Apple Vision Pro: Why Monitor Replacement Is Ridiculous

https://kguttag.com/2023/08/05/apple-vision-pro-part-5a-why-monitor-replacement-is-ridiculous/

by PaulHoule • 3 years ago

92 140 3 years ago

kguttag.com

underrun• 3 years ago

but i really want 3d vim.

...no seriously. i may have a problem...

vorpalhex• 3 years ago

You can accomplish this with most VR hardware now but it's not very good. The issue is that text is hard to work with in VR (for the complex reasons the article describes). The eyestrain is also incredible.

RajT882• 3 years ago

I've tried working in VR on side projects. It sucks after an hour. Granted, I have a Samsung Odyssey+ from a few years ago.

The PPD talking point is absolutely a problem. If my particular headset had the ability for "many floating windows" arranged in arbitrary places, it might be better (but it doesn't - I think there's a desktop app for Meta Quests which supports this though).

So, aside from the eyestrain due to low PPD, it is legit amazing, and I could potentially have productive workdays in VR with the right system. I also purchased the counterweights which help quite a bit.

barbazoo• 3 years ago

How does one exit out of 3d vim?

ccvannorman• 3 years ago

Carefully, so as to not accidentally exit the simulation

orhmeh09• 3 years ago

Its author did recently, but it might be hard to reach him.

LoganDark4• 3 years ago

Yeah, my opinion is honestly that even though the Vision Pro is impressive on a technical level by virtue of probably being the best the XR industry can offer right now, it's still not nearly sufficient to reach the clarity of a 4K monitor that costs 50x less (if the $3,500 price estimate is at all accurate). It would drive me nuts trying to work with text on such a display, which is a problem based on how much code I write and how much time I spend chatting on platforms like Discord.

vGPU• 3 years ago

I purchased a Vive pro 2 to try it as a monitor replacement for my CHG90, which is a 49in 3840 x 1080 display.

The vive 2 is 2448×2448 per eye, or 4896×4896 total.

It’s completely unusable for the purpose. Text is blurry and unreadable. The lenses are garbage. It’s sitting on a shelf now.

The vision pro is probably somewhere in the range of 3,391 x 3,391 per eye, although one guy calculated it to likely be 3660 x 3142.

That’s not that big of an improvement over the pro 2, and I doubt it would actually give enough clarity to use it as a high res display replacement.

I picked up the pro 2 for $350, and I feel like I may have even overpaid a bit for what I got. Unless the vision pro is a quantum leap in display quality over it, it’s going to be a non-starter at the 3,500 price point.

zimpenfish• 3 years ago

The vive 2 is 2448×2448 per eye, or 4896×4896 total

Typo there: 4986 x 2448 total

That’s not that big of an improvement over the pro 2

If it's 3391x, that's almost 40% more pixels per axis than 2448x and almost double the number of pixels per eye. Bit more than "not that big", surely.

radicaldreamer• 3 years ago

It's like pizza sizing, a large is substantially bigger than a medium despite the diameter seeming not all that different due to surface area.

Coupled with the complexities of lensing within the device, I think people should wait to try Apple's headset before coming to conclusions based on other designs.

Retric2• 3 years ago

Many people are still buying 1080p monitors because they don’t actually care about clarity that much. It’s hard to factor in VR because you need to make many assumptions around viewing angles and whatnot.

Ergonomically, I think they easily beat tablets or laptops when chilling on a couch which more than offsets minor resolution issues. Not that long ago I remember upgrading to 640x480 monitors and they were better than 320x200 but not by nearly as much as you might think. Downgrading in DPI while upgrading in utility is probably well worth it.

LoganDark4• 3 years ago

Some people don't need 4K, that's fine. It's just that I do, so my opinion is that the Vision Pro isn't enough for me yet.

nerdjon4• 3 years ago

I find it kinda wild that we are seeing article after article of people dismissing this without actually experiencing it first hand.

We also can't ignore that in every image shown, it appears they are using a virtual screen that is far larger than what most people likely have. meaning the text will be larger. You could argue that this is to fix a flaw with the hardware but it is also something that you are able to do when you are not dealing with a physical limitation.

Regardless of that because I am not going to pretend to understand a lot of what is in this article, it is way over my head. I feel like the thing that we keep ignoring here is that this is not meant to be a great success right out the gate. Apple knows this with how they are pricing it and how they are talking about it, including it being a "pro" version first. This will be a niche device while the hardware catches up with what the software can do.

But ignoring that eventually the hardware will be able to do this just fine and not building the software now would be stupid on Apple's part.

I think it remains to be seen what exactly this hardware can and cannot do, but more importantly what we are looking at 2 or 3 versions down the road. Unlike basically every other company that has tried to to make a product like this, Apple has a track record of not shutting down projects and having "hobby" projects that take a few generations to finally hit their potential.

Once the hardware manages to catch up, is smaller, etc it feels kinda nieve to think that we would remain stuck to monitors for computing. Is it guaranteed? no of course not. But I would not dismiss it yet based on how this guy is talking in the comments about the future. We saw a lot of the same dismissal of smart phones for most people's computing needs.

justinator2• 3 years ago

it appears they are using a virtual screen that is far larger than what most people likely have. meaning the text will be larger

I mean it's just a concept marketing photo - the screen doesn't actually project out to be seen by anyone else. The projection is made for friggin' ants (kinda literally).

nerdjon4• 3 years ago

I realize that it doesn't project out, but for every reason that matters it does for the person that is wearing the headset.

https://i0.wp.com/kguttag.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/AVP... look at that image. Judging by the guy in front that middle virtual monitor is probably 3 times the size of my current monitor which is 32". If I want more than 1 monitor (I have 3) I can't imagine actually having anything larger than that in a physical space. But in virtual? Why not. And that is what apple is showing with these images.

treis3• 3 years ago

It's really just math. You can't simulate a 3840 x 2160 screen with a 1920 x 1920 headset. So until the headsets get more resolution than monitors the monitors will look better. Especially for text.

dharmab• 3 years ago

Is it _trying_ to simulate a 4k display? Or is it trying to provide something different- a large panorama of 1920x1920 windows?

gcanyon5• 3 years ago

You don't look at all of a 3840x2160 screen, with a need for pixel-precision all over it.

Doing a test right now, I'm focusing on the 13-inch computer screen where I'm typing this and holding up a large container of cashews directly to the right of the display. It's literally less than 30 degrees to the right of my focus, and the word "cashews" is in half-inch-high letters, and I can't remotely read the word without moving my eyes over to it.

nerdjon4• 3 years ago

I am pretty sure the Vision pro's resolution is higher than 1920x1920? Could be wrong through.

Regardless, the question isn't if it's better or the same. The question is if its viable considering the author is saying the idea is "Ridiculous"

joemi• 3 years ago

You bring up a good point that covers why I'm most excited for the AVP: I'm really excited about what later versions will be like. This first AVP is kind of like the first iPhone for me. Obviously not perfect, but the UI will probably be far better than anything before it, and later versions are going to be really awesome.

NBJack• 3 years ago

The article IMHO does a great job breaking down the pixel arrangement, troubles with rasterization, how modern monitors basically cheat to get sharper text, and so on. TL;DR: VR/AR suffers greatly with text.

The only way Apple will potentially mitigate this will be via clever rendering tricks. But he is very likely correct: this will not be a replacement for monitors.

falcolas• 3 years ago

So, one problem with this statement: People are working with virtual monitors today using far worse DPI equipment.

This is an iteration on something that already exists. Probably won't be perfect, but it can and will be a monitor replacement for some.

charcircuit5• 3 years ago

I find it kinda wild that we are seeing article after article of people dismissing this without actually experiencing it first hand.

Current VR has fundamental problems that can't all be solved with just some clever software tricks. This article is stating some problems that the headset will have to face. He doesn't dismiss the headset in the article.

Once the hardware manages to catch up, is smaller, etc it feels kinda nieve to think that we would remain stuck to monitors for computing.

The friction of having to wear something on your head, along with the weight of the device will always make monitors a good option as they are very good at being 2D displays in the word.

We saw a lot of the same dismissal of smart phones for most people's computing needs.

Show me where people dismissed smartphones over them having bad text rendering.

Edman2743• 3 years ago

People dismissed smartphones and tablets because they have bad text input, which isn't exactly the same, but the purpose of their statement is not to say "the literally exact same criticism was leveled at phones" but rather "people also had somewhat similar objections and look where we are now in spite of that".

If you are being honest with yourself, you will remember that when the iPhone was first unveiled, you, I, and everyone that currently browses Hackernews thought the idea of a phone that was only a touchscreen and a few buttons was absurd. The iPad was similarly seen as ridiculous. We now live in a world where tablets, smartphones, laptops, and desktop computers all have their own niches and where a standalone desktop with a dedicated monitor, keyboard and mouse is seen as a specialist device. A headset may become yet another entrant in the "yes, and" world of computing. The historical experience suggests that we should have some humility around predicting what people will latch on to.

tinus_hn• 3 years ago

I find it kinda wild that we are seeing article after article of people dismissing this without actually experiencing it first hand

I suppose you haven’t been following Apple News for long. The cycle is always the same, everyone is explaining why it’s a worthless product, too expensive, no market, doesn’t work, whatever. And then later they’re all about how obvious of a product it is, they or their favorite manufacturer did it ten times better, Apple needs to give the technology away.

Remember Slashdots out-of-hand dismissal for the iPod: ‘No wireless? Less space than a Nomad? Lame’. It sounds so obvious why the product is bad, but it turns out it’s focusing on things that don’t matter.

mdekkers• 3 years ago

Whenever I read about the AVP being a dud, I am reminded of my own reaction to the first iphone: “it is a stupid idea and it will never catch on” whilst proudly clutching my Nokia communicator.

I think the AVP 2 or 3 is going to be great.

neuralRiot• 3 years ago

it feels kinda nieve to think that we would remain stuck to monitors for computing.

One simple reason: “Hey Stephen, is this what you were looking for” (points to picture of x device on the monitor) Stephen- (without even raising from his chair) Yeah but in red, where did you find it?

TehShrike2• 3 years ago

I have no interest in seeing someone use a Meta Quest Pro to debunk the viability of an Apple Vision Pro.

TehShrike2• 3 years ago

Myke Hurley said that reading text on a simulated display with an Apple Vision Pro looked retina-quality to him, and I trust him enough that I'll give Apple's claims the benefit of the doubt for now.

FemmeAndroid• 3 years ago

Yup, He's also a person who's spent an hour talking (on Cortex) about how much he and CGPGrey enjoyed using the Meta Quest Pro for having work meetings together virtually. So he understands the comparisons fairly well.

His review probably made me more excited than anything else to give it a try.

antman123• 3 years ago

same

jonwinstanley• 3 years ago

Agreed. I can’t see the benefit of all this analysis at this point. Why not just wait until the v1 is out and you can try it yourself?

Secondly, what about the v2 or v3 of the Vision Pro?

Eventually the resolution of a VR device will get to the point of being good enough to replace a monitor.

Whether you’d want to be inside a big headset for 8 hours a day is another question.

hackernewds2• 3 years ago

Influencers need to grab attention

gcanyon5• 3 years ago

Especially when there are people right now using a Quest 2 for this purpose.

charcircuit5• 3 years ago

AVP is not released so using a Quest Pro is fine. Both headsets face similar challenges. It isn't like the AVP has a radically different architecture. Apple will run into the same problems.

cududa7• 3 years ago

I mean it does have a radically different architecture for capturing, predicting, eye movement and updating the foveated rendering profile on the fly to simulate depth planes and, of course, do "real" foveated rendering compared to Quest Pro (one of the patents is below). As well, talking to people who actually used it, said they were blown away by how crisp the text is.

https://www.patentlyapple.com/2023/07/a-new-apple-patent-cov...

cthalupa• 3 years ago

I picked up a MQP out of curiosity with how the tech has improved since the original Vive - my last experience with VR.

My office gets very hot in the summer - as of writing, it is 84F in there. The rest of my house is 72. I've had AC people take a look, etc., and there's not an easy solution to fix it. I'd probably get a mini-split or something if I was intending to stay here for more than another year or so, but it's not worth the cost and trouble currently.

One thing I wasn't expecting was the MQP being enough for some basic monitor replacement use for if I just don't want to deal with the heat. It's not holding a candle to my 34" Alienware OLED or the other 3 4k panels I have in front of me, but... I get tired of the physical discomfort from wearing the headset before I get tired of the virtual monitors.

23m pixels total for the AVP vs. the MQP's 7m - a 3x increase in pixels is a pretty significant jump in resolution.

I will say the passthrough mode cameras on the MQP look like complete ass. I can see the world around me well enough that I can function and interact with the objects in the room if necessary, but if I was trying to use the virtual monitors against the backdrop of the world, it would distract me with how shitty the real world looks. I don't have much hope that the AVP cameras are gonna be a significant enough jump up to solve that.

oceanplexian• 3 years ago

If you were around in the early to mid 00's, the Apple haters really came out in droves. "No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame." Seems they are back at it right before Apple wipes out the rest of the VR industry with the first headset that doesn't actually suck.

rchaud• 3 years ago

Completely correct criticisms. The iPod doesn't play music any better than one of those things. It doesn't respect the folder structure or drag n drop USB storage. If you need the storage, and organizing your library how you want, why pay more for less?

DerekL• 3 years ago

Title is misspelled, should be “ridiculous”.

GoofballJones2• 3 years ago

Indeed, the most ridiculous thing about this article.

mvdtnz• 3 years ago

It's spelled correctly in the article. Did you even read it?

zgluck• 3 years ago

<title>Apple Vision Pro (Part 5A) – Why Monitor Replacement is Ridiculous - KGOnTech</title>

I guess the poster did that mistake.

xwdv5• 3 years ago

Might seem counterintuitive but the productivity gain of having more screen real estate has diminishing returns very quickly beyond one screen and any perceived gains are mostly placebo.

J_Shelby_J• 3 years ago

You mean….Turning your head isn't faster that alt+tabbing?next you’re going to tell me visible, but unnecessary, application windows increase cognitive load! Sheeesh, let me bake my face in several hundred watts of infrared heat 12 hours a day. I look so damn productive!

xwdv5• 3 years ago

Back in the days of office work having multiple monitors was mostly a power move, a sort of status symbol like having a corner office with windows. There’s really no need for anything more than a single screen. I don’t even work off anything more than a laptop unless I’m feeling gratuitous.

gwd• 3 years ago

Turning your head isn't faster that alt+tabbing?

Turning your head a few degrees, to the location you remember putting one specific window, and which is probably currently in your peripheral vision, is absolutely faster than tabbing through who knows how many windows to get the one you want.

chrisjj4• 3 years ago

Turning your head ...

And tilting your head. And turning your body unless you want neck strain. Then there's tilting your body...

MisterBastahrd2• 3 years ago

Being able to shape applications to the size I would like for them to be without needing to buy yet another peripheral is greatness, though. If I want a really long code window, I can do that. If I want a really long terminal nearby because I'm grepping a huge codebase, I can do that. If I want to work on a large visual diagram while viewing the code and the terminal, I can view the entire thing and I don't have to worry about switching windows.

xwdv5• 3 years ago

Why do you need a long code window? You should always be a couple key strokes away from anywhere in the code base. This makes having to see everything all at once irrelevant. Visually seeing all that code doesn’t increase productivity, jumping to specific lines does.

amelius2• 3 years ago

Perhaps it could work for some lone developer guy but people don't want this for the same reason they don't want to wear a motorcycle helmet. It looks uncool and it messes up your hair.

corysama• 3 years ago

I dunno... This looks pretty cool in a geek-cred way. And, his hair looks fine.

https://twitter.com/BigscreenVR/status/1666617283832324097

criddell• 3 years ago

It looks pretty cool in that I-just-had-cataract-surgery kind of way.

cududa7• 3 years ago

Tbh I always laugh when I see someone without a motorcycle helmet. It doesn't look cool to not wear one, it just looks like you need to project to the world how tough you are. Also, wouldn't the wind also mess up your hair?

amelius2• 3 years ago

Ok so Apple vision pro is even more uncool than motor helmets because it messes your hair up more than if you didn't use it.

jwells892• 3 years ago

I think that while the first revision won't be terribly practical as full monitor replacement, it will probably be the biggest step towards that to date — something you might pull out when you want a canvas unmitigated by physical size constraints that's entirely free of the distracting and fiddly scroll/pan/zoom interactions.

It could be pretty incredible for travel, where you're typically stuck with a small 10"-14" screen. For my day to day work in IDEs for example I'd take a virtual ~24" 4k screen over a real 13" one any day.

chrisjj4• 3 years ago

Hmm. If it is entirely free of scroll interactions, how will I read to the bottom of a typical web page?

jwells892• 3 years ago

That situation sounds like the user is seated, which is not really served well by a large screen.

I’m thinking more whiteboard/pinboard/etc sorts of use cases, where you’re typically standing and can walk around. Think Apple Freeform, Obsidian Canvas, or any other program where you have an infinite canvas (maps, etc). I could definitely see it being nice to be able to throw one of those up on a wall instead of having it boxed into a comparably small monitor.

RajT882• 3 years ago

It is ridiculous how often people misspell 'ridiculous' as 'rediculous'.

danpalmer2• 3 years ago

A meta point, but kguttag clearly really knows their stuff, but I feel like every article is like: "Gotcha! Actually because of this technical detail this product and therefore the entire industry is doomed to fail".

The technical details seem correct to me, but even as a layperson I can tell that the author is missing the bigger picture. For example in this case, to replace monitors these headsets don't need to have as good resolution if they win on the overall tradeoffs.

It's a shame because it's otherwise good commentary, it just feels like I have to filter everything from this site through a lens of knowing the author will have a mostly unjustified negative take.

hackernewds2• 3 years ago

kguttag approaches this from a first principles approach. I think you have a solid point though, I can use the multiple monitors setup on the road, flying, etc

danpalmer2• 3 years ago

This is a good approach and produces valuable content, but I think it either needs to skip the higher level commentary and conclusions, or it needs to be a much more considered commentary that takes into account the wider context.

EPWN3D• 3 years ago

First principles are all well and good, but you do have to acknowledge the reality that has sprung up from them, or you'll find yourself arguing that power plants are impossible because of the first and second laws of thermodynamics.

wmf• 3 years ago

It reminds me of Blackberry's criticisms of the iPhone: completely correct yet ultimately irrelevant.

AceJohnny2• 3 years ago

completely correct yet ultimately irrelevant

Found my new .sig

dagmx• 3 years ago

Karl has always been, to the best of my knowledge, a very detailed but incredibly pessimistic author.

Thus, while I find his analysis incredible, I always have to ignore his actual opinions that arise from the analysis.

Macha2• 3 years ago

The problem is Apple and the fanboys are claiming they've gone from the Newton to the iPhone without passing through the LG Prada and iPod Video in between. Hyperbolic claims promote skepticism.

jordanmorgan10• 3 years ago

That's a lot of words for someone who hasn't even used the hardware.

etchalon2• 3 years ago

"I've done the math."

lukev• 3 years ago

I (and everyone else) have known that text in VR is really hard and technically demanding since I received my first Oculus from the first kickstarter.

Not sure we can judge how well Apple has solved this extremely hard problem until we actually can put our eyeballs in the product. I agree the MQP is not up to the task.

(also, judgements based on pointing a camera through the lens are extremely uninteresting since cameras aren't at all designed for that kind of use case and do not give a good idea of the subjective impression of the quality of the VR, which is ultimately all that matters)

asow92• 3 years ago

I'll believe it when I see it. Until then I'm skeptical that enough people will want this until it's sub ~$1,500.

I'd love to be wrong on this, but my gut tells me something's not quite right with this product vertical (notwithstanding Apple's entrance to it).

rafaelturk• 3 years ago

I'll express my opinions after really trying it myself...

throwaway__zzz• 3 years ago

Spending a month "on an article to quantify why it is ridiculous to think that a VR headset, even one from Apple, will be a replacement for a physical monitor", without actually using the headset sounds like an insane waste of time. Given other reports by people that have actually used and compared a Vision Pro, I'm willing to bet Karl changes his tune when he finally joins them.

gcanyon5• 3 years ago

This ignores the fact that people are doing this right now with Quest 2s. They're early adopters, sure, but they're doing it.

I've done it, and for sure the limiting factor was the clumsiness of the interface and the discomfort of the headset after an hour -- not the sharpness of the text.

jbellis• 3 years ago

I've used the xReal Air on a plane. The Air has 1080p screens for each eye, so it's pretty much the worst possible option that kind of works. I would pay 2x what I paid for the Air (~$400) in a heartbeat for a 4k option to have when I travel. But for the kind of price Apple is talking about it would have to be good enough to beat my main workstation setup, not just be better than a tiny laptop screen for travel. And I agree with TFA that it's very unlikely to meet that higher bar.

LASR• 3 years ago

Given the price of $3500 against competitors, and the external battery pack, I strongly suspect that Apple's hardware is very different compared to any other headset in the market.

From the limited info in the keynote, it seems they're doing "something" with foveated rendering. Ie: The display is a lot more dense where the fovea sees.

From the demos, they clearly have the eye tracking dialed in to precision.

From these, I would make a bet that the headset contains galvo motors to move the optics such that the high-density portion of the display's area are always in alignment with the fovea. Probably not the Retina display kind, but something more like ~100 ppi equivalent - which is certainly usable for work.

Otherwise, what's the point of having denser pixels in one area?

If this is true, I can totally see this being a true monitor replacement. This would also make most of this blog post moot.

seydor• 3 years ago

For the price of AVP I can buy 12 43-inch smart TVs to put in every wall in the house. real augmented reality

machdiamonds• 3 years ago

Kind of off-topic, but given the Vision Pro's weight—called out by many reviewers—it's worth considering adding magnetic connectors to the top of work-focused headsets. This way, a ceiling cable could bear most of the weight and charge the device. Also, users should be able to disconnect seamlessly. That said, these headsets might be lighter by the time they hit mass market. Additionally, this would open up the possibility of augmenting computational power through the cable, perhaps even facilitating a direct connection to your PC or similar devices.

appplication• 3 years ago

This is certainly some great creative problem solving, but I’m not sure it would be realistic in practice.

layer82• 3 years ago

Those who are looking forward to the virtual-monitor use case usually have mobile use in mind when traveling.

jonas21• 3 years ago

I'm currently reading this on a 27-inch 2560x1440 monitor [1]. At a typical viewing distance, it's around 35 ppd. This is perfectly fine for me, and I would imagine most other people as well (it has a 4.8-star rating on Amazon). You can see a little bit of pixellation around the edges of text, but I don't really notice unless I'm looking for it.

I don't think many people are going to care that the Apple Vision Pro is "only" 35 to 40 ppd. And those who do would probably be willing to concede that the ability to take as many monitors of whatever size you want with you everywhere is worth the tradeoff.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/P2720DC-27IN-WLED-25X14-HDMI/dp/B082F...

ozten2• 3 years ago

The main difference is that your monitor is stationary so fonts are rendered onto a grid of physical pixels in a fixed position. A monitor in VR is a flat plane that is not aligned with the physical pixels of your headset, so it has to be re-rendered constantly and shifts around on the pixel grid causing sparkles with the slightest head movement.

iamwil• 3 years ago

New products can be worse along most dimensions than the incumbent product except one. And if in that one dimension it's a 10x better solution to a new problem/job-to-be-done, then it is the beachhead in which the new product can stake their claim and become better and survive. Then it remains to be seen whether this beachhead grows or stays niche.

He may be technically right in all the way monitors are better than Vision Pro as a monitor for all the current use cases, but I don't think it's a forgone conclusions that they're not going to be monitor replacements.

Edman2743• 3 years ago

"The original XGA monitor, considered “high resolution” at the time, had a 16” diagonal and 82ppi, which translated 36 to 45 pixels per degree (ppd) from 0.5 meters to 0.8 meters (typical monitor viewing distance), respectively. Factoring in the estimated FOV and resolutions, the Apple Vision Pro is between 35 and 40 ppd or about the same as a 1987 monitor."

Okay, now wait a minute. On the one hand, it's possible to scoff at technology that was state of the art in 1987 and make it seem like it's shitty, but 1024 by 768 with a diagonal of 16 inches seems awfully close to the monitor I'm currently typing this on right now: a 1920 by 1080 27 inch LCD screen, sitting three feet away.

I used https://qasimk.io/screen-ppd/ to compare some of the displays I have around to the IBM XGA monitor. Although I have one 1440 monitor, I also have a 1920x1080 that I use all the time, and when I'm actually in the office, those monitors are the same.

To hear this person describe it, the monitor that I and a ton of people currently use today has the resolution of an ancient relic. A 1024x768 monitor with a 16 inch diagonal has effectively the same pixels per inch as a 1920x1080 with a 27 inch diagonal. Would a 27 inch 1080p monitor really be worth characterizing as obsolete, insufficient technology today?

saltcured3• 3 years ago

FWIW, I'm using a 1920x1080 14" screen when not on a 4K 28" screen. Both with almost identical pixels per degree. (They are identical dot-pitch, but I don't use exactly the same viewing distance for laptop vs desk...)

I would be absolutely aggravated to work at half the linear resolution. I would tolerate it for some fast-paced game as a practical tradeoff for framerate, but not for text or static image viewing.

I have seen a 16" 4K laptop and considered it overkill or even impractical, i.e. pixels are too small to resolve and naively scaled icons or text are unreadable without a magnifier. But my usual screens described up top are above that threshold for me, and I can resolve single pixel gaps much of the time.

paulmd• 3 years ago

24" is generally considered the upper limit of where 1080p is reasonable. 27" is getting to be a notably low PPI for text and UI, although it's generally fine for games and other motion content.

Normally at 27" you'd want at least 1440p these days, and that's been pretty standard for around 10 years now. Those Pixio PX276/PX277 monitors and similar have been around for a long time even as budget products - the panels they were using come from cast-offs from the premium panels.

Which isn't to say you won't find 25" 1080p monitors and similar junk in offices but... they're not buying you the good stuff either.

Not to say it's not fine for you! But generally today people would be looking for a higher res, either 1440p or 4K, either of which is under $250 these days for a 27", and often a pretty nice one (nano-IPS, 144 hz, wide color gamut, etc).

Edman2743• 3 years ago

It just feel wild to me that using something which would be in offices today would be so ridiculous as to not even be usable for text. The article has to take for granted that any display with a resolution below 4K is not sufficient for reading text. That's unsupportable.

I'm not arguing that 1440 or 4k isn't better than 1080. I'm not saying that monitors aren't cheaper than the Apple Vision Pro. I know that text on a screen in 1440p looks better than 1080p.

I'm just saying it seems more ridiculous to be like "the monitors that people use in offices all around the world today cannot be used as monitors, welcome to 1987 if you think so" because there exist alternatives that people would prefer to use.

https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/Steam-Hardware-Softw...

For goodness' sake, 61 percent of people running Steam have their resolution as 1080p.

I'm just saying it's uncharitable for the author to make it seem as if the resolution that a vast swath of people use in 2023 is so inadequate as to not be worth taking seriously. He's saying "Yes, they will “work” as a monitor if you are desperate and have nothing else, but having multiple terrible monitors is not a solution many people will want", and buried in that is the assumption that the majority of people are using "terrible" monitors that (sarcasm quotes) work. I don't think that's reasonable.

tells• 3 years ago

why are we restricted to windowed layouts of applications? I think we can get more creative than that. I would like a more fully immersive experience that doesn't try to mimic our constrained current experience. Getting to the pixel level and determining the outcome based on that is missing the forest for the trees.

chrisjj4• 3 years ago

why are we restricted to windowed layouts of applications? I think we can get more creative than that.

For the same reason we're "restricted" to pages in books.

I think we can get more creative than that.

Yup, if we discard utility.

dahwolf• 3 years ago

The article confirms my suspicion that it's not going to be great for productivity. Limited FOV, hard to read things, limited/more difficult input methods, and it being tiring to wear for a stretch of time.

It also doesn't seem to be designed for gaming, not for games where you move a lot and require fast and precise input.

The part of the presentation where usually developers show their finest creations this time was rushed and showed low poly toys apps as we've known from AR apps for a decade now. Sure, you can say it takes time for the ecosystem to develop, but that ignores a big problem.

It doesn't just take time. It's beyond the reach of most app developers entirely. It's extraordinarily expensive and difficult to build a compelling 3D world that is convincing enough for somebody to want this device as well as keep that headset on. It needs to be spectacular and convincing. Because ordinary consumer experiences, say the PS5, already deliver that fidelity and engagement. You need to up that significantly given the cost and discomfort of this device.

It seems to me that only the likes of Disney can pull that off, and not the small app developer. Even for Disney it will be a questionable ROI.

So what remains? A device for solitary passive entertainment? In a world already saturated with digital experiences and content?

theonlybutlet• 3 years ago

I'd love to know how they intend on reducing eye strain. Just using a monitor, eye strain develops after 45 minutes. With VR there's no distance of >20m to look at occasionally, to relax your eye muscles. Perhaps it can trick your eyes into relaxing those muscles.

DanielHB• 3 years ago

I used a 65 inch TV about 2.5 meters away from my eyes as a monitor for my home PC for a couple of years. Trust me when I say that having a huge screen at a longer distance from your eyes gives much less eye strain. It is focusing on things close to your eyes for extended periods of time that causes eye strain

With VR you could basically have a monitor that would feel like watching a valley while sitting atop of a mountain

Unrelated, but the best thing for eye strain when working is to sit close to a window and focus your eyes on distant things every few minutes

mensetmanusman3• 3 years ago

“which translated 36 to 45 pixels per degree (ppd) from 0.5 meters to 0.8 meters (typical monitor viewing distance), respectively. Factoring in the estimated FOV and resolutions, the Apple Vision Pro is between 35 and 40 ppd or about the same as a 1987 monitor.”

Doesn’t ppd have to be combined with distance to make sense whatsoever. You can’t compare 40 ppd at 1 meter with 40 ppd at ??? m?

sudosysgen4• 3 years ago

No, pixels per degree are already corrected for distance.

mensetmanusman3• 3 years ago

I mean in terms of the physical resolution of the pixel plane, eg a low res calculator far away has more ppd than a 4K monitor at 1”.

kalleboo• 3 years ago

I think the main thing he's missing is that Apple isn't aiming for the Quest Pro vision of "Three big desktop OS screens in front of you" and is aiming for people to port iOS apps, where each context/window is separate in the 3d world, dialogs pop out, etc. Applications will natively be aware of how big the text has to be for each situation instead of trying to squeeze the 2007-era design of MS Office onto your eyeballs.

Yeah they have the "project your Mac screen into this space" but that's obviously a bonus they threw in since they knew that there are not going to be enough productivity apps out there on day one.

He's also mistaken about a lot of the text stuff he writes. MacOS X has always ignored font hinting. Macs (and some iOS devices even) will already render on a larger canvas and scale to fit the screen when you choose a different scaling mode.

ozten2• 3 years ago

Karl Guttag is awesome, but he is not a "product guy". The ultimate test will be if the market adopts it. All of our technology goes through cycles of higher quality and "worse is better" periods. People don't need perfect, but will the Vision Pro be "good enough" for enough use cases to gain niche adoption.

PrivateButts• 3 years ago

I've been messing around with an nreal air which although not a true VR/AR display it is a pretty good HMD for consuming pancake content. Most of the time I use it with a Steam Deck, which it's perfect for. I have had to use it for work once due to a screw up during a desk move that left me without a workstation for a day. The nreal worked fine, but I had a ton of trouble with software. Even with Dex, Android was still pretty clunky. Using Windows/Linux/Dex all leave me with the same hacky feeling that I get when I use a desktop OS on a large TV. Like the scaling feels all wrong, you know?

I just got the nreal beam, which allows for more flexible placement of display feeds in the glasses. It helps, but I still find the clipping problem with low FOV displays crappy.

Apple is probably the best positioned to nail the software side of this, but I think it'll be a couple years before the hardware fully catches up.

Apple Vision Pro: Why Monitor Replacement Is Ridiculous

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