Ask HN: Are you still using your Vision Pro?
Just curious if any of you are still actively using your Vision Pro, and if you are, what are you using it for?
* The sizing options are really confusing, and my measured fit (as determined by the app over a dozen runs) felt somewhat loose. Apple Store staff could not tell me what the numbers meant and could only size me through the app.
* There's not a lot of VR content available right now — just a few short (admittedly impressive) clips.
* I feel isolated when watching media, and it's also much harder to snack and get cozy.
* Gesture controls are (intrinsically) imprecise and frequently fire incorrectly — a serious regression from physical buttons or even touch input. Also, selection via gaze does not feel natural to me. I am itching for a physical Quest-like controller for selection and input.
* A Quest-like controller is also essential for gaming. You really can't do much with gesture controls, and a gamepad does not allow you to interact directly with the virtual world. In fact, most apps that I'd be interested in (painting, sculpting, etc.) would really benefit from physical controls. Drawing with gesture controls feels pretty bad.
* On that note, no Beat Saber, which is my killer app. And even if it did exist, I'm not sure I'd feel comfortable getting sweaty in a $4000 device.
* Mac display mirroring has latency, looks a bit grainy, and does not support 120Hz. Categorically worse than my existing physical displays.
* I want to use my third party mechanical keyboard, mouse, and headphones, but only Bluetooth accessories are really supported.
* It's not very portable. I'm not sure how I'd be able to take this anywhere in my carryon. (I don't usually check luggage.)
* I get a headache after a fairly short time of using the device. It's also stuffy.
* I can't build or run anything without approval by the Apple police. This does not feel like a general purpose computer and is unlikely to be the "future" of anything until the platform opens up, or is made to open up.
Oh well. Maybe I'll try again in a few years. In the meantime, I'll keep gaming on my Quest.
it’s wild that they advertise and promote it as something totally open where you can build and run anything you want
It’s hard to believe the guy I was replying to even bought a Vision Pro in the first place if he’s the kind of guy to say “Apple Police.”
Consuming content is great of course but the AVP has changed my content creation: I take way more panoramas and now spatial photos (Spatialify on iOS works well). I also bought an Insta X4 360 camera which, while a far cry from Apple's immersive content in resolution, can still be a really nice way to relive memories.
More content: Last year I started 3d scanning (using Scaniverse) sculptures and other art / items that catch my eye during my travels. The AVP makes it really easy to import and place them in my environment. When I'm working I'll often place a favorite sculpture next to me for company & as a reminder of a trip I took.
Finally, even after 4 months of use, it's still really fun and, from a tech perspective, astounding in terms of image quality, stability, 3D placement, integration in environment, etc. I love it and I can't wait for this tech to get better and better.
Much of the rest is about creating nostalgia and reliving a past trip through these.
Is there a paradox, or contradiction, in these themes?
I expected good productivity, and I expected to enjoy consuming content in the AVP.
The changes in how I capture memories I didn't expect but make sense to me retrospectively. For example, the first time you experience one of your panoramas in the AVP is the time your jaw drops and you tell yourself you really need to take more of these! :-)
I'll often have charts, etc. on a massive Safari "window" next to the virtual Mac screen, which is useful too.
Plus, side benefit for me who doesn't always have great posture, it helps me avoid being hunched over my laptop, I can place the screen nice and high in front of me.
Do you get any sense of the Glasshole Factor, in public, with this device? (that is : a general feeling of distrust from people who observe you operating in public with a high tech recording device).
In fact, few people know about or do this and when I show them they're often quite excited and ask how they can do it too. Always fun to share.
In general, I'm only using the AVP seated and not interacting with strangers (other than the odd flight attendant asking me what I want to drink :-)
I've had people ask me about the AVP, wonder what I'm doing in there, or (rarely) take pics of me. Doesn't bother me. I'd be curious too.
I have one for work purposes but also as a time capsule for the small humans in my care.
With the selfie stick, you can get nice angles, e.g. extending over castle battlements, which are fun to view in VR (as long as you don't have vertigo :-)
I'm also shoot 360 videos. A few precious ones I keep as 360 vids on the AVP, the rest get uploaded as unlisted vids on YT in 360 mode.
Some of my favorite vids are short clips filmed around a dinner table with the X4 in the middle. Really nice way to relive those moments and see the people you love all around you. Extra fun when everyone clinks their glasses together in a toast around the camera!
(I do programming, trading, consulting).
EDIT: Thought of one more thing... Immersive environments also help. Blocking out what's around me and escaping to, say, the top of a volcano or Mount Hood or Yosemite, increases my focus, esp. for deep work
BTW, it's not just sculptures. I've scanned rooms (mixed results), relief paintings, loved ones (mixed results but if my children weren't already grown I'd be scanning them at least once a year), and even food.
Food can be quite fun. I showed a restaurateur a scan of one of his appetizers (served on a round stone so it made for good scanning). I used the AR view to project it onto our table and joked "Now I can enjoy one whenever I feel like!" He was so excited that he downloaded Scaniverse on the spot and I showed him how to use it. After that, he took us under his wing and recommended all the dishes he was proudest of. (We still had to pay for them though ;-)
In general, regardless of what AR/VR device you have or plan to get, if you see one in your future, it's good to build a collection of 3D / immersive content.
Edit: there was something really cool actually, that I think doesn’t get talked about enough. Pooping on Yosemite. Peak futurism.
Is the frame rate really the limiting factor here, or something algorithmic in the tracking (like smoothing out noise)?
As a general statement, no, vision isn’t as time-sensitive as hearing, so the timing requirements aren’t as precise. But when it comes to head and hand tracking, the brain’s also doing predictive sensor fusion, and even “unnoticeably” small delays can be disorienting or nauseating. (Ocular fixation is the most sensitive, but hand-eye coordination is also pretty important to the brain!)
The important number in VR is “motion-to-photon” latency. Over 20ms starts to be noticeable to most people; 50ms starts to make most people uncomfortable. That’s the total budget for sensor fusion, simulation, rendering, and display, and that’s just for the bare-minimum experience that doesn’t make people immediately ill.
You can do a lot with prediction and late updates in screen space, which is what makes VR possible at all on current hardware— but it’s hard to make up for having sensor data delayed by possibly 150% of the total time budget :)
Honestly that seems like the primary use case whenever the topic is mentioned. I'm sure there are cool innovative uses for them, but porn is always going to be at the forefront.
Thanks, "crankin' my hog" was not in the Apple supplied Oxford Dictionary of English, but this confirms my guess...
Passing app review doesnt matter, there are a number of subscription websites (sexlikereal, wankz, czechvr etc) which offer UHD uncompressed 8K MP4 videos for download. It is entirely possible (and quite easy) to download these UHD videos to a Mac, mount the folder containing the goon material on the Mac as a drive on the Vision Pro (local network drive), and stream the video to the AVP using a 3rd party 3d video player; Moonplayer is the pick of the bunch at the moment.
I must say the experience is pretty damn good. I can see people getting addicted to it an unhealthy way. The sites mentioned above are only producing 8K at the moment, I think the AVP can handle more pixels, and there are new cameras coming on to the market (https://x.com/Blackmagic_News/status/1800273164867658228) which will really crank things up a notch.
There is a tremedous market oppurtunity available here, its niche at the moment, but once you experience good quality VR porn its hard to go back to the flat stuff.
I should probably get a GF.... sigh.
FYI there's nothing inherently wrong about porn or sex work! It's great! A lot of people like it, you should try it sometime!
No, I am not offended that anyone has preferences or opinions. What I am responding to is this language:
> Neither a Vision Pro owner nor much of a hog cranker
> native applications designed to aid manipulating oneself
> dead-eyed men and women rutting on camera
...which is intended to indicate disdain towards people who produce or consume pornographic material. I think that this person is going out of their way to be an unkind contrarian regarding porn, and in my opinion that deserves a little light ridicule!
The only intention was to rejoin OP's "hog cranking" euphemism with some fun ones from the English lexicon. (That it appears to have caused you to make a spectacle of yourself for no reason whatsoever is a bit of a bonus, though.)
I don't disagree, but I think interactive sex apps (with virtual partner or teledildonics) would be a much better experience that video playback (vr or not). Higher image quality, interactivity, and Im sure some sex-toy manufacturer(s) has a bluetooth/wifi API already for additional "immersion". There's a market for a much hornier Replika, if Apple would allow it. As for ethical & security implications of such an app, I'll leave as an exercise to the reader.
https://apps.apple.com/app/id1134925341
It’s available for iPhone in Japan only. I don’t think they have added Vision Pro support though.
The app is also on the much cheaper Meta Quest, also limited to Japan.
Its also my preferred place to consume cinema. I have a short throw projector and sound system. I prefer the AVP. The image is so crisp and the 3D is so good, that its better than a decent home movie theater.
Its my preferred place to watch F1.
Environments genuinely soothe me.
Breathe works on this platform, it annoys me on the watch.
I would watch every sport and documentary in spatial if the was a thing. The tastes have me excited for the future.
Also very interested
Hell if you had a feed for car positions one could make a virtual model of the track and watch it top down.
How do you interact with it, ooi? Hand-tracking, voice, ... ? (Can't really touch the headset or controller with wet and/or busy hands).
> I really wish there was an easy way to put the older 3d blu-ray movies on the device to watch movies,
Oh there is, it just involves the high seas route. Also most movie-players on these devices suck a bit, i.e. they are either "too immersive" and make it difficult to use pass-through, or too useless like the builtin one.
There are actually some tools that exist to convert blu-rays to SBS 3D if you’re looking to go legit.
I also use it as my hotel setup when I travel for work. It’s great having a full size monitor wherever I need. I’m excited for the coming improvements with vision os 2.0.
I’m still not comfortable using it in public, though. It feels ostentatious, but I will try it the next time I fly with the family. Having people I trust around me will make me more willing to go immersive while traveling.
Movies you're watching for the plot, no doubt.
I spend approximately 60-70% of my time working with the headset on, connected to my MacBook. It’s actually better for me than my physical display because of the Zeiss inserts - I usually don’t wear glasses, so due to inserts, the desktop is subjectively crisper than the monitor :) I really can’t wait for visionOS 2 improvements in the virtual display feature.
Most of the media content I consume alone, and Vision Pro is perfect for that, especially watching something before sleep - the headset does not light up the entire room (unlike a phone/tablet screen) and thus does not mess up my wife’s sleep.
One thing I surprisingly don’t use it for are “immersive” videos and other experiences like VR or MR games. I’m not quite sure why - I always plan to try something out, but never do it actually.
Isn't there this front display for the pass-through eyes? That switches off automatically if there is no interaction, or it's just not very bright?
It also still hasn't found the "killer apps" just yet, but it's clear Apple is still heavily invested into this considering there's nearly 30 sessions on VisionOS at WWDC this week.
I also have this one, https://infinityone3d.com/en/collections/apple which I didnt like as much, but people on /r/visionpro rate it equally with the one above, so its largely a personal thing do with the fit accounting for the dimensions of your head.
Either way, both are a massive step up from the stock experience IMO.
Some of the games were really fun, most notably Walkabout Minigolf and Super Hot VR.
Some of the exercise programs were pretty neat, most notably The Thrill of the Fight and Les Mills Body combat.
It did not work well as a replacement for either a TV or a computer monitor. The device was just too bulky and inconvenient and the software too clunky. So much easier to just use a laptop, if I want to work / watch on the go.
In the end, none of the experiences were compelling enough to keep using it regularly.
I can't imagine using an AVP though, without controllers it really isn't suited to fitness.
It was really such a good game that I'm surprised we haven't seen more stuff like it. Of all the futuristic VR experiences I've tried (even HL: Alyx) Beat Saber was the only one that really felt effortlessly futuristic.
It was neat to play an FPS where ducking for cover worked, reloading involved actually having to pull a magazine from your belt and jam it in, you could duck behind something and blind fire over it.
It mostly worked very well. The annoyances were around how physically exhausting constantly ducking and weaving was (and sweating into the foam), and getting lost in the moment and nearly sprinting out of the "safety box" into a coffee table.
BeatSaber is pretty stationary, so is FitXR. I've never tried a moving around the room/box VR experience (like Thrill of the fight).
Funny, I'm the opposite.
I was excited to try it because it seems so much more hygienic -- you can wipe it down and the foam won't degrade. But I quickly discovered that it got all clammy and sticky on my skin, and then humidity would build up and fog up the lenses. What! Kind of the same way swim goggles fog up.
Whereas the regular foam padding is... perfectly fine. No sweating, no fog, no humidity, nothing, because enough air seems to pass through and nothing is suffocating your skin.
And I'm not even a sweaty person or anything, not at all. And I'm just reclining watching movies, it's not even for movement. But the silicone layer over the foam just creates this airtight (enough) seal which is just bad all around.
I have no idea if those are safe to use on those lenses, but it might be worth a look.
It is too bad Facebook doesn't lean more into BeatSaber and rhythm game/fitness experiences, they are simple, easy to sell, and are pretty satisfying. But I guess it really isn't good enough for their product, they really need metaverse to take off.
> [150 words about a totally different product and platform]
Vision Pro isn't something I would use regularly, but you're bringing opinions about a 14" CRT monitor to a thread soliciting opinions on a specific 30" 1080P TV. I think we are beyond the stage where useful generalizations about "the state of AR/VR" can be drawn from exposure to a single device.
The disparity in screen quality and OS sophistication between Oculus 3 and Vision Pro is enormous (and both platforms are self-evidently in their infancy).
Whether you think they have succeeded or not, and whether you think the price point is reasonable or not, Vision Pro is as different to Quest 3 as a BlackBerry Bold 9700 was to a Nokia 7650.
Each have their pros, each have their cons (well the mvp has mostly cons being the worst of the 3 but hey its having a crack).
For that same reason, I dont dare to compare Vision to any other VR (and I tried a few, not Vision Pro tho).
Post-M series I hear this from time to time and always ask people to show me something in the same weight class with equivalent battery life, performance, and screen quality.
Has the market finally caught up to the point where your statement is true? (Not asking you to research, just curious if any spring to mind from any pre-purchase research you did.)
> Putting aside the enormous hardware difference between the two
I think this is far too charitable.
1. We are a largely technical audience.
2. We are discussing a product category where, per the last ten years of discussion about early hardware drawbacks (and the critical consensus on Vision Pro), the screen inescapably defines the experience.
Anyone on HN describing Vision Pro's screen as "the same shiz" as Quest 3 must either be a troll or operating with a knowledge gap so vast as to make meaningful discussion very, very difficult.
Like, if you don't understand the math, read the reviews and trust that this is not a global cabal of Apple apologists making shit up. Occam's Razor: this is a $3500 device where 35% of the BOM is the screens ($550-ish), compared to a $500 device where ~19% of the BOM is screens ($80). Of course they aren't in the same league.
Law of diminishing returns. If I only need 8 hours of battery life, the fact that the M6 MacPro has a 48-day battery won't move me - a Framework/Dell with a 12-hour battery life would be on par as "good enough for me" on the battery life metric.
But it will. Suddenly you don't need to worry about putting it on charger on the evening, it will still be there second day with enough charge to leave you worry free. It's a fundamental change that competition just doesn't get.
Oculus Quest 3 screens: LCD displays with a per-eye resolution of 2064×2208p (4.56 million pixels per eye)
Apple Vision Pro screens: micro-OLED displays with a per-eye resolution of 3,680x3,140 (11.5 million pixels per eye)
Disproof by counterexample. Perhaps you could refine your theory?
It's all just phonecall. Goal is provide phonecalling. It no matter whether it iPhone or landline phone. Goal is talky talk. Phone go talky talk.
> it would be entirely non-immersive because moving your upper body
Not sure what you mean by this?
Even so, it’s not about perfect immersion. It’s about having the best view of the game sitting from home.
>Not sure what you mean by this?
Imagine full 3d scan of the players in real time. You could move around the court and watch them play.
Excited about the updates to the OS, my goal was always to use it for work, as an alternative posture mode, but couldn't get used to it at first.
Are there any other killer apps other than movies these days?
Weird. I really enjoyed our toddlers
One gripe I had was that I couldn't see the keyboard in an immersive environment, so I had to keep reorienting myself if I took my hands off of it. Now with visionOS 2 you can have the keyboard appear in an environment, so I'm excited to try that. The ability to have an ultra wide screen is a nice addition as well.
Mostly it's the best cinema screen I've ever viewed in my life. "Avatar 2", in 3D and at 48fps, is an absolutely stunning viewing experience. I wish high-framerate movies were more common. They look incredible.
Maybe Apple scheduled this feature for a later release? This is something that can probably be done efficiently 100% in software.
Doubtful. The data transfer needed between the two devices is not trivial.
Video would work well, audio might be a little harder to sync exactly correctly.
Apps are going to be really really hard.
https://www.theverge.com/2024/4/2/24118863/apple-vision-pro-...
https://www.theverge.com/2024/4/2/24118863/apple-vision-pro-...
So one of the big advantages is that it saves you from turning on the overhead light?
Even in MVD I felt incredibly limited and just wanted to go back to using my actual displays. Within a week I had to force myself to put it on, I wasn’t drawn to it. Honestly I think I enjoyed writing blog posts about it more than I enjoyed actually using the device.
If/when MVD and passthrough get better I’ll probably buy it (new model) again but for now it’s just not good enough, especially for the price. If it was $1K or less I might have kept it.
But, that is to be expected, the form factor isn't convenient yet. When mobile phones weighed 2KG few people used them on a daily. When it's miniaturized into the form factor of glasses, we'll all be daily users. That seems to me more like a question of when, not if.
At $3500, in this economy, it's a no-go for all but the most die-hard of Apple fans.
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Here's my take on it.
The Apple Vision Pro was built for being a computer that encompasses space. Not meant to be a “headset”, and not approaching the problem as a “headset”, but more-so an immersive head-mounted computer. So all the preconceptions people’ve had about “headset” in the past are kinda thrown out the window. Sure, the Quest 3 is similar in that it’s got a focus on AR instead of VR, but it’s still built for gaming first - we can see by the app library and what the Quest store pushes for its apps - it’s gaming.
Similar story with other headsets - primary focus is gaming. Be it immersive experiences in gaming (KayakVR, etc.), competitive gaming (Breachers, Pavlov, etc.), or social (VRChat, Resonite, Rec Room, Bigscreen, etc.), it’s still gaming.
The Apple Vision Pro is built on a completely different foundation and philosophy from other headsets. That’s why, and how, I use mine. Otherwise, it would just kinda be in the corner as a “really high resolution, really good eye and hand tracked, but otherwise very uncomfortable and heavy headset with too many compromises” sorta deal.
My Quest 2 for example, I bought that simply to tear it apart and have fun with it. I did just that, and now it’s non-functional (I have to fix it up at some point). My Pico 4 Enterprise, I bought with the express intent of getting eye and face tracking working without needing to get a Quest Pro (with worse compromises in my mind, for my use-case at least).
My Bigscreen Beyond is my main headset for all VR experiences as it compromises on things I’m okay with compromising on, and shines in places I really want it to. Ultimately, it’s a great all-around social and immersive headset while also being great with being competitive due to its small form factor. However, it’s still all gaming. The compromise that stops me from using the Beyond over the Vision Pro in certain use-cases is: - not wireless - not running its own OS - doesn’t have passthrough - doesn’t have eye and hand tracking - relies on SteamVR (which is great for gaming, but really janky for anything other than gaming)
My Apple Vision Pro is my main headset for being an extension of myself and becoming more connected with the tools I regularly use — my computers. I pretty regularly use it when connecting to my macbook and my desktop PC (via Moonlight) so I can bring the screens with me wherever I go in the house, or even have a significantly more convenient viewing experience for content being consumed. I.e. - when doing things around the house like - cooking food - folding laundry - cleaning around the house - etc. - when lying down in bed, it’s much easier to stare at the ceiling than crane my neck over to look at a laptop screen
Plus, the Vision Pro has significantly better (in my experience) hand-based interactions simply due to it having the selection laser based on eye tracking. While there are false negatives and false positives with eye tracking, or even hand tracking for finger taps, I’ve found it to be significantly less frustrating than the Quest 2 and Quest Pro hand tracking along with the Pico 4 Enterprise hand tracking too. This is mostly because, to select, you’d need to pinch your forefinger and thumb together (on quest) or move your thumb from a thumbs-up to a fist (on pico) to select. This inherently changes where the cursor is pointing, so I’d end up selecting the same button at least three times before it actually hits. Sometimes the cursor would show that I’m selecting it, but it doesn’t actuate the “click” because I — apparently — didn’t tap my finger hard enough.
So I basically find that the Vision Pro — while having so many faults in general — is the best that I’ve experienced in terms of system interaction by hand tracking, and also best in class for passthrough in terms of latency and camera distortion. It doesn’t make me regularly annoyed to use, and actually removes some distractions based on me needing to learn a whole different set of things because of inherent weaknesses in the hardware and software (in the case of Quest and Pico). VisionOS just makes a lot more sense to me, despite my understanding the technicalities behind the android-based operating systems a lot better than VisionOS (every day, I’m learning something new about VisionOS)
I think a lot of people rag on the Vision Pro just because a) It’s Apple. It’s easy to rag on them for anything b) It’s $3500 c) It’s not even got good software (they’re looking for something that Apple didn’t want to consider under their paradigms, but blaming Apple for being intentional and not pursuing those experiences) d) It’s heavy (entirely fair)
I think, while I’ve been praising the Vision Pro, I’ve also been critical about a lot of aspects on it. I don’t see many people actually being critical about the Vision Pro, but more-so just whiny and complain-y. There are actual discussions that can go on and take place with this hardware, software, and experience, but people (and this is a pet peeve of mine) ignore all that and just complain because it’s fun to complain and not fun to actually discuss, understand, and bring forth ideas based on said discussion, on how this could benefit everyone — both in the VR / AR / HMD industry as well as outside of it.
anyway, </rant>
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For context, I am a heavy user of VR, with nearly 400 hours in the Beyond since December 2023.
I don't recommend it for non developers until there is more content, but it's a really neat dev kit device that shows where the future is headed.