Freeing up your hands for comfort and intuitiveness.

On the contrary, I think the passthrough will be one of the defining differences to other headsets for the time being. Not having anything to hold in your hand while you go ahead and do non-VR things in your real environment adds a layer of convenience that's hard to appreciate from product videos. The improved passthrough, as bad as it still is, is one of my favorite additions on the Quest Pro.

What other things and how often though? Is it worth it losing the improved precision of the controller (and adding so much more complexity and battery use)

I think Facebook should consider usign only 1 controller though (i know I do). Also, to put the battery in the controller and tether it to the headset to make it even lighter. If apple is using a tether then it's ok to do it

I wonder if passthrough can be done mechanically, by rotating the lenses to a hole

That really depends on what you're doing with the device I guess. For gaming, controllers will remain indispensable, and you're planning to disconnect from the real world for a while anyways.

For everything else, quickly being able to grab a snack or drink, respond to a phone notification or change the place you're using the device from reduce friction.

It might be enough to push VR over that "I don't want to use the device because I don't want to commit to not doing anything else for at least 30 minutes now" hurdle that still very much exists.

That being said, I have no doubt Meta is going to be able to get there in due time too.

It's more about not having to perform a ritual before using the headset, like making sure the controllers are charged, and picking them up.

When you are holding controllers, you can't interact with the environment and people around you naturally, like how Apple showed it in the videos, before "reversing" the ritual.

Apple also wants users to plug it in and use it all day. You can't do that with the limit of controller battery.

Apple wants users to charge their earbuds, their watch, every day in order to listen to music and track their oxygen. These could all be integrated into the phone, but they chose not to, in order to sell more products. Everyone does this thing nowadays

So I can drink my coffee, use my keyboard, or eat my popcorn.

assuming that handtracking doesnt confuse you eating popcorn with pinching gesture. But anyway i hope your headset doesnt smell of popcorn and coffee afterwards

They showed that exact activity a couple times, fwiw, and my headphones don't retain smell so I don't imagine the set will.

As a quest pro owner, I can tell you that trying to do anything with your hands, such as take a sip of coffee, is extremely awkward, and so is the act of attempting to pick up the controllers after setting them down to do something. Same goes for handing off the headset for someone else to have a turn. There’s always this super awkward controller transfer and they fumble to orient them the right way in their hands, frequently accidentally swapping left and right and then discovering it’s hard to swap them without dropping them because you have to hold both in one hand.

Not having the controllers at all would be very nice for this. Not sure it’s worth losing the haptics though.

And given how little you actually touch the headset, you’d really have to be some kind of sloppy maniac to end up with it “smelling of popcorn and coffee.”

Another annoying thing about having your hands full is when you want to take the headset off briefly, eg to answer the phone. You need to find a place to set the controllers so you can use both hands to take it off. And unless you’re using passthrough, you’re blind to where you can set them down. Then when you put it back on, you need to then find the controllers. My usual routine is to intentionally break the guardian barrier so I can see well enough to find a table to put the controllers on. Without controllers, I’d just reach up and remove the headset in 2 seconds.

There’s a reason that all the drinks containers that Apple showed in their videos on the Vison headset had closed lids and straws.

You can’t easily drink out of an open topped container whilst wearing a headset, so without highlighting that (minor) issue, they wanted to plant the idea of having a sealed container with a straw on your desk as a solution before you ran into the problem yourself.

It's not to free the hands. The primary reason to go for this interface is comfort and ergonomics. Holding up your hands in the air for prolonged amounts of time is hard. We use keyboards and mice because we can rest our hands with them.

Apple's approach avoids that and lets your eyes do the selection, while still using your fingers for the clicking, thus giving you the responsiveness you are used to (i.e. no weird "hover over icon for one second to active").

Also according to people that tested it, it feels extremely natural, basically like mind reading, since the moment you look at something, you can click it. There is no separate step where you have to look at something and then also have to navigate your laser pointer over it to activate it.

As for passthrough, I think that will become extremely useful and commonly used when combined with the depth sensor, as it allows you to partly fade in and out pieces of reality. You can have a virtual office on the moon, but the desk in front of you, is still your actual real desk, while all the displays on it are virtual.

> approach avoids that and lets your eyes do the selection,

I m not sure if they use the eyes as a pointer. It sounds very imprecise to me.

They have some quite extensive developer documentation and video dealing with how to design apps around eye tracking and maximize the precision of it:

* https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2023/10073