Apple Vision Pro

The display tech looks great. Might be a lot better than my old Oculus 1 which felt like looking through a mosquito net screen. Low latency is key... as motion sickness was a thing. Perhaps R1 will deliver on that.

What struck me was that there were no real demonstrations of using AR... it was mostly a screen, without analysis of interactions with the real/virtual world. I'd have expected demonstrations like a tool to help someone realize a recipe, repair a car, find things in a warehouse, assemble a piece of furniture from Ikea, get an explanation about something pointed at, such as a bird or a work of art, or even exercise buddies. Even in the old 8 bit days, computers' advertisements tried to demonstrate how useful the computer could be for real world tasks, such as "how to plan your garden layout" for the BBC micro. You'd think this would be the ideal sort of thing to demonstrate for this new "spatial computing". Instead, I mostly saw a virtual screen for movies, photos and facetime. So, either the software layer needs work, or it needs more compute power.

Also, it only has a 2 hour battery which seems awfully short to me for watching a movie on an airplane...

Also it's really expensive...

Yeah a bit of a lame attempt at explaining why anyone would need these goggles - the line that this replaces multiple monitors was odd given Apple actually sell real monitors which surely wont be replaced by a small portion of a 4K+ screen - impressive though that screen may be in an of itself.

And the game compatibility so far being Apple Arcade is underwhelming to say the least.

Some amazing tech by the sound of it - no doubt - but there was no moment where I thought ‘ah yes that’s why I’d want these goggles - certainly not to wear whilst unpacking a suitcase in an hotel room on the off-chance a FaceTime call might come in!

Also makes sense that Apple announced so much Mac hardware as it reinforces that they aren’t putting all their eggs in the Vision Pro basket which may be wise and comforting for investors.

I was also a bit disappointed by the lack of fully spatial stuff. It's not unreasonable to expect that Apple are hoping third party developers will fill in the blanks there.

But wouldn't things like IKEA virtual thing work already?

Maybe they're keeping some stuff until the actual launch. I also think they really want devs to see it as a productivity platform, rather than a play thing. Let's be honest, the Facebook mask isn't seeing the world on fire.

Apple have a bunch of productivity apps they can put in floating windows whilst Facebook has Instagram.

They showed some simulated production line, but that was a small thing on a flat surface rather than something filling the entire room.

I also thought everything Disney showed looked like a hoth mess.

What was the name of the spatial thing that Apple built as add-on for MacOS 8? MacOS 9?

"When a person approaches someone wearing Vision Pro, the device feels transparent — letting the user see them while also displaying the user’s eyes. "

And it's so magical that the person even knows where the invisible windows are. At least on Apple conceptual video…

Let's wait for the more technical sessions to see how far the actual product is from the commercial video.

@dogfood

Not sure if you’re referring to HotSauce “Project X”?
https://www.macintoshrepository.org/866-apple-s-hotsauce-technology-project-x-

Or maybe QuickTime VR?

Having worked/seen interesting work with HoloLens I can see some of the potential for creatives for this. Building a 3D model is a lot more fun in 3D, and can be way more intuitive. Training too, where you can interact with 3D models or AR on real equipment also is pretty exciting. Currently there’s a lot of high level programming experience needed to build any of those applications, and presumably Vision could make an impact here. That said, the impact on consumers isn’t clear, and those examples were not demonstrated.

Apparently, there's more that wasn't discussed: inferring the user's mental state... https://nitter.net/sterlingcrispin/status/1665792422914453506

Dave 2D shares house impressions of a face on demo

https://youtu.be/nMTJPqx2XBE

As many others he finds the "dad with gadget on his face during birthday"sad. But honestly, at least the guy had house hands free. Most people today live big moments mediated through their services already.

I hate that I both want videos and photos off e.g. my son's piano concert AND be present in the moment.

"As many others he finds the 'dad with gadget on his face during birthday' sad. But honestly, at least the guy had house hands free. Most people today live big moments mediated through their services already."
Maybe I'm dating myself compared to Dave2D, and others, but… I agree. It is as if no one remembers the camcorder and 35mm camera eras of the 1970s and 1980s/90s! How is a head-mounted brain-augmentation device more intrusive than the bulky 'external' predecessors? I think this will be this generation's thing where those born into it find it hilarious that those born before it couldn't deal with it and thought it was stupid.

Until we go "full Matrix", I think head-mounted immersive spatial computing is a fait accompli. My opinion. From all the reviews I've ingested, it seems Apple has passed a visual/interactive Rubicon with Vision Pro; will only get better and more compelling from here. <5 years to "mainstream", if we look back to the iPhone timeline. (Compared to ~15 years from Macintosh introduction for the GUI. We're accelerating!)

The tech looks cool but I think I'd feel like a pretty big doofus wearing that thing on my face all day (especially in public). Tech people seem to be in love with this, but I'm curious to see how normal people will react when it comes out. Do regular people really want to wear those giant goggles? I mean kids playing games for sure will.

Some of the comments on Hacker News about this are hilariously dumb, "Your house can be as big as you want it to be!"
Yeah strap on your goggles buddy and enjoy your giant house with 10 pretend bathrooms you can't really use and your pretend giant swimming pool. Playing dollhouse is supposed to be for the kids!

I found this picture pretty amusing.

On a more serious note, this is an interesting analysis.