In a nutshell if anything breaks you are screwed ;D
It’s an Apple device, what did you expect?
The thing even has an external battery pack, and instead of using USB-C so you could use any power bank you already own, they designed a completely new proprietary connector. In 2024.
Who the fuck does that anymore, except Apple?
I can see the argument for having a connector that can’t be pulled out: if you were crossing a busy street or walking down a stairway with one of these strapped to your head and the cable came out, you’d be instantly blind.
Who the fuck wears a VR headset walking in the street, let alone crossing a road?
But the proprietary connector plug itself is almost identical to the lightning connector, the only difference is that the bolster has some notches in it for the BATTERY to lock into. All the locking is in the battery, they could have, should have, used USB C or any other existing connector.
I can’t imagine it wouldn’t. The USB-PD spec can cover a verity of voltage and amperage combinations covering practically any digital electronic device up to 100W.
The only reason it’s not used everywhere, is that it does add complexity to extremely simple and inexpensive devices. This thing is not simple or inexpensive, and it doesn’t draw more than 100W.
Yes, and apple did choose not to, so their customers will praise apple that they got ANOTHER only apple connector!
You can use any USB battery with it, just plug it into the battery pack. Why? Because releasing this without a battery and leaving it to the customer to source one would be super weird.
No you can not? It has a lightning connector and a new apple connector, just wow what apple designs is just e-waste.
Actually, if it breaks you get Apple to fix it. I think anyone who is spending $$3500+ on a portable device knows to be careful with it and doesn’t want it to break.
Anyone who is spending 3500 on a portable toy has more money than sense and isn’t going to worry about it…
Portable toy for you but it is not a portable toy for me, I bought 2 of them for valid reasons and also have more sense than money so I bought the AppleCare insurance on both of them as well, so if there is an issue I can get it fixed.
You can make all sorts of fallacy arguments you want about how this device is not practical for your life and try and paint the buyers of these as selfish, greedy, dumb or whatever else you want but that doesn’t make it true. There are people out, probably a lot of them, that do have a good reason for buying these. For me, as someone who suffers from pretty extreme sensory issues due to my autism and also suffering from ADHD, it is a very useful device to help me get a better handle on my disability. Pair that with my background as a documentary filmmaker and how often I travel, it is an incredibly useful tool for me and its value is worth more than the close to $5000 I paid for each of mine (tax, lens inserts, AppleCare and 1tb storage version). This device gives me much more freedom and ability to work, with limited distractions in many environments I struggled to work in before. Also, I wanted to experiment with the immersive video.
Judge others all you want if that is how you want to spend your time, if it helps you to care that much about how other people spend more money than you are willing to spend on a product that is incredibly useful to them but not to you, so be it. Just seems like a waste of time to me to be that worked up about something you don’t like that much. But you do need to know that there are people these products are made for, they just aren’t made for you… yet, I don’t know if you would even be interested in something like this. I don’t get worked up at all knowing that a double amputee has to spend tens of thousands of dollars to get high tech prosthetic arm that improve their lives immensely or that a filmmaker spends hundreds of thousands of dollars on equipment to do their job or to explore new tech that may help them do their job better.
I saw already MULTIPLE people driving and using it, so i dont think they handle it with care
There are plenty of examples of people doing studies stuff with new technology and people die every day from misusing common items, so your point doesn’t really have much to do with the Vision Pro and more to do with how dumb a small segment of the population is, that did not start with the Vision Pro nor will it end with it. That doesn’t mean that Apple designed the thing poorly so I don’t quite understand your point? Was it Apple shouldn’t have made the Vision Pro because someone decided to drive with it on? Are you advocating that there should be warning labels on everything for every possible misuse of a product and the company that made said product should be responsible for every misuse or do you think we should not be blaming the company and designers of the product and should hold the user responsible? Are you saying we should stereotype all people in a group (Vision Pro owners) based on the actions of a handful of idiots who decided to use it in a way that defies common sense? I don’t think stereotyping groups of people based on the actions of a few is really the right thing to do here.
Just think about it for a moment. Apple made a mask, that when you wear it in your face, projects a 3D animated avatar if you face on the outside. That is so weird, f’ed up and dystopian.
I won’t argue about whether this is dystopian, but the practical reason for the face projection is that they wanted to make this not just something you wear sitting alone in your basement, like most other VR headsets. They wanted it to be usable around other people, at a workplace, with family, etc.
Interacting with someone wearing a full face blind is just weird, so they thought that making the eyes visible would help make this a bit more socially usable.
I’m not sure that’s really going to work out — seems at least as awkward as Google’s failed Glass project — but Apple’s design decision has some merit.
Google Glass really feels smarter in this particular regard.
Also they decided to stuff everything into the headset.
Maybe making it a separate thing and moving as much mass and volume as possible to something worn on your belt or your back would be a better idea. EDIT: But I do understand how this doesn’t fit their marketing.
Especially considering they already put the battery external, if you have to shove a battery in your pocket and run a wire up to your head they might as well have put more of the electronics there too.
It would conserve a lot of weight and space and make it more comfortable to wear
Given the number of TV shows and movies around this topic, I can sense this change coming.
If I have to interact with someone that’s wearing goggles, I might go full Luddite.
People wear those fucking white stalks hanging from their ears when interacting with people. I see gangs of teens hanging out, all having white stalks on their ears and no one seem to care anymore.
It’s not respectful to the person you’re interacting with having those dangling around without showing you actually listen to what’s being said. Of course people will wear these to show off as soon as possible.
But that’s what Apple is trying to change. They don’t call it a VR headset. They don’t even use the phrase “virtual reality” because they don’t want people thinking of it as a VR headset.
Their goal is to get people used to wearing a headset to do normal “real” world things. They want it to be AR, not VR. It’s like getting people used to a touchscreen, or not having a headphone jack, or a big-ass notch in the screen.
Their long-term goal is likely glasses that can do the same things as this headset, but with transparent screens, so that they don’t need the outer display. And then it won’t be VR-first, it’ll be AR-first.
I’m convinced that the only reason they did the eye thing is so they can get micro transactions for people buying custom eyes like cats and aliens and shit.
I think it’s just straight up uncanny valley. Don’t think it’s especially “dystopian” per se.
Honestly cartoon eyes might have actually worked better here.
I don’t think I can agree with this.
The face projection was likely an afterthought. They were already deep into the 3D face scan into avatar world with things like continuity camera and lidar. Granted, I don’t believe they are currently able to reposition the face into a completely different angle (top down into forward facing) with continuity camera, but that’s where their tech was going anyway. And they wanted to be able to have user facial expressions in device regardless.
All they did in this case was slap a screen on the front and display the avatar the thing is already generating, then call it a feature and upcharge with a 1000% markup on the total cost.
It’s a gimmick, that’s all it ever was. Meant to make this look like a sleeker device than it is with some clever marketing.
Not dystopian, just disappointing.
A real semi-transparent mask with a projector with a computer with an open architecture would really be a cool thing. Wouldn’t be VR or AR, of course. Just projecting text and lowres pictures, like Google Glass. But I’d like that, to be frank. Only not just for one eye, that’d cause headaches and anxiety.
It’s a gimmick, that’s all it ever was. Meant to make this look like a sleeker device than it is with some clever marketing.
Typical Apple. Sad when they do that when a much sleeker device or a much better experience actually exists. Like in 2007, ya knaw …
That type of display just isn’t feasible at the moment. We are close, quite close. Likely only a few years away. But at the moment, the only stuff coming close to it would cost at least ten times more than apples already inflated price.
That is so weird, f’ed up and dystopian.
It’s not as weird as the Meta Quest, where you literally have no idea wether the person wearing it is looking at you or not.
The view of someone’s eyes is very low quality - I’ll give you that. But it’s better than nothing at all. And I’m not sure they could’ve done better without doubling the price of the product.
But it’s better than nothing at all.
Although there are better solutions than making a facsimile of real eyes, like putting a user-customisable avatar eye/indicator or something on top, which wouldn’t get quite as uncanny. At least, not any more than wearing a sleep mask with an eye design on top.
The example video of showing wearing the headset and showing the outer display:
https://valkyrie.cdn.ifixit.com/media/2024/02/03103510/Display-Stack_sm.mp4
It is off putting and reminds me of one of the Robocop 2 Prototypes.
Imagine engineering something that complicated only for it to be a disappointing product. I have no doubt it’s a step toward better products but at the same time they could’ve done better. Maybe spend more time polishing the actual parts that matter instead of creating the world’s most complicated weird fake blurry eyes?
I don’t think the blurry eye thing is a major important feature. it’s just the weirdest
That is literally my point. It took a lot to engineer that, which is seen in the teardown video.
sorry. you mentioned the eyes and then said disappointing product in the same sentence. I don’t know if it’s disappointing or not but the stupid eye feature wouldn’t be the thing that disappointed or impressed me.
I’m waiting for a really nice passthrough productivity headset to happen, and I’m glad this is the direction apple wants to go. I’m sure some company that isn’t apple will do it better than this soon.
I don’t think it is a disappointing product, I think it is pretty amazing actually.
Blurry eyes, yeah, that outward facing screen is an interesting choice but it makes sense with that they were going for. Based on all the tech in the Vision Pro I doubt that outward facing screen added much in terms of cost to the Bill of Materials but it is a nifty thing to try out. I’d rather have companies experimenting with this type of thing than only making predictable products over and over again with only minor improvements.
I don’t think it is productive to bad mouth a product that you probably haven’t even tried yet and probably would not be buying anyway.
I own two of them, I have been using it extensively since I picked them up on Friday morning from a nearby Apple Store.
But if that isn’t good enough for you, I also extensively read reviews before purchasing them and have continued to read other people’s thoughts on it.
