The most interesting part to me is the relation between the hardware and the software.
> And at the end of the day it still has more pixels, which matters because not everything is high-contrast text.
Apple has a weaker software but is getting saved by better hardware. And that's of course not an isolated situation: I'd argue the mac also is getting weaker software wise [0], but the hardware is pulling it ahead of the competition in many respects. The iPad is also the poster child of that trend.
That's the reverse from the PowerPC situation when they had weaker hardware but more dev mindshare and nicer user experience bringing people into the fold even as they couldn't compete on raw performance.
[0] Windows has caught up on the *nix integration and hidpi/energy efficiency front, linux has gotten better support emulation layers (especially Proton), while macos has been fighting devs to make it more iOS like.
Curious how many who bought a Vision Pro are still using it?
My bet based on the success of Meta's RayBan Smartglasses Apple will be releasing their version in the next year or two. If you wear sunglasses and like / do take a good amount of photos/videos daily Meta's Rayban is a great solid and very useful product! I use them daily since buying them in October. This is a mass product like Apple Watch and personally per my use I think the next iPhone.
Vision Pro as of today is not a mass product yet they are trying to work towards getting to that point. Though today it's a mixed bag of features that do not enhance daily life much and or make things we already do easier.. Meta's RayBans do just that and more.
I expected mine to gather dust. Instead, I am using it all the time to watch shows and movies. Before the AVP, I actually watched very few movies the last several years. But the viewing experience is so amazing with the Vision Pro, I can’t get enough and I’m catching up like crazy.
How many people are in your household? If multiple individuals, do you share TV/movie interests. Do you watch by yourself while they watch something different? I’m interested in learning more from users who are super happy with the product.
The most delightful thing is watching 30 mins in bed before sleep. Just me in front of a gigantic cinema screen floating above me, with my airpods so it’s completely silent.
I’m wondering in what way that’s different than buying yourself a 65” OLED TV with an expensive surround sound system and then making yourself watch movies to justify the many dollars of investment.
It almost seems like an accident that the product is notable and gets use.
I have a 65” actually. The AVP is like having a 200”+ screen. And this isn’t about “hur dur everything bigger is better.” You actually do appreciate cinematography more at a large scale.
I’ve had to pause, e.g., some shots in Kill Bill and Gravity just to marvel at the stunning visual compositions. Never once did that on my TV.
Oh, here’s something that’s not obvious: the movie screen (and all images) looks matte inside the AVP. This works exceptionally well for films.
iPad sales peaked 10 years ago and Apple never cut iPad sales forecasts by 50% like they did with the Vision Pro.
Don’t fall into the trap of assuming that Apple only makes successful products. They have had poorly selling/discontinued recent product launches like the iPhone mini and HomePod. The VR market as a whole is contracting.
I totally understand watching media on it. I liked watching media on far worse VR displays. Its just not worth the asking price, to me, for mostly that.
I'm not seeing the connection between a hefty VR headset with AR passthrough, and a camera you wear on your face.
It also seems extremely unlikely to me that a camera you wear on your face will be the next smartphone. Technologies which change society to that degree are rare.
I do believe you when you say it's a great product. I like my Wayfarers and have been tempted to pick up a pair that is also a camera I can wear on my face. I've seen the Metas, they don't cut quite as sharp a profile but the effect is unobtrusive and stylish.
I don't get what it has to do with VR headsets though.
The vision pros end goal is to shrink it down into glasses form so then you're wearing an iPhone on your face ... There are so many things that then can be created and will make millions and millions want to buy smart glasses.
Meta has created such Glasses… For 2024… They are version .5… That make taking pictures much easier than getting out your phone for those who wear sunglasses. How many people wear sunglasses how many people take pictures every day with their phone?… I'd say billions
Either way Meta's Smartglasses are a great & very useful product. It makes things we already do I.e. pics/videos easier & more fun. Also taking calls & listening to music which ppl now pay tons for AirPods to just do those two things. AirPods I've always found uncomfortable..wearing glasses has never been uncomfortable.
Recently Meta pushed out updates to the glasses where you can ask the glasses.. Hey Meta what am I looking at and it will audibly tell you. Also I can take video calls now where viewer sees what I see.. like me driving.
Overall tho in terms of a good smart glasses UX do I need a bunch of distracting visuals to be seen ...maybe a few here and there & at the right time or when I command such but not an overload especially when driving.
1. I don’t see how this product is related at all. Sunglasses with a camera and headphones is just that: sunglasses with a camera and headphones.
2. It’s funny to describe the Vision Pro as a “Mixed bag of features” compared to a pair of sunglasses that randomly has a camera and headphones. If that isn’t a mixed bag I don’t know what is.
For the record I think the ray bans and Vision Pro both suck.
I'd hard disagree. I use the Metas all the time and they're incredibly useful, especially to ask quick questions re:plants or what not and then taking impromptu photos of kids and pets etc that are camera shy.
Personally people who dislike smart-glasses because of privacy i dont understand... you have no privacy in public and people could be taking pics of you and whoever with their phones. Do you go up to people who hold their phones up and who do whatever they maybe doing with their phones. Do you go up asking if they took a pic of you and ask to delete it?
I understand. But for every one of you there's 5 glassholes thinking it's great fun secretly recording people in public places and posting it on tiktok.
This is why everyone hated on google glass. Which had a much more noticeable camera than the ray-bans. I have one myself (the glass, I 3D printed a camera cover for it).
I mean, I get it. But I don't think they do anything that "phone in hand discreetly tilted near chest/stomach" doesn't do. If anything this has a recording light, and I can use both my hands :P Essentially a miniature goPro strapped to my eyes.
>recording people in public places
Honestly at this point if I am in public I just assume someone (or something - cctv's everywhere) is recording me at all times.
So your use case is taking photos of people who don’t want their picture taken, or doing things that the phone I already own and have on me all the time can do.
And unlike my smartphone that keeps the photos on-device, your Meta ray bans are submitting all your family members to be face scanned by the Meta surveillance capitalism app.
>taking photos of people who don’t want their picture taken
*My* kids and dogs. But ...
>doing things that the phone I already own and have on me all the time can do.
Remember what I said about dogs and my kids stopping what they're doing when a phone is out and focusing on the phone instead? It's not "Don't take my picture." It's "whats that in your hand ooooh gimme."
>your Meta ray bans are submitting all your family members to be face scanned by the Meta surveillance capitalism app
Unless you have a solid evidence of THAT (and not some random link), please do not make unsubstantiated claims.
Anyhow, if you're really curious about how it works : Photos are stored on device and then imported via bluetooth/wifi connection manually or when they're charging. _NOTHING_ gets sent to Meta unless I specifically use the multi-modal Meta AI ("Hey Meta, look and tell me x"). All of this information is out there in several places (including Meta's own documents) as to how this works. It's not very hard to find - easier than making unsubstantiated claims.
You should try to have a normal conversation instead of being argumentative. It tends to help people wanting to talk further. This isn't reddit. :)
I actually had a reason to not use my AVP for about six weeks (a shoulder injury) and noticed how excited I was to return to it (primarily for "productivity" reasons).
That said, I also used the Quest 2 for much longer than I expected, and it started gathering dust long before I switched the AVP.
Using my daily! Works amazing as a media consumption device, and pairs so well with my Macbook Pro. I love having a floating space with my freeform boards and notes as I see fit.
I went from having a big second monitor setup, to just putting the vision on with my mac.
Using VR as an "endless" virtual monitor is one feature I've been looking for since I started using multimonitors setups.
Just don't think I want to spend US$ 3.5k on that but if it ever comes to a price tag around US$ 1-1.5k I'd snatch it easily. Spent more than that on my current screens.
Apple sold more vision pro(s) then Meta sold of their RayBans your saying?
No official numbers from Facebook rather speculation of up to a million have been sold. Also as the majority of those who review meta's raybans share the same positive thoughts /experience of my own. It's just a ton easier to take pics and videos overall and especially when driving (hey Meta take a pic).
The Ray-Ban Metas are actually amazing, I am surprised they are not more popular!
They've completely changed vacations for me. No longer do I have to look at <event> through my phone. I can be much more present - I can see it with my actual eyes and just be confident that the memory will be captured. The image/video quality is quite good.
The audio quality is also surprisingly good - I can listen to music while still enjoying the nature around me (in a way I like more than passthrough on the AirPods.)
I don't really care for the AI, but maybe one day they'll give us Llama 3 400b and it'll be good too.
> No longer do I have to look at <event> through my phone.
To be honest, you’ve never had to enjoy <event> through the phone. Many people have enjoyed <event> without having a phone, especially prior to the arrival of mobile phones.
And perhaps for the better. To be more in the moment.
One of the biggest "welcome to tech" moments for me* was attending WWDC 2013 Vampire Weekend concert. Everyone front row is standing still holding their phones up.
Didn't hit me until your comment, but, maybe the other side of that coin is I'm never looking at photos and videos of the past.
* not-CS college dropout > waiter > ipad point of sale startup > sold > Google
Right. Speculation and general excitement about stuff that's been around for a while, in 2012 I couldn't get over Glass. Snapchat Spectacles. Graveyard is filled with vibes successes. And the Ray-Bans haven't gotten a fraction of the attention either of those got, or a fraction or a fraction of Spectacles mass appeal. I'm still waiting to hear about it outside tech.
These days Apple has a huge software problem when it comes to their new products. No matter how good they make the Vision Pro, there's ultimately very little people can actually do on it. The operating system is more limited than iOS or iPad OS. There are no games. No porn. In fact the most touted feature (using it as an external display for your Macbook) is mostly an afterthought. It doesn't have passthrough audio. You can't control the mouse with it. Can't type text. Can't break out and spatially arrange your laptop's windows. So what's even the point?
It's not a lack of software per se. It's simply not a very useful form factor. There's a fundamental limitation to what AR can do. Things like occlusion and balancing the brightness of real and projected images is just not solvable. And if they were, what can't be achieved more easily with a pocket-sized touchscreen computer?
Remember a few years ago when Apple and Google were racing to add AR capabilities to phones? ARKit and ARCore. In the hands of millions of users and developers and we haven't seen a single killer app since Pokemon Go and that was 8 years ago. We have a Quest and the number one app is still Beat Saber. There just isn't a problem to solve.
This is in fact a huge oversight in my opinion. As usual Apple's prudishness is limiting them from allowing it but unlike the quest there isn't a side load option either. You're limited to web-based offerings only (and strangely enough WebXR support is not great on the AVP). The experience will be hamstrung by not being able to offer a native app.
And let's be honest, this tech is a game changer for porn. There's a platform called sexlikereal for quest that's doing videos and the immersion makes it way more realistic. You can even couple it with synchronised toys. And this is only video, real 3D content would be even more immersive as you could even move around inside the scene.
You can ignore it or not but SexTech is an emerging market especially in Europe where we have a more open minded stance towards such things. The swinger and poly community is ever growing.
It's a shame Apple is selling themselves short by avoiding a category where AR/VR tech has a huge added value.
Yeah of course, Apple also doesn't block you from recording your own porn. But using those apps is more of a workaround than a real first class citizen. Some things that are probably still missing is passthrough (seeing the model cut out of the scene in your environment) and toy integration (I don't have a vision pro so I can't check)
But movies isn't really the end game. It's much nicer than 2D porn but it's still very limited because you can't influence the action or move around. Having real interactive 3D content would be another big step that isn't currently possible with apple's restrictions.
There's isn't much yet but some is already happening on the pcvr side.
I just lament that this isn't being viewed as having the huge potential I know it has.
My theory is contingent on two assumptions (again they could be wrong)
1. Tim Cook is looking for a legacy product. His own chance at “one more thing”
2. Apple is currently often behind the innovator. Its goal is to improve and perfect consumer technology; recently rarely leading the charge themselves
I think we are in an interesting “local minimum” of technology. It’s been a while since we have seen a completely groundbreaking product that changes the landscape of the industry. Every tech company is searching for the next product to help grow revenue. LLMs are the current hotness, but previously it was briefly VR thanks to Meta. Apple probably started the process of making the AVP once Zuck pivoted to making Meta a “VR Company”.
Since this was a flash in the pan interest (for anyone other than VR enthusiasts), and Apple had yet to bring a product to market, they had to pivot from entertainment to “productivity” as the main use-case of the device. That’s where “spacial computing” was born. Since Tim Cook was searching for his legacy product, and because the Apple vision pro is legitimately impressive, they decided to move ahead with releasing it despite there being no market fit.
My guess is we never see another version of the AVP and probably never hear about it again. I’m most likely totally wrong, but I wanted to share my prediction.
My personal hope is someone can figure out how to make reasonable HUD-like smart glasses with the new innovations in transparent OLED technology. It doesn't need a camera or microphone, just provide the missing always-on visual experience (we already have headphones with very good transparency) and integrate with the various other devices we have. The trouble will be the UI, though IMO you don't really need to interact with it directly, let it be an extension of the phone/watch/etc.
So basically Google Glass with modern technology and without the social issues of having a camera pointed at everyone you talk to?
I imagine it would be very successful if it's marketed as a sports product. See your current heart rate and movement speed without taking your eyes from the track, that kind of stuff.
How would you interact with a HUD system if you can dismiss and activate HUD elements ?
For the last sentence, at that point why not just interface with the watch and phone themselves if you’re already going to have to look at them to interact
This is more correct than any speculation I've read on HN.
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Cook desperately wants to be seen as more than a caretaker post-Jobs. His only success so far is making stockholders happy but "Best Bean Counter Ever" isn't an epitaph he wants so he's plowed tens of billions of dollars into the now dead Apple Car project and tens of billions into the Vision Pro. Cook's plan was for one or both of those products to cement his legacy as a product genius like Steve Jobs, but despite having cash resources Jobs could never even have dreamed, Cook's two big product initiatives are both a complete bust.
The board made him pick between the Car and the Vision Pro and he picked the AVP because it was closer to market and aligned with his view on Apple's computing platform progression. Too bad for him both of his projects were awful ideas for Apple.
Oh, and to the sycophants, Apple cranking out couple of successful iPhone accessories and services, nice to haves that compliment Steve Job's iPhone, does not make Tim Cook a product leader. It makes him minimally competent as business leader who didn't totally break Job's Apple organization immediately. Watch and Air Pods are accessories, like a keyboard or a monitor. No one celebrates Jobs because he shipped a decent mouse one time.
> Curious how many who bought a Vision Pro are still using it?
Little to no-one.
The minority of those who bought it are preparing to sell it and the majority of those who bought one already sold it with in the 14 day window.
Unsurprisingly predicted, it comes as to no surprise that the Vision Pro performed worse in sales and they had to cut production due to low demand.
Vision Pro was for the techies, early adopters and Apple fans. Not for the general public as I said before in [0]. Wait until the non-pro version of Apple Vision.
To downvoters: If the Apple Vision Pro was such a glamorous success then why are they cutting shipments for 2024 due to low demand then? [1][2]
"The report said Chinese contract manufacturer Luxshare, Apple's only assembler of the device, was preparing to make fewer than 400,000 units of Vision Pro in 2024"
One of the issues with VR glasses is that at reasonable viewing distances a normal 4k monitor takes up about a quarter of your vision (in each axis, so 1/16th the area), maybe a bit less. That's why 4k glasses can't replicate the feeling of looking at a 4k monitor, you would need 16k screens for each eye to achieve that. And those simply don't exist in that size.
For a lot of use cases you don't need that. Even 720p AR headsets can be useful if they are fast enough, both for gaming and industry applications. But really crisp fonts or high-resolution virtual monitors are simply not possible yet
Yes that's often the discussion I have, many people take the raw resolution as something they can get on a virtual display. Or even add the pixels of the two screens together even though they mostly overlap, which is required for the stereo effect to work.
Still, the VP should comfortably be able to display a full HD monitor I think. Not been able to test it though as Apple doesn't bother releasing it in Europe.
We're still a few tech generations away from that being physically possible. The absolute best on the market (clocking in at way pricier and heavier than the AVP) hit about 70 PPD, while a 4K laptop at a reasonable distance is the equivalent of about 110 PPD or so.
I think XReal-style "AR" glasses will win out when it comes to being a monitor replacement. XReals already have near-monitor level clarity, at the cost of not being fully immersive (also not 4k yet). A benefit of not being fully immersive is that you're much less likely to get headaches.
> And at the end of the day it still has more pixels, which matters because not everything is high-contrast text.
Apple has a weaker software but is getting saved by better hardware. And that's of course not an isolated situation: I'd argue the mac also is getting weaker software wise [0], but the hardware is pulling it ahead of the competition in many respects. The iPad is also the poster child of that trend.
That's the reverse from the PowerPC situation when they had weaker hardware but more dev mindshare and nicer user experience bringing people into the fold even as they couldn't compete on raw performance.
[0] Windows has caught up on the *nix integration and hidpi/energy efficiency front, linux has gotten better support emulation layers (especially Proton), while macos has been fighting devs to make it more iOS like.