Hacker News Reader

Comment by atleastoptimal | Hacker News Reader

"spatial computing" is such a silly marketing phrase. All we saw was 2D windows placed in a fake 3D world. It's all just an aesthetic upgrade, a minor QOL improvement that has its own downsides, nothing more.

View on HN

That's a skeumorphic anchor to get people comfortable with a new technology. If you're going to introduce technology to the masses, you have to do it in stages. There's a lot more going on here than is apparent on the surface.

You could have said all of things about the original iPhone. It did similar things to a lot of existing smartphones at the time (send email, play music, browse web, make call).

They made a VR headset and used their own marketing name for it. A term which no one else uses.

It's called communication.

It's not a VR headset and it's not an AR headset. It's something else. It's reasonable to give your specific vision of these technologies a more human name.

Also, it's something that's going to be released in very limited quantities in a year from now. And it was announced at a developer conference so developers can start to prepare apps. We've only really seen a preview and the technology is in the earliest stages.

There's a ton of stuff they only mentioned in passing - like their proprietary camera format and cameras that can record the world in immersive depth-mapped 3D. Those will likely be licensed out to studios and sports leagues which can prepare content for Vision Pro.

"A term which no one else uses."

Yet. They've set it rolling and so far own a perspective separate to AR/VR. Leaves the competition brawling over headsets for a still-to-be-defined VR concept while they pitch customers on their thing. Computing. Ties in to work. Easier to justify spending $x000.

That's a skeumorphic anchor to get people comfortable with a new technology.

Not just that. It also makes the Vision not just an ill-defined VR product, but also a 'MacBook Air or iPad for on the go with far more screen real estate'. This pitch resonates with pro users who are not necessarily interested in VR. The initial reaction of Apple-using friends/family is: I'd probably buy this as a replacement for a MacBook + external screen. It also makes the pricing more acceptable - it's about the same prices as a non-mediocre spec'ed MacBook Air + Studio Display.

> The initial reaction of Apple-using friends/family is: I'd probably buy this as a replacement for a MacBook + external screen

Then I believe they misunderstood the presentation, since this device is not a replacement for a MacBook, since it just can't run the same software. And even if it could, it would be much, much slower at it, since it has to spend huge compute resources on constant refresh of two 4k+ screens plus advanced vision algorithms to process the camera input and overlay the 3D graphics onto it in the expected locations.

For the significant portion of users that spend $2k on a macbook and then use it as a webbrowser 99% of the time I think this could work great.

Hmm, you think so?

To me, the term just sounds better than "VR" or "AR" without meaning anything different (other than being less specific). There's nothing Apple-exclusive about it; it would apply to existing "VR" or "mixed reality" apps like Horizon Workrooms or Virtual Desktop just as much as to what Apple is doing.

Personally, I feel "spatial computing" sounds clearer and less silly than the previous terms. But, that's just my opinion so I guess we'll see if it catches on...

Spatial computing as an idea is from early 2000s. It was in Wired and sci-fi pulp and something the graybeards would hobnob about. Sometimes it just takes 20 years for an idea to come to fruition.

I wanted to know what Douglas Englebart would think about all this VR stuff, while I was watching the Apple Vision video.

I think he would love the internet access, think the web was stupid, and that Apple Vision is alien technology he dreamed of. He more or less spent his productive years defining the world we currently live in. I take him as man of vision and principal. He would be astounded by the tech and hate the content.

I was greatly disturbed by the product demonstration. After 72 hours I realized that since I work alone there are no real drawbacks to having a hands free computer. (I have been working in a 60'x30' studio that I have equipped with 8MP cameras, shopping for 4k and 8k projectors. The idea is to have the cameras act as an interface and use the projectors to create an image on the floor as feedback. The Vision Pro seems like it might be easier and cheaper. Although not as analog and collaborative.)

Hands anywhere in space they were visible acted as the primary interface to their ecosystem. The integration was so seamless that it was easy to miss the quantity of processing power and sensors at work.

Spatial computing is actually a good Apple name for this interface as it differentiates from the lower effort products that cost $3,000 less. This draws a line between AR/VR and what Apple is doing which is Spatial Computing. Apple needed to co-ordinate the fundamentals of Human Interface design and production. When they finally had same they could actually produce that also function they shipped it.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com