8 ms·

3.5k device that's locked down into some iOS like Apple walled garden doesn't sound like backers playground to me.

by moonchrome 3y ago

fzzzy 3y ago
The walled garden is much much vaster than anything we had in the 80s.
- anamexis 3y ago
  And $3.5K is less than a computer would have cost in 1981, adjusted for inflation.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
scarface_74 3y ago
My first computer (bought my parents) in 1986 was an enhanced 128K Apple //e with Duo disk drives and green screen monitor and a dot matrix printer. It was about $3K in all in 1986 dollars. My second computer I got for a graduation gift was a Mac LCII with 10MB RAM with a 512x384 12 inch monitor a LaserWriter LS printer, an Apple //e daughter card, a 5-1/4 inch drive for the card and a copy of SoftPC. It was $4000 - in 1992. People use to spend a lot more on computers back in the day. Both of my computers were hackers playgrounds for me.
- skeeter2020 3y ago
  Your computers were tools for building... anything, and the manufacturers (especially Apple back then) actually educated, promoted and rewarded amazing things. This is a consumer device tightly coupled to the most restrictive ecosystem we've ever seen. Doesn't seem like a hackers' playground.
  - scarface_74 3y ago
    I paid $10 a month to distribute my little freeware on AOL in college so normal people could access it. I also submitted it to info-Mac archive via ftp. I would have gladly paid $99 a year for the bragging rights of putting my app on the iOS App Store so anyone could get it. I paid for a 65C02 compiler back in mid 80s using my allowance and paid for a Mac C compiler in the early 90s. My parents were solidly middle class - a factory worker and a teacher.
    - thegginthesky 3y ago
      The point isn't paying to publish apps, the point is that you can't hack into it if this is anything like iOS. If this runs a version of iOS, we can't access the code that is running in it, we can't open a terminal, we can't use our programing language of choice. We can't use the actual device for building anything hacker related by itself. We can make apps for it using an actual PC made for building, but only if it runs MacOS, ans using their proprietary language. The actual device is far from a hackers dream or plaything if its as locked up as the iPhone. But very cool device though, hopefully it brings VR into Mainstram outside of gaming
      - scarface_74 3y ago
        You can definitely hack iOS all you want to, use private APIs, do all sorts of things that are against the App Store rules, run it on your own device and publish the code to GitHub to let other hackers compile it and run it from source. iPhone enthusiasts Stephen Hackett (his real name), hack into pre-release versions of iOS all of the time to see how it’s running from their computer. Even that 1986 6th grade hacker that I was would never want to program on the phone. I fail to see the fascination with running a fully fledged IDE on a phone. When I was programming on the very open Windows CE devices pre-iPhone, I avoided running on the phone as long as possible and used the emulator. You can use any programming language you want that compiles down to ARM.
        LordDragonfang 3y ago
andsoitis 3y ago
> 3.5k device that's locked down into some iOS like Apple walled garden doesn't sound like backers playground to me. Some playgrounds have no fences, but also no interesting objects to play with. Other playgrounds have boundaries far out, and comes with a huge combinatorial explosion of possibility.
- rollcat 3y ago
  This. I'd rather play with Lego than throw rocks at a tree.
spaceman_2020 3y ago
In 5 years, it will be half that price and there will be half a dozen competitors priced under $1000.
- bushbaba 3y ago
  Original iPhone was 599, an expensive phone at the time. Today 599 isn’t considered that expensive for a smartphone. The price doesn’t have to come down as 3.5k is the modern day equivalent to the price of a laptop 10-20 years ago.
  - pzo 3y ago
    Price still has to go down to be mass adopted. Apple sell just ~25 million mac per year and probably most of them are just cheaper macbook air with price below $1.5. Even though their current macbooks are great and people see the value of having a laptop, it's a mature market but Apple still has only like 10% market share. People wallet and their salary is not out of rubber - there is limit how much they can stretch their budget.
    - spaceman_2020 3y ago
      The tech will be back-engineered once the first VisionPro is out. It took Android smartphones a few years too before they were competent with Apple. Today, the best Androids are almost as good, if not better. There will be multiple VisionPro competitors within half a decade and they’ll all compete on price and focus on mass adoption - just as it happens with phones and laptops.
concinds 3y ago
It's true that it's a walled garden. But with everything the device has access to, cameras pointed at your pupils, cameras pointed at your surroundings, precise tracking of where you look (which the OS prevents apps from accessing), I'm not sure I want apps to have full permission to the hardware. The more "intimate" devices become, the less you can trust random apps. They still let you run whatever you want on your own device as a dev, which seems like a good compromise. But I'd never trust other people's apps with access to all that.
wucaworld 3y ago
Disagree. HoloLens and oculus went with internal SDKs too complicated for most devs, and had official docs recommending Unity and unreal for development. This seemed stupid as those environments were not purpose built for this class of device (mixed reality). I think Apple has shown some serious wisdom here and am excited to explore their frameworks.

3.5k device that's locked down into some iOS like Apple walled garden doesn't sound like backers playground to me.

fzzzy 3y ago

The walled garden is much much vaster than anything we had in the 80s.

anamexis 3y ago
And $3.5K is less than a computer would have cost in 1981, adjusted for inflation.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]

scarface_74 3y ago

My first computer (bought my parents) in 1986 was an enhanced 128K Apple //e with Duo disk drives and green screen monitor and a dot matrix printer. It was about $3K in all in 1986 dollars. My second computer I got for a graduation gift was a Mac LCII with 10MB RAM with a 512x384 12 inch monitor a LaserWriter LS printer, an Apple //e daughter card, a 5-1/4 inch drive for the card and a copy of SoftPC. It was $4000 - in 1992. People use to spend a lot more on computers back in the day. Both of my computers were hackers playgrounds for me.

skeeter2020 3y ago
Your computers were tools for building... anything, and the manufacturers (especially Apple back then) actually educated, promoted and rewarded amazing things. This is a consumer device tightly coupled to the most restrictive ecosystem we've ever seen. Doesn't seem like a hackers' playground.
- scarface_74 3y ago
  I paid $10 a month to distribute my little freeware on AOL in college so normal people could access it. I also submitted it to info-Mac archive via ftp. I would have gladly paid $99 a year for the bragging rights of putting my app on the iOS App Store so anyone could get it. I paid for a 65C02 compiler back in mid 80s using my allowance and paid for a Mac C compiler in the early 90s. My parents were solidly middle class - a factory worker and a teacher.
  - thegginthesky 3y ago
    The point isn't paying to publish apps, the point is that you can't hack into it if this is anything like iOS. If this runs a version of iOS, we can't access the code that is running in it, we can't open a terminal, we can't use our programing language of choice. We can't use the actual device for building anything hacker related by itself. We can make apps for it using an actual PC made for building, but only if it runs MacOS, ans using their proprietary language. The actual device is far from a hackers dream or plaything if its as locked up as the iPhone. But very cool device though, hopefully it brings VR into Mainstram outside of gaming
    - scarface_74 3y ago
      You can definitely hack iOS all you want to, use private APIs, do all sorts of things that are against the App Store rules, run it on your own device and publish the code to GitHub to let other hackers compile it and run it from source. iPhone enthusiasts Stephen Hackett (his real name), hack into pre-release versions of iOS all of the time to see how it’s running from their computer. Even that 1986 6th grade hacker that I was would never want to program on the phone. I fail to see the fascination with running a fully fledged IDE on a phone. When I was programming on the very open Windows CE devices pre-iPhone, I avoided running on the phone as long as possible and used the emulator. You can use any programming language you want that compiles down to ARM.
      - LordDragonfang 3y ago

andsoitis 3y ago

> 3.5k device that's locked down into some iOS like Apple walled garden doesn't sound like backers playground to me. Some playgrounds have no fences, but also no interesting objects to play with. Other playgrounds have boundaries far out, and comes with a huge combinatorial explosion of possibility.

rollcat 3y ago
This. I'd rather play with Lego than throw rocks at a tree.

spaceman_2020 3y ago

In 5 years, it will be half that price and there will be half a dozen competitors priced under $1000.

bushbaba 3y ago
Original iPhone was 599, an expensive phone at the time. Today 599 isn’t considered that expensive for a smartphone. The price doesn’t have to come down as 3.5k is the modern day equivalent to the price of a laptop 10-20 years ago.
- pzo 3y ago
  Price still has to go down to be mass adopted. Apple sell just ~25 million mac per year and probably most of them are just cheaper macbook air with price below $1.5. Even though their current macbooks are great and people see the value of having a laptop, it's a mature market but Apple still has only like 10% market share. People wallet and their salary is not out of rubber - there is limit how much they can stretch their budget.
  - spaceman_2020 3y ago
    The tech will be back-engineered once the first VisionPro is out. It took Android smartphones a few years too before they were competent with Apple. Today, the best Androids are almost as good, if not better. There will be multiple VisionPro competitors within half a decade and they’ll all compete on price and focus on mass adoption - just as it happens with phones and laptops.

concinds 3y ago

It's true that it's a walled garden. But with everything the device has access to, cameras pointed at your pupils, cameras pointed at your surroundings, precise tracking of where you look (which the OS prevents apps from accessing), I'm not sure I want apps to have full permission to the hardware. The more "intimate" devices become, the less you can trust random apps. They still let you run whatever you want on your own device as a dev, which seems like a good compromise. But I'd never trust other people's apps with access to all that.

wucaworld 3y ago

Disagree. HoloLens and oculus went with internal SDKs too complicated for most devs, and had official docs recommending Unity and unreal for development. This seemed stupid as those environments were not purpose built for this class of device (mixed reality). I think Apple has shown some serious wisdom here and am excited to explore their frameworks.