I’m serious when I say the Vision Pro has the best video passthrough I’ve ever seen on the sharpest VR displays any normal person will ever come across. But you’re still constantly being reminded that you’re looking at video on screens, and reality is just a lot more interesting than that. There are vanishingly few contexts in reviewing consumer devices where anyone has to care about color gamuts — but if you want me to perceive reality through something, I’d like to see all the colors of the rainbow.
This is the best anyone has ever made in there look, and it’s still not nearly as good as out here.
...
It turns out that having to look at what you want to control is really quite distracting.
Think about every other computer in your life: the input mechanism is independent of whatever you’re looking at. On a laptop, you can click on controls and use the keyboard while keeping your focus on a document. On a phone, you can do things like drag sliders in a photo editing app while keeping your eyes focused on what those changes are actually doing to your photo.
The Vision Pro simply doesn’t work like that — you have to be looking at something in order to click on it, and that means you are constantly taking your attention away from whatever you’re working on to specifically look at the button you need to press next. I spent some time playing a lovely little game called Stitch that quickly became maddening because I kept looking away from the piece I wanted to move to the place I wanted to move it, which meant I wasn’t picking it up when I tapped my fingers.
...
You can open as many apps as you want and put them anywhere you want in space. You can open windows in the kitchen, walk away from them and open some more in the living room, and then go back to the kitchen to find all your old windows waiting for you. Late one night, I made an art gallery of giant Safari windows in our office’s large open cafe area and walked around, looking at huge webpages for a while. I am telling you, it is wild.
Sadly, visionOS doesn’t have any ability to share these windows or experiences with anyone else: two people in Vision Pro headsets sitting in the same room can’t see the same things floating in space at the same time. Apple tells me some enterprise developers are working on experiences with shared views, and you can mirror the view from one Vision Pro to another over FaceTime, but in the end, my big Safari art gallery only ever had one patron: me. It’s amazing you can do all of this, but it is also quite lonely to put things all over a space knowing no one else will ever really experience it.
The latter 2 issues (annoying controls, and not being able to share your windows with other nearby AR users) are simultaneously very big issues that are key to getting people to stick with this...
The latter 2 issues (annoying controls, and not being able to share your windows with other nearby AR users) are simultaneously very big issues that are key to getting people to stick with this product, and the type of issues which are just early growing pains that will be fixed either in the next headset or with an update.
The first issue (color gamut) will be harder to get right I imagine, unless they somehow have transparent goggles and project the AR content onto glass instead of using video passthrough to show the real world.
Gotta go analog! In a recent Veritaseum video I learned that the world's best night vision goggles are actually analog. They polarize incoming light and then amplify it in microscopic columns....
unless they somehow have transparent goggles and project the AR content onto glass instead of using video passthrough to show the real world.
Gotta go analog! In a recent Veritaseum video I learned that the world's best night vision goggles are actually analog. They polarize incoming light and then amplify it in microscopic columns. They take just a few photons, generate a comparably large current of electrons in that column, and then shoot those electrons at a screen. It ends up being monochromatic but it's got nearly 0 delay and I suppose it's a simpler system.
Some kind of analog magic like that would make AR viable.
All old-school night-vision goggles work like that. We had night vision during the cold war, long before digital cameras and screens got invented. Those cascade image intensifier being analog...
All old-school night-vision goggles work like that. We had night vision during the cold war, long before digital cameras and screens got invented.
Those cascade image intensifier being analog means their "dumb tech". Which means if you walk through a dark room, and somebody turns on the light, your night-vision goggle will happily blind you. All they do is multiply the number of incoming photons, after all.
Yeah I thought they fixed that issue, a while ago. Also, night vision is something out of World War 2, not the Cold War. Despite the popular belief, it is just more culturally associated with the...
Yeah I thought they fixed that issue, a while ago. Also, night vision is something out of World War 2, not the Cold War. Despite the popular belief, it is just more culturally associated with the Cold War, same with helicopters, which the military powers at the time were starting to experiment with rotorcraft/helicopters.
This is the video in question. https://youtu.be/UAeJHAFjwPM?si=nZgtPye8F2_AP6qX If I remember correctly (I watched it when it came out) they didn't give any specific info about the make & model,...
If I remember correctly (I watched it when it came out) they didn't give any specific info about the make & model, because they are classified military technology.
They're PVS-31s. You can buy a civilian version, if you live in the US, which is basically the same thing but with lower quality control standards. Edit: whoops, @fineboi
They're PVS-31s. You can buy a civilian version, if you live in the US, which is basically the same thing but with lower quality control standards.
I suspect the annoying controls are gonna be deal breakers for power users (me among them) but probably won’t be a big deal for most conventional users who rarely get past hunt-and-peck navigation...
I suspect the annoying controls are gonna be deal breakers for power users (me among them) but probably won’t be a big deal for most conventional users who rarely get past hunt-and-peck navigation through interfaces anyway.
Though I think they might relent and figure out some secondary sort of pointer device eventually. Sort of like how Jobs said “if you see a stylus, they blew it” for the iPad. The first iterations yeah, they gotta get the basic, native interface paradigm solid first and then they can add the extra frippery.
Hey, I didn't expect to be called out like this in a VR review (I do not own a VR device. It's just that no one visits me) I'm not interested in Apple's garden but I watched the video review and...
but it is also quite lonely to put things all over a space knowing no one else will ever really experience it.
Hey, I didn't expect to be called out like this in a VR review (I do not own a VR device. It's just that no one visits me)
I'm not interested in Apple's garden but I watched the video review and it sounds so close. It just seems like there's always going to be some compromise until we jump to either glasses size AR or full body immersion types of VR (e.g. Matrix Pod style).
All this VR buzz strangely makes me feel that Google Glass (as a commercial product) was ahead of its time. remember when people would react badly to being potentially recorded in public? Well, some still do but it's not WAY more common these days.
The main problem with Glass I think was its very limited computing power, which also limited what it could be used for. That wouldn’t be an issue with a modern flagship smartphone SoC like Apple...
The main problem with Glass I think was its very limited computing power, which also limited what it could be used for.
That wouldn’t be an issue with a modern flagship smartphone SoC like Apple A17 or Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, and especially not hardware like the Vision Pro is carrying (full fat M2 along with dedicated video/motion processor). These are all wildly powerful in comparison, with the M2 benching scores nearly twice those of a high end desktop from Glass’ release year (2014).
It wasn't just limited computing power that was the problem, it was the lack of interface options. There wasn't many ways to actually interact with any software you would want to run on it. That's...
It wasn't just limited computing power that was the problem, it was the lack of interface options. There wasn't many ways to actually interact with any software you would want to run on it. That's why Google was so quick to abandon it as a consumer product but kept it around for enterprise. IIRC it never actually made it to the general public as a finished product; it was only ever sold as a developer platform or as an enterprise tool.
People massively overestimated the capabilities of those things.
I for one is glad to have another actor in the market promoting VR not as some kind of metaverse nonsense, but "just" as a new way to interact with computers. Aside: I noticed that the article is...
I for one is glad to have another actor in the market promoting VR not as some kind of metaverse nonsense, but "just" as a new way to interact with computers.
Aside: I noticed that the article is an almost exact transcript of the video (or vice versa ?). I wasn't expecting anything but it kinda make sense (of course the video have prettier visual).
True. I'm especially glad to have additional people in the market who are not Meta. I wish the Quest headsets had proper competition in their price bracket... If Valve released that rumored new...
True. I'm especially glad to have additional people in the market who are not Meta.
I wish the Quest headsets had proper competition in their price bracket... If Valve released that rumored new headset of theirs and priced it competitively, that'd be the dream.
I don't believe in VR, but I do in AR. It essentially comes down to one feature: An infinite amount of arbitrarily sized screens (actually potentially 3D forms of data representation we don't even...
I don't believe in VR, but I do in AR. It essentially comes down to one feature: An infinite amount of arbitrarily sized screens (actually potentially 3D forms of data representation we don't even use yet) that can be freely positioned all around me. I can see real improvements to a work space with a clever solution for that and Apple are the ones who can pull it off.
Unfortunately, the Verge headline really bites. They know that this is an "Apple magic" moment, they know that this is their best attempt with probably a decade+ of work put into it and they find it... underwhelming in many ways. Some of the issues seem to be conceptual (hand tracking, eye tracking for pointing, a feeling of isolation) and the lack of "true" AR (i.e. a real-world view with objects displayed on a transparent medium rather than just camera input displayed on traditional screens) is a technology deficit that not even Apple can solve: We don't know how to do it yet, not without major tradeoffs.
I believe VR has pretty much crashed and burned and if this is the best AR humanity is currently capable of (I wouldn't know a company with more resources and talent to throw at this), AR might also not be a relevant technology for a long, long time. Futurologists should move on to something else. AI is real and much more interesting.
This doesn’t surprise me. It’s pretty much on trend for the first version of a new product line from Apple to not be great. First iPhone/watch/ipad were all a bit overpriced and underpowered. What...
This doesn’t surprise me. It’s pretty much on trend for the first version of a new product line from Apple to not be great. First iPhone/watch/ipad were all a bit overpriced and underpowered. What they always get right is the concept, after a few years of software and hardware revisions, I have no doubt this will be a pretty solid product.
As @kwyjibo said, I’m not really sure what the purpose of the Vision Pro is. That isn’t necessarily a problem, but it does leave me frustrated with all of the reviews I’ve seen. For example, the...
As @kwyjibo said, I’m not really sure what the purpose of the Vision Pro is. That isn’t necessarily a problem, but it does leave me frustrated with all of the reviews I’ve seen.
For example, the last major platform Apple launched was the Apple Watch. As soon as I saw what it did, I immediately saw the point - it’s your phone notifications on your wrist. It took Apple until the Series 4 watch to get to a point where it was usable for anything other than that. During that time, Apple refined their messaging to focus on health tracking and since then has really leaned into that.
With the Vision Pro, I don’t see the point/purpose. There is no “killer app”. The one question none of the reviews have answered is, “Why in the world would anyone pay $3,500 for this device?” What does it do to justify that price? Am I really going to walk around wearing this thing all day? Cook with it so I can view recipes? Of course not.
Maybe in 5 to 10 years, I can look back at this comment and it’ll be obvious what they were thinking with this product. Maybe I just don’t see Apple’s grand vision or something. But from my vantage point, it sure does look like a product in search of a market.
You and I could both end up like the person who infamously commented on Hacker News about how silly Dropbox was when FTP and USB sticks were a thing, but Joanna Stern's video was what prompted me...
You and I could both end up like the person who infamously commented on Hacker News about how silly Dropbox was when FTP and USB sticks were a thing, but Joanna Stern's video was what prompted me to write my comment because she does show a real use case for the product, as trivial as it is. However, it also highlighted my issues with it1. I have no doubt the tech will improve. The camera can reach to a point where it'd allow you to read the labels of spice bottles in a dimly lit kitchen or the device can become light enough to wear as if you're wearing an earbud but the fact remains that the device is designed to be placed in front of your face and when it is, it's trying to simulate reality for you and just for you. No matter how much Apple will iterate on its form, it will remain a purpose driven device, meaning that you'll have to know what you're about to do when wear it and have to work around the device's constraints (which is my biggest gripe) to do what you want to do.
In latest episode of The Vergecast where they discuss the linked review in more detail, Nilay Patel said a very simple thing that stuck with me. Imagine you're using a traditional computer or even your phone. You open Photos.app because you want to change the brightness of a photo. When you use either of these devices, you either use a mouse or your fingers and as you move the slider up and down or left and right, you can see how the change affects your photo. This is not possible with Vision Pro, because you can't look at the photo and the slider at the same time, as your eyes act as the pointer device. This is a fundamental limitation of this device.
It's hard to ignore the shortcomings of its form but let's set them aside for a bit. Most reviewers are treating this device like it's a market defining product. It's not2. It's clearly miles ahead of anything else but its market is almost mature at this point. There are no more low hanging fruits and as you said, I've yet to see a single app I could define as the app. If software was the issue, some app, any app, would've broken through by now. Apple's app ecosystem is unrivaled and despite their recent hostility and all the backlash they've been receiving from even veteran indie developers like Brent Simmons and Craig Hockenberry, I have no doubt that developers will try to find the killer app3 but it's a big question if the market will be there and whether such an app exists at all. (This is also a chicken-egg problem.) So far, the evidence shows otherwise and I'd wager it will continue to do so in the future, if the device ends up keeping its form and user interface but let's see how it goes. It's exciting to have Apple in this mature market regardless, because Vision Pro will be the real test of its viability.
1: Silly, I know, but imagine frying something while wearing that thing. 2: I'm not saying this from a place where "But Apple never invents anything, it just copies other products with better marketing." I couldn't care less about who does what first. Execution is all that matters and Apple is unrivaled in this regard. 3: You're exactly right with the Apple Watch. The difference is, it was cheap enough to be an impulse purchase for most people and its form was established centuries ago. The Watch's ethos also aligned with Apple's philosophy so well. It's using technology to make one's life better, without getting in the way. (How many years has it been now Apple starts the WWDC keynote with a video showing the lives saved by Apple Watch?) Vision Pro is literally the opposite of that, as it sits in front of your face.
I'm not sure I follow -- can't you do the same thing you'd do in physical space i.e. use your eyes to locate the slider, engage with it (touch on a phone, click on a pc, pinch or however it works...
Imagine you're using a traditional computer or even your phone. You open Photos.app because you want to change the brightness of a photo. When you use either of these devices, you either use a mouse or your fingers and as you move the slider up and down or left and right, you can see how the change affects your photo. This is not possible with Vision Pro, because you can't look at the photo and the slider at the same time, as your eyes act as the pointer device. This is a fundamental limitation of this device.
I'm not sure I follow -- can't you do the same thing you'd do in physical space i.e. use your eyes to locate the slider, engage with it (touch on a phone, click on a pc, pinch or however it works in vr) and then move your eyes back to the picture?
Like you I'm a bit baffled by how much money companies are pouring into VR/AR. Projecting screens around my environment sounds pretty cool if we were talking about lightweight glasses. But I'm not going to have a battery fanny pack and wear 5 pounds of gear on my face that obscures my eyes while cooking dinner in my house -- maybe if you live alone that sounds cool but to anyone who lives and talks with other people in their house that sounds like a dystopian nightmare.
I think there's a way to go but I can imagine some great applications. I'm excited for a 3rd version. My closest friends all live pretty far. I would love to do activities with them. I'm picturing...
I think there's a way to go but I can imagine some great applications. I'm excited for a 3rd version.
My closest friends all live pretty far. I would love to do activities with them. I'm picturing playing a board game at a table together despite being 1000 miles apart.
For home/vehicle repair. I would absolutely LOVE a heads up display while working on my car. Especially (and this is pretty far off) if it could match instructions with what I'm seeing. Like "Remove this, then that, then this", provide information like "torque spec on this bolt is 14 ftlb" or "this is a 13mm hex socket", "this wire likely leads to this other part."
There's also the educational aspects. How awesome would it be in history or literature classes to live in the spaces of your subject? Ilium by Dan Simmons has cool scenes of a homeric scholar studying scenes. It would be incredible to step into those worlds. Advantage are also huge in STEM, go to the surface of the sun, hover near the event horizon of a black hole, stand inside a cell and observe ATP production or RNA replication, stand in the piston of an engine during ignition.
In sports, have at a glance measurements of athlete movement, estimate force production. Have visible quantifiable aspects of athlete performance that coaches most pick up by intuition.
This is what I thought as well, but I don't know. If my memory serves me right, Patel didn't say so. Regardless, I think he was trying to make a general point about how the device robs you of your...
I'm not sure I follow -- can't you do the same thing you'd do in physical space ...
This is what I thought as well, but I don't know. If my memory serves me right, Patel didn't say so. Regardless, I think he was trying to make a general point about how the device robs you of your eyes when your hands can do the job without you look at it -- like typing on a keyboard while your eyes are on the screen etc.
I agree with you about the glasses1, that's why I do not understand Apple's rationale behind the form of the device but I think there's a story behind that we're not yet privy to. For years, even recently, Tim Cook was adamant about how he was more interested in AR and not VR and this device is almost exclusively VR, by design. If you didn't know, reading this article and his quotes in it, you'd think he's criticizing the Vision Pro.
Here's him, talking about AR vs VR in 2016 (emphasis mine):
In terms of it becoming a mass adoption [phenomenon], so that, say, everyone in here would have an AR experience, the reality to do that, it has to be something that everyone in here views to be an “acceptable thing.”
And nobody in here, few people in here, think it’s acceptable to be tethered to a computer walking in here and sitting down, few people are going to view that it’s acceptable to be enclosed in something, because we’re all social people at heart. Even introverts are social people, we like people and we want to interact. It has to be that it’s likely that AR, of the two, is the one the largest number of people will engage with.
I do think that a significant portion of the population of developed countries, and eventually all countries, will have AR experiences every day, almost like eating three meals a day, it will become that much a part of you, a lot of us live on our smartphones, the iPhone, I hope, is very important for everyone, so AR will become really big. VR I think is not going to be that big, compared to AR. I’m not saying it’s not important, it is important.
I’m excited about VR from an education point of view, I think it can be really big for education, I think it can be very big for games. But I can’t imagine everyone in here getting in an enclosed VR experience while you’re sitting in here with me. But I could imagine everyone in here in an AR experience right now, if the technology was there, which it’s not today. How long will it take?
AR is going to take a while, because there are some really hard technology challenges there. But it will happen, it will happen in a big way, and we will wonder when it does, how we ever lived without it. Like we wonder how we lived without our phone today.
1: Remember this? It was awesome. It's the kind of demo I'd have expected from Apple. Technology enhancing someone's life, not getting in the way of it. (There's a lot to criticize in that video, I'm talking about the concept in general.)
I think lightweight glasses is the end goal, but the technology we have for those currently is so staggeringly underwhelming that even the passthrough-VR-headset first-gen Vision experience is...
I think lightweight glasses is the end goal, but the technology we have for those currently is so staggeringly underwhelming that even the passthrough-VR-headset first-gen Vision experience is markedly better.
One could argue that Apple could’ve just sat things out until the tech arrived, but by releasing a compromised but still impressive product now, they’re winning momentum and mindshare they’d be losing out to other players in the field otherwise.
This way, by the time Apple is ready to release a lightweight glasses AR product with mass appeal, they’ll already have a massive selection of AR-native apps for users to run on it which is a recipe for the massive hits the company has been known for.
I don’t think lightweight glasses are ever going to be practical. As the apps get better people will expect more capability than a small form factor will allow. Think about how before smartphones...
I don’t think lightweight glasses are ever going to be practical. As the apps get better people will expect more capability than a small form factor will allow.
Think about how before smartphones the coolest thing was to have a phone as small and light as possible. In Zoolander they made a joke of it. But once people developed expectations for a phone beyond just making calls and receiving calls suddenly they got comfortable with a big glass slab in their pockets that they can’t even use comfortably one handed.
I think our expectations of what’s normal to wear when you’re out will change. I don’t know if it’ll ever be okay to just walk around town with a pair of goggles on, but the goggles will eventually be less fiddly and fussy to use and put on. I’d expect it to look more Iike how we see people wearing big headphones while they’re out now.
Yes! This is an amazing breakdown and super insightful. I honestly do love and appreciate the challenge and critique that you're putting forth to the zeitgeist. This is the type of response to all...
Yes! This is an amazing breakdown and super insightful. I honestly do love and appreciate the challenge and critique that you're putting forth to the zeitgeist. This is the type of response to all of the reviews I've been actively trying to seek out. Thank you for this.
Now, if I might respond, to a couple of things:
I do believe that this is an immature market. Display technology is still nascent and evolving. Tracking technology is still nascent and evolving. Both of these are the prime drivers behind what makes the technology what it will be. Apps are limited by those those technologies. The fact that the Vision Pro has innovated on what an "input" can be, has high fidelity, and can persist screens between rooms, leaves a great breadth of scope for its potential.
I do think the Joanna Stern example is the example of the breakthrough. It's not about an app (though it really does sound like movies and even memories are on a whole other level), it's about the productivity gains to be made from the environment. It's about being able to use it as an ultimate extension of your computer. Have you read Daring Fireball's review? If not, I recommend it. He goes super in depth into all of this: https://daringfireball.net/2024/01/the_vision_pro
I agree that whether or not a killer app can be found remains a question, but out of comparable platforms I think visionOS stands the best chance of this happening yet not just because of the...
Apple's app ecosystem is unrivaled and despite their recent hostility and all the backlash they've been receiving from even veteran indie developers like Brent Simmons and Craig Hockenberry, I have no doubt that developers will try to find the killer app but it's a big question if the market will be there and whether such an app exists at all.
I agree that whether or not a killer app can be found remains a question, but out of comparable platforms I think visionOS stands the best chance of this happening yet not just because of the veteran indie developers, but also because Apple as has put a lot of work into fleshing out the SDK and UX design patterns to levels that no other company has. These things still have a way to go but it’s already ahead of what existed previously, which were underdeveloped SDKs and UX that didn’t stray too far from that of a smartphone.
Absolutely. I'm not a developer so my knowledge on the SDK and other tools and docs that make developers' lives easy are limited to what I hear on Apple centric podcasts like the ATP, but my...
Absolutely. I'm not a developer so my knowledge on the SDK and other tools and docs that make developers' lives easy are limited to what I hear on Apple centric podcasts like the ATP, but my understanding is that depending on the complexity of your app, it can be as simple as switching a button on Xcode to have your app developed for another platform be available on the Vision Pro. Given the breadth of apps available in the App Store, this gives Apple a good head start but it's not an iPadOS or an iOS app that can run on Vision Pro that will make the device.
Yeah, technologically speaking, it's really cool. But it's also rather pointless. It has next to no utility. You can't even use it to play video games with because it's locked into the Apple...
Yeah, technologically speaking, it's really cool. But it's also rather pointless. It has next to no utility. You can't even use it to play video games with because it's locked into the Apple software environments.
That’s honestly still how I also feel about the iPad. Had one and used it a ton for years. Got rid of it, and have never missed it or really remember what I was doing on it.
That’s honestly still how I also feel about the iPad. Had one and used it a ton for years. Got rid of it, and have never missed it or really remember what I was doing on it.
I continue to be baffled by this product. I had little hope that Apple would come up with a way to justify its existence since the announcement, but of all the reviews I've read, watched, and...
I continue to be baffled by this product. I had little hope that Apple would come up with a way to justify its existence since the announcement, but of all the reviews I've read, watched, and listened, that doesn't seem to be the case. The best argument for its existence seems to be "it's a really good TV" but even that comes with its own disadvantages due to the product's form. I get that it's a first gen product, but the ostensible shortcomings don't seem like they can be solved overtime. I have no doubt Apple can make it lighter, improve the cameras, the software (as well as the app selection, but given the way how hostile they've become in this area I'm not sure about this one) in its following iterations but the core issue of this product is that it's trying to replicate the physical world with technology that's so far ill-equipped than the tools most people are born with.
I don't have much else to say that hasn't been said already, but I think this will be one of the biggest flops in Apple's history, given the enormous engineering (hence the cost) behind developing it. That's not to say Vision Pro won't bring enough revenue, eventually, to make it big enough to be listed as a Fortune 500 company if it were a standalone company but given Apple's ambitions with this product, I doubt it will be anything but a fancy and lonely entertainment device for people with means to afford it, with no support for porn.
I think it’s mainly there to prepare Apple for being the leader in AR. They need some sort of gadget to enter the market right now and in the future they will drive the market with AR products...
I think it’s mainly there to prepare Apple for being the leader in AR. They need some sort of gadget to enter the market right now and in the future they will drive the market with AR products like they did with their mp3 player, smartphone and watch.
You have to remember that AR/VR is not a product, it’s an ecosystem for software in the same way as a touchscreen device is a new ecosystem for apps.
The hardware is clunky, but the interface will work the same for light VR glasses, contact lenses, or lasers shot into your eyes. You still need to give developers the first bricks to build a foundation for those future products.
Another place where these UI concepts could make sense is in/on the windshield of a car. Imagine having turn directions and other map cues directly overlaid on top of reality via the windshield...
Another place where these UI concepts could make sense is in/on the windshield of a car. Imagine having turn directions and other map cues directly overlaid on top of reality via the windshield (either a projection or in-glass transparent display panel), with hardware similar to that in the Vision Pro tracking your movements to make sure that the graphics line up correctly for your perspective from the driver’s seat.
You're not gonna believe this, but they actually sell something like this for $30 on Amazon. Obviously it can be improved by Vision Pro motion tracking, but the technology is there.
Similar but not quite :) A proper version could overlay street names on actual streets on the windshield, instead of just projecting an image on a static spot
Similar but not quite :)
A proper version could overlay street names on actual streets on the windshield, instead of just projecting an image on a static spot
Potentially also arrows on the road surface or floating above it, too. Basically as much of the current smartphone directions experience as possible without impeding visibility of pedestrians and...
Potentially also arrows on the road surface or floating above it, too. Basically as much of the current smartphone directions experience as possible without impeding visibility of pedestrians and such.
I'm genuinely curious what makes you so doubtful. Is it truly that the photos aren't top of the line? Or that there's some slight color fraying at the very edges of the screen in very bright...
I'm genuinely curious what makes you so doubtful. Is it truly that the photos aren't top of the line? Or that there's some slight color fraying at the very edges of the screen in very bright light? The best argument for its existence is that screens don't have to be confined to devices in general. One of the highlights (and part of what makes me doubt you've actually read/watched a lot of reviews) of this comes Joanna Stern's experience where she's able to pull up a recipe screen, grab timers from that recipe and put it over individual pots. But even, in more general, you can go and use it as a multitasking masterpiece for work. No longer bound by having to have work monitors, you can have so many screens open in addition to an actual physical mirrored mac monitor. But yes, it's also a really good TV. But at least do your research before you just say "Oh yeah this thing sucks lmao"
I wrote two relatively detailed comments about my thoughts on the product. If they weren't clear, or had some parts you disagreed with, I'd have loved to have a good faith discussion and elaborate...
I wrote two relatively detailed comments about my thoughts on the product. If they weren't clear, or had some parts you disagreed with, I'd have loved to have a good faith discussion and elaborate my thoughts further but given your last sentence, that's clearly not your intent.
Yeah, I am curious about why you don't see "That I can use Microsoft Word in a spatially created window that blends in with my environment but still having to type on a keyboard" as compelling?
Yeah, I am curious about why you don't see "That I can use Microsoft Word in a spatially created window that blends in with my environment but still having to type on a keyboard" as compelling?
Take it easy. Your comment style doesn’t work on such a small site where the commenting population can quickly take mental note that @ssk isn’t a contributive member of the site.
Take it easy. Your comment style doesn’t work on such a small site where the commenting population can quickly take mental note that @ssk isn’t a contributive member of the site.
I tried Vision Pro today! I was disappointed in some things, blown away by others, and ultimately left thinking "I am definitely buying whatever version of this exists 3 years from now". IMO this...
I tried Vision Pro today!
I was disappointed in some things, blown away by others, and ultimately left thinking "I am definitely buying whatever version of this exists 3 years from now". IMO this technology is undoubtedly the next step in personal computing - it's just a matter of time until the headsets are smaller and cheaper.
It also convinced me that I need to have someone recording Spatial Video at my wedding this summer....... the internet clowned on that guy in the AVP trailer recording video of his kids, but man does it look fantastic in the headset. Like a window into a memory.
It’s a shame nobody has accessible high quality cameras for it. The new iPhone isn’t that great at it and the AVP is fine but if you’re doing wedding photos you’re gonna want higher quality.
It’s a shame nobody has accessible high quality cameras for it. The new iPhone isn’t that great at it and the AVP is fine but if you’re doing wedding photos you’re gonna want higher quality.
The consensus across the board seems to be that of all Apple 1st Gen products, i.e., too ambitious for currently available technology and will probably be replaced with something that has a better...
The consensus across the board seems to be that of all Apple 1st Gen products, i.e., too ambitious for currently available technology and will probably be replaced with something that has a better value proposition within 5 years.
Which is good. Frankly, I think I'm going to have to try it to believe it because AR has always been kind of a jittery mess on my phone.
Seems to me that researchers, developers, and early adopters need something to play with in order for Apple to learn more about what the market likes. I’m not an early adopter on VR but I’m glad...
Seems to me that researchers, developers, and early adopters need something to play with in order for Apple to learn more about what the market likes. I’m not an early adopter on VR but I’m glad other people are doing the experiments.
From the review:
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The latter 2 issues (annoying controls, and not being able to share your windows with other nearby AR users) are simultaneously very big issues that are key to getting people to stick with this product, and the type of issues which are just early growing pains that will be fixed either in the next headset or with an update.
The first issue (color gamut) will be harder to get right I imagine, unless they somehow have transparent goggles and project the AR content onto glass instead of using video passthrough to show the real world.
Gotta go analog! In a recent Veritaseum video I learned that the world's best night vision goggles are actually analog. They polarize incoming light and then amplify it in microscopic columns. They take just a few photons, generate a comparably large current of electrons in that column, and then shoot those electrons at a screen. It ends up being monochromatic but it's got nearly 0 delay and I suppose it's a simpler system.
Some kind of analog magic like that would make AR viable.
You know the name of the goggles? Would be interested in checking them out
All old-school night-vision goggles work like that. We had night vision during the cold war, long before digital cameras and screens got invented.
Those cascade image intensifier being analog means their "dumb tech". Which means if you walk through a dark room, and somebody turns on the light, your night-vision goggle will happily blind you. All they do is multiply the number of incoming photons, after all.
You should watch the video linked in this comment modern ones are still dumb tech but actually don't happily blind you. It is all quite interesting.
Yeah I thought they fixed that issue, a while ago. Also, night vision is something out of World War 2, not the Cold War. Despite the popular belief, it is just more culturally associated with the Cold War, same with helicopters, which the military powers at the time were starting to experiment with rotorcraft/helicopters.
This is the video in question. https://youtu.be/UAeJHAFjwPM?si=nZgtPye8F2_AP6qX
If I remember correctly (I watched it when it came out) they didn't give any specific info about the make & model, because they are classified military technology.
They're PVS-31s. You can buy a civilian version, if you live in the US, which is basically the same thing but with lower quality control standards.
Edit: whoops, @fineboi
$14k and on back order!
See also: optical interferometry in what may well be my favourite Tom Scott video
I suspect the annoying controls are gonna be deal breakers for power users (me among them) but probably won’t be a big deal for most conventional users who rarely get past hunt-and-peck navigation through interfaces anyway.
Though I think they might relent and figure out some secondary sort of pointer device eventually. Sort of like how Jobs said “if you see a stylus, they blew it” for the iPad. The first iterations yeah, they gotta get the basic, native interface paradigm solid first and then they can add the extra frippery.
I believe that's how Microsoft's Hololense 2 works.
Indeed, and that's mentionned in the article. Magic Leap 2 was also of this kind.
Hey, I didn't expect to be called out like this in a VR review (I do not own a VR device. It's just that no one visits me)
I'm not interested in Apple's garden but I watched the video review and it sounds so close. It just seems like there's always going to be some compromise until we jump to either glasses size AR or full body immersion types of VR (e.g. Matrix Pod style).
All this VR buzz strangely makes me feel that Google Glass (as a commercial product) was ahead of its time. remember when people would react badly to being potentially recorded in public? Well, some still do but it's not WAY more common these days.
The main problem with Glass I think was its very limited computing power, which also limited what it could be used for.
That wouldn’t be an issue with a modern flagship smartphone SoC like Apple A17 or Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, and especially not hardware like the Vision Pro is carrying (full fat M2 along with dedicated video/motion processor). These are all wildly powerful in comparison, with the M2 benching scores nearly twice those of a high end desktop from Glass’ release year (2014).
It wasn't just limited computing power that was the problem, it was the lack of interface options. There wasn't many ways to actually interact with any software you would want to run on it. That's why Google was so quick to abandon it as a consumer product but kept it around for enterprise. IIRC it never actually made it to the general public as a finished product; it was only ever sold as a developer platform or as an enterprise tool.
People massively overestimated the capabilities of those things.
I for one is glad to have another actor in the market promoting VR not as some kind of metaverse nonsense, but "just" as a new way to interact with computers.
Aside: I noticed that the article is an almost exact transcript of the video (or vice versa ?). I wasn't expecting anything but it kinda make sense (of course the video have prettier visual).
True. I'm especially glad to have additional people in the market who are not Meta.
I wish the Quest headsets had proper competition in their price bracket... If Valve released that rumored new headset of theirs and priced it competitively, that'd be the dream.
I don't believe in VR, but I do in AR. It essentially comes down to one feature: An infinite amount of arbitrarily sized screens (actually potentially 3D forms of data representation we don't even use yet) that can be freely positioned all around me. I can see real improvements to a work space with a clever solution for that and Apple are the ones who can pull it off.
Unfortunately, the Verge headline really bites. They know that this is an "Apple magic" moment, they know that this is their best attempt with probably a decade+ of work put into it and they find it... underwhelming in many ways. Some of the issues seem to be conceptual (hand tracking, eye tracking for pointing, a feeling of isolation) and the lack of "true" AR (i.e. a real-world view with objects displayed on a transparent medium rather than just camera input displayed on traditional screens) is a technology deficit that not even Apple can solve: We don't know how to do it yet, not without major tradeoffs.
I believe VR has pretty much crashed and burned and if this is the best AR humanity is currently capable of (I wouldn't know a company with more resources and talent to throw at this), AR might also not be a relevant technology for a long, long time. Futurologists should move on to something else. AI is real and much more interesting.
This doesn’t surprise me. It’s pretty much on trend for the first version of a new product line from Apple to not be great. First iPhone/watch/ipad were all a bit overpriced and underpowered. What they always get right is the concept, after a few years of software and hardware revisions, I have no doubt this will be a pretty solid product.
As @kwyjibo said, I’m not really sure what the purpose of the Vision Pro is. That isn’t necessarily a problem, but it does leave me frustrated with all of the reviews I’ve seen.
For example, the last major platform Apple launched was the Apple Watch. As soon as I saw what it did, I immediately saw the point - it’s your phone notifications on your wrist. It took Apple until the Series 4 watch to get to a point where it was usable for anything other than that. During that time, Apple refined their messaging to focus on health tracking and since then has really leaned into that.
With the Vision Pro, I don’t see the point/purpose. There is no “killer app”. The one question none of the reviews have answered is, “Why in the world would anyone pay $3,500 for this device?” What does it do to justify that price? Am I really going to walk around wearing this thing all day? Cook with it so I can view recipes? Of course not.
Maybe in 5 to 10 years, I can look back at this comment and it’ll be obvious what they were thinking with this product. Maybe I just don’t see Apple’s grand vision or something. But from my vantage point, it sure does look like a product in search of a market.
You and I could both end up like the person who infamously commented on Hacker News about how silly Dropbox was when FTP and USB sticks were a thing, but Joanna Stern's video was what prompted me to write my comment because she does show a real use case for the product, as trivial as it is. However, it also highlighted my issues with it1. I have no doubt the tech will improve. The camera can reach to a point where it'd allow you to read the labels of spice bottles in a dimly lit kitchen or the device can become light enough to wear as if you're wearing an earbud but the fact remains that the device is designed to be placed in front of your face and when it is, it's trying to simulate reality for you and just for you. No matter how much Apple will iterate on its form, it will remain a purpose driven device, meaning that you'll have to know what you're about to do when wear it and have to work around the device's constraints (which is my biggest gripe) to do what you want to do.
In latest episode of The Vergecast where they discuss the linked review in more detail, Nilay Patel said a very simple thing that stuck with me. Imagine you're using a traditional computer or even your phone. You open Photos.app because you want to change the brightness of a photo. When you use either of these devices, you either use a mouse or your fingers and as you move the slider up and down or left and right, you can see how the change affects your photo. This is not possible with Vision Pro, because you can't look at the photo and the slider at the same time, as your eyes act as the pointer device. This is a fundamental limitation of this device.
It's hard to ignore the shortcomings of its form but let's set them aside for a bit. Most reviewers are treating this device like it's a market defining product. It's not2. It's clearly miles ahead of anything else but its market is almost mature at this point. There are no more low hanging fruits and as you said, I've yet to see a single app I could define as the app. If software was the issue, some app, any app, would've broken through by now. Apple's app ecosystem is unrivaled and despite their recent hostility and all the backlash they've been receiving from even veteran indie developers like Brent Simmons and Craig Hockenberry, I have no doubt that developers will try to find the killer app3 but it's a big question if the market will be there and whether such an app exists at all. (This is also a chicken-egg problem.) So far, the evidence shows otherwise and I'd wager it will continue to do so in the future, if the device ends up keeping its form and user interface but let's see how it goes. It's exciting to have Apple in this mature market regardless, because Vision Pro will be the real test of its viability.
1: Silly, I know, but imagine frying something while wearing that thing.
2: I'm not saying this from a place where "But Apple never invents anything, it just copies other products with better marketing." I couldn't care less about who does what first. Execution is all that matters and Apple is unrivaled in this regard.
3: You're exactly right with the Apple Watch. The difference is, it was cheap enough to be an impulse purchase for most people and its form was established centuries ago. The Watch's ethos also aligned with Apple's philosophy so well. It's using technology to make one's life better, without getting in the way. (How many years has it been now Apple starts the WWDC keynote with a video showing the lives saved by Apple Watch?) Vision Pro is literally the opposite of that, as it sits in front of your face.
I'm not sure I follow -- can't you do the same thing you'd do in physical space i.e. use your eyes to locate the slider, engage with it (touch on a phone, click on a pc, pinch or however it works in vr) and then move your eyes back to the picture?
Like you I'm a bit baffled by how much money companies are pouring into VR/AR. Projecting screens around my environment sounds pretty cool if we were talking about lightweight glasses. But I'm not going to have a battery fanny pack and wear 5 pounds of gear on my face that obscures my eyes while cooking dinner in my house -- maybe if you live alone that sounds cool but to anyone who lives and talks with other people in their house that sounds like a dystopian nightmare.
I think there's a way to go but I can imagine some great applications. I'm excited for a 3rd version.
This is what I thought as well, but I don't know. If my memory serves me right, Patel didn't say so. Regardless, I think he was trying to make a general point about how the device robs you of your eyes when your hands can do the job without you look at it -- like typing on a keyboard while your eyes are on the screen etc.
I agree with you about the glasses1, that's why I do not understand Apple's rationale behind the form of the device but I think there's a story behind that we're not yet privy to. For years, even recently, Tim Cook was adamant about how he was more interested in AR and not VR and this device is almost exclusively VR, by design. If you didn't know, reading this article and his quotes in it, you'd think he's criticizing the Vision Pro.
Here's him, talking about AR vs VR in 2016 (emphasis mine):
1: Remember this? It was awesome. It's the kind of demo I'd have expected from Apple. Technology enhancing someone's life, not getting in the way of it. (There's a lot to criticize in that video, I'm talking about the concept in general.)
I think lightweight glasses is the end goal, but the technology we have for those currently is so staggeringly underwhelming that even the passthrough-VR-headset first-gen Vision experience is markedly better.
One could argue that Apple could’ve just sat things out until the tech arrived, but by releasing a compromised but still impressive product now, they’re winning momentum and mindshare they’d be losing out to other players in the field otherwise.
This way, by the time Apple is ready to release a lightweight glasses AR product with mass appeal, they’ll already have a massive selection of AR-native apps for users to run on it which is a recipe for the massive hits the company has been known for.
I don’t think lightweight glasses are ever going to be practical. As the apps get better people will expect more capability than a small form factor will allow.
Think about how before smartphones the coolest thing was to have a phone as small and light as possible. In Zoolander they made a joke of it. But once people developed expectations for a phone beyond just making calls and receiving calls suddenly they got comfortable with a big glass slab in their pockets that they can’t even use comfortably one handed.
I think our expectations of what’s normal to wear when you’re out will change. I don’t know if it’ll ever be okay to just walk around town with a pair of goggles on, but the goggles will eventually be less fiddly and fussy to use and put on. I’d expect it to look more Iike how we see people wearing big headphones while they’re out now.
Yes! This is an amazing breakdown and super insightful. I honestly do love and appreciate the challenge and critique that you're putting forth to the zeitgeist. This is the type of response to all of the reviews I've been actively trying to seek out. Thank you for this.
Now, if I might respond, to a couple of things:
I do believe that this is an immature market. Display technology is still nascent and evolving. Tracking technology is still nascent and evolving. Both of these are the prime drivers behind what makes the technology what it will be. Apps are limited by those those technologies. The fact that the Vision Pro has innovated on what an "input" can be, has high fidelity, and can persist screens between rooms, leaves a great breadth of scope for its potential.
I do think the Joanna Stern example is the example of the breakthrough. It's not about an app (though it really does sound like movies and even memories are on a whole other level), it's about the productivity gains to be made from the environment. It's about being able to use it as an ultimate extension of your computer. Have you read Daring Fireball's review? If not, I recommend it. He goes super in depth into all of this: https://daringfireball.net/2024/01/the_vision_pro
I agree that whether or not a killer app can be found remains a question, but out of comparable platforms I think visionOS stands the best chance of this happening yet not just because of the veteran indie developers, but also because Apple as has put a lot of work into fleshing out the SDK and UX design patterns to levels that no other company has. These things still have a way to go but it’s already ahead of what existed previously, which were underdeveloped SDKs and UX that didn’t stray too far from that of a smartphone.
Absolutely. I'm not a developer so my knowledge on the SDK and other tools and docs that make developers' lives easy are limited to what I hear on Apple centric podcasts like the ATP, but my understanding is that depending on the complexity of your app, it can be as simple as switching a button on Xcode to have your app developed for another platform be available on the Vision Pro. Given the breadth of apps available in the App Store, this gives Apple a good head start but it's not an iPadOS or an iOS app that can run on Vision Pro that will make the device.
Yeah, technologically speaking, it's really cool. But it's also rather pointless. It has next to no utility. You can't even use it to play video games with because it's locked into the Apple software environments.
That’s honestly still how I also feel about the iPad. Had one and used it a ton for years. Got rid of it, and have never missed it or really remember what I was doing on it.
I use my iPad all the time, mostly as a larger version of my phone. I feel like there’s utility enough to justify it existing in that alone.
I continue to be baffled by this product. I had little hope that Apple would come up with a way to justify its existence since the announcement, but of all the reviews I've read, watched, and listened, that doesn't seem to be the case. The best argument for its existence seems to be "it's a really good TV" but even that comes with its own disadvantages due to the product's form. I get that it's a first gen product, but the ostensible shortcomings don't seem like they can be solved overtime. I have no doubt Apple can make it lighter, improve the cameras, the software (as well as the app selection, but given the way how hostile they've become in this area I'm not sure about this one) in its following iterations but the core issue of this product is that it's trying to replicate the physical world with technology that's so far ill-equipped than the tools most people are born with.
I don't have much else to say that hasn't been said already, but I think this will be one of the biggest flops in Apple's history, given the enormous engineering (hence the cost) behind developing it. That's not to say Vision Pro won't bring enough revenue, eventually, to make it big enough to be listed as a Fortune 500 company if it were a standalone company but given Apple's ambitions with this product, I doubt it will be anything but a fancy and lonely entertainment device for people with means to afford it, with no support for porn.
I think it’s mainly there to prepare Apple for being the leader in AR. They need some sort of gadget to enter the market right now and in the future they will drive the market with AR products like they did with their mp3 player, smartphone and watch.
You have to remember that AR/VR is not a product, it’s an ecosystem for software in the same way as a touchscreen device is a new ecosystem for apps.
The hardware is clunky, but the interface will work the same for light VR glasses, contact lenses, or lasers shot into your eyes. You still need to give developers the first bricks to build a foundation for those future products.
Another place where these UI concepts could make sense is in/on the windshield of a car. Imagine having turn directions and other map cues directly overlaid on top of reality via the windshield (either a projection or in-glass transparent display panel), with hardware similar to that in the Vision Pro tracking your movements to make sure that the graphics line up correctly for your perspective from the driver’s seat.
You're not gonna believe this, but they actually sell something like this for $30 on Amazon. Obviously it can be improved by Vision Pro motion tracking, but the technology is there.
Similar but not quite :)
A proper version could overlay street names on actual streets on the windshield, instead of just projecting an image on a static spot
Potentially also arrows on the road surface or floating above it, too. Basically as much of the current smartphone directions experience as possible without impeding visibility of pedestrians and such.
I'm genuinely curious what makes you so doubtful. Is it truly that the photos aren't top of the line? Or that there's some slight color fraying at the very edges of the screen in very bright light? The best argument for its existence is that screens don't have to be confined to devices in general. One of the highlights (and part of what makes me doubt you've actually read/watched a lot of reviews) of this comes Joanna Stern's experience where she's able to pull up a recipe screen, grab timers from that recipe and put it over individual pots. But even, in more general, you can go and use it as a multitasking masterpiece for work. No longer bound by having to have work monitors, you can have so many screens open in addition to an actual physical mirrored mac monitor. But yes, it's also a really good TV. But at least do your research before you just say "Oh yeah this thing sucks lmao"
I wrote two relatively detailed comments about my thoughts on the product. If they weren't clear, or had some parts you disagreed with, I'd have loved to have a good faith discussion and elaborate my thoughts further but given your last sentence, that's clearly not your intent.
I'd suggest you take a look at Tildes code of conduct.
Yeah, I am curious about why you don't see "That I can use Microsoft Word in a spatially created window that blends in with my environment but still having to type on a keyboard" as compelling?
Take it easy. Your comment style doesn’t work on such a small site where the commenting population can quickly take mental note that @ssk isn’t a contributive member of the site.
Yeah, was definitely quick to the jump and very un-tildes like. My apologies! More of a lurker around here than a commenter
I tried Vision Pro today!
I was disappointed in some things, blown away by others, and ultimately left thinking "I am definitely buying whatever version of this exists 3 years from now". IMO this technology is undoubtedly the next step in personal computing - it's just a matter of time until the headsets are smaller and cheaper.
It also convinced me that I need to have someone recording Spatial Video at my wedding this summer....... the internet clowned on that guy in the AVP trailer recording video of his kids, but man does it look fantastic in the headset. Like a window into a memory.
It’s a shame nobody has accessible high quality cameras for it. The new iPhone isn’t that great at it and the AVP is fine but if you’re doing wedding photos you’re gonna want higher quality.
The consensus across the board seems to be that of all Apple 1st Gen products, i.e., too ambitious for currently available technology and will probably be replaced with something that has a better value proposition within 5 years.
Which is good. Frankly, I think I'm going to have to try it to believe it because AR has always been kind of a jittery mess on my phone.
Seems to me that researchers, developers, and early adopters need something to play with in order for Apple to learn more about what the market likes. I’m not an early adopter on VR but I’m glad other people are doing the experiments.