Vision Pro’s Big Reveal | Hacker News Reader

Vision Pro’s Big Reveal

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29 pointsmgrayson84 comments

It’s a tool. Don’t want the tool? Don’t use it. There are absolutely going to be use-cases for it, even if Baudrillard would prefer we all just use our imaginations.

Who needs a car when all we need is to just stroll amongst the trees and let nature fuel our imaginations? Because I need to get to the airport on time and with a bunch of luggage.

Right why talk about anything ever everyone just sit in silence.

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Talking is great. Unfortunately much of the verbal spewing here on HN the last few days is just condemning, calling it stupid, making blanket statements like "no one will buy this" or other forms of diatribe with only personal bias as a basis for opinion.

Many of the people criticizing clearly didn't see the presentations.

Is there non-trivial risk of market failure? Of course. They are trying to create a computation and entertainment focused AR device. That is new. It is inherently risky to create new markets. Is it also possible that they have executed this so well that people may find it very compelling and buy it? Yes, that may be true. Only time will settle this question, so making extreme conclusory statements is just silly.

Real, open-minded discussions of the tradeoffs of the tech have unfortunately been in relatively short supply this week. Some folks have made interesting and thoughtful comments and I for one have enjoyed them very much. Kudos! More of that please.

There are plenty of posts made in favor of the device. Counter-condemning. Ultimately both sides are just talk until the device is actually out.

> They are trying to create a computation and entertainment focused AR device. That is new.

It's not that new. It's very similar in use case to Meta, which many also think is a major airball.

Many people wouldn’t buy a Meta product if it would save their life. Airball by Meta doesn’t mean anything with respect to the market potential.

They sold plenty of them, 20 million which is by all metrics a success.

It’s getting those people to put them on beyond the initial honeymoon period that’s seemingly the issue. Everyone I know who bought one raved about it and considers it a great experience it's just the barrier to charging something then putting it on your face is really huge.

> It’s getting those people to put them on beyond the initial honeymoon period that’s seemingly the issue

And that's a huge issue because it means they're likely never going to buy a face computer again until the form factor dramatically changes. Which suggests that the primary target audience for the new Apple headset has already left the market.

From Meta's perspective, 20 million devices sitting in a closet generating zero future revenue is not a success.

> Talking is great. Unfortunately much of the verbal spewing here on HN the last few days is just condemning, calling it stupid, making blanket statements like "no one will buy this" or other forms of diatribe with only personal bias as a basis for opinion.

Then let's talk, but only if the talking is to gush about Apple and its toys.

If you are negative, just shut up.

(Close your eyes and imagine the funny comment I would’ve written here. Such a zinger.)

Funny metaphir when walkability has been a preeminent fad for years now. What’s the walkable city, mass transit, bike lane analogy for AR/VR?

Intriguing little bit of poetry here. But this I don’t quite understand: “It shows us a time when entering a virtual world required a gizmo. That’s the past, not the future.” In what sense is entering a virtual world without a “gizmo” a present or future reality? Are they talking about imagination, with “virtual” used in an unusual (from a tech perspective) way?

A lot of postmodern thought results in the formation of cults, in which people occupy a virtual world inside their own minds.

How about a metamodernist cult instead- what if the future is a gizmo-mind hybrid? That’s right, I’m talking about the Neuralink.

Presumably the endgame for Neuralink is to give people direct perception of the truth, as determined by TruthGPT from the content on Twitter.

yeah this also confused me. sounds like he's talking about meditation and psychedelics.

This feels like contrarianism overdone.

Philosophical rambling that completely fails to consider practical side of the product. Can you with your inner eye watch a movie? Will it be the same movie as in the cinema? Can you with your inner eye see a topological map of your city? Will it be as accurate as any actual map?

The virtual camera in our head can only present what’s already in our mind. And as accurately as our mind allows. It can not present whatever other people want to show or what requires greater precision than our brain can muster. I’d be thoroughly impressed if you could have anything close to a spreadsheet in your mind representing financial reports from the past decade with the same precision.

Regarding presence. I was very excited about a virtual big screen in a forest. OP presents it as excessive and utterly pointless but have you been to a cinema ever? I, for one, almost always get distracted by strangers rustling their popcorn or staring into their phone at full brightness two rows down. And at home I can’t get imax-equivalent size screen.

One can criticize Vision Pro (and AR/VR in general) for its dorkiness, price, disconnect, or whatever but it’s completely wrong to dismiss it as absolutely useless. There are very real use cases that can not be fulfilled or closely emulated either by other types of devices or by other practices that don’t use any tools.

> It shows us a time when entering a virtual world required a gizmo

"When"? You mean, the present, like how I'm reading this article?

Hasn't there always been a fraction of intellectuals that question any departure from "base reality"? I wouldn't be surprised if cave painters caught the odd side-eye from the old guard of the tribe. Maybe this time it's different, but it's hard to take it seriously.

I’m sure this will succeed. Unlike the quest it’ll be able to use millions of existing iOS and iPadOS apps.

The cost is a hard pill to swallow but at the end of the day even $500 for a quest 3 is expensive and people will buy that too.

This is the argument for books against TV.

The Vision Pro is probably the most advanced consumer tech available and it's by far the best AR/VR headset. However, it's DOA. It's going to flop and Apple knows it but they know that they need to release it now to let developers and users show them what it's true purpose will be. The real deal will be the AR glasses, not these big ski goggles that nobody wants to wear.

Can you elaborate on the product line evolution you are envisioning?

Vision Pro -> Big chunky snowboard glasses

Vision -> Just regular ol glasses with all the tech miniaturised after a couple pro versions

I envision the Vision Pro as a consumer testbed of tech while they work to miniaturize the technology. IE: LIDAR in iPhone 12 Pro, ARKit to transition devs into thinking about AR applications, etc. Raise to wake on iPhone 6S to prepare for FaceID in the iPhone X.

I can envision an Apple Vision Air 4 or 5 years from now that's a pair of glasses with transparent micro OLED lenses. OpticID technology embedded in the interior lens frames. 2 wide angle cameras set in the top corner temples (like Snapchat's Spectacles) to track your environment and your hands at the same time. LIDAR and IR in the bridge of the nose for depth perception. Battery tech in the temple arms behind your ears. An onboard future R1-type chip running processing for all the sensors. All paired to an iPhone running a future M2-type chip that powers the computations for the headset.

I envision that as the future Apple wants to deliver, and I think they can. But I believe the Vision Pro is to get society comfortable with the idea of a screen in front of their eyes, cameras on our faces, and acclimated to a new way of interacting with this sort of technology.

The problem is that society is already used to, and largely bored by, VR. For most consumers this will just appear as the latest and greatest in what is ultimately a meh novelty. With a prohibitively huge price tag to boot.

There will absolutely be some enthusiasts that will enjoy this (and later versions of it) product immensely. There will be well-off early adopters that treat it as a shiny new toy. But unless they release a "Vision S" with a ~$1k price tag, this is probably not going anywhere.

The gap that needs to be crossed to reach that value proposition is absolutely massive.

It’s not dead on arrival as it’s purpose is not to be a massive consumer success. It’s purpose is to get the ball rolling, it is an early adopter release that will get developers started, and that may have some useful purpose for some pro use cases where cost and size is not an issue.

Apple is most likely already working on versions 2 and 3 and maybe 4 that will be smaller, more powerful and more useful. Technology just needs time to develop, building a consumer version is just not possible with todays technology,

That's not really Apple's MO you know. They are usually late to the game and execute well. From that perspective, it's probably going to be good compared to the recent waves of VR devices. My guess is DOA as there's just so little demand for this product category, their challenge is showing the market that they do actually want this product. Apple tends to do that well, but I'm skeptical on this one.

Apple's MO is being a different take from everyone else

Most other headsets are gaming headsets (graphic rendering fidelity over resolution) or hardcore corporate headsets (Microsoft)

This is the first credible headset that's just trying to be an "infinite screen iPad"

I love it. I can't overstate how much I love it. Honestly, I feel like this is the first "real" VR headset and I'm wildly excited about the applications. Pretty much any sci-fi VR imagination is possible here, as long as it only utilizes visual and audio output (no haptics, etc). People saying "this is useless" are effectively saying "there is no killer VR/AR app that has ever appeared in the corpus of science fiction" and I'm not ready to accept that tenet.

Although I just learned apps will not have access to live eye tracking (so, much much less eye tracking data than Tobii eye tracker). Although I quickly understood how evil this would be if provided to app makers like TikTok, it still disappoints me because there are so many "expand context on hover" applications would could be super seamless. Now those will all require a click, but that's the responsible tradeoff.

Yes it's super expensive. It's a whole MacBook Pro with three displays and an extra major chip (R1). The price for the hardware makes perfect sense to me. The price for the product...probably not. But if they can stick with it for long enough for the price to come down, and maybe make a lighter cheaper plastic version some day to save weight for all-day wear, I think this will be absolutely huge. Especially if they can ever let your eyes focus to infinity.

"But if they can stick with it for long enough for the price to come down" -- Right, probably depends upon demand initially, they are determining demand for this kind of thing. At different scales, supply chain prices change.

lmao it's not even available yet, how can it be doa?

It's a saying - https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/dead_on_arrival (definition 4)

yeah buddy i'm american, i'm familiar with the concept of doa. the point is it hasn't ARRIVED YET.

here's one for you - what happened at the announcement is called an eta. estimated time of arrival. not arrival, not doa. eta.

I am curious. How many people buy the $1-2K phone flagships... then there's this. People buy a $2K MBP is it a huge jump to go to $3.5K? I would like to see it succeed.

Edit: my concern with it, is will it be like an iPad. I pre-ordered simula one which doesn't event exist yet and won't be on par with this hardware wise. But it will be a fully open Linux OS. You could just write/run programs eg. in whatever language and run it.

Cost comparison the VPro packs a lot of hardware for its price.

My hope for this is it normalizes that blending of daily life with VR/AR which makes the tech cheaper later on as more devices are made.

Am MBP plus a studio display is about $3.5k. Nobody seems to object to that pricing.

Value proposition is known and high. My perceived value on Vision is 90% chance that this $3.5k device will be collecting dust on a shelf

All you have to do is try one in an Apple store when they come out, and then you’ll be able to get a better understanding.

It’s easy to just claim it’s worthless without firsthand experience. It’s not so easy to discount the giant investment and expertise that have been brought to bear on developing it.

Maybe I’m old but I recall a time in my life where I never thought a gps, cell phone, palm pilot, etc would be very useful even after seeing them in person and seeing other people using them. Many of them I bought as I just liked tech and they collected dust. Until a certain point they did become useful. Usually around iteration #3. But I’ve personally found that v1 is not usually for me on these types of things. I’m more like the average consumer as i just don’t value the novelty of tech as much as initial adopters do. I’ve invested too much in failed products and categories at this point.

The investment on building a product is not even remotely considered by the market when a product comes out. If there’s no worthwhile utility, it’s going to be DOA and they’ll have to keep plowing money in hoping they can get to that iteration #3 where the value proposition becomes apparent. It’s probably why they want to release it and let third party devs create the value while they refine the tech and likely improve the consumer investment (eg. non Pro version coming next I assume)

> The investment on building a product is not even remotely considered by the market when a product comes out.

You are missing the point. The point is that to think that Apple of all companies doesn’t know this is absurd.

I think the value proposition is blindingly obvious. The big question for me is whether the device is comfortable to wear for long periods.

Value as a toy/trinket is obvious. But it's not exactly priced as such. So it will not sell. Comfort aside, I'm not even convinced why I would want to wear this for long periods of time. It needs some sort of killer app to really help me connect the dots.

We obviously just have different takes. I would not be surprised at all if you are more correct than me. But I also don't view "Apple of all companies" to be infallible, this could very well flop. They are more capable than most companies in their ability to absorb the losses for an extended period of time to see if the market ever materializes.

Edit: so I did some external reading and basically agree with this take while respecting your bullishness

> What matters is can we find the killer App – the unstoppable use-case. ..... The Success of Vision pro and Apple’s push into “Spacial computing” rests with developers coming up with amazing ideas. Otherwise, it’s bloody cool, but isn’t compelling enough.

https://eftm.com/2023/06/i-tried-apple-vision-pro-its-the-mo...

> Value as a toy/trinket is obvious.

It’s hard to accept that you can only see this as a toy or trinket. No serious observer is characterizing it that way even if they are uncertain about its future.

I’m not saying apple is infallible. I’m saying it’s silly for people who have so little experience by comparison to be confidently dismissive. It’s obvious that Apple is less fallible than random commentators. I’m not saying they can’t fail, only that if you don’t don’t see the value, that should make you curious about why you don’t see it and why Apple does.

Wow man you really are hell bent on this and how I should feel about it. IMO pretty much all consumer tech starts as a toy until some higher utility/use case is found. They’ve not initially presented one, that I feel is compelling, so it’s still in the toy category. Obviously apple sees and wants things to mature (likely via third party dev efforts).

It reminds me of when the first iPhone came out. I was so excited. Then I learned it didn’t have GPS. I felt like screen and touch stuff was cool, but that location was what was needed to make it really shine. It didn’t get it until v3 and I waited. In that case, I at least knew what I was waiting specifically. This is more of a wait and see type thing.

I think Apple will probably have more success with this than any one else would. But I just don’t see it as a “want” and certainly not as a “need” at this point. Like I’ve said, when price comes down or a killer app surfaces that’s another game and I may change my opinion. I’m talking initially taking off as a product/category, as not likely. It will be a slow hard battle similar to others in this space.

A MBP has a keyboard, several hours of battery life, and a couple decades of precedent that has allowed a large catalog of applications to form. The iGooglyEyePro isn't there yet.

From the keynote you can see that it supports Bluetooth keyboards and a giant set of apps and media out of the gate, and its OS is a continuation of that couple of decades of legacy.

Supports!= has

I mean, lots and lots of people DO object to that pricing, ever since it was released every single mention of the Studio Display has mentioned it's overpriced, but it also sells well so the Vision Pro will too

I so badly want a VR/AR headset that gives me a super crisp, super high resolution, low latency virtual monitor that I can easily move around

It is interesting, I was trying the VR desktop by Simula on a Valve Index, there was some "text needs to be focused" issues I experienced but it does introduce lag in your workflow. I guess if you got used to it... but it is different, rotating your head to look at windows, positioning them just right (could save it). And it won't be as crisp/clear as an ultrawide 4K display maybe in the future.

If I had 3.5k to spare for the base model I’d use it as an opportunity to try and build some useful apps, and basically treat it as a gamble on establishing a foothold in the space.

It might not take off for a while but the experience might pay off, even if the apps themselves don’t generate much income.

It isn't a "flop" if Apple knows this and expects to sell a very small number of these devices.

This is a first version of a device in a very niche market that will take a long time for it to hit mainstream (if it ever does).

Apple even danced around this quite a few times in how they talked about this particular product. For the first time, maybe ever, Apple hinted at future products while talking about this. I think this was made even more clear with it having the "Pro" name attached.

Us calling it "DOA" and a "Flop" are very very different than wether or not Apple considers it either, and ultimately that is what will matter. If Apple is smart (and I believe they are based on how they talked about this) they know this is a long term product category.

"For the first time, maybe ever, Apple hinted at future products while talking about this. I think this was made even more clear with it having the "Pro" name attached."

To my knowledge this does have precedence when Apple announced they were switching from PPC to Intel. The first computer announced was the MacBook Pro, insinuating that a regular MacBook would be forthcoming to replace the iBook.

Thats a good point, I guess technically they did the same thing with Apple Silicone where we all knew new mac's were coming.

So it isn't entirely unprecedented, but I don't ever remember them even hinting at future Watches, iPhones, etc when announcing a current one. Maybe the iPhone X being an exception when they talked about it being the future of iPhone.

I admit that I thought the same thing about Apple Watch and it seems to be doing quite well these days.

Me too. I'm a bit of a luddite when it comes to the things I carry every day - I love things like fountain pens, high-end knives, and quality compact tools.

... and yet my beautiful, fully mechanical, self-winding watch has sat on my nightstand for the past year and a half, only having been moved about once a week when I wind it and reposition it so the jewels don't lose their lubrication because I'm not wearing it. My Series 7 Apple Watch has fully supplanted it.

Likewise, I have dozens of very nice fountain pens, both new and restored vintage, that I now rarely use - I bought a reMarkable, and it's taken over that role in my workflow. I still carry a pocket fountain pen, but it only gets used to sign receipts and such.

Why do I have a feeling this is going to age like all of the people who posted on Slashdot over 20 years ago.

https://m.slashdot.org/story/21026

Saw a comment that goes beyond parroting that hoary cliche

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36210815

> But the iPod was also not 10x the price of the Nomad. The iPod also had essentially the same feature set. Here the Vision Pro is undoubtedly better in ways like the screen but also seems to be lacking support for VR controllers. Right now VR gaming is pretty much the main reason VR exists.

And before the iPhone, making calls was the major reason for buying phones. Before the Apple Watch, telling time was the major reason for people buying Watches.

Do you think Apple has no plans on ever selling a cheaper version?

Has the techno geek crowd ever been right about Apple?

How much cheaper will the cheap version be relative to the Pro? 8x more than the competition? 5x?

It’s fine to believe that there everything will work out somehow, as things are wont to do, but don’t pretend you know how it will more than the average layman. Let the miracle unfold on its own.

The average selling price of an iPhone is 3x - 4x that of an Android. I think iPhones are doing pretty well.

The ASP of Macs are also higher.

Apple hasn’t competed on price - ever. I know the HN crowd has an income that skews higher than most. Why is it so crazy to think that there might be people in the world that will drop $3800 on something because they can?

I can imagine some of my coworkers (and maybe even myself) take a small percent of our stock vest when it comes and buy it just because it’s a fun toy?

Nice, numbers smaller than the ones I hypothesized.

Apple doesn’t compete on price, but it’s the difference between the next iPhone or the next Mac Studio. So will the Vision Pro be a pilot device for a segment specific to that minority of affluent upper-earners as a fun toy? Or is it really meant to bring AR/VR to the masses and fundamentally transform computing as we know it?

If it’s next Mac Studio, why is that a bad thing? The Macs market share is next to nothing worldwide.

At a worldwide scale, the iPhone is a device for a minority of affluent upper earners as a toy. The iPhone only has around a 15% share worldwide.

The investors seem to know the deal.

This is such moronic thinking. It's cliche by now

Spatial computing will be the dominant paradigm for the vast, vast majority of all history once it is nailed down. The mouse/keyboard/monitor paradigm will be a small footnote in the early history of HCI once it is obliviated. Apple, as always, is showing the rest of the industry the way forward here.

The keyboard is hard to beat, in terms of precise (for a human), high bandwidth (for a human) input. Maybe AI will get so good that we won’t need to be precise and high bandwidth. Hell, maybe it will just guess exactly what we want based on grunting and pointing. But we’re a ways off from there.

Mouses and monitors, I could imagine losing.

Speech recognition is getting to a point where keyboards can be replaced for certain cases. And there are many situations where keyboards are not an option.

Speech recognition is only viable today when the user is in quiet surroundings and not near other people. You can't use it while you have a conversation with someone, for instance. Like it or not, a large part of today's device usage is concurrent with other "meatspace" interactions.

It may be possible if someone implements very good subvocalization recognition. It's possible - I've used military headsets that allow near-silent audio communication - but it takes practice to use effectively, and I really don't see it as a viable mass-market tech.

I think the opposite. Even the lack of controllers is a downside for the apple vision. Controllers allow for multiple simultaneous modes of complex inputs that gestures don't and don't rely on being in the view of a camera. Making controllers optional for activities that don't need complex inputs would have been better.

> Making controllers optional for activities that don't need complex inputs would have been better.

This is basically the case though. Vision isn't a walled garden toy device like Quest. It's a full blown general purpose computer with an M2 chip. Any peripheral that works with macOS/iOS will work with it. I have no doubt the third-party controller market will be robust, and I can even see Apple releasing their own for specialized applications like gaming.

it will be a walled garden ios device, instead of a "walled garden toy device like quest", which could be hooked up to a PC.

And there's no reason to assume random peripherals will work. Apple hasn't said it, no one has shown any, and there's no reason to think apple will let random third parties make compatible devices while they at the same time try to make sure you use guaranteed apple usb-c cables to get regular data rates from their devices.

Basically, it will be a walled garden device (btw the quest could still play steamvr) just ios instead of oculus/meta, and the lack of controllers isn't some special achievement that is empowering third party creators, its a bad decision on apple's part because they simplified the experience to the point where complex interaction is worse.

I have to say though that it's really hard to beat the amount of effort it takes to utilize a keyboard and mouse. I've tried VR systems and it's exhausting doing gestures for a few hours.

This guy is missing something and a bit myopic. The Visions real vision is convenience. No more holding the phone to absorb content, everywhere entertainment, immersive experiences, everything always available. The device is no where near the ideal form of just a light weight glasses, or even contacts. Between here and the future it will get more and more portable.

Yes, instead of holding a fairly small screen that is very light and fits in my pocket, I can have the "convenience" of strapping some fucking huge goggles to my head so I can enjoy that sweet motion sickness. All for the convenient price of 3.5 grand.

I just don't think this is DoA because Apple fans buy any crap Apple releases, no matter the price. It will become a nice iPaperweight though.

I have long been skeptical of AI/AR because I also don’t feel like being strapped in like that. But I can see this as being useful for dedicated tasks: surgeons, building or repairing a PC, inspecting a buildings. It will be more of a professional tool than consumer tool I think.

> But I can see this as being useful for dedicated tasks

Possibly, but Oculus already exists, and has existed for a while. Did this market materialize?

Honest question, I don't follow Meta/Oculus news closely.

I have no opinion on this device or the Oculus, the thing I can say is that the Oculus is not an AR device, only VR.

Yeah... I have some news for you:

https://www.google.com/glass/start/

Shrug. What's the purpose of a smug attitude? You did none of the work, you have nothing at stake. Just sitting in the stands, talking about how you would have thrown the ball better.

> talking about how you would have thrown the ball better.

I did no such thing.

In fact, I said that I disagree that this is a DoA product. Apple will probably rake in some cash with this.

I don't understand your reply. You talked about the difference between the Vision and the Oculus, and then reply with a link to the discontinued Google Glass?

I asked if the business market for those devices ever materialized.

You replied that Oculus is just VR, while the Apple thing is also AR.

I pointed out that Google Glass (which was an AR device focused on business customers) was discontinued. It seems that this market either does not exist, or is far too small to be meaningful for those trillion dollar companies.

You have the same problem, you don’t read beyond my first sentence. I did say they will get lighter

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