31 ms·

Thoughts on Vision Pro

161 points by AndrewHart 3y ago

arp242 3y ago
U+F8FF is private use and will only display on Apple devices, FYI.
- airstrike 3y ago
  huh, TIL... that's almost worth an HN submission of its own if anyone else is wondering like I was, this was a fun read: https://superuser.com/questions/1205451/how-can-i-display-the-uf8ff-apple-logo-character-on-windows https://superuser.com/questions/1205451/how-can-i-display-th...
- jwells89 3y ago
  On Macs (and presumably iOS devices with a keyboard hooked up) it can be produced by pressing ⌥⇧K and will render so long as the receiving text field can render a system font that contains the symbol.
  - ReleaseCandidat 3y ago
    And the keyboard layout is one of the supported ones.
  - darby_eight 3y ago
    Only under the "ABC" text input. Even "ABC - extended" has this shortcut wired for the "circle" diacritic (e.g. " ̊").
- wilg 3y ago
  Also, this is against Apple's style guide, for those who celebrate. > In text, don’t write the name Apple Vision Pro by combining the  symbol with Vision Pro. > Correct: Get started with Apple Vision Pro. > Incorrect: Get started with  Vision Pro. https://help.apple.com/pdf/applestyleguide/en_US/apple-style-guide.pdf https://help.apple.com/pdf/applestyleguide/en_US/apple-style... (p. 28)
alexpotato 3y ago
> Every app on Quest has to reinvent how buttons work, how a scroll view works, how far away from the user the content should be etc.. and every app works differently. On visionOS, all of this is handled by Apple, and every app looks and feels the same. I remember the days when EVERY application in Windows had "File" in the upper left hand corner. You could make a good bet that "Edit" was next and "Preferences" was somewhere in there as well. Being "good with computers" back then had a lot to do with knowing the standard layout of applications to help guide you through where things ought to be or, at least, could plausibly be found. I applaud Apple for keeping this going in this modern world we live in of SAAS websites that each do their own thing.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
ramesh31 3y ago
>But using without the Light Seal is a massive improvement. You’re closer to the screen, so it reduces the tunnel vision and expands the effective field-of-view. And rather than a black edge, you have a frame, with outside visibility. Same thoughts for Quest 3. I use mine exclusively without the light seal now. It is a huge improvement in the ability to just casually use the thing among friends and not seem like a weirdo, and having your peripheral vision massively adds to the overall comfort of the experience. I've found paradoxically that it increases the feeling of presence for passthrough when it feels like you're just looking through a pair of glasses instead of something suction-cupped to your face. This whole idea of "locking in" to VR and closing out the outside world needs to go away. True AR that doesn't remove you from the world is the only future for these devices. This goes ditto for controllers. The vast majority of people have never held a game controller in their lives. We (as gamers and nerds) take it as second nature, but I've seen it as the single biggest barrier to entry with demoing VR to random folks. Sticking with hand/finger based gesture tracking and rejecting controllers was the absolute best decision Apple made for Vision Pro.
- Rinzler89 3y ago
  >This whole idea of "locking in" to VR and closing out the outside world needs to go away. Why? >True AR that doesn't remove you from the world is the only future for these devices. Again, why? What if I want to be removed? I bought my VR headset during the pandemic precisely for indoor escapism. I want to be transported and immersed into another universe, not see AR stuff floating around between the same four walls of my tiny apartment that I see all day everyday. It would drive me nuts and I can do that stuff on the cheap with my phone/Ipad.
  - PaulHoule 3y ago
    Immersive experiences work. I am playing Demeter on the MQ3 which is an AR game where you control a platforming character in a floating island that materializes in your room. It is fun but not anything you couldn’t experience in full VR in a game like Angry Birds VR which you can’t play on AVP because… The whole look and pinch thing goes only so far. It is great for a demo but it means the apps won’t be there other than tablet apps that hang in the air. I am still puzzled as to how to implement navigation in WebXR for the AVP. If you had a true optical passthrough AR headset that is one thing but it is absurd for a $3500 device which is hardware capable of immersive apps to be kneecapped by software and the control scheme.
btown 3y ago
> The biggest innovation with Vision Pro is visionOS. visionOS provides native app frameworks, so developers can build apps for it. That sounds ridiculously obvious, and yet its something Meta have failed to offer for years. Every app on Quest has to reinvent how buttons work, how a scroll view works, how far away from the user the content should be etc.. and every app works differently. On visionOS, all of this is handled by Apple, and every app looks and feels the same. Meta does have standardized utilities for translating movement to touch/drag/etc. interactions on arbitrary virtual surfaces: https://developers.facebook.com/blog/post/2022/11/22/building-intuitive-interactions-vr/ https://developers.facebook.com/blog/post/2022/11/22/buildin... https://developer.oculus.com/documentation/unity/unity-isdk-interaction-sdk-overview/ https://developer.oculus.com/documentation/unity/unity-isdk-... But it doesn't seem (AFAIK) to answer the other side of this, which is the UI design system so apps have a consistent look and feel. Which is perhaps more common coming from a game development perspective, but ever since the Mac OS shareware days, Apple's understood that it's empowering to a certain kind of developer if you make it easy/the default path for them to build experiences that match a standardized look and feel. I'm honestly surprised that Meta didn't at least make an optional SDK for this.
- IshKebab 3y ago
  Because apps on Quest are universally games, and those pretty much never use standard controls. They don't even all use the same engine, so Meta would have to provide a UE SDK, a Unity SDK, etc. I never felt this was remotely an issue with the Quest, and more than it is with desktop games.
  - PaulHoule 3y ago
    It's annoying as hell for applications like Immersed and for media players. If every app had a different way to position windows and the UI was good in 50% of them it would be one thing but every app I've seen with floating windows is terribly awkward, although anybody can think up a number of alternatives that ought to work better.
- kfarr 3y ago
  I agree that Meta has tried but their solution is really completely different than a more traditional OS UI. Meta provides low level convenience functions SDK for the various native app development frameworks (mostly Unity and Unreal) to access the hardware and facilitate common movements, but the actual UI implementation is up to the app author resulting in a helter skelter hodge podge of varying UI from app to app. Even in the first link you provided above, after introducing many alternate concepts then it shows screenshots of wildly varying interfaces across multiple apps.
humean1 3y ago
+1 on guest mode. Handing the headset to someone else is a high-friction point with the calibration that needs to be done on every swap. Oftentimes I want to show someone the current experience without needing to setup a mirror and handing over the headset is the most intuitive way to do so.
wongarsu 3y ago
The pervasive blocking of copyrighted content in screenshots and screen sharing sounds mildly dystopian. The article lists several examples where this actually hurts the Vision Pro (in terms of ability to share cool moments or being able to demo it), so I wonder why the feature made it in? Is it a move by Apple to make sure immersive videos don't get pirated and made available to Quest and Vive users, or is there external pressure from studios?
- golergka 3y ago
  This also doesn't make sense for the copyright owner interests. Don't you want people to share screenshots of your movies and shows?
  - wilg 3y ago
    I agree it doesn't make any sense. But this is unfortunately the deal with Hollywood and they surely just ported the same functionality from iOS.
  - warkdarrior 3y ago
    If I can take a screenshot, I can copy the whole movie.
    - monomyth 3y ago
      if you can see it you can copy it.
    - golergka 3y ago
      Technically, yes. Practically, it's unfeasible. Legally, there's a pretty sharp distinction between copying one frame to share with friends or on social media and copying all the friends with an intent of copying the entire movie.
- adamwk 3y ago
  It's the same on iPhone for i'm guessing DRM content
- 3y ago
brentm 3y ago
Agree with his assessment on passthrough. I think it's the #1 disappointment I've found with the Vision Pro. It's good, def better than other devices I've used but it's no where near as good as it has been described. That being said, video experience, other graphics are a lot better than I expected.
bsimpson 3y ago
> The only way to check progress over slow hotel wifi was to look at the progress circle, which is also the cancel button. I was aware that every time I checked progress, I was one finger-spasm away from cancelling the whole download. oooof > Every app on Quest has to reinvent how buttons work, how a scroll view works, how far away from the user the content should be etc.. and every app works differently. kinda shocked there's not a Material Components equivalent for Quest. I guess it's designed like a game system (where custom menus are standard), but that's a reinforcing loop. As long as there's no standard component system, it'll continue to be game-centric.
- throwaway2203 3y ago
  I'm actually not sure which button does what on the Quest. I usually click them all until something happens.
  - Auracle 3y ago
    There’s a game on my Quest - I don’t remember which one - where when you hold the controllers up close to your face it pops up the controls, with arrows pointing to each button. That should be all but standardized, other than exceptions in games where that could be a problem. It’s not so bad when you’re used to the system, but giving it to someone and trying to explain what button does what isn’t exactly fun. You usually end up needing to move their fingers for them, and playing a weird version of that scene from Ghost with my father-in-law isn’t my version of a good time.
- achow 3y ago
  Now I'm not sure what their army of designers were doing? This is 101 of product design - put in place a standard UI Guidelines. This is particularly important for a 'platform' player like what Meta is aiming for (Ex. from other platform/OS - Windows UI Guidelines, Apple's Human Interface Guidelines, Google's Material Design, etc..)
  - m463 3y ago
    > This is 101 of product design I think there's an emphasis on shipping a feature over shipping a cohesive product. Shipping simple vs functional one. and churn seems to be getting in the way of mature products.
wpm 3y ago
> I was downloading Star Wars for my flight back to London. The only way to check progress over slow hotel wifi was to look at the progress circle, which is also the cancel button. I was aware that every time I checked progress, I was one finger-spasm away from cancelling the whole download Oh god this. The last 10 years of UX trends where everything has to be two or three different actions behind a single tap or tap and hold does NOT translate well onto AVP. Most iPad apps are nigh unusable, esp those with high information density. Vision is not quite as precise as a mouse cursor but it definitely not as imprecise as a tap, but only when the UI is predictable. Because where you are looking is also how you read, every informational field also needs to include either both the information and the action, or they need to be separated out. So far there is no bigger culprit than the native Music app. The bottom of the player has like three nested buttons that all do different shit. The same place you look to see what song is playing is also a hidden progress/playback scrubber and also a shortcut to switch to the miniplayer if you happen to look at the eye catching album art icon directly next to the title of the song. It’s maddening.
- actionfromafar 3y ago
  Try hanging up a call on your smartphone and your counterpart hanged up a a fraction of a second before you. Now you call someone (pretty deep down) in your recent call list. Or click "Connect to Bluetooth headset" in Windows. Congratulations, your headset just connected itself, so you now you disconnected it. Just brilliant, overall.
  - averageRoyalty 3y ago
    > Try hanging up a call on your smartphone and your counterpart hanged up a a fraction of a second before you. Now you call someone (pretty deep down) in your recent call list. I do this daily and it infuriates me. I am also a fast typer on both touch and physical. As a result I often type into an auto complete box (e.g. kagi, gmail, etc) and see the result I want come up midway through my type. As I'm going to click or tap it, I am often in the 200ms window where that result is replaced by another or the list is reordered in some way. Dynamically loading webpages are also a plague of the last decade for the same reason. They load an initial layout, often interactable. Then as you're going to click or tap, they dynamically load other elements or content, reordering and moving things around the page! If you don't have anything n̵i̵c̵e̵ ̵t̵o̵ ̵s̵a̵y̵,̵ ̵d̵o̵n̵'̵t̵ ̵s̵a̵y̵ ̵a̵n̵y̵t̵h̵i̵n̵g̵ ̵a̵t̵ ̵a̵l̵l̵ ready to load, don't load anything at all.
leetharris 3y ago
I owned one and this article is perfectly accurate. This guy hit the nail on the head on everything. Passthrough is massively oversold, even if it's technically impressive. They set expectations way too high. The comfort is the #1 reason I don't own a Vision Pro anymore. I feel exactly as the author put it, "relieved," when I take it off. I feel significantly more disconnected from my family when I have it on because I have no easy way to share my content with them. A massively improved guest mode, better casting, or something else would go a long way here. The eye tracking + tap is incredible, but Apple tried to shoehorn this into everything. It should have been the primary mode of interaction with a detailed/precision interaction when needed. Eye tracking + tap is simply not good enough for power user use cases. It was such a relief to go back to my Quest after Vision Pro because the controllers were so precise and easy to use. And finally, I'll mention that the OS + standardization of UX is HUGE. The Quest feels like a crappy Chinese clone in comparison. Every single window has a completely different way of moving, adjusting, etc. Sometimes you click in the center, sometimes you click under, sometimes you can't move it at all. On the Vision Pro, everything is standardized. I'd love to see Meta fix this.
- archagon 3y ago
  I also feel like the lack of precise/physical controls is going to make gaming a non-starter. Which is really the main reason I’m excited about VR in the first place.
  - causi 3y ago
    Owning a Rift and a Quest 2 has pretty much convinced me I'll never be into VR. VR makes for incredible immersion but, for me, terrible gaming. Instead of putting the cool stuff from games into reality, it puts the worst parts of reality into my games. Instead of walking and crouching with a touch of a finger, now I have to walk and crouch. To look behind me I have to actually turn around. Instead of everything being in focus all the time, I have to look at things one by one. Not for me.
    - imzadi 3y ago
ksec 3y ago
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- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
taeric 3y ago
I'm still very curious exactly what people had in mind for this. Like, from all reports, it is a very good VR headset. But... what do people think they will use a VR headset for? Heck, the PS5 VR headset seems to be having trouble selling, and it is very good at what it is designed for. Anyone buying the PSVR2 knows they are getting it to play games. Solo games, at that. Yes, you can do a party mode for Beat Saber and a few other games. No, it isn't much more compelling than any other "group" version of video games. It is very immersive, though. So, what did the non-gamer community hope for from this? What is there to feed those hopes?
- toddmorey 3y ago
  I'm most interested in the virtual screens (no more large monitors) and the opportunity for AI assisted instructions / guidance as I do tasks like home repair.
  - taeric 3y ago
    This sounds neat, but I confess I'm already not clear that my large monitors count as a massive productivity increase over my laptop monitor. Certainly helps in some ways, but once I know what it is I need to do, the laptop is never a blocking item. The home repair ideas is certainly a neat one. Guessing it will be a while before the content is readily available in large quantities?
- Eugr 3y ago
  It's a very good XR headset. My primary use is to use it as a portable display, so I'm not chained to my desk all day. Also great for travel. Great to watch movies too. Since it runs most iPad apps, it can be used for some light productivity workflows even without a Mac. You can use Bluetooth keyboard if you need to type a lot, but the virtual keyboard is surprisingly decent for quick replies.
  - taeric 3y ago
    I'd be interested in seeing stats on how often people actually "get away from their desk" in a way that needs a computer. Specifically ways that aren't already covered by a phone.
FumblingBear 3y ago
One of the most important and key points I hope Apple iterates on in an upcoming version is some type of universal undo action. It's immensely frustrating to be watching a video in the photos app and swipe a tiny bit wrong only to lose all current progress in the video even after you swipe back. Even scrubbing controls for long videos (1+ hours) can be super finnicky and it's tough to select accurately. The traditional scrubbing method of holding while moving vertically to scrub at slower speeds doesn't seem to work either. As a result, I'm often catching myself in frustrating situations where I'd like to just __UNDO__ whatever action I previously took was. Either jumping around a video to the previous timestamp, or undoing the close safari tab button I didn't mean to select, or any number of other things I accidentally press due to the options being just a little too close to each other. It's just a mild annoyance, but it's something that would massively improve my experience with using the device, as someone who has spent a LOT of time in it nearly every day since release.
- euroderf 3y ago
  Some iPhone apps have a "shake the phone to undo", but I've never ever seen anyone use this feature. So, perhaps not a useful precedent.
  - weikju 3y ago
    But I've seen plenty of people being confused by the popup about undoing when they just as shake their phone a little bit for other reasons (moving around for example). I always disable this feature.
  - RockRobotRock 3y ago
    It's really funny when apps use the shake gesture to file bug reports
- crummy 3y ago
  The gesture could be a fist clench, naturally occurring when you angrily realise you've deleted the wrong thing.
oldpersonintx 3y ago
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carefish 3y ago
I would love to hear from people that have tried to use this headset whilst wearing prescription glasses. Is Apple's own statement "You cannot wear Apple Vision Pro while wearing eyeglasses." accurate?
- netruk44 3y ago
  I just tried on mine for only a few seconds. Technically, it seemed to work. However, because I had to remove the prescription lenses, the device wanted to redo hand and eye setup, so I quickly took it off again. Notes on the experience... - On the solo loop band I had to turn the knob to loosen the strap a lot to get enough clearance to position my glasses within the device. The dual loop band probably would not work at all (I didn’t try). - My glasses are just barely narrow enough to fit within my light seal (25W). It's definitely not a guarantee everybody's glasses will fit into their own light seal. - Once in, the eye tracking was very off, basically unusable. However, I did not do gaze calibration with my glasses on. That would probably improve things, but I suspect the device will always have issues correctly tracking gaze through glasses because normal glasses lenses can distort your eyes more than it’s expecting. - There's really not much space between your glasses and the inside lenses on the vision pro. It seems like your glasses would start rubbing up against the inside lenses very easily, causing permanent scratches on one or the other. So technically you can, but I would not recommend it. I’d rather just spend the $150 for the official lenses.
- dagmx 3y ago
  You’ll have multiple issues. I’ve tried using prescription glasses with many eye tracking solutions in the past and they all have the same issues. 1. There’s very little space for your glasses and you’ll end up scratching both your glasses and the optics 2. You’ll partially obscure eye tracking. 3. Eye tracking will be significantly warped across your glasses. You’ll have drastically reduced quality. This is extra bad if you’re astigmatic. Prescription inserts or contacts are the correct way to use these kinds of devices for strong reasons.
bookofjoe 3y ago
I bought Vision Pro and used it as is for three weeks, then put it away for a couple weeks because of degree of difficulty for me, definitely NOT a techie. On a whim I went to the optometrist, got examined and a prescription for glasses (I use over-the-counter 1.25x readers from CVS), then uploaded the Rx to Zeiss using their iPhone app, and ponied up $149 for their optical inserts. Since the inserts arrived and I put them in, my experience overall with VP has been better: still way too difficult and confusing, but movies and TV shows, which were the only redeeming factors in my initial three weeks of use, seem really, really crisp and vivid, more so than initially. Take these observations with a grain of salt, after all, it's a series of one 75-year-old retired neurosurgical anesthesiologist's experiences. But if you've already dropped 4k, well, that's a lot of sunk cost to write off without trying everything possible to make it work. At least that was my thinking.
- killjoywashere 3y ago
  [flagged]
Freedom2 3y ago
The Vision Pro has been a massive disappointment for me and my colleagues. I was ready for the flood of Hacker News articles praising its capabilities as well as tips and tricks, including "look what I did today with it!". This discourse was promised to me by many regular HN commenters and I can't believe we're at a state where the general feeling is that the Vision Pro doesn't live up to the HN hype.
- zmmmmm 3y ago
  HN has always seemed ambivalent to me. There's a crowd of enthusiasts for it but a surprisingly strong contingent of sceptics (about VR in general, but also specifically this device). My take is however that yes at this point, Vision OS has failed to hit the aspirational goal of launching XR into the mainstream. There's no App store gold rush, after the initial couple of weeks of hype most people forgot it exists, and I'm truly surprised that Apple seems to have even fumbled the ball on content. That seemed like the easy part to me, but no new environments, nothing new to watch, the Apps hitting the store are mostly toys and really zero things that haven't been done before or fully explored on other devices. Nobody is raving about watching sports on it. etc etc. What I really hoped was that the novel features of the Vision Pro would kick off a new wave of creativity in terms of what is possible. When I saw people pulling 3D objects out of web pages and onto their desk it really seemed like this could be a true start of something. The one upside I think is that the slightly anemic launch is probably going to bias Apple to be more open and less controlling than they would otherwise. I hope so.
  - kredd 3y ago
    My guess is, there’s a significant chunk of people who tried Quest or some other VR device that’s close, so AVP is not the first to the market device. Expectations have been set, comparisons are inevitable, and I would say a lot of use cases have been explored already. Sure, you can probably do things in a more refined way in AVP, and some cool VisionOS specific stuff, but it’s generally within the same realm as other VR devices. Apple will have an uphill battle until they show experiences that cannot be replicated in other devices, rather than “you can do X here as well, maybe slightly better”. I held off from ordering for the same reason — bought Quest, tried it for a week, still sitting in my shelves since last year. Every advertised thing for AVP I can already do on my phone or laptop, without the need to strap on/off an object onto my face. I really hope they come up with cool stuff and make it more comfortable to wear, but until then, I don’t think it’ll gain a mainstream adoption.
aaron695 3y ago
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pipeline_peak 3y ago
The delusion of tv scuba goggles is exactly why big tech has no taste, it’s out of touch. All you Raspberry Pi guys, no non techie person is looking at these toys like the first iPhone back in 2007. We really need a new Steve Jobs to shake things up. Someone to say “this is stupid, show me again in 15 years”. When they’re actual glasses and cost less than $1000
jdprgm 3y ago
That is completely psychotic blacking out single frame screenshots for copyright reasons. Copyright is truly out of control and just comically ridiculous at this point.
- HaZeust 3y ago
  Always has been. Tom Scott did a great video on copyright [1] - it's long overdue to revamp. 1 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Jwo5qc78QU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Jwo5qc78QU
- russelg 3y ago
  It's not blacking out on purpose, rather it's a side-effect of the DRM chain. The DRM content is rendered outside of the UI chain, so it cannot be captured as part of a normal screenshot or video. The same happens on macOS (and even windows) if you try to screen record while watching DRM L1 content such as Netflix, Apple TV+, etc.
  - RockRobotRock 3y ago
    Widevine and HDCP can seriously suck it. Look at any torrent site and tell me that it stops piracy
  - kuschkufan 3y ago
    DRM is on purpose.
satvikpendem 3y ago
As long as I cannot install applications of my own choosing onto a headset, the entire thing is dead to me. Imagine macOS having such a restriction, for a supposed future of computing.
- dhg72 3y ago
  Smartphones are the future of computing and have this restriction
  - dmz73 3y ago
    Correction, Apple smartphones have that restriction. Android and Linux based smartphones allow user to install any affiliation of their choice.
  - gkbrk 3y ago
    Not Android ones.
willemlaurentz 3y ago
Fellow Vision Pro owner here, I recognise many of the articles critiques, yet I do still enjoy working in augmented reality. Like he says, it is a impressive "v1" product. I know that I might be a little biased as I really organised my work flow around using iPad, selecting apps that work for me. The transition to VisionOS is much easier then, as most of the apps are simply there in 3D space. I have tried to connect my MacBook, but then you have this weird mix of UX concepts (mouse, keyboard, look+tap), that's not for me. In my experience I find it comfortable enough that I forget sometimes that I am looking at digital content. Here on X I added a few photos to give you a little extra context of how I work: https://x.com/wlmiddelkoop/status/1769765197948850463?s=20 https://x.com/wlmiddelkoop/status/1769765197948850463?s=20
riwsky 3y ago
I know something’s off about the visionOS keyboard—but I can’t put my finger on it.
- imwillofficial 3y ago
  I spit my coffee out at this one hahahaahaha
matt3210 3y ago
It needs a vertical top strap to not need it extra tight
whywhywhywhy 3y ago
I was surprised the video playing over water which seems to be one of the best demos of the device, the reflection is running a frame behind the video above the water so when a cut happens theres an obvious mismatch in the reflection. Doesn't feel it would be difficult to fix this with video playback, sorta thing I'd expect Apple to solve.
junon 3y ago
This article is 100% accurate. I found myself agreeing with everything written here. Hopefully someone at Apple reads this and takes it to heart when deciding what to improve for a V2. I might actually buy one if they address some of these problems, despite having been avoiding the hype until a coworker bought one and let us try it. Passthrough was really disappointing. That part actually kind of shocked me, so many reviews online stating they forgot they were wearing the headset. I can't imagine how, though - it's like looking through drunk goggles. The rendered content was unbelievable though. I own a Valve Index and the Vision Pro blew it out of the water for pixel density. Mind-blowing.
roody15 3y ago
“ The most practical solution is to use a physical keyboard, via Mac Virtual Screen or connecting one directly, but this is a bandaid solution. ” Just silly. If you cannot easily input data without and extra accessory than it’s just a fail in this case. Imagine building the headset and then booking up a keyboard and then sitting next to an outlet because it doesn’t hold a charge very long…… almost like using a laptop may be more efficient. Honestly looks like we are still a few years away from cool cyberpunk level VR/AR.

161 points by AndrewHart 3y ago

arp242 3y ago

U+F8FF is private use and will only display on Apple devices, FYI.

airstrike 3y ago
huh, TIL... that's almost worth an HN submission of its own if anyone else is wondering like I was, this was a fun read: https://superuser.com/questions/1205451/how-can-i-display-the-uf8ff-apple-logo-character-on-windows https://superuser.com/questions/1205451/how-can-i-display-th...
jwells89 3y ago
On Macs (and presumably iOS devices with a keyboard hooked up) it can be produced by pressing ⌥⇧K and will render so long as the receiving text field can render a system font that contains the symbol.
- ReleaseCandidat 3y ago
  And the keyboard layout is one of the supported ones.
- darby_eight 3y ago
  Only under the "ABC" text input. Even "ABC - extended" has this shortcut wired for the "circle" diacritic (e.g. " ̊").
wilg 3y ago
Also, this is against Apple's style guide, for those who celebrate. > In text, don’t write the name Apple Vision Pro by combining the  symbol with Vision Pro. > Correct: Get started with Apple Vision Pro. > Incorrect: Get started with  Vision Pro. https://help.apple.com/pdf/applestyleguide/en_US/apple-style-guide.pdf https://help.apple.com/pdf/applestyleguide/en_US/apple-style... (p. 28)

alexpotato 3y ago

> Every app on Quest has to reinvent how buttons work, how a scroll view works, how far away from the user the content should be etc.. and every app works differently. On visionOS, all of this is handled by Apple, and every app looks and feels the same. I remember the days when EVERY application in Windows had "File" in the upper left hand corner. You could make a good bet that "Edit" was next and "Preferences" was somewhere in there as well. Being "good with computers" back then had a lot to do with knowing the standard layout of applications to help guide you through where things ought to be or, at least, could plausibly be found. I applaud Apple for keeping this going in this modern world we live in of SAAS websites that each do their own thing.

deleted 3y ago

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ramesh31 3y ago

>But using without the Light Seal is a massive improvement. You’re closer to the screen, so it reduces the tunnel vision and expands the effective field-of-view. And rather than a black edge, you have a frame, with outside visibility. Same thoughts for Quest 3. I use mine exclusively without the light seal now. It is a huge improvement in the ability to just casually use the thing among friends and not seem like a weirdo, and having your peripheral vision massively adds to the overall comfort of the experience. I've found paradoxically that it increases the feeling of presence for passthrough when it feels like you're just looking through a pair of glasses instead of something suction-cupped to your face. This whole idea of "locking in" to VR and closing out the outside world needs to go away. True AR that doesn't remove you from the world is the only future for these devices. This goes ditto for controllers. The vast majority of people have never held a game controller in their lives. We (as gamers and nerds) take it as second nature, but I've seen it as the single biggest barrier to entry with demoing VR to random folks. Sticking with hand/finger based gesture tracking and rejecting controllers was the absolute best decision Apple made for Vision Pro.

Rinzler89 3y ago
>This whole idea of "locking in" to VR and closing out the outside world needs to go away. Why? >True AR that doesn't remove you from the world is the only future for these devices. Again, why? What if I want to be removed? I bought my VR headset during the pandemic precisely for indoor escapism. I want to be transported and immersed into another universe, not see AR stuff floating around between the same four walls of my tiny apartment that I see all day everyday. It would drive me nuts and I can do that stuff on the cheap with my phone/Ipad.
- PaulHoule 3y ago
  Immersive experiences work. I am playing Demeter on the MQ3 which is an AR game where you control a platforming character in a floating island that materializes in your room. It is fun but not anything you couldn’t experience in full VR in a game like Angry Birds VR which you can’t play on AVP because… The whole look and pinch thing goes only so far. It is great for a demo but it means the apps won’t be there other than tablet apps that hang in the air. I am still puzzled as to how to implement navigation in WebXR for the AVP. If you had a true optical passthrough AR headset that is one thing but it is absurd for a $3500 device which is hardware capable of immersive apps to be kneecapped by software and the control scheme.

btown 3y ago

> The biggest innovation with Vision Pro is visionOS. visionOS provides native app frameworks, so developers can build apps for it. That sounds ridiculously obvious, and yet its something Meta have failed to offer for years. Every app on Quest has to reinvent how buttons work, how a scroll view works, how far away from the user the content should be etc.. and every app works differently. On visionOS, all of this is handled by Apple, and every app looks and feels the same. Meta does have standardized utilities for translating movement to touch/drag/etc. interactions on arbitrary virtual surfaces: https://developers.facebook.com/blog/post/2022/11/22/building-intuitive-interactions-vr/ https://developers.facebook.com/blog/post/2022/11/22/buildin... https://developer.oculus.com/documentation/unity/unity-isdk-interaction-sdk-overview/ https://developer.oculus.com/documentation/unity/unity-isdk-... But it doesn't seem (AFAIK) to answer the other side of this, which is the UI design system so apps have a consistent look and feel. Which is perhaps more common coming from a game development perspective, but ever since the Mac OS shareware days, Apple's understood that it's empowering to a certain kind of developer if you make it easy/the default path for them to build experiences that match a standardized look and feel. I'm honestly surprised that Meta didn't at least make an optional SDK for this.

IshKebab 3y ago
Because apps on Quest are universally games, and those pretty much never use standard controls. They don't even all use the same engine, so Meta would have to provide a UE SDK, a Unity SDK, etc. I never felt this was remotely an issue with the Quest, and more than it is with desktop games.
- PaulHoule 3y ago
  It's annoying as hell for applications like Immersed and for media players. If every app had a different way to position windows and the UI was good in 50% of them it would be one thing but every app I've seen with floating windows is terribly awkward, although anybody can think up a number of alternatives that ought to work better.
kfarr 3y ago
I agree that Meta has tried but their solution is really completely different than a more traditional OS UI. Meta provides low level convenience functions SDK for the various native app development frameworks (mostly Unity and Unreal) to access the hardware and facilitate common movements, but the actual UI implementation is up to the app author resulting in a helter skelter hodge podge of varying UI from app to app. Even in the first link you provided above, after introducing many alternate concepts then it shows screenshots of wildly varying interfaces across multiple apps.

humean1 3y ago

+1 on guest mode. Handing the headset to someone else is a high-friction point with the calibration that needs to be done on every swap. Oftentimes I want to show someone the current experience without needing to setup a mirror and handing over the headset is the most intuitive way to do so.

wongarsu 3y ago

The pervasive blocking of copyrighted content in screenshots and screen sharing sounds mildly dystopian. The article lists several examples where this actually hurts the Vision Pro (in terms of ability to share cool moments or being able to demo it), so I wonder why the feature made it in? Is it a move by Apple to make sure immersive videos don't get pirated and made available to Quest and Vive users, or is there external pressure from studios?

golergka 3y ago
This also doesn't make sense for the copyright owner interests. Don't you want people to share screenshots of your movies and shows?
- wilg 3y ago
  I agree it doesn't make any sense. But this is unfortunately the deal with Hollywood and they surely just ported the same functionality from iOS.
- warkdarrior 3y ago
  If I can take a screenshot, I can copy the whole movie.
  - monomyth 3y ago
    if you can see it you can copy it.
  - golergka 3y ago
    Technically, yes. Practically, it's unfeasible. Legally, there's a pretty sharp distinction between copying one frame to share with friends or on social media and copying all the friends with an intent of copying the entire movie.
adamwk 3y ago
It's the same on iPhone for i'm guessing DRM content
3y ago

brentm 3y ago

Agree with his assessment on passthrough. I think it's the #1 disappointment I've found with the Vision Pro. It's good, def better than other devices I've used but it's no where near as good as it has been described. That being said, video experience, other graphics are a lot better than I expected.

bsimpson 3y ago

> The only way to check progress over slow hotel wifi was to look at the progress circle, which is also the cancel button. I was aware that every time I checked progress, I was one finger-spasm away from cancelling the whole download. oooof > Every app on Quest has to reinvent how buttons work, how a scroll view works, how far away from the user the content should be etc.. and every app works differently. kinda shocked there's not a Material Components equivalent for Quest. I guess it's designed like a game system (where custom menus are standard), but that's a reinforcing loop. As long as there's no standard component system, it'll continue to be game-centric.

throwaway2203 3y ago
I'm actually not sure which button does what on the Quest. I usually click them all until something happens.
- Auracle 3y ago
  There’s a game on my Quest - I don’t remember which one - where when you hold the controllers up close to your face it pops up the controls, with arrows pointing to each button. That should be all but standardized, other than exceptions in games where that could be a problem. It’s not so bad when you’re used to the system, but giving it to someone and trying to explain what button does what isn’t exactly fun. You usually end up needing to move their fingers for them, and playing a weird version of that scene from Ghost with my father-in-law isn’t my version of a good time.
achow 3y ago
Now I'm not sure what their army of designers were doing? This is 101 of product design - put in place a standard UI Guidelines. This is particularly important for a 'platform' player like what Meta is aiming for (Ex. from other platform/OS - Windows UI Guidelines, Apple's Human Interface Guidelines, Google's Material Design, etc..)
- m463 3y ago
  > This is 101 of product design I think there's an emphasis on shipping a feature over shipping a cohesive product. Shipping simple vs functional one. and churn seems to be getting in the way of mature products.

wpm 3y ago

> I was downloading Star Wars for my flight back to London. The only way to check progress over slow hotel wifi was to look at the progress circle, which is also the cancel button. I was aware that every time I checked progress, I was one finger-spasm away from cancelling the whole download Oh god this. The last 10 years of UX trends where everything has to be two or three different actions behind a single tap or tap and hold does NOT translate well onto AVP. Most iPad apps are nigh unusable, esp those with high information density. Vision is not quite as precise as a mouse cursor but it definitely not as imprecise as a tap, but only when the UI is predictable. Because where you are looking is also how you read, every informational field also needs to include either both the information and the action, or they need to be separated out. So far there is no bigger culprit than the native Music app. The bottom of the player has like three nested buttons that all do different shit. The same place you look to see what song is playing is also a hidden progress/playback scrubber and also a shortcut to switch to the miniplayer if you happen to look at the eye catching album art icon directly next to the title of the song. It’s maddening.

actionfromafar 3y ago
Try hanging up a call on your smartphone and your counterpart hanged up a a fraction of a second before you. Now you call someone (pretty deep down) in your recent call list. Or click "Connect to Bluetooth headset" in Windows. Congratulations, your headset just connected itself, so you now you disconnected it. Just brilliant, overall.
- averageRoyalty 3y ago
  > Try hanging up a call on your smartphone and your counterpart hanged up a a fraction of a second before you. Now you call someone (pretty deep down) in your recent call list. I do this daily and it infuriates me. I am also a fast typer on both touch and physical. As a result I often type into an auto complete box (e.g. kagi, gmail, etc) and see the result I want come up midway through my type. As I'm going to click or tap it, I am often in the 200ms window where that result is replaced by another or the list is reordered in some way. Dynamically loading webpages are also a plague of the last decade for the same reason. They load an initial layout, often interactable. Then as you're going to click or tap, they dynamically load other elements or content, reordering and moving things around the page! If you don't have anything n̵i̵c̵e̵ ̵t̵o̵ ̵s̵a̵y̵,̵ ̵d̵o̵n̵'̵t̵ ̵s̵a̵y̵ ̵a̵n̵y̵t̵h̵i̵n̵g̵ ̵a̵t̵ ̵a̵l̵l̵ ready to load, don't load anything at all.

leetharris 3y ago

I owned one and this article is perfectly accurate. This guy hit the nail on the head on everything. Passthrough is massively oversold, even if it's technically impressive. They set expectations way too high. The comfort is the #1 reason I don't own a Vision Pro anymore. I feel exactly as the author put it, "relieved," when I take it off. I feel significantly more disconnected from my family when I have it on because I have no easy way to share my content with them. A massively improved guest mode, better casting, or something else would go a long way here. The eye tracking + tap is incredible, but Apple tried to shoehorn this into everything. It should have been the primary mode of interaction with a detailed/precision interaction when needed. Eye tracking + tap is simply not good enough for power user use cases. It was such a relief to go back to my Quest after Vision Pro because the controllers were so precise and easy to use. And finally, I'll mention that the OS + standardization of UX is HUGE. The Quest feels like a crappy Chinese clone in comparison. Every single window has a completely different way of moving, adjusting, etc. Sometimes you click in the center, sometimes you click under, sometimes you can't move it at all. On the Vision Pro, everything is standardized. I'd love to see Meta fix this.

archagon 3y ago
I also feel like the lack of precise/physical controls is going to make gaming a non-starter. Which is really the main reason I’m excited about VR in the first place.
- causi 3y ago
  Owning a Rift and a Quest 2 has pretty much convinced me I'll never be into VR. VR makes for incredible immersion but, for me, terrible gaming. Instead of putting the cool stuff from games into reality, it puts the worst parts of reality into my games. Instead of walking and crouching with a touch of a finger, now I have to walk and crouch. To look behind me I have to actually turn around. Instead of everything being in focus all the time, I have to look at things one by one. Not for me.
  - imzadi 3y ago

ksec 3y ago

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taeric 3y ago

I'm still very curious exactly what people had in mind for this. Like, from all reports, it is a very good VR headset. But... what do people think they will use a VR headset for? Heck, the PS5 VR headset seems to be having trouble selling, and it is very good at what it is designed for. Anyone buying the PSVR2 knows they are getting it to play games. Solo games, at that. Yes, you can do a party mode for Beat Saber and a few other games. No, it isn't much more compelling than any other "group" version of video games. It is very immersive, though. So, what did the non-gamer community hope for from this? What is there to feed those hopes?

toddmorey 3y ago
I'm most interested in the virtual screens (no more large monitors) and the opportunity for AI assisted instructions / guidance as I do tasks like home repair.
- taeric 3y ago
  This sounds neat, but I confess I'm already not clear that my large monitors count as a massive productivity increase over my laptop monitor. Certainly helps in some ways, but once I know what it is I need to do, the laptop is never a blocking item. The home repair ideas is certainly a neat one. Guessing it will be a while before the content is readily available in large quantities?
Eugr 3y ago
It's a very good XR headset. My primary use is to use it as a portable display, so I'm not chained to my desk all day. Also great for travel. Great to watch movies too. Since it runs most iPad apps, it can be used for some light productivity workflows even without a Mac. You can use Bluetooth keyboard if you need to type a lot, but the virtual keyboard is surprisingly decent for quick replies.
- taeric 3y ago
  I'd be interested in seeing stats on how often people actually "get away from their desk" in a way that needs a computer. Specifically ways that aren't already covered by a phone.

FumblingBear 3y ago

One of the most important and key points I hope Apple iterates on in an upcoming version is some type of universal undo action. It's immensely frustrating to be watching a video in the photos app and swipe a tiny bit wrong only to lose all current progress in the video even after you swipe back. Even scrubbing controls for long videos (1+ hours) can be super finnicky and it's tough to select accurately. The traditional scrubbing method of holding while moving vertically to scrub at slower speeds doesn't seem to work either. As a result, I'm often catching myself in frustrating situations where I'd like to just __UNDO__ whatever action I previously took was. Either jumping around a video to the previous timestamp, or undoing the close safari tab button I didn't mean to select, or any number of other things I accidentally press due to the options being just a little too close to each other. It's just a mild annoyance, but it's something that would massively improve my experience with using the device, as someone who has spent a LOT of time in it nearly every day since release.

euroderf 3y ago
Some iPhone apps have a "shake the phone to undo", but I've never ever seen anyone use this feature. So, perhaps not a useful precedent.
- weikju 3y ago
  But I've seen plenty of people being confused by the popup about undoing when they just as shake their phone a little bit for other reasons (moving around for example). I always disable this feature.
- RockRobotRock 3y ago
  It's really funny when apps use the shake gesture to file bug reports
crummy 3y ago
The gesture could be a fist clench, naturally occurring when you angrily realise you've deleted the wrong thing.

oldpersonintx 3y ago

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carefish 3y ago

I would love to hear from people that have tried to use this headset whilst wearing prescription glasses. Is Apple's own statement "You cannot wear Apple Vision Pro while wearing eyeglasses." accurate?

netruk44 3y ago
I just tried on mine for only a few seconds. Technically, it seemed to work. However, because I had to remove the prescription lenses, the device wanted to redo hand and eye setup, so I quickly took it off again. Notes on the experience... - On the solo loop band I had to turn the knob to loosen the strap a lot to get enough clearance to position my glasses within the device. The dual loop band probably would not work at all (I didn’t try). - My glasses are just barely narrow enough to fit within my light seal (25W). It's definitely not a guarantee everybody's glasses will fit into their own light seal. - Once in, the eye tracking was very off, basically unusable. However, I did not do gaze calibration with my glasses on. That would probably improve things, but I suspect the device will always have issues correctly tracking gaze through glasses because normal glasses lenses can distort your eyes more than it’s expecting. - There's really not much space between your glasses and the inside lenses on the vision pro. It seems like your glasses would start rubbing up against the inside lenses very easily, causing permanent scratches on one or the other. So technically you can, but I would not recommend it. I’d rather just spend the $150 for the official lenses.
dagmx 3y ago
You’ll have multiple issues. I’ve tried using prescription glasses with many eye tracking solutions in the past and they all have the same issues. 1. There’s very little space for your glasses and you’ll end up scratching both your glasses and the optics 2. You’ll partially obscure eye tracking. 3. Eye tracking will be significantly warped across your glasses. You’ll have drastically reduced quality. This is extra bad if you’re astigmatic. Prescription inserts or contacts are the correct way to use these kinds of devices for strong reasons.

bookofjoe 3y ago

I bought Vision Pro and used it as is for three weeks, then put it away for a couple weeks because of degree of difficulty for me, definitely NOT a techie. On a whim I went to the optometrist, got examined and a prescription for glasses (I use over-the-counter 1.25x readers from CVS), then uploaded the Rx to Zeiss using their iPhone app, and ponied up $149 for their optical inserts. Since the inserts arrived and I put them in, my experience overall with VP has been better: still way too difficult and confusing, but movies and TV shows, which were the only redeeming factors in my initial three weeks of use, seem really, really crisp and vivid, more so than initially. Take these observations with a grain of salt, after all, it's a series of one 75-year-old retired neurosurgical anesthesiologist's experiences. But if you've already dropped 4k, well, that's a lot of sunk cost to write off without trying everything possible to make it work. At least that was my thinking.

killjoywashere 3y ago
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Freedom2 3y ago

The Vision Pro has been a massive disappointment for me and my colleagues. I was ready for the flood of Hacker News articles praising its capabilities as well as tips and tricks, including "look what I did today with it!". This discourse was promised to me by many regular HN commenters and I can't believe we're at a state where the general feeling is that the Vision Pro doesn't live up to the HN hype.

zmmmmm 3y ago
HN has always seemed ambivalent to me. There's a crowd of enthusiasts for it but a surprisingly strong contingent of sceptics (about VR in general, but also specifically this device). My take is however that yes at this point, Vision OS has failed to hit the aspirational goal of launching XR into the mainstream. There's no App store gold rush, after the initial couple of weeks of hype most people forgot it exists, and I'm truly surprised that Apple seems to have even fumbled the ball on content. That seemed like the easy part to me, but no new environments, nothing new to watch, the Apps hitting the store are mostly toys and really zero things that haven't been done before or fully explored on other devices. Nobody is raving about watching sports on it. etc etc. What I really hoped was that the novel features of the Vision Pro would kick off a new wave of creativity in terms of what is possible. When I saw people pulling 3D objects out of web pages and onto their desk it really seemed like this could be a true start of something. The one upside I think is that the slightly anemic launch is probably going to bias Apple to be more open and less controlling than they would otherwise. I hope so.
- kredd 3y ago
  My guess is, there’s a significant chunk of people who tried Quest or some other VR device that’s close, so AVP is not the first to the market device. Expectations have been set, comparisons are inevitable, and I would say a lot of use cases have been explored already. Sure, you can probably do things in a more refined way in AVP, and some cool VisionOS specific stuff, but it’s generally within the same realm as other VR devices. Apple will have an uphill battle until they show experiences that cannot be replicated in other devices, rather than “you can do X here as well, maybe slightly better”. I held off from ordering for the same reason — bought Quest, tried it for a week, still sitting in my shelves since last year. Every advertised thing for AVP I can already do on my phone or laptop, without the need to strap on/off an object onto my face. I really hope they come up with cool stuff and make it more comfortable to wear, but until then, I don’t think it’ll gain a mainstream adoption.

aaron695 3y ago

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pipeline_peak 3y ago

The delusion of tv scuba goggles is exactly why big tech has no taste, it’s out of touch. All you Raspberry Pi guys, no non techie person is looking at these toys like the first iPhone back in 2007. We really need a new Steve Jobs to shake things up. Someone to say “this is stupid, show me again in 15 years”. When they’re actual glasses and cost less than $1000

jdprgm 3y ago

That is completely psychotic blacking out single frame screenshots for copyright reasons. Copyright is truly out of control and just comically ridiculous at this point.

HaZeust 3y ago
Always has been. Tom Scott did a great video on copyright [1] - it's long overdue to revamp. 1 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Jwo5qc78QU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Jwo5qc78QU
russelg 3y ago
It's not blacking out on purpose, rather it's a side-effect of the DRM chain. The DRM content is rendered outside of the UI chain, so it cannot be captured as part of a normal screenshot or video. The same happens on macOS (and even windows) if you try to screen record while watching DRM L1 content such as Netflix, Apple TV+, etc.
- RockRobotRock 3y ago
  Widevine and HDCP can seriously suck it. Look at any torrent site and tell me that it stops piracy
- kuschkufan 3y ago
  DRM is on purpose.

satvikpendem 3y ago

As long as I cannot install applications of my own choosing onto a headset, the entire thing is dead to me. Imagine macOS having such a restriction, for a supposed future of computing.

dhg72 3y ago
Smartphones are the future of computing and have this restriction
- dmz73 3y ago
  Correction, Apple smartphones have that restriction. Android and Linux based smartphones allow user to install any affiliation of their choice.
- gkbrk 3y ago
  Not Android ones.

willemlaurentz 3y ago

Fellow Vision Pro owner here, I recognise many of the articles critiques, yet I do still enjoy working in augmented reality. Like he says, it is a impressive "v1" product. I know that I might be a little biased as I really organised my work flow around using iPad, selecting apps that work for me. The transition to VisionOS is much easier then, as most of the apps are simply there in 3D space. I have tried to connect my MacBook, but then you have this weird mix of UX concepts (mouse, keyboard, look+tap), that's not for me. In my experience I find it comfortable enough that I forget sometimes that I am looking at digital content. Here on X I added a few photos to give you a little extra context of how I work: https://x.com/wlmiddelkoop/status/1769765197948850463?s=20 https://x.com/wlmiddelkoop/status/1769765197948850463?s=20

riwsky 3y ago

I know something’s off about the visionOS keyboard—but I can’t put my finger on it.

imwillofficial 3y ago
I spit my coffee out at this one hahahaahaha

matt3210 3y ago

It needs a vertical top strap to not need it extra tight

whywhywhywhy 3y ago

I was surprised the video playing over water which seems to be one of the best demos of the device, the reflection is running a frame behind the video above the water so when a cut happens theres an obvious mismatch in the reflection. Doesn't feel it would be difficult to fix this with video playback, sorta thing I'd expect Apple to solve.

junon 3y ago

This article is 100% accurate. I found myself agreeing with everything written here. Hopefully someone at Apple reads this and takes it to heart when deciding what to improve for a V2. I might actually buy one if they address some of these problems, despite having been avoiding the hype until a coworker bought one and let us try it. Passthrough was really disappointing. That part actually kind of shocked me, so many reviews online stating they forgot they were wearing the headset. I can't imagine how, though - it's like looking through drunk goggles. The rendered content was unbelievable though. I own a Valve Index and the Vision Pro blew it out of the water for pixel density. Mind-blowing.

roody15 3y ago

“ The most practical solution is to use a physical keyboard, via Mac Virtual Screen or connecting one directly, but this is a bandaid solution. ” Just silly. If you cannot easily input data without and extra accessory than it’s just a fail in this case. Imagine building the headset and then booking up a keyboard and then sitting next to an outlet because it doesn’t hold a charge very long…… almost like using a laptop may be more efficient. Honestly looks like we are still a few years away from cool cyberpunk level VR/AR.