Comment by taeric | Hacker News Reader

Comment by taeric | Hacker News Reader

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The "material-based renderer" sounds... fluff? Most any system should have it so that rendering a menu is a single line of code. Same for toolbars and other. Those are typically simple registrations of ("name" "description" handler). Anything more that that, and you are doing tailored menu/toolbar and are straying on purpose.

That leads, then, to the spatial windows and APIs that go with them. And... quite frankly, I have zero faith that anybody can pull off a V1 for that API. Expect churn and capability growth.

For the process isolation on eye-gaze tracking... assuming you can get "hover" events for things you are gazing at, than I fail to see how they can keep you from reading the gaze. I expect they will try and lock down abuses of that, but as soon as you enable coding against what a user is looking at, developers will find a way to leak that.

And if they expect that the primary way I will interact with an application is by looking at it.... that feels very very sad, all told. I don't want to just look at things, I want to manipulate them. And for that, I am almost certainly going to want some haptic/tactile interaction. Such that this won't live on its own.

Happy to be proven wrong, of course. And, for what it is, this does look impressive. I just don't buy the marketing spin on it, at the moment. Way way way too "dreams work, bro!"

The gaze tracking is process isolated. Only when you tap is that location ever communicated to the application process — so they had to build a UI API that supports configurable hover behaviour where that hover behaviour is never readable by developers

They've thought through the accessibility features, how VoiceOver works with the headset, dynamic type sizes, etc.

Designing this sort of consistent API across a whole platform, where it's not only easy to use, but really delightful, is the bit that's exciting to a lot of people

I have collected a bunch of A/VR headsets and developed for them. None of them think deeply about these things, so they just haven't been that interesting. They are more "we supply the hardware, you supply the opinion about how it should be used." I really want the other side of that story

The Disney part of the keynote was all "dreams work." It was complete nonsense with no clear direction. Apple's stuff, while it might be wrong, is at least opinionated and clear

There is a lot of marketing sheen, but there's a clear design opinion about human computer interaction that comes through. That's the exciting bit that I think people react to, sometimes without realising

I didn't actually watch the Disney part. I saw the dad "working" in what seemed like a kitchen? Can't remember. The shallow interaction with the kids, though, gave me cringes.

Then there is the juxtaposition of, "this let's you present as if there" with the, "of course you have to fly places to be with people, so when you do, zone out like a champ"

Of course, zoning out better not need you to interact much, as hearing on a plane is tough, and pinching your neighbor is not smiled upon.

I will mostly have to take your word for it that hover actions are not observable by the application. Will make games... More amusing than usual, with no memory of being looked at for characters.

And not showing any extra peripherals is a big part of "dreams work." Physical feedback is huge, and a big part of why controllers are needed. Even just the vibration of the standard PS5 controllers go a long way. For driving games, a haptic wheel is more immersive than the vr.

> I will mostly have to take your word for it that hover actions are not observable by the application. Will make games... More amusing than usual, with no memory of being looked at for characters.

It's described in the Keynote. This is the exact quote:

"For example, where you look is very personal. It can give away something about what you're thinking. In Apple Vision Pro, where you look stays private. Eye input is isolated to a separate background process, so apps and websites can't see where you are looking. Only when you tap your fingers do results get communicated, just like a mouse click or tap on other Apple devices."

I can't speak to whether extra controllers are a good idea for Apple. From the impressions I have watched and read from VR enthusiasts (e.g, Norm from Tested) they have very high praise for the input and UI. I agree with you, however. I don't think typical VR games will be big on this device

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