Vision Pro Reviews: Surprising Battery Life, 'Weird' Personas, and More

[Ctrlos]

The AI on Android handsets is really useful, screen calling calling shops and restaurants from Google maps, hell call screening is more than Siri can do and will ever do at this rate. Apple got left in the dust so yes Pixel 8 and Samsung 24 make the current iPhone look dull, who needs all that compute power when its not used for anything useful, phones are not just about cameras which bores me as I want a phone not a camera with a phone on it, although Samsung cameras are good ironically after hating on cameras. Sadly thats all that changes year to year, but the good ship AI has taken off without Apple.

Now with Apple crying that the EU store will leave iPhones 'vulnerable' it shows iOS and iPhones are no more secure out of Apples walled garden than any other phone out there, sad but true. May as well go by an android phone that does useful things because I'm fed up of having a tablet that cant run real Firefox or uBlock origin, same with iPhones I want more than webkit skins, give me what I have on my mac. <sigh>

I had a Pixel 8 Pro and found the AI wanting.

My previous Pixel 6 could use Google Assistant to screen calls just fine without needing an LLM behind it hoovering up even more data. I won't doubt how useful ChatGPT has been in composing letters or job applications but this isn't something I want to do on my phone (and indeed plugging GPT into Siri is really easy)

 

[darngooddesign]

He was eluding to watching porn and how Apple vision still needs to see your hands to function. The potential hand action could cause incorrect inputs.

Is everyone following this major miss by Apple? Similar to airplane mode there needs to be porn mode for certain users.

The solution is to not use the pinch gesture. 🤣

 

[arkitect]

Information can only be presented to a person. If they choose to ignore it, who are we to try and force them to take notice?

Other people's eyes and necks are not my problem. Frankly, they can knock themselves out!

Well, I guess that is one way to approach this. 🙂
But to me it is a concern so I'll wait and see how this develops.

 

[darngooddesign]

Its already easy read mails and browse with your ipad. Strapping a headset on first, to do that, doesn’t make it better.

It makes it different just like using an iPad is different from using your Mac. If that difference is more enjoyable then you would do them more often with he VP.

Strap on, read mails, strap off. Strap on, read news, strap off. Most people forget HOW we use our devices. We take them hundreds of times during the day to do small things. You don’t run around with the Vision on your head all day.

Go to your Mac, read mails, walk away form your Mac. Go to your Mac, read news, Walk away from your Mac. Sounds silly right? You wouldn't put on the headset just to do brief tasks, you would be doing those things while you are using the VP; just like you do those tasks on your Mac while using your Mac. Otherwise you would use a different device for really quick digital tasks.

 

[beanbaguk]

The Verge review was by far the best. And summarised it beautifully.

(Sic) “Its the loneliest piece of technology you can buy”.

 

[vantelimus]

Shouldn't marketing materials set realistic expectations?..

At times marketing people make mistakes, at other times they are malicious dirt bags who lie and mischaracterize the product and the competition to gain advantage. Should they set realistic expectations? I suppose that depends on whether they hold to a foundational ethical principle that the means and the ends must always be independently justifiable or whether they follow the foundational principle of capitalism, what I call Milton Friedman's unswerving economic principle, that the end always justifies the means.

 

[ryan102]

People really seem to be struggling with finding a use out of the goggles. It’s now be dumbed all the way down to “I can watch a movie”.

I know the reviews are meant to try and sell the product but they seemed to have the complete opposite effect and just reinforced people’s beliefs.

Other than iJustine having onscreen orgasms at everything, I can’t imagine any normal member of society having mildly the feeling that it’s something exciting. And then will come the memes and jokes at people seen wearing it in public.

 

[vantelimus]

But it doesn't make it blurry or dim. All reviewers so far were universally disappointed by it, and you can assume that they weren't using video lights all the time. e.g. Joanna Stern being outside.

I think we will just have to wait a couple of days yet to see. I'm not expecting much out of the Eyesight given the reviews. That in itself might have set my expectations low enough that whatever I do find seems better than I thought it would be. Weirder things have happened.

 

[DMG35]

I think the end goal is for it to replace those devices. Instead of buying a Mac or iPhone you get a headset. Still a long way to go before it can do that though.

iPhone replaced the iPod, dumb phone, and in a way laptops/desktops for majority of people. I'm not saying Macs or iPhones will disappear but the headset could replace them for most people.

How on earth would a headset replace a phone? No way in the world people are going to just strap these devices to their face all day every day and walk around with them on in public. It’s never meant to be a replacement for a phone.

 

[Silverado]

Liked Brian Tong’s review the most. What an amazing first release from Apple!

 

[macfacts]

Does it have a calculator?

I suspect apple isn't including a calculator, to leave "low hanging fruit" for potential devs.

 

[Mac Fly (film)]

They look like how in the movies when a friend who has passed away comes back to speak to you, telling you it's not your fault and you should move on with your life. A little ghost like is what I mean. I wonder if that can be improved in future versions? Right now it can be little distracting, or maybe people will get used to it.

 

[DNichter]

There are obvious gaps and tradeoffs with this product, but I don't really blame Apple for launching as is. It's a niche development type product that they need to test and build out with developers. I have no interest currently, but I can see the value long term. We are probably still 5-10 years away from becoming even reasonably common for the tech crowd.

 

[robertosh]

In my opinion, these eyesight/persona thingies are basically workarounds to do things that maybe they should not do in the first place:
- I don't think that video-conference is a valid use case for AVP. This persona is just a workaround to have some functionality that is widely available in many other devices since years, which is to simply show your face on a webcam. I don't think any participant of video-conference will be comfortable just talking to anybody shown like "that". If you cannot have a webcam, just put an image, as we do elsewhere. Or just use another device that fully suports video-conference...
- I think eyesight breaks one of the very few valid use cases of a VR set, which is to be able to be isolated from the real world. Apple, for whatever reason, tries to make users of these devices to appear that "they are there" while to be honest, if I wear one of these devices, I would like to be immersed on it, I don't care about what others are doing, I don't want to be interrupted...that's the point for me. I think is important to have a way to get interrupted in case there is some emergency, but regular interaction with external people while using a VR headset looks strange to me. And it is always assumed that the external person will be happy to interact with somebody that has the glasses on I would not be very comfortable doing that, as it would seem like that I'm not getting full attention.

 

[Seamaster]

 

[CarAnalogy]

This explains why the personas part of their ten minute demo video was so brief. “Oh yeah your persona looks awesome!” And that was the end of it. They didn’t show his persona.

Also, it’s pretty obvious what they need to do for the next version. Just take that front glass off. Nobody likes it, it’s adding a huge amount of unnecessary weight. The gimmick is not worth the weight, cost, and added fragility.

 

[Antoniosmalakia]

Well, I guess that is one way to approach this. 🙂
But to me it is a concern so I'll wait and see how this develops.

I did some major reading with regard to VR yesterday, like how it works and potential short term issues and long term issues that can follow if you don't take care while using it, and it was a real eye-opener.

I presented my findings to a user, which I think you saw and liked, and their goal posts kept moving. They don't want to know or simply don't care, or were so fixated on my comment about screens being close to your eyes that they missed everything else I said, so my attitude stems from that.

You can lead a horse to water, and all that.

 

[H.E. Pennypacker]

I myself was intrigued by this product. But now after watching the reviews, see that this isn’t product I would spend $3500 on. Being a wealthy industrialist I have enough money to buy and sell men like myself everyday, but I think I’ll take the $3500 and use it towards building a rollercoaster instead.

 

[617arg]

Tim exhibited no self control by releasing this when it's clearly not ready for prime time. Releasing a product that "feels like a first gen device" is not what Apple should be known for. When the iPhone came out it felt magical from the moment you saw/felt/used it. That speaks to Jobs' idealism which Tim sorely lacks. The tech for the iPhone was first developed into what we know as the iPad, but Steve had the foresight to tell the team to turn that into a phone. He didn't just rush it out. This product is also a very singular/isolationist experience - something else Steve would have demanded be turned into a social/connection experience before releasing. For this and many more reasons, Tim needs to step down and a true visionary brought in....

 

[WWPD]

Vision Pro Personas vs reality:

VS

 

[frifra]

I am reliving the promised VR experience from the end of the 90s. Get your glove and 50 connected cables ready to watch minecraft like objects. 😁

 

[Carac]

For me, it's simple: You can buy a Macbook, iPad, iPhone, Apple Watch, and a pair of Airpods for the price of an AVP and get better a better computer, better media consumption device, better communication device (facetime with your actual face, not a creepy avatar), and all of them last 6-18hrs per charge and don't hurt your neck. They also all travel better.
...and you'll probably still have enough money left over to buy a Quest 3 if you REALLY want to watch movies and Netflix on a virtual movie screen.

 

[DMG35]

I myself was intrigued by this product. But now after watching the reviews, see that this isn’t product I would spend $3500 on. Being a wealthy industrialist I have enough money to buy and sell men like myself everyday, but I think I’ll take the $3500 and use it towards building a rollercoaster instead.

Classic. But who’s watching the Saab factory?

 

[macos9rules]

It seems odd that Brian Tong claims he “pre-ordered” the Vision Pro, when he already had it for a week, even though Apple’s shipping date is February 2. In the preorder video, he chose February 2nd as the pickup date. Did he actually buy it? Apple is probably giving away Vision Pro headset to influencers for “reviews”. That’s fine if they do that, but influencers should be honest and disclose they got the unit for free.

 

[Macalway]

So everyone looks dead?. Incorporeal

I guess we have to wait for version 3 to reanimate them. A long slog back to the living.