It's the same price as Microsoft's Hololens 2, but the tech looks much more impressive, and Microsoft seems to have laid off most of the Hololens development team.
Again, the other things named above were just "Apple tax" expensive, i.e an extra 50% more. This is almost an order of magnitude more expensive. Doesn't Meta Quest go for around 400$, 350$ on sale? Literally a tenth of the price.
I'm not saying they're the same product, it's hard to convince something to pay 10x for a product.
Apple is a company that releases a new platform and keeps iterating on it for year after year.
This version of Apple's hardware isn't intended to be the cheaper mass market consumer version of the tech. That will come later in what has been referred to as Apple Glass.
If you recall, for many years, an iPhone was a luxury status symbol; the equivalent of a mid-range hand bag or a low-end luxury automobile. Expensive, but still within the reach of the an average person with at least some disposable income. It's why everyone seems to have an iPhone and EarPods.
The pro display, like many VR headsets before it, is really a niche product that will be limited to a standard deviation of what I would call "enthusiasts" or "power users".
(1). Even pre-iPhone, having an iPod, especially a premium one, was a status symbol. (2). Non-iPhone devices are generally scoffed at in many circles, green text message bubbles being associated with budget Android devices and not the expensive Android flagships.
> Of course, Vision "Pro" suggests maybe they have a non-pro plan for that in the works already, in which case it would help the ecosystem sustain even more.
Like every other platform products, the V1's audience is... developers. Once there are a few killer apps, Apple will commoditize and unleash a much cheaper version.
Yeah but most people aren't paying for those: their employers are.
I don't think many employers are going to buy such an expensive tool.
(well some people have issues with buying things from Apple and I don't blame them but Microsoft is busy making Windows as unappealing as possible so Apple wins for me)
* Can't afford it
* Don't like MacOS
* Don't like the hardware
* Want a repairable device
* Want a upgradeable device
Who doesn’t like the hardware? Now that the butterfly keyboard and dongles are gone, what is there to hate?
What is unrepairable about macbooks? It’s not an iphone, i ve replaced hard drives, fans and other components on a macbook countless times.
Who really wants an upgradable laptop? I’d give you desktop perhaps, but with laptops i struggle to see the usecase
The things you don’t actually mention, that certain software doesn’t run on mac (ironically used by mechies and industrial designers).
The hardware is okay, I guess. I envy the M1 chips. But I don't like the keyboard layout (even after 3 years it feels off..), or how they've for years not have included necessary ports so it's a dongle-show. I also don't like the value per dollar of their hardware. If my employer pays it's fine, but I wouldn't pay the Apple tax myself.
I'm not here to start a flame war. Just to point out that you speak as if your preferences are a global truth, but plenty disagree.
Non-Apple laptop users are in the minority? You sure about that?
Apple's profitability is irrelevant to my point, btw.
It's ridiculous that I couldn't right-click, click a folder hierarchy, search, or anything! No visible indicators, no hints, no way at all to just get to your dang home directory. I had to Google it and apparently the magic incantation is Cmd+Up. I quickly pinned it to my favorites so I don't lose my home directory again. Ridiculous.
For all of windows pain points, of which there are many, at least I can click "My Computer" and actually see the contents of my computer. Even Linux (Ubuntu) doesn't hide it from you.
Spotlight (cmd space) also means you pretty much never have to navigate to a file/folder.
Fyi home is cmd + shift + h which you can find in the go menu or by search for home in the help menu.
After that navigating folder hierarchies gets way easier.
I use windows for CAD work and macos for everything else and the switching is annoying for sure.
In terms of functionality (given you actually take time to learn the UI paradigms) neither windows or mac are inferior. You can do all the same things on both. So it all really comes down to familiarity such as “i hate using cmd key instead of ctrl”.
I don’t disagree with people saying “i am more used to windows” - it is true. But there is nothing about macos that is worth not liking.
> Who doesn’t like macos? Like it is objectively better than windows, and is able to actually work decently without set up pain (like linux)
Not really objectively better any more, no. With WSL2 developing on Windows is actually pretty darn great. It's the best of both worlds: first party support of most applications and devices that I care about, and a really good OS for development.
> Who doesn’t like the hardware?
Overall Macbooks are almost unbeatable with e.g. the screens or sound for instance. But I still find the port selection to be baffling. It's been many, many years since the release of USB-C and I still need USB-A ports.
I also really do not like the sharp edges on the new Macbooks. They're visually appealing, sure. But if I'm on a train and they're cutting into my wrists it's not great.
> What is unrepairable about macbooks? It’s not an iphone, i ve replaced hard drives, fans and other components on a macbook countless times.
Aha, please try "replacing your hard drive" in your new Macbook.
Also the attitude and track record of Apples behavior towards repair shops is abysmal.
> Who really wants an upgradable laptop? I’d give you desktop perhaps, but with laptops i struggle to see the usecase
You just said you have "replaced hard drives, fans and other components on a macbook countless times" so I struggle a bit with this one.
In general it's a good idea to make devices last longer. Y'know, with the planet being almost being on fire since we're over-consuming? No?
I’m not claiming that windows is somehow “unusable”. Obvs not. But I can’t think of any beef anyone can have with mac os except that some software doesn’t run on it. But I don’t think this falls under the umbrella of “don’t like the os”.
Re: hardware. Again objectively apple has the nicest hardware. That doesn’t mean “perfect” for every user scenario, but I just can’t imagine someone who objectively prefers a chromebook to a macboo because of hardware. I could imagine that during the butterfly keyboard era though.
Re: repairability. You got me there i have not replaced shit in my new laptop. But i have replaced the hard drive and the screen housing on my 2015 macbook it was no more difficult than any ikea assembly.
My 2015 macbook still works totally fine with almost daily use. I recently donated my 2009 imac and it’s probably at the point when it’s unacceptable for any kind of professional use. But in all seriousness how long do you expect a computer to last? I don’t know the answer to that tbh, but I do think that macs are better in terms of longevity than other hardware
The hardware is okay, but overrated, there are far sturdier laptops, especially for protecting the display.
The only macbook I ever had had soldered on RAM. Even the PS4 has a replaceable HDD. Being able to replace the storage is not impressive, it's table stakes. I want a laptop for which every sub-board is replacable(without soldering or a heat gun) so I can repair it indefinitely. Apple also have more expensive parts. This counts as less repairability to me.
I want an upgradable laptop because I like laptops. And I like fast laptops even more. Upgrading the laptop instead of replacing it means less money spent on parts I don't need to replace, meaning I can either save money or spend more on performance.
The upgradability comes with trade offs, in reliability, price, size and weight.
I totally understand how in a perfect world i could just swap parts on my macbook, but if it makes it twice as thick and heavy, with shitty plastic panels everywhere I don’t think I want it all that much
And yes, it's possible to design repairable laptops without making them "twice as thick and heavy, with shitty plastic panels everywhere". This is a made up problem.
If apple are so much better at "design" than everyone else, why are they so much worse at repairability? Is it too hard for Apple? Is that really your argument?
When forced to use it due to being in office or whatever I just ssh into my home setup & control it through Parsec, every time I have to actually use the thing I get the urge to toss it out of a window
It’s buggy AF and Apple is dumbing down the UX/UI every year and customization options are almost non existent.
Also compared to Windows multi-display support is thrash, no window snapping (?!) and Windows seems to be generally more stable.
I work on both windows and macos. I haven’t seen the screen of death on a mac in literal years, but the windows laptop does it weekly.
I’m by no means saying that macos is perfect software. It took apple literal years to fix the airdrop for example. But i would not say it’s more buggy than windows or linux.
Lot's rich people out there, bro. Some of them probably suffered to adapt to Mac OS after years of using Windows, but since every new version of Windows is now a different OS from the UX perspective, they all adapted themselves to Mac OS, because they wouldn't want to be seen in an airport lounge or an expensive coffee answering their emails in plastic Samsung book.
Also, most people never upgraded their laptops, this is simply not an important selling point, and even less in the premium segment. Repairability? From the user's perspective, It is repairable, they have Apple Care, and they drop their broken laptop in a counter, and sometime later they collect a functioning laptop. And why they wouldn't like the hardware? The CPU is fast, it hardly ever heats enough to spin the fans, the screen is great, the keyboard now is good enough, and the touchpad is still probably the best one on the market.
Your plenty of reasons don't seem very solid to me.
> Yeah but most people aren't paying for those: their employers are.
which is wrong, and you seemed to not be aware of that. Your reasons are all arguments why _some_ people don't buy them, and they're obviously correct, but lots of people also do buy them.
I've been using multiple monitors (more than 1 simultaneously) with Macs forever; the experience has gotten smoother with the Apple Silicon Macs, but it worked OK on Intel, and PowerPC before that, and the old classic Macs before that.
Yeah, but we are talking about Pros, not Airs.
When my current MBP dies, I'll be buying the one with the latest chip on the market (although admittedly a lower spec version than I would presumably get from work --- but that's just because I'm not doing planning on doing huge compilations or video editing on it).
This is very much nReal but polished, and those goggles are dim and not as immersive as this. Magic Leap went with the wrong direction it turned out.
No one will be wearing this in public. And if anything, the person in the office using this first will look dorky. So I can't see it having the same appeal.
Exactly the opposite is true among the people I know, FWIW. People feel like dorks wearing AirPods in public, but often find themselves doing it anyway because they're convenient. (I know this, because it still comes up in conversation all the time.)
Exactly the opposite is true among the people I know. People feel like dorks wearing AirPods in public, but often find themselves doing it anyway because they're convenient. (I know this, because it still comes up in conversation all the time.)
Not sure this tells us anything much about the Vision Pro, though--except, perhaps, that some people will happily use the product even if it looks dorky, if the user experience is on point.
My point here is that the visibility of them on others help drive the sales. "If so many wears them, they obviously can't be bad". For this headset, you will not get that same kind of influences from others.
Vision Pro may not benefit from the latter (weaker) form of social endorsement, but it should be able to generate plenty of the former (stronger) kind.
What I'm saying is that airpods are advertising themselves by people wearing them and influencing others to buy them. This headset will not have that effect.
I bought the AirPods because I wanted exactly that. Sadly the batteries died in 1.5 years, so I’m boycotting the AirPods for now.
Nobody I know bought AirPods because they look cool or because they want to show off they’re rich. AirPods are very affordable.. they just work really really well. Why is that so hard to believe?
And yes, people are more aware of items which are visible.. but that’s a different story.
WRT the vision pro, sure you won’t walk around outside with them, but if they work as advertised, they don’t have to.
The M1 air didn’t sell a gazillion times because of its looks. In fact, you couldn’t tell it from the older models, so that point simply is not valid.
People talk, people ask opinions, if the majority of the opinion from experience is positive yes it will result in more sales.
> People said the AirPods Max were overpriced, and I see it all the time in co-work spaces and libraries.
Is absolutely not true in my experience.
> People said the M1 Pros were overpriced; they're literally everywhere, used by almost all of the professionals I know.
And how many of those laptops are corporate assets that were provided by their employer? How many of those professionals actually use Macs anywhere outside of work?
Another great proof point is their annual revenue approaching $400B, selling devices that apparently no one can afford.
1% of people have a PhD - but if you work at a university, you'll see people with a PhD all the time.
Obviously those people are going to be the ones buying this product, like all Apple products.
The salient difference between those devices and this one is: none of those require software developers to do anything special to support them.
Granted, Apple had some success in the past telling developers considering a Mac port of their software "these are not the droids you are looking for."
I'm guessing "full-screen" or similar deep integrations with visionOS will require some custom code. But it seems like most sites + apps could potentially "just work".
And it isn't just about price. There are plenty of AR/VR headsets out there that have the same feature set and are far cheaper, and they still haven't found product market fit. The problem isn't that they need more polish.
With Meta winding down its reality investments Vision Pro is pretty much the last shot this entire sector has. If this device fails then we have no choice but to accept that VR/AR is at best a niche hobby, not the world-changing technology that we so desperately want it to be.
Can you list some of these far cheaper products that have the same feature set?
No it doesn’t. Parent said there were ‘plenty’. Perhaps there is another on your the list that does?
If you are going to claim that Apple’s VR system needs to use meta’s style if controller in order to be successful at gaming, I think that’s short sighted.
No device yet has been able to do it. Vision Pro is the closest so far, but we'll know in 9 months for real.
I probably see people wear them on public transit most often—and when I visited NY the subway was by far the most common place to see them.
Yea, no. I've never seen a pair. I have little doubt someone around here has a pair. They just are not as common as some seem to believe.
They had as many fails as success, we just forgot about them entierly
iPod HiFi iPhone 5C HomePod
And engineering failures:
Trashcan Mac Pro Airpower
There's not many but there are a few.
I don't see this as one of them. The only things thats an issue is the price. The tech looks streets ahead of everyone else. With time the price will come down and the features will grow like all Apple products.
There were failures during Apple’s 80s/90s struggles but not many come to mind in recent decades.
They had as many fails as success, we just forgot about them entirely
With the former well, its something for enthusiasts and something for regular people to save up for.
With the latter it's dismissed as something for another class of people and out of sight and mind.
Apple may have ventured into the latter category here.
Not a great space to be if you want to build a platform and lure developers to build on it. Developers want to have a big market.
Including 3d video recording, which is under-appreciated in many of the threads. Two GoPro Hero cameras + rig would cost minimum $500, and you might have to edit photos and videos in post. And Apple does this automagically for you.
I’m sure we all know the answer to this.
> web engine that's not WebKit?
rofl
The AirPods, Pro Display XDR, even the iPhone were just improved and streamlined improvements of a established products with clear use cases. This is something completely different.. At this point this is just an expensive gimmick. That might change when people figure what they can do with it or it might not.
> it is a phone, laptop and massive display bundled
And the iPad is a general purpose computer..
The response to AirPods was more in line with OP's description, but I don't think the AVP is comparable. Everyone had a need for earbuds, there was relatively little competition in the wireless buds space at the time, $159 was within the realm of possibility for most consumers, and Apple's removal of the headphone jack forced many peoples' hands. The AVP doesn't have any of that going for it.
If this is as good as the demo was showing for pro applications it's revolutionary as a computing interface.
Since you can use it to view your mac's screen it seems there are no app restriction per say, but the built in app I imagine will be like all other Apple walled garden apps only loaded via the app store.
A laptop + high-end headset would be in the same ballpark, at least maybe after deducting $500 or so for the Apple Tax.
i will be cautious to oversell its current use case. like it has been speculated by some youtubers, this might be more of a mvp like scenario like with apple watch in the best case scenario.
although i am glad this is making quest 3 look more acceptable.
Snowball's chance in hell
This is where the product gives me pause. I am very happy to early-adopt this thing but if I cannot "do what I want" then I will pretty disappointed as I would not expect a comparable product to enter the market for another 5+ years as all this specialized hardware experiences commoditization.
I am very happy using my Linux desktop, slightly less happy with my Linux laptop (fingers crossed the 15" Framework changes that" and am not kidding myself by holding any expectations for what the F/OSS A/VR future will look like in the near-to-mid-term.
That aside, I'm curious whether it will be more like the mac or more like the iPhone. Will we be able to "sideload", i.e. install things without papa apple's approval? Can we use a web engine that's not WebKit? Things like that will make the difference for me, not the price.