For example, "killer apps/content" never arrived for 3D TVs and they have largely disappeared from the market. Same with various "waggling" input technologies like the Wiimote and Kinect. There were some compelling uses, like Wii Sports, but these were pretty limited and many other uses of these in games was a case of Nintendo shoehorning the technology into the game.

I think the best pessimist argument is the one offered by Folding Ideas in his metaverse video[1]: Text is really, really useful, and a virtual 3D space is not a good environment for either creating or consuming textual content.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EiZhdpLXZ8Q

Hasn't VR taken over waggle? I don't think you can say its disappeared when the VR install base is in the 10s of millions.

And yet, from a gaming perspective, we still have to crack force feedback and natural locomotion before we have a holodeck. Maybe in 20 more years.

I don't miss multiple monitors so much, but I do often wish for a larger screen. Not enough to put one in my space, though. That's where my interest in the Vision Pro lies - simply a way to project large, high-fidelity, 2d screens.

For less than this headset, I can buy an Ergotron arm and some monitors and have multiple large monitors that have zero footprint on my desk.

No, I can’t take my setup with me when I go somewhere, but I don’t want to.

I have a hard time seeing this become a mass market device. It’ll have its adherents and enthusiasts, but personally find it difficult to imagine even wanting one, let alone using it.

But what do I know, I thought the iPad was goofy. Though I never did end up replacing my gen 2 iPad. Realized I didn’t need it.

I'm on the same boat as you, but ended up just getting a long table so I can move to the empty side when I need it.

I certainly could make adjustments to accommodate a monitor - I just don't want to, and would love for there to be a way to not have to and still get to use a large display.

I don't have a TV at my small apartment but do have two 27 in monitors. Sometimes I wish I had enough space for a sofa and 55+ in TV for movies and shows. And maybe headsets will solve the problem, maybe I don't even need those monitors any more.

Now? I realize I don't need multiple monitors, 2 is enough. (4k is definitely better than 1080p and 2 is better than 1, but I don't think I can properly utilize a third monitor.) And these are good monitors -- not Pro Display XDR good but still premium 4k monitors -- that have been around for years and I'll keep using them until they die. And about movies -- I have tried using the Quest 2/3 to watch movies. It is usable, and apps even provide "scenes" that make you feel you are in a theater. Do I want to wear them and watch movies on a fake 100" screen? No, for obvious reasons (comfort).

If the day comes when they are light, comfortable to wear, allow very good passthrough and actually do a better job than my 4k screens, I'll take another look.

People aren't really that happy wearing even vision eyeglasses, and I don't see any realistic chance we will ever be able to have something with the capabilities of the Vision Pro in a form factor as small and light as eyeglasses.

I see on scifi all the time where someone flicks/flings a video playing on a device to move it to a larger display surface and it kills me that we actually have the technology to do stuff like this right now...but because every company works in their own interests/don't work together to create standards we don't get to have fun use of tech like that.

I'm still full of myself for postponing getting a 3D TV enough times that the technology died.

> Same with various "waggling" input technologies like the Wiimote and Kinect.

... but I have a PS Move gathering dust somewhere. Which I even preordered.

In 1988-94, the CPUs available in desktop computers were substantially more advanced than the widely used operating systems. Windows 3 and Mac System 6/7 didn't support pre-emptive multitasking, memory protection, or many other features that define a modern OS.

Maybe we'll look back at today's Quest and Vision Pro as similar transitional devices with one foot stuck in the old paradigm, running old-style software.

That was partly because RAM was over $100/MB (Nominal; ~$230 inflation adjusted) in 1990. Additionally, in the IBM compatible world, many people didn't have a 386 at that point.

Also, minor nitpick on the dates; 1993 saw OS/2 2.1 and NT 3.1, both of which had preemptive multitasking and memory protection.

I’ve also heard about players spending a lot of time in counter strike games like pavlov.

At this point it seems like there’s a TON of things to do in VR (and I’m gonna be honest, there were a ton of experiences too on the Quest 1 when I had it).

I’m just waiting for more live shows and concerts that I can attend from the Quest personally.

The discontinued WMR Portal, essentially the Window's desktop in VR, was so far the only software that tried to be a full workspace in VR. But even that was missing a lot of important features and Microsoft gave up on it years ago and never made it accessible to non-Microsoft headsets. It's currently scheduled for removal from Windows.

VisionPro seems very similar to WMRPortal so far, with a few key improvements like allowing apps do add 3D objects into a shared space.

It is like VR is currently stuck being Kinect in terms of sales and stickiness, while Meta and Apple would both like it to be at least like the Wii, or ideally the iPad.

Personally I have found social experiences to have the best long-term appeal (i.e. Racket NX or Drop Dead with friends), but even there I am not these apps have sufficient mainstream appeal.

This matches everyone I’ve heard talk about it, too. It was fun, they enjoyed a few things and then at some point they realized that their headset had multiple months of dust on it.

I think the big question is when costs come down to the point where it’d be reasonable for a non-rich family to have enough headsets to use together. Most people mention technical limits (resolution, latency) but the thing which everyone mentioned as a dealbreaker was that putting the headset on was shutting out everyone around them.

I bet these people also have consoles that are collecting dust as well

So the hardware is not good enough yet. It will be good enough when I basically don‘t care, just like I don‘t care with glasses.

Totally agree. I'm waiting for a usable Virtual Desktop app to come out. All the ones I have tried which work on my cheap WMR headset fall short of having floating app windows in view.

I guess there is one of those which works on Meta Quest, but not PC headsets. That's really what you need to be effective working in VR. Just like is mentioned the Apple headset supports.

But other notable ones include Synth Riders, FitXR, OhShape, Pistol Whip, Thrill of the Fight, and (maybe) Gorilla Tag. And this list is far from exhaustive.

VR is pretty good for fitness just because it can make exercising more interesting, comparable to sports without the need to coordinate with other people (and it's easy to do inside your house, if you have at least a 2m x 2m open space). Major downsides would be having that space available and sweat inside the headset.

https://www.meta.com/us/quest/accessories/quest-3-silicone-f...

https://www.meta.com/en-us/help/quest/articles/in-vr-experie...

It turned out the killer Apple Watch feature was fitness, and I don’t see why it couldn’t have been here.

It was fun for a few minutes but not really usable for serious exercise:

- It's heavy and annoying (and this apple product seems even bulkier and heavier). The cable situation is also not great, you need a lightweight cable and ceiling suspension to keep it out of the way, but this is solvable.

- Exercise means you get sweaty. Can't wipe your brow and you have a wet headset on your face.

- You can't see your body and maintain proper form. The VR environment itself is also distracting if you turn your head around to look at stuff moving there.

I much prefer just to have my phone or tablet in fixed place in front of me to watch youtube or some movie.

I really don't think that's the best use-case for VR - if you're doing some kind of virtual rowing, a flat screen is going to offer most of the experience with none of the downsides. VR fitness is really about games that are fun in their own right and happen to be physically active. There's a big cohort of people who hate exercise and would never set foot in a gym, but who will happily spend an hour at their aerobic threshold because they're playing a fun game.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=291LZGxZS5Q

The reason running outside is nicer than on the treadmill is not that you get to look at nicer images. You get to smell fresh air and feel the wind on your body, you get to sometimes interact with people, you get to feel various textures under your feet, you get to move your bodies in more ways as you turn left and right etc.

Rowing outside is even more different, as you get the feel of the water currents and water splashes as well.

VR can mimic none of these things, and it comes with the massive downside of a sweaty face that you can't wipe away.

I agree that progress has been slow in the consumer space and meaningful long-term adoption of VR has been confined to a few niches; that isn't necessarily an indictment of the long-term prospects for VR, because desktop computers spent much longer in that stage than most people remember.

In enterprise, I think things are more advanced and some user groups have decisively gone through the one-way door for some applications. I think the best example is architecture. If you've done a couple of client presentations in VR, you just aren't going back to showing renders on a flat screen, because immersing the client in a physical space is that powerful. It's not just a sales tool, but a communications tool - clients can understand and respond to the environment intuitively and give much better feedback as a result.

Industrial and clinical training is less clearly one-way, but I think we're very close in a lot of areas. AR is still less developed than VR, but I do think we're on the cusp of something significant - a sufficiently comfortable standalone AR headset with sufficiently high-quality passthrough can deliver training experiences that can't practically be replicated through other means.

I think one of the most interesting areas of development is in psychiatry. It's still early days, but we're starting to see real, meaningful benefits in RCTs for VR-based therapy of disorders like phobia and PTSD. Some of the most compelling results have been in the very sickest patients - people with psychosis, who often find it impossible to engage with conventional psychotherapy.

https://www.psy.ox.ac.uk/research/oxford-cognitive-approache...

I don't think it's remotely likely that VR will ever replace flat screens, but I do think that VR is slowly growing into a niche but durable HCI platform. Tablets are a reasonable analogy - a lot of people see them as a failure, but they still sell in serious volume and they're often a much better form-factor for specific applications than either a phone or a laptop, especially in industry. Tablets didn't change the world, but nor are they likely to go away.

WebGPU and WebXR are the two big enablers going forward. With WebGPU, developers have a common way to access hardware and that's a big deal across all your devices. A common way to access the hardware that gets you real-time 3D graphics, machine learning, crypto, etc. that works on your phone, tablet, laptop, headset, whatever is a big deal. And it's not just for anyone with Apple gear, but anyone with a compatible browser. Think generative AI/ML streaming Gaussian splats to your retinas via a browser. That's where we're headed.

Need an OR to explore a phobia of surgery? Sketchfab has you covered: https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/charite-university-hospital-...

The reason the software doesn't exist is because compelling hardware doesn't exist for it to run on, so nobody bothers to write it.

Apple is imagining this device will be used for productivity but it's still painful to actually wear for long periods. We're a long way from being limited by software instead of hardware.

How about enabling AIs to create layouts of information on behalf of the user? Like, what if an AI could arrange all of your information for you in a scheme derived from Archy?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archy_(software)

It's a 600+ grams headset with a battery on a leash for $3500. I wouldn't say the hardware is mainstream ready or fulfilling it's side of the contract yet.