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Cool Discoveries, Impressions and Wishlists for Vision Pro (Users Only)

ZombiePhysicist

ZombiePhysicist

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May 22, 2014
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So I figured I'd start a thread where all of us can ping and mention our impressions. Maybe things no one else has noticed or talked about! Maybe some new apps that you tried that are "must have". Or some improvements or wishlists you might have for this or the next version of the Vision Pro.

A few of my own to start.

  1. The devices gives you near sight. The camera is really good at focusing imagery that is generated by the device and it’s pretty sharp. Things that I can see pretty well from further away with my bare eyes I don’t see as well. Yet, when I look at my own hands near up, I think I see them better than I normally do with my bare eyes. I have no prescription, so maybe this is different for those that have prescription lenses. I’m guessing it’s because the resolution just isn’t there for example, to look at my 8K screen, ie, I do not see the detail that I normally would.That said, I can still use my iPhone screen pretty well. Overall remarkable.
  2. You are now bionic. As your eyes move to something far versus near, the cameras know how to refocus. Super cool eye tracking and camera work real time! One thing I really hope they add is the ability to digitally zoom your real time view. That could be soooo useful!
  3. Motion blur. If you shake your head side to side fast, it introduces a lot of motion blur. Not a good device to watch a fast paced ping pong game from the net perspective.
  4. Augmenting your environment is totally convincing. The device can darken, lighten the room and it feels real. And even the glass windows where you place them, are so spacially locked, you feel like you can knock them over. I spent minutes just marveling at the glass of the F'n windows and how they work and refract and walking around at steep angles. Amazing.
  5. Normal UI widgets have an 'iPad touch mode'. Instead of looking at the object and doing the finger tap, you can just move your hand to press a button, or touch text bubbles in Messages app and move them up and down. The collision detection real time hand compositing is borderline magic. But you can touch many of the normal widgets.
  6. Walking/jogging around your environment while grabbing the window bar and moving it around as you jog around throwing it at walls like spider man or something is stupid fun and works astoundingly well for no good discernible reason.
  7. Although initial reports kind of report "infinite" window placement, the reality is the 'useful window/app sizes' are quite large, and that limits how many of these screens you can usefully place around you. It's not as much as I would have hoped for, and probably not a replacement for my 45megapixels of display, at least with this version.
  8. The travel case is like a mini version of a NASA space suit back pack with the material it uses, and inside, it has new car smell.
  9. The environments and spacial photo/videos are super convincing, to spooky levels. I can see wanting to video important family events with the 3D video as the effect is truly next level. This one has been commented about, so not really a new observation, just pointing out the depth of the effect cannot be overstated.
Anyway, those are a few of my early thought and findings.

Wondering what all of your initial experiences are. And if you have tried any apps you really enjoyed yet.
 
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Ok some more impressions.

I think some of the UI is insanely though through well. Yet others, I dont get. Few more impressions.

  1. Why cloth materials? It seems destined to get dirty with greasy fingers food etc.
  2. Why move the close button X and the window movement bar to the bottom of a window when we've always had it up top? There are other more useless controls up top still. I find that eye tracking towards the bottom of the lowest window area to break down. Particularly when youre laying down. You are forced to physically tilt your head up and look down for the device to target correctly in the extreme low areas.
  3. There needs to be some kind of 'bed mode'. Hand tracking basically doesnt work in the dark, but laying in bed, it would be great to use the device. Particularly meditations and movies. Perhaps I'm missing something obvious, but I'm not getting good controls for hand gestures in the dark. Also, if I lay flat on the bed looking up, there needs to be some way to "re level" the world such that the ceiling becomes my horizon. Right now, it still wants me to sit up to watch a movie, and I'd rather prefer to watch it on the ceiling (this was with the IMAX app).
  4. Some of the UI should be more immediate. The home icons disappear and I either have to hit the crown or look up to the arrow in space, expand that and hit the home screen. There should be just a way to look in space, and click, and it comes up automatically.
  5. Lazy hand gestures are not working smoothly. If im at my desk it's all good. Basically anywhere but bed. But in bed my hands are laying on my chest and I want to make very small lazy gestures for it to do things, well because I'm being lazy in bed. Or lazy on the couch. It's not as good at picking up the small lazy gestures as the normal ones.
  6. There is no obvious "grab point" on the device for me. My hand wants to grab it by the mesh material just past the aluminum body, but that often magnetically detaches things and is a recipe to drop the device. So the right place is the metal frame I guess. But it feels off for a quick grab.
  7. JigSpace is INSANE. Bringing the items so close to your face. It just FEELS real. Insanity.
  8. The night mode on the Hawaii mountain environment is INSANE.
  9. I did some first lazy morning news/messages iPad-like review with this. It did OK. Not sure if it surpasses the iPad for that kind of 'lifestyle' viewing. It might if there is a 'bed mode' that makes the experience feel lazier.
Anyway, just some more real world impressions.
 
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ZombiePhysicist said:
You are now bionic. As your eyes move to something far versus near, the cameras know how to refocus. Super cool eye tracking and camera work real time! One thing I really hope they add is the ability to digitally zoom your real time view. That could be soooo useful!
Click to expand...
I had no idea about this functionality. It would be great to be able to ask some questions about it and discuss it further, but unfortunately as someone who currently doesn't own a Vision Pro, I'm not permitted to do so.
 
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Wishlist.

Predator Vision. I think there should be a way to do night vision. Infrared vision. Ability to zoom in distance or macro microscope zoom.

I bet you some apps will be released to do this, but my suspicion is the cameras can only do so much and would need special cameras.
 
I also notice some lens warping. If you have a real computer screen to look at, look at some of the vertical window lines, aligning the middle of your goggles to those vertical lines, and you will see there is some warpage.
 
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This may seem mundane, but cool new (to me) use case I haven't seen others mention.

I'm standing trying to remember what Ingred Bergman looks like and if it's who I think it is. Just standing in the kitchen "Siri what does Ingrid Bergman Look like" and Siri is a ball of light floating in the kitchen and just shows me photos of her, and I close the window.

Asking dumb stuff of Siri is next level lazy and useful.
 
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ZombiePhysicist said:
Why move the close button X and the window movement bar to the bottom of a window when we've always had it up top? There are other more useless controls up top still.
Click to expand...
I suspect it's to avoid having your arm obscure the window.

ZombiePhysicist said:
Wishlist.

Predator Vision. I think there should be a way to do night vision. Infrared vision. Ability to zoom in distance or macro microscope zoom.

I bet you some apps will be released to do this, but my suspicion is the cameras can only do so much and would need special cameras.
Click to expand...
In general, digital camera sensors will detect near-infrared light. That's what infrared remote controls emit. You can see this by pointing an IR remote into a camera lens in a dark room and pressing a button. You'll usually see a blinking pattern, even though when viewed with the naked eye there's nothing visible.

When used in devices like digital cameras, the mfgr typically places an infrared filter somewhere in the light path, to greatly reduce the amount of IR that reaches the sensor. This filter is usually adequate for typical IR levels, but it's not enough to block intense output from things like IR remotes. The "night vision" cameras, such as for viewing wildlife at night, simply omit the filter, and also provide IR illuminators.

Anyway, you can buy such IR LEDs pretty cheaply, and they have fairly high output levels. If the AVP is capable of seeing an IR remote in a dark room, it might be worth doing a test with some of these IR LEDs as an illuminator and see what the AVP can detect.
 
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Overall, I love the AVP. I do have a few gotchas to report. At least they were for me.

1. When I take a screenshot and look at it in the Photos app, the AVP content is rotated slightly. If I rotate my head in the same direction before taking the screenshot, the content doesn't rotate as much or I nailed it and the content is vertical. Also, when I see the Optic ID image, it's rotated slightly as well.
2. When I view a movie in a dark environment, I can see light glare around the bottom of the view. It's not much, but it does interfere with the viewing of the movie. When I view a movie in a light environment, I do not notice the glare.
3. My persona freaked out my daughter when I surprised her with a FaceTime call. I feel sorry about that. Hopefully, it'll look better in a future version.
4. There were times when I needed to access my iPhone while wearing the AVP. Of course Face ID did not work to let me in and I had to continually swipe until the keyboard appeared. I hope they allow one to log into one's iPhone automatically when wearing the AVP. If security considerations allow that.
 
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I just recorded and played back my first spatial video from the AVP and a second I just took on my iPhone 15. It was of our pet cat who is getting up there in age. The first thing I thought is how much I would’ve loved the ability to have taken a spatial video on my iPhone of my dad back before he passed away in September of 2022. It would’ve been so cool to see him in 3D even if it was only for 30 seconds or a minute or two.

I’m really looking forward to the next few family events to get videos of all of my family members who are still around!!!!
 
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I thought this take was an important one (last 2 minutes of the video, but full video is fun).

 
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Macaholic868 said:
I just recorded and played back my first spatial video from the AVP and a second I just took on my iPhone 15. It was of our pet cat who is getting up there in age. The first thing I thought is how much I would’ve loved the ability to have taken a spatial video on my iPhone of my dad back before he passed away in September of 2022. It would’ve been so cool to see him in 3D even if it was only for 30 seconds or a minute or two.

I’m really looking forward to the next few family events to get videos of all of my family members who are still around!!!!
Click to expand...
Yeah, I think about that too — sorry for your loss. I haven’t seen a spatial video though — do you think the 15 Pro is worth getting just for the spatial video capability?
 
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Kierkegaarden said:
Yeah, I think about that too — sorry for your loss. I haven’t seen a spatial video though — do you think the 15 Pro is worth getting just for the spatial video capability?
Click to expand...

Thank you for your condolences. If you’ve got family members you’re concerned about losing and you have the money then I’d say it’s worth it.

Just keep a couple of things in mind. There’s a chance the iPhone 16 standard model could receive a camera update in September to allow it to take spatial videos so you might be able to get the latest phone at the standard price and have the ability to take them soon. If not there will be a price drop when the 16 models ship so you could snag a 15 Pro then at a better price. That’s obviously your call given what’s happening with family members and your disposable income.

The other thing to consider is that Meta already announced forthcoming support for spatial videos in the Quest 3 and I think on the Quest 2 as well but double check that. So if you either already have one or the other you may be able to view them soon with what you already have or pickup a Meta Quest 3 and only spend $500 instead of $3,500 for one. The displays on those obviously aren’t what they are on the AVP but if you didn’t clearly notice the difference between standard videos and spatial videos on those devices why would Meta spend the time and money on implementing that feature? It must be that in the race to be the Android like less expensive option to Apple’s AVP they felt like the feature was important enough to have their devices support it.

For me if I’d have known then what I know now about my dad and there was an iPhone on the market in the middle of the upgrade cycle that could’ve taken spatial videos I would’ve done it but my wife and I are both professions with no children and no plans to have any so disposable income, within reason based on what we make, isn’t an issue for us.
 
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okay I will confess a couple of stupid things i have done with my AVP in the hopes to give others a laugh and maybe not the same mistake. Most of them are because I get so used to the AVP gesture interface that I..

1) was surprised when i first connected with my Mac that I couldn’t control it with my eyes… had to keep using the computer keyboard and trackpad to interact.

2) i had about 5 or 6 AVP windows open and was rearranging them and was getting really frustrated that no matter how many times I tried, I couldn’t get one window showing a you Tube video to move, then I realized it was my big screen tv in the background with pass through video.

more to follow.
 
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CodeSpyder said:
Overall, I love the AVP. I do have a few gotchas to report. At least they were for me.

1. When I take a screenshot and look at it in the Photos app, the AVP content is rotated slightly. If I rotate my head in the same direction before taking the screenshot, the content doesn't rotate as much or I nailed it and the content is vertical. Also, when I see the Optic ID image, it's rotated slightly as well.
2. When I view a movie in a dark environment, I can see light glare around the bottom of the view. It's not much, but it does interfere with the viewing of the movie. When I view a movie in a light environment, I do not notice the glare.
3. My persona freaked out my daughter when I surprised her with a FaceTime call. I feel sorry about that. Hopefully, it'll look better in a future version.
4. There were times when I needed to access my iPhone while wearing the AVP. Of course Face ID did not work to let me in and I had to continually swipe until the keyboard appeared. I hope they allow one to log into one's iPhone automatically when wearing the AVP. If security considerations allow that.
Click to expand...

I couldn’t agree more with #4!
 
I've noticed that reading my phone with passthrough is easier if I hold it out a bit. Almost like the AVP has to put the text in focus.
 
Why is that in all of the examples that show "screen recordings" of vision pro, they UI windows are always skewed? Is this just because they were placed and then the person moved? It would irritate the crap out of me for UI windows to not be facing me directly. Hence why I never, ever use Stage Manager.
 
So, here is one feature that I don’t see anyone talking about. Siri. When you’re using the interface, it really is very much a mixed mode interface. Some things you can do with your eyes. Some things with your hands. You can do dictation with your voice. But there is another mode and that is Siri.

Just while you’re doing other things, and you have multiple windows up, you can ask her questions or to set tasks going. So you could set a timer. You could ask her about the weather. You can ask her for a definition of some thing. You could ask her to show you pictures of someone famous.

In some ways it’s kind of like having Jarvis from Iron Man.

And the flow is very natural. You could be interacting in one window and just summon her and she’ll pop up and answer in a new independent window.
 
WishList:

Spacial Video 3D Face Time calls!

Why cant we do FaceTime videos, from AVP to AVP via the memory like spacial videos!?

Of course we cannot of ourselves, but flip the camera to what we see, and we basically have a remote viewing like ability!

Would be great for people that cannot 'be there' at some event!
 
WishList

Teleportation/Remote Viewing feature!

Youre buddy is walking around some place, and you see what they see! Maybe put this on a roomba style robot and it can be a telepresence experience!
 
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