dmarcos

There’s people already creating content with AI that resonates with me as much as content without. AI is just another tool in the box.

One example I recommend is the Unanswered oddities series. Really funny. All visuals and audio AI generated.

https://www.reddit.com/r/singularity/comments/1e6c1d4/unansw...

I disagree. The Web is more alive than ever. Browsers converging into a single engine (Chromium) is a good thing. Web compatibility across browsers is solved or at least less of an issue since all share same basic implementation.

There’s never been a better time than today for independent browsers. Chromium does the heavy lifting and you can focus on differentiation with a small team. You can disable or change any Chromium features you don’t like or ship new ones. Notable examples are Brave or Meta Browser. If competing browsers to Chrome are not getting more traction is simply because don’t offer features that are compelling enough for most to offset the switching cost. Market forces at play

I hear you. I come from a web dev background too and co-created A-Frame (https://aframe.io/) 8 years ago taking some of the Unity ideas (entity component) while retaining the fun parts of Web deving and publishing. Games and 3D graphics is super deep. Joy for me is having always interesting areas to explore that are not just the accidental complexity of the regular Web dev tooling.

Thanks. It’s indeed a big big win

WebXR has been in Safari for Vision Pro since day one but disabled by default behind a flag. It’s the usual process that browser vendors follow to ship new APIs. In the fall it will be enabled by default for everyone.

AR mode will come. Rendering directly on the frame buffer with video pass through is not yet available on native either. It makes sense that Apple wants to keep platform consistency.

I was part of the Mozilla team that kickstarted the WebVR spec that predates WebXR. I’ve been also maintaining A-Frame (Framework to develop Web based AR/VR experiences) for more than 8 years. This announcement makes me so happy. It’s been a decade long effort.

I’m both buyer of iPhone first gen and Vision Pro on day one. The iPhone was an amazing value: replaced my nokia cellphone, had an amazing touch UI with a gorgeous display that was a delight to use compared to anything else at the time, loved to be able to properly check my email and browse the Web anywhere with WiFi, it replaced my iPod, watching youtube anywhere was super useful… I couldn’t get enough. Value prop was super clear on day one

I don’t use my Vision Pro at all.

Do you think I’m an exception or the norm?

Do you think buyers of first generation Vision Pro use it as much as first gen Mac, iPod, Watch? Is the value prop and purpose as clear?

Regardless of what people said or are saying now, the main difference is that people that bought the initial iPhone loved it and used it all the time. Most Vision Pro owners stopped using it 2-3 weeks after purchase.

The iphone built on existing product categories with product-market fit: PDAs, cellphones, MP3 players, smartphones. The path to improve the initial product was clear. There was a clear target.

Vision Pro launches in an unproven market (VR/AR) with only a handful of games with significant adoption that AVP can't run as well as competitors due to lack of controllers (e.g Beat Saber experience would be worse due to higher latency of hand tracking). Path to improve the product is uncertain because the target market is not clear yet.

I both bought iPhone and Vision Pro on day one. And my enthusiasm and engagement with each product are completely different.

Yes. Apple strength is improving successful product categories, not finding product-market fit

Yes. Apple is covering bets. Also it seems there are no new product categories in the pipeline short term. By releasing Vision Pro they show they can still innovate (even if it has no market impact). It helps retain and attract talent.

Watches (both traditional and GPS for runners, hikers, bikers) and fitness trackers (Nike, Fitbit) were very popular prior to the Apple Watch. AR and VR are still unproven markets besides some games. Skepticism over Vision Pro is more reasonable than Watch. Iterating Watch was about improving implementation and delivering the features that we knew people wanted. Iterating Vision Pro is about creating a market that doesn’t exist yet.

edit: typo

You are saying that sales, usage, range of use cases and types of audiences of VR headsets today is comparable to Smartphones (Blackberry Palm), Cell phones and personal music players in 2007? Those are the devices that iPhone improved upon and replaced. Most VR headsets stopped being used shortly after purchase and only a few games sub genres have signs of product-market fit

Fitness trackers (Fitbit), traditional and sport watches (with GPS) were popular categories when Apple Watch launched.

Apple Vision Pro is a different beast because AR/VR don’t have product-market fit yet besides a few game genres that Apple doesn’t care about.

Apple is good at improving existing product categories less so at finding product-market fit that usually outsources to others.

iPhone 1 was limited but extremely useful at launch. People like me that bought on day 1 couldn’t get enough of it. Had an amazing unparalleled Web browser experience and email, an iPod replacement and Google Maps / Youtube in your pocket felt magical. Also got a Vision Pro on day one and used it just a handful of times. Use cases and value prop of AVP nebulous. Smartphones were a popular product category when iPhone launched in a way VR / AR headsets aren’t today.

I personally don’t think is significantly better (own all the headsets since DK1) in terms of comfort. In some aspects worse. Yesterday had to change clothes to use the AVP because my pajamas don’t have pockets for the battery pack. Each headset has a different set of annoyances. not sure AVP is net positive in comparison.

Wearing a headset / computer on your face is a cost (vs wearing nothing) that the value prop gotta offset. We’ll see if it is a net positive, worth the tradeoff for a significant amount of people. Previous evidence indicates it isn’t.

What do you do with it? How often? Is it your first headset?

Yeah, Not sure you can call “dominating” at having a unique feature that nobody uses. Time will tell but I think Vision Pro will have similar retention issues to other headsets. Fundamental problems still there (weight, vergence accommodation conflict, isolation…)

They are supporting WebXR at launch (behind flags for now). I already tested A-Frame on the simulator. It was announced last WWDC: https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2023/10279/

+1 for Lazarus Lake. I do ultrarunning and also listen to Tyler’s pod. Laz doesn’t do a ton of interviews and they are almost from different planets :) Definitively the most unexpected podcast of the year for me and was great.

What demos / use cases showcased are you most excited about?

We don’t have the tech to fulfill that vision (still research topic) Considering the constraints of Vision Pro: bulk, weight, battery live, resolution… Are you excited about any use case?

What use case are you excited about?

Keep in mind that when using chromium you can innovate on any part of the stack not just the UI. You can focus on what matters to you: You can reimplement CSS animations, the network stack, add any new APIs, define any privacy or security policies…

A robust and reusable browser engine lowers the barrier of entry for anyone to innovate and differentiate. Browser compatibility is close to solved since everyone shares most of the implementation. Better user experience across the board at lower cost.

Specific examples are Brave, Opera, or more recently the Meta Browser shipping in the Meta Quest: very small team now leading the WebXR standard. it wouldn’t be possible without Chromium.

Yes. I see chromium as the linux kernel. Piece of fundamental infrastructure that does the the heavy lifting and one can reconfigure, tweak, add features or eventually fork if needed. Never been easier to build an independent browser.

Notice that “master” in the context of git has nothing to do with slavery. Master means the “reference” like “master” copy for CDs / Records that duplicates are made from.

Etymologicaly master comes from magister that also means expert / teacher. This is more apparent in some Latin languages like Spanish (I’m Spanish) where we have words like Maestro meaning teacher.

In Spanish Master copy translates to “Copia Maestra”. Nothing to do with slavery.

Most progressives in the US don’t know anything about this and / or conveniently ignore it.

Pretty common for men with a college degree and / or wealthy to date women with no degree and / or no money. Pretty uncommon the other way around.

Says not before middle of Sept. Would love to go. Anyone else trying to time a trip?

I always interpreted Jon Blow “good programmer” = “cares about the craft”. Someone that knows deeply the tech stack and understands the tradeoffs made for each decision as opposed to those that just follow fashions and dogmas without evaluation (Object oriented, garbage collection, web framework du jour…). That’s my interpretation after following Jon for a while. could be wrong.