I agree that the OS is the most limiting factor of the AVP. In its current form it's just an iPad with all the downsides that brings. I had high hopes for it as a MBP replacement or companion but MVD was disappointing and so I returned mine.
Were you planning on bringing a keyboard and mouse around with you? VR "gesture" controls are godawful and nothing has supplanted mouse and keyboard because they are absolutely wonderful control methods.
If you ARE carrying around a mouse and keyboard and AVP, that seems like a lot more clunk and silliness than just using a damn laptop. What are you doing that actually benefits from gluing the screen to your face?
I want to be explicit: I love VR and have been hugely into it since the very first oculus dev kits, but other than flight/driving simulators and gun games which all hugely hugely benefit from the physical immersion VR provides, there is nothing worth doing in VR. Not that many games actually benefit from a physical presence. Almost nobody playing FIFA or CoD actually wants to do it in VR. The (really fun and quite well made) CoD ripoffs and other shooters in VR are nearly empty, because so few people are willing to stand up while playing. The Wii made this clear 18 years ago FFS.
I'm still waiting for a single use case that isn't sim driving, sim flying, or shooting, or beat saber. Billions invested into producing something, and still there is nothing.
> Were you planning on bringing a keyboard and mouse around with you? VR "gesture" controls are godawful and nothing has supplanted mouse and keyboard because they are absolutely wonderful control methods.
Yes, either external or the ones built into my MBP
> If you ARE carrying around a mouse and keyboard and AVP, that seems like a lot more clunk and silliness than just using a damn laptop. What are you doing that actually benefits from gluing the screen to your face?
I was hoping to use it as a companion (replacement was always "maybe in the future") initially so I was going to carry the AVP+MBP if things had worked out. Not always, but if I was going to be somewhere for an extended period of time (vacation/visiting friends or family/etc) then I would take both and have the "same setup" that I have at my desk at home (AVP+MBP). This was going to be an alternative to my 3-4 monitors (I have the same desk setup in 2 locations and duplicating everything was expensive and annoying). Unfortunately the MVD was too blurry and VR is too limiting (but mosting the MVD issues) so I returned my headset but that's what I was hoping to accomplish and how I was going to use it all.
Have you actually tried that though? People always bring this up like it's some cyberpunk fantasy but working with a one pound weight strapped to your face is awful and staring at screens situation an inch from your eyes is really really hard on them and absolutely sucks. I bet using VR for 8 hours a day would actually hurt your eyes.
Actual VR/AR desktop mirroring is a thing that exists now. It's a niche of a niche of a niche because it's not a good experience. It's interesting for the five minutes until it becomes unbearable.
Consider that many simracers, the niche that VR is the absolute best for, do not regularly use VR, because it's just too much fuss to put a damn set of goggles on, even when you are already sat in a purpose built simracing rig!
Whether it's VR, "Metaverse", or AI models, I want it to be open source.
I don't want to spend 8 hours a day in some corporation's world, even more than we already are. The incentives are not aligned.
The personal computer revolution (that Apple helped kickstart) was amazing. People could actually run the software locally, instead of a mainframe. People bought apps to run on their computer and videos to run on their own VCR. I feel like the Web started taking things backwards, empowering "the remote server" again, like a mainframe.
Now, we have Netflix, YouTube etc. and the broadband internet hurdle has been surmounted for many. We are fighting the wrong battles with "net neutrality". The real battle should be whether we can host the software on machines of our choice, or not.
When it comes to AI, yes you guys are lucky Meta had that snafu with LLaMa researchers and chose to seize the moment and make LLaMa available freely to everyone. Otherwise it would be quite a different world. Mark Z returned to his open-source roots that he had with Synapse and Wirehog back in the day, before Sean Parker and Peter Thiel “corrupted” him.
But when it comes to everything else, it is the opposite, in my opinion.
Apple sells you the hardware and you install apps locally. It’s not open source, but at least it runs locally. And Apple cares about your privacy.
Facebook is the opposite, it is ad-supported, it will never give you their backend source code or let you run your own social network. They only promote “React” front end framework and other ancillary things. They will try to take your data by hook or by crook (surreptitiously recording your camera and audio as well). Their “Metaverse” play would have to recouo the tens of billions spent on development.
But yeah when it comes to AI, you guys lucked out. Zuck’s image has improved since the first 15 years of “dumbf%[#s” giving him their data. He now surfs in a suit and looks much cooler. But remember — it’s people like Linus Torvalds, Tim Berners-Lee, and all the “BDFL”s of all the languages you use (like Guido Vom Rossum for Python and the Zend guys behind PHP) who really create most of the wealth for the world. If not for open source, you’d be spending more and more of your life in some corporation’s world.
Just ask yourself, when the following technologies enter your home or your body, would you rather all be hooked up to a corporation like the Borg, or at least have your own installation where you have a say:
TeslaBot in your house
Neuralink in your brain
Microsoft Recall recording
Hours in “the Metaverse”
Security cameras everywhere
What do you think the incentives will be for TeslaBot or Microsoft Recall surreptitiously storing everything they can about you, including your passwords?
When facing the temptation. Microsoft has already done it. Facebook has already done it.
But it can go far beyond that. How difficult would it be for TeslaBot to get all the info to impersonate you? All your mannerisms, voice recordings, your heartbeat rhythms, gait, everything?
> I don't want to spend 8 hours a day in some corporation's world, even more than we already are. The incentives are not aligned.
AR will be the 'future' for a very, very long time I think. Maybe there will be a Metaverse chatroom where all the worker bees can bounce around and have a happy hour on Friday or something
Personally, I have 0 interest in glasses, but a lot in quality, privacy respecting VR. Just not $3500 of it.
I would have been interested in a $3500 headset if that M1 chip had run macOS, so I could ditch my laptop on trips and take my office with me.