Apple fans are starting to return their Vision Pros::The return window for the very first Apple Vision Pro buyers is fast approaching — and some have taken to social media to explain why they won’t be keeping their headsets.

  • squid_slime@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    These are the same complaints most report for most vr headsets, headaches, nausea and dry eyes… Disappointing article.

    • NevermindNoMind@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      Some are, sure. But others have to do with the weight. The most interesting rationals for returning it are because it’s shit as a productivity tool. So if you can’t really use it for work, there aren’t many games on it, then why are you keeping it? At that point it’s just a TV that only you can watch (since it doesn’t support multiple user profiles).

    • JaymesRS@literature.cafe
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      9 months ago

      The other thing I keep hearing is that it’s a super expensive purchase that people don’t know what to do with once they’ve got it. I’m old enough to remember when they said the same thing about early home computers ($3000-$5000 in equivalent cost) from the late 70s and early 80s.

      • squid_slime@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        Silicon and engineering has come down in price and vr is hardly revolutionary at this point so yea price point is stupid high but what do people expect from apple

    • swayevenly@lemm.ee
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      9 months ago

      Given the odd weight distribution, it’s also unfortunate that this may have been their first headset.

      • JohnEdwa@sopuli.xyz
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        9 months ago

        Making a VR headset from aluminium and glass with nothing to balance it in the back is yet again another perfect example of Apple going hard with form over function.

        • lud@lemm.ee
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          9 months ago

          One reason for not balancing it in the back is probably because putting stuff in the back makes it uncomfortable if you want to lean back in a chair or a couch which is probably very important for the device since it’s primarily for sitting down compared to most other VR headsets.

    • DingoBilly@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      Your comment suggests you read the first paragraph and didn’t read the rest which is disappointing.

      The article talks about the most common complaint being comfort, then goes on to other complaints like the fact it offers no productivity savings and is expensive.

      It’s a bit of a no brainer though at end of day. Anyone surprised this is just a gimmick like any other is new to the VR space.

      • squid_slime@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        Yea looking at the site I mistook the large gaps between paragraphs to be the end of the article. Going over it and I can see I missed a large deal. But I am still unsurprised with the reasons why people are returning the headsets. Its expensive, sold for productivity yet is restricting and uncomfortable. Vr has a place in the world and that is mostly media consumption.

  • linearchaos@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    Some people are returning it because they had expectations that using VR would be immediately comfortable. The headset is heavier and more poorly strapped/distributed than ‘alternatives’ but it’s also graphically far more stunning. I honestly hope they stay in the game and push the competitors to up their game. maybe we can get pancake lenses, foveated rendering and eye tracking in a $1500 package.

    • darth_helmet@sh.itjust.works
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      9 months ago

      So the quest pro? Foveated rendering only matters if you don’t have the graphics throughput to render it all, so I don’t totally buy that it’s key to a good vr headset so much as helps you get away with cheaper silicon. Maybe enough-lower tdp that it enables slimmer design.

      • Kage520@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        I think foveated rendering also helps with immersion. Being able to blur things you are not specifically looking at and are farther away is a closer match to reality.

          • kava@lemmy.world
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            9 months ago

            reality doesn’t downsample when you’re not looking

            As far as you know. Maybe that’s the reasoning behind weird stuff in quantum mechanics. The cat is both alive and dead until you open the box and look at it.

            • treesquid@lemmy.world
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              9 months ago

              The whole point of the cat thing was to point out the absurdity of the claim that reality isn’t real until you know about it. The cat is already in whatever state you observe when you open the box. It’s not both alive and dead, it’s either alive or dead. The thought experiment isn’t serious, and it’s not supporting the idea that the cat is somehow magically in both states just because you haven’t yet manipulated the lid of a wooden cube.

              • kava@lemmy.world
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                When we talk about the cat being both alive and dead, it’s a simplification to help visualize a quantum phenomenon where particles exist in multiple states simultaneously until measured or observed.

                Schrodinger came up with the cat to represent the absurdity of quantum mechanics because he thought it was absurd - but that doesn’t mean his metaphor isn’t a useful one. Particles like electrons or photons can exist in a state of superposition, where they hold multiple potential states (e.g., spin up and spin down) at the same time. This isn’t just a theoretical curiosity; it’s been experimentally verified in numerous quantum experiments, such as the double-slit experiment.

                The act of measurement in quantum mechanics forces a system to ‘choose’ a definite state from among its superposed states, a process known as wave function collapse. Before measurement, the system genuinely exists in all its possible states simultaneously, not in one state or the other. This is a fundamental aspect of the quantum world

          • orgrinrt@lemmy.world
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            9 months ago

            As far as I understand (and do correct me if I’ve got it wrong), your eyes still know they are looking at very small and very rapidly blinking lights in close proximity and in a flat array, which is why it mostly feels like uncanny valley in regards to that exact experience, and why software enhancement/approximation of the effect could be beneficial.

            • rhythmnova@lemmy.world
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              9 months ago

              Delayed response but if you’re talking about the general experience of VR being an uncanny valley experience then no, I don’t agree. It’s very common for people who use VR to say that they forgot for a moment that it wasn’t real.

      • daltotron@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        I don’t really look at it as a symptom of lack of graphics throughput, but more as a benefit of eye tracking, which is also potentially something that benefits, say, the immersion of others through portraying your facial expressions more realistically, or something to that effect. You could also use it as a kind of peripheral for games or software, and apple currently uses it as a mouse, so it’s not totally useless. But I also can’t imagine that most developers are going to be imaginative enough to make good use of it, if we can’t even think of good uses for basic shit, like haptic feedback.

        Perhaps it breaks even in terms of allowing them to save money they otherwise would’ve spent on rendering, but I dunno if that’s the case, since the camera has to be pretty low latency, and you have to still dedicate hardware resources to the eye tracking and foveated rendering in order to get it to look good. Weight savings, then? I just don’t really know. I guess we’ll see, if it gets more industry adoption.

  • KiloGex@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    The problem with this article is that it’s all circumstantial. Sure these are people complaining of problems and critiques, but we’ll never get the full report of how many returns there actually are and why they were returned. That’s just not data Apple will ever give out.

    • Kbobabob@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      Some? Probably most. The others are social media “influencers” making it look like someone would actuality want to buy it.

      • Patches@sh.itjust.works
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        9 months ago

        That depends on the company that is selling the product, and the reputation of the reviewer.

        IGN always give 9/10 for every game they review so they are high on the priority list to get review copies. But they won’t get any if the Developer /Producer isn’t interested in giving any out.

        I don’t think Apple is giving away 3500 devices for free to a long list of people. Most reviews I see are reviewing based on an extended store demo.

      • iquanyin@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        not the freelance ones, or not always anyway. i think you’re right about the ones that wrote for tech blogs.

  • Eggyhead@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    I’ve been in the Apple ecosystem for pretty much most of my life, and I’m all for what the AVP is bringing to the table. However, one VR enthusiast Youtuber I watched recently (Thrillseeker) put down the most compelling argument against the AVP I’ve seen thus far. The AVP does well what all the other headsets don’t, but the AVP also kind of sucks at what other headsets have learned to do well. At the price of the AVP, not only could you buy a Quest 3, but you’d have enough leftover to just build an entire VR Gaming rig to back it up. Then you’d have a setup exponentially more capable than what the AVP is offering.

    • thorbot@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      There’s a lot of salient points here, but here’s my perspective. I have a gaming rig and a high end headset (index) and it’s tied down to one room. The sensors are mounted on the wall and my gigantic PC isn’t going anywhere. The controllers are usually dead, the sensors disconnect when my cats pull the cords. It takes a while for anything to load up and my room has to remain clean and empty. To get a VR experience going it takes time and effort which often is too much for me. The only thing I’m going to do with that setup is play a VR game and I’ve already gotten bored of most of those. The Vision Pro can just go on anytime anywhere and I just gesture to use it. I can stream Steam Link from my gaming PC to allow me to game anywhere and AVP pairs with my Xbox controller. I can take the AVP to work and look at my Mac mini and start working in it. Sure, the setup you describe is more capable for gaming, but AVP fills a wider role, is more accessible, and just works each time I use it. It won’t replace my VR setup for high end VR gaming at home but it’s much more attractive to use regularly, at least for me personally.

        • thorbot@lemmy.world
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          Shit, you got me. How did you see through my clever ruse? I’ve spent 8 months commenting and posting to Lemmy in order to blend in, all for this very moment where I can say one tiny positive thing about a new piece of tech. My plans are foiled.

      • Mildmantis@lemmy.whynotdrs.org
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        9 months ago

        That’s a solid argument toward using an AVP vs a traditional PCVR set up.

        … So why not just do that for a fraction of the price on the Quest 3? I do everything you listed on mine, I even take it with me when I travel without any perceived constraints. I, too, can use Steam Link (although I prefer Virtual Remote Desktop currently) and even found myself making some use of the new Xbox GamePass app, and yes, it also pairs with my controller, and my Logitech keyboard and mouse too.

        I understand the AVP can fill a wider role than a standard PCVR gaming rig set up, but I feel what you describe as something to compare with the AVP is honestly kind of outdated.

        • thorbot@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          Eye tracking, hand gestures and resolution are superior on AVP. It accesses all my content already in the Apple ecosystem, has no noticeable latency when working from my Mac minis display. It does not require room setup and remembers the locations of my virtual displays all around my home or office. It can display all the spatial videos I’ve shot over the past year on my iPhone 15 pro. I also don’t trust facebook and refuse to have their data farming device scanning my every move. Yes, apples device also has access to that data, but I don’t believe they are allowing it to leave the Secure Enclave chip inside the AVP.

      • Eggyhead@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        I’m not really a fan of Facebook, but I’m kind of wanting a Quest 3 because the cost of the AVP and other headsets just reinforce how much of a value it must be. Maybe it’s just early days, but the AVP just doesn’t do enough of what I want from a headset at even half its price point.

        I do want to see what an AV (non pro) will bring to the table, but I think Meta is in a better position to impress with their next Quest headset now that apple has laid their cards on the table. They could sell a quest 4 at twice the price of a quest 3, add in whatever new technologies that might afford, and still be insanely more affordable than an AVP.

        • thorbot@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          100% fair. The price on the AVP is insane compared to the competitors and definitely is not worth it right now unless you are evaluating the AVP for your clients or for programming apps.

  • azenyr@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    The problem with AVP is that it constantly feels extremely lonely. The fun part about VR is playing stuff together, games, being in the same room even if others are in different countries, have funny full size avatars, interact in a “vr-chat” kind of way. VR is supposed to be a fun version of our world. AVP is extremely serious, too “professional” focused, and especially b o r i n g. All you do on AVP is exactly the same that you would do by yourself with your current devices already. Just even more isolated from the world. And even the most enthusiastic Apple users eventually get this feeling when using AVP. While stuff like Quest 3, Valve Index, PSVR2 all might look “cheap” and “not polished” at first, while using them all you get is “wooow” factor and fun. AVP, yes its well crafted and polished, but it does basically nothing and feels lonely inside it.

    • SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca
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      9 months ago

      I keep reading AVP as Alien vs. Predator, which makes this hilarious. Sorry… that’s on me.

      AVP is extremely serious, too “professional” focused, and especially b o r i n g.

      But what about the part where the Predator body-slams an Alien? That wasn’t boring! :P

    • Honytawk@lemmy.zip
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      AVP, yes its well crafted and polished, but it does basically nothing and feels lonely inside it

      Gilded cage sort of vibe, yes.

    • KiloGex@lemmy.world
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      We’ll never know. This is all based on people’s complaints online. Apple will never actually release how many were returned and for what reasons.

      • darth_helmet@sh.itjust.works
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        9 months ago

        They’re a public company, we’ll get sales figures and enough proxy numbers to have a good guess. Shareholders are going to want to know.

  • Rin@lemm.ee
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    9 months ago

    As someone who is unironically into a lot of VR stuff and even owns a pricey headset myself, I did not understand the appeal from the features I’ve seen past looking “”“cool”“”. Even the stuff that looks at least somewhat fun or useful doesnt seem worth it considering the price, especially now that reviews are reporting there are basic features that cheaper headsets perform much better at and are way more comfortable.

    • Starkstruck@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      Fr, I love VR, but this headset is just Apple trying to cash in on the VR market without understanding what people actually like about VR.

      • Ghostalmedia@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        I think they totally understand that there is a legitimate mixed reality / AR use case that people have wanted addressed for decades, but the hardware has never been able to pull it off well.

        If I could pop on a light weight headset, and have a desktop with infinite 4K monitors, with a high refresh rate, without breaking my wallet, I would 1000% buy that product.

        The hardware isn’t there yet, but I’m glad to see people are investing in platforms that could get us there in a decade or two.

    • TheDarksteel94@sopuli.xyz
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      9 months ago

      It has some neat features and ideas, but nothing I haven’t seen in other products before. Definitely more polished, and it brings all of those big features together in one package. But for me, it’s the price that kills it. Maybe Apple had a hunch that all of this might happen and they just wanted it out as a setup for the next version?

      • thejml@lemm.ee
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        9 months ago

        Honestly, no one should buy a Quest 3, or any other Quest for that matter… Meta doesn’t need any more money or tracking data. PS VR2, Vive Pro 2 or even the Valve Index would be better.

      • Flaky@iusearchlinux.fyi
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        9 months ago

        I’m thinking on buying a Quest to dip into PCVR. I’ve heard horror stories about the Index’s poor QC (which is weird given the Steam Deck’s done me well so far) and PSVR2 isn’t compatible with PC. Yes, iVRy exists but that driver is in development and the developer basically said “just buy a Quest if you want a cheap PC VR headset”.

    • just_another_person@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      SOME WOULD SAY you don’t need the controllers. Then you’re just a regular VR headset. Would Apple say that? No. I think this boils down to a dumb product with lackluster payoff at $3.5k.

      • bamboo
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        9 months ago

        Less $3.5k and more 3.5mm headphone jack Apple

    • DingoBilly@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      It needs to be maybe 75% cheaper as well as what you’ve said and it becomes worth it.

      At this price point it will never be successful.

  • AutoTL;DR@lemmings.worldB
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    9 months ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:


    Parker Ortolani, The Verge’s product manager, told me that he thought using the device led to a burst blood vessel in his eye.

    “Despite being as magical to use as I’d hoped, it was simply way too uncomfortable to wear even for short periods of time both due to the weight and the strap designs.

    For smart glasses and headsets, having a low nose bridge can mean the device just slips off your face or fails to adequately block out light.

    Another engineer wrote on the social media platform X that the “coding experience failed to convince [him]” and focusing issues caused headaches.

    “If I’m not using this for productivity, and if I don’t love it for entertainment, and if there aren’t enough games to play on it - I just can’t justify keeping it,” one Reddit user wrote.

    While these users are speaking out on social media, we have no idea of the actual return rate — or what Apple’s internal expectations for the Vision Pro are.


    The original article contains 621 words, the summary contains 168 words. Saved 73%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!

  • Matriks404@lemmy.world
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    I dislike Apple, but this is the way future will like. AR (and maybe VR, but who knows) will definitely be amazing in a decade or so. BUT I think some people will still stick to smartphones, especially ones who don’t want to spend their whole day with technology and social media.

    I am definitely buying an AR headset, as long as it’s affordable and can replace at least half of the tasks I do on my computer/phone. The AR device with Windows 11 and computing power of standard computer would be just fucking amazing, and I wouldn’t go back.

    • MrSpArkle@lemmy.ca
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      9 months ago

      Microsoft barely made a PC interface, they’re the last ones i would expect make a proper AR interface.

      • OrderedChaos@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        Aren’t they removing the AR they built into the OS? I swear I read recently that they gave up on their customers that bought their headset so people that have it are forced to stay on an old version of windows just to use them.

        • Vinny@lemmy.world
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          Microsoft’s game plan seems to be:

          1. Sell a cool idea, halfheartedly.
          2. Abandon the idea.
          3. Wait until someone else done it right.
          4. Ripe them off / play catch up.

          It was exactly like that for Windows on ARM.

          In other words, regardless of whether you like/hate Apple, if the Vision Pro does not success, then there probably won’t be any further investment in the space from MS either.

          • OrderedChaos@lemmy.world
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            9 months ago

            I don’t mind any of the companies when they have tech that does a job really well. Sadly it seems that they all have this collective idea that anything they’ve done well is not worth maintaining at some point. I’m neither a Linux, windows, or Mac fan. And each have their strengths. You just pick the poison while it’s available to fill a need.

      • Matriks404@lemmy.world
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        Not sure what do you mean by PC interface. Do you mean interface between user and computer? (which has nothing to do with software) Or like GUI in an operating system?

        If by “PC interface” you mean GUI, then I still don’t get you, because there’s real alternative to Windows UI in any desktop operating system last time I checked. Sure Apple has macOS with its simple UI, and may be good for users that need to do only basic tasks, but if you need to have powerful (and in some parts customizable, although Unix desktops like KDE or Xfce may be better suited for max customization) UI with great UX for power users and without need to get to command line often (like you do on Linux) nothing beats Windows.

        • sacredfire@programming.dev
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          I don’t know, when we start talking about power users my mind goes to developers and most seem to not like windows. At least that has been my experience. Most of us prefer unix based systems, primarily because we have to use it to interact with like almost every server anyway. And of course I’m not just talking about different Linux distos, Mac is essentially Unix based and is in heavy use in a lot of shops.

          • Matriks404@lemmy.world
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            Yeah, as for development I’d say Linux (or any Unix-like) is more suited for that, especially when you have really great shell, development utilities and awesome package managers, and the overall system design is good for that. Also some stuff is just faster to do in command line, I could never see myself using git graphically for example, as doing so only gives me more headaches. But for most stuff I prefer GUI, because GUI’s tend to have common design choices, and you can generally figure it out in few minutes, while for CLI utilities anything goes, some have built-in interactive prompts, some incompatible syntax, there’s sometimes steep learning curve, and list goes on.

        • MrSpArkle@lemmy.ca
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          9 months ago

          Microsoft puts ads in the start menu. I could go into a deeper critique, but ultimately that is the canary in the coal mine. Any company with a structure capable of shipping that feature is fucking busted in terms of user experience and ui design.

          • Matriks404@lemmy.world
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            I don’t really use start menu, nor have ads in my OS (may be regional thing), but that’s a good point.

      • Matriks404@lemmy.world
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        Well, that’s kinda stupid on their part, but I bet they will be rejoining AR race later though, probably too late while Apple and Google creates good AR platforms with massive support of 3rd parties. And I expect Google (or, ekhm, Alphabet?) to show something like that in next few years.

        Still, as for Windows AR devices, I expect to there being some 3rd party ones in ~10 years, that have computing power of desktop PC’s we had yesterday or we have today. And we can already see that even mid-budget mobile devices can run heavy desktop environments (like Windows or some Linux desktops (like GNOME and KDE)) with no issues whatsoever, this is just going to expand into AR devices.

      • june@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        I think they mean a full windows OS for AR, which doesn’t currently exist.

        • xthexder@l.sw0.com
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          9 months ago

          Hololens 2 still exists and runs a highly modified version of Windows, so it does sort of exist. But obviously there’s no chance of running desktop apps on a Hololens.

          • chiliedogg@lemmy.world
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            Hololens is what they’re discontinuing support for and removing from future updates to the OS.

    • ExLisper@linux.community
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      9 months ago

      Flying cars will be the future but I wouldn’t buy a flying car today.

      Brain-computer interfaces will be the future but I wouldn’t implant a chip in my brain today.

      Personal AI assistants will be the future but I wouldn’t pay $350 for ChatGPT today.

      Lot’s of things will be great in the future. Bringing it up in the context of existing, silly products is a bit pointless.