Traveling with Apple Vision Pro
azadux.blog
azadux.blog
Note that if you have an older (lightning) iPhone, don't bother with these. They require a pair of dongles. Not only does that make things really awkward, but one of the dongles ends up apparently blocking HDCP, and prevents you from using anything but ... your own... downloaded content.
update: nvmd. I found this - https://vroptician.com/prescription-lens-inserts/nreal-air
Edit: yes, it appears it has a passthrough for displaying an external device - it does introduce a little latency though.
It's finding that weakness that can sometimes be the hard part, but deadlifts use the whole damn back so they're great to cover that area.
That being said, the body loves to try and compensate, so I didn't find proper relief with home workouts (and often just aggravated things), I needed all the gym machines to properly isolate muscles so my body wouldn't try and cheat. Trying random machines is also a great way to identify weaknesses.
But on a 14-hour trans-continental flight, you've gotta have something to do. If nothing else, to distract you from how uncomfortable it is to be effectively confined to your seat + a few feet of narrow walkway for that long. That's more confined than a prison cell!
Killing time is a rather slower flight experience than being unconscious.
I'm very happy WiFi continues to be an expensive opt-in product. If it was always-on, I'm sure I'd break the above habit.
Outside of flying, I have no temptation or desire to take them thankfully, so a prescription with ten pills lasts me literally years.
Real question, never tried any.
Slept like a baby with munchies being the only side effect
I wish I could go to sleep on a plane. I’m someone who can sleep in most vehicles. Unfortunately it’s that same reason I can, which is why I shouldn’t.
The reason airlines don’t allow CPAP to be plugged in is because they don’t want people to suffocate if the power goes out in the cabin. But that’s just bonkers because CPAP masks have an escape valve for that purpose already.
In the end, I gave up arguing with the airlines and just keep myself busy on flights. It makes the travel much less comfortable but the one upside is I almost never have jet lag.
The routine part, I think, is what took the "I won't sleep on this long flight" anxiety away somehow, because I started learning the rhythm of the flight. For example, there is no point to try and sleep until the initial meal is served, you'll just get woken up anyway. So now I just spend that time thinking and daydreaming and being bored, then I quietly eat my meal but stop at feeling overly fully, and by the time it's over I start to get tired.
I also realized that a sleeping mask is a great aid for me (on the other hand, I don't need earplugs/earphones). This came as a great surprise, as I don't typically need darkness to sleep well, but something about the sensory deprivation in the plane setting seems to do the trick.
What I'm saying is, I used to describe myself as the "I don't sleep on planes" guy for a good decade, but then it started working; don't give up yet.
BTW, to give this a software dimension: I was recently on a flight with an airline I hadn't used before, and I really liked a UI in their in-flight infotainment that showed the entire flight as a timeline with all meaningful events penciled in (when the meals are, etc.) and a recommendation during which blocks to sleep. That was really nice and thoughtful.
Do you recall which airline this was? Given similar pricing, this seems like a useful differentiator that would sway my decision of which airline to pick.
It was Finnair from Berlin to Seoul, via Helsinki.
Edit: I found a YouTube video showing a version of this feature from 8 years ago, but I think the one I saw was a bit more refined: https://youtu.be/5-CrsPAZslg - still, interesting that it's this old and I haven't seen it anywhere else.
A BiPAP machine uses 50-150 Watts, according to a random Google query, so you're looking at somewhere between 500 and 1400 Wh of total storage to get your 9 hours of sleep on a plane.
So what you're looking for is (a) a way to daisychain these batteries together so that you don't need to wake up ever 40 minutes to 2 hours to swap batteries and (b) a way to plug in your BiPAP machine, if your battery packs are all USB-C and your BiPAP isn't.
For this reason BiPAPs have much more beefy motors so they can ramp up and down quickly. Or perhaps two separate motors, I have never taken one apart (I have normal CPAPs which is basically just a pressure fan in a box with some regulation electronics)
But anyway my point is, a normal CPAP doesn't use that much power. It may use more than that if a humidifier is used (which is probably not a bad idea on a plane, but it requires distilled water which is an issue to bring on the plane in sufficient quantity). Because the humidifier is just a heater and heaters use lots of power.
I don't use a humidifier, my CPAP has a PSU of about 60W but I doubt it uses more than 20. The problem is more that they are not USB-C powered, nor are there official USB-C converters for it. I could probably construct one but bringing home-built electronics on a plane is probably not a great idea either.
So yeah I don't think this will be a great option tbh. If power is provided on the plane it would work but I've never seen this on my flights except in business/first.
Given 100Wh batteries, I've wondered if one could kludge a TSA-compatible carry-on electric mobility device, like skateboard wheels plus selfie sticks, as a one-bag travel scooter. My hungry laptop already needs several. Or carry a conversion kit for an "amazon, use, then give away" inexpensive manual kick scooter.
Travel CPAPs are a thing but you can't just buy one where I live. They're only supplied by the medical service here, and they don't do travel versions. It's not allowed to buy one yourself (and they're very expensive, around 700 bucks).
Ah, ok. Tnx. I assumed availability(eg [1]), so with a $1k-ish cost similar-order to travel, I wandered off looking for other obstacles.
The HME plugs used with travel CPAPs instead of a humidifier, with calcium chloride foam to transfer heat and moisture from exhalation to inhalation, looked interesting tech with winter coming. But for day-ish replacement.
And yeah the Resmed Airmini and Breez Z2 are the only ones I've seen for sale in my previous country (where it was legal to buy them personally if you have a prescription) but they added up to well over 1000 euros with the battery kit which for some weird reason is not included. For my country (medium-wage) that's pretty steep.
Now you've got me wondering if that's even possible. Ankara to Singapore? Durban to Algiers?
Edit: to be clear, I was nitpicking "trans continental", ie., flights within the same continent.
There are direct flights from Madrid that take around 13-14 hours.
So transcontinental is accross the same continent. Intercontinental is between separate continents.
Popularly known as “raw dogging” or “barebacking” a flight, apparently.
I suppose most people that want to "raw dog" a flight will fall asleep eventually, so I guess there's that. But I think getting buzzed and just slipping into a bad nap for like 12 hours is a bit different, at least to my mind.
That sounds an awful lot like idleness.
Idleness is then just a religious (Protestant Christian?) spin on a perfectly normal thing, much like masturbation.
I think it's honestly a great moment for cultural leveling. There's always a couple classics in the machine. I (un)seriously judge people who feel the need to get Wifi access on flights so that they can just chat on Discord. You have an excuse to just watch a movie!
I've gotten the AVP demo at Apple HQ 3 times now, twice before release day. I really like it, can't imagine dropping $5000 of my own cash on it. Maybe for V2. I had a similar reaction to the Airpods Max. V2 is here. Meh. In this case, my boss has indicated we can get a few for testing, but the check's still in the mail. I have a certified-for-actual-flight-training VR system next to my desk at the office and have used that more than anyone else in the office that I'm aware of. So despite some of the most compelling, hard, spatial problems on Earth, medicine and national defense - everything from protein docking to casualty evacuation in contested environments, I'm hanging tight for now.
good video. now i have two excuses for the flight bloody Mary.
Ended up selling my Deck and using a much lighter handheld instead.
My understanding is that I can just use them as an external monitor, so if I'm traveling I could plug in my linux laptop and just have an external monitor to work on and could play music through them at the same time.
That sounds really tempting to me, travel work setups are always sub optimal. I have a portable external monitor, and can bring my mechanical keyboard, and if there's a spare TV I might also use it.
But it's still not the same as a proper home setup.
Even for working on a couch, it would be nice to have a screen in front of you so you don't have to slouch.
My understanding is that they can be used standalone as a monitor, or if you want to actually do VR stuff, play VR games etc, you need to buy a "XREAL Beam" or "XREAL Beam Pro" which does the VR apps etc?
Not too sure on the differences between Air, Air 2, Air 2 pro etc, but for my requirements they would all probably be fine.
I use the Xreal Air 1 with the Beam on my Thinkpad X1 and it's great. I really recommend it for flights. I don't understand why it hasn't gotten more popular. I can use my laptop comfortably for many hours, which makes long flights a lot more tolerable.
I only use them for laptop productivity. Not sure about VR stuff.
Or they intentionally want to confuse people
Air: the originals, still rather good, just reinforce the fragile temples
Air 2: the current standard, pile of minor upgrades and higher durability
Air 2 Pro: same as the Air 2 with an electronic dimming option for the lenses
Air 2 Ultra: the Air platform dev kit
The very bottom of the Air 2 page has an Air/2/Pro comparison.
Make no mistake though, the data brokers are foaming at the mouth to get access to high-resolution constantly-streaming video content that includes your face, your location, and your activities. Imagine the sorts of things that are going to be sold to whoever is buying.
"Jake Jacobs, who is married, is striking up a lengthy conversation with the young woman seated next to him. His wife might be interested in ads for divorce lawyers."
"Jeff Jones is taking a middle-of-the-week flight to San Jose, and he just finished writing an email to a recruiter from another company who is based out of that city. His company is paying the data broker for intel on employees who may be shopping around, so let's get this info to them stat."
"Jennifer Smith looks to be 3 months pregnant and is flying from Texas to Colorado. She's reading a Planned Parenthood pamphlet. The State of Texas passed a law in 2026 requiring data brokers to report on such activities, so of course we'll let them know."
As competing products come along that are cheaper than the Apple doohickies in part because of the subsidies they get from the data brokers, portable VR headsets are going to bring along a significant deterioration of our already-dismal privacy protections.
This already exists with CCTVs on every major city streetcorner and Ring cameras on every doorstep. Not to mention Tesla cloud-connected cameras pointed inward and outward.
These VR headsets on the other hand are high-quality, very close to other people, and mobile.
The CCTVs in Chicago are 360 degree panning plus up/down, and can zoom-in four blocks away with enough resolution to make out a face and license plate. https://www.chicagotribune.com/2024/09/29/chicago-police-cam....
Here is an example of the cameras in action: https://x.com/CWBChicago/status/1445124776742227980
They may own a big hotel, run for public office, or (here) they may link a source or two leveraging a couple of neighborhoods raising statistics.
But they clearly never lived in, or know what it's like to live in, Chicago.
"Newer seat-back entertainment systems on some airplanes operated by American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, United Airlines and Singapore Airlines have cameras, and it’s likely they are also on planes used by other carriers." https://apnews.com/article/4c3ca3b46c704c6080ba026729fc8d21
While I can't promise that all CCTV operators are honest people, at least there's some chance of going after the company involved if there's a mess-up. Random people on the street where you have no idea who they are filming you, that's a different thing.
Randos installing hidden cameras in women's toilets seems to be a big enough problem in South Korea that some of the public toilets at major stations are security checked for them every single day, as far as I know. I don't want those people anywhere near me with an always-on camera, even in public fully-clothed spaces.
This problem is real, but it is better managed by creating massive, punishing fines for companies that engage in that behavior than it is by attempting to ban augmented reality devices (or laptops, or tablets, or phones, or any other camera-containing device).
Furthermore, the incremental benefit over traditional ad targeting via search or web history is probably pretty marginal, and not nearly worth the effort/cost. All of these scenarios (Jake Jacobs' wife, Jeff Jone, Jennifer Smith) are already going to show up in a traditional search history, why would an ad company go through all that effort to get data they already have? This is real life not a Mission Impossible movie.
Some people have big houses, others want to buy another brand, and some people love their cleaner so much they buy a similar one for their cousin's birthday.
In that case go with devices made by Meta. As selling the raw data is the last thing they would do.
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.
Stephenson, Neal. Snow Crash: A Novel (pp. 140-141). Random House Worlds. Kindle Edition.
My wife still makes fun of me when I'm working at home with Vision Pro - I wouldn't wear it out in public. See: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41836437
Would you feel comfortable wearing one and limiting your awareness of your surroundings on a public bus? In a coffee shop? Sitting outside a coffee shop? In a park? In a pub?
And also your answers may be yes if you are male, but I can imagine in the current world we live in a lot of women would feel potentially at risk if they were wearing these in public.
If I’m taking a commuter train every day , my view is not something great. Most of the time it’s rundown houses, tunnels or fences. This has been my experience in the UK, US and Canada.
If I’m taking a more long distance train, you assume I’m sat on the side with a view. Ever taken a mountain train? One side just gets rocks wizzing by.
You also assume they’re travelling in weather and a time of day that affords them a good view. Traveling at night? Traveling in misty weather?
And all that aside, you assume they’d prefer to look at the same things you do.
There are some views you never get tired of looking at, especially as seasons, weather, clouds and time of the day makes it an ever changing postcard.
All in all in most of europe the trains usually offer nice views and I often find myself daydreaming about climbing that dirt trail on the left with my bike, riding my motorbike on that twisty road on the right side a few minutes later and what kind of life was it living 500 years ago in the old castle I can see here.
Why must we always escape?
Again, you are fortunate to have a view that you enjoy. That doesn’t extend to others, unless you believe that there are no other situations on the planet other than your own.
Probably the point is that there are many mindstates to be in and maybe we should just let folks do their thing.
It’s great he can enjoy it but it’s self centered to tell others to do the same.
Some of us live in places like Baltimore, or Staten Island.
You might find that real life is boring, I find that most tv shows and movies are super predictable, following the very similar scenaristic mechanics and aren't more entertaining. Obviously some are also very nice, but these are the ones you would like to watch comfortably on your sofa or in a theater, not in a train or plane anyway.
Seriously, is everyone on here so narcissistic that they can’t imagine other people want other things?
I've taken the train across the Canadian prairies, and my god is that dull, but I just chatted with people, did a bit on my laptop, looked out the window since there always is one, read, used my Gameboy. If I wanted to completely immerse myself in anything but the train experience, I'd just fly, it's cheaper anyway
But you can still see the world and communicate with others. Why is that materially different than being engrossed in a handheld video game with headphones in?
Also all your examples of other stuff you do to occupy the time, they are all temporary. Why do you think the Vision Pro user would use it the whole ride?
I think this is down to the Boolean nature of “is this normalized or not”
Because it’s not normalized, people don’t afford it the same benefit of the doubt of other things that they have normalized in their life.
I'd only ever consider bringing something that is nearly invisible to both myself and others in terms of weight and required infrastructure, wouldn't bring anything with me for the purpose of occupying my attention that I can't forget I have, or that would consume more than a negligible amount of space/weight; I'll bring a book, but not a tome
Incidentally, Canadian cross-country trains don't even have outlets at the seat as far as I know; they're quite old sadly.
That said, I buy almost no superfluous electronics for raw consumption, and even an iPad Pro would be wildly out of scope, as nice as they seem to be, since although they do have other utility, I can't picture myself doing more than reading or watching videos. On-the-go entertainment is something I try to keep at arms length so I can spend that time at peace.
Fwiw, I do also hope it doesn't become normalized, not to squash others' potential for fun, but because our existing devices already enable people to protect themselves from social interaction on a large scale, which strikes me as damaging.
When I take trains in the USA, I usually look out for a few seconds every couple of minutes, because it's mostly the same -- lower-middle class housing or warehouses if we're in a city, or ugly terrain outside of a city.
These kinds of broad comparisons are utterly useless. Continents are much too large for that kind of thing to be anything resembling accurate.
I went from modern metropolis of skyscrapers and tower cranes to run down rusty industrial facilities that wouldn't look out of place in a STALKER game to sod roofed villages that look as they might have when Napoleon was making an ill fated expedition. Then of course a vast expanse of nothing at all.
Especially if you're travelling through cityscapes that aren't that appealing.
I tested the device in an Apple Store and was blown away by the experience. Such an amazing tool to explore, enjoy and relax.
The work part though? I had the same feeling as with the iPad early on. I need a keyboard and a mouse to be productive.
I wonder how soon will Maya or CATIA offer good enough integration. Maybe they already offer it at the high end.
And for the majority of us that cant?
There was even a Youtuber that got annoyed of the black screen on the Macbook when doing this that he removed the screen from a Macbook altogether[0].
Both my iPad Pro and my Vision Pro have a keyboard and trackpad:
- The iPad Pro of course uses the excellent Magic Keyboard.
- The Vision Pro uses an Apple keyboard w/o numpad side by side with the Magic Trackpad, in a custom tray to hold both. (Make sure that your carryon's front pocket can hold the full tray.)
For sure if I thought I could only do work on a MacBook not an iPad Pro (what most people seem to think, insisting iPad is a consumption device), then I definitely couldn't work on a Vision Pro.
But once you've figured out how to code (e.g. VSCode using blink code, or Koder, Working Copy, Textastic, etc.), do graphic design (e.g. Affinity suite), or run Office on an iPad (Teams, Outlook, Word, PowerPoint, Excel), the Vision Pro does those too but with "all the app windows at once" (ofc, iPad Pro 13" makes excellent use of Stage Manager for window groups).
All that said, I haven't felt a burden to pull AVP out on the plane.
iPad Pro 13" HDR with AirPods Pro USB-C using Spatial Audio that anchors to your iPad screen seem more than enough. Especially since you can share audio with a seat mate who also has AirPods, and both watch the same movie together.
Not often talked about: for doing real work, do consider a fresh glasses prescription and the Zeiss add-ins. To keep windows rectangular instead of trapezoid, insist you're under 40 regardless of your age, otherwise Zeiss do a stealth "progressive" that warps window sizes.
Now I wish I had gone for the bose QC ultra buds instead of the QC II buds.
https://support.apple.com/guide/airpods/control-spatial-audi...
Apple Music marks Dolby Atmos and Spatial Audio separately. They are not the same experience for the listener. They do work well together.
Since we only have two ears, a degree of our surround cue comes from where the sounds are when we move our heads.
Apple's "motion tracking in space" spatial audio implementation taps into that to an uncanny degree, because your own motion is not simulated. Real motion in real space results in a real sound difference from the sound model that, you're right, is simulating how that motion should sound relative to the origin.
As a listener, you start to forget the sound isn't centered out there on the anchor point, and then you start thinking the surround sounds are really surrounding you...
Here are two different explainers:
- https://appleinsider.com/articles/21/05/18/apples-spatial-au...
- https://www.gearpatrol.com/tech/apple-spatial-audio-vs-dolby...
Note that I disagree with the second explainer's final section that surround sound speakers like Sonos are the same "spatial audio" as the motion tracking sound modeling Apple is doing.
I agree with the first explainer that Apple's Spatial Audio is a system that takes advantage of the gyroscopes and sensors in the listening device and headphones to, yes, “simulate” a 3D listening space that stays static as you move your head.
I want to replace my macbook, I don't want to replace my ipad. I can't work properly on my ipad unless i'm using it as a dumb terminal. And at the price point of a macbook that's what it should be replacing.
People may point out that i can use it to mirror my macbook screen.. but now i'm paying 2x to replace a screen. I think this is a primary misplay in he vision pro strategy.
Give me a windowing system that lets me place windows, not in a little box that is essentially a virtual monitor, but wherever i want in my immediate vicinity. Let me put my goland/ide window front and center, let me put a terminal to the left, and my music player above.. whatever.
I'd take a vision pro with much of the compute hardware stripped out but that I can tether to a macbook via usbc/thunderbolt as well.. just not an ipad strapped to my face.
The SimulaVR guys (who are working on a competitor to the Vision Pro) had the exact same opinion (https://simulavr.com/blog/chassis-adjustments-and-apv-reacti...):
> From our perspective, we still think the main problem with the AVP is that it only supports native iPad apps (at least for 2D apps) [...] The AVP does allow you to tether to another Mac, but this relegates its usability to that of a "laptop aid" rather than a "laptop replacement". [...] We want to do this for the engineers and knowledge workers who need the extra capabilities in VR, and for the people who want to completely replace their laptop, rather than their tablets!
Lord forgive you have a new unexpected experience while traveling or expose yourself to the underclasses or subject yourself to the shtty social environment you helped create...
One protip, I bought a 512G flash drive and loaded it with content. Then I could pop the drive in and play movies off it. I did not want to deal with needing connectivity for DRM or other server checks.
Highly recommend that people try this out, the next time you travel. It’s a killer use case for VR.
I agree it'd be nice to have an external CPU pack for heat and weight reasons, but we're not quite there yet. The closest thing currently is wireless streaming via a PC running Steam VR, but that's not exactly portable.
If Meta made new versions of the Quest without the battery built in I think I'd actively avoid it.
They only recommend your real name in case you need to recover your account.
From https://www.meta.com/help/quest/articles/accounts/account-se...:
---- To create a Meta account using your email address, you will need to provide:
Email: You can only create one Meta account per email address.
First and last name: We recommend using your real name in case you need to recover your account or manage your store purchases.
Birthday: You need to be at least 13 years old (or the applicable age in your region) to set up and manage your own Meta account. If you are between 10 and 12 (or the applicable age in your region), then you need a Meta account that’s managed by a parent or guardian.
Password: This must be at least 8 characters. Avoid passwords that someone could easily guess.
Why? There's are already 1000s of external batteries. Unless you mean you think Meta should do it so they can charge 4x of any other battery like Apple does?
Quest is also lighter than Vision Pro, even with it's built in battery
Come to think of it, you can skip the first step too, and just download them.
No sale.
Things like these change very slowly, then suddenly, once the views of the perceived majority around most people change enough that the people start to see the new state as proper and confirmant, a new norm.
I don't think any ear buds are "cool", but certainly nobody cares, it's perfectly normal.
But long before that we had DoucheTooth (or BlueTool, whichever you prefer) earpieces. Now those were mocked.
But to your point, it will probably get slicker over time. For this one, they erred on the side of high fidelity, and they nailed it pretty well.
And you're right! And some of us will happily pay that! It is the _bleeding_ edge, after all.
If it makes you look like a dork and yet it's the third most selling EV, you might blame the judgment of the average car buyer of the US (for whom you seem to have contempt), but you can't dispute that the product sold.
I guess that would be different if I was flying first or business class.
So I don't fly with a tablet any more haha! Although, I get that time has passed and I would no longer be accosted so much, I assume. Must be pretty common now. My story takes place in ~2011 with the Motorola Xoom tablet. I guess they had never seen a tablet before.
I was also working hard on a plane one time, writing code to access barometer data on mobile devices to build a distributed weather sensor network that could be activated in software. The flight attendant came by and told me, "okay, time to put your toys away sweetie" referring to my tablet and phone. Oooooooooh my god.
That said, security rules vary from airport to airport. SFO with TSA Pre is practically a no-op, but CDG security requires that you remove from carry-on any device with a >20cm dimension!
The audacity! I hope you called them sweetie too.
Pre-iPad, most airport staff (who aren't hardcore techies, or might not have the privilege of higher education) might think of a tablet as a laptop anyway.
This is specifically to not to take up any extra room than is necessary. The only room it takes up is essentially the width of the HMD itself (even negating the strap)!
Small: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0C4YFV9F9/
Medium: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09QPN321B
Syntech recommend medium. Folks likely would prefer small, but caution about cracking glass front.
The 3S has an IR blaster that allows it to work in total darkness. Meta also enabled a travel mode[1] a couple of OS revisions ago (back in June or so).
[1] https://www.meta.com/help/quest/articles/in-vr-experiences/o...
There's always the fear of losing stuff when you're moving objects around so much, too. One less thing to worry about.
I love the Sony XM3/XM4 for this reason. They fold up to a very compact volume
That said, the last time I had the opportunity to use my VP on a plane I just used my kindle and laptop instead.
I kept mine this whole time and I still actually use it regularly and it still amazes me. There's a steady trickle of interesting things that appear for it, and it's VERY useful as a giant virtual extended laptop screen if you have a Macbook. Especially if you are in a recliner and can tilt the virtual screen above your head a bit- vastly more comfortable. Very much looking forward to the extra large virtual curved monitor they're working on, hopefully this fall.
The thing is still kind of magical.
When I first got it, I would get some eye fatigue and/or dizziness after about an hour of using it, but that seemed to improve after a couple weeks (adaptation?) and I can now use it for 2-3 hours at a time uninterrupted without any discomfort. Chewing ginger apparently helps (same as with VR headsets).
Drinking coffee from a mug with it on is difficult. Get a straw.
I'm a big guy (6'3", 260lbs) and the headset is still a bit heavy.
The gestural and eye-focus UI is extremely good, my only complaint is that I still find it hard sometimes not to make erroneous inputs which can get frustrating, but that is more the fault of web UI's with closely-clustered controls that were not designed with this interface in mind- but sometimes with text input as well, it's sometimes frustrating.
The quality of the passthrough video (AR) can be improved, it's a bit shimmery (although still clear enough to comfortably read things on your phone or watch). It's stitched together from a bunch of cameras so it is surely already a technical feat.
The FOV is OK, but more is always better.
The immersive environments (and being able to dial them in and out) are FANTASTIC. Shout-out to the Bora Bora one in vOS 2.0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKueDGv4OVQ and the Marvel and Star Wars ones provided by the Disney app https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lisof6XWtII&t=491s I also love the moon one. Each one has both a "daytime" and "nighttime" view as well.
It's fantastic on a plane, if dorky.
※ - Tested during my 30 min demo (more like 45 mins) at the Apple Store.
It's actually quite poor and significantly worse than most indoor spaces I've entered (most spaces aren't great at around 800-1600ppm). On planes I've measured※ very high CO2 levels (1800-4000ppm), with the worst air during boarding and deplaning. This matches the findings of others (both amateur and professional researchers).
※ - using Aranet4
Are we expecting almost all the clean air to be from outside, minimal amounts from recirculation?
I'd have expected a better mix (more fresh air) since even with filtration removing many particulates and viruses, high CO2 levels still cause worse cognitive performance.
Based on Veritasium's recent video, given the cabins are pressurized by bleeding air off of the jet engine might not be too surprising about CO2 or particulates. However the cabin air is also exceptionally dry.
Put a lot of people in close proximity for a long time and it's going to be very hard to prevent transmission of airborne viruses...
[*] Yes I'm prioritizing my comfort over safety for others, but that's the American Way (tm), isn't it.
(I switch to a mask with no metal in it for airport metal detectors, but I can switch back again immediately afterwards.)
(I don't see an issue with wearing an exhalation vent next to folks who aren't wearing masks themselves. If they cared about the air they'd also be wearing a mask. If I sat next to someone wearing one I'd switch back to the 9205+.)
https://www.amazon.com/Honeywell-14110404-SAF-T-FIT-Particul...
I'm in the same position. I considered the vision pro, but couldn't justify it, even if I used it on the flights etc. I depend on my switch/steamdeck for the plane, laptop if i have to work (I try not to, it's terrible)... and then I just went on amazon and bought a pair of 27" lg widescreens for a few hundred a piece. When I'm not in her apt we stow one of them in a closet (she dislikes two monitors on a purely aesthetic level). I fly in with my laptop and my keyboard and I'm ready to go.
In fact, the virtual display is higher resolution/high scaled than 13 inch MacBook (source: https://azadux.blog/2024/10/08/traveling-with-apple-vision-p...)
By contrast, you can readily set the apparent screen size in the AVP to 40+ degree angle:
× 1.2 (corresponding to 40-degree viewing angle)
THX recommends that the "best seat-to-screen distance" is one where the view angle approximates 40 degrees,[26] (the actual angle is 40.04 degrees). Their recommendation was originally presented at the 2006 CES show, and was stated as being the theoretical maximum horizontal view angle, based on average human vision. In the opinion of THX, the location where the display is viewed at a 40-degree view angle provides the most "immersive cinematic experience", all else being equal. For consumer application of their recommendations, THX recommends ... multiplying the diagonal measurement by about 1.2.
I'm no fan of the AVP, but it is inane to post a comment on a picture from the article without taking the time to read the text surrounding it to understand the context. The blog went to great pains to set out the pros/cons, limits/advantages, just to have people half-read it or just look at the pictures...
There are VR headsets with wider FoV, but they're pretty bulky as of yet because of the limits of current costs-less-than-literally-$10,000-a-unit optics.
Also, as another user is probably allewding to, certain thin synthetic fabrics are semi-transparent to particular wavelengths in the IR band.
Does the AVP not have something equivalent? To be honest, I was surprised it took Meta so long to get around to implementing it.
[1] https://www.engadget.com/you-can-now-lie-down-while-using-a-...
[2] https://www.meta.com/en-gb/help/quest/articles/headsets-and-...
Do you mean you watch it on a smart TV in a hotel? Then I guess you could connect a laptop to that TV with an HDMI cable and not have to re-log in, right?
" As it stands, as a first generation product that’s heavy, very expensive, and has a very underbaked OS and app ecosystem, I have a tough time recommending anyone to go out and buy one. That being said, I’m taking it on every flight I go on. "
And they can stop paying extra for business class, because it stops mattering.
It was an amazing ride other than that.
I fly a lot of business class, and the comfort and space is what you pay for, not entertainment. But having good wifi helps a lot, even in a cramped seat.
I don't mind using my laptop or iPad for movies and work on planes...
To each their own...
Some big assumptions there.
Honestly, I'd much rather just use a tablet, which is a much more flexible device once I arrive.
There are already tons of places you can go and rent time with VR. Or even just 3D movies and experiences where you need special glasses.
Airlines already have reusable noise cancelling headphones and drink glasses in first class.
That said, I am a little surprised the Middle Eastern and Asian airlines haven’t adopted these for their international first class cabins (your Singapore Suites, Ethiad Apartments and the private rooms on Emirates).
i dunno. repeatedly making little pinchies in your lap with your $3500 goggles on still seems very dweeb-coded to me. i almost did a spit take when i looked up how much the vision pro costs, lol
A 4th or 5th generation Apple Vision Pro (and other corresponding advancements) may obviate the need for a lot of travel.
Or have me chase a squirrel around after it stole my snacks?
Or have me feel the pride of accomplishing a long hike that I trained for?
Or let me talk with interesting people along the route and hear about their travels?
Or help me find an incredible pizza restaurant with concepts that aren't in my local suburban area?
Or give me the health benefits of hiking outdoors?
I'm not sure how a headset could ever obviate the desire for travel
You mention hiking several times, I assume it is something you enjoy. Now, imagine, instead of regularly having to travel to Yosemite from your local suburban area, you instead go live in Yosemite and use your headset to do the things you did in your suburban area. More hiking, less time spent in transport.
Is it really? Or is it a 12G nAh battery bank?
Remember to turn off the AVP between charging it at home and using it on the flight. You do this by "choking" it, i.e. pressing both buttons physical for ~10s, to bring up the "Power Off" dialog, so it's really not obvious.
I once had my AVP completely discharge between charging it one night, and wanting to use it on the flight <24h later. I'm guessing that the motion from the packing and trip to the airport was constantly waking it up, draining power.
As I learned when I tried to charge it with a 140W Apple charger, planes have current limitations. If you plug in too high of a wattage charger, it can totally disable the power socket.
One of the dances to figure out if you're going to use a VR headset on a plane is how high a wattage can the plane constantly support. Then again, you probably don't want your face physically tethered to the middle seat anyway.
How does a vision pro compare to a say 60 inch 4K tv, in terms of perceived sharpness (I get that it has more pixels, but they are closer to your eye and cover your whole field of view)? I owned an OG quest, and for me watching movies just didn't quite match up to the experience of an actual tv.
But a nice 65" OLED TV is still cheaper than a Vision Pro, so I can't recommend it unless you are in a situation where you literally cannot put a big OLED TV in your space, or you're desperate to take your OLED TV with you on flights.
I also have a Quest 3 and without OLED for true HDR, it loses right away, and then it loses further on resolution. Audio quality is really good on Quest 3, but... If I really wanted to use a headset to watch a movie, I would use the Vision Pro, hands down. If I only had the Quest 3 on hand, I wouldn't watch a movie.
Probably because those movies are FAKE 3-D trash that studios troweled out, killing one thing that is highly piracy-resistant and theater-boosting.
Most people complaining about "3-D" movies have probably seen only two real ones: Avatar, and something from Pixar. The vast majority of movies marketed as 3-D were not shot in 3-D, but rather processed into fake 3-D in post. The result: exactly what you describe, lame cut-outs.
Just another reason that the studios and media conglomerates deserve no sympathy when they whine about piracy or declining revenues. They screw actors, writers, theater owners, and the audience... when they've had (and ignored) interesting avenues available to revitalize their industry and audience.
I already disliked DRM like this, where the user's device acts against them, but something about the form factor makes me extra uneasy about it. Maybe the fact that it's directly on your face, integrating tightly with your vision.
Hopefully by the time we move onto AR contact lenses or implants there'll be some good user-respecting alternatives, though I'm not too hopeful.
One area in which they’re significantly worse is tracking — they only really work well with the screen in a fixed position relative to your eyes, but this has been great for a movie.
I can’t get them setup to program on well tho
Honestly xreal's marketing is generous at best. They seem to really try to push it as being an AR device when its really nothing more than a monitor stuck to your face that you can't change the size of.
Using the beam or the software on your computer adds some AR ability, but due to the way it works on your Mac it really is not a pleasant experience and uses a ton of resources. The tracking is not great.
The lack of any sort of pass through (all you can do is dim it) makes it fairly useless in many situations, like the one mentioned in this article.
Options are great, and it is great that is significantly cheaper. But I bought the xreal pro, I keep trying to use it for watching something, games, programming or other work. But every time I use it for maybe 20 minutes and just get frustrated and put it away for a few more weeks.
It is one of the reasons I think that the price (and size) of the vision pro is justified. The tech to make something smaller and cost less just isnt here yet. All of those headsets like the xreal have serious compromises while trying to push an "AR" narrative for features they just don't really have.
I do love the idea though and it is tempting.
I don't love programming on a laptop without external monitors, so I like the idea of having a decent monitor in a pair of glasses.
I couldn't justify the price of a AVP, as I would only be using them as an external monitor. And I would worry about Linux compatibility.
12 kilometer * amp * hours is simply a very long lightsaber.
Also, Apple's fear of I/O has crippled the Vision Pro. If they had put a (3-D-capable) video input on it, it would have instantly found uses amongst gamers, 3-D artists, travelers, programmers, cinematographers... but instead it's another Apple product that's profoundly hobbled into being a toy.
How many other VR headsets do you know of with print support?
There's literally a preset for "front row in a theater" when playing media.
The utility of a MacBook (or any laptop) is the display, keyboard, and trackpad, not the compute
Meanwhile customers are turning up with devices with their own licensed content (they’ve already paid the streaming services or paid for the download), but can’t use it on the plane.
It’s pretty obvious what should happen, and what eventually will, but it’ll take a while.
I do find the idea of a plane full of goggled humans packed in like sardines to be a touch dystopian, but I feel that way about the infotainment screens already.
Well, the Vision Pro has no substantial unique features which aren’t available via the older Quest even.
Sure, Apple over-engineered the lenses to the point of excluding people who don’t conform to the prescribed possibilities… and the App Store is limited to pedestrian experiences of 2D apps rebuilt to work on visionOS and a handful of cool VR/MR apps.
All that aside, I wouldn’t travel with something so expensive and fragile. Putting on and off, looking for where to place it while talking with staff / other people… sounds very uncomfortable.
What does 5-10 means here?
It's a great travel buddy, and then when I get to where I am going I have a massive workspace and screen for my mac packed away inside the Vision.
I am a big fan.
Then proceeds to show screenshots where more than 50% of the screen is background. Just because you decided to show cloud instead of black doesn't mean it's not letterboxing.
Doesn't seem like a lot until you hold a protractor up to your eyeball. And then you realize how much area falls outside that angle, surroundings you don't think about at the theater.
The AVP has to render that unwatchable area for you as well, and it ends up in screenshots.
Keep in mind that all that unwatchable area is pixels that aren't being used to improve the movie image.
Exactly! Commented earlier: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41862459
> Keep in mind that all that unwatchable area is pixels that aren't being used to improve the movie image.
Or maybe it's like the Philips Ambilight+Hue, that people swear adds immersion by letting content color the environment around it.
Ironically by adding a gue to a nomral screen, you're effectively 'adding' pixels to the display... unlike the pro which wastes pixels on the 'hue' because many of them are not in the ideal viewing angle.
The more time passes, the less I can shake the feeling that the world would be better if we tuned out our environment less.
> But damn, based on how well it all works now, you can just tell by the 4th or 5th generation, Apple Vision Pro will be on the face of every frequent flyer.
If it even gets that far. I’d almost be willing to take that bet, but 5 generations for this device could mean more than a decade so I don’t think any of us can say for sure.
All that said, I haven’t read the full review yet and I doubt it’ll do anything to convince me, but still I appreciate you writing it up and putting it out there. From what I’ve read so far it looks well thought out and it clearly took some effort, so kudos.
Depends on what environment that is. I mean, is there some value in hearing an ambulance siren at full volume while I'm walking down the street? Or the sound of people trying to get my attention to hand me some flyer? Or the sound of the BART?
I listen to books or music during a lot of my daily walks, but I've noticed that when I don't, I sometimes experience life differently.
Sometimes I’m at home and there aren’t any sirens or bells or people screaming and I just think about how out of touch we are with the environment.
This has spread to everyone. Paul Graham has lost his connection to the environment and instead writes about silence. What a fool! If only he was more in touch with his environment.
at least in the suburbs you can engage with and experience the leaf blowers.
I coincidentally demoed the Vision Pro this past weekend and expected to hate it, but was pretty impressed with it. I definitely don't want people walking around NYC with it strapped to their faces, but on a long plane or train ride I can see it being pretty nice.
Of course, my attention span typically maxes out around 2h unless I'm in a particularly thoughtful place in life, such as my bus ride to a new city after undergrad graduation, or the flight home after a big family event. And, of course, being in the window seat is a must -- you'd have to be something of a zen master to peacefully "raw-dog" a flight by just starting at the seat in front of you!
Rant aside, I absolutely agree that being stuck in place for hours at a time is good reason to want some form of entertainment, and this is arguably the perfect application for VR. Being stuck on a long bus/train/plane without entertainment can feel downright claustrophobic, and it's not like there's any communication with others anyway. Other than the nice flight attendants, which we still have, for some weird reason -- I thought it was a nice touch to clarify that talking to them with the headset for more than a phrase or two feels disrespectful.
Correct. And I also had in mind how those individual psychological effects affect our interactions with the rest of reality and other living beings, which collectively shapes society.
I’m reminded of something I read years ago (I don’t recall the source at all and am likely adding details) which argued that US politics were less aggressively divisive in the past because politicians from both sides regularly saw each other and spent time together, meaning they could form more empathy and see the opposition as real human beings and not caricatures. As they spend less time together, it’s easier to fall into the trap of seeing the other side as a “them” unworthy of respect.
> I thought it was a nice touch to clarify that talking to them with the headset for more than a phrase or two feels disrespectful.
Agreed.
They're trained to get everyone off the plane in under 90 seconds in case of emergency. The handing out of drinks and snacks is a pleasant side effect of their presence.
Oh, for sure. I mean I'm in my 40s and have never owned a TV and have spent every morning with my meditation practice for a very long time. Even on 14+ hour flights I tend to just sit there, maybe listening to music a bit, but largely doing my meditation practice. I'm totally on board with people being present in their environments.
But of all the places for someone to use something like the Vision Pro, an airplane seems totally reasonable to me. I'm much more concerned with people needing to scroll TikTok while on the escalator at Whole Foods and what that says about society than someone watching a movie on an international flight!
That may or may not be true in general, but air travel is one of the most oppressive environments people regularly find themselves in. Being in an extremely crowded environment with very little personal space is psychologically uncomfortable for a lot of people. And it's basically not possible to escape that environment until the plane lands, which is typically hours of time. If it's OK to tune the world out anywhere, it's got to be in an airplane.
What do you think is going to happen if, as the author predicts, “Apple Vision Pro will be on the face of every frequent flyer”?
My prediction is that the experience would get even shittier. Since everyone would be tuned out, there’d be even less reason for the airline to care.
Perhaps they extend the charging ports some airlines are offering, with a bit more juice than a phone's battery to let people use their device for a bit longer.
There's a number of airlines that have signed contracts, like United. I think it'll take a while for everything to be completely rolled out.
What can the airlines do to make it worse? I suppose they could cut out soda and pretzels. And get rid of the HUD on the back of the chair. But I don't think most people care that much about that stuff, especially since a lot of chairs have power outlets on them, even in coach.
IMO, the thing that people really care about is the amount of space they have access to - both width and depth. And I'm not sure how much more airlines can realistically squeeze that.
Most people don't regularly travel by plane. This is a very "1%" (as shorthand for a privileged minority of people globally, not literally exactly 1% of the population) problem.
Except, they do in a country like the US that has massive distances between cities.
Statista survey pre-pandemic says majority fly every year https://www.statista.com/statistics/316365/air-travel-freque...
Americans fly quite often.
Last year, the prediction was 4.7 million people in the US traveling by plane over the thanksgiving holiday, which demolishes the 1% comment immediately.
> Except, they do in a country like the US that don't have any other suitable alternatives
I'd love a moderately fast train, say 200kph, between cities like Portland and Seattle. That's a great use case.
But as a nationwide network, there won't ever be a suitable rail alternative, unless it gets subsidized. Amtrak is already stupidly expensive for what you get.
https://www.airlines.org/new-survey-nearly-90-percent-of-ame...
44% of Americans flew commercially in 2022.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S095937802...
Probably not enough to make the statement that flying is a situation people find themselves in regularly.
It’s clear the Vision Pro didn’t find its market but I don’t think it’s an air travel thing.
I just don't see the market Apple envisions materializing. I'd expect 20 people to be using a Quest in economy before you see 2 people using a Vision Pro in business.
If plane seating is anything to go by, most people don't want a luxury experience but a practical and cheap one instead. Most seats aren't reserved for premium passengers because they are a minority, maybe a profitable audience but not at all the primary one.
OG iPhone: $799
iPhone 3G: $199
> They are a luxury brand that relies on luxury margins, so I want to know why their business model will succeed.
Apple has shown many times over they don't need to be price competitive with the commodity segment. If you want to know why their business model will succeed, why not just look at their current business model which has been massively successful? Arguably the most successful business model in the history of consumer hardware.
Same poll can result with statement "100% of Americans use internet."
Some hard data says that 12% of US flyers take 66% of flights [1]. Those are all likely very frequent fliers, and is much more than 1%.
1. https://www.businesstraveller.com/business-travel/2021/03/31...
It's boring but not oppressive. It's okay to let the mind wander without completely disconnecting yourself from reality.
Where else can you get a full body cavity search, be denied water, be delayed by several hours without so much as an apology, be nickle-and-dimed with overpriced shitty food and $5 fees for a cab to drop you off, and have your luggage smashed up, all under one roof?
Of course, I'm not sure the Apple Vision Pro can do much to improve on the situation.
Ever heard of closing your eyes ?
It takes a lot of meditation practice to get up to "entire plane flight" level.
Maybe if I flew more frequently I'd grow to dislike it (I fly maybe once a year), but honestly airports and flying are my favorite part of a trip (yes, I like them more than any possible destination). TBF I haven't flown to anywhere particularly exciting but I fail to imagine any place matching the pleasure of an airport + flight. After writing this it sounds ridiculous but I'm 100% serious - I can't quite explain why I enjoy it so much.
There's some funny tweets about airports like: "The airport is a lawless place, want to get drunk at 7AM? Go right ahead. Tired? Just sleep on the floor. Chips cost $15".
edit: came back to post this, i definitely get an odd feeling of liberation once i'm at an airport. I travel sometimes for work and once i get in to the airport waiting to board I feel like work and every day life ceases for a time and i'm free to do whatever. It's odd because i'm trapped in this building with hundreds if not thousands of other people waiting to get on a pressurized metal tube blasting through the sky at hundreds of miles/hr. Nothing very liberating about that but for some reason being in the airport feels that way to me.
Yes, this is very much how I feel. 0 responsibilities and there's nothing I can actually accomplish during my time there. I just sit there reading a book or something, just waiting.
Maybe there's some ticketing snafu and it takes an hour just to drop your checked bag (sanctimonious carry-on fliers hold your posts like you hold the seventeen bags you try to drag on the plane)
Maybe security is insanely backed up or just run by incompetents, like the time at SFO where it took them 30 minutes to screen the 10 people in front of me.
Then once you get past security, a whole new list of potential problems comes up:
Maybe the incoming flight is delayed, possibly delayed so much you're going to miss your connection.
Maybe you'll board but the plane will be broken because the airlines don't believe in preventive maintenance, and you'll have to deplane again.
Maybe you'll board but due to various circumstances in airport operations you spend 3 hours sitting on the tarmac while the airplane gets increasingly hot and your toddler gets increasingly fussy.
To me this is the most intriguing part of it all.
I understand tech reviewers and journalists raving about having something to do on planes, as they probably spend an awful lot of time there. Then perhaps sales people also flighting on company's dime.
But regular people don't spend much time on planes, and many of them don't need it to be an entertaining or efficient time, they can just spleep if the flight is long enough (I can't imagine lugging along a luggage the size of the Vision Pro for just a 2 hour flight)
In particular the plane staff won't let you tune completely out if you're awake: the whole safety sequence , take off and landing, turbulences, the in-flight meal, all the guidance for international flights, your neighbours when you've pulled the middle seat etc.
If they can get the price below $1500, I'm sure many regular people will buy it even if they fly less than 10 times a year.
You can buy a business class ticket. I will hasard that the overlap between people who can afford to buy a 3000$ VR headset and people who can fly business is pretty much total.
My brother in god, you can travel from any point of the Earth to any other point on the Earth in less than a week. At what point are modern people going to “deal with it”?
Clearly people do "deal with it" since lots of people fly all the time. But that doesn't mean that the experience can't be improved.
How much of this would be solved by VR though? To me the unpleasantness of flying mostly comes down to physical discomfort. The seats are cramped, the air is dry, the food isn't great, the bathroom situation is uncomfortable, and you can't really walk around. VR would visually transport you somewhere else, but physically, you're still very much on a plane.
I'd be curious to try a device like this and see if it helps. I usually just use noise cancelling headphones and play a game or watch movies, which isn't too different from removing myself into VR, but I'm also aware that sometimes completely removing my sense of my surroundings can be more unnerving.
I don't disagree with you but I can tell you don't take the NYC subway or Paris metro or the London Underground with any regularity. If you think an airplane is "extremely crowded" then you have no words to describe actual mass transit.
Agreed 100%. Apologies for linking to my own essay, but I think this can be more generally stated as a difference between "isolated" and "integrated" arts. A device like the Vision Pro (and most tech devices, for that matter) is pushing society further and further into isolated chambers, and thus further incentivizing media and creators to focus on creating isolated aesthetic experiences, not ones that are integrated with the environment.
This is such a baseline unquestioned assumption that we have about the structure of the tech economy, that to think a company like Apple would make a device that brings people together in the real world seems absurd.
I wrote a bit more about this idea here: https://onthearts.com/p/modern-culture-is-too-escapist-part
I'd quibble that what you're really pointing to here is capitalism, though. Architecture isn't monotonous because of our cultural attitude towards architects/Architecture, it's monotonous because capitalists build most buildings, and they're predictably interested in perceived efficiency above all else. There's good reason to argue that beautiful surroundings augment worker productivity so it's not even a clean tradeoff, but in practice, only the richest companies and universities end up taking that risk with beautiful structures[1][2][3] and/or sculptures/fountains/gardens/etc. Obviously, the same dynamic applies to the exclusivity of contemporary art galleries and private collections.
In Apple's(/"tech"'s) defense, I think they'd absolutely love to sell integrative products whenever possible. The Nintendo Switch was originally marketed[4] as such, and despite being a bit goofy, I imagine it helped sell a lot of units. That's why Apple spent ungodly amounts of money trying to make real AR work before compromising with "passthrough" -- they know that people are social creatures, and that a huge driver of their sales is perceived social value.[5] Again: the problem is the system of incentives, not individual bad actors.
[1] Google's newest 'Bayview' campus: https://blog.google/inside-google/life-at-google/bay-view-ca...
[2] Huawei 'Ox Horn' campus: https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/1fuo1tt/huawei_has_bu...
[3] Vanderbilt University's main campus: https://admissions.vanderbilt.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/4...
[4] "The rooftop party" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UzJdYXk6tjA
[5] The iPhone's status among teens: https://www.phonearena.com/news/Heres-why-iPhones-are-so-pop...
The difficulty is in imagining some kind of economic structure in which an Apple or Microsoft could make billions from selling products/services that are somehow public goods, or enhancing public spaces. We can conceive of top design minds at Apple spending billions to create a new personal computing device, but the same minds working on a way to improve public spaces – say, by removing graffiti easily, or planting trees easily – just somehow doesn't make sense or fit into the "types of things" they would do.
It may also just be a fundamental structural issue, as I talked about in the latter part of the essay. There are far fewer legal restrictions on individual objects than there are on spaces. I.e., while everyone can use an iPhone everywhere, using a device to remove graffiti would come up against all sorts of property rights laws.
It's quite a difficult topic to wrap one's mind around, at the end of the day. But yeah in general I agree that it's not necessarily individual bad actors, and incentives are a huge part of it.
My hypothesis is that these companies want to make money by "taking" your senses. They want your attention to be with them at all times, by being in your ear so you'll hear them, by being on your wrist so you'll feel them, by being on your eyes so you'll see them.
I'm thinking these companies are building up technological ecosystems - Apple's specialty! - that they hope will eventually form a proxy for you to experience reality. Because if they can convince you to experience life through them, they'll have your wallet too.
Maybe it's just a silly thought of mine, but it kind of fits.
A phone is fundamentally a communications device. I use mine to catch rides, figure out where I'm going, call and text my loved ones, all of these things connect me to other people. I listen through headphones to music, and to talk to people, neither of these are isolating experiences. AirPods even have a mode which specifically turns off audio when someone is speaking to you, I like this, because I do enjoy listening to music or a podcast when I'm alone at the grocery store, and I do not like to be isolated by that from people around me, or the cashier.
I also use it to take photos, and then share them with people I care about, sometimes photos of people I care about, which I can then enjoy when they aren't around. These things enhance my senses, they don't steal them.
Phones certainly have some apps available which are addictive, I see people enduring self-imposed isolation in the presence of others due to that addiction, and that's sad, which is why I've dropped those social networks from my life and don't have those apps installed. Apple doesn't make those apps though, the closest thing is Messenger, which is a way to communicate with others, it doesn't have upvotes, it isn't public, none of those things.
I don't see a way to square all that with the thesis that Apple's specialty is isolatory sensory theft. Even the headset, which is clearly not designed to enhance the social parts of life, has several features which exist specifically to connect the user at least in part to their surroundings, and I think the fact that Apple never sold a VR headset without those features is a better reflection of their corporate philosophy than some paranoid yarn about how they make more money if users are cocooned in some Apple-provided sensory replacement bubble.
Did you mean to say Meta? Because if so, you made the mistake twice in the same post.
Taking what I said about a commercially sensical strategy about selling a - what was the word I did use? Proxy - through which you can experience the world, and then spinning some paranoid yarn about not experiencing the world at all... Now that is kind of strange.
On the other hand, I try to take a middle ground here. As much as I get annoyed and shake my fist at clouds these days when I'm trying to run past people on the sidewalks and they've got their faces buried in phones and don't see me coming, I can recognize a lot of people seem to have a deep-seated need for non-stop mental stimulus they don't seem to get from the real world for whatever reason and I'm not going to judge them for that. They're just different from me and that's fine.
But I do exist too and it'd be nice if reviewers like this didn't typical mind everyone, either.
It’s a multi hour flight. I don’t know anyone around me, most are asleep.
Many people already tune out the noise with their noise cancelling audio products.
Why would it be weird to tune out the visuals too?
The Vision Pro lets me also see people while wearing it and they can see my eyes. If I’m tuned out and someone approaches me they fade through.
Meanwhile someone with the headset can watch movies on a larger screen and feel less claustrophobic.
- sitting next to someone who you get along with and don’t run out of things to talk about for the entire duration of the flight
- neither one of you wanting to sleep or do anything else for the duration of the flight either
- not caring about the other passengers around you who might also want to sleep
I’m not suggestion you strike up a conversation with your seat partner on a plane, but if you do you don’t have to feel beholden to them.
Have you never sat in someone’s company, be it a pet or another person, each doing your own thing yet the presence of another made it more pleasant? That doesn’t mean tuning out the other person, quite the contrary.
It doesn't support the idea above of "it would be nice if people were bored enough to be friendly" as a way to handle entire plane trips, it just suggests a slightly different way of focusing on your own activities.
And what you described versus a vision pro is like, a difference between being 75% tuned out and 85% tuned out. It's not all that impactful.
Or is it also rude if one tries to sleep? Or if they decided to listen to music or watch a movie on the screens?
Really the fact is that all those things are normalized and this isn’t. The arguments against it would equally apply to all of the rest of the things people do on planes to occupy their time.
Nobody is saying you tune out the entirety of the world the second you sit down. But there is an awful amount of people acting like the environment around you on a plane is worth paying attention to the entire time
Which, I gotta say, is an even darker formulation at the end of the day! Like at least if we all plugged in and went the Oasis we are truly sharing some base experience of the place; or if its going to be solitary experience machines, at least those experiences would be holistically directed towards me in some consistent package; but with this stuff, you start to think about how much more ground these crooks can still take in stratifying the experience of simply the world itself as we perceive it.
I'm personally trying (and to some degree failing) to disengage from screens and other digital interactions.
My advantage is that I live quite remotely and can just hop into my boat and go fishing or something without the phone, but the craving that result in are scary.
I’m curious what you do on a 6 hr plane ride that’s not tuning out your environment?
Either way, I get why people do it, I was making more of a general point. It’s common for me to be walking down a street and see other people, also walking, so glued to their phones they notice nothing around them, to the point they have no reaction to near collisions.
I also find it telling that while the author mentioned (and I quoted) planes and trains, all of the many responses so far has centred on planes.
¹ Which I don’t do but won’t criticise anyone for it either.
While I appreciate the sentiment behind the statement, try living in an area where 90% of the environment is car stereos with subwoofers cranked so loud that you can practically see the air vibrating around you and get back to me. Given that (at least in the west), noise pollution is never really going to be properly legislated, the ability to tune it out is a god send.
I’m not advocation for never taking a break, I’m saying that we keep doing more and more of it and should perhaps consider dialling it down. Or at the very least not take tuning out as a slam dunk desired benefit without adverse consequences.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2024-10-13/apple-...
Could be just me but I think a lot of older generations share this experience. It is not hard to take out your earbuds or take off your VR device to show you are paying attention to the person you are talking to.
I'm not sure I like this development. Ignoring the "disrespectful" part, it has become accepted to toy with your phone while listening to someone and let's be honest, we all know you're not REALLY listening or engaging with the conversation.
Especially with AirPods gaining hearing aid functionality, it shouldn’t be a sign of lack of focus.
As an aside, I personally able to concentrate _more_ in certain scenarios when I am fiddling or have background noise playing. It quiets the part of my brain that otherwise gets distracted. I use that method for video conferences to increase the amount I am focused on the speaker and content.
Contradictory to your experience with it being young people who wouldn't listen to you it tends to be the 45ish business man who continues to talk on their phone in my experience.
Just because you emphatically state that something is normal, that does not make it normal
I remember the real hearing aids of yesteryear. They look sufficiently different from earbuds that they are always acceptable.
I don't even really see people take off headphones in this scenario, just uncovering an ear. It would be fairly hilarious to see someone lift up one side of an AR headset to make (singular) eye contact, tho.
I am only 32 and wouldn't consider myself old.
I used to get very uncomfortable, maybe even angry, when people at the cashier in the supermarket just did not get off their headphones and just leave a simple hello to the person at the counter. Nowadays I am just mildly irritated sometimes, but I still think it's stupid. Especially if the cashier is a really nice and polite person. Leaving on your headphones and not saying a word, sometimes not even giving them a look, feels like a f- you in their face. Just be nice to other people and it even works if you are a very socially awkward person like me. The world can be nice and even give you a smile every once in a while.
This obviously got worse since corona. Germany used to be a cash-heavy country, but now since "everyone" is just paying by card, they just pull it out, wave around with it to signal that they want to pay with it, so that they don't even have to say one single word. So weird.
> One caveat is that, out of respect, if the conversation is more than the “what would you like? Tea please” deal, I do remove the headset to make direct eye contact with them. I feel that it would be sort of odd to have a full-on conversation with someone if they’re wearing a headset (like bro, just take it off and let’s talk like humans).
So there's an implied metric of "meaningful interaction" where, below a certain threshold, it's okay to treat the other person as an NPC?
Perhaps I'm being an uncharitable curmudgeon here, but I even take my earbuds out when I'm asking for tea on a flight.
Ah! I was not understanding why would anyone prefer this over other less invasive or smaller options, but now I get to the real advantage! /s
From what I can tell there are two populations: those who prefer to recline and those who prefer not to. As long as an entire column of seats belongs to one population you're fine (if everyone wants to recline no one loses space, we all just shift around to a configuration in which everyone is more comfortable). But when you have someone more comfortable staying upright sitting behind a recline-preferenced person, that's where issues arise. It's not clear to me whether it's morally wrong for the front person to recline in that case, given that's basically just preferencing the default of "upright", which is arbitrary.
Nothing here should be read as justifying people who don't pay attention to what's going on behind them and/or recline suddenly/aggressively. It's always something that should be done with a glance behind and a smooth, gentle motion. Maybe also a word to the person sitting behind though again I'm not convinced that's a moral imperative.
[1] https://thepointsguy.com/airline/airplane-seat-reclining-eti...
(I wonder if it simply driven by an individualistic vs. collectivist mindset?)
as soon as one person starts reclininig, you can die on that hill all alone and i'm reclining faster than you can sigh in disappointment
This is really a case of "don't hate the player, hate the game" (be mad at the airlines for packing people in like sardines, don't be mad at the people for trying to take a bit of extra comfort which has been made available to them)
Would airlines be able to offer more space for more money? Sure they would. Would people pay for it? The market has already answered!