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> 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

> 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.
- Turskarama 3y ago
  I don't need immersion when looking at a website. The actual potential "killer app" is something like a holodeck: a movie that it puts you inside of so there isn't any screen at all. The problem is that the only part of their $3500 device that is better for this than an oculus quest is the screen resolution. All of that other stuff makes operating menus and AR aspects better, things that are useful for tasks you can already do on a device 1/4 the price.
  - wpietri 3y ago
    I agree with you on websites. But I'm skeptical of this: > The actual potential "killer app" is something like a holodeck: a movie that it puts you inside of so there isn't any screen at all. We'll see how this turns out, as Hollywood is doing a lot of VR experimentation. But most modern movies will not translate at all to VR, because they control attention and aesthetic experience very precisely, all based on the constraint of the viewing frame. I think the experiences compatible with a user looking around as a facehugger display allows will have to be much more like dioramas. They may be very interesting, but they won't be movies.
    - simondotau 3y ago
      We've seen this with 3D films where many subtle aspects of cinematography (e.g. depth of field) don't directly translate over. But I think it'll be infinitely worse for "VR" films. Even setting aside basic stuff like what should the viewer be looking at, some of the most basic tool of film-making — cutting from one scene to the next scene — could be jarring in a way that it isn't for a rectangular porthole.
      - wpietri 3y ago
        For sure. One of the big questions for me is "what does the viewer understand?" So much of modern film is very quick. There's low redundancy. So if you miss a look or a motion, you're lost. If you can't be sure where the viewer was looking, you create a lot of uncertainty about what they know. So look-anywhere entertainment will have to have a much lower information rate, much higher redundancy, or allow the viewer to control the pacing. That sounds a lot more like Myst than John Wick.
andsoitis 3y ago
> But even Apple's launch video doesn't suggest that general computing will be notably improved here. We'll find out! And as a UI geek and someone who enjoys exploring new tech, I'm totally gonna buy it, though I reservations about its commercial success.
tlholaday 3y ago
Zooming the screen 25% without having to scroll.

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.
Turskarama 3y ago
I don't need immersion when looking at a website. The actual potential "killer app" is something like a holodeck: a movie that it puts you inside of so there isn't any screen at all. The problem is that the only part of their $3500 device that is better for this than an oculus quest is the screen resolution. All of that other stuff makes operating menus and AR aspects better, things that are useful for tasks you can already do on a device 1/4 the price.
- wpietri 3y ago
  I agree with you on websites. But I'm skeptical of this: > The actual potential "killer app" is something like a holodeck: a movie that it puts you inside of so there isn't any screen at all. We'll see how this turns out, as Hollywood is doing a lot of VR experimentation. But most modern movies will not translate at all to VR, because they control attention and aesthetic experience very precisely, all based on the constraint of the viewing frame. I think the experiences compatible with a user looking around as a facehugger display allows will have to be much more like dioramas. They may be very interesting, but they won't be movies.
  - simondotau 3y ago
    We've seen this with 3D films where many subtle aspects of cinematography (e.g. depth of field) don't directly translate over. But I think it'll be infinitely worse for "VR" films. Even setting aside basic stuff like what should the viewer be looking at, some of the most basic tool of film-making — cutting from one scene to the next scene — could be jarring in a way that it isn't for a rectangular porthole.
    - wpietri 3y ago
      For sure. One of the big questions for me is "what does the viewer understand?" So much of modern film is very quick. There's low redundancy. So if you miss a look or a motion, you're lost. If you can't be sure where the viewer was looking, you create a lot of uncertainty about what they know. So look-anywhere entertainment will have to have a much lower information rate, much higher redundancy, or allow the viewer to control the pacing. That sounds a lot more like Myst than John Wick.

andsoitis 3y ago

> But even Apple's launch video doesn't suggest that general computing will be notably improved here. We'll find out! And as a UI geek and someone who enjoys exploring new tech, I'm totally gonna buy it, though I reservations about its commercial success.

tlholaday 3y ago

Zooming the screen 25% without having to scroll.