Just think about it for a moment. Apple made a mask, that when you wear it in your face, projects a 3D animated avatar if you face on the outside. That is so weird, f’ed up and dystopian.
I won’t argue about whether this is dystopian, but the practical reason for the face projection is that they wanted to make this not just something you wear sitting alone in your basement, like most other VR headsets. They wanted it to be usable around other people, at a workplace, with family, etc.
Interacting with someone wearing a full face blind is just weird, so they thought that making the eyes visible would help make this a bit more socially usable.
I’m not sure that’s really going to work out — seems at least as awkward as Google’s failed Glass project — but Apple’s design decision has some merit.
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Especially considering they already put the battery external, if you have to shove a battery in your pocket and run a wire up to your head they might as well have put more of the electronics there too.
It would conserve a lot of weight and space and make it more comfortable to wear
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Honestly, that part doesn’t strike me as any stranger than talking to someone wearing aviator sunglasses
Given the number of TV shows and movies around this topic, I can sense this change coming.
If I have to interact with someone that’s wearing goggles, I might go full Luddite.
People wear those fucking white stalks hanging from their ears when interacting with people. I see gangs of teens hanging out, all having white stalks on their ears and no one seem to care anymore.
It’s not respectful to the person you’re interacting with having those dangling around without showing you actually listen to what’s being said. Of course people will wear these to show off as soon as possible.
I think we’re past this being a disrespectful thing, and it’s just how society evolves. There was a time in which anyone carrying around a cellphone (the big, brick ones) were seeing as showoff.
And years ago, if you saw someone with one of those bluetooth “stalks” as you called them in one ear, talking on the phone loudly on the street, you would think “what a douche!” But today, it’s so, so, so common, that nobody seems to care anymore, not even myself. Of course, if they’re in an enclosed space, or a relatively quiet space, then that will always be annoying.
Do I like this new norm? Not particularly, as I’m old school. But I just accepted it. And there has been a few times in which I had to do it myself (e.g. talking to someone while carrying some boxes or solving a problem with my bank while folding laundry), and it’s kind of relieving that I can do this without feeling ashamed - again, because everyone else is doing it.
It’s a VR headset. It’s not a social experience.
But that’s what Apple is trying to change. They don’t call it a VR headset. They don’t even use the phrase “virtual reality” because they don’t want people thinking of it as a VR headset.
Their goal is to get people used to wearing a headset to do normal “real” world things. They want it to be AR, not VR. It’s like getting people used to a touchscreen, or not having a headphone jack, or a big-ass notch in the screen.
Their long-term goal is likely glasses that can do the same things as this headset, but with transparent screens, so that they don’t need the outer display. And then it won’t be VR-first, it’ll be AR-first.
Not gonna happen for a long time
Their long-term goal is likely glasses that can do the same things as this headset, but with transparent screens, so that they don’t need the outer display.
All I want is a pair of glasses that can display notifications like a smart watch. We have had the tech to do this for years and it upsets me that it doesn’t exist yet.
Hell, Google even calls it WearOS… pretty sure you wear glasses.
Way to ignore the entire comment and show that you don’t understand VR in the slightest, all in one sentence.
Ever heard of Taklings House Party? I’ve also spent many a night throwing back a few beers and taking turns in Beat Saber.
It’s super easy to know if someone is looking at you when they take off the headset
I’m convinced that the only reason they did the eye thing is so they can get micro transactions for people buying custom eyes like cats and aliens and shit.
Steve Buscemi
No… Display isn’t big enough.
I think it’s just straight up uncanny valley. Don’t think it’s especially “dystopian” per se.
Honestly cartoon eyes might have actually worked better here.
should just be some googly eyes
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The second half is basically why Apple is successful.
I don’t think I can agree with this.
The face projection was likely an afterthought. They were already deep into the 3D face scan into avatar world with things like continuity camera and lidar. Granted, I don’t believe they are currently able to reposition the face into a completely different angle (top down into forward facing) with continuity camera, but that’s where their tech was going anyway. And they wanted to be able to have user facial expressions in device regardless.
All they did in this case was slap a screen on the front and display the avatar the thing is already generating, then call it a feature and upcharge with a 1000% markup on the total cost.
It’s a gimmick, that’s all it ever was. Meant to make this look like a sleeker device than it is with some clever marketing.
Not dystopian, just disappointing.
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That type of display just isn’t feasible at the moment. We are close, quite close. Likely only a few years away. But at the moment, the only stuff coming close to it would cost at least ten times more than apples already inflated price.
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That is so weird, f’ed up and dystopian.
It’s not as weird as the Meta Quest, where you literally have no idea wether the person wearing it is looking at you or not.
The view of someone’s eyes is very low quality - I’ll give you that. But it’s better than nothing at all. And I’m not sure they could’ve done better without doubling the price of the product.
Nah, it’s actually much weirder and more unsettling. You can’t tell if someone’s looking at you when they wear sunglasses either. No one cares. I’d much rather deal with that than creepy inhuman eyes.
But it’s better than nothing at all.
Although there are better solutions than making a facsimile of real eyes, like putting a user-customisable avatar eye/indicator or something on top, which wouldn’t get quite as uncanny. At least, not any more than wearing a sleep mask with an eye design on top.
I don’t know, I could see the value if it really looked like the mask was semi transparent.
So it’s a cool idea, the only problem is that they didn’t deliver and the result is creepy instead.
Not only did they make something that weird, they put an absolute shit load of effort into doing so. That teardown video was insane.
In a nutshell if anything breaks you are screwed ;D
It’s an Apple device, what did you expect?
The thing even has an external battery pack, and instead of using USB-C so you could use any power bank you already own, they designed a completely new proprietary connector. In 2024.
Who the fuck does that anymore, except Apple?I can see the argument for having a connector that can’t be pulled out: if you were crossing a busy street or walking down a stairway with one of these strapped to your head and the cable came out, you’d be instantly blind.
Who the fuck wears a VR headset walking in the street, let alone crossing a road?
No one, yet. The idea is (very obviously, I might mention) that we will be wearing AR or VR glasses just like many wear a smartwatch or carry a phone.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://piped.video/UvkgmyfMPks?si=dfGF9Zw5u0e3gZXR
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
That’s wild 🤯
That is what the AR aspect of this headset is all about. It’s AR first VR second.
Actually I would argue it is VR first and AR second because in its dormant, non-powered state your view is completely blocked whereas if it were AR first you would just be looking through transparent glass lenses in its dormant, non-powered state.
Apple’s final destination with this product is AR and they are using it as AR but it is a VR headset replicating an AR experience because we do not have the technology yet to make something like this being AR dominant.
I say AR because they do full video passthrough first and have their UIs try to look a part of the real life environment (shadow effects on irl objects, menus are all semitransparent, etc).
You have to choose to do immersion instead, even the dorky eyes are implied to make it useful in IRL settings.
Not everything is good (the eyes are a total miss, the avatars are uncanny).
Apart from Apple users?
First of all this should NOT be the use case, it is dangerous, stupid, idiotic and shows that you dont care for your life and others.
But the proprietary connector plug itself is almost identical to the lightning connector, the only difference is that the bolster has some notches in it for the BATTERY to lock into. All the locking is in the battery, they could have, should have, used USB C or any other existing connector.
the only difference is that the bolster has some notches in it for the BATTERY to lock into
Um, it has twice as many pins. The same number of pins as thunderbolt which likely isn’t a coincidence.
Exactly, so it could’ve just been USB C
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It’s even worse. The cable appears to be a bigger version of Lightning, because of course it is.
You can use any USB battery with it, just plug it into the battery pack. Why? Because releasing this without a battery and leaving it to the customer to source one would be super weird.
No you can not? It has a lightning connector and a new apple connector, just wow what apple designs is just e-waste.
Battery pack accepts incoming USB-C charging. You can apparently daisy chain chargers together with any USB-C battery pack that can output the right power.
Yeah but then its another like 300g and then why in the first place have a battery pack? and thats even worse, a lightning output a usb-c input? Next they add a Serial Data input there.
External battery makes sense as the thing without it is already as heavy as a quest 2. Just absolutely no reason not to have it be a standard USB-PD power bank.
It has already, a external battery, it goes to the headset with a lightning ( battery side ) a apple connector ( headset ), so another batter on the already heave battery pack is like having a backpack full of daisy chained battery packs ( dont do it! Fire hazard! ).
I’m just imagining some goober with a MacBook and Daisy chained battery packs and that weird mouse charger and the stylus sticking out out of their ipad
I don’t think it has power pass through, meaning that the electricity goes into apples battery pack, into the battery, then into a device. A power pass through means, upon battery and device charging, the battery will route the power from the wall (or second battery) directly to the device.
Power pass through is important because without it there’s great inefficiency (less run time) and lots of heat. The battery is being both charged and discharged, creating more heat and wearing the battery down significantly. And also for the love of God just let me plug in any battery I want to.
I bet it does have power pass through. Lots of people are going to use this all day at a desk and you’d get to a thousand cycles in just three months if plugging it into the wall just charges the battery. It needs to be passthrough.
It does have power pass through, I have 2, picked them up on release day at the store, power pass through works fine and is how I use it mostly.
My understanding with the “new” lightning cable was that normal USB wouldn’t work since the battery pack also houses a lot of the power regulation tech too to offload it from the headset and this new connector has the ability to manage the power requirements and control other required data between the battery pack and the headset.
Since I am writing already and haven’t posted my thoughts on this thing anywhere I figure I might as well post them here;
Many people consider this device a comical effort from Apple and from the outside it does kind of look like that but having used it for a bit I can say it is a pretty amazing experience and definitely a window into the future of computing and how we interact with the digital world.
I’ve always felt that most tech evolves to be functionally invisible, flint and tinder becomes a lighter and then matches, big clunky wall phones and two way radios eventually became smartphones (wallets, film cameras and so many other devices also got melded into the smart phone), grandfather clocks became wrist watches… all of the tools we use eventually move to be more useful, compact and integrated into our lives. Desktop computing with keyboards, mice, monitors and etc will all be boiled down to a device similar to the Vision Pro but of course smaller and more integratabtle into our daily lives. The Vision Pro is an excellent move forward toward that future. It’s expensive but that is normal for this type of thing and it is following the steps that all cutting edge technology make before it becomes standard. Remember those shoulder bag mobile phones from several decades ago, we couldn’t skip that step to get to the smartphones we have now.
There are many missing features and several things that don’t make sense as to why they did things a certain way. Apple is clearly experimenting here and, yes it is expensive, but no one is being forced into buying one of these things and for every one that sells this type of device will get cheaper and better in the future because this new tech will get feedback and refinement with each user. I am all for it, the more we get things like this the closer it gets to cheaper everyday use.
The price it is at right now, I doubt Apple is getting much in terms of profit, it is loaded with manufacturing techniques and hardware that are not standard or common, this is future tech and cutting edge design and implementation, that always is expensive; like runway model clothes from fashion shows, that is super expensive but eventually the styles, techniques and color and patterns trickle down into the styles of the general population. It will be the same with the Vision Pro. Without stages like this tech moves forward more slowly so having a company willing to experiment like this moves the needle faster and I’m all for it. It’s not for everybody right now but it will be soon, we just have to learn the usability lessons first and the early adopters are paying that price.
As someone who has built solar battery packs, that’s not how batteries work. They have a single connection (positive and negative), not a charge and separate discharge port. If the charge voltage is the same as the battery voltage, it goes directly to the device.
The only problem is that you can’t keep the battery at 80% charged in this mode, which would be better for battery life while it’s not used.
Yes you can. The battery plugs into the wall with USB-C.
Like said before, what a joke then, headset => battery pack ( apple connector and a lightning connector ) => wall socket ( Usb to ?? ). Apple, next time please add another step where the wall socket connector has a serial connector, just to increase e-waste even more.
You’re a little slow. I’ll spell this out for you. Headset to battery with built in connector. Included battery to any battery bank of your choice with any usb-c cable.
Imagine if you could just connect it to any battery bank, like I do with my Quest 2 via USB-C. Only 300 bucks.
Like said, its totally useless either way, either to an another powerbank or to the wall socket. Still it would be utterly useless and could be a fire hazard to daisy chain powerbanks. And next time you can be a little bit more respectful. I did not offended you or said something bad to you.
I own two, they are pretty great. It is not ideal having a battery pack with a cable but it is not that big of a problem. 98% of my usage so far has been sitting, if I am standing and using it then I am usually not standing using it for 2-3hrs at a time anyway. Most of the areas in my house have a USB-C plug nearby anyway so I just plug in the battery back when I sit down and continue using it, it really isn’t much of an issue.
This issue is similar to how some people love wireless keyboard and some people hate them but for most people it doesn’t matter to much. This is a doesn’t matter too much issue for everyone who has tried this thing, and honestly, if you have the money to buy a Vision Pro then do it or don’t but I don’t think many people are seriously going to be dissuaded from the purchase due to the battery issue. I was concerned about it before purchase but it isn’t really an issue for me after using it a lot over the past few days. Most of my hundreds of hours of VR usage over the past decade have been sitting near a charger anyway, so I won’t really be an issue going forward for me anyway. I’d prefer it to have an onboard battery that would last for a week’s worth of usage but we’re not there yet and I am under no illusions that we should be there now. As far as existing tech goes this device is a window into the future and it is setting the roadmap for how this tech will be used in the future. It only gets better from here.
Woah did you take out a loan or what? If apple is there it doesnt get better, it gets just in the direction “Boring Future Dystopia”
You’re wrong, go watch some review videos.
I meant directly to the headset, of course you can dangerously daisy chain another battery pack with usb-c to the battery pack ( thats a possible fire hazard btw, so please dont try it out thx )
Why is it dangerous? If the battery can deliver 30W then it’s in spec.
Its dangerous like all the other reasons why not to daisy chain a extension cords.
What? That’s not a fire hazard at all. Your second battery would provide at most 100 watts which is perfectly safe and not going to cause any fires.
If you submerge the battery in water or stab it with a knife… sure it might catch fire. But that’s pretty much the only risk so long as you stick to reputable brands that comply with safety standards.
Did USB-c match their needs?
I can’t imagine it wouldn’t. The USB-PD spec can cover a verity of voltage and amperage combinations covering practically any digital electronic device up to 100W.
The only reason it’s not used everywhere, is that it does add complexity to extremely simple and inexpensive devices. This thing is not simple or inexpensive, and it doesn’t draw more than 100W.
The USB-PD spec can cover a verity of voltage and amperage combinations
That’s not really true - it maxes out at 5 Amps which is only a decent amount of power if you use (relatively) high voltages. Vision Pro runs at 13 volts, which isn’t supported by USB and if it was that would only be 65 watts - nowhere near enough to power this product.
Running at higher voltages (USB can do up to 48 volts) would likely have problems, it might be less efficient for example (which would mean they have to give it a larger battery).
I’ve heard that argument floating around and I don’t buy it. Step-up and down converters are a thing.
That’s a terrible argument. Apple could have very easily made this run at something other than 13v.
I’d be surprised if the headset even drew 65W, the other points notwithstanding
Up to 240W now actually
Yes, and apple did choose not to, so their customers will praise apple that they got ANOTHER only apple connector!
Not to mention the praise for “innovation”. I swear to God most of the “innovation” I see is more proprietary or useless shit to screw over the customer. I suppose regarding company priorities that’s excellent innovation.
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Actually, if it breaks you get Apple to fix it. I think anyone who is spending $$3500+ on a portable device knows to be careful with it and doesn’t want it to break.
Anyone who is spending 3500 on a portable toy has more money than sense and isn’t going to worry about it…
Portable toy for you but it is not a portable toy for me, I bought 2 of them for valid reasons and also have more sense than money so I bought the AppleCare insurance on both of them as well, so if there is an issue I can get it fixed.
You can make all sorts of fallacy arguments you want about how this device is not practical for your life and try and paint the buyers of these as selfish, greedy, dumb or whatever else you want but that doesn’t make it true. There are people out, probably a lot of them, that do have a good reason for buying these. For me, as someone who suffers from pretty extreme sensory issues due to my autism and also suffering from ADHD, it is a very useful device to help me get a better handle on my disability. Pair that with my background as a documentary filmmaker and how often I travel, it is an incredibly useful tool for me and its value is worth more than the close to $5000 I paid for each of mine (tax, lens inserts, AppleCare and 1tb storage version). This device gives me much more freedom and ability to work, with limited distractions in many environments I struggled to work in before. Also, I wanted to experiment with the immersive video.
Judge others all you want if that is how you want to spend your time, if it helps you to care that much about how other people spend more money than you are willing to spend on a product that is incredibly useful to them but not to you, so be it. Just seems like a waste of time to me to be that worked up about something you don’t like that much. But you do need to know that there are people these products are made for, they just aren’t made for you… yet, I don’t know if you would even be interested in something like this. I don’t get worked up at all knowing that a double amputee has to spend tens of thousands of dollars to get high tech prosthetic arm that improve their lives immensely or that a filmmaker spends hundreds of thousands of dollars on equipment to do their job or to explore new tech that may help them do their job better.
I saw already MULTIPLE people driving and using it, so i dont think they handle it with care
There are plenty of examples of people doing studies stuff with new technology and people die every day from misusing common items, so your point doesn’t really have much to do with the Vision Pro and more to do with how dumb a small segment of the population is, that did not start with the Vision Pro nor will it end with it. That doesn’t mean that Apple designed the thing poorly so I don’t quite understand your point? Was it Apple shouldn’t have made the Vision Pro because someone decided to drive with it on? Are you advocating that there should be warning labels on everything for every possible misuse of a product and the company that made said product should be responsible for every misuse or do you think we should not be blaming the company and designers of the product and should hold the user responsible? Are you saying we should stereotype all people in a group (Vision Pro owners) based on the actions of a handful of idiots who decided to use it in a way that defies common sense? I don’t think stereotyping groups of people based on the actions of a few is really the right thing to do here.
The example video of showing wearing the headset and showing the outer display:
https://valkyrie.cdn.ifixit.com/media/2024/02/03103510/Display-Stack_sm.mp4
It is off putting and reminds me of one of the Robocop 2 Prototypes.
I don’t know what I expected but that was mortifying.
This is a fun, silly discussion and I love it!
But hey, what you’re seeing is just some internal component, so why would that be mortifying? I found it hilarious!
holy fucking shit what the fuck is that
🎶It’s not the best choice…🎶
You’ve tried the best, now try the rest!
Imagine engineering something that complicated only for it to be a disappointing product. I have no doubt it’s a step toward better products but at the same time they could’ve done better. Maybe spend more time polishing the actual parts that matter instead of creating the world’s most complicated weird fake blurry eyes?
I don’t think the blurry eye thing is a major important feature. it’s just the weirdest
That is literally my point. It took a lot to engineer that, which is seen in the teardown video.
sorry. you mentioned the eyes and then said disappointing product in the same sentence. I don’t know if it’s disappointing or not but the stupid eye feature wouldn’t be the thing that disappointed or impressed me.
I’m waiting for a really nice passthrough productivity headset to happen, and I’m glad this is the direction apple wants to go. I’m sure some company that isn’t apple will do it better than this soon.
I don’t think it is a disappointing product, I think it is pretty amazing actually.
Blurry eyes, yeah, that outward facing screen is an interesting choice but it makes sense with that they were going for. Based on all the tech in the Vision Pro I doubt that outward facing screen added much in terms of cost to the Bill of Materials but it is a nifty thing to try out. I’d rather have companies experimenting with this type of thing than only making predictable products over and over again with only minor improvements.
I don’t think it is productive to bad mouth a product that you probably haven’t even tried yet and probably would not be buying anyway.
Apparently you haven’t read the reviews
I own two of them, I have been using it extensively since I picked them up on Friday morning from a nearby Apple Store.
But if that isn’t good enough for you, I also extensively read reviews before purchasing them and have continued to read other people’s thoughts on it.
If you spent well over 7 grand on 2 headsets you can only wear one of… You are the level of fanboy beyond cartoonish and there is definitely nothing that could break the illusion needed to justify that sort of insane spending.
Close to 10 grand actually.
It may be hard for you to accept that this may be a useful product for a limited number of people but it is true, I am one of them.
I explain more about it in another post here;
https://lemmy.world/comment/7267113
If you want to keep shaming people for using the money they earned through hard work to justify your… I don’t know what it is you are trying to prove, it doesn’t really matter. I just find it kind of silly that you can’t accept that this product isn’t made for you.
I for one applaud companies that are willing to try something different and to push the technological envelope to see what’s possible. I think your comments and negativity will be seen, in time, in a similar light to the naysayers of the iMac, iPod, iPhone, iPad, AirPods and so many non-Apple products that ended up being incredibly successful.
This is not a fully formed standalone product just yet, it is the beginnings of a new market segment, it doesn’t have to be your exact image of perfection for this product type, you need to crawl before you can walk and you need to walk before you can run. Give it time and there will be more universally appealing versions of this, let the bleeding edge adopters beta test this for you and in a few years I think you will owe them a thank you. I’ll be enjoying my time until then using my Vision Pros and giving feedback to Apple about how it can be improved upon to maybe someday win you over.
I bought three of them, one for each eye and one for my dog.
Seems like an interesting setup, got any pictures to share?
If you want to keep shaming people for using the money they earned through hard work
Yes, the once in a lifetime that someone admitted to setting ten grand on fire, I definitely have no shame in shaming them for it. That is more money than I think is fair for most used cars…
In 1994 I played rise of the triad in a “VR” headset. Since that time, we have barely progressed past that. This iteration is an absurdly complicated, severely overpriced hunk of heavy-ass junk just slightly better than some before it.
To tell you the truth, 20 years from now when there’s an actually good version of this product, almost certainly not built by apple, I’ll only be interested if it’s not absurdly expensive. Maybe not even then, we’ll see.
You are acting like you’re some kind of martyr for being a guinea pig and blowing a fuckton of money in doing so. That’s weird and sad.
Ahh I see, you read my link to understand where I am coming from and why I bought them and also I see that you have the mentality of a teenager who is unable to understand that others may have different needs and different levels of consumer spending. Got it.
Well enjoy your life of shaming a mentally handicapped (autism & ADHD with severe sensory issues where this device very much helps diminish) professional documentary filmmaker who finds this device well worth the price. Committing $5,000 more for the second unit was also well worth the price to be able to run dailies with my editor who may be on the other side of the planet from where I am but we can share a virtual editing bay together in real time is much more valuable than the price I paid for that second unit. In terms of business, and especially my business, $5,000 is not a whole lot of money. It will pay for itself in terms of time saved within a month or less based on my average hourly pay. It is a good investment and I am sorry you can’t accept that.
I see you are committed to digging this hole for yourself and feel bad for the people in your life who are very tired of how subjective and stubborn you are, it must be very tiring for them to put up with you, I can very much relate to that in my brief encounter with you. Good luck buddy.
Oh, and, you seem like a very prescient business person with their finger on the pulse of the tech industry when you say that “we have barely moved past” the VR experience back you had back in 1994. Enjoy your myopic pancake view of the world my friend, I hope you change your mind because you are missing out on a pretty great world filled with interesting things that you have never experienced but have strong negative feelings toward.
But why would you get two?
For myself and someone else to use at the same time and in conjunction with each other for work purposes. I explain it a few times in other comments I have made here.
Its literally the Apple targeted customer.
And?
I own two of them
You could have brought multiple other headsets for the price of just one of those.
Read some of my other comments here, I have used pretty much every headset out there and these work better for my needs, by far, than all the rest.
