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I own an Apple Vision Pro and I think it's one of the most impressive pieces of technology that I almost never use, for two reasons: 1. Too much startup fricti

by jart 2y ago

I own an Apple Vision Pro and I think it's one of the most impressive pieces of technology that I almost never use, for two reasons: 1. Too much startup friction. I share the Apple Vision Pro with someone else who like me also loves it and uses it all the time. But since we both wear glasses, there's a 2x ~10 minute process for recalibrating the eyesight each time we switch. It's an expensive device at $3500 which I'm happy to pay for quality, but to pay that twice, I just couldn't bring myself to do it. Apple goes too far with the greed here not letting us set up separate profiles. Netflix wouldn't get away with that. You not only have to repeat the setup process when switching, you have to share access to your apple user account too. 2. My main interest in a vision headset is I want a new virtual workstation where I can watch movies on a gigantic screen beneath a gigantic translucent terminal where I can do my daily work. There's a nice app called La Terminal that does just that. Sadly it has some serious keyboard latency issues since I don't think they've put as much focus into their support for this platform. I won't tolerate anything less than optimal latency in my work tools. So until I get around to building a terminal app for Vision Pro on my own, there's not a whole lot I'm interested in doing with it aside from watching the occasional movie on the moon. I would also really like for Vision Pro to have an ethernet port because I don't know how to run a wifi network without jitter. If you haven't tried one of these things, then you really should. I didn't realize when I first put one on that it was a fully synthetic display until I tried reading the 10pt text on my computer monitor. It's really a stunning thing to witness. This Vision Pro is probably the best glimpse we can get today of what the singularity is going to be like in the future. So definitely give it a try at least once.

brailsafe 2y ago
I can respect that it's probably worth trying, or even worth buying if you have a particular case for it and a rather large income, but I guess what is lost on me about the AVP (and by extension iPads, more expensive phones) is that they just seem to be a way to extract multiple thousands of dollars for essentially the same entertainment we've already been doing quite well for a very long time. Like how much should watching stuff be worth to people!? Am I crazy? I don't even dislike movies, but $3500 usd might be what I already spend on all forms of entertainment + 2 years worth of food, and maybe all of my transportation for half a year or more, combined. I'd just kind of hope for something more substantial y'know?
- jack_pp 2y ago
  For that price or maybe a little more you could buy a 4k projector and a nice screen that would make watching a movie a whole lot nicer > $3500 usd might be what I already spend on all forms of entertainment + 2 years worth of food Where do you live? I live in Romania and even my mom who makes around 1000e a month spends like 400e on food, so she spends around 5k euros a year on food
  - johnnyanmac 2y ago
    that's 145 USD/month for me. It's not impossible, but you're not eating out ever and are basically on little more than a rice and beans diet at that point.
  - adrian_b 2y ago
    It is easy to spend EUR 400 for the monthly food, or even much more, if you buy industrially-processed food and various kinds of food that are tasty, but which are expensive and unnecessary. Nevertheless, not only in Romania, but probably in most countries of the European Union, a human can spend for food only between EUR 100 and EUR 150 per month, while still eating very healthy food, with the condition of cooking at home and buying only raw ingredients. Even the industrially-made bread is at least 3 to 4 times more expensive than the bread made at home. For other kinds of food, the price ratio between buying and making at home is even greater.
    - richrichardsson 2y ago
      > a human can spend for food only between EUR 100 and EUR 150 per month Try that in Croatia, you'll soon be dead or at least severely malnourished.
    - cfn 2y ago
      I spend way more than 100/week in food for two people. To spend less than a quarter of that I would have to scale down or remove fruit, vegetables, meat or fish from the menu. Probably would have to eat pasta and rice with some sauces all the time which isn't healthy at all. And I'm in Portugal, not the most expensive place in Europe by a long shot.
tobr 2y ago
> one of the most impressive pieces of technology that I almost never use > someone else who like me also loves it and uses it all the time Wait, do you almost never use it or do you use it all the time?
- fsckboy 2y ago
  he loves it, almost never uses it, while she also loves it, but she also uses it all the time. (pronouns chosen to make it easy to distinguish two people, with no knowledge of anybody's sex or gender, but since sex and gender shouldn't matter, it shouldn't matter)
llm_trw 2y ago
> I didn't realize when I first put one on that it was a fully synthetic display until I tried reading the 10pt text on my computer monitor. Can you elaborate on this? I've not looked at it since it came out. Does this mean that you can look at your computer monitors while using it, or that it's replacing your computer monitors because it has a high enough resolution? Every other display I've tried has far too low pixel density to be used for serious work, which is rather unfortunate.
- madeofpalk 2y ago
  When compared to a monitor in front of you (at the distance the physical monitor is), Apple Vision Pro is actually pretty low resolution. They say it has high resolution 4k or 8k displays, but all those pixels are "wasted" on your entire field of view. The actual 'monitors' or windows are a subset of that, and so will be drawn with less physical pixels than a real monitor.
  - llm_trw 2y ago
    Sounds about right. I'd love to see 32k displays in my life. The same type of people who said that you don't need more than 24Hz for displays are now saying you don't need more than 4k and they are just as right then as they are now.
johnnyanmac 2y ago
>I won't tolerate anything less than optimal latency in my work tools. for $3500 I don't expect any primary shortcoming, especially for something I'd use professionally. There's a lot of substitute hardware I could buy to get the same experience at that point, so I see no need to compromsise just becasue it's a shiny new toy.
- jart 2y ago
  Shortcomings aren't the worst thing when you're an early adopter. I see that as an opportunity to build the #1 terminal emulator for the platform. Make myself a little money on the side. The Vision Pro could easily pay for itself. That's what I'd be doing if I weren't so busy with other things.
  - johnnyanmac 2y ago
    An attractive idea, but You need to invest so much in the apple ecosystem before you even get to start developing for Apple. I'd want to at least tinker with the idea before I fully commit.
    - jart 2y ago
      What do you mean by this? Why can't I just use Xcode to build my app and ask Apple for a signing key and wait for approval to publish it to their app store?
      - johnnyanmac 2y ago
        "You" can. I don't own any apple hardware, though. So I'd need to invest some $4500 of investment just to start. I guess that's more of a "me" problem.
        jart 2y ago
        Well this is why the rich get richer.
bryanrasmussen 2y ago
>Apple goes too far with the greed here not letting us set up separate profiles Apple really has one of the worst workflows around user accounts, I have to think it is because of some legacy reasons that means it would be a big project to fix (based on other companies I've worked at that lousy user accounts and couldn't fix)
- lancesells 2y ago
  If they have it in tvOS is it that far away from having it in ipadOS?
  - davidee 2y ago
    In with an annoying "acutally".. I wish I wasn't but I just filed some feedback with Apple today (really this morning) on how the "profiles" on Apple TV are a misnomer. They're not real. Here's our experience for what it's worth and why I say misnomer. I setup an Apple TV in a parent's apartment. It turns out that when they re-arrange the icons, even if they're in their profile, they rearrange the icons on the "default" profile - which is mine. So I came home to an Apple TV with the apps all moved around. Digging into it, it seems that while there is the cover of "user profiles" on Apple TV, they simple aren't useful. Logged in apps stay logged in across all profiles. So it's not like a browser profile where you can have two different logins to say Jellyfin or Plex or Youtube or Disney+. As such, the profiles are indeed a misnomer when compared to what any reasonable user would expect of changing "profiles." In other words, a sham! Ref from reddit confirming as much: https://old.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/qeatju/the_way_that_user_profiles_work_on_apple_tv_made/ https://old.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/qeatju/the_way_that_... Ref from Apple that buries the lede: https://support.apple.com/en-ca/guide/tv/atvb0753b37d/tvos https://support.apple.com/en-ca/guide/tv/atvb0753b37d/tvos Here's the salient bit from that apple page: When each member in a household has an Apple Account, you can create unique user profiles for each person, with Up Next lists, system language preferences, paired AirPods settings, music, Game Center data, and content recommendations personalized for the currently active user. Note how little profiles actually do. You can't use your own logins to any services, or have a home screen that is yours with your apps. It's still just a one-user device sadly.
pjmlp 2y ago
No thanks, so far no VR headset has sorted out the problem of having little screens so close to the eyes, for people with light sensitive vision needing to wear light redution glasses when working with regular screens.

by jart 2y ago

brailsafe 2y ago

I can respect that it's probably worth trying, or even worth buying if you have a particular case for it and a rather large income, but I guess what is lost on me about the AVP (and by extension iPads, more expensive phones) is that they just seem to be a way to extract multiple thousands of dollars for essentially the same entertainment we've already been doing quite well for a very long time. Like how much should watching stuff be worth to people!? Am I crazy? I don't even dislike movies, but $3500 usd might be what I already spend on all forms of entertainment + 2 years worth of food, and maybe all of my transportation for half a year or more, combined. I'd just kind of hope for something more substantial y'know?

jack_pp 2y ago
For that price or maybe a little more you could buy a 4k projector and a nice screen that would make watching a movie a whole lot nicer > $3500 usd might be what I already spend on all forms of entertainment + 2 years worth of food Where do you live? I live in Romania and even my mom who makes around 1000e a month spends like 400e on food, so she spends around 5k euros a year on food
- johnnyanmac 2y ago
  that's 145 USD/month for me. It's not impossible, but you're not eating out ever and are basically on little more than a rice and beans diet at that point.
- adrian_b 2y ago
  It is easy to spend EUR 400 for the monthly food, or even much more, if you buy industrially-processed food and various kinds of food that are tasty, but which are expensive and unnecessary. Nevertheless, not only in Romania, but probably in most countries of the European Union, a human can spend for food only between EUR 100 and EUR 150 per month, while still eating very healthy food, with the condition of cooking at home and buying only raw ingredients. Even the industrially-made bread is at least 3 to 4 times more expensive than the bread made at home. For other kinds of food, the price ratio between buying and making at home is even greater.
  - richrichardsson 2y ago
    > a human can spend for food only between EUR 100 and EUR 150 per month Try that in Croatia, you'll soon be dead or at least severely malnourished.
  - cfn 2y ago
    I spend way more than 100/week in food for two people. To spend less than a quarter of that I would have to scale down or remove fruit, vegetables, meat or fish from the menu. Probably would have to eat pasta and rice with some sauces all the time which isn't healthy at all. And I'm in Portugal, not the most expensive place in Europe by a long shot.

tobr 2y ago

> one of the most impressive pieces of technology that I almost never use > someone else who like me also loves it and uses it all the time Wait, do you almost never use it or do you use it all the time?

fsckboy 2y ago
he loves it, almost never uses it, while she also loves it, but she also uses it all the time. (pronouns chosen to make it easy to distinguish two people, with no knowledge of anybody's sex or gender, but since sex and gender shouldn't matter, it shouldn't matter)

llm_trw 2y ago

> I didn't realize when I first put one on that it was a fully synthetic display until I tried reading the 10pt text on my computer monitor. Can you elaborate on this? I've not looked at it since it came out. Does this mean that you can look at your computer monitors while using it, or that it's replacing your computer monitors because it has a high enough resolution? Every other display I've tried has far too low pixel density to be used for serious work, which is rather unfortunate.

madeofpalk 2y ago
When compared to a monitor in front of you (at the distance the physical monitor is), Apple Vision Pro is actually pretty low resolution. They say it has high resolution 4k or 8k displays, but all those pixels are "wasted" on your entire field of view. The actual 'monitors' or windows are a subset of that, and so will be drawn with less physical pixels than a real monitor.
- llm_trw 2y ago
  Sounds about right. I'd love to see 32k displays in my life. The same type of people who said that you don't need more than 24Hz for displays are now saying you don't need more than 4k and they are just as right then as they are now.

johnnyanmac 2y ago

>I won't tolerate anything less than optimal latency in my work tools. for $3500 I don't expect any primary shortcoming, especially for something I'd use professionally. There's a lot of substitute hardware I could buy to get the same experience at that point, so I see no need to compromsise just becasue it's a shiny new toy.

jart 2y ago
Shortcomings aren't the worst thing when you're an early adopter. I see that as an opportunity to build the #1 terminal emulator for the platform. Make myself a little money on the side. The Vision Pro could easily pay for itself. That's what I'd be doing if I weren't so busy with other things.
- johnnyanmac 2y ago
  An attractive idea, but You need to invest so much in the apple ecosystem before you even get to start developing for Apple. I'd want to at least tinker with the idea before I fully commit.
  - jart 2y ago
    What do you mean by this? Why can't I just use Xcode to build my app and ask Apple for a signing key and wait for approval to publish it to their app store?
    - johnnyanmac 2y ago
      "You" can. I don't own any apple hardware, though. So I'd need to invest some $4500 of investment just to start. I guess that's more of a "me" problem.
      - jart 2y ago
        Well this is why the rich get richer.

bryanrasmussen 2y ago

>Apple goes too far with the greed here not letting us set up separate profiles Apple really has one of the worst workflows around user accounts, I have to think it is because of some legacy reasons that means it would be a big project to fix (based on other companies I've worked at that lousy user accounts and couldn't fix)

lancesells 2y ago
If they have it in tvOS is it that far away from having it in ipadOS?
- davidee 2y ago
  In with an annoying "acutally".. I wish I wasn't but I just filed some feedback with Apple today (really this morning) on how the "profiles" on Apple TV are a misnomer. They're not real. Here's our experience for what it's worth and why I say misnomer. I setup an Apple TV in a parent's apartment. It turns out that when they re-arrange the icons, even if they're in their profile, they rearrange the icons on the "default" profile - which is mine. So I came home to an Apple TV with the apps all moved around. Digging into it, it seems that while there is the cover of "user profiles" on Apple TV, they simple aren't useful. Logged in apps stay logged in across all profiles. So it's not like a browser profile where you can have two different logins to say Jellyfin or Plex or Youtube or Disney+. As such, the profiles are indeed a misnomer when compared to what any reasonable user would expect of changing "profiles." In other words, a sham! Ref from reddit confirming as much: https://old.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/qeatju/the_way_that_user_profiles_work_on_apple_tv_made/ https://old.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/qeatju/the_way_that_... Ref from Apple that buries the lede: https://support.apple.com/en-ca/guide/tv/atvb0753b37d/tvos https://support.apple.com/en-ca/guide/tv/atvb0753b37d/tvos Here's the salient bit from that apple page: When each member in a household has an Apple Account, you can create unique user profiles for each person, with Up Next lists, system language preferences, paired AirPods settings, music, Game Center data, and content recommendations personalized for the currently active user. Note how little profiles actually do. You can't use your own logins to any services, or have a home screen that is yours with your apps. It's still just a one-user device sadly.

pjmlp 2y ago

No thanks, so far no VR headset has sorted out the problem of having little screens so close to the eyes, for people with light sensitive vision needing to wear light redution glasses when working with regular screens.