Dear Linus: Let's talk about Apple Vision Pro Price

[PaMoGa]

Dear Linus, I watched your comments on Apple Vision Pro on the stream on Wednesday with Alex and how it would be more fun to buy six Meta Quest with your friends to have room level VR experiences.

I was surprised about this comments as they seemed contradictory with some of your own choices and experiences.

 

Starting with your own VR setup, you seem to love to play VR games, you have a 2000-3000 PC connected to a 1000 dollar Valve Index and a bunch of base stations hardwire all over a room. I have to ask why did you decide that was better than buying six Meta Quest with your friends and have room level VR experiences if that is more fun. You can answer this yourself in your own video, but I am going to guess that you think that visual quality in VR does matter, that better tracking does matter and that to enjoy your VR you really do not care if all your friends have the same VR setup or not.

 

Beyond your own VR setup, LTT channel specializes in gaming PCs and components, and I have never seen once of your videos after building a 3000 dollar PC with a 1000 dollar GPU, go and tell the audience, "well this does not make any sense, go and buy six Xbox (or Meta Quest for that matter) and you will have more fun" and the analogy is similar between the Meta Quest and Apple Vision Pro.

Given how hard Apple is pushing the use of Apple Vision Pro as a movie watching experience, I suggest you start your review comparing it to your 13,000 dollar 120 inch TCL TV. You can even buy 4 Apple Vision Pro for that price if you want to have the movie experience with your friends, and you will still be saving money as you do not need to spend tens of thousands building and painting the dark room. Apple Vision Pro will provide a home theater experience for those who can not spend 10s of thousands of dollars in a sick home theater like yours. Not only that, but it will be a better home theater experience in many cases becase you can have a home theater while commuting on the train, while traveling on a plane, and you will certainly have a better 3D movie experience compared to your 13,000 dollar 120 inch TV. It will additionally give you unique VR theater experiences like watching NBA games from inside the stadium, driving in a F1, or being in the middle of a safari.

 

You have mentioned many times that you are a fan of folding phones, even though they are 2-3x times more expensive than a similarly equipped phone and the display lasts 2-3 years before it is all creased. That is because you have mentioned how much you like that when you need it you can open a larger display. Apple is pushing in his marketing Apple Vision Pro as a computing device, that is because it is an iPad Pro that has a 360 degree display with perfect 4K resolution at any point of those 360 deg and a sound system better than any laptop you can buy, and when you are done, everything goes in the backpack. Is that not worth 3x the price of the iPad Pro the same way as the folding phones are worth 3x a similar Android? 
We know that you see the iPad with contempt as a computing device because of the lack of sideloading, but that is you, Apple sells 30 million iPads every year, and Mac Address showed you few months back how many people are switching to iPads as their main computing device. That is because any manager or executive can do 100% of their job in an iPad, because other than Office, email, and slack, not much more is needed.
Apple Vision Pro is not just an amazing home theater, but also the best iPad Pro than money can buy.

 

Finally Apple is pushing Apple Vision Pro as an amazing 4K monitor for the MacBook. Apple Vision Pro can give you a 4K monitor that is double the size of the 2,700 dollar 55 inch Samsung Odyssey G97NB, and you are able to take it with your laptop in your backpack. So it is not just a sick home theater and the best iPad Pro but also the best MacBook monitor that you can get.

 

Now we all know that LTT audience is a PC gaming audience, so let's be clear on what Apple Vision Pro is not, it is not a gaming device. Sure, you can take a PS5 controller and play Apple Arcade, but that would be the same as commuting with a Boeing 747 in the middle of downtown Vancouver, not the very fast or cheap way to do that.

 

And while Apple seems to be certainly proud of their Personas, it is obvious to me that it is not a communication device. Sure, it is amazing that they have managed to make it work so that you can still have a presence, but I do not think that people run to their Meta Quest when they want to chat, and I do not expect that to be a main use either. So you can use the Personas to introduce humor to the video like The Verge already did, having fun with the frozen hair, but in my mind, other than to have some funny memes, focusing on the Personas or the Eyesight is missing the point of the device. It is kind of when people focus on the dynamic island in their reviews of the iPhone, sure, it is a design for people to differentiate the device, but it makes little difference to the actual user experience.

 

I look forward your Apple Vision Pro review. I am a big fan of your videos.

 

Take care!

PS: As someone who works with displays, I am pretty sure that the goo than was coming out of ElectroBoom display was OCA ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_optically_clear_adhesive ). It happens with some crappy displays when they get exposed to too much sunlight or heat often and the seal eventually opens.
 

[GuiltySpark_]

This is some wild parasocial rambling. You may want to evaluate why you are so invested with the opinions of one random dude on the internet that you’ve written a short story to ask him about it. 

[joshfrog]

WOW

[Erioch]

Can someone distill it down to one sentence?

[RabbidEwok]

42 minutes ago, Erioch said:

Can someone distill it down to one sentence?

Linus is basically a hypocrite because ragging on Apple gets his fanboys hard regardless of the merits of the product itself. 

[Alex Atkin UK]

The Vision Pro is not expensive for what it is, at least not when were factoring in the Apple tax on hardware and the fact its likely being made in small quantities so you don't get the cost reduction of mass production, and apparently each individually calibrated for colour accuracy (though I think they do this on their Macbook Pros too?).

 

Given its an M2 chip with a custom co-processor to handle the VR/AR side and a screen/optics vastly superior to any VR headset.  From the reviews I've seen the hand tracking and the inside-out tracking in general is also the best on the market, no need for lighthouses then.

 

The problem with that is its effectively an iPad stuck to your face, only with worse interactivity as you can only use your hands and eyes to control it, with no tactile feedback from actually touching a glass touchscreen.  Also all the promotion for it makes it look like it fills your entire field of view, but unfortunately it has worse FOV than some VR headsets so it wont feel as seamless as the PR makes it look.

 

Its still extremely impressive tech, but I can't imagine anyone wanting to be strapped into it all day for work (and you'd have to swap out the battery every couple of hours) and its only even practical to use it for work alongside a Macbook (so you get a functional physical keyboard and touchpad or mouse), which suddenly makes its cost seem a lot more expensive if you're not using that M2 chip for anything more than projecting your Macbooks screen into 3D space.

 

I've been watching this guy as he seems really up-front about the pros and cons, which is rare for Apple reviewers.

[filpo]

2 hours ago, Erioch said:

Can someone distill it down to one sentence?

Not exactly one sentence, none of this is my writing, all from the post above:

'DEAR Linus, I watched your WAN show talking about 6 Meta Quest being more fun than one vision pro, I ask you Linus, you like VR games right? Never seen one of your videos after building a $3000 pc that an Xbox would be more worth it. Start your review on the Vision Pro with your BIG TV (13,000 dollary doos btw as much as 4 vision Pros um actually)

 

VISION PRO WILL PROVIDE AN AMAZING THEATER EXPERIENCE EVEN BETTER THAN THE TV 

You a fan of folding phones right Linus? BUT they're much more expensive than normal phones. And why do you buy it? Because you want the larger screen. IT'S THE SAME WITH THE VISION PRO. It's essentially a an iPad Pro with a 360 degree display' (it doesn't but oh well) 'And perfect 4k resolution. Apple is pushing the vision pro as a monitor for the MacBook you can bring ANYWHERE' (fat chance)

 

'Now, we all know LTT is a gaming audience, but that's not what I'm saying, Apple may be proud of their personas but it's clear to me this isn't for communication, like people don't run to their Meta Quest when they want to chat. I look forward to your review!'

4 hours ago, PaMoGa said:

Finally

Pro tip: don't write 'finally' when there's a million words left

[starsmine]

A TV you share. A VR headset you dont...
Also he never recommends anyone buys a 13k TV, and that's proven by the better and cheaper model at CES.

[Poinkachu]

Phones can be slipped into pant's pockets btw.

Pretty sure the idea behind folding phones is when in need of a bigger screen, you unfold. While it still being quite very portable when folded.

The flex screen still need more improvement longevity wise, but yep at this point it's pretty much like VR headset, quite a niche.

For me, even an ipad is still easier & simpler to carry around than a VR headset.

 

Agree with @starsmine, TV you share.

Try making my mom wear a VR headset throughout a movie and see if she doesn't end up putting it in a boiling water out of spite and anger.

Plus, I'd rather not put a screen or led or whatever near kid's eyes if not needed.

120inch TV can be enjoyed by a lot of peoples at the same time too, not just 4.

 

And agree with @GuiltySpark_... Holy shiet that's one hell of parasocialism.

 

8 hours ago, Erioch said:

Can someone distill it down to one sentence?

The way I summarize it :

I am irked and disappointed that Linus didn't rate Apple Vision Pro like it's a heaven sent device, and I am here to defend it to death using analogy and stuffs albeit missing some crucial points, in hope that you (Linus) will get some insight and rate it better in a review video.

[Alex Atkin UK]

Plus regardless of how impressive it is, I'm not sure I want to live in this dystopian future where nobody ever interacts in person any more, instead through their VR/AR headset.  Were already heading straight into a Ready Player One style future and this just seems yet another step towards that.

VR is great for niche games or for single person households, but the idea of families sitting in their VR isolation units, rarely interacting with each other, just scares the heck out of me.  Its already bad enough with people doing this with their smartphones.

[Needfuldoer]

24 minutes ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

Plus regardless of how impressive it is, I'm not sure I want to live in this dystopian future where nobody ever interacts in person any more, instead through their VR/AR headset.  Were already heading straight into a Ready Player One style future and this just seems yet another step towards that.

What, you don't want to have conference calls with the ghosts of your friends?

 

 

Just think of all the bandwidth that can be saved by only transmitting animation data instead of an entire video stream! It's The Future^TM!

[Middcore]

9 hours ago, Erioch said:

Can someone distill it down to one sentence?

"We're short on time. Can you sum up for our audience in one word?"

"No."

"A sound?"

"...myYEEAHHuhh...!"

[RabbidEwok]

10 hours ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

The Vision Pro is not expensive for what it is, at least not when were factoring in the Apple tax on hardware and the fact its likely being made in small quantities so you don't get the cost reduction of mass production, and apparently each individually calibrated for colour accuracy (though I think they do this on their Macbook Pros too?).

 

Given its an M2 chip with a custom co-processor to handle the VR/AR side and a screen/optics vastly superior to any VR headset.  From the reviews I've seen the hand tracking and the inside-out tracking in general is also the best on the market, no need for lighthouses then.

 

The problem with that is its effectively an iPad stuck to your face, only with worse interactivity as you can only use your hands and eyes to control it, with no tactile feedback from actually touching a glass touchscreen.  Also all the promotion for it makes it look like it fills your entire field of view, but unfortunately it has worse FOV than some VR headsets so it wont feel as seamless as the PR makes it look.

 

Its still extremely impressive tech, but I can't imagine anyone wanting to be strapped into it all day for work (and you'd have to swap out the battery every couple of hours) and its only even practical to use it for work alongside a Macbook (so you get a functional physical keyboard and touchpad or mouse), which suddenly makes its cost seem a lot more expensive if you're not using that M2 chip for anything more than projecting your Macbooks screen into 3D space.

 

I've been watching this guy as he seems really up-front about the pros and cons, which is rare for Apple reviewers.

Just FYI you can power this off wall power, a Mac mini is fairly cheap and the Vision Pro costs less than apples XDR display. Never mind 5 of them 

[Kisai]

7 hours ago, Needfuldoer said:

What, you don't want to have conference calls with the ghosts of your friends?

 

 

Just think of all the bandwidth that can be saved by only transmitting animation data instead of an entire video stream! It's The Future^TM!

You laugh, but that is what VRChat does. Also 2D Vtubers can do this already with Vtube Studio.

 

[Needfuldoer]

5 hours ago, Kisai said:

You laugh, but that is what VRChat does. Also 2D Vtubers can do this already with Vtube Studio.

 

At least those use cartoon avatars. This quasi-photorealistic floating ghost bust style just seems too... Unsettling? Uncanny Valley? Haunted Mansion?

 

I'd rather be represented by Senor Cardgage than a scan of myself.

[Kisai]

3 minutes ago, Needfuldoer said:

At least those use cartoon avatars. This quasi-photorealistic floating ghost bust style just seems too... Unsettling? Uncanny Valley? Haunted Mansion?

 

I'd rather be represented by Senor Cardgage than a scan of myself.

Yeah, and I hope Apple realizes that people maybe would prefer a cartoon over this weird uncanny valley direction.

 

[Lurking]

[HenrySalayne]

11 hours ago, RabbidEwok said:

Just FYI you can power this off wall power, a Mac mini is fairly cheap and the Vision Pro costs less than apples XDR display. Never mind 5 of them 

Ok, but Apple's AR headset is not a replacement for decent monitors. The pixel count seems impressive, but it's covering the entire FoV. A virtual monitor on the headset has far less resolution than an monitor especially a high-DPI display like the Pro XDR.

Over time Apple will double the horizontal and vertical resolution making replacing actual monitors a viable solution, but we're not there yet.

[Alex Atkin UK]

28 minutes ago, HenrySalayne said:

Ok, but Apple's AR headset is not a replacement for decent monitors. The pixel count seems impressive, but it's covering the entire FoV. A virtual monitor on the headset has far less resolution than an monitor especially a high-DPI display like the Pro XDR.

Over time Apple will double the horizontal and vertical resolution making replacing actual monitors a viable solution, but we're not there yet.

I'm not sure if VR/AR ever can, as by its nature the lens is bending the pixels so they are not even sizes which surely impacts image clarity when trying to display a flat 2D plane?

 

That said, its kinda working in reverse of photography which we get perfectly crisp clear photos these days, so maybe once the pixel density is high enough you can completely fool the eyes, even for 2D planes - so long as you are looking straight ahead at least where you avoid chromatic aberration.

Of course this doesn't avoid the inherent issue that having goggles on for hours a day is not great.  Just wearing my glasses I get a sore spot on my nose, so much worse when you've got something strapped tightly to your face.  Quite apart from the fact every VR headset I have tried the lenses fog up quickly (Rift S, PSVR 1 & 2), the pressure from keeping a light seal on my face can also give me a headache.  So at least for some people, I don't think even if it was perfect in every other way, its a good alternative for multi-monitor except in the use cases discussed in the video - on public transport allowing you to work as if you were at home.  Which first they need to solve only having a single virtual monitor.  This may be problematic given the sheer amount of radio interference in public places too.

 

I tend to agree with the opinion that if this wasn't an Apple product, this would be considered a dev kit.  Its intended to get developers on board thinking of use cases, rather than Apple themselves come up with its killer feature.  They threw everything at the wall hardware wise to see what developers could come up with, which when you have their kind of money it makes a lot of sense.  They can then purely focus on the features people found most useful on a later revision, hopefully being able to bring the price down to make a more mass market product.

 

I wonder how much cheaper they could make it if they hard-wired to a Macbook, so need less processing power in the headset itself?

[Mark Kaine]

On 2/4/2024 at 8:03 AM, Erioch said:

Can someone distill it down to one sentence?

"i watch way too much youtube."

[Lunar River]

[HenrySalayne]

2 hours ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

I'm not sure if VR/AR ever can, as by its nature the lens is bending the pixels so they are not even sizes which surely impacts image clarity when trying to display a flat 2D plane?

 

That said, its kinda working in reverse of photography which we get perfectly crisp clear photos these days, so maybe once the pixel density is high enough you can completely fool the eyes, even for 2D planes - so long as you are looking straight ahead at least where you avoid chromatic aberration.

Generally speaking the projection in the centre of the screen is rectilinear and it gets worse / distorted only near the edges. Which is perfectly fine, since we only have a very small spot in the centre of our vision which is actually in focus and which has the highest "pixel" density. People generally move their head not their eyes to the edges of their FoV to look at something. A VR headset could benefit from this effect to implement a pixel density rolloff towards the edges (that's probably already done) or it could actually shift the display or optical system to follow our eye movement and keep the point of maximum pixel density always in the centre of our vision (comparable to reverse-OIS). AFAIK that's currently not used, but Apple already has the eye-tracking and they have experience with OIS so this is a very likely future development. Instead of foveated rendering it's alsl foveated lens-shifting.

 

However, current technology still has one major flaw. Every pixel is on a 2D plane. Depth information is only provided by parallex, which is quite unnatural and requires some training. The focal length of our eyes has to stay identical while looking on something close or far away. This can cause nausea and is a major issue for a lot of people. It's especially difficult for people with impaired eyesight.

However, there is a solution for this and it's called lightfield display. A few years ago LTT showed the Looking Glass, which is a lightfield display (if you want to see the technology in action). Currently this comes as a major loss to resolution, mainly because a group of pixels (4 or 9 or 16 or 25 or 36) are combined into one depth-pixel with a micro-lens array. Depth resolution always comes at the expense of pixel density. It's unlikely we will ever see lightfield technology being used on headsets without foveated lens-shifting because the pixel count would get unmanageable.

 

I think it's save to say we have exciting years maybe decades ahead of us when it comes to VR/AR. I expect VR headsets to be an equal replacement for monitors within a few years.

 

[Mark Kaine]

33 minutes ago, HenrySalayne said:

Generally speaking the projection in the centre of the screen is rectilinear and it gets worse / distorted only near the edges. Which is perfectly fine, since we only have a very small spot in the centre of our vision which is actually in focus and which has the highest "pixel" density. People generally move their head not their eyes to the edges of their FoV to look at something. A VR headset could benefit from this effect to implement a pixel density rolloff towards the edges (that's probably already done) or it could actually shift the display or optical system to follow our eye movement and keep the point of maximum pixel density always in the centre of our vision (comparable to reverse-OIS). AFAIK that's currently not used, but Apple already has the eye-tracking and they have experience with OIS so this is a very likely future development. Instead of foveated rendering it's alsl foveated lens-shifting.

 

However, current technology still has one major flaw. Every pixel is on a 2D plane. Depth information is only provided by parallex, which is quite unnatural and requires some training. The focal length of our eyes has to stay identical while looking on something close or far away. This can cause nausea and is a major issue for a lot of people. It's especially difficult for people with impaired eyesight.

However, there is a solution for this and it's called lightfield display. A few years ago LTT showed the Looking Glass, which is a lightfield display (if you want to see the technology in action). Currently this comes as a major loss to resolution, mainly because a group of pixels (4 or 9 or 16 or 25 or 36) are combined into one depth-pixel with a micro-lens array. Depth resolution always comes at the expense of pixel density. It's unlikely we will ever see lightfield technology being used on headsets without foveated lens-shifting because the pixel count would get unmanageable.

 

I think it's save to say we have exciting years maybe decades ahead of us when it comes to VR/AR. I expect VR headsets to be an equal replacement for monitors within a few years.

 

ok im still getting hardcore 3d TV vibes here... awesome tech... it actually worked... yet very niche and the hype didn't last very long consequently....

 

don't get me wrong VR/AR (AR especially tbh) is in for the long run i get that, i just can't see it replacing traditional screens anytime soon... what this needs is a killer app, ideally several... people need a reason to actually own this, other than "a yt influencer told me so..." that just doesn't work for massmarket, it needs to be quite a bit more substantial for that. 

[Alex Atkin UK]

1 hour ago, Mark Kaine said:

ok im still getting hardcore 3d TV vibes here... awesome tech... it actually worked... yet very niche and the hype didn't last very long consequently....

 

don't get me wrong VR/AR (AR especially tbh) is in for the long run i get that, i just can't see it replacing traditional screens anytime soon... what this needs is a killer app, ideally several... people need a reason to actually own this, other than "a yt influencer told me so..." that just doesn't work for massmarket, it needs to be quite a bit more substantial for that. 

The problem with 3DTV is it suffered from the TV markets race to the bottom.  It just ended up cutting into their slim profit margins and due it being a niche they saw no value in that loss. So the focus shifted to HDR which offers a far more transformative experience (on the right TV) for ALL content.

 

Unfortunately the best solution for 3D is VR or lenticular screens, both which limit it to 1 person, no good for a TV.  So all we ever had were compromised solutions.  Yet it never actually died entirely, many projectors still support 3D glasses as an optional extra.

It needed someone like Apple willing to charge a premium and offer the very best experience, which is exactly what Vision Pro trying to do for AR/VR and 3D videos.  They already laid the groundwork to shoot 3D on iPhones and the Vision Pro itself I believe, Disney+ are even releasing 3D movies now for Vision Pro.

 

I've been pondering getting a Meta Quest 3 just for 3D content watching myself, as I really miss it but the resolution has been too low in VR so far.  I still think Sony really missed a trick not adding 3D Bluray support to PSVR2.

 

For now I'm waiting for this monitor to come out, may be my next display if it reviews well.

[Mark Kaine]

1 hour ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

The problem with 3DTV is it suffered from the TV markets race to the bottom.  It just ended up cutting into their slim profit margins and due it being a niche they saw no value in that loss. So the focus shifted to HDR which offers a far more transformative experience (on the right TV) for ALL content.

 

Unfortunately the best solution for 3D is VR or lenticular screens, both which limit it to 1 person, no good for a TV.  So all we ever had were compromised solutions.  Yet it never actually died entirely, many projectors still support 3D glasses as an optional extra.

It needed someone like Apple willing to charge a premium and offer the very best experience, which is exactly what Vision Pro trying to do for AR/VR and 3D videos.  They already laid the groundwork to shoot 3D on iPhones and the Vision Pro itself I believe, Disney+ are even releasing 3D movies now for Vision Pro.

 

I've been pondering getting a Meta Quest 3 just for 3D content watching myself, as I really miss it but the resolution has been too low in VR so far.  I still think Sony really missed a trick not adding 3D Bluray support to PSVR2.

 

For now I'm waiting for this monitor to come out, may be my next display if it reviews well.

yeah i agree, content is key obviously,  that's why i also said it needs a killer app... but you still have the same problem as ever, several people in the same room need "goggles"... a screen that does 3d without any kind of glasses/ goggles etc would be obviously preferable. 

 

But then you lose the whole AR aspect...  

 

i mean i try to stay objective , i see there's a lot of interesting tech, but they mostly all compete with each other and are hardly compatible with each other... it's just really difficult to see actual mass market appeal,  i mean most people are probably ok with their 720p/ 1080p lcd TVs still...