So confusing to read this site lately. Depending on the writer, the Vision Pro is either the second coming or a total disaster. Isn't the job of the editor to have a consistent tone?
I've heard it too often now. Health and fitness was one of the 3 tentpole features Apple designed the Apple Watch for. There was literally a Watch called the "Watch Sport" in the original lineup. It was definitely what they designed it for. It wasn't a change in direction or anything. It's was just incremental feature improvements.
Yes, the original Apple Watch had health features and fitness tracking, of course it did. But I'm referring to the dramatic change in the operating system and change in emphasis on features. The original launch focused on Digital Touch, having contacts attached to the side button, and running iPhone-attached apps.
By watchOS 3 all of that was abandoned. Apple moved to a fitness and health first focus, notification triage as a feature, and on-device app experiences.
The changes were dramatic and constant in the beginning.
Apple is all about iteration they did not abandoned anything, that would be Google.
There's an assumption built in here that so-called "spatial computing" is a real thing that anyone really wants.
That's still to be determined.
Being a long time Mac user, from way back in the day, many, many people considered the Mac a toy because of its GUI and they didn’t see the benefit of it because they couldn’t think beyond a command line. So doubting Apple and their vision is a fool’s errand, especially considering the several times they’ve released something that was doomed to fail only to end up to redefining (or owning) their respective markets. Apple doesn’t just throw a device out onto the market without thinking about the entire ecosystem or platform that does or will go along with it.
The unfortunately aspect of the product is that it sat in R&D for so long, it got stuck with an M2 instead of an M3 (Although as far as SoC’s go, I think the rejiggered M3 Pro was designed to end up in this device.).
What do you mean by dramatic? What changed in the operating system? How about some UI screenshots?
I use my Apple Watch as a notification device all the time. Phone calls, text message replays. That's not Digital Touch or sending heartbeats, but it is still communication, which was a tentpole type feature from the beginning. I basically use the Apple Watch in accordance to the original tentpoles: time, fitness, communication, and weather. Don't see any big changes.
You want me to do the research and gather screenshots from an operating system that existed nearly a decade ago because you don't understand my point? Yeah, sorry, no.
If you believe you're correct, go nuts. Or go look at the information yourself. It's not like I'm unique in my perspective since it's what happened.
What changed? The entire functionality of the operating system. How apps were loaded. What the buttons did. What data was obtained and processed on device versus on the phone. Native SDKs weren't even available until watchOS 2.
The platform got turned on its head. Go look into it, it's quite the fascinating history. Or don't, I don't care. lol
I'm just tired of hearing people say the original Apple Watch was not a health and fitness device and Apple had to change direction. That is simply not true.
There's actually a lot of revisionist history going on around iPhone, iPad and Watch (some include iPod and the Apple retail stores as well).
There certainly were critics and doubters for all of these. But not everyone was in that camp. Furthermore, Apple did have early success in each of them. They each were also addressing a fairly clear, known, and understood set of problems but doing so in the inimitable Apple way. They brought an Apple level of excellence, design and—dare I say—panache to product categories that needed them.
AVP may end up being a similar success. But its prospects are murkier right now. As I've said before I don't hear a lot of people clamoring for something called "spatial computing" or having a huge desire to strap a device to their face for hours. There might be. I'm just not hearing or seeing it. Speaking for myself, I actually want my devices to be of a more environment, unobtrusive, ambient nature. Smart devices around me and even on me but not in an obtrusive way. AVP looks pretty obtrusive to me. I want even smarter watches, maybe AirPods (to be used to sometimes but not always), a more reliable and consistent HomeKit/AirPlay/Siri/HomePod ecosystem, etc. Devices I can more casually interact with in ways that make my life better. But that's me. I'm not particularly interested in immersive experiences like AVP. Possibly millions of other people are.
Yes. I agree very much.
I would say that for most people, it is not really a purposeful revisionist history. People just don't remember, and what is remembered is often just filler filled from whatever or an imagining of what happened, while the historical account is really multi-factorial. Or the history is sacrificed in order to make a point.
One interesting aspect for success for the Vision Pro is that eye and hand tracking comes to the iPad, Macs and external displays. It would be a new and different UI mechanism and that just doesn't happen. In the old days, when focus-follows-mouse or focus-follows-click for keyboard input was raging, I wondered what happens if keyboard input focus followed your eyes.
One of things that would spell trouble is people often look at something else while typing. How will the Vision Pro deal with this? We will see. I'm imagining only front-most windows will have keyboard input focus, and therefore the user will have to bring it to the front with a look and pinch before typing. Then, various UI controls will by live to look at, which is basically the click-thru on macOS.
I've heard it too often now. Health and fitness was one of the 3 tentpole features Apple designed the Apple Watch for. There was literally a Watch called the "Watch Sport" in the original lineup. It was definitely what they designed it for. It wasn't a change in direction or anything. It's was just incremental feature improvements.
Yes, the original Apple Watch had health features and fitness tracking, of course it did. But I'm referring to the dramatic change in the operating system and change in emphasis on features. The original launch focused on Digital Touch, having contacts attached to the side button, and running iPhone-attached apps.
By watchOS 3 all of that was abandoned. Apple moved to a fitness and health first focus, notification triage as a feature, and on-device app experiences.
The changes were dramatic and constant in the beginning.
You're 100% right. It was a big change based on seeing how people really use the thing.
And I think with AVP, the revisions/reactions will be even bigger. There's limited room for third party apps to affect a watch. But AVP is more like the Mac or Apple II in the sense that third party apps will be a huge part of it. An Apple Watch without third party apps is still a useful thing that people would buy. A Mac without third party apps is nearly pointless. I think AVP is going to be more like the Mac in that regard.
Thinking about the Apple II, it was released in 1977. VisiCalc was released in 1979; Print Shop in 1984. The Apple II becomes much more useful to many more people when those critical apps were released.
My guess is that the 'killer app' will be something akin to JARVIS from Iron Man -- that is, an AI that sees what you see, as you see it, and helps you make sense of it (while also answering your questions). But that's far easier said than done and implementation details are everything. Apple can't figure that out by themselves. Figuring that out is what this iteration of AVP is about.
If anyone is aware, the timeframe for metalenz, nanolens tech is around 2026. The tech that will allow for thin headsets without all the glass.
I have been wondering, why the screen up-front with eyes for AVP? Now, you all know that sunglasses make you feel uneasy when talking to someone wearing them.. This is the reason they did the eyesight thing or whatever it is called. Metalenz will not allow for transparent lenses, so they need to have eyes showing through a display when talking with a person. I am quite sure this is a feature that is vital for the success of AR glasses you wear for any amount of time in public and in social situations.
Yes, I do believe AVP is positioning for the metalenz tech to arrive. Both software and hardware. I would say it is not a developer system, but Apple Vision 0.5
The screen up-front with eyes mean that in the future you the end user can change the look, in short have fun with them in some way, someone Apple or third party will write a program to add a bit of whimsy to the Apple Vision experience. The negativity is short-sighed.
But here’s hoping apple actually some tricks up its sleeves to eventually make this thing compelling.
Not feeling it up to now. Still waiting for the glasses/sunglasses.
But if apple can do something with what they have now, I’d love to see it happen.
Until then (and after), I’d really love to see some redline innovation happen on the Mac side of things.
Beta testing is about identifying and fixing bugs. That's an entirely different thing. I'm not saying there are zero bugs in AVP -- I'm sure there will be bugs, there always are. But I'm sure Apple is releasing AVP with as few bugs as possible.
Buying an AVP today is kind of like buying a Mac in 1985. You're one of a small number of people buying an early iteration of an entirely new product, whose full purpose and potential are far from being realized. Your experiences, feedback, and in some cases software development, will contribute to the AVP evolving into whatever it will become.
My first Mac was the IIsi, which was released in 1990. I could easily imagine waiting five years from now before buying an Apple Vision product.
After the Apple Watch came out I remember seeing articles up to two years later proclaiming it a flop. Not everything is an overnight success, including the iPhone.
The Verge and many other tech publications/websites wrote articles for years saying Apple is doomed and someone (Microsoft/Google) was going to catch up to Apple and the iPhone, and that scenario (train of thought) has been repeated over and over thru the years....
You could argue the iPhone wasn’t “ready” when it was first released. Apple quickly saw how the device was being used and focused on improving that. I believe the same will be true for the Vision Pro, though I would say the VP is more ready based in part on the massive library of apps already available for it. But will it be mainly used for productivity or entertainment? Nobody will know until it is released into the wild. Once they know this, then they can figure out what design/form factor would compatible with it.
Hands down, the best article and analysis I've read about Vision Pro. An exemplary job, Wesley! Forward-looking and positive without fanboy excesses while absolutely clear-eyed about the challenges ahead. I don't know if Vision Pro will ultimately succeed, but as someone who is passionate about technology, I'm excited by the prospect that it could. And I appreciated the sense of excitement in your writing for the potential of spatial computing.
One other falsehood making the rounds that the Apple Vision is a Beta/development device its ability will never be less than what will be released on February 2 2024. The hardware the M2, R1, Battery, and everything else (software) will only get better thru Apple iteration, the performance level and the materials won't be made less (plastic) to meet a lower price point.
A fully spec out MacBook Pro or iPad Pro haven't been reduced in price or performance over the years the price is the price, in time the glass face may get cheaper thru manufacturing techniques and more sources other than Sony over time and therefore price may drop a little but don't hold your breath.
So confusing to read this site lately. Depending on the writer, the Vision Pro is either the second coming or a total disaster. Isn't the job of the editor to have a consistent tone?
No. All of the content contributors on this site have their own individual and unique experiences, perspectives, and insights. The purpose of this site is not to change your way of thinking or compel you to follow a prescribed pattern or behavior. Presenting different perspectives on the same topic or subject matter allows us to be exposed to more and different ways of looking at something from a group of knowledgeable sources, each of whom has independently considered what the topic or subject matter means to them and how they react in order to identify their own pros and cons.
As readers we are free to absorb all the information, gather insight into perspectives that we may not have considered on our own, and apply our own thought processes and priorities. We have to come up with our own pros and cons based on what matters to us. Some of ours may match some of theirs, but they may also be very different. For example, with all the talk about Apple Watch's evolution, I absorbed other's pros and cons from Series 1 through Series 4. But I can say with certainty that what compelled me to move from Apple Watch Series 0 to Apple Watch Series 5 was the fact that the newer watch was much more water resistant, had an always-on display, and had LTE for the rare times when my Apple Watch and iPhone get separated. I basically use the newer watch exactly as I used the older watch.
After the Apple Watch came out I remember seeing articles up to two years later proclaiming it a flop. Not everything is an overnight success, including the iPhone.
People keep making these comparisons and it's odd. Things like iPod, iPhone, iPad and Watch addressed existing markets and existing use cases in new, interesting, and vastly improved ways. The market and use cases for AVP are much less clear.
THIS! The iPod solved the digital music problem, and improved on the Walkman. The iPhone solved the bad smartphone devices in 2007. The Apple Watch kinda solved wearables, but almost all developers have abandoned the Watch, and Apple pushes it more for fitness than having a 'killer app'. AR/VR has been a dead market for years. Apple calling it Spatial Computing is silly, it is AR. Vision Pro is an answer looking for a question. No one wants to wear goggles and Apple is going to have a hard time convincing people to wear goggles to run apps. And the $3500 in today's economy is out of reach by most consumers. Apple only made 180K of them, so that is telling. It is a niche product that most won't be interested in.
AVP can be a huge success even if it never becomes a huge consumer success. The possibilities for education, training, assisted skills, are staggering.
Apple designed it for one person only. The majority of people need prescription lenses. So how do you use it for education, training, or assisted skills when the device is pretty much fit for one person only? Anyone with glasses can't put on VisionPro and see the AR image clearly, since Apple designed it to require special lenses if you need glasses.
There's an assumption built in here that so-called "spatial computing" is a real thing that anyone really wants.
That's still to be determined.
Being a long time Mac user, from way back in the day, many, many people considered the Mac a toy because of its GUI and they didn’t see the benefit of it because they couldn’t think beyond a command line. So doubting Apple and their vision is a fool’s errand, especially considering the several times they’ve released something that was doomed to fail only to end up to redefining (or owning) their respective markets. Apple doesn’t just throw a device out onto the market without thinking about the entire ecosystem or platform that does or will go along with it.
The unfortunately aspect of the product is that it sat in R&D for so long, it got stuck with an M2 instead of an M3 (Although as far as SoC’s go, I think the rejiggered M3 Pro was designed to end up in this device.).
I don't think the unfortunate aspects of AVP have much to do with CPU generation and its related power. It has more to do with a question of the real use case. Yes, some people in 1984 viewed the Macintosh as a "toy". But it's difficult to deny that it was addressing a real use case and market. Personal computing was already a thing. They made it more personal. Computers were for more technically proficient people. They made one "for the rest of us." They went after something that existed with a new twist and a level of excellence that previously didn't exist. I guess I'm sitting trying to figure I why the heck I would want or use AVP. What would I do with it? Why/how is it better than what I have now?
It's perfectly appropriate for you not to buy one or not to like it. It's a wearable, and last time I checked, everyone doesn't wear the same shoes, hats, glasses, clothes, etc. A significant fraction of people will simply not be able to use it for various reasons, like motion sickness, sinus pressure, eye pressure, neck strain. Odds are good that I won't be able to use even though I really want to. I'd use it for work all day if the apps are available.
It is Apple's job to sell enough so they can get to the next iteration. They have already told you what the tentpole features are: 1) infinite canvas for productivity, 2) an entertainment device, and 3) a VR experience device (immersion). Facetime, new types of apps are the bottom of the list in the PR.
So, what do you do for work? Do you need a lot of display space? If yes, Apple is saying Vision Pro is a solution for users with workflows who become more productive with more display space. It is the number one tentpole feature. It is for me. But, Apple has a lot of work to do in this area. Terminal.app or bust. This has to be there to maximize the number of people who'd like to buy it. Then, a cross-compatible MS Office, and by cross-compatible, I mean 99% feature compatible to Windows Office. The last table stake thing is a fully featured web browser.
Apple doesn't even have Pages or Numbers on it yet, so they are way behind. Then, no one has really answered if small text can be read on it. You can read text on iPhones on it, but if so, why not physical Mac displsys? No hint of Terminal.app. For some web workflow users, it would be great. Like stock traders. They have 6 big windows of nothing but realtime stock share prices, multiple windows for news, research, etc. Great for research heavy writers. All this contingent on a great web browser. visionOS Safari looks like a modified iPadOS Safari. Don't think that is good enough and they'll need to iterate. Hmm, how will text boxes inside browser views be controlled? What about scrolling a view inside a browser view. Eye tracking I suppose.
Like I said, they are behind. But, you can already see the potential. We just don't know how much farther in hardware they have to go. Variable focus lens probably has to be there for this type of product to be mature. They may have cracked the UI for a headset though. That really is the biggest innovation. The one that makes everything possible. An effective eye and hand tracking UI is really what is attracting me.
I don't have much interest in the entertainment aspects, but for some that might be worth the price. Not much input from me there. No interest for seeing faces or avatars in video meetings either. But more display space? It's the dream.
Look at the HomePod — defining it as a success or failure changes depending on who you ask. We'll never truly know since Apple doesn't break out sales figures, but it's still for sale, so it's doing something for the company.
I've recently decided to move to full-size HomePods for home theater and some mini HomePods to replace my Amazon Echos.
I was doubtful of my ordering until the very last minute that Friday morning. I knew this was the Ultimate early adopter Apple device (cost vs. practicality).
What pushed me over was: 1) I suspected that the next models would be a long way out 2) Darkly, Who knows what the world will be like for the next iteration? 3) I just wanted to experience it and half an hour in an Apple Store wasn't going to cut it
I had zero expectation to order one, and then a few hours after it went on sale I pulled the trigger. This product may not be as clear and as obvious as other products Apple has created, but I'm hearing the same bellyaching as every other Apple product. The iPad was DOA because it didn't run macOS blah blah blah. The iPhone was too big, no physical keyboard, etc. I even read about how the Apple Watch was a pointless product on AnandTech this week and that's a product I find to be indispensable.
I'm not sure if I'll find a need for it, but I'm going to test it out to see what it can do for me. If I don't care for it in its current form I'll simply return it. That's always the risk a retailer takes so I'm hoping that Apple has planned through this and will wow me in a few weeks.
I'm also seeing comments about how there is nothing to compare it to and how there is no established market, but both of things are patently false. VR exists and has existed for a very long time. You can go to any major retailer that sells CE and pick up an Meta Quest right now. I've used several versions of it and Sony PSVR over the years that many people I've known have owned (and loved), but the quality simply didn't move the needle for me. If my usage goes well enough I may simply keep it for using on long flights. Assuming the weight isn't too much, being able to lean back fully (or lie flat or on my side as some airlines offer beds) and watch a high-quality display might be a nice way to pass the time on a long flight. I will explore this soon.
I think Vision OS is much more than Apple Vision Pro.
Apple now has not just awesome real time OS technology, but the R1 chip's ability to accurately process lots of sensor data in real time is something to keep an eye on.
These things may very well be Apple Car technology being introduced now to be refined for the future. This technology could be used in navigation of cars, airplanes, space ships etc...
Comments
You will know it went you see it in person like 2007....
Apple is all about iteration they did not abandoned anything, that would be Google.
Being a long time Mac user, from way back in the day, many, many people considered the Mac a toy because of its GUI and they didn’t see the benefit of it because they couldn’t think beyond a command line. So doubting Apple and their vision is a fool’s errand, especially considering the several times they’ve released something that was doomed to fail only to end up to redefining (or owning) their respective markets. Apple doesn’t just throw a device out onto the market without thinking about the entire ecosystem or platform that does or will go along with it.
The unfortunately aspect of the product is that it sat in R&D for so long, it got stuck with an M2 instead of an M3 (Although as far as SoC’s go, I think the rejiggered M3 Pro was designed to end up in this device.).
I would say that for most people, it is not really a purposeful revisionist history. People just don't remember, and what is remembered is often just filler filled from whatever or an imagining of what happened, while the historical account is really multi-factorial. Or the history is sacrificed in order to make a point.
One interesting aspect for success for the Vision Pro is that eye and hand tracking comes to the iPad, Macs and external displays. It would be a new and different UI mechanism and that just doesn't happen. In the old days, when focus-follows-mouse or focus-follows-click for keyboard input was raging, I wondered what happens if keyboard input focus followed your eyes.
One of things that would spell trouble is people often look at something else while typing. How will the Vision Pro deal with this? We will see. I'm imagining only front-most windows will have keyboard input focus, and therefore the user will have to bring it to the front with a look and pinch before typing. Then, various UI controls will by live to look at, which is basically the click-thru on macOS.
And I think with AVP, the revisions/reactions will be even bigger. There's limited room for third party apps to affect a watch. But AVP is more like the Mac or Apple II in the sense that third party apps will be a huge part of it. An Apple Watch without third party apps is still a useful thing that people would buy. A Mac without third party apps is nearly pointless. I think AVP is going to be more like the Mac in that regard.
Thinking about the Apple II, it was released in 1977. VisiCalc was released in 1979; Print Shop in 1984. The Apple II becomes much more useful to many more people when those critical apps were released.
My guess is that the 'killer app' will be something akin to JARVIS from Iron Man -- that is, an AI that sees what you see, as you see it, and helps you make sense of it (while also answering your questions). But that's far easier said than done and implementation details are everything. Apple can't figure that out by themselves. Figuring that out is what this iteration of AVP is about.
The screen up-front with eyes mean that in the future you the end user can change the look, in short have fun with them in some way, someone Apple or third party will write a program to add a bit of whimsy to the Apple Vision experience. The negativity is short-sighed.
Beta testing is about identifying and fixing bugs. That's an entirely different thing. I'm not saying there are zero bugs in AVP -- I'm sure there will be bugs, there always are. But I'm sure Apple is releasing AVP with as few bugs as possible.
Buying an AVP today is kind of like buying a Mac in 1985. You're one of a small number of people buying an early iteration of an entirely new product, whose full purpose and potential are far from being realized. Your experiences, feedback, and in some cases software development, will contribute to the AVP evolving into whatever it will become.
My first Mac was the IIsi, which was released in 1990. I could easily imagine waiting five years from now before buying an Apple Vision product.
The Verge and many other tech publications/websites wrote articles for years saying Apple is doomed and someone (Microsoft/Google) was going to catch up to Apple and the iPhone, and that scenario (train of thought) has been repeated over and over thru the years....
A fully spec out MacBook Pro or iPad Pro haven't been reduced in price or performance over the years the price is the price, in time the glass face may get cheaper thru manufacturing techniques and more sources other than Sony over time and therefore price may drop a little but don't hold your breath.
As readers we are free to absorb all the information, gather insight into perspectives that we may not have considered on our own, and apply our own thought processes and priorities. We have to come up with our own pros and cons based on what matters to us. Some of ours may match some of theirs, but they may also be very different. For example, with all the talk about Apple Watch's evolution, I absorbed other's pros and cons from Series 1 through Series 4. But I can say with certainty that what compelled me to move from Apple Watch Series 0 to Apple Watch Series 5 was the fact that the newer watch was much more water resistant, had an always-on display, and had LTE for the rare times when my Apple Watch and iPhone get separated. I basically use the newer watch exactly as I used the older watch.
Apple designed it for one person only. The majority of people need prescription lenses. So how do you use it for education, training, or assisted skills when the device is pretty much fit for one person only? Anyone with glasses can't put on VisionPro and see the AR image clearly, since Apple designed it to require special lenses if you need glasses.
It is Apple's job to sell enough so they can get to the next iteration. They have already told you what the tentpole features are: 1) infinite canvas for productivity, 2) an entertainment device, and 3) a VR experience device (immersion). Facetime, new types of apps are the bottom of the list in the PR.
So, what do you do for work? Do you need a lot of display space? If yes, Apple is saying Vision Pro is a solution for users with workflows who become more productive with more display space. It is the number one tentpole feature. It is for me. But, Apple has a lot of work to do in this area. Terminal.app or bust. This has to be there to maximize the number of people who'd like to buy it. Then, a cross-compatible MS Office, and by cross-compatible, I mean 99% feature compatible to Windows Office. The last table stake thing is a fully featured web browser.
Apple doesn't even have Pages or Numbers on it yet, so they are way behind. Then, no one has really answered if small text can be read on it. You can read text on iPhones on it, but if so, why not physical Mac displsys? No hint of Terminal.app. For some web workflow users, it would be great. Like stock traders. They have 6 big windows of nothing but realtime stock share prices, multiple windows for news, research, etc. Great for research heavy writers. All this contingent on a great web browser. visionOS Safari looks like a modified iPadOS Safari. Don't think that is good enough and they'll need to iterate. Hmm, how will text boxes inside browser views be controlled? What about scrolling a view inside a browser view. Eye tracking I suppose.
Like I said, they are behind. But, you can already see the potential. We just don't know how much farther in hardware they have to go. Variable focus lens probably has to be there for this type of product to be mature. They may have cracked the UI for a headset though. That really is the biggest innovation. The one that makes everything possible. An effective eye and hand tracking UI is really what is attracting me.
I don't have much interest in the entertainment aspects, but for some that might be worth the price. Not much input from me there. No interest for seeing faces or avatars in video meetings either. But more display space? It's the dream.
I'm not sure if I'll find a need for it, but I'm going to test it out to see what it can do for me. If I don't care for it in its current form I'll simply return it. That's always the risk a retailer takes so I'm hoping that Apple has planned through this and will wow me in a few weeks.
I'm also seeing comments about how there is nothing to compare it to and how there is no established market, but both of things are patently false. VR exists and has existed for a very long time. You can go to any major retailer that sells CE and pick up an Meta Quest right now. I've used several versions of it and Sony PSVR over the years that many people I've known have owned (and loved), but the quality simply didn't move the needle for me. If my usage goes well enough I may simply keep it for using on long flights. Assuming the weight isn't too much, being able to lean back fully (or lie flat or on my side as some airlines offer beds) and watch a high-quality display might be a nice way to pass the time on a long flight. I will explore this soon.
Apple now has not just awesome real time OS technology, but the R1 chip's ability to accurately process lots of sensor data in real time is something to keep an eye on.
These things may very well be Apple Car technology being introduced now to be refined for the future. This technology could be used in navigation of cars, airplanes, space ships etc...
Time will tell.