7 ms·
> 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
by kepano 3y ago
> 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.
Soon enough the category will be a replacement for your home theater and/or your mobile entertainment device (i.e. tablet).
As simple as it might look, the most compelling mass-market use case I saw from Apple is... watching a movie on an airplane.
That experience is pretty crappy on current headsets because the resolution is low and the optical aberrations are very noticeable. The dual micro-OLED approach solves those problems. As production ramps up on micro-OLEDs the category will become 10x more affordable, and within 10 years I'd be surprised if 50% of people on commercial flights are not wearing this kind of headset.
To borrow a Steve Jobs phrase, I think of these devices can eventually become "a bicycle for the senses"[1] and open up all kinds of exciting use cases. But to get to mass-adoption you have to nail the basic stuff like watching a movie or TV show. We just haven't had a good device that can do that yet.
[1]: https://stephanango.com/bicycle-for-the-senses https://stephanango.com/bicycle-for-the-senses
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago> the most compelling mass-market use case I saw from Apple is... watching a movie on an airplane It’s also an environment steeped with signalling, something Apple excels at.
- kepano 3y agoGood point! The white earbuds (wired or not) are perhaps the best example of that.
- FormerBandmate 3y agoWhat signal does the Apple Vision Pro provide besides “please don’t talk to me”? The main flex on a plane is your seat tbh
- c23gooey 3y agoA status signal. "I can afford $4k to watch a movie on this plane and you can't"
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- LegitShady 3y agoIt won't replace a home theater because you can't watch movies WITH someone on a VR headset - they each need their own headset.
- kepano 3y agoThere's a bunch of solutions to that already — e.g. share audio on iOS, and "watch party" type features on Netflix/etc. Yes they require everyone to have their own screen, but if that screen is a headset that gives you a better experience, then it's a no brainer. I'm pretty sure Apple will allow you to use your digital twin inside the virtual movie theater — whether you are in the same room or not.
- wpietri 3y agoThe long history of home media suggests that people just don't care all that much about "a better experience". When I visit people's houses, I'm often appalled by the audio quality. It's usually nothing compared with good theater sound, which people have experienced frequently. The same often applies to image quality. Does it matter to people? Evidently not. They are entertained just the same, and go to theaters less and less. And if we look back, people were absolutely entranced by TV in the black-and-white era, and it was the same going forward. The movie theater's advantage was generally more about exclusive, heavily promoted content. Once home video became common, despite its poor quality, second-run in-theater showings mostly died out. Yes, a family of four could spend $12k on Vision headsets and then find high-tech solution to keep their media in sync. Or they could spend $250 on an adequate 50" TV and then be able to see each other's expressions. That sounds like the real no-brainer to me.
- bbor 3y agoConsider that it’s the end times and people spend a huge amount of their precious free time binging streaming services. Birth rates are down, and “everyone gather around for family time!” is not a very frequent occurrence in most families I’ve seen. Clearly, Apple shares my dystopic Vision and cannot wait!
- makeitdouble 3y ago> Soon enough the category will be a replacement for your home theater and/or your mobile entertainment device (i.e. tablet). It will probably split in separate categories, the same way we currently have different PC categories ("windows", "gaming" and "macs", whatever people envision in these names). Your mention of tablet is interesting, as the market is also split between iPad(android), chomebooks and windows tablets, but most people probably only think about the iPad as a "tablet" and the rest as "computers".
- zmmmmm 3y ago> watching a movie on an airplane I'd like to know if Apple actually designed for that. Because having watched movies on a plane in a headset, I can tell you that when it does anything other than fly straight and level existing headsets get extremely confused. It also is a very low light environment once the lights go off so how well their camera based hand tracking works without light is also a question.
- musictubes 3y agoDuring Gruber’s show it was specifically mentioned that the Vision Pro can deal with the plane moving so it will avoid that particular issue.
- Tagbert 3y agoThe hand tracking uses infrared emitters to illuminate your hands for tracking.