I was super interested in the Vision Pro when it was first released. Then I found out they went with an app model and the device could only display a single MacOS window. There went my dream of surrounding myself with a bunch of vim windows and terminals.
If they'd focused on maximizing the device's usefulness instead of its revenue stream, maybe things would have worked out better.
My sentiments exactly. This would be such an easy purchase to justify if it weren't just a toy-- no other VR headset touts to display text so crisply. But instead, their only market demographic are people who really enjoy going to theaters alone.
I'm very eagerly looking forward to Valve's headset coming out.
There are three problems with AVP: cost, cost and cost.
It is priced to be a pack-in with seats of Dassault 3DEXPERIENCE, but Meta's experience has been that the VR consumer is price sensitive which is why they followed up the MQ3 with the cost-reduced MQ3S.
I think Apple is looking at this the way they look at AirPods (something you stick in your ears to modify and augment your hearing) which is good and monitors, which is bad. Apple's always sold a tiny number of monitors with astronomical margins which looked like a good business because they didn't have to invest in product innovation to make them the way they do for the AVP -- and they didn't need software developers to invest in product innovation for their monitors, but the AVP absolutely requires it. And if they aren't shipping enough units, who is going to make software for it?
On top of the three problems of any AR/VR tech: UX, UX and UX.
I'm honestly not sure if Apple Vision would fare much better if they had a device that costs $100. Like, sure, they'll sell more units that way. But how many of those units would end up collecting dust?
Playing Beat Saber on the MQ3 I meet people who are enthusiastic about VR, who share immersive content (pano video shot with https://www.kandaovr.com/qoocam-3) and there are plenty of games in the store... compared to other gaming platforms where I meet a lot of younger people, I find there are a lot of older and retired people using VR, which is not what Meta is looking for for a Facebook replacement.
My take is the MQ3 is pretty good for UX. I regularly use my image sorter and RSS reader in a web browser with a huge number of windows open, bringing my click targets up to the WCAG AAA standards made them very usable in this environment. The Apple Magic Keyboard pairs perfectly, as does a mouse. The controller work great for games and other immersive applications.
I'd say though that my game backlog on the MQ3 is long as is my game backlog in Steam, and there is just a huge amount of competition from flat content so I don't play as many VR games as I could.
Survivorship bias. You don't tend to meet people who played Beat Saber 2 times and put the headset on the shelf forever.
The metrics are brutal, for Quest 3 and for every other headset. Meta worked hard to bring the costs down and improve the UX, and it still isn't enough. They wanted "the next smartphone" and fell so short it's not even funny.
i’m afraid i’ll look back and regret that i didn’t capture 3d memories of parents and grandparents when it was technically feasible because of a few dollars…
Well, there are stereo cameras… The digital ones came and went with 3D TVs though so you have to go to eBay. I am enjoying the stereo cameras I have accumulated though.
It eats batteries but you can get a charger and more batteries the way you would have a few mirrorless generations ago.
My trouble is not really having a system to show these to people, red/green anglyohs sometimes work fret but aren’t consistent, there doesn’t seem to be an ‘instagram’ for sharing stereo photos, it ought to be easy to make a WebXR application to show stereograms but I haven’t seen a fully realized one and found texture memory limits are a bitch in the MQ3 so my first attempt to make one got stuck.
I've taken to (tediously) printing stereogram cards for the better 3D photos.
I wrote this to take the .MPO files (a common file format on the earlier commercial digital stereo cameras) and convert them to print-ready stereograms: https://github.com/EngineersNeedArt/Stereographer
I’ve heard the latency is still a pretty major issue. I’d love to use one for sim racing but the latency complaints make it a non-starter. If that’s changed or anyone is using it for sim racing please let me know.
Sim racing has been default better in VR for the last few years IMO if you have decent spec computer that can sustain good frame rates. Especially since the release of the Quest 3 with its really nice lenses (huge "sweet spot"), 110 degree FoV and 25 PPD for 500 bucks. The ability to look into a corner the way you do on an actual track, by turning your head and looking towards the apex etc, is just a complete game changer. I don't think anyone in the sim racing community really feels latency is an issue anymore on modern hardware.
The biggest issues left in VR sim racing are still arguably comfort and weight in longer races, but even that is getting solved now with really compact new headsets like the Big Screen Beyond 2 etc.
Yes, and it's one of the best headsets for Linux :) But this is a tethered headset and the text rendering isn't good enough to justify one over a monitor (reportedly-- I haven't bought one yet). Especially because it's tethered.
But Valve is reliably rumored to be releasing an untethered successor within the next year for a third of the cost of the AVP. The appeal is having a dozen monitors anywhere.
I'm not really following through your reasoning. How is breaking the usefulness helping the revenue stream?
Assuming you're an engineer, have you thought about what handing over a "window" from one computer to another actually entails? CRIU can do checkpoint/restore at container/process level - but you actually want it to run on both, no? So you need to split off just the I/O, but at the OS-level per window.
Apple has been doing a lot of work in this direction and they have stuff that actually work (like video calls and to some extent windows. These are processes running on different OS-es with a matrix of hundreds of devices.
It's not something you vibe code over the weekend.
the revenue-driven decision was choosing to make the OS more like iOS, locked down with an app store, rather than macos, which allows third-party applications, browsing the filesystem, dropping into a terminal, etc. with built-in first-party support.
instead of making a computer in an AR form-factor, they made an iPad in an AR form-factor.
Sending multiple windows over screensharing actually seems easier than sending the desktop to me - because you only look at one window at once, the rest don't have to update at full frame rate, or at all.
And it's easier and more power-efficient (because of hardware video encoding) to use screen sharing instead of sending drawing commands etc.
You can in fact already do this (have Mac windows show up as separate floating windows in VisionOS instead of all being on the single MacOS window) using a third party tool called Ensemble:
Another comment mentions how useful it is because it's integrated with Apple's ecosystem. I mean of course it is...Apple makes it.
I do wonder if that person had ever tried any of the myriad of VR device available a decade before beforehand and I do wonder how popular Apple's product would be if other companies were given the opportunity to integrate with the OS on the same level that Apple can (I feel like Apple is breaking anti-competitive laws constantly but nobody really cares about making them open up).
I think I may be the commenter you're referring to, and yes, I have used many different VR devices over the years. I've owned at least 3 other headsets and used 5.
My point in saying the usefulness of it being tied to the ecosystem was more of a negative one than a positive one if it wasn't clear. It is personally useful for me because I have a lot of Apple products at home (though I also have PC and linux stuff too), but I wish my primary use-cases for it were more platform agnostic.
I'm also very in support of aggressive anti-trust legislation and it's probably my biggest point of contention with Apple.
Despite all that, I still like the Vision Pro and think it's an incredible piece of tech that blows every other headset I've tried out of the water for the things I like to do.
> I do wonder if that person had ever tried any of the myriad of VR device available a decade before beforehand and I do wonder how popular Apple's product would be if other companies were given the opportunity to integrate with the OS on the same level that Apple can
Microsoft had and still has this opportunity, they even have game console and much of game developers to bootstrap VR/AR ecosystem.
> (I feel like Apple is breaking anti-competitive laws constantly but nobody really cares about making them open up).
> Then I found out they went with an app model and the device could only display a single MacOS window.
There was this program called Immersed for Quest and some other VR headsets (apparently Apple's one too?) that ages ago was quite brilliant: I could connect my laptop or PC and have as many virtual desktops in addition to the real ones displayed around me. Even on my Quest 2, until the strain set in, it was cool to just kinda tune out the room around me and be in a black void surrounded by just the screens of whatever I'm working on.
Sadly, in one update they randomly removed it as a "legacy feature nobody uses", which ruined the program for me, and Virtual Desktop for the Quest also has limited screens you can display, so I can't even do all 4 of my physical ones, nor virtual ones - despite it having worked previously in the other program.
For a little bit, it was a really cool mode of working, but sadly I only got glimpses of it and would need more capable hardware like AVP for that in the first place (Quest 2 very much had its limitations).
That's not what we want at all. I should be able to slap a "Sync" button while wearing the Vision and every single window/app currently running on my Macbook Pro should show up as a completely independent spatially manipulable display within the virtual environment. That way I still get all the power of my dedicated Mac with the freedom of VR.
Even before it came out, I naturally assumed it was going to be able to do this. Major flub IMHO. Well that and the completely superfluous frontfacing screen for your "virtual avatar". Because the Vision wasn't already expensive enough...
It would be nice if Apple allowed people to choose how Mac virtual display windows were shown. I have a Vision Pro and I rather like the way it's implemented. From a UX perspective, I can't imagine trying to deal with hundreds of windows in AR space. The Vision Pro UI is good, but I'm nowhere near as fast as with a keyboard and mouse.
They want the individual windows from the Mac to be manoeuvrable. Currently it works like a virtual display - you can't move windows around space like you can with visionOS apps.
Maybe I'm missing something, but I think emulating a physical screen in a virtual field of view is the wrong way to do this. Why introduce off-axis viewing and all the other unnecessary weirdnesses? What if the entire field of view were the screen, with head and eye movement as navigation? I guess make the windows transparent so it's less disorienting, and it would at least initially be overwhelming, but past that it could be quite transformative.
I actually bought one thinking I could buy a vision pro instead of a new computer, but alas, the vision pro (despite being a powerful computer) is not usable as a work computer
Apple is not in the business of selling productivity software. Even their desktops/MacOS segment is an insignificant historical afterthought by now.
To a first approximation, Apple is a manufacturer of locked-down handheld entertainment appliances whose primary function is to psychologically condition children into siphoning off money from their inattentive parents. There's no reason to suspect their vision for the AVP to diverge significantly from this user story.
> Personally I find a Mac to be a better development environment than Windows
This is both true and completely irrelevant, because the point of the above comment is that Apple is not in the business of catering to this use case.
Look at the annual revenues: $225 billion from iPhone/iPad, $100 billion from "services" (which Apple mostly characterizes as "app store stuff"), $40 billion from accessories (watch, airpods, etc), $30 billion from desktops. The Mac segment comes out to 7.9% of their overall revenue. And this number is shrinking in both the absolute and relative sense, as "services" continues to grow and as Mac units shipped peaked in 2022.
This is by design of course. The only major platform that requires a specific minor platform from the same vendor to target, at least that I know of. Apple knows how to make money.
> You can't build iPhone or iPad apps on iPhones or iPads yet, so a decent chunk of that revenue currently relies on the Mac as well.
This is both entirely true and still manages to miss the point. Yes, Apple keeps the Mac around exclusively to accommodate the creation of iOS apps. No, they are not financially incentivized to create new categories of hardware that cater toward productivity when instead they could lock them down and milk that cow for all it's worth via the app store tax.
That word right there means that we can both be correct, because I personally find MacOS to be frustrating for Dev compared to every other alternative. Great for creativity, but not so much for productivity.
I've used Macbooks for dev pretty much my whole career and I do think that they're some of the _best_ laptops available for dev.
But the caveat to my statement is that _everything_ added to their ecosystem to business reasons is useless and counterproductive. For example I can plug my Android phone into a Windows machine (two different companies inb4 someone uses flawed logic) and it just works. If I plug my Android phone into my Macbook it doesn't work at all...but an iPhone does! ;)
They only very recently got decent-ish Window management, basic snapping that Linux/Windows has had for at least a decade or longer. And even then their implementation is "pretty" but slow to respond. It's like just expand and snap the fucking window for fuck's sake.
In terms of the "development environment" they enjoy having had the OS built on top of FreeBSD (which yes, they have contributed to - bet Apple management hated that).
To me it's a machine that gets stuff done; they could literally strip the thing down to the bare minimum, removing all of the "magical wonderful Apple stuff with cutesy fancy sounding names" and I couldn't give a shit.
I'm sure you felt very clever writing that zinger about children and parents, but unless the majority of Apple devices are sold to/for children -- which I would bet is extremely not true -- it's obviously wrong.
In app purchases from (crappy) games is top revenue source in App Store. Anecdotally, I’d be shocked if the majority of that wasn’t from kids using their parents’ phones.
You have deftly avoided attempting to refute the actual argument here, which is that >90% of Apple's revenue comes from their walled garden, and they have no desire to pivot back towards catering to the small and dwindling niche of power users.
Well, excuse me for refuting something you actually wrote rather than the thing you would have preferred me to focus on.
When you say something like "whose primary function is to psychologically condition children into siphoning off money from their inattentive parents", it's rhetorically effective. It paints a vivid picture. It encourages your readers to have a certain attitude towards the company you're talking about.
In other words, that bit of what you wrote was load-bearing. It served a purpose for you. That means that it isn't exempt from criticism. We should reject conversational norms according to which it's OK to throw in these little barbs but not OK to object when someone points out that what you're saying is flatly false.
"My goat-fucking opponent wants to raise your taxes and use the revenue to subsidize tobacco companies. You should vote against him." "Excuse me, I am absolutely not a goat-fucker. How dare you?" "Look how he avoids the central argument about his policies!"
As to the "actual argument": no, actually, that clearly isn't your actual argument, or at least if it is then your argument is unsound.
You can't get from "Macs are <10% of Apple's revenue"[1] to any prediction about what Apple will do with the Vision Pro. For that, you need to (1) classify it as "like an iPhone or iPad" rather than "like a Mac" -- which I agree is a reasonable classification, though you haven't bothered to argue for it at all and it is at least a bit debatable -- and then (2) look at what sort of thing Apple does with its iPhones and iPads. This bit you have done, kinda ... and this bit is exactly the bit where you said something obviously false. "whose primary function is to psychologically condition children into siphoning off money from their inattentive parents", remember? That is, or claims to be, a description of what sort of thing Apple want their devices to do. It's exactly the sort of thing that's directly relevant to supporting what you say about what features we should expect them to give the Vision Pro and its software. And, once again, it's plainly false.
[1] Perfectly true, though "an insignificant historical afterthought" is obviously false -- once again, you're festooning what you say is your "actual argument" with little untruths that make the "actual argument" feel stronger, and I wish you wouldn't -- and, also "historical afterthought" is kinda nonsensical, no? Being a historical relic and being an afterthought are opposite and incompatible varieties of insignificance.
There absolutely is an argument to be made along the lines that the VP is kinda like an iPad, and despite their impressive hardware capabilities iPads are designed for entertainment much more than for getting useful work done, and so we should also expect the VP's software to pass up opportunities to make the device useful for serious purposes in favour of making it an entertainment-consumption device. You could totally have done that. It would have been pretty similar to what you wrote. It would have been rather a persuasive argument. But it amused you to go way the hell over the top and say that Apple's non-Mac devices are mostly intended to manipulate children into wasting their parents' money and, once again, that's obviously not true and you put it right where the core of your "actual argument" should have been.
I'm aware that I'm making rather a big deal of a small lie. But this sort of thing is everywhere in online discourse at the moment, and I am getting extremely fed up of it. It's never enough to make a reasonable argument; it's always necessary to throw in all these playing-to-the-gallery jabs, which no doubt get you a bunch of likes and retweets and other forms of Meaningless Internet Points. It's yet another form of the optimizing-for-engagement that is eating our societies alive, and the HN crowd is supposed to be smarter than that, and I wish we would all collectively Do Better, damn it.
And also virtually every film editor, colourist and videographer. Oh and also every illustrator and graphic designer. And a host of other professions where having a clean UI, colour accuracy, on a reliable machine that rarely if ever crashes is essential rather than a preference.
As a film maker and editor I'm enormously more productive on my dual screen (used) M1 Max Studio machine than I was on a variety of PC setups with high end GPUs. Even just the missing overhead of not having to keep graphic drives and constant Windows updates is great. Reliable renders were never a thing on Windows. The time lost doing things again because window had some strange colour issue, render crash, font issue and on and on was ludicrous.
The idea of having to use Windows for daily productivity sends a shiver down my spine.
I don't agree with the OP, but you gotta admit.. it used to feel like Apple was more dedicated to this market when they could keep interesting Pro desktop kit evolving on an acceptable pace.
I don't know... I agree that they're no longer innovative in terms of UI and original categories of devices. But the M1 chips have been enormously innovative in terms of performance per watt. One reason essentially every 'creative' (bar 3d designers) uses Macs is that unplugged they run as fast as plugged in. There's literally no PC laptop you can build or buy with integrated graphics powerful enough to compete - while on the move and away from power. Perhaps the new AMD Strix Halo devices will change this, but I wouldn't hold my breath.
Their Pro desktop/laptop hardware is the best it's ever been as long as it fits your use case (ie not adding a bunch of PCI-E cards or third party GPUs).
Every company I've worked at in the last 15-20 years has run fully on Mac. First it was the designers, then the devs, and now everyone. I used Windows for years and have some experience with various Linux distros, but if I joined a company that made me use either of those full-time I'd immediately start looking for another job.
I own Vision Pro. They work with Macos pretty well when sharing the whole screen, and I think that their technology is potentially capable to share one specific app -- with facetime you can do just that -- but so far Vision Pro is unable of that. That's a shame.
Within the bounds of that big ol 8k window, yes, but the applications themselves can't be extracted and positioned separately.
My workaround for this is using applications that work comfortably in a safari window (like vscode) and you can have as many safari windows free floating as you want
I use AVP every day for work. I spend 8+ hours a day wearing the thing.
It's amazing the screen real estate you get when you share your Mac screen. It's terrible that it's only one screen, but with good enough window (pun intended) management app, you can tile the windows/app inside this giant curved floating screen. That works for me because I always preferred using a single screen.
It's possible to share a single desktop/window, but it's not officially supported. Sometimes the screen sharing bugs out and, instead of gigantic curved screen, I get a tiny small app/window. If someone is interested in looking into this, this happens (sometimes) when, instead of starting the screen sharing from AVP, you share (mirror) the screen from Mac display/mirroring settings.
Yeah this would honestly be incredible and actually deserving of the "spatial computing" moniker.
I would love to be able to have a dedicated spatial location for each part of my Django app: look over here for the CSS, step here for the views, scroll through the logs over here...
1) It's been doable for years and yet AR/VR doesn't take off
2) It will only ever be a hyper niche use case of an already hyper niche market. People do not want a giant screen glued to their face.
Have you actually tried "working" in VR? It is awful and pointless and zero percent of my work is limited by the size of my screen FFS. Are you one of those people that keep 100 terminal windows open with random TOPS and log watchers but never actually uses them? Those people always seem to have lots of monitors. They don't actually seem more productive though.
I even downgraded from two external monitors to one because all the extra monitor was doing was making me hurt my neck from looking back and forth.
A 30 inch monitor with 1440p resolution can do everything you want from django and is like $200
It’s more the idea of always-everywhere computing. Where you can pull up a notepad window in a meeting to take notes. Where you can take those notes back to your desk. Where there can be a sign-up sheet posted to the door for group editing.
I've had the Vision Pro since launch, and the only thing that keeps me coming back to it nearly daily is the Mac Virtual Display for my MacBook Pro.
It's just so useful to have a huge display wherever you want it - no hunching over looking down a small laptop screen. This is especially useful on a plane where I'm not even able to open the laptop completely due to the tight space.
My main gripe is: Why do I need a separate Mac at all?
Even the original M2 Vision Pro has more than enough horsepower to run the virtual Mac inside of the headset, so it seems like a fake limitation.
I'm looking forward to it being lighter weight and smaller, and for them to make the Mac Virtual Display native to the Vision Pro experience without the need for a separate computer.
The only use case I’m interested in is long-haul flights. How comfortable is it to wear for an extended period? Do people interrupt you to ask you about it? Are you able to use all the features sitting in economy while gesturing?
I never would have bought a gaming computer or console, but a gaming handheld is an easy purchase.
There's something much more approachable about having an appliance with a built-in screen vs having to get a monitor/TV and dedicate part of your living space to something you use sometimes.
Speaking of which, Apple could probably support Mac apps on modern iPhones if you plug it into an external monitor. I assume they aren't doing it because it would cannibalize their laptop market.
This is why I love Samsung for DEX. It's not perfect but it's actually fairly usable when travelling. Can even use it wirelessly with a compatible display (which sometimes hotel TVs are).
I'm very excited for stuff like smart glasses ever single Glass, meta's new stuff is awesome in terms of slimming things down but the real excitement is the wristband for input. Looks like we'll be solving the display/input problems soon enough.
They seemed resistant to the idea of a compute puck but I honestly think that's fine. I'd rather have a phone in my pocket that can be used for compute than bulkier glasses, though it is nice if future glasses can do very basic tasks unaided.
I hope that pretty soon I won't even need a laptop for out of hours tasks (but would still use one for the standard work day most likely).
Probably yes. Essentially all of those are the same: Apple TVs, iPhones, iPads, Macbooks and desktop computers. Slightly different version of Apple Silicon in different casing and different OS (or UI?).
Desktop apps already survive standby, so CPU usage shouldn't be a problem. And if automatically killing Mac apps, to free up memory, isn't an option, they could add a permanent notification which says "Mac App XYZ still consumes a lot of memory, tap here to close." Or they move the offending Mac app from RAM to temporary SSD storage as long as the phone isn't plugged into a monitor.
Knowing Apple, they'll never allow a use case where you have to restart your Vision Pro or iPad to get it into Mac mode, most assuredly losing cellular access in the mean time.
Apple is already offering apps that work on all devices on their stores. Look at every single Apple Arcade release as an example. That's their vision; every device has a specific UI, but apps can run on all of them separately.
> Knowing Apple, they'll never allow a use case where you have to restart your Vision Pro or iPad to get it into Mac mode, most assuredly losing cellular access in the mean time.
They likely have enough talented developers to make iOS run Mac apps natively. But I assume they neither want to cannibalize their laptop market nor want to let people circumvent the 30% fee for the iOS App Store, which is not required for Mac software.
Well, it would obviously result in fewer Mac sales. Because people could use their iPhone (or iPad, or Vision Pro) as a Mac. So it would be good for iPhone owners, who don't need to buy a Mac, but bad for Apple.
Not probably, definitely. Nobody wants that of course because it would mean hiring real developers over friends/family.
A19 pro is already faster than modern desktop chips let alone something from a few years ago. Almost all their mac software was designed for much more modest machines.
It would also be slow, not because the chip is slow but because if you do serious things with it it’s going to thermal throttle. Laptops have way better heat dissipation.
Most people put phones in cases which makes heat dissipation much worse.
Sure but just for browsing, checking some e-mails, a bit of YouTube or other media consumption, you know what 90% of people use their macbook for 99% of the time, it would be fine.
Nobody is saying you should be able to render some 3d models on an iPhone..
Is that really true. Do non-serious computer users still buy laptops?
What I see is that non-serious users who only communicate and consume content use phones and tablets. Laptops and desktops are for work, non-trivial content creation, and serious gaming with high memory and GPU requirements. You’re not running “cargo build” or a VM with Docker or Cyberpunk 2077 on a phone.
Higher end phones almost have enough CPU but not enough GPU, RAM, storage, or heat dissipation.
But that's mostly email, SaaS, web meetings, and spreadsheets. Most people have never in their lives run "cargo build" or launched Cyberpunk 2077. The actual market for sustained high local CPU/GPU compute is pretty small compared to the market for minimal load with the occasional small burst, and the latter works pretty well with poor cooling solutions.
Modern iPhones can even run modern games like Resident Evil 4 Remake from battery. Which suggests thermal throttle won't be a problem for most ordinary Mac applications.
Mac apps will expect a full set of Mac hardware (not just the CPU), so you’d probably need to run a full virtual Mac for compatibility. Not impossible, but I expect it’s not a priority either.
It seemed silly to me, but then I remembered how Apple works. Create something that you can't have. Oh an M5 chip in something I won't buy. It would be great if we had M5's in MacBooks -> want. Apple manufactures desire first before satisfying that created 'new' market. Last time I recall was the iPad Pro's even before they started getting useful as very few people buy these. Scarcity sells.
The math isn't how many people will buy Vision Pro M5, it's how many have nots can be created by putting it in the Vision Pro.
I won't be upgrading from the M2 model, but I still get a lot of value out of mine simply using the Mac Virtual Display with my Macbook Pro. Of course there are other benefits (gaming w/ ALVR and a PC, watching movies, reading comics) but it makes video editing workflows much nicer for me because I can set the resolution to ultrawide and have much more real estate for Davinci Resolve.
It never really leaves the house, and I get why a lot of people don't like it, but personally, it's one of the coolest pieces of tech I own and I get a ton of value out of it. The value is just tied to being integrated into the apple ecosystem more than it being a standalone device, which is a very Apple thing to do.
I have lots of criticisms too, but overall I really like it. Also converting photos to spatial photos and looking through old memories in 3D is truly incredible. Can't overstate how much I love that feature.
The thing I'm most excited about from this release is the backwards compatible Dual Knit Band, which I'm definitely buying.
I am in a similar boat. I wish they'd gone in to more detail about why this version is different than the existing one - other than "new chip" - because I like mine so much that I want to know how it's improved. I love having a portable, infinite desktop that pairs to my laptop. I have watched movies with it while away, and it's a great media consumption device. It's just cool, and should only get better and cheaper as the tech evolves.
Similar. I use this as a traveling external monitor. I have a face that works well without the face seal and with the old dual band: Counter weighted with the back of my head in a way that floats the headset over my nose/face. Going back to squeezing this onto my face like the old knit band seems like it would go backwards in comfort. How can anyone have this pressed against their face for 8+ hours?
The best is to have a pulley system above your head that removes the weight of it from above. I’d like to see someone implement this via a backpack / should strap for mobile use.
With the inability to counter-balance, with soft straps, I I really wish they would get rid of the metal, glass, and silly front screen. For comparison, Quest 3, with integrated battery, is almost 20% lighter and is possible to counter balance (hard strap), which I think is more important than weight (near zero force on the flesh of my face).
It has comparable PPD, at the center, so works just as well for using as windows/mac virtual screen (mac being my main use case).
As far as I know, you can't have different virtual desktops for each room. The window to use the virtual desktop dynamically pops up over my laptop when I open and unlock it.
I do have a few widgets floating around in different rooms, but rarely use it from somewhere that isn't my chair or bed, so it's mostly a few clocks embedded into my walls to keep track of time, and those are persistent.
I love my first gen Apple Vision Pro. I find that most of the criticism isn’t addressed at the product and technology, but at the price and Apple’s strategy.
Price will go down in five years, once the tech mature la. For now this is a bit like how the Oculus DK1 was. An early device to explore what the overall vision is about, and figure out the apps.
I use AVP every day for work. I spend 8+ hours a day wearing the thing.
It's amazing the screen real estate you get when you share your Mac screen. It's terrible that it's only one screen, but with good enough window (pun intended) management app, you can tile the windows/app inside this giant curved floating screen. That works for me because I always preferred using a single screen.
Anyone using one? If so, what for? (please give details)
I got an oculus quest 2, was blown away by it for 1-2 hours, but never really picked it up again. The games were fun but very shallow, and never tried any practical uses.
Would love to use VR for working on a plane. Currently use a laptop, but my neck sometimes gets sore from looking down. VR has the potential to 10x the screen real estate and prevent having to look at down at an acute angle.
I have one. I use it primarily for keeping my drawer full.
That said, it's AMAZING as a home theater replacement, other than an issue with internal reflections in the optics. So in dark scenes it gets a bit annoying.
If I lived in an apartment, I would absolutely use it in place of a large TV that eats up a lot of my space. Especially coupled with the airpods MAX and spatial audio. Watching a 4k 3d movie in it is mind-blowing. Most 3d you've ever seen was really 50% of 1080p, so it's a whole new world. Some of the Apple original content is also great. The thing with the submarine is amazing.
Personally I already have a full sized home theater, so I just use that. However, I'm willing to bet that in 5 years when it's time to upgrade the home theater I'll probably just be turning it into a library with some seats I can use a VR headset from. Who knows, maybe it will be a descendant of the AVP.
Do you never entertain guests with your home theater system?
I believe you when you say that it could replace the experience for yourself, but, at least for me, hosting with my home theater is the main driver for improving it.
You nailed it. It's just not really a social experience OOTB. There are apps you can use to place multiple viewers in the same virtual space (similar to the ones on the quest), but it's just not "social" in the way that a real theater is and to do that locally would cost a fortune and be awkward and pointless.
That said, I entertain less than I watch movies alone. It's probably not worth giving up an entire room in my house for the handful of times per year that I actually entertain. My home theater is mostly just about my quest for perfection when enjoying the films that I love. If/when I can get that out of a headset... cool.
Ideally it will have real Dolby Vision/Atmos and all of the other things high end home theater equipment is expected to have, and right now the AVP doesn't. Between the reflection issues, lack of Dolby Vision, etc it's only like 80% of the way there.
Amazing home theater replacement if you watch all your movies alone, or have a lot of money.
Does Vision Pro have any apps for a virtual theater where you can watch video online in a VR space with other people? I've used Bigscreen for that once or twice with a Quest, and it struck me as something that would be a cool feature if I knew more people with VR headsets.
> That said, it's AMAZING as a home theater replacement
This seems to literally be its only killer feature.
I was hoping apple would be able to figure out what nobody else has, an actual useful everyday use for AR. But still we are just given a personal theatre, or proof of concept toy 'experience' apps.
I had to try several different straps and configurations before I found one that worked well for me. I forget what it's called now, but there's one made by a company that makes CPAP machines. That's the one to get. Makes a huge difference.
As a user, I actually use it more today than when I first got it, because each visionOS update has really unleveled the capabilities of the device. I like watching movies on the ceiling, the spatial scenes / photos / videos are really fun, and generally viewing your Photos library on Vision Pro is on a different level. Even non-spatial content just takes on a different, more immersive quality.
I have a lot of friends in the developer community, and enjoy playing with their apps. Things like "Cell Walk" where you can explore a 3D volumetric representation of different types of cells.
The Apple Immersive short films they release every so often are phenomenal – really nothing like them in my experience.
It's nice to be able to edit a movie and throw it onto a big screen, or have a gigantic workspace.
Re: "VR for working on a plane" - you could look into XR glasses like the ones from XReal or Viture.
I've been considering a pair for myself after hearing good feedback from some friends, and seeing some good reviews online.
The latest versions have head tracking so the virtual screen remains "pinned" in your view.
They're also much smaller and easier to carry compared to a full VR headset, and they can plug into almost any device (laptop, tablet, phone) and just show up as an external monitor.
I’ve been tempted, but a lot of the forum feedback (ie not the breathless YouTube “reviews”), suggest that optically they are pretty bad, especially near the edges.
I also have the Viture Pros. They are awesome for airplane/hotel use. Not great as second monitors, as you say optically they aren't perfect and text makes that show a bit more... but if you hook up a steamdeck or want to watch Netflix on the go it's great!
Don't get me wrong, they work as a monitor in a pinch on a plane when you need privacy it's just not going to ever replace a real monitor for you.
The xReal ones are extremely workable. Like, you wouldn't want to do it by preference if a good monitor was available, but easily good enough for a situation where you don't want to use a monitor or don't have one.
On rare occasions, I use it for the virtual display; it's actually usable to sit outside and work with a giant display on the deck, or to dial myself onto the beach. But it's not exactly comfortable for extended use, and most of the time I'd rather sit at my nice desktop with multiple monitors etc.
I also have a Quest 3 and if I could only own one device, I'd take the Q3 hands-down. The games are fun, they get you up and moving, and although I'm not going to argue that the quality of the screens is the same or anything, it's more than good enough. I'll happily give up the virtual laptop screen in exchange for the library of VR games on the Quest.
I'm not much for consuming media so that aspect is lost on me. Unfortunately, that seems to be the primary use case Apple has focused on, if you can call the anemic dribble of content they've put out focus.
I had a quest 2, but it was always blurry for me. Something wrong with my eyes, idk. I've wanted to try a Bigscreen Beyond with custom lens inserts, but too much money to invest on something that might not work out.
If you wear glasses, or need them and don't normally wear them, it's important to get the prescription lens inserts. They make them for the Quest as well, and they aren't expensive.
Meta doesn't try to force it on you the way Apple does, but you really have to or it will always be blurry. The screen has a sort of fixed focal point and if your vision isn't great at that distance EVERYTHING will be blurry instead of just the one range that's normally blurry for you.
You may not even realize you need glasses until you try it and everything is blurry.
i usually wear contacts, and the quest 2 was always a bit blurry. one day i randomly was wearing my glasses and sort of forced the headset on over them and i was blow away by how much clearer it was. outside of that case I see about the same wearing contacts vs glasses.
i never got around to trying prescription inserts but i suspect they would be ideal
Contacts should work best of all (lens inserts make the space a bit cramped in there), but if it matters you need distance correction instead of nearsighted correction, or whatever the term is.
Meta has already released normal size smart glasses, it wont be long until all VR headsets are a relic of the past.
EDIT: I think people are misunderstanding me. I dont mean VR/AR will be dead, I maen that all devices will be normal size glasses and big chunky headsets wont exist any more.
What do you mean? This problem has already been solved and is just a case of miniturisation which history has shown the industry can do very quickly.
5 Years and there will not be a 'headset' on sale anymore. It will all be normal sized glasses.
There are several gaps in capability between headsets and glasses, which cannot be filled by any existing technology.
For example, consider field of view, which is a critical measurement of these displays. Typical specs are 120 degrees for headsets, 40 for glasses.
Headsets also perform very high performance rendering compared to glasses. The tiny <1Wh batteries in glasses are insufficient for that amount of work.
Glasses can't be expected to compete with headsets, much less eliminate them from the market entirely within a few years. It makes more sense to think of VR headsets and AR glasses as completely unrelated product categories.
All of that will be solved by miniturisation and advancement of tech.
I think you are short sighted (haha!) to think that headsets and glasses are different categories, and that headsets are not just a preliminary research phase to things in the future like smart contact lenses etc.
Let's not hand-wave field of view. Glasses cannot display anything outside the bounds of their frames, and therefore cannot have a field of view as large as a headset. No amount of miniaturization will overcome that limitation.
Contact lenses having the capability of a headset? That's just magical thinking.
Can you be specific? You think they can't cram in enough cameras and a lidar? The see through display is the elephant in the room and it's actually progressing.
Um, okay. Specifically, glasses don't try to do any kind of gaze tracking, gesture recognition, spacial awareness, any kind of 3d, depth, or immersion.
You could add more cameras and lidar for depth, yes, but then you'd also need a display for the other eye, and you still wouldn't be able to do immersion because your displays are transparent and have a tiny FOV, and you're also not doing passthrough, so why do you need the cameras again? And so on.
The XReal and Magic leap glasses have some of those things. Hololens had it before that. There's not a dream device yet but its clearly the north star for those and the Meta devices.
> miniturisation which history has shown the industry can do very quickly. 5 Years...
Sadly I think you are vastly overestimating the rate of progress here. Quest 2 came out 5 years ago - in those 5 years we've shrunk headset volume by about half (mostly due to pancake lenses). We'll need to find another fundamental improvement in lens technology to shrink the next 50%
Big screen beyond came out in '23. Meta has made strides with their recent showings. And I don't believe anybody is really dumping vast sums of money into it quite yet, they're coasting somewhat (though I realise that that's conjecture).
I'd say the biggest unsolved issue is the focus/depth of field issue...how to provide variable per pixel depth so that virtual objects can appear in a scene and be focussed on naturally (apparently called vergence–accommodation conflict) since most if not all displays have a fixed focus distance atm.
I mean that, we are still very limited hardware and software manners. Not always for tech reasons. Sometimes patent trolls, sometimes competition, sometimes other reasons. With the amount of wealth Apple posseses if this is possible, others can't come up with better. They have the most money anyone could startup a product or project.
i use mine daily for the virtual desktop and about 5 hours a week for hobby avp app dev. i simply think its fun to build pet projects in the sdk for my own AR dev education and entertainment
frankly i justified the cost by comparing against a planned home theater. now i RARELY use the avp as a home theater. its an incredible theater, but over time my mentality shifted and i consider the avp a tool instead of entertainment
i got used to the weight after a month. went from topping out on an hour or 2 to using for 4-5 hours no problem. also took around a month to learn the proper calibration for the light screen to "hang" on my face instead of press against it. this was a major breakthrough for comfort and session length
ive had mine since launch month and will add this observation i dont see said often:
i think the avp is meant to be taken off. meaning, i see meta going toward more comfortable ar glasses, but i dont really want to be in ar ALL DAY
its difficult to describe. the longer ive had an avp the more ive found a desire to put it on like a work hardhat, then take it off when i "feel" its time to stop. i really like that its not designed to be worn all day. im probably giving apple too much credit but its something unexpected ive found interesting in my own habitual use
* edit to add another interesting development after about a year of use: i now need to take a magnesium, calcium, and zinc pill or the weaker of my eyes will become tired and develop a spasm after about an hour and a half of sustained use. im vegetarian so that may also be a factor
I have used VR headsets since the original Oculus Development Kit Mk.1. It is until the Quest 3 that VR feels like a compelling product. If you can try it, I would suggest you do so.
Keep in mind, that the Quest 3 has been discontinued in favour of the cheaper and inferior Quest 3S. It still has some good qualities, but the best one is no doubt the Quest 3.
Another thing is that to save on costs, they all ship with a very inadequate headband. For comfort, it is imperative to get another solution, either the (expensive) elite headstrap or a (cheaper) 3rd party one.
What makes you think the Quest 3 is discontinued? The 3s was clearly communicated to be the cheaper alternative (and replaced the Quest 2 that was still sold in parallel with the 3), not a replacement for the 3.
You removed some words just now, which changes the meaning of the sentence.
> but the base $3.5k spec with only 256 GB is extreme.
The plain meaning of this sentence is "I expect more than 256 GB of storage when paying $3.5K for a device". You can argue for or against that if you like (I don't give a shit, because I would not buy it at any price), but not against something they did not say.
I think the meaning was meant more as a `Nobody would intend to buy a new sports car with 14" wheels, but they sure love to advertise the price lower prices for sports cars by making a trim that way` type statement than "gee, $3,500 for an SSD!". Edit: the clarity edit of the original seems to agree.
Apple's SSDs are actually priced a bit silly though, but I think that's a different discussion. It was significantly cheaper/GB to upgrade my M4 Mac Mini's internal SSD via 3rd party despite the performance being the same (if not better) than 1st party.
Some further thoughts: two of the use cases AVP was pitched for are content consumption (streaming + offline) and spatial video/photo production. IMO the base storage should reflect that.
Given that AVP sales are struggling, I’m not sure why Apple isn’t trying to throw people a bone and offer a more reasonable amount of storage in the base config.
Well from that you could extrapolate 1TB overall cost is actually $400 ($200/512GB). And that a unit without any storage is $3399. A $400 1TB SSD hmmmmmm.
... for the difference between the 256 and 512 version. You could argue that for 3500 USD there should already be more storage than that included. There are even 400 USD Android smartphones with 512 GB of storage.
They massively over-estimated demand [1] and produced tens if not hundreds of thousands of units that didn't sell. This is them trying to liquidate their inventory of components.
This looks like Apple’s foray into smart glasses. They seem to be following Meta’s path — but Apple can win this race via their signature strengths: tech support at their stores when your glasses break, durable hardware and focus on privacy (their glasses could blur or anonymize strangers’ faces in photos/videos who havent authorized themselves).
Meanwhile, my two pairs of Meta Ray-Bans are basically trash now. Loved them while they worked — but they break way too easily, and one completely died after a software update.
Ignoring the new model: which has upgraded screens, a faster refresh rate and a new headband design amongst other upgrades - which each indicate more R&D activity on the Vision Pro than say AirPods Max or the HomePod line. One would still need to content with:
- Embracing 3rd party wide field-of-view, 180°, and 360° camera makers for direct compatibility for content creation.
- Working with Black Magic Design on a spatial production workflow and a specialised camera for simplified spatial video creation.
- The development of not just more content, but more types of content, especially around live events and sports.
- A steady stream of software updates that add useful and forward-planning functionality.
The people that are saying that it's dead are simply choosing not to pay attention or confusing apple's push into widening their AR offerings as abandoning the vision pro.
It's also hard to reason with these people because they suggest (without evidence) that the sales numbers are unexpectedly low, while also stating that the factory that makes the screens is limiting production (again without evidence). This is more the type of speak of PR astroturfing than genuine discussion.
I'm surprised we haven't seen more live AR/VR sports content. There's so much that could be enhanced via the Vision Pro if the app content were there, and Apple is clearly able to throw money around to make things happen.
The content creation engine is really only starting now, it's a pretty ripe "gold rush" opportunity for those that are willing to get their hands dirty. There wasn't even a formalised workflow until about a month ago.
Meanwhile you're spot on about spots, here's a news post from about a week ago:
They stopped the development of a successor model. It’s the M5 they continue producing (and the new dual strap), the other parts they mostly have existing inventory of.
If it's going to be tethered to a battery, why not just tether it to a Mac (or iPhone) instead, and make the device a lot cheaper+simpler in the process?
Looks like everyone has the same complaint here about the device. Apple is not listening to its consumers and trying to push the device in directions that the users don't care about. I hope they make it a full fledged MacBook and just grabs that market. They can continue to push the "spatial computing" crap in parallel. I don't know what use cases or market fit the spatial computing has, but really having unlimited screens/space to work on is the main and best use case.
I had to return my Vision Pro after trying it for a week. I'm one of those rare customers that genuinely wanted to keep it, because it's the only VR headset I could _actually_ get work done in thanks to its stellar resolution and overall screen quality. In spite of its many, many flaws. But I had to ditch the thing because: 1) it's stupidly heavy, and 2) it's the only headset that caused me eyestrain.
I was praying for a new revision, but ... this wasn't it. No mention of making the thing lighter. Seems like instead they _added_ weight to the band to compensate.
Guess I'll keep waiting and hoping someone else fills the space. Maybe, just maybe, there will be a real Quest Pro with the same screen quality as the AVP. The Quest 3 is almost perfect in every regard except for that, so I'd happily drop "stupid" money to grab one with an AVP level display in it. (With the usual caveats of it being an evil Meta product, etc, etc).
The problem isn't really total weight, it's unbalanced weight. For comparison, see the BoboVR head straps for the Quest (https://www.bobovr.com/products/s3-pro), which look ridiculous and add a lot of total weight (especially with a battery), but are actually more comfortable than not having it, because they spread out and counterbalance the weight of the headset.
The Dual Knit Band may help AVP comfort, but I'm skeptical. To have a significant benefit it would need to have much stiffer side support so that the entire thing can lever the weight of the headset upwards and pull the center of gravity way back from the face.
> With M5, Apple Vision Pro renders 10 percent more pixels with the micro-OLED displays
I found this little piece of information interesting. Apparently the display on the Vision Pro has such high resolution that they reduce the detail of the rendering. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that reported before. It means that an even higher quality display is still far in the future, since the silicon to push that many pixels isn’t quite ready.
At the same time, the resolution still isn’t quite enough for virtual Mac screen to not look worse than the real one. The Vision Pro has around 34 PPD. “Retina” resolution for VR is generally considered to require at least 60 PPD. That would mean four times the amount of pixels at the Vision Pro’s panel size. Add to that that the Vision Pro’s FOV is relatively small, you’d want even more pixels than that.
It won't look as sharp as a real display at the same size, but it is significantly larger. I've spent probably 3,000+ hours in the headset, with the vast majority of that using the Virtual Display. I've always preferred larger fonts and sitting close to the display, so using the wide virtual display mode has been a fantastic experience for me. My eye-strain-induced migraines have basically disappeared since I started using this as my main display, moving from my previous setup of 30% Studio Display and 70% 16" MBP.
> The lower strap features flexible fabric ribs embedded with tungsten inserts that provide a counterweight for additional comfort, balance, and stability.
This is like how the iPad keyboard case is surprisingly heavy because it's bottom-weighted for stability. While the iPad is lighter than a laptop, the iPad + keyboard case is pretty much the same weight.
Anyone have experience with AVP+ALVR vs Valve Index? I have only used the latter but interested if I can use ALVR effectively enough to replace the Index.
If anybody else is wondering what parents means by ALVR: "Air Light VR", a software to stream games from your PC to a VR headset: https://github.com/alvr-org/ALVR
Granted, I only see a VR headset like four times a year, but nobody I know bought a Vision Pro either, whereas I know a few dozen people with other headsets.
Similar to when the iPhone first appeared, remember it was really uncommon where I live and the first time I held one was while visiting France. But it was a rare item at first as well, not sure that tells us anything about how useful it is/can be.
i think its fair to say vr market is less than questionable. in theory ar/vr already has enough features to be worth using. in reality people dont want to put things on their face
i have an avp and use it daily. but it turns out im weird and most people simply dont want to put screens on their face
Regarding "Apple Vision Pro and the Environment", I'd be much more impressed with a way to upgrade my current goggles with a chip swap than recycled textiles
On paper headsets like MeganeX are on the same ballpark [0], while Bigscreen beyond for instance offer a completely different proposition (ultra light) for only slightly lower resolution [1]
>is it still really the only headset with twin 4K resolution
There are quite a few others, even some with near or at 4k res per eye released before the Apple product. Even just the Pimax 8k being the world's first dual native 4k headset early 2019.
The problem with alternative sets is, as always, a software/ecosystem one which for gaming Valve helped massively by getting everyone onto one platform (SteamVR). It's tough to do similar with Apple as they lock everything down for "security" with the added benefit of preventing competitors from creating competing products. They're happy to interoperate with Wifi and Bluetooth standards etc, though (before someone claims that doing what they want with their platform is Apple's choice - the same people who grin when MS got hammered for anti-competition with IE Windows bundling, something Apple regularly escapes).
Since they only list France and Germany as EU countries I guess the rest of us in the EU are never going to get the Vision Pro?
While I could get one from Germany, when I did that with the Google Pixel I ran into a whole bunch of trouble when it needed to get repaired. Since Google required an address in Germany.
I’m living in one of those irrelevant EU countries and am considering getting one from Germany. Do you know if this is going to cause issues when downloading apps from a non-German Apple account, etc.?
I wish they could get the price down. I had it for a few weeks before returning it. It's really an incredible device but for the value it currently provides it's not worth the cost. They also need to sort out the fact that mirroring a Mac is tied up with your Apple ID. My main use case was going to be mirroring my work MacBook, but I'm not signing into my work device with my personal Apple account. It's an astonishing oversight. If they can halve the price (and maybe the weight) over the next decade it'll be huge.
I expect the Apple ID thing will be fixed as it should be easy. Halving the price should be easy too - but probably won't happen until the new "half the weight" version is released.
They definitely don't have a decade. The market gave them 14 years with iPhone (Newton was 1993?). But things move a bit faster now.
>> I expect the Apple ID thing will be fixed as it should be easy.
That's what I initially thought but there have been two OS cycles now with no fix. I think Apple often back themselves into a corner when they base stuff around iCloud and I wouldn't be surprised if this was similar. Maybe user accounts on visionOS will be the eventual solution?
Maybe Apple’s working on smart glasses — one with a display, one without — to rival Meta. Honestly, Meta’s glasses are cool… until they break. And they do break!
Meta’s biggest weakness? No in-person support. Unlike Apple, they don’t have stores where you can walk in and get help.
My two pairs of Meta Ray Bans are broke - one was hosed after a software update.
No, they "announced" the production had stopped because there was enough supply (ie. they had enough stock to fulfill the projected sales and replacement needs). Now obviously it wasn't the success they had hoped for. But they didn't discontinue it.
Interesting to see apps like Steam Link and the PlayStation VR controller support advertised. Seems like an admission that Apple underestimated how many VR users need that gaming functionality to be there.
This part suggests Apple warming up a little to Oculus-style VR controllers:
> With support for the PlayStation VR2 Sense controller, players get a new class of immersive games with high-performance motion tracking in six degrees of freedom, finger touch detection, and vibration support.
Previously they seemed to be committed to finger controls only.
The one who buys the Mac Pros is not the big spender; that would be the one who won't stop talking about his vacation homes and mechanical watch collection.
The real issue is that various rumors point to them cancelling or pushing back the plan for a new version of the headset that is cheaper and lighter in favor of working on the smart glasses.
Without a cheaper, lighter headset I don't think it's going to become a significant product for Apple.
If that's true, it's the stupidest thing they've ever done. To start competing in a product category invented by Eric Schmidt and Mark Zuckerberg. This might be the final point on the story of how Tim Cook destroyed Apple.
Eyeglasses with a HUD is the stupidest product category ever invented, and that's why no one wants them, which has been proven again and again in the marketplace.
I think it's pretty clear that the whole point of the Vision Pro is that Apple wants to build AR glasses but the technology was not ready yet.
I do think it makes some sense to attack the problem from both directions, but hopefully they aren't fully ditching the full immersive headset development to do it.
It's fundamentally a different product. Vision Pro is about pushing boundaries in productivity and entertainment. It's the step above desktop computers or game consoles with large displays. You wear this device like headphones, when you want to jump into work or game.
Eyeglasses with HUD is like Apple Watch but on your face, i.e. it's focus is on mobility, not productivity or immersion. You're supposed to wear this device all the time.
Even if we had the technology the run these devices in the same form factor (maybe in 100 years), I bet that most people prefer to keep their face and eyes tech free in mobile or social situations. For the same reasons as why it's polite to put your phone away when interacting with people. Wearing this kind of device means that they're not fully present at any time. It also signals that they're a person who wants notifications constantly blasted on their face - i.e. an idiot.
I don't actually believe that they have ditched the plans for the next version.
If they thought the product was toast why would they bother updating the processor? It isn't like they update the processor in the mac pro regularly or anything.
The latest version improves performance, display rendering, battery life, and comfort, while offering innovative features with visionOS 26 and all-new spatial apps and Apple Immersive content
I was super interested in the Vision Pro when it was first released. Then I found out they went with an app model and the device could only display a single MacOS window. There went my dream of surrounding myself with a bunch of vim windows and terminals.
If they'd focused on maximizing the device's usefulness instead of its revenue stream, maybe things would have worked out better.
My sentiments exactly. This would be such an easy purchase to justify if it weren't just a toy-- no other VR headset touts to display text so crisply. But instead, their only market demographic are people who really enjoy going to theaters alone.
I'm very eagerly looking forward to Valve's headset coming out.
There are three problems with AVP: cost, cost and cost.
It is priced to be a pack-in with seats of Dassault 3DEXPERIENCE, but Meta's experience has been that the VR consumer is price sensitive which is why they followed up the MQ3 with the cost-reduced MQ3S.
I think Apple is looking at this the way they look at AirPods (something you stick in your ears to modify and augment your hearing) which is good and monitors, which is bad. Apple's always sold a tiny number of monitors with astronomical margins which looked like a good business because they didn't have to invest in product innovation to make them the way they do for the AVP -- and they didn't need software developers to invest in product innovation for their monitors, but the AVP absolutely requires it. And if they aren't shipping enough units, who is going to make software for it?
Weight too. When it's strapped to your face, heavy isn't 'premium'.
The weight would be fine if it was balanced across the head, instead of all on your face... but that would take away from the 'sleek' marketing shots.
On top of the three problems of any AR/VR tech: UX, UX and UX.
I'm honestly not sure if Apple Vision would fare much better if they had a device that costs $100. Like, sure, they'll sell more units that way. But how many of those units would end up collecting dust?
Playing Beat Saber on the MQ3 I meet people who are enthusiastic about VR, who share immersive content (pano video shot with https://www.kandaovr.com/qoocam-3) and there are plenty of games in the store... compared to other gaming platforms where I meet a lot of younger people, I find there are a lot of older and retired people using VR, which is not what Meta is looking for for a Facebook replacement.
My take is the MQ3 is pretty good for UX. I regularly use my image sorter and RSS reader in a web browser with a huge number of windows open, bringing my click targets up to the WCAG AAA standards made them very usable in this environment. The Apple Magic Keyboard pairs perfectly, as does a mouse. The controller work great for games and other immersive applications.
I'd say though that my game backlog on the MQ3 is long as is my game backlog in Steam, and there is just a huge amount of competition from flat content so I don't play as many VR games as I could.
Survivorship bias. You don't tend to meet people who played Beat Saber 2 times and put the headset on the shelf forever.
The metrics are brutal, for Quest 3 and for every other headset. Meta worked hard to bring the costs down and improve the UX, and it still isn't enough. They wanted "the next smartphone" and fell so short it's not even funny.
i’m afraid i’ll look back and regret that i didn’t capture 3d memories of parents and grandparents when it was technically feasible because of a few dollars…
Well, there are stereo cameras… The digital ones came and went with 3D TVs though so you have to go to eBay. I am enjoying the stereo cameras I have accumulated though.
This is nice if pricey
https://www.kandaovr.com/qoocam-ego
It eats batteries but you can get a charger and more batteries the way you would have a few mirrorless generations ago.
My trouble is not really having a system to show these to people, red/green anglyohs sometimes work fret but aren’t consistent, there doesn’t seem to be an ‘instagram’ for sharing stereo photos, it ought to be easy to make a WebXR application to show stereograms but I haven’t seen a fully realized one and found texture memory limits are a bitch in the MQ3 so my first attempt to make one got stuck.
I've taken to (tediously) printing stereogram cards for the better 3D photos.
I wrote this to take the .MPO files (a common file format on the earlier commercial digital stereo cameras) and convert them to print-ready stereograms: https://github.com/EngineersNeedArt/Stereographer
The price would be easily justified if the hardware could also be used as a regular VR headset and hooked up to a flight sim or gaming PC.
That’s worked for awhile. ALVR.
I’ve heard the latency is still a pretty major issue. I’d love to use one for sim racing but the latency complaints make it a non-starter. If that’s changed or anyone is using it for sim racing please let me know.
Sim racing has been default better in VR for the last few years IMO if you have decent spec computer that can sustain good frame rates. Especially since the release of the Quest 3 with its really nice lenses (huge "sweet spot"), 110 degree FoV and 25 PPD for 500 bucks. The ability to look into a corner the way you do on an actual track, by turning your head and looking towards the apex etc, is just a complete game changer. I don't think anyone in the sim racing community really feels latency is an issue anymore on modern hardware.
The biggest issues left in VR sim racing are still arguably comfort and weight in longer races, but even that is getting solved now with really compact new headsets like the Big Screen Beyond 2 etc.
I haven’t used it for sim racing but I’ve used it for flight sim and never noticed the latency being problematic.
I'll mention Simula but that's still being developed
I hope they swap out Haskell though, probably can make your own compositor
FWIW my Viture glasses are significantly more comfortable as a productivity device than my Vision Pro.
>But instead, their only market demographic are people who really enjoy going to theaters alone.
I still remember the good old days of Gary's mod movie theater servers.
Valve already has a headset out…well before Apple had one.
https://www.valvesoftware.com/en/index/headset
Yes, and it's one of the best headsets for Linux :) But this is a tethered headset and the text rendering isn't good enough to justify one over a monitor (reportedly-- I haven't bought one yet). Especially because it's tethered.
But Valve is reliably rumored to be releasing an untethered successor within the next year for a third of the cost of the AVP. The appeal is having a dozen monitors anywhere.
IIRC, Apple M4's 10-core GPU supports three 6K 60mhz displays. Enough for each eye and 1 virtual desktop.
Vision Pro M5 PR says something about 120mhz. So the M5's "40% faster GPUs" is being used to double the frame rate?
Being noob, I'm guessing each desktop requires 3 additional cores and 16Gb VRAM.
Of course, we can think of many strategies (using current hardware) to support additional desktops, spaces, windows, etc. If Apple really wanted to.
Apple SoCs have weird external monitor support purely because of SoC IO, not GPU power.
60mhz and 120mhz are your typos, because that's an insane refresh rate. It's 60Hz and 120Hz, not mhz...
> So the M5's "40% faster GPUs" is being used to double the frame rate?
You always have to read full marketing BS when you read it, it almost always says "X times faster than Y in Z workfload".
Probably along side HL3.
I'm not really following through your reasoning. How is breaking the usefulness helping the revenue stream?
Assuming you're an engineer, have you thought about what handing over a "window" from one computer to another actually entails? CRIU can do checkpoint/restore at container/process level - but you actually want it to run on both, no? So you need to split off just the I/O, but at the OS-level per window.
Apple has been doing a lot of work in this direction and they have stuff that actually work (like video calls and to some extent windows. These are processes running on different OS-es with a matrix of hundreds of devices.
It's not something you vibe code over the weekend.
you're focusing on the "single window" part.
the revenue-driven decision was choosing to make the OS more like iOS, locked down with an app store, rather than macos, which allows third-party applications, browsing the filesystem, dropping into a terminal, etc. with built-in first-party support.
instead of making a computer in an AR form-factor, they made an iPad in an AR form-factor.
Sending multiple windows over screensharing actually seems easier than sending the desktop to me - because you only look at one window at once, the rest don't have to update at full frame rate, or at all.
And it's easier and more power-efficient (because of hardware video encoding) to use screen sharing instead of sending drawing commands etc.
This stuff has been solved ages ago on Unix.
Oh, did Linux get IO handover and I missed it? Have they been doing it for ages with their librephone announcement yesterday?
Check out:
https://xpra.org/index.html
fsf and linux are not really the same entity.
You can in fact already do this (have Mac windows show up as separate floating windows in VisionOS instead of all being on the single MacOS window) using a third party tool called Ensemble:
https://github.com/saagarjha/Ensemble
This is what is looks like in action:
https://twitter.com/TheOriginaliTE/status/175125156764134634...
Disclaimer: I don’t know how well it works in practice because I don’t have a Vision Pro.
You can surround yourself with floating terminals using the Blink app. Here I code from the couch surrounded by nvim, Claude Code, etc.: https://x.com/dvdsgl/status/1948840477970841720/video/1
Amazing! How long can you do this for before you feel any fatigue (neck/eyes)?
Do you feel you're more in focus when using Vision Pro like this, as opposed to using an external monitor?
awesome. curious, what's your review for this use case?
Another comment mentions how useful it is because it's integrated with Apple's ecosystem. I mean of course it is...Apple makes it.
I do wonder if that person had ever tried any of the myriad of VR device available a decade before beforehand and I do wonder how popular Apple's product would be if other companies were given the opportunity to integrate with the OS on the same level that Apple can (I feel like Apple is breaking anti-competitive laws constantly but nobody really cares about making them open up).
I think I may be the commenter you're referring to, and yes, I have used many different VR devices over the years. I've owned at least 3 other headsets and used 5.
My point in saying the usefulness of it being tied to the ecosystem was more of a negative one than a positive one if it wasn't clear. It is personally useful for me because I have a lot of Apple products at home (though I also have PC and linux stuff too), but I wish my primary use-cases for it were more platform agnostic.
I'm also very in support of aggressive anti-trust legislation and it's probably my biggest point of contention with Apple.
Despite all that, I still like the Vision Pro and think it's an incredible piece of tech that blows every other headset I've tried out of the water for the things I like to do.
> I do wonder if that person had ever tried any of the myriad of VR device available a decade before beforehand and I do wonder how popular Apple's product would be if other companies were given the opportunity to integrate with the OS on the same level that Apple can
Microsoft had and still has this opportunity, they even have game console and much of game developers to bootstrap VR/AR ecosystem.
> (I feel like Apple is breaking anti-competitive laws constantly but nobody really cares about making them open up).
lol okay
OSX is at 16% of the market (Windows is 63%). Exactly how is this breaking anti-competitive laws?
Anti-trust does not require someone to have 100% of a market.
I also don't think think this breaks anti-trust but percentages doesn't stop market manipulation.
A walled garden is a walled garden, no matter the slice of the market you've been able to eat (yet).
> Then I found out they went with an app model and the device could only display a single MacOS window.
There was this program called Immersed for Quest and some other VR headsets (apparently Apple's one too?) that ages ago was quite brilliant: I could connect my laptop or PC and have as many virtual desktops in addition to the real ones displayed around me. Even on my Quest 2, until the strain set in, it was cool to just kinda tune out the room around me and be in a black void surrounded by just the screens of whatever I'm working on.
Sadly, in one update they randomly removed it as a "legacy feature nobody uses", which ruined the program for me, and Virtual Desktop for the Quest also has limited screens you can display, so I can't even do all 4 of my physical ones, nor virtual ones - despite it having worked previously in the other program.
For a little bit, it was a really cool mode of working, but sadly I only got glimpses of it and would need more capable hardware like AVP for that in the first place (Quest 2 very much had its limitations).
Also, this was a pretty cool idea, even if a novelty: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Js7Y1H5D8cY
It can display an entire Mac desktop https://support.apple.com/en-us/118521
That's not what we want at all. I should be able to slap a "Sync" button while wearing the Vision and every single window/app currently running on my Macbook Pro should show up as a completely independent spatially manipulable display within the virtual environment. That way I still get all the power of my dedicated Mac with the freedom of VR.
Even before it came out, I naturally assumed it was going to be able to do this. Major flub IMHO. Well that and the completely superfluous frontfacing screen for your "virtual avatar". Because the Vision wasn't already expensive enough...
It would be nice if Apple allowed people to choose how Mac virtual display windows were shown. I have a Vision Pro and I rather like the way it's implemented. From a UX perspective, I can't imagine trying to deal with hundreds of windows in AR space. The Vision Pro UI is good, but I'm nowhere near as fast as with a keyboard and mouse.
Sounds like something Apple could easily add.
Which doesnt mean you can surround yourself with VIM windows.
That's just an hyper expensive huge screen.
They want the individual windows from the Mac to be manoeuvrable. Currently it works like a virtual display - you can't move windows around space like you can with visionOS apps.
Maybe I'm missing something, but I think emulating a physical screen in a virtual field of view is the wrong way to do this. Why introduce off-axis viewing and all the other unnecessary weirdnesses? What if the entire field of view were the screen, with head and eye movement as navigation? I guess make the windows transparent so it's less disorienting, and it would at least initially be overwhelming, but past that it could be quite transformative.
I actually bought one thinking I could buy a vision pro instead of a new computer, but alas, the vision pro (despite being a powerful computer) is not usable as a work computer
(I returned it)
Apple is not in the business of selling productivity software. Even their desktops/MacOS segment is an insignificant historical afterthought by now.
To a first approximation, Apple is a manufacturer of locked-down handheld entertainment appliances whose primary function is to psychologically condition children into siphoning off money from their inattentive parents. There's no reason to suspect their vision for the AVP to diverge significantly from this user story.
Weird, that description doesn't apply at all to my experiences as a developer using Macs for the last few years.
Personally I find a Mac to be a better development environment than Windows even for Microsoft tech like the dotnet stack.
> Personally I find a Mac to be a better development environment than Windows
This is both true and completely irrelevant, because the point of the above comment is that Apple is not in the business of catering to this use case.
Look at the annual revenues: $225 billion from iPhone/iPad, $100 billion from "services" (which Apple mostly characterizes as "app store stuff"), $40 billion from accessories (watch, airpods, etc), $30 billion from desktops. The Mac segment comes out to 7.9% of their overall revenue. And this number is shrinking in both the absolute and relative sense, as "services" continues to grow and as Mac units shipped peaked in 2022.
You can't build iPhone or iPad apps on iPhones or iPads yet, so a decent chunk of that revenue currently relies on the Mac as well.
Even without that, calling a $30B business an "insignificant historical afterthought" is a bit of an exaggeration, no?
This is by design of course. The only major platform that requires a specific minor platform from the same vendor to target, at least that I know of. Apple knows how to make money.
Of course it's by design, and it's part of their business. Saying they aren't in that business isn't accurate.
> You can't build iPhone or iPad apps on iPhones or iPads yet, so a decent chunk of that revenue currently relies on the Mac as well.
This is both entirely true and still manages to miss the point. Yes, Apple keeps the Mac around exclusively to accommodate the creation of iOS apps. No, they are not financially incentivized to create new categories of hardware that cater toward productivity when instead they could lock them down and milk that cow for all it's worth via the app store tax.
> Personally
That word right there means that we can both be correct, because I personally find MacOS to be frustrating for Dev compared to every other alternative. Great for creativity, but not so much for productivity.
Sure. The comment I replied to wasn’t so qualified.
I've used Macbooks for dev pretty much my whole career and I do think that they're some of the _best_ laptops available for dev.
But the caveat to my statement is that _everything_ added to their ecosystem to business reasons is useless and counterproductive. For example I can plug my Android phone into a Windows machine (two different companies inb4 someone uses flawed logic) and it just works. If I plug my Android phone into my Macbook it doesn't work at all...but an iPhone does! ;)
They only very recently got decent-ish Window management, basic snapping that Linux/Windows has had for at least a decade or longer. And even then their implementation is "pretty" but slow to respond. It's like just expand and snap the fucking window for fuck's sake.
In terms of the "development environment" they enjoy having had the OS built on top of FreeBSD (which yes, they have contributed to - bet Apple management hated that).
To me it's a machine that gets stuff done; they could literally strip the thing down to the bare minimum, removing all of the "magical wonderful Apple stuff with cutesy fancy sounding names" and I couldn't give a shit.
"Retina" screen? Fuck offff Apple.
I enjoy high-dpi displays for dev and other productivity tasks. That one isn't just an annoying marketing gimmick.
I'm sure you felt very clever writing that zinger about children and parents, but unless the majority of Apple devices are sold to/for children -- which I would bet is extremely not true -- it's obviously wrong.
In app purchases from (crappy) games is top revenue source in App Store. Anecdotally, I’d be shocked if the majority of that wasn’t from kids using their parents’ phones.
Prepare to be shocked real good then: it’s from adults who are affluent or addicted.
In the Pokemon Go days, about 10 years back, the top whales were spending 5- and 6-figure amounts on that game's in-app purchases.
Does it matter what the age of the users are? Clearly they are all children regardless.
You have deftly avoided attempting to refute the actual argument here, which is that >90% of Apple's revenue comes from their walled garden, and they have no desire to pivot back towards catering to the small and dwindling niche of power users.
Well, excuse me for refuting something you actually wrote rather than the thing you would have preferred me to focus on.
When you say something like "whose primary function is to psychologically condition children into siphoning off money from their inattentive parents", it's rhetorically effective. It paints a vivid picture. It encourages your readers to have a certain attitude towards the company you're talking about.
In other words, that bit of what you wrote was load-bearing. It served a purpose for you. That means that it isn't exempt from criticism. We should reject conversational norms according to which it's OK to throw in these little barbs but not OK to object when someone points out that what you're saying is flatly false.
"My goat-fucking opponent wants to raise your taxes and use the revenue to subsidize tobacco companies. You should vote against him." "Excuse me, I am absolutely not a goat-fucker. How dare you?" "Look how he avoids the central argument about his policies!"
As to the "actual argument": no, actually, that clearly isn't your actual argument, or at least if it is then your argument is unsound.
You can't get from "Macs are <10% of Apple's revenue"[1] to any prediction about what Apple will do with the Vision Pro. For that, you need to (1) classify it as "like an iPhone or iPad" rather than "like a Mac" -- which I agree is a reasonable classification, though you haven't bothered to argue for it at all and it is at least a bit debatable -- and then (2) look at what sort of thing Apple does with its iPhones and iPads. This bit you have done, kinda ... and this bit is exactly the bit where you said something obviously false. "whose primary function is to psychologically condition children into siphoning off money from their inattentive parents", remember? That is, or claims to be, a description of what sort of thing Apple want their devices to do. It's exactly the sort of thing that's directly relevant to supporting what you say about what features we should expect them to give the Vision Pro and its software. And, once again, it's plainly false.
[1] Perfectly true, though "an insignificant historical afterthought" is obviously false -- once again, you're festooning what you say is your "actual argument" with little untruths that make the "actual argument" feel stronger, and I wish you wouldn't -- and, also "historical afterthought" is kinda nonsensical, no? Being a historical relic and being an afterthought are opposite and incompatible varieties of insignificance.
There absolutely is an argument to be made along the lines that the VP is kinda like an iPad, and despite their impressive hardware capabilities iPads are designed for entertainment much more than for getting useful work done, and so we should also expect the VP's software to pass up opportunities to make the device useful for serious purposes in favour of making it an entertainment-consumption device. You could totally have done that. It would have been pretty similar to what you wrote. It would have been rather a persuasive argument. But it amused you to go way the hell over the top and say that Apple's non-Mac devices are mostly intended to manipulate children into wasting their parents' money and, once again, that's obviously not true and you put it right where the core of your "actual argument" should have been.
I'm aware that I'm making rather a big deal of a small lie. But this sort of thing is everywhere in online discourse at the moment, and I am getting extremely fed up of it. It's never enough to make a reasonable argument; it's always necessary to throw in all these playing-to-the-gallery jabs, which no doubt get you a bunch of likes and retweets and other forms of Meaningless Internet Points. It's yet another form of the optimizing-for-engagement that is eating our societies alive, and the HN crowd is supposed to be smarter than that, and I wish we would all collectively Do Better, damn it.
If your primary machine isn't a high-end Macbook Pro, are you even a "power user"?
Any other hardware is a non-starter.
And also virtually every film editor, colourist and videographer. Oh and also every illustrator and graphic designer. And a host of other professions where having a clean UI, colour accuracy, on a reliable machine that rarely if ever crashes is essential rather than a preference.
As a film maker and editor I'm enormously more productive on my dual screen (used) M1 Max Studio machine than I was on a variety of PC setups with high end GPUs. Even just the missing overhead of not having to keep graphic drives and constant Windows updates is great. Reliable renders were never a thing on Windows. The time lost doing things again because window had some strange colour issue, render crash, font issue and on and on was ludicrous.
The idea of having to use Windows for daily productivity sends a shiver down my spine.
I don't agree with the OP, but you gotta admit.. it used to feel like Apple was more dedicated to this market when they could keep interesting Pro desktop kit evolving on an acceptable pace.
I don't know... I agree that they're no longer innovative in terms of UI and original categories of devices. But the M1 chips have been enormously innovative in terms of performance per watt. One reason essentially every 'creative' (bar 3d designers) uses Macs is that unplugged they run as fast as plugged in. There's literally no PC laptop you can build or buy with integrated graphics powerful enough to compete - while on the move and away from power. Perhaps the new AMD Strix Halo devices will change this, but I wouldn't hold my breath.
Their Pro desktop/laptop hardware is the best it's ever been as long as it fits your use case (ie not adding a bunch of PCI-E cards or third party GPUs).
Software is definitely more debatable.
Every company I've worked at in the last 15-20 years has run fully on Mac. First it was the designers, then the devs, and now everyone. I used Windows for years and have some experience with various Linux distros, but if I joined a company that made me use either of those full-time I'd immediately start looking for another job.
Yep I've just joined, via aquisition, a company that runs remote Windows desktops you have to access using whatever Remote Desktop is now called.
I've not seen a professional desktop operating system show you adverts and click bait during worktime before and I am not impressed.
I'm taking it as an alarm bell that I should get out as soon as I can. For me and what I do, macOS or Linux are my platforms of choice.
Fortunately you can use Remote Desktop using the Microsoft Windows app for Mac.
That is a really really strange thing to care so much about
"Is this company going to waste my time?" is not a strange question.
First you are getting the paid so again it is a very odd thing to care about and second how does windows and Linux waste your time?
You don't see how Microsoft Windows wastes your time?
- 15 minute boot-up times
- Complete lack of power management ( close your laptop screen )
- Random forced updates
> First you are getting the paid…
Even billionaires get burnout.
> how does windows and Linux waste your time?
Windows is deep down the enshittification curve.
My Linux-using coworkers seem to spend a lot of time wiping things and switching distros. I'm very happy with it for servers, but not for desktop.
I have to spend 8+ hours a day using the tool. Why put myself through constant unnecessary frustration if I don't have to?
> Even their desktops/MacOS segment is an insignificant historical afterthought by now.
By what measure? As I understand it, more Macs sell now than in any other point in history.
I own Vision Pro. They work with Macos pretty well when sharing the whole screen, and I think that their technology is potentially capable to share one specific app -- with facetime you can do just that -- but so far Vision Pro is unable of that. That's a shame.
from this demo video, it looks like you could surround yourself with vim windows, terminals, and so on?
https://www.apple.com/newsroom/videos/2025/autoplay/10/apple...
Within the bounds of that big ol 8k window, yes, but the applications themselves can't be extracted and positioned separately.
My workaround for this is using applications that work comfortably in a safari window (like vscode) and you can have as many safari windows free floating as you want
I use AVP every day for work. I spend 8+ hours a day wearing the thing. It's amazing the screen real estate you get when you share your Mac screen. It's terrible that it's only one screen, but with good enough window (pun intended) management app, you can tile the windows/app inside this giant curved floating screen. That works for me because I always preferred using a single screen. It's possible to share a single desktop/window, but it's not officially supported. Sometimes the screen sharing bugs out and, instead of gigantic curved screen, I get a tiny small app/window. If someone is interested in looking into this, this happens (sometimes) when, instead of starting the screen sharing from AVP, you share (mirror) the screen from Mac display/mirroring settings.
Yeah this would honestly be incredible and actually deserving of the "spatial computing" moniker.
I would love to be able to have a dedicated spatial location for each part of my Django app: look over here for the CSS, step here for the views, scroll through the logs over here...
People keep insisting this but
1) It's been doable for years and yet AR/VR doesn't take off
2) It will only ever be a hyper niche use case of an already hyper niche market. People do not want a giant screen glued to their face.
Have you actually tried "working" in VR? It is awful and pointless and zero percent of my work is limited by the size of my screen FFS. Are you one of those people that keep 100 terminal windows open with random TOPS and log watchers but never actually uses them? Those people always seem to have lots of monitors. They don't actually seem more productive though.
I even downgraded from two external monitors to one because all the extra monitor was doing was making me hurt my neck from looking back and forth.
A 30 inch monitor with 1440p resolution can do everything you want from django and is like $200
It’s more the idea of always-everywhere computing. Where you can pull up a notepad window in a meeting to take notes. Where you can take those notes back to your desk. Where there can be a sign-up sheet posted to the door for group editing.
Looks like this version finally works like an ultrawide external monitor.
This is very disappointing. I wonder if it's a limitation of the underlying connection. Does it use AirPlay for this?
I think it is more likely a limitation of the Mac OS. But it's just a guess.
I've had the Vision Pro since launch, and the only thing that keeps me coming back to it nearly daily is the Mac Virtual Display for my MacBook Pro.
It's just so useful to have a huge display wherever you want it - no hunching over looking down a small laptop screen. This is especially useful on a plane where I'm not even able to open the laptop completely due to the tight space.
My main gripe is: Why do I need a separate Mac at all? Even the original M2 Vision Pro has more than enough horsepower to run the virtual Mac inside of the headset, so it seems like a fake limitation.
I'm looking forward to it being lighter weight and smaller, and for them to make the Mac Virtual Display native to the Vision Pro experience without the need for a separate computer.
Battery life, probably? I suspect they didn’t want to have functionality that could only realistically be used when plugged in.
The only use case I’m interested in is long-haul flights. How comfortable is it to wear for an extended period? Do people interrupt you to ask you about it? Are you able to use all the features sitting in economy while gesturing?
[dead]
It's still crazy to me that they put an M5 chip in this thing, but to run Mac apps you need a Mac. Just let the face computer be a computer!
Just Apple being Apple. They don't think of the face computer as a face computer, but as a Brand New Experience that needs Brand New Applications.
They'll keep their face computers separate for as long as they refuse to build Macbooks with touch screens. Which seems to be forever.
Yeah, I think they could increase the utility of this product for the price point pretty easily by just adding a My Virtual Mac VM to it.
Obviously there would be performance constraints but at least for your $3499 you'd be getting a Mac instead of just a Mac Monitor.
I never would have bought a gaming computer or console, but a gaming handheld is an easy purchase.
There's something much more approachable about having an appliance with a built-in screen vs having to get a monitor/TV and dedicate part of your living space to something you use sometimes.
Sadly, they want to sell you the next iPhone not the next PC.
It also simplifies their OS, software, testing, etc.
Speaking of which, Apple could probably support Mac apps on modern iPhones if you plug it into an external monitor. I assume they aren't doing it because it would cannibalize their laptop market.
This is why I love Samsung for DEX. It's not perfect but it's actually fairly usable when travelling. Can even use it wirelessly with a compatible display (which sometimes hotel TVs are).
I'm very excited for stuff like smart glasses ever single Glass, meta's new stuff is awesome in terms of slimming things down but the real excitement is the wristband for input. Looks like we'll be solving the display/input problems soon enough.
They seemed resistant to the idea of a compute puck but I honestly think that's fine. I'd rather have a phone in my pocket that can be used for compute than bulkier glasses, though it is nice if future glasses can do very basic tasks unaided.
I hope that pretty soon I won't even need a laptop for out of hours tasks (but would still use one for the standard work day most likely).
Someone has been experimenting with running macOS on iPhone: https://x.com/khanhduytran0/status/1956681961126183186
Probably yes. Essentially all of those are the same: Apple TVs, iPhones, iPads, Macbooks and desktop computers. Slightly different version of Apple Silicon in different casing and different OS (or UI?).
They could theoretically, but the thing is the Mac, despite what you read on here, has a ton of legacy libraries that are not used on iOS.
I think the bigger problem would be that desktop programs aren’t designed with iOS-style suspension and process-killing in mind.
Desktop apps already survive standby, so CPU usage shouldn't be a problem. And if automatically killing Mac apps, to free up memory, isn't an option, they could add a permanent notification which says "Mac App XYZ still consumes a lot of memory, tap here to close." Or they move the offending Mac app from RAM to temporary SSD storage as long as the phone isn't plugged into a monitor.
So what? Compatibility means a big install? The kernel is too stripped down to patch? In what way could "it needs libraries" be a real blocker?
Knowing Apple, they'll never allow a use case where you have to restart your Vision Pro or iPad to get it into Mac mode, most assuredly losing cellular access in the mean time.
Apple is already offering apps that work on all devices on their stores. Look at every single Apple Arcade release as an example. That's their vision; every device has a specific UI, but apps can run on all of them separately.
> Knowing Apple, they'll never allow a use case where you have to restart your Vision Pro or iPad to get it into Mac mode, most assuredly losing cellular access in the mean time.
They likely have enough talented developers to make iOS run Mac apps natively. But I assume they neither want to cannibalize their laptop market nor want to let people circumvent the 30% fee for the iOS App Store, which is not required for Mac software.
> They likely have enough talented developers to make iOS run Mac apps natively
I’m struggling to see this amount of work translate into more sales or a better experience for more than a token number of customers.
Well, it would obviously result in fewer Mac sales. Because people could use their iPhone (or iPad, or Vision Pro) as a Mac. So it would be good for iPhone owners, who don't need to buy a Mac, but bad for Apple.
Not probably, definitely. Nobody wants that of course because it would mean hiring real developers over friends/family. A19 pro is already faster than modern desktop chips let alone something from a few years ago. Almost all their mac software was designed for much more modest machines.
The fast-ness of the CPU is not the only problem. The rest of the hardware of the phone is designed to be a phone, not a Mac.
The battery will discharge faster than it charges, the flash storage will wear out, etc etc.
It would also be slow, not because the chip is slow but because if you do serious things with it it’s going to thermal throttle. Laptops have way better heat dissipation.
Most people put phones in cases which makes heat dissipation much worse.
Sure but just for browsing, checking some e-mails, a bit of YouTube or other media consumption, you know what 90% of people use their macbook for 99% of the time, it would be fine.
Nobody is saying you should be able to render some 3d models on an iPhone..
Is that really true. Do non-serious computer users still buy laptops?
What I see is that non-serious users who only communicate and consume content use phones and tablets. Laptops and desktops are for work, non-trivial content creation, and serious gaming with high memory and GPU requirements. You’re not running “cargo build” or a VM with Docker or Cyberpunk 2077 on a phone.
Higher end phones almost have enough CPU but not enough GPU, RAM, storage, or heat dissipation.
>Laptops and desktops are for work,
But that's mostly email, SaaS, web meetings, and spreadsheets. Most people have never in their lives run "cargo build" or launched Cyberpunk 2077. The actual market for sustained high local CPU/GPU compute is pretty small compared to the market for minimal load with the occasional small burst, and the latter works pretty well with poor cooling solutions.
Modern iPhones can even run modern games like Resident Evil 4 Remake from battery. Which suggests thermal throttle won't be a problem for most ordinary Mac applications.
Mac apps will expect a full set of Mac hardware (not just the CPU), so you’d probably need to run a full virtual Mac for compatibility. Not impossible, but I expect it’s not a priority either.
What is that full set of Mac hardware that we are not aware of?
There's no such thing. Apple sells the Mac Mini, which is nothing but a box and it runs everything fine.
I can’t figure out what this means. For an iOS device, sure, but a Mac? What hardware does a Mac Mini, say, have that the Vision can’t provide?
Like what? A macbook is just a screen, connected keyboard and trackpad. This thing has the equivalent of all of that.
What? No, that's not how any of this works.
It seemed silly to me, but then I remembered how Apple works. Create something that you can't have. Oh an M5 chip in something I won't buy. It would be great if we had M5's in MacBooks -> want. Apple manufactures desire first before satisfying that created 'new' market. Last time I recall was the iPad Pro's even before they started getting useful as very few people buy these. Scarcity sells.
The math isn't how many people will buy Vision Pro M5, it's how many have nots can be created by putting it in the Vision Pro.
They literally released the M5 MacBook today?
They're limited with 32GB RAM until M5 Pro / M5 Mac released.
I won't be upgrading from the M2 model, but I still get a lot of value out of mine simply using the Mac Virtual Display with my Macbook Pro. Of course there are other benefits (gaming w/ ALVR and a PC, watching movies, reading comics) but it makes video editing workflows much nicer for me because I can set the resolution to ultrawide and have much more real estate for Davinci Resolve.
It never really leaves the house, and I get why a lot of people don't like it, but personally, it's one of the coolest pieces of tech I own and I get a ton of value out of it. The value is just tied to being integrated into the apple ecosystem more than it being a standalone device, which is a very Apple thing to do.
I have lots of criticisms too, but overall I really like it. Also converting photos to spatial photos and looking through old memories in 3D is truly incredible. Can't overstate how much I love that feature.
The thing I'm most excited about from this release is the backwards compatible Dual Knit Band, which I'm definitely buying.
I am in a similar boat. I wish they'd gone in to more detail about why this version is different than the existing one - other than "new chip" - because I like mine so much that I want to know how it's improved. I love having a portable, infinite desktop that pairs to my laptop. I have watched movies with it while away, and it's a great media consumption device. It's just cool, and should only get better and cheaper as the tech evolves.
Similar. I use this as a traveling external monitor. I have a face that works well without the face seal and with the old dual band: Counter weighted with the back of my head in a way that floats the headset over my nose/face. Going back to squeezing this onto my face like the old knit band seems like it would go backwards in comfort. How can anyone have this pressed against their face for 8+ hours?
The best is to have a pulley system above your head that removes the weight of it from above. I’d like to see someone implement this via a backpack / should strap for mobile use.
Designed for cameras but probably works for testing the concept without any modifications: https://easyrig.se/
He’ll yes thank you
Will report back
"The Vision Pro Strangulator 5000"
There are safety mechanisms for this
> gaming w/ ALVR and a PC
The announcement mentions Steam Link too.
I honestly couldn't get used to the weight. 9-5, a nice big monitor won out every time.
There's something to this AR XR stuff but even with infinite resources the convenience just isn't there for all day use for me.
With the inability to counter-balance, with soft straps, I I really wish they would get rid of the metal, glass, and silly front screen. For comparison, Quest 3, with integrated battery, is almost 20% lighter and is possible to counter balance (hard strap), which I think is more important than weight (near zero force on the flesh of my face).
It has comparable PPD, at the center, so works just as well for using as windows/mac virtual screen (mac being my main use case).
Do you do the thing where you can map your room and have different virtual desktops for each room?
As far as I know, you can't have different virtual desktops for each room. The window to use the virtual desktop dynamically pops up over my laptop when I open and unlock it.
I do have a few widgets floating around in different rooms, but rarely use it from somewhere that isn't my chair or bed, so it's mostly a few clocks embedded into my walls to keep track of time, and those are persistent.
I love my first gen Apple Vision Pro. I find that most of the criticism isn’t addressed at the product and technology, but at the price and Apple’s strategy.
Price will go down in five years, once the tech mature la. For now this is a bit like how the Oculus DK1 was. An early device to explore what the overall vision is about, and figure out the apps.
I use AVP every day for work. I spend 8+ hours a day wearing the thing. It's amazing the screen real estate you get when you share your Mac screen. It's terrible that it's only one screen, but with good enough window (pun intended) management app, you can tile the windows/app inside this giant curved floating screen. That works for me because I always preferred using a single screen.
Any tips to share from your experience using it for so long every day?
What do you use it for?
How often do you use it?
Use was never claimed, only love for.
i want to capture 3d video of loved ones before they’re gone
I thought you can take spacial photos/videos on iPhone and view it on the Vision Pro later?
https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/spatial-photos-record...
I don't have either so I don't know how well iPhone vs. natively taken photos/videos compare.
If Apple sold an Ouija board you could capture it after they're gone too.
You want to wear goggles on your face during those moments?
Anyone using one? If so, what for? (please give details)
I got an oculus quest 2, was blown away by it for 1-2 hours, but never really picked it up again. The games were fun but very shallow, and never tried any practical uses.
Would love to use VR for working on a plane. Currently use a laptop, but my neck sometimes gets sore from looking down. VR has the potential to 10x the screen real estate and prevent having to look at down at an acute angle.
I have one. I use it primarily for keeping my drawer full.
That said, it's AMAZING as a home theater replacement, other than an issue with internal reflections in the optics. So in dark scenes it gets a bit annoying.
If I lived in an apartment, I would absolutely use it in place of a large TV that eats up a lot of my space. Especially coupled with the airpods MAX and spatial audio. Watching a 4k 3d movie in it is mind-blowing. Most 3d you've ever seen was really 50% of 1080p, so it's a whole new world. Some of the Apple original content is also great. The thing with the submarine is amazing.
Personally I already have a full sized home theater, so I just use that. However, I'm willing to bet that in 5 years when it's time to upgrade the home theater I'll probably just be turning it into a library with some seats I can use a VR headset from. Who knows, maybe it will be a descendant of the AVP.
Do you never entertain guests with your home theater system?
I believe you when you say that it could replace the experience for yourself, but, at least for me, hosting with my home theater is the main driver for improving it.
You nailed it. It's just not really a social experience OOTB. There are apps you can use to place multiple viewers in the same virtual space (similar to the ones on the quest), but it's just not "social" in the way that a real theater is and to do that locally would cost a fortune and be awkward and pointless.
That said, I entertain less than I watch movies alone. It's probably not worth giving up an entire room in my house for the handful of times per year that I actually entertain. My home theater is mostly just about my quest for perfection when enjoying the films that I love. If/when I can get that out of a headset... cool.
Ideally it will have real Dolby Vision/Atmos and all of the other things high end home theater equipment is expected to have, and right now the AVP doesn't. Between the reflection issues, lack of Dolby Vision, etc it's only like 80% of the way there.
Netflix and chill with a single headset while having a prospective partner over just isn’t the same.
Amazing home theater replacement if you watch all your movies alone, or have a lot of money.
Does Vision Pro have any apps for a virtual theater where you can watch video online in a VR space with other people? I've used Bigscreen for that once or twice with a Quest, and it struck me as something that would be a cool feature if I knew more people with VR headsets.
Shared viewing is built into quite a few apps, including the default TV app, based on SharePlay.
> That said, it's AMAZING as a home theater replacement
This seems to literally be its only killer feature.
I was hoping apple would be able to figure out what nobody else has, an actual useful everyday use for AR. But still we are just given a personal theatre, or proof of concept toy 'experience' apps.
I have access to one for work stuff. It is just too heavy and uncomfortable for more than 30 min of using it.
I had to try several different straps and configurations before I found one that worked well for me. I forget what it's called now, but there's one made by a company that makes CPAP machines. That's the one to get. Makes a huge difference.
Just be careful because one component of it on each side is glued to the fabric and comes apart spontaneously.
I develop for the platform, so I make apps. [1]
As a user, I actually use it more today than when I first got it, because each visionOS update has really unleveled the capabilities of the device. I like watching movies on the ceiling, the spatial scenes / photos / videos are really fun, and generally viewing your Photos library on Vision Pro is on a different level. Even non-spatial content just takes on a different, more immersive quality.
I have a lot of friends in the developer community, and enjoy playing with their apps. Things like "Cell Walk" where you can explore a 3D volumetric representation of different types of cells.
The Apple Immersive short films they release every so often are phenomenal – really nothing like them in my experience.
It's nice to be able to edit a movie and throw it onto a big screen, or have a gigantic workspace.
1: https://youtu.be/gDrk2HkiDhs?si=KhZsXOahpHPsAQGf https://youtu.be/QcTiDBtCafg?si=mH_MWi8MENjm8veT
Re: "VR for working on a plane" - you could look into XR glasses like the ones from XReal or Viture.
I've been considering a pair for myself after hearing good feedback from some friends, and seeing some good reviews online.
The latest versions have head tracking so the virtual screen remains "pinned" in your view.
They're also much smaller and easier to carry compared to a full VR headset, and they can plug into almost any device (laptop, tablet, phone) and just show up as an external monitor.
I’ve been tempted, but a lot of the forum feedback (ie not the breathless YouTube “reviews”), suggest that optically they are pretty bad, especially near the edges.
I also have the Viture Pros. They are awesome for airplane/hotel use. Not great as second monitors, as you say optically they aren't perfect and text makes that show a bit more... but if you hook up a steamdeck or want to watch Netflix on the go it's great!
Don't get me wrong, they work as a monitor in a pinch on a plane when you need privacy it's just not going to ever replace a real monitor for you.
The xReal ones are extremely workable. Like, you wouldn't want to do it by preference if a good monitor was available, but easily good enough for a situation where you don't want to use a monitor or don't have one.
It's fantastic as a travel/digital nomad tool. It enables me to use a large widescreen display and work efficiently from anywhere in the world.
On rare occasions, I use it for the virtual display; it's actually usable to sit outside and work with a giant display on the deck, or to dial myself onto the beach. But it's not exactly comfortable for extended use, and most of the time I'd rather sit at my nice desktop with multiple monitors etc.
I also have a Quest 3 and if I could only own one device, I'd take the Q3 hands-down. The games are fun, they get you up and moving, and although I'm not going to argue that the quality of the screens is the same or anything, it's more than good enough. I'll happily give up the virtual laptop screen in exchange for the library of VR games on the Quest.
I'm not much for consuming media so that aspect is lost on me. Unfortunately, that seems to be the primary use case Apple has focused on, if you can call the anemic dribble of content they've put out focus.
I love mine. 1) Superb virtual Mac display. 2) Great to watch Apple Immersive videos. 3) spacial photos and videos
I've been using it almost every day for Mac Virtual display, for about 1.5 years now. I don't have any other use case for it.
this seems like the killer app. how long do you comfortably wear it? do you take it off for breaks?
I still use mine one or two days each week, just as a monitor replacement. Most of that time is spent in Neovim :)
I had a quest 2, but it was always blurry for me. Something wrong with my eyes, idk. I've wanted to try a Bigscreen Beyond with custom lens inserts, but too much money to invest on something that might not work out.
If you wear glasses, or need them and don't normally wear them, it's important to get the prescription lens inserts. They make them for the Quest as well, and they aren't expensive.
Meta doesn't try to force it on you the way Apple does, but you really have to or it will always be blurry. The screen has a sort of fixed focal point and if your vision isn't great at that distance EVERYTHING will be blurry instead of just the one range that's normally blurry for you.
You may not even realize you need glasses until you try it and everything is blurry.
i usually wear contacts, and the quest 2 was always a bit blurry. one day i randomly was wearing my glasses and sort of forced the headset on over them and i was blow away by how much clearer it was. outside of that case I see about the same wearing contacts vs glasses.
i never got around to trying prescription inserts but i suspect they would be ideal
Contacts should work best of all (lens inserts make the space a bit cramped in there), but if it matters you need distance correction instead of nearsighted correction, or whatever the term is.
> Would love to use VR for working on a plane.
I immediately wonder how much of my carry-on allowance will be taken up by a VR headset. These things are still fairly clunky.
Wear it and it doesn't count at all.
Meta has already released normal size smart glasses, it wont be long until all VR headsets are a relic of the past.
EDIT: I think people are misunderstanding me. I dont mean VR/AR will be dead, I maen that all devices will be normal size glasses and big chunky headsets wont exist any more.
When you say: "it wont be long" you mean like another 50 years, right?
What do you mean? This problem has already been solved and is just a case of miniturisation which history has shown the industry can do very quickly. 5 Years and there will not be a 'headset' on sale anymore. It will all be normal sized glasses.
There are several gaps in capability between headsets and glasses, which cannot be filled by any existing technology.
For example, consider field of view, which is a critical measurement of these displays. Typical specs are 120 degrees for headsets, 40 for glasses.
Headsets also perform very high performance rendering compared to glasses. The tiny <1Wh batteries in glasses are insufficient for that amount of work.
Glasses can't be expected to compete with headsets, much less eliminate them from the market entirely within a few years. It makes more sense to think of VR headsets and AR glasses as completely unrelated product categories.
All of that will be solved by miniturisation and advancement of tech.
I think you are short sighted (haha!) to think that headsets and glasses are different categories, and that headsets are not just a preliminary research phase to things in the future like smart contact lenses etc.
Let's not hand-wave field of view. Glasses cannot display anything outside the bounds of their frames, and therefore cannot have a field of view as large as a headset. No amount of miniaturization will overcome that limitation.
Contact lenses having the capability of a headset? That's just magical thinking.
This is like saying a Gameboy and a Playstation are completely unrelated. Sure they have their niche but there is massive overlap as well.
Meta's glasses are "normal sized" because they don't even attempt to do what headsets do. To think one will replace the other misunderstands both.
Can you be specific? You think they can't cram in enough cameras and a lidar? The see through display is the elephant in the room and it's actually progressing.
Um, okay. Specifically, glasses don't try to do any kind of gaze tracking, gesture recognition, spacial awareness, any kind of 3d, depth, or immersion.
You could add more cameras and lidar for depth, yes, but then you'd also need a display for the other eye, and you still wouldn't be able to do immersion because your displays are transparent and have a tiny FOV, and you're also not doing passthrough, so why do you need the cameras again? And so on.
The XReal and Magic leap glasses have some of those things. Hololens had it before that. There's not a dream device yet but its clearly the north star for those and the Meta devices.
> miniturisation which history has shown the industry can do very quickly. 5 Years...
Sadly I think you are vastly overestimating the rate of progress here. Quest 2 came out 5 years ago - in those 5 years we've shrunk headset volume by about half (mostly due to pancake lenses). We'll need to find another fundamental improvement in lens technology to shrink the next 50%
Big screen beyond came out in '23. Meta has made strides with their recent showings. And I don't believe anybody is really dumping vast sums of money into it quite yet, they're coasting somewhat (though I realise that that's conjecture).
I'd say the biggest unsolved issue is the focus/depth of field issue...how to provide variable per pixel depth so that virtual objects can appear in a scene and be focussed on naturally (apparently called vergence–accommodation conflict) since most if not all displays have a fixed focus distance atm.
IMO focal depth is very much a nice to have and not a big issue at all.
I mean that, we are still very limited hardware and software manners. Not always for tech reasons. Sometimes patent trolls, sometimes competition, sometimes other reasons. With the amount of wealth Apple posseses if this is possible, others can't come up with better. They have the most money anyone could startup a product or project.
These new Ray Ban Displays are crazy impressive. Progress has actually been incredible.
i use mine daily for the virtual desktop and about 5 hours a week for hobby avp app dev. i simply think its fun to build pet projects in the sdk for my own AR dev education and entertainment
frankly i justified the cost by comparing against a planned home theater. now i RARELY use the avp as a home theater. its an incredible theater, but over time my mentality shifted and i consider the avp a tool instead of entertainment
i got used to the weight after a month. went from topping out on an hour or 2 to using for 4-5 hours no problem. also took around a month to learn the proper calibration for the light screen to "hang" on my face instead of press against it. this was a major breakthrough for comfort and session length
ive had mine since launch month and will add this observation i dont see said often:
i think the avp is meant to be taken off. meaning, i see meta going toward more comfortable ar glasses, but i dont really want to be in ar ALL DAY
its difficult to describe. the longer ive had an avp the more ive found a desire to put it on like a work hardhat, then take it off when i "feel" its time to stop. i really like that its not designed to be worn all day. im probably giving apple too much credit but its something unexpected ive found interesting in my own habitual use
* edit to add another interesting development after about a year of use: i now need to take a magnesium, calcium, and zinc pill or the weaker of my eyes will become tired and develop a spasm after about an hour and a half of sustained use. im vegetarian so that may also be a factor
I have used VR headsets since the original Oculus Development Kit Mk.1. It is until the Quest 3 that VR feels like a compelling product. If you can try it, I would suggest you do so.
Keep in mind, that the Quest 3 has been discontinued in favour of the cheaper and inferior Quest 3S. It still has some good qualities, but the best one is no doubt the Quest 3.
Another thing is that to save on costs, they all ship with a very inadequate headband. For comfort, it is imperative to get another solution, either the (expensive) elite headstrap or a (cheaper) 3rd party one.
What makes you think the Quest 3 is discontinued? The 3s was clearly communicated to be the cheaper alternative (and replaced the Quest 2 that was still sold in parallel with the 3), not a replacement for the 3.
> Apple Vision Pro with the M5 chip and Dual Knit Band starts at $3,499 (U.S.), and is available in 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB storage capacities.
Apple being stingy with storage (and RAM) isn’t new, but the base $3.5k spec with only 256 GB is extreme.
EDIT: clarity
I am just surprised they didn't increase the price, like what they did with almost every other new product (other than base iPhone, I guess).
My conspiracy theory is that they don't want to grab attention and get any more bad rep for this product when they are already half giving up.
You're not paying $3.5k for the SSD.
They didn't said that.
"$3.5k for 256 GB is extreme"
256GB is $3499; 512GB is $3699; 1TB is $3899. You're paying ~$200 for that storage.
You removed some words just now, which changes the meaning of the sentence.
> but the base $3.5k spec with only 256 GB is extreme.
The plain meaning of this sentence is "I expect more than 256 GB of storage when paying $3.5K for a device". You can argue for or against that if you like (I don't give a shit, because I would not buy it at any price), but not against something they did not say.
> You removed some words just now, which changes the meaning of the sentence.
I did not, no.
The parent poster's "EDIT: clarity" note should be a clue here.
I think the meaning was meant more as a `Nobody would intend to buy a new sports car with 14" wheels, but they sure love to advertise the price lower prices for sports cars by making a trim that way` type statement than "gee, $3,500 for an SSD!". Edit: the clarity edit of the original seems to agree.
Apple's SSDs are actually priced a bit silly though, but I think that's a different discussion. It was significantly cheaper/GB to upgrade my M4 Mac Mini's internal SSD via 3rd party despite the performance being the same (if not better) than 1st party.
Yes, that what I was trying to aim for.
Some further thoughts: two of the use cases AVP was pitched for are content consumption (streaming + offline) and spatial video/photo production. IMO the base storage should reflect that.
Given that AVP sales are struggling, I’m not sure why Apple isn’t trying to throw people a bone and offer a more reasonable amount of storage in the base config.
Well from that you could extrapolate 1TB overall cost is actually $400 ($200/512GB). And that a unit without any storage is $3399. A $400 1TB SSD hmmmmmm.
~$200 for that amount of storage is still extreme
That’s not how it works.
... for the difference between the 256 and 512 version. You could argue that for 3500 USD there should already be more storage than that included. There are even 400 USD Android smartphones with 512 GB of storage.
I expected them to give up on it. Props for not pulling a google, but I guess that isn't a high bar?
They massively over-estimated demand [1] and produced tens if not hundreds of thousands of units that didn't sell. This is them trying to liquidate their inventory of components.
[1]: https://daringfireball.net/2024/10/vision_pro_bites_dog
Your article refutes that and says sales are totally at expectations?
This looks like Apple’s foray into smart glasses. They seem to be following Meta’s path — but Apple can win this race via their signature strengths: tech support at their stores when your glasses break, durable hardware and focus on privacy (their glasses could blur or anonymize strangers’ faces in photos/videos who havent authorized themselves).
Meanwhile, my two pairs of Meta Ray-Bans are basically trash now. Loved them while they worked — but they break way too easily, and one completely died after a software update.
They have given up on it. This is simply a chip replacement. It's likely cheaper than keep producing M2s just for this thing.
> They have given up on it
> keep producing
Maybe it's just me, but if they keep producing it (regardless of what chip), doesn't that mean they haven't given up on it?
The evidence for "giving up" is pretty thin.
Ignoring the new model: which has upgraded screens, a faster refresh rate and a new headband design amongst other upgrades - which each indicate more R&D activity on the Vision Pro than say AirPods Max or the HomePod line. One would still need to content with:
- Embracing 3rd party wide field-of-view, 180°, and 360° camera makers for direct compatibility for content creation.
- Working with Black Magic Design on a spatial production workflow and a specialised camera for simplified spatial video creation.
- The development of not just more content, but more types of content, especially around live events and sports.
- A steady stream of software updates that add useful and forward-planning functionality.
The people that are saying that it's dead are simply choosing not to pay attention or confusing apple's push into widening their AR offerings as abandoning the vision pro.
It's also hard to reason with these people because they suggest (without evidence) that the sales numbers are unexpectedly low, while also stating that the factory that makes the screens is limiting production (again without evidence). This is more the type of speak of PR astroturfing than genuine discussion.
I'm surprised we haven't seen more live AR/VR sports content. There's so much that could be enhanced via the Vision Pro if the app content were there, and Apple is clearly able to throw money around to make things happen.
The content creation engine is really only starting now, it's a pretty ripe "gold rush" opportunity for those that are willing to get their hands dirty. There wasn't even a formalised workflow until about a month ago.
Meanwhile you're spot on about spots, here's a news post from about a week ago:
https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2025/10/spectrum-brings-nba-g...
Watching sports alone is not a hobby enjoyed by most people.
They stopped the development of a successor model. It’s the M5 they continue producing (and the new dual strap), the other parts they mostly have existing inventory of.
They have inventory (and maybe contract minimums) for the other parts.
[flagged]
Still an external battery?
If it's going to be tethered to a battery, why not just tether it to a Mac (or iPhone) instead, and make the device a lot cheaper+simpler in the process?
Because those batteries are busy powering their respective devices?
Looks like everyone has the same complaint here about the device. Apple is not listening to its consumers and trying to push the device in directions that the users don't care about. I hope they make it a full fledged MacBook and just grabs that market. They can continue to push the "spatial computing" crap in parallel. I don't know what use cases or market fit the spatial computing has, but really having unlimited screens/space to work on is the main and best use case.
I had to return my Vision Pro after trying it for a week. I'm one of those rare customers that genuinely wanted to keep it, because it's the only VR headset I could _actually_ get work done in thanks to its stellar resolution and overall screen quality. In spite of its many, many flaws. But I had to ditch the thing because: 1) it's stupidly heavy, and 2) it's the only headset that caused me eyestrain.
I was praying for a new revision, but ... this wasn't it. No mention of making the thing lighter. Seems like instead they _added_ weight to the band to compensate.
Guess I'll keep waiting and hoping someone else fills the space. Maybe, just maybe, there will be a real Quest Pro with the same screen quality as the AVP. The Quest 3 is almost perfect in every regard except for that, so I'd happily drop "stupid" money to grab one with an AVP level display in it. (With the usual caveats of it being an evil Meta product, etc, etc).
The problem isn't really total weight, it's unbalanced weight. For comparison, see the BoboVR head straps for the Quest (https://www.bobovr.com/products/s3-pro), which look ridiculous and add a lot of total weight (especially with a battery), but are actually more comfortable than not having it, because they spread out and counterbalance the weight of the headset.
The Dual Knit Band may help AVP comfort, but I'm skeptical. To have a significant benefit it would need to have much stiffer side support so that the entire thing can lever the weight of the headset upwards and pull the center of gravity way back from the face.
> With M5, Apple Vision Pro renders 10 percent more pixels with the micro-OLED displays
I found this little piece of information interesting. Apparently the display on the Vision Pro has such high resolution that they reduce the detail of the rendering. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that reported before. It means that an even higher quality display is still far in the future, since the silicon to push that many pixels isn’t quite ready.
I think it also does foveated rendering, it detects where you are gazing and renders that area at a higher res than the periphery.
At the same time, the resolution still isn’t quite enough for virtual Mac screen to not look worse than the real one. The Vision Pro has around 34 PPD. “Retina” resolution for VR is generally considered to require at least 60 PPD. That would mean four times the amount of pixels at the Vision Pro’s panel size. Add to that that the Vision Pro’s FOV is relatively small, you’d want even more pixels than that.
It won't look as sharp as a real display at the same size, but it is significantly larger. I've spent probably 3,000+ hours in the headset, with the vast majority of that using the Virtual Display. I've always preferred larger fonts and sitting close to the display, so using the wide virtual display mode has been a fantastic experience for me. My eye-strain-induced migraines have basically disappeared since I started using this as my main display, moving from my previous setup of 30% Studio Display and 70% 16" MBP.
Can't believe this is heavier than the original.
> The lower strap features flexible fabric ribs embedded with tungsten inserts that provide a counterweight for additional comfort, balance, and stability.
This is like how the iPad keyboard case is surprisingly heavy because it's bottom-weighted for stability. While the iPad is lighter than a laptop, the iPad + keyboard case is pretty much the same weight.
Anyone have experience with AVP+ALVR vs Valve Index? I have only used the latter but interested if I can use ALVR effectively enough to replace the Index.
If anybody else is wondering what parents means by ALVR: "Air Light VR", a software to stream games from your PC to a VR headset: https://github.com/alvr-org/ALVR
> Dual Knit Band is available to purchase separately for $99 (U.S.).
This price looks surprisingly reasonable.
Given the band’s purpose, the price and the fact that it’s backwards compatible, perhaps they’re interested in increasing adoption.
I have yet to see one of these things in person.
Granted, I only see a VR headset like four times a year, but nobody I know bought a Vision Pro either, whereas I know a few dozen people with other headsets.
Similar to when the iPhone first appeared, remember it was really uncommon where I live and the first time I held one was while visiting France. But it was a rare item at first as well, not sure that tells us anything about how useful it is/can be.
Just because many products didn't impress at first and did well later, doesn't matter you can ignore that the opposite is even more frequent.
But yours, is especially an apples and oranges comparison.
The original iPhone was a flawed internet-less take on a thriving exploding market (mobile).
VR's market just questionable.
i think its fair to say vr market is less than questionable. in theory ar/vr already has enough features to be worth using. in reality people dont want to put things on their face
i have an avp and use it daily. but it turns out im weird and most people simply dont want to put screens on their face
Regarding "Apple Vision Pro and the Environment", I'd be much more impressed with a way to upgrade my current goggles with a chip swap than recycled textiles
I'd preferred they'd downgraded the price instead, but snark aside is it still really the only headset with twin 4K resolution or are there others?
On paper headsets like MeganeX are on the same ballpark [0], while Bigscreen beyond for instance offer a completely different proposition (ultra light) for only slightly lower resolution [1]
[0] https://en.shiftall.net/products/meganex8k
https://store.bigscreenvr.com/products/bigscreen-beyond-2
>is it still really the only headset with twin 4K resolution
There are quite a few others, even some with near or at 4k res per eye released before the Apple product. Even just the Pimax 8k being the world's first dual native 4k headset early 2019.
The problem with alternative sets is, as always, a software/ecosystem one which for gaming Valve helped massively by getting everyone onto one platform (SteamVR). It's tough to do similar with Apple as they lock everything down for "security" with the added benefit of preventing competitors from creating competing products. They're happy to interoperate with Wifi and Bluetooth standards etc, though (before someone claims that doing what they want with their platform is Apple's choice - the same people who grin when MS got hammered for anti-competition with IE Windows bundling, something Apple regularly escapes).
Shiftall Meganex 8K is out, and Pimax Dream Air is upcoming. But those are PCVR headsets, not... whatever the AVP is.
Since they only list France and Germany as EU countries I guess the rest of us in the EU are never going to get the Vision Pro?
While I could get one from Germany, when I did that with the Google Pixel I ran into a whole bunch of trouble when it needed to get repaired. Since Google required an address in Germany.
I’m living in one of those irrelevant EU countries and am considering getting one from Germany. Do you know if this is going to cause issues when downloading apps from a non-German Apple account, etc.?
I think most of us will wait for these chips to get into more useful computers.
I wish they could get the price down. I had it for a few weeks before returning it. It's really an incredible device but for the value it currently provides it's not worth the cost. They also need to sort out the fact that mirroring a Mac is tied up with your Apple ID. My main use case was going to be mirroring my work MacBook, but I'm not signing into my work device with my personal Apple account. It's an astonishing oversight. If they can halve the price (and maybe the weight) over the next decade it'll be huge.
I expect the Apple ID thing will be fixed as it should be easy. Halving the price should be easy too - but probably won't happen until the new "half the weight" version is released.
They definitely don't have a decade. The market gave them 14 years with iPhone (Newton was 1993?). But things move a bit faster now.
>> I expect the Apple ID thing will be fixed as it should be easy.
That's what I initially thought but there have been two OS cycles now with no fix. I think Apple often back themselves into a corner when they base stuff around iCloud and I wouldn't be surprised if this was similar. Maybe user accounts on visionOS will be the eventual solution?
The Vision Pro is a premium VR experience, but the weight is something I could never get used to.
I hope that they revisit the hardware at some point when novel tech enables a lot of weight reduction.
Rumor was they were working on a cheaper model (Vision Air?) but have shelved it prioritize chasing Meta's smart glasses
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-10-01/apple-she...
Maybe Apple’s working on smart glasses — one with a display, one without — to rival Meta. Honestly, Meta’s glasses are cool… until they break. And they do break!
Meta’s biggest weakness? No in-person support. Unlike Apple, they don’t have stores where you can walk in and get help.
My two pairs of Meta Ray Bans are broke - one was hosed after a software update.
120 Hz support seems like the biggest upgrade.
motion blur was the biggest technical flaw i saw when i tried one, i wonder if this will help?
... so does this mean that the rest of us will one day be able to buy the previous model for some price less than your firstborn??
Cool… I guess. shrugs
biggest question on whether i should upgrade mine is trade in value for the m2 version. i havent seen anything on that yet
edit: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/discontinued-m2-vision-...
lmao. dicks
Related:
Apple M5 Chip
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45591799
Wasn't the Apple Vision pro discontinued?
No, they "announced" the production had stopped because there was enough supply (ie. they had enough stock to fulfill the projected sales and replacement needs). Now obviously it wasn't the success they had hoped for. But they didn't discontinue it.
Clearly not.
Soon (TM)
Spatial computing is not spatial intelligence. Apple fundamentally has missed the boat on topological integrations.
Interesting to see apps like Steam Link and the PlayStation VR controller support advertised. Seems like an admission that Apple underestimated how many VR users need that gaming functionality to be there.
This part suggests Apple warming up a little to Oculus-style VR controllers:
> With support for the PlayStation VR2 Sense controller, players get a new class of immersive games with high-performance motion tracking in six degrees of freedom, finger touch detection, and vibration support.
Previously they seemed to be committed to finger controls only.
I remain convinced that the main use case for VR is games. And to see them flirt around it so badly is just flat out amusing to me.
Yeah AR will be where it's at for most consumers I'd say. VR is still useful but in far fewer scenarios.
s/games/porn/
They are still making this?
Why?
Apparently they weren't making it, but selling down stock (at least according to the rumors).
I guess they are still making them, now with M5?
Investors told Cook that he has to have a vision, and he misunderstood?
Or maliciously complied...
Is this chip imprinted with engrams from Daystrom? It seems like this might be the ultimate computer.
How are they at version 26 of VisionOS?
The same way they're at version 26 of iOS and MacOS
They aligned their OS numbering across all platforms to "year + 1" a little while back
$3499??? Is anyone actually buying this?
they wound down production of the previous iteration[0] due to poor demand.
But seems like they do have a niche audience that likes it (and maybe can pass it as a business expense or something?) so they've sold a few.
[0] https://www.macrumors.com/2024/10/23/apple-may-stop-producin...
The reaction from the ATP guys is a solid "meh"; apparently it's pretty well done and nice, but not really "worth it."
And one of them bought a fully-loaded Mac Pro, so they're not immune to the Apple Distortion Field.
FWIW wasn't that Mac Pro in the era where the Mac Pro was useful and had bigger CPU/RAM options than other models?
Or did he do it again when the Mac Studio exists?
Yeah, it was the last of the real big Xeon-based ones, which had its reasons to exist.
Still a very pricey machine.
The one who buys the Mac Pros is not the big spender; that would be the one who won't stop talking about his vacation homes and mechanical watch collection.
Oh boy. This is bad for Vision Pro...
Apple would never make such a small deal about upgrading the chip in one of their products unless they thought that product was toast.
I wonder if they're just in full pivot mode to glasses.
It's the same deal they made about upgrading the iPad Pro and MacBook Pro to M5:
https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2025/10/apple-introduces-the-...
https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2025/10/apple-unveils-new-14-...
The real issue is that various rumors point to them cancelling or pushing back the plan for a new version of the headset that is cheaper and lighter in favor of working on the smart glasses.
Without a cheaper, lighter headset I don't think it's going to become a significant product for Apple.
They just did the same for the iPad Pro and the 14 inch MBP…
Couldn't they also be planning a revamp of the design for next year? If that's the case, maybe a smaller announcement now would be apt.
Supposedly that's been shelved.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-10-01/apple-she...
If that's true, it's the stupidest thing they've ever done. To start competing in a product category invented by Eric Schmidt and Mark Zuckerberg. This might be the final point on the story of how Tim Cook destroyed Apple.
Eyeglasses with a HUD is the stupidest product category ever invented, and that's why no one wants them, which has been proven again and again in the marketplace.
I think it's pretty clear that the whole point of the Vision Pro is that Apple wants to build AR glasses but the technology was not ready yet.
I do think it makes some sense to attack the problem from both directions, but hopefully they aren't fully ditching the full immersive headset development to do it.
It's fundamentally a different product. Vision Pro is about pushing boundaries in productivity and entertainment. It's the step above desktop computers or game consoles with large displays. You wear this device like headphones, when you want to jump into work or game.
Eyeglasses with HUD is like Apple Watch but on your face, i.e. it's focus is on mobility, not productivity or immersion. You're supposed to wear this device all the time.
Even if we had the technology the run these devices in the same form factor (maybe in 100 years), I bet that most people prefer to keep their face and eyes tech free in mobile or social situations. For the same reasons as why it's polite to put your phone away when interacting with people. Wearing this kind of device means that they're not fully present at any time. It also signals that they're a person who wants notifications constantly blasted on their face - i.e. an idiot.
I don't actually believe that they have ditched the plans for the next version.
If they thought the product was toast why would they bother updating the processor? It isn't like they update the processor in the mac pro regularly or anything.
For less mature products, they frequently make a big deal about it being 23% faster and 10% lighter.
Apple Vision Pro upgraded with the powerful M5 chip and comfortable Dual Knit Band: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2025/10/apple-vision-pro-upgr...
The latest version improves performance, display rendering, battery life, and comfort, while offering innovative features with visionOS 26 and all-new spatial apps and Apple Immersive content