At least the old ViewMasters came in nice friendly colours.
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And let’s be clear: that’s exactly what’s going on with the subway guy. He’s showing off his expensive device on a public transit system that – while safer than it’s been in the past – is still a prime venue for theft and in any case requires full awareness of one’s surrounding. What we see in the video is someone with more money than sense (or, to put it more succinctly, an idiot).
There is no full-screen task, work- or entertainment-related, that is so urgent that I’d feel the need to ostentatiously use a $3500 VR device on the subway. Because I have a sense of perspective, because I value the things I buy with my money, and because I am not stupid.
The drivers wearing the Vision Pro are a whole other level of stupid.
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So I’m not sure…are you changing your position from those first 2 quotes?
Because I’d argue that voluntarily ceding your situational awareness in public does hurt people. It damages society.
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In the clip, it looked like he had another person shooting video. So, he wasn’t just some guy using one in a real life situation. He was more like an unpermitted independent film studio shooting a commercial or independent movie. Some content for the purpose of content involving multiple people creating it. Not representative of a real use case.
From all the reviews, the product looks like an amazing VR headset with top quality capabilities for VR. In those use cases, I suspect it’s a great use. If it’s enough better to justify it’s price is a good question.
The marketing and AR features seem considerably less compelling in the reviews. As an AR headset, it sounds clunky, limiting, and with a significant amount of trade offs. I’m sure there are lots of niche use cases where those trade offs are worth it. However, the “just wear it all the time” use case seems ridiculous for the costs and trade offs.
Assuming Apple has a long term Vision here, I wonder if this is like when Netflix first started. In those early days of Netflix, it didn’t do any “Net” stuff well and there was no streaming at all. At the time, Netflix was a horrible streaming platform, but a great DVD rental store replacement. Yet, the name implied that streaming was the direction. Now, 17 years later, Netflix doesn’t deliver DVD at all and is only a streaming service. One can hope the Vision Pro realization of a better AR product and AR use case takes less than 17 years.
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When is there going to be a cylon mod for the forward facing screen? (Could probably double as a KITT mod for those that insist on being stupid and driving)
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you mentioned japan… in japan, phones do just that:
it’s not exactly a “law” … It’s more of a rule… This rule was agreed upon by all carriers and manufacturers as a way of not only protecting potential victims but likely to protect themselves from potential legal ramifications.
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I made an interesting discovery last week. Just moved to Japan, and got an eSIM with Japanese number for my Pixel 6 Pro. It now makes shutter sounds in the standard camera app - that can’t be turned off.
So rather than it being a feature of Japanese sold phones, it’s set in Android by the presence of a local number. (phone has always remained mute during previous trips with my UK number…)
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The consumer version should have big googly eyes tracking the user’s eye movements on the front screen. Plus a red flashing "You are being recorded " notice. That would dissuade all but the most determined arseholes from using it in inappropriate settings like the subway, bars, etc.
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Agreed. Summarising some points from the now-deleted discussion…
Certain harms, like driving with VR goggles, are self-evident. Others are more subtle. Situational awareness, which you really do need on the subway, is lacking when one wears these goggles. Small children also have the problem of “seeing” everything around them minus what’s immediately in front of them, which is why the little munchkins are always running into you (especially when they’re distracted).
Making the people around you in a public space uncomfortable because they can’t see your eyes, don’t know if you’re recording them, and because you’re waving your hands around and gesturing in an odd way (leading people in close subway quarters to worry that he’ll hit them by mistake) is another harmful and upsetting behaviour/ Social penalties – being called stupid or an arsehole – are appropriate responses to breaking societal norms and rules.
There is a bigger problem that’s inherently related to this specific instance. Apple designs and markets and prices its new products specifically for that arsehole on the subway, who’s stupid enough not to care about how his inconsiderate behaviours affect those around him and who wants to display his wealth and bleeding edge privilege.
That’s why we have to talk about and call out arseholes/idiots like the subway guy: their stupid behaviours are the outcomes of bad, tunnel-vision decisions by the tech companies and their privileged executives and senior managers. Their ideal consumer is always a reflection of themselves and their priorities. What does it say about Apple that this clown was so eager to buy the product?
Unfortunately, the Libertarian-tinged Californian Ideology is so deeply ingrained in the industry that I doubt introducing a more diverse set of decision-makers will offset this problem. Worth a try, though.
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i haven’t seen it in the thread so far… so i’ll add: there’s also the possibility that some of these people have been paid by apple to be out in public in order to make waves ( and normalize divisive behavior )
we know that fossil fuel companies pay cooking influencers to tout the benefits of gas stoves… so we should assume at least some of these sightings are bought and paid for
with the caveat that advanced marketing is indistinguishable from unimaginative techbros.
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I’ve got a Quest 2. It’s a great toy; good fun at parties too, having people take turns trying it out (bring a pack of wet wipes to clean the mask in between players!) For more serious uses, anything that benefits from letting you move in 3D, really. It’s big with architecture firms and industrial designers, for example. After my parents tried it, they thought it could be a more stimulating exercise tool for old people. It’s useful in various kinds of exposure therapy (not claustrophobia so much, obviously). I can imagine all kinds of educational applications, though I haven’t seen any. A colleague of mine has a son who’s in a long distance relationship, and he hangs out with his girlfriend in VR because they feel closer that way than when they’re on the phone.
So that’s some applications. Being a $3500 portable replacement for a 27" monitor doesn’t strike me as a good one.
The biggest problem with VR is that it’s almost impossible to advertise. You can’t really see why it might be cool unless you try it for yourself. Much as I dislike Meta, their approach here is the better one in my opinion: make it simple to use and also as cheap as you can.
It’s pretty obvious that this thing isn’t what Apple wanted at all. What they wanted was a slicker version of this, but the technology to make that slick enough for Apple doesn’t exist and apparently they couldn’t make it exist.
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And some things trying to advertise makes it actively worse. A lot of games have what appears to be really poor graphics that you wouldn’t give a second glance at on a 2D screen. But the presence in VR makes up for a lot of the quality.
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That may be part of it, but even the people who did go out and buy a Meta headset generally don’t use them nearly as much as the company hoped that they would. And the market for these has actually been shrinking, not growing:
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I tried out my friend’s Facebook headset a while back. In terms of the physical/ergonomic experience, I couldn’t see myself wearing the thing for more than an hour. I’m sure Apple’s headset is an improvement, but I still doubt I’d spend more than two hours in it before wanting out.
I haven’t tried VR or AR yet, but this was my experience with Nvidia’s shutter glasses. You need 2x the normal frame rate because each frame needs to be rendered separately for each eye, and to get that rate you often had to drastically reduce quality settings. Especially things like anti-aliasing. But with the more “natural” resulting image being interpreted more easily by your brain, it looked amazing.
Honestly, it looked a little too good. After a while, scenes that felt big and expansive started to look like little models, a diorama in the frame of the monitor, your character an action figure brought to life.
I expect VR displays would work with my brain similarly, letting my wetware handle the scene post-processing that the graphics engine would have to do for a 2d image to look good.
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Is it seven times less impressive?
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Huh. So when wearing it, you can’t actually see the world around you. You can see a video representation of the world around you. Adds to my already substantial concerns about people wearing these in public.
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