I am. It has essentially become my favorite computer for general "puttering" -- watching content, light browsing, messaging. Whereas before maybe I'd curl up with my mac in my lap in bed, or doom scroll on my phone, I now use it, and it is far more enjoyable and comfortable.
For FOCUSED work at my job, where I really want no distractions and to just stare at something for a while and work deeply on it, it has been nice to use it as a replacement monitor. But, for general work, I still prefer my "normal" two-screen monitor setup at work, since it is easier to task-switch and go talk to people and come back, and AVP doesn't yet support multiple monitors.
I just wish I could really have been in the room when the facial interface was discussed. So much of the discussion of the AVP has been dominated by folks talking about the lightseals, and I wonder the impact that has had on the return percentage. I have virtually every other consumer VR headset, and the reality is comfort is largely a solved problem. But I'm sure someone, in some meeting at Apple, there was a tradeoff made between comfort of the device and its aesthetic, and I think with this they REALLY missed the mark. They also trained their retail team NOT AT ALL about how to deal with this, as they seem just as confused about the different seals as the customers are.
But for a technologist, it is definitely an amazing piece of tech, and having used all of them the thing that sticks out the most is how unremarkable it is in terms of features (it does, quite literally, just do things I have seen in the other ones), but with a level of polish and fit that truly is transformative, much in the same way of other products that Apple has put out.
I'm guessing he means it falls short of "reality". The adds convey the idea as if you are purely looking at the real world around you, but the quality is very much that of a camera -- and he concedes there are some limits to what you could do with that form factor.
One of the challenges is that a lot of his complaints are things that you can EASILY see being addressed -- most other VR headsets benefit from 3rd party straps that make a hugely significant difference in comfort, the app ecosystem hasn't even begun since folks. haven't had a device available, so hopefully there'll be many more use cases, Apple internally already has mirroring of multiple screens, etc. Yet my fear is the quality, speed, and assuredness of these improvements are kinda correlated with how well or how badly the market for this device does. My fear is that it doesn't reach the scale necessary for Apple and others to make the kind of investment in it we'd like to see, and for many years we'll have this go the way of those esoteric Macs of which they might make one or a couple, and leave it at that.
For the AR/VR space, I'm curious about YCs thinking about the addressable market and the possibility to have a unicorn-scale company developing solely for VR/AR in the foreseeable future (that isn't a device manufacturer).
The devices seem to be getting better and better, but the software seems rather lacking (currently typing this from a gorgeous giant display on my Vision Pro, which I use mostly exactly like how I would use my computer). Even in gaming, where the use-case is a lot more mature, we haven't seen the kinds of investment in AAA content that you'd expect, even though clearly the platforms could benefit from it.
I'm curious what YCs thinking is, and if perhaps they just feel no one has earnestly taken it on yet?
I'll get downvoted to oblivion, but I think people underestimate the impact that their productization of the GPT in the chat format really led to a virality that likely is not entirely justified just by the underlying product alone. LLMs had been around for several years, it was just a royal pain to use. They definitely were the pioneers in democratizing it to folks, and it occupied a significant slice of mindshare of society for quite a bit. But I suspect it is only natural that it'll recede to a more appropriate level, where this is still an important and incredible piece of tech, but it will stop having the feel that "OMG THIS IS GOING TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD", because it prob. won't... at least not at the pace which popular media would have you believe.
It won't. At the store I had no qualms about comfort, but of course taking it home I started to see what many of the reviewers were saying. I think the demo experience will very nicely showcase the major selling points of the device, and quite honestly the only way to really get at the rough edges is to spend considerable more time with it than they'd allow you to do.
Apple's policy specifically states that you have a 14 day return policy if you are not satisfied with your product. I think if you genuinely think that, if the product reaches some realistic expectation of yours, you'd happily continue to own it and fully pay for it, then it is morally ok to buy it knowing that if it doesn't you'll return it. But if you are squarely in the "I can absolutely not afford this but it would be fun to play with it for free on their dime for a couple weeks", then I'd argue that it is morally very questionable. But, having said that, I can assure you their pricing and sales model has built in those considerations as well, so there's that perspective, too.
As a (so far happy) Vision Pro owner, I completely agree with you. However, I remember when they launched the AirPods how just so immediately repulsed I was by that thing, how I truly felt like it looked like a tampon coming out of someone's ear, yet somehow, here we are. I grant you that this is, to put it mildly, a bit more of a stretch. But if somehow wearing VR glasses (don't care what apple says, these are VR glasses) will become mainstream, something tells me they'll be the ones to pull it off.
It does, provided the headset isn't completely powered down. It is designed sort of with that in mind -- there's no off button, you just take it off and that's it, sort of like the Max headphones. But, if it is completely shut off, to my knowledge atm there is no persistence beyond that and the device will reset all window positions.
Not totally what you are looking for, but I'd highlghly recommend "Apollo" by Murray and Cox. It focuses on the engineering history of the Apollo program, and it is a superbly well written and researched worked and so many of the stories are about engineering philosophy that I think it'll really be worth your while.
this is exactly as I remember it as well... it was quite mem'ed on that dimension alone, as to why would you need a giant one of the thing they already had.
For sure -- and I'd further emphasize that its a particular environment where the "downsides" of this approach would be strengths. For instance, a nearby school had a dozen quests for sporadic activities, but the fact that you can't easily peak at what the students were engaged in was a problem... well, with this, you can certainly do that! It's a space where I suspect the cost/ease/simplicity to fidelity tradeoff will be especially welcomed. Good luck with the product!
I know this is a joke, but I remember when I was learning LISP I was SOO WORRIED about that and couldn't possibly fathom how I was going to actually be productive with it.
I don't remember now, but it wasn't AT ALL the big issue that I initially anticipated. I just mention it, because your comment made me realize that I also don't understand WHY it wasn't an issue!
What's also fascinating is that they are going with, in VERY BROAD strokes, the concept that was Von Braun's preferred method to achieve this back in the day too, but it was abandoned in favor of the lunar orbit rendesvouz.
For a critique of the current method, I found the SmarterEveryDay lecture on it gave some good food for thought!
Insane. simple, elegant, succinctly explained, def. has a niche in the market, and affordable. kudos to you. Just annoyed I didn't think of it of and had the capacity to execute on something like this.
P.S.: If support for unity AR development is robust enough, I'd highly encourage you to aggressively pitch this to educational institutions. One major pain point is how challenging it is to provide a solution at scale to have students building in VR. A solution to be able to spend a modest amount of money, on something that is super robust, that leverages tech all the students have, and that I could get a dozen of for the price of two of the alternatives, would be a game changer.
I suspect this comment will be severely underrated, but it conveys such a deep insight into the right way to think about this. This is the variable we really care about!
I mean, surely the answer has to be: "because it's a pain point and there's a market for it", no? In the sense that, I think your skepticism is (rightly) warranted, but only because of the outcome that you've seen so far has produced unsatisfying results. In a universe where this approach does yield consistently correct and succinct answers, having an AI read a large body of technical documentation and be able to serve you the exact answer that you need from it does seem like a solution with lots of takers!
Given schoolwork is now done so ubiquitously on a computer/online, and especially after the pandemic, a lot of districts/schools have had to present solutions for connectivity for families, because of financial need and otherwise. Source: am school tech admin
I was always under the impression the significant majority of PMs of companies like that were either also software engineers themselves or at least knew enough about it to capably pretend to be one on a good day. Is that not the case?
People under you ~= cost of whatever it is you are providing. Equating that to some sort of "value" you create is an insane proposition; the only thing that communicates, at first glance, is that you/your division/what you work on is EXPENSIVE.
Seems to go hand-in-hand too with his later recounting that he had no further interest to go back to the moon to walk on it; he was there to "beat the Russians" and loved his family too much to risk his life to "go pick up some rocks." From all accounts, he was clearly an extremely brilliant man with a sense of purpose, skill, and courage aplenty to go along with it. Glad the US put his talents to good use!