"More than a few users are writing reviews along the lines of, “this is a really amazing device that blew my mind when I first used it,” and it “has SO much promise,” while also declaring their intention to return it after a few days."
“Gargoyles represent the embarrassing side of the Central Intelligence Corporation. Instead of using laptops, they wear their computers on their bodies, broken up into separate modules that hang on the waist, on the back, on the headset. They serve as human surveillance devices, recording everything that happens around them. Nothing looks stupider; these getups are the modern-day equivalent of the slide-rule scabbard or the calculator pouch on the belt, marking the user as belonging to a class that is at once above and far below human society. They are a boon to Hiro because they embody the worst stereotype of the CIC stringer. They draw all the attention. The payoff for this self-imposed ostracism is that you can be in the Metaverse all the time, and gather intelligence all the time.” - Snow Crash
I went in eyes wide open to buying the AVP, I knew it was essentially a dev kit++ and that the chances of me returning it would be high. I’ve written extensively on my blog about my experience with it and why I’m going to return it the summary is this:
I can’t be productive in it. If you can be productive on an iPad then you can probably be productive in this (with an external keyboard) but I can’t work natively on the AVP. I tried Mac Virtual Display quite a bit and it’s just blurry. It’s not close to 4K, my 2K screens blow it out of the water. It’s just not good enough to use as an external monitor replacement.
It’s an amazing device, the best I’ve seen, and I’ll buy a future iteration of it but this version is not good enough for the price.
This is very interesting to me. I've seen / heard a number of reviewers who have the same complaint about the Virtual Display (too blurry), and a number that don't (it's great to work on).
Are some people are more perceptive to things like this so they're more bothered by it? Or is there a population segment that is just unable to get a crisp picture via virtual displays, and if so, why?
Anyone else tried Virtual Display for an extended period: "too blurry" or "totally fine"???
I also find this fascinating. I just listened to ATP's latest episode (not sure if it's out to non-paying members yet, I listen to the "bootleg" feed) and Marco agreed the MVD was too blurry but Casey said it was great to work on. Granted Casey was using it in a hotel room and on a train which, as I've said in my blog posts on this [1] and my HN comments, I can see being better than just the MBP monitor (in size and ergonomics, not quality) but if you have external displays available they beat the pants off the AVP. My 2K displays are leaps and bounds better than the AVP's MVD.
Maybe Casey's opinion will change with time and/or once he is at home more but I know he likes to go to the library/coffee shops to work so maybe the AVP is a step up for him in those cases. I don't do that, I work at home or at my parents house (where I built a second office, with the same external monitors) so I don't have a good use case for the AVP other than media consumption where it does amazing, but not $4K amazing.
I'd guess it's just what different people are used to. Some people think a 24" 1080p monitor looks just fine, others will find it very pixelated and hard to use.
Plenty of people think VR headsets look great, whereas all I notice is pixels, screen door, and aliasing.
If apple is like a fashion company, then it makes sense that people use them for social signaling. Nobody would do that with the Quest3 even though it's lighter
> The way people are talking about the Vision Pro now is a lot like how early adopters talked about portable personal-media players
Actually it is like the way they talked about every other VR device before it: promising, but still not there
I'm curious - had you not used a VR headset previously? As someone who has, I knew that you can up the resolution 4x and still won't be able to fix all these other obvious issues that make headsets a non-starter for most people.
Since the most compelling difference from other VR headsets is the seamless pass through, I’d say you’re paying about $3000 extra dollars on top of a Quest 3 to get a headset you can do chores wearing.
The weight and lack of SteamVR have me strongly considering returning it, but I’m keeping it for novelty factor and sentimental reasons (my brother worked on the foveated rendering) and have found a few ways to put it in my routine - besides chores, the environments turned all the way up are pretty relaxing, not as good as being at Haleakala, but much better than my Valve Index.
In the mean time like the article says, I’m trying out different headgear - next up is a BoboVR aftermarket band for Quest 2 that someone on Reddit is 3D printing Apple Vision adapters for
It's been a week. The ecosystem needs time to catch up. In a year we'll see whole bunch of alternate straps and headgear, a bunch of apps, and seeing people using it in public won't be as strange.
In 10 years you'll wonder what's wrong the people who are still using their phone and laptop at coffee shop instead of their Vision 12 Pro Max.
Laptops, not desktops. Lugging a desktop around would certainly be worthy of an eyebrow raise. As for why it's not a good work environment, you've presented a loaded question. It may not be a good environment for you, but it is for me. To presume it uniformly bad is a starting off with a flawed premise.
It's to noisy and one gets distracted easily. Even if you say it's good for you, you might not notice it. Keep it real. Just think and tell, why you're not everyday working in such an environment, but rather occasionally and on special days "must be there". And on other days you choose to work from somewhere else.
I can tell you: if you have a task you need concentration for, you won't go to a Cafe. You won't even think of going into one. You'll go there where it's calm. Even a writer that scouts for inspiration won't be in a noisy environment after he found it. Analyze your last week's if you want so :)
The best one's are the ones with noise cancelling sitting in Starbucks with their laptop. I understand it's a necessity for traveling workers and there's may be no other option for them ftm. I can't tell the difference between traveling/not traveling.. But others can :)
No, it's a bad working environment for you, and I'd appreciate if you didn't condescend me with smiley faces and presume to make declarations about my productivity on my behalf.
> Just think and tell, why you're not everyday working in such an environment,
But I am.
>And on other days you choose to work from somewhere else.
I do not.
> Analyze your last week's if you want so :)
I did. I was at various cafes 6 of the last 7 days.
I would be less productive at home, or any other quiet, non-energetic environment. I would know, I've tried and hated it. I respect that this is a somewhat unorthodox approach to a working environment and may be difficult to comprehend, but what is true for you is not some global truth you can apply to the rest of us unconditionally.
Why so aggressive? Like my girlfriend who each time listens music with earphones while learning things for her exams with exactly the same arguments like you - like "it's your problem, not my", "I can't learn without music", "I learn faster with music" ... It's ok. It's her choice. I see her switching each few tenth seconds, sometimes also a "not that song again" can be heard. She's distracted every now and then and - that - she don't realize, because it's against "her experiences" that are based on "her experiences" which has listening to music as basis.
She might be productive in her eyes, but I see her distracted every few seconds for a few seconds to a few mins searching for the right song to learn. She might say "I learned much more while listening to music", but I see she learns more faster, when she learns with some other in a quiet environment.
It's a fact. No matter what you do or what you feel like, our brains are the same. We only can keep up 10mins of pure concentration without distractions, then we need a short pause. The same applies to learning things effectively, especially if you try to understand smthg. The biggest brainer here: to recognize this and being able to see, that pure concentration can't be achieved in a soundy/loud environment because our brain is always working and filtering the visual/background noise information around us for danger. This costs attention and we get lightly distracted by some unfamiliar sound, like some one swirling the tea spoon in the teacup. This applies if some brain doesn't have the Attention Deficit Syndrome, where you can't keep your attention to one thing for a few seconds. This brains have a problem to concentrate anyway and never experience nor have the need for a quiet surrounding. But this can't be compared then, as it's a special case and the majority do not have this condition. So with a smile face, you either have a lack of self reflection on that topic and talk out of experiences, which you made and which happens to be "typically in a cafe" or you have some sort of concentration problems anyway.
I can tell you - when I was a student, my best study friend and me, we prepared our exams in loud environments and in quiet ones. We learned at a busy McDonald's from 10 am 'til 6pm. While it was very cool and productive - self reflection tells me it wasn't. It was all the light stuff we did in noisy environments. But the heavy stuff has been lifted in the night time like 1 am in the university - where it happened to be quit. Of course, also the noisy environments yielded good results - but I don't lie to myself, they could've been better with me doing quiet learning instead doing enjoyable learning.
It's a kind of a "religion talk" talking that kind of topics - because it's hard for us to reflect the bad things and to admit one's wrongs. Its difficult to look at it unbiased :) with a smily face sliding out of the discussion.
I appreciate your well intentioned point of view (and that you didn't include smilely faces this time), but I think you need to tone down the sanctimony. There's an irony in how you talk about the misplaced conviction of others while being equally convicted yourself. Rightly or wrongly, you've made broad reaching and grandiose statements about others on their behalf, which if nothing else, is not a compelling strategy for your convincing your debate partners.
I understand that you cannot comprehend working in a cafe. It's not for everyone. But it is for me. And even if we don't agree on that point, the world won't burn down because of it.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to return to my cafe and get some more work done.
Yes, you're right. I need to tone down. My statement was neutral and with arguments that underpin what I'm stating. You didn't participate in the discussion the same way, except pointing out that it's for you but not for me, it's a compelling strategy and that I can't comprehend..
I can, as you're able to see in my brought arguments.
And of course, each one is free to reflect my points or not and also each one is free where he chooses to work, as long the work is done. Ay, peace!
Not everyone works that way. I have trouble concentrating in really quiet environments and actually do better with a low to moderate amount of background noise, like a coffee shop or coworking space. I do some of my best work there.
Offices are OK but rarely all that comfortable. Libraries are too quiet and kinda creepy to me. Bars are too loud and distracting (and the alcohol doesn't help). Coffee shops are a nice in between.
Yes our brains are sometimes strangers of their own. If you're realizing that you have problems to concentrate in quiet environment and that you need a background noise - then half of the work of self reflection has been done by you. The other half is to understand what is the difference to the millions who need quiet rooms? Me too, I enjoy working in a office and hate it to work from home (too quiet). But that's for the light stuff and for the distractions, which I need to release the concentration build ups - to be effective. I need my cig everything 15 to 20 mins - as this is exactly the time one should do a pause anyway. I also would answer like "we are different. I can't work like 2h without a break. I need my cig and concentration can't be kept up longer then ten mins and then needs an refresh" thats my experience I'm taking off.
But then, having quit smoking for a period of time, I noticed that I have much more time left for my work. Per hour 3 cigs means you actually have 42 mins of 60 mins left, within a work day of 8 hours, that would mean 3x8x6mins == 144 mins or 2h wasted within a day. But what did make me reflect with even more criticism on my life's experiences is the fact that while quitting smoking and regaining the 2h spend on cigs daily - my productivity rose more than this additional 2h would suggest. In two/three days smoke free I did the work of weeks. So I made an controlled experiment and found out, it's not the wasted time of 2h for smoking, but rather the 6 mins of break taken whenever I thought "I have to think about that problem while smoking outside". That was a break in my process of thinking. And, I realized that finished smoking after, a few minutes are needed to find one's way into thinking again. And that's the problem. Because then, a cig costs me 10 mins instead of 6. So I was unconsciously wasting half of my working time, just because I was sure I need a break and a cig because it's like that and I can't do without. In the end I started smoking again and kept my new gained-by-experiment-knowledge out of reach of my then-Boss.
So the difficulty, like everywhere in one's life, is to think and to analyze and to admit being wrong at smthg, rather then pure talking out of experiences without any reflection on this. Actually it's a disability and discomfort to admit one was wrong :)
I don't tell you how and where you should work. I just said, work in a noisy environment like a cafe bears too much of distractions and one has to realize that first..
I totally depends on your work. A coffee shop is probably a pretty good work environment for a barista but there are certainly better work environments for most developers.
I realize now how long it’s been since I heard this argument. I don’t fully disagree to be clear—as when everyone in the coffee shop is on a laptop it starts to feel odd and sterile; I’m basically in a corporate office. But it seems to have gone way of the “I can’t stand people using phones on the bus/train.”
I'm particularly interested to see what Apple does to evolve the OS. Better window management, different kinds of interactions, there's a lot of potential.
But for now it seems the hardware itself isn't quite there yet. Everything from the fit (light seals, straps) to the battery to the displays and lenses could be better.
I just listened to the latest ATP, and even grumpy old man John Siracusa was blown away by the VR experience. I'm sitting out this one, but I'm pretty excited for the second or third gen.
> I'm sitting out this one, but I'm pretty excited for the second or third gen.
What's funny is that at this point Apple has a reputation for "the 2nd/3rd gen is the first good one". And I wonder how many people are waiting it out, which means we won't get their feedback until then, which means now it will be the 4th or 5th gen that's good.
My assumption being what makes the 2nd/3rd generation good is because they incorporate all the user feedback when making those versions.
I think Apple probably already knows what the 2nd or 3rd gen look like mostly now, anyway. They most likely don’t commit to a product line like Vision without a multi year roadmap in place, and have to make a cut line eventually to launch v1 which includes some obvious drawbacks they can improve.
Add on to that, I think they have more of a culture of looking past feedback to figure out the key new tech that’s available now and building towards that, rather than just responding to user feedback directly (though they clearly do that, too).
Yes - if it’s anything like the iPhone, the features of the second generation will be pretty much finalised by now, and they will be well into planning the third generation.
>In 10 years you'll wonder what's wrong the people who are still using their phone and laptop at coffee shop instead of their Vision 12 Pro Max.
I seriously dont think that would happen. At least I dont ever see it replace a phone, or a smart computer in pocket. The Laptop and Smartphone was obvious, even though the implementation of smartphone interaction wasn't obvious until iPhone arrives. But the form factor makes lots of sense.
I just dont see how Vision Pro Max could do that. At least not the form of a goggles. May be a plan glasses.
>"I’ve been wearing it laying down like 75% of the time. Much more comfortable for me. Only time I sit up are when there’s a need to (watching stuff in immersive environments) and exploring with putting windows around my house and stuff. Laying down is the way to go IMO. Head propped up sofa armrest/pillow."
This doesn't sound like "spatial computing" at all. It sounds like just mounting a big screen Tv to the ceiling. Same result really.
I must say I quite like this article style with plenty of real links to cited sources. Loved the references to actual 2007 articles about netbooks and htpc.
That’s over the top hype than any thread to reality. They sure did a great job at making a portable _monitor_. But, to do anything other than numb consumption of Apple sanctioned content, you’re going to need a keyboard and a Mac.
And remember that thing lasts 2.5 hours on a battery hanging by your hip.
Sure, it’s a first gen device, and it is supposed to evolve into something that solves several shortcomings, but it certainly does not have the bones for a “true portable computing” platform.
They could even add a miniature M* SOC in there to let you wear a MAC on your nose, make it lighter, thinner, etc over the years, but it is still a thing on your nose that you need to interact with an external keyboard.
When the iPhone was first introduced, sure it lacked copy and paste, ability to run Flash(in more use at the time), and several shortcomings, but it had the interface(touch screen with just the fingers) nailed perfect that made it the success it is.
And you need a Mac laptop i believe, not just any Mac. Does the Mac feature work with a Mac mini? If so do you have to look at the mini itself or the screen to make it work?
Irreverent and accurate. Not a bad take. It’s pretty obviously true that we don’t know what how the use of this device is going to unfold, and they lightly make fun of that fact without being unduly cynical.
I think what people need to keep in mind is that AR is not just going to be a Moores Law type thing. AR has to not only improve with regards to size, but also find ways to deal with etendue while reducing that size, and dealing with thermal issues. It’s easy to assume AR just needs a few more years because everything else in tech has been like that, but the improvements in the space that are likely needed for people to feel comfortable publicly using AR might take a lot longer than what is usual.
I hope that in a few generations, Apple will make one that is all about lowering the weight. Let's say they can lower the weight from 650g to 350g by removing the metal enclosure, front glass, front display, and smaller components. I would buy that to be able to work on the go and it'd be an amazing piece of entertainment device.
Finally, I'd like to share what I'm viewing with friends and family such as a movie screen or a 3D model fixed in the same position.
You can Airplay the Vision Pro to an Apple TV or a Mac connected to your iCloud account. The real issue is that every time someone else wants to use your Vision Pro, they need to go through eye and hand calibration. It’s impossible to see something cool and just hand the headset over to someone else to pop on. My parter enjoyed trying it out but the friction of doing setup again has killed any desire to share more of the experiences directly.
I was hoping that the Vision Pro would have camera access, so that developers could actually build interesting mixed reality/augmented reality apps. As soon as I saw that Apple locked down the cameras just like the Meta quest 3 I knew I'd be $3500 richer. Maybe one day...
There are a bunch of cameras in- and outside the Vision Pro for handtracking, AR, eyetracking, etc, that Apple doesn't allow direct access to for privacy reasons
It instantly changed how I work. Seems like a lasting change.
For me, counterintuitively, the stereo 3D is a secondary benefit. Albeit a natural and welcome one.
But the killer feature is the ergonomics of having any number of weightless screens of arbitrary dimension and placement.
It took me a day or so to realize I don’t need a desk so much.
For five days I have been sitting on my couch with a MacBook Air (couch friendly) developing with many screens of relevant info arranged around me.
A mundane but profound benefit of “spatial computing” is no more hardware screen “keyholes” limiting how much information I can see.
Apple seems to get that the Vision Pro wants to be a Mac replacement, not an iPad replacement.
Everything in Vision works with both see-pinch and track/mouse click.
Hoping see-pinch comes to Mac screen in Vision, or simply needing a Mac becomes redundant.
If Apple wants it to replace the Mac they need to give me a terminal and get the hell out of my way so I can run whatever software I want.
So long as Apple is content in foisting all complexity and freedom to the Mac, this will never be more than a really nice iPad replacement for consuming content.
Remember that when the Apple Watch came out, it had a feature that let you send doodles to other people? No one quite knew what the watch was going to be for at the beginning either.
(Counter point: At least it could also function as a watch)
No one in the US knew what to do with that feature. It was intended primarily for Asian audiences where drawing complex characters to communicate is much easier than rendering them in text.
Yes, swipe up on your keyboard and choose "Scribble". It used to be the default input method, which it no longer is, but personally I still prefer it even for English texts.
“Gargoyles represent the embarrassing side of the Central Intelligence Corporation. Instead of using laptops, they wear their computers on their bodies, broken up into separate modules that hang on the waist, on the back, on the headset. They serve as human surveillance devices, recording everything that happens around them. Nothing looks stupider; these getups are the modern-day equivalent of the slide-rule scabbard or the calculator pouch on the belt, marking the user as belonging to a class that is at once above and far below human society. They are a boon to Hiro because they embody the worst stereotype of the CIC stringer. They draw all the attention. The payoff for this self-imposed ostracism is that you can be in the Metaverse all the time, and gather intelligence all the time.” - Snow Crash