The Apple Vision Pro is spectacular and sad | Hacker News Reader

The Apple Vision Pro is spectacular and sad

theatlantic.com

78 pointsJtsummers88 comments

https://web.archive.org/web/20240204094929/https://www.theat...

Sorry, I had meant to post the archive link with it.

> For a time, at what may have been the height of the internet’s thrall, it became popular to pretend that the digital and material worlds were continuous—that the “real” one had no special meaning, because cyberspace had become a part of it. That turned out to be wrong. We live in cars and on couches and, separately, we also live on phones. Apple believes it can resolve this conflict—that the digital and material worlds can be merged together—but it has only put the conflict into higher resolution. A headset is a pair of spectacles, but a headset is also a blindfold.

This is a really poignant conclusion, and reflects much of the worry I have about this device category. The more tightly we've integrated the digital and physical worlds the less connected we've become as people. It's showing in our relationships, its showing in our mental health, it's showing in our politics.

At this point, humane technology is technology that gets out of your way as much as possible and let you exist in the real world with real people. From my perspective, further integrating digital experiences into our real lives should not be the goal, the goal should be to achieve the benefits that digital devices bring without actually needing to interact with them.

Unfortunately I think most people want the "escape" of these digital worlds. To them (and others), it's easier to live inside of dream world than fix the current one.

If you think about it, it's indeed easier to start from scratch and create a new digital world than to fix the current one. The current world depends on far too many people

Yes it's easier to keep hitting a pleasure switch, especially if you have a brain of a rat.

Rats actually prefer the real world to a boring cage with a lever.

the problem, of course, manifests when you, who is content with the real world, has the digital world forced upon you because that's where "everyone" else is

"you will eat the b^H^H wear the headset"

It's easy to make this judgement now when the headset has just been launched. But over the coming decades we are going to new see new types of social interaction that could enhance the world rather than break it apart.

For example, being in Australia conferences in the EU and US require a 14 hour flight time and days of adjusting to a new time zone. Likewise there are people working two jobs, have children or are a carer who may want to experience the benefits of studying in person but can't.

I suspect as the fidelity gets better that human need of being around other people is going to be fulfilled. Which could make a massive difference in terms of reducing loneliness and the feeling of isolation.

> It's easy to make this judgement now when the headset has just been launched. But over the coming decades we are going to new see new types of social interaction that could enhance the world rather than break it apart.

So ... in many ways my life has been this "over the coming decades" first the internet in general, then social media, then smart phones. And at each of those steps I said what you just said about this.

But I dunno man! I have to say that I feel like the "this will lead to deterioration in valuable human bonds" crowd has been more thoroughly vindicated than my "we have to wait and see whether the good dominates the bad!" crowd.

See also the fallacy "its just technology the real problem is humans and how they use it".

When used as an excuse this is disingenuous - the problem is tech - without it, humans were better off in whichever way it caused harm. We're just dumb hairless monkeys without our tools, barely harmful at all.

Tech can have some benefits, but it also usually has some serious issues. If it didn't, we'd never need to update our tech to be safer, or pass legislation surrounding it. These issues exist regardless if there are humans driving or not - the only solution for some hypothetically superior race of beings is to not use it, at least in that iteration/form.

The world has to evolve in a different way than it is currently happening. Which is not impossible but those headset development are not cheap so the monetisation is a very high requirement.

It is a lot easier to use those headset where they naturally fit: ultra-personalised experience. Like social media v2, lot of potential to connect human, but devolving into jailing human in echo chambers: you can keep in touch with your family and friends across the world, or you can get hooked into a forever stream of news/post/video/product customised to make you engage.

VR headset used for games. I can see the social aspect winning. Spacial computing, I'm scared.

We already have that with video calls. The headset adds a sense of depth, but since you're wearing it on your face, any visual of you is going to be artificially constructed (i.e. there's a rubber gasket over important facial muscles, so no camera could hope to capture them).

I have much more hope for someone like Starline, though it seems they've gone the AI route to cut down on the number of cameras and hardware for blending them together. https://blog.google/technology/research/project-starline-pro...

The problem is not the tech. The problem is what’s on it. Social media in particular runs on dividing us, since maximally triggering or addicting content maximizes time spent staring at the app.

This isn’t a new observation. I recall reading back in the 90s about how the problem with TV is what’s on the TV.

The tech is fine. The incentives for media are all perverse and destructive.

That’s like saying alcohol is fine, it’s the incentives of the people selling and using it.

Which isn’t wrong necessarily. But definitely is working hard.

I don’t think that’s what the GP is saying. It’s more like beverages exist but certain ones are worse for you (like alcoholic ones) than others. It’s what’s being consumed that is important not its medium.

I don’t know if I agree with that just that you’re characterization is off. I think the medium is the message.

Alcohol is a bad comparison, due to the medium/carrier problem. Its both the medium and the carrier.

But to stretch the analogy, drinks are still an issue "because its the people hawking them have the wrong incentives". It could be sugary drinks, alcoholic ones, etc, they are all bad (even water). However this doesn't say much about why these drinks are all bad, which has nothing to do with incentives.

Its a similar argument for TV/social media. Sure bad people exist, uninteresting argument. That ignrores the real question of why they are bad.

TV shows follow a predictable formula, because of the media. Movies too, if they want to be successful.

A common saying for Movie and TV adaptations for books is 'we needed to change it to adapt it to the big screen'. Which is true.

It would be really silly to directly transcribe a reading of LOTR to a movie - despite the week long running time.

The media is the message, and the message is the media - if we want it to work/be effective.

The marketing and type of drinks for alcohol are not the same as for sodas - for a reason.

So saying some fundamental properties of the media won't impact the type of message or impact of the message seems a bit unlikely.

> So saying some fundamental properties of the media won't impact the type of message or impact of the message seems a bit unlikely.

Exactly. Some properties of the medium are inherent. No amount of "bad actor" excuses change that, and possibly even affect the usage.

I don't think thats it. Its not the part where we interact with digital devices that is the problem, exactly. Maybe its the part where we stop interacting with other people as people as well.

I watched a wild video[1] the other day which really gave me a new perspective on the Apple Vision Pro. Casey Neistat walks around NYC with an apple vision strapped on his head and chats with people in the street. I was arrested by it - part of the reason is how he "effortlessly" interacts with a bunch of strangers in the video. He exists in the city, even with the headset on. Despite how nobody can actually see his face. I'd find that pretty scary to do!

I suspect part of the problem might be that devices give as an emotional excuse to avoid real human to human interactions. They enable us to turtle away. Talking to people online feels like the real thing, but better because its less scary. We don't have to be quite as vulnerable when we do it. And maybe thats the problem with this stuff - the more we enable "social junk food" we use it as a substitute for real, scary, intimate human interactions. The technology isn't the problem per se. The problem is how we choose to hide behind it.

[1] https://youtu.be/UvkgmyfMPks . Definitely worth a watch.

There's an interesting set of conflicting forces where people are tempted through selfish interests to be lazy interacting with humans and prefer to stay home connected while also craving intimate human interaction. I think this laziness is encouraging us to stay home while also causing all us to feel more isolated and lonely. Like you said, "social junk food", but it's also video games, TV, etc. We've invented more ways to avoid social interaction which causes a feedback-loop of sorts. We're becoming more anti-social but also more lonely.

Having nothing to do is a great driver to force people out of their holes and interacting with other humans. We've made it too easy to stay home

> There's an interesting set of conflicting forces where people are tempted through selfish interests to be lazy interacting with humans and prefer to stay home connected while also craving intimate human interaction.

Counterpoint: when genuine human interaction does start to happen online, there's often an incentive to monetize it. It's the monetization that turns it into junk food. Spam, clickbait, infinite algorithmic feeds - they're all symptoms of the need to make money. I wonder if a true public space will ever emerge online.

See also this post that makes roughly the same point: https://catvalente.substack.com/p/stop-talking-to-each-other...

I don't believe virtual interaction covers the same basic needs that physical interaction does but this is completely my own opinion. I'm sure everyone is different. That said, the nice thing about physical interaction is that you can always find free spaces to join. Makes me wonder if the state should create an online equivalent of a public park.

Online spaces cost a lot of money and manpower to run. Half the people on this site could put one up in a day, but who would pay to scale it if it wasn't monetized? And as soon as it is, you have an opaque corporate hierarchy directly MITMiddling discourse.

Wikipedia and Archive.org provide clues to other ways this could be addressed, through nonprofit donations, but then you have a somewhat opaque and unelected priesthood moderating things.

HN gets around it by basically being niche enough to rely on one overworked person to moderate. Scaling up the HN model would mean many individual small sites acting independently as a patchwork of public commons.

And all the other workarounds to this problem - and I agree it's a huge social problem and a drain on society - turn out to involve some technical hack to tie patchworks together, like Mastodon.

One thing that hasn't really been tried (by a democracy), at least that I know of, is a social network for citizens run by elected committees. And this may be the worst idea of all, since it would become a natural competitor for power with all other branches of government, and would run the risk of directly corrupting national politics in any number of ways...

Basically all this is to say that running any kind of mediation at scale between random members of society is dangerous, and not just because of the profit motive, but more basically because power corrupts.

I would never walk down the street wearing a headset as I would EXPECT to be punched in the face.

It's not even starting or stopping interacting with people. Its being fed what we want and what we are comfortable with. The algorithmic firehose freezes us into a comfortable, unchanging state. We don't update our beliefs because its easier to confirm them.

It's also a bit that compulsatory education ends at 18, and we switch to entercation. The top priority of the news is to captivate attention and entertain.

The black mirror about muting people and not seeing them anymore is the future. Living in one physical space occupied by multiple tribes, who merely see otherselves as apparitions.

Any time it is applicable, i have to post my favorite article on the internt https://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/entries/78691781-c9b7... Ironic that im stuck on it.

Casey Neistat is used to interacting with people while wearing Ray bans. People are used to not seeing his eyes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_Experiments_Lain

Worth a re-watch in this day and age given your comments on the zeitgeist.

> the less connected we've become as people.

This ^.

I'm hesitant to embrace a tech that so clearly and obviously keeps people separated. At least with a phone, you can position it so 2 people can view it simultaneously.

True. At the same time, VR could afford richer interactions with those who live far away from you. For example, about 30% of older adults in the US live alone. Of course, it would be better to visit or live with them, but that is often impossible.

It's often inconvenient and rarely impossible.

One side of my family has a weekly Zoom call with elderly parents, scheduled for 2-3 years at this point.

Every other week, someone needs to call said parents and walk them through connecting to Zoom. Again.

Introduce a VR headset? Absolutely not.

Call them daily and you would not have to "walk them through using Zoom". Better still use something like Telegram where calling is as easy as sending an SMS and they'll call you instead. I use a combination of Nextcloud Talk, Telegram, Jitsi Talk running on my own server and Conversations (Android XMPP app) connecting to my own XMPP server to keep in contact with my mother (85) who lives in the Netherlands while I live in Sweden. We call every day, sometimes more often. She has no problems figuring out how to use the tech since she's been doing it every day for years.

I'm not going to introduce VR either but not because she would not understand the technology. It just does not add anything real over what video calling already offers. Maybe AR if and when retinal projection ever gets to be a thing, when the headset is no heavier than a normal pair of glasses, when it is not encumbered by an overly bossy company like Apple, maybe then. Not as long as you need to don a $4K pair of ski goggles which lock you out of the real world to suck you into some corporate mimicry.

It's awesome you're comfortable maintaining servers to support the tech, and ensuring it works daily. Not all of us prioritize server admin the same way.

> I'm not going to introduce VR either...it just does not add anything real over what video calling already offers.

^ this is the key point.

How long until Robert Scoble ruins it for everyone by posting a photo of himself naked in the shower wearing nothing but an Apple Vision Pro?

Another take on that is that AVP is blinding you to reality. You are seeing the reality it wants you to see.

There's something very gross to me about this product. It digital gluttony. It's like buttering your pop tarts. It's like adding extra sugar to your Cola. It's like wearing a diaper so you don't have to get up off the couch. At some point isn't enough enough? How connected do you have to really be? How much more engagement do you need to feel something? How many screens do you need to fill the hole in your heart? I wonder what's going on in the mind of a person who craves this isolating hyper stimulated cocoon strapped to their head.

Have you ever put butter on a Pop-Tart? It's so frickin' good Have you ever put butter on a Pop-Tart? If you haven't, then I think you should

Yes but I'm ashamed of it. It's too good.

It is rather end-stage technoscene isn't it. Along with AI and crypto, all solutions looking for a problem (and causing many problems themselves).

Current stats are that 50% of Americans aged 30-49 have a social media addiction.

Under 29 who knows but obviously higher.

You can't expect a coke head to not snort the whole bag. We just don't believe social media addiction is like a coke addiction. This isn't going to just get better either. What are the kids that grew up watching tiktok as a first memory all of the sudden going to become ludite hippies in 15 years?

I even had the thought that maybe generation alpha would be reactionary against all this. Looking that up, holy shit is that wrong.

The amount of robberies is going to skyrocket... I would suspect that Apple will have to implement some sort of "50% translucency requirement for on-screen windows" so that using the Vision Pro in public places will not prevent people from being aware of their central vision & surroundings.

I don't personally carry a cell phone with me in day-to-day life, so I am already well aware of how addictive technology is for young & old [and am myself about half way along the journey].

The first person to get injured because the VisionPro screens suddenly freeze/blank is going to make global news. RIP.

At least the googles could probably record the robbery in spatial video. Maybe it could upload to the cops who would probably ignore it.

I'm sure I'm a pollyanna about all this, but every time some new piece of tech or innovation comes out, English majors crank out "What Hast Thou Wrought" pieces like nobody's business.

The truth is nobody knows how this thing will integrate into human society. Personally I think the social media hysteria is overdone, and the human need for connection is probably stronger than technology. Time and time again, what we've seen is that technology amplifies individual characteristics rather than changing them.

Of course the press is obsessed with the goings on of social media. They themselves spend all their time obsessing about their ratios on Twitter. But there are plenty of people out there who don't, and they don't get noticed because the opinion leaders can't get outside their own little bubble of Tik Tok, Twitter, Reddit, etc.

Yes, certain people already predisposed to isolation will use technology as a substitute for human connection. But those people are going to do that anyway.

Wasn't this about it being a terrible unusable product though? Not a "what has thou wrought" bit at all.

I think this has convinced me we need a new technology altogether, not cameras + screens for AR to be feasible.

The use as a movie theatre, if they could eliminate the weight, maybe an interesting use. But not a good AR headset, and probably never without eliminating the lag/precision issue (hint, you aren't allowed to digitize the universe).

I've seen a couple of videos on TikTok of people using Apple Vision, and it looks so strange from an outsider's perspective. I understand that, in addition to extra information from apps, a person also sees everything around them, but from the outside, it looks like they're in their own world. It's just weird not to see a person's eyes.

You lose a fair bit of peripheral vision. People definitely will die.

I wonder if it could result in cities making public spaces safer and more accessible for people with vision impairment.

I know AirPods/noise cancelation made me very aware of accessibility features for hearing impaired people. Suddenly I’m looking for the lights on the train door button because I can’t hear the beep.

Most of this danger is entirely human constructed. If you put someone out on a farm or otherwise undeveloped land, they are very unlikely to kill themselves by mis stepping.

Was watching the Casey Neistat review video today and it's both crazy as in exciting and somehow terribly frightening https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvkgmyfMPks There is just something eerie about the whole thing, like existing on the edge between the digital and real world.

But truly this is the future, there is no stop and it will be miniaturized down to normal glass size sooner or later

I got back from the Apple Store a few hours ago and that headline is exactly how I felt when I finished the 20 minute demo. It was amazing, it’s the future of entertainment especially sports and that’s the sad part, you will be enjoying it alone.

How did it work to get a nice, long demo? You wait on a line, place your name on a queue, or something else?

The demo was ~20 min. I put my name on a list and waited about 30 min. I was surprised that most people at the store were not there for the Vision Pro.

Don't laugh, but this sounds like a novel way to take my SO out on a date. Thanks!

> The headset, which weighs as much as a cauliflower

Christ, I just learned the length of a football field (and that there exists a different futbol pitch). Now I have to learn how much random vegetables weigh?

Can we at least stick to Brassica oleracea in the future? Whats the brussel sprout equivalent?

> A medium-sized head of cauliflower is about 6 inches across, weighs about 2 pounds and makes 4 to 6 servings after trimming off the leaves and stem. [1]

In all seriousness this seems like a total deal breaker:

> Typing via finger pinches or dictation was a pain, so I used a wireless keyboard. Even that had problems. Touch-typing in that context wasn’t easy, and the writing felt out of phase. The letters on the screen appeared after a very slight delay, just enough to make it feel like my words were being pulled through a wormhole on their way into my document.

[1] https://gmach.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Cauliflower.pdf

Forgive me if I missed the joke, but Cauliflower and Brussels Sprouts are in fact both cultivars of Brassica oleracea...

It only occurred to me recently that when people compare something to the length of a football field, they are probably talking about American Football. I had always just assumed (without thinking about it) it was the length of an Australian Rules Football field, which can be almost 70% longer!

It must be about time we all just used metres and grams?

Practically no one would ever be talking about Australian Rules Football (outside of the handful of countries where that's popular, of course), although presumably outside of the US they'd often be talking about soccer.

Fortunately, difference in length of an american football field and FIFA recommended soccer field is only 5 meters, and basically can be rounded to 100 m.

It's big (well, was big) in the "Americans react to weird stuff elsewhere" genre.

Lot's of US wannabe sports youtube influencers react to Gaelic football, soccer, and Aussie Rules.

Close to practically no one, but they do fall outside of the regular AFL fan domain.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJo199LD0Fk

Huh? Do you buy groceries or cook? Now I know exactly how it’d feel in my hands. 600 grams sounds very abstract. The Atlantic isn’t a review site.

I saw a bunch of my techie friends all run out to buy one of these on launch day (thanks to their easy availability at Apple stores).

As far as I can tell from the reviews: this device is a preview of the future. But, it still needs iterative improvements before it will live up to its promise as a practical workstation or accessible gaming device.

It is plain to see that my friends who bought one are enjoying the camaraderie of all having done so. $4,000 is perhaps a reasonable price to feel connected to others in a meaningful way.

Just think, if you put that 4K into an activities fund for yourself you could have weekly meetups in person for a year before running out of cash.

Or a nice vacation with a friend.

I am pretty sure people have managed to feel connected to others in a meaningful way before this device, and it didn't cost $4000. Not sure if you were being sarcastic...

How did anyone ever make friends 100 years ago without one of these!

I have such mixed feelings about it. I went back to the Apple Store today to exchange the “light seal” for something that fit better - and an older couple who were there for a demo asked me “what do you use it for?”

I didn’t have a great answer. The technology is really compelling; but it is a solo experience. I tried to show my friends last night what I saw via AirPlay… and it’s just not as interesting that way.

And despite that - last night I played a little LEGO game, and I was utterly transfixed. It plucked at my heartstrings in a way that shocked me. Today, I used the built-in “Mindfulness” app, while sitting atop a lifelike recreation of Haleakala… and it was incredibly peaceful.

I just don’t know what to make of it yet, but it’s fascinating. I’m making a conscious effort so far not to use it much around others, and I hope that will be a good balance.

I will go ahead and claim that culturally, we are increasingly aggressive about escaping reality, and in part, we don't realize we're doing it because our minds are darkened and distorted by decades of consumerism and the indulgence of disordered appetites. Instead of doing what rational people do, which is to conform our minds and our desires to the truth, we try to conform "truth" to our minds and desires, twisting "truth" to suit them. We are living the Bacchae, and if and when we manage to wake from our mad frenzy, we will see, like Agave, horror and suffering and death.

Much Ado about Nothing.

Reviews on YouTube show an entirely different experience. Seen people walking around wearing the devices and interesting use cases.

Sure, it's not for everyone. But doesn't seem as dystopian as people make it out to be.

The movie “Ready Player One”, despite trying to end on a forced positive note, was/is prophetic. It was a very sad and disconnected world there, and we’re slowly moving that way here.

I think now is actually a special time. All FAANG including Apple have faltered. Now is the time to make the next big thing. A linux based AR glasses which actually works.

2024, the year of Linux on the ski goggle.

Sadly, Alpine is already taken

It is a struggle to even get Bluetooth working on Linux, forget about AR headsets!

I think apple missed the boat here anyway - the next big thing is not AR or VR despite Apple and Facebook betting the farm on it ... They both missed this AI thing and got distracted by VR.

you don't "miss" AI. you can be slower to adapt, but on a large enough timescale, that quickly becomes irrelevant. even chrome was only released in 2008

To be fair, Linux is the backbone of the entire Quest lineup. If it was a limiting factor then I don't see why Oculus was so quick to market.

These days the N in the FAANG stands for Nvidia and it has not faltered at all.

I feel Valve is working on that with the Deckard project.

I enjoy the writers refined writing style. A beautiful use of Trompe l’œil. The name for 2D art that looks 3D.

I'm waiting to read the inevitable review in which someone (and partner) use Apple Vision Pro it to enhance their sex life. I find it hard to believe that AVP would be an exception to a fundamental rule about the drivers of technological development.

It’s hard to kiss already with only one person wearing one, with two you’d need your heads to be at 90 degrees to make it work

"UPLOAD" (produced by Greg Daniels) will be the next generation's "Idiocracy"; I'm calling it now.

It's not a fantastic show but I think it paints an accurate picture of where AI and AR/VR will take us if it grows unchecked.

this thing is going to drive "phone" addiction through to the stratosphere when it drops in price.

Bad link https://archive.is/xrOD2

Does archive.md not work for you? archive.md, archive.is, archive.ph, and archive.today should in theory all resolve to the same service. Where I'm at they're even the same IP.

No, I get a connection reset error. It might be my ISP being bastardly though.

If you use Cloudflare DNS that's why, for some reason archive.is goes out of its way to not be resolvable via them.

related "Tell HN: Archive.is inaccessible via Cloudflare DNS (1.1.1.1)" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19828317

I'm guessing you use CloudFlare DNS? The owner of archive is in a completely ridiculous spat with CloudFlare and now refuses to serve DNS information to requests originating from CloudFlare 1.1.1.1.

(We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39255524)

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