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Comment by moose_man | Hacker News Reader

It's a lot like AR before Vision Pro. The situation for the demo and reality didn't meet. I'm not trying to claim Vision Pro is perfect but it seems to do AR in the real world without the circumstances needing to be absolutely ideal.

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The Vision Pro is not doing well. Apple has cancelled the next version.[1] As Carmack says, AR/VR will be a small niche until the headgear gets down to swim goggle size, and will not go mainstream until it gets down to eyeglass size.

[1] https://www.msn.com/en-us/lifestyle/shopping/apple-shelves-n...

It was always the plan for Apple to release a cheaper version of the Vision Pro next. That the next version of the PRO has been postponed isn't a huge sign. It just seems that the technology isn't evolving quickly enough to warrant a new version any time soon.

> swim google size

The "Bigscreen Beyond" [0] is quite close, but doesn't have cameras - so at this stage it's only really good for watching movies and the like.

[0] https://store.bigscreenvr.com/products/bigscreen-beyond

That one does have 6DoF tracking, it's just based on the Valve Lighthouse system. Upside of that system is it's more privacy respecting.

Which it probably won't, because real life physics are not aware about roadmaps and corporate ads.

What physics are you talking about? Limits on power? Display? Sensor size? I ask because I’ve had similar feelings about things like high speed mobile Internet or mobile device screen size (over a couple of decades) and lived to see all my intuition blown away, so I really don’t believe in limits that don’t have explicit physical constraints behind them.

Lens diffraction limits. VR needs lenses that are small and thin enough while still being powerful enough to bend the needed light towards the eyes. Modern lenses need more distance between the screen and the eyes and they’re quite thick.

Theoretically future lenses may make it possible, but the visible light metamaterials needed are still very early research stage.

Apple approved ALVR few days ago too, clearly they're having issues at least wrt getting developer attention.

1: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/alvr/id6479728026

Your article states this differently. The development has not been canceled fully but re focused.

“and now hopes to release a more standard headset with fewer abilities by the end of next year.

That's marketing-speak for "cancelled".

I think both hardware and software in AR have to become unobtrusive for people to adopt it. And then it will be a specialized tool for stuff like maintenance. Keeping large amounts of information in context without requiring frequent changes in context. But I also think that the information overload will put a premium on non-AR time. Once it becomes a common work tool, people using it will be very keen to touch grass and watch clouds afterwards.

I don't think it will ever become the mainstream everyday carry proponents want it to be. But only time will tell...

Until there is an interface for it that allows you to effectively touch type (or equivalent) then 99% of jobs won't be able to use it away from a desk anyway. Speech to text would be good enough for writing (non technical) documentation but probably not for things like filling spreadsheets or programming.

But does what Apple has shown in its demos of the Vision Pro actually meet reality? Does it provide any value at all?

In my eyes, it's exactly the same as AI. The demos work. You can play around with it, and its impressive for an hour. But there's just very little value.

The value would come if it was something you would feel comfortable wearing all day. So it would need perfect pass through, be much much lighter and more comfortable. If they achieved that and can do multiple high resolution virtual displays then people would use it.

The R&D required to get to that point is vast though.

> can do multiple high resolution virtual displays

In most applications, it then would need to compete on price with multiple high resolution displays, and undercut them quite significantly to break the inertia of the old tech (and other various advantages - like not wearing something all day and being able to allow other people to look at what you have on your screen).

I take your point but living in a London flat I don't have the room for multiple high resolution displays. Nor are they very portable, I have a MBP rather than an iMac because mobility is important.

I do think we're 4+ years until it gets to the 'iPhone 1' level of utility though, so we'll see how committed Apple are to it.

That's what all these companies are peddling though. The question is - do humans actually NEED a display before their eyes for all awake time? Or even most of it? Maybe, but today I have some doubts.

Given how we as a society are now having significant second thoughts as to the net utility for everybody having a display in their pocket for all awake time, I also have some doubts.

it's very sad because it's sort of so near but so far kind of situation

It would be valuable if it could do multimonitor, but it can't. It would be valuable if it could run real apps but it only runs iPad apps. It would be valuable if Apple opened up the ecosystem, and let it easily and openly run existing VR apps, including controllers - but they won't.

In fact the hardware itself crosses the threshold to where the value could be had, which is something that couldn't be said before. But Apple deliberately crimped it based on their ideology, so we are still waiting. There is light at the end of the tunnel though.

> But Apple deliberately crimped it based on their ideology

It's in a strange place, because Apple definitely also crimped it by not even writing enough software for it inhouse.

Why can't it run Mac apps? Why can't you share your "screen configuration" and its contents with other people wearing a Vision Pro in the same room as you?

It is not really AR. Reality is not just augmented but captured first with camera. It can make someone dizzy.

It's the opposite of AR, it's VR augmented with real imagery.

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