I'm not sure what the demand frenzy is for an unproven $3500 VR headset with no killer app during an economic slowdown.

I'll be getting one to use for coding. One person does not a demand frenzy make, but having 'infinite' monitor space is a killer app to me.

What does Apple's virtual monitor provide over the N existing virtual monitor solutions that you've waited this long? Honest question as this tech has been around for ages.

The above comment doesn't deserve to be downvoted, it's a legitimate question. I myself was excited at the idea of VR to replace monitors, until I realized that making use of all that theoretical space would require me to crane and twist my neck at extreme angles for extended amounts of time. Upon reflection, it seems strictly worse than just making use of your OS's built-in support for virtual workspaces, where switching between them takes only a simple keypress rather than contorting my body.

I could see a combination is eye tracking + alt tab to work for vr

The eye tracking sounds like a killer feature (I can imagine how it could enable reading with touchless, perfect, infinite scrolling). Sadly, from my brief read of the docs, it seems like Apple doesn’t allow apps to access what people are looking at (“to preserve privacy”) though.

Higher quality screens at a lower weight-on-your-head than anything else on the market.

1. There is only so big before you have to crane your neck, which existing screens can reach.

2. My existing monitor is already really light on my neck.

I don't see any benefits.

1. Not having to sit at your desk where your monitor is. You can switch to sitting on a couch or in a recliner or walking on a treadmill or on your porch.

2. Taking it with you easily. You have the same large screen (s) with you in the hotel room or at your in-law’s or at the cafe (people might look at you weird but this is a massive flex regardless)

maybe there are no benefits for you. I’m going to get one since I have 450sqft total and nowhere to put a monitor.

It's all about the branded polishing cloth, obviously: https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MM6F3AM/A/polishing-cloth

As a person who wanted VR monitors, I backed the original Oculus Dev Kit 1 a decade ago, and it was terrible for that purpose. So I got the DK2, and the Vive, and the Index afterwards, trying each.

The Index pretty much has it -- it's doable. I can read comfortably in there, or watch a youtube video and not feel like I'm getting some grainy, crappy version, but it's just barely there. It's very heavy and hot, though, so I almost never choose to use it.

The claimed resolution of the Vision Pro is unbelievably larger than the Index. I forget what the numbers were exactly, but they claimed to be able to virtualize "multiple 4k monitors" or something, and the per-eye resolutions _actually supported that_.

The next thing is: it's gotta be reasonably light, balanced, and cool, so I can wear it for an hour and not get intense neck pain or nausea. I'm skeptical but, hey, we gotta keep trying.

If it hits those points: it'll be a great virtual monitor and a lot more.

There are other high resolution headsets on the market right now at comparable or less cost than the vision pro.

Such as?

Pimax 8k has been around for years: https://pimax.com/product/vision-8k-x/

Apple’s headset claims to be >4K per eye, which is what the “8k” headsets of today offer.

But they don’t have as compelling latency, hand tracking, or app development toolkits

wdym by latency? From what I can find the vision pro is 90hz which is the minimum for sota headsets with 120 being targeted by higher end devices. There are lots of hand tracking solutions for headsets that don’t have it built in but for a lot of interactions you want more than one button anyways. I’d rather have my pick of engines and SDKs through the open XR standard then be stuck with whatever Apple cooks up.

Having something on my face all day and looking like a minor burn victim for an hour after isn’t worth all the space in the universe.

If it's that uncomfortable, then I won't be buying one either. I hope they've worked out how to avoid that, ahem, result.

$3k is a lot of money and I already bought 4k monitors, desk, etc..

MacOS seems to have pretty spotty monitor settings stability, I'm regularly having to fix a setting that was forgotten for no reason.

Activating PIP mode on my 4k monitor causes OSX to shit itself as it rearranges everything, which is odd because there is no perceptible change to OSX's understanding of my monitors. This means my 4k monitor is somehow reporting PIP as a change in monitors (basically snitching on me) when I'm PIPing in an unrelated device.

Ubuntu, Debian, Garuda don't have this behavior. They remember settings better and don't shit themselves when PIP gets activated.

For reasons like this, I'm skeptical that Apple Vision Pro will do a great job at the monitor replacement angle.

However, I'll follow that closely and probably wait for a gen 2.

They think it'll be another goldrush and want to be the one with the killer app before the novelty wears off and the shovelware takes over.

"Beneficial" ? Are you a scalpel ? Only scalpels benefit from that shit...

It may create demand for the hardware, but it will diminish demand by developers to make apps for it, knowing the audience will be small. And Apple has an ecosystem to bootstrap here. If they fail, the whole platform will die.

I'll be curious how they navigate the difficulties of getting this category to self-sustainability.

It’s good, however, it’ll be able to run macOS and iOS apps on virtual flat panels.

I haven’t looked into the SDK and what it offers, but I read it’s not full room immersive as some gaming sets are.