Early Apple Vision Pro adopters alarmed to learn VR porn doesn't work

https://www.404media.co/a-3-500-chastity-belt-early-apple-vision-pro-adopters-alarmed-to-learn-vr-porn-doesnt-work/

by ajdude • 2 years ago

60 57 2 years ago

jacquesm3• 2 years ago

You really shouldn't be surprised. Anything Apple fields is part of their eco system, even the Macs are getting more so with every passing day. Apple would like to impose their values on your hardware, whether you like it or not. You're headed straight for digital Disneyland.

frizlab• 2 years ago

This has nothing to do with values and everything to do with the lack of support for 180 degree side by side video…

karlgkk3• 2 years ago

While your complaint about Apple is generally true...

If you'd read the article, you'd see that it's because Apple hasn't supported SBS video - one of the most common 3d video technologies. It has nothing to do with imposing values. No reason has been given, although "SBS isn't supported to keep porn off their platform" is ludicrous conspiracy.

jacquesm3• 2 years ago

It's not a conspiracy, if there is an avenue through which porn could make it onto their platform and Apple has control over that avenue it will be closed. In software, in hardware or through the TOS and a review process. You can count on it.

adrian_b• 2 years ago

The fact that SBS, which is the most popular format for 3D movies, not necessarily porn movies, is not supported in a product advertised for its 3D capabilities, after so much time that has been used for preparing its software for the official launch, does not have any decent explanation.

Perhaps they did not use specifically porn as the reason for not supporting it, but in any case this is hard to explain otherwise than a measure to make difficult the use of any content that is not provided through Apple, i.e. if this is not anti-porn it is at least an anti-competitive measure.

ryandrake• 2 years ago

I've always found Apple's moral position on these kinds of [USA Puritanical] things (porn, gambling, and so on) pretty weird. Of all the tech companies not beholden to the pressures to censor from advertising customers and external brands, Apple is least reliant on these external forces. You'd think they of all companies wouldn't care because a laissez faire attitude wouldn't lose them revenue. Yet, the AppStore has some of the most puritanical rules on the web. Huh...

lcnPylGDnU4H9OF• 2 years ago

Do they get more revenue from AppStore sales or advertising? At any rate, if it's easy to see puritan-aggravating things, such people might be aggravated into not making a purchase. At Apple's scale that likely turns into something similar with Amazon reducing their page load times by ~100ms to see a ~1% increase in sales.

nvahalik• 2 years ago

I've always found Apple's moral position ... pretty weird.

Honestly, I find them refreshing. Granted, this isn't a technology problem probably so much as an app problem, but in general, the fact that you can't easy find sketchy apps on the App Store easily makes it far easier for me to bring into a family environment.

What's _ironic_ about this is that iTunes/Apple Music will gladly show you pornographic music videos/album covers/music EVEN IF you try to avoid them. I contact Apple Support a few months ago because we were listening to one album and then the infinite playlist started spewing lyrical garbage over my speakers.

I'm glad we have the Classical app now, because at least that is curated but heck even the kids playlists on Apple Music are pretty iffy at times.

nerdjon2• 2 years ago

I have been wondering for a long time about why the App Store is so puritanical, does the App Store have any sort of age ratings? As in anything enforced.

Like Death Stranding is out now and it's 17+ but is there any check? Does Apple just not want to take on the requirement of doing that check? (Which honestly is kinda valid, can you imagine how certain places would react if Apple allowed kids to download a pornhub app?).

But it is still unfortunate, especially the impacts it has also had on non porn apps but similarly restricted apps like Grindr.

darth_avocado• 2 years ago

The problem with allowing porn in the app store is that it is very hard to monitor. If apple allows a porn app that accidentally does something illegal, it also opens up the app store in terms of liability. Everything from payments using stolen credit cards to illegal content is just a headache for them that they don't want to take.

int_19h2• 2 years ago

Steve Jobs once literally said, "We do believe we have a moral responsibility to keep porn off the iPhone. Folks who want porn can buy and Android phone." For him, it seemed to be a deeply rooted personal belief.

jjtheblunt• 2 years ago

i installed fedora (asahi) on an apple silicon laptop, and it's super useful, and might be an exception to your point.

quux• 2 years ago

Misleading headline. The root issue, that Vision OS has no support for 180 degree side by side video, isn’t specific to porn.

I’m sure there will be 3rd party video players that support that format and other common VR video formats in no time. I have some ripped 3D Blu-rays I’d love to watch on a Vision Pro in SBS format.

jmward012• 2 years ago

Apple has enough product development experience to know this use case exists but I suspect you are right, they didn't support the feature as a whole and the discussion was only partly about the porn use case. The cynic in me suspects the lack of support is more about them preparing an apple friendly (read not friendly to the res of the market) format that they want to force the industry towards.

Almondsetat• 2 years ago

Apple's default video players are severly lacking in almost all of their platforms. Try to open an mp4 file you downloaded on your iPhone or iPad and you will be presented with one of the most atrocious "players" ever.

But that's because Apple has never cared to support on-device video viewing on their mobile devices outside the gallery app. They think people only use streaming apps and websites to consume videos so they haven't bothered with it.

I'm sure we will get VLC on the Vision Pro or something similar that will take care of it. Platforms that publish 360 content will have to distribute their own custom solutions

Shank2• 2 years ago

You know that on the Apple Vision Pro, you can't even reorder the homescreen apps, and everything is forced to be alphabetical right? Clearly some corners were cut getting the v1 release shipped. Personas (which are still in beta) are clearly a higher priority than this for Apple.

foobarchu• 2 years ago

The cynic in me suspects the lack of support is more about them preparing an apple friendly (read not friendly to the res of the market) format that they want to force the industry towards.

An alternative hypothesis: they're working on a proprietary format that only works on Apple products with no intention of spreading it to the wider indistry. They've got a long history of it (itunes drm on mp3s, iMessage, lightning and various other ports, Airdrop)

nabla92• 2 years ago

Assuming Apple allows 3rd party video players in Vision.

etchalon4• 2 years ago

VLC works.

layer8• 2 years ago

Does visionOS have an API that allows apps to play “fullscreen” (full-FOV) 3D video?

superb_dev2• 2 years ago

Does the VisionPro not support WebVR?

karlgkk3• 2 years ago

If you'd read the article, you'd see that it's because Apple hasn't supported SBS video - what porn generally shoots in.

superb_dev2• 2 years ago

Right, but if the Vision Pro supported webXR you would be able to use one of the existing web based video players

nickthegreek2• 2 years ago

It is not enabled by default.

https://appleinsider.com/inside/apple-vision-pro/tips/how-to...

exitb• 2 years ago

It’s not about porn, but rather about Apple’s insistence that it’s not a VR headset.

They’ll likely not allow any apps that take over the entire user surroundings, especially if they don’t allow six degrees of freedom.

Shank2• 2 years ago

I know HN is cynical but really: the headset ships with the ability for immersive environments that replace the entire user’s surroundings, and apps already exist that are fully immersive.

ceejayoz• 2 years ago

They’ll likely not allow any apps that take over the entire user surroundings...

I'll take that bet.

https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guideline...

https://developer.apple.com/documentation/visionos/creating-...

jpeter• 2 years ago

Great title

danjl• 2 years ago

The quality of MV-HVEC (the spatial video format used by Vision Pro) is much better than 180º dual-eye video used widely in porn (and not natively supported by VisionOS). The history of porn indicates they will adopt MV-HVEC faster than anyone else, though it seems Disney and the NBA want to try to move fast too!

saiya-jin• 2 years ago

A very tiny amount of porn customers are willing to shell 3500 for far from perfect goggles. Porn these days, unless peer-to-peer paid on ie tiktok, is about masses. Tiny revenue, but hundreds of millions cases.

Lonely hackers will make something work pretty quickly, but for very small market.

cooper_ganglia• 2 years ago

A small market for now, but it's a smart move if Apple continues development of this headset and there are future generations. If you're the first to get a catalog of 360º videos up for sale, you'll probably dominate the market when/if it catches up with you.

eksu• 2 years ago

I am very curious about MV-HEVC. Why is the quality better, isn’t it just a container?

How does compression work vs say a side by side as a single stream in HEVC? Does either format allow them to compress based off of redundant information from the views being so similar?

jitl2• 2 years ago

From http://www.hevc.info/mvhevc

The multiview extension of HEVC (MV-HEVC) provides support for coding multiple views with inter-layer prediction. It is was designed as a high-level syntax only extension to allow reuse of existing decoder components.

If it was just a container, you’d need 2x independent HEVC data streams decoded independently into 2x video streams. It sounds like MV-HEVC is a single encoded data stream decoded into multiple video streams.