I'm currently developing for AVP. It is still baffling to me that a company so well regarded for product design, did not pay more attention to the comfort and weight distribution of a device...
I'm currently developing for AVP. It is still baffling to me that a company so well regarded for product design, did not pay more attention to the comfort and weight distribution of a device designed to attach to your head.
Having upgraded the Quest 2 strap because the pack-in option had serious weight distribution issues, I found it interesting that Apple's flagship unit was also sporting a kid's winter headband. I...
Having upgraded the Quest 2 strap because the pack-in option had serious weight distribution issues, I found it interesting that Apple's flagship unit was also sporting a kid's winter headband. I bet it works better, but it's still crazy given the weight and price of their headset.
Sure! I work in higher education, and we're in the early stages of developing of an application to help piano students deal with performance anxiety. The plan is to do this by simulating being in...
Sure! I work in higher education, and we're in the early stages of developing of an application to help piano students deal with performance anxiety.
The plan is to do this by simulating being in a large venue, with an audience (to some degree of realism), and venue-specific acoustics. The central objective is to take advantage of the AVP pass-through cameras to show them their actual hands on an actual piano, but the rest is the space is simulated.
There are already apps that exist that do very similar things, for other headsets. We're mostly using this as a test to figure out workflows, and how much effort is involved in AVP development.
As a piano player who absolutely hated performing in front of people, while I don't have much interest in VR headsets, I can actually see this being potentially a quite useful use case for one and...
As a piano player who absolutely hated performing in front of people, while I don't have much interest in VR headsets, I can actually see this being potentially a quite useful use case for one and could see myself having wanted to try it out when I was younger.
For what it's worth I use my AVP several times a week for work and for casual viewing. It has fundamentally changed how I do my work and interact with my Mac. Maybe my use was mitigated by the...
For what it's worth I use my AVP several times a week for work and for casual viewing. It has fundamentally changed how I do my work and interact with my Mac. Maybe my use was mitigated by the fact that I purchased it several months after it launched and knew its capabilities and how it would fit into my tech stack. But it has exceeded my expectations at every turn. Comparing the AVP to the iPhone is not a good comparison. It is far closer to a desktop computer or high tech monitor than anything else.
I do wear an additional band that helps distribute the weight to my forehead, but I equate this to any other accessory that people buy for their device to help it work better for them.
This article seems to have found early adopters who are disappointed in their purchase, and I'm sure you can find those for any product, but there are others who are just using it like any other devise and are happy with it.
The annoying part is that if they’d allowed it to be a high tech monitor, I might well have bought one! All those pixels and all that processing power, but no way to feed in a high resolution...
It is far closer to a desktop computer or high tech monitor than anything else.
The annoying part is that if they’d allowed it to be a high tech monitor, I might well have bought one! All those pixels and all that processing power, but no way to feed in a high resolution signal to be displayed…
The AVP is my only monitor for my MacMini, which sits on my bookshelf next to me. I have the AVP beside my chair and when I want to use the MacMini I pull out a keyboard and mouse and pull up the...
The AVP is my only monitor for my MacMini, which sits on my bookshelf next to me. I have the AVP beside my chair and when I want to use the MacMini I pull out a keyboard and mouse and pull up the MacMini display in my AVP. It works astoundingly well. Plus, if needed, the MacMini will fit in the travel case I have for the AVP. I can take my whole set up with me and always have a monitor the size of a room.
Credit where it's due actually, looking again now they do seem to have improved things since I was considering one more seriously last year. That was exactly my use case - something to have a...
Credit where it's due actually, looking again now they do seem to have improved things since I was considering one more seriously last year. That was exactly my use case - something to have a decent sized workspace while travelling - but the size and resolution for the virtual displays seemed pretty limited compared to the device's capabilities.
I will say the ultrawide mode that's been added since I last went over the specs looks a lot closer to replicating the kind of dual monitor setup I'd actually want, although I still find it wild that they're trying to pipe that much data over a wireless link rather than just using USB-C alt mode. Trying to push 50Gbps+ of signal over a WiFi standard that optimistically manages 5Gbps in the real world just didn't sound workable to me!
How's the latency, in your experience? It sounds like you're pretty happy with it overall, so I'm guessing it hasn't been a problem, but that and compression artifacting were my two biggest concerns. [Edit: and the lack of multiple virtual monitors, but the newer "bigass 32:9 high dpi" setting would fix that at the expense of presumably exacerbating the other two issues!]
I have not noticed any latency issues in my design and 3D work or when I have watched YouTube videos through the MacMini. It's like I'm using a regular monitor, just floating in space. The...
I have not noticed any latency issues in my design and 3D work or when I have watched YouTube videos through the MacMini. It's like I'm using a regular monitor, just floating in space. The resolution is sharp in the area you are focusing on. The part in your peripheral vision is less sharp, but you never notice unless you take a screenshot of the whole view and then look at it. So it is only rendering clear and sharp where and when it needs to.
I have found that the ultra-wide mode screen size covers a good portion of your view in the AVP. It's a good 3+ 72" screens worth of real estate. I find it too uncomfortable to swivel my head back and forth that much based on how I use my apps with tool bars and pallets arranged around the workspace. The middle size of the three works really well for me, it's about 2 screens of real estate.
One thing that I haven't seen mentioned a lot is that you can reposition this "monitor" in your field of view. You can push it away from you or pull it closer to you with a corresponding difference in clarity just like it would be in real life. Or conversely, you can walk up close to it and see more detail just like you would in real life.
I’m wondering is this is truly a surprise… Apple tends to make a first version of something that’s clearly innovative in that Apple way and then delivers on the following iterations. The Vision...
I’m wondering is this is truly a surprise… Apple tends to make a first version of something that’s clearly innovative in that Apple way and then delivers on the following iterations. The Vision looks clunky as do all VR headsets. I had the first gen PSVR and while it was incredible, it was only fun when friends were around to share the experience.
I suppose the RayBans by Meta are a closer resemblance to what true wearable face tech should look like, but they still look pretty bad.
Until they can make it into a contact lens of some sort or actual aviator style sunglasses, it’ll never catch on. People want to see your face in public, to feel safe and for true communication.
I’m just not sure why it’s such a surprise, which the article seems to have as an overall point.
I think this is subjective, and not true at large. Chunky sunglasses are in fashion right now, and the AR Ray Bans are selling extremely well. I think visually they absolutely nail it currently,...
but they still look pretty bad.
I think this is subjective, and not true at large. Chunky sunglasses are in fashion right now, and the AR Ray Bans are selling extremely well. I think visually they absolutely nail it currently, at least in the moment.
Two very different products. VR headsets display information, the Facebook Raybans are just glasses with a camera, speakers, and a microphone built in that requires a connection to a phone for...
Two very different products. VR headsets display information, the Facebook Raybans are just glasses with a camera, speakers, and a microphone built in that requires a connection to a phone for everything.
Until fully transparent screen tech exists, VR/AR won't be coming to anything other than the idiotic headsets. Not to mention batteries... People only ever refer to the Vision as the headset, not mentioning being tethered to a 13oz batter that you also need to keep on your person somewhere.
I've thought for a long time now that VR is something of a dead end. There are definitely applications in industry and for some gaming and entertainment stuff but it's mostly just a bit of a fun...
I've thought for a long time now that VR is something of a dead end. There are definitely applications in industry and for some gaming and entertainment stuff but it's mostly just a bit of a fun novelty (one I bought into relatively early and I still use my PSVR now and then because it is fun). Ultimately you have to wear a big stupid mask on your face because there's no other way to make VR work.
AR/MR, however, I think has potential - if the engineering can be solved. When you can sit on the bus and scroll your feeds or read your messages or whatever, without looking like a weirdo and without having to heft around heavy goggles or pay thousands for the privilege - that's when we'll start to see mass adoption.
I know Meta do have some heads up display stuff in their labs but Zuck has pulled a lot of funding from Metaverse-related (because it's obviously fucking stupid, just took him fifty billion dollars to realise that) and it's a hard problem. There are some other products which are getting there but it's not easy.
Which are not VR/AR headsets, they're tiny screens hidden behind a pair of sunglasses. Not much different than the $10 "VR headsets" you can just drop your phone into. They're "tethered display...
Xreal One
Which are not VR/AR headsets, they're tiny screens hidden behind a pair of sunglasses. Not much different than the $10 "VR headsets" you can just drop your phone into. They're "tethered display glasses."
I suppose that depends on your definition of AR. The xreal air may be pushing it a bit, since it’s just a screen, but I think calling the xreal one anything but AR is a stretch. It has a proper...
I suppose that depends on your definition of AR. The xreal air may be pushing it a bit, since it’s just a screen, but I think calling the xreal one anything but AR is a stretch. It has a proper gyroscope so that the screen elements are tethered to physical points in space.
Good point… I didn’t remember the pack in the pocket one has to carry with it. I do hope we get something with quality that is more affordable soon, but I doubt it will happen within the next...
Good point… I didn’t remember the pack in the pocket one has to carry with it. I do hope we get something with quality that is more affordable soon, but I doubt it will happen within the next year. Honestly though, how many new phones do you think they can make in the meantime?
Yeah, this is something that Apple got wrong for the AVP. They used a futuristic "scanning" app to be able to measure what the correct size headband is for the headset that you get. Pre-purchase...
Yeah, this is something that Apple got wrong for the AVP. They used a futuristic "scanning" app to be able to measure what the correct size headband is for the headset that you get. Pre-purchase this was wrong for me. Going into the Apple store, I had to take like an extra fifteen minutes to find the correct sized band. That one ended up working fine for me. There are many, many others though who none of those fit right and so they had to go with third-party headbands and "comfort mods". It's a kinda wild marketplace out there and Apple absolutely should have done better about that
I went to an Apple store for a demo. After a brisk 25 minute demo, the headset had left a red ring around my eyes. I feel that they should have: made the headset entirely out of plastic instead of...
I went to an Apple store for a demo. After a brisk 25 minute demo, the headset had left a red ring around my eyes.
I feel that they should have:
made the headset entirely out of plastic instead of aluminum and glass
left out the EyeSight feature and its components: those added weight for a niche feature that added little to experience
moved the batteries 100% outside the headset to an external unit that could be attached to the rear band for counterbalance or worn around the neck; if I recall, the internal batteries are the heaviest component
The AVP doesn’t have an internal battery from what I can tell. If it does have one, it’s very small and only meant to keep RAM loaded if you need to swap the external battery out. I do think it’s...
The AVP doesn’t have an internal battery from what I can tell. If it does have one, it’s very small and only meant to keep RAM loaded if you need to swap the external battery out.
I do think it’s a huge miss that Apple went with an external battery design, but still ended up weighing more than the Quest 3 with an internal battery. If they actually used a lightweight design for the HMD, it would likely be much more comfortable to wear.
Ah, you are right! I thought that it had a small internal battery. I misremembered the demo. Now I wonder why the headset weighs so much. I'm guessing it's the choice of materials then.
Ah, you are right! I thought that it had a small internal battery. I misremembered the demo.
Now I wonder why the headset weighs so much. I'm guessing it's the choice of materials then.
It's partially because they crushed all the power of an M3 Macbook Pro, onto your face. The technical specs of the device are higher than other headsets by a whole order of magnitude. The tradeoff...
It's partially because they crushed all the power of an M3 Macbook Pro, onto your face. The technical specs of the device are higher than other headsets by a whole order of magnitude. The tradeoff is, that's a lot of silicon and high density LEDs. Also as you mentioned, aluminum and glass instead of all plastic is a big contributor.
Another Vision Pro owner chiming in here. I love it. I mostly use it for streaming movies from my Jellyfin server and streaming Steam games from my PC. It's also great for catching up on One Piece...
Another Vision Pro owner chiming in here.
I love it. I mostly use it for streaming movies from my Jellyfin server and streaming Steam games from my PC. It's also great for catching up on One Piece while I do dishes!
The biggest unsung feature is the 3D photo conversion for sure. I have cried actual tears looking at photos from 10, 20, 30 years ago that I converted with Apple's tool. It truly feels like I'm looking through a window in time.
This technology is going to absolutely explode once they (inevitably) get the price down.
I'm currently developing for AVP. It is still baffling to me that a company so well regarded for product design, did not pay more attention to the comfort and weight distribution of a device designed to attach to your head.
Having upgraded the Quest 2 strap because the pack-in option had serious weight distribution issues, I found it interesting that Apple's flagship unit was also sporting a kid's winter headband. I bet it works better, but it's still crazy given the weight and price of their headset.
Can I ask what you're developing? I'm curious of how many apps actually exist for it...
Sure! I work in higher education, and we're in the early stages of developing of an application to help piano students deal with performance anxiety.
The plan is to do this by simulating being in a large venue, with an audience (to some degree of realism), and venue-specific acoustics. The central objective is to take advantage of the AVP pass-through cameras to show them their actual hands on an actual piano, but the rest is the space is simulated.
There are already apps that exist that do very similar things, for other headsets. We're mostly using this as a test to figure out workflows, and how much effort is involved in AVP development.
As a piano player who absolutely hated performing in front of people, while I don't have much interest in VR headsets, I can actually see this being potentially a quite useful use case for one and could see myself having wanted to try it out when I was younger.
For what it's worth I use my AVP several times a week for work and for casual viewing. It has fundamentally changed how I do my work and interact with my Mac. Maybe my use was mitigated by the fact that I purchased it several months after it launched and knew its capabilities and how it would fit into my tech stack. But it has exceeded my expectations at every turn. Comparing the AVP to the iPhone is not a good comparison. It is far closer to a desktop computer or high tech monitor than anything else.
I do wear an additional band that helps distribute the weight to my forehead, but I equate this to any other accessory that people buy for their device to help it work better for them.
This article seems to have found early adopters who are disappointed in their purchase, and I'm sure you can find those for any product, but there are others who are just using it like any other devise and are happy with it.
The annoying part is that if they’d allowed it to be a high tech monitor, I might well have bought one! All those pixels and all that processing power, but no way to feed in a high resolution signal to be displayed…
The AVP is my only monitor for my MacMini, which sits on my bookshelf next to me. I have the AVP beside my chair and when I want to use the MacMini I pull out a keyboard and mouse and pull up the MacMini display in my AVP. It works astoundingly well. Plus, if needed, the MacMini will fit in the travel case I have for the AVP. I can take my whole set up with me and always have a monitor the size of a room.
Credit where it's due actually, looking again now they do seem to have improved things since I was considering one more seriously last year. That was exactly my use case - something to have a decent sized workspace while travelling - but the size and resolution for the virtual displays seemed pretty limited compared to the device's capabilities.
I will say the ultrawide mode that's been added since I last went over the specs looks a lot closer to replicating the kind of dual monitor setup I'd actually want, although I still find it wild that they're trying to pipe that much data over a wireless link rather than just using USB-C alt mode. Trying to push 50Gbps+ of signal over a WiFi standard that optimistically manages 5Gbps in the real world just didn't sound workable to me!
How's the latency, in your experience? It sounds like you're pretty happy with it overall, so I'm guessing it hasn't been a problem, but that and compression artifacting were my two biggest concerns. [Edit: and the lack of multiple virtual monitors, but the newer "bigass 32:9 high dpi" setting would fix that at the expense of presumably exacerbating the other two issues!]
I have not noticed any latency issues in my design and 3D work or when I have watched YouTube videos through the MacMini. It's like I'm using a regular monitor, just floating in space. The resolution is sharp in the area you are focusing on. The part in your peripheral vision is less sharp, but you never notice unless you take a screenshot of the whole view and then look at it. So it is only rendering clear and sharp where and when it needs to.
I have found that the ultra-wide mode screen size covers a good portion of your view in the AVP. It's a good 3+ 72" screens worth of real estate. I find it too uncomfortable to swivel my head back and forth that much based on how I use my apps with tool bars and pallets arranged around the workspace. The middle size of the three works really well for me, it's about 2 screens of real estate.
One thing that I haven't seen mentioned a lot is that you can reposition this "monitor" in your field of view. You can push it away from you or pull it closer to you with a corresponding difference in clarity just like it would be in real life. Or conversely, you can walk up close to it and see more detail just like you would in real life.
It's less expensive than many OLED TVs. Well worth it for the viewing experience alone IMO.
I’m wondering is this is truly a surprise… Apple tends to make a first version of something that’s clearly innovative in that Apple way and then delivers on the following iterations. The Vision looks clunky as do all VR headsets. I had the first gen PSVR and while it was incredible, it was only fun when friends were around to share the experience.
I suppose the RayBans by Meta are a closer resemblance to what true wearable face tech should look like, but they still look pretty bad.
Until they can make it into a contact lens of some sort or actual aviator style sunglasses, it’ll never catch on. People want to see your face in public, to feel safe and for true communication.
I’m just not sure why it’s such a surprise, which the article seems to have as an overall point.
I think this is subjective, and not true at large. Chunky sunglasses are in fashion right now, and the AR Ray Bans are selling extremely well. I think visually they absolutely nail it currently, at least in the moment.
Tildesians like yourself are why I love this place. Thanks for the article! I didn’t know about the Meta RayBan’s success.
Two very different products. VR headsets display information, the Facebook Raybans are just glasses with a camera, speakers, and a microphone built in that requires a connection to a phone for everything.
Until fully transparent screen tech exists, VR/AR won't be coming to anything other than the idiotic headsets. Not to mention batteries... People only ever refer to the Vision as the headset, not mentioning being tethered to a 13oz batter that you also need to keep on your person somewhere.
I've thought for a long time now that VR is something of a dead end. There are definitely applications in industry and for some gaming and entertainment stuff but it's mostly just a bit of a fun novelty (one I bought into relatively early and I still use my PSVR now and then because it is fun). Ultimately you have to wear a big stupid mask on your face because there's no other way to make VR work.
AR/MR, however, I think has potential - if the engineering can be solved. When you can sit on the bus and scroll your feeds or read your messages or whatever, without looking like a weirdo and without having to heft around heavy goggles or pay thousands for the privilege - that's when we'll start to see mass adoption.
I know Meta do have some heads up display stuff in their labs but Zuck has pulled a lot of funding from Metaverse-related (because it's obviously fucking stupid, just took him fifty billion dollars to realise that) and it's a hard problem. There are some other products which are getting there but it's not easy.
That’s not true, you have products like the Xreal One which are in a sunglasses-sized frame and not a full headset.
Which are not VR/AR headsets, they're tiny screens hidden behind a pair of sunglasses. Not much different than the $10 "VR headsets" you can just drop your phone into. They're "tethered display glasses."
I suppose that depends on your definition of AR. The xreal air may be pushing it a bit, since it’s just a screen, but I think calling the xreal one anything but AR is a stretch. It has a proper gyroscope so that the screen elements are tethered to physical points in space.
Good point… I didn’t remember the pack in the pocket one has to carry with it. I do hope we get something with quality that is more affordable soon, but I doubt it will happen within the next year. Honestly though, how many new phones do you think they can make in the meantime?
Mirror: https://archive.is/YFz8P
Yeah, this is something that Apple got wrong for the AVP. They used a futuristic "scanning" app to be able to measure what the correct size headband is for the headset that you get. Pre-purchase this was wrong for me. Going into the Apple store, I had to take like an extra fifteen minutes to find the correct sized band. That one ended up working fine for me. There are many, many others though who none of those fit right and so they had to go with third-party headbands and "comfort mods". It's a kinda wild marketplace out there and Apple absolutely should have done better about that
I went to an Apple store for a demo. After a brisk 25 minute demo, the headset had left a red ring around my eyes.
I feel that they should have:
The AVP doesn’t have an internal battery from what I can tell. If it does have one, it’s very small and only meant to keep RAM loaded if you need to swap the external battery out.
I do think it’s a huge miss that Apple went with an external battery design, but still ended up weighing more than the Quest 3 with an internal battery. If they actually used a lightweight design for the HMD, it would likely be much more comfortable to wear.
Ah, you are right! I thought that it had a small internal battery. I misremembered the demo.
Now I wonder why the headset weighs so much. I'm guessing it's the choice of materials then.
It's partially because they crushed all the power of an M3 Macbook Pro, onto your face. The technical specs of the device are higher than other headsets by a whole order of magnitude. The tradeoff is, that's a lot of silicon and high density LEDs. Also as you mentioned, aluminum and glass instead of all plastic is a big contributor.
Another Vision Pro owner chiming in here.
I love it. I mostly use it for streaming movies from my Jellyfin server and streaming Steam games from my PC. It's also great for catching up on One Piece while I do dishes!
The biggest unsung feature is the 3D photo conversion for sure. I have cried actual tears looking at photos from 10, 20, 30 years ago that I converted with Apple's tool. It truly feels like I'm looking through a window in time.
This technology is going to absolutely explode once they (inevitably) get the price down.
Yes, the photo conversion and the 3D photos taken with the iPhone or AVP are pure magic.