So what about this product opened your eyes that the previous 15 years of VR/AR did not? Just Apple's marketing power? Or is there something specific about this device that made it click for you?
I had always looked at things like Oculus as a "gaming" accessory. And I demoed Google Glass about 10 years ago, and it didn't present a virtual screen.
When seeing the Apple goggles, it clicked for me that this was basically a mac environment, and I started thinking how amazing it would be to run terminals in it, then I started googling for any options that were available now..
Crazy. That's the power of marketing eh. Almost as soon as the DK1 was available, people were running desktop envs inside VR. 3D modelling, CAD, multiple floating desktops, watching movies videos in 3D or big fake theaters, panoramic photos... Google even had a 3D paintbrush program demo on their cardboard product half a decade or more ago. This is stuff all been explored before.
1. Eye tracking for interaction vs hand tracking. If the UX works out, the amount of precision that can be reached is just far higher with less effort - just seems to be an easier technical problem.
2. Resolution and lensing. Most VR headsets have fairly low quality fresnel lenses which cause distortion near the edges (basically - if you want to see something in good detail, you have to tilt your whole head to look at it), and in general the resolution is not good enough to see things that are 'far away' (those who play games like DCS have to use the 'binoculars' feature with headsets to accurately see targets). With a device like an HP Reverb, the resolution is probably close to good enough, the lensing is not - the Meta Quest Pro has a good enough lens, but not resolution. I'd expect the lensing on the Apple device to be top of market, and we know the resolution is ~2.5x more dense than the Meta Quest Pro - which should be closer to going from SD to HD TV rather than HD to 4k. Essentially, if you try to code on a Meta Quest Pro, the text looks a bit blurry. With the Vision Pro, it won't.
3. Custom face cushion + prescription lenses. Comfort is everything with these devices and nothing is worse than a headset putting pressure in the wrong places. It'll cost much more, but be totally worth it.
4. People claim common nausea when using VR. I've felt it too, but only on certain headsets. My money is other companies know what causes folks to feel bad, but have had to make technical tradeoffs which mean that nausea remains a problem. I'd put money on Apple having done serious research into 'what causes nausea when using headsets' which causes this to minimised on their headsets.
5. Software stack and usability. VR stacks are typically fairly clunky, usually Android derived, usually behaving a bit like a dodgy phone. iOS/MacOS are usually not most feature-ful, but a core usually works very very well. Will likely push bar a lot higher, change the shape of industry (e.g. samsungs are so good because of the iPhone competition).
Basically, having used some of these devices - the complaints I have with these right now, are the same things that Apple has real, technical solutions for. And the price isn't even _that_ high compared to other players in the market. Pimax Crystal is $1600 for what right now is a fairly buggy user experience. Their vapourware Pimax 12k is listed as starting at $2400 for the most basic model, though it's been in that state for well over a year.
(1) The HoloLens used eye tracking. It was tough to get used to but it was interesting. I didn't feel that I ever got to the point where it was more precise than moving my hand to a 3d point in space.
(4) I doubt it's the headset. It's almost certainly the application the headset is running.
4. Nausea is apparently caused by latency between head movements and updates of the visual field, which they've kept very low on the Vision Pro by means of that R1 chip.
drewg123|2 years ago
When seeing the Apple goggles, it clicked for me that this was basically a mac environment, and I started thinking how amazing it would be to run terminals in it, then I started googling for any options that were available now..
hordehamhill|2 years ago
NikolaNovak|2 years ago
1 : https://xkcd.com/1053/
jayd16|2 years ago
CHY872|2 years ago
1. Eye tracking for interaction vs hand tracking. If the UX works out, the amount of precision that can be reached is just far higher with less effort - just seems to be an easier technical problem.
2. Resolution and lensing. Most VR headsets have fairly low quality fresnel lenses which cause distortion near the edges (basically - if you want to see something in good detail, you have to tilt your whole head to look at it), and in general the resolution is not good enough to see things that are 'far away' (those who play games like DCS have to use the 'binoculars' feature with headsets to accurately see targets). With a device like an HP Reverb, the resolution is probably close to good enough, the lensing is not - the Meta Quest Pro has a good enough lens, but not resolution. I'd expect the lensing on the Apple device to be top of market, and we know the resolution is ~2.5x more dense than the Meta Quest Pro - which should be closer to going from SD to HD TV rather than HD to 4k. Essentially, if you try to code on a Meta Quest Pro, the text looks a bit blurry. With the Vision Pro, it won't.
3. Custom face cushion + prescription lenses. Comfort is everything with these devices and nothing is worse than a headset putting pressure in the wrong places. It'll cost much more, but be totally worth it.
4. People claim common nausea when using VR. I've felt it too, but only on certain headsets. My money is other companies know what causes folks to feel bad, but have had to make technical tradeoffs which mean that nausea remains a problem. I'd put money on Apple having done serious research into 'what causes nausea when using headsets' which causes this to minimised on their headsets.
5. Software stack and usability. VR stacks are typically fairly clunky, usually Android derived, usually behaving a bit like a dodgy phone. iOS/MacOS are usually not most feature-ful, but a core usually works very very well. Will likely push bar a lot higher, change the shape of industry (e.g. samsungs are so good because of the iPhone competition).
Basically, having used some of these devices - the complaints I have with these right now, are the same things that Apple has real, technical solutions for. And the price isn't even _that_ high compared to other players in the market. Pimax Crystal is $1600 for what right now is a fairly buggy user experience. Their vapourware Pimax 12k is listed as starting at $2400 for the most basic model, though it's been in that state for well over a year.
HWR_14|2 years ago
(1) The HoloLens used eye tracking. It was tough to get used to but it was interesting. I didn't feel that I ever got to the point where it was more precise than moving my hand to a 3d point in space.
(4) I doubt it's the headset. It's almost certainly the application the headset is running.
FabHK|2 years ago