Apple Vision Pro May Now Be Out of Production

[johnsawyercjs]

In my demo I was genuinely surprised how uncomfortable the device was. The face gasket had much less cushioning compared to a bunch of other headsets I’ve tried and the whole thing was too … rigid - I was trying to rotate it up to get it off my cheekbones, to no success. I do have a tiny head though

Thankfully these ergonomics should be easy to adjust with new gaskets, headbands, and perhaps even the arms since they disconnect from the main unit. I’d be really interested to see what Apple has learnt about human faces after getting a much larger sample group now the device is out in the wild.

Yes, comfort is a crucial design element that neither Apple nor Meta, with their Quest headsets, have really addressed very well.

Among other things, the surface texture of the stock face gasket for both is a fine-woven fabric, over a foam cushion, that at first looks like might be comfortable, until you try one on for longer than a half-hour or so (at least in my experience with the Quest 3--I haven't tried an AVP), after which you begin to feel like a ring of fine sandpaper is being pressed against your face due to the head strap design that pulls the face gasket against your face with a fair amount of pressure, and it gets worse the longer you're wearing the headset. Many people have less pain with aftermarket face gaskets whose surface is a smooth pleather type of material, but that's just a partial solution. With the Quest's stock flexible head strap, and the separately available Elite head strap, you can slightly pivot the lower half of the headset away from your face to reduce some of the pressure against your nose bridge and below your eyes, but there's still a lot of pressure above your eyebrows from the upper portion of the face gasket. About the only solution that works with the Quest and AVP are halo-style "head straps", of which there are many from other manufacturers.

Another feature that needs to be added to the stock hardware is the ability to rotate the headset up and away from the user's eyes altogether, while still keeping the entire assembly attached to your head. You can't do that with the AVP, and only slightly with the Quest, due to their head strap design--a halo-style head strap is needed to do this, which supports the weight of the headset further up on your forehead, and partly on the back of your head, when it's not in front of your face.

These issues may be reduced or eliminated once these standalone, non-wired, computers-in-a-headset have been reduced in size and weight so that they're easier to remove and put back on, like goggles or big eyeglasses, but that day is still some years away. Current less-bulky, significantly lighter headsets that are closer to goggles and eyeglasses aren't standalone computers with all the same capabilities as the AVP and Quest, but their form factor points the way towards what the more capable models could eventually be.

 

[Reason077]

Yes, comfort is a crucial design element that neither Apple nor Meta, with their Quest headsets, have really addressed very well.

Yeah, I agree my Quest headset is not the most comfortable thing for long-term use. But I'm sure that future generations of the hardware will cut down on the weight and bulk, which will open the door to more comfortable designs.

 

[throAU]

People claiming this is done and not coming back are like the guy from IBM in the late 40s or early 50s claiming there was a market for something like 4-5 computers globally.

The 7 Worst Tech Predictions of All Time

The only thing we love more than a visionary is a visionary with really bad eyesight. Here now is a brief history of the world's most dunderheaded tech predictions.

www.pcworld.com

This is a new market and it’s very, very early. Existing cheaper headsets are mostly toys used for toy things. Because there’s been no capable hardware yet. The Vision Pro series will kick start this. It may take years, but it will happen as technology enables it to be miniaturised.

People claiming that Apple need to do a stripped down device to sell are entirely missing the point.

This is not built to a cost to move units. It’s an early access device built to a capability set to enable new use cases.

If you want a quest, buy one. They exist. They’re great for what they are. They aren’t trying to solve the same problem at all.

Vision pro is an early device for devs and users to play with to see what we can do with it. Forget that it is a heavy dorky box. In 5-7 years it will be a pair of sunglasses with the same capability set (or close to that size anyway).

Thats what they’re now developing software for. This is just the first hardware version to assist with creating the ecosystem for the future.

This is a long term project. ARkit has been in development for this for about a decade. It ain’t going anywhere.

Having a crappy cut down version with less features would not establish the hardware baseline Apple deemed appropriate to create a new platform with a baseline feature set.

I mean people here would have predicted no market for laptops based on this

IBM Portable Personal Computer - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[turbineseaplane]

In 5-7 years it will be a pair of sunglasses with the same capability set (or close to that size anyway).

I’ll take the over on that bet

 

[olavsu1]

People claiming this is done and not coming back are like the guy from IBM in the late 40s or early 50s claiming there was a market for something like 4-5 computers globally.

small difference...
These will never become a mass-market product. Because it has to be made for a specific owner (like reading glasses, they are made for a specific user).
At the moment, there is a very narrow sample of people who can use this tool for anything.
Their optics need to be adjusted to suit the user, which may mean completely replacing the optics.

An F1 car built for a specific driver is a consumer product, right?

 

[throAU]

small difference...
These will never become a mass-market product. Because it has to be made for a specific owner (like reading glasses, they are made for a specific user).
At the moment, there is a very narrow sample of people who can use this tool for anything.
Their optics need to be adjusted to suit the user, which may mean completely replacing the optics.

An F1 car built for a specific driver is a consumer product, right?

They totally don’t.

Clearly you aren’t aware you can get prescription lenses for most xR platforms for like $40 (and it’s a 30 second job to swap them), IPD can be adjusted etc.

So many people crapping on this who have no knowledge or experience with xR platforms….

 

[throAU]

I’ll take the over on that bet

Meta already have some in prototype. Today.

 

[olavsu1]

Clearly you aren’t aware you can get prescription lenses for most xR platforms for like $40 (and it’s a 30 second job to swap them), IPD can be adjusted etc.

It seems you forgot a zero or two. Tailoring is never cheap.

 

[johnsawyercjs]

For next releases, they should focus in just Spatial Computing via AR, Something like this:

https://www.xreal.com/fr/one-pro

It would make the glasses an accessory that you can use with all your existing gadgets, which makes them instantly more useful.

Looks interesting, as is the whole product category of AR/MR eyeglasses which mainly serve as big virtual screens for our existing devices, for people who don't need full immersive VR, while still being able to display 3D content too. The form factor of the glasses approach, offloading most of the work and battery weight to the attached device, certainly helps mostly solve the weight, bulk, and user isolation issues.

Note that on that Xreal web page, which will open into its French version, for some reason the language selection option is at the bottom of the page, in the lower right corner.

 

[Johnny907]

Apple Vision Pro just received the coveted 9to5mac Apple Product of the Year Award. It has a very bright future in Apple's product lineup.

It’s sad. I used to visit AppleInsider until they turned into complete Apple simps. After that, 9to5 was the best place for even handed commentary on all things Apple, but post Google AdPocalypse they turned into full on Apple zealots as well with half their posts being sponsored.
At this point MacRumors is really all that’s left for any sort of balanced reporting on Apple.

 

[johnsawyercjs]

Yeah, I agree my Quest headset is not the most comfortable thing for long-term use. But I'm sure that future generations of the hardware will cut down on the weight and bulk, which will open the door to more comfortable designs.

I just ordered a BoboVR S3 Pro head strap, due to arrive tomorrow, so I'm hoping it'll be comfortable enough for wearing the Quest 3 for a few hours while I try laying out web pages on big virtual screens, since I'd prefer to use big windows for this task. I looked at a bunch of reviews of aftermarket head straps, including ones that look pretty much like the S3 Pro, but all reviews gave the edge to this model.

But for this task involving just big virtual screens, I might eventually decide that something like an Xreal One Pro would be a better choice due to smaller size/weight and better image quality, especially for text, or a Bigscreen Beyond, but that one's not yet Mac-compatible.

 

[johnsawyercjs]

It seems you forgot a zero or two. Tailoring is never cheap.

No really, the prescription lens inserts for headsets like the Quest 3 cost between about $40-$70, and they get good reviews.

Edit: Looking into the pricing further, I see that's the price range for lower, more average prescription strengths, but higher strengths and extra features can bump up the price to between $90-120. Still relatively affordable for people who have bought a Quest 3 at its current price of $500 for the 512GB model, which is all that Meta is selling now.

 

[bodonnell202]

We disagree strongly.

Your statement "technology should provide a solution to a problem in order to be useful" is only correct when looked at long term. Despite the fact that we are still in the short term, AVP already has been used to do things like assist with brain surgery. So wait, and watch more solutions happen as the novel product evolves.

You say "For mass market appeal it either has to do..." but that falsely assumes that every product needs to fall into the category of "mass market appeal." Reality is that there are lots of important products that do not fall into the category of "mass market appeal."

We would argue that it is very appropriate for a $4T company to also build products that are not simplistically only for the mass markets. Mass spectrometers, as just one simple example, are a rapidly growing $7B market but have zero "mass market appeal."

The unfortunate fact that many people lack the vision to see beyond simple "mass market appeal" does not mean that AVP "is just a novelty for Apple enthusiasts."

Who is we? When making statements on behalf of others you either need to clarify who you are speaking on behalf of, or you should use the word I if speaking for yourself.

While I agree that there is a place for making medical and laboratory products that don’t have mass appeal as a consumer electronics company and that isn’t a market Apple is in or is likely to pursue as it doesn’t suit the scale a company like Apple needs to achieve to be profitable. Apple, despite their glossy marketing is only interested in maximizing profits.

 

[lovehateapple]

I wouldn't care if gadgets like this stopped existing.

Never gonna happen. They're only going to keep getting better and more useful over time. You can't stuff the toothpaste back in the tube.

 

[throAU]

It seems you forgot a zero or two. Tailoring is never cheap.

Nope. Thats the cost.

 

[olavsu1]

Nope. Thats the cost.

then it needs to add a few zeros to make the price right, $400 and up would be plausible.

 

[throAU]

then it needs to add a few zeros to make the price right, $400 and up would be plausible.

I'll find the link to purchase prescription lenses for common headsets for $37 US.

A friend who needs glasses has used them.

edit:
here: https://www.vr-wave.store/products/meta-quest-2-prescription-lenses-new

Just plug in your glasses prescription specs and get custom lenses.

 

[olavsu1]

I'll find the link to purchase prescription lenses for common headsets for $37 US.

A friend who needs glasses has used them.

edit:
here: https://www.vr-wave.store/products/meta-quest-2-prescription-lenses-new

Just plug in your glasses prescription specs and get custom lenses.

You are either lying or getting an unfair discount.

If I put my own data in there, the price will increase by over $100 and if I really want it, the price will increase even more.
You can't enter all the necessary data because there are no fields for it.

 

[throAU]

You are either lying or getting an unfair discount.

If I put my own data in there, the price will increase by over $100 and if I really want it, the price will increase even more.
You can't enter all the necessary data because there are no fields for it.

You can also use your existing glasses or contact lenses.

 

[johnsawyercjs]

You are either lying or getting an unfair discount.

If I put my own data in there, the price will increase by over $100 and if I really want it, the price will increase even more.

Wow, that's got to be one of the more clinically paranoid takes I've read.

 

[olavsu1]

Wow, that's got to be one of the more clinically paranoid takes I've read.

Also consider where I live. Here are the highest prices in the entire region (you could say the highest prices in the entire world) and at the same time the lowest salaries in the entire region. and legally everything is correct, or in our language, JOKK

 

[Ghost31]

It is a piece of engineering marvel but it currently lacks a must have app, feature to drive mass demand for it. Maybe this product was ahead of its time. Hopefully the next version is more affordable and has a must have killer feature.

Is there a must have app for iPhone? Or are the majority of people buying iPhones simply browsing tik tok and Reddit sprinkled with some YouTube on the side?

The must have feature of avp has always been the movie watching experience. That’s why I bought it? It’s the best screen I’ve ever seen. I know people that have bought for the ultra wide feature as well.

It’s fully replaced my iPad, tv and even my iPhone in some instances

 

[Ghost31]

Exactly why I returned mine. They didn’t build any cool experiences or use cases into it. Why can’t I mod my house to be different, paint the walls, install virtual windows into exotic locales, add useful virtual gadgets around my environment? There needs to be some sense of persistence with it to make it something other than just virtual iPads hovering around your face. I was so disappointed by how little thought they put into interesting use cases for it.

“My gen 1 as a product doesn’t feel like a gen 4 product. So I returned”

I bought a quest 3. I don’t care for quest or oculus until then. That’s when it finally became worth it in my eyes. I imagine that’s what’s gonna happen with avp. Years of development. At some point everybody will see a new thing that catches their attention that makes them finally jump on board.

Oculus has been a company for more than a decade and yet I didn’t buy into it until recently.

 

[throAU]

“My gen was product doesn’t feel like a gen 4 product. So I returned”

I bought a quest 3. I don’t care for quest or oculus until then. That’s when it finally became worth it in my eyes. I imagine that’s what’s gonna happen with avp. Years of development. At some point everybody will see a new thing that catches their attention that makes them finally jump on board.

Oculus has been a company for more than a decade and yet I didn’t buy into it until recently.

Exactly. The whole ar/vr market is extremely new and we’re at the Apple 1 or Apple 2 (at best) stage of product development compared to regular computers.

I guess younger people haven’t personally experienced how the general home computer market evolved to draw comparisons, but those who were there for that in the 80s and prior can see how this story goes.

First it’s a device that barely works, for nerds with no mainstream use case (in terms of ar/vr right now we are here).

Then there’s some breakthrough and a mainstream use case appeal. And then it’s ubiquitous within a couple of short years.

 

[Ghost31]

An absolute flop all due to the outrageous astronomical unaffordable price.

Sigh so anyway

Daring Fireball: The iPhone’s Funny Price

daringfireball.net

“

The iPhone’s Funny Price​

Tuesday, 1 May 2007​

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer on the iPhone, during an on-stage interview at the CEO Forum with USA Today’s David Lieberman:

There’s no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance. It’s a $500 subsidized item. They may make a lot of money. But if you actually take a look at the 1.3 billion phones that get sold, I’d prefer to have our software in 60 percent or 70 percent or 80 percent of them, than I would to have 2 percent or 3 percent, which is what Apple might get.

”

Yes. iPhone will never catch on. It’s too expensive. It’s also can chonky and heavy? Who the hell wants a phone without an actual keyboard on it? Also limited to one network. No copy and paste. Can’t even send picture messages! No apps? What the hell?