The Talk Show Live From WWDC 2023 Now Available on YouTube

[Leehro]

You should watch it, Gruber calls them out on the Mac Pro not having GPU support and why the Touch Bar MacBook is still being sold

I wouldn’t say he “called them out”. He asked a couple softball questions and bent over backwards to make their minimal answers look like home runs.

I get that he’s not going to get a bunch of apple execs booked year after if he’s tough, but this has become a waste of time. I don’t think asking a follow up or two would destroy his access.

 

[filmantopia]

Really eye opening that it seems they rushed the Reality Pro to the show when it's not even a finalized product. I wonder if they were worried about leaks, copycats? ARP just seems like it's a couple of generations away (and according to Kuo they are already working on consumer versions) away.

The iPhone barely worked when Steve Jobs presented it. It’s well known now that if Jobs hadn’t presented its features in the exact order he did, it would likely have crashed.

The Vision Pro at least had a usable demo for hundreds of tech journalists. It’s important they presented this early to give development a jump start, that way there’s a decently robust ecosystem by the time it’s on people’s heads.

 

[smulji]

Then he won’t have them on his podcast 😂

Then I can’t take his interviews seriously and someone else who’s got the balls to ask real questions should take his spot. Problem with Gruber is he’s trying too hard to be one of the cool kids. I’m willing to bet money Marques can do a much better job.

 

[filmantopia]

Funny thing is he wasn’t technically wrong. Having a screen outside with eyes does look goofy and it costs extra and has a hit on battery life like he said, but he can’t make Apple look wrong so he will probably change his take about the whole thing.

I think Eyesight will be a useful feature in practice.

 

[henry72]

Yay. I have been waiting for this

 

[elptdbi3lYI]

Then I can’t take his interviews seriously and someone else who’s got the balls to ask real questions should take his spot. Problem with Gruber is he’s trying too hard to be one of the cool kids. I’m willing to bet money Marques can do a much better job.

He would, especially for gaming related announcements this year.
I doubt Gruber is allowed to ask tough questions though, asking about low ram capacity/no gpu support and sideloading was toughest he asked and it was like he was about to **** bricks while asking these questions, also him singing praise for System Settings this year feels fake.

 

[canyonblue737]

Really eye opening that it seems they rushed the Reality Pro to the show when it's not even a finalized product. I wonder if they were worried about leaks, copycats? ARP just seems like it's a couple of generations away (and according to Kuo they are already working on consumer versions) away.

I still like Gruber I admit, but I thought it was rich when he kept ripping on Meta for "rushing" their announcement of the Quest 3 arriving in September to just before WWDC to get the news out before Vision Pro... as if announcing 3 months early is somehow worse than what Apple just did announcing a product that at best is coming in 7 months, but probably even somewhat beyond that...

 

[canyonblue737]

The only win here is that it’s not Rene Ritchie. I swear that guy craps out AirTags.

I get the sense Rene is an exceptionally nice human being but at the end of his YouTube and podcasting run the many may as well have been an underling of Jaws at Apple. At least now in his new role of being some kind of YouTube ambassador he has mostly disappeared from commenting on this stuff.

 

[canyonblue737]

He would, especially for gaming related announcements this year.
I doubt Gruber is allowed to ask tough questions though, asking about low ram capacity/no gpu support and sideloading was toughest he asked and it was like he was about to **** bricks while asking these questions, also him singing praise for System Settings this year feels fake.

I'm sure it's unspoken that he can't push too hard or else the threat always is these events or his insider info and invites will disappear. A few years ago he surprisingly got very critical I believe of the iPhone on something and DID NOT get an early release copy that year, only after the reviews arrived. He had always gotten them for nearly a decade prior and has gotten them all in several years since... he even mentioned on Daring Fireball that he didn't get it early but left it at that... I always took that as a quiet punishment from Apple to ease off.

 

[canyonblue737]

Funny thing is he wasn’t technically wrong. Having a screen outside with eyes does look goofy and it costs extra and has a hit on battery life like he said, but he can’t make Apple look wrong so he will probably change his take about the whole thing.

from some of the angle shots the eyes look goofy because they don't line up perfectly with the face, but I have to give credit... from head on the eyes show at least in the PR videos look surprisingly good, deep inset in the headset (nice illusion) and do somewhat help create less of a detached vibe from the person using the headset. I'm not sure the battery life / cost / potential for creepyness is worth it but on the surface it looks wildly better than I expected it to.

 

[canyonblue737]

Regarding the stability of items (like monitors you place)...they claim that even on a plane, that will be moving with turbulence, etc, the items will stay in place. That's great.

I wonder if that's good. If your "world" in the headset is still but your inner ear is telling your body you are in motion from turbulence etc. that is a recipe for motion sickness.

 

[Mr. Dee]

I created this mockup this morning, its unbelievable that in the space of 24 years we have reached this advance level of computing. To go from Steve Jobs demoing the ancestor of Vision OS, Mac OS 10.0, in small square on a stationary device to now a spatial environment that envelopes your world but still keeping you aware of the physical world is mind blowing! The ability to remove the constraints of a screen, bringing your apps into that physical world and use natural interaction instead of keyboard and mice proves this has been well thought out.

My hope is the Steve Ballmer's that are skeptical about this give it a chance. It needs 10 years to prove if its a failure or not. I said it in a previous thread, Apple is likely working on version 2 and 3 and already thinking about version 4.

 

[smulji]

He would, especially for gaming related announcements this year.
I doubt Gruber is allowed to ask tough questions though, asking about low ram capacity/no gpu support and sideloading was toughest he asked and it was like he was about to **** bricks while asking these questions, also him singing praise for System Settings this year feels fake.

Not too long back Marques did an interview with one of the Senior Execs on the silicon design team. I thought he did a great job

 

[Picklefoot]

Gruber was never likeable but I'm glad people are noticing now.

 

[fuchsdh]

You should watch it, Gruber calls them out on the Mac Pro not having GPU support and why the Touch Bar MacBook is still being sold

Yeah, I think some people take the standpoint that "not yelling at Apple execs" makes someone a shill by default. He's certainly a friendlier face, but he's a guy with his own idiosyncratic viewpoints, not just what Apple wants (if you want gushing friendly coverage, that's what the YouTubers with review units are for.)

Fact is Gruber, "friendly turf" or not, gets some answers out of Apple at these events no one else does.

Funny thing is he wasn’t technically wrong. Having a screen outside with eyes does look goofy and it costs extra and has a hit on battery life like he said, but he can’t make Apple look wrong so he will probably change his take about the whole thing.

I think it's also fair to say the actual result as seen in the demos looks a lot better than what the rumor mill was suggesting, which felt more like "we paste some googley eyes on the front".

Moreover I also think while still weird, it makes much more sense for the Vision as it's been pitched, which is much more of an AR headset you tune in or out of the meta verse stuff. The front display is expensive and adds a lot of complexity—I'm curious to see how it will play out when we get to the consumer product that has to be $1000 or less, rather than this version—but it also seems pretty essential to how the Vision is supposed to not just be a closed-off, in-your-own-world product all the time.

 

[Mr. Dee]

I had to stop watching after 18 minutes, John Gruber is just so incoherent and disturbing throughout this interview. Leave this kinda thing to professionals. Imagine if this was Steve Jobs? He would say, I don't have time for this. Get professionals: Kara Swisher, Walt Mossberg, even iJustine would do a better job, Nilay Patel.

 

[Quu]

I've enjoyed this show every year since it started going up on YouTube. I think John Gruber asks questions that the community wants answers to such as why the new Mac Pro doesn't support PCIe graphics cards.

Maybe John isn't the most eloquent interviewer in the world but he comes prepared with great questions.

 

[zakarhino]

The only win here is that it’s not Rene Ritchie. I swear that guy craps out AirTags.

I believe that Rene, in an ancient era, would have composed some body of religious text based on his interactions with a fruit fly. He has the ability to take the most mundane, nigh on outrageous story from Apple and transform it into his interpretation of why Apple is the Messiah and the decision they're making is the most critical, transformative piece of legislation to date.

I burst out laughing when I saw YouTube hired him to be a full time 'community liaison' tasked with explaining why their latest weekly decision that every single user hates is actually a perfectly thought out brilliant innovation to benefit everyone. The role was tailor made for him, literally! I don't think YouTube have ever had a personality be their community liaison before, it was always an anonymous YouTube Support social media account with no personality present.

I used to like some of his videos because of the refreshing prose but got tired of his inability to provide 30 seconds of meek critique without 10 minutes of "devils advocate" mind games to find an upside on behalf of Apple or whatever company he's talking about. These days I'd rather watch the colorful Zoomer rundown, tailored for an audience with little attention span, from someone like Mr Whosetheboss or something.

Tech journalists these days are awful, presenting stenographic articles as 'opinion' and 'insight.' Zero imagination. I can tolerate MacRumors because most of the time they're not trying to position themselves as capital J Journalists, but instead as curators of brief roundups of info from across the spectrum.

 

[Jensend]

Gruber is getting less and less likeable every year unfortunately.

Constantly calling out Mark Gurman even though he turns out be completely wrong, dumb Twitter takes, etc...

Mark Gurman Recaps His Reporting on Apple’s Upcoming XR Headset and He’s Sticking With the Front-Facing Display for Googly Eyes

Link to: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2023-05-18/apple-s-mixed-reality-headset-may-define-tim-cook-s-legacy

daringfireball.net

I think part of this is that Gruber was imagining something different than what was actually in the product. He was dismissing the idea of a video surface pasted on the outside of the device that only looks decent from straight on.
And the other part is that he is correct, in my opinion, about the worth of the feature versus the cost (financial and battery life). I can talk to someone wearing dark sunglasses without discomfort from not seeing their eyes. You’ll only have very brief encounters with people wearing the headset. If they want to talk longer, they can easily remove the headset.
Of course, maybe my opinion would change if I tried the feature.

Then I can’t take his interviews seriously and someone else who’s got the balls to ask real questions should take his spot. Problem with Gruber is he’s trying too hard to be one of the cool kids. I’m willing to bet money Marques can do a much better job.

It’s not hard to ask tough questions. But asking tough questions isn’t very meaningful if they aren’t answered. In the end, this is 100% a PR event. Take it or leave it. I’ve gotten more valuable insights on the creation of the Vision Pro from a couple of Twitter threads from former Apple employees who worked on the project than from a few execs in a discussion with Gruber.

I still like Gruber I admit, but I thought it was rich when he kept ripping on Meta for "rushing" their announcement of the Quest 3 arriving in September to just before WWDC to get the news out before Vision Pro... as if announcing 3 months early is somehow worse than what Apple just did announcing a product that at best is coming in 7 months, but probably even somewhat beyond that...

There is some difference between announcing a first generation product and a third generation product. But your point is not entirely without merit.

 

[smulji]

I still like Gruber I admit, but I thought it was rich when he kept ripping on Meta for "rushing" their announcement of the Quest 3 arriving in September to just before WWDC to get the news out before Vision Pro... as if announcing 3 months early is somehow worse than what Apple just did announcing a product that at best is coming in 7 months, but probably even somewhat beyond that...

To be fair, the iPhone 1, and Apple Watch 1 were also announced 6 to 7 months in advance of launch. Subsequent models were launched fairly soon after the announcement date. I assume the plan for Vision Pro is no different.

 

[Rogifan]

Agree. Bring back Mossberg or get someone better like Jason Snell to interview them

Jason Snell would be great. He’s a fan but not a fanboy and is honest and critical at times. The biggest kool-aid drinker right now is Neil Cybart. He used to be a Wall Street analyst. Now he has a full time job writing a pro-Apple newsletter. He was one of the select few who got to preview Vision Pro.

 

[canyonblue737]

To be fair, the iPhone 1, and Apple Watch 1 were also announced 6 to 7 months in advance of launch. Subsequent models were launched fairly soon after the announcement date. I assume the plan for Vision Pro is no different.

sure, it just makes it difficult to criticize Meta for saying "hey we have a new, better model for $499 coming in 3 months... so take that in to consideration when you view the $3500 Apple headset coming in 10 months..." that said, the two headsets couldn't be more different... in price AND capability.

 

[Rogifan]

John Gruber, Rene Ritchie, iJustine all culled from the same smelly pile of day old monkey exhaust.

Too much?

Rene Ritchie works for Google.

 

[canyonblue737]

I think part of this is that Gruber was imagining something different than what was actually in the product. He was dismissing the idea of a video surface pasted on the outside of the device that only looks decent from straight on.
And the other part is that he is correct, in my opinion, about the worth of the feature versus the cost (financial and battery life). I can talk to someone wearing dark sunglasses without discomfort from not seeing their eyes. You’ll only have very brief encounters with people wearing the headset. If they want to talk longer, they can easily remove the headset.
Of course, maybe my opinion would change if I tried the feature.

It’s not hard to ask tough questions. But asking tough questions isn’t very meaningful if they aren’t answered. In the end, this is 100% a PR event. Take it or leave it. I’ve gotten more valuable insights on the creation of the Vision Pro from a couple of Twitter threads from former Apple employees who worked on the project than from a few execs in a discussion with Gruber.

There is some difference between announcing a first generation product and a third generation product. But your point is not entirely without merit.

I agree on the 1st vs. 3rd generation angle but I can hardly blame Meta for doing what they did. The Vision Pro was about to be compared to the Quest 2 / Quest Pro and they knew they had a new more capable (and only $499) headset coming in 3 months... a full 4-7 months before the Vision Pro would even hit stores... so they wanted the media comparison to be with the NEW product, rather than the dated one... and considering their new product hits first anyway I consider it fair. Now if only the actual products compared... it is Apples and Oranges (lol) in capability but then again also in price.

 

[thadoggfather]

Gruber was never likeable but I'm glad people are noticing now.

he's a total buffoon and kinda creepy


I also like how he instantly self-revises the word 'rough' when describing his experience with the Apple display for the first month of ownership. Can't dare criticize any Apple products with too much conviction because he's been suckling off the Apple iNipple for decades now as the PR pushover.

...I find all the self indulgent 'jokes' insanely cringey.