For those interested in the Vision Pro, let me know what questions you have about the device. I’ll be getting mine this afternoon and will be trying out all the features.
Here are some helpful links:
Apple User Guide
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- How long can you comfortably wear it?
To be honest though, I’m more interested in the type of person who wants one. I’m not judging, I just don’t understand why a healthy* adult would want one in it’s current state.
- What are you going to be doing with it? Work? Consuming content? Etc.
- This might be too personal but, are you single? do you have a partner? Kids? If you live with literally anyone else, how do you feel the dynamics will change, if at all, when you throw a Vision Pro into the mix?
*if someone has a disability, yeah, VR and AR might really help them out in their day to day activities, especially with the eye tracking tech it has. Even being able to see environments that they might not normally get to experience in real life would probably be pretty novel
I mean, the rest of us have had proper VR headsets for ten years. Lots of “normal” people in VR now. Mixed reality headsets barely get in the way of socializing with other people in your room, while adding socializing with people not in your room.
It’s about the same as socializing with someone watching TV or playing a videogame on a TV or computer monitor. Even without seeing their game/app/document/show it’s pretty easy to determine on sight if they are currently too engaged to properly hold a conversation.
Doing work in VR is about the same as outside of VR, but with the possibility for less distractions and a more organized work area. There are no longer any tradeoffs in modern headsets now that they rival the clarity of a comfortably positioned monitor or TV. And can display many such virtual screens wherever you want them to be.
But, those possibilities don’t mean you -have to- shut yourself off, how much you want to be distracted by outside stuff is entirely up to you and the people around you. If you prefer to be interrupted, as many people with family do, it’s just as possible to keep your work space contained to a single screen and to work with the outside world pouring in at all times.
As for gaming, you have every option. You don’t have to only play games where you are physically partaking in the adventure. But you have the option to when it’s the right kind of gaming for that situation. You also have the option of sitting on your living room recliner with the rest of the family watching TV or a movie or playing a game, and you have an additional virtual screen beside the real TV with your work or game or different TV show on it. And with non-apple headsets, each member of your family can financially reasonably have the same option. One family shared screen to socialize with, and one personal screen. And before you ask, yes there are parental controls for VR headsets.
While the minimum age for VR has legally been 13 for most of the past 10 years, it has recently reduced to 10. Though many people started their kids as early as 4-5 years old, and those kids are perfectly healthy teenagers now. As with all other digital content, it’s best to know what they are actually doing in VR. You have a range of options all the way down to literally seeing the video feed of their headset in real time, or as minimally invasive as just seeing what programs they are launching/playing. For younger kids, it’s best to not play anything online. Not only for them, but for the rest of us, lol.
And for people that have been in VR 8 hours a day for 10 years now, there have been no negative health issues. And actually compared to people who spend 8 hours a day watching TV or playing traditional videogames on a screen, the VR users are significantly better off on average. While that is only the extreme of 8 hours a day, it illustrates the point most effectively. Spending less time doing any is generally better, but the subset of VR players that spend most of their time in active games were better off than the average person that spent less time doing any. Because obviously just sitting for long periods of time is the main problem. But there were no detriments to vision in the VR players, which makes sense as, if anything it is again possible to be more healthy to our eyes in VR than staring at any other screen.
I don’t mean this to sound insulting but for regular people, the VR headsets of the last 10 years have been toys. You couldn’t really do work on them due to the low res screens. It wasn’t until recently that the screens have gotten decent enough to actually use for work. (Vision Pro, Bigscreen VR, others I’m not aware of)
Yes, you can still socialize with people irl but it’s not the same. It’s not the same as being able to sit down next to someone you care about, watch a show they were already watching, and share an experience with them. It’s very much a 1 experience per person per headset sort of thing. I’m not saying this is bad, more of just an observation/opinion
So from what I can tell, the Vision Pro is like strapping an iPad to your face. Yes you can still do work on it but it can’t replace a Mac (yet) and it only allows you to make one virtual screen per paired Mac. If it could make more virtual screens, I could accept the Vision Pro more than I do now. At the moment, a Mac or PC and 2 or 3 monitors seems like the better buy
I don’t have a problem with VR gaming, but this is Apple, almost none of the games people want to play support Apple hardware. So I see the Vision Pro as being way too expensive if you just intend to play games on it.
I don’t really have an issue with anything ND you said regarding children and VR. I understand why kids want VR because, with current tech, it still seems like a toy. I want to know what adults are doing with these things. More specifically, I want to know what adults whom are similar to me, are doing with these headsets.
I think you focused a little too much on when I said “healthy adult”. I didn’t mean to say VR is unhealthy, I just meant that I understand why people with disabilities would have more use for these than healthy people.
My opinion on the Vision Pro is that, in its current form, it’s really limiting for $3500. The tech is really cool, don’t get me wrong, I can see some uses for it, but atm, it still seems like an expensive experience you can’t share with others irl. Long term, I’m bullish on AR/VR, but for now, the compromises are off putting
The only part of this that I agree with is the “last 10 years have been toys”. The Vision is the best VR headset I’ve ever used and I fully expect it will be jailbroken or that games will release for it. I backed the Oculus kickstarter and have bought a new headset every generation since and this one blows them all out of the water.
Quest 2 and the other headsets of that generation were the turning point. That was when you could finally do a good looking 1080p screen in VR. Quest pro and Quest 3 are about equivalent to 1440p in actual pixels at a comfortable field of view, but in perceived clarity they are as good as 4k. Mainly the pancake lenses helped, VR has always been able to show more digital clarity than the physical equivalent in pixels on a real screen, since it’s got that free temporal antialiasing from your micromovements of your head/neck. But the old lenses really robbed alot of that potential clarity.
I for sure wouldn’t spend the money on a vision pro, and not just because I don’t have anything else from the apple ecosystem to use it with. That is just too high of a price for a household object to me. A 500 dollar headset and 3000 dollar PC would be a way better use of money.
But I’m glad the vision pro exists. I think Apple getting involved in something helps normal people see it as a real thing finally. I do think the vision pro is worth the price it costs in the sense that there isn’t alot of mark up there. The tech they put in there is roughly in that ballpark, but I agree that it isn’t quite good enough to replace a desktop, and there isn’t a huge need for a VR headset that replaces a laptop. I certainly will stick to 500 dollar headsets as they steadily approach that same power level. Honestly, at the rate mobile chipset upgrades go, it’s like 3 years behind laptop power at any given point. Not a huge wait.
A Quest 3 is already in a pretty good place compute power wise. Games already look pretty good, it can stream incredibly high quality video, and having the equivalent of multiple 4k screens all within that relatively tiny price point, hard to compete. But competing is important, and I do hope vision pro does well enough to keep it’s line going. I do like that they made sure there was an official source for 3D movies for the vision pro. I like watching 3D movies in VR, but there was no easy source currently still. You have to get them yourself, whether by playing or ripping the disk on a pc, or streaming them in low quality unofficial apps, or by just straight up illegally downloading them. There was no official store front for real high quality 3d movies in VR yet.
I wonder if they have any future plans for whatever apple would end up calling PCVR. It’s not just for much better looking games, there are also useful apps that benefit from real computer power instead of laptop power.
I am also not a big fan of “bespoke” headsets. Any of the ones that try to make it only fit one person best. Even the most uncomfortable headsets are able to be a comfortable 8 hour general use headset for less than 100 dollars of after market mods. VR headsets should be for sharing, especially at those kinds of prices. I think more awareness of the aftermarket and third party scene should be a goal.
Like the smartphone market, VR headsets have alot of options for customization, and alot of those options make a huge difference for very little cost. I’ve got a huge head, basically the biggest most VR headsets can even support, and I also share my headsets with pretty much everyone I know, including my nieces and nephews, one of which actually had a head size below the minimum when she started. We just put a sweatband on her before the headset and she was good.
With a halo strap and swappable battery system, Quest 2 and 3 were good to go for hours on everyone I had try it. Quest 1 actually didn’t need anything for comfort other than a counterweight, so I added a 10k mah battery to it, an anker slim. Immediately bringing it to 8 hours of comfortable run time. The pro only needed a new forehead piece, so I got one that was cloth covered memory foam, and then put that same anker slim on it. Speaking of the Quest pro, it was hard enough to spend 1000 dollars on a VR headset. But the eye and face tracking were nice, I still use that one for social VR stuff. But the Quest 3 for anything else.
I basically live in VR, I come out to eat and sleep, and most of the time when I leave the house. Not every time, sometimes I bring the headset with me. But I’m not technically in VR most of the time, I’m in mixed reality. I am certainly what people would call a VR evangelist, I do get any of the people that express interest to try it. I know there is a very good chance my VR demo is likely the best one they have ever gotten, mostly cuz it’s often the first, but also because it’s actually pretty hard to keep in mind all the best practices of doing VR demos.
I’ve gotten pretty good at giving impromptu demos to strangers. I always have sanitary covers in my VR bag. And I can eyeball their head size and pupil distance and pick the most likely experience for them. Though I do still let it be their choice, just with my recommendation. And once they are in the headset I do confirm the fit and pupil distance. But having them pre-set pretty close really cuts down on the more uncomfortable parts where a stranger has to be really close to them. And if the fit and clarity are close enough, I can completely skip that even. You don’t need perfect in a modern headset for it to blow their mind.
I got to do the demo today, and I was pretty bullish on the passthrough before trying it.
I was still super impressed. Obviously people in the room can see you have the headset on, but outside of a very little noise, it looks almost exactly the same as not wearing it.
Got mine today.
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I wore it for about an hour comfortably and tried Safari, djay, AppleTV, Encounter Dinosaurs, and then watched Thor: Ragnarok in 3D from start to finish. I was comfortable the whole time but you can definitely feel that you have something on your face and head. The only place I feel any discomfort (and it’s more of just a pressure than discomfort) is on my cheeks where the headset rests. Pretty similar to others I own (Quest, Vive, Index, etc) but it is a little heavier.
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I will be working with it (content and media production) and watching a lot of movies. My wife’s schedule for work is offset from mine so being able to watch 3D movies in bed while she’s sleeping would have been reason enough for me to buy it. The other stuff is icing for me. Additionally, I didn’t know this but all my movies in my iTunes/Apple Library that have a 3D version are available for me to watch in 3D at no extra charge. My library just shows up like any other device but it prompts me to choose 2D or 3D on playback start.
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I don’t anticipate this changing anything. I don’t plan on using it while my wife is home unless she’s sleeping or watching something else on the main TV in our house. We also have had other VR headsets before and our office is zoned with the Index base stations so I think my usage will start similarly to that - occasional or when I know she won’t be around. One thing that is really different already and I find cool is that the Vision detects people and highlights them in my view and then turns on the weird EyeVision thing (or whatever it’s called) so that my wife knows when I’m actually interacting with her vs whatever is on the headset. If I’m still engaged on the headset, she just sees a rainbow swirl effect until my eyes focus to her and then the Apple googley eyes pop out. We FaceTimed with it too and Personas are cool but will make you look like a sex offender for the first few minutes until the newness wears off and then it’s a decent enough approximation to be serviceable for its intended purpose.
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Must watch ads.
I’m wondering if you can use a virtual desktop with an Apple silicon Mac mini
Also wondering how well steam link works
You can indeed have a virtual monitor from a mac mini, I have to initiate it from the mini though, no option comes up like it does on an m1 laptop
Haven’t tried steam link yet
There’s an option within control center to mirror any nearby Mac and initiate from the headset. I mirrored my MacBook from upstairs without interacting with it at all and initiated that from the headset.
Can you share a goofy video walking around in public with it or holding a serious face to face discussion while wearing it?
i wonder what formats it supports… like can you go to safari and view 3d objects easily? 3D videos? VR180 videos? VR360 videos? google cardboard type apps? street view? vrml?
As someone who is virtually blind without glasses, how does it work for those of us that have to wear glasses?
I have PSVR2, but until I get my new prescription and a special pair of glasses that fit into the headset I am unable to use it.
Wearing glasses with the Vision Pro is not really an option. You need a pretty tight fit for it to work properly. There are prescription magnetic inserts that can be ordered for $149.
I’m nearsighted, and the inserts I purchased are extremely easy to put in and remove. You would need to check if they can work with your prescription.
Thanks. This has been the most disappointing thing for me with vr headsets.
also you may try contact lenses?
Due to the damage of my eye I have been told they are not an option.
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When I signed up for an in store demo, it included questions about vision. It sounds like they might be able to have matching optics available for you to actually try out for yourself if you have access to an Apple Store.
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Anyone else having an issue with the brightness from the moonlight apps stream?
