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I was super interested in the Vision Pro when it was first released. Then I found out they went with an app model and the device could only display a single Mac

I was super interested in the Vision Pro when it was first released. Then I found out they went with an app model and the device could only display a single MacOS window. There went my dream of surrounding myself with a bunch of vim windows and terminals. If they'd focused on maximizing the device's usefulness instead of its revenue stream, maybe things would have worked out better.

kibwen 1y ago
Apple is not in the business of selling productivity software. Even their desktops/MacOS segment is an insignificant historical afterthought by now. To a first approximation, Apple is a manufacturer of locked-down handheld entertainment appliances whose primary function is to psychologically condition children into siphoning off money from their inattentive parents. There's no reason to suspect their vision for the AVP to diverge significantly from this user story.
- basisword 1y ago
  Every company I've worked at in the last 15-20 years has run fully on Mac. First it was the designers, then the devs, and now everyone. I used Windows for years and have some experience with various Linux distros, but if I joined a company that made me use either of those full-time I'd immediately start looking for another job.
  - Lio 1y ago
    Yep I've just joined, via aquisition, a company that runs remote Windows desktops you have to access using whatever Remote Desktop is now called. I've not seen a professional desktop operating system show you adverts and click bait during worktime before and I am not impressed. I'm taking it as an alarm bell that I should get out as soon as I can. For me and what I do, macOS or Linux are my platforms of choice.
    - supportengineer 1y ago
      Fortunately you can use Remote Desktop using the Microsoft Windows app for Mac.
    - angoragoats 1y ago
      FWIW, macOS also has adverts that can’t be disabled.
  - UltraSane 1y ago
    That is a really really strange thing to care so much about
    - ceejayoz 1y ago
      "Is this company going to waste my time?" is not a strange question.
      - UltraSane 1y ago
        First you are getting the paid so again it is a very odd thing to care about and second how does windows and Linux waste your time?
        ceejayoz 1y ago
        > First you are getting the paid… Even billionaires get burnout. > how does windows and Linux waste your time? Windows is deep down the enshittification curve. My Linux-using coworkers seem to spend a lot of time wiping things and switching distros. I'm very happy with it for servers, but not for desktop.
        supportengineer 1y ago
        You don't see how Microsoft Windows wastes your time? - 15 minute boot-up times - Complete lack of power management ( close your laptop screen ) - Random forced updates
    - basisword 1y ago
      I have to spend 8+ hours a day using the tool. Why put myself through constant unnecessary frustration if I don't have to?
- stetrain 1y ago
  Weird, that description doesn't apply at all to my experiences as a developer using Macs for the last few years. Personally I find a Mac to be a better development environment than Windows even for Microsoft tech like the dotnet stack.
  - stronglikedan 1y ago
    > Personally That word right there means that we can both be correct, because I personally find MacOS to be frustrating for Dev compared to every other alternative. Great for creativity, but not so much for productivity.
    - stetrain 1y ago
      Sure. The comment I replied to wasn’t so qualified.
  - fennecfoxy 1y ago
    I've used Macbooks for dev pretty much my whole career and I do think that they're some of the _best_ laptops available for dev. But the caveat to my statement is that _everything_ added to their ecosystem to business reasons is useless and counterproductive. For example I can plug my Android phone into a Windows machine (two different companies inb4 someone uses flawed logic) and it just works. If I plug my Android phone into my Macbook it doesn't work at all...but an iPhone does! ;) They only very recently got decent-ish Window management, basic snapping that Linux/Windows has had for at least a decade or longer. And even then their implementation is "pretty" but slow to respond. It's like just expand and snap the fucking window for fuck's sake. In terms of the "development environment" they enjoy having had the OS built on top of FreeBSD (which yes, they have contributed to - bet Apple management hated that). To me it's a machine that gets stuff done; they could literally strip the thing down to the bare minimum, removing all of the "magical wonderful Apple stuff with cutesy fancy sounding names" and I couldn't give a shit. "Retina" screen? Fuck offff Apple.
    - stetrain 1y ago
      I enjoy high-dpi displays for dev and other productivity tasks. That one isn't just an annoying marketing gimmick.
- dbspin 1y ago
  And also virtually every film editor, colourist and videographer. Oh and also every illustrator and graphic designer. And a host of other professions where having a clean UI, colour accuracy, on a reliable machine that rarely if ever crashes is essential rather than a preference. As a film maker and editor I'm enormously more productive on my dual screen (used) M1 Max Studio machine than I was on a variety of PC setups with high end GPUs. Even just the missing overhead of not having to keep graphic drives and constant Windows updates is great. Reliable renders were never a thing on Windows. The time lost doing things again because window had some strange colour issue, render crash, font issue and on and on was ludicrous. The idea of having to use Windows for daily productivity sends a shiver down my spine.
  - browningstreet 1y ago
    I don't agree with the OP, but you gotta admit.. it used to feel like Apple was more dedicated to this market when they could keep interesting Pro desktop kit evolving on an acceptable pace.
    - dbspin 1y ago
      I don't know... I agree that they're no longer innovative in terms of UI and original categories of devices. But the M1 chips have been enormously innovative in terms of performance per watt. One reason essentially every 'creative' (bar 3d designers) uses Macs is that unplugged they run as fast as plugged in. There's literally no PC laptop you can build or buy with integrated graphics powerful enough to compete - while on the move and away from power. Perhaps the new AMD Strix Halo devices will change this, but I wouldn't hold my breath.
    - stetrain 1y ago
      Their Pro desktop/laptop hardware is the best it's ever been as long as it fits your use case (ie not adding a bunch of PCI-E cards or third party GPUs). Software is definitely more debatable.
- gjm11 1y ago
  I'm sure you felt very clever writing that zinger about children and parents, but unless the majority of Apple devices are sold to/for children -- which I would bet is extremely not true -- it's obviously wrong.
  - chrisbrandow 1y ago
    In app purchases from (crappy) games is top revenue source in App Store. Anecdotally, I’d be shocked if the majority of that wasn’t from kids using their parents’ phones.
    - trvz 1y ago
      Prepare to be shocked real good then: it’s from adults who are affluent or addicted.
      - supportengineer 1y ago
        In the Pokemon Go days, about 10 years back, the top whales were spending 5- and 6-figure amounts on that game's in-app purchases.
      - anikom15 1y ago
        Does it matter what the age of the users are? Clearly they are all children regardless.
  - kibwen 1y ago
    You have deftly avoided attempting to refute the actual argument here, which is that >90% of Apple's revenue comes from their walled garden, and they have no desire to pivot back towards catering to the small and dwindling niche of power users.
    - supportengineer 1y ago
      If your primary machine isn't a high-end Macbook Pro, are you even a "power user"? Any other hardware is a non-starter.
- jen20 1y ago
  > Even their desktops/MacOS segment is an insignificant historical afterthought by now. By what measure? As I understand it, more Macs sell now than in any other point in history.
mrpippy 1y ago
It can display an entire Mac desktop https://support.apple.com/en-us/118521 https://support.apple.com/en-us/118521
- basisword 1y ago
  They want the individual windows from the Mac to be manoeuvrable. Currently it works like a virtual display - you can't move windows around space like you can with visionOS apps.
- pjerem 1y ago
  Which doesnt mean you can surround yourself with VIM windows. That's just an hyper expensive huge screen.
- vunderba 1y ago
  That's not what we want at all. I should be able to slap a "Sync" button while wearing the Vision and every single window/app currently running on my Macbook Pro should show up as a completely independent spatially manipulable display within the virtual environment. That way I still get all the power of my dedicated Mac with the freedom of VR. Even before it came out, I naturally assumed it was going to be able to do this. Major flub IMHO. Well that and the completely superfluous frontfacing screen for your "virtual avatar". Because the Vision wasn't already expensive enough...
  - JKCalhoun 1y ago
    Sounds like something Apple could easily add.
  - oxml 1y ago
    It would be nice if Apple allowed people to choose how Mac virtual display windows were shown. I have a Vision Pro and I rather like the way it's implemented. From a UX perspective, I can't imagine trying to deal with hundreds of windows in AR space. The Vision Pro UI is good, but I'm nowhere near as fast as with a keyboard and mouse.
lynndotpy 1y ago
My sentiments exactly. This would be such an easy purchase to justify if it weren't just a toy-- no other VR headset touts to display text so crisply. But instead, their only market demographic are people who really enjoy going to theaters alone. I'm very eagerly looking forward to Valve's headset coming out.
- PaulHoule 1y ago
  There are three problems with AVP: cost, cost and cost. It is priced to be a pack-in with seats of Dassault 3DEXPERIENCE, but Meta's experience has been that the VR consumer is price sensitive which is why they followed up the MQ3 with the cost-reduced MQ3S. I think Apple is looking at this the way they look at AirPods (something you stick in your ears to modify and augment your hearing) which is good and monitors, which is bad. Apple's always sold a tiny number of monitors with astronomical margins which looked like a good business because they didn't have to invest in product innovation to make them the way they do for the AVP -- and they didn't need software developers to invest in product innovation for their monitors, but the AVP absolutely requires it. And if they aren't shipping enough units, who is going to make software for it?
  - ACCount37 1y ago
    On top of the three problems of any AR/VR tech: UX, UX and UX. I'm honestly not sure if Apple Vision would fare much better if they had a device that costs $100. Like, sure, they'll sell more units that way. But how many of those units would end up collecting dust?
    - coderatlarge 1y ago
      i’m afraid i’ll look back and regret that i didn’t capture 3d memories of parents and grandparents when it was technically feasible because of a few dollars…
      - deleted 1y ago
        [deleted]
OisinMoran 1y ago
Yeah this would honestly be incredible and actually deserving of the "spatial computing" moniker. I would love to be able to have a dedicated spatial location for each part of my Django app: look over here for the CSS, step here for the views, scroll through the logs over here...
- mrguyorama 1y ago
  People keep insisting this but 1) It's been doable for years and yet AR/VR doesn't take off 2) It will only ever be a hyper niche use case of an already hyper niche market. People do not want a giant screen glued to their face. Have you actually tried "working" in VR? It is awful and pointless and zero percent of my work is limited by the size of my screen FFS. Are you one of those people that keep 100 terminal windows open with random TOPS and log watchers but never actually uses them? Those people always seem to have lots of monitors. They don't actually seem more productive though. I even downgraded from two external monitors to one because all the extra monitor was doing was making me hurt my neck from looking back and forth. A 30 inch monitor with 1440p resolution can do everything you want from django and is like $200
  - freeone3000 1y ago
    It’s more the idea of always-everywhere computing. Where you can pull up a notepad window in a meeting to take notes. Where you can take those notes back to your desk. Where there can be a sign-up sheet posted to the door for group editing.
  - OisinMoran 1y ago
    I don't know if it's satisfactorily available anywhere yet though, right? Most VR headsets aren't great at text but yeah definitely agree with you about not wanting to wear any current iteration for any length of time. I can't seem to find a long term comfortable and secure fit for my Quest which is part of why I don't use it a whole lot. And no I haven't tried working in VR. I do actually just work with one monitor and only have a few terminal tabs running at any one time, but honestly do think there are so many improvements I could make to my workflow before even a perfect VR solution would be worth considering. Any monitor recs? My current one has started flickering and it's slowly driving me insane
fennecfoxy 1y ago
Another comment mentions how useful it is because it's integrated with Apple's ecosystem. I mean of course it is...Apple makes it. I do wonder if that person had ever tried any of the myriad of VR device available a decade before beforehand and I do wonder how popular Apple's product would be if other companies were given the opportunity to integrate with the OS on the same level that Apple can (I feel like Apple is breaking anti-competitive laws constantly but nobody really cares about making them open up).
- random3 1y ago
  OSX is at 16% of the market (Windows is 63%). Exactly how is this breaking anti-competitive laws?
  - Lucasoato 1y ago
    A walled garden is a walled garden, no matter the slice of the market you've been able to eat (yet).
  - happymellon 1y ago
    Anti-trust does not require someone to have 100% of a market. I also don't think think this breaks anti-trust but percentages doesn't stop market manipulation.
    - raw_anon_1111 1y ago
      There is a huge difference between 100% and 16%.
- FumblingBear 1y ago
  I think I may be the commenter you're referring to, and yes, I have used many different VR devices over the years. I've owned at least 3 other headsets and used 5. My point in saying the usefulness of it being tied to the ecosystem was more of a negative one than a positive one if it wasn't clear. It is personally useful for me because I have a lot of Apple products at home (though I also have PC and linux stuff too), but I wish my primary use-cases for it were more platform agnostic. I'm also very in support of aggressive anti-trust legislation and it's probably my biggest point of contention with Apple. Despite all that, I still like the Vision Pro and think it's an incredible piece of tech that blows every other headset I've tried out of the water for the things I like to do.
ajmurmann 1y ago
This is very disappointing. I wonder if it's a limitation of the underlying connection. Does it use AirPlay for this?
- jtbayly 1y ago
  I think it is more likely a limitation of the Mac OS. But it's just a guess.
Andrew_nenakhov 1y ago
I own Vision Pro. They work with Macos pretty well when sharing the whole screen, and I think that their technology is potentially capable to share one specific app -- with facetime you can do just that -- but so far Vision Pro is unable of that. That's a shame.
Mystery-Machine 1y ago
I use AVP every day for work. I spend 8+ hours a day wearing the thing. It's amazing the screen real estate you get when you share your Mac screen. It's terrible that it's only one screen, but with good enough window (pun intended) management app, you can tile the windows/app inside this giant curved floating screen. That works for me because I always preferred using a single screen. It's possible to share a single desktop/window, but it's not officially supported. Sometimes the screen sharing bugs out and, instead of gigantic curved screen, I get a tiny small app/window. If someone is interested in looking into this, this happens (sometimes) when, instead of starting the screen sharing from AVP, you share (mirror) the screen from Mac display/mirroring settings.
ykl 1y ago
You can in fact already do this (have Mac windows show up as separate floating windows in VisionOS instead of all being on the single MacOS window) using a third party tool called Ensemble: https://github.com/saagarjha/Ensemble https://github.com/saagarjha/Ensemble This is what is looks like in action: https://twitter.com/TheOriginaliTE/status/1751251567641346340 https://twitter.com/TheOriginaliTE/status/175125156764134634... Disclaimer: I don’t know how well it works in practice because I don’t have a Vision Pro.
- jswny 1y ago
  The point is that this should absolutely be capable of being a power-computing extension for Mac, but instead it’s been relegated to a $3k personal theater that runs apps for some reason
random3 1y ago
I'm not really following through your reasoning. How is breaking the usefulness helping the revenue stream? Assuming you're an engineer, have you thought about what handing over a "window" from one computer to another actually entails? CRIU can do checkpoint/restore at container/process level - but you actually want it to run on both, no? So you need to split off just the I/O, but at the OS-level per window. Apple has been doing a lot of work in this direction and they have stuff that actually work (like video calls and to some extent windows. These are processes running on different OS-es with a matrix of hundreds of devices. It's not something you vibe code over the weekend.
- amelius 1y ago
  This stuff has been solved ages ago on Unix.
  - random3 1y ago
    Oh, did Linux get IO handover and I missed it? Have they been doing it for ages with their librephone announcement yesterday?
    - homarp 1y ago
      fsf and linux are not really the same entity.
    - amelius 1y ago
      Check out: https://xpra.org/index.html https://xpra.org/index.html
      - random3 1y ago
        That’s cool. It would work for the mirror display functionality, but handover is more like CRIU in the sense that it becomes a process on the target host. Moreover headphones are also switching. So it seems a bit more involved than either.
jjtheblunt 1y ago
from this demo video, it looks like you could surround yourself with vim windows, terminals, and so on? https://www.apple.com/newsroom/videos/2025/autoplay/10/apple-vision-pro-mac-virtual-display/large_2x.mp4 https://www.apple.com/newsroom/videos/2025/autoplay/10/apple...
- jazzyjackson 1y ago
  Within the bounds of that big ol 8k window, yes, but the applications themselves can't be extracted and positioned separately. My workaround for this is using applications that work comfortably in a safari window (like vscode) and you can have as many safari windows free floating as you want
wrsh07 1y ago
I actually bought one thinking I could buy a vision pro instead of a new computer, but alas, the vision pro (despite being a powerful computer) is not usable as a work computer (I returned it)
dvdsgl 1y ago
You can surround yourself with floating terminals using the Blink app. Here I code from the couch surrounded by nvim, Claude Code, etc.: https://x.com/dvdsgl/status/1948840477970841720/video/1 https://x.com/dvdsgl/status/1948840477970841720/video/1
- efavdb 1y ago
  awesome. curious, what's your review for this use case?
- ebbi 1y ago
  Amazing! How long can you do this for before you feel any fatigue (neck/eyes)? Do you feel you're more in focus when using Vision Pro like this, as opposed to using an external monitor?
  - dvdsgl 1y ago
    Feels fun and promising, but switching input focus between windows is fiddly.
  - magarnicle 1y ago
    If you have a sleeping newborn on you the answer is "until they wake up".
KronisLV 1y ago
> Then I found out they went with an app model and the device could only display a single MacOS window. There was this program called Immersed for Quest and some other VR headsets (apparently Apple's one too?) that ages ago was quite brilliant: I could connect my laptop or PC and have as many virtual desktops in addition to the real ones displayed around me. Even on my Quest 2, until the strain set in, it was cool to just kinda tune out the room around me and be in a black void surrounded by just the screens of whatever I'm working on. Sadly, in one update they randomly removed it as a "legacy feature nobody uses", which ruined the program for me, and Virtual Desktop for the Quest also has limited screens you can display, so I can't even do all 4 of my physical ones, nor virtual ones - despite it having worked previously in the other program. For a little bit, it was a really cool mode of working, but sadly I only got glimpses of it and would need more capable hardware like AVP for that in the first place (Quest 2 very much had its limitations). Also, this was a pretty cool idea, even if a novelty: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Js7Y1H5D8cY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Js7Y1H5D8cY
vid 1y ago
Maybe I'm missing something, but I think emulating a physical screen in a virtual field of view is the wrong way to do this. Why introduce off-axis viewing and all the other unnecessary weirdnesses? What if the entire field of view were the screen, with head and eye movement as navigation? I guess make the windows transparent so it's less disorienting, and it would at least initially be overwhelming, but past that it could be quite transformative.
golergka 1y ago
Looks like this version finally works like an ultrawide external monitor.
fzzzy 1y ago
You can just install La Terminal...
m463 1y ago
I went to an apple store, saw a vision pro and asked if I could try it on. They said you had to schedule an appointment, then they would take you through a supervised viewing or whatever. This gave me the impression it wasn't ready for general use, and they would have to control your impression of the thing while selling you on it. I know that VR is hard, and AR is much harder, but this made me think apple still hasn't cracked it. As to single app - I figure the thing has to be hard real-time to do things without giving you a headache or nausea/vomiting. that probably doesn't leave room for a lot of sharing of resources. In the end, I think this is a iphone 1.0 type device, and only continued development with deep pockets will make it viable, eventually.
- lexoj 1y ago
  In the country im in, apple official resellers were not allowing to try any of their apple watches on wrist.
- 1123581321 1y ago
  The appointment is fairly hands off. The employee checks your prescription, installs the right lenses and helps you have a good fit, possibly trying other lenses if you’re having issues. There isn’t any prep I saw that they would have to do before they could except a walk-in.

kibwen 1y ago

Apple is not in the business of selling productivity software. Even their desktops/MacOS segment is an insignificant historical afterthought by now. To a first approximation, Apple is a manufacturer of locked-down handheld entertainment appliances whose primary function is to psychologically condition children into siphoning off money from their inattentive parents. There's no reason to suspect their vision for the AVP to diverge significantly from this user story.

basisword 1y ago
Every company I've worked at in the last 15-20 years has run fully on Mac. First it was the designers, then the devs, and now everyone. I used Windows for years and have some experience with various Linux distros, but if I joined a company that made me use either of those full-time I'd immediately start looking for another job.
- Lio 1y ago
  Yep I've just joined, via aquisition, a company that runs remote Windows desktops you have to access using whatever Remote Desktop is now called. I've not seen a professional desktop operating system show you adverts and click bait during worktime before and I am not impressed. I'm taking it as an alarm bell that I should get out as soon as I can. For me and what I do, macOS or Linux are my platforms of choice.
  - supportengineer 1y ago
    Fortunately you can use Remote Desktop using the Microsoft Windows app for Mac.
  - angoragoats 1y ago
    FWIW, macOS also has adverts that can’t be disabled.
- UltraSane 1y ago
  That is a really really strange thing to care so much about
  - ceejayoz 1y ago
    "Is this company going to waste my time?" is not a strange question.
    - UltraSane 1y ago
      First you are getting the paid so again it is a very odd thing to care about and second how does windows and Linux waste your time?
      - ceejayoz 1y ago
        > First you are getting the paid… Even billionaires get burnout. > how does windows and Linux waste your time? Windows is deep down the enshittification curve. My Linux-using coworkers seem to spend a lot of time wiping things and switching distros. I'm very happy with it for servers, but not for desktop.
      - supportengineer 1y ago
        You don't see how Microsoft Windows wastes your time? - 15 minute boot-up times - Complete lack of power management ( close your laptop screen ) - Random forced updates
  - basisword 1y ago
    I have to spend 8+ hours a day using the tool. Why put myself through constant unnecessary frustration if I don't have to?
stetrain 1y ago
Weird, that description doesn't apply at all to my experiences as a developer using Macs for the last few years. Personally I find a Mac to be a better development environment than Windows even for Microsoft tech like the dotnet stack.
- stronglikedan 1y ago
  > Personally That word right there means that we can both be correct, because I personally find MacOS to be frustrating for Dev compared to every other alternative. Great for creativity, but not so much for productivity.
  - stetrain 1y ago
    Sure. The comment I replied to wasn’t so qualified.
- fennecfoxy 1y ago
  I've used Macbooks for dev pretty much my whole career and I do think that they're some of the _best_ laptops available for dev. But the caveat to my statement is that _everything_ added to their ecosystem to business reasons is useless and counterproductive. For example I can plug my Android phone into a Windows machine (two different companies inb4 someone uses flawed logic) and it just works. If I plug my Android phone into my Macbook it doesn't work at all...but an iPhone does! ;) They only very recently got decent-ish Window management, basic snapping that Linux/Windows has had for at least a decade or longer. And even then their implementation is "pretty" but slow to respond. It's like just expand and snap the fucking window for fuck's sake. In terms of the "development environment" they enjoy having had the OS built on top of FreeBSD (which yes, they have contributed to - bet Apple management hated that). To me it's a machine that gets stuff done; they could literally strip the thing down to the bare minimum, removing all of the "magical wonderful Apple stuff with cutesy fancy sounding names" and I couldn't give a shit. "Retina" screen? Fuck offff Apple.
  - stetrain 1y ago
    I enjoy high-dpi displays for dev and other productivity tasks. That one isn't just an annoying marketing gimmick.
dbspin 1y ago
And also virtually every film editor, colourist and videographer. Oh and also every illustrator and graphic designer. And a host of other professions where having a clean UI, colour accuracy, on a reliable machine that rarely if ever crashes is essential rather than a preference. As a film maker and editor I'm enormously more productive on my dual screen (used) M1 Max Studio machine than I was on a variety of PC setups with high end GPUs. Even just the missing overhead of not having to keep graphic drives and constant Windows updates is great. Reliable renders were never a thing on Windows. The time lost doing things again because window had some strange colour issue, render crash, font issue and on and on was ludicrous. The idea of having to use Windows for daily productivity sends a shiver down my spine.
- browningstreet 1y ago
  I don't agree with the OP, but you gotta admit.. it used to feel like Apple was more dedicated to this market when they could keep interesting Pro desktop kit evolving on an acceptable pace.
  - dbspin 1y ago
    I don't know... I agree that they're no longer innovative in terms of UI and original categories of devices. But the M1 chips have been enormously innovative in terms of performance per watt. One reason essentially every 'creative' (bar 3d designers) uses Macs is that unplugged they run as fast as plugged in. There's literally no PC laptop you can build or buy with integrated graphics powerful enough to compete - while on the move and away from power. Perhaps the new AMD Strix Halo devices will change this, but I wouldn't hold my breath.
  - stetrain 1y ago
    Their Pro desktop/laptop hardware is the best it's ever been as long as it fits your use case (ie not adding a bunch of PCI-E cards or third party GPUs). Software is definitely more debatable.
gjm11 1y ago
I'm sure you felt very clever writing that zinger about children and parents, but unless the majority of Apple devices are sold to/for children -- which I would bet is extremely not true -- it's obviously wrong.
- chrisbrandow 1y ago
  In app purchases from (crappy) games is top revenue source in App Store. Anecdotally, I’d be shocked if the majority of that wasn’t from kids using their parents’ phones.
  - trvz 1y ago
    Prepare to be shocked real good then: it’s from adults who are affluent or addicted.
    - supportengineer 1y ago
      In the Pokemon Go days, about 10 years back, the top whales were spending 5- and 6-figure amounts on that game's in-app purchases.
    - anikom15 1y ago
      Does it matter what the age of the users are? Clearly they are all children regardless.
- kibwen 1y ago
  You have deftly avoided attempting to refute the actual argument here, which is that >90% of Apple's revenue comes from their walled garden, and they have no desire to pivot back towards catering to the small and dwindling niche of power users.
  - supportengineer 1y ago
    If your primary machine isn't a high-end Macbook Pro, are you even a "power user"? Any other hardware is a non-starter.
jen20 1y ago
> Even their desktops/MacOS segment is an insignificant historical afterthought by now. By what measure? As I understand it, more Macs sell now than in any other point in history.

mrpippy 1y ago

It can display an entire Mac desktop https://support.apple.com/en-us/118521 https://support.apple.com/en-us/118521

basisword 1y ago
They want the individual windows from the Mac to be manoeuvrable. Currently it works like a virtual display - you can't move windows around space like you can with visionOS apps.
pjerem 1y ago
Which doesnt mean you can surround yourself with VIM windows. That's just an hyper expensive huge screen.
vunderba 1y ago
That's not what we want at all. I should be able to slap a "Sync" button while wearing the Vision and every single window/app currently running on my Macbook Pro should show up as a completely independent spatially manipulable display within the virtual environment. That way I still get all the power of my dedicated Mac with the freedom of VR. Even before it came out, I naturally assumed it was going to be able to do this. Major flub IMHO. Well that and the completely superfluous frontfacing screen for your "virtual avatar". Because the Vision wasn't already expensive enough...
- JKCalhoun 1y ago
  Sounds like something Apple could easily add.
- oxml 1y ago
  It would be nice if Apple allowed people to choose how Mac virtual display windows were shown. I have a Vision Pro and I rather like the way it's implemented. From a UX perspective, I can't imagine trying to deal with hundreds of windows in AR space. The Vision Pro UI is good, but I'm nowhere near as fast as with a keyboard and mouse.

lynndotpy 1y ago

My sentiments exactly. This would be such an easy purchase to justify if it weren't just a toy-- no other VR headset touts to display text so crisply. But instead, their only market demographic are people who really enjoy going to theaters alone. I'm very eagerly looking forward to Valve's headset coming out.

PaulHoule 1y ago
There are three problems with AVP: cost, cost and cost. It is priced to be a pack-in with seats of Dassault 3DEXPERIENCE, but Meta's experience has been that the VR consumer is price sensitive which is why they followed up the MQ3 with the cost-reduced MQ3S. I think Apple is looking at this the way they look at AirPods (something you stick in your ears to modify and augment your hearing) which is good and monitors, which is bad. Apple's always sold a tiny number of monitors with astronomical margins which looked like a good business because they didn't have to invest in product innovation to make them the way they do for the AVP -- and they didn't need software developers to invest in product innovation for their monitors, but the AVP absolutely requires it. And if they aren't shipping enough units, who is going to make software for it?
- ACCount37 1y ago
  On top of the three problems of any AR/VR tech: UX, UX and UX. I'm honestly not sure if Apple Vision would fare much better if they had a device that costs $100. Like, sure, they'll sell more units that way. But how many of those units would end up collecting dust?
  - coderatlarge 1y ago
    i’m afraid i’ll look back and regret that i didn’t capture 3d memories of parents and grandparents when it was technically feasible because of a few dollars…
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]

OisinMoran 1y ago

Yeah this would honestly be incredible and actually deserving of the "spatial computing" moniker. I would love to be able to have a dedicated spatial location for each part of my Django app: look over here for the CSS, step here for the views, scroll through the logs over here...

mrguyorama 1y ago
People keep insisting this but 1) It's been doable for years and yet AR/VR doesn't take off 2) It will only ever be a hyper niche use case of an already hyper niche market. People do not want a giant screen glued to their face. Have you actually tried "working" in VR? It is awful and pointless and zero percent of my work is limited by the size of my screen FFS. Are you one of those people that keep 100 terminal windows open with random TOPS and log watchers but never actually uses them? Those people always seem to have lots of monitors. They don't actually seem more productive though. I even downgraded from two external monitors to one because all the extra monitor was doing was making me hurt my neck from looking back and forth. A 30 inch monitor with 1440p resolution can do everything you want from django and is like $200
- freeone3000 1y ago
  It’s more the idea of always-everywhere computing. Where you can pull up a notepad window in a meeting to take notes. Where you can take those notes back to your desk. Where there can be a sign-up sheet posted to the door for group editing.
- OisinMoran 1y ago
  I don't know if it's satisfactorily available anywhere yet though, right? Most VR headsets aren't great at text but yeah definitely agree with you about not wanting to wear any current iteration for any length of time. I can't seem to find a long term comfortable and secure fit for my Quest which is part of why I don't use it a whole lot. And no I haven't tried working in VR. I do actually just work with one monitor and only have a few terminal tabs running at any one time, but honestly do think there are so many improvements I could make to my workflow before even a perfect VR solution would be worth considering. Any monitor recs? My current one has started flickering and it's slowly driving me insane

fennecfoxy 1y ago

Another comment mentions how useful it is because it's integrated with Apple's ecosystem. I mean of course it is...Apple makes it. I do wonder if that person had ever tried any of the myriad of VR device available a decade before beforehand and I do wonder how popular Apple's product would be if other companies were given the opportunity to integrate with the OS on the same level that Apple can (I feel like Apple is breaking anti-competitive laws constantly but nobody really cares about making them open up).

random3 1y ago
OSX is at 16% of the market (Windows is 63%). Exactly how is this breaking anti-competitive laws?
- Lucasoato 1y ago
  A walled garden is a walled garden, no matter the slice of the market you've been able to eat (yet).
- happymellon 1y ago
  Anti-trust does not require someone to have 100% of a market. I also don't think think this breaks anti-trust but percentages doesn't stop market manipulation.
  - raw_anon_1111 1y ago
    There is a huge difference between 100% and 16%.
FumblingBear 1y ago
I think I may be the commenter you're referring to, and yes, I have used many different VR devices over the years. I've owned at least 3 other headsets and used 5. My point in saying the usefulness of it being tied to the ecosystem was more of a negative one than a positive one if it wasn't clear. It is personally useful for me because I have a lot of Apple products at home (though I also have PC and linux stuff too), but I wish my primary use-cases for it were more platform agnostic. I'm also very in support of aggressive anti-trust legislation and it's probably my biggest point of contention with Apple. Despite all that, I still like the Vision Pro and think it's an incredible piece of tech that blows every other headset I've tried out of the water for the things I like to do.

ajmurmann 1y ago

This is very disappointing. I wonder if it's a limitation of the underlying connection. Does it use AirPlay for this?

jtbayly 1y ago
I think it is more likely a limitation of the Mac OS. But it's just a guess.

Andrew_nenakhov 1y ago

I own Vision Pro. They work with Macos pretty well when sharing the whole screen, and I think that their technology is potentially capable to share one specific app -- with facetime you can do just that -- but so far Vision Pro is unable of that. That's a shame.

Mystery-Machine 1y ago

I use AVP every day for work. I spend 8+ hours a day wearing the thing. It's amazing the screen real estate you get when you share your Mac screen. It's terrible that it's only one screen, but with good enough window (pun intended) management app, you can tile the windows/app inside this giant curved floating screen. That works for me because I always preferred using a single screen. It's possible to share a single desktop/window, but it's not officially supported. Sometimes the screen sharing bugs out and, instead of gigantic curved screen, I get a tiny small app/window. If someone is interested in looking into this, this happens (sometimes) when, instead of starting the screen sharing from AVP, you share (mirror) the screen from Mac display/mirroring settings.

ykl 1y ago

You can in fact already do this (have Mac windows show up as separate floating windows in VisionOS instead of all being on the single MacOS window) using a third party tool called Ensemble: https://github.com/saagarjha/Ensemble https://github.com/saagarjha/Ensemble This is what is looks like in action: https://twitter.com/TheOriginaliTE/status/1751251567641346340 https://twitter.com/TheOriginaliTE/status/175125156764134634... Disclaimer: I don’t know how well it works in practice because I don’t have a Vision Pro.

jswny 1y ago
The point is that this should absolutely be capable of being a power-computing extension for Mac, but instead it’s been relegated to a $3k personal theater that runs apps for some reason

random3 1y ago

I'm not really following through your reasoning. How is breaking the usefulness helping the revenue stream? Assuming you're an engineer, have you thought about what handing over a "window" from one computer to another actually entails? CRIU can do checkpoint/restore at container/process level - but you actually want it to run on both, no? So you need to split off just the I/O, but at the OS-level per window. Apple has been doing a lot of work in this direction and they have stuff that actually work (like video calls and to some extent windows. These are processes running on different OS-es with a matrix of hundreds of devices. It's not something you vibe code over the weekend.

amelius 1y ago
This stuff has been solved ages ago on Unix.
- random3 1y ago
  Oh, did Linux get IO handover and I missed it? Have they been doing it for ages with their librephone announcement yesterday?
  - homarp 1y ago
    fsf and linux are not really the same entity.
  - amelius 1y ago
    Check out: https://xpra.org/index.html https://xpra.org/index.html
    - random3 1y ago
      That’s cool. It would work for the mirror display functionality, but handover is more like CRIU in the sense that it becomes a process on the target host. Moreover headphones are also switching. So it seems a bit more involved than either.

jjtheblunt 1y ago

from this demo video, it looks like you could surround yourself with vim windows, terminals, and so on? https://www.apple.com/newsroom/videos/2025/autoplay/10/apple-vision-pro-mac-virtual-display/large_2x.mp4 https://www.apple.com/newsroom/videos/2025/autoplay/10/apple...

jazzyjackson 1y ago
Within the bounds of that big ol 8k window, yes, but the applications themselves can't be extracted and positioned separately. My workaround for this is using applications that work comfortably in a safari window (like vscode) and you can have as many safari windows free floating as you want

wrsh07 1y ago

I actually bought one thinking I could buy a vision pro instead of a new computer, but alas, the vision pro (despite being a powerful computer) is not usable as a work computer (I returned it)

dvdsgl 1y ago

You can surround yourself with floating terminals using the Blink app. Here I code from the couch surrounded by nvim, Claude Code, etc.: https://x.com/dvdsgl/status/1948840477970841720/video/1 https://x.com/dvdsgl/status/1948840477970841720/video/1

efavdb 1y ago
awesome. curious, what's your review for this use case?
ebbi 1y ago
Amazing! How long can you do this for before you feel any fatigue (neck/eyes)? Do you feel you're more in focus when using Vision Pro like this, as opposed to using an external monitor?
- dvdsgl 1y ago
  Feels fun and promising, but switching input focus between windows is fiddly.
- magarnicle 1y ago
  If you have a sleeping newborn on you the answer is "until they wake up".

KronisLV 1y ago

> Then I found out they went with an app model and the device could only display a single MacOS window. There was this program called Immersed for Quest and some other VR headsets (apparently Apple's one too?) that ages ago was quite brilliant: I could connect my laptop or PC and have as many virtual desktops in addition to the real ones displayed around me. Even on my Quest 2, until the strain set in, it was cool to just kinda tune out the room around me and be in a black void surrounded by just the screens of whatever I'm working on. Sadly, in one update they randomly removed it as a "legacy feature nobody uses", which ruined the program for me, and Virtual Desktop for the Quest also has limited screens you can display, so I can't even do all 4 of my physical ones, nor virtual ones - despite it having worked previously in the other program. For a little bit, it was a really cool mode of working, but sadly I only got glimpses of it and would need more capable hardware like AVP for that in the first place (Quest 2 very much had its limitations). Also, this was a pretty cool idea, even if a novelty: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Js7Y1H5D8cY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Js7Y1H5D8cY

vid 1y ago

Maybe I'm missing something, but I think emulating a physical screen in a virtual field of view is the wrong way to do this. Why introduce off-axis viewing and all the other unnecessary weirdnesses? What if the entire field of view were the screen, with head and eye movement as navigation? I guess make the windows transparent so it's less disorienting, and it would at least initially be overwhelming, but past that it could be quite transformative.

golergka 1y ago

Looks like this version finally works like an ultrawide external monitor.

fzzzy 1y ago

You can just install La Terminal...

m463 1y ago

I went to an apple store, saw a vision pro and asked if I could try it on. They said you had to schedule an appointment, then they would take you through a supervised viewing or whatever. This gave me the impression it wasn't ready for general use, and they would have to control your impression of the thing while selling you on it. I know that VR is hard, and AR is much harder, but this made me think apple still hasn't cracked it. As to single app - I figure the thing has to be hard real-time to do things without giving you a headache or nausea/vomiting. that probably doesn't leave room for a lot of sharing of resources. In the end, I think this is a iphone 1.0 type device, and only continued development with deep pockets will make it viable, eventually.

lexoj 1y ago
In the country im in, apple official resellers were not allowing to try any of their apple watches on wrist.
1123581321 1y ago
The appointment is fairly hands off. The employee checks your prescription, installs the right lenses and helps you have a good fit, possibly trying other lenses if you’re having issues. There isn’t any prep I saw that they would have to do before they could except a walk-in.