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The reasons people are sending back their Apple Vision Pro headsets
- holoduke 3y agoI believe ar becomes a big thing when they have the size of a pair of glasses with 2x 16k screens. Only then it will become mass adopted, replace phones and a life without is nearly impossible. Now its too big.
- giantg2 3y agoAre we anywhere close to getting that resolution at that density? I think it would require a similar form factor to what you said, but lower resolutions are probably workable. The biggest thing would likely be privacy issues, just like with Glass.
- keenmaster 3y agoMicroLEDs will fuel the next display revolution and are smaller than some bacteria. They can eventually achieve the perfect pixel density for AR/VR while having better display characteristics than even OLEDs.
- int_19h 3y agoWhy 16k, given that actual physical displays we use day to day are usually 4k at best, and often less than that? It seems to me that 8k per eye would be plenty, and even 4k per eye is perfectly adequate for many things.
- holoduke 3y agoThose 4k screens are at quite a distance right. 2cm in front you will see pixels. Thats why 16k inside ar/vr glasses.
- int_19h 3y agoYou see the pixels, yes, but so what? It's still the same pixel density per amount of content you see. I can see pixels on my 4K display, too, because it's placed pretty close to my eyes, but it's still a very useful piece of equipment. Would I like 8K? Sure, and I'll get it when the price is right, but that doesn't make 4K non-viable.
- niceice 3y agoIt would be instructive to know what percentage are returning them or at least have some basis for comparision to other first gen Apple products.
- test6554 3y agoI have the original HTC vive, and that thing's been a box for years. I'm glad I got to experience it, but I don't need to own one day in and day out. I completely understand why people have returned them.
- unionjack22 3y agoI bought the 256gb version with the intent on using it as a new and novel medium to rebuild my app building skills from conception to end after half a decade in the enterprise space. I have to say it met my expectations and for whatever gaps in UX and the featureset exist, they seem solvable and that is very exciting. Needless to say, I’m keeping mine. Influencers be damned.
- outside415 3y ago[flagged]
- autoexec 3y ago> think there is a requisite IQ/technical need that needs to be met for people to find this gadget useful. That sounds like a very convenient opinion for someone to have. > also popular to shit on new apple products Sure, in online spaces and from people who haven't bought them. Most people after making an expensive purchase will jump through hoops to justify it to themselves even if deep down they know it wasn't a great idea. It's called choice-supportive bias (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choice-supportive_bias https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choice-supportive_bias) and people tend to fall into that trap because otherwise they end up struggling with cognitive dissonance and "buyer's remorse". I'm sure that some of the people returning the headset accepted that they overpaid for a product that underdelivered and some were those who only bought the device to see what the hype was about or for social media points and planned to return it. Others are keeping it because they're just fine with what it is or because they're still holding out hope it'll prove more useful in the future and that's fine too, but I don't think anyone is returning the product because they're just not intelligent enough to "get it"
- outside415 3y agoin my regular life I always have very sophisticated monitor set ups. most non-technical people don't. they won't benefit from a device that offers more virtual real estate until there are apps that spoon feed them that benefit. you also need to be diligent enough to get beyond the learning curve phase and into the utility phase. took me a few days. most people I see online aren't highlighting any of the ways I use it when they talk about how they're returning it, or highlighting discomfort, which is normal and goes away with more usage. I'm just not convinced by the majority of the influencers rationale to return it. but ultimately if you don't have a real use case you are solving for having it besides watching TV on it, there isn't a compelling reason to keep it, that's what I was trying to highlight. it is brand new and you need to come up with your own way of garnering utility from it.
- scyzoryk_xyz 3y agoSo, does this mean… refurbished?
- dylan604 3y agobut it's Apple, so they don't really lower the price
- post_break 3y agoDo you just say things? https://www.apple.com/shop/refurbished/mac https://www.apple.com/shop/refurbished/mac
- thaumasiotes 3y agoApple does worry about the reflection on their brand from selling refurbished stuff. When I worked at eBay, Apple maintained a low-profile account there to sell refurbished products. When word started getting out to the public that that account was Apple itself, selling what amounted to official products, they shut it down.
- dylan604 3y agoDo you not understand words that you read? I didn't say they don't lower the price at all. I said they don't really lower it. In case those are words you don't understand, the phrase means that even though the price is lower, it's not low enough that people would really feel it was a bargain. The price is not low enough that I wouldn't rather just buy new.
- post_break 3y agoThere are Macs on there 15-23% off just looking at it quickly, how much off does it have to be to "really lower the price" on your scale?
- giantg2 3y agoThey do lower the price. In my opinion, it just goes from very expensive to pretty expensive.
- pfannkuchen 3y agoIt feels like there is a tricky customer match problem with products like this where, for what is kind of a beta product, you want to target people for whom the price tag is not that big of a deal. If someone is spending a really substantial-to-them amount of money, they are probably going to have really high expectations and will be disappointed that it is very imperfect in a lot of ways. I wonder how Apple’s marketing team approached this, and whether they maybe missed a bit.
- mvdtnz 3y agoIf you want people to not be disappointed in a beta product you need to market it as a beta product. At no point has Apple even implied AVP isn't ready for prime time.
- bradly 3y ago> what is kind of a beta product What makes AVP a beta product?
- peterkos 3y agoI think it more targets the “apple enthusiast”, or at least the “tech enthusiast”, who is used to paying a $$$ premium (at the cost of polish) to be the First at a new thing. Every company does it but Apple has a strong pattern of “v1 is setting up for v2” — e.g., the original iPhone being expensive af with no apps, but getting 3G and apps the next year. Also, I’d wager the people buying this can mostly Certainly afford it, given how expensive it is. For those people the money is meh, or justified (business expense, app platform). For others who are Maybe affording it, returns seem like an easy failsafe if it doesn’t meet expectations.
- giantg2 3y ago“v1 is setting up for v2” Especially with AR devices. Microsoft's original HoloLens had very limited adoption. Now they have HoloLens 2 out. Adoption is still fairly limited, but gaining traction after the upgrade.
- xeromal 3y ago
- gnabgib 3y agoNot sure what this summary adds over a user's direct experience "Apple Vision Nope: Why I returned mine"[0](64 points, 3 hours ago, 179 comments), or the duplicate verge summary articles [1][2](63 points, 69 comments combined) [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39384158 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39384158 [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39374847 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39374847 [2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39380556 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39380556
- outside415 3y agokeeping mine :) I bought it intending to return it, I use it every day. literally have dreams about operating in 3d space now (whether that's good or bad I don't know).
- peterkos 3y agoI like the alternative this implies of dreaming in 2D :p What’s your use case? I’d imagine the macOS display extending is wildly cool.
- outside415 3y agoI have a couple of different places that I live right now because of RTO (my house, an apartment near my office, a vacation home). My house has the best desk set up, it doesn't make sense for me to reproduce it else where. So at the apartment/vacation home I can have a desk set up as compelling through using my macbook with it. then I have a bunch of apps up in 3d space around it (teams, outlook, photos, safar/spotify, safari/tradingview). I sit on top of Haleakala in full immersion while I work now. as I walk around the house I have different windows open, for intance at my kitchen table I have twitter and another safari browser for hackernews/googlenews. I've also found a fun use for it is to demo it for different friends/friend groups, so I have a little demo I run them through for it taking spatial photos/videos, viewing panoramic photos, viewing spatial photos, then I show them other apps based on what I know about them, NBA app, apple tv + immersive videos, and show them fun configurations for having so many apps open. also around the house it has mostly replaced my doom-scrolling on my phone. my eyes are getting older so cruising around stuff on my phone is getting harder/blurrier. I mostly look at it as a replacement for my phone at home and a complimentary piece to my macbook. still really lacking overall in apps so doing more than I would like in Safari. I really also wish there were more apps to take advantage of 3d space. like imagine health/strava where you can scroll through the run and and it has a 3d map to show you where you went, and charts of a 3d plane with all of your health metrics that you can tab through and move through/select with your fingers. there's a lot of potential here imo.
- dgan 3y agoDo you wear glasses? Do one need to wear glasses when wearing this thing?
- seatac76 3y agoWonder if it’ll have an Apple Watch like arc where they released and the mvp use case(health) was discovered in the market.
- noja 3y ago¨People¨ - what percent?
- verdverm 3y agoI'm waiting on my https://visor.com https://visor.com which should be on par visuals wise, much better form factor (comfort), and is 1/3 the price
- paulcole 3y agoJust curious but have they charged your credit card for the pre-order? That makes me nervous w/ the 90-day limit to most chargebacks.
- verdverm 3y agoThey are giving full refunds at any time last I checked, I paid for a founder's edition for black friday
- paulcole 3y agoYeah, yikes. They'll give full refunds until they won't and I'd hate to be left holding the (empty) bag here. I guess at this point you may as well ride it out if the money doesn't matter that much to you.
- verdverm 3y agoI see no reason to think a rugpull is going on here. Renji is passionate about the space and finally building the device he dreams of because the components are finally in a good place for him to do so
- outside415 3y agothat looks pretty cool
- SushiHippie 3y agoWow this looks really cool, thanks for sharing. And it even supports Linux! Can't wait to see the first hands-on reviews, once it ships. 1000$ would be still a to steep price to pay, but maybe the reviews will change my mind.
- ChicagoBoy11 3y agoI just wish I could really have been in the room when the facial interface was discussed. So much of the discussion of the AVP has been dominated by folks talking about the lightseals, and I wonder the impact that has had on the return percentage. I have virtually every other consumer VR headset, and the reality is comfort is largely a solved problem. But I'm sure someone, in some meeting at Apple, there was a tradeoff made between comfort of the device and its aesthetic, and I think with this they REALLY missed the mark. They also trained their retail team NOT AT ALL about how to deal with this, as they seem just as confused about the different seals as the customers are. But for a technologist, it is definitely an amazing piece of tech, and having used all of them the thing that sticks out the most is how unremarkable it is in terms of features (it does, quite literally, just do things I have seen in the other ones), but with a level of polish and fit that truly is transformative, much in the same way of other products that Apple has put out.
- GaryNumanVevo 3y agoCan you describe what a technologist is? Is this just someone who's interested in gadget broadly or is this a professional classification?
- system2 3y agoIt is silly to compare Quest 3 to this but I think Quest 3 has more functionality than this headset. Virtual Desktop app is already very established and FOV is better than AVP. The games alone makes it more fun device and it really doesn't break the bank.
- alphabettsy 3y agoPeople buy things for more than pure functionality. Android devices can usually do more things and for less money than an iPhone and yet..
- croes 3y agoFor how many of those who have returned it, the AVP was their first VR headset?
- themagician 3y agoI think there is something that often gets overlooked with VR headsets becuase people don't even know how to describe it well and that's this: they are not sharp, edge-to-edge. The reality of current VR is that every headset has a pretty small cone of focus in the center. Everything outside of that cone is simply out of focus. You have to train yourself to "look with your head and not with your eyes" and it's just unnatural. A lot of the eye strain comes from looking at thing outside of the center cone of focus and trying to focus on them, only realizing that it's impossible. The larger the FOV, the larger the part of the image that is not focusable. I really expected Apple's headset to do better. I never thought they would ship a headset with an image that's so soft around the corners. I expected some kind of reverse OIS magic that would allow you to actually look around and see a sharp image, edge to edge. I do not want to re-learn how to look.
- D13Fd 3y ago> I really expected Apple's headset to do better. I never thought they would ship a headset with an image that's so soft around the corners. Just out of curiosity, are you speaking from direct experience with a headset or based on reviews/photos?
- themagician 3y agoDirect experience. The Vision Pro is the best headset I've ever used, but it's still bad. I suspect one reason they went with a relatively narrow FOV is to minimize the out of focus area. So the narrow FOV minimizes/masks the problem but it's really just as evident in the Vision Pro as it is in any other headset. Unless you train yourself to "look with your head" it's just not possible to use for an extended period of time. You can try it yourself. There is a cone of focus that extends about 30º off center axis. Within that cone things are sharp. Things then degrade pretty rapidly. I actually don't understand why this isn't mentioned in more reviews. It's the #1 thing I care about. I'd much rather have a low resolution image thiat's tack sharp across the frame than high resolution screens paird with optics that produce soft corners.
- 3y ago
- gumby 3y agoI think the simple answer is that Apple lets you return something no questions asked. So why not buy one on credit, try it, and have your money refunded before you even have to pay the credit card bill? I bought the original watch with that plan in mind (try it out, get an idea of what it might be like, then return it and buy v3). In the watch case I knew after two days I wasn't going to return it. But for the VP, that seems unlikely (and that even though I used to work in AR).
- PheonixPharts 3y agoYou don't think the even simpler answer is that VR is really not a solved problem yet for everyday users? I really enjoy my psvr2, but I'm never going to have that headset on for more than an hour a day every few days. I thought the Quest was a complete game changer for the first month, then put it away never to be used again. It looks like both Apple and Meta have moved the needle on the overall experience, but it seems that there is still a long way to go to get VR to the, perhaps impossible, point where it becomes as ubiquitous as mobile phones. VR remains a non-essential novelty and likely might forever remain such.
- gumby 3y agoI think that’s true too, but I bet a lot of people bought the expensive VP just for a free opportunity to check it out. Had the return policy not been in place I suspect pre orders would have been negligible.
- nimbius 3y agois the reason "because the critical mass of people buying a nearly four-thousand dollar toy to strap on their face for clout and cult status was so monumental it created its own powerful gravity well of self-entitled fart-huffing narcissistic energy violent enough to send each unit to the RMA warehouse through quantum teleportation?" no? well i bet its dead pixels or something...
- kouunji 3y agoI’m interested to hear people’s experiences using this as a virtual workspace/ work environment, as that’s what I would use it for. Having gotten rid of my studio during the pandemic, the idea of a great work area I can just “put on” is very appealing…but I wonder how good it would actually be for focused work. Anyone?