This is such a wild product unveiling. The dystopian scenes of a dad photographing his playing children through the mask that separates him from those same children; the FaceTime with an avatar that looks merely okay, making the idea of FaceTiming with an avatar on both ends of the call seem oddly pointless; the high cost; … and then the fact that it does look like an incredible piece of technology. The subtle hand gestures, the almost trope-y at this point potential to have a giant screen wherever you are, the reality dial, etc. all looked amazing. But then again, the size, intrusiveness, battery life, etc. It was an unveiling with incredible downsides to go with seemingly every bit of appeal.
I like that it has those highs and lows. Maybe it’s not for me, but it’s a real swing at something.
Dystopian is an apt description. It does look like something straight out of a black mirror episode. A lot of recent technology is really embracing the uncanny valley feeling.
It only strong black mirror vibes, but like meta level black mirror vibes, where you know Apple know that this has strong black mirror vibes and were like fuck it, let’s power through and engineer the shit out of this, which only gets us closer to black mirror, which is exactly what the show was about (the black mirror of an iPhone screen and the inevitable futures we can’t resist).
I’m hoping that Apple are hoping that the product will find some niches and that not everything they have thought of will work but that’s ok for them.
I’ve always said that I prefer any kind of venture that shoots for the moon and fails compared to something that plays it safe and succeeds.
We have the moonshot, though whether or not it will fail remains to be seen.
Great description. Here’s the full video:
At $3500 the Meta Quest lineup of products immediately looks better in comparison.
I feel like so many of these companies doing XR are trying to lean out of the fact that wearing a headset like that is inherently isolating, all because they want to sell to anyone other than the market of people that created these devices in the first place and gave VR its initial groundswell in the early 2010s, people who want to play games alone in their rooms who are completely fine with that. If these XR companies just accepted that that’s a really great market for these devices and then actually focused on them being a gaming platform I feel like the XR market would be a lot healthier overall. But instead we have to swing for the fences because these tech companies want to compete with smartphones(?) instead of with the PlayStation 5.
These devices are made worse because of that.
“Apple’s product web site says that battery can support “up to 2 hours of use,” or all-day use while plugged in to a wall outlet.”
This would kill me, I hate VR/AR being tethered, and if the 2 hours battery life (there estimate which I don’t trust) is accurate, it would not be worth it for me, especially that price.
I understand why it’s so expensive, I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if there was barely any mark up on it, but like this is not going to be purchased by a lot of people (imo), not for the price of a used car.
My friends parents are rich, maybe they’ll get it and I can try it.
To be fair, at least for me, when I play roomscale VR games that would most benefit from wireless, I find play sessions tend to be shorter than for seated / non-VR games, on account of I get tired because a lot of the games are actual workouts. 2 hours is a looong time to beat saber, if that or similar is the main use case.
But yeah nobody’s gonna bite for that bonkers high price, except rich apple fanboys I guess maybe. Or companies, but that seems a stretch too honestly.
Yeah but they aren’t pitching it that way. And it’s 2 hours with the extended battery. But even then, they pitched movie watching a bunch. Guess what. A bunch of movies go over 2 hours in length. And 2 hours is just movie. What if you get interrupted or have to pee or answer a call?
And they pitch it for work but at a desk, no one will use this plugged in, and away from the desk 2 hours isn’t going to cut it for work. I don’t know who this is for
I’m sure there is going to be a cheaper one later. With this being called the pro and all, but wow… Lol…
I like VR. But it is still so niche. And a $3500 machine for a niche product in this economy is definitely a decision. Only thing I can think is they want the crazy early adopters onboard first to make some stuff for it, then when a cheaper one comes down the line it’ll be more robust…
But yeah… Wow…
Wow that’s an insane price tag for most people. It definitely has some promising hype but we also saw nothing real in their ad reel. I’d like to see real hands on reviews. I’m not really into the AR thing. I don’t have an interest loving my life inside goggles. I do think movies and photos have a great use case though.
My guess (going by that price tag) is this isn’t meant for an individual to purchase. They’ll probably market it towards companies
It’s very much a gen 1 price. They need to recoup some of the R&D with this version. Gen 2 will either be slightly cheaper, or the same price, but refined. Gen 3 will begin to enter the mainstream.
But yes, it’ll be interesting to see how enterprise reacts to them.
I won’t lie, I dig this. Yes, there appear to be some issues that make it less than perfect, but it’s a gen 1 product. When I buy into this, it’ll likely be around gen 3, same as it was with iPhone.
But I don’t like what Apple is. I don’t like how quickly they’re making formerly class-leading products obsolete these days. I think of the iPhone X, and how it was “the most advanced iPhone yet”, and their promises of how future-proofed it was, only for it to suffer from OS rot just a few short years later. It’s not planned obsolescence as such, it’s just tech rushing along at a breathtaking pace. But it still leaves me uncomfortable at how expensive it is to feel like the device you use is still relevant.
So it leaves me feeling that people who spend $3500 on a Vision Pro will have a very expensive paperweight within four years. A paperweight whose pretensions to ‘Pro’ work will never really reach any further than the iPad Pro. Because until Apple can refine the tech to make it more profitable and mainstream than a Mac, they will nerf the software somehow, making users need both. They did it to iPad, they’ll do it Vision.
oh hey i was gonna post this! still waiting on the price but this is probably gonna be sooooo expensive
I’m very very excited about AR but I also wonder just what market this is aimed at. Consumers want low prices and simplified technology while professionals might not like Apples vertically integrated approach. Seems like a contradiction.
Starting at just $3499
YIIIIKES
Yeah… That’s outside of my discretionary budget for sure.
Still, I am an AR optimist and I’m still excited to have a flagship “proof of concept” now, showing what hopefully consumer level products would be able to do 5-10 years from now.
The first 4K TV launched 11 years ago at $20,000. Now you can get a better screen of similar size for $2000 or so.
A lot of TVs are in the hundreds now I’m pretty sure. The manufacturers are making them “smart” to serve ads and/or sell user data to make their profits.
I’ll never buy a TV like that personally, but nonetheless. They can be had for cheap in that fashion.
I’m going to have to get one.
12 cameras, LiDAR, 6 microphones, dual 4K+ monitors, an M2 processor, spatial audio.
If anything is going to redefine what AR/VR is, it’s this device.
Yes, they’ll have a $1500 model a couple years later, but understanding the possibilities of an entirely new computing paradigm, and getting in on the ground floor is going to be huge.
They talked about how FaceTime looks great on this, but I kept asking myself how do the other people in the call see you.
The design looks pretty good, but personally I can’t find a compelling reason to use AR/VR
Thanks for the link! I was curious about that as well
Definitely not on board with the $3499 price tag, so I won’t be a first-gen adopter, but this is the first AR/VR headset that’s actually made me want one, so I’m looking forward to seeing what the whole landscape looks like in a few years once (hopefully/maybe) prices have come down a bit.
Say what you like about Apple, but they’re masters of holding off on a product until they’ve nailed their vision (sorry) of what they want it to be. iPod wasn’t the first digital music player, but it was undoubtedly the best. iPhone wasn’t the first smartphone, but it set the ground rules for what a smartphone should be.
While Vision Pro is definitely a first generation product, like the first iPad, it appears to be a fully realised device that will be iterated into a class-leading product. In turn, it’ll push other manufacturers to up their game and make the best AR/VR headsets they can.
In turn, it’ll push other manufacturers to up their game and make the best AR/VR headsets they can.
That’s definitely what I’m hoping to see! The competition can only be a good thing.
The only problem I’ll have with it, is that, being an Apple user, I’ll be tied into needing to spend whatever Apple deem appropriate to buy into the platform in order for it to sync up nicely with all my other stuff.
So…did Apple just recreate the Hololens?
In the picture and they mentioned it also it says that people in the room will see your face. But in the renderings there PCBs and chips in front of your eyes and nose, so I wonder how people can see you? Is there a screen and they use the same technology on the screen as they use for FaceTime?
Exactly, cameras on the inside and a screen on the outside.
Sounds pretty cool.
But I will probably really only use it for games. (Even then, I would really like something like the PS Move/Oculus Touch controllers) Imagine if I can actually capture HDMI signal into it.
…well until it gets jailbroken or someone figures out how to sideload.
Man I really don’t want Apple leading any new industry. I’m team Quest here. Say what you want but Quest devices have been a million times more open than anything Apple has put out ever. This seems like a very bad thing for the VR ecosystem :(
Honestly, I don’t think even Apple can get close to the value of Quest line. Quest 3 is going to be 7 times cheaper and have the same capabilities with added value of existing ecosystem. Could this be the first real failed product in a while?
This is more an AR (or MR) headset than a VR headset. It’s not trying to compete with the Quest, it’s trying to compete with other mixed reality products which are also currently quite expensive.
Quest 3 is a very much mixed reality headset too. Have you seen the announcement? It also features hand tracking since first Quest release that has been constantly worked on.
No I did not. Yup, that’s a much cheaper XR headset. Though Apple’s offering here will have over 2x the resolution which may make a difference in productivity use-cases such as virtual monitors.
Yeah the virtual monitor seems like an amazing use case though the resolution of quest 2 or quest pro is already good enough so the real challenge is the ergonomics of having something on your head for extended period of time. Ergonomics isn’t Apples strong suit either lol
We’ll see. Personally what I really want is a translucent AR display, so I can see the actual light rays of the world hitting my eyeballs combined with pixels. Of course that’s mostly an unsolved engineering challenge…
