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To me the interesting bit is that an even a VR executive a decade plus into working in the field doesn’t find this device compelling enough to own it. I get th

To me the interesting bit is that an even a VR executive a decade plus into working in the field doesn’t find this device compelling enough to own it. I get that the thesis is that this version is the devkit etc, but viable consumer product status (read: enough adoption for the device to be profitable) seems very far away

GeekyBear 3y ago
> viable consumer product status (read: enough adoption for the device to be profitable) seems very far away He mentions a few short term use cases for the current hardware. For example: Productivity on the go (A laptop with the headset for multiple virtual displays) and Live Sports. > Apple Immersive on Vision Pro is a transformative experience in terms of video quality and its ability to deliver a real sense of presence. Watching a game in high-resolution VR has the potential to be legitimately better than a regular 4K TV broadcast by enabling hardcore fans to feel much closer to the action
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- FireBeyond 3y ago
  > For example: Productivity on the go (A laptop with the headset for multiple virtual displays) and Live Sports. Except almost universally, people talk about the screen display being “not great” for extended use as a screen replacement with dramatically lower effective resolution and blurring…
  - GeekyBear 3y ago
    > people talk about the screen display being “not great” That's not what the reviews I have read had to say. > The Vision Pro can produce a virtual external display for any modern Mac... The virtual display feels responsive and works with connected keyboard or mouse peripherals. The text is highly readable. I don’t have any complaints about how the virtual display itself works—it’s great. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/03/i-worked-exclusively-in-vision-pro-for-a-week-heres-how-it-went https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/03/i-worked-exclusively...
- PJDK 3y ago
  I've heard the sport idea thrown around a few times, but I'm not sure I buy it. If you go to a sports event you are mostly buying the experience of being there, the energy of the crowd, the cheering all that stuff. The actual experience of seeing what's happening is not really better is it? That's why the stadiums have screens in them. Replicating that experience at home is more like getting people around to watch a game together.
  - GeekyBear 3y ago
    > I'm not sure I buy it. "legitimately better than a regular 4K TV broadcast by enabling hardcore fans to feel much closer to the action" sounds like it offers something new. People who are sports enthusiasts have a proven willingness to drop thousands of dollars on large screen televisions, streaming services like NFL Red Zone, or thousand dollar Superbowl tickets, so the potential for sales is there.
    - twic 3y ago
      I think the question is, how many people watch sports to be close to the action, and how many watch sports to be close to their friends?
      - xeromal 3y ago
        Yup, there are hardcore fans but sports are largely a social event.
      - GeekyBear 3y ago
        Are you saying that there is no such thing as people who watch sports at home by themselves? Because that's not remotely true. In addition, Apple already has it's shareplay tech that allows networked users to watch shared video, listen to shared audio, or video game together.
        PJDK 3y ago
        My argument is that the experience of seeing sport from a specific seat is inferior to watching it multi camera with huge zoom lenses. The thing that draws you to the stadium is the sense of being in a crowds. The technology to do this has been around for a while to has anyone tries. I'd certainly be curious to give it a go. I imagine there are some technical problems too, like if your team scores and you jump in the air and your view point stays still. This did get me thinking if any sport might be better viewed in VR, and maybe games like pool, snooker, chess. Where you see the whole thing from one vantage point, and the scale is such that the 3d of it all would be meaningful.
kilroy123 3y ago
It's the crappy version 1. Just like iphone and ipad v1. They sucked. It's very obviously better to wait a little longer for a future version.
- Invictus0 3y ago
  iPhone 1 was way more successful than Vision Pro, and it didn't suck relative to what was on the market at the time. At launch, Steve Jobs famously said it was 5 years ahead of the competition, and contemporary commentators generally agreed. In its first week, Apple had sold 270,000 iPhones domestically.[47] Apple sold the one millionth iPhone 74 days after the release.[48] Apple reported in January 2008 that four million were sold.
  - matwood 3y ago
    Phones have more mass appeal which I think attributes to the larger initial numbers. It doesn't change that the original iPhone was not great in a lot of ways. I had one - 2.5g was slow, the screen was small, and it was missing basic features. But it catalyzed what the future was going to look like.
  - kossTKR 3y ago
    Interesting. Macrumors reports 200.000 sold vision pro's a few month's ago. So maybe 300.000 today? It's a type of gadget that hasn't become widely adopted yet and the usecases and killer features are almost non existent compared to the iPhones phonecalls + web browsing, music, videos, notes and many others. Really hard to gauge what success means here, but if we say that in a year it will sell 500.000 units, that's 1/8 of the original iPhone, seems ok, or maybe not?
    - iamtheworstdev 3y ago
      there is no killer feature where it sees mass adoption.. 99.9% of the population cant afford to drop $3,500 on a computer screen for their computer.
      - 3y ago
tracerbulletx 3y ago
I think there are more than enough higher income people who would pay 5k just for a thing to watch a movie in private, with much better immersion than any alternative, on a plane.
- jsjohnst 3y ago
  > watch a movie in private, with much better immersion than any alternative, on a plane. As someone who’s worn mine to watch movies on multiple flights, the problem is two fold. 1. The device is ridiculously hard to get into “travel mode” on a plane. Especially if the device was powered off previously and you have to enter a passcode. Each time the “tracking was lost” notification is shown it forces you to start over with your passcode from the beginning. Those who believe in better security than a four digit passcode are brutalized. Then just getting control center open and selecting travel mode (needing like five pinch operations) can be insult to injury. I can’t imagine going through that in economy in tightly packed seats. After going through that experience twice, I now insure it’s ready to go on the ground before boarding, but that’s also a hassle. 2. Wearing the device for the length of a movie is still a struggle. I have a ton of time on other VR headsets (which I also can’t wear comfortably for 2hrs), so this isn’t just a “getting used to it” thing. Unlike the previous problem, this one isn’t really solvable without different hardware. That said, once the movie starts, it’s the best movie experience on a plane ever for the first 20-30min.
  - tracerbulletx 3y ago
    That's a bummer, wonder if a third party strap with a different weight balance could make it comfortable enough.
  - crooked-v 3y ago
    I recently gave it a try and it immediately prompted me to turn on travel mode after putting in the passcode (though, yes, that part was difficult).
    - jsjohnst 3y ago

GeekyBear 3y ago

> viable consumer product status (read: enough adoption for the device to be profitable) seems very far away He mentions a few short term use cases for the current hardware. For example: Productivity on the go (A laptop with the headset for multiple virtual displays) and Live Sports. > Apple Immersive on Vision Pro is a transformative experience in terms of video quality and its ability to deliver a real sense of presence. Watching a game in high-resolution VR has the potential to be legitimately better than a regular 4K TV broadcast by enabling hardcore fans to feel much closer to the action

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
FireBeyond 3y ago
> For example: Productivity on the go (A laptop with the headset for multiple virtual displays) and Live Sports. Except almost universally, people talk about the screen display being “not great” for extended use as a screen replacement with dramatically lower effective resolution and blurring…
- GeekyBear 3y ago
  > people talk about the screen display being “not great” That's not what the reviews I have read had to say. > The Vision Pro can produce a virtual external display for any modern Mac... The virtual display feels responsive and works with connected keyboard or mouse peripherals. The text is highly readable. I don’t have any complaints about how the virtual display itself works—it’s great. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/03/i-worked-exclusively-in-vision-pro-for-a-week-heres-how-it-went https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/03/i-worked-exclusively...
PJDK 3y ago
I've heard the sport idea thrown around a few times, but I'm not sure I buy it. If you go to a sports event you are mostly buying the experience of being there, the energy of the crowd, the cheering all that stuff. The actual experience of seeing what's happening is not really better is it? That's why the stadiums have screens in them. Replicating that experience at home is more like getting people around to watch a game together.
- GeekyBear 3y ago
  > I'm not sure I buy it. "legitimately better than a regular 4K TV broadcast by enabling hardcore fans to feel much closer to the action" sounds like it offers something new. People who are sports enthusiasts have a proven willingness to drop thousands of dollars on large screen televisions, streaming services like NFL Red Zone, or thousand dollar Superbowl tickets, so the potential for sales is there.
  - twic 3y ago
    I think the question is, how many people watch sports to be close to the action, and how many watch sports to be close to their friends?
    - xeromal 3y ago
      Yup, there are hardcore fans but sports are largely a social event.
    - GeekyBear 3y ago
      Are you saying that there is no such thing as people who watch sports at home by themselves? Because that's not remotely true. In addition, Apple already has it's shareplay tech that allows networked users to watch shared video, listen to shared audio, or video game together.
      - PJDK 3y ago
        My argument is that the experience of seeing sport from a specific seat is inferior to watching it multi camera with huge zoom lenses. The thing that draws you to the stadium is the sense of being in a crowds. The technology to do this has been around for a while to has anyone tries. I'd certainly be curious to give it a go. I imagine there are some technical problems too, like if your team scores and you jump in the air and your view point stays still. This did get me thinking if any sport might be better viewed in VR, and maybe games like pool, snooker, chess. Where you see the whole thing from one vantage point, and the scale is such that the 3d of it all would be meaningful.

kilroy123 3y ago

It's the crappy version 1. Just like iphone and ipad v1. They sucked. It's very obviously better to wait a little longer for a future version.

Invictus0 3y ago
iPhone 1 was way more successful than Vision Pro, and it didn't suck relative to what was on the market at the time. At launch, Steve Jobs famously said it was 5 years ahead of the competition, and contemporary commentators generally agreed. In its first week, Apple had sold 270,000 iPhones domestically.[47] Apple sold the one millionth iPhone 74 days after the release.[48] Apple reported in January 2008 that four million were sold.
- matwood 3y ago
  Phones have more mass appeal which I think attributes to the larger initial numbers. It doesn't change that the original iPhone was not great in a lot of ways. I had one - 2.5g was slow, the screen was small, and it was missing basic features. But it catalyzed what the future was going to look like.
- kossTKR 3y ago
  Interesting. Macrumors reports 200.000 sold vision pro's a few month's ago. So maybe 300.000 today? It's a type of gadget that hasn't become widely adopted yet and the usecases and killer features are almost non existent compared to the iPhones phonecalls + web browsing, music, videos, notes and many others. Really hard to gauge what success means here, but if we say that in a year it will sell 500.000 units, that's 1/8 of the original iPhone, seems ok, or maybe not?
  - iamtheworstdev 3y ago
    there is no killer feature where it sees mass adoption.. 99.9% of the population cant afford to drop $3,500 on a computer screen for their computer.
    - 3y ago

tracerbulletx 3y ago

I think there are more than enough higher income people who would pay 5k just for a thing to watch a movie in private, with much better immersion than any alternative, on a plane.

jsjohnst 3y ago
> watch a movie in private, with much better immersion than any alternative, on a plane. As someone who’s worn mine to watch movies on multiple flights, the problem is two fold. 1. The device is ridiculously hard to get into “travel mode” on a plane. Especially if the device was powered off previously and you have to enter a passcode. Each time the “tracking was lost” notification is shown it forces you to start over with your passcode from the beginning. Those who believe in better security than a four digit passcode are brutalized. Then just getting control center open and selecting travel mode (needing like five pinch operations) can be insult to injury. I can’t imagine going through that in economy in tightly packed seats. After going through that experience twice, I now insure it’s ready to go on the ground before boarding, but that’s also a hassle. 2. Wearing the device for the length of a movie is still a struggle. I have a ton of time on other VR headsets (which I also can’t wear comfortably for 2hrs), so this isn’t just a “getting used to it” thing. Unlike the previous problem, this one isn’t really solvable without different hardware. That said, once the movie starts, it’s the best movie experience on a plane ever for the first 20-30min.
- tracerbulletx 3y ago
  That's a bummer, wonder if a third party strap with a different weight balance could make it comfortable enough.
- crooked-v 3y ago
  I recently gave it a try and it immediately prompted me to turn on travel mode after putting in the passcode (though, yes, that part was difficult).
  - jsjohnst 3y ago