I was super interested in the Vision Pro when it was first released. Then I found out they went with an app model and the device could only display a single MacOS window. There went my dream of surrounding myself with a bunch of vim windows and terminals.
If they'd focused on maximizing the device's usefulness instead of its revenue stream, maybe things would have worked out better.
My sentiments exactly. This would be such an easy purchase to justify if it weren't just a toy-- no other VR headset touts to display text so crisply. But instead, their only market demographic are people who really enjoy going to theaters alone.
I'm very eagerly looking forward to Valve's headset coming out.
There are three problems with AVP: cost, cost and cost.
It is priced to be a pack-in with seats of Dassault 3DEXPERIENCE, but Meta's experience has been that the VR consumer is price sensitive which is why they followed up the MQ3 with the cost-reduced MQ3S.
I think Apple is looking at this the way they look at AirPods (something you stick in your ears to modify and augment your hearing) which is good and monitors, which is bad. Apple's always sold a tiny number of monitors with astronomical margins which looked like a good business because they didn't have to invest in product innovation to make them the way they do for the AVP -- and they didn't need software developers to invest in product innovation for their monitors, but the AVP absolutely requires it. And if they aren't shipping enough units, who is going to make software for it?
You can in fact already do this (have Mac windows show up as separate floating windows in VisionOS instead of all being on the single MacOS window) using a third party tool called Ensemble:
The point is that this should absolutely be capable of being a power-computing extension for Mac, but instead it’s been relegated to a $3k personal theater that runs apps for some reason
I'm not really following through your reasoning. How is breaking the usefulness helping the revenue stream?
Assuming you're an engineer, have you thought about what handing over a "window" from one computer to another actually entails? CRIU can do checkpoint/restore at container/process level - but you actually want it to run on both, no? So you need to split off just the I/O, but at the OS-level per window.
Apple has been doing a lot of work in this direction and they have stuff that actually work (like video calls and to some extent windows. These are processes running on different OS-es with a matrix of hundreds of devices.
It's not something you vibe code over the weekend.
the revenue-driven decision was choosing to make the OS more like iOS, locked down with an app store, rather than macos, which allows third-party applications, browsing the filesystem, dropping into a terminal, etc. with built-in first-party support.
instead of making a computer in an AR form-factor, they made an iPad in an AR form-factor.
Sending multiple windows over screensharing actually seems easier than sending the desktop to me - because you only look at one window at once, the rest don't have to update at full frame rate, or at all.
And it's easier and more power-efficient (because of hardware video encoding) to use screen sharing instead of sending drawing commands etc.
I use AVP every day for work. I spend 8+ hours a day wearing the thing.
It's amazing the screen real estate you get when you share your Mac screen. It's terrible that it's only one screen, but with good enough window (pun intended) management app, you can tile the windows/app inside this giant curved floating screen. That works for me because I always preferred using a single screen.
It's possible to share a single desktop/window, but it's not officially supported. Sometimes the screen sharing bugs out and, instead of gigantic curved screen, I get a tiny small app/window. If someone is interested in looking into this, this happens (sometimes) when, instead of starting the screen sharing from AVP, you share (mirror) the screen from Mac display/mirroring settings.
Another comment mentions how useful it is because it's integrated with Apple's ecosystem. I mean of course it is...Apple makes it.
I do wonder if that person had ever tried any of the myriad of VR device available a decade before beforehand and I do wonder how popular Apple's product would be if other companies were given the opportunity to integrate with the OS on the same level that Apple can (I feel like Apple is breaking anti-competitive laws constantly but nobody really cares about making them open up).
I think I may be the commenter you're referring to, and yes, I have used many different VR devices over the years. I've owned at least 3 other headsets and used 5.
My point in saying the usefulness of it being tied to the ecosystem was more of a negative one than a positive one if it wasn't clear. It is personally useful for me because I have a lot of Apple products at home (though I also have PC and linux stuff too), but I wish my primary use-cases for it were more platform agnostic.
I'm also very in support of aggressive anti-trust legislation and it's probably my biggest point of contention with Apple.
Despite all that, I still like the Vision Pro and think it's an incredible piece of tech that blows every other headset I've tried out of the water for the things I like to do.
> I do wonder if that person had ever tried any of the myriad of VR device available a decade before beforehand and I do wonder how popular Apple's product would be if other companies were given the opportunity to integrate with the OS on the same level that Apple can
Microsoft had and still has this opportunity, they even have game console and much of game developers to bootstrap VR/AR ecosystem.
> (I feel like Apple is breaking anti-competitive laws constantly but nobody really cares about making them open up).
That's not what we want at all. I should be able to slap a "Sync" button while wearing the Vision and every single window/app currently running on my Macbook Pro should show up as a completely independent spatially manipulable display within the virtual environment. That way I still get all the power of my dedicated Mac with the freedom of VR.
Even before it came out, I naturally assumed it was going to be able to do this. Major flub IMHO. Well that and the completely superfluous frontfacing screen for your "virtual avatar". Because the Vision wasn't already expensive enough...
They want the individual windows from the Mac to be manoeuvrable. Currently it works like a virtual display - you can't move windows around space like you can with visionOS apps.
> Then I found out they went with an app model and the device could only display a single MacOS window.
There was this program called Immersed for Quest and some other VR headsets (apparently Apple's one too?) that ages ago was quite brilliant: I could connect my laptop or PC and have as many virtual desktops in addition to the real ones displayed around me. Even on my Quest 2, until the strain set in, it was cool to just kinda tune out the room around me and be in a black void surrounded by just the screens of whatever I'm working on.
Sadly, in one update they randomly removed it as a "legacy feature nobody uses", which ruined the program for me, and Virtual Desktop for the Quest also has limited screens you can display, so I can't even do all 4 of my physical ones, nor virtual ones - despite it having worked previously in the other program.
For a little bit, it was a really cool mode of working, but sadly I only got glimpses of it and would need more capable hardware like AVP for that in the first place (Quest 2 very much had its limitations).
I went to an apple store, saw a vision pro and asked if I could try it on. They said you had to schedule an appointment, then they would take you through a supervised viewing or whatever.
This gave me the impression it wasn't ready for general use, and they would have to control your impression of the thing while selling you on it.
I know that VR is hard, and AR is much harder, but this made me think apple still hasn't cracked it.
As to single app - I figure the thing has to be hard real-time to do things without giving you a headache or nausea/vomiting. that probably doesn't leave room for a lot of sharing of resources.
In the end, I think this is a iphone 1.0 type device, and only continued development with deep pockets will make it viable, eventually.
The appointment is fairly hands off. The employee checks your prescription, installs the right lenses and helps you have a good fit, possibly trying other lenses if you’re having issues.
There isn’t any prep I saw that they would have to do before they could except a walk-in.
Maybe I'm missing something, but I think emulating a physical screen in a virtual field of view is the wrong way to do this. Why introduce off-axis viewing and all the other unnecessary weirdnesses? What if the entire field of view were the screen, with head and eye movement as navigation? I guess make the windows transparent so it's less disorienting, and it would at least initially be overwhelming, but past that it could be quite transformative.
I actually bought one thinking I could buy a vision pro instead of a new computer, but alas, the vision pro (despite being a powerful computer) is not usable as a work computer
I own Vision Pro. They work with Macos pretty well when sharing the whole screen, and I think that their technology is potentially capable to share one specific app -- with facetime you can do just that -- but so far Vision Pro is unable of that. That's a shame.
Within the bounds of that big ol 8k window, yes, but the applications themselves can't be extracted and positioned separately.
My workaround for this is using applications that work comfortably in a safari window (like vscode) and you can have as many safari windows free floating as you want
Apple is not in the business of selling productivity software. Even their desktops/MacOS segment is an insignificant historical afterthought by now.
To a first approximation, Apple is a manufacturer of locked-down handheld entertainment appliances whose primary function is to psychologically condition children into siphoning off money from their inattentive parents. There's no reason to suspect their vision for the AVP to diverge significantly from this user story.
I'm sure you felt very clever writing that zinger about children and parents, but unless the majority of Apple devices are sold to/for children -- which I would bet is extremely not true -- it's obviously wrong.
And also virtually every film editor, colourist and videographer. Oh and also every illustrator and graphic designer. And a host of other professions where having a clean UI, colour accuracy, on a reliable machine that rarely if ever crashes is essential rather than a preference.
As a film maker and editor I'm enormously more productive on my dual screen (used) M1 Max Studio machine than I was on a variety of PC setups with high end GPUs. Even just the missing overhead of not having to keep graphic drives and constant Windows updates is great. Reliable renders were never a thing on Windows. The time lost doing things again because window had some strange colour issue, render crash, font issue and on and on was ludicrous.
The idea of having to use Windows for daily productivity sends a shiver down my spine.
Every company I've worked at in the last 15-20 years has run fully on Mac. First it was the designers, then the devs, and now everyone. I used Windows for years and have some experience with various Linux distros, but if I joined a company that made me use either of those full-time I'd immediately start looking for another job.
Yeah this would honestly be incredible and actually deserving of the "spatial computing" moniker.
I would love to be able to have a dedicated spatial location for each part of my Django app: look over here for the CSS, step here for the views, scroll through the logs over here...
1) It's been doable for years and yet AR/VR doesn't take off
2) It will only ever be a hyper niche use case of an already hyper niche market. People do not want a giant screen glued to their face.
Have you actually tried "working" in VR? It is awful and pointless and zero percent of my work is limited by the size of my screen FFS. Are you one of those people that keep 100 terminal windows open with random TOPS and log watchers but never actually uses them? Those people always seem to have lots of monitors. They don't actually seem more productive though.
I even downgraded from two external monitors to one because all the extra monitor was doing was making me hurt my neck from looking back and forth.
A 30 inch monitor with 1440p resolution can do everything you want from django and is like $200
I never would have bought a gaming computer or console, but a gaming handheld is an easy purchase.
There's something much more approachable about having an appliance with a built-in screen vs having to get a monitor/TV and dedicate part of your living space to something you use sometimes.
Speaking of which, Apple could probably support Mac apps on modern iPhones if you plug it into an external monitor. I assume they aren't doing it because it would cannibalize their laptop market.
This is why I love Samsung for DEX. It's not perfect but it's actually fairly usable when travelling. Can even use it wirelessly with a compatible display (which sometimes hotel TVs are).
I'm very excited for stuff like smart glasses ever single Glass, meta's new stuff is awesome in terms of slimming things down but the real excitement is the wristband for input. Looks like we'll be solving the display/input problems soon enough.
They seemed resistant to the idea of a compute puck but I honestly think that's fine. I'd rather have a phone in my pocket that can be used for compute than bulkier glasses, though it is nice if future glasses can do very basic tasks unaided.
I hope that pretty soon I won't even need a laptop for out of hours tasks (but would still use one for the standard work day most likely).
Not probably, definitely. Nobody wants that of course because it would mean hiring real developers over friends/family.
A19 pro is already faster than modern desktop chips let alone something from a few years ago. Almost all their mac software was designed for much more modest machines.
It would also be slow, not because the chip is slow but because if you do serious things with it it’s going to thermal throttle. Laptops have way better heat dissipation.
Most people put phones in cases which makes heat dissipation much worse.
Probably yes. Essentially all of those are the same: Apple TVs, iPhones, iPads, Macbooks and desktop computers. Slightly different version of Apple Silicon in different casing and different OS (or UI?).
Mac apps will expect a full set of Mac hardware (not just the CPU), so you’d probably need to run a full virtual Mac for compatibility. Not impossible, but I expect it’s not a priority either.
It seemed silly to me, but then I remembered how Apple works. Create something that you can't have. Oh an M5 chip in something I won't buy. It would be great if we had M5's in MacBooks -> want. Apple manufactures desire first before satisfying that created 'new' market. Last time I recall was the iPad Pro's even before they started getting useful as very few people buy these. Scarcity sells.
The math isn't how many people will buy Vision Pro M5, it's how many have nots can be created by putting it in the Vision Pro.
I've had the Vision Pro since launch, and the only thing that keeps me coming back to it nearly daily is the Mac Virtual Display for my MacBook Pro.
It's just so useful to have a huge display wherever you want it - no hunching over looking down a small laptop screen. This is especially useful on a plane where I'm not even able to open the laptop completely due to the tight space.
My main gripe is: Why do I need a separate Mac at all?
Even the original M2 Vision Pro has more than enough horsepower to run the virtual Mac inside of the headset, so it seems like a fake limitation.
I'm looking forward to it being lighter weight and smaller, and for them to make the Mac Virtual Display native to the Vision Pro experience without the need for a separate computer.
The only use case I’m interested in is long-haul flights. How comfortable is it to wear for an extended period? Do people interrupt you to ask you about it? Are you able to use all the features sitting in economy while gesturing?
Expectations vary but I find that regardless of perfect comfort and battery life I don’t want to go more than a few hours without a break. I’ll watch a jumbo movie or a few hours of tv on a flight no problem
Comfort: For me, the answer was “no” out of the box. I had to exchange my light seal twice before I got the right one. This was no charge but obviously it would be great to get it right the first time and it seems like a large number of users never did this and those are the ones who complain most about comfort. Not blaming the users btw, Apple needs to fix this if they care about the product
Onlookers: I always wonder if somebody will bug me and they never have. If you are self-conscious, it might not not be the product for you
Gestures: You learn that they can be done very subtly and you don’t need to bother the person next to you
Overall yes (with some caveats below), it's comfortable enough to wear for a few hours. I'm usually in the window seat and I try to be discreet, so nobody has really asked me about it.
All of the features work well even with no internet (for linking the mac & vision pro). Travel mode takes care of issues with the plane's movement and the sensors work excellent for gesture / tap detection even in complete darkness, and there's never a need for big sweeping arm gestures with the vision pro - you can operate it in a small space.
I bought the belkin headstrap to help distribute the weight, and I imagine the success of that type of accessory is what prompted apple to introduce the new dual knit band. With that extra support I can wear it for a few hours but I definitely have goggle marks on my face for a while afterwards - like you would have after skiing.
Most people don’t care, the only weird/funny part is that they assume you can’t see with it on. I’ve never been interrupted and I wore mine on a flight just a few months after it was released.
Apple won't do that because it means creating a Mac enclave[0] inside of what is supposed to be a secure OS. Apple wants the Mac to be firewalled off from the rest of their product line because the Mac has root access and other things that let the owner tamper with device security. To be clear, you can keep such a device secure, but Apple believes the additional work to support keeping such an owner-controlled device secure is "working for free".
To elaborate on that last bit: macOS ships with a number of utilities and frameworks specifically to detect and remove known-malicious software. macOS also has to operate notarization infrastructure for supporting non-MAS apps, as well as boot infrastructure to deliberately run untrusted or known-insecure OS kernels. None of their other platforms need this[1], because they have strict code signing enforcement. The web browser and developer mode aside, the only code that is ever allowed to run on device is code written by an entity with a business relationship to Apple. Anyone who wants to ship malware has to create a paper trail and expose themselves to getting a legal ass-ramming.
Of course, in practice the enhanced security of iOS and its derivatives is really just an excuse to extract 30%, a price most app developers aren't willing to pay. Putting all your "real apps" behind a virtual display that you have to carry a separate device around for is a way to contrive an inconvenience whose answer is "ship a native visionOS app."
I suspect the whole reason why Mac mirroring is even a thing at all is because Apple realized iPad apps weren't going to cut it on a $3500 VR headset, and this was their quick hack to make the Vision Pro useful while they figured out a way to browbeat their developers into officially supporting it. A task which, by the way, has failed miserably.
[0] No relation to "exclaves" - i.e. bits of security-sensitive code that have been isolated from regular iOS system processes and run inside SPTM's "secure kernel" domain, but can still IPC back and forth. The most likely approach to "Mac enclaves" on visionOS would be enabling Hypervisor and shoving macOS in EL1.
[1] EU DMA notwithstanding - in fact, much of Apple's anger regarding the DMA boils down to the fact that complying with it while keeping their devices secure means shipping macOS-like antimalware infrastructure on other platforms.
I won't be upgrading from the M2 model, but I still get a lot of value out of mine simply using the Mac Virtual Display with my Macbook Pro. Of course there are other benefits (gaming w/ ALVR and a PC, watching movies, reading comics) but it makes video editing workflows much nicer for me because I can set the resolution to ultrawide and have much more real estate for Davinci Resolve.
It never really leaves the house, and I get why a lot of people don't like it, but personally, it's one of the coolest pieces of tech I own and I get a ton of value out of it. The value is just tied to being integrated into the apple ecosystem more than it being a standalone device, which is a very Apple thing to do.
I have lots of criticisms too, but overall I really like it. Also converting photos to spatial photos and looking through old memories in 3D is truly incredible. Can't overstate how much I love that feature.
The thing I'm most excited about from this release is the backwards compatible Dual Knit Band, which I'm definitely buying.
I am in a similar boat. I wish they'd gone in to more detail about why this version is different than the existing one - other than "new chip" - because I like mine so much that I want to know how it's improved. I love having a portable, infinite desktop that pairs to my laptop. I have watched movies with it while away, and it's a great media consumption device. It's just cool, and should only get better and cheaper as the tech evolves.
Similar. I use this as a traveling external monitor. I have a face that works well without the face seal and with the old dual band: Counter weighted with the back of my head in a way that floats the headset over my nose/face. Going back to squeezing this onto my face like the old knit band seems like it would go backwards in comfort. How can anyone have this pressed against their face for 8+ hours?
The best is to have a pulley system above your head that removes the weight of it from above. I’d like to see someone implement this via a backpack / should strap for mobile use.
With the inability to counter-balance, with soft straps, I I really wish they would get rid of the metal, glass, and silly front screen. For comparison, Quest 3, with integrated battery, is almost 20% lighter and is possible to counter balance (hard strap), which I think is more important than weight (near zero force on the flesh of my face).
It has comparable PPD, at the center, so works just as well for using as windows/mac virtual screen (mac being my main use case).
As far as I know, you can't have different virtual desktops for each room. The window to use the virtual desktop dynamically pops up over my laptop when I open and unlock it.
I do have a few widgets floating around in different rooms, but rarely use it from somewhere that isn't my chair or bed, so it's mostly a few clocks embedded into my walls to keep track of time, and those are persistent.
I love my first gen Apple Vision Pro. I find that most of the criticism isn’t addressed at the product and technology, but at the price and Apple’s strategy.
Price will go down in five years, once the tech mature la. For now this is a bit like how the Oculus DK1 was. An early device to explore what the overall vision is about, and figure out the apps.
I use AVP every day for work. I spend 8+ hours a day wearing the thing.
It's amazing the screen real estate you get when you share your Mac screen. It's terrible that it's only one screen, but with good enough window (pun intended) management app, you can tile the windows/app inside this giant curved floating screen. That works for me because I always preferred using a single screen.
Anyone using one? If so, what for? (please give details)
I got an oculus quest 2, was blown away by it for 1-2 hours, but never really picked it up again. The games were fun but very shallow, and never tried any practical uses.
Would love to use VR for working on a plane. Currently use a laptop, but my neck sometimes gets sore from looking down. VR has the potential to 10x the screen real estate and prevent having to look at down at an acute angle.
I have one. I use it primarily for keeping my drawer full.
That said, it's AMAZING as a home theater replacement, other than an issue with internal reflections in the optics. So in dark scenes it gets a bit annoying.
If I lived in an apartment, I would absolutely use it in place of a large TV that eats up a lot of my space. Especially coupled with the airpods MAX and spatial audio. Watching a 4k 3d movie in it is mind-blowing. Most 3d you've ever seen was really 50% of 1080p, so it's a whole new world. Some of the Apple original content is also great. The thing with the submarine is amazing.
Personally I already have a full sized home theater, so I just use that. However, I'm willing to bet that in 5 years when it's time to upgrade the home theater I'll probably just be turning it into a library with some seats I can use a VR headset from. Who knows, maybe it will be a descendant of the AVP.
Do you never entertain guests with your home theater system?
I believe you when you say that it could replace the experience for yourself, but, at least for me, hosting with my home theater is the main driver for improving it.
Amazing home theater replacement if you watch all your movies alone, or have a lot of money.
Does Vision Pro have any apps for a virtual theater where you can watch video online in a VR space with other people? I've used Bigscreen for that once or twice with a Quest, and it struck me as something that would be a cool feature if I knew more people with VR headsets.
> That said, it's AMAZING as a home theater replacement
This seems to literally be its only killer feature.
I was hoping apple would be able to figure out what nobody else has, an actual useful everyday use for AR. But still we are just given a personal theatre, or proof of concept toy 'experience' apps.
Re: "VR for working on a plane" - you could look into XR glasses like the ones from XReal or Viture.
I've been considering a pair for myself after hearing good feedback from some friends, and seeing some good reviews online.
The latest versions have head tracking so the virtual screen remains "pinned" in your view.
They're also much smaller and easier to carry compared to a full VR headset, and they can plug into almost any device (laptop, tablet, phone) and just show up as an external monitor.
I’ve been tempted, but a lot of the forum feedback (ie not the breathless YouTube “reviews”), suggest that optically they are pretty bad, especially near the edges.
As a user, I actually use it more today than when I first got it, because each visionOS update has really unleveled the capabilities of the device. I like watching movies on the ceiling, the spatial scenes / photos / videos are really fun, and generally viewing your Photos library on Vision Pro is on a different level. Even non-spatial content just takes on a different, more immersive quality.
I have a lot of friends in the developer community, and enjoy playing with their apps. Things like "Cell Walk" where you can explore a 3D volumetric representation of different types of cells.
The Apple Immersive short films they release every so often are phenomenal – really nothing like them in my experience.
It's nice to be able to edit a movie and throw it onto a big screen, or have a gigantic workspace.
On rare occasions, I use it for the virtual display; it's actually usable to sit outside and work with a giant display on the deck, or to dial myself onto the beach. But it's not exactly comfortable for extended use, and most of the time I'd rather sit at my nice desktop with multiple monitors etc.
I also have a Quest 3 and if I could only own one device, I'd take the Q3 hands-down. The games are fun, they get you up and moving, and although I'm not going to argue that the quality of the screens is the same or anything, it's more than good enough. I'll happily give up the virtual laptop screen in exchange for the library of VR games on the Quest.
I'm not much for consuming media so that aspect is lost on me. Unfortunately, that seems to be the primary use case Apple has focused on, if you can call the anemic dribble of content they've put out focus.
I had a quest 2, but it was always blurry for me. Something wrong with my eyes, idk. I've wanted to try a Bigscreen Beyond with custom lens inserts, but too much money to invest on something that might not work out.
If you wear glasses, or need them and don't normally wear them, it's important to get the prescription lens inserts. They make them for the Quest as well, and they aren't expensive.
Meta doesn't try to force it on you the way Apple does, but you really have to or it will always be blurry. The screen has a sort of fixed focal point and if your vision isn't great at that distance EVERYTHING will be blurry instead of just the one range that's normally blurry for you.
You may not even realize you need glasses until you try it and everything is blurry.
i usually wear contacts, and the quest 2 was always a bit blurry. one day i randomly was wearing my glasses and sort of forced the headset on over them and i was blow away by how much clearer it was. outside of that case I see about the same wearing contacts vs glasses.
i never got around to trying prescription inserts but i suspect they would be ideal
Meta has already released normal size smart glasses, it wont be long until all VR headsets are a relic of the past.
EDIT: I think people are misunderstanding me. I dont mean VR/AR will be dead, I maen that all devices will be normal size glasses and big chunky headsets wont exist any more.
i use mine daily for the virtual desktop and about 5 hours a week for hobby avp app dev. i simply think its fun to build pet projects in the sdk for my own AR dev education and entertainment
frankly i justified the cost by comparing against a planned home theater. now i RARELY use the avp as a home theater. its an incredible theater, but over time my mentality shifted and i consider the avp a tool instead of entertainment
i got used to the weight after a month. went from topping out on an hour or 2 to using for 4-5 hours no problem. also took around a month to learn the proper calibration for the light screen to "hang" on my face instead of press against it. this was a major breakthrough for comfort and session length
ive had mine since launch month and will add this observation i dont see said often:
i think the avp is meant to be taken off. meaning, i see meta going toward more comfortable ar glasses, but i dont really want to be in ar ALL DAY
its difficult to describe. the longer ive had an avp the more ive found a desire to put it on like a work hardhat, then take it off when i "feel" its time to stop. i really like that its not designed to be worn all day. im probably giving apple too much credit but its something unexpected ive found interesting in my own habitual use
* edit to add another interesting development after about a year of use: i now need to take a magnesium, calcium, and zinc pill or the weaker of my eyes will become tired and develop a spasm after about an hour and a half of sustained use. im vegetarian so that may also be a factor
I have used VR headsets since the original Oculus Development Kit Mk.1. It is until the Quest 3 that VR feels like a compelling product. If you can try it, I would suggest you do so.
Keep in mind, that the Quest 3 has been discontinued in favour of the cheaper and inferior Quest 3S. It still has some good qualities, but the best one is no doubt the Quest 3.
Another thing is that to save on costs, they all ship with a very inadequate headband. For comfort, it is imperative to get another solution, either the (expensive) elite headstrap or a (cheaper) 3rd party one.
What makes you think the Quest 3 is discontinued? The 3s was clearly communicated to be the cheaper alternative (and replaced the Quest 2 that was still sold in parallel with the 3), not a replacement for the 3.
I wish they could get the price down. I had it for a few weeks before returning it. It's really an incredible device but for the value it currently provides it's not worth the cost. They also need to sort out the fact that mirroring a Mac is tied up with your Apple ID. My main use case was going to be mirroring my work MacBook, but I'm not signing into my work device with my personal Apple account. It's an astonishing oversight. If they can halve the price (and maybe the weight) over the next decade it'll be huge.
I expect the Apple ID thing will be fixed as it should be easy. Halving the price should be easy too - but probably won't happen until the new "half the weight" version is released.
They definitely don't have a decade. The market gave them 14 years with iPhone (Newton was 1993?). But things move a bit faster now.
>> I expect the Apple ID thing will be fixed as it should be easy.
That's what I initially thought but there have been two OS cycles now with no fix. I think Apple often back themselves into a corner when they base stuff around iCloud and I wouldn't be surprised if this was similar. Maybe user accounts on visionOS will be the eventual solution?
Readit News
If they'd focused on maximizing the device's usefulness instead of its revenue stream, maybe things would have worked out better.
I'm very eagerly looking forward to Valve's headset coming out.
It is priced to be a pack-in with seats of Dassault 3DEXPERIENCE, but Meta's experience has been that the VR consumer is price sensitive which is why they followed up the MQ3 with the cost-reduced MQ3S.
I think Apple is looking at this the way they look at AirPods (something you stick in your ears to modify and augment your hearing) which is good and monitors, which is bad. Apple's always sold a tiny number of monitors with astronomical margins which looked like a good business because they didn't have to invest in product innovation to make them the way they do for the AVP -- and they didn't need software developers to invest in product innovation for their monitors, but the AVP absolutely requires it. And if they aren't shipping enough units, who is going to make software for it?
I hope they swap out Haskell though, probably can make your own compositor
https://www.valvesoftware.com/en/index/headset
I still remember the good old days of Gary's mod movie theater servers.
https://github.com/saagarjha/Ensemble
This is what is looks like in action:
https://twitter.com/TheOriginaliTE/status/175125156764134634...
Disclaimer: I don’t know how well it works in practice because I don’t have a Vision Pro.
Assuming you're an engineer, have you thought about what handing over a "window" from one computer to another actually entails? CRIU can do checkpoint/restore at container/process level - but you actually want it to run on both, no? So you need to split off just the I/O, but at the OS-level per window.
Apple has been doing a lot of work in this direction and they have stuff that actually work (like video calls and to some extent windows. These are processes running on different OS-es with a matrix of hundreds of devices.
It's not something you vibe code over the weekend.
the revenue-driven decision was choosing to make the OS more like iOS, locked down with an app store, rather than macos, which allows third-party applications, browsing the filesystem, dropping into a terminal, etc. with built-in first-party support.
instead of making a computer in an AR form-factor, they made an iPad in an AR form-factor.
And it's easier and more power-efficient (because of hardware video encoding) to use screen sharing instead of sending drawing commands etc.
Do you feel you're more in focus when using Vision Pro like this, as opposed to using an external monitor?
I do wonder if that person had ever tried any of the myriad of VR device available a decade before beforehand and I do wonder how popular Apple's product would be if other companies were given the opportunity to integrate with the OS on the same level that Apple can (I feel like Apple is breaking anti-competitive laws constantly but nobody really cares about making them open up).
My point in saying the usefulness of it being tied to the ecosystem was more of a negative one than a positive one if it wasn't clear. It is personally useful for me because I have a lot of Apple products at home (though I also have PC and linux stuff too), but I wish my primary use-cases for it were more platform agnostic.
I'm also very in support of aggressive anti-trust legislation and it's probably my biggest point of contention with Apple.
Despite all that, I still like the Vision Pro and think it's an incredible piece of tech that blows every other headset I've tried out of the water for the things I like to do.
Microsoft had and still has this opportunity, they even have game console and much of game developers to bootstrap VR/AR ecosystem.
> (I feel like Apple is breaking anti-competitive laws constantly but nobody really cares about making them open up).
lol okay
Even before it came out, I naturally assumed it was going to be able to do this. Major flub IMHO. Well that and the completely superfluous frontfacing screen for your "virtual avatar". Because the Vision wasn't already expensive enough...
That's just an hyper expensive huge screen.
There was this program called Immersed for Quest and some other VR headsets (apparently Apple's one too?) that ages ago was quite brilliant: I could connect my laptop or PC and have as many virtual desktops in addition to the real ones displayed around me. Even on my Quest 2, until the strain set in, it was cool to just kinda tune out the room around me and be in a black void surrounded by just the screens of whatever I'm working on.
Sadly, in one update they randomly removed it as a "legacy feature nobody uses", which ruined the program for me, and Virtual Desktop for the Quest also has limited screens you can display, so I can't even do all 4 of my physical ones, nor virtual ones - despite it having worked previously in the other program.
For a little bit, it was a really cool mode of working, but sadly I only got glimpses of it and would need more capable hardware like AVP for that in the first place (Quest 2 very much had its limitations).
Also, this was a pretty cool idea, even if a novelty: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Js7Y1H5D8cY
This gave me the impression it wasn't ready for general use, and they would have to control your impression of the thing while selling you on it.
I know that VR is hard, and AR is much harder, but this made me think apple still hasn't cracked it.
As to single app - I figure the thing has to be hard real-time to do things without giving you a headache or nausea/vomiting. that probably doesn't leave room for a lot of sharing of resources.
In the end, I think this is a iphone 1.0 type device, and only continued development with deep pockets will make it viable, eventually.
There isn’t any prep I saw that they would have to do before they could except a walk-in.
(I returned it)
https://www.apple.com/newsroom/videos/2025/autoplay/10/apple...
My workaround for this is using applications that work comfortably in a safari window (like vscode) and you can have as many safari windows free floating as you want
To a first approximation, Apple is a manufacturer of locked-down handheld entertainment appliances whose primary function is to psychologically condition children into siphoning off money from their inattentive parents. There's no reason to suspect their vision for the AVP to diverge significantly from this user story.
Personally I find a Mac to be a better development environment than Windows even for Microsoft tech like the dotnet stack.
As a film maker and editor I'm enormously more productive on my dual screen (used) M1 Max Studio machine than I was on a variety of PC setups with high end GPUs. Even just the missing overhead of not having to keep graphic drives and constant Windows updates is great. Reliable renders were never a thing on Windows. The time lost doing things again because window had some strange colour issue, render crash, font issue and on and on was ludicrous.
The idea of having to use Windows for daily productivity sends a shiver down my spine.
By what measure? As I understand it, more Macs sell now than in any other point in history.
I would love to be able to have a dedicated spatial location for each part of my Django app: look over here for the CSS, step here for the views, scroll through the logs over here...
1) It's been doable for years and yet AR/VR doesn't take off
2) It will only ever be a hyper niche use case of an already hyper niche market. People do not want a giant screen glued to their face.
Have you actually tried "working" in VR? It is awful and pointless and zero percent of my work is limited by the size of my screen FFS. Are you one of those people that keep 100 terminal windows open with random TOPS and log watchers but never actually uses them? Those people always seem to have lots of monitors. They don't actually seem more productive though.
I even downgraded from two external monitors to one because all the extra monitor was doing was making me hurt my neck from looking back and forth.
A 30 inch monitor with 1440p resolution can do everything you want from django and is like $200
They'll keep their face computers separate for as long as they refuse to build Macbooks with touch screens. Which seems to be forever.
Obviously there would be performance constraints but at least for your $3499 you'd be getting a Mac instead of just a Mac Monitor.
There's something much more approachable about having an appliance with a built-in screen vs having to get a monitor/TV and dedicate part of your living space to something you use sometimes.
I'm very excited for stuff like smart glasses ever single Glass, meta's new stuff is awesome in terms of slimming things down but the real excitement is the wristband for input. Looks like we'll be solving the display/input problems soon enough.
They seemed resistant to the idea of a compute puck but I honestly think that's fine. I'd rather have a phone in my pocket that can be used for compute than bulkier glasses, though it is nice if future glasses can do very basic tasks unaided.
I hope that pretty soon I won't even need a laptop for out of hours tasks (but would still use one for the standard work day most likely).
Most people put phones in cases which makes heat dissipation much worse.
The math isn't how many people will buy Vision Pro M5, it's how many have nots can be created by putting it in the Vision Pro.
It's just so useful to have a huge display wherever you want it - no hunching over looking down a small laptop screen. This is especially useful on a plane where I'm not even able to open the laptop completely due to the tight space.
My main gripe is: Why do I need a separate Mac at all? Even the original M2 Vision Pro has more than enough horsepower to run the virtual Mac inside of the headset, so it seems like a fake limitation.
I'm looking forward to it being lighter weight and smaller, and for them to make the Mac Virtual Display native to the Vision Pro experience without the need for a separate computer.
Comfort: For me, the answer was “no” out of the box. I had to exchange my light seal twice before I got the right one. This was no charge but obviously it would be great to get it right the first time and it seems like a large number of users never did this and those are the ones who complain most about comfort. Not blaming the users btw, Apple needs to fix this if they care about the product
Onlookers: I always wonder if somebody will bug me and they never have. If you are self-conscious, it might not not be the product for you
Gestures: You learn that they can be done very subtly and you don’t need to bother the person next to you
All of the features work well even with no internet (for linking the mac & vision pro). Travel mode takes care of issues with the plane's movement and the sensors work excellent for gesture / tap detection even in complete darkness, and there's never a need for big sweeping arm gestures with the vision pro - you can operate it in a small space.
I bought the belkin headstrap to help distribute the weight, and I imagine the success of that type of accessory is what prompted apple to introduce the new dual knit band. With that extra support I can wear it for a few hours but I definitely have goggle marks on my face for a while afterwards - like you would have after skiing.
It’s not comfortable though.
They might as well have made the plunge.
To elaborate on that last bit: macOS ships with a number of utilities and frameworks specifically to detect and remove known-malicious software. macOS also has to operate notarization infrastructure for supporting non-MAS apps, as well as boot infrastructure to deliberately run untrusted or known-insecure OS kernels. None of their other platforms need this[1], because they have strict code signing enforcement. The web browser and developer mode aside, the only code that is ever allowed to run on device is code written by an entity with a business relationship to Apple. Anyone who wants to ship malware has to create a paper trail and expose themselves to getting a legal ass-ramming.
Of course, in practice the enhanced security of iOS and its derivatives is really just an excuse to extract 30%, a price most app developers aren't willing to pay. Putting all your "real apps" behind a virtual display that you have to carry a separate device around for is a way to contrive an inconvenience whose answer is "ship a native visionOS app."
I suspect the whole reason why Mac mirroring is even a thing at all is because Apple realized iPad apps weren't going to cut it on a $3500 VR headset, and this was their quick hack to make the Vision Pro useful while they figured out a way to browbeat their developers into officially supporting it. A task which, by the way, has failed miserably.
[0] No relation to "exclaves" - i.e. bits of security-sensitive code that have been isolated from regular iOS system processes and run inside SPTM's "secure kernel" domain, but can still IPC back and forth. The most likely approach to "Mac enclaves" on visionOS would be enabling Hypervisor and shoving macOS in EL1.
[1] EU DMA notwithstanding - in fact, much of Apple's anger regarding the DMA boils down to the fact that complying with it while keeping their devices secure means shipping macOS-like antimalware infrastructure on other platforms.
It never really leaves the house, and I get why a lot of people don't like it, but personally, it's one of the coolest pieces of tech I own and I get a ton of value out of it. The value is just tied to being integrated into the apple ecosystem more than it being a standalone device, which is a very Apple thing to do.
I have lots of criticisms too, but overall I really like it. Also converting photos to spatial photos and looking through old memories in 3D is truly incredible. Can't overstate how much I love that feature.
The thing I'm most excited about from this release is the backwards compatible Dual Knit Band, which I'm definitely buying.
There's something to this AR XR stuff but even with infinite resources the convenience just isn't there for all day use for me.
It has comparable PPD, at the center, so works just as well for using as windows/mac virtual screen (mac being my main use case).
The announcement mentions Steam Link too.
I do have a few widgets floating around in different rooms, but rarely use it from somewhere that isn't my chair or bed, so it's mostly a few clocks embedded into my walls to keep track of time, and those are persistent.
Price will go down in five years, once the tech mature la. For now this is a bit like how the Oculus DK1 was. An early device to explore what the overall vision is about, and figure out the apps.
How often do you use it?
I got an oculus quest 2, was blown away by it for 1-2 hours, but never really picked it up again. The games were fun but very shallow, and never tried any practical uses.
Would love to use VR for working on a plane. Currently use a laptop, but my neck sometimes gets sore from looking down. VR has the potential to 10x the screen real estate and prevent having to look at down at an acute angle.
That said, it's AMAZING as a home theater replacement, other than an issue with internal reflections in the optics. So in dark scenes it gets a bit annoying.
If I lived in an apartment, I would absolutely use it in place of a large TV that eats up a lot of my space. Especially coupled with the airpods MAX and spatial audio. Watching a 4k 3d movie in it is mind-blowing. Most 3d you've ever seen was really 50% of 1080p, so it's a whole new world. Some of the Apple original content is also great. The thing with the submarine is amazing.
Personally I already have a full sized home theater, so I just use that. However, I'm willing to bet that in 5 years when it's time to upgrade the home theater I'll probably just be turning it into a library with some seats I can use a VR headset from. Who knows, maybe it will be a descendant of the AVP.
I believe you when you say that it could replace the experience for yourself, but, at least for me, hosting with my home theater is the main driver for improving it.
Does Vision Pro have any apps for a virtual theater where you can watch video online in a VR space with other people? I've used Bigscreen for that once or twice with a Quest, and it struck me as something that would be a cool feature if I knew more people with VR headsets.
This seems to literally be its only killer feature.
I was hoping apple would be able to figure out what nobody else has, an actual useful everyday use for AR. But still we are just given a personal theatre, or proof of concept toy 'experience' apps.
I've been considering a pair for myself after hearing good feedback from some friends, and seeing some good reviews online.
The latest versions have head tracking so the virtual screen remains "pinned" in your view.
They're also much smaller and easier to carry compared to a full VR headset, and they can plug into almost any device (laptop, tablet, phone) and just show up as an external monitor.
As a user, I actually use it more today than when I first got it, because each visionOS update has really unleveled the capabilities of the device. I like watching movies on the ceiling, the spatial scenes / photos / videos are really fun, and generally viewing your Photos library on Vision Pro is on a different level. Even non-spatial content just takes on a different, more immersive quality.
I have a lot of friends in the developer community, and enjoy playing with their apps. Things like "Cell Walk" where you can explore a 3D volumetric representation of different types of cells.
The Apple Immersive short films they release every so often are phenomenal – really nothing like them in my experience.
It's nice to be able to edit a movie and throw it onto a big screen, or have a gigantic workspace.
1: https://youtu.be/gDrk2HkiDhs?si=KhZsXOahpHPsAQGfhttps://youtu.be/QcTiDBtCafg?si=mH_MWi8MENjm8veT
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I also have a Quest 3 and if I could only own one device, I'd take the Q3 hands-down. The games are fun, they get you up and moving, and although I'm not going to argue that the quality of the screens is the same or anything, it's more than good enough. I'll happily give up the virtual laptop screen in exchange for the library of VR games on the Quest.
I'm not much for consuming media so that aspect is lost on me. Unfortunately, that seems to be the primary use case Apple has focused on, if you can call the anemic dribble of content they've put out focus.
Meta doesn't try to force it on you the way Apple does, but you really have to or it will always be blurry. The screen has a sort of fixed focal point and if your vision isn't great at that distance EVERYTHING will be blurry instead of just the one range that's normally blurry for you.
You may not even realize you need glasses until you try it and everything is blurry.
i never got around to trying prescription inserts but i suspect they would be ideal
I immediately wonder how much of my carry-on allowance will be taken up by a VR headset. These things are still fairly clunky.
EDIT: I think people are misunderstanding me. I dont mean VR/AR will be dead, I maen that all devices will be normal size glasses and big chunky headsets wont exist any more.
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frankly i justified the cost by comparing against a planned home theater. now i RARELY use the avp as a home theater. its an incredible theater, but over time my mentality shifted and i consider the avp a tool instead of entertainment
i got used to the weight after a month. went from topping out on an hour or 2 to using for 4-5 hours no problem. also took around a month to learn the proper calibration for the light screen to "hang" on my face instead of press against it. this was a major breakthrough for comfort and session length
ive had mine since launch month and will add this observation i dont see said often:
i think the avp is meant to be taken off. meaning, i see meta going toward more comfortable ar glasses, but i dont really want to be in ar ALL DAY
its difficult to describe. the longer ive had an avp the more ive found a desire to put it on like a work hardhat, then take it off when i "feel" its time to stop. i really like that its not designed to be worn all day. im probably giving apple too much credit but its something unexpected ive found interesting in my own habitual use
* edit to add another interesting development after about a year of use: i now need to take a magnesium, calcium, and zinc pill or the weaker of my eyes will become tired and develop a spasm after about an hour and a half of sustained use. im vegetarian so that may also be a factor
Keep in mind, that the Quest 3 has been discontinued in favour of the cheaper and inferior Quest 3S. It still has some good qualities, but the best one is no doubt the Quest 3.
Another thing is that to save on costs, they all ship with a very inadequate headband. For comfort, it is imperative to get another solution, either the (expensive) elite headstrap or a (cheaper) 3rd party one.
Apple being stingy with storage (and RAM) isn’t new, but the base $3.5k spec with only 256 GB is extreme.
EDIT: clarity
My conspiracy theory is that they don't want to grab attention and get any more bad rep for this product when they are already half giving up.
They definitely don't have a decade. The market gave them 14 years with iPhone (Newton was 1993?). But things move a bit faster now.
That's what I initially thought but there have been two OS cycles now with no fix. I think Apple often back themselves into a corner when they base stuff around iCloud and I wouldn't be surprised if this was similar. Maybe user accounts on visionOS will be the eventual solution?