Apple Exploring Lower Resolution Displays for Cheaper Vision Headset

[krspkbl]

1) what the hell are you talking about
2) why are you presenting that as a fact
3) software cannot magically create more pixels

they are probably talking about tech like DLSS. Apple could use it to some degree but I don't know how well that'd work on a camera showing the real world.

DLSS can create more pixels. In gaming it can be just as good if not better than native resolution. I enable DLSS in any game that supports it. It has significantly expanded the life of my GPUs.

 

[maszaikasza]

Apple Intelligence will be able to upscale the image quality dynamically in software. I'm not sure how, but I can definitely imagine it.

...and how do you imagine displaying 8k image on a 4k screen? 😉

 

[iPay]

[...]
3) software cannot magically create more pixels

At least in the Android world, they can. Like removing unwanted ppl on picture and filling in with background interpolation including light direction etc.

 

[Ghost31]

It’s a given since there’s not much else to cut from VP. The front display costs nothing and is low res but adds a social element.

What else is Apple going to do to cut $1,000 from the cost? Reduce the size of the cardboard box and fabric bands?

Work with suppliers to lower cost of components over time, find other ways to maximize profit without sacrificing quality. The goal should be to get people in the door at a lower price. They could make a killing off custom content they can take a slice out of. The AR/VR space has already been incredibly hard to bring consumers into over the years. Having a huge expensive barrier to entry does the segment no good

 

[ApplesAreSweet&Sour]

Also needed; practical reasons to invest in this lower resolution version that will still be well over $2K.

The ignorant superfans will argue with us to death over this despite the sales and hype in the tech sphere clearly shows that it not offering enough value/$ is the consensus.

Amazing tech? Yes. What does one need it for, entertainment? A few, niche use cases? A giant, virtual display for your Mac? A fairly inexpensive and very compact home theater experience?

Nobody seems to agree. And certainly, nobody is going out of their way to show us how it does any of these on a level that makes it a must-have product.

Even at $1K-$2K, am I really buying an AVP instead of upgrading my iPhone or getting a new Mac?

 

[JPack]

Work with suppliers to lower cost of components over time, find other ways to maximize profit without sacrificing quality. The goal should be to get people in the door at a lower price. They could make a killing off custom content they can take a slice out of. The AR/VR space has already been incredibly hard to bring consumers into over the years. Having a huge expensive barrier to entry does the segment no good

Sony already said last year they’re not ramping up production of OLED or building new assembly lines since Vision Pro demand is unknown. Nobody else is asking for such high res OLED panels, so there’s nobody else but Sony making them.

It comes down to demand for the OG Vision Pro to drive costs down. Given how low demand is, it’s a chicken and egg scenario.

The biggest problem with Vision is it’s a socially isolating product that most people don’t want to wear. Even if it were half the price with the same resolution, it’s not appealing to most consumers. Even with the front display, Apple hasn’t solved the problem yet.

 

[turbineseaplane]

Apple

Just stop

Nobody wants this and there is just no business here that you’ll be interested in

 

[maszaikasza]

they are probably talking about tech like DLSS. Apple could use it to some degree but I don't know how well that'd work on a camera showing the real world.

DLSS can create more pixels. In gaming it can be just as good if not better than native resolution. I enable DLSS in any game that supports it. It has significantly expanded the life of my GPUs.

But the article is about physical screen resolution, not about digital content. You can upscale an image how much you want, actually even a smartphone can record 8k videos, but you won't be able to watch it till you have an 8K display.

 

[klasma]

The current resolution is already just barely enough to display a virtual desktop screen. Some actually say not enough, in particular text from a mirrored screen not being as sharp as on the actual screen. And the virtual screen use case is one of the main selling points, given the relative dearth of 3D content and of true 3D apps, and the limitations in VR gaming due to not supporting 3D hand controllers.

 

[wikiverse]

I cannot believe I wasted so much money on this thing.

I mean, there was no shortage of people here trying to warn you that this thing had no use case. It doesn't do anything. It cannot be used for productivity and is little more than a monitor strapped to your face with a 2 hour battery life.

I wouldn't be surprised if it never gets a cheaper version or an update and just quietly disappears from Apple's product lineup like the iPod did. It's just too expensive, too inconvenient and no one wants to waste money developing apps for it because it has such a small user base.

The 'killer app' was supposed to be spatial videos and virtual avatars. Neither have really taken off.

 

[Wieslawo]

I don’t know why everyone commenting about eyesight thinks that removing that is gonna somehow fix the price issue… it’s the lowest res OLED screen ever on the front…

If it displays vision, there are also cameras inside that record eye movements. This is a cost, because the price of the device also includes the work of the programmers who developed the VOs. Every single unnecessary nonsense is their hours of work, which must pay off - and Tim knows something about this.

My proposal is:

• Plastic - it's cheap, light and durable.
• Remove the computing power from the headset. Let the Vision Pro power by a computer, phone, AppleTV or sold separately device.
• External display, internal cameras to throw away.
• Physical controllers.

However, then we end up in the world of Meta Quest, and that's a slap in the face for Apple. Where is Think Different? Tim bet on the wrong horse and the horse threw him off. Fortunately or not, Tim is the director of the stables and will ride it for as long as he likes, even though he is no visionary.

 

[stinksroundhere]

Tried my best to like it...

But even the much hyped 'hey guys I have a cinema at home' was dog ****.

Because the quality of many film titles I have purchased from Apple is dog **** level of compression and looks even worse when you have a virtual 10 foot screen. That's not Apple's fault. The distributors can no longer find or make high quality scans of many films from 70s to 90s or even 2000s.

Anyway all headsets should die in fire and Meta can fly off a cliff like Wile E coyote when it comes. They're just dumb levels of capitalist grifting.

 

[xmarcuswildx]

Yeah because that is what people want… to throw up.

 

[maszaikasza]

The current resolution is already just barely enough to display a virtual desktop screen. Some actually say not enough, in particular text from a mirrored screen not being as sharp as on the actual screen. And the virtual screen use case is one of the main selling points, given the relative dearth of 3D content and true 3D apps, and the limitations in VR gaming due to not supporting 3D hand controllers.

I doubt that the display itself is a bottleneck in this scenario. Vision Pro has a higher resolution than 16" MacBook Pro. The problem is it requires wireless data transfer (over Wi-Fi probably) and sending 4K material without compression (and without lags) over the network is just too much for most routers.

 

[xmarcuswildx]

...and how do you imagine displaying 8k image on a 4k screen? 😉

Multiply by 2!

 

[gagaliya]

The higher resolution and crispness is one of THE reasons the Vision Pro is so alluring. Comparatively, everything else on the market just feels “ok” and AVP’s experience was “hey. Check out this high resolution tv for your eyeballs”. Low resolution? Ok. Now we gotta low resolution tv for our eyeballs that will undoubtably be more expensive than a regular 4k tv. They should have kept 4k as a standard with room to move up. There’s new displays in development for 5k and even 8k that would have given apple room for upgrades later on

Even for the hateriest of haters they would at least agree “ok well its the price of an expensive tv so at least there’s that”

hopefully its not…super noticeably low. We’ll see i guess.

exactly the high res crystal clear visual is the differentiator, especially as a monitor. To cut cost, get rid of the front facing creepy eyes / display, tether the headset to an iPhone instead of a battery, if not enough capacity, create a battery case where you can put the iPhone in for added battery capacity, it should also make the headset lighter as the soc etc is moved out. But don’t touch the internal display, otherwise it will just be a less useful version of the $500 meta quest.

Reduce the price to $2500 and call it a day

It’s the worst decision Steve Jobs ever made, picking an operation guy to run apple which is (was) probably the most product focused company on the planet. Tim got completely caught flat footed with AI, all the heavy marketing for iPhone 16 as the ai phone yet the phone has zero ai feature as of now, not to mention what they shown is just a mesh mash of stuff android / ChatGPT already has nothing new.

Then this headset his one true creation, a complete failure due to the price and lack of useful software/apps/design. Folks say this is version 1 give them time to iterate etc…well it doesnt look like they iterating at all due to extremely poor sales and instead a complete do over but doesn’t know what to do…..leave it to tim to take out the one defining feature of the headset to save cost - high resolutions

 

[Darren.h]

I want something just a bit better than Quest 3

Maybe a Quest 4?

If I go Apple it will work with ZERO PC games.

Apple does not like to play happy and develop a headset that works with Apple and PC games.

So very few people buy their product.

 

[klasma]

I doubt that the display itself is a bottleneck in this scenario. Vision Pro has a higher resolution than 16" MacBook Pro.

The pixels on the Vision Pro display aren’t 1:1 the pixels of the mirrored screen. There is necessarily display scaling and 3D transformations in between. You need a significantly higher target resolution than the source resolution (like 4 times as high or more) to make this completely invisible.

 

[Hopefully Smarter]

Vison Pro will forever be a tech demonstration.

 

[jo-1]

isn't it funny ?​

1. Apple Vision Pro is released with top notch hardware and the latest in technology
2. Apple announces the price => $ 4 k
3. Everybody - well - the typical loud forum guys - respond with the usual " TOO EXPENSIVE !! "
4. Apple understands that people want a cheap version
5. Everybody - well - the typical loud forum guys - respond with the usual " TOO BAD !! "

For me that's just hilarious - I bought the current version and I am utterly happy with it - the image quality and the immersion is just mind-blowing good - would I personally buy a cheaper but worse version? No way - but I am not the typical forum guy

What's so hard to understand that Quality and price have some relation?

You always get what you pay for!​

It's not Apple that has lost connection to its users but it's some users that have lost any sense of reality. When I bought my first Macintosh 7500/100 it cost me including Monitor and laser printer inflation corrected some USD 8 .. 10 k - that time I was a student and worked in my vacation nightshifts to afford that machine and it was worth every penny.

Now I am in Management and I earn enough to afford whatever I like

This year I bought:

1. Maxed out iPad Pro
2. Maxed Out Apple Vision Pro
3. Apple Watch 10 Ti
4. Probably a new Apple TV in case it'll come next month

 

[lewchenko]

“By reducing the pixel density, Apple could substantially cut down on manufacturing costs while still offering a high-quality visual experience.”

Really? Who writes this drivel ?

What next ? 60hz as well.

The PPI has to be really high near the eyes otherwise it looks like garbage. Like early headsets in fact … which looked like garbage.

 

[bLackjackj]

Very strange timing for an article with no real new info on the eve of Metas new VR/ AR headset launch...

 

[Dredd67]

1) what the hell are you talking about
2) why are you presenting that as a fact
3) software cannot magically create more pixels

1 & 2: Strange take on the matter, doubt it will ever be implemented or at least labeled as part of Apple Intelligence.
3: Creating pixels on the fly is exactly what software does all the time. Think DLSS and all other kinds of super-sampling or interpolation. That's not the issue here. While downsizing a 4k image into a HD screen makes it look better than if it was native HD, it won't replace the main issue with less or larger physical display elements (also pixels, kinda confusing) with poor readability, screen-door effect, and all the other issues one might have with low resolution screens.

The main concepts to bear in mind here are the difference between "Definition" (the size of an image in pixels, like a 1024*768 JPEG image) and "Resolution", a physical measurement of the smallest distance between objects, usually until you can't make any distinction anymore between two neighboring objects.

What we need is high resolution. Definition is dynamic, depending on the type of images you display and the precision you want to display them at, and the allocated GPU resources to process that.

I can see Apple selling old Apple silicon instead of newer to lower the cost. Reducing resolution would defeat the purpose and the main advantage Apple has over competitors.

That being said, it all depends on what their target actually is now that the Vison has sort of flopped. Will they recenter it around pure entertainment? If yes, higher frame rate is better than resolution. For productivity, it's the reverse, with lots of texts to read in a static position.

 

[Misuteri]

Here a preview of the cheaper Apple Vision Pro:

This thing gave me a headache and made me feel like throwing up after a 5-10 minute demo at Toys R Us. I haven’t touched anything VR since.

 

[maszaikasza]

The pixels on the Vision Pro display aren’t 1:1 the pixels of the mirrored screen. There is necessarily display scaling and 3D transformations in between. You need a significantly higher target resolution than the source resolution (like 4 times as high or more) to make this completely invisible.

I don't get what those transformations do, but after few minutes of thinking I think you're right - we cannot compare a native resolutions because of different environmental variables - Macbook screen is ~0.5m away from your eyes so it takes just a small portion of the field of view, whereas the headset can take up almost entire field of view. The pixels in the Vision Pro are much smaller, but still, the pixel density should be much higher proportional to MacBook display.