Apple is betting the farm on a VR headset

[Crispy]

The price of the new Mac Pros is the more bonkers one

Especially when you get exactly the same performance for $3k less with the Studio (and no scope for upgrading ram, cpu or gpu). As Bees says, the high end places will eat the cost if they need the capability, but it is a little ridiculous to pay three grand for some PCI slots and thunderbolt ports.

 

[Ranbay]

I predict:

• Too expensive
• Have no obvious mass market use
• Missing certain absolute must have features
• Shit battery life

Just like the iPhone, iPad, and watch were initially…

PORN

 

[Mr Retro]

I can also see them being used in cars/vans/lorries in the near future.

 

[Ranbay]

Yes, in the future the eclectic car will drive you to work while you wank off to VR Porn.

 

[pbsmooth]

You've been able to watch films on much cheaper VR headsets for ages and it hasn't exactly set the world alight.

agree, but much higher quality - better than 4K in each eye!

 

[Magnus McGinty]

You've been able to watch films on much cheaper VR headsets for ages and it hasn't exactly set the world alight.

Very tiring on the eyes. I assume greater resolution may make it less so.

 

[UnderOpenSky]

True. I'd be up for it prehaps when travelling, but I do that so rarely and not sure it has the battery life. I think there will be a social thing to overcome. People are used to watching things on a screen and you can get an amazing OLED TV for less money and watch with other people.

 

[skyscraper101]

True. I'd be up for it prehaps when travelling, but I do that so rarely and not sure it has the battery life. I think there will be a social thing to overcome. People are used to watching things on a screen and you can get an amazing OLED TV for less money and watch with other people.

You can watch with other people on VR headsets too. And that can number in the thousands and none of you need to be in the same room either.

This for me is actually one of the biggest pulls. The social interactions you could get from meeting up with randoms in shared virtual spaces. I've done it a bit on the Quest and though it has a lot of refining to do, it's actually quite fun watching a film in a virtual cinema with others or just hanging out in virtual worlds.

The biggest drawbacks were more the weight of the headset and the cartoonish world of the 'metaverse' and the annoying kids that would more often than anything frequent the place. Those things make you want to take the thing off. Apple could be the antithesis of this if they get it right.

 

[UnderOpenSky]

You can watch with other people on VR headsets too. And that can number in the thousands and none of you need to be in the same room either.

This for me is actually one of the biggest pulls. The social interactions you could get from meeting up with randoms in shared virtual spaces. I've done it a bit on the Quest and though it has a lot of refining to do, it's actually quite fun watching a film in a virtual cinema with others or just hanging out in virtual worlds.

The biggest drawbacks were more the weight of the headset and the cartoonish world of the 'metaverse' and the annoying kids that would more often than anything frequent the place. Those things make you want to take the thing off. Apple could be the antithesis of this if they get it right.

I think that needs to be a new media, again prehaps waiting for its killer app. Just replicating watching a film, but you all have to have a headset seems pointless.

 

[danny la rouge]

I think that needs to be a new media, again prehaps waiting for its killer app. Just replicating watching a film, but you all have to have a headset seems pointless.

Yup. I can’t for the life of me imagine why I’d want a VR headset. But that’s the point, if it’s for something currently known: I don’t.

 

[skyscraper101]

Well, if you're a loner, or someone who can't get out much, or just want some company that's not immediately available it's a good way to share the experience of being in a cinema/lounge with a bunch of randoms or online friends watching a film or gaming, or chatting. I can see the appeal. That's before the addition of the immersive stuff like 3D movies and concerts etc. which I'd quite happily enjoy on my own too.

 

[UnderOpenSky]

Yup. I can’t for the life of me imagine why I’d want a VR headset. But that’s the point, if it’s for something currently known: I don’t.

For me it would be gaming. But Apple aren't intrested in that. And there aren't really enough bug budget titles for the current stuff for me to bother. That and I don't have time to actually to use my gaming PC as it is.

I can think of cool applications for AR, that wouldn't make me want to buy one but maybe rent one, I can see the appeal. If I could have rented one when I visited Carthage for example to see what the streets might have looked like in its full glory.

 

[kabbes]

Surely, the initial obvious niches would be the use of AR for business applications? For example, a surveyor could gain information about an environment while looking around, or a claims adjuster could get information about physical damage when visiting an insured site. Businesses can also afford to pay 10x the consumer price point. None of these applications are available yet, but they seem like the first gen applications that need the least imagination to envisage.

 

[Crispy]

I'd absolutely love one for work if my CAD package (Autodesk Revit) supported it. Gigantic monitor in front of me, while being literally surrouded by the 3D model of the building I'm working on? It would be utterly transformative. Very rudimentary support for PC VR already exists for it and I gave it a go on my Vive. It "works" but not in the way that apple stuff "just works".

Would be worth the price. Easily worth it.

 

[skyscraper101]

Brownlee shares his take:

 

[skyscraper101]

Fun fact. This thread started exactly one year to the date before the Vision Pro was unveiled.

 

[editor]

It's a fucking awful idea. People taking 3D pictures of their kids with these ludicrous things on their heads or sitting around together watching movies, all isolated in their own little expensive virtual worlds.

The tech is impressive of course, but there's no way shit like this is going to go mainstream.

 

[beesonthewhatnow]

It's a fucking awful idea. People… sitting around together watching movies, all isolated in their own little expensive virtual worlds.

But a group of people in different places, all suddenly able to interact as if they’re in the same space? That’s got huge potential.

Give it 3 years or so and we’ll know if this thing is pointing towards the future. It may not be, but we all dismissed the iPad when it first launched and look where that got us

 

[editor]

But a group of people in different places, all suddenly able to interact as if they’re in the same space? That’s got huge potential.

Give it 3 years or so and we’ll know if this thing is pointing towards the future. It may not be, but we all dismissed the iPad when it first launched and look where that got us

It's really not the same thing. This thing is massively expensive and there's a world of difference between using a iPad and sticking a huge visor on your face with weird eyes glowing through. And the notion of interacting with children while wearing these things gives me the shivers.

That's not to say it won't have some valid users but in its current iteration it looks ridiculous and has an appalling battery life. Fine if you're sat at home gaming or if you like the idea of having a conference call with a weird, spooky version of your face appearing, but I really hope this tech-for-the-sake-of-tech doesn't become mainstream.

 

[UnderOpenSky]

It's really not the same thing. This thing is massively expensive and there's a world of difference between using a iPad and sticking a huge visor on your face with weird eyes glowing through. And the notion of interacting with children while wearing these things gives me the shivers.

That's not to say it won't have some valid users but in its current iteration it looks ridiculous and has an appalling battery life. Fine if you're sat at home gaming or if you like the idea of having a conference call with a weird, spooky version of your face appearing, but I really hope this tech-for-the-sake-of-tech doesn't become mainstream.

I strongly believe that VR is going to be mainstream. I've only been waiting for it for 30 years. I also belive that still we don't actually know what it main applications are going to be.

 

[editor]

I strongly believe that VR is going to be mainstream. I've only been waiting for it for 30 years. I also belive that still we don't actually know what it main applications are going to be.

I can't think of any application that would make me want to encase my head in a large Apple headset with a shit battery life while walking down a High St.

Something like Google Glass seemed a bit more palatable because it only augmented your vision rather than entirely replacing it with a slightly creepy digital world.

These reviews sum up some of my fears:

While this may not impact you as a user, I wouldn't be very comfortable living or hanging out with someone who leaves it on. Apple's so-called solution for in-person socializing when using the device is EyeSight. This feature scans your eyes and facial features when you first set up the Vision Pro, and it then uses this 3D map of your face to build an artificial model that is displayed on the external screen. So those looking at you will see a somewhat accurate representation of your eyes — except that it's all made up.

based on the solo-centered demos with FaceTime video calls replicating your facial features and movements, I certainly don't feel very comfortable in this blind spot of solitude.

Apple Vision Pro gives us a glimpse into a potentially dystopian future

The Vision Pro is Apple's most advanced consumer product to date, but it could be pointing towards a nightmarish future of solitude.

www.xda-developers.com

I’M NOT A gambler, but I’d bet everything that Apple’s Vision Pro will flop.

Don’t be ridiculous. This is not a “revolutionary” gadget, no matter how confident Tim Cook looks when he says it is. It’s a rare misfire, and a sign that Apple is losing its ability to turn tech-geek novelties into normie must-haves. It doesn’t augur the future so much as suggest that Cupertino doesn’t have a clear view forward.

“Every successful Apple product of the past two decades has disappeared into our lives in some way—the iPhone into our pockets, the iPad into our purses, the Apple Watch living on our wrists, and the AirPods resting in our ears,” my colleague Lauren Goode wrote this week, after demoing the device at WWDC. “But the Vision Pro is also unlike almost every other modern Apple product in one crucial way: It doesn’t disappear.” Instead, Goode wrote, the device settles onto your face, hides your eyes, “sensory organs that are a crucial part of the lived human experience.” The same was true of all virtual reality headsets and augmented reality glasses, she conceded, but the Vision Pro marked the first time an Apple product had made such an intrusion into people’s lives.

This is an antisocial device, one which the average person would be wholly reasonable to reject and even ridicule.
The company is getting ribbed online for one promotional image in particular, depicting a father with his young children wearing the device in their home. As the children play on the ground, the father looks on wearing his Vision Pro. Or maybe he’s ignoring them and watching Avatar. Or gabbing on an immersive version of FaceTime. It looks cartoonishly dystopian, more like a marketing still for an especially obvious episode of Black Mirror than something a tech company would deliberately select to allure people—unless their target market was emotionally dysregulated parents.

Apple’s Vision Pro Isn’t the Future

The new mixed-reality headset is an alarming misfire. Has Apple lost its innovation mojo?

www.wired.com

 

[pseudonarcissus]

I strongly believe that VR is going to be mainstream. I've only been waiting for it for 30 years. I also belive that still we don't actually know what it main applications are going to be.

I remember playing with a defence industry demonstrator a little over 30 years ago. It was an attempt to provide a training environment for complex warship control rooms. I'm not aware it ever progressed. The "parallel processing" involved was pretty cool technology, though.

I tend to agree with Editor that it's a solution looking for a problem (with the possible exception of gaming, which I don't do). For real simulation training you will still need a proper simulator with actual buttons you can press (and physical bodies you interact with in the case of a warship). Microsoft flight simulator might be a nice game, but I'm not going to trust you flying a real Airbus based on your proficiency at the game.

If we are to have a VR interface for Urban, can we restrict which forums it's available for? Suburban might be nice where we can sit round eating hobnobs virtually together, but P&P would be a bloodbath.

 

[ska invita]

PORN

just googled "VR Porn"... endless websites come up, its very much already here it seems

 

[Ranbay]

just googled "VR Porn"... endless websites come up, its very much already here it seems

I wouldn't know.....

 

[Magnus McGinty]

For real simulation training you will still need a proper simulator with actual buttons you can press (and physical bodies you interact with in the case of a warship). Microsoft flight simulator might be a nice game, but I'm not going to trust you flying a real Airbus based on your proficiency at the game.

MSFS isn’t training grade software but VR can and is used with solutions that are for pilot training.

Council Post: VR For Flight Training: Benefits And Challenges

VR is about nurturing relevant skills and practicing theoretical knowledge in virtual environments that replicate real ones. This is invaluable for pilot training.

www.forbes.com

One benefit is that VR can give you the spacial awareness that is difficult to replicate with monitors.

 

[beesonthewhatnow]

I can't think of any application that would make me want to encase my head in a large Apple headset with a shit battery life while walking down a High St.

I don’t think even Apple have made out that this is something to be worn out and about and down the shops.

If - and it’s still a big if - this thing* takes off, I’d see it as something to be used at your desk, on your sofa, in your front room etc. Controlled environments, with access to continuous power.



*well, V4.0 of it anyway, if the past is anything to go by

 

[ska invita]

AI responsive entertainment mixed with VR could be incredibly addictive to escapists

 

[beesonthewhatnow]

AI responsive entertainment mixed with VR

Or “porn” as everyone else will call it

 

[Ming]

Or “porn” as everyone else will call it

If you died using it (say electrocution due to bad circuitry) it'd be worse than dying during a strangle wank. No alternative explanations. Just a stream of smoke rising from the lower abdominal device.

 

[newme]

I don’t think even Apple have made out that this is something to be worn out and about and down the shops.

If - and it’s still a big if - this thing* takes off, I’d see it as something to be used at your desk, on your sofa, in your front room etc. Controlled environments, with access to continuous power.



*well, V4.0 of it anyway, if the past is anything to go by

then what's the benefit over say an occulus? Works great for the games vr works for. Better screen and sound isn't worth 10x the price. That's where its competition is currently. But also with an even smaller potential user base.