New Apple Vision PRO

[nicolasrivera]

So Apple has announced a new category of product. Vision PRO.

 

[Whizzinby]

 

[Whizzinby]

1. Early adopters will look like dorks that can’t find the ski lift
2. Will my wife make me take it off during the naked dance, while I have GIFS of Sofia Vergara jumping on a trampoline playing?
3. Where is that wire on the headset going? (Power adapter, phone, or a transmitter beaming back to Cupertino)
4. I’m sure the rest of the fam won’t mind me being the only one wearing one, little Johnny will need to get a job to buy his.

 

[nicolasrivera]

Will I feel in my fingers that virtual nipple???

 

[JiveTurkey]

1. Early adopters will look like dorks that can’t find the ski lift
2. Will my wife make me take it off during the naked dance, while I have GIFS of Sofia Vergara jumping on a trampoline playing?
3. Where is that wire on the headset going? (Power adapter, phone, or a transmitter beaming back to Cupertino)
4. I’m sure the rest of the fam won’t mind me being the only one wearing one, little Johnny will need to get a job to buy his.

Dongle obviously takes on a new meaning

 

[EOengineer]

How is the advertisement not just a bunch of emaciated dudes in their home built jerk off stations?

Early adopters will look like dorks that can’t find the ski lift

Remember the first generation google glass in 2014/2015? I’m not a violent person but I’m also not a liar, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t daydream about elbowing those dumbasses in the face every time I saw them in public.

The cost of this thing is pants-on-head ridiculous. Steve must be doing backflips in his unmarked grave.

All that said, Apple typically has top notch execution in their experiences, so I’m interested to see whether they push the technology, and where.

 

[mavrick102000]

pr0n is always a first adopter of new technology. Whizzinby wasn't far off in his assessment.

You think idiots looking at their phone falling into a fountain was ridiculous? This is a hold my beer moment waiting to happen.

 

[Whizzinby]

How is the advertisement not just a bunch of emaciated dudes in their home built jerk off stations?

I’d love to tell you that wasn’t the first thing I thought, so I’ll say it was the second.

All that said, Apple typically has top notch execution in their experiences, so I’m interested to see whether they push the technology, and where.

I agree. If they are releasing it, it’s probably legit. That said, I’d probably say like the Apple Watch the second or third version is probably the time to buy in as they perfect the device.

Price will obviously have to come down for this to truly pierce the market, but I’d guess the form factor will also have to slim down to something slightly less dork’ish, and being tethered to the battery pack will probably prove to be a pain in the ass.

Cool nonetheless. Movies would be pretty cool if you could wrap the view edge to edge, or even better, eventually from a first person perspective. I’m not sure scrolling the web or getting notifications in ski goggles is a great primary use.

 

[Alex Kenivel]

Zoom meetings would be very up close and personal

 

[laxu]

On a premise level I like the idea.

In an ideal world, I could throw on a headset that is lightweight and comfortable to use all working day, just like having your headphones on.

I could then have my Macbook Pro on my desk, but zero external displays. Instead those would be virtual with basically multiple desktops as large as you would ever want, each of them really sharp too.

But in reality, any first gen Apple product is usually full of issues and quickly replaced by a faster, more convenient and plain better 2nd gen version. You can see this trend with pretty much every product they have made in the recent years, whether it's M1 vs M2 (HDMI 2.1 support alone is worth it), Pencil v1 vs v2, iPad Pro 1st vs 2nd gen etc.

I expect that in practice the Vision Pro is too uncomfortable to use all day long and will be hampered by its software experience. From the video it already looks like you can basically stream just one desktop from your Mac to it, rather than have it show all the virtual desktops you might have. I have several at any given time. It seems like it's built a lot around iOS which even on the iPad is just plain subpar as a professional tool.

With the pricing, it has to be a professional tool or else it's just a rich people toy.

Nobody uses something like iMessage or Facetime for work at least in my country and fat chance of something like MS Teams working properly with it even if you can use the phone/tablet version of the app.

Apple has long been with the issue that they have great hardware but the software experience lags behind. iOS 17 looks like the most lackluster update they've had in years, with exactly zero new features worth mentioning. Siri is still a pile of garbage so relying on it for anything with the Vision Pro sounds like a bad time. My experience is that once you get outside Apple's California bubble, a lot of their features just work much worse.

I do want to try it though.

 

[the-trooper]

12ms of latency. Literally unusable.

 

[DrewJD82]

Hahahahah for that price that's a big nope.

I have an Oculus 2 I bought, set it up and looked around a bit, I think I've picked it up once since then when my buddy gave me his pw for a VR porn site, but got sick of wearing the headset in about 10 minutes. That was $400, so getting me to cough up $3100 more is pretty damn far out of reality.

 

[mbenigni]

How is the advertisement not just a bunch of emaciated dudes in their home built jerk off stations?

Remember the first generation google glass in 2014/2015? I’m not a violent person but I’m also not a liar, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t daydream about elbowing those dumbasses in the face every time I saw them in public.

The cost of this thing is pants-on-head ridiculous. Steve must be doing backflips in his unmarked grave.

All that said, Apple typically has top notch execution in their experiences, so I’m interested to see whether they push the technology, and where.

Well, not necessarily emaciated because - unlike e.g. PSVR2 - you can easily stuff Hot Pockets into your maw whilst wearing your Apple Vision Pro... If you can still afford Hot Pockets.

This promotional photo OMG. It's like a dystopian future where everyone is a douchebag (more so.) Or possibly a human burrito? Who TF dressed this person?

 

[EOengineer]

That said, I’d probably say like the Apple Watch the second or third version is probably the time to buy in as they perfect the device.

But in reality, any first gen Apple product is usually full of issues and quickly replaced by a faster, more convenient and plain better 2nd gen version. You can see this trend with pretty much every product they have made in the recent years, whether it's M1 vs M2 (HDMI 2.1 support alone is worth it), Pencil v1 vs v2, iPad Pro 1st vs 2nd gen etc.

Was in the org for a number of years in various capacities. There were a number of takeaways that have stuck with me, positive and negative - but the one thing I always tell people when they ask for advice on the products is NEVER EVER BUY A FIRST GEN APPLE PRODUCT. There is a very long list of class action lawsuits attached to Apple, most of which are attached to flaws in proprietary hardware on first gen products. It goes back decades. Second gen and beyond is usually killer though.

 

[mbenigni]

In an ideal world, I could throw on a headset that is lightweight and comfortable to use all working day, just like having your headphones on.

This is an inherent problem with VR/AR solutions. Other technologies have gotten smaller/ more lightweight, but with something you literally strap to your face, the bar is extremely high. People who wear eyeglasses, at however many ounces, will literally undergo surgery to get the things off their faces, so exactly how light does a VR kit have to be before it's not annoying inside 30 minutes?

With the pricing, it has to be a professional tool or else it's just a rich people toy.

Nobody uses something like iMessage or Facetime for work at least in my country and fat chance of something like MS Teams working properly with it even if you can use the phone/tablet version of the app.

There's a fundamental problem here, as well: most professional applications of display technologies are centered around people seeing one another in a virtual space. Eye contact, facial expressions, etc. are crucial for these solutions to be effective, or even desirable. And that whole objective is undermined when everyone "in the room" has half their face covered with a $3500 headcrab.

(I've always loved the irony of Half Life Alyx being the "killer app" for the last gen of VR. )

 

[mbenigni]

pr0n is always a first adopter of new technology. Whizzinby wasn't far off in his assessment.

"Apple is also making noises about Vision Pro's privacy settings, noting eye tracking is handled by a discrete process that'll ensure apps and websites can't see where a user is looking."

 

[EOengineer]

This is an inherent problem with VR/AR solutions. Other technologies have gotten smaller/ more lightweight, but with something you literally strap to your face, the bar is extremely high. People who wear eyeglasses, at however many ounces, will literally undergo surgery to get the things off their faces, so exactly how light does a VR kit have to be before it's not annoying inside 30 minutes?

There’s clearly still a gap in the tech and I think it comes down to us still being in the primitive stages of execution.

Google glass is probably the closest we’ve come to a truly wearable (yet still dumb looking) AR solution, but it was 1st gen and it’s limits impacted adoption.

Spitballing here, but my guess is that we will see a significant leap in adoption when this tech fits into a probably still oversized initially but closer to normal sized pair of glasses with some tech akin to noise cancellation where outside ambience can be attenuated and the sets transition into VR mode. Fast forward another 10 years and then maybe we’re looking at a set of contacts. Now we’re talking.

I always try to keep the perspective that all this tech is still primitive by the futures standards. Right this moment, it’s expensive and clunky, but everything gets smaller and lighter with each generation, sometimes surprisingly so.

My tinfoil hat prediction is that Apples pie in the sky long term goal is to kill the idea of a computer in your pocket in favor of an aggregate experience made up of increasingly transparent wearables. AR/VR contacts, Airpods that seat right in your ear canal, watches or bands monitoring your health, etc. We just aren’t there yet.

 

[Whizzinby]

Well, not necessarily emaciated because - unlike e.g. PSVR2 - you can easily stuff Hot Pockets into your maw whilst wearing your Apple Vision Pro... If you can still afford Hot Pockets.

This promotional photo OMG. It's like a dystopian future where everyone is a douchebag (more so.) Or possibly a human burrito? Who TF dressed this person?

Yeah that looks like a scene from a Black Mirror episode.

 

[Whizzinby]

People who wear eyeglasses, at however many ounces, will literally undergo surgery to get the things off their faces, so exactly how light does a VR kit have to be before it's not annoying inside 30 minutes?

I think an even bigger problem than the bulk of the headset itself, is being tethered to the battery pack. They are pretty clever in these ads obscuring it, just showing a cord running down from the main headset, but where does Burrito Girl have that battery pack? (Don’t answer that you savages)

I can’t be bothered with wired headphones anymore with my phone, but this thing will not only have a cord connected to the headset but a slim battery pack you’ll have to keep in your back pocket or something. You’ll only have to snag that thing a couple times before it gets super annoying. Or if you don’t have pockets, you’ll be carrying it around in your hand etc.

I think the tethered battery pack is actually the bigger issue than the headset itself.

 

[Alex Kenivel]

They are pretty clever in these ads obscuring it