This is MKBHD’s third video about the Vision Pro, and I agree with pretty much every point he makes. I think he does a good job of pointing out how most of the decisions that went into this device come with real tradeoffs, but in practice it’s still a really cool start for Apple’s foray into AR/VR/“spatial” and the tech on it’s own is still impressive.
Personally, I am very interested to see what visionOS 2.0 brings, as the timeline of this device’s announcement and subsequent release lines up with what happened with iOS v1 → v2. My [educated] guess is that most of what is on visionOS right now is quite close to what was running on the media demo devices at WWDC last June, and that most of the core visionOS development time has been spent on 2.0, not on polishing 1.0.
I’m sure there’s been a ton of polish work, and I’m sure some of the various app teams at Apple have been spending time porting their apps to visionOS, but new feature work on the core OS has likely been slated for v2 for quite some time.
WWDC ‘24 could bring a lot of cool quality of life things that make this version of the hardware even better.
Can I vent for a second? The Apple Vision Pro reviews are out, and this is the part of the review cycle I forgot I hated so much…
Is this the first augmented reality goggle or platform? No, far from it. Is it a fundamentally different approach to AR compared to other headsets? Only partially (due to the eye tracking + finger controls).
But almost every single review is reviewing this headset by pointing out all of the shortcomings:
“there are almost no native apps for it”
“it’s heavy”
“the battery is clunky”
“the screens aren’t as good as looking at the world through your own eyes”
“Personas aren’t good”
“the EyeSight screen on the front is awful, and a waste of tech/money/weight/battery power”
Those takes are all incredibly uninteresting to me and super easy to make. Just like when Apple laminated the glass on the iPhone and it seemed like you were directly touching the screen, or when we went to “Retina” density displays, or ProMotion brought smoother scrolling, or OLED for better battery life and color accuracy… this device is a first generation product offering, and it will get better.
I totally understand that most reviewers are trying to answer the same question from consumers: “is this thing worth $Y of my hard earned money?”, and I’m totally ok with the answer to that question being a flat “no”, but it’s just depressing to me that the AR platform space gets a huge push forward by Apple and almost every single person who gets their hands on it is falling over themselves to be a negative ned.
This post from “Matrix Agent” came across my Mastodon feed, and I couldn’t agree more:
there is NO reason any of us should have to “thrive in a fast paced environment” or “work well under pressure.” most of our daily work is not an emergency and our culture of fake urgency and immediacy just to make more profit for people in the c-suite is burning people out.
stop sending people into fight or flight and expecting them to bend over backward because you dont know how plan or manage resources properly
I often need to remind myself that most things at work are not worth stressing over. It doesn’t really matter if something is a little late and it’s definitely not worth your health. Work can wait.
There has been a lot of press around changes to the App Store lately.
First there was a US court decision that forced Apple into allowing apps to include an “alternate payment link”, and just yesterday they announced a sweeping set of changes coming to the EU App Store due to the Digital Markets Act (DMA) that is scheduled to come into effect in March.
Both of these legally mandated changes are being implemented in such a way as to do the absolute bare minimum required and make everyone who decides to use the new options pay for it.
There are people who’s “brand” is deliberately missing the point. Doesn’t matter what the issue, they’ll find a way to get it wrong. Rather than assume they’re unintelligent, it’s helpful to ask yourself why they might want to get something wrong in such a public venue… 🤔 (hint: social media interactions with “dumb” posts is always 10x higher than scientists or authors making well-reasoned points)
The truth since the beginning of the internet: don’t feed the trolls. 🫡