Takeaways from the Vision Pro after 6 months
matthewball.co
matthewball.co
They currently only do effective 1080p, but I suspect 4k is around the corner. The devices are rather unremarkable in of themselves. They're essentially just a Sony micro-screen with lens systems.
https://www.sony-semicon.com/en/products/microdisplay/oled.h...
I could live with having to move my eyes and not my head to see the corners but everything is blurry, especially around the edges, getting much worse on the corners. Even the centre is not so crisp!
These glasses are fine for entertainment, watching videos, playing games. Working on them for a short time in the lack of something better is ok. I would never want to use them for hours of work though.
Meta is working on a wristband that let's you do gestures without a camera seeing your hands. But typing really needs to be tactile I think.
Someone needs to put straps on one of those broken-in-half keyboards so I can sit in a sensory deprivation tank with just Vim and Firefox. And cereal and a piss jug. My idea of heaven.
- Awesome technology.
- Strong “wow” moment.
- Doesn’t do anything particularly better than the devices you already have.
It’s technology in search of a problem. There are legitimate problems it solves, but they are always elusively niche.
In addition, it turns out that five screens isn’t as useful when there’s only one you, who can do only one thing at a time. It saves a few clicks for most, not much more; and certainly not enough convenience to wear a brick on your head.
If people found multiple screens so useful that it’s worth lugging an extra bag around, external 13” monitors should be bestsellers.
While I mostly agree... I partially disagree.
IMO, the problem isn't so much about screens not proving to be helpful - but about good screens. Here in The Netherlands it's very common to find assistants/secretaries having multiple monitors. Heck, (some of?) the staff at the court in The Hague have curved ultrawide monitors. Evidently people recognize the benefits of screen real estate.
The big problem, IMO, is that "standard" portable screens - 99% of which are 16:9 - are simply not tall enough. My 13.5" FW13 screen (3:2 ratio) is about as tall as a 15" 16:9 screen, but is much smaller than a 15" laptop. Windows particularly is excellent/terrible at having a ton of horizontal bars, making usable vertical height terribly little. Why would someone bring another monitor to see more bars?
Right now, the individual pixels are about the size of a human blood cell(!), and yet, the panels for each eye are not quite 4K.
Not quite 4K, for your entire FOV. As iFixit notes, for a virtual desktop inside that FOV, forget about it looking anything like a good 4K monitor. The Vision Pro can have 3,386 PPI and it’s still no monitor substitute.
https://www.ifixit.com/News/90409/vision-pro-teardown-part-2...
I have a 32:9 curved ultrawide monitor that I bought for games but has ended up invaluable for work (software dev). It's nigh perfect to divide into 3-4 full-size panes and gives enough space to have 6+ documents open and easily readable simultaneously, in a way I think would take three separate monitors to awkwardly emulate otherwise (and even then you'd lose the benefit of being able to go from 3 to 4 main groupings and back as needed).
The downside is, of course, the thing weighs over 30 pounds and is completely ungainly. Good luck setting it up or moving it without two people.
This is nonsense. I have essentially 6 screens on my desk, it it absolutely is very useful. Just because you can't imagine it being useful doesn't mean other people can't or don't take advantage of the extra screen real estate.
That said, I'd never use a VR/AR headset strapped to my face 8 hours a day to replace my 6 high-resolution screens. And I don't need to move my screens from place to place. If I'm not at home, that mean's I'm doing something else that isn't working, and that's a good thing.
> It’s technology in search of a problem. There are legitimate problems it solves, but they are always elusively niche.
6 screens is "elusively niche." It will never be a mass-market attraction that convinces people to strap on a headset.
On a similar note, it's almost but not quite good enough to replace the displays of my working/gaming desk setup, and a version 2 or 3 with a slightly denser display - if it was actually comfortable enough to wear sitting up for more than an hour or two - would be a serious contender to replace several high-end monitors plus my audio setup.
To sum it all up, I think the 'killer app' here is the one that's so simple it seems kind of self-referential - having a display on your face instead of in the world. The UX and the display quality are already 75-100% of the way to filling that role. The basic problem is that the hardware is just too heavy and uncomfortable, so the value prop vanishes because you can't actually use it comfortably for 8-16 hours a day.
The problem is that, at the end of the day, that's just a feature, not a benefit.
It reminds my of the ongoing push for speech interfaces. Supposedly they are "more natural" but in reality, even when you have a screen, the keyboard is still significantly better (even if it's virtual like on a phone)
I know that some people even use voice assistants to do things like set timers, reminders, or initiate calls
I do mainly use voice to control my watch, which means in practice it's pretty much a read-only device (which is just fine for me).
> Think times when you can't call the person but need to send them a quick message, eg noisy festival or loud bar.
Aren't these precisely cases where speech doesn't work? Too noisy to hear you; too noisy for you to hear the message.
Is it the same rhythm & movement games like first-gen VR (slicing fruits, hitting beats, etc.) or is there something new and better these days?
The other big player is Supernatural. This is a monthly sub but has an extensive and growing catalog of boxing workouts with top notch music and impressive environments. If you are going to be serious and put in the time in a vr workout app, the sub price is a good deal.
Great way of putting it. It’s the shiny new iThing that nobody asked for. Feels more like a poor excuse to fill their quota of releasing something as significant as the iPhone. Especially considering everything else is just a rehash of iPhone technology.
It seems like there are several high technological barriers to surmount though. I don't expect to see that kind of AR for decades.
These are a start.. taking the opposite approach of the Apple device and limiting functionality to what will actually fit in a reasonable form factor right now.
No visual display included, because that would require a clunkier form factor still.
I've got a Quest headset and the thing causes a lot of pressure on my sinuses, making it unwearable for more than about 15 minutes at a time. There are no AR/VR headsets that I'd be willing to strap on to my face for more than about 10 or 15 minutes.
Today's products, even AVP, are way, WAY too big and inconvenient in 50 different little ways to be seriously used for anything.
It's a cool device, but does Apple have the balls to stick with it, and built it into the platform they believe it can be?
My magic 8-ball says: Doubtful
Which Apple device has Apple abandoned recently?
Considering how long Apple supports its other products, I'd take a chance on Vision Pro before a Google product. My nine-year-old iPhone 6S got a software update a couple of weeks ago.
Still, before I'd drop that kind of money on a device, I'd like to see an Apple Graveyard website, like the Google Graveyard site, to reassure myself.
It isn't Apple v Google, it's Apple v the ecosystem it needs other people to build for this to take off.
The iPhone took off because the web browser + Youtube app on it had all the content anybody needed at the time.
The Apple Vision Pro debuted six months ago. I was hesitant to provide any detailed thoughts on the device and its implications until I (and others) had a few months to use it. Here are my eight takeaways on the Apple Vision Pro after six months.
Takeaway #1: Apple Did Not (and Does Not) Want to Manage Expectations for the Vision Pro
-- Talks about keynote and marketing quotes from the day of the launch
-- Revolutionary company believes their product is revolutionary.
Takeaway #2: The Vision Pro Probably Cost Tens of Billions to Develop
-- Company spent truckload of money making a new product
Takeaway #3: The Vision Pro Is Not Really From The Future
-- Talks about what Zuckerberg thinks. This isnt really a "takeaway", nor a "personal experience"
Takeaway #4: EyeSight is An Expensive Feature —and Not Worth It
-- First true experience, and interesting to read
Takeaway #5: The Vision Pro is, Today, Mostly a VR device (Even Though Apple Claims Otherwise)
-- Good. VR headset is being used as a VR headset.
Takeaway #6: The Benefits of Using a Vision Pro Fall Significantly Short of its Drawbacks
-- The product isnt as revolutionary as we thought folks.
Takeaway #7: Developer Adoption Remains a Problem
-- Not really a personal experience, but an observation.
Takeaway #8: Apple has Promptly Reshaped Terminology, Customer Perceptions, and Competitor Plans
-- Has it though?
So many words to say Vision Pro is a disappointing mess. Of the 8 takeaways, only 2 takeaways were made based on experience. Others were either fluff, or repeating news articles or mere observations.
So you're spending $3500, a serious chunk of change to most people, to get a somewhat passable facsimile of the devices the headset replaces. That doesn't seem reasonable to me.
(I will say I use the double-loop strap instead of the adjustable head-band you see in the ads all the time. The top loop seems to take enough weight off of your cheeks where it's comfortable enough for all-day wear)
If it was at most, the same cost as a Macbook Pro or ideally a Macbook Air I might think about getting one.
I'm able to get them for my Quest 2, however.
Come on people, full 3d world where there are pipes representing all the IPC and network connections, random arbitrary switches and buttons you can hook up to automation scripts, unlimited windows you can program how they are created / moved/ and managed and manipulated. for ALL operating systems, not reinventing the damn wheel for every operating system. This will never be in ubiquitous use unless it does universal generic OS interface
edit: also, i'm an apple fanboy and still very disappointed in how poorly apple handled the launch. They spend billions on R&D and wont even throw a few million at some game developers to port to the platform? what the fuck?
Porting good games might cost more than a few millions, considering that Metal is a proprietary graphics stack that doesn't have good support (or at all) in AAA engines.
I'm pretty sure I remember Apple demonstrating hooking it up to an Xbox controller. I think the only thing more bog standard than that is an Atari 2600 joystick.
Of course, that's leaving aside that the AVP is (for good or ill) obviously targeted at working adults and not kids or even college students.