All my thoughts after 40 hours in the Vision Pro
waitbutwhy.com
waitbutwhy.com
The question I'm still left with is whether these "experiences" have lasting effects on enjoyment and balance with the technology. I'm not looking forward to another dopamine death spiral.
Also, no matter who makes it, I think I will be forever fearful of powerful AR tech. After reading Electric State[1], you realize dystopia is only like 3 (big) steps away.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Electric_State_(graphic_no...
Yeah, we're ruining human interactions and giving people depression, self doubt, etc, with all this technology that absorbs their lives, but think of all the money we're making for the shareholders. Line goes up. /s
It’s like blaming beer companies for liver disease. Beer is brewed and sold because people like beer. This has also made shareholders lots of money. So what?
Look at cigarette companies denying for so long that their product caused cancer (or at one point claiming it was good for pregnant women). Or the sale of assault rifles and their use in mass shootings. Or a less controversial one- that suicide rates were lowered when they changed the type of gas in people’s homes.
I think as a society we can always collectively decide that regulating something might be for the public good. Sometimes we’re even correct about it.
That’s actually really sad.
The 'worrisome' aspect of The Electric State (or any future dystopia) is it's parallel to a direction humanity could take. However, the fact that someone has taken the time to be aware of it and create a piece of art that's essentially a warning against it, means that, I think, we're better prepared against it becoming true.
The author/artist is an ally.
For me the lasting value is simply a more flexible, ergonomic, and focused work environment than a MacBook (and add on) screens.
The wow has faded quickly, but the convenience of seeing all my relevant info within my eye’s a head’s field of view would be hard to give up now.
I love my iPhone, but for many things, want to use a laptop.
I love my laptop, but now for deep work use the Vision (with the laptop).
I really hope Apple has the sense to release Xcode & terminal for Vision, eliminating any need for a paired Mac.
Or as a half step, allow for more than one Mac screen.
Ergonomically, unlike iPhone or iPad, it is an environment naturally ergonomic for really focused work. (With keyboard & trackpad, and for me, the double strap.)
At a desk, but actually better on a couch or recliner.
But even if the couch experiment goes well, I prefer to work at my desk and the AVP can’t come close to that level of productively for me so I’ll probably return it.
I put an image at the top of this post https://joshstrange.com/2024/02/10/the-use-case-for-mac-virt... and the previous post has some video looking at code to give you an example.
For the AVP’s native UI, text glyphs are apparently first 3D-transformed in their vector form before being directly rendered onto the panel’s display grid, maintaining maximum sharpness.
The reality is that the challenges facing a better vision pro are much, much more difficult than the ones for early personal computing and smartphones. Some of these obstacles are outright technical. The Vision Pro is clearly best in class but the next iteration is going to take some significant technological leaps forward, some of which (screen latency) are physically insurmountable.
The obstacles are cultural. When an iPhone showed up, there wasn’t much zeitgeist against using a computer or a blackberry too much. But there’s since been a lot of conversation about the nature of these tiny sceeens we keep drawing closer and closer to our eyes.
I can see the Vision Pro becoming a tool for professionals, in the same space a dual monitor setup occupies.
But AR/VR is such a viscerally compelling experience that think there may be an extensive backlash on all personal devices as a result, particularly as usage relates to young people.
There’s just a lot of tough challenges ahead of adopting and I think hand waving these away due to “progress” is a little naive.
Convincing my friends to buy a Quest 2 was difficult, but now most gaming time is VR gaming time. The reality is that playing with friends, especially in VR is the #1 factor in making the experience enjoyable for me.
Or do you mean you don't like it?
Did you like the story? https://youtu.be/PUWg905fGTA?si=vbvhyKJP_LZ57ruQ
The trick is usually to walk away from things that are 1) "X but in VR", i.e. Minecraft in VR as it mostly reminds you that you could be playing Minecraft. 2) Cool tech demos. It's fun to be mind-blown by the VR mechanisms, but if the game itself it not interesting you won't play more that 2-3 hours.
AFAIK (and would love input if people know more about this), there hasn't been much concentration on programming in these kind of 3d immersive environments, outside of languages like ProtoFlux in the Resonite virtual world (which is an update of Logix from Neos). Even that is really just a dataflow language where your spaghetti can work on 3 axes instead of 2. It feels like we need some considerations of how these immersive environments could benefit an IDE. Possibly some input from what projects like Dynamicland have learned?
Gives me a few advantages:
1. Can spend time with the family/pets easier even if I am working. They’ve gotten over the mild disconnect and the eyes are good enough for them to hold discussions.
2. Even with a small laptop I get a massive screen to work on now and it can be lifted up to a more ergonomic point of view.
3. It’s just better for viewing linear media. So I tend to have a movie or something in the background when family isn’t around.
4. Unlike other headsets I’ve had (Vive, quests, etc) I don’t have to take this off to do most things. Most of my phone apps just work, passthrough is good enough for the first time to get up and walk around the house. I can even just use my phone while wearing it (though I wish there was a FaceID override when wearing it)
Honestly, while I still prefer my dual monitors in my home office space, this is a really great solution for portability. I go on enough work trips where I only take my small laptop, that this is a big game changer for how well I can work while not in my home office.
It’s not my preference compared to my main desk setup currently because I already have my desk setup how I want with multiple high end monitors. I don’t really need more real estate because I like to reduce head motion.
So in that sense, at my desk, I have no benefit to using it for my regular work.
But the more interesting question could be: would I have bought the monitors if I had the Vision Pro first? Maybe not.
The single display mirroring is fine for my work. Most of the rest of my real estate goes to apps that have native versions , and universal control/clipboard works well enough for me.
This is the most ironic image I've seen in a while. "Even though I know all growth curves are sigmoid, I'm going to pretend the long term curve is exponential not also sigmoid"
It’s basically his day job.
https://waitbutwhy.com/2013/10/why-procrastinators-procrasti...
It’s amazing tech in a terrible (for me) form factor right now. Based on the varied reactions to comfort, my experience is clearly not universal, and I can’t imagine comfort getting worse. I hope that Apple improves comfort options for a broader audience in v2.
Another issue that I haven’t seen commented on is that the fixed arms on the headset make getting a comfortable fit tricky. Other headsets’ arms pivot a few degrees so that you can better align the headset with your face.
It’s a surprising result, because comfort is basically solved with other headsets. For example, I can wear the Quest 3 with the elite strap as long as I’d like, and the original PSVR was remarkably comfortable. I suspect the issue is that Apple wanted a ski goggle form factor rather than a rigid halo to make the device seem more futuristic and approachable, and the tech just isn’t there yet for the headset to be light enough for that form factor to work.
This feels like a weird lead in to me. It invites comparisons to the story, ..but The Phantom Tollbooth is all about finding wonder in everything you had to begin with.
I'd say it's valid.
Eyesight will also get much worse. I won't be surprised, if this catches on, that all babies born at a certain point in the future will have to wear glasses. We will become so fragile, not just at the societal level, but even at the individual level. Terrifying.
Unbelievable technology and experience but I can’t be bothered to use it anymore.
Just something about it is missing for real immersion.
- Comfort - Quality
I've yet to use a headset I'd wear for 8 hours a day without leading a rebellion against my torturers forcing me to after a few weeks.
I've also yet to use a headset that is at a quality such that it has a similar visual and presence fidelity to the real world (though this is getting closer).
When it's comfortable enough to wear for hours and hours on end and it looks sharp enough I don't care I'm wearing a headset, I'll spend a lot of time there.
We're probably 2 more hardware generations away.
people have been saying that for the past 2 generations already
I'd thought it would move faster when there was hope it could piggyback on mobile phone subsidies from carriers, but once that was clear it wasn't going to be the case it was quite evident we were talking about ~7 year legitimate hardware cycles.
What we now have is just gimmicky.
I have a nice reality, there is no relevant upscale at all to use a virtual sub quality experience every day.
And for 3.5k you get plenty of wall color and tools and nice things to make your environment nicer
And yes I do have a projector at home for 10 years. It's easy and was cheap (700$ 10 years ago 720p)
I actually kind of miss Google cardboard. A very light and open feeling but somewhat rubbish headset would be preferable to having to strap one of these huge things onto my face. My current headset is lighter than the Apple one and it's hard to imagine something even heavier.
Maybe some people just won't be bothered by it, but my maximum tolerance is somewhere well shy of 2 hours a day, and I wouldn't ever use it unless 3d was the point (like, I can't imagine ever using something in this form factor to view a movie or perform normal productivity tasks).
i find this pretty hard to believe. AVP is 2.5x heavier than my over-ears, those dont front load my neck and my neck still feels it at the end of the day if i wear them too long.
I'm also uninterested (again, outside of specific tasks) in viewing my surroundings through camera and screen.
I guess I'm still waiting for the contact lens HUD
I do not believe that this is a desirable evolution. The speed and accuracy of moving the fingers are significantly less than for moving the hand.
A much better user interface can be achieved by holding a stylus in the hand and using the stylus for pointing or gestures.
I have also considered this paragraph as extremely sad:
> "In the presentation, when Jobs did the world’s first “swipe to unlock,” the audience made an audible gasp. A minute later, he brought up a list of artists in the phone’s “iPod” app and asked, “Well, how do I scroll through my list of artists? I just take my finger and scroll.” Another audible gasp. It’s weird that something so normal today was jaw-dropping 17 years ago. "
The astonished reactions of the audience just demonstrates the sad fact that the majority of the computer users have always been brainwashed by the inferior Apple and Microsoft graphic user interfaces and they have never experienced a really well designed GUI.
At that time I have been only mildly impressed by the fact that such a user interface has been finally implemented in a smartphone, because a GUI with finger gestures on a touchpad was just a much slower and much less accurate variant of the GUIs based on mouse gestures, like I had been using for many years in CAD/EDA programs for drawing, like those from Mentor Graphics.
Unfortunately, such superior user interfaces have always been restricted to niche applications, while the mainstream operating systems have evolved to use worse pointing devices, like mice with scroll wheels or touch pads and touch screens (touch screens are justified only at smartphone sizes, when carrying any other pointing device may be inconvenient).
1) A touch interface is a VASTLY different experience from a mouse / trackball gestures interface. There's a physicality there that simply isn't present when you're gesturing with a different device entirely and seeing the effects of that gesture on a disconnected screen. Touch to tap, and tap and hold have been gestures on track pads since the mid 90's. So using a touch pay with tap and hold to drag a folder around should be (by your reasoning) exactly the same as doing the same with a touch screen. And yet, controlling an iPad with a separate touch pad is a very different experience from controlling it directly from the screen.
2) Just how BAD previous touch screen devices were as far as control. Capacitive touch was a game changer here. I worked for Apple retail during the initial iPhone launch, and one of the things I had to teach ex-palm / handspring customers over and over again was to unlearn their habits formed by working around the limitations of resistive touch screens. Stop trying to tap with the tip of your finger nail, stop trying to tap just below/above/to the side of your target, put your finger down right over the key you want to press and trust the OS, etc. Of course this was jaw dropping, everything else to that point was usable, but finicky in ways that we would find incredibly annoying today.
The "physicality" that you mention when using a touch screen is just something that gets in the way of getting the job done, because your fingers or whichever else object would be used to touch the screen unavoidably obscures a part of the displayed image making impossible a precise positioning. Moreover, if you use a big display you must also make ample movements on it.
Both problems are eliminated when using a stylus on a small pad. While worse than a stylus, a mouse or a trackball are still better for fast and precise work than a touch screen or a touch pad.
I certainly prefer the physicality of moving with lightning speed a graphic cursor over all screen, easily stopping it on any minute detail, like it is possible with the stylus of a graphic tablet, to the much slower and imprecise movements that are possible with the fingers on a touch screen or touch pad.
A touch screen is unavoidable for very small devices like mobile phones, but whenever any alternative is possible it is better.
I have to disagree. I think as with any engineering challenge, it's about what tradeoffs work best for your specific application.
If non-touch screens were better for the tablet application (that is a tablet in general, not any particular app on the phone), we would have stuck with physical keyboards and blackberry's roller ball, or the classic palm styluses or some other new pointer device. Yet here we are.
Fruit Ninja was always possible with mouse or trackpads. And yet, it wasn't a thing until modern capacitive touch screens. Tellingly it has also only been ported to console applications where motion controls / VR is an option.
Even something like a Wacom tablet. They've existed for years as external devices with none of the "obscuring your view" problems that having a touch screen has, and high degree point to point precision. And yet as soon as the Cintiqs and other touch screen versions of their drawing tablets appeared, most artists I knew switched or started saving to switch right away.
And touch controls allow for the possibility of multiple simultaneous inputs, something that a track pad or stylus does not, so something like a software mixing board is clearly better experienced via a touch interface than a mouse and track pad.
And that's not to say that you aren't right that there are applications where a touch interface is worse.
For CAD/CAM where precise (and in many cases pixel perfect) movement is required? Something with a higher degree of precision than your average half inch meat stylus is going to be better.
First Person Shooter games don't seem to have really made the transition to touch devices (other than with emulated joystick controllers), despite the fact that tapping on your target is going to be faster target acquisition than using a mouse. There's just something that doesn't translate into touch.
A physical keyboard for typing input is leagues better than any touch screen keyboard I've tried.
If you're at your desk, a track pad in front of you is worlds better than getting gorilla arm trying to work all your desktop mousing activities with your 30 inch touch screen.
But I can't agree that one can make a universal statement that alternatives are always better if they are possible.
I don’t foresee wanting an AVP for productivity. I see it as an entertainment device, and a bonus would be immersion within that entertainment.
Writing (with a keyboard) while watching a movie or listening to music would be cool too.
You can think of it as a very powerful iPad pro. One that can have multiple apps running up to a surprising limit.
The counter-argument is that I also tried to yolo into using the ipad as a primary machine when that came out and quickly came crawling back to my desktop after the initial excitement. This feels about halfway between desktop and ipad in terms of my use of it for non-consumer digital uses.
connecting it to my macbook and working on docs is just so much better than my current airbnb setup for productivity as well, the screen is crystal clear and I am on top of Haleakala, so easy to focus rapidly, and half a dozen other screens that I reference all a quick gaze away instead of a context switch away.
wish I liked movies more, the disney 3d stuff on it is really stunning, similarly the immersive apple tv stuff is pretty neat too.
wish there were more apps taking advantage of the 3d plane vs. just popping up another 2d plan in 3d space.
100% agree with the bugs, not entirely unexpected though so not too annoyed by them.
Still worth the pain though, I am sure the typing will get better with time. For now productivity tasks are mostly reserved for when I am VM'd from it to my mac.
So.. it's fine. But it's not better than a monitor.
Thank you! Finally a direct answer from someone in the trenches. Shame, I have high hopes for the Pico 5! :)
But yeah I heard of the budget cuts too. May not happen now
Ps: based on rumours and it may not happen due to the budget cuts at pico now
We're probably 3 to 4 generations away from having resolution equivalence for this use case.
iFixit said AVP averages 34 PPD. The pixels aren’t dense enough I can’t tell if they’re uniform or if (like most other headsets) they are denser in the center and more sparse at the edges
The AVP’s weight and nauseating passthrough negate its benefits. I couldn’t tolerate mine for more than 20 minutes.
It’s too blurry (Mac Virtual Display), and too limiting compared to external monitors. Maybe it’s better than just the laptop screen but I’m not sold on even that. Either way it can’t come close to replacing my monitors, maybe v2 or v3 will and I’ll reevaluate then, for now, it’s going back.
Father of the year right here.
Anyway, I just brush it off as tough boy talk. He did communicate and work it out with his significant other and she agreed. Not in the sense he said I am unavailable for a week good luck with your life see you in a week.
People around the world and throughout history sacrifice for their kids... we should all be so lucky. He's able to sacrifice from the comfort of home... some sacrifice in coal mines or on oil rigs or on long commutes to long days in factories.
Complaining that dad has to work to provide is a first world problem.
I really enjoy programming and find it fun/engaging. It’s still work, because it’s how I earn money.
Other people work as tour guides or travel writers. Do you see what they do as playing around traveling or as work?
Sure, you could make your hobby a job. But if they experiment with a device like this to see if it enhances their work it is kinda like the 80/20 rule at Google. It could turn out productive, inspiring. But I wouldn't want to bet on it. It wouldn't be the main task of his job.
You may not see it as work... but the guy is literally getting paid for it.
No offense but it doesn't matter what you see or what you think you see - what matters is what's really happening.
And what's really happening is this guy has gotten REALLY lucky: He's got a job where he can have "fun/play" doing something that pays his bills. That doesn't make his "sacrifice" anything less because it's enjoyable (sacrificing time with wife/kid(s)). It makes his sacrifice enjoyable but he still has to make the same sacrifice that parents around the world make on the daily.
I guess I'd ask you honestly... do you see professional streamers or gaming streamers as working? Destiny, Vaush, Asmond Gold, pewdiepie, etc? I know streamers that spend 12 hours a day online engaging in content to make money - and a few of them have kid(s). They are having fun and making money while working their asses off to better their lives and, presumably, their families lives.
They aren't slaving in a coal mine or sitting with dead looks in their eyes in a cubicle but they are making money and ends meet. Just because they are lucky (and work their asses off) doesn't mean they aren't also sacrificing.
But I digress. I'm lucky enough to love what I do as well so I think the fact this guy can provide for his family by playing with toy is fucking awesome.
As for the examples you mention, I only know Asmongold (and Pewdiepie from committing suicide). Asmongold is a child in an adult body. But I think that is true for a lot of influencers. I find them overrated but they can consider themselves lucky in their niche. Either way, they're exceptions, not the rule of thumb.
For example, soldiers on deployment or travel sales people, or people who work foe international organizations or migrant farmers… all have to leave home for weeks to months in order to earn money.
Where do you have ANY evidence that his kid is being neglected? We are literally talking about 1 week. 1 freaking week. A long week of over time.
"misogynistic"
lol working with his wife as a team to take care of their kid is misogyny? I'm sorry but you obviously have a different definition. Because there's nothing bad about sacrificing for your family - even if you have fun while doing so.
Just like my question about you having proof of anything bad about this exchange as one half of the couple... what proof do you have of anything nefarious, misogynistic (other than the wording you don't approve of) or being "pussy whipped". I question your motives as your statements show you have your own bias that makes having a real conversation with you questionable.
"exceptions, not the rule of thumb" Correct. They are exceptions because they have fun doing what they do. the vast majority of people don't enjoy what they do. They work to live. Most people have jobs - not careers they love. They make money to provide for those they love (even if that's only themselves).
The rule is people sacrifice for themselves and their family.
The only part of this conversation that's the exception is the fact that this guy gets to play with an over priced toy and gets paid for it. He's still sacrificing (and without proof of neglect or harm to wife/kid - at least no more than any other 9/5 job would be considered).
Nothing you've said challenges my position that he's lucky for doing it but he's still sacrificing for his family. Props to him.
Selfishness? sacrificing for family - both on the fathers side to provide but also on the mothers side to take care of the fort?
That's not selfishness. That's called being a good father. husband. wife. mother.
I know people who spend most of the year away from their family and who are not bad parents. Sometimes sacrifices must be made to make things grow and invest in the future. Don't be so easy to judge.
Self-deprecating humorous self-awareness is also a trifecta of positive signals to those that pick up on those frequencies.
based on everything tim has written that shows extreme self-awareness about his working/productivity style, and the fact that he makes a lot of money for his family by doing occasional multi-day binges of work, i think it's fair to give him the benefit of the doubt
Giving people the benefit of the doubt makes the world a better place.
So you think him not spending time with family isn't the same sacrifice that families around the world make every day in and out isn't a sacrifice?
Why do you think it's not a sacrifice? Because he enjoys his job? because it's "fun" and "entertaining"?
The problem here is that he is making a sacrifice - the sacrifice of giving his time to a career to provide for his family.
Let me ask you an honest question... if he spent that 40 hours in a cubicle and an addition 10 hours commuting to make less... would you consider that not a sacrifice? Of course you'd consider that a sacrifice - because he'd be giving his time to provide for his family.
So in this situation... he's giving his time to provide for his family.
Why does the fact he enjoys it/"it's playing with toys" challenge the fact that he's sacrificing his time to provide for family? Is it the "toy" aspect? Working from home? Jealousy about how lucky he is?
If he had actually flown somewhere would you consider him to be an irresponsible father?
The kids too.
In times of great distress I can imagine a parent being away temporarily being considered a hardship.
Otherwise, it’s good for kids to spend time with different configurations of parent. And grandparents or extended family if they are lucky.
I’ve similarly watched other videos and it’s good at that, the four immersive video examples are cool.
Window nav is meh, the eye tracking isn’t quite good enough. The windows aren’t small enough to be super useful when trying to do real work on the Mac, for productivity work it’s disappointing in this first version.
I can see how with future hardware you could actually wear all the time, leaving windows in certain locations around your house could be useful, especially if some were shared.
The potential is clear, but it’s still an early adopter device. For media (particularly video) consumption it’s great.
I think my prediction from 2021 held up well: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27583456
Give me SAO's 2 fingers gesture and I would consider it.
I wonder how will these headsets affect eyesight?