Apple's Vision Pro Developer Strap May Receive an Upgrade Next Week

[ultratiem]

It’s worse than that. Don’t forget you have to be registered in the developer program to order it, so that’s an additional $99/year.

You would think Apple wants to encourage development and exploration of additional use cases for this device, yet you have to pay extra and add hardware to actually use it for that purpose. The AVP is a large device no matter how you look at it. They managed to make allowances for the goofy screen showing your eyes but they couldn’t simply have an extra built-in fully capable USB-C port somewhere?

Now you see Cook’s real impact on Apple. Constantly cover every angle to keep you in your lane. They even took out the homekit hub from the iPad as it would have provided a replacement for the HomePods, the minis and the Apple TV. All with support for Apple AI if you have one with a M chip. I could have used it to replace my HomePod minis, today. At no extra cost.

Cook shut that down real quick (I recall most people defending the decision as “iPaDs LeAvE YoUr HoUsE aLL tHe tImE, thIS is GooD!”). So now, if want a homekit hub? Gotta pony up for a aTV or HomePod.

Can’t innovate my ass! 🙃

 

[Hajj.david]

The flip side is that for its *current* purpose that’s fine. It’s a dev and diagnostic port, complaining it’s not faster is like complaining that an RS232 port on a managed network switch is too slow just because the switch handles 40gbe

I also wonder if they limited it so that they didnt have to load higher level drivers and more complicated APIs beyond basic USB for the port, making the debug port itself easier to debug.

Strong strong disagree. USB 2.0's theoretical maximum is 480 Mbps, if you have a several gig app (which is very easy to get for AR/VR apps and games) the transfer speeds will be SLOWER then most modern wifi systems. This was effectively useless because Tim Cook is a bean counter and insists on screwing over fans via a death of a thousand cuts.

 

[Hajj.david]

Now you see Cook’s real impact on Apple. Constantly cover every angle to keep you in your lane. They even took out the homekit hub from the iPad as it would have provided a replacement for the HomePods, the minis and the Apple TV. All with support for Apple AI if you have one with a M chip. I could have used it to replace my HomePod minis, today. At no extra cost.

Cook shut that down real quick (I recall most people defending the decision as “iPaDs LeAvE YoUr HoUsE aLL tHe tImE, thIS is GooD!”). So now, if want a homekit hub? Gotta pony up for a aTV or HomePod.

Can’t innovate my ass! 🙃

But I see the home app on my ipad with os 26? Unless I misunderstood you.

 

[Mr_Ed]

But I see the home app on my ipad with os 26? Unless I misunderstood you.

I think they refer to the ability to use an iPad specifically as a homekit “hub”, not the app. You used to, for example, use an old iPad you were no longer using as your main device as a hub, but they took that away. This was the part where the “well, an iPad leaves the hose so it can’t be a hub” holds no water as a justification. Most people buy new iPads at some point and could put the old one to use as a hub, extending its useful life.

 

[seek3r]

Strong strong disagree. USB 2.0's theoretical maximum is 480 Mbps, if you have a several gig app (which is very easy to get for AR/VR apps and games) the transfer speeds will be SLOWER then most modern wifi systems. This was effectively useless because Tim Cook is a bean counter and insists on screwing over fans via a death of a thousand cuts.

But that’s literally not one of the things the developer strap does to begin with….

If Apple was using it as a means to load apps you’d have a point, but what it does is diagnostics, video feed, recovery mode, and screen sharing (which works just fine over the 100mbps network link it establishes)

So, I’ll again repeat: for what it does now the allowed speed is more than adequate and complaining about the speed is, just to reiterate, about the equivalent of complaining about the speed of the RS232 management port on a 40gbe switch

 

[Hajj.david]

But that’s literally not one of the things the developer strap does to begin with….

If Apple was using it as a means to load apps you’d have a point, but what it does is diagnostics, video feed, recovery mode, and screen sharing (which works just fine over the 100mbps network link it establishes)

So, I’ll again repeat: for what it does now the allowed speed is more than adequate and complaining about the speed is, just to reiterate, about the equivalent of complaining about the speed of the RS232 management port on a 40gbe switch

Thats what YOU are saying, but respectfully thats not what APPLE is saying, they are advertising this as something that will accelerate the development of graphics-intense apps and games (by reducing build times and transfer times of large assets). Every single one of the things you listed work over WiFi. I say this as a developer making Vision Pro apps.

So I reiterate why would you spend $300 on a USELESS strap that has LESS bandwidth then your WiFi. Now if they upgrade this to thunderbolt which by all accounts is fully capable of doing, then this strap makes a lot more sense.

Also apple better have upgraded it so it can actually charge the device, maybe we will be lucky and be able to use it directly connected with the mac without a battery.

If I come off as aggressive I apologize people say sometimes I type aggressively but I promise Im not. All I am saying is for $300 it should be better than WiFi in every aspect. I can do everything EXCEPT recovery mode using WiFi BETTER than this port. That said I hope they make it a thunderbolt port and do it properly this time around.

 

[jjrtiger]

Strong strong disagree. USB 2.0's theoretical maximum is 480 Mbps, if you have a several gig app (which is very easy to get for AR/VR apps and games) the transfer speeds will be SLOWER then most modern wifi systems. This was effectively useless because Tim Cook is a bean counter and insists on screwing over fans via a death of a thousand cuts.

Imagine being the firmware engineer. “It can only go how fast, boss?”

 

[Apple MessagePad]

I'm sure the 2 developers for Apple Vision Pro will be excited.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

We are now in the ensh*ttification era of Vision Pro where the updates are designed to part whales of their $3499 + $299 all over again!

They’ve sold so few, 0 of original folks could buy them and they’d still sell half a million (likely all they make this year) to interested folks.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

Now you see Cook’s real impact on Apple. Constantly cover every angle to keep you in your lane.

They can’t keep anyone in their lane unless those people want to be in that lane. Anyone that doesn’t like what Apple’s doing and continue buying their products? Can’t really fault Apple for that.

 

[seek3r]

Thats what YOU are saying, but respectfully thats not what APPLE is saying, they are advertising this as something that will accelerate the development of graphics-intense apps and games (by reducing build times and transfer times of large assets). Every single one of the things you listed work over WiFi. I say this as a developer making Vision Pro apps.

So I reiterate why would you spend $300 on a USELESS strap that has LESS bandwidth then your WiFi. Now if they upgrade this to thunderbolt which by all accounts is fully capable of doing, then this strap makes a lot more sense.
View attachment 2570024

Also apple better have upgraded it so it can actually charge the device, maybe we will be lucky and be able to use it directly connected with the mac without a battery.

If I come off as aggressive I apologize people say sometimes I type aggressively but I promise Im not. All I am saying is for $300 it should be better than WiFi in every aspect. I can do everything EXCEPT recovery mode using WiFi BETTER than this port. That said I hope they make it a thunderbolt port and do it properly this time around.

And I can transfer firmware to my network switches through serial, it’s slower than over the network but deeply reliable.

Did it ever occur to you that the developers targeted for this (and yes, I am a software engineer btw) are those who need reliability over speed? And that you arent the target for your specific wants? USB 2.0 is *way* less complicated, less likely to have problems, and lighter to offload CPU-wise than higher speed connections. When I work on actual hardware reliability wins over speed pretty much any day (hell, that’s true for the SaaS work I do as the majority of my work, it’s very very rare we’ll make a decision on our platform to prioritize speed over reliability, the platform supports a lot of critical tools for a lot of literal essential services, it has to work)

So the point, again, to reiterate, again, is reliability and less points of failure than wifi, not raw speed. That may not be what *you* want, but it’s in line with similar types of management/debug/dev port use across the whole computer industry, from serial, to JTAG, to etc.

 

[bbeagle]

It’s worse than that. Don’t forget you have to be registered in the developer program to order it, so that’s an additional $99/year.

No real developer is concerned with the $99/year fee.