This is a great idea even if the hardware was quite different. I honestly can't imagine developing for visionOS armed only with a simulator. And since Apple afaik doesn't have a hardware devkit, this sounds miles better.

Apple Vision Pro hardware dev kits will be available later this year: https://developer.apple.com/visionos/work-with-apple/

Good to know, thanks.

You don't think Apple will have a problem with running their OS and software on non Apple hardware? I would expect this to be "fixed" soon.

> You don't think Apple will have a problem with running their OS and software on non Apple hardware?

That's not what's happening here. It's just streaming data.

This is like fancy VNC. Apple doesn't have any problem with VNC, in fact they explicitly support it.

I think Apple can feel fairly safe that the experience will always be so hacky and low quality that it's not going to be a threat to Vision Pro. In the meantime it helps developers get a head start developing for Vision Pro which is only good for Apple.

They have three trillion reasons to protect their IP from appearing on the lenses of a Meta Quest or an HTC Vive. All it takes is for the wrong person to post on Threads or Twitter and a pontificator to bloviate into the wrong podcast and it all winds up on a Bloomberg terminal. AAPL has a lot riding on this.

If you imagine a scenario where this works well enough that it's a viable alternative to actually buying a Vision Pro for development ... I can forsee it being a problem for them in terms of (a) direct sales - I could easily see shops fitting out their dev team for 1/4 the cost with Quest Pros instead of Vision Pros but more importantly (b) concern that it will lead to crappy apps being developed. That is, devs using non-Apple hardware will naturally curtail what they build to things that actually work in the dev hardware they are using. That means advanced features of the real Vision Pro won't get properly supported (or omitted altogether).

Of course, that is still miles away from where this is now. But it seems tantalising that it could possibly go there.

I don't think in the short term Apple will budge: neither the Vision Pro nor the dev toolkit are available, so lack of apps is probably a larger issue than some apps not utilizing the Vision Pro to its fullest extent.

Longer term, we will see...

* * *

At 7 million vs 23 million pixels I’d avoid trying to design anything with smallish text

This is the simulator, not the actual OS.

Yeah, it seems fully in the spirit of the “hacker” part of Hacker News. I thought it was cool.

Apple has problems with anyone referencing an apple, so I wouldn't count on that.

I think Zuckerberg did mention they already explored the same things. Must have made a conscious decision not to due to production costs.

Only Apple can charge a high premium and still have others pay

They can charge a premium because they never sacrificed quality in any systemic way (obviously you can comment with your pet issues but the bottom line is that they kept the quality bar very high).

Some immediately jump to Harvard MBA teachings that caused this, or capitalism, whatever. In my opinion a deep focus on quality is rare in any business. It is very hard to scale and keep in your DNA. One reason small businesses continue to be formed and attract customers (beyond “buy local” pandering) is that solid small businesses are run by dictators that create an entity that is an extension of themselves, sacrificing nothing. Therefore they can charge a premium.

I patronize businesses that maintain their quality and I pay for it. Life is too short and I have too much spare cash not to. Apple achieves such standards. You may have to upgrade hardware every few years but that’s part of the price.

Sorry but could you mention some of these other business you talked about?

It's cheaper than HoloLens.

You're not wrong. $3499 Vision Pro vs $3500 HoloLens 2.

> the Quest Pro is almost on par with the features of the Vision Pro (except Lidar)

I find this questionable given the reviews people have given Vision Pro. I have used quest pro, and it is pretty good as a high end gaming style headset but nowhere near the experience people describe from Vision Pro.

I don’t know about how this will play out between them, but I agree that these sorts of hacks are never a bad thing.