24 ms·

I use the Quest Pro right now, because my interest in spatial computing (I like Apple's new term so trying to use it, haha) is greater than my misgivings about

by veidr 3y ago

I use the Quest Pro right now, because my interest in spatial computing (I like Apple's new term so trying to use it, haha) is greater than my misgivings about Meta (even though those are significant). I will buy the Apple thing, too. There are a lot of interesting differences between them (obviously, the biggest one being the price, and deriving from that) but the one I find interesting is Apple's decision not to have controllers. This is just like the infamous "if you see a stylus, they blew it" approach with the iPhone. Double down on the simplest possible input mechanism and pretend it is enough. Today, of course, Apple ships an excellent stylus that they are happy to sell you for $129. (UPDATE: I think here I wasn't clear, based on several replies. I'm not saying this decision was wrong -- it was right, clearly. I just mean they may very well ignore the existence of controllers... right up until they release an awesome high tech controller for us to buy (as an option).) The controllers on the Quest Pro are fantastic, and although Meta also seems to be pushing as hard as they can to improve hand tracking and gesture recognition, too, there are and will always be immense benefits to having a hardware controller compared to just waving your hands and pinching your fingers. Precision, haptics, joysticks and buttons, additional positional audio, and more. I have no doubt that if Vision OS succeeds, it will also eventually get spatially tracked controllers as well. But it is going to start without them. That to me seems like the main competitive advantage Meta's Quest lineup has, other than the price. It's obviously superior in terms of delivering a deeper and more varied lineup of games; Apple seems to understand that and are hardly mentioning games (although, that makes sense due to the price as well). It will be interesting to see how Meta tries to leverage this advantage. OTOH maybe some enterprising developer will just figure out how to connect Meta's controllers (or other similar ones) to the Apple Vision Pro.

lajupechere 3y ago
To be fair, the Apple stylus is considered an art and creative _accessory_, not the predominant way of interacting with the system.
- veidr 3y ago
  Totally true, and I suspect that the same will hold true for Vision OS — controllers will always be optional (even when Apple has "the world's most advanced spatial controller" to sell us for $999/pair).
- throw9away6 3y ago
  It works so much better when it does but it’s not fully hashed it and a lot of stuff doesn’t quite work interface wise
Foxhuls 3y ago
I would strongly recommend looking at the results people are achieving with Apple’s game porting toolkit just days after it was released. With the hardware that the vision pro is supposed to have, I seriously think it will be the best gaming headset on the market if the final product ends up living up to what was announced.
- Laremere 3y ago
  I haven't seen anything about controllers that work with the Vision Pro. Lacking those is a nonstarter for a lot of VR gaming.
  - throw74775 3y ago
    It’s compatible with any Bluetooth controller, but I see no reason it would be a nonstarter. Remember it has full hand tracking. If you want to hold something e.g. a lightsaber or whatever, there is no reason not to. An inert plastic prop should work just fine.
    - veidr 3y ago
      I'm not a huge gamer, aside from fitness games like Thrill of the Fight, but I've tried a bunch of VR games just to see. And there is just no way that a lightsaber game could be good without haptic feedback, in a world where haptic feedback exists. And I think many other kinds of game. YouTube guy MKBHD even called out the lack of haptics in his initial impressions video, not even for a game: the butterfly flew over to him in the Apple demo, and he held out his finger, and when the butterfly landed on it... nothing. And that was kind of jarring, he said. (And it would be.) Haptic feedback is a big deal.
      - throw74775 3y ago
        By haptics you mean a buzzer? That doesn’t replicate any kind of real-world experience. But again - there is no reason gamers can’t have a control, but it’s silly to use a game controller to interact with a computing environment when you can use your hands.
tptacek 3y ago
To a first approximation, nobody uses the Apple Pencil as a primary input device on an Apple device.
- veidr 3y ago
  True, although that might be where my analogy breaks down. Controllers are today the primary input device for pretty much all VR headsets out there. So, maybe the better analogy would be the Blackberry's keyboard. And we know who won that one. I think Apple is probably right to just double down on bare hands and voice as the input mechanism for spatial computing. I'm just also saying that controllers do have some advantage, so Meta should probably try to leverage it where they can. (BTW, I myself do use the iPad primarily with the stylus, now that you can use handwriting everywhere just like the Newton MessagePad of yore... but I concede that probably very few people do this.)
  - wahnfrieden 3y ago
    Controllers will not make the jump to lightweight/outdoor AR
    - veidr 3y ago
      Totally agree. Like a stylus (or physical keyboard) it is only an advantage in some subset of usage scenarios.
  - tptacek 3y ago
    I guess my point would be that Apple's approach towards inputs with the iPad and, much more importantly, the iPhone were vindicated probably as thoroughly as anything in the history of the computer industry? Jobs made the stylus wisecrack in 2010. In 2023, that statement remains dead on the money. Lots of things Jobs said didn't age that well. This one did.
    - veidr 3y ago
      Yeah, I actually agree with you completely. I probably didn't phrase things as well as I should have (maybe because I love me some stylus, haha). What I meant was that probably someday Apple will be happy to sell us super high tech controllers for spatial computing, but for launch they are taking the same stance as they did with the iPhone, and going all-in on designing the whole experience to just use your hands. (And, yes, this is probably the correct decision here, just as it was then.)
boloust 3y ago
By all accounts, the Vision Pro eye tracking is extremely good, so for pointing inputs it would probably beat hardware controllers on speed and precision metrics, as well as feeling more direct and natural.
- truncate 3y ago
  I was thinking if eye tracking can cause more eye strain over long time, cause you'd have to focus your eyes more on something, than say casually moving pointer with a mouse or controller.
  - throw74775 3y ago
    From the early reports, there is nobody saying they have to focus in some special way - you just look at the control, and tap.
  - m3kw9 3y ago
    I don’t think I’ve try to click something without looking exactly where the pointer tip goes ever
  - esperent 3y ago
    My guess is it'll be a personal thing where for a percentage of people it'll be fine for daily use, for another percentage it'll be tiring, and then for a final smaller percentage it'll be truly awful and cause migraines or whatever. Also I have yet to see much talk about how this will work for people with abnormal/poor vision (e.g. abnormal pupils or sclera, vision only in one eye, etc.). Although I do think Apple has a good track record for accessibility? There's no way know until many thousands of people are using this device how those percentages will pan out.
unobatbayar 3y ago
Meta Quest 3 really looks like it's made by Xiaomi, matches their entire theme and price range. What made you buy it?
- drcode 3y ago
  The Apple Helmet is heavy as all out, because they refused to make it out of plastic, and are instead using glass/metal- Definitely an Apple move. (heavy, considering there's no included battery)
  - wahnfrieden 3y ago
    AirPods Max hurts my head so much I have to wear a hat/beanie. Not a great track record
- veidr 3y ago
  Well, I am just really interested in the idea of taking a spatial computer headset device around with me, and doing work (writing software, so think VS Code/JetBrains/Xcode) in a large spatial environment instead of a laptop with a single small screen. I did know that the Quest Pro would not live up to that task (and it doesn't), but I wanted to see how close you could get today for $1500 (now, $1000). I also do boxing and similar fitness games almost every day, so I knew it would at least serve me well for that, despite being pretty expensive. (An yeah, for that, it's pretty great.) The new Apple gizmo looks way better for programming and work like that, though, so I'm excited about it. After many years, we appear to be getting close to something that is actually pleasant to use. (Even the Quest Pro technically can be used for this, but the experience is far from pleasant.)
  - idle_zealot 3y ago
    > The new Apple gizmo looks way better for programming and work like that Based on Apple's track record, they're going to disallow development on the Vision like they do for all iOS/iPad devices.
    - 3y ago
dymk 3y ago
> This is just like the infamous "if you see a stylus, they blew it" approach with the iPhone > Today, of course, Apple ships an excellent stylus that they are happy to sell you for $129. Apple Pencil does not work with iPhone, only with iPads, which... makes sense. Artists use them as drawing tablets. But nobody uses a Apple Pencil with an iPhone.
- jachee 3y ago
  Also, as a single point of anecdata: My $129 stylus spends the vast majority of the time magneted to the top of my iPad while my fingers do the actual work. It’s not exactly a regret, but as a not-really-an-artist, it’s… probably money I could’ve spent better. :)
  - ewoodrich 3y ago
    Same. But I would use it more if it would allow triggering all gestures (particularly home) without awkward assistive touch workarounds so it could be used for general navigation like the S-pen on my Galaxy Tab and phone. Which I imagine is intentional by Apple for aesthetic reasons since iPad should only be navigated by touch.
- dotnet00 3y ago
  Is that more because no one can use it with an iPhone? The stylus support on Samsung flagships is very convenient to have cross device capability on, and everyone I know who has those devices feels similarly. Eg when doing something on the tab with the pen and having a calculator open on the phone and seamlessly being able to use the pen for that. Support on phones, especially with the large screens these days, allows for all sorts of little synergies that make the experience much more smooth. This kind of synergy is especially convenient for students and teachers. But because Apple hasn't decided to make a slick commercial about it "revolutionizing" computing, HN must act like it isn't a thing.
  - dymk 3y ago
    I'm not commenting on if apple should make iPhones compatible, I'm pointing out that the argument in the parent comment doesn't make sense, because Apple has never backtracked on "iPhone does not have a stylus"
ravst3s 3y ago
Although these devices will be compared to each other ceaselessly, I think they're targeting two distinct markets. Apple believes that Vision Pro is the future of personal computing. Meta keeps marketing the Quest as social-connected VR gaming device. The former market is far larger and anything that displaces the PC will be transcendental. Although Meta will sell more units in the short-term due to Apple's pricing, I do think they will have a tough time catching Apple on the hardware. The eye-tracking, <12ms image processing and display, and the M2 are things that Meta is well behind on. Zuck mentioned that activity and "doing things" are Meta advantages, but people don't want to exercise while gaming or consuming entertainment.
- seanmcdirmid 3y ago
  > Zuck mentioned that activity and "doing things" are Meta advantages, but people don't want to exercise while gaming or consuming entertainment. A lot of people actually do. There is a whole community built around it.
  - throwaway2990 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - mynameisvlad 3y ago
      Ew. Fat shaming is not a good look. You don’t know them. You don’t know the reasons for their weight. They very well could be using the device daily to exercise for all you know and it could be an issue with his metabolism. Or another medical condition. Or a side effect of drugs. Or literally hundreds of other reasons.
      - Takennickname 3y ago
        [flagged]
        mynameisvlad 3y ago
atleastoptimal 3y ago
"spatial computing" is such a silly marketing phrase. All we saw was 2D windows placed in a fake 3D world. It's all just an aesthetic upgrade, a minor QOL improvement that has its own downsides, nothing more.
- askafriend 3y ago
  That's a skeumorphic anchor to get people comfortable with a new technology. If you're going to introduce technology to the masses, you have to do it in stages. There's a lot more going on here than is apparent on the surface. You could have said all of things about the original iPhone. It did similar things to a lot of existing smartphones at the time (send email, play music, browse web, make call).
  - nonethewiser 3y ago
    They made a VR headset and used their own marketing name for it. A term which no one else uses.
    - askafriend 3y ago
      It's called communication. It's not a VR headset and it's not an AR headset. It's something else. It's reasonable to give your specific vision of these technologies a more human name. Also, it's something that's going to be released in very limited quantities in a year from now. And it was announced at a developer conference so developers can start to prepare apps. We've only really seen a preview and the technology is in the earliest stages. There's a ton of stuff they only mentioned in passing - like their proprietary camera format and cameras that can record the world in immersive depth-mapped 3D. Those will likely be licensed out to studios and sports leagues which can prepare content for Vision Pro.
    - prawn 3y ago
      "A term which no one else uses." Yet. They've set it rolling and so far own a perspective separate to AR/VR. Leaves the competition brawling over headsets for a still-to-be-defined VR concept while they pitch customers on their thing. Computing. Ties in to work. Easier to justify spending $x000.
seydor 3y ago
Also, i don't understand the reasoning behind not having controllers. You are freeing up your hands for ... what? You are already wearing a blindfold on your face. ( I think the passthrough will be used very little because in most cases it's distracting)
- teolandon 3y ago
  Freeing up your hands for comfort and intuitiveness.
- nailuj 3y ago
  On the contrary, I think the passthrough will be one of the defining differences to other headsets for the time being. Not having anything to hold in your hand while you go ahead and do non-VR things in your real environment adds a layer of convenience that's hard to appreciate from product videos. The improved passthrough, as bad as it still is, is one of my favorite additions on the Quest Pro.
  - seydor 3y ago
    What other things and how often though? Is it worth it losing the improved precision of the controller (and adding so much more complexity and battery use) I think Facebook should consider usign only 1 controller though (i know I do). Also, to put the battery in the controller and tether it to the headset to make it even lighter. If apple is using a tether then it's ok to do it I wonder if passthrough can be done mechanically, by rotating the lenses to a hole
    - nailuj 3y ago
      That really depends on what you're doing with the device I guess. For gaming, controllers will remain indispensable, and you're planning to disconnect from the real world for a while anyways. For everything else, quickly being able to grab a snack or drink, respond to a phone notification or change the place you're using the device from reduce friction. It might be enough to push VR over that "I don't want to use the device because I don't want to commit to not doing anything else for at least 30 minutes now" hurdle that still very much exists. That being said, I have no doubt Meta is going to be able to get there in due time too.
worrycue 3y ago
> Double down on the simplest possible input mechanism and pretend it is enough. Today, of course, Apple ships an excellent stylus that they are happy to sell you for $129. The thing is, it is enough for general use. The Apple Pencil (or whatever they call it) is a specialised tool for people who need the extra precision. The difference between modern no-stylus-needed touch screens and old stylus-required touch screens is exactly that, with the old screens they aren’t functional at all without the stylus.
jayd16 3y ago
It would be pretty ironic if the Quest Pro controllers end up being the defacto 3rd party controller for AVP. Would certainly make porting games that much easier. I'm also curious if Apple plans to use iPhones as an input mode. Speech to text is nice but I'd like to be able to discretely type something.
bick_nyers 3y ago
Relevant video from The Onion: https://youtu.be/9BnLbv6QYcA https://youtu.be/9BnLbv6QYcA

by veidr 3y ago

lajupechere 3y ago

To be fair, the Apple stylus is considered an art and creative _accessory_, not the predominant way of interacting with the system.

veidr 3y ago
Totally true, and I suspect that the same will hold true for Vision OS — controllers will always be optional (even when Apple has "the world's most advanced spatial controller" to sell us for $999/pair).
throw9away6 3y ago
It works so much better when it does but it’s not fully hashed it and a lot of stuff doesn’t quite work interface wise

Foxhuls 3y ago

I would strongly recommend looking at the results people are achieving with Apple’s game porting toolkit just days after it was released. With the hardware that the vision pro is supposed to have, I seriously think it will be the best gaming headset on the market if the final product ends up living up to what was announced.

Laremere 3y ago
I haven't seen anything about controllers that work with the Vision Pro. Lacking those is a nonstarter for a lot of VR gaming.
- throw74775 3y ago
  It’s compatible with any Bluetooth controller, but I see no reason it would be a nonstarter. Remember it has full hand tracking. If you want to hold something e.g. a lightsaber or whatever, there is no reason not to. An inert plastic prop should work just fine.
  - veidr 3y ago
    I'm not a huge gamer, aside from fitness games like Thrill of the Fight, but I've tried a bunch of VR games just to see. And there is just no way that a lightsaber game could be good without haptic feedback, in a world where haptic feedback exists. And I think many other kinds of game. YouTube guy MKBHD even called out the lack of haptics in his initial impressions video, not even for a game: the butterfly flew over to him in the Apple demo, and he held out his finger, and when the butterfly landed on it... nothing. And that was kind of jarring, he said. (And it would be.) Haptic feedback is a big deal.
    - throw74775 3y ago
      By haptics you mean a buzzer? That doesn’t replicate any kind of real-world experience. But again - there is no reason gamers can’t have a control, but it’s silly to use a game controller to interact with a computing environment when you can use your hands.

tptacek 3y ago

To a first approximation, nobody uses the Apple Pencil as a primary input device on an Apple device.

veidr 3y ago
True, although that might be where my analogy breaks down. Controllers are today the primary input device for pretty much all VR headsets out there. So, maybe the better analogy would be the Blackberry's keyboard. And we know who won that one. I think Apple is probably right to just double down on bare hands and voice as the input mechanism for spatial computing. I'm just also saying that controllers do have some advantage, so Meta should probably try to leverage it where they can. (BTW, I myself do use the iPad primarily with the stylus, now that you can use handwriting everywhere just like the Newton MessagePad of yore... but I concede that probably very few people do this.)
- wahnfrieden 3y ago
  Controllers will not make the jump to lightweight/outdoor AR
  - veidr 3y ago
    Totally agree. Like a stylus (or physical keyboard) it is only an advantage in some subset of usage scenarios.
- tptacek 3y ago
  I guess my point would be that Apple's approach towards inputs with the iPad and, much more importantly, the iPhone were vindicated probably as thoroughly as anything in the history of the computer industry? Jobs made the stylus wisecrack in 2010. In 2023, that statement remains dead on the money. Lots of things Jobs said didn't age that well. This one did.
  - veidr 3y ago
    Yeah, I actually agree with you completely. I probably didn't phrase things as well as I should have (maybe because I love me some stylus, haha). What I meant was that probably someday Apple will be happy to sell us super high tech controllers for spatial computing, but for launch they are taking the same stance as they did with the iPhone, and going all-in on designing the whole experience to just use your hands. (And, yes, this is probably the correct decision here, just as it was then.)

boloust 3y ago

By all accounts, the Vision Pro eye tracking is extremely good, so for pointing inputs it would probably beat hardware controllers on speed and precision metrics, as well as feeling more direct and natural.

truncate 3y ago
I was thinking if eye tracking can cause more eye strain over long time, cause you'd have to focus your eyes more on something, than say casually moving pointer with a mouse or controller.
- throw74775 3y ago
  From the early reports, there is nobody saying they have to focus in some special way - you just look at the control, and tap.
- m3kw9 3y ago
  I don’t think I’ve try to click something without looking exactly where the pointer tip goes ever
- esperent 3y ago
  My guess is it'll be a personal thing where for a percentage of people it'll be fine for daily use, for another percentage it'll be tiring, and then for a final smaller percentage it'll be truly awful and cause migraines or whatever. Also I have yet to see much talk about how this will work for people with abnormal/poor vision (e.g. abnormal pupils or sclera, vision only in one eye, etc.). Although I do think Apple has a good track record for accessibility? There's no way know until many thousands of people are using this device how those percentages will pan out.

unobatbayar 3y ago

Meta Quest 3 really looks like it's made by Xiaomi, matches their entire theme and price range. What made you buy it?

drcode 3y ago
The Apple Helmet is heavy as all out, because they refused to make it out of plastic, and are instead using glass/metal- Definitely an Apple move. (heavy, considering there's no included battery)
- wahnfrieden 3y ago
  AirPods Max hurts my head so much I have to wear a hat/beanie. Not a great track record
veidr 3y ago
Well, I am just really interested in the idea of taking a spatial computer headset device around with me, and doing work (writing software, so think VS Code/JetBrains/Xcode) in a large spatial environment instead of a laptop with a single small screen. I did know that the Quest Pro would not live up to that task (and it doesn't), but I wanted to see how close you could get today for $1500 (now, $1000). I also do boxing and similar fitness games almost every day, so I knew it would at least serve me well for that, despite being pretty expensive. (An yeah, for that, it's pretty great.) The new Apple gizmo looks way better for programming and work like that, though, so I'm excited about it. After many years, we appear to be getting close to something that is actually pleasant to use. (Even the Quest Pro technically can be used for this, but the experience is far from pleasant.)
- idle_zealot 3y ago
  > The new Apple gizmo looks way better for programming and work like that Based on Apple's track record, they're going to disallow development on the Vision like they do for all iOS/iPad devices.
  - 3y ago

dymk 3y ago

> This is just like the infamous "if you see a stylus, they blew it" approach with the iPhone > Today, of course, Apple ships an excellent stylus that they are happy to sell you for $129. Apple Pencil does not work with iPhone, only with iPads, which... makes sense. Artists use them as drawing tablets. But nobody uses a Apple Pencil with an iPhone.

jachee 3y ago
Also, as a single point of anecdata: My $129 stylus spends the vast majority of the time magneted to the top of my iPad while my fingers do the actual work. It’s not exactly a regret, but as a not-really-an-artist, it’s… probably money I could’ve spent better. :)
- ewoodrich 3y ago
  Same. But I would use it more if it would allow triggering all gestures (particularly home) without awkward assistive touch workarounds so it could be used for general navigation like the S-pen on my Galaxy Tab and phone. Which I imagine is intentional by Apple for aesthetic reasons since iPad should only be navigated by touch.
dotnet00 3y ago
Is that more because no one can use it with an iPhone? The stylus support on Samsung flagships is very convenient to have cross device capability on, and everyone I know who has those devices feels similarly. Eg when doing something on the tab with the pen and having a calculator open on the phone and seamlessly being able to use the pen for that. Support on phones, especially with the large screens these days, allows for all sorts of little synergies that make the experience much more smooth. This kind of synergy is especially convenient for students and teachers. But because Apple hasn't decided to make a slick commercial about it "revolutionizing" computing, HN must act like it isn't a thing.
- dymk 3y ago
  I'm not commenting on if apple should make iPhones compatible, I'm pointing out that the argument in the parent comment doesn't make sense, because Apple has never backtracked on "iPhone does not have a stylus"

ravst3s 3y ago

Although these devices will be compared to each other ceaselessly, I think they're targeting two distinct markets. Apple believes that Vision Pro is the future of personal computing. Meta keeps marketing the Quest as social-connected VR gaming device. The former market is far larger and anything that displaces the PC will be transcendental. Although Meta will sell more units in the short-term due to Apple's pricing, I do think they will have a tough time catching Apple on the hardware. The eye-tracking, <12ms image processing and display, and the M2 are things that Meta is well behind on. Zuck mentioned that activity and "doing things" are Meta advantages, but people don't want to exercise while gaming or consuming entertainment.

seanmcdirmid 3y ago
> Zuck mentioned that activity and "doing things" are Meta advantages, but people don't want to exercise while gaming or consuming entertainment. A lot of people actually do. There is a whole community built around it.
- throwaway2990 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - mynameisvlad 3y ago
    Ew. Fat shaming is not a good look. You don’t know them. You don’t know the reasons for their weight. They very well could be using the device daily to exercise for all you know and it could be an issue with his metabolism. Or another medical condition. Or a side effect of drugs. Or literally hundreds of other reasons.
    - Takennickname 3y ago
      [flagged]
      - mynameisvlad 3y ago

atleastoptimal 3y ago

"spatial computing" is such a silly marketing phrase. All we saw was 2D windows placed in a fake 3D world. It's all just an aesthetic upgrade, a minor QOL improvement that has its own downsides, nothing more.

askafriend 3y ago
That's a skeumorphic anchor to get people comfortable with a new technology. If you're going to introduce technology to the masses, you have to do it in stages. There's a lot more going on here than is apparent on the surface. You could have said all of things about the original iPhone. It did similar things to a lot of existing smartphones at the time (send email, play music, browse web, make call).
- nonethewiser 3y ago
  They made a VR headset and used their own marketing name for it. A term which no one else uses.
  - askafriend 3y ago
    It's called communication. It's not a VR headset and it's not an AR headset. It's something else. It's reasonable to give your specific vision of these technologies a more human name. Also, it's something that's going to be released in very limited quantities in a year from now. And it was announced at a developer conference so developers can start to prepare apps. We've only really seen a preview and the technology is in the earliest stages. There's a ton of stuff they only mentioned in passing - like their proprietary camera format and cameras that can record the world in immersive depth-mapped 3D. Those will likely be licensed out to studios and sports leagues which can prepare content for Vision Pro.
  - prawn 3y ago
    "A term which no one else uses." Yet. They've set it rolling and so far own a perspective separate to AR/VR. Leaves the competition brawling over headsets for a still-to-be-defined VR concept while they pitch customers on their thing. Computing. Ties in to work. Easier to justify spending $x000.

seydor 3y ago

Also, i don't understand the reasoning behind not having controllers. You are freeing up your hands for ... what? You are already wearing a blindfold on your face. ( I think the passthrough will be used very little because in most cases it's distracting)

teolandon 3y ago
Freeing up your hands for comfort and intuitiveness.
nailuj 3y ago
On the contrary, I think the passthrough will be one of the defining differences to other headsets for the time being. Not having anything to hold in your hand while you go ahead and do non-VR things in your real environment adds a layer of convenience that's hard to appreciate from product videos. The improved passthrough, as bad as it still is, is one of my favorite additions on the Quest Pro.
- seydor 3y ago
  What other things and how often though? Is it worth it losing the improved precision of the controller (and adding so much more complexity and battery use) I think Facebook should consider usign only 1 controller though (i know I do). Also, to put the battery in the controller and tether it to the headset to make it even lighter. If apple is using a tether then it's ok to do it I wonder if passthrough can be done mechanically, by rotating the lenses to a hole
  - nailuj 3y ago
    That really depends on what you're doing with the device I guess. For gaming, controllers will remain indispensable, and you're planning to disconnect from the real world for a while anyways. For everything else, quickly being able to grab a snack or drink, respond to a phone notification or change the place you're using the device from reduce friction. It might be enough to push VR over that "I don't want to use the device because I don't want to commit to not doing anything else for at least 30 minutes now" hurdle that still very much exists. That being said, I have no doubt Meta is going to be able to get there in due time too.

worrycue 3y ago

> Double down on the simplest possible input mechanism and pretend it is enough. Today, of course, Apple ships an excellent stylus that they are happy to sell you for $129. The thing is, it is enough for general use. The Apple Pencil (or whatever they call it) is a specialised tool for people who need the extra precision. The difference between modern no-stylus-needed touch screens and old stylus-required touch screens is exactly that, with the old screens they aren’t functional at all without the stylus.

jayd16 3y ago

It would be pretty ironic if the Quest Pro controllers end up being the defacto 3rd party controller for AVP. Would certainly make porting games that much easier. I'm also curious if Apple plans to use iPhones as an input mode. Speech to text is nice but I'd like to be able to discretely type something.

bick_nyers 3y ago

Relevant video from The Onion: https://youtu.be/9BnLbv6QYcA https://youtu.be/9BnLbv6QYcA