> There’s a strong echo here of mobile 20 years ago. From the late 1990s to 2007, we had mobile internet devices that were OK but not great, and slowly improving, we knew they would eventually be much better, and we thought ‘mobile internet’ would be big - but we didn’t know that smartphones would replace PCs as the centre of tech, and connect five billion people. Then the iPhone came, and the timeline broke.
While I think the statement here is generally accurate, the analogy feels so off the mark here to be downright misleading.
The pre-iPhone cellphone and "mobile internet device" era was totally different than the current VR/AR era. Most importantly, people actually used their devices all the time, they just wanted them to be better. There was a reason they called them "Crackberries" - Blackberry fans were on them 24/7, and they got tons of utility from them. There was none of this "If we build it, I hope they'll come" feeling of the current VR/AR era.
Honestly, it saddens me to think that technology used to be about solving problems for humanity and has morphed into more of this "What substances can we sell to the masses that are sufficiently addictive to make our stock price go up?"
I fully understand how much Meta, Apple and others "want to make fetch happen". Many of us are simply just not interested.
> I fully understand how much Meta, Apple and others "want to make fetch happen". Many of us are simply just not interested.
That thing that gets me is just how weak the scenarios were in their promotional videos.
After building this device, the best that they could offer as benefits were viewing 3D photographs of your children, looking at multiple screens around you, or watching a single large screen for a movie or photo-browsing. (I mean, they showed somebody browsing the web. Why even dedicate time your video to show that?)
It feels like they're either out of ideas or really playing it safe. I'm guessing they do want to make "fetch" happen but don't really know how and are just going to bet on third party devs creating some killer app they haven't thought of. They've certainly got the time and money to work it out over the next few years.
I think Apple has played it incredibly safe with their announcement, and I did not get excited by the way they presented potential use cases for the device, as they didn’t venture much further than “what if you could have a screen, but then bigger and anywhere in your surroundings?”
But what they did get right was the hardware and operating system itself and the fact that it needs to be boring and “just work”.
As a young 3d artist and software engineer I just desperately want it, and want to develop for it. I want to walk around in my 3d creations and want to let other people experience what I can envision in my head.
While I don’t see it being as big of a leap as the desktop computer, internet or smartphone in terms of _productivity_, I do think enabling creativity is the “killer” app.
Imagine building and playing with an unlimited world like Minecraft or with LEGO bricks, right in your living room :)
Personally I’m building an app that allows me to put my 3D art from Blender into AR on the Meta Quest Pro [0], and it’s so much fun to do. It gives me a childlike joy to walk through my own creations and share them with others.
Anyway, I got a bit carried away, but I feel like HN is quite pessimistic about AR and VR, and want to give some positive counter views.
I'm guessing Apple is hoping that the apps will be the killer thing. They claim to have not expected the app store to be so successful, so maybe they're hoping they don't need to create the killer app that someone else will. That's why they are introducing the dev tools for it so much sooner than it being available. They are banking on killer apps being announced before launch
Apparently the eye-tracking is 'like telepathy', according to MKBHD. I feel like if Apple fleshes out GameKit and integrates Vision Pro as a more general input device then that alone could be a killer feature. Imagine having telepathy in League or Minecraft.
I think it's simply a matter of the media not being there yet. You could envision movies made specifically for experiencing through these devices that would be utterly enthralling to take in, but it won't be for another half decade at least.
Otherwise, I think Apple's focus on "spatiality" is what is key.
Another look at it: Apple has a successful mobile and a full computing platform already on the market and has only limited ROI in VR wildly succeeding. At best it replaces their existing platform. In comparison, Meta or HTC have a lot more to gain.
While paying lip service to "Spacial computing" their product name is "Vision", so the core of it arguably the display part and they'll be pushing it as viewing device more than anything (I like TheVerge's "Apple made a TV" headline). And VR staying a minor platform only used as a display will be totally fine by them, they'll just keep selling computers on the side.
Exactly. I was watching carefully for some new capability, something that couldn't be done before. But I didn't see anything, except maybe "watch movies on a plane without looking down at your tablet/phone". Maybe I'm weird, but if I were so sensitive to bad experiences that I couldn't just watch a movie on a tablet, I wouldn't be on a plane in the first place.
> people actually used their devices all the time,
No, not really. Like Steve Jobs said, smartphones weren't very "smart". Most people did not have blackberries (those that did have Blackberries, were mostly business users). The rest of us that were technically savvy were playing some crappy java games(the ones allowed by mobile carrier stores), and browsing the web with WAP browsers in our flip phones. Most people were not even doing any of that. And why would they? The experience was terrible.
Using the same metric, people already use VR headsets, and just "want them to be better". Sure, the marketshare is a fraction of phone marketshare(https://www.statista.com/statistics/677096/vr-headsets-world...). But we can argue that most headsets are tethered to high end PCs, Meta's version is one of the few decent standalone versions.
Apple's device has lots of potential. It's all about the execution now, and subsequent devices.
I don't know what was going on in the USA, but in the Europe people were using pre-ios/droid smartphones massively (and we basically didn't have any Blackberries due to region limitations). There were a ton of the WinMob PDAs, there were years of advanced HTC communicators which started expensive but dropped to a very cheap levels fast. At some point almost every taxi driver had been using one (it was easy to observe because drivers were using phones for nav in the cradles). The demand was super high. People were comparing generations of those early smartphones for example about GPS lock speed, because it was an age when receivers were rapidly improving and every gen shaved of minutes of lock time. And before WinMob era there were advanced Simbian 60 (iirc) devices, middle and high-end Nokia, Siemens, Motorola phones, with apps. Half of my class in school and uni were using phones with all support for texting, reading books, music and games.
Retconning phone history as if there was nothing between flip phones and first iPhone, or that transition time was short is dishonest.
How many people do you know that had pre-iPhone smart phones, bought them and used them for a couple months, and then "abandoned" them on the shelf, a common phenomenon with current VR/AR gear as mentioned in the article.
In my experience, practically nobody. I agree that the Vision Pro is a technological marvel, but it's still a solution looking for a problem, and it's striking to me how even Apple had a difficult time presenting actually compelling use cases in their videos.
To be clear, I think there are some viable uses: gaming obviously, and potentially media consumption, but even there this solution is so much worse than a home theater system (as another commenter mentioned, I can get a group of people together in my house to all watch a movie on a big screen TV that costs much less than the headset that each of my friends would also have to own).
> Most importantly, people actually used their devices all the time, they just wanted them to be better. There was a reason they called them "Crackberries" - Blackberry fans were on them 24/7, and they got tons of utility from them.
There are some enthusiastic people who use HMD (like Quest Pro) over 10 hours everyday for virtual display. Though currently the number of people is far less than Blackberry era.
There is also a difference in kind. "Crackberry" types were businesspeople, executives, politicians. People high in social hierarchies with a lot of sway. The people who use VR to that degree are, and I mean this as affectionately as possible, very unusual.
That's probably a big reason Apple has ignored the current VR market segment.
While I tend to agree with you, I think one of the reasons why VR devices today are not selling like hot cakes is because they're mostly (wholly?) targeting gaming, for all practical reasons.
Ignoring price for a moment (remember that early Apple computers cost $11,000 in today's money), Vision Pro is positioned for general computing, including games, and has a vibrant App Store so there's actually something to do.
Current VR headsets simply haven't been good enough for anything other than games and porn. Text is too difficult and painful to read for any extended period, which is an absolute minimum barrier to entry for almost any other computing task. I honestly believe Apple have solved this problem. Yes it's expensive, but I don't get any real indication they are lying about text being legible and comfortable for extended periods of time, which is a game changer IMO.
What do you imagine people doing that isn't done about as well on some other Apple device? I can sort of get the gaming use case; I think it's wildly oversold, but it's legitimately different. But even Apple's launch video doesn't suggest that general computing will be notably improved here.
I agree. All AR/VR devices are replacing... AR/VR devices.
But if you want to displace the iPhone/smartphone it has to be 1000x better, which today's tech simply can't do yet.
If the glasses that I'm wearing right now could become an AR device at Vision Pro's abilities then take-my-money would be in full swing and easily displace the iPhone as the "center of our lives" computing device.
Did you read the Vision Pro thread in HackerNews? I think you might be mistaken - many of us are interested! Here's some choice quotes:
> I will happily go on the record as saying that this will be as revolutionary as the iPhone, perhaps even more so.
> But it's going to be a hit. HN is going to be swamped with "How I used Vision Pro to..." posts when it comes out.
> Well fuck me. This thing looks absolutely insane. It’s come in at $3499 and if it performs as good as those videos make out then, if anything, it’s a bargain.
> I think Apple designed an incredible piece of hardware here
I think the aim of the Vision Pro is to make people use them all the time as well.
The product is not designed for gamers for instance but provides a VR interface for pretty much your everyday iPhone/Mac/Watching movies use.
Personally the thought of people putting that on as soon as they get home/in office or even in the street is somehwat nightmarish but I think they're hoping for something like that...
I feel the analogy comparisons are not about the device type or use cases for them, rather its about the potential for it to be a paradigm shift in device categories. To me it feels more like the shift that the original Mac introduced to the public at large, from command line based computing to GUI computing, and the potential for new categories of app interactivity.
There's this weird bitterness in the comments about the Vision Pro.
Like...
> the analogy feels so off the mark here to be downright misleading.
I mean, come on, you're obviously nitpicking here.
It's not 100% the same, but the parallel between having devices that were basically dumb phones -> internet computers is there, and there was no real indication at the time that a smart phone like blackberry would become a mass market device. None. Zero.
It was a niche device for rich people; most people were, and let's be absolutely honest here, absolutely, perfectly OK with simple feature phones, sending text messages and making calls.
So, the analogy here is pretty clear; once the device existed, it created a market that didn't exist or maybe extended a tiny market that already existed, but come onnnnnnnn, is it really that epic a stretch to imagine that it might happen again? ...can you not imagine this as a gen1 device that improves over time?
It is really so completely different?
I don't think it is.
I'm not convinced it will, but the parallel is not nearly as misleading as you're making it out to be.
Here's what I think is interesting: People want this is fail.
Lots of people. Not because they don't like apple. Not because they don't like VR. They just seem to hate it because its expensive and people are being positive about it and they feel like it's somehow wrong for apple to be:
- Selling something this expensive
- That is a risky bet that might not play out
- That people are willing to talk about favorably on the basis of the Apple brand.
...but, here's the thing right?
1) Who cares? They're rich. Let them fail.
2) Apple has the brand it has because it can deliver, and it has delivered in the past.
What kind of numpy stands here and thinks... "Oh gee, these guys at Apple are stupid. They're never going to sell these. They'll regret this. Look at all their failed products and their unsuccessful business. Haha!"
> I fully understand how much Meta, Apple and others "want to make fetch happen". Many of us are simply just not interested.
...if some people are excited and enthusiastic about it...
The way I remember it, the first iPhone was criticized for not having 3G, which was a standard feature ordinary people were already using. But maybe that depends on the country. At least at some point, the Japanese were supposed to have really fancy phones, while the US was behind the rest of the developed world in mobile technology.
In Finland, mobile internet was already a big thing during the dot-com boom. The early attempts failed, because the hardware wasn't ready. Regardless, "mobile portal" remained one of the big buzzwords, and even taxi drivers knew that the mobile was the future. In a few years, new phones got color displays, cameras, 3G connections, and GPS receivers. Ordinary people bought them, because flagship phones were cheaper than they are today. And then mobile internet started finally making sense. I remember using the local public transit journey planner on my phone in 2005 or 2006 to determine the right stop after taking an unfamiliar bus.
I think culturally we are in an exceptionally cranky and cynical time. It reminds me a lot of the 70's in that way, actually. Here's hoping we find our collective way through it with aplomb.
"where the iPhone was a more-or-less drop-in replacement for the phone you already had, nine years after Meta bought Oculus, VR is still a new device and a new category for almost everyone. Indeed, the Vision Pro actually looks a bit more like the original Macintosh, which was over $7,000 (adjusted for inflation) when it launched in 1984, and most people didn’t know why they needed one."
This is what happens when ever optimizing robots like Tim Cook are put in charge of anything. They should never be in charge of setting the heading of the ship. Keeping the ship running and afloat sure that's what optimizing robots are good for. Don't mistake them for leaders or visionaries. Apple has been a mindless ship on autopilot since the iPhone 4.
We already have laptops and desktops. It's not a given that this goggle thing will be a general improvement. Personally, I'd rather use a real screen, even if this was free. Which it very much is not.
You okay there buddy? Your cynicism's showing. That's either been the case forever, or never. Grandma can't take a plane flight to be with the kids, and the kids are too young to fly to her. But in Mixed Reality (MR), it's just like she'e there. Same with life-saving surgery where the surgeon and the patient can't be colocated.
> where the iPhone was a more-or-less drop-in replacement for the phone you already had, nine years after Meta bought Oculus VR is still a new device and a new category for almost everyone.
Soon enough the category will be a replacement for your home theater and/or your mobile entertainment device (i.e. tablet).
As simple as it might look, the most compelling mass-market use case I saw from Apple is... watching a movie on an airplane.
That experience is pretty crappy on current headsets because the resolution is low and the optical aberrations are very noticeable. The dual micro-OLED approach solves those problems. As production ramps up on micro-OLEDs the category will become 10x more affordable, and within 10 years I'd be surprised if 50% of people on commercial flights are not wearing this kind of headset.
To borrow a Steve Jobs phrase, I think of these devices can eventually become "a bicycle for the senses"[1] and open up all kinds of exciting use cases. But to get to mass-adoption you have to nail the basic stuff like watching a movie or TV show. We just haven't had a good device that can do that yet.
I'd like to know if Apple actually designed for that. Because having watched movies on a plane in a headset, I can tell you that when it does anything other than fly straight and level existing headsets get extremely confused. It also is a very low light environment once the lights go off so how well their camera based hand tracking works without light is also a question.
There's a bunch of solutions to that already — e.g. share audio on iOS, and "watch party" type features on Netflix/etc. Yes they require everyone to have their own screen, but if that screen is a headset that gives you a better experience, then it's a no brainer. I'm pretty sure Apple will allow you to use your digital twin inside the virtual movie theater — whether you are in the same room or not.
> Soon enough the category will be a replacement for your home theater and/or your mobile entertainment device (i.e. tablet).
It will probably split in separate categories, the same way we currently have different PC categories ("windows", "gaming" and "macs", whatever people envision in these names).
Your mention of tablet is interesting, as the market is also split between iPad(android), chomebooks and windows tablets, but most people probably only think about the iPad as a "tablet" and the rest as "computers".
I am not an Apple fanboy (I run Nix on x86 mostly, some Arm), but I actually think they've managed to get it completely right on this. There are a few key pieces that I see as signs that this will eventually hit it out of the park. With that being said, I do believe this is a v1, but remember that the first iPhone was very much a v1 as well.. (I stayed out until the iPhone 3GS myself, and prefer Android phones nowadays). The signs:
1. The battery seems replaceable. I had an original Google Glass... after 2-3 hours of use you had to take it off your head and let it charge, meaning that you would never get used to always having it on. If people have to choose between having a useless hunk of heavy metal on their head, or not being able to use it while it recharges for a few hours, you have failed.
2. Making it AR-first and having that weird external display. Real life will intrude. Can you answer the door, turn off an appliance, do anything else, without having to pull something off of your head and unstrap some controllers from your hands? With the Apple model of handling things, you can pop out to real life without having to get in or out of using it. If you have to take it off, you're just a little bit less likely to put it back on.
3. Tapping your own fingers to click. This was something I brought up to FB/Meta when I was working there, but they decided not to use it. The only way you can give a tactile/haptic response to virtual items, is if there's also some sort of physical item. Tapping your own finger is the single easiest thing that makes sense. I hope that Apple adds future support for augmented 'props'. Imagine an empty artists palette (typically white plastic), that has virtual colors in swatches, or in a color wheel. You can tap on the physical palette to choose your color, to virtually mix the paints, etc.
Tapping fingers to click is enabled on the current quest fwiw, it's just not the default since typically the default is to use controllers.
The thing the quest is missing is eye tracking, I'd guess because of the cost - but that eye tracking is going to be a really big deal for good UX I think (along with the much better latency).
Meta also has the issue that because they're targeting social (given what the company is) the value isn't really there unless all your friends have headsets too (outside of the gaming niche). This is really hard. Apple by focusing on the utility for an individual side steps this in a way where it's a lot easier to bootstrap imo, especially with the ability for them to rely on their existing platform.
> Tapping your own fingers to click. This was something I brought up to FB/Meta when I was working there, but they decided not to use it
that's a bit of a confusing thing to say because that is exactly how you "click" in Quest when using hand tracking. What's different is the eye tracking and I'm guessing how good the Apple headset is at recognising the tap. But tap is how it does it.
When I originally brought it up, no one was interested in the idea. It looks like this was introduced about six months after I left (which is about 18 months after I first brought it up), so it looks like they changed their minds.
> It’s also interesting that Apple doesn’t show this being used outdoors at all, despite that apparently perfect pass-through. One Apple video clip ends with someone putting it down to go outside...
Because that would be inviting ridicule. It's still way too large and bulky and, let's face it, comical to be used outside. Maybe in an office... Maybe. Clearly it's not intended for outdoor use.
It's basically like an TV/monitor combination. You don't bring monitors outdoors but they are still extremely useful at home for specific stuff.
The high-end passthrough is still very important for home use even without tacky "dolphins coming through your walls" usecases. Anyone who has used VR for extended periods of time with headphones and tried to have a drink/look at their phone knows how frustrating that is to take the whole rig off or try to peak down.
The fact VR people were excited you could read your Apple watch without taking off your headset says a lot about the current state of using VR for extended periods w/o quality passthrough.
I mean… it’s an AR device, or at least it’s trying to be, as covered in the article. Do you have a different take? I think calling this “passthrough” is a little dismissive, but perhaps I’m just biased towards previous usages of the term which were for meant for the usecases you mention, not extended continuous use
Well also at least in the Quest 2's case, because taking it outside can damage the lenses. From their site:
"Don't store or leave your headset anywhere where it can be exposed to sunlight. The lenses inside your headset can be permanently damaged from less than a minute of exposure to direct sunlight even if it's indoors."[1]
Some people take them outside at dusk so they can get the benefit of a larger arena outdoors, but they do so against Meta's recommendations.
The Vision Pro may have the same or similar limitation.
It seems like it's aiming to be a laptop replacement. Wearing it outside would probably be the equivalent of walking down the street holding a laptop in front of you.
I think people are vastly underestimating how cool it will look. Will people mock you? Some people, surely. Will it look futuristic af to others? I’d say yes.
And it’s AR, so the laptop comparison doesn’t work on that level too. Superimposed directions, reviews, tourist annotations, and goofy shit like FaceTiming your holographic family or playing geolocation games seem like reason enough for a small minority of users to happily take them out onto the streets. Kinda moot for most Americans anyway, who don’t have walkable streets to take them out on.
It just occurred to me that we’ll have to litigate whether this is acceptable to wear while driving… damn screw the rest of my comment, now I’m super curious how that is gonna turn out
> Apple’s Vision Pro isn’t an iPhone moment, or at least, not exactly. At $3,500, it’s very expensive in the context of today’s consumer electrics market, where the iPhone launched for $600 (without subsidy, and then rapidly switched for $200 at retail with an operator subsidy)
This doesn't sit right with me. The iPhone launched at $600 into a market where most consumers were paying between $0 and $35 for a dumbphone. So while the absolute prices are different, the orders-of-magnitude difference between "what the typical consumer pays for a product in this category" and "what Apple is charging for their radical entry" is about the same.
(No, I'm not trying to say that Vision Pro is the iPhone moment for VR/AR — I agree that it's probably not. I just don't agree with this particular argument.)
It was $600 without a telco subsidy, which was a mistake, and one reason the first model really didn't sell. Then it went to $200 with subsidy in the USA (more complicated elsewhere). I presume you know that '$0' feature phone was actually $100 or so but subsidised to $0.
Well in my opinion cost is relative to the value it brings. I think by proposing such a jump in price, ($60 to $600 for iPhone, $300 to $3500 for Vision Pro) Apple is implying they believe that this breakthrough is worth more value to the end user. Whether they’re correct is for the markets to decide. But if I were to wager, I believe their constrained release of a (rumoured) million units will drive demand and carve themselves a nice premium chunk of the market.
So while absolute price does matter, I would say this product will result in the consumer waiting on upgrading their TV, sound system, or computer. With the vision pro, I’d be willing to trade off not having ‘bleeding edge’ tech in semi-stagnant fields such as display panels, audio interfaces, and laptops.
> Meta is trying to catalyse an ecosystem while we wait for the right hardware - Apple is trying to catalyse an ecosystem while we wait for the right price
Ignoring that these are the same thing, there is something deeper about the firms’ this reveals that I’m having a tough time enunciating. In essence, Apple is pursuing a time-tested strategy: start at the top of the market and build your way down with scale. Facebook is doin…something else.
I don’t understand either point, would appreciate elaboration if you find the time. Your first sentence says they’re the same thing, but then your second sentence discusses their differences? Maybe “ignoring for a moment” is just doing some real heavy lifting?
Re:strategy, I feel like there are many examples of companies who didn’t start with top-shelf products - I mean, we could start with the iPad and iPhone, which were expensive but I don’t think quite to this degree. But I’m assuming you know more about this - is Tesla the main counterexample?
They're both waiting for the same thing: good cheap, hardware. They both want to a retina headset for $500.
Apple started with retina and compromised on price; Facebook started with the price and compromised on quality. Moreover, the advances of one are likely to influence the rate of progress of the other. They're on the same track, they're just marching from opposite sides. Barring IP boundaries I don't understand, if one of them gets it the other can too. The phrasing implies they're pursuing separate lines; they're not–they're pursuing the same line from opposite directions.
Both need better apps. Apple seems to be betting on outside developers. They're corning the high end market and beckoning builders with those consumers' disposable dollars. Facebook is going straight for scale. That, however, means burning cash not only to absorb the devices' thin margins but also the in-house development of their software.
It's interesting seeing Apple playing a conventional industrial strategy, and Facebook playing the Vision Fund-esque blitzkrieg line. (HoloLens appears to be more focussed on gamers for the moment.)
> Meta, today, has roughly the right price and is working forward to the right device: Apple has started with the right device and will work back to the right price.
I like this analysis, though I think it still misses some fundamentals.
To me, if you go back to root cause analysis on "why has VR/AR not succeeded yet" you have to come to some basic conclusions:
1. The value proposition isn't there. It just isn't valuable enough to have a giant screen or bring a virtual object into your space that you will pay for it and wear a special device. Apple did not solve this. They presented the same things you can do for 10 years, claiming that better quality will make it worth it. But I call BS on that - quality on the Quest 2 is easily good enough that consumers would do it for the use cases Apple presented (photos, movies etc) if the value was there.
2. Form factor. People simply DO NOT LIKE having a giant thing on their face. Apple failed comprehensively at this. The Vision Pro is just as bulky as other headsets - eg: Quest Pro. They also HATE being attached or wired to things and Apple has put a giant wire coming out of your head.
The fact that Apple hasn't addressed the fundamentals leads me to the conclusion this device will at best be a dev kit for whatever eventually makes it to mass market. Perhaps 2 years from now it will indeed be Apple with a glasses like form factor.
I'm a strong believer in the future of this type of device but I really do think Apple has basically just created another VR type device here: it "blows people's minds" and I'm sure a legion of Apple enthusiasts will go buy it (probably me too). But after the novelty wears off, it will sit in the corner because it has the same fundamental problem: it just isn't better at what it does than not using it. At least, novwhere near enough to justify the price and inconvenience involved.
The Vision Pro is in the same position as the Mac was in 1984: overpriced, doesn't seem to do much and people don't understand what they might use it for. In a relatively new untested product category no less (VR goggles/personal computers).
Readit News
While I think the statement here is generally accurate, the analogy feels so off the mark here to be downright misleading.
The pre-iPhone cellphone and "mobile internet device" era was totally different than the current VR/AR era. Most importantly, people actually used their devices all the time, they just wanted them to be better. There was a reason they called them "Crackberries" - Blackberry fans were on them 24/7, and they got tons of utility from them. There was none of this "If we build it, I hope they'll come" feeling of the current VR/AR era.
Honestly, it saddens me to think that technology used to be about solving problems for humanity and has morphed into more of this "What substances can we sell to the masses that are sufficiently addictive to make our stock price go up?"
I fully understand how much Meta, Apple and others "want to make fetch happen". Many of us are simply just not interested.
That thing that gets me is just how weak the scenarios were in their promotional videos.
After building this device, the best that they could offer as benefits were viewing 3D photographs of your children, looking at multiple screens around you, or watching a single large screen for a movie or photo-browsing. (I mean, they showed somebody browsing the web. Why even dedicate time your video to show that?)
It feels like they're either out of ideas or really playing it safe. I'm guessing they do want to make "fetch" happen but don't really know how and are just going to bet on third party devs creating some killer app they haven't thought of. They've certainly got the time and money to work it out over the next few years.
But what they did get right was the hardware and operating system itself and the fact that it needs to be boring and “just work”.
As a young 3d artist and software engineer I just desperately want it, and want to develop for it. I want to walk around in my 3d creations and want to let other people experience what I can envision in my head.
While I don’t see it being as big of a leap as the desktop computer, internet or smartphone in terms of _productivity_, I do think enabling creativity is the “killer” app.
Imagine building and playing with an unlimited world like Minecraft or with LEGO bricks, right in your living room :)
Personally I’m building an app that allows me to put my 3D art from Blender into AR on the Meta Quest Pro [0], and it’s so much fun to do. It gives me a childlike joy to walk through my own creations and share them with others.
Anyway, I got a bit carried away, but I feel like HN is quite pessimistic about AR and VR, and want to give some positive counter views.
[0] https://youtu.be/cbIDRB1u04s
Otherwise, I think Apple's focus on "spatiality" is what is key.
While paying lip service to "Spacial computing" their product name is "Vision", so the core of it arguably the display part and they'll be pushing it as viewing device more than anything (I like TheVerge's "Apple made a TV" headline). And VR staying a minor platform only used as a display will be totally fine by them, they'll just keep selling computers on the side.
PS: For comparison, this was the pitch for Hololens: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqFqtAJMtYE
No, not really. Like Steve Jobs said, smartphones weren't very "smart". Most people did not have blackberries (those that did have Blackberries, were mostly business users). The rest of us that were technically savvy were playing some crappy java games(the ones allowed by mobile carrier stores), and browsing the web with WAP browsers in our flip phones. Most people were not even doing any of that. And why would they? The experience was terrible.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/263437/global-smartphone...
Using the same metric, people already use VR headsets, and just "want them to be better". Sure, the marketshare is a fraction of phone marketshare(https://www.statista.com/statistics/677096/vr-headsets-world...). But we can argue that most headsets are tethered to high end PCs, Meta's version is one of the few decent standalone versions.
Apple's device has lots of potential. It's all about the execution now, and subsequent devices.
Retconning phone history as if there was nothing between flip phones and first iPhone, or that transition time was short is dishonest.
In my experience, practically nobody. I agree that the Vision Pro is a technological marvel, but it's still a solution looking for a problem, and it's striking to me how even Apple had a difficult time presenting actually compelling use cases in their videos.
To be clear, I think there are some viable uses: gaming obviously, and potentially media consumption, but even there this solution is so much worse than a home theater system (as another commenter mentioned, I can get a group of people together in my house to all watch a movie on a big screen TV that costs much less than the headset that each of my friends would also have to own).
There are some enthusiastic people who use HMD (like Quest Pro) over 10 hours everyday for virtual display. Though currently the number of people is far less than Blackberry era.
That's probably a big reason Apple has ignored the current VR market segment.
Ignoring price for a moment (remember that early Apple computers cost $11,000 in today's money), Vision Pro is positioned for general computing, including games, and has a vibrant App Store so there's actually something to do.
What do you imagine people doing that isn't done about as well on some other Apple device? I can sort of get the gaming use case; I think it's wildly oversold, but it's legitimately different. But even Apple's launch video doesn't suggest that general computing will be notably improved here.
Or do you mean you can install iPhone apps? That's a completely different thing and makes your statement highly misleading
Also, are you implying that the Quest App Store is somehow not "vibrant"?
There are many reasons why I am super excited about the Vision Pro, but the App Store do not number among them
But if you want to displace the iPhone/smartphone it has to be 1000x better, which today's tech simply can't do yet.
If the glasses that I'm wearing right now could become an AR device at Vision Pro's abilities then take-my-money would be in full swing and easily displace the iPhone as the "center of our lives" computing device.
Nevah gonna happin without breakthrough in lithography. Sub nanometer needed prolly. Ur right tho
> I will happily go on the record as saying that this will be as revolutionary as the iPhone, perhaps even more so.
> But it's going to be a hit. HN is going to be swamped with "How I used Vision Pro to..." posts when it comes out.
> Well fuck me. This thing looks absolutely insane. It’s come in at $3499 and if it performs as good as those videos make out then, if anything, it’s a bargain.
> I think Apple designed an incredible piece of hardware here
The product is not designed for gamers for instance but provides a VR interface for pretty much your everyday iPhone/Mac/Watching movies use.
Personally the thought of people putting that on as soon as they get home/in office or even in the street is somehwat nightmarish but I think they're hoping for something like that...
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> the analogy feels so off the mark here to be downright misleading.
I mean, come on, you're obviously nitpicking here.
It's not 100% the same, but the parallel between having devices that were basically dumb phones -> internet computers is there, and there was no real indication at the time that a smart phone like blackberry would become a mass market device. None. Zero.
It was a niche device for rich people; most people were, and let's be absolutely honest here, absolutely, perfectly OK with simple feature phones, sending text messages and making calls.
So, the analogy here is pretty clear; once the device existed, it created a market that didn't exist or maybe extended a tiny market that already existed, but come onnnnnnnn, is it really that epic a stretch to imagine that it might happen again? ...can you not imagine this as a gen1 device that improves over time?
It is really so completely different?
I don't think it is.
I'm not convinced it will, but the parallel is not nearly as misleading as you're making it out to be.
Here's what I think is interesting: People want this is fail.
Lots of people. Not because they don't like apple. Not because they don't like VR. They just seem to hate it because its expensive and people are being positive about it and they feel like it's somehow wrong for apple to be:
- Selling something this expensive
- That is a risky bet that might not play out
- That people are willing to talk about favorably on the basis of the Apple brand.
...but, here's the thing right?
1) Who cares? They're rich. Let them fail.
2) Apple has the brand it has because it can deliver, and it has delivered in the past.
What kind of numpy stands here and thinks... "Oh gee, these guys at Apple are stupid. They're never going to sell these. They'll regret this. Look at all their failed products and their unsuccessful business. Haha!"
> I fully understand how much Meta, Apple and others "want to make fetch happen". Many of us are simply just not interested.
...if some people are excited and enthusiastic about it...
...let them be enthusiastic about it?
In Finland, mobile internet was already a big thing during the dot-com boom. The early attempts failed, because the hardware wasn't ready. Regardless, "mobile portal" remained one of the big buzzwords, and even taxi drivers knew that the mobile was the future. In a few years, new phones got color displays, cameras, 3G connections, and GPS receivers. Ordinary people bought them, because flagship phones were cheaper than they are today. And then mobile internet started finally making sense. I remember using the local public transit journey planner on my phone in 2005 or 2006 to determine the right stop after taking an unfamiliar bus.
"where the iPhone was a more-or-less drop-in replacement for the phone you already had, nine years after Meta bought Oculus, VR is still a new device and a new category for almost everyone. Indeed, the Vision Pro actually looks a bit more like the original Macintosh, which was over $7,000 (adjusted for inflation) when it launched in 1984, and most people didn’t know why they needed one."
I don't know. Holding a phone in your hand is very different than putting something directly onto your face.
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Soon enough the category will be a replacement for your home theater and/or your mobile entertainment device (i.e. tablet).
As simple as it might look, the most compelling mass-market use case I saw from Apple is... watching a movie on an airplane.
That experience is pretty crappy on current headsets because the resolution is low and the optical aberrations are very noticeable. The dual micro-OLED approach solves those problems. As production ramps up on micro-OLEDs the category will become 10x more affordable, and within 10 years I'd be surprised if 50% of people on commercial flights are not wearing this kind of headset.
To borrow a Steve Jobs phrase, I think of these devices can eventually become "a bicycle for the senses"[1] and open up all kinds of exciting use cases. But to get to mass-adoption you have to nail the basic stuff like watching a movie or TV show. We just haven't had a good device that can do that yet.
[1]: https://stephanango.com/bicycle-for-the-senses
It’s also an environment steeped with signalling, something Apple excels at.
I'd like to know if Apple actually designed for that. Because having watched movies on a plane in a headset, I can tell you that when it does anything other than fly straight and level existing headsets get extremely confused. It also is a very low light environment once the lights go off so how well their camera based hand tracking works without light is also a question.
It will probably split in separate categories, the same way we currently have different PC categories ("windows", "gaming" and "macs", whatever people envision in these names).
Your mention of tablet is interesting, as the market is also split between iPad(android), chomebooks and windows tablets, but most people probably only think about the iPad as a "tablet" and the rest as "computers".
1. The battery seems replaceable. I had an original Google Glass... after 2-3 hours of use you had to take it off your head and let it charge, meaning that you would never get used to always having it on. If people have to choose between having a useless hunk of heavy metal on their head, or not being able to use it while it recharges for a few hours, you have failed. 2. Making it AR-first and having that weird external display. Real life will intrude. Can you answer the door, turn off an appliance, do anything else, without having to pull something off of your head and unstrap some controllers from your hands? With the Apple model of handling things, you can pop out to real life without having to get in or out of using it. If you have to take it off, you're just a little bit less likely to put it back on. 3. Tapping your own fingers to click. This was something I brought up to FB/Meta when I was working there, but they decided not to use it. The only way you can give a tactile/haptic response to virtual items, is if there's also some sort of physical item. Tapping your own finger is the single easiest thing that makes sense. I hope that Apple adds future support for augmented 'props'. Imagine an empty artists palette (typically white plastic), that has virtual colors in swatches, or in a color wheel. You can tap on the physical palette to choose your color, to virtually mix the paints, etc.
The thing the quest is missing is eye tracking, I'd guess because of the cost - but that eye tracking is going to be a really big deal for good UX I think (along with the much better latency).
Meta also has the issue that because they're targeting social (given what the company is) the value isn't really there unless all your friends have headsets too (outside of the gaming niche). This is really hard. Apple by focusing on the utility for an individual side steps this in a way where it's a lot easier to bootstrap imo, especially with the ability for them to rely on their existing platform.
that's a bit of a confusing thing to say because that is exactly how you "click" in Quest when using hand tracking. What's different is the eye tracking and I'm guessing how good the Apple headset is at recognising the tap. But tap is how it does it.
Because that would be inviting ridicule. It's still way too large and bulky and, let's face it, comical to be used outside. Maybe in an office... Maybe. Clearly it's not intended for outdoor use.
The high-end passthrough is still very important for home use even without tacky "dolphins coming through your walls" usecases. Anyone who has used VR for extended periods of time with headphones and tried to have a drink/look at their phone knows how frustrating that is to take the whole rig off or try to peak down.
The fact VR people were excited you could read your Apple watch without taking off your headset says a lot about the current state of using VR for extended periods w/o quality passthrough.
"Don't store or leave your headset anywhere where it can be exposed to sunlight. The lenses inside your headset can be permanently damaged from less than a minute of exposure to direct sunlight even if it's indoors."[1]
Some people take them outside at dusk so they can get the benefit of a larger arena outdoors, but they do so against Meta's recommendations.
The Vision Pro may have the same or similar limitation.
[1]: https://www.meta.com/help/quest/articles/headsets-and-access...
And it’s AR, so the laptop comparison doesn’t work on that level too. Superimposed directions, reviews, tourist annotations, and goofy shit like FaceTiming your holographic family or playing geolocation games seem like reason enough for a small minority of users to happily take them out onto the streets. Kinda moot for most Americans anyway, who don’t have walkable streets to take them out on.
It just occurred to me that we’ll have to litigate whether this is acceptable to wear while driving… damn screw the rest of my comment, now I’m super curious how that is gonna turn out
This doesn't sit right with me. The iPhone launched at $600 into a market where most consumers were paying between $0 and $35 for a dumbphone. So while the absolute prices are different, the orders-of-magnitude difference between "what the typical consumer pays for a product in this category" and "what Apple is charging for their radical entry" is about the same.
(No, I'm not trying to say that Vision Pro is the iPhone moment for VR/AR — I agree that it's probably not. I just don't agree with this particular argument.)
So while absolute price does matter, I would say this product will result in the consumer waiting on upgrading their TV, sound system, or computer. With the vision pro, I’d be willing to trade off not having ‘bleeding edge’ tech in semi-stagnant fields such as display panels, audio interfaces, and laptops.
Ignoring that these are the same thing, there is something deeper about the firms’ this reveals that I’m having a tough time enunciating. In essence, Apple is pursuing a time-tested strategy: start at the top of the market and build your way down with scale. Facebook is doin…something else.
Re:strategy, I feel like there are many examples of companies who didn’t start with top-shelf products - I mean, we could start with the iPad and iPhone, which were expensive but I don’t think quite to this degree. But I’m assuming you know more about this - is Tesla the main counterexample?
Apple started with retina and compromised on price; Facebook started with the price and compromised on quality. Moreover, the advances of one are likely to influence the rate of progress of the other. They're on the same track, they're just marching from opposite sides. Barring IP boundaries I don't understand, if one of them gets it the other can too. The phrasing implies they're pursuing separate lines; they're not–they're pursuing the same line from opposite directions.
Both need better apps. Apple seems to be betting on outside developers. They're corning the high end market and beckoning builders with those consumers' disposable dollars. Facebook is going straight for scale. That, however, means burning cash not only to absorb the devices' thin margins but also the in-house development of their software.
It's interesting seeing Apple playing a conventional industrial strategy, and Facebook playing the Vision Fund-esque blitzkrieg line. (HoloLens appears to be more focussed on gamers for the moment.)
I like this analysis, though I think it still misses some fundamentals.
To me, if you go back to root cause analysis on "why has VR/AR not succeeded yet" you have to come to some basic conclusions:
1. The value proposition isn't there. It just isn't valuable enough to have a giant screen or bring a virtual object into your space that you will pay for it and wear a special device. Apple did not solve this. They presented the same things you can do for 10 years, claiming that better quality will make it worth it. But I call BS on that - quality on the Quest 2 is easily good enough that consumers would do it for the use cases Apple presented (photos, movies etc) if the value was there.
2. Form factor. People simply DO NOT LIKE having a giant thing on their face. Apple failed comprehensively at this. The Vision Pro is just as bulky as other headsets - eg: Quest Pro. They also HATE being attached or wired to things and Apple has put a giant wire coming out of your head.
The fact that Apple hasn't addressed the fundamentals leads me to the conclusion this device will at best be a dev kit for whatever eventually makes it to mass market. Perhaps 2 years from now it will indeed be Apple with a glasses like form factor.
I'm a strong believer in the future of this type of device but I really do think Apple has basically just created another VR type device here: it "blows people's minds" and I'm sure a legion of Apple enthusiasts will go buy it (probably me too). But after the novelty wears off, it will sit in the corner because it has the same fundamental problem: it just isn't better at what it does than not using it. At least, novwhere near enough to justify the price and inconvenience involved.
But it's going to change the world.