Author has not tried the product, and their main points seem to be:
1. Meta makes VR headsets and failed.
2. Vision has a lot of fancy tech, but I don't understand how that helps Apple.
3. People who are excited about Vision also liked Google Glass, a failed product.
4. Big televisions are cheaper.
5. Apple didn't mention motion sickness, so maybe that's a problem.
Hope this saves at least someone from a very clickbaity article.
Apple's AR/VR headset was not demo-ed by more than one person wearing it; so this makes it so that it remains an isolating experience, as it ever was; not ground breaking social features added that are worth it;
so the target audience who might consider this 4k headset, will be the exact same that Meta is targetting at a fraction of the cost.
They did mention motion sickness. They talked about refresh rates and input lags and how it's important so that people don't get sick. Can't recall their exact words but they definitely did.
I don't think that's accurate. His main point is that there is no market for this, and the points you mentioned are just digs he gets in whilst Apple's on the ground.
Commentary feels a bit lazy. Seems to operate on the assumption that it's not different than previous AR/VR offerings in any way.
If they can find a million people to watch movies on flights and/or use it as a monitor replacement, and if it works well for those use cases, then Apple will net $3.5B of revenue and have a solid foundation to build on. I don't think the first generation needs to do a whole lot more than that.
I’ve heard the flights thing mentioned a few times now. Is that an angle they’re actively pushing?
For what it’s worth, I once brought my Quest on a flight. But when it came time to put it on, I couldn’t bring myself to to do it. The idea of becoming a spectacle while simultaneously shutting myself off from everyone around me felt embarrassing.
Yeah, the one ad they showed at the end of the keynote had someone on a plane using the digital crown to increase the immersion while watching a movie.
I don't read Vice but a while ago I noticed every article that's been pushed my way from them has been a lazy take on tech, specifically AI.
I had to ban the publisher from one of my news readers because every single day was a new Vice article with a low quality article on AI being the end of the world. I'm fine with that opinion but not a daily new article with no substance.
> Commentary feels a bit lazy. Seems to operate on the assumption that it's not different than previous AR/VR offerings in any way.
Quite typical for vice to be fair. What I find most interesting are the reviews from people who have actually tried it and are really impressed, especially those who would normally be skeptical of VR&AR.
Nobody has said this is a 'game changer' just that they seem to be giving the attention to detail that Apple are known for and for those who HAVE actually tried it, it seems it might actually pay off.
An aside : As for the pricing, it's almost redundant these days to comment on Apple's pricing.
It can be the most technically impressive AR/VR device in existence (and it truly sounds like it is), but that doesn't change the fact that it feels goofy and out-of-touch and has no real long term future.
I really don't think people need to try the device to form the opinion that a future with people walking around with expensive goggles on their face (recording 3D videos of their kids during birthday parties) isn't really a good one.
Agreed. It's like they could have written this before the device was announced.
The first iPhone wasn't the first touchscreen smart phone, but it was the first one that was truly appealing to the masses. We've seen the impressive sales numbers for the quest, now we just have to see if Apple can beat them. My money is on Apple beating Meta for multiple reasons.
> Nobody will use this except super rich bored people and tech bros. It's expensive.
Funny how we are so used to groundbreaking tech being so "cheap" now. Remember when the Apple II launched at about $6,200 for the base model after inflation? Heck, the Atari 2600 cost almost $1,000 today after inflation.
Also, if you want to know how scary the inflation is, here's why your Nintendo Switch still costs $299 new: $299 in 2017 is about $369 today. You had a $70 price cut you didn't even notice.
Is the flight use case real? Are people going to feel comfortable playing sound from an un-enclosed speaker with people sitting an inch away? The battery life is only 2 hours, so any flight longer than New York to Charlotte is going to require you to have multiple batteries or some other entertainment device. 2 hours isn't even long enough to watch movies.
I keep seeing people mention the battery life as the total blocker for the flight use case, but I honestly don’t remember the last flight I was on > 2 hours that didn’t have outlets available.
AC power is becoming more common on flights, and I speculate that you will be able to use Bluetooth headphones.
Otherwise, yeah probably a multiple battery solution.
I don't really see myself caring about the movies during a flight use case.
For working during a flight, I'd greatly prefer the Vision Pro, as I am easily distracted by my surroundings and would value the improved ergonomics over being hunched over a laptop (I'm flying in coach). And for reading PDFs and web browsing, ergonomics again seem superior to a smartphone or tablet.
1. This really depends on how much sound leaks out. The original earpods were designed to leak a little bit of sound but were still used in airplanes.
2. I take a lot of 4 hour flights. I see people use steam decks on them all the time, even though their batteries don't hold for the whole flight.
3. I don't know the answer, but I wonder what the largest battery you could bring onto a flight is, and how long that would extend the Vision Pro's battery life.
The thing is, people already use their laptops to watch movies... or they use the in-flight entertainment. Why bother strapping on a headset when you have a solution already?
>If they can find a million people to watch movies on flights and/or use it as a monitor replacement
A million people who are willing to pay ~12 times more than a Quest 2 and 7 times more than a Quest 3 when those devices also can let you watch movies or use them as a monitor replacement.
This idea assumes that the Vision Pro offers the same experience as those devices.
My iPhone can let me watch movies and can be a monitor replacement, but it's bad at those things, so I don't do it.
I snooped around a bit online for something along the lines of "VR headset as a monitor replacement" - I'm not seeing any kind of consensus that these devices are up to the job.
If Apple's product is, then it's a game changer. It seems like they've put serious effort into some of the core problems: headset weight, refresh rates, AR concerns, pixelation. If that all sums up to be something that can be worn all day, then maybe people will see it as 7 times more valuable than a Quest 3.
A little under two-thirds of Americans have one Apple product, how good is the Quest at integrating into that ecosystem?
A non-lazy rebuttal would include a description of the hypothetical killer app that Vision could support. Apple's got nuthin'. I got nuthin'. Nobody else has anything convincing either.
It doesn't need to have killer app - Apple watch doesn't have killer but still sells well. Playststion or any other console also doesn't have killer app - they are just for entertainment. Oculus mostly focuses on entertainment right now.
For people who are blind the whole device is a killer app, can help reading book or newspaper, help with navigation on the street and warn about danger. Easier for them to find just this goggle computer than phone or computer, eye tracking as mouse probsbly easier to use than mouse.
Even Steven Hawking wouldnt mind using such a device.
I dunno, did anyone talk about a hypothetical Uber or Shazam the day after the iPhone launch?
That said, I think that if I can wear this for 8-10 hours, it would be an amazing monitor. That's the killer app. I sit by myself at home so the weird social interaction stuff isn't a part of the mix there. (I don't want to pay $3500 for it, but I'm not exactly an early adopter in general.)
It's significant in that it takes a very different approach to AR (passthrough camera) as opposed to products like Hololens and Magic Leap which are physics-challenged.
Apple Vision can do things optical AR cannot, such as blocking out objects in the real world. My first take is that you won't get perfect visual acuity for the real world, but optical AR systems definitely waste a lot of light and introduce distortion in the optics. Sufficiently developed, computational AR might improve on your vision, particularly if you are older and presbyopic.
Apple Vision has many of the challenges other AR/VR platforms have had but it is sufficiently different that Hololens and Magic Leap don't imply an automatic death sentence.
I think it's critical that "metaverse" adjacent experiences are available cross-platform, I make these cards
that have QR codes to point to the web. I'd admit that the "web side" is the weakest link in my 3-sided cards right now but really that code should take AR headset users to a "land" or bring some object into the space but there still has to be an experience for phone users which could very much be of an AR nature as you can overlay images from the camera. As dreary as it is Decentraland has a workable experience with a web browser and something like Horizon Worlds would need one to make it worth the effort for individuals and brands to invest in the platform.
Battle field applications would be like sensor fusion (overhead drone cameras, thermal, radar, lidar) combined with the gamer experience of hacked graphics drivers and aimbot kits.
I'm sure there will be lots of similar applications but for the civilian space, where the price of a Vision Pro is just peanuts.
Previously such applications would have to create their own custom kit or modify existing. Now they have a trusted partner which can (hopefully) be trusted to iterate over and improve their product.
Immersive FaceTime? How is this going to work well? The person you're talking to will be using their phone/tablet and where is your camera? If you use the continuity camera feature with an iphone, you're going to see their entire face without the headset and they're looking at someone with these goggles on. Not a good user experience IMO.
You scan your face with the headset and the other person sees an avatar that is a scan of your face. Kinda defeats the purpose of "Face"time but I have not used it yet but with the speed of development I could see it improving to the point that the distinction between the avatar and your real face will be hard to tell apart.
All started with a high priced offering and introduced lower priced options over time, at least accounting for inflation.
Individual Apple product lines trend upwards, seemingly faster than inflation although I'm not actually sure that's the case. However they regularly introduce cheaper product lines to open up to new markets.
They do it by introducing lower-cost models rather than lowering the price of their flagship models. e.g. iPhone SE, Macbook Air, iPad. Right out of the gate they've signaled that they're going to do this by calling this the "Vision Pro"--expect a non-Pro later.
There were some Apple events in the '10s that featured significant price cuts, often alongside an improved product. Better iPad, $100 cheaper, better MacBook, $200 cheaper, that kind of thing.
I keep thinking about the Newton as a distant ancestor of the iPhone. The germ of the idea was there, but the use cases and tech (specifically networking) weren't even close.
How close to prime time is AR?
It's hard to judge that without hands on experience.
Close or not, unlike the mid-90s, Apple can likely afford to burn money for a while on a big gamble. Trying to open up a new product category that plays to Apple's strengths is probably the correct strategy, so long as there isn't a better viable product.
I doubt this will storm the world the same way the iPhone did, so it'll likely be a while before it can be judged as a success or failure.
I don't think MixedReality will ever go mainstream, but I think it will have a long tail of niches that it is extremely successful in (Training, 3D Design, Gaming, exercise, etc).
For general productivity, I feel that the laptop and external monitor is the sweet spot for the peak of computing. All other optimizations have given diminishing returns.
For consumption, the mobile phone is the sweet spot.
I put up with a lot of jank and discomfort with my VR headset, because the feeling of Presence is so transformative in gaming, exercise, and entertainment for me. I don't think the majority of people will choose that trade-off on a regular basis, especially in social environments.
This is a pretty lazy analogy. Mobile phones were already carried by a large majority of adults when the iPhone came out. The iPhone didn't prove that everyone needed a cell phone, or even that smart phones / camera phones were a valid market (remember Blackberry? Palm Treo? Windows Mobile? Sidekick?) it just made a much better phone and mobile OS than anyone else had up to that point.
And it introduced a number of killer features that were immediately apparent:
-GPS for navigation (almost immediately made Tom Toms in cars obsolete) with Google Maps
-Pinch to zoom for the pre-responsive mobile web, with full HTML websites on device
-Glass touch haptics with gestures: pinch, double tap, swipe up/down/right/left, etc
-Unlimited data back when it was unheard of
-Unlimited text messaging back when it was rare
-Solid camera experience with both front and back facing camera
-Complete iPod replacement with built-in iTunes, a killer app at the time with no peer
-Visual voicemail
-A usable touch screen keyboard, with intuitive multi-touch controls
-HTML email
-YouTube app built-in
-Accelerometer for orientation-based controls
-Proximity and ambient light sensors
-Apps, apps, apps. Although App Store wasn't immediately ready for 1st gen iPhone, it was apparent that apps were coming and that they would be amazing, with plenty of built-in 1st and 3rd party apps at launch. Every other mobile phone that implemented apps up to that point did so with a ton of red tape and licensing fees
When the iPhone was announced by Jobs in 2007, it was 5 years ahead of any other phone on the market.
The Vision Pro, on the other hand, pitches itself as a $3500 monitor replacement, I guess? It doesn't even have one killer app. You could feel the hype and excitement for the original iPhone on day one.
Maybe Vision Pro will evolve into something killer in the 2nd or 3rd generation offering. But as it stands, I'm not seeing the vision.
The Varjo VR headset is the leader in Enterprise training and design. The headset cost more than $6,000 per unit plus it has an annual subscription fee more than $1500.
The Vision Pro is a direct competitor to the Varjo. Early reports are that it is better. It comes in at half the price and no subscription fees.
The Vario is what some Apple employees used as devkits during the software development phase.
Apple is masterful at bringing the public along slowly with an easy to digest narrative. They don't tell the whole story right up front, because people need the breadcrumbs and onboarding.
I spent too long tracking down a figure and didn't come up with anything definitive, but
> smart phones / camera phones were a valid market
feels revisionist. Something like 70% of Americans had a feature phone in 2007 but smartphone market share was probably in the single digits before the iPhone launched. I had a Palm m100 back in the day; PDAs and early smartphones weren't all that great, and it wasn't obvious to laymen that the hardware and software would scale down enough and be combined with a compelling enough interaction model to create something useful for the masses.
You're right that the iPhone demo had some killer features apparent. Jobs had three tentpoles: better iPod, a phone, a good internet machine. Cook mimicked this for the Watch keynote: a timepiece, a new way to communicate, a health and fitness device. But for the latter, it wasn't apparent just how much the health and fitness stuff would become a part of the story, nor was it apparent that people ended up liking the Watch for keeping their phone out of their hands or being able to accessorize.
I don't think the Vision Pro reveal was as effective, but the tentpoles seem to be immersive media consumption (with movies and photos as a 1a and 1b), monitor replacement, and better FaceTime meetings. The last one seems particularly suspect, but the first two are pretty strong.
First iphone didn't have gps, didn't have selfie camera it event didn't have a flashlight, gyroscope or compass.
Also only 2g and wifi g
Not to mention app store was launched 1 year later. Based on that first generation wasn't that much useful. Mass appeal was maybe starting with 3rd generation.
> So if not for awkwardly embodying legless avatars, what—and who—is Vision Pro for?
I'm not going to buy gen 1 or even gen 2 of this headset due to cost. But by gen 3 I could see it being a strong device for working from home. I picture having multiple windows of safari open around me full of documentation as I code in VScode via the connection to my mac.
The price is going to be too much for most people right now. Apple knows that. Comparing this to a quest is like comparing an iPhone to an Android. But in this case the specs far exceed the other headsets out there. There's a freaking wrap-around display on the outside of the device!
The vision pro version 1 is big, heavy, and kinda clunky. But imagining what Vision Pro 5 will be gets me really excited.
Pretty sure this is just gasoline for everyone to have a flame war over. Right down to the ever so slightly incorrect facts and emotionally charged language.
Only thing that’s in anyway correct is the bit about the type of people excited by these devices - I feel seen. But is that so bad?
Also, there really are markets for these devices - they’re just often not that visible for the average consumer. I work in medical simulation training for instance.
> repeatedly failed to make a compelling use case for VR over the past decade
Well, including me - I'v never wanted to try one as I associated them with games or some meta world I'm not interested. But I haven't been a target for their ads, so I may not know feature set for those.
Seeing Apple device, I want to try it out as I immediately see the value in having a nice workspace :)
I think everything will depend on execution. If we compare 1 feature between pre-iPhone and iPhone era: touch. The touch was based on resistive technology and you had to physically push the screen for it to feel. It was unreliable. It was disgusting to work with. Saying that some pre-iPhone touch phone and iPhone touch phone has same feature set or even iPhone was lacking... sure. But the ease of use.
If this actually works reliably - no lags, no artifacts, no pixels, controls (eyes/fingers/voice) works as advertised - I think it will be ticket to somewhere, even if it was only extension to your pc/tablet. But this has the potential to be more than an extension.
Agreed. This week began the first decade of modern AR.
I think all the optimism is confidence that Apple will be developing this product on the way to achieving high volume sales. Then they own yet another new major platform.
10 years may not be too long a slog if you OWN another major platform on the other side.
Readit News
so the target audience who might consider this 4k headset, will be the exact same that Meta is targetting at a fraction of the cost.
If they can find a million people to watch movies on flights and/or use it as a monitor replacement, and if it works well for those use cases, then Apple will net $3.5B of revenue and have a solid foundation to build on. I don't think the first generation needs to do a whole lot more than that.
For what it’s worth, I once brought my Quest on a flight. But when it came time to put it on, I couldn’t bring myself to to do it. The idea of becoming a spectacle while simultaneously shutting myself off from everyone around me felt embarrassing.
And what is the issue with shutting other people off on a plane? Do you want to actively engage with strangers on a plane?
I had to ban the publisher from one of my news readers because every single day was a new Vice article with a low quality article on AI being the end of the world. I'm fine with that opinion but not a daily new article with no substance.
Quite typical for vice to be fair. What I find most interesting are the reviews from people who have actually tried it and are really impressed, especially those who would normally be skeptical of VR&AR.
Nobody has said this is a 'game changer' just that they seem to be giving the attention to detail that Apple are known for and for those who HAVE actually tried it, it seems it might actually pay off.
An aside : As for the pricing, it's almost redundant these days to comment on Apple's pricing.
I really don't think people need to try the device to form the opinion that a future with people walking around with expensive goggles on their face (recording 3D videos of their kids during birthday parties) isn't really a good one.
The first iPhone wasn't the first touchscreen smart phone, but it was the first one that was truly appealing to the masses. We've seen the impressive sales numbers for the quest, now we just have to see if Apple can beat them. My money is on Apple beating Meta for multiple reasons.
It's expensive.
This is a bullshit device nobody will use because nobody wants VR/AR.
It's technically extremely impressive.
It's expensive.
Nobody will use this except super rich bored people and tech bros.
It's expensive.
Funny how we are so used to groundbreaking tech being so "cheap" now. Remember when the Apple II launched at about $6,200 for the base model after inflation? Heck, the Atari 2600 cost almost $1,000 today after inflation.
Also, if you want to know how scary the inflation is, here's why your Nintendo Switch still costs $299 new: $299 in 2017 is about $369 today. You had a $70 price cut you didn't even notice.
Otherwise, yeah probably a multiple battery solution.
I don't really see myself caring about the movies during a flight use case.
For working during a flight, I'd greatly prefer the Vision Pro, as I am easily distracted by my surroundings and would value the improved ergonomics over being hunched over a laptop (I'm flying in coach). And for reading PDFs and web browsing, ergonomics again seem superior to a smartphone or tablet.
She might have to plug into the USB port for power or bring a second battery pack for longer viewing.
2. I take a lot of 4 hour flights. I see people use steam decks on them all the time, even though their batteries don't hold for the whole flight.
3. I don't know the answer, but I wonder what the largest battery you could bring onto a flight is, and how long that would extend the Vision Pro's battery life.
A million people who are willing to pay ~12 times more than a Quest 2 and 7 times more than a Quest 3 when those devices also can let you watch movies or use them as a monitor replacement.
My iPhone can let me watch movies and can be a monitor replacement, but it's bad at those things, so I don't do it.
I snooped around a bit online for something along the lines of "VR headset as a monitor replacement" - I'm not seeing any kind of consensus that these devices are up to the job.
If Apple's product is, then it's a game changer. It seems like they've put serious effort into some of the core problems: headset weight, refresh rates, AR concerns, pixelation. If that all sums up to be something that can be worn all day, then maybe people will see it as 7 times more valuable than a Quest 3.
A little under two-thirds of Americans have one Apple product, how good is the Quest at integrating into that ecosystem?
For people who are blind the whole device is a killer app, can help reading book or newspaper, help with navigation on the street and warn about danger. Easier for them to find just this goggle computer than phone or computer, eye tracking as mouse probsbly easier to use than mouse.
Even Steven Hawking wouldnt mind using such a device.
That said, I think that if I can wear this for 8-10 hours, it would be an amazing monitor. That's the killer app. I sit by myself at home so the weird social interaction stuff isn't a part of the mix there. (I don't want to pay $3500 for it, but I'm not exactly an early adopter in general.)
Apple Vision can do things optical AR cannot, such as blocking out objects in the real world. My first take is that you won't get perfect visual acuity for the real world, but optical AR systems definitely waste a lot of light and introduce distortion in the optics. Sufficiently developed, computational AR might improve on your vision, particularly if you are older and presbyopic.
Apple Vision has many of the challenges other AR/VR platforms have had but it is sufficiently different that Hololens and Magic Leap don't imply an automatic death sentence.
I think it's critical that "metaverse" adjacent experiences are available cross-platform, I make these cards
https://mastodon.social/@UP8/110499039556572469
that have QR codes to point to the web. I'd admit that the "web side" is the weakest link in my 3-sided cards right now but really that code should take AR headset users to a "land" or bring some object into the space but there still has to be an experience for phone users which could very much be of an AR nature as you can overlay images from the camera. As dreary as it is Decentraland has a workable experience with a web browser and something like Horizon Worlds would need one to make it worth the effort for individuals and brands to invest in the platform.
I'm sure there will be lots of similar applications but for the civilian space, where the price of a Vision Pro is just peanuts.
Previously such applications would have to create their own custom kit or modify existing. Now they have a trusted partner which can (hopefully) be trusted to iterate over and improve their product.
Yes.
Then it will will turn into moderately priced novelty bullshit for normal people in a few years.
At lower price, I'll be buying it just for the immersive FaceTime and Photos browsing experience.
This will be the new fancy iPad and Apple will make a lot of money off of it.
All started with a high priced offering and introduced lower priced options over time, at least accounting for inflation.
Individual Apple product lines trend upwards, seemingly faster than inflation although I'm not actually sure that's the case. However they regularly introduce cheaper product lines to open up to new markets.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eywi0h_Y5_U
How close to prime time is AR?
It's hard to judge that without hands on experience.
Close or not, unlike the mid-90s, Apple can likely afford to burn money for a while on a big gamble. Trying to open up a new product category that plays to Apple's strengths is probably the correct strategy, so long as there isn't a better viable product.
I doubt this will storm the world the same way the iPhone did, so it'll likely be a while before it can be judged as a success or failure.
For general productivity, I feel that the laptop and external monitor is the sweet spot for the peak of computing. All other optimizations have given diminishing returns.
For consumption, the mobile phone is the sweet spot.
I put up with a lot of jank and discomfort with my VR headset, because the feeling of Presence is so transformative in gaming, exercise, and entertainment for me. I don't think the majority of people will choose that trade-off on a regular basis, especially in social environments.
And it introduced a number of killer features that were immediately apparent: -GPS for navigation (almost immediately made Tom Toms in cars obsolete) with Google Maps -Pinch to zoom for the pre-responsive mobile web, with full HTML websites on device -Glass touch haptics with gestures: pinch, double tap, swipe up/down/right/left, etc -Unlimited data back when it was unheard of -Unlimited text messaging back when it was rare -Solid camera experience with both front and back facing camera -Complete iPod replacement with built-in iTunes, a killer app at the time with no peer -Visual voicemail -A usable touch screen keyboard, with intuitive multi-touch controls -HTML email -YouTube app built-in -Accelerometer for orientation-based controls -Proximity and ambient light sensors -Apps, apps, apps. Although App Store wasn't immediately ready for 1st gen iPhone, it was apparent that apps were coming and that they would be amazing, with plenty of built-in 1st and 3rd party apps at launch. Every other mobile phone that implemented apps up to that point did so with a ton of red tape and licensing fees
When the iPhone was announced by Jobs in 2007, it was 5 years ahead of any other phone on the market.
The Vision Pro, on the other hand, pitches itself as a $3500 monitor replacement, I guess? It doesn't even have one killer app. You could feel the hype and excitement for the original iPhone on day one.
Maybe Vision Pro will evolve into something killer in the 2nd or 3rd generation offering. But as it stands, I'm not seeing the vision.
The Vision Pro is a direct competitor to the Varjo. Early reports are that it is better. It comes in at half the price and no subscription fees.
The Vario is what some Apple employees used as devkits during the software development phase.
Apple is masterful at bringing the public along slowly with an easy to digest narrative. They don't tell the whole story right up front, because people need the breadcrumbs and onboarding.
> smart phones / camera phones were a valid market
feels revisionist. Something like 70% of Americans had a feature phone in 2007 but smartphone market share was probably in the single digits before the iPhone launched. I had a Palm m100 back in the day; PDAs and early smartphones weren't all that great, and it wasn't obvious to laymen that the hardware and software would scale down enough and be combined with a compelling enough interaction model to create something useful for the masses.
You're right that the iPhone demo had some killer features apparent. Jobs had three tentpoles: better iPod, a phone, a good internet machine. Cook mimicked this for the Watch keynote: a timepiece, a new way to communicate, a health and fitness device. But for the latter, it wasn't apparent just how much the health and fitness stuff would become a part of the story, nor was it apparent that people ended up liking the Watch for keeping their phone out of their hands or being able to accessorize.
I don't think the Vision Pro reveal was as effective, but the tentpoles seem to be immersive media consumption (with movies and photos as a 1a and 1b), monitor replacement, and better FaceTime meetings. The last one seems particularly suspect, but the first two are pretty strong.
Also only 2g and wifi g
Not to mention app store was launched 1 year later. Based on that first generation wasn't that much useful. Mass appeal was maybe starting with 3rd generation.
This is just first generation
I'm not going to buy gen 1 or even gen 2 of this headset due to cost. But by gen 3 I could see it being a strong device for working from home. I picture having multiple windows of safari open around me full of documentation as I code in VScode via the connection to my mac.
The price is going to be too much for most people right now. Apple knows that. Comparing this to a quest is like comparing an iPhone to an Android. But in this case the specs far exceed the other headsets out there. There's a freaking wrap-around display on the outside of the device!
The vision pro version 1 is big, heavy, and kinda clunky. But imagining what Vision Pro 5 will be gets me really excited.
Only thing that’s in anyway correct is the bit about the type of people excited by these devices - I feel seen. But is that so bad?
Also, there really are markets for these devices - they’re just often not that visible for the average consumer. I work in medical simulation training for instance.
Well, including me - I'v never wanted to try one as I associated them with games or some meta world I'm not interested. But I haven't been a target for their ads, so I may not know feature set for those.
Seeing Apple device, I want to try it out as I immediately see the value in having a nice workspace :)
I think everything will depend on execution. If we compare 1 feature between pre-iPhone and iPhone era: touch. The touch was based on resistive technology and you had to physically push the screen for it to feel. It was unreliable. It was disgusting to work with. Saying that some pre-iPhone touch phone and iPhone touch phone has same feature set or even iPhone was lacking... sure. But the ease of use.
If this actually works reliably - no lags, no artifacts, no pixels, controls (eyes/fingers/voice) works as advertised - I think it will be ticket to somewhere, even if it was only extension to your pc/tablet. But this has the potential to be more than an extension.
I think all the optimism is confidence that Apple will be developing this product on the way to achieving high volume sales. Then they own yet another new major platform.
10 years may not be too long a slog if you OWN another major platform on the other side.