Apple Vision Pro review: magic, until it’s not
Apple Vision Pro review: magic, until it’s not
The Apple Vision Pro is supposed to be the start of a new spatial computing revolution. After several days of testing, it’s clear that it’s the best headset ever made — which is the problem.
The review was great, and the fact that Apple went it's way to try and do something to be seen as an innovator is awesome, for one reason only: they failed horribly.
Granted, this is the best VR handset that could be done with today's tech, and even then it's bad. There's no use outside niche applications, and too much constraints and trade offs for it to be reliable. We need a huge advance in tech for AR be feasible and socially acceptable.
And you can't even play proper games with this thing.
It's not even that it's not feasible. The entire idea is stupid. VR makes a lot of sense in entertainment and AR will one day be really great for small things like showing map directions and notifications but the concept of a virtual computer controlled by waving your hands around is just silly. It will never make sense.
Pro: Video passthrough is a leap forward, hand and eye tracking are awesome.
Con: video passthrough is fuzzy, hand and eye tracking are kinda shit.
WHICH ONE IS IT!?!
I think you’re missing the point. Both are true. It is both leaps forward, but still bad.
Just because something is “best in class” doesn’t mean it’s not a piece of shit.
Yeah, VR in general sits in this "cool enough to be interesting but bad enough to be disappointing" space.
IMO we could perfect the current iteration of VR and it would still be in that same valley because it still requires 1:1 movement inside a game and outside of it, or using a controller to move which can come with motion sickness and pulls you out of the "reality". Though AR does have the potential to get good since it uses the real world as the game world.
The iteration of VR that will get out of that valley will involve something interacting with our brains themselves rather than our senses, as well as trusting an entity that is capable of developing hardware like that. Though maybe it's for the best that it would be difficult or impossible to trust because I suspect someone getting VR done right will lead to the end of humanity as more and more people escape to fake worlds where they can have godlike powers or where waifus are real and society crumbles around them.
The Vision Pro is the best example of video passthrough and hand/eye tracking that has ever been produced, but they're also insufficient for it to be a seamless experience.
This isn't really the problem, I think. MKBHD touched on this but this system doesn't seem to have a killer app. There's a bunch of stuff you can do with it, but which of those things can be done better than just using a computer?
Gaming is the big one but apple doesn't care about that so what else is there? It would be good for virtual walkthroughs of a home you're considering buying. Or at an architects office to show off the experience of a new building. But...cheaper VR headsets can already do all of that.
So what actually task can this do better than anything else?
Is was really irritated when he presented the presentation app as the most killer app for the device. On traditional VR headsets this would be a really mediocre app compared to what games do in VR...
I have a psvr, psvr2 and love it, but there is no way id spend this much for a better version. However, I thought similar about the iPad at first. What can it do that I couldn't do with my phone or a PC. Now I sue my iPad daily.
I think it's a case of build it and they will come. It's currently sold out and an early adopter thing but it took a few generations for the iPhone to have apps. And at first, there was no killer app.
This isn’t really the problem, I think. MKBHD touched on this but this system doesn’t seem to have a killer app. There’s a bunch of stuff you can do with it, but which of those things can be done better than just using a computer?
It doesn't lean into the VR aspect very much either. You can't just use it by flapping your hands about like you're Iron Man.
Other than that, it just acts like a virtual screen. Neat, but not particularly different from a regular screen in usage, other than the ability to resize at will, which people don't generally do that often on their computers.
So what actually task can this do better than anything else?
Relieving fanboys of their money 🤑
not really a leap forward, valve index does that.
"Magic until it's not" basically sums up the whole Apple user experience.
This is a first generation modern Apple product: expensive, flawed, lacking in features. I've been a long time Apple user, and if I had the money to buy something like this (I don't), I would definitely avoid it, and wait for iteration 2 or 3 of it. The review is good, and highlight all the reasons why you should avoid buying this device, unless you wan to develop something for it. Guess we'll only see YouTubers using it.
I think the biggest difference compared to all previous endeavors is that VR/AR devices are still this thing that collects dust in the corner even among the biggest enthusiasts.
Most people had some form of portable music player (like Walkman) long before iPod was a thing.
Every household had been equipped with phones long before Apple made iPhone. Cellphones were also a huge deal before iPhone.
Watches are old as time (pun intended). Fitness trackers was also a big thing before Apple Watch.
VR/AR? Most people don’t really care - despite multiple efforts from all the biggest tech companies. Is a more premium Oculus from Apple the solution? I guess time will tell, but I have doubts.
I also think they’re too big and bulky and haven’t found the right way to use them yet. When they can be integrated with glasses and can truly “augment” the world around you, that’s when they’ll pick up. Think of a party where you can automatically display the names of people and key bio info with them. Or a sporting game where you can pull up stats on players. Or navigation where it overlays arrows on the street. For now you just get “toss our window up in your field of view with these clunky goggles”
I don’t want to make predictions because I may, most probably, fail. Maybe it works, maybe it doesn’t. Some products need more times than others, and some need to get something (and innovative app, for example) that justifies its existence.
Time will tell. But still, it’s a first generation. Even the iPhone was not that good in its first generation. It’ll be interesting to see where this goes.
I turned the video off immediately when he said it's 34 99 spaced out rather than three thousand four hundred ninty nine dollars so it sounds as fucking terrible as it actually is price wise. Fuck apple and fuck this reviewer
What a weird thing to get hung up on.
What you don’t like people talking to you like you’re a retard ? But 3499,99 is not the same as 3500,00. It would be bad information, the verge « journalist » sure can’t allow it.
I would quote it as $3500 or thirty-five hundred dollars. It's a common practice for radio since $3499.99 is read as thirty-four ninety-nine ninety-nine which is heard as $349,999
This value is too much for any VR/AR goggles in my budget. I'd read this as a thing for very specialized industrial purposes (say CAD/CAM) or a toy for rich people.
And if it's just a toy for rich people, it's not going to be well supported. If it's a CAD/CAM tool or a tool for disabled accessibility then all the software will be proprietary and overpriced as well.
One of the weirdest things about it that I'm sure Apple put a whole lot of time, effort, and money into is the EyeSight feature (the see-through eyes), and yet every image or video I've seen of it so far looks horrible in real life. I get the idea behind it, but that they prioritized that over actual content just seems assbackwards, there still doesn't seem like there's a whole lot to do in this thing. It's a feature that really should've been left on the cutting room floor in an effort to bring the cost down. And they're trying to pitch this as AR (which it's not, or "spatial computing") when really this thing would probably benefit more if they pitched/leaned into it being a VR device.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
In Apple’s photos, it looks like a big, bright screen that shows a video of your eyes to people around you so they feel comfortable talking to you while you’re wearing the headset — a feature adorably called EyeSight.
On the top edge, you’ll find what feel like larger versions of some familiar Apple Watch controls: a digital crown that adjusts both the volume and the level of virtual reality immersion on the right as you look through the headset and a button on the left that lets you take 3D photos and videos.
You can also see Apple’s incredible video processing chops right in front of your eyes: I sat around scrolling on my phone while wearing the Vision Pro, with no blown-out screens or weird frame rate issues.
A lot of work has gone into making it feel like the multitouch screen on an iPhone directly controls the phone, and when it goes sideways, like when autocorrect fails or an app doesn’t register your taps, it’s not pleasant.
I asked about this, and Apple told me that it is actively contributing to WebXR and wants to “work with the community to help deliver great spatial computing experiences via the web.” So let’s give that one a minute and see how it goes.
There’s a part of me that says the Vision Pro only exists because Apple is so incredibly capable, stocked with talent, and loaded with resources that the company simply went out and engineered the hell out of the hardest problems it could think of in order to find a challenge.
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The future Apple wants us to have:
footure
Always happy to see Simon Stalenhag's work lol
There’s no such thing as magic.
This might be a bad take but it seems like a worse version of HoloLense. Just glancing at the pros/cons list seems like HoloLense already covered this ground at a similar price point
HoloLens have much worse display quality
I skimmed some article in which the author said the vision pro is for work, but I would argue it's the public alpha version of what will eventually be a sleek, relatively inexpensive product for all the people who grew up with iPads and iPhones in their hands since they were in diapers.
Whoa whoa whoa ozempic it's magic
getting all this tech in a headset means there’s a lot of weight on your face, so Apple chose to use an external battery pack connected by a cable.
From the article. What do you mean no one is talking about this, literally every review dropped in the past day brings these things up.
They talk about it in this review though
From the article (did you read it?):
Since you’ll mostly experience the Vision Pro in there, the most noticeable thing about the hardware after a while is that it’s just… heavy. You’re supposed to wear this thing on your face for long stretches of computer time, and depending on which band and light seal you use, the headset alone weighs between 600 and 650 grams. I keep joking that the Vision Pro is an iPad for your face, but it’s heavier than an 11-inch iPad Pro (470 grams) and pushing close to a 12.9-inch iPad Pro (682 grams), so in a very real way, it’s an iPad for your face.
And...
[...] but it’s also very Apple that the battery is not actually bigger so it can provide more than two and a half hours of run time.
Excuse they got devices from Apple. And you can’t say anything Apple doesn’t want you to otherwise you lose access to Apple. They are a very petty company.
It just launched for public sales
I very much do not want AR. There will be ads everywhere. What happened to the anger people had toward Google Glass and the feeling that people wearing them would be recording everything around them basically all the time?
The biggest problem I see from these kind of devices is: you're isolating yourself. For example, it looks very cool that you can see a movie with a similar experience to a theatre, but you're completely isolated using it. I don't see a family, each with one of these devices on, watching a movie on the couch at the same time. It's complicated enough when people have their smartphones out while eating with others...
That doesn't mean that it hasn't its uses, but it's more limited than what the try to sell to you. You're by yourself when you're using this device, even if you can see others.
Yeah that’s crazy isolating yourself. Now excuse me while I go sit at my desktop ignoring everyone else with my headphones in.
Fun fact, over a hundred years ago people used to complain about others reading the newspaper at breakfast because it was destroying family’s time together. I don’t know how family social dynamics will survive this newspaper craze.
Yes and no. I’ve used a Quest to watch movies in a theater with different people from around the world and it was a very social experience. I’ve also attended a few support group meetings for dealing with loss in VR and that was honestly a really positive experience.
One thing I give Apple credit for is keeping ads out of the primary operating system. I've got an Apple TV and a Google TV (I refuse to use it's full name). Apple TV is just a grid of Apps whereas the Google homescreen immediately hits you with an ad for a show on a streaming service you might not even have. Even the Google remote has dedicated buttons for Netflix and YouTube and I'm not a Netflix subscriber.
I guess it's the difference between Apple being a hardware/software company and Google being an advertising company.
Apple TV+, the streaming service, does show ads for content. It's one of the worst, in my opinion, at pre-roll ads for other shows you didn't click on.
Then, in the interface, you'll get banner-like ads for other stuff, mostly Apple TV+ exclusives. Also, the interface also does push casual browsing (or search) into the paid buy/rent options also.
Apple's days of focusing on user experience above all else has shifted towards getting you to pay for stuff. Just because it mainly steers towards stores they own (app store, music/movies/TV, services subscriptions) doesn't make it any less intrusive of advertising.
There are ads on the app store, which I'd consider to be part of the "primary operating system", especially since it's the only way to install apps.
Not to mention constant ads for icloud. In the photos app, and even notifications from the settings app. (It's possible to turn these off, but not easy or intuitive).
After switching to Android, I haven't seen a single ad in the operating system, (I think Play Store does have ads, I just haven't got any for some reason). The closest thing is Google photos sometimes asking me to turn on backup.
Edit: Ignore my complaint. You learn something new every day.
Original: Except for the fact that the remote has no home button anymore. It always opens the Apple TV+ app. Otherwise I agree though, ad-free experience, best TV-box I ever owned.
I’m fairly certain you can remap that Netflix button
Too late.
People feel that way all the time now, so AR glasses no longer seem as intrusive to most people.
Yeah they realized that if we’re constantly tracked we burn out on it.
I'm always reminded of this video when I think about just how bad AR could be. But then again, it could be pretty cool if we can only keep control over our tech.
https://youtu.be/YJg02ivYzSs
Quick! Hide it before some LinkedIn lunatic use it as some inspirational post about how AR tech will revolutionize our lives.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://piped.video/YJg02ivYzSs
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
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I don't think these glasses are intended for general public use right now. I know big businesses that want them for manufacturing quality control but outside that what is the point of AR?
As an industrial engineer I can think of plenty of uses of it has a halfway decent pathway overlay. Part picking with highlighted parts can be amazing and it could revolutionize assembly.
Outside factories, I’d love a gps hud on my car, and on walks. Not enough to sacrifice the little privacy I have in my own eyes though.
Edit: sorry was thinking AR glasses in general not these specifically. I wouldn’t even let my QC team use these. If the battery connection breaks you’re blind in a manufacturing environment and that’s dangerous
Spoken like someone who lacks vision.
How about going to a foreign country and being able to navigate the streets like a local thanks to the overly guiding you to your destination like Waze? How about being able to read signs and communicate with locals thanks to the instant translation services built in? How about a virtual assistant that can walk you through an oil change specifically for your car? How about a cooking assistant that can warn you if your pot is about to boil over or if you forgot to add the butter? How about taking my shitty dystopian studio apartment and giving me a balcony view of a tropical beach?
There are countless applications for AR ranging from the mundane to the extremely helpful. The tech needs to be developed more before it will be adopted by the masses, but it's far from useless.
By 2030 we'll have AR in a sunglasses form factor with integrated AI that will be able to digitally remove the clothing of everyone you see with a good degree of accuracy for what's underneath.
Glass arrived on the scene in 2013. Since then recording in public has become much more normalised... smartphone camera use, cars with dashcams and CCTV/face recognition have all increased in popularity. YouTubers, live streamers, creators etc. If it were released again today, I'm not sure it would achieve the same hatred it did back then, at least on the "creepy camera in public" point.