i refuse to talk to you w those stupid ass ski goggles on your face
June 8, 2023 10:58 AM Subscribe

How do I feel about Apple’s brand spanking new Vision Pro starting at $3499? I’m conflicted. Part of me hates it, while another, perhaps younger, more tender part thinks its really stupid Apple released a nine minute ‘wow lookie’ video touting their high-end welding masks. And yes it's insane and amazing and great. It’s got gadgets and gizmos galore, sure, and yes its, as Today in Tabs’ Rusty Foster put perfectly, “the most technologically advanced product ever created for viewing and annotating PDF documents.”
posted by SituationNormal (134 comments total) 12 users marked this as a favorite

Like the 128K Mac (introduced @ $7000 in 2023 dollars), this is the first HMD good enough to be criticized. Well, at least Apple worked to understand and address all (?) the human-factor pain points those 3 letters put together create for people*.

I was in my mid-20s when the first VR boom hit, spent 5 years working in Japan on the only commercial VR system, so I saw all of this first-hand ~25 years ago now.

One of the immersive AR apps I'm going to write for this this year is an MtG app. Cuz why the hell not.

* except cost
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 11:08 AM on June 8, 2023 [5 favorites]

The real question for me is are these $3.5k AR goggles going to do anything for me that the $400 VR goggles that I already almost never use can't do for me? No? Then I've already saved $3k!
posted by jscalzi at 11:10 AM on June 8, 2023 [13 favorites]

Spreadsheets.
posted by 1970s Antihero at 11:11 AM on June 8, 2023 [19 favorites]

I realized that Apple was obviously very devoted to this product, probably because of Meta's commitment to VR spaces. And even though Meta did a huge pivot just a couple of months ago, Apple basically designed a headset that does everything that Zuck was saying his headset would someday do, and does it really elegantly.

I still have no idea what it's for. It looks amazing and I'd love to have one, but how much would I actually use it? I have no idea.
posted by hippybear at 11:11 AM on June 8, 2023 [2 favorites]

So, I am skeptical, but the fact is that the uses did come along for the iPad and the Watch, even though it took a couple of years. It's not like there are no imaginable use cases for VR. Thus, I'm reserving judgment.
posted by praemunire at 11:12 AM on June 8, 2023 [9 favorites]

You know that camera tracked around on wires at sports games? Think that as one application of this technology. But it's you on the wires.
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 11:14 AM on June 8, 2023 [3 favorites]

I'm not giving him $5.23 but I'll give him an apostrophe for the one that's missing in his begging for money.
posted by emelenjr at 11:16 AM on June 8, 2023 [4 favorites]

Right now all of the discourse seems to be amplifying the hype or trying to cash in by anti-bandwagoning the hype and claiming the Vision Pro (and, more broadly, VR/AR) is going to be The Worst Thing Ever, especially by rehashing SF ideas so old they need colonoscopies.

I won't link to it but there was an especially egregious example of someone trying to cash in on anti-bandwagoning spending solid minutes parroting Fox News (or, in this person's case, Daily Mail) talking points about dystopian atomized urban centers overrun with The Wrong Kind of People (extremely oblique on that last bit), before in-lining an ad for, basically NFTs without saying NFT.

Save me from the bros hyping this tech like it's going to be what the Segway should've been, and save me from the bros saying I can own "shares" in Warhol and Picasso artworks and that AR is going to be the ruin of civilization.

My official opinion? I'm suspending judgment until I can see it for myself.
posted by tclark at 11:17 AM on June 8, 2023 [6 favorites]

I still have no idea what it's for. It looks amazing and I'd love to have one, but how much would I actually use it? I have no idea.

I think Apple's asking everyone that same question with this V1 piece, and are eager to see what, if anything, developers and consumers come up with. The iPhone was kind-of half-baked when it first dropped, too.

I'm definitely not the market for things like this, but I certainly can imagine applications for it. I look forward more to seeing follow-on iterations of this thing.
posted by Thorzdad at 11:19 AM on June 8, 2023 [2 favorites]

@tclark Well said — the biggest feature of this boondoggle is that the facts are walking a tightrope between idiotic, breathless pro-hype on one side and equally idiotic con-hype on the other. I suppose this is a natural consequence of extreme polarization, but I encounter very little thoughtful discourse based on reasonable premises.

(Replace AR/VR with GenAI and I could leave the comment unchanged though, so this is probably more a consequence of Technology.)
posted by cacophony at 11:23 AM on June 8, 2023 [1 favorite]

Apple II sucked until Markkula got Woz to hack together an affordable floppy drive.
The O.G. Mac sucked until the Mac Plus came out with enough RAM and a proper-enough HD port.

etc etc

I have no idea if Apple's found the magic mix of ingredients necessary to bring us the HMDs we saw in Johnny Mnemonic from 1995, nor whether the content we can interact with in this presentation is worth the squeeze of dealing with HMDs' many ergonomic issues.

I coulda bought any of the predecessor VR offerings we've seen in this second VR wave, but I could see they all had the same fatal flaws. Remembering how cool VR was for me 25+ years ago, I'll get one of these to try out; tho XR of this device could indeed just be the next 3D TV, a technology looking for an application.

or if we get "FSD" this decade you'll be seeing me tooling by on I-5 with this thing strapped to my face like a headcrab.
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 11:33 AM on June 8, 2023 [5 favorites]

There's something both hilarious and creepy about these extended Apple advertisements. I watched one for the latest iteration of their "smart speaker" thingy a few months back with the same mixture of fascination and repulsion.

The models are always tall, slim, extremely fashionable, and coded as very diverse in terms of ethnicity, gender, sexuality, etc. They live in very large and expensively yet tastefully furnished homes, where they appear to mingle personal, family, and work activities with no boundaries, and no effort, at all.

These videos are so clearly selling not just a product, but a lifestyle, and in fact, a self-image. They know exactly how their target demographic wants to envision themselves.

I supposed that's not at all unusual in advertising, and this version of it is nothing new in Apple's advertising. Rainbow capitalism rolls on.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 11:35 AM on June 8, 2023 [31 favorites]

the uses did come along for the iPad

I don't do anything with my iPad that I can't do on my laptop, and I think that's true for personal use cases of the iPad that aren't art. The iPhone changed the world; for most people, the iPad is a big iPhone or the thing they give you at the doctor's office to update your info.
posted by rhymedirective at 11:38 AM on June 8, 2023 [2 favorites]

lol you know the tech is cursed when people mention it in the same sentence as their cybertruck preorder
posted by ryanrs at 11:40 AM on June 8, 2023 [5 favorites]

I heard a news podcast yesterday mention that the Metaverse was "an term form a novel in the 90s."

What we forget? In The 90s Novel in question, people who wore VR headsets, HUDs camera rigs out of the house were called "gargoyles" and everybody made fun of them.

I could see this kind of kit being useful in professional logistical situations. I'm thinking about working in a shipping center and being able to reference inventory movement dynamically. I'm thinking about situations where you have to track and direct large numbers of people, like maybe in search and rescue. Maybe types of navigation?

But there are already reliable practices and tool sets for those things that are orders of magnitude less expensive. As a media and entertainment device? Good luck. I feel the same way about it I feel about VR - looks kind of cool and I'd like to play with it for an hour maybe. Shelling out many hundreds to thousands of dollars to own one for myself seems insane.
posted by Phobos the Space Potato at 11:42 AM on June 8, 2023 [5 favorites]

As for the specific capabilities of this thing:

I love 3D as a medium -- I'm a 3D photographer and artist, I own multiple 3D cameras and camera rigs, a 3D Blu Ray player, and *two* 3D TVs. But I've never been all that interested in VR... to a large extent because basically no VR headsets are compatible with my glasses. Apple's headset is no better than previous ones in this regard.

Yes, they offer expensive corrective lens inserts as a workaround. I've tried those with other headsets, and none of them were adequate for my prescription. Anyway, I don't want to pay a penalty for my vision issues.

I guess if I had the kind of money to buy a Vision Pro, I might also have the money to spring for the custom lenses that could match my prescription. But my friends with astigmatisms or other unusual conditions would still be screwed. Until that problem is addressed, VR is going to remain a niche medium.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 11:44 AM on June 8, 2023 [3 favorites]

The iPhone was kind-of half-baked when it first dropped, too.

The problem with these comparisons is that the use cases were already well established. The term "crackberry" was well established in 2007 and peaked in 2009. By the time iPhone shipped, everyone was confused why they hadn't built one yet. When they did, they came in at the high end of prices, skimming off all the high value customers.

In contrast, I don't think there's a ton of aspiring CEOs using headsets daily. And the use cases I know of for it are not exactly on brand for Apple. But you'd at least think excel would have 3d visualizations?
posted by pwnguin at 11:44 AM on June 8, 2023 [15 favorites]

Lampooning the cringe factor of Apple presentations is kinda like shooting fish in a barrel, isn't it? I did notice the tidy living spaces depicted, and can't help noticing that I would see laundry in the corner even while wearing my headset.

I use my Oculus for about an hour a week socializing and it's good for that, but I don't know that I would use a headset for multiple hours a day like I do my laptop. But maybe one day I'll appreciate looking through this thing rather than at my annoying nursing home roommate. (Now *there's* an ad idea for you, Apple!)
posted by credulous at 11:46 AM on June 8, 2023 [3 favorites]

I don't do anything with my iPad that I can't do on my laptop

I have the exact opposite reaction. Ever since the iPad got enough power to run serious apps, I've stopped using a laptop plus the iPad is perfect for consuming media in a way that phones aren't because of their small screens.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 11:52 AM on June 8, 2023 [7 favorites]

These videos are so clearly selling not just a product, but a lifestyle, and in fact, a self-image. They know exactly how their target demographic wants to envision themselves.

Reality: shipping container in a cheap rack offshore, just near Bogota. I/O, water, kibble and nutripaste at bulk rates.
posted by Meatbomb at 12:06 PM on June 8, 2023 [20 favorites]

I like it. Don't get me wrong, I think interacting with physically co-present people through it is extremely cringey. And I can take or leave the entertainment stuff. I'm sure it will be cool, but I can get totally immersed on something on a gameboy screen if it's good, I don't need anything that fancy. No, the fantasy that appeals to me is using all of that 2.5D real estate and eye-tracking magic for my work. Right now I have about 100 index cards spread out over a 4'x8' table in my office, and it sucks, but the only thing worse is trying to reproduce the same array on my computer. What if I could swim among them like fish, move them around, freeze and recall the patterns, etc.?

If it could replace my next computer (not bloody likely I'm afraid), the cost would not even be that insane.
posted by grobstein at 12:09 PM on June 8, 2023 [6 favorites]

Based on stuff I've been reading other people say about it, I guess one of the possibly useful things it might be able to do is serve as a very expensive but expansive computer monitor. This review on TechCrunch says:

The resolution means that text is actually readable. Apple’s positioning of this as a full-on computing device only makes sense if you can actually read text in it. All of the previous iterations of “virtual desktop” setups have relied on panels and lenses that present too blurry a view to reliably read fine text at length. In many cases it literally hurt to do so. Not with the Apple Vision Pro — text is super crisp and legible at all sizes and at far “distances” within your space.

Basically, you could put this on, sit at your desk, and have as many monitors as you wanted surrounding you. Many software developers use two monitors, some even use three. Or some use ultrawide monitors. And Apple seems to be making that ability, using the Vision Pro as a monitor, very easy if you're in the Apple ecosystem at least. Anyway, it's the sort of thing you could get and just...take around with you and have access to huge monitor real estate without lugging around a huge screen, which is way more portable even with the dismal battery life probably making you hover near an accessible outlet. And it's the sort of thing that could make a paltry desk in a small but very expensive city apartment a much better workspace.

A lot of software developers would be able to afford this kind of kit, if it turned out to work as well as the TechCrunch guy says, and once they had the kit there's a good chance they'd start doing various development thingies for it, which sort of helps with the whole chicken and egg problem of having applications on the platform. Whether that would lead to a utility beyond programming dweebs would still be a question.
posted by foxfirefey at 12:10 PM on June 8, 2023 [15 favorites]

Basically, you could put this on, sit at your desk, and have as many monitors as you wanted surrounding you. Many software developers use two monitors, some even use three. Or some use ultrawide monitors.

Exactly, yeah, the nerds are right. It's a way to extend your working memory and it makes any kind of work that involves keeping track of a lot of information easier and I want more of it.
posted by grobstein at 12:13 PM on June 8, 2023 [3 favorites]

Good writing.
posted by davidmsc at 12:15 PM on June 8, 2023

It's a way to extend your working memory and it makes any kind of work that involves keeping track of a lot of information easier and I want more of it.

That and porn.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 12:18 PM on June 8, 2023 [6 favorites]

It'll be great for following recipes without smudging your ipad or iphone screen.
posted by notyou at 12:22 PM on June 8, 2023

I don't do anything with my iPad that I can't do on my laptop, and I think that's true for personal use cases of the iPad that aren't art. The iPhone changed the world; for most people, the iPad is a big iPhone or the thing they give you at the doctor's office to update your info.

Tell me you don’t have a toddler without saying you don’t have a toddler.
posted by Mchelly at 12:23 PM on June 8, 2023 [13 favorites]

But maybe one day I'll appreciate looking through this thing rather than at my annoying nursing home roommate. (Now *there's* an ad idea for you, Apple!)

The Banshees of Cupertino

"And you only need two fingers to work it!"
posted by chavenet at 12:29 PM on June 8, 2023 [5 favorites]

"And you only need two fingers to work it!"

So, so dark.
posted by hippybear at 12:33 PM on June 8, 2023 [5 favorites]

It's a way to extend your working memory and it makes any kind of work that involves keeping track of a lot of information easier and I want more of it.

My Mac workflow I'm sure is an entire nightmare. I have lots, more than twenty certainly, of Safari windows, and many of these have tabs. These windows are all different topics of research or related stuff, or are windows I use regularly for my life. Metafilter itself is a single Safari window with one front page tab and then tabs for every post I'm continuing to watch regularly. Ditto that across all kinds of things... it's hundreds of working tabs, really.

Right now, I use my dock to store all the Safari windows I'm not using. Every time I reboot Safari, I have to make sure to "Reopen All Windows From Last Session" or I've lost research. But that's how I work.

Anyway, I don't know how I might use the 3D space of this Vision thing, but I'm sure I'd work something out and it would also be a nightmare. But it would be MY nightmare.
posted by hippybear at 12:37 PM on June 8, 2023 [3 favorites]

I don't see the point. But I didn't see the point of putting a camera in a phone either.
posted by cccorlew at 12:40 PM on June 8, 2023 [2 favorites]

The only use-case I can think of for this thing is if Apple are secretly working on an electric car and this would be the interface, no steering wheel, no dashboard, you just put the helmet on and wave your arms around to drive. The cameras would connect to the car so your view would be like the car didn't exist and you'd be flying through the air at 100mph. At junctions you could pull a superman type pose to point to where you want to go.
posted by Lanark at 12:45 PM on June 8, 2023 [4 favorites]

Anyway, it's the sort of thing you could get and just...take around with you and have access to huge monitor real estate without lugging around a huge screen

The coffeeshops of the future are going to be so weird
posted by oulipian at 12:47 PM on June 8, 2023 [4 favorites]

Someone should make a dystopian sci-fi series where people are tricked into believing a false reality by ultra high-res goggles.
posted by justkevin at 12:47 PM on June 8, 2023 [8 favorites]

Honestly. if they want this thing to fly off the shelves, they allow whatever framework is needed to get VRChat to function. Because the furries are already in VRChat pretty heavily, a lot of them have a lot of money, and a lot of them would be happy to throw money at Apple to have a better experience than they are currently having with their current VR devices. I read their complaints all the time in Discord.
posted by hippybear at 12:48 PM on June 8, 2023

why can’t everyone just take a few years off we have too much good stuff. It’s like streaming shows and pens – there are too many, like we have more than enough for everyone to have some, so let’s just hit pause and distribute the existing technology, streaming shows, and pens amongst ourselves.

Please read Bill McKibben on this.
posted by doctornemo at 1:00 PM on June 8, 2023 [1 favorite]

So at my last job this was my cubicle at the client's office (my own office was much nicer but on the other side of town and only had two screens).
If this device's output is legible and usable for lengthy periods of time it would be useful there.
posted by thatwhichfalls at 1:02 PM on June 8, 2023 [4 favorites]

I can't afford this particular thing but by the time I'm 60 (three-four years) and my eyes are really shit, I'll likely buy one as my daily work machine, or at least the visual interface to it. I work with graphics, and bitch my eyes are not getting any better. Get me some custom lenses in one of these so everything in both eyes is always in perfect focus and that raises my quality of life enormously. I hear all the fucking wankers taking shits on this technology, and they're pathetic in their entitlement of perfect vision and having all the screen real-estate you need, but where AR tools this will change lives is as adaptive technology. How many people could be using computers except that they can't sit or stand or hold a tablet/phone for a long time? Problem solved. How many people just don't have a lot of room in their houses/offices but still need a lot of visual real estate? Solved. 16 real monitors is a shitload of physical resources and electricity. One headset, not so much.

Just because you can't see it changing your life doesn't mean it won't change others, and the big reason Apple didn't go ham on the life-changing adaptive aspects of this is because everyone would just shrug it off and say "i don't need it my life is perfect."

I know every just loves to dump, but maybe do it in your own bathroom instead of here in public.
posted by seanmpuckett at 1:21 PM on June 8, 2023 [18 favorites]

if they want this thing to fly off the shelves, they allow whatever framework is needed to get VRChat to function.

Yesterday Apple announced the Game Porting Toolkit with a DirectX 12->Metal translation layer to make it much, much easier to do exactly this. If they were 100% serious about coming for the core gaming space this would be the very first move - it’s exactly what Valve did with Proton to make a first-class gaming platform built on Linux.

A lot of the engineers I work with seem convinced they’re 100% serious about that part, despite takes on the Vision Pro itself being all over the map (mostly negative, same as everywhere). Design-side there are probably some things Apple’s going to want to force in terms of app UX requirements to publish (eg requiring player teleporting-style movement to reduce public complaints of motion sickness) that I don’t think are going to fly - sharp discontinuity in traversal flatly breaks most FPS combat design without a near-total rebuild. But it is entirely possible (far from likely) that I’ll be working to port one of a few different AAA FPS games to macOS and possibly the Vision Pro in the next year.

We’ll see. Gruber’s review on DaringFireball has me at least deeply curious to try it, now, and I really wasn’t prior to that.
posted by Ryvar at 1:23 PM on June 8, 2023 [1 favorite]

I'm going to go ahead and jump to a future where Metafilter is around in 15 years and MeFites are arguing about a VP posted by a Gen Alpha about how Millennials are weirdos who push their VisPros back like sunglasses when talking to phys spacers instead of just leaving them on like normal people. Leave them on! Siri will tell me if we need to make eye contact.
posted by betweenthebars at 1:27 PM on June 8, 2023 [18 favorites]

Someone should make a dystopian sci-fi series where people are tricked into believing a false reality by ultra high-res goggles.

Specifically Apple should do this.
posted by migurski at 1:31 PM on June 8, 2023 [10 favorites]

My take on this: Apple doesn't expect this to be big business. Not yet. This is Apple putting a stake in the ground and freezing the market around AR/VR.

Are many people going to buy a $3,500 AR/VR device? No. Will enough people buy this and develop apps for it to make a device at half the price attractive? Possibly.

But the Apple headset pretty definitively sets the bar for what this device should be, if there's any demand. If there isn't, I'm sure Apple can find other applications for the technology. If there is, Apple has put a flagship product out that will make all the other competitors look pretty bad in comparison.

My guess is this is called "Pro" for a reason - because Apple can come out with a cheaper version that's not dubbed Pro at half or less the price and just strip a few features.

If the product tanks and AR/VR never takes off, I'm OK with that. It looks like it'd be an expensive PITA to get this to work with my glasses prescription.
posted by jzb at 1:51 PM on June 8, 2023 [3 favorites]

I like my Oculus Rift S well enough. There's a handful of games that I play on it, maybe once a week or sometimes when a friend comes over. More than 15 minutes at a stretch and I'm a sweaty mess, though. I wear goggles sometimes for woodworking, and it's the same. They come off as soon as I don't need them. Nothing heavier than a pair or spectacles is comfortable to wear for very long in my experience. I realise there are people who basically don't sweat, and maybe don't feel confined wearing heavy goggles, so maybe this thing is more for them.

I'm afraid I'm someone who can't even have a conversation with someone wearing sunglasses. If I can't even see which way you're looking, it's really off-putting. Seeing some weird fake robocop version of your eyes appear when you want to talk to me would unnerve me even more.
posted by pipeski at 1:52 PM on June 8, 2023 [5 favorites]

I hear all the fucking wankers taking shits on this technology, and they're pathetic in their entitlement of perfect vision and having all the screen real-estate you need, but where AR tools this will change lives is as adaptive technology.

My middle-aged self bought a PSVR back when it came out, hooked it up, got into it, gamed for a few hours, and literally popped a blood vessel in my eye. It made me Mr. Satan Eye for a week. Not a joke.

Having not learned my lesson, I bought a used HTC Vive at the outset of the pandemic out of some sort of "I guess now would be a good time to try VR again" logic. Turns out I had a cataract in my right eye. It was a one-way ticket to nothing but nausea and discomfort.

Unless Apple has come up with some kind of remarkable optical technology that is going to revolutionize the whole vision correction industry, AR/VR glasses are in no way a panacea for those with problematic vision and that sort of thing is not on the horizon. (I actually got out my Vive in the wake of all of this hype to prove to myself this kind of thing just doesn't work well.)
posted by I EAT TAPAS at 1:55 PM on June 8, 2023 [5 favorites]

seanmpuckett, that's exactly where my thoughts went as well. I have shit vision including double vision and nystagmus. If someone comes up with an app that can compensate for that, it would make my life so much more comfortable.
posted by nixxon at 1:56 PM on June 8, 2023

What I find so interesting about the entire discourse :gestures broadly: is that it seems filtered through a limited "I can't imagine what this is good for" to "it's not good for anything" philosophy. This was exactly the language used for the iPhone, but more accurately, it is also the philosophy used all the time by people attempting to analyze things.

I am not Apple, and while I worked for them in the darkest days of Michael Spindler, I have no special insight other than having used their ecosystem since the 1980s. Having said that, like many things for Apple, this is what they perceive as the pointy tip of the spear.

Yes, the price is high. The price of the iPhone was called outrageous and unaffordable when it was launched, and yet here we are. The original Macintosh was completely unaffordable when it was launched, and yet here we are. While I am sure that a large number of over-compensated techies will purchase this, and likely set it to the side after a while, that's not really what's interesting.

What's interesting is the use cases in a lot of places where visualization matterns, and where price is not a major concern. A few areas where I can see this being of staggering use:

Architecture and interior "design". The cost of producing those little physical mock-ups of a new building can easily be many thousands of dollars. These are done to allow clients to better visualize the experience. Now imagine being able to hand a client a set of glasses that let them literally walk through the building.
There are organizations that spend many hundreds of thousands to build data visualization rooms filled with expensive displays or projectors.
Product development and industrial design. If this can be even marginally helpful, the cost is immaterial. A license of something like Revit for 1 month for 1 person is as much or more. $3500 is just not an interesting number to think about.
Medical imaging/visualization. There's already a lot of work in this area for 3D visualization, and I can imagine this being an easy next step, and also a democratization of access.

This is just the 5m thoughts of what is possible. Yes, I know many of these things were "possible" with previous AR/VR/whatever devices, but they often came with so many footnotes and caveats that it was not really feasible. For example, I know a few architects who have tried to use Oculus and it was simply unacceptable for their uses on many dimensions. In addition, Apple has the ecosystem to make this a more viable reality in people's minds. If you're a company like Autodesk, working with Apple is wildly more interesting than working with... Facebook?

Is this for me? Nope.

Would I buy one? Also nope.

But draw a line between the original iPhone and today's iPhone 14 Pro in my pocket, and you can see that this is not some wild fancy.
posted by petrilli at 1:56 PM on June 8, 2023 [11 favorites]

Are many people going to buy a $3,500 AR/VR device? No.

Define "many." I suspect there's a whole lot of demand for unlimited screens among a certain set, and they'll lap this up. $3,500 is nice-laptop money, and this is a very nice laptop indeed.
posted by uncleozzy at 2:00 PM on June 8, 2023 [4 favorites]

I don't do anything with my iPad that I can't do on my laptop, and I think that's true for personal use cases of the iPad that aren't art.

A lot of people mark up texts of one form or another by hand and would like to preserve the annotations in a more permanent form than a single fragile paper copy. And a lot of people don't deploy a laptop on public transit, during travel, or in bed to read documents or watch videos. Just because one tool can be made to perform certain functions if you try hard or limit your expectations in some way doesn't mean it's the best or even a desirable tool for the job. I was a serious iPad doubter when it debuted, and I didn't even want to get one for like two years, but there's one on my bedside table now. Hence, my attempt to be humble now.
posted by praemunire at 2:02 PM on June 8, 2023 [3 favorites]

Two points.

Firstly, accounting for inflation since 1984, the original Macintosh 128K ($2500) would today cost $7000. Which compares rather unfavourably with the $3500 of Apple Vision Pro. Yes, computers and consumer electronics have been subject to savage deflation because of Moore's Law: but the point stands—as the debut of a completely new category of device from Apple, this isn't unprecedented or even that expensive in real terms.

Secondly: this is a device for augmented reality, not virtual reality. Externally they don't look that different, but it's a bit like confusing a helicopter with a hovercraft. Sure they're both powered by turboshaft engines and take off and land vertically—how different can they be? Turns out the answer is "lots". Comparing it with VR headsets such as those from Oculus is not terribly helpful. If you see a news outlet or pundit calling it a VR headset or conflating the terms, be alert: they are misunderstanding it as badly as the tech journalists in 2007 who looked at the first iPhone and said "that can't be any good, it doesn't have a hardware keyboard".
posted by cstross at 2:10 PM on June 8, 2023 [11 favorites]

It seems to me that it comes down to two factors: self-consciousness and comfort. Unless you are completely alone, you would feel very self-conscious wearing these things among others. Once you get past the novelty stage ("Whoa! Check it out! The future is now!") and the irony and punchlines wear off, you're wearing a big pair of ski goggles, which looks silly on anyone. And even if others are wearing them, if anything else that reinforces the self-consciousness: you see in them how goofy you look. They are destined, in their current form, to just be a novelty.

But having said that, I think that self-consciousness goes away if the headset is less a headset and just becomes a regular pair of glasses, like Google Glass. Everyone bagged on the latter but I was really intrigued by Google Glass. If you can just pop on a pair of glasses--and some of us do so anyway every waking moment--and you can forget you're wearing them and they are physically comfortable, then it's a winner. I can't see any VR headset including Vision Pro being "forgettable" for more than a few hours, max. They're just too heavy and awkward for that. Bring back Google Glass! Well, at least the form factor.
posted by zardoz at 2:11 PM on June 8, 2023

The thing with google glasses is that some of us...wear glasses. And do not want to get or do not qualify for the eye lasers, don't like contact lenses, etc. Leaving aside whether I want to literally wear spywear on my face, I do not want to have to deal with the pressure to give up the glasses that I actually like, that are flattering and comfortable, in order to be able to slap some google glasses on so my boss and the cops can literally see through my eyes.
posted by Frowner at 2:15 PM on June 8, 2023 [6 favorites]

Secondly: this is a device for augmented reality, not virtual reality.

Honestly, it's the "see through" abilities, going both directions, that are really impressive to me. Phone AR works on sort of the same idea -- the street you're looking at where you're catching Pokemon isn't your street -- it's your street through your phone camera.

I don't know if the "someone comes into your area and your closed-off view opens enough to include them" is going to really work well. But that they've realized being cut off from your surroundings is the main complaint of VR and have worked to cut that complaint off at the pass says something.
posted by hippybear at 2:16 PM on June 8, 2023

hippybear > Because the furries are already in VRChat pretty heavily, a lot of them have a lot of money, and a lot of them would be happy to throw money at Apple to have a better experience than they are currently having with their current VR devices.

Apple's anti-porn stance is a huge barrier to this, IMHO. They are not going to want to deal with being an accessory to me dancing around the house as a horny cartoon dragon with four massive jiggly titties and funholes that can be hooked up to Bluetooth sex toys.

I asked "what would it take to have a VR system capable of seeing myself dance around the house as my fursona" recently and the consensus was that if you haven't already sunk a lot of money into a gaming PC, I was gonna be looking at a minimum of $3k for computer, goggles, trackers, etc. And I found it interesting that this was going to be about the same as the rumored price for Apple's all-in-one headset. It's a tradeoff, I guess. If you don't wanna be kid-safe you gotta DIY.
posted by egypturnash at 2:22 PM on June 8, 2023 [1 favorite]

Architecture and interior "design". The cost of producing those little physical mock-ups of a new building can easily be many thousands of dollars. These are done to allow clients to better visualize the experience. Now imagine being able to hand a client a set of glasses that let them literally walk through the building.

I keep telling myself this, and have been for a very long time. But it just doesn't seem to be happening.

One reason, I think, is that the workflow from actual plans to seeing a useful representation of it in VR/AR is still too time consuming to setup, and most of those tools just aren't built around realtime 3D.

I'd love to have some kind of live version of Sketchup, that could capture/generate blueprints for my house just by walking in it and then you can start stretching up/move walls/doors/windows, change the paint/materials.

So far this headset doesn't really do more than the current ones to solve these problems. It'll probably be easier to setup/use, but getting apps & data in is the same issue.
posted by WaterAndPixels at 2:26 PM on June 8, 2023

me dancing around the house as a horny cartoon dragon with four massive jiggly titties

I'd swear I saw you be this at the furry convention we met at, without VR and without even a fursuit.
posted by hippybear at 2:26 PM on June 8, 2023 [3 favorites]

What I find so interesting about the entire discourse :gestures broadly: is that it seems filtered through a limited "I can't imagine what this is good for" to "it's not good for anything" philosophy.

Counterpoint: iPhone announcement posted on the blue in 2007, where everyone is either sad they can't afford it or planning their trip to line up at the apple store. It seems pretty clear everyone in that thread knows what its for -- it has the name "phone" right in the damn title, and iPod users had been expecting "an iPod that can make phone calls" for quite a while (to the point that the ROKR in 2005 was often called "the iPhone" due to its iTunes integration from Apple collab).
posted by pwnguin at 2:30 PM on June 8, 2023 [6 favorites]

I get that it is instinctive to get a Black Mirror vibe from these. It also seems clear that these would be weird in a coffee shop or at your child's birthday party, etc. But I feel like if you can't imagine people wanting to wear these, it means you can't imagine people:

- Being on an airplane, train, etc.
- Being in a tiny ass NYC apartment
- Spending years in a nursing home
- Watching TV in bed
- Trying to work in an open office environment
- Having a disability that limits your mobility
- Etc

I live in a beautiful place, but I do work in a semi-cluttered room where I am not facing a window. I would give up that view while working. Not everyone has a beautiful terrace or breakfast nook looking out on a forest or something. I am out in nature every day, but a lot of the indoor world, particularly for people who are not wealthy, is not that great.

Assuming the only reasonable use cases are doing work and vegging out to entertainment, that's still a huge part of many lives. It could get a lot of use, even if it was never taken on a hike or to a bar or whatever.

If you've ever been in a house with a retired person/couple where there's just a giant TV on all day at full volume, imagine how much nicer it would be if they were just sitting with headsets on.
posted by snofoam at 2:33 PM on June 8, 2023 [7 favorites]

Will they make it so when the device needs to be rebooted, all of my windows reopen on their separate desktops/virtual monitors?

Signed, a current user of two monitors and around 25 desktops, each of which is a different project (so, I have a pdf reader and a chrome window and a finder window on each desktop). Currently there is not a way to do this in MacOS; on restart, the majority of the windows dump themselves back into just the two desktops open on each monitor. It takes me an hour minimum to resort everything.
posted by nat at 2:36 PM on June 8, 2023 [1 favorite]

So, here we have a thread that is framed as dumping on Vision Pro as something nobody wants or needs and questioning whether there are any use cases for it that we can't already take care of with existing technology, but as we are knocking it around here, we have already proposed a bunch of actual use cases that Apple didn't float in its promo video. (In fact, they purposely didn't suggest any use cases at all, but just demonstrated use functionality so as to get you thinking how it might be used.)

For the record what we've generated upthread for use cases so far includes:
-- inventory management for shipping centers
-- navigation
-- search and rescue
-- anything that's now done using more than a couple of monitors in a workstation — could be software development, film editing, etc.
-- adaptive technology for people with a variety of physical challenges
-- architectural and interior design (walkthrough demos, etc.)
-- medical applications

Carry on. Expand that list a little and it's good for millions of units, billions in profits for Apple. Without even touching the consumer market. The strength of this product is that they have focused on building a great operating system plus a nifty piece of hardware, as they have done with just about everything since the iPod.
posted by beagle at 2:37 PM on June 8, 2023 [5 favorites]

AR is a crucial tech for my lifestyle.
Without it, I'd basically have zero pokémon.
posted by signal at 2:37 PM on June 8, 2023 [15 favorites]

I watched the whole 9+ minute ad and my thoughts are: functionally, these look cool. Aesthetically, they look like you're going snorkeling.
posted by some loser at 2:39 PM on June 8, 2023 [1 favorite]

Iron mens and other genius superheroes would probably also be early adopters.
posted by snofoam at 2:40 PM on June 8, 2023 [2 favorites]

I just want to make sure it makes anybody who has an Android phone appear sickly green when I look through it.
posted by dsword at 2:42 PM on June 8, 2023 [9 favorites]

VC has been chasing the new market of VR for a while, and it’s a brainworm that has successful infected a few high-level people, like Zuckerberg. The exec suite obviously thinks that VR/AR is a thing, so we are basically looking at the future as designed by multimillionaire old white men.

It is going to make a killer goon cave though.
posted by The River Ivel at 3:10 PM on June 8, 2023 [1 favorite]

Nothing heavier than a pair or spectacles is comfortable to wear for very long in my experience.

Okay anyone got a good neck-strength regimen I can do for the next 9 months or so?
posted by grobstein at 3:10 PM on June 8, 2023 [3 favorites]

"Good writing"

Yes, for deathless lines like "all you’d have to do is use the Pee and Poo Pro to do all ur pee and poo stuff and you’d live forever."

It seems like for this thread the linked article is just a pointer for the subject "discuss the Vision Pro." Most comments aren't about the post, but about the tech itself.
posted by doctornemo at 3:11 PM on June 8, 2023

My Mac workflow I'm sure is an entire nightmare.

I have 30 "Untitled i" TextEdit documents open. My MacBook Air crashed last week and it gracefully reopened every single Safari, Preview, and TextEdit window, at this point it's just enabling my messiness
posted by polymodus at 3:22 PM on June 8, 2023 [2 favorites]

No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame.
posted by DoctorFedora at 3:27 PM on June 8, 2023 [14 favorites]

I'm not interested in the VR functions of the headset, but I'm definitely interested in the eye-tracking technology. I have a significant physical disability and I still use an old-fashioned headmouse to access my desktop. As my disability has progressed and my age has advanced, it has become more difficult for me to use such a device. I'm hoping that some variation of the Vision's eye-tracking technology will make its way into other assistive devices that will enable me to keep using my boring old computer.
posted by wintermute2_0 at 3:48 PM on June 8, 2023 [10 favorites]

I still have my Nomad Jukebox. It has a lot of song trapped on it that came with it that can't be moved to another player. I like quite a few of those songs. It's stupid to keep a piece of tech because it comes with hostage software, but that's where I'm at with that.
posted by hippybear at 3:49 PM on June 8, 2023 [2 favorites]

So it has a M2 chip and some new chip in it for camera stuff, can I use it to do everyday regular Mac stuff? Like plug a k+m in and run a plain finder desktop? Can it push video to an external monitor? I didn't go too deep in the weeds on the site, but it didn't seem to have any of that.
posted by Sphinx at 4:03 PM on June 8, 2023 [1 favorite]

I don't see any kind of video export port, or any kind of output ports of any kind, on the device at all. Maybe you could export over WiFi or Bluetooth.

As far as doing "regular Mac stuff", there does seem to be a feature where if you have your MacBook around you can open it and whatever you're working on with the MacBook will be available in the Vision space. I don't know which device is doing the processing at that point.
posted by hippybear at 4:14 PM on June 8, 2023 [1 favorite]

For context, I've been on team "AR/VR sucks" for many years, and still basically am. I tried and failed at least 3 times to produce a course on it with different (talented) instructors and in the end just couldn't justify the time and effort of going through with it when noone could actually define what it was for.

Having said that, the focus on the price and the ski goggle look, and whether it has this feature or that capability are moot points imo. If you have an issue with any of the technical limitations, then just imagine they're solved. Now ask: In 20 years do we think Spatial Computing will be a thing? What about 40 years?

In other words, if you accept that it's inevitable (taking away the very real prospect of ecological or some other devastating disaster for a moment) then it's just a matter of how do we get there and what does that evolution look like? And currently, Apple has so much capital and technical experience with developing hardware that they have the best chance of getting there.

BUT, maybe there really is no there there. Maybe there's just some inherent human limit that says, fuck that, I don't see any reason to put something on my face that isolates me from the rest of the world. (Basically my current stance).

And on the other hand, maybe there is a there there...what if we do end up with some sort of form factor where the tech can work in standard sized light-weight glasses or contact lenses? Does that make any difference to those of us criticizing the clunky present?

It still comes down to the use cases, personally I still can't tell you what they are (and anyone who claims they can, probably has something they want to sell you). I'm someone who (despite being in the tech world) resisted the smartphone for years. The things that eventually pulled me in were: mapping, photography, and the convenience (for better or worse) of easy access to phone, texts, web browsing, music, and email.

Ok, so it's now table stakes for this entirely new category to include ALL of those things...and more. I don't see it, and I may not even want to be a part of it, but I'm certainly curious to see where it all goes.
posted by jeremias at 4:15 PM on June 8, 2023 [3 favorites]

^ my take too I think, including not getting an iPhone until 2014
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 4:18 PM on June 8, 2023 [2 favorites]

The thing with google glasses is that some of us...wear glasses. And do not want to get or do not qualify for the eye lasers, don't like contact lenses, etc.

For Vision Pro goggles they will make prescription lenses for glasses-wearing people.
posted by zardoz at 4:30 PM on June 8, 2023 [1 favorite]

For Vision Pro goggles they will make prescription lenses for glasses-wearing people.

Yeah, they're being provided by Zeiss. I don't know if they're doing individual prescriptions or just doing "close enough" generalized diopters. In any case, that's probably another $1000 to the price of the device.

On a technical note -- can they not make these things so they correct for your vision with what they present to you? I don't understand all the things about optics and eyeballs, so maybe there is no way to have a screen, even if it's so close to your eye that it's within your normal focal length [mine is about 2.5", I think those screens would be closer to my eyes], that displays images to you that work without your glasses. That would be the ideal, really.

I could see the day where you put on a future version of this tech and it actually gives you an instant eye exam with all its sensors and then adjusts to give you perfect vision while you're wearing them.

But maybe that's impossible. I have no idea.
posted by hippybear at 4:36 PM on June 8, 2023 [5 favorites]

It's not impossible. It's how they make approximate prescriptions for babies/toddlers and folks with communication disabilities. They're not super accurate, but optometrists can at least get you in the rough ballpark of the right prescription with modern devices.
posted by tclark at 4:40 PM on June 8, 2023

I don't mean the taking of the prescription. I mean... the altering of the display to make up for the eyesight that would need correction.
posted by hippybear at 4:46 PM on June 8, 2023 [3 favorites]

Ah, well, there are already flexible mirrors in adaptive optics situations. Sometime in the next decade or so flexible lenses and/or metamaterials might make it to market that can adjust a prescription on the fly. Though I'd put the over/under at 20 years on that one.
posted by tclark at 4:50 PM on June 8, 2023

Yeah, I think it's a lightwave problem, and not something you can fix by making a flat surface look different. What was that camera they had a while back that you could take photos and refocus them later? Probably that kind of tech would be needed somehow.
posted by hippybear at 4:54 PM on June 8, 2023 [1 favorite]

Basically you want the users’ eyes focusing at the “natural” hypothetical focal depth of the displayed scene. If they’re constantly locked on a near display plane’s fixed depth for hours which is backsolving focal depth for them (corrected or not) you’re going to worsen or even induce myopia.

Bulkier HMDs like the Vive solve this by letting you slide back the whole lens/display assembly within the frontal housing to just accommodate your glasses. Not going to work with something as low profile as the Vision Pro, and this was a piggybank smasher no matter what, so: custom inserts.
posted by Ryvar at 4:56 PM on June 8, 2023

For Vision Pro goggles they will make prescription lenses for glasses-wearing people.

This is not a new concept; I used a VR headset at least a decade ago that came with multiple sets of lenses that could be inserted to compensate for nearsightedness or farsightedness.

None of the lenses that were available for that headset were adequate for me. I imagine Apple's will be better. Perhaps you'll be able to order them customized to your prescription. But they won't be cheap. I imagine they'll probably cost more than my actual glasses (which themselves are not inexpensive). No thanks.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 5:23 PM on June 8, 2023 [1 favorite]

Re: comments on comfort above: if you’re doing extended sessions with current HMDs the most important feature is an adjustable front to back topside strap. It’ll be the first third party accessory if Apple doesn’t ship one, “half the weight of modern HMDs” be damned.

Second accessory will be a rear clip for mounting the battery on the back of the rear strap (for people who forget that adhesive velcro strips cost $2 in the office supply aisle at Target). Counterweights are a decidedly love it or hate it proposition for extended wear comfort, but it does make the display wireless and some people (not me) really prefer the feel. It’s not about counter-balancing, it’s about moving center of gravity for the whole assembly back inwards to the center of your head/nearer to the spinal support column.

What does a wearable headset look like 20-40 years in the future, if anything? If not-totally-violating-physics technical advancement is allowed, then some sort of direct neural induction/override of the inner ear. There isn’t a good way to stop motion sickness while it’s out of agreement with your eyes, and unlike all your other sensory organs we can’t get at it without heavy surgery.

I imagine they'll probably cost more than my actual glasses
It’s Zeiss. Safe bet you’re right.
posted by Ryvar at 5:26 PM on June 8, 2023 [1 favorite]

idk, maybe we could just look at each other with our real eyeballs? And when we want to go do stuff, we just go do that stuff?
As a neurodivergent person who can't afford to go everywhere I'd like to see that would indeed be great but not always attainable.

I said it in the other thread but I would pony up the $3500 today and despite it being produced by Apple if Apple does manage to normalize wearing these things or variation and long as it supported keeping everything everywhere in focus and showing the names of people I know when I look at them.

Stuff like being the ultimate monitor set up for Eurotruck Simulator or having four screens going (three regular sized and one A0 sized) in AutoCAD would be icing on the cake. Or running Merlin bird identifier or a plant identifier. Being able to hands free follow recipes would also be sweet.

And I wouldn't care if they were tethered or required I pack around a two pound (belt mounted) battery.

I already wear a hard hat with light and muffs for 10 hours a day (along with foam backed safety glasses with add-on prescription inserts), these would hardly be different.

Perhaps you'll be able to order them customized to your prescription. But they won't be cheap.

The RX insert for my safety glasses cost $15. The lenses for my medium weight script with bifocals (which wouldn't be needed as there is only one focus distance) are only $185 from my optometrist. Obviously non all eye glass wearers and there will be an Apple premium but it doesn't necessarily have to be prohibitive. Especially if the lenses are an add on rather than a glued in replacement. Something I would guess would be forth coming on consumer models so you could share them amongst family.
posted by Mitheral at 5:48 PM on June 8, 2023 [3 favorites]

The corrective lenses will be snap on, held in place by magnets.
posted by hippybear at 6:13 PM on June 8, 2023 [1 favorite]

Apparently the processing unit has a fan built in, which doesn't surprise me because it's got a laptop chip in there doing real-time 3D and pushing 2 4K displays. It seems like it'll get hot! (Everyone does say the Apple Silicon chips run cool for their performance; idk I don't have one.)

I wonder if your head will get uncomfortably hot in this. And what about that battery pack in your pocket?
posted by grobstein at 6:16 PM on June 8, 2023

I would propose that iPhone 5 was essentially the first fully realized iPhone, and that was 5 years after the first one. Vision seems to be starting off much more fully realized, though quite expensive. I imagine it will be both better and cheaper by 2029.

I won’t be an early adopter, and I think we can all imagine situations where this would be weird or lame. I find it interesting to note that most of the skeptics are saying there aren’t good uses for it. As much as I am getting on fine without one, it is so easy to imagine situations where it would be cool or useful. More so if I start from the assumption that it is good, and will get better and cheaper, which even most naysayers seem to accept. (The other big line of doubt here seems to be people doubting that their very specific and uncommon vision issues will keep them personally from using it. Of course, who can say at this point, but some commenters seem to be saying both that their condition is rare/unusual and that it relegates the device to niche use, and both things can’t really be true at the same time.)

I imagine between now and launch, or whenever this takes off a few years later, people will get a lot better at imagining use cases in their lives. It was only announced this week and I am already finding it much easier to imagine possible uses.
posted by snofoam at 6:24 PM on June 8, 2023 [2 favorites]

As long as there's a good adblocker for it.
posted by tigrrrlily at 6:33 PM on June 8, 2023 [5 favorites]

If it could do things like the iPhone's measuring tool, which I don't know how accurate that is, that would be cool. I don't know for what, but that would be cool, to be able to just measure things you're looking at.
posted by hippybear at 6:33 PM on June 8, 2023 [1 favorite]

>measuring tool

hmm, with multi-modal AI monitoring your work, we could be heading straight into this world:

https://marshallbrain.com/manna1

I enjoyed this video of some dude building his own one-room cabin, theoretically you could order a pre-cut assembly kit and the VP would have an app to walk you thru putting it together.

AR is also great for language learners.
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 7:00 PM on June 8, 2023 [1 favorite]

but some commenters seem to be saying both that their condition is rare/unusual and that it relegates the device to niche use, and both things can’t really be true at the same time.)

I think the point is less that lots of people have the same couple eye problems as much as its lots of people have different eye problems. That's actually a much harder thing to solve.
posted by Gygesringtone at 7:01 PM on June 8, 2023

But draw a line between the original iPhone and today's iPhone 14 Pro in my pocket, and you can see that this is not some wild fancy.

I’m with Chris on this. It’s not cheap enough that I’m auto-buying it but there are a ton of jobs where people are looking at things and discussing or changing them. This thing has higher resolution and more power than 90% of the PCs in use, and it’s loaded with features which support remote work or otherwise are not available to most devices. Over the years I’ve known designers, engineers, scientists, doctors, photographers / videographers, etc. and they all spent more on computer plus monitors than this, even before adjusting for inflation, and that was before remote work boomed.

This certainly isn’t going to replace a high-end compute + storage box but those increasingly run on cloud servers and I think it’ll excel at collaborating or keeping different contexts open, and especially when those are related to real-world objects. The price is moderately high for consumer electronics but not for a business expense representing just a few days’ worth of billable hours, especially for fields where fixing mistakes in real space can easily cost more than that on a single error.

I think there’s an interesting meta point comparing it to Facebook: products like this work best when the team building it is building something they personally want to use. Zuckerberg got lucky the first round by being born rich and having good timing, but fundamentally he started building what he knew: an app for horny elite college students to get laid. The Metaverse sales demos always seemed like what you’d build if you thought corporate work was a good market but had never really had a real job before and were mostly guessing. The Vision Pro may have issues with price or app availability but it looks a lot more like the people building it plan to use it while building the second one.
posted by adamsc at 8:06 PM on June 8, 2023 [4 favorites]

I have a "mixed reality" (JFC marketing has infected everything) headset that isn't as high tech as this (being about 6 times cheaper and a couple of years old to expect otherwise would be folly) but a lot of the same arguments about how useless this set is are similar to how useless my set is.

I use it in VR mode for racing games and it's great. Niche? Of course. So what? The cosmology apps are wonderful as well but I haven't yet explored using it with After Effects. The mixed reality aspects I haven't explore that much (I know it's different than AR) but the Vision Pro looks to accommodate AR and VR both quite well.

It's still very early days and the headsets all suffer from the fact you have to wear them (and Apple's is heavier than others). Sony's new PS5 VR headset looks to have taken a step forward in comfort but if the price (and on the PC side the computing power) you need for these things has already been an obstacle for most than this set from Apple won't change that. Unlike 3D TV, I don't see AR/VR being abandoned but it's progress from years ago to the relatively recent reemergence will not be very quick, at least on the consumer side. In training and education however, there is some interesting potential. Even the Oculus Space Station app I found charmingly educational in giving one a sense of how things work on a space station.

Whenever I'm about to crash in a racing game I close my eyes. It's the only time I get nauseous with the headset but I understand such things are very relative to each individual. That aspect and accommodating vision issues are also challenges that remain to be addressed.

Snazzy Labs' take seems to summarize the general reaction.
posted by juiceCake at 8:12 PM on June 8, 2023 [3 favorites]

>Snazzy Labs' take seems to summarize the general reaction.

think he's missing the fact that this could be the iPhone 3GS in a Palm Treo world all over again

GPU oomph (FPS/latency), perceived pixel density & FOV & color intensity, sensor latency & stability, cable management, being able to see one's hands & feet when necessary/desired, APIs. . . . Apple's not charging $3500 for this just to soak people.

you can't just mix & match these features as bullet points for a XR offering, you gotta e.g. rate them 1.0 (perfect) to 0 (crap) and then take the multiplicative product –not additive sum – of these ratings to determine how well the technology works as a . . . er, product.
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 9:16 PM on June 8, 2023 [2 favorites]

I recovered my password for the first time in ages to support what foxfirefey posted up thread. I have five screens on my desk. One of them is an ultrawide. Five!! I barely have room for anything else and have had to compromise on graphics tablet size to make it all fit. And I would take more if I could - to say nothing of the convenience of being able to move them. The Quest 2 wants to play in this space but the visual quality just isn’t there for reading huge amounts of text - I have tried. If Apple can deliver even on convincing screen virtualisation I will consider this.
posted by curious.jp at 9:55 PM on June 8, 2023 [2 favorites]

I’m a commercial VR user in the world of architecture - it’s been a part of our presentation toolkit for about 5 years now. I think this headset looks great and we will probably get one for office use provided we can get it to properly interface with Unreal and Enscape. I’m not holding my breath for wide personal adoption. Nobody wants to wear this all day every day. Mixing modes between a personal and social use is awkward, and a significant percentage of the population will have unpleasant physical side effects when using it. We just don’t need head mounted displays to immerse ourselves in imagery. But I’m very glad I work in a field that gives me access to this tech without having to pay for it.
posted by q*ben at 9:59 PM on June 8, 2023 [4 favorites]

Apple had a clear message explaining the iPhone how the iPhone would be useful (you can find Jobs’ announcement video online—its interesting to watch from our current perspective), and there was clear demand for it because mobile phones were awful. I know people loved their blackberries—I never tried one. I did try a WinCE phone. It was a novelty, like a Bible inscribed on a grain of rice.

The product Apple didn’t really have a clear vision for is the Watch. The intro for that shows features like transmitting your heartbeat to someone else, which is charming but…kinda dumb. They moved on quickly from that beginning.

By letting this thing run existing 2D-oriented apps in space, they’re doing something smart: they’re making it useful on day one. Maybe not useful enough to enough people, but it’s not high-tech ski goggles waiting for apps. They’ve also, not incidentally, defined much of this discussion we’re having focused on 2D apps.

I don’t see a reason the hardware wouldn’t support an immersive simulated 3D environment—they hint at that for a moment in the ad-movie with the mindfulness app—but they’re not hyping stuff that doesn’t exist. I’m guessing it’ll come.

Killer app: using deepfake tech so that sex workers can appear in live video chats as celebrities. You know Betty White’s estate would license her image for that.
posted by adamrice at 10:01 PM on June 8, 2023 [2 favorites]

Nothing heavier than a pair or spectacles is comfortable to wear for very long in my experience.

You can build strength in your neck just like any other muscle group in your body. You don't want to overdo it all at once or you'll be sore, but as someone who has gotten used to wearing (and then lost the required muscle tone for) hard hats, ballistic helmets, PAPR welding helmets, and other weird headgear, I suspect you'd be able to work up to full-day wear of something like a Vision Pro in a few months.

Of course, lots of people will overdo it, and I look forward to seeing what they'll decide to call the resulting symptom-cluster. ("Nerd neck syndrome"? "ARG shoulder"?)

As for whether it'll be a success, I really don't know. Apple has a history of both tremendous successes that were routinely underestimated at their inception, and tremendous failures that were overhyped. Sometimes they swing and miss; but sometimes they've swung and hit something nobody else could make contact with, and hit it out of the park. Anyone who thinks they know for sure how this particular swing is going to go is deluding themselves. (Or just trying to set themselves up to look like a Wise Tech Sage, since they have a reasonable chance of being right either way.)

Personally, I don't think the success can rely on games. There have been, and are, a bunch of true VR headsets around for gamers and they've been only somewhat successful. My feeling is that most people who want to play VR games probably either have a headset already, or are waiting for prices to come down, meaning that other models will be within reach long before Apple's.

I'm also not bullish on VR chat being a thing. Furries aside, I don't think most people want more-immersive telecommunications (at least until you start adding in the teledildonics). The apparent trend in communications over the past 30 years has been away from immersive communications and towards more low-effort, low-friction channels. E.g. the movement of everyday communications from phone calls to IM and text messaging, and every officeworker's lament when a Zoom meeting "could have been an email". Do people really want those could-have-been-an-email Zooms to suddenly be conversations with a virtual avatar that consumes your entire attention? I don't think I do. There are certainly some niche cases where perhaps 3D AR/VR chat could replace in-person meetings, but I don't think they're very many. If a video call won't do and you currently feel compelled to physically get on a plane to go see someone in the flesh, is a VR call going to be that much better? Probably not.

But hey, I could be wrong. Maybe AR/VR games and chat are just waiting on the right person to do the implementation right, and everything up to this point will be relegated to the same memory hole as FidoNet fell into when Internet email took over.

In the meantime, and perhaps sufficient by itself to make the product successful, is the 2.5D desktop-monitor-extension use case. I mean, I don't play games and I don't know anyone I'd want to have a VR chat with, but I could almost see dropping a bunch of kilobucks on what's effectively an infinity-inch desktop monitor.

If Apple's managed to get the head tracking and refresh rate high enough to let the Vision simulate a 2D "monitor" that's functionally equivalent to looking at a Retina Display not more than 24" from your nose, but big enough to cover your entire visual field (imagine an iPhone about five feet wide and three or four feet tall, maybe curved a bit—like an IMAX theater just for your head)… that is something I would start to gaze longingly at my bank account balance for.

TBH, it wouldn't really even need to be 3D in any meaningful way; I'd be happy with 2D and the occasional zoom-in/zoom-out effect. In fact, if dropping actual 3D let them pack more pixels into the simulated "screen", I'd probably take that as a win.
posted by Kadin2048 at 10:19 PM on June 8, 2023 [3 favorites]

As someone who only just recently posted on AskMe pleading for ideas on how to de-gloomify my glorified walk-in closet of a home office, it would be very intriguing to me if this was the answer. Even better if I could take it with me on the road so I wouldn't have to squint at my laptop screen.
posted by btfreek at 10:32 PM on June 8, 2023

Imagine watching live sports with them on - and you are actually at the game , you can look around - watch the action move back and forth , stare at the other fans if you like .

Imagine you are watching a movie - but its not a flat screen - you can look around the scene as if you were IN the movie.

Imagine Holodeck ...

This is where I see amazing possibilities. Once the price and weight comes down.
posted by skinnerneil at 2:18 AM on June 9, 2023 [1 favorite]

I think this headset looks great and we will probably get one for office use provided we can get it to properly interface with Unreal

TL;DR: I wouldn’t worry about it.

Apple silicon (M2) builds are supported as of 5.2 which became the current stock engine point release a few weeks ago. Metal shader compilation on Windows has been supported since at least 4.26, maybe earlier in XCode. Very good odds there’ll be some standardized VR presentation template implementations on the marketplace not too long after Vision Pro goes live (somewhat depends on just how aggressive Apple gets with UX guidelines / enforcement, how severely a solid PC VR presentation template needs to be reworked to meet them).

Just don’t count on that gorgeous Lumen realtime bounce lighting that is the heart of the 5.x renderer overhaul - Epic only just bumped the defaults for max quality settings (top tier PC) from 30 to 60FPS like …6-8 months ago, I think? Pulling that off on a GPU resting somewhere between a 3050 TI and a 3060 TI (the approximate equivalents to the Macbook Air low-end M2 and the M2 MAX) is well beyond “yikes” territory.

I’m starting to think Apple not pushing gaming on this at all is 50% a market positioning thing and 50% “hardware won’t be ready to do it right until the second generation”

I don’t see a reason the hardware wouldn’t support an immersive simulated 3D environment

This was directly demonstrated in the “100 foot virtual movie screens!” demo. The virtual environment that was loaded for that was exactly what a “Full Viewspaces” implementation talked about in the Snazzy Labs video linked above would hypothetically look like, based on the description. I still think something on the order of No Man’s Sky VR (which has a big shared multiplayer social hub space these days) is going to be a very tight squeeze, but depending on how low you dial the quality sliders it is, at some level, workable.

Even better if I could take it with me on the road so I wouldn't have to squint at my laptop screen.

Partner NDA requirements frequently block remote work game developers from working on laptops outside their home office. Even over VPN on a virtual workstation. This might pass muster because of the display privacy, though that’s guaranteed to vary studio to studio. Realizing I might get to step outside my apartment during the work day after reading Gruber’s review is when I started to really come around on this. It’s not quite a killer app for me but it’s close.
posted by Ryvar at 4:51 AM on June 9, 2023 [1 favorite]

I think foveated rendering would get perceptible quality up significantly without a corresponding boost in GPU horsepower. This is the first device where that's really practical. However, Apple has said quite clearly that apps will never get your eyepoint because of privacy issues so I'm not sure how it will shake out.
posted by seanmpuckett at 5:32 AM on June 9, 2023 [2 favorites]

I’m starting to think Apple not pushing gaming on this at all is 50% a market positioning thing and 50% “hardware won’t be ready to do it right until the second generation”

As someone who owns an iPhone, iPad, AppleTV, and MacBook Air, and a gaming PC I built for doing gaming, I would love to be able to keep my seamless Apple ecosystem going with my gaming, too. VR gaming is still a pretty small niche even on the PC side of things right now, so Apple having a killer device for it might move the needle a bit over time.
posted by Fleebnork at 6:32 AM on June 9, 2023 [1 favorite]

Imagine watching live sports with them on...stare at the other fans if you like .

Ideal for anyone who has fantasised about being the ITV cameraman looking for the hottest young women in the World Cup crowd to show while we wait for VAR.
posted by biffa at 7:27 AM on June 9, 2023

Reviewing some release information, it seems like foveated rendering is in the cards. Apple is working with Unity (3D game engine) and one approach to it would be for the Unity engine core to be allowed access to the eye position for rendering purposes, but not be allowed to pass that data along to Unity content apps. That would be the carrot for 3D engine developers: your client games will look a lot better with foveated rendering but we will not unlock that capability for you unless you sign a shitload of agreements about privacy. Engine developers who don't buy in don't get the best display quality. If it's unlocked with a framework endorsement like many slightly risky iOS features are, then Apple could revoke it unilaterally with a simple online push. And no engine developer would ever risk that, so it would be a pretty tight privacy wall. This makes sense to me as a way forward.
posted by seanmpuckett at 8:13 AM on June 9, 2023 [2 favorites]

I was honestly pretty impressed by the commercial. More than I thought I would be, at least.

I think they have done enough to change a lot of people's minds* from "probably don't need to care about this" to "I can see that being kinda cool".

I like that they aren't trying too hard to anticipate the use cases right now -- they are just promising a giant, ultra-high-res virtual screen with various levels of isolation. Noise cancelling headphones for your eyeballs. I think that is a thing people will want, provided it is actually comfortable to use.

That said...dude sitting at home in dark looking at pictures and videos of his children struck me as painfully sad. Like there's some backstory where his family suffered a tragic accident and now he's been left alone and just can't quite figure out how to pull the pieces of life back together.

Also its fun to watch movies with other people and I don't want 6 of them.

* though apparently not so many on this site!
posted by voiceofreason at 8:35 AM on June 9, 2023 [3 favorites]

That said...dude sitting at home in dark looking at pictures and videos of his children struck me as painfully sad. Like there's some backstory where his family suffered a tragic accident and now he's been left alone and just can't quite figure out how to pull the pieces of life back together.

Those aren’t his kids. They’re the child assassins that killed his actual family and he is plotting his revenge.
posted by snofoam at 9:03 AM on June 9, 2023 [8 favorites]

They're characters in a kids' show that he created and that he has more than once said in interviews were the closest thing that he'd ever get to actually having children of his own. Now they seem to be real, but... when he looks in the mirror, wearing the headset, he sees a cartoon dad.
posted by Halloween Jack at 9:25 AM on June 9, 2023 [1 favorite]

... even if it's so close to your eye that it's within your normal focal length [mine is about 2.5", I think those screens would be closer to my eyes] ...

I have a really high negative prescription, though not that high (my focal length is about 4.5"). I get that it's a rare thing, but it is frustrating that in VR/AR the screen is a few inches from your eyes, but they then they stick a very high-power lens in there to pull it out to infinity, and then you have to shell out for custom lenses to bring it back, losing a lot of clarity in the process. Given the extreme pixel density on the Apple headset, I'm guessing they're not using the normal "right in front with a fresnel lens" approach, but more of a periscope/binocular prism setup. But still, it would help a lot if they had another SKU that would put the normal focal length to a foot (or 250 mm or whatever), so you didn't have to work quite so hard to undo all the expensive optics with a single magnetic lens.

Not that I'd get it even then, because this thing is insanely expensive, but it would be cool.
posted by netowl at 9:31 AM on June 9, 2023

>the most technologically advanced product ever created for viewing and annotating PDF documents.
I think this is supposed to be dissing the product, but honestly, if that's all it ever is, a portable [subjectively] giant hi res interface for editing documents, that would be an amazing product that I have been wanting for years. So much of my body's aches and pains come from sitting at a desk in a static fixed position for 8+ hours a day. If I could do some reading and editing while moving around, or even just being still but in a *different* position, I would feel so much better.
posted by mrgoldenbrown at 10:18 AM on June 9, 2023 [4 favorites]

TFA that this (somewhat redundant) post is anchored on isn't very funny, even as a diss. I noped out very early on, when he described what someone is wearing as "wearing a Handmaid’s Tale x Coachella outfit." Does he mean... a dress? Because that's what she's wearing, a pretty nondescript one; "Handmaid’s Tale x Coachella" doesn't really derive from that at all--it's more likely something that this guy has been carrying around in his sparsely-populated "ideas for standup" notebook for quite some time.
posted by Halloween Jack at 12:10 PM on June 9, 2023 [1 favorite]

> They're characters in a kids' show that he created and that he has more than once said in interviews were the closest thing that he'd ever get to actually having children of his own. Now they seem to be real, but... when he looks in the mirror, wearing the headset, he sees a cartoon dad.

Cool, so Dan Schneider getting a better view of feet, which is just as depressing a take.
posted by lkc at 12:37 PM on June 9, 2023

The last product we shipped that MeFi was sure would be a flop bought me my house.

I don’t have any non-public insight into this that anyone here doesn’t have (besides that some dudes a couple rows over from me have apparently been hiding demo units in their space for months, lucky), but I personally believe that this going to rival if not surpass iPhone in importance. I expect to fund my kid’s college education off this thing, maybe even get that vacation home in the desert.
posted by Back At It Again At Krispy Kreme at 12:42 PM on June 9, 2023 [3 favorites]

Don't live in a desert. There is no water there.
posted by hippybear at 12:47 PM on June 9, 2023 [3 favorites]

Yes, I cc'd Phoenix on that note.
posted by hippybear at 12:47 PM on June 9, 2023

Someone should make a dystopian sci-fi series where people are tricked into believing a false reality by ultra high-res goggles.

I don’t care if William Gibson wrote it, I do not buy that Mulder would have been tricked by VR goggles that he could have wriggled out of.
posted by Apocryphon at 5:21 PM on June 9, 2023 [2 favorites]

I really loved this take by hikari_no_yume@twitter.com:

i was sleep deprived when watching the announcement but now that i look back at it the Apple Vision Pro feels like a fucking fever dream.

Apple wanted to make an AR headset, not a VR headset. the difference is you remain aware of your surroundings while using it. normal so far

the only problem is… transparent displays suck. like, you don't want everything to be overly bright and semi-transparent. this looks good in hollywood films but it's not a good experience *in general* in real life. you can dim the room or use shades but that's still a compromise

alternatively, you can go for a fully opaque display. basically, make a VR headset: you don't see the outside world at all. so you lose that awareness of your surroundings, which is scary and antisocial.

or, well, you _could_ do passthrough with a camera, but this usually sucks.

anyone who's played the 3DS's AR games or used basically any smartphone AR app will know that this passthrough isn't very convincing.

also, you have a screen strapped to your face. if people can't see your eyes, it's like you're not there.

Apple looked at this and said “skill issue”

they knew they couldn't make the impossible display technology happen, so instead they apparently threw everything at making passthrough so convincing that you'd _think_ it's using impossible conditionally-opaque display technology

it's so audacious. the result is the world's most expensive AR headset (by parts cost), one on which Apple might never turn a profit.

it's so absurd. the number of cameras, the quality of display, the amount of signal processing hardware needed to recreate the world in real-time

it's surreal. you want to create the illusion of seeing someone's eyes behind glass, but there's an opaque screen in the way, so they put a fucking 3D display on the outside!

it's technological sorcery: you can't construct a window with a camera and a monitor, right? fake transparency is surely impossible, right?

it's a cyberpunk nightmare product. in order to work at all, it must precisely surveil you at all times, and it must convince you that a fake version of reality _is_ reality, that you're awake while you're dreaming. it could lie to you and you wouldn't be mentally prepared for it

if it is what Apple claim it to be, then it is science fiction become real. if it is what Apple claim it to be, then it is terrifying, and majestic, and so many words I will never be able to find.

and I genuinely believe Apple aren't bluffing. there's no reason to think they are

it is an object plucked straight from a nightmare, a thing that must not be unleashed upon this world and which will make the next iMessage privilege escalation bug into an existential terror the likes of which you've never seen before

and i want one.

posted by foxfirefey at 6:11 PM on June 9, 2023 [2 favorites]

it's so audacious. the result is the world's most expensive AR headset (by parts cost), one on which Apple might never turn a profit.

It is audacious, and includes proprietary parts no one else could possibly source, but it probably has a lower bill of materials than some headsets (though not the biggest mass market ones), and is probably priced at a 35% gross margin (though it will take some time to recoup the R&D).
posted by snofoam at 6:34 PM on June 9, 2023

Microsoft has always sold the Xbox at a loss, it’s not really so audacious a business model in tech.
posted by Apocryphon at 8:41 PM on June 9, 2023

though it will take some time to recoup the R&D

Apple looks at its 30% cut on everything sold across Music and Apps and shrugs at these costs.
posted by hippybear at 8:50 PM on June 9, 2023

Apple and Nintendo both do the thing where they sell at a profit from day one, both with roughly 30% margins. It’s just that, as John Siracusa put it on the Accidental Tech Podcast, Nintendo’s approach is to go cheap on components and Apple’s approach is to crank up the price tag.
posted by DoctorFedora at 8:53 PM on June 9, 2023 [1 favorite]

I got to try out Google Glass ages ago at Google HQ and was bummed that it never saw the light of day.

This looks like a way clunkier version. Is something with the sleek nature of Google Glass not actually viable anymore?
posted by creatrixtiara at 10:40 PM on June 9, 2023 [2 favorites]

creatrixtiara: "This looks like a way clunkier version. Is something with the sleek nature of Google Glass not actually viable anymore?"

This is like comparing a gunsight with night-vision goggles.

There are some other information-overlay products for sports (at least, those are the ones I know of), like swimming goggles with built-in timers and lap counters, or cycling glasses with similar overlays. These are the closest things I know of to Google Glasses. I'm not aware of a general-purpose product that provides that kind of info-overlay on your vision.
posted by adamrice at 12:27 AM on June 10, 2023 [2 favorites]

These seem cool but the talk of using them for cooking ignores the fatal flaw of steam fogging then all up (or damaging them).

On the other hand, they would make it easier to bring shop class and home ec. back, without the need for dedicated spaces in the schools: everyone logs into a virtual kitchen/sewing room/auto shop/ machine shop, and gets to work!

And conversational language classes, set in a foreign location, with a procedurally-generated partner, would be killer.
posted by wenestvedt at 7:07 AM on June 10, 2023

q*ben probably knows this, but someone released a model of Notre Dame with Unreal Engine in like the year 2000 -- and the architects at my then-job were getting faint at the idea of swapping that in for the foam-and-balsa models that our Model Shop guys were then creating for presentations.

And besides just architectural renderings, the ability to explore far-off places like Notre Dame (especially since the fire!) or the Louvre are genuinely exciting.
posted by wenestvedt at 7:16 AM on June 10, 2023 [1 favorite]

Aren't the laser scans of The Forest of Notre Dame what they're using to understand how it was built and how to rebuild it? I remember reading about how they had just finished getting that model together before the fire.
posted by hippybear at 7:41 AM on June 10, 2023 [2 favorites]

Nintendo’s approach is to go cheap on components

This is very much intentional: Yokoi said "The Nintendo way of adapting technology is not to look for the state of the art but to utilize mature technology that can be mass-produced cheaply."

The citation is worth a mention on this thread's intended topic Game Over: How Nintendo Zapped an American Industry, Captured Your Dollars, and Enslaved Your Children.
posted by pwnguin at 9:09 AM on June 10, 2023 [2 favorites]

I guess being out of the industry for years, times have changed. 30% margins? Back in 80’s, the word around Apple was that selling price was computed as Cost to build x 3. This was supposedly industry standard.
posted by njohnson23 at 9:25 AM on June 11, 2023

Apple's 30% is what they take in with all their music and app store sales. Their hardware is another thing entirely, and I have no idea what that margin is. But taking 30 cents on every dollar spent by someone buying something you didn't make? That's Good Business!
posted by hippybear at 4:27 PM on June 11, 2023

I think apple’s hardware gross margins are just above 30%, which is about 30% more than everyone else’s.
posted by snofoam at 5:10 PM on June 11, 2023 [2 favorites]

seanmpuckett: I think foveated rendering would get perceptible quality up significantly without a corresponding boost in GPU horsepower.

And DLSS or integrated frame generation on the ML accelerators can keep up with saccades at much lower compute/energy cost.

I figure that the eye tracking will make for a massive enabler for people who have restrictions on their lives that I don't (touch wood) and contemporary society can't yet imagine the benefits from removing these blinkers from our society disabling people.
posted by k3ninho at 12:16 AM on June 12, 2023

yeah, I was talking to someone who mentioned that the idea of "eye-controlled computer" was actually pretty appealing as an option for Disability Days, especially for trying to maybe even get some work done on those days
posted by DoctorFedora at 12:19 AM on June 12, 2023

How would a headset like this, with eye controlled input, affect someone like Stephen Hawking's ability to interact with the world?

I mean, obviously Hawking is an extreme example as he was alive much longer than his diagnosis suggested. But there are many others...

Would an eye controlled keyboard be best? Or maybe a keyboard with word suggestion autocomplete?

There's a whole level to this technology I hadn't even thought about until disabilities were mentioned in this thread.
posted by hippybear at 9:23 PM on June 13, 2023

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