Apple 'Carefully Orchestrating' Vision Pro Reviews With Multiple Meetings

[robgreene]

Literally nobody anywhere had that reaction to the iPod. It took all of 3 brain cells to understand the advantage of Walkman + Case full of CDs vs. cell phone sized pocketable device. Hence why it was immensely successful.

I love when people here pretend like Vision Pro is anything even remotely like the launches of iPod, or iPhone, or even iPad.

And if you'd like to read the verbatim reactions in the Macrumors forums to the iPod when announced: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/apples-new-thing-ipod.500/

TLDR on that thread: Too pricy, too pointless, lacking real innovation.

 

[Chancha]

View attachment 2335182
And if you'd like to read the verbatim reactions in the Macrumors forums to the iPod when announced: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/apples-new-thing-ipod.500/

TLDR on that thread: Too pricy, too pointless, lacking real innovation.

LOL exactly, 20 years later I can still recite word by word this famous phrase:
"No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame"

But yes right after the iPod came to hands of real users, the value in ease of use became much more apparent. VisionPro may be the same, in that it needs actual hands-on to fully grasp the potential of the platform.

 

[name99]

Sincere question... what do you mean by SPOKEN WORD audio. I listen to audiobooks on mine with no issue of stopped and starting. What device does this better? I really have heard no one ever go down this path before so I kind of doubt its responsible for the hate, but I am still curious about what you mean.

Here's the issue. I want to listen to, say, MY audiobooks, while shaving and showering.
1: "natively" HomePod will only Audiobooks bought from the Apple Books store. So I have anything else (eg Audible, Overdrive, Hoopla) I have to play it from a phone.

2: This doesn't conceptually HAVE to be a deal breaker. My AirPods handle this fine. I pop them in, wait half a second fro a ding, and press the "play" button on the AirPod. It's not 100% guaranteed that the appropriate app will start playing the audiobook I am listening (every so often for random reasons the system will revert to Music.app) but it's good enough to be livable.

But HomePod does not give that same persistence! I can't just tap the top of HomePod and have it pick up the audiobook where I was listening yesterday, because HomePod "forgets its connection" after about 15 minutes; it forgets that it was connected to my iPhone and what it was playing from the iPhone. So to resume my audiobook I have to go to the phone, start playback on the phone, then choose HomePod as a Playback device.

Now look, you can claim 1st world problems if you want. But my take on this is that I pay Apple an extra 20% to avoid this BS. If Apple is unwilling to do its part by making the process actually 20% better than the competition, then they deserve (and get) zero loyalty from me.

I'm OK with Apple using proprietary protocols IF they work better than standards. AirPlay does not. In particular AirPlay does not have persistence in the way that even Bluetooth does. It's not just HomePod that sucks in this way; you have the same experience when AirPlaying video to say a TV; pause the video on your phone for 15 minutes, and the connection is killed. But Apple chose to make HomePod ONLY accessible via AirPlay, so it never has persistence.

This is one specific example of a larger issue that HomePod is set up not just to be part of Apple's ecosystem, but to FORCE you to use Apple services, even if those don't interest you.
For a different example: Do you want to use HomePod as a Siren or Alarm of some sort? Well, you can't play a file of your choosing (eg a dog barking) on it without going through Apple's Music Subscription service... And you can't control it in the obvious ways through HomeKit Scenes or Automator...
Another obvious piece of functionality to anyone who has thought for more than a minute about "what could I do with a smart speaker" but which Apple refuses to provide.

 

[G5isAlive]

Here's the issue. I want to listen to, say, MY audiobooks, while shaving and showering.
1: "natively" HomePod will only Audiobooks bought from the Apple Books store. So I have anything else (eg Audible, Overdrive, Hoopla) I have to play it from a phone.

2: This doesn't conceptually HAVE to be a deal breaker. My AirPods handle this fine. I pop them in, wait half a second fro a ding, and press the "play" button on the AirPod. It's not 100% guaranteed that the appropriate app will start playing the audiobook I am listening (every so often for random reasons the system will revert to Music.app) but it's good enough to be livable.

But HomePod does not give that same persistence! I can't just tap the top of HomePod and have it pick up the audiobook where I was listening yesterday, because HomePod "forgets its connection" after about 15 minutes; it forgets that it was connected to my iPhone and what it was playing from the iPhone. So to resume my audiobook I have to go to the phone, start playback on the phone, then choose HomePod as a Playback device.

Now look, you can claim 1st world problems if you want. But my take on this is that I pay Apple an extra 20% to avoid this BS. If Apple is unwilling to do its part by making the process actually 20% better than the competition, then they deserve (and get) zero loyalty from me.

I'm OK with Apple using proprietary protocols IF they work better than standards. AirPlay does not. In particular AirPlay does not have persistence in the way that even Bluetooth does. It's not just HomePod that sucks in this way; you have the same experience when AirPlaying video to say a TV; pause the video on your phone for 15 minutes, and the connection is killed. But Apple chose to make HomePod ONLY accessible via AirPlay, so it never has persistence.

This is one specific example of a larger issue that HomePod is set up not just to be part of Apple's ecosystem, but to FORCE you to use Apple services, even if those don't interest you.
For a different example: Do you want to use HomePod as a Siren or Alarm of some sort? Well, you can't play a file of your choosing (eg a dog barking) on it without going through Apple's Music Subscription service... And you can't control it in the obvious ways through HomeKit Scenes or Automator...
Another obvious piece of functionality to anyone who has thought for more than a minute about "what could I do with a smart speaker" but which Apple refuses to provide.

oh.

Well yeah, first world problem lol. but more to the point I dont think THIS is the major reason people hate on it (as you asserted). I can see that its a pain in the butt for you.

The issue of persistence.. never thought about it. AirPods really are single use, sorta makes sense they have persistence. The HomePod can be shared. Maybe thats lame reasoning but still. Other people could easily interrupt your cycle on the HomePod.

I personally have no problem with picking up my phone and reconnecting, but I can see why you think thats lame.

Thanks for the answer!

 

[AlastorKatriona]

You probably shouldn't even try it then but thousands of Apple engineers have been developing the hardware for the past 5-7 years so it's not like they're just throwing stuff against the wall. The software always follows the hardware and they've barely revealed their own software yet so most analysis and predictions of Vision Pro are premature.

They've been developing the software with an entirely different hardware product in mind, but the hardware isn't possible yet. They built the vision pro hardware to demo the software they were building...and Tim Cook said ship it. Multiple Apple engineers leaked this info to the press, and stressed how opposed they were to shipping this hardware. It was not built to ship. The project pivoted to shipping this hardware when it was clear to management that the intended hardware was not possible for another 5 - 10 years.

 

[Zest28]

Max Tech won't be invited because he is not a paid shill like all those other YouTubers.

 

[Mrkevinfinnerty]

Script received from Apple PR. This is like their Superbowl.