"Everyone wants a real keyboard on their phone. iPhone will be destroyed by Blackberry."
This is not that.
The iPhone had a clear cut mission. And it did it better than anyone else.
The blackberry looked outdated as soon as iPhone was announced and it started dying shortly after iPhone launch.
For every naysayer, there was someone who recognized the obvious.
With the apple headset, it really doesn’t have any clear mission or purpose. Some other people started doing this and so here’s apples take. That’s pretty much it. The really strange drawback is that immersive entertainment such as gaming is absent from apples presentation thus far. I guess they hope developers will find a way to create purpose for it. But Nintendo tried relying on developers with the ambiguous Wii U and ended up losing support and the product died an early death.
The tech is neat and could be fun. But it doesn’t really seem to have an honest to goodness reason to exist, unlike the iPhone, the watch, or the Mac - or even the rumored car.
Well, the Vision Pro made all other VR Goggles look like toys, mainly because Apple put out a new computer whereas others were busy selling gaming kits or "experience" kits.
It may not be in the "essential" category like the iPhone, but like the Apple Watch, I am sure it will grow.
I, for one, am really looking forward to getting this. I have been saving up for a top of the line MBP, but I am now pivoting towards this. Hopefully it will launch around the world this time next year.
For my (very casual) gaming needs I plan to get the PSVR2.
"Everyone wants a real keyboard on their phone. iPhone will be destroyed by Blackberry."
When the iPhone came out, it was presented as combining three already ubiquitous but separate devices - a phone and email client, an iPod, and a camera - and crucially, adding a unique third one, a usable web browser. Arguably, no one bought the first iPhone because it lacked 3G, and it didn't really take off until the App Store, but the value of having three high quality(!) devices and a web browser in one was apparent right away.
The VisionPro does a similar thing: it combines a computer with camera, mic and speakers; multiple monitors; and a large TV screen; and adds unique three-dimensionality/spatiality. Few will buy it because this combination is only valuable for few people (singles and frequent travellers), but once it becomes cheaper and multiple VP's can be connected and sync'ed together, I can see a use case where families use this for work and play and, finally, we can ban these ugly-ass TV screens from our dens and living rooms.
"Everyone wants a real keyboard on their phone. iPhone will be destroyed by Blackberry."
This is not that.
The iPhone had a clear cut mission. And it did it better than anyone else.
The blackberry looked outdated as soon as iPhone was announced and it started dying shortly after iPhone launch.
For every naysayer, there was someone who recognized the obvious.
With the apple headset, it really doesn’t have any clear mission or purpose. Some other people started doing this and so here’s apples take. That’s pretty much it. The really strange drawback is that immersive entertainment such as gaming is absent from apples presentation thus far. I guess they hope developers will find a way to create purpose for it. But Nintendo tried relying on developers with the ambiguous Wii U and ended up losing support and the product died an early death.
The tech is neat and could be fun. But it doesn’t really seem to have an honest to goodness reason to exist, unlike the iPhone, the watch, or the Mac - or even the rumored car.
Well, the Vision Pro made all other VR Goggles look like toys, mainly because Apple put out a new computer whereas others were busy selling gaming kits or "experience" kits.
It may not be in the "essential" category like the iPhone, but like the Apple Watch, I am sure it will grow.
I, for one, am really looking forward to getting this. I have been saving up for a top of the line MBP, but I am now pivoting towards this. Hopefully it will launch around the world this time next year.
For my (very casual) gaming needs I plan to get the PSVR2.
It won't come to Europe until 2025 at the earliest.
Apple Vision Pro is THE most important breakthrough in computing in the last 20 years.
Moving the computing environment from a finite, physical display screen that’s limited to a single, confined space/location… to an instantly and infinitely resizable, virtual, 3D, interactive world without borders, one that that goes with you ANYWHERE without the need for an external input device, and all WITHOUT limiting your ability to be present in the space you’re in and with the people you’re with… Spatial Computing is going to change EVERYTHING.
In as little as 2-3 years, people are going to start having allergic reactions to having to be confined to a small, fixed screen with a physical input device.
And it is SUPER CHEAP!
I remember feeling “lucky” to be able to get an IBM XT PC with a color monitor for under $7500 when they first came out, and that was in 1983 dollars. With inflation, that would be over $22,000 today. And it couldn’t do much more than Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheets and word processing and required a significant learning curve. But it was still a giant productivity boost for anyone who got one, which is why it took off.
It’s amazing that (even) Apple could bring out such incredibly advanced new technologies, custom chips, screens, sensors and more in a user friendly, beautiful design with a new input framework for such an affordable starting price of only $3499 to begin with.
It is so well developed, and thoroughly thought through, that you’d swear it was a third generation device.
Having nearly all our favorite apps that we already know how to use (and all our data on it via the Cloud) available on or near DAY ONE is going to make this a “must have” for many people, not limited to just early adopters.
Unlike the Mac, iPhone and Apple Watch which had very few apps for the first 1-2 years, this is launching fully loaded and capable out of the gate!
Once people see how the novelty of this new product category doesn’t require major learning curves, but SETS THEM FREE of space and location limitations, it will be like a breath of fresh air and will go mainstream much faster than ever before. We are already conditioned to learning new technologies every year with new iPhones, iPads, OS releases, etc., and this won’t be that different.
And as evidenced by EV’s now being adopted by the masses (in the millions each year), people are no longer afraid of new (user friendly) technologies.
So get ready to see 3D cameras on iPhones, FaceTime IP calls gaining on regular cellular calls, and AAPL stock hitting $4 Trillion market cap by mid 2025.
NEXT UP? (Hopefully!)
1) Apple Share+, transforming the irresponsible, privacy invading social media/network industry,
2) New, immersive, accessible e-learning frameworks transforming our rigid education infrastructure and bridging neurodiversity and cultural divides, and
3) Apple Travel, integrating Autonomous Driving with Smart Highways, RideSharing, and user-friendly Vehicle Design that makes Teslas (the current state of the art) feel “uninspired” by comparison.
“Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.”
For those who don’t get it, imagine the sensation of having this if you have a neuromuscular condition? For certain people with disabilities it will be freeing.
And as medical equipment goes $3500 is inexpensive.
I think this is going to be one of those times when Apple should have either waited another year or two to release the AR glasses Tim originally dreamed of - or it should have started with less ambitious AR glasses in the first place - eg ones that let the iPhone do all the heavy lifting computationally. The latter would have made it a lot easier to develop something people wouldn’t mind wearing in public.
Alas, Apple produced a super expensive engineering marvel that nobody outside extreme dorks would wear in public. The author says that developers are excited about this product - I bet their business bosses aren’t: who would they sell those Vision Pro apps to? There’s no market - at least not for another year or five.
I’d question your assumption that it needs (or should) be used in public. When desktop computers came out, nobody complained that they couldn’t be used in public. The use case was stationary. Eventually the technology grew to make that no longer necessary. I don’t see why this would be much different…for the immediate future, VR is for the home, not walking around town.
Desktop computers came out as stationary items for the desktop. They were big, bulky and heavy. They had no autonomy.
Desktop computing was basically for desktops.
They weren't for lugging around in public.
Part of XR (a massive part) is actually going to be outside or public use.
In 2023 that can't happen because we simply don't have the ICT infrastructure in place to move so much data around in real time to so many people. We don't have the storage space either. There are other issues like how much energy is used in cloud infrastructure just writing and reading to storage media.
Then there is the subject of formats.
The Vision Pro has skipped the ICT part by design. They could have included it very easily but general public use would have been very limited.
The OP has a valid point. Apple could have waited, perfected everything and released a fully XR product.
However, Apple has a valid point too in announcing now. I can see many reasons for this and one of them, IMO, is that Tim Cook wants to move on/retire before full XR becomes ubiquitous and wanted something associated with his name.
Another, is that a hybrid model might be an option which could physically detach from the unit and be used as classic glasses but with a AR-HUD style setup to overlay information. Or perhaps a completely different product for that.
Full XR will only be a realistic possibilty with 5.5G (2025 for some markets). There were full XR demos at MWC 2023 using prototype 5.5G setups.
For what it is today, I think it's compelling enough if you have the disposable income available to buy one. I'm sure they'll sell more of them than Mac Pros.
The full XR experience isn't all that far away though.
All this talk about reality pro ‘not solving a problem’. The iPad wasn’t solving a problem, it was a big iPhone according to everyone and look at its success. I think what many people can’t get their heads around is Apple have entered a market which is still in its infancy and it has revolutionised to a degree but the tech just isn’t there yet to make it mainstream. I think it had to be released now to take a bet on AR going somewhere rather than waiting to see if it gets big and being too late to the game. It builds credibility for them in this field as they continue to refine it.
Having a product that incorporates all the technologies Apple has been developing in separate pieces on the lab bench will also accelerate future development. Not just because it gets it out to external developers to exercise their own ideas against and consumers to react to, but because it gets it into the hands of Apple’s internal teams who have been working on pieces or prototypes.
This product has two dimensions. One is what it allows users to accomplish, with the many apps and use cases that will be developed for it going forward.
But the second dimension is that it acts as a platform to allow further development of machine leaning on the human mind and body. It allows Apple to gather data from volunteers in research projects, just like Apple Watch allowed research on heart arrhythmia to train a neural network to detect potentially dangerous irregularities. And how the Apple Watch can detect falls, vehicle accidents and other situations that weren’t initially conceived of. Since introduction, a myriad of new exercise routines have been added as neural networks have been trained to track these exercises based upon accelerometer movements combined with pulse rate and data stores of information potentially collected from other sources.
Similar combinatorial data sources and readings will allow Vision Pro, used across large numbers of volunteer users, to generate machine learning models that may support limited mind reading, fatigue, neurological issues or conditions, who knows what else. In short, each wearable is more than just a body-mounted computer; it’s an interface to our biological workings that will open new pathways for studying the human machine, and creating the next deeper level of machine/human interface.
I think this is going to be one of those times when Apple should have either waited another year or two to release the AR glasses Tim originally dreamed of - or it should have started with less ambitious AR glasses in the first place - eg ones that let the iPhone do all the heavy lifting computationally. The latter would have made it a lot easier to develop something people wouldn’t mind wearing in public.
Alas, Apple produced a super expensive engineering marvel that nobody outside extreme dorks would wear in public. The author says that developers are excited about this product - I bet their business bosses aren’t: who would they sell those Vision Pro apps to? There’s no market - at least not for another year or five.
Waiting a year or two could have doomed the product to failure. The best products are shipping products, not developmental products trapped in labs waiting for everyone, usually the engineers to declare it “perfect and ready to ship.” Perfection is unobtainable and being stuck in development creates tunnel vision and excessive inward focus. Even limited beta testing can provide insufficient feedback, especially when the beta testers feel privileged to be part of the process and are insufficiently critical, or too narrowly focused. The most important refinement comes actual use of the product in the field. (Not counting pharmaceutical, medical, safety, kinds of products.)
New product testing is comprised of two main areas of focus, verification and validation. Verification focuses on whether the as-built product meets all of the product requirements, quality, form, function, regulatory, etc., requirements. In other words does the product do exactly what the people who established the requirements asked for? Validation testing asks the question, does the product solve the problems that it needs to solve? The development team doesn’t always know the full scope of what those problems are, regardless of how many use cases they come up with. So even if the development team built exactly what they were asked to build, the product can be a total failure if the customer problems are not solved or not solved in a manner that is demanded by the customer.
I could go on at length about common pitfalls and blind spots in testing, but I think there are four words that clearly demonstrate a case where a development team, including all the testers and product owners, fell into a trap and failed to adequately validate what they built, from their perspective and after tons of verification, to perfection:
I have probably found my use case. Looking for a new OLED TV. LG G3 77” costs around 4.000 $… and it has to sit in my living room. So buying this for 3.500 $ as my portable large TV plus more usecases - at this moment it seems as a no brainer… but of course will have to wait to see it live, how good it is…
I have probably found my use case. Looking for a new OLED TV. LG G3 77” costs around 4.000 $… and it has to sit in my living room. So buying this for 3.500 $ as my portable large TV plus more usecases - at this moment it seems as a no brainer… but of course will have to wait to see it live, how good it is…
My main use chase would be on commercial flights. Back when laptop displays are shitty TN panels people next to you couldn't really see your display, but with the IPS panels plus really bright high res displays you can see what I'm watching. Now, I'm not watching porn, but I do wonder if the mature content I do watch might be too much for those around me. E.g.: I watch Sisu on my last flight.
Apple Vision would allow me to watch in a personal, private theatre, or just create a nice zen-like or wilderness environment when a 10 hour international flight starts to feel a bit too claustrophobic, for lack of a better term.
Plus, for those who fly economy class, the seats aren't great for laptops these days so a VR/AR headset would be a nice option to keep your tray table open for food and drink.
Marques Brownlee finished his hands on review by comparing this to the Apple Watch Series 0. You need to get the device in the hands of users to see how *they* want to use it. Developers and users will ultimately define how this is used and where Apple goes. They changed strategy based with Watch and it'll probably happen here.
I have probably found my use case. Looking for a new OLED TV. LG G3 77” costs around 4.000 $… and it has to sit in my living room. So buying this for 3.500 $ as my portable large TV plus more usecases - at this moment it seems as a no brainer… but of course will have to wait to see it live, how good it is…
Yep, that sound like what they are aiming to position it as - a replacement for an M2 laptop, two screens, and a large screen TV. But are you ready to watch EVERY TV show with this? I don't even put in my AirPods Pro regulararly, although that gives me Dolby Atmos which I don't have otherwise.
"Everyone wants a real keyboard on their phone. iPhone will be destroyed by Blackberry."
This is not that.
The iPhone had a clear cut mission. And it did it better than anyone else.
The blackberry looked outdated as soon as iPhone was announced and it started dying shortly after iPhone launch.
For every naysayer, there was someone who recognized the obvious.
With the apple headset, it really doesn’t have any clear mission or purpose. Some other people started doing this and so here’s apples take. That’s pretty much it. The really strange drawback is that immersive entertainment such as gaming is absent from apples presentation thus far. I guess they hope developers will find a way to create purpose for it. But Nintendo tried relying on developers with the ambiguous Wii U and ended up losing support and the product died an early death.
The tech is neat and could be fun. But it doesn’t really seem to have an honest to goodness reason to exist, unlike the iPhone, the watch, or the Mac - or even the rumored car.
The iPhone complete mission wasn’t as viscerally obvious at the announcement as you are remembering it. The biggest and most innovative element was touch control on glass and gestures with fingers such as scrolling and other gestures we now take for granted. And because the interface is so ubiquitous now with both Apple and competitors’ touch and gesture devices, we tend to think we got it fully at the iPhone announcement.
We got it only in a curious manner and were impressed. But folks had to wait months for the release to use it and be surprised at how it seemed so intuitive. And that was only the early adopters. But they let friends try it who had only heard the hype. They were entranced by the seeming obviousness of the gestures. The seeming obviousness was the result of years of development, testing and interdepartmental collaboration within Apple. They greatly refined and extended the technology they licensed from Xerox PARC to create Lisa and the Mac and the much later refined what they learned to create a gesture interface on glass to create a newer paradigm in personal pocket-able computers and phones
I remember folks ogling over trying out the iPhone even two years later. They finally understood the purpose two or three years later. I had a friend who is a genius at making things with creativity. He didn’t give up his flip phone for about six years because he valued hands free speaker conversations. The iPhone speaker wasn’t loud enough for about six or seven years. So he found purpose in his flip phone he didn’t want to give up and didn’t see purpose in the iPhone or Android phones.
So for 99% of people that didn’t have an iPhone, it didn’t have a purpose that they could perceive for several years. The copycats of Samsung et al, using Android actually were a help to sales of the iPhone as the purpose you speak of, slowly became realized by more and more people. It took tens of millions or more of the new very-smart phones in the wild for the general populace to start to understand the utility and purpose of the iPhone and Android knock-offs.
So, I’d say no—the purpose and utility of the iPhone was not apparent to 99.9% at announcement. Perhaps 10% saw possibilities for it in the future, but not so much purpose at the announcement. The purpose they heard sounded like hype for a couple of years.
With Vision Pro, Apple has shown us on 2-dimensional (2D) screens what they wanted to show us with up to eight months before some of us will be able to experience first hand when it is released. Apple and developers will continue to refine the features and user interface in software in that time.
The very few journalists that got to try the headset, albeit with limitations and restrictions imposed by Apple were mostly flabbergasted that they knew how to use it without instructions—‘it just worked!’, as the saying goes. The years of neurological research and machine learning applied in eye movements and other biofeedback that Apple incorporated resulted in easy to use eye control —which value can’t be realized in a brief presentation but only by the brief few who got to try the Vision Pro device. We have to wait until next year to evaluate it in the context of the whole experience of Vision Pro along with the so very many Apps that already exist that will get minor tweaks plus new Apps and the content yet to be produced between now and next year.
I think it is premature to pronounce that it has no purpose. It certainly seems it has a lot of possibilities that at some point in a couple of years could seem so obvious for many who use it and ‘get it’—and yet we will say we knew it when it was announced. That’s the way humans work.
The biggest misunderstanding in human history is that we think things were invented at a single stroke of insight; when actually most things we call inventions were developed over time. The cotton gin, the steam engine, light bulb, telegraph, telephone, phonograph, laser, seatbelts, internet and worldwide web, flat LCD and LED screens—all were long efforts of failures, partial successes and final success that was further refined to be useful and ubiquitous.
Apple has a history of announcing a product after it eliminates more failures and adds more refinements and integration than other big tech companies.
All I can say is that I enjoy curiosity, seeing possibilities, optimism and don’t need to know for sure how this will turn out. I don’t judge you for your opinion. It won’t be about who was originally right or wrong in the next year or in two years. It will be about what we are doing and if we are personally enjoying or not interested in this complex yet sometimes seemingly simple thing. I hope we have something to enjoy.
Comments
8k 100" displays cost as much as an EV
this would be my use case
It may not be in the "essential" category like the iPhone, but like the Apple Watch, I am sure it will grow.
I, for one, am really looking forward to getting this. I have been saving up for a top of the line MBP, but I am now pivoting towards this. Hopefully it will launch around the world this time next year.
For my (very casual) gaming needs I plan to get the PSVR2.
The VisionPro does a similar thing: it combines a computer with camera, mic and speakers; multiple monitors; and a large TV screen; and adds unique three-dimensionality/spatiality. Few will buy it because this combination is only valuable for few people (singles and frequent travellers), but once it becomes cheaper and multiple VP's can be connected and sync'ed together, I can see a use case where families use this for work and play and, finally, we can ban these ugly-ass TV screens from our dens and living rooms.
Apple Vision Pro is THE most important breakthrough in computing in the last 20 years.
Moving the computing environment from a finite, physical display screen that’s limited to a single, confined space/location… to an instantly and infinitely resizable, virtual, 3D, interactive world without borders, one that that goes with you ANYWHERE without the need for an external input device, and all WITHOUT limiting your ability to be present in the space you’re in and with the people you’re with… Spatial Computing is going to change EVERYTHING.
And it is SUPER CHEAP!
I remember feeling “lucky” to be able to get an IBM XT PC with a color monitor for under $7500 when they first came out, and that was in 1983 dollars. With inflation, that would be over $22,000 today. And it couldn’t do much more than Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheets and word processing and required a significant learning curve. But it was still a giant productivity boost for anyone who got one, which is why it took off.
It’s amazing that (even) Apple could bring out such incredibly advanced new technologies, custom chips, screens, sensors and more in a user friendly, beautiful design with a new input framework for such an affordable starting price of only $3499 to begin with.
Having nearly all our favorite apps that we already know how to use (and all our data on it via the Cloud) available on or near DAY ONE is going to make this a “must have” for many people, not limited to just early adopters.
So get ready to see 3D cameras on iPhones, FaceTime IP calls gaining on regular cellular calls, and AAPL stock hitting $4 Trillion market cap by mid 2025.
NEXT UP?
(Hopefully!)
1) Apple Share+, transforming the irresponsible, privacy invading social media/network industry,
2) New, immersive, accessible e-learning frameworks transforming our rigid education infrastructure and bridging neurodiversity and cultural divides, and
3) Apple Travel, integrating Autonomous Driving with Smart Highways, RideSharing, and user-friendly Vehicle Design that makes Teslas (the current state of the art) feel “uninspired” by comparison.
“Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.”
And as medical equipment goes $3500 is inexpensive.
Desktop computing was basically for desktops.
They weren't for lugging around in public.
Part of XR (a massive part) is actually going to be outside or public use.
In 2023 that can't happen because we simply don't have the ICT infrastructure in place to move so much data around in real time to so many people. We don't have the storage space either. There are other issues like how much energy is used in cloud infrastructure just writing and reading to storage media.
Then there is the subject of formats.
The Vision Pro has skipped the ICT part by design. They could have included it very easily but general public use would have been very limited.
The OP has a valid point. Apple could have waited, perfected everything and released a fully XR product.
However, Apple has a valid point too in announcing now. I can see many reasons for this and one of them, IMO, is that Tim Cook wants to move on/retire before full XR becomes ubiquitous and wanted something associated with his name.
Another, is that a hybrid model might be an option which could physically detach from the unit and be used as classic glasses but with a AR-HUD style setup to overlay information. Or perhaps a completely different product for that.
Full XR will only be a realistic possibilty with 5.5G (2025 for some markets). There were full XR demos at MWC 2023 using prototype 5.5G setups.
For what it is today, I think it's compelling enough if you have the disposable income available to buy one. I'm sure they'll sell more of them than Mac Pros.
The full XR experience isn't all that far away though.
Similar combinatorial data sources and readings will allow Vision Pro, used across large numbers of volunteer users, to generate machine learning models that may support limited mind reading, fatigue, neurological issues or conditions, who knows what else. In short, each wearable is more than just a body-mounted computer; it’s an interface to our biological workings that will open new pathways for studying the human machine, and creating the next deeper level of machine/human interface.
New product testing is comprised of two main areas of focus, verification and validation. Verification focuses on whether the as-built product meets all of the product requirements, quality, form, function, regulatory, etc., requirements. In other words does the product do exactly what the people who established the requirements asked for? Validation testing asks the question, does the product solve the problems that it needs to solve? The development team doesn’t always know the full scope of what those problems are, regardless of how many use cases they come up with. So even if the development team built exactly what they were asked to build, the product can be a total failure if the customer problems are not solved or not solved in a manner that is demanded by the customer.
I could go on at length about common pitfalls and blind spots in testing, but I think there are four words that clearly demonstrate a case where a development team, including all the testers and product owners, fell into a trap and failed to adequately validate what they built, from their perspective and after tons of verification, to perfection:
”You’re holding it wrong.”
(btw: the demo did not enough to highlight the possibilities of 3D).
Though 8k is 33 million pixels so it's still a way off.
plus really bright high res displays you can see what I'm watching. Now, I'm not watching porn, but I do wonder if the mature content I do watch might be too much for those around me. E.g.: I watch Sisu on my last flight.
Apple Vision would allow me to watch in a personal, private theatre, or just create a nice zen-like or wilderness environment when a 10 hour international flight starts to feel a bit too claustrophobic, for lack of a better term.
Plus, for those who fly economy class, the seats aren't great for laptops these days so a VR/AR headset would be a nice option to keep your tray table open for food and drink.