Apple Vision Pro Owners Are Struggling to Figure Out What They Just Bought
nymag.com
nymag.com
“Gargoyles represent the embarrassing side of the Central Intelligence Corporation. Instead of using laptops, they wear their computers on their bodies, broken up into separate modules that hang on the waist, on the back, on the headset. They serve as human surveillance devices, recording everything that happens around them. Nothing looks stupider; these getups are the modern-day equivalent of the slide-rule scabbard or the calculator pouch on the belt, marking the user as belonging to a class that is at once above and far below human society. They are a boon to Hiro because they embody the worst stereotype of the CIC stringer. They draw all the attention. The payoff for this self-imposed ostracism is that you can be in the Metaverse all the time, and gather intelligence all the time.” - Snow Crash
I can’t be productive in it. If you can be productive on an iPad then you can probably be productive in this (with an external keyboard) but I can’t work natively on the AVP. I tried Mac Virtual Display quite a bit and it’s just blurry. It’s not close to 4K, my 2K screens blow it out of the water. It’s just not good enough to use as an external monitor replacement.
It’s an amazing device, the best I’ve seen, and I’ll buy a future iteration of it but this version is not good enough for the price.
Are some people are more perceptive to things like this so they're more bothered by it? Or is there a population segment that is just unable to get a crisp picture via virtual displays, and if so, why?
Anyone else tried Virtual Display for an extended period: "too blurry" or "totally fine"???
Maybe Casey's opinion will change with time and/or once he is at home more but I know he likes to go to the library/coffee shops to work so maybe the AVP is a step up for him in those cases. I don't do that, I work at home or at my parents house (where I built a second office, with the same external monitors) so I don't have a good use case for the AVP other than media consumption where it does amazing, but not $4K amazing.
[0] https://atp.fm
Plenty of people think VR headsets look great, whereas all I notice is pixels, screen door, and aliasing.
> The way people are talking about the Vision Pro now is a lot like how early adopters talked about portable personal-media players
Actually it is like the way they talked about every other VR device before it: promising, but still not there
The good thing is, no one writes about the Meta3 outside a small bubble. Now Apple does it, everyone writes about it. This will push AR/VR forward.
Most useful app is seeing your macbook screen but its hard to constantly adjust compared to just moving your macbook.
I'm returning mine on Saturday.
sounds like an excuse to be on the hating apple train
The weight and lack of SteamVR have me strongly considering returning it, but I’m keeping it for novelty factor and sentimental reasons (my brother worked on the foveated rendering) and have found a few ways to put it in my routine - besides chores, the environments turned all the way up are pretty relaxing, not as good as being at Haleakala, but much better than my Valve Index.
In the mean time like the article says, I’m trying out different headgear - next up is a BoboVR aftermarket band for Quest 2 that someone on Reddit is 3D printing Apple Vision adapters for
In 10 years you'll wonder what's wrong the people who are still using their phone and laptop at coffee shop instead of their Vision 12 Pro Max.
i'll wonder why they are at coffee shop, just like i would today
It's to noisy and one gets distracted easily. Even if you say it's good for you, you might not notice it. Keep it real. Just think and tell, why you're not everyday working in such an environment, but rather occasionally and on special days "must be there". And on other days you choose to work from somewhere else.
I can tell you: if you have a task you need concentration for, you won't go to a Cafe. You won't even think of going into one. You'll go there where it's calm. Even a writer that scouts for inspiration won't be in a noisy environment after he found it. Analyze your last week's if you want so :)
The best one's are the ones with noise cancelling sitting in Starbucks with their laptop. I understand it's a necessity for traveling workers and there's may be no other option for them ftm. I can't tell the difference between traveling/not traveling.. But others can :)
> Just think and tell, why you're not everyday working in such an environment,
But I am.
>And on other days you choose to work from somewhere else.
I do not.
> Analyze your last week's if you want so :)
I did. I was at various cafes 6 of the last 7 days.
I would be less productive at home, or any other quiet, non-energetic environment. I would know, I've tried and hated it. I respect that this is a somewhat unorthodox approach to a working environment and may be difficult to comprehend, but what is true for you is not some global truth you can apply to the rest of us unconditionally.
She might be productive in her eyes, but I see her distracted every few seconds for a few seconds to a few mins searching for the right song to learn. She might say "I learned much more while listening to music", but I see she learns more faster, when she learns with some other in a quiet environment.
It's a fact. No matter what you do or what you feel like, our brains are the same. We only can keep up 10mins of pure concentration without distractions, then we need a short pause. The same applies to learning things effectively, especially if you try to understand smthg. The biggest brainer here: to recognize this and being able to see, that pure concentration can't be achieved in a soundy/loud environment because our brain is always working and filtering the visual/background noise information around us for danger. This costs attention and we get lightly distracted by some unfamiliar sound, like some one swirling the tea spoon in the teacup. This applies if some brain doesn't have the Attention Deficit Syndrome, where you can't keep your attention to one thing for a few seconds. This brains have a problem to concentrate anyway and never experience nor have the need for a quiet surrounding. But this can't be compared then, as it's a special case and the majority do not have this condition. So with a smile face, you either have a lack of self reflection on that topic and talk out of experiences, which you made and which happens to be "typically in a cafe" or you have some sort of concentration problems anyway. I can tell you - when I was a student, my best study friend and me, we prepared our exams in loud environments and in quiet ones. We learned at a busy McDonald's from 10 am 'til 6pm. While it was very cool and productive - self reflection tells me it wasn't. It was all the light stuff we did in noisy environments. But the heavy stuff has been lifted in the night time like 1 am in the university - where it happened to be quit. Of course, also the noisy environments yielded good results - but I don't lie to myself, they could've been better with me doing quiet learning instead doing enjoyable learning.
So take it like you want, you can't talk away science. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6901841/#:~:tex....
It's a kind of a "religion talk" talking that kind of topics - because it's hard for us to reflect the bad things and to admit one's wrongs. Its difficult to look at it unbiased :) with a smily face sliding out of the discussion.
I understand that you cannot comprehend working in a cafe. It's not for everyone. But it is for me. And even if we don't agree on that point, the world won't burn down because of it.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to return to my cafe and get some more work done.
Offices are OK but rarely all that comfortable. Libraries are too quiet and kinda creepy to me. Bars are too loud and distracting (and the alcohol doesn't help). Coffee shops are a nice in between.
But then, having quit smoking for a period of time, I noticed that I have much more time left for my work. Per hour 3 cigs means you actually have 42 mins of 60 mins left, within a work day of 8 hours, that would mean 3x8x6mins == 144 mins or 2h wasted within a day. But what did make me reflect with even more criticism on my life's experiences is the fact that while quitting smoking and regaining the 2h spend on cigs daily - my productivity rose more than this additional 2h would suggest. In two/three days smoke free I did the work of weeks. So I made an controlled experiment and found out, it's not the wasted time of 2h for smoking, but rather the 6 mins of break taken whenever I thought "I have to think about that problem while smoking outside". That was a break in my process of thinking. And, I realized that finished smoking after, a few minutes are needed to find one's way into thinking again. And that's the problem. Because then, a cig costs me 10 mins instead of 6. So I was unconsciously wasting half of my working time, just because I was sure I need a break and a cig because it's like that and I can't do without. In the end I started smoking again and kept my new gained-by-experiment-knowledge out of reach of my then-Boss.
So the difficulty, like everywhere in one's life, is to think and to analyze and to admit being wrong at smthg, rather then pure talking out of experiences without any reflection on this. Actually it's a disability and discomfort to admit one was wrong :)
I don't tell you how and where you should work. I just said, work in a noisy environment like a cafe bears too much of distractions and one has to realize that first..
But for now it seems the hardware itself isn't quite there yet. Everything from the fit (light seals, straps) to the battery to the displays and lenses could be better.
I just listened to the latest ATP, and even grumpy old man John Siracusa was blown away by the VR experience. I'm sitting out this one, but I'm pretty excited for the second or third gen.
What's funny is that at this point Apple has a reputation for "the 2nd/3rd gen is the first good one". And I wonder how many people are waiting it out, which means we won't get their feedback until then, which means now it will be the 4th or 5th gen that's good.
My assumption being what makes the 2nd/3rd generation good is because they incorporate all the user feedback when making those versions.
Add on to that, I think they have more of a culture of looking past feedback to figure out the key new tech that’s available now and building towards that, rather than just responding to user feedback directly (though they clearly do that, too).
I’ve demoed it to (regular non-tech) people over FaceTime, and they are completely blown away by it.
I don’t think you need much feedback to know what needs to happen.
- it needs to be lighter - it needs to be cheaper - it needs more apps
Apple will sell every AVP they can make because the can’t make very many of this current design. I don’t think anything will be delayed.
I seriously dont think that would happen. At least I dont ever see it replace a phone, or a smart computer in pocket. The Laptop and Smartphone was obvious, even though the implementation of smartphone interaction wasn't obvious until iPhone arrives. But the form factor makes lots of sense.
I just dont see how Vision Pro Max could do that. At least not the form of a goggles. May be a plan glasses.
This doesn't sound like "spatial computing" at all. It sounds like just mounting a big screen Tv to the ceiling. Same result really.
They should use their media arm to popularise it by making sure are the media they produce has an enhanced version for the vision pro.
I think it could eventually be revolutionary but only if they don't lose interest.
Sure, it’s a first gen device, and it is supposed to evolve into something that solves several shortcomings, but it certainly does not have the bones for a “true portable computing” platform.
They could even add a miniature M* SOC in there to let you wear a MAC on your nose, make it lighter, thinner, etc over the years, but it is still a thing on your nose that you need to interact with an external keyboard.
When the iPhone was first introduced, sure it lacked copy and paste, ability to run Flash(in more use at the time), and several shortcomings, but it had the interface(touch screen with just the fingers) nailed perfect that made it the success it is.
Finally, I'd like to share what I'm viewing with friends and family such as a movie screen or a 3D model fixed in the same position.
Within the Apple ecosystem and services, that’s what SharePlay is. This is already available on the Vision Pro.
For me, counterintuitively, the stereo 3D is a secondary benefit. Albeit a natural and welcome one.
But the killer feature is the ergonomics of having any number of weightless screens of arbitrary dimension and placement.
It took me a day or so to realize I don’t need a desk so much.
For five days I have been sitting on my couch with a MacBook Air (couch friendly) developing with many screens of relevant info arranged around me.
A mundane but profound benefit of “spatial computing” is no more hardware screen “keyholes” limiting how much information I can see.
Apple seems to get that the Vision Pro wants to be a Mac replacement, not an iPad replacement.
Everything in Vision works with both see-pinch and track/mouse click. Hoping see-pinch comes to Mac screen in Vision, or simply needing a Mac becomes redundant.
So long as Apple is content in foisting all complexity and freedom to the Mac, this will never be more than a really nice iPad replacement for consuming content.
When I hoped Apple makes the Mac redundant - I meant “developer friendly”.
They should ship XCode for Vision to start.
Unlike the touch interfaces of the iPhone and iPad, the Vision interface with keyboard & trackpad/mouse is very development ergonomic.
My other screens are web pages of info, engineering/hex code calculator, etc
(Counter point: At least it could also function as a watch)