Comment by _gabe_ | Hacker News Reader

Comment by _gabe_ | Hacker News Reader

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Thank you, I feel like I'm taking crazy pills or something. I have no idea how much of the footage in the long advertisements are actual in-headset recording vs highly editorialized made up aspirational CG. Additionally, I really don't think all the people here singing the praises of Apple's currently nonexistent headset (for actual customer use at least until 2024 or something) have ever used a headset. Headsets give me:

* Headaches

* Nausea

* Eye Strain

* Neck Pain

* Acne (from sitting on the same parts of your face all the time)

Etc. Also, reading text is incredibly difficult and exasperating which is this things whole value prop since it's targeting office work. Until anyone can actually try this and ensure that these are all non-issues, all the speculation is a weird cultic worship of Apple.

Just in case people forget, here's some misleading advertisements for Google Glass that didn't quite live up to the hype[0][1]. And some misleading advertisements about holo lense that didn't quite live up to the hype[2]. Full disclaimer, I have a valve index but haven't tried holo lens or Google Glass, but the fact that they're not ubiquitous today says something. It's especially funny that the holo lens looks very similar to Apple Vision, and then Apple makes these ridiculous claims about innovativing where no one else has. I swear I must be taking crazy pills or something.

[0]: https://youtu.be/4EvNxWhskf8

[1]: https://youtu.be/5R1snVxGNVs

[2]: https://youtu.be/eqFqtAJMtYE

If it’s as good as they say, then the market will show it. It’s not worth worrying about whether it will succeed or not; that’s Apple’s concern alone. We can all just enjoy the ride in the meantime.

This is why I dont understand all the doomerism. If Apple is totally bullshitting here, we're going to find out extremely quickly, which will undoubtedly harm their reputation in the space when it comes to the next generations.

If they weren't confident it works almost as magically as its described, it would not have been shown.

Skepticism is not doomerism— and in fact should be praised.

Multiple companies have tried and failed. Their marketing demos looked just as compelling.

Sure, we will find out. Eventually. In over a year when it launches.

But until then, why should we trust companies who’s best interest is not to give us the truth on what their product is but rather the best possible vision for what it will be?

So far every single iteration on VR/AR/XR has been extremely disappointing once actually used, but with extremely high fidelity marketing demos. This might certainly be different, but until it’s proven that it is, why should people believe it? “Fool me once” and all that very much applies.

When you say something IS going to fail, then it is doomerism which isn't hard to find. Also expressing skepticism on some forum is nothing praiseworthy, only reviews matter or just trying it yourself at the Apple store once available.

> When you say something IS going to fail

Who, exactly in this comment thread your comment is part of, said that? Press parent up to the top, at most it's skepticism based on past experience.

One of these... Yes let me scroll down and copy and paste a comment just for you. If you are actually interested, you put in the effort yourself, otherwise we both move on.

I did already. I even said that they are at most skepticism.

I asked you to do it for your own benefit, because it doesn't exist and you clearly don't know that.

>Skepticism is not doomerism— and in fact should be praised.

Assuming something is going to fail, like many are across Hacker News since the announcement dropped (perhaps not in this thread), is doomerism. There's a difference between that and expressing concern over Apple's claims.

>Their marketing demos looked just as compelling.

I could not disagree more. I could have not been less interested in Oculus nor Google Glass from their advertisements. But an AR experience (as opposed to VR) that integrates with my Mac and iPhone? It has my attention.

>why should we trust companies who’s best interest is not to give us the truth on what their product is but rather the best possible vision for what it will be

Because Apple has delivered high quality products the vast majority of the time (butterfly keyboards and App Store limitations notwithstanding). Why would we assume they're suddenly dropping the ball on this, when they're on stage calling it the future of computing?

> This might certainly be different, but until it’s proven that it is, why should people believe it?

It all comes down to the company producing it - Apple hasn't made a device like this before, and comparing Apple's products to Meta's and Google's is a terrible metric to go by. It's like eating gas station sushi, getting sick, then going to an upscale sushi bar, and saying "Ohhh I've had terrible experience with Sushi in the past"

Even if you aren't willing to give the benefit of the doubt to a company that consistently produces high quality products and building a brand new product line, express that very healthy skepticism by trying it out at an Apple Store before purchasing - at that price tag, I sure am.

My assumption is that Apple’s big innovation on a familiar looking form factor is addressing the issues you describe.

Apple generally succeeds with mass market friendly ergonomics. I understand skepticism about unreleased technology, but I personally wouldn’t make the assumption Apple has botched the ergonomics on this release. It seems like exactly the kind of thing they would have focused on reaching a high level of quality with.

This TechCrunch review where the reviewer had access to them says that the issues with headaches/nausea don’t happen: https://techcrunch.com/2023/06/05/first-impressions-yes-appl...

Most of the nausea issues in VR stem from the disconnect between moving in virtual space without moving in the real world, and Apple seems to be focusing on applications which maintain a 1:1 mapping between real and virtual movement. Games are where that's most likely to be an issue and they're very much not focusing on actual VR gaming, only playing non-VR games in VR on a virtual screen.

The poor UX of moving the user camera in the virtual scene is trivially avoided.

If any of the immersive apps drop framerate, you'll feel it. Its not just a games concern.

I’d like to see how they stand up for longer than a 30 minute demo. For me, the headache doesn’t kick in until about 90 minutes in.

Tech history is full with product ideas that failed to take off for decades until they crossed the threshold of being actually nice to use

In 2005 people would have predicted a flop for smartphones given the many failures of the like of Apple Newton

I think it’s actually more reflective of the fact apple tends to be pretty thorough in product development and anything launched usually covers an awful lot of the problem domain. However their 1.0 launch of any product is usually an 80% complete product, for apple. For most other device makers it’s a 220% complete device at 1.0. So, I expect the first version will be a directional indicator that address more than twice the gap of other products but is itself not “done” by their aspirational standard. They then iterate in their respective cadences by product towards some converged state that reflects a “done,” then hit an iterative improvement cycle. It seems to be in the range of 4-5 generations.

Because this pattern is has been done again and again it’s fairly obvious. The first is the high bar for releasing at all and the willingness to let it die before launching something less than 220% better than industry standard despite tons of investment (apple car?). The second is the progressive improvement over the first several iterations that advances the product in the remaining gaps as their technology improves.

To me, this feels fairly objective and rational and not particularly cultish. It’s the benefit of an earned reputation and a clear and adhered to product development strategy.

Amen. Love, hate, or don’t care (me), Apple does have an earned reputation for not delivering flops to market. While I have about as much (personal) interest in Vision as I have in anything Apple-stamped past the release of the iPhone 6, it’s certainly not crazy-pilled to think they will deliver a quality product on day one, with the caveat that there will probably be some iteration before we get to Vision 2.0 where the limitations get smoothed out.

And also to chime in on the most common argument for the "VR/AR for work" - the meetings. I actually DON'T need to see anyone's faces or avatars on the online meeting. I don't WANT to see them and I'm honestly tired of Zoom trying to shove me in my face their speaker thumbnails and constantly switching to full screen. I don't need that at all FOR WORK. For work I eithr want to see screen being shared pixel perfectly (so no floating pseudo screens in VR) or don't see zoom/meet interface at all, keep it in background and just listen, while doing work at the foreground.

VR people advertising to me a "real life like meetings along with a meeting room, whiteboard and full body avatars" are either clueless or delusional, because that stuff has actually a negative value FOR WORK. Sure, when you have something like an online party (yay... fun...) then seeing other can be entertaining. But not for actual work.

You might not be taking crazy pills - but your list of complaints is a very individual one. Headsets may give you personally headaches, nausea, eye strain, neck pain, and acne. But they don't for me, and they don't for any of my friends, or many of my colleagues. And I get motion sickness trying to play many video games.

The only thing stopping me from working for extended periods inside one of the headsets I currently own is the fact that the resolution they run at is too low for me to put enough text on the screen. I can absolutely believe that a headset with a higher resolution would make that use case viable for me.

It seems more likely to me that the reviewers who are hopeful about the product after their 30 minutes of use of the headset (some of whom are indeed very experienced users of AR/VR hardware) simply don't struggle with the individual issues that you have.

To add to your list, I was at a friends and used their headset for about ten minutes of gaming and the parts of my head that touched the headset were drenched in sweat, but that just may be a peculiarity of my physiology.

Assuming Apple’s product has all the deficiencies of failed products from the past will of course lead you to conclude that they will fail.

We also shouldn't assume that Apple will magically fix all of these issues either. These are well known problems with VR, and Apple has yet to prove they've solved them. And until these problems are solved, VR will struggle to move beyond a novelty.

If these are well known problems with VR, should should assume Apple is fully aware of them. Imagining otherwise would be stupid.

If they are aware of the problems then we should assume they believe they have adequate solutions. Imagining otherwise would be stupid.

Magic is not needed. All it takes is a team that is aware of the problems, and has the engineering resources to address them.

> Acne (from sitting on the same parts of your face all the time)

This might actually end up being the hardest bit to solve. VR has to create a dark room for your face, so removing facial contact is practically impossible.

There are very few things that normies will accept, if the compromise is more acne.

But others can't see the acne as long as you wear the headset.

> Eye Strain

iStrain. You're welcome.

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