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I use quite a few Apple products every day of the last 10 years, and I’m very impressed with certainly all the technology and reviews and explanations of how th

by jb1991 3y ago

I use quite a few Apple products every day of the last 10 years, and I’m very impressed with certainly all the technology and reviews and explanations of how this device works and what the user experience will be. However, this is the first Apple device that really makes me pause. All of the marketing material, the WWDC videos, all of it feels very uncomfortable to see all these people isolating themselves in a room with big goggles on. I find it really hard to comprehend this is the direction that technology is taking our lives. Imagine walking into a house, and a lot of the people are just sitting around by themselves in corners with goggles on. The whole thing just feels very strange and post apocalyptic to me. And these 3D spacial moment recordings, imagine children growing up in a house where when something nice happens, the parent rushes to put on goggles and stare at them through them, their little virtual eyes displayed on the outside, it’s frankly creepy to me.

theonlybutlet 3y ago
Honestly you could replace everything you said there with an iPhone and it'd still apply.
gofreddygo 3y ago
There are 3 things that standout about apple's vision product line. First there's technology. This is clearly better than anything else in the market. Enough has been said on this. Then there's usability and market. There's no real trojan horse feature that will get this product mainstream right now. Apple's hope is that the dev community will either build one or users will point them in the right direction with usage stats and telemetry. Maybe they will, or they won't nobody knows. Finally there's the future. I see people comparing this to previous apple products and their past experiences with them etc. There appears to be two factions here, one that says "This is the future I want and I love it", and the other saying "This is the future I don't want and hate it". Both groups however are saying one common thing ... "this is the future". And that's pretty much Apple's bet.
dwayne_dibley 3y ago
I don't disagree, however when was the last time you walked into a room where at least one person wasn't solely focused on their phone. The 3D photo thing is super weird, they could release a stand alone camera in future, BUT, I think this is a v1 product, imagine where it'll be in 5 years time, or an SE model which isn't wrap around. I already wear glasses so having AR glasses is no big leap.
- mcny 3y ago
  > I think this is a v1 product This is exactly what I tell myself. This is equivalent to their five hundred dollar original iPhone with no App Store or even copy and paste functionality. I expect the SE to cost a third of this if not a fifth. Edit: five hundred dollar iPhone typo
  - Lolaccount 3y ago
    A fifth? ... You mean like the $100 iPhone they're about to release?!
    - kcmastrpc 3y ago
      cognitive dissonance is real. what is the totl retail now days? like $1500?
      - Lolaccount 3y ago
        I know! ... my guess is the price will stay the same for the Pro version for a long time ... released with a lower spec slightly cheaper version ... Then they'll keep adding features to justify the price ... Then after a few years, the price will start creeping higher and higher. And then, when the implanted-AI version comes out, it'll be $15,000 for Pro Pro AI Max version ... "Literally Think Different!" /only semi-joking ... this was basically the iPhone playbook and why wouldn't it be applied to the Vision?
- jb1991 3y ago
  That's a good point, maybe eventually some of the tech will leak out and not actually require wearing the goggles. Regarding phones, I see your point there too, but at least with phones people can still look up make eye contact, easily set the phone down when needing to interact with someone; unlike these, there is a definite wearing-them and not-wearing barrier that many will probably not cross on a whim, so we'll just get used to interacting with virtually projected eyeballs on the outside of them. Very strange to me.
bsaul 3y ago
Agree. This was the first wwdc that really made me feel like apple's vision of the future is really not mine. And made me question my work choice as an iOS user and developer, this time from an ethical perspective.
Dalewyn 3y ago
>And these 3D spacial moment recordings, imagine children growing up in a house where when something nice happens, the parent rushes to put on goggles and stare at them through them, Isn't this what used to happen with camcorders and now with smartphones? Hell, how many people watch live music events and the like in-person through a smartphone camera (assuming recording is okay)? I understand where you're coming from, but it pays to take a step back and look at things from a wider and more fundamental perspective.
danielbln 3y ago
Apple's goal is surely to get away from the google form factor asap, and once we're at a pair of slick glasses I don't think you'd even think twice about it.
- bluescrn 3y ago
  It feels like another pretty Apple device which is purely for consuming content, and of little use for serious work (or serious play). And $3500 is way too much to pay for that sort of device. A UI that relies entirely on eye tracking and arm motion tracking, without a single button for 'accept' or 'back' or 'fire' in the case of games seems incredibly limiting. They didn't demonstrate text entry, did they? I expected to see Apple's headset being demonstrated as a product for professionals, perhaps for architects, product designers, and engineers to visualise their designs for clients. Maybe it could have also found a niche in education. But no, they seem to have iPad-like use cases in mind, and for that, the price is way too high.
  - iainmerrick 3y ago
    For “serious play” I imagine you could hook up a Bluetooth game controller, just like you can with an iPad (and it sounds like this will run iPad apps). Likewise for work you could use a normal keyboard. I think they did mention that in the presentation.
    - timidiceball 3y ago
      This ability was demoed in the third or fourth minute of the intro. (NBA 2K23 with a PS5 controller)
      - iainmerrick 3y ago
        Ah, good catch, thanks! The AR aspect here is really clever -- you can use normal keyboards and controllers because you can just look at them when you need to.
  - sureglymop 3y ago
hparadiz 3y ago
I don't know if you've ever seen Serial Experiments Lain. In it the protagonist slowly descends into an underground of hackers while finding herself isolated in a room with all sorts of mid 90s aesthetic crt monitors, servers, tubes and wires. And that is more what my current office looks like as opposed to someone hanging out on a couch wearing this headset. If the user interface is to be believed you can in theory do real work with just your eyes and your voice to dictate. It got me thinking. What is really a dystopia? What if our current keyboard and mouse desktop setups, laptops, and displays are the real dystopia?
- dddanmar 3y ago
  Thank you for bringing Serial Experiments Lain back into my recent memory.
  - boo-ga-ga 3y ago
    Literally laughed out loud to this comment:D
- itsnotlupus 3y ago
  Notably that show features a gargoyle who seems very proud to be walking the streets with all their cool hardware. With the Vision Pro, Apple is going to let us become the prettiest gargoyle at the ball.
- rpastuszak 3y ago
  > it the protagonist slowly descends into an underground of hackers while finding herself isolated in a room with all sorts of mid 90s aesthetic crt monitors, servers, tubes and wires. My Meta account name is “regretbuy” (IIRC), but I love the menu scene in Superhot because it looks so similar to your description.
- nonethewiser 3y ago
  > What if our current keyboard and mouse desktop setups, laptops, and displays are the real dystopia? Im not following. Why would that be the dystopia?
Andrew_nenakhov 3y ago
Wearing a VR helmet at a family event is a big NO. I'd rather use a tech that would use footage from multiple cameras in the room, then build a sort of 3D-recording of some moment that I would be able to immerse myself in later, with full freedom of movement and pause-rewind. Of course it would need some tech to fill in the blind zones obscured from cameras, but likely with generative AI and data from before and after the occlusion occurred such technology seems plausible.
- cbm-vic-20 3y ago
  > Wearing a VR helmet at a family event is a big NO. Imagine how that scene with the dad filming the kids playing would look if the kids had the Vision goggles on, too.
  - Andrew_nenakhov 3y ago
    At that point it'd be easier to host family events in Minecraft or at whatever Minecraft imitation Meta will come up with.
johnchristopher 3y ago
i believe this is one of the reasons consumer VR hasn't taken off and likely won't: even if 5 people are in the same room it disconnects most people too much to be enjoyable on a regular basis. People would rather intuitively gravitate toward watching a netflix show or whatever than being bodily isolated and cut off for too long. I haven't yet read/seen much about Apple's take on it so maybe they closed a gap I am not aware of. > And these 3D spacial moment recordings, imagine children growing up in a house where when something nice happens, the parent rushes to put on goggles and stare at them through them, their little virtual eyes displayed on the outside, it’s frankly creepy to me. Well, I have always found that creepy, even with old analog camera from back then (but I always found adults staring at children when something nice happens a bit creepy (or cringe ?) so that's me).
moonchrome 3y ago
This is labeled a pro device. Their home use marketing really misses the mark IMO. The fact that I can mute out the rest of the room while working is a plus not a minus. I'm skeptical this will be there on a technical level to justify the price but the concept of working in VR is objectively an improvement, especially once you factor in the portability of the system. For entertainment - it's probably going to be the same as computer games - everyone had one for work and it was expensive and awkward - but work drove adoption and people started playing games on it. I think this is the main failure of VR so far, it's trying to force people into this alien experience just for entertainment. I have plenty of ways to play games/watch video, I probably wouldn't use it if I had it for free let alone paying large sum of money. If I'm using VR day to day for work - then I might occasionally game on it - this is the road to widespread adoption.
- rchaud 3y ago
  People already had computers for work. Nobody is going to have one of these sitting around for years until a Prince of Persia or Doom type game emerges. Apple needs to build an app store for this and fast.
Cthulhu_ 3y ago
It'll become accepted I'm sure, if it breaks through; could anyone have imagined walking into a living room 30 years ago [0] and seeing everyone hunched over a phone? Or 80 years ago and seeing everyone around a television? I mean I get what you mean, but I also think that some things get normalized in subsequent generations. Our 15 year old and his gf have their phones out at all times, frequently switching to interacting, glancing at random videos, messaging, games, etc. Unthinkable 20 years ago, but for them it's tuesday. That said, VR headsets have been a thing for a while now, at all price ranges; Google Cardboard and clones would make any smartphone into a rudimentary 3d headset, but as far as I know nobody normalized that into their daily life to e.g. watch videos. Head-mounted DVD players were a thing as well for a while I think, but again, never became normalized. Google Glass was the first 'big' AR system, and it was hated for being so obvious and its wearers being so blatant in glancing one way and having a camera aimed at you (which might have been recording) at all times; it might be interesting to see what today's iterations, Snapchat's Spectacles [1], Facebook / Ray Ban's Stories [2], Bose Frames or Amazon Echo Frames will do, I think they'll be much more accepted because they're not as obvious. [0] I had to edit that one a few times, had to think about when mobile phones became daily use items [1] https://www.tomsguide.com/us/snapchat-spectacles-2-0,review-5496.html https://www.tomsguide.com/us/snapchat-spectacles-2-0,review-... [2] https://www.tomsguide.com/reviews/ray-ban-stories https://www.tomsguide.com/reviews/ray-ban-stories
- landhar 3y ago
  > could anyone have imagined walking into a living room 30 years ago and seeing everyone hunched over a phone? True, but I don't recall smartphones ever being unveiled with promotional videos of people all being hunched over them at dinner. Smartphones were promoted by enabling us to do things on the go: making and receiving phone calls, getting directions, finding restaurants in the area. This is why this feels different: the experience that is promoted is one that feels already slightly dystopian.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - tromp 3y ago
seydor 3y ago
I dont think this is ever going to happen. Phones sell because they made computers unintrusive. This tech has some time go until it becomes as simple to wear as sunglasses or even less. IMHO something like a new google glass is more likely to win this space
- samhuk 3y ago
  > Phones sell because they made computers unintrusive Respectfully, how does this make any sense? Didn't mobile phones end up becoming the most intrusive technology on Earth? (I'm not sure what you specifically mean by "intrusive", but I'm assuming that you mean "the extent to which the object interrupts your life/tasks/etc."). Phones sell because they are: 1. Convenient 2. In most civilizations on Earth, it became a necessary item in order to live (authentication, payments, maps, etc.). I'll skip the lesser points, such as the fact that they took over the camera for >99% of people for 99% of the time.
  - seydor 3y ago
    > Didn't mobile phones end up becoming the most intrusive I mean intrusive in blocking yoru attention and isolating you from the environment and blocking sensory input. While it grabs your attention it doesnt isolate . Phones are attention-grabbing but nowhere near as intrusive as goggles
    - CTDOCodebases 3y ago
      I would say it’s a comfort/accessibility issue. Smart phones are just easier to use. Not from an efficiency perspective. There’s just less physical resistance.
Kiro 3y ago
My dream is to become a fully wired in cyborg. I thought many hackers felt the same but I guess not.
- kensai 3y ago
  I don't know if you are joking, but it is for many. Bar the wired part. Why not wireless?
- ChuckNorris89 3y ago
  Wake the f. up Samurai, we have a city to burn.
- rchaud 3y ago
  Probably because being jacked in to what amounts to a $3500 Safari browser and an Apple amusement park feels less like Terminator's HUD and more like the guy in the Matrix that decided to believe he's enjoying eating an imaginary steak in an imaginary restaurant.
wslh 3y ago
I don't think this is much different of looking at people in the 90s SMSing all the time and what happened after that with smart phones, you can criticize what you are currently living. The VR/AR is just a normal, technical and market, evolution. In the 80s people started using walkmans to hear their own music instead of listening in their living room with their family speakers. I think that the social criticism starts much much earlier. Nothing special about Apple. Another take, adding AI to the equation, is that probably the humanity ego is huge and all these stuff is harming it and we are not as important and intelligent as we thought. We are amazing creatures for sure and will fight for our humanity in the way other animals do for their survival.
justdep 3y ago
I imagine eventually your phone will be also able to do these spatial video recordings so the functionally on the headset will fade into the background as a fringe use for passively capturing something while you happened to have the headset on (and enjoying the spatial videos you captured with your phone)
sudhirj 3y ago
This whole thing would have been much better if they’d positioned it as a work and personal entertainment machine, similar to a bunch of monitors with a Mac mini, and replacing iPads or single-viewer TVs. By trying to show interactions with other people, it’s just highlights a weird isolation - what it’s not pointing it out is that the advantage for people like me who work in a private home office where I’m already isolated - this just helps me work there better. I don’t have to cram my small table with monitors any more, and when I do watch a movie or show there I can do it on a giant screen. Even the cameras could have been highlighted much better, either by photographing a complex machine, or an art collaboration across countries.
- thoradam 3y ago
  > This whole thing would have been much better if they’d positioned it as a work and personal entertainment machine Honestly most of the presentation had this exact vibe for me. That the Vision Pro is directly positioned as a device for deep immersion, like movies, gaming, and engrossing work. The two exceptions I remember were those moments where a person plopped their Vision Pro on to take a 3D moment of their children and the one where a person answered a FaceTime call with the Vision Pro while packing their suitcase. I don't see those moments happening in reality with this sort of device.
- personlurking 3y ago
  > similar to a bunch of monitors with a Mac mini, and replacing iPads or single-viewer TVs. Except the Vision Pro maps your home, visually and acoustically. I suppose it's acceptable if one already has a Roomba and an Alexa.
  - sudhirj 3y ago
    From a privacy point of view? Yeah, I’m ok with that if it stays on device, as is usually the case with Apple. The iPads and phones have lidars as well, no? And I’m going to be napping my home to plan renovations etc. Much rather have everything on device.
whywhywhywhy 3y ago
The video call virtual avatar literally looks like a reanimated corpse. Like honestly if you were directing a sci fi movie where you were talking to a brain in a tank “that doesn’t know he’s dead yet” that’s how you’d art direct it. Can see it becoming a faux pas to answer a video call as the creepy avatar. I know Zuck got clowned on for the horizon avatars but at least they were just lame and low quality, not outright creepy/gross.
maaaaattttt 3y ago
The 3D spacial capture will ne done on the iPhone in one or 2 generations. I would bet a lot of money on that. That way Apple’s almost certain that all Vision Pro owners will upgrade their phones. They just couldn’t show it captured that way yet as it’s not yet available on the iPhone.
- brookst 3y ago
  iPhones have had lidar for years.
linsomniac 3y ago
I imagine a future iPhone will be able to record Vision enabled content. I imagine you might be able to just set the Vision Pro on the table while it's recording and you do your thing.
amelius 3y ago
Eh, the iPhone already isolated us from our surroundings. This is the next step.
jstanley 3y ago
You're taking a backwards-looking view of this. Imagine if ancient man, living in the woods, saw people of today living in cities. "It feels very uncomfortable seeing all of these people isolating themselves inside buildings". In fact the very opposite is the case. Now, we go into nature to isolate ourselves. In the future, going into virtual reality will be where you go to interact with others, and you'll take the goggles off to isolate yourself. There are enormous advantages to living (as much as possible of) your life in VR: - your home can be arbitrarily large at zero cost and without taking any land away from anyone else - you can change the decor whenever you want at zero cost - you can paint walls as ornately as you like, at zero cost, immediately, without even any prep work required - you spend zero time on travelling - you can instantly hang out with friends in foreign countries for free without even needing a visa As long as the technology is good enough (and please remember that qualifier, because people normally respond with an implicit assumption that the technology is not good enough) - as long as the technology is good enough VR is strictly better than current reality.
- 5350-uiop-1130 3y ago
  the mental gymnastics people are using to justify dropping $3500 on this is amazing
- simonh 3y ago
  >Imagine if ancient man, living in the woods, saw people of today living in cities. "It feels very uncomfortable seeing all of these people isolating themselves inside buildings". A city is literally millions of people all wanting to live in the same place to be close to other people. I couldn't wait to move from the countryside to a city in order to be near more people like myself. Communications technology is great, it helps me connect with even more people with common interests, as right now, and with my family while we are apart. It is in no way shape or form a substitute for being physically with people. There's something primally satisfying and emotionally anchoring about actually being together. That's why online discussions can so easily escalate into verbal knife fights and abuse. It's emotionally disconnected and I suspect the same will be true of VR.
- siva7 3y ago
MagicMoonlight 3y ago
He says as he sits alone in his room on a computer…
underdeserver 3y ago
In short, using a Vision Pro is only going to be reasonable if everyone in the room has one and is using it.
bitcoin_anon 3y ago
My wife an I use Airpods in the home when we're doing chores, and I'm already starting to feel uncomfortable about that. I feel annoyed when I'm interrupted from a podcast by a family member, and I'm sure they feel it. Perhaps that will lead them to talk with me less in the future. The technology is siphoning attention from the home. Humans are highly visual creatures. The impact of this product will probably be greater.
tfandango 3y ago
I agree with you, not sure why they included that use case in the demo. It would have been better done if the dad recorded the 3d video with iPhone depth sensors (possible?) and replayed it later in VR. I really like my Quest 2. But these devices are for when you are alone. I work alone and would love to use something that expands my workspace and provides a comfortable environment to concentrate in. Quest 2 can't really get there. And occasionally I find people to talk to in VR which is enjoyable. But when the family is home it makes 0 sense. I cannot imagine us all sitting in an empty room with goggles on, watching the same thing.
62951413 3y ago
Once upon a time we laughed at the Back To The Future Part II's "Pizza Time" scene (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8oS4VbRaAA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8oS4VbRaAA). I guess we are in the future now.
baxtr 3y ago
I’m in the same camp. There is one thing you and I have to admit though: people already live disconnected lives, staring at their phones and other screens all day long. People dining out together look at their phone while wearing AirPods. The direction was set years ago.

by jb1991 3y ago

theonlybutlet 3y ago

Honestly you could replace everything you said there with an iPhone and it'd still apply.

gofreddygo 3y ago

There are 3 things that standout about apple's vision product line. First there's technology. This is clearly better than anything else in the market. Enough has been said on this. Then there's usability and market. There's no real trojan horse feature that will get this product mainstream right now. Apple's hope is that the dev community will either build one or users will point them in the right direction with usage stats and telemetry. Maybe they will, or they won't nobody knows. Finally there's the future. I see people comparing this to previous apple products and their past experiences with them etc. There appears to be two factions here, one that says "This is the future I want and I love it", and the other saying "This is the future I don't want and hate it". Both groups however are saying one common thing ... "this is the future". And that's pretty much Apple's bet.

dwayne_dibley 3y ago

I don't disagree, however when was the last time you walked into a room where at least one person wasn't solely focused on their phone. The 3D photo thing is super weird, they could release a stand alone camera in future, BUT, I think this is a v1 product, imagine where it'll be in 5 years time, or an SE model which isn't wrap around. I already wear glasses so having AR glasses is no big leap.

mcny 3y ago
> I think this is a v1 product This is exactly what I tell myself. This is equivalent to their five hundred dollar original iPhone with no App Store or even copy and paste functionality. I expect the SE to cost a third of this if not a fifth. Edit: five hundred dollar iPhone typo
- Lolaccount 3y ago
  A fifth? ... You mean like the $100 iPhone they're about to release?!
  - kcmastrpc 3y ago
    cognitive dissonance is real. what is the totl retail now days? like $1500?
    - Lolaccount 3y ago
      I know! ... my guess is the price will stay the same for the Pro version for a long time ... released with a lower spec slightly cheaper version ... Then they'll keep adding features to justify the price ... Then after a few years, the price will start creeping higher and higher. And then, when the implanted-AI version comes out, it'll be $15,000 for Pro Pro AI Max version ... "Literally Think Different!" /only semi-joking ... this was basically the iPhone playbook and why wouldn't it be applied to the Vision?
jb1991 3y ago
That's a good point, maybe eventually some of the tech will leak out and not actually require wearing the goggles. Regarding phones, I see your point there too, but at least with phones people can still look up make eye contact, easily set the phone down when needing to interact with someone; unlike these, there is a definite wearing-them and not-wearing barrier that many will probably not cross on a whim, so we'll just get used to interacting with virtually projected eyeballs on the outside of them. Very strange to me.

bsaul 3y ago

Agree. This was the first wwdc that really made me feel like apple's vision of the future is really not mine. And made me question my work choice as an iOS user and developer, this time from an ethical perspective.

Dalewyn 3y ago

>And these 3D spacial moment recordings, imagine children growing up in a house where when something nice happens, the parent rushes to put on goggles and stare at them through them, Isn't this what used to happen with camcorders and now with smartphones? Hell, how many people watch live music events and the like in-person through a smartphone camera (assuming recording is okay)? I understand where you're coming from, but it pays to take a step back and look at things from a wider and more fundamental perspective.

danielbln 3y ago

Apple's goal is surely to get away from the google form factor asap, and once we're at a pair of slick glasses I don't think you'd even think twice about it.

bluescrn 3y ago
It feels like another pretty Apple device which is purely for consuming content, and of little use for serious work (or serious play). And $3500 is way too much to pay for that sort of device. A UI that relies entirely on eye tracking and arm motion tracking, without a single button for 'accept' or 'back' or 'fire' in the case of games seems incredibly limiting. They didn't demonstrate text entry, did they? I expected to see Apple's headset being demonstrated as a product for professionals, perhaps for architects, product designers, and engineers to visualise their designs for clients. Maybe it could have also found a niche in education. But no, they seem to have iPad-like use cases in mind, and for that, the price is way too high.
- iainmerrick 3y ago
  For “serious play” I imagine you could hook up a Bluetooth game controller, just like you can with an iPad (and it sounds like this will run iPad apps). Likewise for work you could use a normal keyboard. I think they did mention that in the presentation.
  - timidiceball 3y ago
    This ability was demoed in the third or fourth minute of the intro. (NBA 2K23 with a PS5 controller)
    - iainmerrick 3y ago
      Ah, good catch, thanks! The AR aspect here is really clever -- you can use normal keyboards and controllers because you can just look at them when you need to.
- sureglymop 3y ago

hparadiz 3y ago

I don't know if you've ever seen Serial Experiments Lain. In it the protagonist slowly descends into an underground of hackers while finding herself isolated in a room with all sorts of mid 90s aesthetic crt monitors, servers, tubes and wires. And that is more what my current office looks like as opposed to someone hanging out on a couch wearing this headset. If the user interface is to be believed you can in theory do real work with just your eyes and your voice to dictate. It got me thinking. What is really a dystopia? What if our current keyboard and mouse desktop setups, laptops, and displays are the real dystopia?

dddanmar 3y ago
Thank you for bringing Serial Experiments Lain back into my recent memory.
- boo-ga-ga 3y ago
  Literally laughed out loud to this comment:D
itsnotlupus 3y ago
Notably that show features a gargoyle who seems very proud to be walking the streets with all their cool hardware. With the Vision Pro, Apple is going to let us become the prettiest gargoyle at the ball.
rpastuszak 3y ago
> it the protagonist slowly descends into an underground of hackers while finding herself isolated in a room with all sorts of mid 90s aesthetic crt monitors, servers, tubes and wires. My Meta account name is “regretbuy” (IIRC), but I love the menu scene in Superhot because it looks so similar to your description.
nonethewiser 3y ago
> What if our current keyboard and mouse desktop setups, laptops, and displays are the real dystopia? Im not following. Why would that be the dystopia?

Andrew_nenakhov 3y ago

Wearing a VR helmet at a family event is a big NO. I'd rather use a tech that would use footage from multiple cameras in the room, then build a sort of 3D-recording of some moment that I would be able to immerse myself in later, with full freedom of movement and pause-rewind. Of course it would need some tech to fill in the blind zones obscured from cameras, but likely with generative AI and data from before and after the occlusion occurred such technology seems plausible.

cbm-vic-20 3y ago
> Wearing a VR helmet at a family event is a big NO. Imagine how that scene with the dad filming the kids playing would look if the kids had the Vision goggles on, too.
- Andrew_nenakhov 3y ago
  At that point it'd be easier to host family events in Minecraft or at whatever Minecraft imitation Meta will come up with.

johnchristopher 3y ago

i believe this is one of the reasons consumer VR hasn't taken off and likely won't: even if 5 people are in the same room it disconnects most people too much to be enjoyable on a regular basis. People would rather intuitively gravitate toward watching a netflix show or whatever than being bodily isolated and cut off for too long. I haven't yet read/seen much about Apple's take on it so maybe they closed a gap I am not aware of. > And these 3D spacial moment recordings, imagine children growing up in a house where when something nice happens, the parent rushes to put on goggles and stare at them through them, their little virtual eyes displayed on the outside, it’s frankly creepy to me. Well, I have always found that creepy, even with old analog camera from back then (but I always found adults staring at children when something nice happens a bit creepy (or cringe ?) so that's me).

moonchrome 3y ago

This is labeled a pro device. Their home use marketing really misses the mark IMO. The fact that I can mute out the rest of the room while working is a plus not a minus. I'm skeptical this will be there on a technical level to justify the price but the concept of working in VR is objectively an improvement, especially once you factor in the portability of the system. For entertainment - it's probably going to be the same as computer games - everyone had one for work and it was expensive and awkward - but work drove adoption and people started playing games on it. I think this is the main failure of VR so far, it's trying to force people into this alien experience just for entertainment. I have plenty of ways to play games/watch video, I probably wouldn't use it if I had it for free let alone paying large sum of money. If I'm using VR day to day for work - then I might occasionally game on it - this is the road to widespread adoption.

rchaud 3y ago
People already had computers for work. Nobody is going to have one of these sitting around for years until a Prince of Persia or Doom type game emerges. Apple needs to build an app store for this and fast.

Cthulhu_ 3y ago

It'll become accepted I'm sure, if it breaks through; could anyone have imagined walking into a living room 30 years ago [0] and seeing everyone hunched over a phone? Or 80 years ago and seeing everyone around a television? I mean I get what you mean, but I also think that some things get normalized in subsequent generations. Our 15 year old and his gf have their phones out at all times, frequently switching to interacting, glancing at random videos, messaging, games, etc. Unthinkable 20 years ago, but for them it's tuesday. That said, VR headsets have been a thing for a while now, at all price ranges; Google Cardboard and clones would make any smartphone into a rudimentary 3d headset, but as far as I know nobody normalized that into their daily life to e.g. watch videos. Head-mounted DVD players were a thing as well for a while I think, but again, never became normalized. Google Glass was the first 'big' AR system, and it was hated for being so obvious and its wearers being so blatant in glancing one way and having a camera aimed at you (which might have been recording) at all times; it might be interesting to see what today's iterations, Snapchat's Spectacles [1], Facebook / Ray Ban's Stories [2], Bose Frames or Amazon Echo Frames will do, I think they'll be much more accepted because they're not as obvious. [0] I had to edit that one a few times, had to think about when mobile phones became daily use items [1] https://www.tomsguide.com/us/snapchat-spectacles-2-0,review-5496.html https://www.tomsguide.com/us/snapchat-spectacles-2-0,review-... [2] https://www.tomsguide.com/reviews/ray-ban-stories https://www.tomsguide.com/reviews/ray-ban-stories

landhar 3y ago
> could anyone have imagined walking into a living room 30 years ago and seeing everyone hunched over a phone? True, but I don't recall smartphones ever being unveiled with promotional videos of people all being hunched over them at dinner. Smartphones were promoted by enabling us to do things on the go: making and receiving phone calls, getting directions, finding restaurants in the area. This is why this feels different: the experience that is promoted is one that feels already slightly dystopian.
- deleted 3y ago
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- tromp 3y ago

seydor 3y ago

I dont think this is ever going to happen. Phones sell because they made computers unintrusive. This tech has some time go until it becomes as simple to wear as sunglasses or even less. IMHO something like a new google glass is more likely to win this space

samhuk 3y ago
> Phones sell because they made computers unintrusive Respectfully, how does this make any sense? Didn't mobile phones end up becoming the most intrusive technology on Earth? (I'm not sure what you specifically mean by "intrusive", but I'm assuming that you mean "the extent to which the object interrupts your life/tasks/etc."). Phones sell because they are: 1. Convenient 2. In most civilizations on Earth, it became a necessary item in order to live (authentication, payments, maps, etc.). I'll skip the lesser points, such as the fact that they took over the camera for >99% of people for 99% of the time.
- seydor 3y ago
  > Didn't mobile phones end up becoming the most intrusive I mean intrusive in blocking yoru attention and isolating you from the environment and blocking sensory input. While it grabs your attention it doesnt isolate . Phones are attention-grabbing but nowhere near as intrusive as goggles
  - CTDOCodebases 3y ago
    I would say it’s a comfort/accessibility issue. Smart phones are just easier to use. Not from an efficiency perspective. There’s just less physical resistance.

Kiro 3y ago

My dream is to become a fully wired in cyborg. I thought many hackers felt the same but I guess not.

kensai 3y ago
I don't know if you are joking, but it is for many. Bar the wired part. Why not wireless?
ChuckNorris89 3y ago
Wake the f. up Samurai, we have a city to burn.
rchaud 3y ago
Probably because being jacked in to what amounts to a $3500 Safari browser and an Apple amusement park feels less like Terminator's HUD and more like the guy in the Matrix that decided to believe he's enjoying eating an imaginary steak in an imaginary restaurant.

wslh 3y ago

I don't think this is much different of looking at people in the 90s SMSing all the time and what happened after that with smart phones, you can criticize what you are currently living. The VR/AR is just a normal, technical and market, evolution. In the 80s people started using walkmans to hear their own music instead of listening in their living room with their family speakers. I think that the social criticism starts much much earlier. Nothing special about Apple. Another take, adding AI to the equation, is that probably the humanity ego is huge and all these stuff is harming it and we are not as important and intelligent as we thought. We are amazing creatures for sure and will fight for our humanity in the way other animals do for their survival.

justdep 3y ago

I imagine eventually your phone will be also able to do these spatial video recordings so the functionally on the headset will fade into the background as a fringe use for passively capturing something while you happened to have the headset on (and enjoying the spatial videos you captured with your phone)

sudhirj 3y ago

This whole thing would have been much better if they’d positioned it as a work and personal entertainment machine, similar to a bunch of monitors with a Mac mini, and replacing iPads or single-viewer TVs. By trying to show interactions with other people, it’s just highlights a weird isolation - what it’s not pointing it out is that the advantage for people like me who work in a private home office where I’m already isolated - this just helps me work there better. I don’t have to cram my small table with monitors any more, and when I do watch a movie or show there I can do it on a giant screen. Even the cameras could have been highlighted much better, either by photographing a complex machine, or an art collaboration across countries.

thoradam 3y ago
> This whole thing would have been much better if they’d positioned it as a work and personal entertainment machine Honestly most of the presentation had this exact vibe for me. That the Vision Pro is directly positioned as a device for deep immersion, like movies, gaming, and engrossing work. The two exceptions I remember were those moments where a person plopped their Vision Pro on to take a 3D moment of their children and the one where a person answered a FaceTime call with the Vision Pro while packing their suitcase. I don't see those moments happening in reality with this sort of device.
personlurking 3y ago
> similar to a bunch of monitors with a Mac mini, and replacing iPads or single-viewer TVs. Except the Vision Pro maps your home, visually and acoustically. I suppose it's acceptable if one already has a Roomba and an Alexa.
- sudhirj 3y ago
  From a privacy point of view? Yeah, I’m ok with that if it stays on device, as is usually the case with Apple. The iPads and phones have lidars as well, no? And I’m going to be napping my home to plan renovations etc. Much rather have everything on device.

whywhywhywhy 3y ago

The video call virtual avatar literally looks like a reanimated corpse. Like honestly if you were directing a sci fi movie where you were talking to a brain in a tank “that doesn’t know he’s dead yet” that’s how you’d art direct it. Can see it becoming a faux pas to answer a video call as the creepy avatar. I know Zuck got clowned on for the horizon avatars but at least they were just lame and low quality, not outright creepy/gross.

maaaaattttt 3y ago

The 3D spacial capture will ne done on the iPhone in one or 2 generations. I would bet a lot of money on that. That way Apple’s almost certain that all Vision Pro owners will upgrade their phones. They just couldn’t show it captured that way yet as it’s not yet available on the iPhone.

brookst 3y ago
iPhones have had lidar for years.

linsomniac 3y ago

I imagine a future iPhone will be able to record Vision enabled content. I imagine you might be able to just set the Vision Pro on the table while it's recording and you do your thing.

amelius 3y ago

Eh, the iPhone already isolated us from our surroundings. This is the next step.

jstanley 3y ago

You're taking a backwards-looking view of this. Imagine if ancient man, living in the woods, saw people of today living in cities. "It feels very uncomfortable seeing all of these people isolating themselves inside buildings". In fact the very opposite is the case. Now, we go into nature to isolate ourselves. In the future, going into virtual reality will be where you go to interact with others, and you'll take the goggles off to isolate yourself. There are enormous advantages to living (as much as possible of) your life in VR: - your home can be arbitrarily large at zero cost and without taking any land away from anyone else - you can change the decor whenever you want at zero cost - you can paint walls as ornately as you like, at zero cost, immediately, without even any prep work required - you spend zero time on travelling - you can instantly hang out with friends in foreign countries for free without even needing a visa As long as the technology is good enough (and please remember that qualifier, because people normally respond with an implicit assumption that the technology is not good enough) - as long as the technology is good enough VR is strictly better than current reality.

5350-uiop-1130 3y ago
the mental gymnastics people are using to justify dropping $3500 on this is amazing
simonh 3y ago
>Imagine if ancient man, living in the woods, saw people of today living in cities. "It feels very uncomfortable seeing all of these people isolating themselves inside buildings". A city is literally millions of people all wanting to live in the same place to be close to other people. I couldn't wait to move from the countryside to a city in order to be near more people like myself. Communications technology is great, it helps me connect with even more people with common interests, as right now, and with my family while we are apart. It is in no way shape or form a substitute for being physically with people. There's something primally satisfying and emotionally anchoring about actually being together. That's why online discussions can so easily escalate into verbal knife fights and abuse. It's emotionally disconnected and I suspect the same will be true of VR.
siva7 3y ago

MagicMoonlight 3y ago

He says as he sits alone in his room on a computer…

underdeserver 3y ago

In short, using a Vision Pro is only going to be reasonable if everyone in the room has one and is using it.

bitcoin_anon 3y ago

My wife an I use Airpods in the home when we're doing chores, and I'm already starting to feel uncomfortable about that. I feel annoyed when I'm interrupted from a podcast by a family member, and I'm sure they feel it. Perhaps that will lead them to talk with me less in the future. The technology is siphoning attention from the home. Humans are highly visual creatures. The impact of this product will probably be greater.

tfandango 3y ago

I agree with you, not sure why they included that use case in the demo. It would have been better done if the dad recorded the 3d video with iPhone depth sensors (possible?) and replayed it later in VR. I really like my Quest 2. But these devices are for when you are alone. I work alone and would love to use something that expands my workspace and provides a comfortable environment to concentrate in. Quest 2 can't really get there. And occasionally I find people to talk to in VR which is enjoyable. But when the family is home it makes 0 sense. I cannot imagine us all sitting in an empty room with goggles on, watching the same thing.

62951413 3y ago

Once upon a time we laughed at the Back To The Future Part II's "Pizza Time" scene (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8oS4VbRaAA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8oS4VbRaAA). I guess we are in the future now.

baxtr 3y ago

I’m in the same camp. There is one thing you and I have to admit though: people already live disconnected lives, staring at their phones and other screens all day long. People dining out together look at their phone while wearing AirPods. The direction was set years ago.