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Interesting notes. I'm disappointed even though it's entirely predictable that VisionOS is built on the iOS/iPadOS foundation rather than OSX. I guess we'll se

by zmmmmm 3y ago

Interesting notes. I'm disappointed even though it's entirely predictable that VisionOS is built on the iOS/iPadOS foundation rather than OSX. I guess we'll see how "walled in" it is but it's hard to see any reason Apple isn't going to be just as constraining and controlling about what happens on this OS as they are on iOS, if not more so. Which ultimately means I'll be very reluctant to ever adopt it in any meaningful way as my primary computing device.

kfarr 3y ago
Definitely pros and cons. I remember reading that because of the tight integration with iOS this allowed them to achieve best in class latency for iPad + pencil that couldn't be achieved on any other platform. Having followed Oculus / Quest development that low latency is not optional in this context and every millisecond counts so I can see why they would go this route. On the other hand, the closed ecosystem is definitely cause for concern. Fingers crossed that WebXR support comes out from behind a feature flag to allow for progressive (spatial) web apps.
- atchoo 3y ago
  > best in class latency for iPad + pencil Hmm. Marketing horse-puckey. A 2018 Dell XPS that has a Wacom digitiser and OneNote gives me lower latency and better inking experience than an iPad and pencil 2. I used them side by side for long-form writing for a while and the iPad was left in the dust.
  - kfarr 3y ago
    You might be right it's more marketing than substance, but FWIW this is the article I was thinking of praising low latency of iPad + stylus: https://danluu.com/term-latency/ https://danluu.com/term-latency/
wahnfrieden 3y ago
Be more specific what you mean by building on "OSX". AppKit is very old and crusty. Why would they build on AppKit? You want that?
- zmmmmm 3y ago
  Ultimately its more about the openness of the OS. If they built on iPadOS but they made a reasonable experience for freely sideloading apps, I'd be OK with it. Or even if they support WebXR really well, I might (just) find a way to be OK with that. But if they lock this down and position themselves as rentseekers to take a cut from every piece of software that runs there regardless of how much they contributed to it - I'm out.
  - throw74775 3y ago
    You don't think they are contributing something by creating this platform?
    - zmmmmm 3y ago
      not as such no. Part of (my) definition of a platform is that when you buy it you are fully paying for the cost and contribution the platform provider made when you buy it. If there's a residual financial (or other) obligation after that then you don't have a platform, you have a partnership. I know there's other definitions of platform but that's the one that's important to me.
      - throw74775 3y ago
        I don't see why that should be. Obviously you have a right to do whatever deals you like and not buy this product, but it seems to me that one reason Apple is investing so much in this is because they expect to recoup a huge reward over time, not just from device sales. I guess you can always buy an android based headset that allows sideloading but presumably it won't have the same level of investment.
        zmmmmm 3y ago
        you don't have to guess - I bought a Quest Pro which allows side loading As far as this goes ... > it won't have the same level of investment. Meta is constantly mocked for how much they have invested. You can argue about how much it paid off, but they certainly invested.
bodge5000 3y ago
Yeh this was my main thought. However good the hardware is doesn't matter if the software can't fully utilise it. The idea of virtual displays (the most obvious immediate benefit of Vision imo) for MacOS seems like a huge benefit, but for iPadOS its downgraded to pretty cool. I've never felt any particular need to add multiple displays to my iPad, and whilst a big display would be nice, I wouldn't describe it as groundbreaking (especially as others such as XReal are already doing this in a much smaller form factor).
- throw74775 3y ago
  This might have made sense with the iPad but I can't see how anyone is going to write software that 'fully utilizes' the system in a way that Apple doesn't support without billions of dollars of investment.
SamuelAdams 3y ago
I also wonder if it made more sense from a security perspective. In the early iOS days, one of the big problems for desktop apps was unrestricted access to your data. IOS improved this with application sandboxing by default, and it eventually made its way into OS X. But we all know the difference between implementing something brand new versus retrofitting something into an existing system. So my guess is iOS had more secure defaults for a system like vision.
mikenew 3y ago
It's a bit odd if you think about it: a desktop OS effectively creates a virtual 3d space for windows to live (move them in X and Y, or change their depth relative to each other), and the iPad or iPhone treats the surface as just a simple 2d plane with no depth or really even XY axes (you could sort of argue that the app switcher is an X axis). So they're effectively recreating a lot of the elements of the macOS w/r/t window positioning, resizing, and depth, but building all on top of the iPadOS paradigm. If you consider the input methods are probably closer to a touch interface than a MKB interface then it kinda makes sense. Personally I have zero interest whatsoever in living inside Apple's "only what we allow you to do" world, and the fact that they seem to be expanding it to what seems like a very powerful, desktop replacement computing device is kinda gross to me. But from an interface standpoint I think it's really interesting and actually makes some sense.
eyelidlessness 3y ago
> I'm disappointed even though it's entirely predictable that VisionOS is built on the iOS/iPadOS foundation rather than OSX. They’re the same foundation, iOS is a fork of OS X and was originally announced as such. I’d be shocked if there isn’t a well maintained internal build of iOS which keeps parity with macOS windowing etc. The difference in restrictions between the platforms is entirely arbitrary. If this device appeals to Mac users or would-be Mac users, I’d be shocked if it doesn’t at least eventually allow a Mac-like environment.
- astrange 3y ago
  It certainly isn't arbitrary, macOS has swap and doesn't kill apps and iOS doesn't have swap and does kill apps. This makes everything very different, and one makes it easier to do real-time rendering than the other.
  - eyelidlessness 3y ago
    I guess I should clarify. It’s arbitrary in that the restrictions are policy-based, not limitations of the underlying technology. There’s no technical reason iOS couldn’t have swap, it’s not available because trade off decisions were made to enable use cases on much more limited devices.
  - MBCook 3y ago
    The recent iPads based on M series chips now support swap. I think it was added in iPadOS 16 last year.
    - astrange 3y ago
      It's different-ish. iPadOS is still a more limited/controlled OS and the swap policy is also more limited. You can see it in the open source kernel where it's called "app swap", so it doesn't swap out the OS, but on macOS it can. "Limited" makes it, well, limited, but it has performance advantages: fewer unexpected page faults mean audio/video processes won't unexpectedly drop a frame as often, and there's fewer disk writes which is good for the lifespan of the hardware it runs on. Btw iOS actually has a very limited swap policy called "freezer" that only applies to suspended background apps, and only when it's in the performance budget.
TX81Z 3y ago
Also it’s locked to Siri which is dogshit and falling further behind by the second. Apples speech to text is atrocious, the OpenAI tools blow it out of the water, as does Google’s. No matter how fancy the visuals, it’s hard to have a pseudo-hands free voice interface that doesn’t uh, work?
- macintux 3y ago
  It has to be evident to Apple that Siri needs dramatic changes. They keep building hardware that needs robust voice support.
  - TX81Z 3y ago
    I would not be so sure, mainly because of ecosystem lock. I sincerely doubt a double-digit percentage of Apple employees have touched and android phone or used OpenAI APIs. Big problem with ecosystems is you don’t know what you’re missing.
    - macintux 3y ago
      I don’t use Android or OpenAI APIs, but I’ve been burnt frequently by Siri. You don’t have to use something better to know that it’s pretty bad.
      - TX81Z 3y ago
        Yes, but you don’t know how bad until you go from daily driving something that works and going back to garbage. I switch between iPhone and Pixel and Apple/Google products and each has a lot going for it. But leaving Assistant for Siri is downright jarring. Why Google made the shitshow that is Bard when they could have just iterated on Assistant I’ll never know. Such a solid product.
      - jquery 3y ago
        Siri is my alarm clock and my weather report, that's about it. Siri needs a lot of help.
    - 3y ago
Aeolun 3y ago
As far as I know, Intellij doesn’t run on iPad, so they’ll need to fix that problem before I consider adopting one. Though I do remember reading you can connect it to your mac, so who knows. You’ll just need 2 $2000+ devices instead of one.
pazimzadeh 3y ago
Yeah it kind of sucks because it seems like won't be able to use something like Hammerspoon to control windows and other UI elements the same way you can on Mac.

by zmmmmm 3y ago

kfarr 3y ago

Definitely pros and cons. I remember reading that because of the tight integration with iOS this allowed them to achieve best in class latency for iPad + pencil that couldn't be achieved on any other platform. Having followed Oculus / Quest development that low latency is not optional in this context and every millisecond counts so I can see why they would go this route. On the other hand, the closed ecosystem is definitely cause for concern. Fingers crossed that WebXR support comes out from behind a feature flag to allow for progressive (spatial) web apps.

atchoo 3y ago
> best in class latency for iPad + pencil Hmm. Marketing horse-puckey. A 2018 Dell XPS that has a Wacom digitiser and OneNote gives me lower latency and better inking experience than an iPad and pencil 2. I used them side by side for long-form writing for a while and the iPad was left in the dust.
- kfarr 3y ago
  You might be right it's more marketing than substance, but FWIW this is the article I was thinking of praising low latency of iPad + stylus: https://danluu.com/term-latency/ https://danluu.com/term-latency/

wahnfrieden 3y ago

Be more specific what you mean by building on "OSX". AppKit is very old and crusty. Why would they build on AppKit? You want that?

zmmmmm 3y ago
Ultimately its more about the openness of the OS. If they built on iPadOS but they made a reasonable experience for freely sideloading apps, I'd be OK with it. Or even if they support WebXR really well, I might (just) find a way to be OK with that. But if they lock this down and position themselves as rentseekers to take a cut from every piece of software that runs there regardless of how much they contributed to it - I'm out.
- throw74775 3y ago
  You don't think they are contributing something by creating this platform?
  - zmmmmm 3y ago
    not as such no. Part of (my) definition of a platform is that when you buy it you are fully paying for the cost and contribution the platform provider made when you buy it. If there's a residual financial (or other) obligation after that then you don't have a platform, you have a partnership. I know there's other definitions of platform but that's the one that's important to me.
    - throw74775 3y ago
      I don't see why that should be. Obviously you have a right to do whatever deals you like and not buy this product, but it seems to me that one reason Apple is investing so much in this is because they expect to recoup a huge reward over time, not just from device sales. I guess you can always buy an android based headset that allows sideloading but presumably it won't have the same level of investment.
      - zmmmmm 3y ago
        you don't have to guess - I bought a Quest Pro which allows side loading As far as this goes ... > it won't have the same level of investment. Meta is constantly mocked for how much they have invested. You can argue about how much it paid off, but they certainly invested.

bodge5000 3y ago

Yeh this was my main thought. However good the hardware is doesn't matter if the software can't fully utilise it. The idea of virtual displays (the most obvious immediate benefit of Vision imo) for MacOS seems like a huge benefit, but for iPadOS its downgraded to pretty cool. I've never felt any particular need to add multiple displays to my iPad, and whilst a big display would be nice, I wouldn't describe it as groundbreaking (especially as others such as XReal are already doing this in a much smaller form factor).

throw74775 3y ago
This might have made sense with the iPad but I can't see how anyone is going to write software that 'fully utilizes' the system in a way that Apple doesn't support without billions of dollars of investment.

SamuelAdams 3y ago

I also wonder if it made more sense from a security perspective. In the early iOS days, one of the big problems for desktop apps was unrestricted access to your data. IOS improved this with application sandboxing by default, and it eventually made its way into OS X. But we all know the difference between implementing something brand new versus retrofitting something into an existing system. So my guess is iOS had more secure defaults for a system like vision.

mikenew 3y ago

It's a bit odd if you think about it: a desktop OS effectively creates a virtual 3d space for windows to live (move them in X and Y, or change their depth relative to each other), and the iPad or iPhone treats the surface as just a simple 2d plane with no depth or really even XY axes (you could sort of argue that the app switcher is an X axis). So they're effectively recreating a lot of the elements of the macOS w/r/t window positioning, resizing, and depth, but building all on top of the iPadOS paradigm. If you consider the input methods are probably closer to a touch interface than a MKB interface then it kinda makes sense. Personally I have zero interest whatsoever in living inside Apple's "only what we allow you to do" world, and the fact that they seem to be expanding it to what seems like a very powerful, desktop replacement computing device is kinda gross to me. But from an interface standpoint I think it's really interesting and actually makes some sense.

eyelidlessness 3y ago

> I'm disappointed even though it's entirely predictable that VisionOS is built on the iOS/iPadOS foundation rather than OSX. They’re the same foundation, iOS is a fork of OS X and was originally announced as such. I’d be shocked if there isn’t a well maintained internal build of iOS which keeps parity with macOS windowing etc. The difference in restrictions between the platforms is entirely arbitrary. If this device appeals to Mac users or would-be Mac users, I’d be shocked if it doesn’t at least eventually allow a Mac-like environment.

astrange 3y ago
It certainly isn't arbitrary, macOS has swap and doesn't kill apps and iOS doesn't have swap and does kill apps. This makes everything very different, and one makes it easier to do real-time rendering than the other.
- eyelidlessness 3y ago
  I guess I should clarify. It’s arbitrary in that the restrictions are policy-based, not limitations of the underlying technology. There’s no technical reason iOS couldn’t have swap, it’s not available because trade off decisions were made to enable use cases on much more limited devices.
- MBCook 3y ago
  The recent iPads based on M series chips now support swap. I think it was added in iPadOS 16 last year.
  - astrange 3y ago
    It's different-ish. iPadOS is still a more limited/controlled OS and the swap policy is also more limited. You can see it in the open source kernel where it's called "app swap", so it doesn't swap out the OS, but on macOS it can. "Limited" makes it, well, limited, but it has performance advantages: fewer unexpected page faults mean audio/video processes won't unexpectedly drop a frame as often, and there's fewer disk writes which is good for the lifespan of the hardware it runs on. Btw iOS actually has a very limited swap policy called "freezer" that only applies to suspended background apps, and only when it's in the performance budget.

TX81Z 3y ago

Also it’s locked to Siri which is dogshit and falling further behind by the second. Apples speech to text is atrocious, the OpenAI tools blow it out of the water, as does Google’s. No matter how fancy the visuals, it’s hard to have a pseudo-hands free voice interface that doesn’t uh, work?

macintux 3y ago
It has to be evident to Apple that Siri needs dramatic changes. They keep building hardware that needs robust voice support.
- TX81Z 3y ago
  I would not be so sure, mainly because of ecosystem lock. I sincerely doubt a double-digit percentage of Apple employees have touched and android phone or used OpenAI APIs. Big problem with ecosystems is you don’t know what you’re missing.
  - macintux 3y ago
    I don’t use Android or OpenAI APIs, but I’ve been burnt frequently by Siri. You don’t have to use something better to know that it’s pretty bad.
    - TX81Z 3y ago
      Yes, but you don’t know how bad until you go from daily driving something that works and going back to garbage. I switch between iPhone and Pixel and Apple/Google products and each has a lot going for it. But leaving Assistant for Siri is downright jarring. Why Google made the shitshow that is Bard when they could have just iterated on Assistant I’ll never know. Such a solid product.
    - jquery 3y ago
      Siri is my alarm clock and my weather report, that's about it. Siri needs a lot of help.
  - 3y ago

Aeolun 3y ago

As far as I know, Intellij doesn’t run on iPad, so they’ll need to fix that problem before I consider adopting one. Though I do remember reading you can connect it to your mac, so who knows. You’ll just need 2 $2000+ devices instead of one.

pazimzadeh 3y ago

Yeah it kind of sucks because it seems like won't be able to use something like Hammerspoon to control windows and other UI elements the same way you can on Mac.