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Apple Vision Nope: Why I returned mine

• 5350-uiop-1130 3y ago
  > "1. It’s uncomfortable" for AR to be useful, it has to be something seamless, comfortable and easy to integrate into your daily life. if it's giving you neck pains or eye strains, then as others said, actual reality will always be the better choice.
  • delichon 3y ago
    Reality is for people who can't handle AR?
    • 5350-uiop-1130 3y ago
      Apple promote this as an AR tool. They never use the words VR at all. AR is augmenting your reality. But if that augmentation includes pain, dizziness and headaches then I would hardly consider that an upgrade. Maybe they can fix the bulk, battery and comfort issues. Or maybe this is just peak hubris. who knows.
      • timeon 3y ago
        How is it augmented? Reality here is disconnected as whole and distorted by video. AR should be augmenting on top of reality. This is SR - Secondhand Reality.
        • 5350-uiop-1130 3y ago
          > How is it augmented? it augments your reality with pain
  • weregiraffe 3y ago
    >seamless, comfortable and easy to integrate into your daily life. Computer displays aren't any of these either, but we managed to integrate them.
    • 5350-uiop-1130 3y ago
      computer display doesn't sit on your skull weighing down on your neck. you just turn it on, very seamless to me.
• bowsamic 3y ago
  First generation Apple products are always pathfinding devices and they always suck in many ways. The first gen Apple Watch was borderline unusable. I understand people will be pessimistic about this but Apple does have a track record of greatly improving upon the initial experience, so we'll see what happens.
  • causal 3y ago
    That's true. 1, 2 and 4 I could see being solved with a few iterations. 3 ("it's not useful") I'm still struggling with. Apple hasn't really highlighted any use case that's better than the alternatives.
    • bowsamic 3y ago
      I didn't really understand the utility until I watched Casey Neistat's video of using it in public as a portable entertainment experience device. If it gets down to a lower pricepoint I can definitely imagine people using it on public transport and the like to watch netflix on their commute. People will definitely want to use it that way, because that's a totally novel use case. If it gets down to $1000 and is portable enough, you will see people using it extensively in public. I don't think Apple intend for that yet though.
      • causal 3y ago
        Yeah I agree - an immersive "sleep mask" where someone can lay back and enjoy some private experience while killing time is the use case neither Apple nor Meta seem to be fully embracing yet. Make it lighter, more discrete, easy to slip on and off- and people probably wouldn't be too embarrassed to jump in.
        • kipchak 3y ago
          I'm reminded a bit of the Sony HMZ-T1 and Glasstron. I think the trouble is Meta is interested in use cases that drive data generation and "social" experiences, and apple is looking for the next iPhone/app store versus what the tech is best suited to.
• pryelluw 3y ago
  Five grand is insane.
  • causal 3y ago
    And probably what most end up paying, or close to it. What I'm still trying to understand is: what is the use case that Apple thought people would pay that much for? Are people walking around Apple HQ in these things because they are indispensable for some purpose the rest of us have yet to figure out?
    • Keep3893 3y ago
      It is for software developers and early adopters. It is small investment for entering into new form factor. Google Glasses had the same problem. In a few years there may be tons of apps. And apple will drop gimmicks like external displays.
      • causal 3y ago
        Yeah maybe, though VR app stores have been around for a decade with still no sign of that killer app.
      • OJFord 3y ago
        Oh wow, there'll be as many apps as we have now for Glass?
  • elchief 3y ago
    I mean, it's less than the original macintosh (which would be 7k today)
    • AlexandrB 3y ago
      That's fine if you're selling a niche product: > Sales were strong at its initial release on January 24, 1984, at $2,495 (equivalent to $7,000 in 2022), and reached 70,000 units on May 3, 1984. I think Apple wants to sell more than 70,000 of these things though. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_128K https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_128K
• SmokeyHamster 3y ago
  >The external cameras kind of suck. It’s a compromise. There are limits imposed by physics. The other criticisms aren't unsurprising, but I'm curious what he means by this. The cameras on my Samsung phone are very tiny and still very high res. I'd expect that to be one of the last problems on an Apple device.
  • ChicagoBoy11 3y ago
    I'm guessing he means it falls short of "reality". The adds convey the idea as if you are purely looking at the real world around you, but the quality is very much that of a camera -- and he concedes there are some limits to what you could do with that form factor.
  • wtallis 3y ago
    Be sure you aren't using photo quality from your phone as your baseline for comparison. Spending the better part of a second on post-processing and enhancements isn't an option for a low-latency video feed. Also, given how important the cameras are for high-end smartphones, and how damn many cameras the Vision Pro has, it wouldn't surprise me if the Vision Pro's budget per camera is actually less than on a flagship smartphone.
  • jherskovic 3y ago
    OP here. I mean the passthrough cameras, and I mean they suck compared to the expectation of this being "AR, but rendered in VR" (I also have a 'first impressions' post that goes into more detail on this). They're definitely not as good as the cameras on my iPhone, either.
  • CubsFan1060 3y ago
    I think the author is being far too harsh. It most certainly isn't phone quality. It most certainly is a good enough quality to do most tasks. Eating, drinking, making coffee, etc... all work perfectly fine. Fine detail is less good (reading my phone is difficult but not impossible). All things considered, they probably aren't as good as they were sold, but they are still pretty amazing.
  • alacritas0 3y ago
• ChicagoBoy11 3y ago
  One of the challenges is that a lot of his complaints are things that you can EASILY see being addressed -- most other VR headsets benefit from 3rd party straps that make a hugely significant difference in comfort, the app ecosystem hasn't even begun since folks. haven't had a device available, so hopefully there'll be many more use cases, Apple internally already has mirroring of multiple screens, etc. Yet my fear is the quality, speed, and assuredness of these improvements are kinda correlated with how well or how badly the market for this device does. My fear is that it doesn't reach the scale necessary for Apple and others to make the kind of investment in it we'd like to see, and for many years we'll have this go the way of those esoteric Macs of which they might make one or a couple, and leave it at that.
  • jherskovic 3y ago
    OP here. I own a Quest 2 as well. It's a toy compared to the AVP, but it is more comfortable. I agree with your impression - these things will get addressed, but not within the return window, and a $5K gamble that it'll become useful is too rich for my taste.
    • CubsFan1060 3y ago
      I think this is right. I think that 6-12 months from now this is going to be a very different story.
  • FirmwareBurner 3y ago
    >One of the challenges is that a lot of his complaints are things that you can EASILY see being addressed I buy and judge a product for what it does RIGHT NOW, not for what I'm hoping the manufacturer could fix down the line, long past the return window. So asking consumers to gamble with 3500+ on what might be, is a tall order. Maybe Apple should have kept it longer in the oven and not rush to half-bake it, selling what's obviously designed to be a dev-kit, as an end user product using users who paid $3500 as beta testers. Steve Jobs would be spinning in his urn. He always understood you never release half baked products to consumers.
  • tw04 3y ago
• jononomo 3y ago
  Even if this product were lightweight and had a 10-hour battery life and didn’t cause eye strain, I still don’t think it would be an improvement over the real world.
  • ComputerGuru 3y ago
    It depends on how wide open your eyes are. We live in a pretty crappy world if you don't tune out all the horrible stuff. But then again, the kind of person to not tune out that kind of thing without VR is probably not the kind of person to buy into VR in the first place :)
    • PaulStatezny 3y ago
      I've never heard of VR/AR being marketed as a solution to tune out the bad parts of reality. Is this a serious take? Are there people who actually buy into that idea? Using VR/AR for this purpose sounds like it would have the same effects as isolating by scrolling on your phone for hours. It's only a temporary escape, and I bet the depression side effects might be even more intense.
      • ComputerGuru 3y ago
        I'm mainly replying to the "it'll be an improvement over the real world" jab.
  • deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
• causal 3y ago
  The fact that Apple is still using a difference of 256GB storage to jump the price $200 is really funny to me. This is already a wildly premium device, but they just can't resist trying to scrape a little bit more.
  • paxys 3y ago
    Did the $1000 Mac Pro stand and $700 wheels not make that clear already?
  • jfoster 3y ago
    They also skipped headphones or bone conduction on it just to sell more Airpods.
    • frankus 3y ago
      By all accounts the built-in speakers are amazing, but tbf not usable if you need privacy or to not annoy people sitting next to you.
    • jherskovic 3y ago
      OP here. What the sibling comment said. The built-in speakers are fantastic, and like many other Apple enthusiasts I own Airpods Pro already as well if I need isolation.
    • pwthornton 3y ago
      You do not want a VR headset that requires headphones to operate. That's one more set of batteries to charge. It's one more thing to adjust when switching between users. The Quest is the same as the AVP. Both have surprisingly good audio. The AVP's built-in audio does a great job. You need headphones if you want privacy, first and foremost. Certain headphones will also enable spatial audio and stuff like that. But Apple's audio approach here is very sound. It's nothing like the huge upcharge for more storage.
    • zie 3y ago
      I'd argue not to sell more AirPods, I mean sure it's a great extra bonus, but what is the other option you would prefer? that they cover the ears completely like big studio headphones? That they give you a pair of AirPods? Or that they make tethered AirPods? Or Bone Conduction, which means audio quality typically plummets and complicates how the device rests on the cheekbones. All of those are various compromises that also suck for various reasons. What about people with hearing issues? Most of these alternatives are terrible for people that wear hearing aids.
• thiago_fm 3y ago
  "It’s a V1 Apple product. It’s a new category, for them, and by far the most ambitious headset on the consumer market." Well, all other V1 Apple products weren't half-assed, or at least when they were, they offered something more than the competitors. Meta Quest 3 is better on everything, despite eye tracking(for a reason, it sucks for many things, I'm sure Meta can have just as good, if they wanted to, but they likely think it isn't a good idea) and the image quality(because it's expensive as hell). I had much higher expectations. Apple made it clear to me that they've released this device mostly out of fears of phones becoming irrelevant and not having a device to replace it. Also, to show that Tim isn't resting & vesting his stocks, and both are terrible ways to approach innovation, the kind of innovation Apple used to have with that fruitarian CEO that gave us the iPad, iPhone, iEverything... Apple needs a new CEO ASAP, Tim is John Sculley, at first sales go up, profits are up, but then after a few years you are stuck and other companies are eating your lunch.
  • criddell 3y ago
    Zuckerberg said yesterday on Instagram that eye tracking is coming back in a future headset.
    • thiago_fm 3y ago
      I don't doubt it will, but I bet Meta knows the limitations and that the controller it has is the best there is, and eye tracking will be used for some purposes. I was expecting Apple would reinvent that with a concept nobody had imagined before. They didn't. Zero innovation. Doesn't look like an Apple product to me. Earpods from Apple was more innovative and had a better factor form than likely this Apple Vision Pro will have in 10 years!
      • tw04 3y ago
        >I was expecting Apple would reinvent that with a concept nobody had imagined before. They didn't. Zero innovation. Probably why the engineers didn't want to release it. I seem to recall a bunch of folks at Apple were pretty up in arms that this was coming out, and that upper management basically forced their hand because they were worried Facebook would run away with the market.
• ubj 3y ago
  > When we price out things in the USA we pretend sales tax doesn’t exist, but it does, hoo boy it does, and most of us pay it. The price breakdown in this article was probably the most useful part. There was a slim chance I would have considered a product like this for $3700, but $5000 is simply too much for my budget.
  • dboreham 3y ago
    Some states don't have sales tax.
    • testfrequency 3y ago
      Ok. Some states have higher sales tax also.
    • tuatoru 3y ago
      NAXALT (not all X are like that) isn't really a useful comment.
      • tuatoru 3y ago
        It's better to identify differences between the general case and the exceptions, and the reasons for them, than simply to say exceptions exist.
    • tomschlick 3y ago
      Not only that, but even on the same street you could have varying sales tax from the store 100ft down the road because you are on the border of a city/municipality that has their own tax applied. There really is no good alternative than to just omit tax and have the customer expect 5-7% typically.
  • nozzlegear 3y ago
    The author's price breakdown matches mine almost identically, and like he said: if it weren't for the 0% financing for 12 months, there's no way I would've swallowed that $5000 pill. I still haven't decided if I'm going to return mine or keep it yet. I find it pretty compelling and I like to write code with it in bed or on the couch, but I can't say it's better than my much cheaper (by comparison) iPad Pro for such things.
• elicash 3y ago
  On comfort and price: Apple should have sold the strap separately and partnered with different manufacturers so that 3rd party options were available from Day 1. For example, this looks less beautiful than Apple's version, but is more comfortable and functional and from what I've read by others, results in a larger FOV (since you can size down on light seal or... remove it): https://twitter.com/Azadux/status/1757469190095781900 https://twitter.com/Azadux/status/1757469190095781900 -- And that's a hacked together version, not the official version being worked on. And while Apple would have gotten criticism for nickel and dime-ing folks by them having to buy more stuff separately, I actually think it would have resulted in a cheaper set for folks buying 3rd party. Not enough to put it in a different price category or anything, obviously, but cheaper nevertheless.
  • rad_gruchalski 3y ago
    > Apple should have sold the strap separately On the contrary… I can already imagine the backlash against this one „oh, the profiteering, they don’t even sell the strap with it”.
    • elicash 3y ago
      I addressed that point in my original comment, but to add more, they clearly realized that different sized heads and different needs for comfort were such a problem that they bundled it with two different straps (and two different pads). Not to mention the "light seal" fitting issues, which frankly I think they should have partnered on that, as well. These comfort problems should have been the obvious signal that they shouldn't have done what they do with the watch--which is bundle it with a band. Between strap and light seal, it's about $500. Why would Apple want to make $500 less? Well, clearly they don't. But I think a $2999 intro price gets a lot more people in the door, even if they then need to buy a $90 3rd party strap. And is more comfortable, too, which is the main point in preventing returns like this one.
• jccalhoun 3y ago
  >2.It’s not there yet >3.It’s not useful >4.It’s very expensive Are any of these surprising? I'm a AR/VR skeptic so maybe I have a more negative view than most but these things seem self evident to me.
  • xipho 3y ago
    No, and the author notes exactly this, or conveys the sentiment, but I suppose that's TLDR.
  • pavon 3y ago
    It isn't surprising that the software isn't there yet. It is more unexpected that the hardware isn't. While not perfect, other VR headsets do work well for their intended use cases of gaming and video. The Vision has significantly higher resolution than any of them, but it turns out that it still isn't high enough for the use cases Apple had in mind, even after compromising FOV to improve PPD. People have gotten used to using iOS apps at retina quality, and having to either view them blown up or blurry with the Vision isn't a great experience.
  • bisby 3y ago
    I'm not sure what level of skepticism you are at. But I will say that AR/VR is already great fun as a toy, and for some people with social issues, it can make situations more comfortable. It's not just pure nonsense or "not ready for consumers" yet. For people using VR daily, it is entirely good enough for their use cases, and they have useful use cases (even if "useful" means "entertainment"). But I would agree that very very few people need it and trying to get it mainstream where "this is how everyone is consuming media" is a bit outlandish.
• irrational 3y ago
  He talks a few times about looking forward to future generations, but if too many people pass on this generation, will there be future generations? I guess Apple has deep enough pockets that they could fund future generations even if they never make their money back.
  • rsynnott 3y ago
    There is no way that this one will cover its costs, or anything like it, and Apple won't be expecting that. It's only barely a product; it's not a million miles away from being a devkit. Given the cost challenges, if this is ever a proper mass-market consumer product, you're probably looking at at least a few years down the road.
• SllX 3y ago
  > The other usefulness problem is visionOS’ iPad heritage. Maybe a completely locked-down computer for $1,000 is OK, but for a geek who likes to tinker, and at this price? It’s too much of a content consumption device at the moment. I love watching a movie or TV show, but I want to do stuff beyond the walled garden. > $5,013 Man does this really cut to the heart of it. It has a Mac chip, it costs as much as a high end Mac, but it’s an iPad with AR/VR strapped to your face. That’s pretty much what I’ve distilled it down to following all the reviews and discussing it with people. The technology behind that iPad with AR/VR strapped to your face is amazing, but an iPad with AR/VR strapped to your face is still just an iPad.
  • jobs_throwaway 3y ago
    [flagged]
  • pcurve 3y ago
    I agree. Some folks really want this to succeed because we haven't had a breakthrough product for a while and this is beautifully constructed. However, I'm keep reminded of the trash can Mac Pro; it's a totally wrong form factor. If they can make it less bulky, less heavy, similar to even Magic Leap 2, it would have a wider appeal.
    • neodymiumphish 3y ago
      The biggest ick for me is the external battery. And you know this is a problem when Apple works so hard to hide it in their marketing material. You can’t swap the battery without losing power… Insane
• causal 3y ago
  I suspect Meta understands its users a little better: If people are gonna strap something to their face, it's because they want to be immersed in some alternate reality. Right now there just isn't a killer app. But I suspect Generative AI is the path to one- fully immersive, hyper-realistic, real-time generated worlds will be killer, and something only VR can really immerse you in.
  • OJFord 3y ago
    > But I suspect Generative AI is the path to one- fully immersive, hyper-realistic, real-time generated worlds will be killer, and something only VR can really immerse you in. We are nowhere close to that being feasible for anything like as cheap as $5k, the compute requirement would be insane. VR gaming is already intensive, add the inference of 'fully immersive, hyper-realistic, real-time generated worlds'...
    • ewzimm 3y ago
      The worlds themselves don't need to be generated on-device, just rendered there (even as a video stream.) The AIs that will build virtual worlds will live in datacenters and stream to headsets. Local AI will likely focus on predicting movement, upscaling, adding frames, and reducing latency from the source in a similar way that RTX cards do now. I would be very surprised if we don't see online AI-generated virtual worlds before the 2030's.
      • OJFord 3y ago
        Ok, so why 'real-time generated' at all? Now we're just doing VR MMORPG with an expensive implementation detail that doesn't make an end-user difference?
        • ewzimm 3y ago
          Real-time generated because it will respond to the players to feel more alive. Worlds right now are mostly static. Imagine Star Citizen but you don't have to wait for decades for it to be developed because the galaxy creates itself as you explore it. No more invisible walls.
• xyst 3y ago
  It’s first gen tech. I do agree its usefulness at the moment is not there. Maybe it’s the lack of apps that take advantage of the tech. Or the overall usability (in this case, significant eye strain/fatigue, heavy headset in the authors point of view m). I was expecting more augmented reality rather than a simple block of an app and the ability to move it across the 360 view. Just like the original iPhone. It was far behind the competition but years later it dominated the smart phone market. Albeit, Steve Jobs was the CEO at the time and that probably was a large portion of it. He was just a great salesman. I can’t say the same for Tim. Great guy, I guess. But hardly memorable.
• nmstoker 3y ago
  Why on Earth can people return these for non-fault reasons?! It's the other customers who bear the cost to cover this - like indecisive ditzy clothes shoppers who order huge numbers of items knowing they'll return 90% of them.
  • nmstoker 3y ago
    If they're really worried about deterring potential buyers for a high price item, maybe rental could be an option?
  • nozzlegear 3y ago
    Apple's return policy has always been very generous. I often buy their new products to see if I'll like them, and if I don't then I know I can just return them within 14 days for a full refund. It's netted them more than a few sales from me.
    • OJFord 3y ago
      In the UK (and EU maybe?) that's not 'very generous', that's just 'distance selling regulation'. (Though as the name implies it wouldn't be mandatory for in-store purchases.) Besides, you could buy your Apple products from Amazon instead and get ..I think it's 30?
      • nozzlegear 3y ago
        I should clarify, it’s generous for the US. =P I’m not sure about the Amazon return policy in the US either, I don’t buy from them very much. I dont think they let US customers return purchases with no questions asked, there has to be a reason such as the product being damaged? I could be wrong though, like I said, I don’t purchase from Amazon much.
        • OJFord 3y ago
          I'm fairly sure Amazon is 30 days globally, you have to give a reason yeah, but I've never had that result in anything other than instant generation of return label - I think it's for their accounting/OEM feedback purposes, not adjudicating return legitimacy. Much like you're saying about Apple, they get a lot of my business (even when I know they're not the absolute cheapest or quickest/easiest) because they make returns easy in the event I need it. eBay or AliExpress for example would have to be significantly cheaper to sway me.
• NarcisMirandes 3y ago
  This is not a regular product. It's a prototype. The goal is not to sell a lot of units nor compete with existing VR sets. They probably want: - Get feedback - See how the end consumer use it - See what programmers can built In other words, it's the Apple version of a MVP. Minimal Viable Product
  • paxys 3y ago
    You don't blanket the entire country in ads for a "prototype" product that you don't intend to sell a lot of.
    • timeon 3y ago
      I'm not fan of this vocabulary, but: its just cope. "It is not there yet but it will be." "They just need to make (unspecified) killer app to make it useful." Sure
  • HumblyTossed 3y ago
    No, it's not. It's an actual product.
  • badwolf 3y ago
    https://www.apple.com/apple-vision-pro/ https://www.apple.com/apple-vision-pro/ They don't market it as a "developer device" or a "prototype." They are selling this as a consumer product. Watch movies! Look at pics of your family! It's your new giant computer monitor! Facetime with your friends while you're cooking and packing your luggage!
• tiltowait 3y ago
  The AVP feels very much like a product with enormous, as-yet undelivered potential. Anyone not willing to take a gamble and wait it out ought not to be an early adopter. Future generations will reduce or eliminate the pain points, lower the price, etc. For the foreseeable future, I expect that even most people who like it won't use it as much as they hoped. I'm very bullish on its potential, but I haven't put my money where my mouth is. There are other, more important, more immediately useful things I can and should spend those thousands on. I've been telling myself that if my bonus is at least $4k bigger than I expect, I'll buy one. Truthfully, I'm not sure if I will even at that point. We'll see (hopefully).
  • HumblyTossed 3y ago
    > The AVP feels very much like a product with enormous, as-yet undelivered potential. Anyone not willing to take a gamble and wait it out ought not to be an early adopter. This is Apple. You got all you're going to get. If you want more, you have to wait for AVP2 because they'll either software lock features to it or find some way of having hardware that AVP doesn't and thus can't support new software features.
  • nodja 3y ago
    People have been saying that about VR headsets in general, but when I got mine and beat HL:Alyx--which was admittedly pretty fun--the only games I came back to were beat saber and that bow and arrow game in "the lab", I gave a try to a bunch of other games, including NSFW ones, and the magic isn't there, what you get out of it is not worth all the hassle of using a VR headset.
• annor 3y ago
  Weak reasons. One reason is good enough, eyes hurts. Or not fitted. Or whatever. Is it a keeper if $ was lower, etc. let’s play a game of switching the order of reasons around, reverse and flip it. Not sure I see an intent to buy and keep it except to try it.
  • causal 3y ago
    I think #3 is a very strong reason. You could ostensibly get over the price, comfort, and quirks if you actually found it useful. Apple seems to be betting that some use-case or app will materialize and change this for them.
• paxys 3y ago
  Any product that has to be defended by "this is just V1, wait for it to get more mature before it can be useful" is doomed to fail, and this is the most common line in every Vision Pro review I have read. Every successful Apple product to date has been indispensable from the moment it is first launched. On the other hand if people aren't able to extract value out of a $3500 piece of tech in front of them today then no future version is going to be able to fix that.
  • SllX 3y ago
    > Every successful Apple product to date has been indispensable from the moment it is first launched. Counterpoint: the Apple Watch and AirPods were not indispensable from day one but became very successful product lines for Apple over time. I still wouldn’t call them indispensable (generally at least, I consider my AirPods Pro pretty damn indispensable personally though) and they still consistently bring in billions for Apple per quarter. However I am not optimistic about Apple Vision Pro. It’s Macintosh money with an iPad’s software distribution model. The iPad could never replace the Mac with that model, and I don’t see these being any more ambitious with what is public knowledge at the moment.
    • paxys 3y ago
      AirPods are the opposite of what you are claiming. They were massively successful from the moment they launched, so much so that Apple has made basically no changes to them over the years and their sales haven't slowed.
      • SllX 3y ago
        I recall them being a slower burn that first year, still a great year but not to the degree of their other new products; but in under 3 years they were part of what I at the time called the San Francisco uniform: 1. AirPods 2. Apple Watch 3. An iPhone, if not visible was implied. 4. A messenger bag, backpack or purse. 5. Sunglasses 6. Some kind of mask to filter out the smog from the fires in 2019.
  • j2bax 3y ago
• hobbitstan 3y ago
  [dead]
• bitwize 3y ago
  The Vision Pro is Apple's new 1984 Mac: costly, near useless, and absolutely at odds with how we use computers today. But it will change the world.
  • helf 3y ago
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• jl6 3y ago
  I think the $5000 price tag could make sense if it was genuinely good enough to replace a high-quality large external monitor (or several such displays). But as far as I can tell, it is not. Until then, there are cheaper ways to wear a strap-on.
• chx 3y ago
  This is your regular reminder to read https://disconnect.blog/apples-vision-pro-headset-deserves/ https://disconnect.blog/apples-vision-pro-headset-deserves/ > Tech companies want us isolated and constantly staring at screens because it drives profit > the tech industry has been incentivized to push our society in the direction of isolation because it serves their business models. Even The Verge admitted the Vision Pro is isolating this is why you shouldn't buy one or if you did, you should return it.
  • elicash 3y ago
    > Even The Verge admitted... The Verge gave weak ratings to the first AirPods and the first Apple Watch. Despite their issues (first version of watch was kinda slow, buggy on 3rd party apps), they were overall great devices. Maybe you agree with me here, maybe you don't, but the point is that the Verge is not somewhere that blindly says whatever new thing Apple creates is amazing. I am NOT AT ALL arguing this is a good device. I am, however, arguing that talking about the Verge like that isn't warranted. Also, to add in agreement to your overall point about it being isolating, MKBHD's latest video hits on the same point. So I agree with you, but just think the subtle swipe at the Verge was wrong. It's a great publication, even in the specific instances where I've disagreed with it. (And for AVP, I think they had the best review... which was somewhat negative.)
• symlinkk 3y ago
  I still can’t believe there is a huge battery attached to it that you have to keep in your pocket. How awkward is that? Meta’s headsets are totally wireless.
• mrweasel 3y ago
  I may be in the minority, but having been disappointed by how the world has been impacted by pretty much all new gadget since, and including, the smart phone, I can't see myself ever getting any VR headset. Apple might not be the worst, but do companies ever consider the long term negative consequences their business strategies? E.g. I'm never signing up to a social media platform ever again, strictly as a result of Facebooks and Twitters behavior. Knowing how much I struggle to limit the usage of my smart phone, why would I ever get yet another device that will remove me further from the real world?
• cerebra 3y ago
  This was never intended to appeal to broad consumer base. It's a v1, innovative and cutting-edge technology that Apple decided was ready enough to put in the hands of some early adopters and developers. It's priced out of the consumer market range and isn't intended to meet all the goals of a device ready to appeal to the broad consumer base. They want to get feedback from early adopters and developers to iterate on their software and marketplace, while they continue to drive down weight and cost and refine the hardware side of the device. The expectations for devices right now is pretty high given the decades of development we're accustomed to, but as an early adopter of the first iPhone itself, I remember how limited it was. If the iPhone v1 was released in the environment we have tooday, it'd be lambasted as being limited. No app store, no app switching, no notification center, etc. It took time and work with developers and users in the real world to start fleshing out the product. Same thing will happen with the Apple Vision. I can appreciate people reviewing the product and saying it's not for them, it's too heavy, it's not ready for mainstream use - but to me, they simply miss the point. It's a showcase device, only geared to those with money to burn, who are early adopters or developers. It shows a ton of promise, but it will be a generation or two before they fill in the product category under the "Pro" designation, and have an Apple Vision Air, Apple Vision, and Apple Vision Pro, with specs that appeal to broad audiences. It's coming, and their strategy to get the device in the hands of users and get feedback and folks developing on it, is a good one.
• faefox 3y ago
  This product will go the way of the Touch Bar in a couple of years. The original iPhone launched at roughly $742 adjusted for inflation. Apple Vision Pro starts at nearly five times that amount and from what I understand that's not factoring in much if any margin. If that is indeed the case Apple has a long, long road ahead before they can price this thing anywhere near a level where it makes sense for the average consumer or even the above-average enthusiast.
  • iteratethis 3y ago
    The same is true for developers. Creating engaging high quality spatial content/experiences is insanely difficult and expensive. It's something Disney can do, but not 99% of current iOS developers.
• hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
  One thing I just think is interesting re: the complaints about the price. First, I wholeheartedly agree - I can't imagine paying that much for something like this. But it also highlights how ridiculously cheap consumer electronics have become, and how much our expectations are baked into that. This reviewer paid a total of $5,013, including sales tax, for the Apple Vision Pro. The original Apple IIe, released in 1977, was priced at $12,740 in 2022 dollars for the max RAM model, not including tax.
• stephc_int13 3y ago
  Most people are dreaming of currently-impossible lightweight AR glasses. I think this is a product trap, trying to skip too many steps. It is like trying to build a smartphone in the 70s. They should go for a helmet. And I don't mean even bulkier ski-goggles, but a real full face helmet, fighter-pilot or biker style. Full of high-tech hardware but balanced in a way that makes it useable for more than 20 minutes. It is niche, but there is a market for that, the high-end simulation dudes are already forking good money into hardware. And that could also be useful as an actual tool. From there, they could build the most important part: the software, and slowly improve the form factor.
  • wombat-man 3y ago
    Yeah if I'm using this thing around the house anyway I don't mind.
• yashg 3y ago
  Must feel nice to be able to return opened devices for a full refund. In this part of the world you can only return it if the device had manufacturing defect and that too for a replacement device. Sometimes you can't even return that, you have to contact the manufacturer for warranty.
• codelobe 3y ago
  > The endgame in a few generations, ignoring physics, is a pair of eyeglasses Vuzix AV920 is closer to that, and many years earlier... I've been using VR since Quake and Descent came out in the 1990's. The tech still isn't there yet. I'm not sure why there's any new buzz over this old-n-busted "Now in 3D" tech from 3 decades ago. I prefer the slimmer form factor of Vuzix's (albeit older) offerings -- I simply WILL NOT strap a toaster oven to my face when I know that I don't have to do that just to get 3D imagery in my face. Disclaimer: I've been developing a 3D GUI that doesn't use glasses.