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> There’s a strong echo here of mobile 20 years ago. From the late 1990s to 2007, we had mobile internet devices that were OK but not great, and slowly improvin

> There’s a strong echo here of mobile 20 years ago. From the late 1990s to 2007, we had mobile internet devices that were OK but not great, and slowly improving, we knew they would eventually be much better, and we thought ‘mobile internet’ would be big - but we didn’t know that smartphones would replace PCs as the centre of tech, and connect five billion people. Then the iPhone came, and the timeline broke. While I think the statement here is generally accurate, the analogy feels so off the mark here to be downright misleading. The pre-iPhone cellphone and "mobile internet device" era was totally different than the current VR/AR era. Most importantly, people actually used their devices all the time, they just wanted them to be better. There was a reason they called them "Crackberries" - Blackberry fans were on them 24/7, and they got tons of utility from them. There was none of this "If we build it, I hope they'll come" feeling of the current VR/AR era. Honestly, it saddens me to think that technology used to be about solving problems for humanity and has morphed into more of this "What substances can we sell to the masses that are sufficiently addictive to make our stock price go up?" I fully understand how much Meta, Apple and others "want to make fetch happen". Many of us are simply just not interested.

andsoitis 3y ago
While I tend to agree with you, I think one of the reasons why VR devices today are not selling like hot cakes is because they're mostly (wholly?) targeting gaming, for all practical reasons. Ignoring price for a moment (remember that early Apple computers cost $11,000 in today's money), Vision Pro is positioned for general computing, including games, and has a vibrant App Store so there's actually something to do.
- christoph 3y ago
  Current VR headsets simply haven't been good enough for anything other than games and porn. Text is too difficult and painful to read for any extended period, which is an absolute minimum barrier to entry for almost any other computing task. I honestly believe Apple have solved this problem. Yes it's expensive, but I don't get any real indication they are lying about text being legible and comfortable for extended periods of time, which is a game changer IMO.
  - lttlrck 3y ago
    Even if they have solved the resolution and image quality and physical comfort, having a bright OLED inches from your eyes induces more eye fatigue than looking at a monitor. All you can do to alleviate it is close your eyes. You can't rest them by gazing out the window, across the room. Things you do naturally without realizing, that give your eyes a break. In my experience this is as much an issue as headset physical comfort. In fact it's the one aspect that prevents me wearing a headset beyond a couple of hours. (Plus it is a real pain to drink coffee, have a snack, open the mail; all the little side tasks we tend to do at desks)
    - mgkimsal 3y ago
      > You can't rest them by gazing out the window Please tell me we'll have a virtual window app for the VP that will simulate looking out a window. Anywhere. And it'll be touted as a way to rest your eyes without removing the VP.
      - charcircuit 3y ago
        The headset is not varifocal so an app like that can't be made.
        kgabis 3y ago
        Is there any headset with a long focal distance? Even dumb glasses that simulate looking outside would be really useful in some work environments.
        charcircuit 3y ago
        Yes there are headsets that place it at infinity
    - WhatIsDukkha 3y ago
      """having a bright OLED inches from your eyes induces more eye fatigue than looking at a monitor""" That's quite a claim that I've seen no evidence for in the years I've been using and following this industry. Actually the light hitting your eyes is much dimmer that you are regularly exposed to all the time so...
- wpietri 3y ago
  > there's actually something to do What do you imagine people doing that isn't done about as well on some other Apple device? I can sort of get the gaming use case; I think it's wildly oversold, but it's legitimately different. But even Apple's launch video doesn't suggest that general computing will be notably improved here.
  - bbor 3y ago
    In a word: immersion.
    - wpietri 3y ago
      Just to be clear, that's not doing something different. Also, I'm skeptical that immersion matters all that much. People manage to get quite immersed in their phones, after all.
      - bbor 3y ago
        There’s not much to argue here, but thanks for making your guesses heard! I like mine, lol. Only time will tell how much people value “feeling like you’re there” while chatting with the grandparents, watching a movie, or, yes, browsing the internet. Although as this great article points out, the vision pro is mostly AR so it’s more about “feeling like that is herel”
      - Tagbert 3y ago
        As attested by people who have had the Vision Pro demo at WWDC, afterwards, looking at the screen on a laptop feels very limiting and artificial. Your engagement is quite different when you are fully surrounded by an environment and can interact with it fluidly vs the separation of a small, rigidly bound rectangle.
        wpietri 3y ago
        3D is known for its strong novelty effect. At least 5 times people have declared that it will change everything: the Brewster Stereoscope, the DOD purchasing 100k Viewmasters in the 40s, the 1950s wave of 3D movies, the 90s wave of VR, and the Avatar-era wave of 3D movies and TV. As you may have noticed, none of those things are more than a rounding error in the market. And that's before we get to exciting failures like Magic Leap, which people were similarly excited about. And I'll again point you to phones. Despite tablets, laptops, and ever-larger TVs, people spend an awful lot of time on those small, rigidly bound rectangles.
- seanmcdirmid 3y ago
  current VR headsets, and I mean just the Quest, is selling fine. For casual gaming and fitness more so than hardcore gaming.
- awestroke 3y ago
  Oh really? There is already a "vibrant App Store" (whatever that means) full of VR ready apps? Before anybody has received the hardware? Or do you mean you can install iPhone apps? That's a completely different thing and makes your statement highly misleading Also, are you implying that the Quest App Store is somehow not "vibrant"? There are many reasons why I am super excited about the Vision Pro, but the App Store do not number among them
irjustin 3y ago
I agree. All AR/VR devices are replacing... AR/VR devices. But if you want to displace the iPhone/smartphone it has to be 1000x better, which today's tech simply can't do yet. If the glasses that I'm wearing right now could become an AR device at Vision Pro's abilities then take-my-money would be in full swing and easily displace the iPhone as the "center of our lives" computing device.
- nofeelings 3y ago
  > the glasses that I'm wearing right now could become an AR device at Vision Pro's abilities Nevah gonna happin without breakthrough in lithography. Sub nanometer needed prolly. Ur right tho
  - CamperBob2 3y ago
    I don't see that lithography is the barrier to practicality here. IMO trying to make AR or VR happen without some kind of direct link to the visual cortex is like trying to build an iPhone before multitouch capacitive touchscreens were practical. Smartphones went from "Pointless waste of time" to "Inevitable and incomprehensibly-important technology" overnight when that happened. Jobs had the sense to wait by the river, probably as a result of prior misfires with things like the Newton. Cook, well, not so much.
fomine3 3y ago
> Most importantly, people actually used their devices all the time, they just wanted them to be better. There was a reason they called them "Crackberries" - Blackberry fans were on them 24/7, and they got tons of utility from them. There are some enthusiastic people who use HMD (like Quest Pro) over 10 hours everyday for virtual display. Though currently the number of people is far less than Blackberry era.
- Miraste 3y ago
  There is also a difference in kind. "Crackberry" types were businesspeople, executives, politicians. People high in social hierarchies with a lot of sway. The people who use VR to that degree are, and I mean this as affectionately as possible, very unusual. That's probably a big reason Apple has ignored the current VR market segment.
  - fomine3 3y ago
    Difficulty of demonstrate is also a pain. It's easy to demonstrate to friends or mom that BB is useful, but demonstrate any HMD usage/functionality is one of the most hardest thing ever. What most people can do best is just send WWDC video.
    - NikolaNovak 3y ago
      There's truth to this.my best friend was bugging me to try his Quest 2 for probably a year before I relented and tried it on and understood.
  - FormerBandmate 3y ago
    Crackberries were for people who always needed to be connected. There was no TikTok for BlackBerry, people barely used them for talking to their friends. The modern iPhone barely has anything in common with them
    - hnbear 3y ago
      > people barely used them for talking to their friends In the UK Blackberry and BBM remained very popular for a long time. That Blackberry was additively used for email (even in a business setting) implies a lot of use for friends. The crackberry addicts were emailing their friends, who were likely also work colleagues, fellow execs, etc.
allenu 3y ago
> I fully understand how much Meta, Apple and others "want to make fetch happen". Many of us are simply just not interested. That thing that gets me is just how weak the scenarios were in their promotional videos. After building this device, the best that they could offer as benefits were viewing 3D photographs of your children, looking at multiple screens around you, or watching a single large screen for a movie or photo-browsing. (I mean, they showed somebody browsing the web. Why even dedicate time your video to show that?) It feels like they're either out of ideas or really playing it safe. I'm guessing they do want to make "fetch" happen but don't really know how and are just going to bet on third party devs creating some killer app they haven't thought of. They've certainly got the time and money to work it out over the next few years.
- wpietri 3y ago
  Exactly. I was watching carefully for some new capability, something that couldn't be done before. But I didn't see anything, except maybe "watch movies on a plane without looking down at your tablet/phone". Maybe I'm weird, but if I were so sensitive to bad experiences that I couldn't just watch a movie on a tablet, I wouldn't be on a plane in the first place.
  - cubefox 3y ago
    The only "new capability" for VR headsets seem to be ... VR games. But Apple very much doesn't want to advertise the headset as a game console, even though VR games are obviously a type of app it can run, just with hand gesture controls instead of dedicated VR controllers.
- dylan604 3y ago
  I'm guessing Apple is hoping that the apps will be the killer thing. They claim to have not expected the app store to be so successful, so maybe they're hoping they don't need to create the killer app that someone else will. That's why they are introducing the dev tools for it so much sooner than it being available. They are banking on killer apps being announced before launch
  - 3y ago
nofeelings 3y ago
Not tru. Ppl already use laptops and desktops a lot already. Vision will be evolution to spatial type of computing which is why Apple says it
- recursive 3y ago
  We already have laptops and desktops. It's not a given that this goggle thing will be a general improvement. Personally, I'd rather use a real screen, even if this was free. Which it very much is not.
  - nofeelings 3y ago
    Wanna bet? In 50 years 1 billion or more will be using something like the vision pro. The visual exp will b better.
    - recursive 3y ago
      I have no idea what will be happening in 50 years. I'm not taking that bet. But if your prediction is correct, then I think we'll have some better use cases than looking at fake screens. That's my bet.
      - nofeelings 3y ago
        Lol ppl are using paper after centuries. Screens r da digital equivalent to paper workstation. Better visual exp is worth it alone. It doesn’t need 2 b better than that. All useful perceived vision will b 2D plane. Stone tablet, paper workstation, crt monitor, lcd, vr. All showing 2d planes
        recursive 3y ago
        You keep saying "better visual experience". What's alleged to be better about it? I watched the short promo video, and didn't catch anything about that. The reason why I would prefer to use a real screen is that I (imagine) the visual experience to be better. At least we agree about the reason.
captainill 3y ago
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gsatic 3y ago
This is what happens when ever optimizing robots like Tim Cook are put in charge of anything. They should never be in charge of setting the heading of the ship. Keeping the ship running and afloat sure that's what optimizing robots are good for. Don't mistake them for leaders or visionaries. Apple has been a mindless ship on autopilot since the iPhone 4.
MuffinFlavored 3y ago
> There’s a strong echo here of mobile 20 years ago. I don't know. Holding a phone in your hand is very different than putting something directly onto your face.
- Tagbert 3y ago
  Not so much the implementation of mobile but the impact of a new way to interact with information.
wokwokwok 3y ago
There's this weird bitterness in the comments about the Vision Pro. Like... > the analogy feels so off the mark here to be downright misleading. I mean, come on, you're obviously nitpicking here. It's not 100% the same, but the parallel between having devices that were basically dumb phones -> internet computers is there, and there was no real indication at the time that a smart phone like blackberry would become a mass market device. None. Zero. It was a niche device for rich people; most people were, and let's be absolutely honest here, absolutely, perfectly OK with simple feature phones, sending text messages and making calls. So, the analogy here is pretty clear; once the device existed, it created a market that didn't exist or maybe extended a tiny market that already existed, but come onnnnnnnn, is it really that epic a stretch to imagine that it might happen again? ...can you not imagine this as a gen1 device that improves over time? It is really so completely different? I don't think it is. I'm not convinced it will, but the parallel is not nearly as misleading as you're making it out to be. Here's what I think is interesting: People want this is fail. Lots of people. Not because they don't like apple. Not because they don't like VR. They just seem to hate it because its expensive and people are being positive about it and they feel like it's somehow wrong for apple to be: - Selling something this expensive - That is a risky bet that might not play out - That people are willing to talk about favorably on the basis of the Apple brand. ...but, here's the thing right? 1) Who cares? They're rich. Let them fail. 2) Apple has the brand it has because it can deliver, and it has delivered in the past. What kind of numpy stands here and thinks... "Oh gee, these guys at Apple are stupid. They're never going to sell these. They'll regret this. Look at all their failed products and their unsuccessful business. Haha!" > I fully understand how much Meta, Apple and others "want to make fetch happen". Many of us are simply just not interested. ...if some people are excited and enthusiastic about it... ...let them be enthusiastic about it?
- jltsiren 3y ago
  The way I remember it, the first iPhone was criticized for not having 3G, which was a standard feature ordinary people were already using. But maybe that depends on the country. At least at some point, the Japanese were supposed to have really fancy phones, while the US was behind the rest of the developed world in mobile technology. In Finland, mobile internet was already a big thing during the dot-com boom. The early attempts failed, because the hardware wasn't ready. Regardless, "mobile portal" remained one of the big buzzwords, and even taxi drivers knew that the mobile was the future. In a few years, new phones got color displays, cameras, 3G connections, and GPS receivers. Ordinary people bought them, because flagship phones were cheaper than they are today. And then mobile internet started finally making sense. I remember using the local public transit journey planner on my phone in 2005 or 2006 to determine the right stop after taking an unfamiliar bus.
fragmede 3y ago
You okay there buddy? Your cynicism's showing. That's either been the case forever, or never. Grandma can't take a plane flight to be with the kids, and the kids are too young to fly to her. But in Mixed Reality (MR), it's just like she'e there. Same with life-saving surgery where the surgeon and the patient can't be colocated.
deleted 3y ago
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Freedom2 3y ago
Did you read the Vision Pro thread in HackerNews? I think you might be mistaken - many of us are interested! Here's some choice quotes: > I will happily go on the record as saying that this will be as revolutionary as the iPhone, perhaps even more so. > But it's going to be a hit. HN is going to be swamped with "How I used Vision Pro to..." posts when it comes out. > Well fuck me. This thing looks absolutely insane. It’s come in at $3499 and if it performs as good as those videos make out then, if anything, it’s a bargain. > I think Apple designed an incredible piece of hardware here
outworlder 3y ago
> people actually used their devices all the time, No, not really. Like Steve Jobs said, smartphones weren't very "smart". Most people did not have blackberries (those that did have Blackberries, were mostly business users). The rest of us that were technically savvy were playing some crappy java games(the ones allowed by mobile carrier stores), and browsing the web with WAP browsers in our flip phones. Most people were not even doing any of that. And why would they? The experience was terrible. https://www.statista.com/statistics/263437/global-smartphone-sales-to-end-users-since-2007/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/263437/global-smartphone... Using the same metric, people already use VR headsets, and just "want them to be better". Sure, the marketshare is a fraction of phone marketshare(https://www.statista.com/statistics/677096/vr-headsets-worldwide/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/677096/vr-headsets-world...). But we can argue that most headsets are tethered to high end PCs, Meta's version is one of the few decent standalone versions. Apple's device has lots of potential. It's all about the execution now, and subsequent devices.
- hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
  How many people do you know that had pre-iPhone smart phones, bought them and used them for a couple months, and then "abandoned" them on the shelf, a common phenomenon with current VR/AR gear as mentioned in the article. In my experience, practically nobody. I agree that the Vision Pro is a technological marvel, but it's still a solution looking for a problem, and it's striking to me how even Apple had a difficult time presenting actually compelling use cases in their videos. To be clear, I think there are some viable uses: gaming obviously, and potentially media consumption, but even there this solution is so much worse than a home theater system (as another commenter mentioned, I can get a group of people together in my house to all watch a movie on a big screen TV that costs much less than the headset that each of my friends would also have to own).
  - jnsie 3y ago
    > How many people do you know that had pre-iPhone smart phones, bought them and used them for a couple months, and then "abandoned" them on the shelf, a common phenomenon with current VR/AR gear as mentioned in the article. The difference, IMHO, is that those with pre-iPhone smart phones were largely business users who didn't have a choice. Not that there weren't exceptions - I'm sure many had personal smart phones - but I vividly remember (in both Europe and the US) conversations with friends where the idea of paying for a data plan was considered the height of absurdity and would never happen for personal use.
drunkenmagician 3y ago
I feel the analogy comparisons are not about the device type or use cases for them, rather its about the potential for it to be a paradigm shift in device categories. To me it feels more like the shift that the original Mac introduced to the public at large, from command line based computing to GUI computing, and the potential for new categories of app interactivity.
mytailorisrich 3y ago
I think the aim of the Vision Pro is to make people use them all the time as well. The product is not designed for gamers for instance but provides a VR interface for pretty much your everyday iPhone/Mac/Watching movies use. Personally the thought of people putting that on as soon as they get home/in office or even in the street is somehwat nightmarish but I think they're hoping for something like that...
benedictevans 3y ago
The next paragraph makes exactly that point: "where the iPhone was a more-or-less drop-in replacement for the phone you already had, nine years after Meta bought Oculus, VR is still a new device and a new category for almost everyone. Indeed, the Vision Pro actually looks a bit more like the original Macintosh, which was over $7,000 (adjusted for inflation) when it launched in 1984, and most people didn’t know why they needed one."

andsoitis 3y ago

While I tend to agree with you, I think one of the reasons why VR devices today are not selling like hot cakes is because they're mostly (wholly?) targeting gaming, for all practical reasons. Ignoring price for a moment (remember that early Apple computers cost $11,000 in today's money), Vision Pro is positioned for general computing, including games, and has a vibrant App Store so there's actually something to do.

christoph 3y ago
Current VR headsets simply haven't been good enough for anything other than games and porn. Text is too difficult and painful to read for any extended period, which is an absolute minimum barrier to entry for almost any other computing task. I honestly believe Apple have solved this problem. Yes it's expensive, but I don't get any real indication they are lying about text being legible and comfortable for extended periods of time, which is a game changer IMO.
- lttlrck 3y ago
  Even if they have solved the resolution and image quality and physical comfort, having a bright OLED inches from your eyes induces more eye fatigue than looking at a monitor. All you can do to alleviate it is close your eyes. You can't rest them by gazing out the window, across the room. Things you do naturally without realizing, that give your eyes a break. In my experience this is as much an issue as headset physical comfort. In fact it's the one aspect that prevents me wearing a headset beyond a couple of hours. (Plus it is a real pain to drink coffee, have a snack, open the mail; all the little side tasks we tend to do at desks)
  - mgkimsal 3y ago
    > You can't rest them by gazing out the window Please tell me we'll have a virtual window app for the VP that will simulate looking out a window. Anywhere. And it'll be touted as a way to rest your eyes without removing the VP.
    - charcircuit 3y ago
      The headset is not varifocal so an app like that can't be made.
      - kgabis 3y ago
        Is there any headset with a long focal distance? Even dumb glasses that simulate looking outside would be really useful in some work environments.
        charcircuit 3y ago
        Yes there are headsets that place it at infinity
  - WhatIsDukkha 3y ago
    """having a bright OLED inches from your eyes induces more eye fatigue than looking at a monitor""" That's quite a claim that I've seen no evidence for in the years I've been using and following this industry. Actually the light hitting your eyes is much dimmer that you are regularly exposed to all the time so...
wpietri 3y ago
> there's actually something to do What do you imagine people doing that isn't done about as well on some other Apple device? I can sort of get the gaming use case; I think it's wildly oversold, but it's legitimately different. But even Apple's launch video doesn't suggest that general computing will be notably improved here.
- bbor 3y ago
  In a word: immersion.
  - wpietri 3y ago
    Just to be clear, that's not doing something different. Also, I'm skeptical that immersion matters all that much. People manage to get quite immersed in their phones, after all.
    - bbor 3y ago
      There’s not much to argue here, but thanks for making your guesses heard! I like mine, lol. Only time will tell how much people value “feeling like you’re there” while chatting with the grandparents, watching a movie, or, yes, browsing the internet. Although as this great article points out, the vision pro is mostly AR so it’s more about “feeling like that is herel”
    - Tagbert 3y ago
      As attested by people who have had the Vision Pro demo at WWDC, afterwards, looking at the screen on a laptop feels very limiting and artificial. Your engagement is quite different when you are fully surrounded by an environment and can interact with it fluidly vs the separation of a small, rigidly bound rectangle.
      - wpietri 3y ago
        3D is known for its strong novelty effect. At least 5 times people have declared that it will change everything: the Brewster Stereoscope, the DOD purchasing 100k Viewmasters in the 40s, the 1950s wave of 3D movies, the 90s wave of VR, and the Avatar-era wave of 3D movies and TV. As you may have noticed, none of those things are more than a rounding error in the market. And that's before we get to exciting failures like Magic Leap, which people were similarly excited about. And I'll again point you to phones. Despite tablets, laptops, and ever-larger TVs, people spend an awful lot of time on those small, rigidly bound rectangles.
seanmcdirmid 3y ago
current VR headsets, and I mean just the Quest, is selling fine. For casual gaming and fitness more so than hardcore gaming.
awestroke 3y ago
Oh really? There is already a "vibrant App Store" (whatever that means) full of VR ready apps? Before anybody has received the hardware? Or do you mean you can install iPhone apps? That's a completely different thing and makes your statement highly misleading Also, are you implying that the Quest App Store is somehow not "vibrant"? There are many reasons why I am super excited about the Vision Pro, but the App Store do not number among them

irjustin 3y ago

I agree. All AR/VR devices are replacing... AR/VR devices. But if you want to displace the iPhone/smartphone it has to be 1000x better, which today's tech simply can't do yet. If the glasses that I'm wearing right now could become an AR device at Vision Pro's abilities then take-my-money would be in full swing and easily displace the iPhone as the "center of our lives" computing device.

nofeelings 3y ago
> the glasses that I'm wearing right now could become an AR device at Vision Pro's abilities Nevah gonna happin without breakthrough in lithography. Sub nanometer needed prolly. Ur right tho
- CamperBob2 3y ago
  I don't see that lithography is the barrier to practicality here. IMO trying to make AR or VR happen without some kind of direct link to the visual cortex is like trying to build an iPhone before multitouch capacitive touchscreens were practical. Smartphones went from "Pointless waste of time" to "Inevitable and incomprehensibly-important technology" overnight when that happened. Jobs had the sense to wait by the river, probably as a result of prior misfires with things like the Newton. Cook, well, not so much.

fomine3 3y ago

> Most importantly, people actually used their devices all the time, they just wanted them to be better. There was a reason they called them "Crackberries" - Blackberry fans were on them 24/7, and they got tons of utility from them. There are some enthusiastic people who use HMD (like Quest Pro) over 10 hours everyday for virtual display. Though currently the number of people is far less than Blackberry era.

Miraste 3y ago
There is also a difference in kind. "Crackberry" types were businesspeople, executives, politicians. People high in social hierarchies with a lot of sway. The people who use VR to that degree are, and I mean this as affectionately as possible, very unusual. That's probably a big reason Apple has ignored the current VR market segment.
- fomine3 3y ago
  Difficulty of demonstrate is also a pain. It's easy to demonstrate to friends or mom that BB is useful, but demonstrate any HMD usage/functionality is one of the most hardest thing ever. What most people can do best is just send WWDC video.
  - NikolaNovak 3y ago
    There's truth to this.my best friend was bugging me to try his Quest 2 for probably a year before I relented and tried it on and understood.
- FormerBandmate 3y ago
  Crackberries were for people who always needed to be connected. There was no TikTok for BlackBerry, people barely used them for talking to their friends. The modern iPhone barely has anything in common with them
  - hnbear 3y ago
    > people barely used them for talking to their friends In the UK Blackberry and BBM remained very popular for a long time. That Blackberry was additively used for email (even in a business setting) implies a lot of use for friends. The crackberry addicts were emailing their friends, who were likely also work colleagues, fellow execs, etc.

allenu 3y ago

> I fully understand how much Meta, Apple and others "want to make fetch happen". Many of us are simply just not interested. That thing that gets me is just how weak the scenarios were in their promotional videos. After building this device, the best that they could offer as benefits were viewing 3D photographs of your children, looking at multiple screens around you, or watching a single large screen for a movie or photo-browsing. (I mean, they showed somebody browsing the web. Why even dedicate time your video to show that?) It feels like they're either out of ideas or really playing it safe. I'm guessing they do want to make "fetch" happen but don't really know how and are just going to bet on third party devs creating some killer app they haven't thought of. They've certainly got the time and money to work it out over the next few years.

wpietri 3y ago
Exactly. I was watching carefully for some new capability, something that couldn't be done before. But I didn't see anything, except maybe "watch movies on a plane without looking down at your tablet/phone". Maybe I'm weird, but if I were so sensitive to bad experiences that I couldn't just watch a movie on a tablet, I wouldn't be on a plane in the first place.
- cubefox 3y ago
  The only "new capability" for VR headsets seem to be ... VR games. But Apple very much doesn't want to advertise the headset as a game console, even though VR games are obviously a type of app it can run, just with hand gesture controls instead of dedicated VR controllers.
dylan604 3y ago
I'm guessing Apple is hoping that the apps will be the killer thing. They claim to have not expected the app store to be so successful, so maybe they're hoping they don't need to create the killer app that someone else will. That's why they are introducing the dev tools for it so much sooner than it being available. They are banking on killer apps being announced before launch
- 3y ago

nofeelings 3y ago

Not tru. Ppl already use laptops and desktops a lot already. Vision will be evolution to spatial type of computing which is why Apple says it

recursive 3y ago
We already have laptops and desktops. It's not a given that this goggle thing will be a general improvement. Personally, I'd rather use a real screen, even if this was free. Which it very much is not.
- nofeelings 3y ago
  Wanna bet? In 50 years 1 billion or more will be using something like the vision pro. The visual exp will b better.
  - recursive 3y ago
    I have no idea what will be happening in 50 years. I'm not taking that bet. But if your prediction is correct, then I think we'll have some better use cases than looking at fake screens. That's my bet.
    - nofeelings 3y ago
      Lol ppl are using paper after centuries. Screens r da digital equivalent to paper workstation. Better visual exp is worth it alone. It doesn’t need 2 b better than that. All useful perceived vision will b 2D plane. Stone tablet, paper workstation, crt monitor, lcd, vr. All showing 2d planes
      - recursive 3y ago
        You keep saying "better visual experience". What's alleged to be better about it? I watched the short promo video, and didn't catch anything about that. The reason why I would prefer to use a real screen is that I (imagine) the visual experience to be better. At least we agree about the reason.

captainill 3y ago

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gsatic 3y ago

This is what happens when ever optimizing robots like Tim Cook are put in charge of anything. They should never be in charge of setting the heading of the ship. Keeping the ship running and afloat sure that's what optimizing robots are good for. Don't mistake them for leaders or visionaries. Apple has been a mindless ship on autopilot since the iPhone 4.

MuffinFlavored 3y ago

> There’s a strong echo here of mobile 20 years ago. I don't know. Holding a phone in your hand is very different than putting something directly onto your face.

Tagbert 3y ago
Not so much the implementation of mobile but the impact of a new way to interact with information.

wokwokwok 3y ago

There's this weird bitterness in the comments about the Vision Pro. Like... > the analogy feels so off the mark here to be downright misleading. I mean, come on, you're obviously nitpicking here. It's not 100% the same, but the parallel between having devices that were basically dumb phones -> internet computers is there, and there was no real indication at the time that a smart phone like blackberry would become a mass market device. None. Zero. It was a niche device for rich people; most people were, and let's be absolutely honest here, absolutely, perfectly OK with simple feature phones, sending text messages and making calls. So, the analogy here is pretty clear; once the device existed, it created a market that didn't exist or maybe extended a tiny market that already existed, but come onnnnnnnn, is it really that epic a stretch to imagine that it might happen again? ...can you not imagine this as a gen1 device that improves over time? It is really so completely different? I don't think it is. I'm not convinced it will, but the parallel is not nearly as misleading as you're making it out to be. Here's what I think is interesting: People want this is fail. Lots of people. Not because they don't like apple. Not because they don't like VR. They just seem to hate it because its expensive and people are being positive about it and they feel like it's somehow wrong for apple to be: - Selling something this expensive - That is a risky bet that might not play out - That people are willing to talk about favorably on the basis of the Apple brand. ...but, here's the thing right? 1) Who cares? They're rich. Let them fail. 2) Apple has the brand it has because it can deliver, and it has delivered in the past. What kind of numpy stands here and thinks... "Oh gee, these guys at Apple are stupid. They're never going to sell these. They'll regret this. Look at all their failed products and their unsuccessful business. Haha!" > I fully understand how much Meta, Apple and others "want to make fetch happen". Many of us are simply just not interested. ...if some people are excited and enthusiastic about it... ...let them be enthusiastic about it?

jltsiren 3y ago
The way I remember it, the first iPhone was criticized for not having 3G, which was a standard feature ordinary people were already using. But maybe that depends on the country. At least at some point, the Japanese were supposed to have really fancy phones, while the US was behind the rest of the developed world in mobile technology. In Finland, mobile internet was already a big thing during the dot-com boom. The early attempts failed, because the hardware wasn't ready. Regardless, "mobile portal" remained one of the big buzzwords, and even taxi drivers knew that the mobile was the future. In a few years, new phones got color displays, cameras, 3G connections, and GPS receivers. Ordinary people bought them, because flagship phones were cheaper than they are today. And then mobile internet started finally making sense. I remember using the local public transit journey planner on my phone in 2005 or 2006 to determine the right stop after taking an unfamiliar bus.

fragmede 3y ago

You okay there buddy? Your cynicism's showing. That's either been the case forever, or never. Grandma can't take a plane flight to be with the kids, and the kids are too young to fly to her. But in Mixed Reality (MR), it's just like she'e there. Same with life-saving surgery where the surgeon and the patient can't be colocated.

deleted 3y ago

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Freedom2 3y ago

Did you read the Vision Pro thread in HackerNews? I think you might be mistaken - many of us are interested! Here's some choice quotes: > I will happily go on the record as saying that this will be as revolutionary as the iPhone, perhaps even more so. > But it's going to be a hit. HN is going to be swamped with "How I used Vision Pro to..." posts when it comes out. > Well fuck me. This thing looks absolutely insane. It’s come in at $3499 and if it performs as good as those videos make out then, if anything, it’s a bargain. > I think Apple designed an incredible piece of hardware here

outworlder 3y ago

> people actually used their devices all the time, No, not really. Like Steve Jobs said, smartphones weren't very "smart". Most people did not have blackberries (those that did have Blackberries, were mostly business users). The rest of us that were technically savvy were playing some crappy java games(the ones allowed by mobile carrier stores), and browsing the web with WAP browsers in our flip phones. Most people were not even doing any of that. And why would they? The experience was terrible. https://www.statista.com/statistics/263437/global-smartphone-sales-to-end-users-since-2007/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/263437/global-smartphone... Using the same metric, people already use VR headsets, and just "want them to be better". Sure, the marketshare is a fraction of phone marketshare(https://www.statista.com/statistics/677096/vr-headsets-worldwide/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/677096/vr-headsets-world...). But we can argue that most headsets are tethered to high end PCs, Meta's version is one of the few decent standalone versions. Apple's device has lots of potential. It's all about the execution now, and subsequent devices.

hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
How many people do you know that had pre-iPhone smart phones, bought them and used them for a couple months, and then "abandoned" them on the shelf, a common phenomenon with current VR/AR gear as mentioned in the article. In my experience, practically nobody. I agree that the Vision Pro is a technological marvel, but it's still a solution looking for a problem, and it's striking to me how even Apple had a difficult time presenting actually compelling use cases in their videos. To be clear, I think there are some viable uses: gaming obviously, and potentially media consumption, but even there this solution is so much worse than a home theater system (as another commenter mentioned, I can get a group of people together in my house to all watch a movie on a big screen TV that costs much less than the headset that each of my friends would also have to own).
- jnsie 3y ago
  > How many people do you know that had pre-iPhone smart phones, bought them and used them for a couple months, and then "abandoned" them on the shelf, a common phenomenon with current VR/AR gear as mentioned in the article. The difference, IMHO, is that those with pre-iPhone smart phones were largely business users who didn't have a choice. Not that there weren't exceptions - I'm sure many had personal smart phones - but I vividly remember (in both Europe and the US) conversations with friends where the idea of paying for a data plan was considered the height of absurdity and would never happen for personal use.

drunkenmagician 3y ago

I feel the analogy comparisons are not about the device type or use cases for them, rather its about the potential for it to be a paradigm shift in device categories. To me it feels more like the shift that the original Mac introduced to the public at large, from command line based computing to GUI computing, and the potential for new categories of app interactivity.

mytailorisrich 3y ago

I think the aim of the Vision Pro is to make people use them all the time as well. The product is not designed for gamers for instance but provides a VR interface for pretty much your everyday iPhone/Mac/Watching movies use. Personally the thought of people putting that on as soon as they get home/in office or even in the street is somehwat nightmarish but I think they're hoping for something like that...

benedictevans 3y ago

The next paragraph makes exactly that point: "where the iPhone was a more-or-less drop-in replacement for the phone you already had, nine years after Meta bought Oculus, VR is still a new device and a new category for almost everyone. Indeed, the Vision Pro actually looks a bit more like the original Macintosh, which was over $7,000 (adjusted for inflation) when it launched in 1984, and most people didn’t know why they needed one."