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Comment by llm_nerd | Hacker News Reader

It's interesting that HN is completely overloaded right now...with people coming to announce how unimpressed they are and how it isn't for them.

The displays in this device are crazy. I honestly didn't think they'd be able to put together a value proposition, but I think they legitimately did. It's super expensive, and some of the cost of the device seems kind of silly (if I heard correctly, the display on the front is 3d and gives different perspectives based upon the viewers), so obviously they're going to have a lot of room to improve value in subsequent generations.

But it's going to be a hit. HN is going to be swamped with "How I used Vision Pro to..." posts when it comes out.

One element that didn't get a lot of play (if any...though I was distracted with work) -- did they talk about using it as a display for a Mac? I'd love to use a real keyboard mouse interacting with flexible Mac displays.

View on HN

> It's interesting that HN is completely overloaded right now...with people coming to announce how unimpressed they are and how it isn't for them.

Agreed, polarization is a good sign that this is going to make an impact. Ironically "unimpressed" is communicated by a lack of response, not by a negative one (which more likely indicates people's beliefs are being challenged). The only way this would be a flop is if they shipped something really buggy and worse than the competition (which at the time will be the Meta Quest 3). Otherwise...

> it's going to be a hit. HN is going to be swamped with "How I used Vision Pro to..." posts when it comes out.

100%!

> did they talk about using it as a display for a Mac? I'd love to use a real keyboard mouse interacting with flexible Mac displays.

Looks like it's going to be a standalone device that you can pair with a magic keyboard and trackpad. Considering it ships with an M2 I expect iPad/Air level performance (assuming the spatial stuff is solely handled by R1). I can totally see myself using it as "the one device" (pun intended) and get rid of my Macbook, assuming there's an easy way to share content with someone who's next to me, e.g. on my iPhone.

I can't wait for it to be publicly available.

The YouTube stream I watched mentioned it can detect when you are looking at your Mac and offer the screen up in the googles with full sizing and layout control. Your Mac appears just as another app and you can multitask as ususal.

Yup -- I was a bit disappointed that it can only simulate a single monitor, but I guess since it's working wirelessly there's bandwidth limitations.

Ideally I'd love it if I could simulate a 3 monitor workstation. Maybe for the next iteration.

That doesn't make sense though. You don't need to render/composite what isn't visible.

Maybe. They told an easy to understand story in 10 seconds. Apple is amazing at educating the customer.

If you can put up all the windows from your 3 display workstation, why would you want to simulate displays?

There’s a similar approach available for the Meta quest 2 (and I’m sure the quest pro and quest 3) but it takes a little reorienting to stop thinking in terms of “screens”

From what they showed, you can’t break the windows out of the screen mirror rectangle.

You’re right though, if they allowed windows to freely float, it would also solve the issue.

I assume they would be apps running on the device, rather than on a remote machine.

Ah yes, but those apps appear to be just some kind of iOS type thing, so at least for me I couldn’t really use them for productivity. (The lack of coding tools on iOS also really kills any possible productive uses of my iPad in this way, unfortunately)

(That’s why I was focusing more on the mirror-your-Mac functionality)

We might be at a point where that could change. This device seems like it could be close to providing the performance needed to start running productivity apps, and it also provides the screen real estate. Those types of apps have to be coming to iOS in the next few years.

Ipads could do that for years and yet nothing. Hopefully with the EU laws it will change though.

Exactly -- my iPad has the same SOC as my laptop, and my laptop is amazingly useful while my iPad is useful for...watching movies and Safari.

Check out the “Platform State of the Union” video stream for more detail on that. They discuss windows, volumes, shared space, spaces. https://developer.apple.com/wwdc23/102

Wow, this makes me think of the fabled zooming interface[0]. Why limit yourself to a "monitor" or a set of windows when the sky's (literally) the limit? With a ZUI you could have the entire world at your fingertips. Browser history (or git commits) could just be further away from you in the Z direction. Or maybe it's behind you and you just have to turn around to see it.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zooming_user_interface

oh hell yash

The way I mentally organize projects would make this both deeply compelling and useful,

and a total disaster lol

An old, ancient term for it is "Spatial UI". The window you need is right where you left it in the other room; navigating between your apps becomes like navigating around your house. Your coding apps are in your office and your social media apps in your bedroom and now you won't get the two confused and "accidentally" scroll social media while working.

In some ways this is particularly great, because humans involved to have a lot of spatial memory in this way.

(It's an interesting footnote here that the early pre-OS X Mac OS Finder was sometimes much beloved [or hated, depending on your OCD predilection and/or personality type] because it was a Spatial UI. Files and folders would "stay" where you placed them and you could have and build all sorts of interesting muscle memory of where on your desktop a file was or even a deep tree of folder navigations, with scenic landmarks along the way. Apple discarded that a long time ago now, but there was something delightful in that old Spatial UI.)

Have you ever tried using https://www.switchboard.app/?

On that ZUI - have you ever tried out https://www.switchboard.app/? If so what are your thoughts? I thought it was okay.

I don't think it can simulate any app. Likely, it is a feature akin Continuity, and you have to have corresponding app installed on your Vision Pro to pick it up from Mac and continue working on a headset.

I’m fairly certain that you can just create a virtual monitor in the vision pro that just mirrors the MacBook like any other display would.

While they did confirm Continuity would work across visionOS they also showed direct footage of your Mac monitor being displayed as an app while using your Mac.

Yeah I had missed that. It's such a neat feature!

> Agreed, polarization is a good sign that this is going to make an impact.

Virtually every new Apple product is going to generate this sort of response, and while many Apple products have had a large impact, just as many haven't, I don't know how much predictive strength "this new Apple product generated a lot of conversation on HN" has.

Exactly. Especially in this case, where we knew this was coming for months. It's generating a response because people have been waiting to talk about it since the rumors started.

For myself, my "unimpressed" reaction is because the experience they're selling is the same as what Meta has been trying and failing to sell for years now. It's definitely typical Apple—wait for the tech to mature and execute better than anyone else—but I'm unconvinced there's an actual need being filled here.

The iPhone took a market that had already taken off in business—PDAs—and blew the roof of of it by revolutionizing the tech. The VR-for-productivity market is practically non-existent, and even in gaming it's still very niche. Neither are anywhere near where PDAs and Blackberries were when the iPhone made it big.

I'm just not convinced the "execute better" strategy will work when there is no proven market.

>Agreed, polarization is a good sign that this is going to make an impact. Ironically "unimpressed" is communicated by a lack of response, not by a negative one (which more likely indicates people's beliefs are being challenged).

To quote Elie Wiesel: "The opposite of love isn't hate, it's indifference." It's an extremely good barometer.

I don't get this. There is no live demo so far, only a pre-rendered ad. So you have no idea what the actual experience will be like (in an industry famed for over-promising and under-delivering; remember Magic Leap?). The use-cases are also dubious: you can... watch TV alone? Scroll through photos alone? Take pictures? Only the virtual desktop thing was something that I thought "that's useful".

I'm unimpressed so far, maybe that will change maybe it won't. But right now I don't see anything worth being impressed by.

They gave 30 min demos to WWDC attendees the following day.

I'm excited mainly for two reasons: fantastic eye and hand tracking (according to reviewers such as MKBHD) and replicating my office/entertainment setup wherever I am (except for shared experiences, that is).

I think Apple tried to nail the seamlessness of the experience, rather than give you some amazing use case nobody ever thought of. That will be a good challenge for developers.

It's interesting that every single top HN thread is mostly unanimous praise for this device (which presumably no one has yet seen or used), while also painting themselves as the minority opinion.

Not claiming it's a minority opinion, but early on there were multiple submissions that were dominated by people rushing to proclaim that it was DoA. One claimed it was the end of Apple. There is a huge disparity between people who click an arrow and people who comment.

And you are absolutely correct that the enthused haven't used this device, or even heard from a non-Apple employee that tried a beta. I am hugely concerned about long term comfort, particularly in the eye fatigue realm, for instance, and will be watching to see what the sentiment around that is.

If it were many other companies I would honestly be much more skeptical about it, but I mean Apple has a pretty good track record of actually delivering products that meet or exceed their promises. And they really promised the moon with this reveal.

I completely agree with you about the tiredness of the eye or fatigueness of the eye. It's really hard to imagine someone wearing this kind of device for a very long time without feeling any pain. I'm not sure exactly the reason why this pain came from. But I think the question we face is going to be maybe the next big thing for humans, which is going to directly connect all those sensors directly connected to our central brain without using the eye. But that's kind of a science fiction thing. I'm not sure I'm going to have a chance to experience those things.

Ditto. I can’t see this being used portably so do wonder if the 2 hour battery life is a clue on how fatiguing the experience might be.

2 hours I guess covers a commute, but it’s hardly handheld form factor - how much bigger would it need to be to get “all day wear” battery life? It doesn’t feel like a real spatial constraint, so can only presume >2hrs is not required in actual use.

Techcrunch concluded "The price reveal turned any ‘would buy’ in the room into a ‘definitely not’ without hesitation."

Anyways, bookmark the threads of folks calling an Apple product dead on arrival for a revisit in a few years.

The ipod, the iphone, the watch, the airpods... they've had a pretty good record and almost all these have had harsh criticism out the gate (while then going on to absolutely PRINT money for apple).

Apple is sitting on lots of cash and investment with operating cash flow of something like another $100B a year? Why aren't they allowed to take some risks on products like this. Facebook certainly has burnt billions in a similar space.

People paid $550 for a pair of headphones. They'll buy this if it's good

to be fair, $550 for a pair of headphones is a lot, but it's not even close to top of the range

It was definitely in the upper range of prices for over-the-ear Bluetooth headphones, not like this even matters, because people just _did not_ pay $500+ for headphones before the Maxes dropped.

some people obviously did pay $500+ for headphones. We don’t know how many sets has Apple actually sold…

>people just did not pay $500+ for headphones before the Maxes dropped

are you sure? why do you think this?

I think they’re saying that apple is selling $500 headphones to people who would otherwise not buy $500 headphones

Just wanted to piggyback on this. I was just commenting today to my coworker on the number of people I see walking around Manhattan/Brooklyn with AirPods Maxes on. I swear I see at least a pair or two every other minute while walking down the street.

Most of these people, like you said, we’re likely not blowing $500+ on headphones before Apple made that concept mainstream.

Sure they were, or at least close.

Beats: $400 out the door. Bose Quiet Comfort, whichever is the most recent: similar. Sony also sells ~$350-ish noise cancelling headphones.

Going from $350 to $550 is roughly the normal apple premium.

This is $3k.

Honestly, nah. I don’t think the majority of these people were blowing 400 or 350 or whatever on alternatives beforehand.

Granted, this is 100% anecdotal, but I’m seeing way more people rocking AirPods Max around the city every day than I remember ever seeing rocking over the ear headphones, let alone expensive ones.

I see airpods more often, but sure, apple did discover a huge market here (and not so kindly pushed people towards it by the removal of jack ports). But I don’t fault them, the airpod pros are really cool and the comfort of noise cancellation especially on public transport is a godsend and it makes sense that many people actually cough together the price for that.

this is $3k, but then how much are other premium VR headsets?

They're also selling much worse headphones than what an audiophile would buy for $500+, but trendier.

> $550 for a pair of headphones is a lot, but it's not even close to top of the range

It's top of the range for typical consumers. The people who wear Apple's $550 headphones aren't people who are buying Sennheiser HD800s'. Before, people would've spent $200 or up to $300 on the Bose ones. Apple got them to spend an extra $200-250.

I'm surprised by how often I see these headphones. They were basically nonexistent in the Bay Area but I see them often enough in NYC.

Except no one bought those headphones.

Not true, I bought them and really dislike them.

I owned two Boses (QC35II and 700) and two of the best that Sony has to offer (XM4 & XM5).

The AirPods Max blow both out of the water in comfort, usability and ANC.

I did the same quest and I'm happy with the AirPods Max. I remember reading Apple originally wanted to make them better but they would have been more expensive so they didn't, I wish they had.

I have more expensive headphones than the AirPods Max but these are what I use the most.

I personally love those headphones even despite their price.

You'd be surprised how popular they are. Certainly they're overpriced, but the noise cancellation/sound/build quality/etc is very good. They've also apparently become something of a celebrity "it" item: https://www.vogue.com/article/are-the-airpods-max-the-latest...

I love mine and would rebuy them without blinking.

Wow fascinating. How much better than AirPod Pros are they? I tend like the minimalism of the AirPod line. Super discreet, can easily stash in your pocket, can be listening to music anywhere and no one even really notices, etc. Oh and they work just as good on the treadmill or while running.

You would just have to try out the AirPods Max to find out :)

Personally, I cannot say as I have never owned nor used any of the other AirPods. If you are looking for mobile usage, the Max aren't the best choice. They are large and heavy and there is nothing discreet about them. Also, I wouldn't even consider running with them.

I use them at work or at home where all of this is no issue and I just want to enjoy the best music experience.

If this is you use case some Audio-Technica ATHM50XBT would probably have way better sound at a 3rd of the price. For over a decade it's the most used headphone set in professional studios for a reason.

P.S. not saying there aren't better headphones, just that the price ratio is great with these ones and the sound to my ear is better than on airpods pro. No noise cancellation though.

No noise cancellation though.

Then it's a completely different product...

I don't doubt that there are other great headphones. However looking closely you will find that the AirPods Max offer an interesting combination of features. Like noise cancelling, which can be quite a big help in certain situations. Even with modest background noise, the noise cancelling can just increase the music listening experience, as you just hear the music and no background noise. Also nice is spatial audio. Especially for movie watching. And I have grown fond of the build and looks of the Max.

I read reviews that actually say that the 2nd gen pros have better ANC than the Maxs.

So depending on what’s important for you they may be the better choice.

I see these people in the gym with all the time with them. I think your “no one’s buying them” might be rooted in a personal bias.

People were paying similar amounts for high-end headphones for years.

Not the same people though

Whether or not it's the right device, it's definitely being introduced to the wrong economy.

The people that can afford this aren’t impacted by the economy. It’s a professional tool and the expense can be justified. It’s not a product for ordinary consumers yet. On top of that it’s not out until next year - who knows what the economy will be like then.

Yes, I feel a lot of people are too tied down to their biases and social bubbles. I'm working in the area and you see great use of these devices from medical, to architecture, and mechanical engineering.

I understand the skepticism, but sometimes our perception of the world is quite narrow. Given that most of us are developers, even more so.

I don't mean to be condescending, I just feel that way a lot with both myself and my colleagues when exposed to fields and constraints that we haven't seen before.

> It’s a professional tool

That you use to look at family photos, use iPhone apps in a giant window, watch movies, and play with VR Mickey Mouse? The presentation seemed to lean more towards the consumer than industry applications.

They did but that mostly seemed silly to me. Multiple monitors was the main thing that jumped out as an actual good use case. They need to market all aspects of it but they’ve named it “pro” for a reason and I feel like there was a lot of focus out on productivity uses (conference calls, browsing, multiple displays, 3D Models).

Apple's "Pro" naming is somewhat a random. Here's my ranking of Pro-ness.

Mac Pro >= Pro Display XDR >= ProRes >= Logic Pro > FinalCut Pro > Vision Pro >= MacBook Pro >= iPad Pro > iPhone Pro >>> AirPods Pro

Marketed to the general public but will be used by pros.

The goal is excitement and investment in the app ecosystem so, when they figure out the form factor, the cheaper/lighter/more useful future device is a bigger hit.

It acts as an infinite screen extension of your computer...

Many professionals would be thrilled to have a portable multimonitor setup that they can use from the couch, bed, airplane, train, Uber...

iPhone 3G was released in summer 2008, right in the middle of the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression. Arguably, this was the beginning of iPhone's rise in popularity. The original iPhone was released in 2007, and the cracks in the economy were beginning to show then...

But it cost $500 ($700 in today's dollars) and the day-to-day utility of cellphones/blackberries had already been established for a decade. Your example doesn't seem that comparable.

All those phones did cost 200-300 IIRC. 500 was outrageously expensive. For this device it's 3500, will be much cheaper for non pro version plus production of critical components will scale up significantly. Sony can produce less than a million displays for that thing per year, it is understandable why they are expensive.

Sure, but again… it’s like 10x the price of a competing piece of equipment which is still regarded as pretty niche. In the case of an iPhone, 2x the price for 1000x the functionality was a clear “buy”. There’s a reason that among basically everyone I know (mid class millenials) scoffs at watches and iPads but is a complete iPhone addict - the value proposition is just that good. For all the talk of these ancillary/luxury devices, the fact remains that the iPhone (or Android knockoffs) is still the absolute Crown Jewel of tech that cuts across demographics in a way that their other products do not.

And to be honest, a handheld magic cube that fits in your pocket and can display anything and be interacted in any way really is as magical as it sounds. Plus it is a quite good camera as well.

I really think that smartphone design is close to the optimal sci-fi tech for humans, exactly due to it being handheld. We rely on vision and touch the most and I think it combines those well. I am almost sure that VR would even in theory get as popular as smartphones, all else being equal.

Another data point for you, the Quest Pro was $1500 on launch and is now $1000.

I've never spent more than $400 for a smartphone, always bought second hand Android phones. My income went up in the last couple of years and a few months ago my phone broke. I bought a $900 iPhone.

If it's good people will buy it. I will buy it. No doubt about that.

I've tried $100 phones from the Walmarts, and I've tried the top of the line Pixel phone a few years ago. Nothing comes close to a iOS or iPhones.

I just wish they made a printer. I'd buy an Apply printer in a heartbeat, I don't care what it costs.

Hear Hear! A printer and a WiFi AP!

Apple's used to have the AirPorts (Express and Extreme) as WiFi APs. They were pretty good.

Good old days: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaserWriter

Oh wow. Dammit.

Your link helped me find the Snow White Design Language: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_White_design_language

> The ipod, the iphone, the watch, the airpods... they've had a pretty good record and almost all these have had harsh criticism out the gate (while then going on to absolutely PRINT money for apple).

Looks like you and me have a completely different memory on this? iPod, iPhone were almost unanimously praised at the moment of announcement, thanks to Steve's magic. AirPod also received generally positive reactions. Apple Watch had a genuine issue on its product positioning and its success came after fixing that issue.

The reaction to the iPod that everyone remembers was "No wireless, less space than a Nomad, lame", never mind the criticism of an apple only device, or the cost (honestly, the mac mini and maybe the m1 airs are the only two devices I can think of apple has released that people didn't complain about the price).

The iPhone in addition to pricing was also widely panned for being 2G only, for being AT&T only, for requiring a data plan, for not having a physical keyboard, for not having a stylus and for being something no one needed because our phones and ipods already do all of that.

The iPhone did get a better reception than the iPod, but that's probably owed to the success of the iPod in proving Apple might just have an idea or two about how to make a new piece of cool tech, but it had plenty of poo-pooing by the tech class too.

> never mind the criticism of an apple only device

The first iPod was predicated on FireWire and iTunes, which were basically only available on Macs at the time.

(iTunes - Jan 2001, iPod - Oct 2001, iTunes Store - Apr 2003, iTunes for Windows - Oct 2003.)

iPad was definitely mocked.

I remember hardly any significant negative criticism of the iphone, watch, or airpods.

Someone below brought up "when the iphone first came out it was 2G, was only on AT&T" - well, yeah, and those were very valid initial shortcomings that Apple pretty quickly rectified.

With the Vision Pro, I see very few comments putting down the actual technological achievements here. Comments seem to be pretty universal in thinking this is the best VR device there is. But the valid question is people are still having a difficult time imagining real, extended use cases where it doesn't feel like a novelty.

Personally, I think it's great Apple took a swing at this. I wouldn't be willing to bet one way or the other on its success, I think there are lots of unknowns, but I don't really have anything but high praise for the folks that built this.

Watch was criticized for its poor battery life and lack of usage other than health/training management. Now battery life is improved a bit and more health features added, but I think the OG criticize point is still valid. Why is it sold well is that it seems that many people care about health device than we expected.

Also the watch launched with a bunch of expensive ultra-luxury options that were mocked. Ive tried to lean heavily into fashion which was quickly dropped in later revisions.

Yeah it wasn’t as clear where wearables were headed.

Apple Watch also isn't really the game changer that something like the iPod or iPhone (or various Macs throughout the years) was. Sure I see people wearing them, but not a tremendous amount, and not completely out of line with something like a FitBit or a Garmin.

Apple created a very competitive product in an established market with the Watch, they didn't change the game.

Which is where I could see the Apple Vision Pro ending up, but I'm sure that's well short of Apple's expectations.

I just want to point out: At the time of the iPhone launch, AT&T's business model (and every other telecom up until this tipping point) was to sell "minutes" which was essentially micro-charges for consumers who want to make calls or send texts.

This was mostly an infrastructure problem that Apple innovated on and helped AT&T solve- carriers would no longer need to sell "minutes" but could instead sell Data, which was a much better value proposition. There's a quote in the movie Blackberry along the lines of "the problem with selling minutes is that there's only 60 of them in a minute to sell".

I can only assume this attributed to the global adoption of the "data sale" model (and the iPhone with it) since the profit ceiling was exponentially higher for every carrier.

Data plans existed before the iPhone. And Europe was much more hardcore with minutes than the states at that time (I remember that ATT standard plans were not unlimited talk at that point, something that was unheard of in Switzerland where I was living in 2007). In fact, I think the innovation was something like unlimited data?

This is 100% wrong. The original iPhone plan from AT&T included unlimited data but was still capped on minutes: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2007/06/26AT-T-and-Apple-Anno...

The iPhone wowed everyone but its price was heavily criticized. Apple later got into the exclusive AT&T deal which "subsidized" the price. People just ended up paying more over time.

IPhone didn't have a pen. It didn't run symbian as it's OS. This is what I remember people complaining about.

Let's not forget Steve Balmer laughingly mention that no serious business user would ever use a phone without a physical keyboard. People here are negative for the sake of it.

He was negative for the shareholders

I bought one after using a blackberry and I was instantly sold on it because you could browse websites as if it was a computer, zooming in to the text section with a double tap. I remember my daughter wouldn't entertain the idea because it didn't run blackberry messenger which was the killer app for kids at the time.

It didn’t have a keyboard. Serious smartphones have keyboards.

AirPods were called 'q-tips in your ears' from people who thought they looked stupid but that faded pretty quickly once the utility became clear

well there was that time [0] Rudy Giuliani wore them like a space-alien, that was kind of funny.

[0] https://duckduckgo.com/?q=rudy+guiliani+air+pods&ia=images&i...

Criticism of the iPhone on it's debut was absolutely vicious.

Criticism of the iPad was even worse.

> I remember hardly any significant negative criticism of the iphone, watch, or airpods.

Sounds like you have a memory problem. I’m sure you can find the threads archived if you need reminded of the criticisms.

It is the first version of the Vision Pro and I would expect it to fail due to its price.

The second or third version maybe something worthy of the consumer having a look at. This is directly competing against the Quest Pro, and the Vision Pro is still at prices like the HoloLens.

Apple will probably announce a 'Lite' version which will directly compete against Meta's cheaper Quest VR headsets.

> Facebook certainly has burnt billions in a similar space.

And their Quest VR headsets already outsold Xbox Series X/S. [0]

[0] https://www.thevirtualreport.biz/data-and-research/65297/que...

How do you define failure? I reckon that if people start to make apps for this device, then it’s served its purpose. The next generation, or “lite” version will arrive to an already-populated ecosystem. Meanwhile Apple will have a lot of data about what worked and what didn’t to tweak their direction.

I see the pattern is that C is complained by most of people. And there is another type of programming that is that, which people never talk about. So just by talking about, regardless it's positive or negative, there is a tension in there and it's expectation, it's our will to kind of devices or this technology came into being. So eventually it will become part of our life and I hope that day comes sooner and this company will not disappoint us.

There's a famous macrumors forum post of people raging against the iPod, saying it will be a massive failure. We've seen the same reaction from every Apple hardware announcement since.

The original post in 2001 is still live. Read it for a laugh: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/apples-new-thing-ipod.5...

TBF, there's an equal amount of "I haven't touched the product, nor even read reviews of people handling it in their hands, but I'm totally gonna buy this only based on the marketing material"

I kinda loved how Accidental Tech Podcast's host joke about not having even heard of the product yet but they'll probably buy it for personal use either way.

The pendulum has fully swinged the other way for the a sizeable chunk of people I think.

I'll admit to being quite skeptical of the iPad and was wrong about that.

That said, despite owning a Quest 2 and eagerly awaiting the Quest 3 release, nothing in this headset particularly appeals to me. (Am mainly into rhythm games and am guessing those wouldn't be nearly as fun without the haptics in into other headsets' controllers which this seems to lack).

Apple also released https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Newton

Which was a great idea and a very innovative product literally ahead of it’s time by 15 years.

I bought a used newton from the lead engineer on the newton. I loved the device and used it regularly until my then girlfriend stepped on it and broke the display. Needless to say that relationship wasn’t long after that ;-)

I later had a palm. It was garbage compared to the newton even if it was 1/8 the size. I’m glad to see the newton essentially return as the iPhone/iPad.

> Read it for a laugh

Steve Ballmer also laughed so much of the iPhone being without a keyboard :) , It turned out to be one of the most innovative products in history.

> NO!

> Great just what the world needs, another freaking MP3 player. Go Steve! Where's the Newton?!

Personalities have not changed.

> There's a famous macrumors forum post of people raging against the iPod,

Back in the day, it was the Slashdot take: "No wifi. Less space than a Nomad. Lame."

https://slashdot.org/story/01/10/23/1816257/apple-releases-i...

That was actually quite funny thank you. Reminds me of my friend in highschool who was a Zune fanboy.

> But it's going to be a hit. HN is going to be swamped with "How I used Vision Pro to..." posts when it comes out.

I'm not going to predict whether or not this is going to be a hit, I just don't know.

However, remember when Google Glass came out there were tons of these "how I use" posts and I remember people even changing their LinkedIn profile pictures to be with Google Glass. And, we all know how that turned out.

So, early posts by self-styled influencers or wannabe's are in no way predictor of success, or failure, of a product.

I wonder how intentional Apple was about picking a name that can’t be turned into a schoolyard insult like “Glasshole”?

If you ignore the “vision”, you can just call them A(pple) Hole Pros.

You can pretty easily make fun of apple products. We just don’t do that because their products are good.

The moment a bad iPhone comes out someone will start calling it an iSore.

Pission

Most Google hardware products turn out similarly bad

> The displays in this device are crazy.

I'm actually curious about this, and how the displays will actually feel. The ads/keynote all talked about how they're "more than 4k for each eye", which sounds like a lot when you're talking about TVs or monitors, but... stops sounding quite as impressive when you realize you're talking about IMAX-sized screens (which is the main "wow" draw for watching movies in VR), or when talking about augmenting reality.

They have eye focus tracking for sure in this, so maybe they can render in adaptive resolution mode je only highest rest in center of vision? Who knows?

Adaptive resolution rendering doesn't add more pixels to the display -- if you want high resolution for the spot the user is currently looking at, you need that resolution across the entire display.

Theoretically, you don't really need it across the entire display - this is achievable with eye tracking paired with fancy actuated curved micro-mirrors (so-called DMDs) that can dynamically make part of the matrix concentrated in a smaller focus area (viewed through a curved mirror) at cost of peripheral picture quality. But it's extremely complex tech and I'm not aware if it's available in any consumer-grade devices. The alternative is liquid lenses, but I think micro-mirrors are more researched topic (I'm no expert in either, it's been ages since I last studied physics and I wasn't good at it even then).

It is remotely related but different from "classical" foveated rendering (which is just a way to get better framerates), as it's an actual optical system. With DMDs you also need foveated rendering (and fancy transformations, as displays are no longer projected uniformly over time), but foveated rendering alone is not sufficient.

Hopefully focal adjustment tracking too. I've got a feeling it's just for the selection UI.

They already listed foveated rendering in the features (which I believe is what you're describing). It use the graphics performance budget efficiently, but it can't physically add more pixels.

It's really cool technology anyway, and according to PSVR2 reviews, it seems to work well.

I think resolution will be important the smaller (or further away) the movie you’re watching is. And for things like text in apps.

If you’re watching an IMAX-size screen in AR, the resolution of the content will be the main factor, I think, rather than the density of the goggle displays.

Each pixel is 7.5 microns. Assuming RGB, that's 22.5 microns. Thats at the maximum limits of detail an eye can see.

That's not enough information. It's behind a lens that spreads it across your entire field of view.

Assuming they're square. Roughly calculating (23 million pixels between the two with no space between 7.5 microns,) that's 25.432mm^2. they've said they're the size of postage stamps. This ties in.

I think it's near safe to assume there's no real gap between pixels and thus indiscernible. The lag might be a thing.

Not having visible gaps between pixels is a necessary but woefully insufficient condition for high visual fidelity.

Once again, the absolute size is irrelevant - postage stamp or otherwise. It's optically scaled to fit your field of view - essentially under a microscope. There are VR devices with 4k screens already, and it's still not enough to be indiscernible to the eye - especially for things like text.

I have 2 4k screens in front of me right now. I can close one eye, and without moving my head make out the entirety of both screens. They cover most of the non-peripheral horizontal field of view, but you could easily fit in another 4k screen on top of each vertically. I can make out individual pixels (when there is a gradient, like with a small font) on the screens. Higher resolution screens of the same size at the same distance would let me read slightly smaller fonts.

That is, at a resolution in which pixels are still perceptible, I can make out more than 33,177,600 pixels (4 4k screens, equivalently 1 8k screen) per eye. This device has less than that. Less than half that per eye. It's not "at the maximum limits of detail an eye can see" even assuming they just have no wasted pixels in your peripheral vision.

7.5 microns means nothing without knowing what lenses it goes through.

That said, I think it might be enough pixels to be useful for reading text. Unlike the index I own, where that is just unpleasant.

Yeah, 4K per eye stops being impressive when it's five inches from your retina and you're trying to read fine text. Pimax has had a 4K/eye device for years already: it's nice but still nowhere near good enough to do things like replace your computer monitor. They're planning to ship a 6K/eye device next year, which will probably still not be enough. The real world has a very high pixel density!

This is an over confident audience very sure that their experiences and perspective is representative of the mainstream. See the rsync vs. Dropbox meme.

The execution is all that matters here not any speculative flaws. If it’s a delightful, polished, responsive experience for the stock applications, other use cases will come. I don’t want to bet against Apple achieving that bar. They’ve done it over and over again before.

> If it’s a delightful, polished, responsive experience for the stock applications

IMHO this is a perfect description for the Apple TV.

I’m still amazed Dropbox is making money. Doesn’t windows come with a Dropbox clone built in?

Every. Single. Apple product launch post. “Meh”, “I can’t see the use case for this”, “it’s all already been done before”. Like clockwork. Then they’ll sell a million of these, and by v3 it’ll be much smaller / better / cheaper, and gain mass adoption. It’s like people have an “apple event reaction” algorithm going, and it never changes.

It sure can be used as a display for a Mac. Just stand in front of a Mac, and the screen will go dark and the windows will be moved to your Vision Pro.

Here's the point in the Keynote showing it: https://www.youtube.com/live/GYkq9Rgoj8E?feature=share&t=552...

I'm wondering if a similar trick will be used with iPhones and Apple Watches that are within view. Will they bother with the camera reading the screen and then rendering to the visor, or will they just seamlessly talk to the phone and watch to get the screen imagery. I'm assuming that would improve the quality.

There was one moment in the presentation when a guy at the office opened his Macbook Pro and the screen popped up above it much larger.

He also used a keyboard and trackpad.

I agree 4k in each eye sounds insane. But eye strain that's going to be the big determinant. I initially thought it was transparent OLED at the start but to my disappointment it's just screens. Perhaps they've got the focal adjustment thing Magic Leap was trying to do right.

4K is not much if you consider that these pixels have to cover the entire field of view, not just a relatively small screen.

It’s certainly a generational jump from the Quest series at least. Of course the price is completely ridiculous

The best an eye can discern is roughly 20 microns, but generally far higher at 100 microns. They said 7.5 microns per pixel (X3 for RGB is 22.5 so roughly there without space).

Assuming they're square. Roughly calculating (23 million pixels between the two with no space between 7.5 microns,) that's 25.432mm^2. they've said they're the size of postage stamps. This ties in.

I think it's near safe to assume there's no real gap between pixels and thus indiscernible. The lag might be a thing and focus, but this might actually not be a problem.

The pixels may be 7.5 microns but you’re forgetting that they are viewed through a lens. The point stands: 4K pixels for the full field of view, which is a lower density than 4K for a small screen.

The lens can be directional focusing your vision onto a certain point, also your peripheral vision cannot discern as much detail. They've stated it is on a chip the size of a postage stamp. So we'll have to see how the lens directs it, when it's released.

Edit:sort of a Magic Leap type thing. The further out you look from the centre of the lense, the more the lense curves back to the focus your eye on the centre. With the eye tracking changing the image to compensate for your eye movement.

Unless they're magically changing the shape of the lens in response to eye movement that doesn't seem physically possible.

Even if that where possible, I doubt that the accuracy of the eye-tracker is sufficiently high for this approach to work.

What if they shift screens mechanically in response to eye movement? Similar like apple camera optical stabilization works by shifting slightly camera sensor array? And if the screen pixel density is not uniform but more dense in the center? Hard to pull off but I guess not impossible.

>The best an eye can discern is roughly 20 microns

That's not how it works. You need an angular resolution.

> The best an eye can discern is roughly 20 microns

The size of an object doesn't matter. What matters is how it gets projected onto the back of your eyes.

There are 120 million rods (black and white) and 6 million cones (color) in a single eye. You would need at least as many pixels. But photoreceptors are not evenly distributed, so to account for moving your eyes across the screen, you would have to have even more pixels.

What if the would move the screens? E.g. Similar like they have in camera optical stabilization they slightly move the sensor array. They could make screen with not uniform pixel density but more dense in center and then do eye tracking and shift those screen mechanically depending where eye will be focused. Probably not easy to pull off as camera optical stabilization (need bigger movements and screens more heavy than weight of camera sensor) but maybe not completely impossible? Oled screens are very tiny and flexible just probsbly hard to make it non fragile.

There’s Sightful’s $2000 device you can buy right now https://www.sightful.com/ I’ve used an early demo of this and was very impressed. After the demo I had the strong feeling Apple is going to build something similar and I was right

4 Million Pixels is so terrible for an AR/VR headset. 23 million pixels will be indistinguishable from reality for all intents and purposes.

The human eye has an approximate pixel resolution of 120 million pixels per eye. On top of that, our brain constantly processes and integrates the output of our eyes. This creates an even higher perceived pixel resolution of about 480 million pixels per eye. Some estimates are even higher.

I'm not saying Apple created a bad product...but I wouldn't expect a mere 23 million pixels to be indistinguishable from reality.

It will definitely not be indistinguishable from reality, but might be good enough to fool us after a short getting used to, similarly to how even 24fps is enough for continuous motion. Of course you will see 60fps as more “fluid”, but only in comparison. And afterwards the differences quickly plateau and not many people can see any difference between 120 and higher.

It is probably similar with this as well, the question is where apple stands on this scale.

The human eye actually has terrible resolution. We only see in high resolution in the fovea in the very center of our eye -- basically the single point of primary focus. Resolution beyond that drops off dramatically (1/7th and much worse).

I've seen people claiming on sites like Reddit that people who watch with CC on simply read it in their peripheral vision while focused on the action, and that just isn't possible in most situations for the reason I mentioned. You actually only see high resolution in the middle 1 degree of angular view.

So to come up with such a number someone took the entire FOV of the human eye and assumed that you focus your fovea on each and every angular degree of it.

That's neither here nor there are your point is as valid -- where you're focused on will have a pixel density below "reality" for your fovea, however it presents lots of optimization potentials in software (e.g. no need for fine rendering outside of the focus) and in hardware. There are already devices which use tiny mirrors and optics to basically concentrate the pixels wherever you're looking and render a distorted view to match.

I think it’ll be 5 generations before it’s a real product. I’d note the first iPhone was kinda garbage as was the first iPod. For the iPhone the App Store was empty and the apps that existed for years were pretty rudimentary. It couldn’t hold a phone call open. It was clunky and comparatively terrible hardware. Apple has the ability to invest and innovate on an idea for decades incorporating advances, fostering investment, and building an ecosystem.

The jaded take to my ears sounds a lot like the LLM / generative AI take - looking at the first real generation and claiming it’s an evolutionary dead end of hype monsterism. I feel sad that people that likely got into this field as a dreamer of what can be are stuck seeing what simply is.

Will this usher in rainbows end within the next 20 years? Maybe. Maybe not. But I’m always happy to see there are still nerds that can dream of what can be, even if they’re often drowned out by the chorus of what today isn’t.

I do see your point and it is true that every product is going to be more mature, more complete for the later publication. But things of a first generation product like this is going to be a huge risk for a lot of people. But the things I want to talk to myself is probably if I can pick up one thing or maybe one or two things that this device can solve that probably doesn't have a good solution in the market, then just go for it. And if it is affordable, then go definitely do it. The upside of doing this is you cannot change your workflow in the early stages. So if you consider the time you put into that product in this new workflow, the things or the productivity you gain from this early experiment is going to be more productive. But gain, it's a risk.

Yeah I think first generations of apple products are for the curious, the rich, and the engineer seeking to build the next generation of apps on their new platform. I never look at them as “a good deal,” or a mature product. I think that’s foolish for any 1.0 of anything. Generally 3.0 is where maturity begins, and 5.0 is where incrementalism starts.

Wow a reference to Rainbow’s End! IIRC that novel was set around 2026. I don’t think we’ll have Vinge-style AR/VR contact lenses for many years to come. Certainly not by RE’s fictional timetable… :(

It’s ok. Error bands on SF are wide and shifted right. Mostly because jaded skeptics that cling to the constraints of the present kill the dreams until someone has the wherewithal to ride out the skeptics. Say what you will about Musk, apple, etc - they set absurd goals and fail half way, but that half way is the stuff of science fiction.

The cost is prohibitive, but I can't think of anyone who I trust more to introduce a cutting edge consumer device.

I wont be a user, but I hope they succeed.

The fact this thing has an M2 makes me surprised Apple didn't try to sell it as a Mac.

I feel like at the price point, this device makes much more sense as the kind of thing that could replace a laptop/desktop than as a companion to it.

If you can check connect a magic keyboard/mouse to it, this thing could conceivably be a MBA and badass multi-monitor setup rolled into one. And to me, that's really the only way this form factor makes sense.

It is a viable first entry as an AR computer. Does it need to be anything more than that?

In 10 years with GenAI video creation and GenAI NPCs it could be bonkers cool.

> It is a viable first entry as an AR computer. Does it need to be anything more than that?

It needs to do what HoloLens and Google Glass didn't.

Sell well enough to attract developers and improve manufacturing economies of scale.

For what it's worth, I think Apple has a chance here - there were smartphones before the iphone, but apple made the first one good enough to take off. Perhaps this will be the same?

Don't think we'll take 10 years. GenAI NPCs are like 1-2 years. GenAI video is about 3-5 years max.

A little scary bringing a kid into this world. I've seen how my nephews and nieces get completely absorbed by screens.

I too have trouble thinking this is truly “cool” - it’s basically a self-contained Plato’s Cave. I feel like the “cool” of the next decade will be distinctly luddite-inflected, but who knows.

Until all of the cool stuff is hidden behind paywalls.

Yes, the presentation shows it used as a display for a Mac. Incidentally, you can also do this with the cheaper Quest Pro headset (or any headset in the Quest line, so $300-$1000 price range - but you don't get as many pixels). There are a few options for the software, VRDesktop (https://www.vrdesktop.net) being one.

> the presentation shows it used as a display for a Mac. Incidentally, you can also do this with the cheaper Quest Pro headset

You may be technically be able to do it on Quest, but it's mostly useless because text at non-massive sizes is completely illegible on current headsets.

> But it's going to be a hit.

Well, if nothing else, the influencer / celeb culture will make it so. Apple, unlike other tech companies, almost has a monopolistic grip over it.

I mean, they sold AirPods for the most ridiculous price and yet they beat sales numbers of just about everyone in the audio industry.

This, still?

Do people like you think that people like me buy AirPods because influencers do?

Might it just be that they’re astonishingly good wireless headphones? I mean is that possible in your mind?

The product may be good, but I am talking about its price, and how it sold like hot cakes anyway. Consumer goods don't sell as much without marketing, which influencers / celebs provide for free to Apple.

I'm predicting right now that it's going to have performance problems with that display. While they haven't released exact resolution numbers per eye, 23M would give it a slightly higher resolution than the HTC Vive Pro 2, a headset which requires a GPU. While mobile chips have really impressive CPU performance, I don't think they're nearly as competitive in the graphics space.

Knowing Apple, they're also not going to support anything else besides Apple Hardware so you won't be able to hook it up to an actual gaming rig like you can with the Meta Quest 2. While this isn't a big deal for a lot of people, Apple is taking a huge risk releasing a very premium product like this without supporting the largest established VR market (gamers).

Roughly double the amount of pixels = "slightly higher resolution"?

Sqrt(2) = 1.4 so there are 40% more pixels per inch. It’s not a different order of magnitude.

The Vive Pro 2 has ~12M pixels. This has 23M. That's nearly double. We don't know the FoV so we have no idea was the pixel per degree density is.

Double pixels still means only 41% better pixels per inch, per mm or per degree.

> Apple is taking a huge risk releasing a very premium product like this without supporting the largest established VR market (gamers).

This reads like "Apple is taking a huge risk releasing a new smartphone without supporting the largest established market (BlackBerry device users).

The VR gaming market is microscopic compared to what Apple is likely aiming for here. They do not give a single flying fuck about this "established market", nor have they for any other market they've entered. The entire Apple ethos is to completely change the narrative for whatever product category they enter. They did this for phones, for bluetooth audio, for watches, and—whether or not they're ultimately successful—you can bet your ass this is their intent for wearable headsets.

What's the eventual end goal for these devices? I'm not sure yet, but I'm certain it will become clearer in the coming years. My expectation is they anticipate this will come to replace fixed displays for a huge number of office workers. Maybe not with this first revision, but by gen 3 that's my bet for the market of this device. If you assume it get lighter and comfortable, higher res, and better battery life over the next few iterations it's clearly something that could just be your work machine with a paired bluetooth keyboard.

VR headsets are very personal from a cleanliness perspective. I would never share one. There's a reason why the padding around the visor is removable and washable.

Most people don't share monitors either. And very very few office workers share laptops, which is what they're suggesting

I keep wondering how the demo units at Apple Stores are going to be kept non-vile.

> The VR gaming market is microscopic compared to what Apple is likely aiming for here. They do not give a single flying fuck about this "established market", nor have they for any other market they've entered. The entire Apple ethos is to completely change the narrative for whatever product category they enter. They did this for phones, for bluetooth audio, for watches, and—whether or not they're ultimately successful—you can bet your ass this is their intent for wearable headsets.

Apple is also the company which released https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Newton back in the day… They turned out to be right at the end but still had to renter the market entirely from scratch after 10 years. So far Apple has been great in “perfecting” products that already exist by doing the right thing at the right time.

They weren’t the first or the second to release a smartphone, smart watch, tablet, BT earphones etc. all of those had established markets and somewhat clear use cases Apple “just” streamlined and turned them into something that normal people would actually want to use. It’s seems a bit to early to do that for VR yet. So in a certain way they are in somewhat uncharted territory.

Whether or not they're successful is irrelevant to the question of what their intent is. But I find it telling that your initial reaction is to reach for a device that failed thirty years ago as if it has any relationship to modern Apple.

They didn't "just" streamline the smartphone. They destroyed virtually overnight the existing dominant players in the smartphone market and within a few years essentially ended the existence of non-smartphones as a market category entirely. They didn't "just" streamline the watch. Again, within five years of entering the market they overtook (in units) shipments of the entire traditional watch industry. Both of these examples are significantly larger and more entrenched than the existing VR gaming market.

Of course not every product of theirs is successful in doing this. But without question, this is their aim a majority of the time.

> find it telling that your initial reaction

Telling what? My point was that Newton was a brilliant idea yet the hardware wasn’t there yet and it didn’t have clear use cases. Both concerns apply for Vision Pro so at this point it’s still closer to the Newton than the iPad

> They didn't "just" streamline the smartphone

They did exactly that which is why it was so brilliant. You could do everything you could with an iPhone with other devices before it came out. It’s just that the experience was quite poor and all other devices were underdeveloped and had serious flaws in comparison (to be fair the first gen iPhone was a pretty lackluster device too).

You could browse the web, watch video content, send messages/emails, listens to music, play games, make video calls. Did Apple invent any of that? The iPhone was a just a device which could do it all with much nicer UX than anything on the market.

VR is very different in that regard.

To chime in on the last part, I imagine that it could be beneficial for Apple’s offices alone; every employee is able to create their preferred workspace while using less physical space; only really needing a desk, keyboard, mouse, power & internet source and a seat

The only reason I sit in a fancy ergonomic chair is to be able to view my monitor(s) properly.

If the monitors could be virtual using an AR headset, I could just sit in a la-z-boy with a cupholder and a massaging seat :D

> nor have they for any other market they've entered

They don't care about iOS games? Apple Arcade?

100 games at launch isn’t aiming for gamers? That’s at least decent compared to the quest.

100 games on Apple Arcade*

How many of these will be windowed iOS apps? I assume most of them.

It doesn't matter what games it has if it doesn't have _my_ games.

That's really what sets casual gaming devices (Apple TV, iPhone, iPad, etc) apart from actual gaming devices.

> Apple is taking a huge risk

Let's contextualise this ... they have so much money in the bank there is literally no way to spend it. This could completely flunk and have zero impact on them. There's no risk here for Apple. Perhaps the question is why they aren't being more adventurous, or pushing this harder by subsidising the gen 1 device to get it off the ground.

The risk is brand dilution. Apple has a reputation for not launching products that flop

Performance wise, in the Platform State of the Union, they mentioned that they will use eye tracking to choose which parts of the "screen" to render at high resolution. That should help a bit.

First off, mobile chips are actually quite good at high resolutions (but usually lack bandwidth). But this is an M2. That's not a mobile chip.

Yeah it's clear their focus isn't games. There's no way the GPU can push those pixels with the graphical fidelity expected by gamers. But I'm sure it will have no problem pushing the raw pixels as long as you stick to mostly graphical compositing-level graphics like all the productivity/lifestyle stuff they were showing in the demo.

Yeah, although the part about it just had someone use it to extend the native monitor.. I'd be curious how deep that integration went... more than a large virtual monitor, to have you able to spawn multiple/infinite windows of any of the mac apps on it, that'd be killer!

Probably a v2 feature that isn’t ready yet. But I’d be surprised if they weren’t working on it after the widget stuff on Mac desktop.

> did they talk about using it as a display for a Mac

Yeah, you look at the screen through the headset and then pinch to move it around and grow/shrink it.

Early to tell. No point predicting who will say what, when people will say everything on the scale eventually.

People have different needs, and use cases and are affected by the way things become implemented. The details of usability, impossible to tell just now.

Probably one thing is easy to tell, is that chatting with a helmet on while moving around in the room is not going to work. : ) That's just stupid marketing crap.

I am looking forward its feasibility for external virtual screens of a Mac - or even a PC! -, with physical keyboard and mouse, that sounds attractive. But with patience, let's see how it works first in long run for the masses. And if it gets to a more realistic price tag sometime.

> if I heard correctly, the display on the front is 3d and gives different perspectives based upon the viewers

This effect probably relies on a lenticular lens overlaid on an OLED screen. This was similar to the method used by the Nintendo 3DS to create a stereoscopic image without glasses.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenticular_printing

Any word on how many interlocutors standing opposite you this can support?

I'm reminded of the Hallway Projection Scene in Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol, which works beautifully until more than one person looks at it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtA0JS1lBaY

The guy on the commercial was using a real keyboard so I imagine this can be used relatively standalone, with the caveat that it uses iPad apps.

Taking a positive sign because now the consumers expectations are high and if they not deliver what they promised here then they're gonna have a huge trouble so as a consumer it would be nice if the consumer can provide some our expectations to say how to show our interest and kind of motivate them to build a better product.

> did they talk about using it as a display for a Mac?

Yes, in the keynote at 1:32:02. It discusses how looking at your computer then turns the Vision Pro into a display.

https://www.youtube.com/live/GYkq9Rgoj8E?feature=share

Yes, they showcased that you just have to take a look at a Mac screen and the glasses become the display.

They did share that it can be used as a display for your mac. It sounded like you're limited to 1 screen (i'm guessing because of bandwidth limitations; also guessing that upgraded macbooks may have the necessary hardware to stream more pixels)

> did they talk about using it as a display for a Mac?

Actually the did:

> bring the powerful capabilities of their Mac into Vision Pro wirelessly, creating an enormous, private, and portable 4K display with incredibly crisp text

I wonder what the latency would be like though.

They mentioned the device can detect when you are using your Mac and show the desktop as an app in your headset. So yes that will be possible as well as just using normal bluetooth mice and keyboards.

They explicitly said in the keynote, that you can bring up the screen of your Mac as a virtual display. So it looks like you can use this to work with your Mac.

23M for both eyes doesn't seem that far off from Meta Quest 2 Pro at 9.3M (2,160 x 2,160 x 2).

And Meta Quest 2 Pro is one year old at $999.

> 23M for both eyes doesn't seem that far off from [...] 9.3M

It's almost 2.5x the pixels [edit: was ~~resolution~~ which is incorrect]. How is that "not far off"? It's more pixels per eye than the MQ2P has for both!

2.5x the pixels is more like 1.5x the resolution in terms of the smallest features that can be seen - remmber that displays are two-dimensional and in order to halve the width of the smallest discernable detail like say a line you need to double the pixels in both directions for a total of four times as many pixels. On the other hand, it is going to be close to 2.5x the rendering cost.

Ta, edited my post to correct it to pixels instead of resolution.

MQ2P has super blurry texts though. It's hard to take think 50-60% bump up the resolution will be enough.

you can (over simplified, tech people yell at me or whatever, but) display your macbook screen inside Apple Vision as a screen/monitor/window, whatever it's called same way you would an app.

The device seems amazing, it's just... not really Apple, that's all.

Hmmm, I don't get that. Apple builds personal computers. That has been there mission from day one. This is easily the most personal computer they have ever created. I don't see how it could be more Apple.

It looks neat.

> did they talk about using it as a display for a Mac?

Yes ! In 4k

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