twolf2919

I don't think Apple - or the author of this article - have made a convincing argument for the Vision Pro being a boon for productivity.  Yes, you have a large workspace - but how is it 'infinite' if at most you can put up whatever windows fit on the inside of a sphere?  Sure, you can overlap windows infinitely - just like you can with a regular monitor - or you can walk around and place windows elsewhere in your 3D space - but then  you're no longer seeing those initial windows either!  Anyway, at some point you get to a point of diminishing returns - you won't find the windows you're looking for.  Already today most information workers have multiple monitors and/or virtual desktops.  If they think they need more workspace to be more productive, they can simply buy another $500 monitor - no need to pay $3500 for a 'spatial computer'.

The Vision Pro *will* be a productivity boon to those who travel, no doubt.  There's simply no way to carry around multiple monitors on business trips.  But the folks who travel the most (executives, sales, marketing) are not typically the folks who need multiple monitors.

So if 'infinite workspaces' aren't really that much of a productivity enhancer, what's left?  Perhaps the eye-tracking + pinch is a split-second faster than the mouse move + click?  Hard to justify $3500 for a few seconds saved per work day.  What about all the other mouse/keyboard related actions people do every day - there are literally thousands in a modern GUI.  They cannot all be replicated with simple eye tracking and hand gestures.  Take the simple use case of copy/paste.  Done a million times a day in a work environment: click on or drag on some text or file to select it, hit <ctrl-c> to put it in the clipboard, then click the mouse somewhere and hit <ctrl-v>.  I don't think this can be done efficiently with eye tracking and gestures alone - e.g. how do you even use eye tracking to pick a word vs. a sentence vs. a paragraph?   And if the user has to resort to using a keyboard, mouse, or Siri, by the time they've accomplished the task, a regular PC user will have done 10 of those operations.

The author says that the Vision Pro could help collaboration and gives some nebulous use case involving FaceTime and travel.  But let's take a much more concrete use case: you're at the office and want to show your work to your coworkers.  It's showing in a window in your workspace - but your colleagues can't see it.  You can't all huddle around the monitor and share ideas.  Sure, if everyone on your team has Vision Pro, you may be able to do so 'virtually', but it won't be nearly as seamless & spontaneous proposition as simply calling your coworkers over to come see/discuss.

The proof is in the pudding, as they say.  I'd like to see one concrete work related use case in which a Vision Pro would blow away the standard computer + monitor(s) + keyboard + mouse.   Not some hypothetical, future uses cases - that's not what businesses use when they decide whether to move their employees to new hardware.

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.

For accessory makers to succeed - i.e. make money - they need to be able to sell to enough customers.  For the iPhone and Apple Watch that was millions in the first year alone.  This headset won't even reach 100,000 by the end of its first year by most people's estimates - and even that is still 1.5 years away.

Yes, people spending $3,500 want to protect and accessorize their new toy - but finding an accessory maker dumb enough to invest into making accessories for it might be a challenge.

I guess this is Apple's way of keeping you from talking trash about Siri LOL.  Even with "Hey Siri" there have been so many times when Siri activated when I didn't even give that command.  And forget it when someone on TV actually says "Hey Siri" - I've lost count how many times that activated the HomePod's Siri :-(

But the nice thing about 'hope' is that it springs eternal :-)  Siri will surely get better...tomorrow.

I watched the introduction and couldn't help but laugh when I saw this thing: like a mix of ski and scuba goggles - bonus: the "see through" eyes that seem slightly larger than real-life LOL.  Then I noticed the tether that every shot tried so desperately to hide - in hair, scarfs...anything.  By the time I saw the price I already knew this was DOA - the $3500 was just the flowers on the grave.

Don't get me wrong: from a technical perspective, Apple did an amazing job.  But this product is done in by its form factor - nobody wants to be even more isolated than they already are by wearing dorky goggles, tethered to some batteries in your pocket no less - and by the lack of a killer app.   You heard the word "replace" a lot during the presentation - it can "replace" a large screen TV (not mentioned, of course, is that it can only do so when you're alone)...it can replace multiple monitors so you can work with more of your apps (of course, interacting with those apps is a lot more clumsy than with a physical keyboard and mouse/touchpad)....I kept looking for the metaphor that best fits this product as presented - "jumped the shark" came to mind.  Apple just threw everything it had at the board and hoped that something will stick to make this product succeed.  But I really don't see a standout feature I'd pay $3500 for.  Heck - I don't see a standout feature I'd pay $1000 for.  Now - if this had been presented in a nice pair of stylish AR glasses without an insane tether to an external battery, I might have been convinced....wait another 3-5 years, I guess.