Comment by johnfernow | Hacker News Reader

Comment by johnfernow | Hacker News Reader

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> Shrinking this technology is all it will take for similar devices to make workstation monitors and gaming consoles completely obsolete.

Do people want that? I love playing games in my Quest 2 for an hour or two, or the PSVR2 at my friend's house, but I dread the thought of spending 8+ hours a day in it while I work. No, not just because of the weight, but because I like the feeling of fresh air on my face and sunlight reaching my eyes.

For that reason, despite being able to play non-VR games in cinematic mode on those headsets, I never do that. Sure, it's closer to my face, and it is larger, but if I'm putting a VR headset on, there better be a compelling reason to block out air and light to my eyes. And a bigger screen isn't a compelling enough reason for me.

Technically I can also use my Quest to have dozens of virtual displays, but why? There's almost never a situation where I need more than two things visible at once. I can look back and forth between two things pretty quickly and easily (my code and the library's documentation; the PhotoShop/Illustrator mockup vs. how it actually currently looks in browser; etc.) but I can't easily look at 3 or more things at once, so I feel it'd be more of a distraction that a productivity booster. I mean I could buy a 3rd monitor if I really wanted to but I haven't found a reason to do so. I don't need to see Spotify or Slack 24/7, I can just alt-tab to them as needed.

I love video games, I often enjoying coding, but I really think having a screen right up in my face for most of my waking hours is a bit much, even if they were more like regular glasses instead of goggles. When I'm outside or walk someplace I almost never look at my phone unless I need directions or am responding to plans, because I like a break from staring at screens. Even when I'm working, I try to stand up and look away from the screen when I have no reason to be looking at it, whether it's code compiling, waiting for something to upload to a server, or any other time when there's no point to be looking at my screen.

> There's almost never a situation where I need more than two things visible at once.

I feel like I'm taking crazy pills when I point out that OSes have had built-in support for virtual desktops for years now, and that using them to extend your monitor infinitely and switch between them with a single keypress is far more ergonomic than having to crane your neck to see a screen that's not directly in front of you at the perfect position.

True. I mostly use virtual desktops to separate work content from personal project stuff, as well separate non-productive stuff from both of them.

But yeah you phrased it well, craning my neck to see a screen does sound much worse than a keyboard shortcut. I have my 2 monitors positioned so that I can mostly just move my eyes, but I can't fit more than 2 monitors in that space (either IRL or in a VR/AR without them being too tiny to read.)

If I didn't have virtual desktops, I'd have to just close out of more stuff, which isn't a huge deal but any amount of friction can disuade you from working on something you're not obligated to do. I definitely wouldn't have my work tools, two separate IDEs, a game engine, 3 different browser windows, Slack, Discord and Spotify all open at once in various virtual spaces, where I have to crane my neck to see them. Maybe the Vision Pro also supports virtual desktops, but I still struggle to see in what scenario it speeds up my workflow.

Good point - and is the fact that most people neither know nor care about virtual desktops even after years of existence an indication that most people don't need them? I'd even go so far to say a major part of the initial popularity of the iPad was that it didn't have windowing - and so most people found it much easier to understand and use. Just see one thing at a time :-)

I use the built-in 16” display on my laptop only for coding, and other developers can’t understand that I don’t want multiple monitors. I try to explain that I don’t want to crane my neck and plug and unplug monitors, and that alt-tabbing between windows is just as easy for me than looking at another window. Maybe it’s something to do with being old and learning to code on a tiny screen.

I’m not saying that other people can’t prefer multiple monitors (I’m definitely in the minority when it comes to programmers), I just don’t understand why they can’t understand my point-of-view.

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