd assume so

senttoschool3• 3 years ago

This is a valid question and should not be downvoted.

Are we going to be able to create a large software project using it without carrying around a MacBook as well?

It’d be nice to be able to run macOS when I travel and not have to bring my MacBook.

l33t233372• 3 years ago

iPad had lots of producer-esque features, so I’m not sure what you mean by that.

jayd164• 3 years ago

If you count streaming a Mac running xcode, then yes.

bamfly5• 3 years ago

Because it seems to be another Apple device separating producers and consumers just like iPad and iPhone.

The persistent framing of i-devices this way on HN, after all these years, is baffling to me. Tons of creation happens on them, or using them as a tool in service of creation, much of which would be harder or impossible with traditional computer. Just not a lot of software creation.

basisword3• 3 years ago

They demoed this in the State of the Union I think. Vision Pro was on with Xcode + a live build of the app that was being developed side by side. I'm not sure if Xcode was running on device or on a Mac though.

derefr• 3 years ago

You sound like you're measuring this leap as the Vision Pro vs. not using a headset at all. How much of a leap is it if you're already using e.g. an XREAL Air for display mirroring — and you're planning to mostly use the Vision Pro for that same use-case?

ladberg33• 3 years ago

I haven't used the XREAL AIR personally but I've used similar devices and it's pretty night-and-day I think:

- Sensors: It looks like the XREAL AIR doesn't have any sensors so just displays the monitor in a fixed position on screen, which is pretty different than loading up monitors in a fixed point in space and being able to look away at other stuff. Also eye tracking is a pretty killer feature that totally changes the game in my opinion, I wouldn't personally buy a headset without it after having experienced it.

- VR vs AR display: As I'm sure you're aware, with AR sunglasses you can't really have anything darker than the actual light passing through so you're limited to only rendering stuff brighter than the surroundings. Maybe for text it's fine but not for images or video in my opinion. I can't find any footage taken through the XREAL AIR lens (and their website doesn't faithfully show this effect) so idk exactly how big the difference will be for you.

- FOV: I'm not actually sure what the FOV is of the Vision Pro but it's significantly higher than 46°. And because usable area increases with the square, you'd be able to fit a few times more displays and other stuff in.

- Resolution: XREAL AIR looks to be 1080p, Vision Pro is way better than that (per-degree too), so you can have better looking and smaller text.

king_magic2• 3 years ago

I guess the big question I have is... what's the point of an extremely expensive headset when it looks like Quest 3 at 7x less the price is going to deliver a roughly similar experience, quality-wise?

k2enemy• 3 years ago

I think the simple answer is that the Quest 3 will not deliver a roughly similar experience, quality-wise.

MBCook14• 3 years ago

We don’t know anything about the Quest 3, other than “better than 2”.

I seriously doubt it comes close to what Apple is doing. The price just isn’t anywhere near high enough.

Tagbert3• 3 years ago

For what scenario? Gaming? What about use as a virtual screen? What about social interaction? What about some of the other scenarios that were depicted in the wedc demo?

chaostheory2• 3 years ago

I love the Quest line: own a q2 and pro.

The main difference is that Vision has a laptop grade processor (Apple M chip), LiDAR, and another separate processor to manage the LiDAR, a separate depth sensor, & all the other 12 sensors and cameras

The Quest only has a smartphone processor. The pro doesn’t even have a depth sensor. While the q3 will have a depth sensor, it will not have eye tracking or face tracking, in addition to only running yet another smartphone processor and only ~5 sensors and cameras

doctorpangloss• 3 years ago

How did it compare to the Varjo XR-3?

ladberg33• 3 years ago

Unfortunately I haven't tried that one! $6,500 is a bit out of my personal price range haha and I didn't get a chance to try all the competitors while I was at Apple.

judge2020• 3 years ago

Supposedly same/better passthrough, which is great for a headset at nearly half the price. http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:https:/...

sanderjd2• 3 years ago

I'm not very skeptical on the "doing work" side of the question. (Though I do wonder about the price point.) But I am skeptical on the "doing life" side.

ladberg33• 3 years ago

Yeah I don't think I'll be using one at dinner or hanging out in-person with friends any time soon, but there are a lot of non-work things I'd happily use it for.

Gaming, TV, casual internet browsing, stationary exercise, socializing with people remotely (e.g. VRChat instead of Zoom/FaceTime), passing time on trains+planes, etc.

animatethrow• 3 years ago

I've been trying to explain to people how certain I am that doing work in headsets will become mainstream but am (understandably) met with doubt

Tech enthusiasts underestimate how much the general public hates having gear strapped to their faces and over their hair, especially more than half of women who put considerable effort into their face makeup and hair.

sleepybrett7• 3 years ago

I think this 1.0 is problematic and it will take several more leaps to get to where we need to be. Something more like swimming goggles (without the suction), visualized in the bladerunner sequel on the face of 'love' when she's calling in artillery on K in the 'junkyard'.

hummingly• 3 years ago

Every headset I have seen looks really unfashionable. Even the Vision Pro looks kind of bad. It is too bulky for the relaxing atmosphere Apple was going for in its adverts. And too rounded to appear more edgy. It is not commiting to anything, kind of like the new Macbook Pro design. This stands in contrast to Airpods (small but bold shape) and the Apple Watch (practical and elegant).

remich• 3 years ago

This raises an interesting use-case, though, which is the idea of a person who is working remotely or otherwise engaging virtually could rely on the 3D-model version of them, generated when they were professionally attired, to avoid having to go through that whole rigamarole every day.

zmmmmm5• 3 years ago

I think it's one of the things they got right with the Quest Pro. It doesn't touch your face and is carefully designed so that all the support is via the forehead. It causes discomfort for some people but the upside is you put it on and off and it doesn't disturb your face or hair.

LoganDark3• 3 years ago

I'm definitely not the general public, but the biggest factor for me has always been screen resolution, not size or weight. Until HMDs can achieve 8K+ per eye and match the fidelity of a sub-$100 4K monitor, I'm not going to be interested.

hebrox• 3 years ago

Did team members actually use it to develop it?

ladberg33• 3 years ago

I was developing stuff to be shown inside the headset that wouldn't have worked in the simulator, so I was frequently using the headset regardless. It was often easier to just leave it on and develop than constantly put it on and take it off to test things out.

As for development of non-VR stuff I personally didn't because I already had a fully-featured desk setup and the OS at the time was buggy enough to not want to deal with it (as every OS is years before release, not a ding on Vision Pro at all). With a good OS (which it will be upon release) and more native apps (like Termius on iPad) I definitely would though!

jakemoshenko• 3 years ago

I've had a question that I haven't seen anyone else ask that you might be able to shed some light on: is there an internal battery to facilitate switching power sources without an instant loss of continuity?

losvedir• 3 years ago

For the past week I've been trying to explain to people how certain I am that doing work in headsets will become mainstream

This gets at my main question about this: does it feel to you like it will be great for "doing work", which generally happens at discrete places, or something which will apply to life generally, which is the kind of (some would say dystopian) ideal of "augmented reality"?

Or put another way, I felt a huge increase in immersion and interest going from the original Oculus's three degrees of freedom to the "room scale" six degrees of freedom in Quest.

I know this is "spatial computing" and you can put monitors in fixed positions in the environment, but is "desk scale" where you can kind of look around and pivot your head, or "room scale" where you can get up and move around the room, or "life scale" where you can leave the room entirely to check on the screens you left in the kitchen before coming back to sit down in front of the ones in your office?

manuelflara• 3 years ago

or "life scale" where you can leave the room entirely to check on the screens you left in the kitchen before coming back to sit down in front of the ones in your office?

according to the videos they show, people move around a lot in a room with these things on, grab things (e.g. their phone, cup of coffee). and makes sense, if you see basically what you have in front of you, then there's no "boundaries" you should stay in not to bump into things.

ladberg33• 3 years ago

I think it'll be great for "doing work", but I'm not entirely sure if it'll immediately outclass my in-office setup that my employer has already spent thousands on. However, I don't have a wfh setup in my small apartment because I didn't want to dedicate space for that purpose, so when I occasionally need to wfh I just use a laptop on my couch or dining table and I would love it to replace that. I think if an employer were speccing out a new office it would definitely be a viable option to have a small laptop + Vision Pro instead of desktop (or bigger laptop) + multiple external monitors.

I also don't expect it to be super dystopian or replace real life in general, but it could definitely replace the parts where you're already looking at a screen regardless.

It is technically capable of being "life scale" in the way that you describe: it tries to keep a consistent coordinate system across multiple reboots and from room to room and real life objects can occlude virtual objects, but to be honest I have no clue what the average use case will be or how the OS will enforce it.

tidenly• 3 years ago

I'm wondering the same thing too. I have tried multiple monitor setups dozens of times now, but always end up coming back to a single display. I can't imagine having a tonne of widgets floating around my work space in 3D is going to do anything positive for my productivity.

ren_engineer• 3 years ago

any opinion on why Apple isn't dogfooding this by allowing their software and non-hardware teams to work remotely? Seems like that would be one way to prove it is legit

prawn2• 3 years ago

They only just announced it and had many details well hidden prior to launch. I think over the next few months, they’ll definitely have Apple staff using it around a controlled office and then later from home.

At this point, I doubt they’d be letting them off campus.

dwaite5• 3 years ago

Up until now, they most likely didn't allow it outside the building.

schaefer• 3 years ago

Hi Ladberg,

When you worked with Vision Pro, did it have a device native terminal and/or a device native ssh client?

What I mean by that is a terminal running under VisionOS, as opposed to getting terminal access by first connecting to a remote computer.

joeman10002• 3 years ago

Maybe for Apple development, but given that it’s positioned as an iOS-type device, the public will never get a native terminal on this thing. It would be unprecedented.

8f2ab37a-ed6c2• 3 years ago

Based on your experience with the device, do you feel like the first version will be good enough to replace a multi-monitor setup for software developers, and allow them instead to fully switch to using the Vision Pro instead? Or is that monitor-less future for developers still a few iterations away?

ladberg33• 3 years ago

Depends what you mean by "fully switch". I think it's good enough to replace a few monitors but at the same time there are use cases for monitors that it can't replace, like showing something on your screen to someone next to you.

I'm sure some developers will switch over on the first generation, some will wait until it gets lighter/cheaper/more immersive (disclosure: I have no clue what's coming in the future), and some might never switch if they just plain don't like having something on their head.

tikimcfee2• 3 years ago

I feel like I’ve been spamming this everywhere and any time I get the chance, but I really want people to join in and help define this experience with me for developers.

https://github.com/tikimcfee/LookAtThat

AR VR for iOS and macOS. Millions of glyphs. Instant control. There’s magic here. If this excites you, work with me and help make this a reality! I don’t have all of it in me.

I wish I did. I don’t. I don’t have all the time and energy. But there are people here that if they spent just a little time to work on this, we would be in the future of a 3D code space in days, and not weeks or months.

I owe a new readme for the project. If any of this makes you feel any feelies, get in contact with me star it, make noise, whatever!

Lotta love to yall. Thanks for letting me vomit words.

theaussiestew• 3 years ago

I've been wanting to make this kind of thing for a while now. Basically canvas and 3D view for code. This looks super cool, but I was more thinking for a general platform like VSCode, rather than something limited to the MacOS eco-system. What's the best way to get in touch with you?

no_wizard• 3 years ago

would you recommend buying 2 and replacing your TVs with it? I'm legit thinking about this, because the home theater setup I'm looking at will cost nearly the same, but two of these + a great audio system would be amazing.

The real question is, can you make two devices sync to each other simultaneously.

Probably not I'm imagining

PettingRabbits• 3 years ago

I hope it kickstarts more development in surround sound headphones. I live in a small condo and have a big 4K projector set up. But I can't reasonably do surround sound or turn up the volume. Apple Vision. + surround headphones would be awesome, or projector + many pairs of surround headphones for group experiences.

ladberg33• 3 years ago

The problem is that it puts a hard cap on how many people can enjoy your home theater, so that might be an issue. If you already have a space carved out for a home theater and were thinking of entertaining >2 people then I'm not entirely sure what the value add of the headset would be. In my opinion the benefit comes in getting a home-theater-like experience that you can bring anywhere and not have to dedicate space in your home for.

Third party developers will definitely be capable of adding a sync feature like you're describing but I have no clue if they will.

zmmmmm5• 3 years ago

Shared space interaction was notably missing from the keynote. I'm very curious what the vision for the platform for it will be. Meta has put a lot of focus on it so there are a bunch of Quest apps and games where people inhabit the same phyiscal space and all the virtual objects are shared. I feel like it's essential for a platform like this to ultimately succeed, and curious that Apple appears behind Meta on this front.

amelius4• 3 years ago

Just wait until you get messages of "in-app purchases" and advertisements and they keep following you around.

Then the real world will feel like paradise.

alphabettsy• 3 years ago

iOS doesn’t operate this way. Why would it be different here?

alpinemeadow2• 3 years ago

would you buy it when it becomes available?

ladberg33• 3 years ago

I'm confident I'll buy a version of the headset at some point, but I don't know yet if I'll buy it right at release. I'm not saying that because I have any additional knowledge of future products (I don't), just that, like the rest of you, I want to see the ecosystem get fleshed out and not have to pay the early adopter tax. I think it will be great for work but who knows when a great remote code editor and terminal will show up on the App Store, right?

It's also not novel to me because I've spent a while using it already, so I'm not exactly in a rush to test it out just to see all the features.

steveBK123• 3 years ago

I see the productivity use case more useful than the entertainment ones, and without the social stigma of hanging around on your sofa weirding out spouse/kids.

However most of the previews I read do point to some amount of weight/comfort ergonomics that I think play against the productivity use case.

Basically my work compute needs to be ergonomic enough to use for 8-12 hours/day.

I have a hard time believing we can live in this headset for anything north of 2-3 hours at best.

sroussey• 3 years ago

Being able to watch movies in bed and let your spouse sleep without a lot of light is definitely a use case.

mmlkrx2• 3 years ago

Thank you for answering all these little questions, hope I'm not too late :)

1. Could I take a disconnected cable keyboard and "anchor" the virtual keyboard to overlay the real one to get the haptical feedback when typing on the virtual keyboard?

2. I'm very excited about "hanging out in VR" but initial impressions of Persona avatars seem to be mixed. Do you think people will eventually get used to Personas after using them for longer or are we not quite there yet?

3. What is the focal distance for the eyes?

4. What are you most excited for using the Vision Pro again once it comes out :)?

I definitely can't wait to upgrade from my original HTC Vive!

ladberg33• 3 years ago

1. I don't really know of any feature like this but can't say for certain. I'd highly recommend investing in a bluetooth keyboard for work in the headset (or keep your cable keyboard plugged into your computer and mirror the screen into the headset).

2. Honestly no clue how the public will react to Apple's avatars, but keep in mind that third party apps are free to create experiences like that and I'm sure you'll see a dozen VRChat clones taking off.

3. Not sure! I never ran into any issues but I also don't need glasses.

4. I personally am a VR gaming enthusiast and despite gaming not being the core use case of the Vision Pro, I'm very excited to see what people do with it. If you've played Half Life Alyx you know how fun gravity gloves are, so imagine having games that have graphics and physics that can seamlessly blend with real life. Use your hands to toss around virtual objects that bounce off walls in the real environment! The cool thing is that this is all super easy to develop for now: all the scene understanding, rendering, hand tracking, physics, etc. is all handled by the device so you can probably whip up a gravity gloves prototype in a few lines of code.

archagon2• 3 years ago

I fear Apple’s effort will be limited to an iPad-like content consumption experience without the platform opening up to a Mac-like degree. And that no other company has the chops to “cross the Rubicon” in such a comprehensive way, dooming AR/VR to a niche of limited usefulness.

donmcronald• 3 years ago

This is the main issue for me. At a minimum, the screens and virtual computers need to be completely open. I can’t live 100% in the Apple world for productivity.

boppo1• 3 years ago

Yep. Browser-excel isn't good enough, I need the full version.

machdiamonds2• 3 years ago

Hi, curious about the foveated rendering on this headset. Theoretically, it should offer a 10x+ performance boost, but headsets like Quest Pro and PSVR haven’t achieved much with it. How does this compare?

BiteCode_dev• 3 years ago

To be honest I got excited with the SimulaOne for the exact same reason.

But now, seing the Vision Pro, they are going to have a hard time to compete.

BulgarianIdiot5• 3 years ago

In short, my brain has crossed a Rubicon and now feels like experiences constrained to small, rectangular screens are lesser experiences.

The funny thing about this statement is that Vision Pro is in fact the smallest rectangular screen of any device he's written code for.

He's hyped up. That's normal. In time he'll understand Vision Pro doesn't provide any better UX for common activities. In fact it's worse in many ways.

Where Vision Pro may shine is tasks where you need to perceive and manipulate complex three-dimensional objects, as they would be in physical space. I see great uses in engineering, design, art. It'd be great to preview interior design, design cars, architecture, create machinery and so on.

It'll also be great for previewing products, so online stores become a lot more viable than they are now, as you get a sense of size and style for an item in Vision Pro.

It may also be great for education, training, simulations.

It has many great uses. But basic apps isn't it. And most people won't care. This thing sucks to wear for more than 20 minutes. It's heavy and uncomfortable. You can't share your experience with others, either. It costs a lot. And you can't multitask with it. I can walk to a place and do something on my phone.

The input model also sucks. To code, for example, you need to hook a bluetooth keyboard and mouse. Looking at symbols one by one to fingertap would be comically slow. At which point, you may as well just get 2-3 screens and work on a normal workstation. For less money.

the_overseer• 3 years ago

These are just gen1 issues. I expect it will become lighter and lighter until it will probably be like some heavier/bulkier glasses.

For the common user it will be amazing for cooking (tells you what to take next and from where and mix in what order, all that fully with arrows on the screen). Or let's say you want to leave your home and it knows that you forgot your keys and it tells you where they are with directions on the screen like the objective marker in a game.

It will know where things are in your home even if you don't pay attention to them it will have object recognition in place and you will be able to say "Hey Siri where did I leave my glasses?" and it will point you to them.

BulgarianIdiot5• 3 years ago

Do you recall the wave of people breaking their TVs with the Nintendo Wii controllers?

I'd expect a similar wave of people breaking their expensive Vision Pros if they try cooking with one. It's a terrible idea. First, most kitchens are cramped, full of low-hanging cabinets to break your Vision's fragile glass into.

And then, keeping those open vents around vapors full of fat and tasty food bits is a great way to cover the circuits with grease.

We already have a solution for something telling you what to do next, and it's called an iPad with a stand. A phone also does the job and has much lower chance of incidents than a headset, despite yes, you may need to wash your hands from time to time to scroll down. Or... you can simply use assistive features and voice for that. Siri is going to get a lot smarter thanks to LLM, much sooner than Vision Pro will become light and pragmatic for such purposes.

Regarding this "it'll know where things are in your home", let's use basic logic here. It can learn the layout of your rooms and where your immovable furniture is. But no, it can't know where everything that moves is, because this means you literally can't move anything unless you have the headset on to track its location. Or slap expensive AirTags on every single jar and utensil maybe. All solutions would be hilariously impractical. And... we'll end up with where I started: a broken Vision Pro glass as you slam it in a cupboard while trying to fish out a jar of condiments.

I don't know what is about VR that makes people pull out the fantasy scenarios. It's simply a (bulky) screen with pass through. It's not a wizard. It can't know things unless there's a way for it to find them.

We can imagine a super-thin model that you can keep on your face 24/7 and sleep with it too, so it tracks your entire life forever and knows you better than you know yourself. And it synchronizes with your spouse and children who also wear their own headsets 24/7. And it's unbreakable. And the battery never runs out. We can imagine many things. They don't exist, and won't exist any time soon. "Not on the horizon" as Steve Jobs used to say.

yellow_postit• 3 years ago

“Bulkier glasses” is a deal breaker for me — LASIK was one of the best quality of life upgrades and I can’t imagine rushing back to that experience for many reasons.

Ambient computing of the style you describe I do think is a common use case and I look forward to less invasive form factors to tackle it.

fooker2• 3 years ago

To code, for example, you need to hook a bluetooth keyboard and mouse.

I have a hunch that coding as we know it is going to look very different in ~5-10 years.

BulgarianIdiot5• 3 years ago

Maybe, but not in terms of needing code.

You see, the rules of formal languages that encode formal rules of system constraints pre-date computers by centuries. Think of math proofs, for example. Sure, we can encode symbols as emojis, or geometric figures or whatever. But in the end, it's sequences of symbols, that's the nature of it. And tapping symbols one by one with a headset will suck, no matter how programming looks.

The rules of formal languages that encode formal rules of system constraints pre-date in fact our species too. Think about what DNA is. Oh yeah, spooky, isn't it. A sequence of symbols (GTCA) encoding a sequence of more complex symbols (proteins). Spooky! But yes, DNA is our code. And it works the same as our programming code.

Now I know where you're going. LLMs. Let's assume an LLM writes the code for you. You still have to read it, which you can do fine with a headset (if it's not as encapsulating and heavy, and with short battery life as Vision Pro v1). But if you spot something's off, you need to adjust it. Go directly for the kill, and make that surgical series of edits. You know? Or... maybe you can spend the rest of the day hopelessly trying to explain to Siri 2030 year edition what you want to do, instead of going in and doing it, for that "last mile".

Because if AI can do the last mile itself, to the point you don't need to even verify it... first, that's the fast way to AI shipping code we don't understand and basically giving up our entire civilization to it. And second... we don't need to code, but we also won't need to exist, and therefore not need headsets.

So in the worldlines where we DO exist... Vision Pro sucks for coding, because it's a shitty human interface to editing code.

And in the worldlines where we DO NOT exist... Vision Pro sucks for coding, because AI doesn't need headsets.

euroderf• 3 years ago

It will absolutely rule for wargames (i.e. board-based simulations). High resolution, zooming into "counter" stacks, limited intelligence (yes!), calling up rules, procedure checklists, odds calculation & combat resolution, the list goes on and on methinks.

Grognards with sufficient disposable income - rejoice! At last you can (for example) play Operation Barbarossa at regiment level - and retain your sanity!

greedo4• 3 years ago

Have you worn this? Yo use pretty explicit with your complaints about its weight and comfort. Your penultimate paragraph is really unfounded and inaccurate. You can multitask with in (in a computing sense). You can share with apps that have use the appropriate APIs. And I completely disagree that "basic apps" (whatever that is) will not be a great use case. Hell, I would buy this today so I could have a monitor replacement. And I'm just a lowly sysadmin who is at home with vim in a terminal.

ar_lan• 3 years ago

I'm interested to try it, but there's a few things holding me back:

1. I tried working in my Oculus Quest for about a week (two years ago) and gave up because the resolution is way too poor, and it's too heavy.

2. The price tag.

It looks like the Vision Pro is not a monitor/headset, but rather a computer + monitor all in one. Is that accurate to say?

I am tempted by this future, but I don't see it becoming adoptable for any reasonable users for another 5 years minimum. Plus, for developers to truly adopt it, we'd need to be reasonably sure our workflows (e.g. keyboard/mouse sync and ergonomics, portability, etc.) are increased in speed/comfort to ever consider adopting such a feature.

waboremo2• 3 years ago

Yes, it's not just a headset/screen. In their words, a spatial computer. This coming with a new OS also signifies how they really want people to view it as a standalone product rather than a Valve Index which requires a PC to use.

crooked-v3• 3 years ago

Going by the hardware and the announced features, the 2D app functionality of the Vision Pro is basically an iPad Pro with full multitasking support.

swozey• 3 years ago

I play VR games like Skyrim VR quite often and my biggest disappointment, outside of the ridiculous price - is that it's completely gesture controlled. Are there going to be controllers at all? How would you play a game with guns? Make a pew-pew gun with your fingers?

Vecr2• 3 years ago

I don't think apple really likes guns, so it would probably have to be third party, but a training pistol with a real belt-mounted holster and an AR upper and lower without the FCG or barrel, both with some tracking markers the Apple goggles can pick up would probably work well. Shooting a rifle with VR controllers does not really work that well, because you can't brace them at all (because the two standard controllers are not attached) and there is no stock. Fix that with a hundred dollars of airsoft knockoff AR-15 parts.

eddieroger• 3 years ago

The promotional video on Apple's site shows a user picking up and using a PS5 controller. iPhones and iPads can pair with third-party controllers today as well as keyboards and mice, so there's really no reason to think that this wouldn't work with those as well, particularly since Apple showed it happening in their video.

MBCook14• 3 years ago

I think it’s very clear this is not positioned for gamers.

It may be powerful. It may work very well in some ways (there may be limitations without hand held controllers like an Oculus or PSVR2).

But that’s not what Apple is trying to sell. And they clearly don’t want to be pigeonholed as another fancy gamer device.

goosedragons2• 3 years ago

They did show off using a standard PlayStation controller but nothing like an Oculus Quest or Index Give VR controller. While a PlayStation would be fine for something like Tetris Effect, for titles that get more out VR it does seem like it could be a problem.

etchalon• 3 years ago

The SDK supports a gesture detection, but the "official" solution is to pair a Xbox or PS5 controller to the device.

basisword3• 3 years ago

VR gaming is already covered by multiple VR headsets...and not a lot of people are buying them. The people I know who did buy them found the novelty wore off quickly. Positioning the visionPro as a computer rather than a games console seems like a smart and very deliberate choice.

musictubes3• 3 years ago

Computer gamers are the only ones that still think that general use computers are also great gaming devices. I think it makes more sense to have dedicated gaming devices for those experiences.

Apple has done very well while ignoring the gamer (as opposed to people that play games) customer. I don’t anticipate Apple making big strides towards prioritizing the so called AAA gaming experience now.

zmmmmm5• 3 years ago

If Apple allows it then I fully expect 3rd parties to make controllers. Now that Meta has demonstrated fully self tracked controllers, you don't need much OS integration to make that work.

Of course, it depends if Apple allows it.

Gazoche• 3 years ago

They're clearly not trying to sell it as a gaming product. But assuming the device is successful enough, there's nothing stopping Apple from selling controllers as add-ons in the future (for a hefty price of course).

zerr• 3 years ago

The name makes me remind Visual FoxPro.

daemonk2• 3 years ago

None of the existing headsets I've tried has worked out in terms of working setup replacement. If it can replace a desk/monitor and lead to better ergonomics and flexibility, I would pay upwards of 5k for it. I really want Apple to succeed.

hbarka• 3 years ago

I can't wait for Apple's Wearable Macbook I mean the Vision Pro.

jmiskovic• 3 years ago

As a VR hobbyist dev I'm divided on how I feel about the device. Price thing is already well discussed, for me it's a tool worth investigating if I should invest time in the ecosystem.

Without a doubt, the Vision Pro hardware is a marvel. Having the 3D capture camera in a consumer device would feel like living in the future. The headset design is top notch and seems comfortable. I do have slight worry about how these devices will look like after a year of use.

The holographic eye reconstruction screen. A bit unsettling and strange design idea. We're messing around with people's eyes to make the headset friendlier?

The frosted glass user interface is classy, aesthetically pleasing and very well put together. Lighting and soft shadow interaction with your environment is amazingly well done. I felt the UX the current user experience seems rather lackluster and limited to a 2D format. The first iPhone also had an old fashioned interface, so my guess is they are building the compatibility bridge for the first release. Maybe the next iteration would be actually spatial and not just panels floating in space?

Moreover, the over-reliance on swipe and tap gestures is a point of concern. This design decision is focused on media consumption and limits the overall versatility of the interface. Feels like a very low-bandwidth control method.

A significant drawback, for my use at least, is the lack of control over the hardware. Developers are restricted to building Unity applications within a sandboxed environment, which is a privacy feature intended to prevent apps from accessing the eye gaze point. Good idea, better than what Meta's doing. But too restrictive and frustrating for a developer wanting to run their apps on the bought device.

Apple is once again marketing an expensive device-platform that caters mainly to larger corporations looking to offer their own 'immersive' experiences. Everything about this screams 'coorporate'. I would like to be proven wrong with some creative apps, but those will probably come through the web browser or streamed from Mac, and not as approved native apps running in gimped Unity engine.

Nevertheless, the Vision Pro sets a new benchmark for future headsets. Maybe AR/VR is slowly entering the mainstream?

jimbokun2• 3 years ago

When I sat down to write this article I was having trouble context shifting back from WWDC mode and wished that I could have gone up to a virtual cabin in the woods, opened a text editor and written it there. Or similarly while I was watching WWDC session videos in my hotel room on my 13” MacBook Pro I found myself wishing for a larger display where I could have the video, notes, documentation and Xcode open all at once.

This reinforces the idea that Vision Pro is for a portable, fully immersive work experience. Which dovetails nicely with the post-Covid notion of working in various locations as convenient/affordable. Bring a Vision Pro with you to "the cabin" or hotel or remote working location, to have a more productive experience than just a small laptop. Or college dorm, where you don't have your own dedicated work space.

mrguyorama3• 3 years ago

Ah yes, because college kids have $3500 to burn on a novelty.

jimbokun2• 3 years ago

Price will come down.

sergiotapia• 3 years ago

I still haven't read one single account of a developer actually using it to write code in VSCode/Vim/Emacs. I need to know if the screens looks crisp and are actually a good replacement for a screen for work.

I don't mean "powerpoint/drawing" work. I mean wall of text, code work.

mellosouls• 3 years ago

I still haven't read one single account of a developer actually using it to write code in VSCode/Vim/Emacs

That's because it hasn't been released yet. All the accounts you are reading are strictly controlled and time-limited demos.

Anonasty• 3 years ago

Someone said interestingly that with Vision Pro, Apple is giving solution to problem which does not exist.

ftxbro3• 3 years ago

"Starting on Day One"
"I have been a “day one” developer for three of Apple’s platforms"
"I’m going to be a “day one” developer for the Vision Pro."
"The Economics of “Day One”"
"Look for Widgetsmith for visionOS from “day one”."

it looks like a guy who is flexing his "day one" access and using it to advertise some vaporware, and the rest of the words in the blogpost are some fluff maybe gpt could make it

armadsen• 3 years ago

It doesn't take much to get "day one" access like he's describing. I was some random kid with a couple years of (completely self-taught, solo, using free tools) Mac OS X dev experience in 2008, and I had beta access to the SDK and could have had an app out on day one if I had been more disciplined. Same goes for both the iPad and the Apple Watch. The SDKs for both were easily available before the devices shipped.

codemusings• 3 years ago

Salty much FTX Bro? This is David „underscore“ Smith, developer of Widgetsmith and a ton of other successful iOS apps. Genuinely one of the nicest human beings. If anyone has earned the rights to flex its him.

ftxbro3• 3 years ago

"Salty much FTX Bro?"

FTX can still be profitable today if they allow SBF to raise funds. They just didn't understand his vision.

BananaaRepublik• 3 years ago

Btw, how do any of these work for people with glasses? My vision is too bad to survive without them and I'm sure half the city dwellers around me are too.

andrewmunsell3• 3 years ago

You have to purchase (rumored to be expensive) magnetic clip-in prescription lenses, or use contacts. The device is too close to your face to fit glasses

TillE3• 3 years ago

(rumored to be expensive)

Despite Gurman's personal speculation, Zeiss already makes prescription VR lenses for under $100:

https://appleinsider.com/articles/23/06/07/vision-pro-prescr...

I would pretty confidently bet on $99 for Apple, with an outside chance of $149.

senttoschool3• 3 years ago

I'm 100% sure that a few months after launch, there will be other companies who will sell prescription magnetic lenses for cheap.

bilsbie• 3 years ago

We’re still constrained to 2d rectangles though.

I wonder how we could code in three dimensions or make it feel more physical like wood working somehow.

It’s all text based so I can’t really think of how you’d do it.

mercutio2• 3 years ago

What makes you think this? If you choose to use UIKit, yes, you get rectangles. But you are not constrained to UIKit.

zmmmmm5• 3 years ago

When I sat down to write this article I was having trouble context shifting back from WWDC mode and wished that I could have gone up to a virtual cabin in the woods, opened a text editor and written it there

I do this all the time with the Quest Pro. It's resolution isn't quite there but in most other respects it enables the same type of transportation out of current context to somewhere else. Given you can get these now for 1/4 the cost of a Vision Pro, I think dev interested in Vision Pro should pick up a Quest Pro now and then you have both ecosystems to play with / compare and ultimately, if you are building something where it works, ship it on both.

mjsweet• 3 years ago

Just wondering, any chance that Vision Pro will support flash content?

brokenbyclouds• 3 years ago

It's going to mess up your hair, your makeup, add weight on your face, and collect face oil like a sponge. Take the keys off your keyboard and roll your face around in that.

A developer's view of Vision Pro

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