6 ms·

I'm in the camp that sees the whole thing as a novelty. I didn't see any use cases that made me go "Ooh, I need this in my life." I already have multiple screen

by allenu 3y ago

I'm in the camp that sees the whole thing as a novelty. I didn't see any use cases that made me go "Ooh, I need this in my life." I already have multiple screens around me. If I'm watching TV and want to look something up, I can open up my laptop or look at my phone. The nice thing about those are I can physically close the laptop or turn off the phone. With a virtual screen, I have to use some UI to do it. I know it doesn't seem like much of a difference, but to me, there's enough lag and lack of real feel of control that I'd prefer a real object than a virtual one. Interacting with app windows in 3D space also doesn't feel any faster than just using a flat window on a flat screen. I'm already super productive using keyboard + mouse and a flat display, so I don't see how using my voice and turning my head to look at things in a virtual space is any better.

m3kw9 3y ago
To be fair when the iPhone 1 came out nobody really said they need it in their lives vs a Nokia or BB
- allenu 3y ago
  For me, it's hard to make direct comparisons with the world of then. Today, everybody has so many devices and are so used to tech all around them every waking moment. An AR headset doesn't feel like a huge leap in additional day-to-day functionality compared with what a smartphone gave us at the time.
  - netsharc 3y ago
    As this comparison says[1], people got from Wright Brothers to 747 in a very short time and thought we'd be space travellers soon after that, but hey, a 747 was good enough. [1] https://idlewords.com/talks/web_design_first_100_years.htm https://idlewords.com/talks/web_design_first_100_years.htm
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- entrox 3y ago
  > To be fair when the iPhone 1 came out nobody really said they need it in their lives vs a Nokia or BB That's not how I remember it, that original keynote was magical. The benefits of the iPhone over current devices (both phones and MP3 players) were crystal-clear, the only damper being high price together with tying it to an AT&T contract. While impressive technologically, this on the other hand gives rather creepy vibes - the whole presentation looks like a Black Mirror episode.
  - alasdair_ 3y ago
    >The benefits of the iPhone over current devices (both phones and MP3 players) were crystal-clear, I don't remember that at all. Windows phones could do essentially everything the first iPhone could do, and in 3G. What they couldn't do was do it seamlessly and quickly like an iPhone and that made all the difference.
    - allenu 3y ago
      If I remember correctly, weren't most of the original Windows Mobile devices similar to PDAs in that they required a stylus to use them? I joined Microsoft around that time before the iPhone, working in the codec team, so we had several test devices. I just remember how clunky they felt to use. Kind of laggy and the UI was a bit ugly. Windows Phone came out to try to fix that and we got the whole Metro UI thing.
      - alasdair_ 3y ago
        You could tap directly but a stylus was better because the ui wasn’t really touch-optimized. And you’re completely right - they were laggy and clunky and just lacked the polish. Same as the ipod va the nomad really. Apple weren’t the first, they just did it better.
    - aniforprez 3y ago
      Even as a college student, watching them use that capacitive touch screen vs the clunky resistive screens was magical. I'd owned an iPod for a couple of years and had already seen the smoothness of the clicky wheel thing. Every single person I knew was looking forward to this phone I asked people that are close to my age at the time about this headset and the reaction is pretty visceral. May be my crowd is more "tech focused" but strapping a headset just elicits a completely negative reaction, especially with those creepy eyes. "Black Mirror" and "RPO" were frequent references, explicitly as negatives
- mikeg8 3y ago
  I don’t remember it that way at all. The screen resolution. Touchscreen keyboard. Pinch and zoom, safari web browsing etc was all so much better than Nokia and BB offerings and many people immediately wanted the first iPhone. The earliest adopters would be hounded to show off their phone to family and friends.
- etempleton 3y ago
  My reaction to the original iPhone was, “that’s it. That is every phone from here on out.” The UX was so clearly years ahead of every other phone UX and it combined the wildly popular iPod with a phone. If nothing else it took two products that a lot of people carried with them and made it one and did that well. While the vision pro is impressive it doesn’t make my pockets or luggage lighter. And there isn’t a thing I am not buying because I am buying this.
  - prawn 3y ago
    I distinctly remember getting the first iPhone and, having come from some random Nokia, just staring at the vibrant iPhone screen. It seemed impossible. Similar reaction with the first iPads as well.
    - XorNot 3y ago
      I'd been using a Windows CE device up till then, so the iPhone didn't really look revolutionary to me - the big deal was that the capacitive touchscreen made the interactivity model possible. You can't build the iPhone UI without that touchscreen - driving it with a stylus and a resistive touchscreen just wouldn't work. Which is why I do get a little annoyed about the "Steve Jobs visionary" claims surrounding it - the market was circling the "single slate" concept for a good long while, the big innovation was finding a price-point and a way to manufacture the iPhone with that touchscreen technology and get it into consumers hands (and being willing to gamble on it).
      - prawn 3y ago
        Actually, I had a Dell handheld (Axim?) but never really found a use for it. I think it was the contrast and reactiveness of the iPhone that stunned me.
  - esprehn 3y ago
    The original iPhone was also 599, much cheaper than the laptop it was "replacing". The Vision Pro is priced so high it's not in the same category of luxury items.
XorNot 3y ago
I see a bunch of use-cases I might like, but they all have a big asterisk of "how well does it actually work". And it would have to be pretty damn spectacular for me to drop ~AUD$5200 on it in a "I will be using this all the time, pro-actively sense". Which maybe it is! But this press-release spends a lot of time talking around the hard numbers - i.e. 23 million pixels is a lot of things but its not a resolution. Nor is their any mention of the FOV angle (this data is obviously out there, but avoiding mentioning it in your own marketing copy means you know it's not what you want people up front comparing).
- boppo1 3y ago
  They said 'anywhere you look, so I'm guessing the FOV is nearly all the way around to your peripheral vision. If not, the first review to say 'pay $3500 to experience glaucoma' will torpedo the product entirely.
- kiririn 3y ago
  Giving the total number of pixels is actually more honest, compared to competitors who claim that 2Kx2K*2 is a 4K headset 23 million is comfortably more than 4K resolution per eye, putting this at one of if not the highest resolution of any headset. It seems like they are telling the whole truth when they say you can view a 4K virtual screen on this - there is enough resolution headroom That said, the lack of FOV is suspicious. Between that, the lack of proper VR game demos and the focus on virtual monitors, I get the feeling this headset will have poor FOV traded for sharpness across the whole image and reduced nausea
  - LoganDark 3y ago
    > 23 million is comfortably more than 4K resolution per eye, putting this at one of if not the highest resolution of any headset But still at a density (pixels/degree) lower than my $70 4K display at normal viewing distance. VR companies are always so damn excited about their innovations that allow a headset to display text at a fraction of the fidelity of a display that costs almost two orders of magnitude less. I get that the innovation is mostly in the rest of the headset, but companies really need to stop skimping on the display resolution. > I get the feeling this headset will have [...] sharpness across the whole image One can hope.
alanwreath 3y ago
The success of this really depends on the developers’ and consumers’ patience, and since that will fade quickly, probably also depends on the amount of dough Apple is willing to sink into it until the tech allows for more practical non-intrusive products.

by allenu 3y ago

m3kw9 3y ago

To be fair when the iPhone 1 came out nobody really said they need it in their lives vs a Nokia or BB

allenu 3y ago
For me, it's hard to make direct comparisons with the world of then. Today, everybody has so many devices and are so used to tech all around them every waking moment. An AR headset doesn't feel like a huge leap in additional day-to-day functionality compared with what a smartphone gave us at the time.
- netsharc 3y ago
  As this comparison says[1], people got from Wright Brothers to 747 in a very short time and thought we'd be space travellers soon after that, but hey, a 747 was good enough. [1] https://idlewords.com/talks/web_design_first_100_years.htm https://idlewords.com/talks/web_design_first_100_years.htm
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
entrox 3y ago
> To be fair when the iPhone 1 came out nobody really said they need it in their lives vs a Nokia or BB That's not how I remember it, that original keynote was magical. The benefits of the iPhone over current devices (both phones and MP3 players) were crystal-clear, the only damper being high price together with tying it to an AT&T contract. While impressive technologically, this on the other hand gives rather creepy vibes - the whole presentation looks like a Black Mirror episode.
- alasdair_ 3y ago
  >The benefits of the iPhone over current devices (both phones and MP3 players) were crystal-clear, I don't remember that at all. Windows phones could do essentially everything the first iPhone could do, and in 3G. What they couldn't do was do it seamlessly and quickly like an iPhone and that made all the difference.
  - allenu 3y ago
    If I remember correctly, weren't most of the original Windows Mobile devices similar to PDAs in that they required a stylus to use them? I joined Microsoft around that time before the iPhone, working in the codec team, so we had several test devices. I just remember how clunky they felt to use. Kind of laggy and the UI was a bit ugly. Windows Phone came out to try to fix that and we got the whole Metro UI thing.
    - alasdair_ 3y ago
      You could tap directly but a stylus was better because the ui wasn’t really touch-optimized. And you’re completely right - they were laggy and clunky and just lacked the polish. Same as the ipod va the nomad really. Apple weren’t the first, they just did it better.
  - aniforprez 3y ago
    Even as a college student, watching them use that capacitive touch screen vs the clunky resistive screens was magical. I'd owned an iPod for a couple of years and had already seen the smoothness of the clicky wheel thing. Every single person I knew was looking forward to this phone I asked people that are close to my age at the time about this headset and the reaction is pretty visceral. May be my crowd is more "tech focused" but strapping a headset just elicits a completely negative reaction, especially with those creepy eyes. "Black Mirror" and "RPO" were frequent references, explicitly as negatives
mikeg8 3y ago
I don’t remember it that way at all. The screen resolution. Touchscreen keyboard. Pinch and zoom, safari web browsing etc was all so much better than Nokia and BB offerings and many people immediately wanted the first iPhone. The earliest adopters would be hounded to show off their phone to family and friends.
etempleton 3y ago
My reaction to the original iPhone was, “that’s it. That is every phone from here on out.” The UX was so clearly years ahead of every other phone UX and it combined the wildly popular iPod with a phone. If nothing else it took two products that a lot of people carried with them and made it one and did that well. While the vision pro is impressive it doesn’t make my pockets or luggage lighter. And there isn’t a thing I am not buying because I am buying this.
- prawn 3y ago
  I distinctly remember getting the first iPhone and, having come from some random Nokia, just staring at the vibrant iPhone screen. It seemed impossible. Similar reaction with the first iPads as well.
  - XorNot 3y ago
    I'd been using a Windows CE device up till then, so the iPhone didn't really look revolutionary to me - the big deal was that the capacitive touchscreen made the interactivity model possible. You can't build the iPhone UI without that touchscreen - driving it with a stylus and a resistive touchscreen just wouldn't work. Which is why I do get a little annoyed about the "Steve Jobs visionary" claims surrounding it - the market was circling the "single slate" concept for a good long while, the big innovation was finding a price-point and a way to manufacture the iPhone with that touchscreen technology and get it into consumers hands (and being willing to gamble on it).
    - prawn 3y ago
      Actually, I had a Dell handheld (Axim?) but never really found a use for it. I think it was the contrast and reactiveness of the iPhone that stunned me.
- esprehn 3y ago
  The original iPhone was also 599, much cheaper than the laptop it was "replacing". The Vision Pro is priced so high it's not in the same category of luxury items.

XorNot 3y ago

I see a bunch of use-cases I might like, but they all have a big asterisk of "how well does it actually work". And it would have to be pretty damn spectacular for me to drop ~AUD$5200 on it in a "I will be using this all the time, pro-actively sense". Which maybe it is! But this press-release spends a lot of time talking around the hard numbers - i.e. 23 million pixels is a lot of things but its not a resolution. Nor is their any mention of the FOV angle (this data is obviously out there, but avoiding mentioning it in your own marketing copy means you know it's not what you want people up front comparing).

boppo1 3y ago
They said 'anywhere you look, so I'm guessing the FOV is nearly all the way around to your peripheral vision. If not, the first review to say 'pay $3500 to experience glaucoma' will torpedo the product entirely.
kiririn 3y ago
Giving the total number of pixels is actually more honest, compared to competitors who claim that 2Kx2K*2 is a 4K headset 23 million is comfortably more than 4K resolution per eye, putting this at one of if not the highest resolution of any headset. It seems like they are telling the whole truth when they say you can view a 4K virtual screen on this - there is enough resolution headroom That said, the lack of FOV is suspicious. Between that, the lack of proper VR game demos and the focus on virtual monitors, I get the feeling this headset will have poor FOV traded for sharpness across the whole image and reduced nausea
- LoganDark 3y ago
  > 23 million is comfortably more than 4K resolution per eye, putting this at one of if not the highest resolution of any headset But still at a density (pixels/degree) lower than my $70 4K display at normal viewing distance. VR companies are always so damn excited about their innovations that allow a headset to display text at a fraction of the fidelity of a display that costs almost two orders of magnitude less. I get that the innovation is mostly in the rest of the headset, but companies really need to stop skimping on the display resolution. > I get the feeling this headset will have [...] sharpness across the whole image One can hope.

alanwreath 3y ago

The success of this really depends on the developers’ and consumers’ patience, and since that will fade quickly, probably also depends on the amount of dough Apple is willing to sink into it until the tech allows for more practical non-intrusive products.