Comment by MichaelMug | Hacker News Reader

Comment by MichaelMug | Hacker News Reader

My initial venture into VR began with the PSVR 1, but it proved challenging – heavy, hot, prone to fogging, and with poor resolution, making it uncomfortable after just 10 minutes of use.

On a whim, I bought the Quest 3 at launch with low expectations due to its price, but it pleasantly surprised me. The headset is lightweight, doesn't fog, and performs well. The gaming experience, along with hand tracking and XR capabilities, surpassed my expectations. I find myself using it more than my iPad for YouTube and web browsing. I understand Apple's positioning of the Vision Pro as a living room entertainment replacement.

However, I believe Meta missed an opportunity to enhance the OS for productivity and entertainment. Downloading movies and TV shows for offline viewing is not straightforward, and managing multiple browser windows can be convoluted. Not all apps support running in a window, limiting the device's flexibility.

Having experienced disappointments with first-gen Apple products like the Intel Mac, iPhone, and Watch, I'm hesitant to jump into the Vision Pro unless Apple takes gaming seriously and offers PCVR compatibility. The transformative experience of playing MSFS with Quest Link in VR has been a game changer.

Unfortunately I don’t believe there will be much initial traction until some “killer apps” come about. Not to downplay this person too much, but I saw tweets from a Mac calendar app developer about their excitement seeing their calendar rendered on a 2D plane while trying out the Vision Pro demo. Like… why would someone don the headset to check their calendar?

I expect to see a few games, and a few random spammy 3D object viewers, and iOS apps “Made for Vision Pro” when in reality they are SwiftUI 2D apps ported to render on the flat plane on the headset. Perhaps Apple has an opportunity to segregate really breakthrough apps from the simply ported ones.

Last but not least, the adult entertainment angle/question will be arising soon. Even though it has of course existed for years on other headsets, when Apple does it it just seems to get more press (see Airtag tracking concerns vs Tile Trackers).

I gave the xcode simulator a shot and having the streamlined desktop experience with windows and dialogs in VR or AR is pretty compellingly done. If the hardware can make it comfortable to read text, browse, and do general tasks for an hour or more at a time, I'll start to understand what their grand design is to capture whatever part of the market I inhabit.

I think many of us have been waiting in the wings and need to be seriously impressed before donning a headset regularly. My internal resistance stems from both comfort and ease of operating it for general compute outside of games. I have a Valve Index and have had some delightful experiences with it, but there's a big gap to jump into "routine" daily driver territory in my mind.

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