5 ms·

VisionOS 26 keeps pushing Apple's newest platform toward the future

42 points by tosh 1y ago

meindnoch 1y ago
Across the globe more than a dozen Vision Pro owners rejoiced!
- runjake 1y ago
  According to the best estimates, a little more than 500,000 Vision Pro units have been sold. Pretty good for what is tantamount to a prototype. It was mentioned somewhere during WWDC that "hundreds of companies" are using Vision Pro, so that's at least 200 companies, as well.
  - andsoitis 1y ago
    > Pretty good for what is tantamount to a prototype. Prototype? I do not get that impression from Apple's very prominent product placement: https://www.apple.com/apple-vision-pro/ https://www.apple.com/apple-vision-pro/
    - runjake 1y ago
      Tantamount (adjective): Equivalent in meaning or effect. Apple did the same with Apple Watch when sales were low and returns were high. Because they believed in the product. Apple believes in Apple Vision Pro, as well. Hell, I believe in the Apple Vision Pro, too. I think it's a significant part of the future. The price is just far too high for me.
    - haswell 1y ago
      I think it’s fairly widely understood at this point that the product Apple wants to ship is more like glasses than a helmet. But the tech to achieve this isn’t there yet, and the current product is a necessary iteration to get to that future. Apple will of course heavily market/sell the current iteration of the product in the short term - but I don’t think it’s unreasonable to view this as a prototype given what we know about their longer term ambitions and the limitations of the current hardware.
      - jorvi 1y ago
        Pretty much what happened with the MacBook Air. The MacBook Air was preceded by the MacBook 2011 (yes, horrible model name to search). It had no keyboard backlight, an 11" crappy screen, short battery life and it overheated. But compared to contemporary laptops it was futuristic. What do you mean, a laptop you can slide into an envelope? But then it was followed up swiftly by a secondary model and then the MacBook Air. With the MacBook Air it really started to become a nice device. Another device that comes to mind is the iPod Touch 1, which didn't even have volume buttons.
        zapzupnz 1y ago
        This timeline isn’t right. The MacBook Air preceded that particular MacBook, but they were different categories (Air didn’t have a Retina display, for example). The MacBook Air eventually took on the general unibody design of the 11” MacBook, then improved upon it in most ways.
        jorvi 1y ago
        Yeah, you're right. I had to do some Google-fu, but the timeline is: MacBook 2008[0] into MacBook Air 2010[1]. The MacBook 2008 was the chunky unibody that would be inherited by the Pro line. This model had non-backlit keys on the cheaper model, backlit on the more expensive. Only 13", 1280x800. The Air 2010 had no backlit keys, and 11" or 13", 1366x768. Despite having the better processor it overheated quickly. The battery life was pretty abysmal too. There is also the MacBook Retina 2015 12" [2]. But this had all the modern amenities. The MacBook Retina would go on to be killed, but like you said, some of the design decisions would end up being inherited by the Air line. I guess I got my wires crossed in regards to the Air and the MacBook Retina 12". [0]https://support.apple.com/en-lk/112512 https://support.apple.com/en-lk/112512 [1]https://support.apple.com/en-lb/112580 https://support.apple.com/en-lb/112580 [2] https://support.apple.com/en-us/112442 https://support.apple.com/en-us/112442
      - andsoitis 1y ago
        > wants to ship is more like glasses than a helmet. But the tech to achieve this isn’t there yet, and the current product is a necessary iteration to get to that future. Why is that step necessary? How does it help on the path to glasses? Why not develop glasses that can block out peripheral light, have all the sensors, need little power etc. before selling a helmet? Those seem like intractable problems to solve in a glasses or contact lens form factor so my prediction is it stays at the helmet design OR we jump to direct neural solution. But all of this begs the question if use case still, which even at $500 or $1000 doesn’t seem compelling (with other VR and AR as proof points).
  - cptcobalt 1y ago
    Prototype is not a charitable interpretation of the product. If you've been part of hardware, firmware, and software development processes, you'd really truly understand what prototypes are.
  - GeekyBear 1y ago
    > According to the best estimates, a little more than 500,000 Vision Pro units have been sold. It's also worth remembering that Sony was only projected to be able to produce enough micro-OLED displays to make ~500,000 units in the first year.
afavour 1y ago
The rollout of the VisionOS inspired Glass UI on iOS feels a little reminiscent of the much derided tablet UI in Windows 8 being put on everything. On a smaller scale of course but these tech companies love unifying everything around a paradigm that hadn’t even proved itself in the market yet.
- ddoolin 1y ago
  On the other hand, it seems like commenters on HN love unifying around deriding a paradigm that hasn't been proven to be hated by the vast majority of iOS users (most of which of course are not here and certainly will not care).
  - nemomarx 1y ago
    I think with a product launch you want a better prognosis than "not been proven to be hated" like I would hope the users love it, to justify the work of a new design?
    - andsoitis 1y ago
      Surely Apple believes users will love it?
      - deleted 1y ago
        [deleted]
  - eviks 1y ago
    Indeed, how dare people form their own opinion and criticize poorly readable text independently of everyone else!
    - GeekyBear 1y ago
      Even the first developer beta allows you reduce the transparency of the UI in the Accessibility settings.
paxys 1y ago
Maybe get the present right first..
micromacrofoot 1y ago
I've been trying to keep an open mind about this stuff for a few years now... but at this point it's wearing on me. I'm at the point of no. Just no. This is not something I want. I do not want to wear this on my face. I do not want to talk to uncanny personas. This is not something I want to be between me an interacting with another person. I do not want widgets on my walls. At best for the next 10 years these will be the size of ski goggles (and we're not even there yet). This isn't the next iPhone, it's not the next iPad, it's not even the next Apple Watch. It's an expensive toy for rich people who are desperately trying to look at anything except what's actually in front of them.
- runjake 1y ago
  It might be best to think of it as a publicly-available, very expensive prototype where Apple is throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing what sticks. If that's not for you, don't buy one. It's certainly not for me at this time -- not for a price over ~$1,799 or so, and I'd mostly use it to watch movies and as virtual displays for my Mac. This is largely how Apple did the Apple Watch when it was first released (except it didn't cost $3,499). It didn't really have a purpose. Return rates were very high. And then they discovered a hook: fitness. Now everyone has an Apple Watch. It seems clear that, over time, Apple will address stuff like the price and weight while developing a hook to attract more consumers.
  - micromacrofoot 1y ago
    Maybe! but I feel like they're really trying to push this on us by extending the visual language of the Vision Pro across all of their devices... this delusion of AR is leaking into other product areas that I thought were for me, but now I'm going to have to turn on accessibility features so I can read text on buttons (and this isn't hyperbole, I'm updating apps for the developer beta and actually using it).
- dialup_sounds 1y ago
  > I've been trying to keep an open mind about this stuff for a few years now. This has been on the market for less than a year and a half. That's still very early if you're comparing to the historical trajectory of Apple's other product lines.
jasonthorsness 1y ago
There's so much potential with the Vision Pro held back by one of two things: 1) being just as good as multi-monitor setup for real work 2) cost not being insanely high I would dearly love to try one but the cost to me means investment, not toy. I am hoping they keep investing in VisionOS and when it meets one of those criteria the software will be _really good_.
- postexitus 1y ago
  3) not having to wear a gargantuan helmet on your head covering your eyes. as long as this is a giant piece of kit that you need to wear on top of your head, it's not going to be adopted by the masses.
  - jasonthorsness 1y ago
    I would wear it for work if it meant I could walk around while working and the screens had resolution good enough for small text. I would learn a new input method to make this work because it would be healthier than sitting and walking is good for thinking.
    - afavour 1y ago
      > it would be healthier than sitting and walking is good for thinking. But what about attention? Your attention is going to be split between two tasks, your work and walking. Your eyes are going to be split too. You’re going to end up walking into walls. Why not just stand up from your desk and take a walk to clear you head? I find that enormously beneficial. I don’t need to have an omnipresent screen strapped to my face for that.
      - freeone3000 1y ago
        The tech produces a view similar to the hololens. You’re not any more distracted walking than you are… walking. You can read signs, look at streets, see walls. You can have additional HUDs but it’s significantly less distracting than you’re positing.
silverlight 1y ago
Anyone using one as your daily driver for coding? Or tried and it didn’t keep?
- bryancoxwell 1y ago
  Tried it. It was okay, felt very futuristic. But ultimately there weren’t really any benefits over just using a multi monitor setup that could justify the cost. I thought it’d be nice to have something I could also use for watching movies, but when I watch movies I almost always watch them with my wife, and much prefer that.
- FL410 1y ago
  Daily driver no, but after the somewhat recent ultrawide monitor update, it is absolutely viable for travel. It's nice not to be constrained by a 14" monitor while on the road, and it's perfectly usable for a couple hours of work (especially if you take the surround seal off and use one of the head strap mounts that take all the pressure off your face).
- jlund-molfese 1y ago
  I tried it, and it works alright. But it's not very comfortable to keep it on while eating/drinking, and you can't wear the thing in public without looking ridiculous. Personally I found my existing dual-monitor setup to be more ergonomic.
jrm4 1y ago
I really hope OP posted this to make fun of it. This is absolute cope. Apple hasn't innovated much in years and there is nothing special in this whole Vision whatever.
- GavinMcG 1y ago
  What makes you think things need to be special in order to be pushing toward the future? A lot of the work of building something better is incremental and not especially innovative.
  - zapzupnz 1y ago
    People don’t pay attention to how true innovation comes through iteration. We didn’t just magically have the devices we have today from nothing; they are the result of years of subtle improvements over time. That anybody on HN doesn’t realise this blows my mind, but perhaps they’re only young and think the world has always been full of amazing devices like this since the get go.
daft_pink 1y ago
I think most people would really love this device, but cannot justify the price.
- anon7000 1y ago
  It’s true. I think AVP is still a valuable product just because they need to continue R&D. Stuff like this hasn’t broken into the consumer space very much beyond video games, so I think these platforms probably need a lot of experimenting to see what sticks and what doesn’t work. Plus, continued innovation to drive down cost, make it smaller, and make the visual experience seamless. I’m glad Apple is using some of their coffers to experiment with futuristic technology. I think it’s fair to expect it to take some time to stick (and for the price to come down)
- paxys 1y ago
  I think it's something I would be blown away by for a few days, then keep it away in a drawer and rarely take it out.
- jayd16 1y ago
  It's still _very_ heavy and quite niche outside of just a screen alternative. A real screen is still better in every category but portability. Software is still not compelling. Despite the raw specs, the Quest 3 is a better headset. We have an AVP in the office but it's just collecting dust. Just not enough reason to strap it on. AR has a lot of potential but Apple is still very far away from that. They introduced 3d widgets but then showed....a clock.
  - abejfehr 1y ago
    I know the screen is an arbitrary size, but in general if you need more screens you could be walking around with an iPad to use with your laptop instead of a Vision Pro
- const_cast 1y ago
  I disagree, I think the device at a conceptual level is bad. The thing is that VR headsets don't offer very much new in exchange for what they lose, which is a lot. When smartphones came around there were a few tradeoffs. You couldn't type as fast and applications had to be severely dumbed down to work on a such a small device. But the upside is you could carry a mostly capable computer with you everywhere you go. VR headsets, like the smartphone, have a really bad human communication problem. Using voice command or little pinching isn't a very good method to communicate with computers. It's cumbersome, takes 10x as much time as typing and clicking, and makes 10x as many errors. But on top of this, VR doesn't offer a new way to engage with applications. At least, not in a way that matters. Sure, we can now watch a movie on the vision pro instead of a monitor or TV. But does that matter? Is the experience better? Same thing with facetime. How is this an improvement over using your phone or computer? When I think back to the whole Metaverse idea, I can't help but feel it's all novelty and no substance. Yes, we can have a meeting in VR in a fake conference room. Now what? Why isn't this over Zoom? Because Zoom does the same thing, but better. I can share my screen, I can see real faces (not avatars), and I don't really care about seeing people's fake bodies. So what am I actually gaining here? It's a strictly worse experience. Or Walmart's VR shopping experience thing. Why would I push around a fake cart and look at fake shelves? I can already go online and scroll, see products, and put them in my cart. That's faster, that's easier, I get a much better look at the product. I can see reviews, I can read the nutrition label, and I can hop back over to Google to cross-reference. So what does the VR add? Nothing. It only takes away, and that's all it can ever do.
5350-uiop-1130 1y ago
apple wants to wrap itself tightly around your skull. clamping itself onto your eyes. while renting you a whimsical and delightfully DRM filtered reality (with a 30% cut)
justinrubek 1y ago
They're on version 26 already? Definitely doesn't appear as polished or featured as I'd expect.
- pavlov 1y ago
  It’s actually version 2. Apple switched to using car maker style year numbers for their entire OS lineup, so everything is “26”.
  - zapzupnz 1y ago
    It’s version 3. 2 was last year; 2.5 just released
- jayd16 1y ago
  They moved to "model year" style versioning. Does this versioning style work at all? It always feels extremely gimmicky and quickly abandoned as software is going to slip sometimes.
GeekyBear 1y ago
Adam Savage's Tested YouTube channel has posted their thoughts on the new developer beta: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6SbkEC1Xb8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6SbkEC1Xb8 In addition, they have previously posted their one year review of the Apple Vision Pro. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Wsoy1E0PoqA https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Wsoy1E0PoqA
tetrisgm 1y ago
I have one. I was very skeptical until I tried it in store. This thing just needs to be lighter and cheaper. The screens are top tier, the one handed navigation is intuitive, the windows that stay in place are useful, the Mac OS mirroring is easy and convenient. For all the memes and naysaying, it’s a solid glimpse at what taking apps into every day spaces will look like in five years. I recommend reflecting on this sooner rather than later.
bradgranath 1y ago
So it does bunch of cool stuff, but there's still no content for it. Got it.

42 points by tosh 1y ago

meindnoch 1y ago

Across the globe more than a dozen Vision Pro owners rejoiced!

runjake 1y ago
According to the best estimates, a little more than 500,000 Vision Pro units have been sold. Pretty good for what is tantamount to a prototype. It was mentioned somewhere during WWDC that "hundreds of companies" are using Vision Pro, so that's at least 200 companies, as well.
- andsoitis 1y ago
  > Pretty good for what is tantamount to a prototype. Prototype? I do not get that impression from Apple's very prominent product placement: https://www.apple.com/apple-vision-pro/ https://www.apple.com/apple-vision-pro/
  - runjake 1y ago
    Tantamount (adjective): Equivalent in meaning or effect. Apple did the same with Apple Watch when sales were low and returns were high. Because they believed in the product. Apple believes in Apple Vision Pro, as well. Hell, I believe in the Apple Vision Pro, too. I think it's a significant part of the future. The price is just far too high for me.
  - haswell 1y ago
    I think it’s fairly widely understood at this point that the product Apple wants to ship is more like glasses than a helmet. But the tech to achieve this isn’t there yet, and the current product is a necessary iteration to get to that future. Apple will of course heavily market/sell the current iteration of the product in the short term - but I don’t think it’s unreasonable to view this as a prototype given what we know about their longer term ambitions and the limitations of the current hardware.
    - jorvi 1y ago
      Pretty much what happened with the MacBook Air. The MacBook Air was preceded by the MacBook 2011 (yes, horrible model name to search). It had no keyboard backlight, an 11" crappy screen, short battery life and it overheated. But compared to contemporary laptops it was futuristic. What do you mean, a laptop you can slide into an envelope? But then it was followed up swiftly by a secondary model and then the MacBook Air. With the MacBook Air it really started to become a nice device. Another device that comes to mind is the iPod Touch 1, which didn't even have volume buttons.
      - zapzupnz 1y ago
        This timeline isn’t right. The MacBook Air preceded that particular MacBook, but they were different categories (Air didn’t have a Retina display, for example). The MacBook Air eventually took on the general unibody design of the 11” MacBook, then improved upon it in most ways.
        jorvi 1y ago
        Yeah, you're right. I had to do some Google-fu, but the timeline is: MacBook 2008[0] into MacBook Air 2010[1]. The MacBook 2008 was the chunky unibody that would be inherited by the Pro line. This model had non-backlit keys on the cheaper model, backlit on the more expensive. Only 13", 1280x800. The Air 2010 had no backlit keys, and 11" or 13", 1366x768. Despite having the better processor it overheated quickly. The battery life was pretty abysmal too. There is also the MacBook Retina 2015 12" [2]. But this had all the modern amenities. The MacBook Retina would go on to be killed, but like you said, some of the design decisions would end up being inherited by the Air line. I guess I got my wires crossed in regards to the Air and the MacBook Retina 12". [0]https://support.apple.com/en-lk/112512 https://support.apple.com/en-lk/112512 [1]https://support.apple.com/en-lb/112580 https://support.apple.com/en-lb/112580 [2] https://support.apple.com/en-us/112442 https://support.apple.com/en-us/112442
    - andsoitis 1y ago
      > wants to ship is more like glasses than a helmet. But the tech to achieve this isn’t there yet, and the current product is a necessary iteration to get to that future. Why is that step necessary? How does it help on the path to glasses? Why not develop glasses that can block out peripheral light, have all the sensors, need little power etc. before selling a helmet? Those seem like intractable problems to solve in a glasses or contact lens form factor so my prediction is it stays at the helmet design OR we jump to direct neural solution. But all of this begs the question if use case still, which even at $500 or $1000 doesn’t seem compelling (with other VR and AR as proof points).
- cptcobalt 1y ago
  Prototype is not a charitable interpretation of the product. If you've been part of hardware, firmware, and software development processes, you'd really truly understand what prototypes are.
- GeekyBear 1y ago
  > According to the best estimates, a little more than 500,000 Vision Pro units have been sold. It's also worth remembering that Sony was only projected to be able to produce enough micro-OLED displays to make ~500,000 units in the first year.

afavour 1y ago

The rollout of the VisionOS inspired Glass UI on iOS feels a little reminiscent of the much derided tablet UI in Windows 8 being put on everything. On a smaller scale of course but these tech companies love unifying everything around a paradigm that hadn’t even proved itself in the market yet.

ddoolin 1y ago
On the other hand, it seems like commenters on HN love unifying around deriding a paradigm that hasn't been proven to be hated by the vast majority of iOS users (most of which of course are not here and certainly will not care).
- nemomarx 1y ago
  I think with a product launch you want a better prognosis than "not been proven to be hated" like I would hope the users love it, to justify the work of a new design?
  - andsoitis 1y ago
    Surely Apple believes users will love it?
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
- eviks 1y ago
  Indeed, how dare people form their own opinion and criticize poorly readable text independently of everyone else!
  - GeekyBear 1y ago
    Even the first developer beta allows you reduce the transparency of the UI in the Accessibility settings.

paxys 1y ago

Maybe get the present right first..

micromacrofoot 1y ago

I've been trying to keep an open mind about this stuff for a few years now... but at this point it's wearing on me. I'm at the point of no. Just no. This is not something I want. I do not want to wear this on my face. I do not want to talk to uncanny personas. This is not something I want to be between me an interacting with another person. I do not want widgets on my walls. At best for the next 10 years these will be the size of ski goggles (and we're not even there yet). This isn't the next iPhone, it's not the next iPad, it's not even the next Apple Watch. It's an expensive toy for rich people who are desperately trying to look at anything except what's actually in front of them.

runjake 1y ago
It might be best to think of it as a publicly-available, very expensive prototype where Apple is throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing what sticks. If that's not for you, don't buy one. It's certainly not for me at this time -- not for a price over ~$1,799 or so, and I'd mostly use it to watch movies and as virtual displays for my Mac. This is largely how Apple did the Apple Watch when it was first released (except it didn't cost $3,499). It didn't really have a purpose. Return rates were very high. And then they discovered a hook: fitness. Now everyone has an Apple Watch. It seems clear that, over time, Apple will address stuff like the price and weight while developing a hook to attract more consumers.
- micromacrofoot 1y ago
  Maybe! but I feel like they're really trying to push this on us by extending the visual language of the Vision Pro across all of their devices... this delusion of AR is leaking into other product areas that I thought were for me, but now I'm going to have to turn on accessibility features so I can read text on buttons (and this isn't hyperbole, I'm updating apps for the developer beta and actually using it).
dialup_sounds 1y ago
> I've been trying to keep an open mind about this stuff for a few years now. This has been on the market for less than a year and a half. That's still very early if you're comparing to the historical trajectory of Apple's other product lines.

jasonthorsness 1y ago

There's so much potential with the Vision Pro held back by one of two things: 1) being just as good as multi-monitor setup for real work 2) cost not being insanely high I would dearly love to try one but the cost to me means investment, not toy. I am hoping they keep investing in VisionOS and when it meets one of those criteria the software will be _really good_.

postexitus 1y ago
3) not having to wear a gargantuan helmet on your head covering your eyes. as long as this is a giant piece of kit that you need to wear on top of your head, it's not going to be adopted by the masses.
- jasonthorsness 1y ago
  I would wear it for work if it meant I could walk around while working and the screens had resolution good enough for small text. I would learn a new input method to make this work because it would be healthier than sitting and walking is good for thinking.
  - afavour 1y ago
    > it would be healthier than sitting and walking is good for thinking. But what about attention? Your attention is going to be split between two tasks, your work and walking. Your eyes are going to be split too. You’re going to end up walking into walls. Why not just stand up from your desk and take a walk to clear you head? I find that enormously beneficial. I don’t need to have an omnipresent screen strapped to my face for that.
    - freeone3000 1y ago
      The tech produces a view similar to the hololens. You’re not any more distracted walking than you are… walking. You can read signs, look at streets, see walls. You can have additional HUDs but it’s significantly less distracting than you’re positing.

silverlight 1y ago

Anyone using one as your daily driver for coding? Or tried and it didn’t keep?

bryancoxwell 1y ago
Tried it. It was okay, felt very futuristic. But ultimately there weren’t really any benefits over just using a multi monitor setup that could justify the cost. I thought it’d be nice to have something I could also use for watching movies, but when I watch movies I almost always watch them with my wife, and much prefer that.
FL410 1y ago
Daily driver no, but after the somewhat recent ultrawide monitor update, it is absolutely viable for travel. It's nice not to be constrained by a 14" monitor while on the road, and it's perfectly usable for a couple hours of work (especially if you take the surround seal off and use one of the head strap mounts that take all the pressure off your face).
jlund-molfese 1y ago
I tried it, and it works alright. But it's not very comfortable to keep it on while eating/drinking, and you can't wear the thing in public without looking ridiculous. Personally I found my existing dual-monitor setup to be more ergonomic.

jrm4 1y ago

I really hope OP posted this to make fun of it. This is absolute cope. Apple hasn't innovated much in years and there is nothing special in this whole Vision whatever.

GavinMcG 1y ago
What makes you think things need to be special in order to be pushing toward the future? A lot of the work of building something better is incremental and not especially innovative.
- zapzupnz 1y ago
  People don’t pay attention to how true innovation comes through iteration. We didn’t just magically have the devices we have today from nothing; they are the result of years of subtle improvements over time. That anybody on HN doesn’t realise this blows my mind, but perhaps they’re only young and think the world has always been full of amazing devices like this since the get go.

daft_pink 1y ago

I think most people would really love this device, but cannot justify the price.

anon7000 1y ago
It’s true. I think AVP is still a valuable product just because they need to continue R&D. Stuff like this hasn’t broken into the consumer space very much beyond video games, so I think these platforms probably need a lot of experimenting to see what sticks and what doesn’t work. Plus, continued innovation to drive down cost, make it smaller, and make the visual experience seamless. I’m glad Apple is using some of their coffers to experiment with futuristic technology. I think it’s fair to expect it to take some time to stick (and for the price to come down)
paxys 1y ago
I think it's something I would be blown away by for a few days, then keep it away in a drawer and rarely take it out.
jayd16 1y ago
It's still _very_ heavy and quite niche outside of just a screen alternative. A real screen is still better in every category but portability. Software is still not compelling. Despite the raw specs, the Quest 3 is a better headset. We have an AVP in the office but it's just collecting dust. Just not enough reason to strap it on. AR has a lot of potential but Apple is still very far away from that. They introduced 3d widgets but then showed....a clock.
- abejfehr 1y ago
  I know the screen is an arbitrary size, but in general if you need more screens you could be walking around with an iPad to use with your laptop instead of a Vision Pro
const_cast 1y ago
I disagree, I think the device at a conceptual level is bad. The thing is that VR headsets don't offer very much new in exchange for what they lose, which is a lot. When smartphones came around there were a few tradeoffs. You couldn't type as fast and applications had to be severely dumbed down to work on a such a small device. But the upside is you could carry a mostly capable computer with you everywhere you go. VR headsets, like the smartphone, have a really bad human communication problem. Using voice command or little pinching isn't a very good method to communicate with computers. It's cumbersome, takes 10x as much time as typing and clicking, and makes 10x as many errors. But on top of this, VR doesn't offer a new way to engage with applications. At least, not in a way that matters. Sure, we can now watch a movie on the vision pro instead of a monitor or TV. But does that matter? Is the experience better? Same thing with facetime. How is this an improvement over using your phone or computer? When I think back to the whole Metaverse idea, I can't help but feel it's all novelty and no substance. Yes, we can have a meeting in VR in a fake conference room. Now what? Why isn't this over Zoom? Because Zoom does the same thing, but better. I can share my screen, I can see real faces (not avatars), and I don't really care about seeing people's fake bodies. So what am I actually gaining here? It's a strictly worse experience. Or Walmart's VR shopping experience thing. Why would I push around a fake cart and look at fake shelves? I can already go online and scroll, see products, and put them in my cart. That's faster, that's easier, I get a much better look at the product. I can see reviews, I can read the nutrition label, and I can hop back over to Google to cross-reference. So what does the VR add? Nothing. It only takes away, and that's all it can ever do.

5350-uiop-1130 1y ago

apple wants to wrap itself tightly around your skull. clamping itself onto your eyes. while renting you a whimsical and delightfully DRM filtered reality (with a 30% cut)

justinrubek 1y ago

They're on version 26 already? Definitely doesn't appear as polished or featured as I'd expect.

pavlov 1y ago
It’s actually version 2. Apple switched to using car maker style year numbers for their entire OS lineup, so everything is “26”.
- zapzupnz 1y ago
  It’s version 3. 2 was last year; 2.5 just released
jayd16 1y ago
They moved to "model year" style versioning. Does this versioning style work at all? It always feels extremely gimmicky and quickly abandoned as software is going to slip sometimes.

GeekyBear 1y ago

Adam Savage's Tested YouTube channel has posted their thoughts on the new developer beta: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6SbkEC1Xb8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6SbkEC1Xb8 In addition, they have previously posted their one year review of the Apple Vision Pro. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Wsoy1E0PoqA https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Wsoy1E0PoqA

tetrisgm 1y ago

I have one. I was very skeptical until I tried it in store. This thing just needs to be lighter and cheaper. The screens are top tier, the one handed navigation is intuitive, the windows that stay in place are useful, the Mac OS mirroring is easy and convenient. For all the memes and naysaying, it’s a solid glimpse at what taking apps into every day spaces will look like in five years. I recommend reflecting on this sooner rather than later.

bradgranath 1y ago

So it does bunch of cool stuff, but there's still no content for it. Got it.