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Comment by Jarmsy | Hacker News Reader

All I've seen so far suggests they're almost entirely focused on virtual 2d screens floating in 3d space, and not other virtual 3d objects at all.

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They had many WWDC sessions covering 3D objects especially with the Unity integration [1] and their Reality Composer Pro [2] tool. Both were covered during the keynote. And if you look on Youtube there are countless videos of third party developers developing 3D apps.

It's just that they are positioning the device as a spatial computer i.e. something you use to get real work done. And right now for 99% of people that involves 2D windows.

[1] https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2023/10088/

[2] https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2023/10083/

I take their point as a problem of control. Picking up objects with hand tracking is, in my experience, much less deterministic, and much less useful, compared to picking them up with a button and haptics.

Everyone that has tried the Vision Pro has said the eye and hand tracking is flawless.

Definitely agree with haptics which many have mentioned is an issue.

> Everyone that has tried the Vision Pro has said the eye and hand tracking is flawless.

Context of the interaction is important. I've seen this mentioned with selecting, but not with doing something like picking up a 3d object. I don't recall seeing this use in any of the release footage.

There are plenty of WWDC videos around with specific details on Hand Tracking e.g.

https://youtu.be/zNFpAQb9hAg?t=908

That's an impressive set of alleged joint-tracking at https://youtu.be/zNFpAQb9hAg?t=985

26 joints per hand. Assuming that all the joints in your hand are visible to the device (this seems to be unlikely for much of the time).

As per parent's line of questioning, it doesn't address how that maps to a manipulation in the virtual realm in practice.

In comparison, each controller on my Valve Index has 87 sensors - that can distinguish touch vs actual press (triggers etc), pressure, presence vs absence (fingers on the handle), as well as the usual orientation / accelerometer sensors. Even with an abundance of processing power, a camera-tracking system can't get there.

It's notable that despite the claimed joint tracking, the only actual hand interaction shown in that video is knocking something over, not any real dextrous handling requiring precise finger motion. I get the impression they made a deliberate decision not to include any 3d handling in the launch demos because it's just not good, whereas 'look and click/swipe' works well.

I think you're right to pick up on the fact that 99% of digital content out there is 2D and they're leaning into that. It's a known quantity and easier to market.

Something like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYxPO-bfbOk (https://www.immersionanalytics.com/) would absolutely be possible with Apple's support for 3D objects. I hope that Apple doesn't neglect the analytics/visualization use case for launch; it could be gamechanging for their go-to-market strategy, as it would find its way into many corporate budgets.

> And if you look on Youtube there are countless videos of third party developers developing 3D apps.

Why developers want to make, and what consumers want aren’t necessarily the same thing.

They had 3D objects on showcase in the developer tools Press release

https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2023/06/developer-tools-to-cr...

Not true at all.

https://developer.apple.com/visionos/

Why would you think that URL would prove them wrong, when the only image it has on that page is of 2d screens floating in 3d space?

There are numerous quotes in the text describing the 3D API for creating and manipulating 3D content. For example:

"Present 3D content, animations, and visual effects in your app with RealityKit, Apple’s 3D rendering engine."

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