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I find it pretty hilarious that VR started off as a product for gamers, designed by gamers, and funded by gamers. And even before it made it to market, it was b

I find it pretty hilarious that VR started off as a product for gamers, designed by gamers, and funded by gamers. And even before it made it to market, it was bought up by Facebook who said "no no no, forget games, we're going to give you experiences". And it's been a parade of uninteresting, nobody-actually-wanted-this products and ideas ever since. By far the most compelling things you can do in VR are games. Modded Beat Saber is incredible (and a total pain in the ass now that Facebook bought the game and tries to release a mod-breaking update every few weeks), VR Chat (a moddable, nerd/furry/whatever/anything goes playground), and Half Life: Alyx, a AAA game delivered by a gaming company. EDIT: almost forgot Phasmophobia. Hearing all your friends (and yourself) scream like little girls in unison is a priceless experience. I think Apple designed an incredible piece of hardware here, and I really would like to put on a headset and have as much virtual desktop space as I want while I'm sitting on a beach. But what I really want are games. That's what everyone has always wanted from this, and yet somehow the whole VR space has been taken over by these lame corporate execs who have never touched a game more serious than Candy Crush in their life, insisting they know better.

programmarchy 3y ago
I don’t care about games at all. Have never put on a VR headset. But I will likely pre-order Vision for a better productivity workflow. Apple will get the OS right, whereas Meta never had a chance.
- mrguyorama 3y ago
  Oh good, just wait until you get regular headaches from attempting to decipher the text on your virtual screen. It works terribly. VR is an awful, desperate, not fit for purpose replacement for even a single 1080p monitor.
  - bl0rg 3y ago
    May I ask which headsets you've tried? I was stunned by the visual clarity of even a Pico 4, and I expect the vision pro to be far clearer.
    - vGPU 3y ago
      I have a vive pro 2. Text is unreadable. Absolutely terrible lenses.
      - ericd 3y ago
        Do you think that comparing HTC to Apple might be a little bit of apples to oranges?
        vGPU 3y ago
        HTC is one of the current market leaders and the vive pro 2 is by far the highest resolution device available among the big companies.
        wastewastewaste 3y ago
        What matters is the resolution, not the brand lol
        ericd 3y ago
        It’s not just brand, Apple is much better at making high quality devices than HTC.
  - jdkoeck 3y ago
    You obviously haven't watched the keynote.
  - LtdJorge 3y ago
    23Mp is a freaking lot, tho
    - paxys 3y ago
      That's just marketing nonsense. You get 23MP if you combine both displays in the headset. Well guess what, they show the same picture, so the actual resolution is half that. And out of that only the pixels in the center are going to be sharp enough to be usable (notice that none of the demos ever extended the picture all the way to the edge).
    - mrguyorama 3y ago
      It has nothing to do with resolution and everything to do with your eyes looking at a screen an inch from your face while a mask is strapped over them. That's just not comfortable and no fruit logo changes that.
  - geysersam 3y ago
    > VR is an awful, desperate, not fit for purpose replacement for even a single 1080p monitor. But for how much longer? I can really see the benefit of having "more space" when working on a computer. We're peeking through needle holes, small screens mostly covered by bars and menues. If we're lucky the context we need for our task fits on two large screens. I believe this strains our working memory more than we understand. Making us do thing slower, worse and with more effort. VR has the potential to unlock much more "space" that we can navigate in a way that is much more natural to us. Not sure if the tech is up to the task today or if it will be in 10 years. But the value proposition is clear.
    - llampx 3y ago
      The same designers who are designing your web and app experience will also design your AR and VR experience.
      - geysersam 3y ago
        I think designers are doing a good job. They just don't have great material to work with.
    - godelski 3y ago
      Not to mention that the screen is becoming a bigger and bigger part of the mass of the computer. I wouldn't expect to like this first product but 5-10 years down the line it isn't unreasonable to believe that your computer is your phone, you take it everywhere with you, and your monitor is your glasses (benefit if you already wear glasses). That sounds pretty cool. Keyboard is the next big thing imo, because virtual typing sucks and I need something tactile. We'll probably need to rethink the entire concept though. My main concern is about collaboration. Specifically, a fear with Apple lockin. When you pair program you can just sit down at either computer. Will we have an open protocol to share screens (or specific apps in screens like modern screenshare does)? Will is be semi-open like the current MMS system where Apple makes you look at a potato? My concern is about how these can be used to further isolate ourselves and break our fundamental social structure. But part of that will be how we use them, along with the decisions these companies make. I just hope Apple doesn't lock everyone in, but I'm not going to hold my breath.
  - ricardobeat 3y ago
    There is nothing on the market that gets close to what Apple is releasing here. The total resolution is nearly three times 4k. They don't mention FOV, but the description implies something approaching 180 degrees, and this being Apple, plus foveated rendering as a feature, you can assume smooth rendering somewhere between 120-240hz.
    - jsheard 3y ago
      "23 million pixels across two displays" = sqrt(23 million / 2) = 3391x3391 per eye assuming square panels. That's less horizontal resolution than a 4K monitor (3840x2160) stretched across your entire field of view.
      - ricardobeat 3y ago
        It's not as simple as that though, with your head and eyes in constant movement and two separate screens with a high refresh rate. The G2 or Vive have 50% less density and it's already quite hard to distinguish individual pixels.
      - msvan 3y ago
        A 4K monitor has 8.3M pixels, so you could equivalently say that it's ~three 4K monitors.
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  - numpad0 3y ago
    20/20 vision is defined as 1MOA, or 1/60th degrees of angular resolution. Necessary resolution at typical FOV of 100 degrees is therefore 6k x 6k pixels. 4k x 4k per eye is not quite the "Retina" equivalent but actually not as off as earlier attempts at VR.
- swarnie 3y ago
  Tim, if this is your alt account you're legally obligated to say so.
- BulgarianIdiot 3y ago
  Better productivity workflow: a sweaty device you need to carry on your head, with a cable with a battery pack, for the spectacular 2 hours battery life, reproducing low-resolution virtual displays around you, which you are supposed to very productively operate by clumsily making finger gestures around the display (instead of on them). Yeah, I'll keep my monitors, mouse and keyboard, and my smartphone, thanks.
  - geysersam 3y ago
    Whatever happened to that Google glass tech? Didn't look as "sweaty" as those bigger VR sets. > Yeah, I'll keep my monitors, mouse and keyboard, and my smartphone, thanks. I don't see why we'd need to replace both input- and output devices at the same time. Improve the output first and maybe the input later.
    - drdaeman 3y ago
      > Whatever happened to that Google glass tech? Inability to overlay graphics over the real world. We only know how to do so additively (shine some light in the eye to make things bright), but AFAIK there is no solution to effectively and dynamically black out some part of the picture you see. Also, at the time, people had freaked out about wearing cameras in public. (I wonder if I need to purchase some popcorn to watch how it'll go for this one, or if it's gonna be different.)
      - safarimonkey 3y ago
        Magic Leap 2 has a segmented dimmer that works fairly well. It's a small probably-LCD panel that sits in front of your eye. It lets the headset black out part of your view, leaving a kinda blurry shadow around objects.
      - floren 3y ago
        > Also, at the time, people had freaked out about wearing cameras in public. (I wonder if I need to purchase some popcorn to watch how it'll go for this one, or if it's gonna be different.) My prediction is that it's going to be A Thing to wear this at all times, even if your battery is dead, similar to the way The Kids These Days have their airpods in 24/7. Pressure your mom until she finally gets you a pair ("free" with 10 year Verizon contract)
- deleted 3y ago
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- detrites 3y ago
  Consider trying any VR headset first, the interface has a few unanticipated effects for many people. Eg, nausea, headaches, dizzyness etc. A "productivity workflow" might only last half an hour before you're fatigued from its innate unnaturalness.
  - boppo1 3y ago
    I think that's what the resolution, sensors and low latency are for.
- jknoepfler 3y ago
  Having made a serious attempt at a virtual workspace for development myself, I'll just say: it's ok, but there are a lot of challenges. To develop, I need an actual fully-featured operating system with a terminal, a full suite of tools and libraries, and an application ecosystem. To date, proxying all of that through a desktop/laptop to a virtual display or virtual remote desktop is clunky at best. Reading in VR is unpleasant. Typing in VR is unpleasant. Juggling controllers in VR is unpleasant. Wearing a headset for more than an hour or two is gross - you will really need to spend time and effort keeping the bits that touch your face clean. Cords are a hassle and the weird constant slight resistance starts to drive me nuts after awhile. For me there wasn't a hard deal-breaking issue, just a death by a thousand cuts. Don't get me wrong - you can absolutely do it. For myself, it fell far short of the friction-free space for deep productivity I was after. Also, again speaking personally, there is no way in hell I'm going to show up to work video meeting as a cartoon avatar (or turn my camera off). So meetings sort of break the whole thing. Maybe this product will solve a lot of those friction points. I think that would be great, personally, but I'm skeptical.
underlipton 3y ago
Everyone read that one Vernor Vinge novel and decided to get on the gravy train before Chicago gets nuked. /s Speaking more seriously: I think you're right in the short-term, wrong in the long-term, but getting at a fundamental truth, which is that *applications* are what will drive development and adoption. And they have to be fully-formed and wedded to the form factor, while still being accessible. AR/VR will revolutionize general computing, but if you can't figure out how yet - clearly, they have not - the focus should be on the applications that are already well-envisioned (and, in the past few years, as you've said, well-executed) on the platform. Further, it helps if the killer-app is emotionally engaging, allows and anticipates the failure of the user within the app's internal UX logic, and doesn't interfere with a user's crucial assets or processes (related to work, health, etc.) until the platform's kinks are worked out. Sounds like games fit the bill quite nicely. It is truly weird that execs taking home eight figures or more can't (or refuse to) wrap their heads around that. Gaming is anathema amongst a certain portion of the population, I suppose.
- gumby 3y ago
  Obligatory pedantry: True Names was a novella, not a full novel. And the better for it. Or you were referring to Rainbow's End in which case I'm embarrassed about my comment. More seriously: I was really excited by True Names when it was published (and a bunch of us at MIT talked about it a lot) but by the time Snow Crash came out it seemed pretty obvious that real world metaphors weren't really desirable in virtual environments. Certainly the web and its abortive competitors (like apple eWorld, and many others) made it clear for those not paying attention: nobody wanted to "walk" from Gap to Williams Sonoma in some virtual mall: they just wanted to click over and get satisfaction. Nobody likes long boring travel in an open video game; a little is OK to avoid breaking the spell, but soon something has to happen or you need a convenient elevator. The same applies to movies. BTW you're 100% right about gaming being the killer app. Once people are used to that perhaps they'll want to do other things. But without a reason to develop the right metaphors, affordances, and experiences, there's "no there there".
  - underlipton 3y ago
    >Or you were referring to Rainbow's End in which case I'm embarrassed about my comment. Sorry, Gumby, it's the Play-Doh press for you. I feel you. RE is probably going to end up being wrong about a lot of things, too; in particular, Vinge even kind of hinted at how the lack of haptics would cause the "mirror world" and virtual object schemas to break down, at least as far as immersion and utility go. Ultimately, I don't think we get to the world he described without the tech that was just nascent within it. That's analogous to the inapplicability of real-world translation metaphors to the pop-into-existence data stream that is the web, as you said. I realized this the moment that I reached out to touch the 3D model of a character I'd created and nothing was there. Gaming short-circuits perception and gives leeway in a lot of ways that are conducive to a haptic-less experience, though. Good movement and animation can make up for a lack of embodiment that would kill a more serious experience (Second Life as a virtual office or retail branch...), and while animation is much less reliable of a tool for VR, I'm sure that other affordances can be found if devs are allowed to just... play around with it (pun intended). The presentation kind of disappointed me because I didn't see an understanding of the situation that they face.
mrguyorama 3y ago
The actual concept of VR was basically done the second the Vive came out. Now you can have really good immersion for a Flight Simulator game that won't come out for a few years and nobody really knew it would happen yet, and the couple driving simulation games on PC that somehow haven't died, and a smattering of immersive FPS games. Nothing else really benefits from the increased immersion, and everything struggles with the discomfort, nausea, cost, loneliness, and extra development effort of VR. VR isn't the next generation of graphics, it's just the display equivalent of a really powerful direct drive racing wheel with load cell brake or that airbus branded joystick that costs $500 bucks. It's for turbo nerds.
- mikenew 3y ago
  You're missing something. Yes it's for turbo nerds, but it's also for ultra casuals. I have shown Beat Saber to probably around 30 people at this point. The game is set up in the living room with the TV mirroring the headset and the audio coming through the living room speakers. So it feels like a party environment with everyone trading off with watching and playing. Without even a single exception, every person who has tried it has absolutely loved it. Even several people who have never touched a digital game of any kind in their life, and took all manner of convincing to even try it at all. In any other game you play, there is always some mapping of inputs into actions. Doesn't matter if it's MKB or game controller or touch screen; you have to learn that deflecting a joystick moves the player camera, or pressing "A" causes your character to jump. But in VR, at least in games like Beat Saber, you simple move your body in exactly the way you'd expect. You don't press a button at the right time to slice a block, you just slice the block. Couple that with the immersion you get in both sound and visuals, and it adds up to something that feels absolutely magical. Yes, many things do struggle with clunky movement, nausea, etc. There are many games that I have no desire to play in VR. But the stuff that shines bright shines really bright, and I think there's a huge amount of potential there.
  - BaculumMeumEst 3y ago
    I think you’re really understating the nausea and discomfort. Maybe this is a first step towards mass adoption, but it will not happen unless significant improvement is made to the user comfort, now matter how great some VR experiences are.
chazeon 3y ago
Apple themselves clearly know their bad reputation in the gaming community, and their lock down model for selling software will also not be embraced by many gamers. In this respect a $399 Steamdeck is a better device than Apple’s piece with 10x the price.
- arcticbull 3y ago
  ... released by Steam, a company with a lock down model for selling software. The gaming world has long embraced the App Store model. In fact, I'd argue the macOS and iOS App Stores were probably inspired by Steam.
  - xattt 3y ago
    Steam Games are a one-and-done deal, while App Store games are slimy with subscription mildew.
  - km3r 3y ago
    Having an app store != locked down. AFAIK, you can run any software you want on a Steam deck without any hacking needed. Can you say the same for any non macOS apple product?
  - WastingMyTime89 3y ago
    Steam and Apple models are extremely different. What you buy on Steam can’t be launched outside of Steam but Steam is happy to serve as a launcher for content coming from outside of it and will allow said content to use its extra functionalities (controller support and chat notably). Valve hardware is always notoriously open. The deck runs and allows you to access Linux. Apple is completely different and outside of MacOS strictly controls everything.
    - drdaeman 3y ago
      > What you buy on Steam can’t be launched outside of Steam Not true. Steam has a lot of DRM-free games that can be bought on Steam Store and are typically started through Steam client but do not really require Steam to be running. They're simply not integrated with Steam in any way.
skatanski 3y ago
That's a very good point. VR Chat is the magical quirky "META" experience, which is already there. Straight from either Gibsons novels or Ghost in the Shell. Apple seems to be more in line with more gated, streamlined and polished experiences, than what's in VR Chat. Its a similar story with the Sony VR HeadSet.
johnfernow 3y ago
I am a huge fan of VR gaming: some of my best gaming experiences ever have been in VR (notably Resident Evil 7 on PSVR1 and RE8 on PSVR2). Even still, I acknowledge putting on a VR headset comes with some notable downsides: those sacrifices are 100% worth it for some games because it enables an incredible experience you can't otherwise have. Sure, you can play a modded version of Half-Life: Alyx without VR, but you're going to have a much worse experience and a lot less fun. Same for RecRoom and plenty of other titles. But for work? I'm 100% willing to put up with a little discomfort for an hour or two if I'm having a great time; I'm less willing to do that for 8 hours a day when my job can be completed in a far more comfortable manner. Comfort no doubt could be improved upon, but even still, I like to see the world with my own eyes. VR is a nice brief escape, and it doesn't have to be a solo activity: playing RecRoom or Zenith with friends is a lot of fun! I even bring my Quest 2 over to my friends' house IRL and play Zenith in the same room with him. But it's not much of an escape if that's what you spend your whole day in. There are many activities that are a ton of fun for short periods of time, but if done all day, are miserable. I enjoy gaming quite a bit, but I dread the idea of being a pro-gamer who Streams on Twitch 10-12 hours a day playing one title to get good: that'd suck all the fun out of the activity for me and I'd much rather just work a more regular job like web development. I see the same being true for VR: I enjoy it a lot for an hour or two a day at most, but being in it all day could cause me to hate it.
- wpietri 3y ago
  A question I ask of all VR gaming enthusiasts: how much time do you spend on VR games versus other games? A while back I rented an Oculus Quest. For the first week, it was the hot property in the house. By the end of the second, the kids were back on their Switches and nobody even noticed when I returned it. Asking around, I know a bunch of people who own VR gear of one form or another, but I still haven't met anybody for whom it's a daily driver, or who spends most of their gaming time using it.
  - twic 3y ago
    I'm pretty sure the whole VR industry is an op by Big Closet to sell more closets.
alliao 3y ago
while I share the same sentiment, it is hard if not impossible, if gamers became permanently attached to VR/AR tech and then try to bring everyone else onboard. that's why apple went in with high prices first, got to make it look sexy/cool/elusive while the tech matures, then only release to general public at affordable prices when it's 99% there; like macbook air.
- asdff 3y ago
  If anything that sort of thing backfired with the plummeting demand for the mac line after the the ungodly expensive mac pro caster wheels and such.
  - deleted 3y ago
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  - mackwell 3y ago
    I’m pretty sure that Mac sales have been doing just fine since the release of the M1.
    - asdff 3y ago
      Hard to say if that was M1 effect or remote worker pandemic buying effect. In either case mac sales since last year are down 40%.
      - pzo 3y ago
        It's because a lot of people moved to m1 after waiting years for transition to something new because of crappy butterfly keyboards for many generations, lack of innovation or regression (no functional keys, no Magsafe, no Hdmi, no minisd, still needed usb-a) After lot of people bought m1 there was not similar significant improvement with m2 - and considering they could buy discounted m1
b33j0r 3y ago
It’s for bringing employees back into the office who are never coming back into the office! In our Titanium tier, you can even eye-track how often your employees glance at their phones! … What happened here is that VR/AR have always been nerd dreams. But it’s always been expensive, or uncomfortable to use. Nerds funded rounds 1-3. Now we’re at the point where it’s board meetings and people making presentations about workplace reintegration. Aka employee monitoring and nudging.
api 3y ago
Companies like Meta are trying to push what they want this to be about, and it's not games. Its ads, completely immersive ads and the addictive infinite feed model perfected by TikTok applied to VR and AR to push those ads. The ad market is significantly larger than the game market. We'll see what Apple does with this. It's a chance for them to redeem themselves in the gaming market a bit if they make it good for games, which as you say is what everyone actually wants from this technology.
m463 3y ago
"You're not the target market" sigh. this seems to be the way the world is going. The market for what the tech world seems to be producing is people who can be easily swayed from their own vision to the company vision, and have little expectations of (actual) privacy, of actual utility, and just adapt to what they get. It's hard to push back against this sort of thing. Mindful people don't want to be limited by the scenarios the manufacturer has allowed. They don't want to ask permission, to be locked-in, to have subscriptions, to have surveillance, and advertisements.
- justinator 3y ago
  Ugh - so much of what you say resonates with me. This is certainly the future (VR) but I'm not really interested in it. I'm interested in just being outdoors (not indoors). I want to feel rain, and cold. I want to know I can't just escape. Others not so much, and all you need is a little bit of money. The brain doesn't know the difference. Doesn't know you're in a dead neighborhood in suburbia in a house that looks like all your neighbors you don't talk to anyways, far from any restaurants or public spaces. We have this now. Food and other items are being delivered to our doors. So on and so forth - I'm not going to belabor my personal view of a future hellscape of rich tech countries.
  - comment_ran 3y ago
    Unfortunately, this is the reality. Most people will choose the comfort over those discomfort. Just like the 99% moving matrix, going to select the blue pills over the red pills. Even the people who choose the red pill change their mind. It's just a big lever to enlarge those points.
  - ajmurmann 3y ago
    It's astonishing how much you see this sentiment online, but no impact from it anywhere. Sure there is pushback on this sentiment online as well, but just from how much it's expressed online, you' expect at least like 30% of new developments to be more dense, mixed-use that encourages community, walking etc. Yet, somehow it feels closer to 1%. I wonder if that's because online is a small bubble or because the people engaged in zoning and planning are in a bubble or the venn diagram just has little overlap.
jchoca 3y ago
Facebook bought it up because they saw the opportunity for that sweet behavioral surplus and just couldn't pass it up.
LocalPCGuy 3y ago
The real money isn't in VR right now though. The real money is in AR. Does this fit that? Not sure, but there are hundreds of use cases for something like this in the workplace (and not just for developers/desk workers). Think the person who needs to reference a manual while working on something (machinery, car, top of a telephone pole, etc.). Just a single example, but I feel that is the kind of market that the executives are aiming at cause they know for businesses, the cost is immaterial if it solves their issue or makes it so 1 person can do the job of 2. Not endorsing it either, fwiw, just saying, that has to be part of the thinking. The gaming market just isn't big enough, especially when you figure in the cost of the equipment (even at half the cost).
- paxys 3y ago
  That was the idea behind HoloLens, and they tried to make it work for a decade, but ultimately that flopped as well. No one wants to fix a machine or a telephone pole or whatever else with a massive headset strapped to their head. These are just pointless scenarios dreamed up by techies who have never done any of those jobs in their life. If such a headset were to be commercially successful gaming and porn are the only areas that need targeting, but those are also ones that large corporations are least interested in.
  - paul7986 3y ago
    Once this headset's form factor shrinks down to sunglass size it will be the next iPhone. Especially with innovators creating apps that enhanced current life experiences like... - Play real life ping pong, tennis, card games, etc .. glasses keeps & displays score in your view - Rewind ... how did this building look ten, twenty, 100 years ago - Who am I talking to at a conference.. their name appears above them - Lots more and better innovative ideas to come too
    - valcron1000 3y ago
      > Once this headset's form factor shrinks down to sunglass size it will be the next iPhone. So true. The company that is able to do so will have such an advantage over the competitors it won't even be fair. I sure as hell will be developing apps for such device. Potential is unlimited
cptaj 3y ago
This. Drives. Me. NUTS. Just make games! Its that simple. Those are the experiences, those are the killer apps, they are the metaverse! They literally just need to get out of the way with their corporate bullshit.
- LightBug1 3y ago
  Yeah, actually you're on to something. I admired the hardware but you just nailed the feeling I was getting from this presentation but couldn't describe. It's the old print magazine adverts for the Atari ST or Amiga or early PC's... and shown on the screen was a spreadsheet...(and don't get me wrong, I love a good spreadsheet, but.... )
  - cubefox 3y ago
    I think any games released for that system will be crippled by the controls, like smartphone games. Gestures and eye tracking are probably just as imprecise as touchscreens.
    - LightBug1 3y ago
      To be fair, watching the presentation, I'm pretty sure I saw a handheld controller in use for gaming.
      - cubefox 3y ago
        That was probably Apple Arcade, which offers normal flat screen games. Those are nothing compared to VR games, which require different controllers: https://www.roadtovr.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/quest-3-high-res3.jpg https://www.roadtovr.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/quest-3-...
- tmpz22 3y ago
  If the goal posts was just to make a billion dollars they could make games. But the goal post is to make 100 billion dollars. So here we are.
- 3y ago
usea 3y ago
Apple's reality distortion field could be the secret sauce that gets people to overcome many of the issues you described, and to purchase a VR product even if they don't make any sense to use.
- nirav72 3y ago
  Yeah, maybe for other non-VR. But at $3500,the Vision Pro is DOA for the most consumers. At $3500, it's going to take several iteration before they can price one that your average consumer that's normally willing to spends $500-1500 for a ipad/iphone/MBP would be willing to buy. I wonder what they'll leave out to get to that price.
- gehsty 3y ago
  The reality distortion field schtik is getting pretty old - Mac’s, iPhones, iPads, Apple Watches and AirPods are clearly class leading products that people buy a lot of. HomePods are not and people do not buy a lot of them. If this is good people will buy it if not they won’t.
narag 3y ago
By far the most compelling things you can do in VR are games. What about porn?
radicaldreamer 3y ago
There's a reason Kojima was on stage and it isn't just to announce Death Stranding is coming to the Mac. The key part was future games for Apple platforms...
marcosdumay 3y ago
Hum, AFAIK VR started off as aimless experimental tech, was repurposed for data visualization first, and only after a reasonable amount of success there it was pushed for gamers. And then gamers unanimously rejected it, but it found a quite cozy niche in CAD. That's just to say that it has probably a lot of other serious uses. But yeah, as soon as it's actually good, games will probably be most popular one. Anyway, I agree, the serious uses will almost certainly not include pretending you are in a circle with your coworkers' avatars.
KuriousCat 3y ago
It sounds like companies are trying to bring work to a playground and at the same time can't make compelling games that can beat Beat saber...
gcanyon 3y ago
I'm curious what you think of https://moonrider.xyz https://moonrider.xyz ? I just use it for virtual workouts, so I use the "punch" not the "saber" mode, but it works great for that.
baron816 3y ago
I think immersive experiences is the way to go. Imagine being able to experience a bunch of (idealized) historical events—celebrating Allied victory in WWII, walking through a market in Ancient Rome up to the Colosseum to watch a match, walking around your city before people settled it, etc. The tech isn’t quite there yet, but we may not be that far off of some aspects of it with generative AI. Those experiences would certainly be boosted if you could walk up to anyone and they’d have a unique personality and would be able to have a full conversation with you.
r3trohack3r 3y ago
> I find it pretty hilarious that VR started off as a product for gamers, designed by gamers, and funded by gamers. By far the most compelling things you can do in VR are games. Going to have to disagree with you there. The most compelling use case for VR is porn. The most compelling cover story for buying a device for porn will be games. AFAICT the most prolific and reliably deployed cardboard (previous gen VR) experiences ended up being porn.
- blacksmith_tb 3y ago
  However Apple has been hostile to that particular content so I wouldn't expect it to be marketed with that in mind...
- cpncrunch 3y ago
  Porn will never work. See the Dara Obriain skit for a hilarious explanation why.
  - numpad0 3y ago
    Oh it's already working. People who aren't compatible with 3DCG stuff goes to those.
    - cpncrunch 3y ago
      I didn't mean it won't work technically (of course it will). This is what I was referring to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8srG_iKh5Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8srG_iKh5Y
      - numpad0 3y ago
        No, it's not about whether it technically works, there are already businesses going for few years. Looks like there are such stereo fisheye rigs, with a pair of m4/3 cameras, a GoPro for preview? and a 3dio packaged to go on a crane. And seems they're transitioning to 8K? Interesting...
swyx 3y ago
i just have stock Beat Saber and am interested in modding. what mods do you recommend?
IAmGraydon 3y ago
I just want to experience Tribes:Ascend on a good VR headset without a tethered computer. Is that too much to ask?
Melatonic 3y ago
Seriously - VR gaming was awesome years ago if you had the hardware and continues to be awesome.
retrocryptid 3y ago
VR was invented by and for gamers? News to me. I mean sure, if you say history started in 1995 and ignore all the VPL and CAVE stuff from the 80s, then sure... it was gamers all the way down.
charcircuit 3y ago
>VR Chat (a moddable It has never allowed mods and on PC enforces it with an anticheat.
meghan_rain 3y ago
Don’t forget porn!
gehsty 3y ago
It’s a computing device like a phone or a laptop, anyone can make any game they want available for it. in the key note they mentioned gaming specifically and had time on a partnership with unreal. What makes you think this is not for gaming?
jayd16 3y ago
I really think this is a bad take, at least as far as the analysis of Meta goes. If anything, they've focused on games too deeply and have kicked the can on building an _app_ ecosystem with the multitasking UX needed for a personal computer. This is understandable from a hardware constraint perspective... However, Apple has done the legwork to build a framework that supports concurrent app usage in a mixed reality way from the ground up instead of deeply focusing on immersive game experiences like Meta has. On top of that, Apple seems to have put in more work to onboard app devs than game devs. That said, the reason Apple can ignore games is because they can leave that to Meta and Unity and they'll still get ports. The input story for the Apple headset is real bad, though. You seem to think Meta doesn't care about games but at least they ship game controllers. Just wait until you try to play something with a pinch gesture and no haptics.

programmarchy 3y ago

I don’t care about games at all. Have never put on a VR headset. But I will likely pre-order Vision for a better productivity workflow. Apple will get the OS right, whereas Meta never had a chance.

mrguyorama 3y ago
Oh good, just wait until you get regular headaches from attempting to decipher the text on your virtual screen. It works terribly. VR is an awful, desperate, not fit for purpose replacement for even a single 1080p monitor.
- bl0rg 3y ago
  May I ask which headsets you've tried? I was stunned by the visual clarity of even a Pico 4, and I expect the vision pro to be far clearer.
  - vGPU 3y ago
    I have a vive pro 2. Text is unreadable. Absolutely terrible lenses.
    - ericd 3y ago
      Do you think that comparing HTC to Apple might be a little bit of apples to oranges?
      - vGPU 3y ago
        HTC is one of the current market leaders and the vive pro 2 is by far the highest resolution device available among the big companies.
      - wastewastewaste 3y ago
        What matters is the resolution, not the brand lol
        ericd 3y ago
        It’s not just brand, Apple is much better at making high quality devices than HTC.
- jdkoeck 3y ago
  You obviously haven't watched the keynote.
- LtdJorge 3y ago
  23Mp is a freaking lot, tho
  - paxys 3y ago
    That's just marketing nonsense. You get 23MP if you combine both displays in the headset. Well guess what, they show the same picture, so the actual resolution is half that. And out of that only the pixels in the center are going to be sharp enough to be usable (notice that none of the demos ever extended the picture all the way to the edge).
  - mrguyorama 3y ago
    It has nothing to do with resolution and everything to do with your eyes looking at a screen an inch from your face while a mask is strapped over them. That's just not comfortable and no fruit logo changes that.
- geysersam 3y ago
  > VR is an awful, desperate, not fit for purpose replacement for even a single 1080p monitor. But for how much longer? I can really see the benefit of having "more space" when working on a computer. We're peeking through needle holes, small screens mostly covered by bars and menues. If we're lucky the context we need for our task fits on two large screens. I believe this strains our working memory more than we understand. Making us do thing slower, worse and with more effort. VR has the potential to unlock much more "space" that we can navigate in a way that is much more natural to us. Not sure if the tech is up to the task today or if it will be in 10 years. But the value proposition is clear.
  - llampx 3y ago
    The same designers who are designing your web and app experience will also design your AR and VR experience.
    - geysersam 3y ago
      I think designers are doing a good job. They just don't have great material to work with.
  - godelski 3y ago
    Not to mention that the screen is becoming a bigger and bigger part of the mass of the computer. I wouldn't expect to like this first product but 5-10 years down the line it isn't unreasonable to believe that your computer is your phone, you take it everywhere with you, and your monitor is your glasses (benefit if you already wear glasses). That sounds pretty cool. Keyboard is the next big thing imo, because virtual typing sucks and I need something tactile. We'll probably need to rethink the entire concept though. My main concern is about collaboration. Specifically, a fear with Apple lockin. When you pair program you can just sit down at either computer. Will we have an open protocol to share screens (or specific apps in screens like modern screenshare does)? Will is be semi-open like the current MMS system where Apple makes you look at a potato? My concern is about how these can be used to further isolate ourselves and break our fundamental social structure. But part of that will be how we use them, along with the decisions these companies make. I just hope Apple doesn't lock everyone in, but I'm not going to hold my breath.
- ricardobeat 3y ago
  There is nothing on the market that gets close to what Apple is releasing here. The total resolution is nearly three times 4k. They don't mention FOV, but the description implies something approaching 180 degrees, and this being Apple, plus foveated rendering as a feature, you can assume smooth rendering somewhere between 120-240hz.
  - jsheard 3y ago
    "23 million pixels across two displays" = sqrt(23 million / 2) = 3391x3391 per eye assuming square panels. That's less horizontal resolution than a 4K monitor (3840x2160) stretched across your entire field of view.
    - ricardobeat 3y ago
      It's not as simple as that though, with your head and eyes in constant movement and two separate screens with a high refresh rate. The G2 or Vive have 50% less density and it's already quite hard to distinguish individual pixels.
    - msvan 3y ago
      A 4K monitor has 8.3M pixels, so you could equivalently say that it's ~three 4K monitors.
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- numpad0 3y ago
  20/20 vision is defined as 1MOA, or 1/60th degrees of angular resolution. Necessary resolution at typical FOV of 100 degrees is therefore 6k x 6k pixels. 4k x 4k per eye is not quite the "Retina" equivalent but actually not as off as earlier attempts at VR.
swarnie 3y ago
Tim, if this is your alt account you're legally obligated to say so.
BulgarianIdiot 3y ago
Better productivity workflow: a sweaty device you need to carry on your head, with a cable with a battery pack, for the spectacular 2 hours battery life, reproducing low-resolution virtual displays around you, which you are supposed to very productively operate by clumsily making finger gestures around the display (instead of on them). Yeah, I'll keep my monitors, mouse and keyboard, and my smartphone, thanks.
- geysersam 3y ago
  Whatever happened to that Google glass tech? Didn't look as "sweaty" as those bigger VR sets. > Yeah, I'll keep my monitors, mouse and keyboard, and my smartphone, thanks. I don't see why we'd need to replace both input- and output devices at the same time. Improve the output first and maybe the input later.
  - drdaeman 3y ago
    > Whatever happened to that Google glass tech? Inability to overlay graphics over the real world. We only know how to do so additively (shine some light in the eye to make things bright), but AFAIK there is no solution to effectively and dynamically black out some part of the picture you see. Also, at the time, people had freaked out about wearing cameras in public. (I wonder if I need to purchase some popcorn to watch how it'll go for this one, or if it's gonna be different.)
    - safarimonkey 3y ago
      Magic Leap 2 has a segmented dimmer that works fairly well. It's a small probably-LCD panel that sits in front of your eye. It lets the headset black out part of your view, leaving a kinda blurry shadow around objects.
    - floren 3y ago
      > Also, at the time, people had freaked out about wearing cameras in public. (I wonder if I need to purchase some popcorn to watch how it'll go for this one, or if it's gonna be different.) My prediction is that it's going to be A Thing to wear this at all times, even if your battery is dead, similar to the way The Kids These Days have their airpods in 24/7. Pressure your mom until she finally gets you a pair ("free" with 10 year Verizon contract)
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detrites 3y ago
Consider trying any VR headset first, the interface has a few unanticipated effects for many people. Eg, nausea, headaches, dizzyness etc. A "productivity workflow" might only last half an hour before you're fatigued from its innate unnaturalness.
- boppo1 3y ago
  I think that's what the resolution, sensors and low latency are for.
jknoepfler 3y ago
Having made a serious attempt at a virtual workspace for development myself, I'll just say: it's ok, but there are a lot of challenges. To develop, I need an actual fully-featured operating system with a terminal, a full suite of tools and libraries, and an application ecosystem. To date, proxying all of that through a desktop/laptop to a virtual display or virtual remote desktop is clunky at best. Reading in VR is unpleasant. Typing in VR is unpleasant. Juggling controllers in VR is unpleasant. Wearing a headset for more than an hour or two is gross - you will really need to spend time and effort keeping the bits that touch your face clean. Cords are a hassle and the weird constant slight resistance starts to drive me nuts after awhile. For me there wasn't a hard deal-breaking issue, just a death by a thousand cuts. Don't get me wrong - you can absolutely do it. For myself, it fell far short of the friction-free space for deep productivity I was after. Also, again speaking personally, there is no way in hell I'm going to show up to work video meeting as a cartoon avatar (or turn my camera off). So meetings sort of break the whole thing. Maybe this product will solve a lot of those friction points. I think that would be great, personally, but I'm skeptical.

underlipton 3y ago

Everyone read that one Vernor Vinge novel and decided to get on the gravy train before Chicago gets nuked. /s Speaking more seriously: I think you're right in the short-term, wrong in the long-term, but getting at a fundamental truth, which is that *applications* are what will drive development and adoption. And they have to be fully-formed and wedded to the form factor, while still being accessible. AR/VR will revolutionize general computing, but if you can't figure out how yet - clearly, they have not - the focus should be on the applications that are already well-envisioned (and, in the past few years, as you've said, well-executed) on the platform. Further, it helps if the killer-app is emotionally engaging, allows and anticipates the failure of the user within the app's internal UX logic, and doesn't interfere with a user's crucial assets or processes (related to work, health, etc.) until the platform's kinks are worked out. Sounds like games fit the bill quite nicely. It is truly weird that execs taking home eight figures or more can't (or refuse to) wrap their heads around that. Gaming is anathema amongst a certain portion of the population, I suppose.

gumby 3y ago
Obligatory pedantry: True Names was a novella, not a full novel. And the better for it. Or you were referring to Rainbow's End in which case I'm embarrassed about my comment. More seriously: I was really excited by True Names when it was published (and a bunch of us at MIT talked about it a lot) but by the time Snow Crash came out it seemed pretty obvious that real world metaphors weren't really desirable in virtual environments. Certainly the web and its abortive competitors (like apple eWorld, and many others) made it clear for those not paying attention: nobody wanted to "walk" from Gap to Williams Sonoma in some virtual mall: they just wanted to click over and get satisfaction. Nobody likes long boring travel in an open video game; a little is OK to avoid breaking the spell, but soon something has to happen or you need a convenient elevator. The same applies to movies. BTW you're 100% right about gaming being the killer app. Once people are used to that perhaps they'll want to do other things. But without a reason to develop the right metaphors, affordances, and experiences, there's "no there there".
- underlipton 3y ago
  >Or you were referring to Rainbow's End in which case I'm embarrassed about my comment. Sorry, Gumby, it's the Play-Doh press for you. I feel you. RE is probably going to end up being wrong about a lot of things, too; in particular, Vinge even kind of hinted at how the lack of haptics would cause the "mirror world" and virtual object schemas to break down, at least as far as immersion and utility go. Ultimately, I don't think we get to the world he described without the tech that was just nascent within it. That's analogous to the inapplicability of real-world translation metaphors to the pop-into-existence data stream that is the web, as you said. I realized this the moment that I reached out to touch the 3D model of a character I'd created and nothing was there. Gaming short-circuits perception and gives leeway in a lot of ways that are conducive to a haptic-less experience, though. Good movement and animation can make up for a lack of embodiment that would kill a more serious experience (Second Life as a virtual office or retail branch...), and while animation is much less reliable of a tool for VR, I'm sure that other affordances can be found if devs are allowed to just... play around with it (pun intended). The presentation kind of disappointed me because I didn't see an understanding of the situation that they face.

mrguyorama 3y ago

The actual concept of VR was basically done the second the Vive came out. Now you can have really good immersion for a Flight Simulator game that won't come out for a few years and nobody really knew it would happen yet, and the couple driving simulation games on PC that somehow haven't died, and a smattering of immersive FPS games. Nothing else really benefits from the increased immersion, and everything struggles with the discomfort, nausea, cost, loneliness, and extra development effort of VR. VR isn't the next generation of graphics, it's just the display equivalent of a really powerful direct drive racing wheel with load cell brake or that airbus branded joystick that costs $500 bucks. It's for turbo nerds.

mikenew 3y ago
You're missing something. Yes it's for turbo nerds, but it's also for ultra casuals. I have shown Beat Saber to probably around 30 people at this point. The game is set up in the living room with the TV mirroring the headset and the audio coming through the living room speakers. So it feels like a party environment with everyone trading off with watching and playing. Without even a single exception, every person who has tried it has absolutely loved it. Even several people who have never touched a digital game of any kind in their life, and took all manner of convincing to even try it at all. In any other game you play, there is always some mapping of inputs into actions. Doesn't matter if it's MKB or game controller or touch screen; you have to learn that deflecting a joystick moves the player camera, or pressing "A" causes your character to jump. But in VR, at least in games like Beat Saber, you simple move your body in exactly the way you'd expect. You don't press a button at the right time to slice a block, you just slice the block. Couple that with the immersion you get in both sound and visuals, and it adds up to something that feels absolutely magical. Yes, many things do struggle with clunky movement, nausea, etc. There are many games that I have no desire to play in VR. But the stuff that shines bright shines really bright, and I think there's a huge amount of potential there.
- BaculumMeumEst 3y ago
  I think you’re really understating the nausea and discomfort. Maybe this is a first step towards mass adoption, but it will not happen unless significant improvement is made to the user comfort, now matter how great some VR experiences are.

chazeon 3y ago

Apple themselves clearly know their bad reputation in the gaming community, and their lock down model for selling software will also not be embraced by many gamers. In this respect a $399 Steamdeck is a better device than Apple’s piece with 10x the price.

arcticbull 3y ago
... released by Steam, a company with a lock down model for selling software. The gaming world has long embraced the App Store model. In fact, I'd argue the macOS and iOS App Stores were probably inspired by Steam.
- xattt 3y ago
  Steam Games are a one-and-done deal, while App Store games are slimy with subscription mildew.
- km3r 3y ago
  Having an app store != locked down. AFAIK, you can run any software you want on a Steam deck without any hacking needed. Can you say the same for any non macOS apple product?
- WastingMyTime89 3y ago
  Steam and Apple models are extremely different. What you buy on Steam can’t be launched outside of Steam but Steam is happy to serve as a launcher for content coming from outside of it and will allow said content to use its extra functionalities (controller support and chat notably). Valve hardware is always notoriously open. The deck runs and allows you to access Linux. Apple is completely different and outside of MacOS strictly controls everything.
  - drdaeman 3y ago
    > What you buy on Steam can’t be launched outside of Steam Not true. Steam has a lot of DRM-free games that can be bought on Steam Store and are typically started through Steam client but do not really require Steam to be running. They're simply not integrated with Steam in any way.

skatanski 3y ago

That's a very good point. VR Chat is the magical quirky "META" experience, which is already there. Straight from either Gibsons novels or Ghost in the Shell. Apple seems to be more in line with more gated, streamlined and polished experiences, than what's in VR Chat. Its a similar story with the Sony VR HeadSet.

johnfernow 3y ago

I am a huge fan of VR gaming: some of my best gaming experiences ever have been in VR (notably Resident Evil 7 on PSVR1 and RE8 on PSVR2). Even still, I acknowledge putting on a VR headset comes with some notable downsides: those sacrifices are 100% worth it for some games because it enables an incredible experience you can't otherwise have. Sure, you can play a modded version of Half-Life: Alyx without VR, but you're going to have a much worse experience and a lot less fun. Same for RecRoom and plenty of other titles. But for work? I'm 100% willing to put up with a little discomfort for an hour or two if I'm having a great time; I'm less willing to do that for 8 hours a day when my job can be completed in a far more comfortable manner. Comfort no doubt could be improved upon, but even still, I like to see the world with my own eyes. VR is a nice brief escape, and it doesn't have to be a solo activity: playing RecRoom or Zenith with friends is a lot of fun! I even bring my Quest 2 over to my friends' house IRL and play Zenith in the same room with him. But it's not much of an escape if that's what you spend your whole day in. There are many activities that are a ton of fun for short periods of time, but if done all day, are miserable. I enjoy gaming quite a bit, but I dread the idea of being a pro-gamer who Streams on Twitch 10-12 hours a day playing one title to get good: that'd suck all the fun out of the activity for me and I'd much rather just work a more regular job like web development. I see the same being true for VR: I enjoy it a lot for an hour or two a day at most, but being in it all day could cause me to hate it.

wpietri 3y ago
A question I ask of all VR gaming enthusiasts: how much time do you spend on VR games versus other games? A while back I rented an Oculus Quest. For the first week, it was the hot property in the house. By the end of the second, the kids were back on their Switches and nobody even noticed when I returned it. Asking around, I know a bunch of people who own VR gear of one form or another, but I still haven't met anybody for whom it's a daily driver, or who spends most of their gaming time using it.
- twic 3y ago
  I'm pretty sure the whole VR industry is an op by Big Closet to sell more closets.

alliao 3y ago

while I share the same sentiment, it is hard if not impossible, if gamers became permanently attached to VR/AR tech and then try to bring everyone else onboard. that's why apple went in with high prices first, got to make it look sexy/cool/elusive while the tech matures, then only release to general public at affordable prices when it's 99% there; like macbook air.

asdff 3y ago
If anything that sort of thing backfired with the plummeting demand for the mac line after the the ungodly expensive mac pro caster wheels and such.
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- mackwell 3y ago
  I’m pretty sure that Mac sales have been doing just fine since the release of the M1.
  - asdff 3y ago
    Hard to say if that was M1 effect or remote worker pandemic buying effect. In either case mac sales since last year are down 40%.
    - pzo 3y ago
      It's because a lot of people moved to m1 after waiting years for transition to something new because of crappy butterfly keyboards for many generations, lack of innovation or regression (no functional keys, no Magsafe, no Hdmi, no minisd, still needed usb-a) After lot of people bought m1 there was not similar significant improvement with m2 - and considering they could buy discounted m1

b33j0r 3y ago

It’s for bringing employees back into the office who are never coming back into the office! In our Titanium tier, you can even eye-track how often your employees glance at their phones! … What happened here is that VR/AR have always been nerd dreams. But it’s always been expensive, or uncomfortable to use. Nerds funded rounds 1-3. Now we’re at the point where it’s board meetings and people making presentations about workplace reintegration. Aka employee monitoring and nudging.

api 3y ago

Companies like Meta are trying to push what they want this to be about, and it's not games. Its ads, completely immersive ads and the addictive infinite feed model perfected by TikTok applied to VR and AR to push those ads. The ad market is significantly larger than the game market. We'll see what Apple does with this. It's a chance for them to redeem themselves in the gaming market a bit if they make it good for games, which as you say is what everyone actually wants from this technology.

m463 3y ago

"You're not the target market" sigh. this seems to be the way the world is going. The market for what the tech world seems to be producing is people who can be easily swayed from their own vision to the company vision, and have little expectations of (actual) privacy, of actual utility, and just adapt to what they get. It's hard to push back against this sort of thing. Mindful people don't want to be limited by the scenarios the manufacturer has allowed. They don't want to ask permission, to be locked-in, to have subscriptions, to have surveillance, and advertisements.

justinator 3y ago
Ugh - so much of what you say resonates with me. This is certainly the future (VR) but I'm not really interested in it. I'm interested in just being outdoors (not indoors). I want to feel rain, and cold. I want to know I can't just escape. Others not so much, and all you need is a little bit of money. The brain doesn't know the difference. Doesn't know you're in a dead neighborhood in suburbia in a house that looks like all your neighbors you don't talk to anyways, far from any restaurants or public spaces. We have this now. Food and other items are being delivered to our doors. So on and so forth - I'm not going to belabor my personal view of a future hellscape of rich tech countries.
- comment_ran 3y ago
  Unfortunately, this is the reality. Most people will choose the comfort over those discomfort. Just like the 99% moving matrix, going to select the blue pills over the red pills. Even the people who choose the red pill change their mind. It's just a big lever to enlarge those points.
- ajmurmann 3y ago
  It's astonishing how much you see this sentiment online, but no impact from it anywhere. Sure there is pushback on this sentiment online as well, but just from how much it's expressed online, you' expect at least like 30% of new developments to be more dense, mixed-use that encourages community, walking etc. Yet, somehow it feels closer to 1%. I wonder if that's because online is a small bubble or because the people engaged in zoning and planning are in a bubble or the venn diagram just has little overlap.

jchoca 3y ago

Facebook bought it up because they saw the opportunity for that sweet behavioral surplus and just couldn't pass it up.

LocalPCGuy 3y ago

The real money isn't in VR right now though. The real money is in AR. Does this fit that? Not sure, but there are hundreds of use cases for something like this in the workplace (and not just for developers/desk workers). Think the person who needs to reference a manual while working on something (machinery, car, top of a telephone pole, etc.). Just a single example, but I feel that is the kind of market that the executives are aiming at cause they know for businesses, the cost is immaterial if it solves their issue or makes it so 1 person can do the job of 2. Not endorsing it either, fwiw, just saying, that has to be part of the thinking. The gaming market just isn't big enough, especially when you figure in the cost of the equipment (even at half the cost).

paxys 3y ago
That was the idea behind HoloLens, and they tried to make it work for a decade, but ultimately that flopped as well. No one wants to fix a machine or a telephone pole or whatever else with a massive headset strapped to their head. These are just pointless scenarios dreamed up by techies who have never done any of those jobs in their life. If such a headset were to be commercially successful gaming and porn are the only areas that need targeting, but those are also ones that large corporations are least interested in.
- paul7986 3y ago
  Once this headset's form factor shrinks down to sunglass size it will be the next iPhone. Especially with innovators creating apps that enhanced current life experiences like... - Play real life ping pong, tennis, card games, etc .. glasses keeps & displays score in your view - Rewind ... how did this building look ten, twenty, 100 years ago - Who am I talking to at a conference.. their name appears above them - Lots more and better innovative ideas to come too
  - valcron1000 3y ago
    > Once this headset's form factor shrinks down to sunglass size it will be the next iPhone. So true. The company that is able to do so will have such an advantage over the competitors it won't even be fair. I sure as hell will be developing apps for such device. Potential is unlimited

cptaj 3y ago

This. Drives. Me. NUTS. Just make games! Its that simple. Those are the experiences, those are the killer apps, they are the metaverse! They literally just need to get out of the way with their corporate bullshit.

LightBug1 3y ago
Yeah, actually you're on to something. I admired the hardware but you just nailed the feeling I was getting from this presentation but couldn't describe. It's the old print magazine adverts for the Atari ST or Amiga or early PC's... and shown on the screen was a spreadsheet...(and don't get me wrong, I love a good spreadsheet, but.... )
- cubefox 3y ago
  I think any games released for that system will be crippled by the controls, like smartphone games. Gestures and eye tracking are probably just as imprecise as touchscreens.
  - LightBug1 3y ago
    To be fair, watching the presentation, I'm pretty sure I saw a handheld controller in use for gaming.
    - cubefox 3y ago
      That was probably Apple Arcade, which offers normal flat screen games. Those are nothing compared to VR games, which require different controllers: https://www.roadtovr.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/quest-3-high-res3.jpg https://www.roadtovr.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/quest-3-...
tmpz22 3y ago
If the goal posts was just to make a billion dollars they could make games. But the goal post is to make 100 billion dollars. So here we are.
3y ago

usea 3y ago

Apple's reality distortion field could be the secret sauce that gets people to overcome many of the issues you described, and to purchase a VR product even if they don't make any sense to use.

nirav72 3y ago
Yeah, maybe for other non-VR. But at $3500,the Vision Pro is DOA for the most consumers. At $3500, it's going to take several iteration before they can price one that your average consumer that's normally willing to spends $500-1500 for a ipad/iphone/MBP would be willing to buy. I wonder what they'll leave out to get to that price.
gehsty 3y ago
The reality distortion field schtik is getting pretty old - Mac’s, iPhones, iPads, Apple Watches and AirPods are clearly class leading products that people buy a lot of. HomePods are not and people do not buy a lot of them. If this is good people will buy it if not they won’t.

narag 3y ago

By far the most compelling things you can do in VR are games. What about porn?

radicaldreamer 3y ago

There's a reason Kojima was on stage and it isn't just to announce Death Stranding is coming to the Mac. The key part was future games for Apple platforms...

marcosdumay 3y ago

Hum, AFAIK VR started off as aimless experimental tech, was repurposed for data visualization first, and only after a reasonable amount of success there it was pushed for gamers. And then gamers unanimously rejected it, but it found a quite cozy niche in CAD. That's just to say that it has probably a lot of other serious uses. But yeah, as soon as it's actually good, games will probably be most popular one. Anyway, I agree, the serious uses will almost certainly not include pretending you are in a circle with your coworkers' avatars.

KuriousCat 3y ago

It sounds like companies are trying to bring work to a playground and at the same time can't make compelling games that can beat Beat saber...

gcanyon 3y ago

I'm curious what you think of https://moonrider.xyz https://moonrider.xyz ? I just use it for virtual workouts, so I use the "punch" not the "saber" mode, but it works great for that.

baron816 3y ago

I think immersive experiences is the way to go. Imagine being able to experience a bunch of (idealized) historical events—celebrating Allied victory in WWII, walking through a market in Ancient Rome up to the Colosseum to watch a match, walking around your city before people settled it, etc. The tech isn’t quite there yet, but we may not be that far off of some aspects of it with generative AI. Those experiences would certainly be boosted if you could walk up to anyone and they’d have a unique personality and would be able to have a full conversation with you.

r3trohack3r 3y ago

> I find it pretty hilarious that VR started off as a product for gamers, designed by gamers, and funded by gamers. By far the most compelling things you can do in VR are games. Going to have to disagree with you there. The most compelling use case for VR is porn. The most compelling cover story for buying a device for porn will be games. AFAICT the most prolific and reliably deployed cardboard (previous gen VR) experiences ended up being porn.

blacksmith_tb 3y ago
However Apple has been hostile to that particular content so I wouldn't expect it to be marketed with that in mind...
cpncrunch 3y ago
Porn will never work. See the Dara Obriain skit for a hilarious explanation why.
- numpad0 3y ago
  Oh it's already working. People who aren't compatible with 3DCG stuff goes to those.
  - cpncrunch 3y ago
    I didn't mean it won't work technically (of course it will). This is what I was referring to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8srG_iKh5Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8srG_iKh5Y
    - numpad0 3y ago
      No, it's not about whether it technically works, there are already businesses going for few years. Looks like there are such stereo fisheye rigs, with a pair of m4/3 cameras, a GoPro for preview? and a 3dio packaged to go on a crane. And seems they're transitioning to 8K? Interesting...

swyx 3y ago

i just have stock Beat Saber and am interested in modding. what mods do you recommend?

IAmGraydon 3y ago

I just want to experience Tribes:Ascend on a good VR headset without a tethered computer. Is that too much to ask?

Melatonic 3y ago

Seriously - VR gaming was awesome years ago if you had the hardware and continues to be awesome.

retrocryptid 3y ago

VR was invented by and for gamers? News to me. I mean sure, if you say history started in 1995 and ignore all the VPL and CAVE stuff from the 80s, then sure... it was gamers all the way down.

charcircuit 3y ago

>VR Chat (a moddable It has never allowed mods and on PC enforces it with an anticheat.

meghan_rain 3y ago

Don’t forget porn!

gehsty 3y ago

It’s a computing device like a phone or a laptop, anyone can make any game they want available for it. in the key note they mentioned gaming specifically and had time on a partnership with unreal. What makes you think this is not for gaming?

jayd16 3y ago

I really think this is a bad take, at least as far as the analysis of Meta goes. If anything, they've focused on games too deeply and have kicked the can on building an _app_ ecosystem with the multitasking UX needed for a personal computer. This is understandable from a hardware constraint perspective... However, Apple has done the legwork to build a framework that supports concurrent app usage in a mixed reality way from the ground up instead of deeply focusing on immersive game experiences like Meta has. On top of that, Apple seems to have put in more work to onboard app devs than game devs. That said, the reason Apple can ignore games is because they can leave that to Meta and Unity and they'll still get ports. The input story for the Apple headset is real bad, though. You seem to think Meta doesn't care about games but at least they ship game controllers. Just wait until you try to play something with a pinch gesture and no haptics.