Apple’s Vision Pro AR headset is finally here
techcrunch.com
techcrunch.com
You will not get closer to your family by hiding behind a big funny pair of goggles.
The immersive home-theater possibilities on the other hand, now we're talking. Plane rides could potentially become tolerable.
That being said, I still think watching movies is a group experience that's largely lost with a "single player" device. I love watching with my family and making popcorn and laughing and cuddling. It seems impossible or awkward when we would all have to have our own pair of goggles.
I can't wait for the third or forth generation of this product.
Whether this is a good or a bad thing I do not know.
Also Apple: We’re strapping two 4K displays to your eyeballs with our new Apple Vision Pro AR headset.
In all seriousness, this looks pretty awesome, and certainly paints a positive picture for AR in the future. It's pretty crazy how ahead Apple is to Meta considering Zuck pivoted their entire company around the space a few years ago. I wouldn't be surprised if Apple gets this headset to iPhone prices in 3-4 years. I imagine this will be around $3,000 now (price not announced as of my post), so it will just be an enthusiast tool for now, but mass adoption is certainly possible down the line.
https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/1371485209603022853
VR apps typically use far focal distance so even though the screens are close to your eyes, your eye muscles/lenses are typically held at far/infinity focal length.
Apple's nudging people into using all their devices for every aspect of their life. Compare this with the idea of creating a metaverse where you can interact with other people. It's harder to get people to jump into a metaverse cold, whereas if you're already an iPhone user, it's easier to use the halo effect to drag you in.
My hope is that this is a calculated step towards a more integrated form factor that will enrich our sense of connection and engagement with the physical world.
Just like the actual Buddhist monks!
The first time you see it it’s weird as fuck. The second and more times, not so much. A but like AirPods but much more extreme.
Whether this works out for them remains to be seen.
And now you can bring the beautiful outdoors inside, so you never have to leave your couch again!
EDIT: sounds like they render a realistic animated image of you, if I caught that correctly?
Kidding, but also not, I imagine they make use of that camera for this somehow.
Edit: and yep, your head is modeled and a doppelganger of you will show in calls.
This could be the next generation of "tone gets lost in text".
I think I was in a 4 or 5k stream. Whatever apples page delivers when on a 5k monitor I guess.
Then they construct a virtual avatar out of that.
Honestly, I'm not sure how Vision Pro product stacks up to what Apple says, but the marketing shows that Apple has clearly figured this out.
> I was initially a skeptic of widespread adoption of VR. I'm not sure that it's going to be the next smartphone. However, if it gets more comfortable and the price point goes down, I could see it being a replacement for traditional desktop monitors. Instead of paying $1k for a 27-inch display you get as many large screens as you want. That seems probable to me.
>
> I know that sounds awfully boring and mundane, but that probably comes way before other applications. After all the original iPhone was just an iPod you could make calls with.
Edit: OK, just saw the Disney pitch for Vision Pro. They are going to sell a ton of these things to every sports fanatic in the world.
Imagine building this on Windows. It won’t suck less, it’s just suck in 3D.
From what I understand the other headsets aren't suitable for code. With 23M pixels, I hope this one can cut it
Wearing the headset while your kids are playing seems like something out of a dystopian scifi movie.
And using it to watch movies might work while lying in bed but sitting on the couch seems like the next 3D tvs.
When the iPhone came out, I heard the same thing - people couldn't figure out why they'd want the Internet with them in their pocket.
I also am not sure if there's a great use case for Vision Pro today - it looks like fun, at least, price tag aside! - but Apple have repeatedly demonstrated both long-term commitment to their products along with a grand vision. I look forward to seeing how it evolves.
I have previously owned a PS VR (the first iteration) and sold it after a couple months because it had only seen any action in the first couple weeks.
I now own a PS VR2. It's a lot less of a faff, but still far from ideal. I've had it for a couple months though, and my usage is actually increasing. I look forward to having some time to play, which due to work and other interests, happens only a few times a week. It takes some time and work to be fully set up and ready to play, and time to get off it, clean everything up, put it in charge, etc (there are 3 devices that need charging: 2 controllers and headphones.
What Apple seem to have done (or at least claim to) is to solve all or most of the issues with current VR tech, such as:
* Motion sickness due to low refresh rates and lag
* Resolution and front-door or mura effects
* Complete disconnection from the outside world unless you take the whole setup off (which takes some time to put in)
* Awkwardness of using your hands since they're attached to controllers and you can't see them (mostly)
* The choice between being tethered or having a heavy thing attached to your skull
* The need for yet another thing in order to get decent sound - I use a pair of over-ear headphones.
So, they combined: VR/AR/MR headset, GPU, CPU, controllers, headphones/sound system into one neat package. On top of that, as much as the breakout battery might not be ideal, it solves the weight vs tether vs operating time issue relatively neatly.
The price is really the main problem but given the amount of tech in this product it's understandable.
If it could fully replace a Macbook (run full blown macOS on it, connect to external display for off-headset work), there would be a lot more people jumping on it.
By comparison I suddenly find something like the Valve Index and the emphasis on gaming, much more benign.
I think the big thing here is being able to go up and talk to someone real quick. If Im working and someone just wants to talk for 10 seconds, its much easier to just look over at them instead of slipping the whole headset off.
I'm thinking about an interaction kind of like the scene in Minority Report where one character is controlling the displays while the other is giving information and interacting with them, but it's not always a face-to-face interaction (https://youtu.be/7SFeCgoep1c). In that sort of situation, this kind of feature seems useful.
I agree that it will always be weird to just keep the headset on during an entire conversation or to just walk around with them all the time. But if someone is doing work or watching a movie or something with these on, and just needs to turn their head to talk to you for a minute, it's a nice feature to have.
from Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
Yeah, spend time outside with your children with an AR headset strapped to your face, while a screen on the outside of it conveys your emotions.
The future is scary and sad.
If one of these costs $3k, it becomes a pretty reasonable decision for a single person who's investing in a setup. Of course, if you want to have people over to watch a movie/game, that complicates things. I wonder if there will be a rental market for these, or how long it will take for enough people to have them that they would bring their own.
Our projector + Sonos setup feels obsolete on a going-forward basis. My guess is that in 5 years we'll use it only when 4+ people are watching something, and even then we'll be tempted to complain about how much less immersive it is, thanks to the hedonic treadmill effect.
Or sit down with your family and watch something. That's still a thing people do, right?
One demographic that will continue to prefer regular TVs is the Netflix-and-chill crowd, which would be concerned about knocking visors when going in for a kiss...
It would be cheaper to rent 1 projector than 5 VR headsets.
One complicating factor is that it sounds like you have to get these fitted/personalized for your vision or glasses. That would be a buzzkill. Same for battery life, if everyone is reaching for a power adaptor during the third quarter of the Super Bowl.
This is a shift of epic proportions.
Wish they had shown what the dad wearing the headset looked like.
Without glasses, i can only really make out text if its inches from my face. With my quest 2 though, i cannot see anything in the headset without my glasses. The objects in the headset act as if they are several feet away. I cant see objects several feet away without my glasses.
edit: later in the presentation they announce they are partnering with a company that makes corrective lens inserts. Similar solutions exist for other existing VR headsets already.
I have wondered how the temptation to share this sort of data with advertisers, movie platforms, etc. would work. Obviously there would be tremendous value in being able to guarantee that someone saw an advertisement, or to see when people are getting bored during a movie. But I wouldn't use any device that shares eye-tracking data.
I do not want someone interfering between me and those things.
I can see why the Jony Ive camp kept pushing for a thinner form factor.
Given the manufacturing rumors, I doubt I can get one without paying a scalper
But it was only 2 hours battery life?
Or if you can swap out the battery pack.
I'm more concerned with the sound design for flights. Those speakers aren't in your ears, they're probably audible to people beside you. (though if you're doing something without sound that's fine).
Just kidding of course - but perhaps there's money being a Vision Pro photographer like you have at weddings.
Maybe the next version would be much better, cheaper and wireless. But not now.
EDIT: Come on admit it. You would not seriously buy this first version until it looks less clunky and more natural. Eventually it will look as natural as glasses.
Don't fall for Apple's mixed reality distortion field again, please.
At $3,499, this is a toy for rich people, not a new computing platform. It almost feels redundant next to an iPhone, which is really not the selling point you want for something that costs more than 3x as much.
So much innovation to happen here like playing ping pong and the glasses keeping/showing you the score.
But as a headset the populace won't care too much as for over 30 years the populace has rejected headsets.
Any speculation on who the first adopters will be?