this post was submitted on 04 Feb 2024
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Apple employees outnumbered customers at Vision Pro launch in San Francisco's Union Square::Apple’s new Vision Pro headset drew a sparse but eager crowd to San Francisco’s Union Square on Friday, for pickups and demos.

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 9 months ago (3 children)

I'll take that bet. I've had a Vive for years, Apple's effort addresses all of the issues I have with that headset. I'm excited to see what devs are going to come up with, there's going to be some amazing apps coming out.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I worry that it’s a bit chicken and egg. I’ve a psvr and psvr2, for reference. Without millions of users, the market for a range of quality apps is poor. Then, of those quality apps, only a few will be truly great, even less revolutionary enough to sell a $3500 headset for one.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago (1 children)

This is a big step up from existing VR headsets, it can do things they can’t, so I’m excited to see what devs can do.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago

Me too, but that assumes devs that have the time and access to do so. If it’s not mass market, they may not. In a way, hopefully it means that all vr has to use the same apis/design language eventually rather than a a new set of competing systems. Obviously, with seeing how the phone market went, none of the big companies will allow that to happen if they can avoid it.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Why do you think there will be amazing apps? Low volume means expensive apps that don't make a lot of money for the devs compared to, say, the much larger VR market.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago (1 children)

There will be things like this:

https://www.si.com/fannation/racing/f1briefings/news/this-f1-virtual-reality-teaser-brings-sport-to-a-whole-new-level-lm22

If Apple can figure out how to license and broadcast immersive video live from sporting events, these things are going to sell like crazy once the non-pro, cheaper version comes out.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago (2 children)

That already existed on psvr 4 years ago and I think take up was minimal. Again, it could be something that apple can popularise, now the technology is better, but it won’t be ground breaking.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Psvr has the issue of having to buy a console and the headset. Though they may be cheaper compared to vision pro they have the gaming stigma around it while this has the luxury brand on it.
How many billionaires will buy a vision pro vs how many would buy the psX + psvr?

This is a device suitable for the masses.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Yes, but many millions of the kind of people that would be interested already have a ps5. For those that don't, it's still cheaper to buy both twice over.

It's designed for vr, not at, so the video pass through is sufficient rather than great. It's still a huge step up and hopefully, so is the apple headset.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

The psvr2 is geniunly interesting. Alone for the adaptive resolution scaling.
Too bad it only works on PS for now

[–] [email protected] -1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

The groundbreaking part is to take that tech, refine it, and sell a metric fuckton of hardware. Groundbreaking is seeing all these disparate, unconnected technologies come together into something new.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

Yes but the question is whether this can be mass market enough and is refined enough.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

And that's the big dead on arrival red flag. There's already some ecosystem for VR/AR, specially in games. But Apple is not compatible with any of that. If people could buy a VisionPro and instantly start installing and using the software they already own and have been using for a few years but with better hardware and a better experience, the story would be different and this would be a runaway success. But this is one of the cases where the walled garden and overall hostility towards developers from Apple will bite them in the ass. A few massive players have straight up refused to port their software for the Vision Pro, and hardware platforms live or die on their supported software. This is one where Apple can't carry the whole burden of development of apps since they are already bogged down with keeping up and coming up with an entirely new OS and an entirely new UX. If they don't open the garden and let help in, the Vision Pro will forever be a curious toy, not the productivity machine they want it to be.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

If they don’t open the garden and let help in

What does that look like to you? I'm not sure what it is you want Apple to do.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago

I don't give a fuck about what Apple does. Their actions and decisions are inconsequential to me personally.

But, entertaining the questions, they could've reach out to the developers of the most popular VR apps and games to entice them to port as soon as possible. The only similar thing I've heard was a small indie that made like a YouTube frontend, or something (IDK). And that was not on a Dev kit but on a emulator. Which has gigantic limitations. They could also allow devs broader access to the system, like allowing sideloading, kernel level modules, open source some part of the OS to allow people to understand how it works, tinker with and innovate over the possibilities that the hardware brings.

All those are things that Apple will never do though. And as a result, their hardware platform won't be the bed of innovation they want it to be. Right now the vision pro has no killer app or must have feature. You can't build the future by forbidding everyone from building unless they pay you out of the nose just to even see the building site.