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Comment by quux | Hacker News Reader

Misleading headline. The root issue, that Vision OS has no support for 180 degree side by side video, isn’t specific to porn.

I’m sure there will be 3rd party video players that support that format and other common VR video formats in no time. I have some ripped 3D Blu-rays I’d love to watch on a Vision Pro in SBS format.

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Apple has enough product development experience to know this use case exists but I suspect you are right, they didn't support the feature as a whole and the discussion was only partly about the porn use case. The cynic in me suspects the lack of support is more about them preparing an apple friendly (read not friendly to the res of the market) format that they want to force the industry towards.

Apple's default video players are severly lacking in almost all of their platforms. Try to open an mp4 file you downloaded on your iPhone or iPad and you will be presented with one of the most atrocious "players" ever.

But that's because Apple has never cared to support on-device video viewing on their mobile devices outside the gallery app. They think people only use streaming apps and websites to consume videos so they haven't bothered with it.

I'm sure we will get VLC on the Vision Pro or something similar that will take care of it. Platforms that publish 360 content will have to distribute their own custom solutions

> Apple's default video players are severly lacking in almost all of their platforms

Try opening the TV app on a multi monitor Mac. It is nearly god damn impossible to make it full screen on the monitor you want rather than the one it happened to open up on originally (I think based on app bar placement which annoyingly cannot be tied to a specific monitor or made to appear on all monitors)

To control which monitor an app opens on a multi monitor Mac setup. First hover over the dock on the monitor you want the app to open on. Then open the app. It will treat that monitor like its main monitor.

This is probably an extension of their hostility to mp3s. They wanted to force people away from downloaded or ripped content and toward their own store.

That is ahistoric. Apple was forced into FairPlay by the labels, not by choice. They moved to non-DRM'd M4P as soon the labels let them.

As for why they preferred M4P (AAC) to MP3, it was a licensing issue. MP3 was patent encumbered until 2017. Apple, being Apple, didn't want to pay to license the encoder I believe.

AAC has licensing / patents:

> However, a patent license is required for all manufacturers or developers of AAC "end-user" codecs.[52] The terms (as disclosed to SEC) uses per-unit pricing. In the case of software, each computer running the software is to be considered a separate "unit".[53]

[…]

> The AAC patent holders include Bell Labs, Dolby, ETRI, Fraunhofer, JVC Kenwood, LG Electronics, Microsoft, NEC, NTT (and its subsidiary NTT Docomo), Panasonic, Philips, and Sony Corporation.[16][1] Based on the list of patents from the SEC terms, the last baseline AAC patent expires in 2028, and the last patent for all AAC extensions mentioned expires in 2031.[57]

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Audio_Coding#Licensin...

Yes, AAC is also patent encumbered, but the structure of the fees was apparently "better" for Apple. This was heavily discussed … Jesus, 15 years ago now … when everyone was pissed Apple didn't use MP3s.

Basically, AAC was cheaper for Apple so that's what they used.

But AAC was as "open" as MP3 and there was never any "lock in".

Small correction although you’re mostly right: m4p is the FairPlay encumbered file extension and unencumbered AAC audio files are (by default in iTunes) m4a.

Ah, good catch. Thanks!

AAC is also just a much better format than MP3, offering much better quality at smaller file sizes

> This is probably an extension of their hostility to mp3s.

Apple was never "hostile to MP3". Even iTunes 1.0 (considered an "MP3 player" back then) supported ripping CDs to MP3, using the Fraunhofer MP3 encoder that was far superior to alternatives (especially at that time).

I love VLC but it framedrops 60fps videos on M1 Pro which is just bonkers performance

have you reported this issue to the VLC devs? VLC is by far the player with the most widely supported video codecs. I'm sure they will fix it if you report the issue to them.

> The cynic in me suspects the lack of support is more about them preparing an apple friendly (read not friendly to the res of the market) format that they want to force the industry towards.

An alternative hypothesis: they're working on a proprietary format that only works on Apple products with no intention of spreading it to the wider indistry. They've got a long history of it (itunes drm on mp3s, iMessage, lightning and various other ports, Airdrop)

You just repeated the same thing the parent comment said.

You know that on the Apple Vision Pro, you can't even reorder the homescreen apps, and everything is forced to be alphabetical right? Clearly some corners were cut getting the v1 release shipped. Personas (which are still in beta) are clearly a higher priority than this for Apple.

Good points. The current product is a combination of prioritization and ability to execute. Some features undoubtedly were intended to make it but were cut/scaled back due to time while others are actual product decisions that indicate the direction Apple is taking us. I suspect the UI is a bit of both. Apple is -very- controlling of their UI and their default always seems to be 'remove the option from the user until we are absolutely forced to give it to them'. I can believe the home screen is a bit of product and time and it is possible the codec stuff is the same, but the cynic in me is still saying Apple has consumer unfriendly reasons for not supporting the codec.

Does visionOS have an API that allows apps to play “fullscreen” (full-FOV) 3D video?

Assuming Apple allows 3rd party video players in Vision.

VLC works.

in 3D?

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