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I highly doubt that video playback (even 3D playback) is going to run the M2 at full speed like real-time gaming would. The M-series chips have hardware video decode that will run video at a significant power savings.
 
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Wonder if you will have a few seconds of run time to switch between battery to new battery or AC power?

It will more than likely mimic the experience of using a MacBook: switching between battery and power is seamless and does not interrupt the device operation at all. It simply has to be that going into AC mode means plugging a USB-C/Lightning into the external battery unit. Anything else would be suicide; a gargantuan design fail.
 
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You can charge via usb-c in places like planes etc. There will probably also be bigger batteries, and you can use a power bank. 3rd parties will be all over this. If you need more battery time, there will be a solution.
 
Wonder if you will have a few seconds of run time to switch between battery to new battery or AC power?
battery to battery obviously wouldn't work, you "plug" it in in the battery so that works without downtime.
 
battery to battery obviously wouldn't work, you "plug" it in in the battery so that works without downtime.
There could be a small battery or a detected capacitor in the headsets to provide a moment of power when the battery is unplugged from battery or AC power.
 
Battery isn't the problem at home, it's the weight.

Testers have said it's not really suitable for long term wear.
 
There could be a small battery or a detected capacitor in the headsets to provide a moment of power when the battery is unplugged from battery or AC power.

There are no small batteries or capacitors that give you 30W of power for 30 seconds.
 
Good thing you can plug in while sitting on the couch watching a movie. Probably runs better that way too.
I missed that part of the presentation where they said it could be plugged in. It seems like it should be able to be connected to AC power, but wonder if it goes through the battery like a MacBook or iPhone, or if it is plugged right in like a Mac to reduce the weight of carrying around a battery when not on a couch, but standing up playing games or doing presentations.
 
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I missed that part of the presentation where they said it could be plugged in. It seems like it should be able to be connected to AC power, but wonder if it goes through the battery like a MacBook or iPhone, or if it is plugged right in like a Mac to reduce the weight of carrying around a battery.
If you look at photos of the device, the battery pack has USB-C in for charging/wall power. Not clear if the battery end of the headset tether is also USB-C, it would be kinda silly for it not to be, but the port/connector doesn't look standard from the shots I've seen. Needing the battery to exist between a DC power source and the headset rather than being able to plug the headset into would be pretty lame as a limitation.

Personally, I wonder if there's a short internal battery for quick swaps without shutting down.
 
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It seems like it should be able to be connected to AC power, but wonder if it goes through the battery like a MacBook or iPhone

That's what I have been thinking. IMO is the more realistic scenario.
 
If you look at photos of the device, the battery pack has USB-C in for charging/wall power. Not clear if the battery end of the headset tether is also USB-C, it would be kinda silly for it not to be, but the port/connector doesn't look standard from the shots I've seen. Needing the battery to exist between a DC power source and the headset rather than being able to plug the headset into would be pretty lame as a limitation.

Personally, I wonder if there's a short internal battery for quick swaps without shutting down.
Yes it has USB-C input on the battery and this looks like the answer. You could plug in ANY 3ed party battery with USB-C out (options near limitless) or could be plugged in with any AC adapter to keep powering the unit. So it looks like there is NO NEED to unplug the battery to change power source. When you get a low battery warning you just plug in a USB-C power source and you can watch back to back both Avatar and Avatar Way of Water on battery uninterrupted.:oops:

Screenshot 2023-06-07 at 6.12.54 AM.png
 
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Battery isn't the problem at home, it's the weight.

Testers have said it's not really suitable for long term wear.
The Quest Pro is 750g vs 450g of the VP and ppl use it somehow , ppl that are not used to wearing headsets will have some difficulty at the start no doubt , fast forward 1/2 weeks and your neck muscles will get used to it no problem (same as a military helmet , trust me on this one).

Also I wonder when they say 2h of usage , is it 2h of what exactly , there is no way its 2h no matter what you do , is it possible that watching movies will be more/less efficient then the avg ?
 
The Quest Pro is 750g vs 450g of the VP and ppl use it somehow , ppl that are not used to wearing headsets will have some difficulty at the start no doubt , fast forward 1/2 weeks and your neck muscles will get used to it no problem (same as a military helmet , trust me on this one).

Also I wonder when they say 2h of usage , is it 2h of what exactly , there is no way its 2h no matter what you do , is it possible that watching movies will be more/less efficient then the avg ?
Very good point. Just watching a movie with no passthrough, dark around the screen area, etc. is probably one of the lowest battery demand scenarios. Hopefully 2Hr battery means 2 hours of heavy AR/MR work, but noteciably more while just wathcing video, but it could be 2hrs of video, less than an hour heavy lifting for all we know. Personally, I expect the battery to grow before launch, and I expect this to use an M3 not an M2, which will allow for noticeably more efficient operation but they didn't want to announce their next generation processor months early on a product that won't ship for up to a year even if release dates don't slip at all (June is still the first half and therefore "early" in the year after all).
 
The Quest Pro is 750g vs 450g of the VP and ppl use it somehow , ppl that are not used to wearing headsets will have some difficulty at the start no doubt , fast forward 1/2 weeks and your neck muscles will get used to it no problem (same as a military helmet , trust me on this one).

Also I wonder when they say 2h of usage , is it 2h of what exactly , there is no way its 2h no matter what you do , is it possible that watching movies will be more/less efficient then the avg ?

Quest Pro design looks more industrial and the weight on the forehead. Based on testers, the Vision Pro seems to rest more on the nose. The expectations are also different: wearing it because you have to (helmet) vs. wearing it by choice (and paying $3,500 for it).

Pretty sure 2 hours is based on light usage. Nobody quotes heavy usage or else Apple would rate iPhone at 6 hours instead of 29.
 
Personally, I expect the battery to grow before launch, and I expect this to use an M3 not an M2, which will allow for noticeably more efficient operation but they didn't want to announce their next generation processor months early on a product that won't ship for up to a year even if release dates don't slip at all (June is still the first half and therefore "early" in the year after all).

Apple would have said "Next Gen Apple Silicon" if they didn't want to say M3. But more importantly, it doesn't make sense to put an M3. Apple's goal is always to consolidate chips, whether it's the motion co-processor or T2 security chip. Any kind of real efficiency gain will be through a monolithic design, not an Mx + Rx layout.
 
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Apple would have said "Next Gen Apple Silicon" if they didn't want to say M3. But more importantly, it doesn't make sense to put an M3. Apple's goal is always to consolidate chips, whether it's the motion co-processor or T2 security chip. Any kind of real efficiency gain will be through a monolithic design, not an Mx + Rx layout.
M3 will be TSMC 3nm. It will do 15-20% more work on the same power budget. That's big. Plus, it MUST have updated GPU core architecture, something sorely needed on a product that relies so much on video/3d/compute performance. Added together, there is a good chance an M3 can use at least 30% less power to do the work of an M2 in this 3D heavy role. It would be daft to sell a $3500 pushing the envelope device with a 2 year old chip while your ~$500 mac Mini has a newer SoC.

R1 and M2 do totally different things. Yes, there will likely be a time when they can be combined. For now, keeping the "computer" part running on the same SoC as everything from the iPad to the 15" MBA is massively efficient for supply chain and developers. While running the AR/VR calculations and whatnot on a totally focused chip allows that side of the device to evolve on its own. Down the line, when/if VisionOS becomes the dominant apple platform, it may very well make sense to put "R series" hardware on the "M series" dies and just disable or disuse it for the handful of macs and iPads still being shipped. But until then, this is an M2 iPad pro coupled to an R1 VR headset and that's the simplest way to port and develop software for it.
 
Some months back a MR rumor came up stating that Apple wanted to align Mac chip 19.5 month cycle to the iPhone chip 12 month cycle so that Macs would benefit from the same core generation.

Doing so would significantly improve raw performance, performance per watt, power consumption and battery life.

It may even have the impact of making doubters into believers.
 
M3 will be TSMC 3nm. It will do 15-20% more work on the same power budget. That's big. Plus, it MUST have updated GPU core architecture, something sorely needed on a product that relies so much on video/3d/compute performance. Added together, there is a good chance an M3 can use at least 30% less power to do the work of an M2 in this 3D heavy role. It would be daft to sell a $3500 pushing the envelope device with a 2 year old chip while your ~$500 mac Mini has a newer SoC.

R1 and M2 do totally different things. Yes, there will likely be a time when they can be combined. For now, keeping the "computer" part running on the same SoC as everything from the iPad to the 15" MBA is massively efficient for supply chain and developers. While running the AR/VR calculations and whatnot on a totally focused chip allows that side of the device to evolve on its own. Down the line, when/if VisionOS becomes the dominant apple platform, it may very well make sense to put "R series" hardware on the "M series" dies and just disable or disuse it for the handful of macs and iPads still being shipped. But until then, this is an M2 iPad pro coupled to an R1 VR headset and that's the simplest way to port and develop software for it.

Apple always opts to pack in more transistors for each new node. So while the 30% is nice to look at, it won't be anywhere close to that.

The whole system has already been designed for M2 including thermals. Developers are getting M2-based devices. It really doesn't make sense for Apple to further delay the device to validate M3, nor does it need it.
 
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Apple always opts to pack in more transistors for each new node. So while the 30% is nice to look at, it won't be anywhere close to that.

The whole system has already been designed for M2 including thermals. Developers are getting M2-based devices. It really doesn't make sense for Apple to further delay the device to validate M3, nor does it need it.
I honestly don't believe any of these devices actually run M2. N3 has been running for close to a year now, Apple has M3 SoCs around. There's no way this ships on anything other than 3nm hardware. It might not even ship for a year, june 2024 is still "early 2024," after all. Famously the iPhone was heavily redesigned with glass instead of plastic screen in just the six months from announcement to shipping. You're saying that in the 12 months between now and shipping this thing they won't say "oops, actually it's using the fully compatible but more efficient SoC that we've been manufacturing since late 2022"

And it does need it, it needs every watt and every spare transistor it can get. AR and VR are demanding as hell. I'd buy the M3Ultra + dual 4090 version if that was possible and wear a damn backpack to use the thing, it'd be worth it for the massive improvement in experience.
 
I honestly don't believe any of these devices actually run M2. N3 has been running for close to a year now, Apple has M3 SoCs around. There's no way this ships on anything other than 3nm hardware. It might not even ship for a year, june 2024 is still "early 2024," after all. Famously the iPhone was heavily redesigned with glass instead of plastic screen in just the six months from announcement to shipping. You're saying that in the 12 months between now and shipping this thing they won't say "oops, actually it's using the fully compatible but more efficient SoC that we've been manufacturing since late 2022"

And it does need it, it needs every watt and every spare transistor it can get. AR and VR are demanding as hell. I'd buy the M3Ultra + dual 4090 version if that was possible and wear a damn backpack to use the thing, it'd be worth it for the massive improvement in experience.

N3E doesn't begin in volume until H2'23. This is based on multiple public annoucements by TSMC. The N3B you might be referring to is an expensive, low-yield process intended for iPhone.

And no, June 2024 is not early 2023. That is mid-2024.

I'm not sure why you insist on M3 when Apple has publicly announced M2. It's almost like you're living in your own world.
 
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