Apple Vision Pro Secondary Head Strap Design 'Yet to Be Finalized'

[ThunderSkunk]

The strap should go front to back.

Nein. The strap should go through the nostrils & out the mouth. Either that or in the mouth and out the… ears…

Or perhaps a modern strapless configuration, using an epoxy film that glues it to your head to hold it in place. Or it just neatly clips on to specially located piercings in your face.

 

[MrAR]

The over-the-head strap is the most un-newsworthy thing about the headset.

It’s a strap.

What’s next, that the colors are not finalized?

I actually think it’s super interesting and would love to get all news related to how they’re planning to design the strap for ultimate comfort.

 

[robbietop]

You are a barrel of laughs and wildly shortsighted with zip all vision of the Future.

It's Productivity device with some home uses at the moment.
"Wildly tapping in the air"
"Are you going to be ok typing on the air? What if you miss a key?"
Primarily it is voice and eye and tap.

Someone has already mocked up a working Visual keyboard that works like Swype with incredibly fast "typing" wit your eyes. A keyboard layout is designed to slow us down because of old mechanical keys getting stuck all the time with faster methods.

You can use keyboard / trackpad or whatever bluetooth devices you want. even more if you used it via a Mac.

2007: "Pfft no one is going to be writing on that little screen"

Productivity software:
3D Modeling
Animaton
CAD
Structural design
All design in fact
Video editing
Countess other things.

I'll be using it for 3D animation. It's not just Screen based it's Full AR Volumumetrics.

I already know that some Pro 3d apps that are already integrating it via the API. Imagine having the 3d Scene you are working on sitting on your desk and you could interactively work with it.

Multiple Applications or screen around me - no switching.

No returns: Not in Europe. All sorts of laws about that.

It's not an iPhone and shouldn't be compared to that. You won't wear it out. Perhaps in the future there will be waveguide optics / Direct eyeball projection ( both coming ) and they'll be the size of some Raybans but not for 10 years. Point is you have to start somewhere. The iPhone 12 is 5000x the speed of the Cray 2 supercomputer and 900 MILLION (!) times faster than the Apple 11 guidance computer.

Wow, we all use 3D modeling software, work in animation, use AutoDesk software of any type, are educated in structural design, or educated in "all design in fact", do video editing (much easier done in FCP or AP), and thanks for the general category you can dump things you think of later "Countless other things".

I work in retail and sell couches, game systems, TVs, and various appliances (countless other things). I see no use for this device there. And seeing as how 3D modeling, CAD, and structural design of any kind requires specialized knowledge (in some cases a bachelor's degree and some form of state licensing), your argument is merely for its niche status I was arguing for.

It is not a general computing device. Everything you just said it can do for you is so obnoxiously specific, you in som cases are making $150,000 a year or more due to your capabilities and education and licensing. That's who this device is targeted to: WAY ABOVE the median income, highest tax bracket, luxury, niche product.

As for voice control, I reference Siri and a bag of bricks is better than her. I am not battling Siri's inability to hear me accurately from two feet much less dangling off my nose. I can type faster than I can talk, and sometimes I don't want to type what I talk. Sometimes, I would like to parse my words and think first before interacting.

As for the eye control, they developed that technology to help people with locked in syndrome, or various vegetative state patients. All say that eventually their eyes tired of moving everywhere. On top of the screen being mere millimeters away.

Speaking of the iPhone 2G. I had one day one. It was not difficult to type with unless you had massive fingers. Actually, I could do about 15-20 words per minute on it. I even wrote a freshman college rough draft on it. Fingers hurt but I did it.

So, it's all voice? Why? What is SOOOOOO WRONG with a keyboard and a mouse? What is so wrong with touching on a screen? Is that backwards for you? Or do you just randomly talk to your couch to ask it to clean itself? I tried talking to my girlfriend to get her to finish painting the bathroom last weekend, but she didn't do it either. How is voice control better? Please explain how talking out loud to yourself is somehow more intuitive than just tapping on the screen of a device?

I get the argument about why a Mac should be a touchscreen by now because the iPad is now essentially a laptop with all the stupid keyboard accessories people attach to it, and now people apparently attach touchscreen tablets to monitors when they could have just bought a Steve Damned laptop, but I digress.

Please explain why $3499 voice controlled air guitar controlled scuba mask is better than the laptop I am using now writing at about 61 words per minute. Can Siri beat 61 words per minute? Because I have tried and she thinks I am saying words I didn't utter half the time, like "Please turn off the bed." "The Den is already off." "Okay, please turn off the bedroom." "You have no room called Bedroom. Did you mean Bed?" "Hey Siri, thanks idiot." "That's not very nice." "Oh, great. Guilt tripped by yet another dumb AI."

Let me guess, you used ChatGPT to write your response to my post?

 

[BornAgainMac]

That will look creepy with the strap on and have that expression in the photo of this article at the beach looking at people and recording 3D videos.

 

[eifelbube]

When Apple unveiled the Vision Pro at WWDC in June, members of the press invited to try out the headset were able to use an optional secondary head strap that sits across the top of the head. The strap was spotted in Apple's promotional videos for the mixed reality device, but its marketing material made no mention of the accessory.

Still from Apple's WWDC keynote video showing over-the-head strap in use​

The braided headband that goes around the back of the head has a fit adjustment dial, but the one headband may not be comfortable or secure enough for some users, especially if the device is going to be worn for extended periods of time, which is where the secondary over-the-head strap comes in.

But Apple has apparently not yet fine-tuned the secondary head strap. According to a new report by Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, the secondary strap was introduced after testing determined that some people with smaller body sizes and heads struggle to wear the headset for more than half an hour or thereabouts. However, the design of the strap has "yet to be finalized," says Gurman.

One member of the press who got to try the headset in person at Apple Park was MacRumors videographer Dan Barbera. "A lot of people probably didn't know this just by looking at some press images, but there is another band that goes over the top of your head," said Dan in his initial impressions video.

In his opinion, with the additional strap attached, the Vision Pro is "not that far off from other headsets in terms of weight," but it does "a really good job of dispersing that weight" and making it not so front-heavy. "I do think most people will want to use it," he added.

Apple has not revealed the weight of the Vision Pro, but Apple's decision to offload the battery to an external pack highlights the need to keep the headset as light as possible. Apple is also apparently aware that some customers may not wear clothes with pockets capable of storing the battery pack, so it is considering asking accessory makers to create shoulder-worn pouches.

Other accessories could eventually be sold to protect the device, according to Gurman:
Gurman's latest report also reveals that Apple plans to launch the Vision Pro headset in the U.K. and Canada by the end of 2024, with preparations for the device's complex retail launch in the U.S. early next year already at an advanced stage.

Article Link: Apple Vision Pro Secondary Head Strap Design 'Yet to Be Finalized'

Given the jaw-dropping experience the Vision Pro is to deliver, I am surprised it does not come with a chin strap …

 

[svish]

Lot of time left before it is available for sale. Maybe Apple will provide it as an accessory in the box.

 

[MuppetGate]

If you understand why a product is successful, then you will understand why this one is half baked.

1. The iPhone does what many highly successful products do: Convergence. It brought many separated, yet integral parts of human society into one highly portable, highly functional device. You can send off an email while browsing the web, listening to music, making a phone call, and rapid messaging (SMS/AIM/etc) other people. From day one, it was the Communicator from Star Trek. It brought a fantastical and futuristic desire into complete reality. It essentially became the Internet Communicator many laughed at during the keynote.
2. It spurs and accidentally creates whole new industries. Uber, AirBnB, Device Management (Router Manager, Steam, Ecobee, PS App, etc), ultra-Social Media, Directly Portable Weather Awareness, etc. The iPhone did it all and then created a whole new platform for business to seek wealth.
3. Commerce itself. Think about how often you buy from Amazon, Best Buy, or a new online only business from your phone? No longer do you have to wait till you get home and browse from your laptop or desktop when out to dinner. You can just buy it there. Ultra-Convenience creates Ultra-Impules Purchasing. No more need for a retailer to hold predictable sales days centered around the important calendar days. "25% for the next two hours only!" type marketing schemes can now truly be exclusive and not some gimmick used in infomercials.
4. Integration with other devices. Open Safari on iPhone, your Mac can load the page straight up. Take a call on your iPad. Watch a movie on the train on your iPad, finish it at home on your TV. Media is now no longer a static environment.
5. Ease of Use: The usage of the device far exceeds any other in its efficiency, convenience, and portability.
6. Sociability: How does the device inspire culture. Camera app. Now, people can totally spam narcissistic level obsession with their selves, their lives, and express that to others instantly.
7. Criticisms: While iPhone didn't have everything it has today at launch, it had the core experience we still use today. It still makes calls, from our pockets. It still browses the web. It's not had a major revolutionary change since the beginning. It's all been an evolutionary innovation since then.

So, lets walk through what the Vision Pro stacks up with these 6 basic metrics:

1. Convergence: It does not combine separated parts of human society. It merely merges reality with a fantasy realm. The form factor does not allow for it to do anything relatively new. In fact, the form factor is a step backwards. It is bulky and static. It in fact makes some parts of the iPhone/iPad/Mac lesser easy to control due to the HID being your hands, which are tactile. We are used to turning knobs, sliding sliders, pressing buttons. The simulacrum is lost when you're not actually touching the device you are interacting with. On an iPhone, the buttons as simulacra, represent the analogues of yesterday. But just tapping wildly into the air gives no instantaneous tactile feedback other than a visual one, which can become confusing. How often do you stare at the phone every time to slide to answer? It actually diverges the user from the UX.
2. New Industries: What whole new industry is VR/AR other than a media industry? How do you turn this device into productivity software? Are you going to be ok typing on the air? What if you miss a key? I can quickly slide my right hand towards Delete/Backspace and know where the key is instinctively as I am touching physical objects in space. So, its primary directive is consuming content, not creating it. Creating content is a secondary or even tertiary directive due to the UX.
3. Commerce: I do not see myself buying anything outside of an App Store on this thing. "What about seeing if a table fits in your kitchen before buying it?" IKEA iPhone app does that without buying the headset. And if it doesn't fit with that, I can return it due to generous return policies. Everyone acts like it's the 1980s with Caveat Emptor, no returns.
4. Integration: Wow, it can load a webpage from Safari on my iPhone. My Mac does that, as does my iPad, too. Nothing new. Just a new screen to buy. Wow, I can have my desktop loaded onto it. HP is selling a $200 1080p monitor, too that does the same thing for pennies on the dollar in comparison. Oh no, I have to use a mouse and keyboard. My life is ruined.
5. Ease of Use: Speaking of screens, my TV can be enjoyed by as many can fit in the room facing it. Only one person can use the Apple Vision Pro at a time. "But you can SharePlay what you're doing to the TV!" Yay, I get to sit and watch someone else do something. Like work on his new novel. Or the movie he's watching....which he could stop being selfish and take the damned thing off and watch it with the rest of us. "What about people who may have a family and they're using the TV?" I live alone and have three TVs. Den, Bedroom, Study. You can't go to one of those? Saves a ton of money. "What if you want to do something privately and don't want roommates or family to see?" Don't have roommates or family. Orrrrrr...LOCK THE DOOR.
6. Sociability: Yeah, I totally want to hang out with someone wearing a scuba mask. Even if just FaceTiming, we can do that, again, on other cheaper devices.
7. Criticisms: If you claim that being tethered to a large 2hr battery pack is the future and it'll evolve eventually, you are missing the point. Nothing this headset does anything the iPhone does better. The iPad had a larger screen. The Watch fits on your wrist and tracks health metrics. What's the innovation? Smaller? Like eyeglasses? Here comes the rub....you're not legally allowed to be doing anything other than changing music or following a map while operating a motor vehicle. This thing is now a passenger device. Can't use it while driving. Lastly, I remember when Google Glass came out. At the bar, we always avoided that guy. At least with an iPhone, you can sort of figure out you're being recorded. How do I not know he's recording the whole night? It then gets to Twitter, and now you see me and my friends drunkenly mocking our boss and he/she sees it and we're fired? It happened with someone I do know and he was being recorded from an iPhone. I do not allow myself to be recorded sober, much less drunk.

If you cannot understand these points, you are woefully destined to shell out a ridiculous amount of money for a product you'll use sparingly. How many of you use your iPad only on the couch/bed? How many use it elsewhere, like work? How many people are gonna buy 100 of these for their business to make headlines about their employees using them for productivity? And then six months in, everybody has eye strain and headaches?

That certainly was … a lot of words.

 

[Unami]

We'll see, but atm it's around 60 comments here vs. ten times that for the story above about Jony Ive's "weigh me up with gold"-turntable.

 

[anthony13]

Apple will probably price the accessory "OTH" strap at $399.99.

Honestly I bet it costs at least 200. After all, it’s ‘braided’.

 

[red elma]

The PSVR 1 and my snowboard googles don't slide down even after hours of use and exercise, despite having no headstrap. Depends on how heavy the final headset will be - but a wide strap at the back of the head which can be tightened by spinning a wheel usually does the trick. Otoh, the weight of the PSVR mostly sits on your forhead and it's not as front heavy as some other headsets.

Snow googles are designed for harsh weather and skiing conditions unlike Vision Pro is designed to be worn casually while working or gaming. Tightening too hard to hold them in place will pressurize your eyes and head way too much causing discomfort after long periods of use.

 

[Muceda]

No matter what size head you have the thing will slide down your head after long periods of usage without a strap holding it from the top. More so if the wearer is moving around constantly. Mass & Gravity!

More so if you don’t have a nose 👃 😂🤣😂

 

[Col4bin]

So, so dorky. This thing looks ridiculous on a user.

 

[doelcm82]

So, so dorky. This thing looks ridiculous on a user.

That has never been a problem for Apple. Someone once told me they'd never buy a smartphone because people who used them looked as if they were ticking a hamster.

 

[ackmondual]

This'll be Apple's version of the glass hole.

 

[_Spinn_]

Lots of stuff still needs to be finished for this headset. Will be interesting to see if they can get it all done in time.

 

[Col4bin]

That has never been a problem for Apple. Someone once told me they'd never buy a smartphone because people who used them looked as if they were ticking a hamster.

That’s not quite the same argument. Enjoy wearing overpriced swimming goggles around town lol.

 

[robbietop]

That certainly was … a lot of words.

Well I could do .... a snarky .... pithy ..... response .... but it wouldn't get my point across.

 

[doelcm82]

That’s not quite the same argument. Enjoy wearing overpriced swimming goggles around town lol.

I will mostly wear them at home, though if I were still working and traveling for work, I'd wear them at the office and on airplanes.