Apple Vision Pro Testers Share Impressions: 'By Far the Best Headset'

[Analog Kid]

That's Apple's problem.

Maybe, but if the choice is among Apple products, then it's kind of a no-lose for them. If it's bringing people in to the Apple ecosystem because nothing else matches it, then it's a net win.

 

[Stevenyo]

That's because you do not actually use Firewire as Apple has implemented it, you use Sony's IEEE 1394a known as iLink with 4 pin on one side and 6 pin on the other side (FW400 6 pin to 4 pin) and as such there is no electric power running through the cable. When you run 6 or 8 pin/conductor on both sides of the cable it means it can power on your external device without a need for an AC adapter. That all sounds so nice in theory but in reality there is a ritual how you hook up the cable and turn on a device in order not to fry your external device. And even then you are not 100% safe that it will not be fried.

Expensive external devices that use firewire 400/800 all come with separate warning sheet of paper which tells you might damage the equipment if you do not follow the ritual, in other words if you hot plug it. I myself have fried multiple audio IO devices and a single RME Fireface has been fried two times (LOL) despite me being super careful. Good news is that you need a new IEEE 1394 chip (texas instruments tsb41ab2) and someone who has balls to solder it onto the PCB and you should be good to go.

Damn, I hot plug 8 pin FW800 card readers and hard drives all the time, never had trouble. Used a FW400 6pin power brick to run the globe iMac/cube speakers from my TiBook for years with no issue, etc. Really never heard of or experienced FW's power delivery being an issue. Honestly sounds like the audio world just didn't do FW well, because of the dozens of video and mass storage devices I used FW (and ilink, some are 4 pin devices), I've never once experienced or heard of an issue caused by FW hot plugging/power delivery issues. And we used FW drives and devices in school computer labs with careless students, for years and years without ever hearing of the issues you describe.

 

[macduke]

Wonder what would Steve Jobs think about Apple Vision Pro.

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“If you see a cable or battery pack, they blew it!”

 

[CarAnalogy]

Feature Request: Apple needs to let me charge my Apple Pencil if I'm paying $3,400.

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And as a bonus, you’d look a lot like Bender!

 

[CarAnalogy]

Wonder what would Steve Jobs think about Apple Vision Pro.

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I don’t think I’ve missed Steve this much in a long time. I really, really would like to have seen what this would have been if he were still around. I honestly cannot imagine him wearing this thing. Not that I’m disparaging it, it just doesn’t quite seem to have the magic touch he famously drove everyone around him crazy insisting on.

 

[Websnapx2]

Well the suit was pretty mobile

That's true, and probably has more than two hours of battery life.

 

[CarAnalogy]

I am shocked, SHOCKED I tell you, that Joanna Stern had a positive review. That’s so wildly out of character for Apple’s chosen reporter who always gets sneak previews to call it the best headset!

I remember her video on if AirPods Pro stay in your ears well. She had people ride a mechanical bull and concluded that they stay in super well! And then at the end of the video showed them falling out of her ears because of eating a sandwich. Yet that wasn’t the headliner.

 

[macduke]

Not for AR, this is kind of standard. For example:

Microsoft HoloLens

Landing page for Microsoft HoloLens.

www.microsoft.com

Starts at (checks notes) $3500.

Magic Leap is $3200.

Maybe apple will make a Vision (sans Pro) next year, drop the whole eyesight screen on front and remove the glass front to save weight.

-d

This is what I’m looking forward to. If they could do that with a year old chip when the next gen Pro comes out for $1500 then that would be really interesting for entertainment. I’m mostly not using this around my family or other people, but in my studio to play games and tinker with. They could even drop the 3D video recording crap and the battery pack and just make it wired. Or even cheaper, $999, lightweight, and it plugs into your Apple Silicon Mac via Thunderbolt to run it. I know it has that co-processor chip. Maybe they could keep that, or offload that and only have it work with M2 Pro or higher machines that can handle doing both. I mean, didn’t they say the R1 is basically a variant of the M2 anyway?

 

[matrix07]

Mass adoption for a 3500 dollar gadget won't happen. While it's impressive, it's of limited use.. You're not gonna walk outside with it and has only 2hrs of battery. Definitely niche. Wait for version 10 when it shrinks to be contact lenses. Lol

If you have money what the fun in waiting?
If you don’t have money then you shouldn’t think about it at all.

 

[Kevin2055]

HoloLens

It failed anyway

 

[cdarlington1]

True and while tablets are definitely not niche - their use-case is fairly limited still.

Working on the iPad is still quite pain compared to the MBP. Their weight difference is not even that different (with magic keyboard). And stage manager is just bad compared to the full macOS experience.

If someone prefers iPad to MBP for their work and owns both, I would truly like to know the reasons and advantages of such choice.

I only have an iPad for as my home computer. I’m an editor and use a Mac for that but everything else an iPad Pro and Keybaord.

True and while tablets are definitely not niche - their use-case is fairly limited still.

Working on the iPad is still quite pain compared to the MBP. Their weight difference is not even that different (with magic keyboard). And stage manager is just bad compared to the full macOS experience.

If someone prefers iPad to MBP for their work and owns both, I would truly like to know the reasons and advantages of such choice.

I’m an editor and have a fancy Mac for that but at home it’s
11” iPad Pro and Magic Keyboard. Stage Manager is garbage and have it turned off but otherwise it’s fine for what I need. It’s true Mac platform is easier to use but not enough to give up the size.

 

[Richard700]

Apple is going to insert a chip so only apple batteries can be used. They are not going to be cheap.

There is supposedly a USB-C socket (on the battery - I think?) that you can use to plug in a power source

 

[Richard700]

Well, there's Apple's longer term, strategic goal, and then there's the current consumer product that we are being asked to purchase. We can certainly applaud them for their 'vision' and willingness to try new things. But we can also be critical of the current product offering.

Based on your logic, we're being asked to pay $3,500 to be beta testers...?

I can deal with that - it'll be fun

 

[13astion]

Feel free to be duped by the industry so they can sell you a product. Unlike you I can think for myself and quite simply anything you are not seeing through your own vision, but is a digital reproduction, is VR. Period. It's just patently obvious to anyone capable of critical thinking. MR/XR is another marketing spin term to avoid calling it what it is, VR.

I’m being “duped”? 😂

No, it’s just that I actually know some of the history of VR and simulation, even going back to Plato’s cave.

The important part about “virtual reality” isn’t the *technology* that brings images to your eyes, be it shadows on a cave wall, a Sensorama hood, or even a modern headset…

The key to it being “virtual” is whether the *content* is presenting the “real” world or a “simulated” world… even “hyper real” (remember that term from the 90’s?)

Seriously, stop getting wrapped around the axle of tech specs. VR has been a thing, even if in theory or in science fiction, for millennia.

It’s about an ephemeral *experience*, not some weighty, earthly hunk of metal, glass, and plastic.

 

[_Spinn_]

Definitely the most technologically advanced headset and it will greatly benefit from Apple’s ecosystem but it still has all the same flaws as existing headsets.