The company’s headset exists to placate investors, not serve users’ needs
  • masterspace ( masterspace@lemmy.ca ) English
    25·
    3 years ago

    I think a lens worth looking at that suggests this is a misstep is:

    • Apple has only ever convinced people to bring a new device with them once, with the iPod.

      • They realized that a wallet sized device that could playback your entire music collection would be a huge hit, and convinced people to effectively carry around a second wallet (plus headphones). This was the first and only time they convinced people to carry around a new device on a daily basis, and it was relatively easy since jeans had two front pockets anyways.

      • Around the same time, cell phones started also filling the role of second wallet, for a period, some of us even carried around 3 wallet sized devices. Then the iPhone just combined two of them (eventually all 3 kinda).

      • Macbooks / laptops, are basically just the equivalent of textbooks in our bookbag, iPads are just a fancier version of that book that can also work with a pencil. Apple Watch just replaced our regular watches. No other Apple product (or anyone else’s for that matter) have convinced us to carry a wholly new form factor of device around with us.

        • The Vision Pro replaces … nothing … like the iPod it’s a wholly new device to carry with you, but unlike the iPod the form factor is not a natural extension or replacement of an existing form factor. The closest they come is glasses, and this is what I think Google Glass got right, they aimed at a form factor that could be worn like glasses all day without too much distinction, whereas the vision pro is more like a pair of heavy ski goggles. It’s a hard and uncomfortable ask to get people to wear it in almost any scenario.
      • masterspace ( masterspace@lemmy.ca ) English
        18·
        3 years ago

        Why do you carry your laptop with you?

        What is the purpose of the Vision Pro? Is it just a VR Headset? Then sure, it sits at home like your video game console. But paying $3500 for that is insane when you could buy a Quest and a gaming PC.

        Or is it a work focused AR device like Apple is pitching, in which case, it should go everywhere your Macbook does, at home, at the office, on trips, etc. Hard to imagine people wanting to lug a bulky headset with them for those purposes.

        I’m also getting at the idea that the true revolutionary moment for AR will be when we can use them and carry them with us everywhere, like watches / phones / wallets / glasses. Unlike the iPod / iPhone / Apple Wallet, Apple is releasing this well before that point.

        • Fushuan [he/him] ( fushuan@lemm.ee ) English
          2·
          3 years ago

          If the AR floating windows/screens work as they advertise, then it replaces 1-2-3 screens, in whatever configuration you want them in. You connect it into a gaming PC and use the augmented floating windows as virtual monitors. Then use a mouse or whatever, it’s more about the windows.

          Later you want to see a movie. Minimise all your virtual monitors and deploy a big ass monitor to watch it in a big screen, without moving from you comfy gaming setup.

          I’ll wait until third party apps implement this feature and the price gets at least halved. I’m the only one I’ve seen that has mentioned this use case but I honestly feel like it has potential.

          • anachronist ( anachronist@midwest.social ) English
            2·
            3 years ago

            If the AR floating windows/screens work as they advertise, then it replaces 1-2-3 screens, in whatever configuration you want them in.

            Right but how much does a screen cost these days? (I guess the apple ones are still absurdly expensive, are they still charging $1000 for a monitor stand?)

            Also I doubt that these things work anywhere like that. The resolution is nowhere near good enough. Also I’ve worn the quest and your face gets sweaty pretty quickly. The weight on the front of your head is very noticeable, and they give you headaches after a while if you don’t get sick first. They can be fun for the right types of gameplay but that’s it.

            Also, SV doesn’t really care about VR gaming. What they really care about is AR, and they care about it because they want to put advertisements like everywhere. Every building: Ads all over it, Every wall in your house: Ads everywhere. Every interaction with your loved ones: Ads. This is the future they dream about, but it sucks and they have never come up with any real reason for us to put their face huggers on.

          • masterspace ( masterspace@lemmy.ca ) English
            1·
            3 years ago

            Yes, I understand this dream, I just also understand how far away we are from this. Wearing a VR headset like this is sweaty and uncomfortable, and you’re not going to do it for nearly as long as you might look at a monitor and TV. The weight would need to be at least like 1/4 what it is to feasibly be comfortable to wear for 8+ hours a day.

      • WetBeardHairs ( WetBeardHairs@lemmy.ml ) 
        7·
        3 years ago

        A heads up display that could overlay useful information onto the world around you would be amazing.

        • Provide directions.
        • Point out businesses that are hard to find in a crowded city.
        • Give real-time measurements and placements for construction (this is already a thing).
        • Pokemon Go

        The problem is that the apple vision is huge and bulky. They need to shrink it down to the size of big nerd eyeglasses. Microsoft did the same thing with their whatever it was called. I played with it a few times at different tech demos. It was garbage from the start because it was heavy, uncomfortable, and the refresh rate was intolerably slow. Apple’s is a slight improvement in a few categories but it still completely misses the point of what AR should be.

        • masterspace ( masterspace@lemmy.ca ) English
          4·
          3 years ago

          I agree with almost everything you said except that the Hololens was pretty remarkable for the time and magical when I got to use it at work, tiny FOV and crappy refresh rate regardless. Walking around a normal cluttered open plan office, watching youtube in a web browser as it followed me, then pinning it to a wall, walking elsewhere and pinning some of our architectural models to tables and stuff, and then walking back around the building and them all still being exactly where I put them was a pretty wild experience. The Quest 3’s AR stuff still doesn’t feel quite as magical due to the distortion, lack of peripheral vision, and noticeable ski goggle feeling, nor does the world tracking seem quite as good (though I still think it’s impressive for a $500 consumer device).

          The Hololens is also entirely limited by it’s choice of using transparent displays but that’s also what makes it safe to use in industrial and now military settings.

    • Digital Mark ( mdhughes@lemmy.ml ) English
      3·
      3 years ago

      They’ve only (in this century) produced a new product people take with them once, iPod. Except for the iPhone. MacBook Air. iPad. Apple Watch. AirPods.

      So you’re 16% correct, and falling.

        • Digital Mark ( mdhughes@lemmy.ml ) English
          3·
          3 years ago

          Maybe you’ve heard of this device that plays music on tiny headphones, great for listening while walking. It was called a Walkman. Came out in 1979. By the time the iPod came out, there were plenty of digital music players; I carried a Rio Volt (CD-ROM full of MP3s), but the Nomad was the one CmdrTaco compared iPod to.

          Many people carried Palm Pilots, Newtons, cell phones, pagers, portable games (GameBoy, Game Gear, Lynx), film & digital cameras. I used to carry so many gadgets. Sharp/Tandy PC-3 was a great little calculator/computer, so was HP-35s.

          Apple’s done an amazing job of making vastly better versions (eventually, in some cases; I waited for gen 3 iPod with USB), and folding multiple things into a device, and competing with themselves. So now most of those devices are gone, and we just carry an iPhone (or lame knockoff). I have a bunch of portable game devices, which live on my desk because why carry them? iPad rolled over the MacBook for portable computing. And now Vision Pro is going to roll over that (in a couple versions, probably).

          The “one-hit wonder” assertion just requires someone to have lived a cave since 2006.

            • Digital Mark ( mdhughes@lemmy.ml ) English
              1·
              3 years ago

              Yes. It’s Apple’s second most profitable platform. If I go out to a café (which admittedly was before pandemic), half the people have one, much more than laptops now. In business, it’s a super common way to take around documents, presentations, etc. The kids really love them.

              I’ve been in love with it since launch, it’s a magic book.

  • Matte ( Matte@feddit.it ) 
    10·
    3 years ago

    oh god, where do I even start?

    first of all, the whole article reeks of bias and entitlement. “I don’t like VR so other people shouldn’t have it!!”

    then, it all sounds like this guy never even tried any VR headset, or maybe he puked copiously after his first test.

    and he’s constantly baiting and switching: “tim cook only interest is in squeezing money from us rather than releasing new products!!”, and right after “tim cook released a new product and it SUCKS!! even my mother said it!”

    I bought a Rift CV1 in 2016, I’ve been waiting for some real VR since the first time I tested a rudimentary headset at a tech convention in 1996 playing Doom and some other VR game. it’s sick. I love it. I spent 10 hours a day in the headset during the first month, then I discovered simracing and it was an absolute blast. But the CV1 suffered the lack of direction outside of gaming. the screens were way too low resolution, it needed a powerful PC, it needed cameras, it needed joysticks, had no pass through so all of this stuff really didn’t make it for an optimal experience outside of gaming. I’ve ever since dreamed a way to use VR to work, and it seems like apple did it… or at least is in the process to.

    Apple is not Google, so the Vision Pro is not going away. they’ll keep on refining it and bring it forward because that’s the future. you can’t judge it by now, we’re 5-10 years ahead of mass adoption of this tech, but we can already see what’s going to become.

    unfortunately the tech suffered a big, big blowback caused by the boom of cryptocurrencies… we’ve all been waiting for more powerful graphic cards in order to cheaply manage VR, but nVidia was more concerned about making easy bucks selling to bitcoin farms rather than serving their loyal customers… and so VR took a hit around 2020 due to lack of cheap availability.

    Facebook created the quest in order to detach their product from the whims of a terrible company like Nvidia, and that has somehow helped. but the Quest is and remains an entertainment product, not something that you can rely on for working.

    I think the Vision Pro will be a revolution for those doing 3D modeling, or even programming. When the guy in the article says “you’ll get isolated in your tech!!” I think he knows he’s full of bullshit, because cubicles DO exist and people working at a PC screen is now more isolated than ever.

    maybe his job is typing rants from the couch of a hotel on his iphone?