Apple Vision Pro - A PC Guy’s Perspective

[AlexTheGreatish]

The Apple Vision Pro promises to be the next revolution in tech.. but if you're not immersed in the Apple ecosystem does it still make any sense?

 

Buy an Apple Vision Pro: https://lmg.gg/6Q1sT

Buy a Meta Quest 3: https://lmg.gg/AG0Il (Canada: https://lmg.gg/4kr0H )

Purchases made through some store links may provide some compensation to Linus Media Group.

 

 

 

[Uttamattamakin]

First impression I noticed from the video is the very noticeable marks on Linus's face.   This is going to be a thing for people who wear that thing a lot and who are of a more fair complexion.   Most will want to cover it up.  Some will want to show it off.... others may try to simulate that tan like like yeah I totally have  3500 USD to blow on it.  See this tanline. 

 

As for the ending the real issue with Vison pro was stated masterfully. I wont spoil it 

 

If these  AR glasses were made by a bigger company, like Samsung. https://us.shop.xreal.com/products/xreal-air-2-ultra  and costed 699 that would be your Vison pro killer.  699 is what my new prescription glasses cost.  If I wouldn't need to then also shell out for prescription lenses I'd just order those, then upgrade my trusty Note 20 to an S23 to get spatial computing.     This way I could see the real world with real light and my real eyes and also have my apps if I need them. 

TLDR Great video.  Vision pro is hopefully more like a Dev kit for eventually VR/AR glasses for the masses. 

[HenrySalayne]

Minor correction:

Quote

[...] also it's more like having a much larger TV that is quite a bit farther away. And that is a good thing in the sense that you'll be focusing more than a few feet in front of you. But I still found that in spite of this that eye-strain was a big problem for me if I spent more than an hour or so in spatial Computing land. [...]

The focal point of the Apple Vision headset (and any other headset for that matter) is fixed without taking the virtual distance to an object into account. Your eyes won't adjust their focus regardless if you're looking at a close or a far away object through the Vision headset. However, the parallax of objects changes, which solely creates the 3D effect. And this can be a major contributor for eye-strain and fatigue, since your eyes have to keep a fixed focal length while they need to cross-eye at objects to get the depth information.

[tkitch]

1 hour ago, Uttamattamakin said:

First impression I noticed from the video is the very noticeable marks on Linus's face.   This is going to be a thing for people who wear that thing a lot and who are of a more fair complexion.   Most will want to cover it up.  Some will want to show it off.... others may try to simulate that tan like like yeah I totally have  3500 USD to blow on it.  See this tanline. 

yeah those red lines were suuuuuper blatent.

That's not something people buying a 4K USD luxury device aren't going to really want.

[Brian McKee]

Best video you guys have done in a while. Good job.

[Serin]

I worked on some stuff for the Roddenberry Archive's Star Trek apple vision pro app.
It includes 3d assets of a bunch of ship bridges and the like. Worth a look for any LMG trekkies, I reckon! 

[Uttamattamakin]

18 hours ago, HenrySalayne said:

Your eyes won't adjust their focus regardless if you're looking at a close or a far away object through the Vision headset. 

How do you think this differs for something like AR glasses?  Like the Xreal Air 2 or similar?   There the screens project the image optically overlain onto the actual light coming through the glasses.   https://us.shop.xreal.com/products/xreal-air-2  There the varying of the refractive index by the projection system could modify the optical path length hence requiring the eyes to at least slightly refocus for "near" vs far vision.  

 

I discussed this very issue with my optometrist the other day in deciding if I would need bifocals.  I asked just what I would need for AR glasses since they also have the Meta glasses there.  Those don't do AR though.   I would presume that it would just be near vision for the AR screen ... but I'd need the prescription insert to see far.  

Then the prescription lenses makers for these things all need to know if one needs bifocals so it must make a difference. 

 

 

17 hours ago, tkitch said:

yeah those red lines were suuuuuper blatent.

That's not something people buying a 4K USD luxury device aren't going to really want.

Right.  The people who really can afford it won't want that mark.  For them I can see there being an ecosystem of accessories to prevent it.  I can see poseurs who want to make it look like they might have a vision pro, without having one, trying to replicate that mark. 

 

I mean who wants to be the one downtown NY, LA, Chi paying way too much for coffee at the Starbucks roastery without a vision pro strapped to their face.   You know unless they totally left theirs at home.   Meanwhile people who really have one will be like. 

[Uttamattamakin]

10 hours ago, Serin said:

I worked on some stuff for the Roddenberry Archive's Star Trek apple vision pro app.
It includes 3d assets of a bunch of ship bridges and the like. Worth a look for any LMG Trekkies, I reckon! 

Impressive.    So, are these assets like from video games or actual sets from movies?  

If any group of people would shell out for a VR / AR experience it would be Trekkies.  Especially if they can figure out a way to bring other people into it.    That was always the soul of the VR experiences in Trek, of the holodeck.  About 5 minutes of wowing at the realism but hours of interaction with the other real people were what mattered. 

[Serin]

10 hours ago, Uttamattamakin said:

Impressive.    So, are these assets like from video games or actual sets from movies?  

If any group of people would shell out for a VR / AR experience it would be Trekkies.  Especially if they can figure out a way to bring other people into it.    That was always the soul of the VR experiences in Trek, of the holodeck.  About 5 minutes of wowing at the realism but hours of interaction with the other real people were what mattered. 

Well, I know Thomas Marrone from the STO dev team contributed, so the chances are some of it is from games. And I know that the Archive has a pretty close relationship with him and STO's assets.
At the same time, they have access to assets from the shows as well, at least to some extent.
For my part, I was working from studio reference and game assets, then modelling my own assets from them. So I think its safe to say it'll have been a mix.

And yeah! It'd be a really good step forward to bring characters into it, but given the way they're doing things here(its not rendering locally, its essentially a NeRF or 3d scan of sorts rendering on their servers then sending video to the device - probably require a biiig rework.
 

[05032-Mendicant-Bias]

This was a great video. The apple strap reminds me of the mouse that charge from below, but worse. Apple is notorious for doing "form over function" sometimes.

 

Linus didn't try the 3D chat functionality, it's disappointing. I would have liked to hear his opinion on the 3D Linus avatar.

The best use case looks to be "watch a 3D movie alone", I could actually enjoy that functionality, just not at 3500$.

 

I'm also happy the "metaverse" buzzword is so burned up that apple is trying to rebrand to "spatial computing", Zuckenberg is still burning billions of dollars per year in his furnaces trying to make the metaverse happen

[ToboRobot]

1 hour ago, 05032-Mendicant-Bias said:

 

The best use case looks to be "watch a 3D movie alone", I could actually enjoy that functionality, just not at 3500$.

 

Apple announced Neuromancer series for Apple TV, and I would gladly pay $1000 for a VR headset to watch it, but not $3500 for the current dev model.  

[hishnash]

On 3/3/2024 at 9:18 AM, HenrySalayne said:

And this can be a major contributor for eye-strain and fatigue, since your eyes have to keep a fixed focal length while they need to cross-eye at objects to get the depth information.

One thing that can help with this is if you track the eyes you can suddenly adjust the image so that the angle at your eyes and look at objects that are close and further away can change.  This has a big impact on eye strain compared to headsets are unable to track the eye movement, also tracking allows for the reduction in some of the lens artefacts by distorting the image on the displays differently depending on if you're looking straight ahead or towards the periphery of the lens. 

 

But you are still going to get ice strain and fatigue, the other aspect that will create fatigue is the displays reduce motion blur by rapidly strobing, (they are only on for fraction of a second and a very bright and then they're off for most of the time).  

 

I reckon I'll be a very long time before we have lenses or displays but are able to output a light field multiple vocal lengths simultaneously and do so high enough frame rate that they don't need to use aggressive strobing.    

 

 

 

 

[saltycaramel]

My top 3 Vision Pro reviews to watch

- The Verge (canonically tech reviewer style)

- LTT (fun, creative and "real world"-y)

- Jon Prosser (creative and more focused on the long term)

 

Only thing I would change about the LTT review is showcasing the screen casting options in a non-problematic WiFi environment and delving more into the personal-home-theatre use case. It's not like every time they review a monitor they add the "but I'd rather watch it with my friends" skit. Nowadays people also watch/consume a lot of stuff on their own, let's all collectively get over this. 

[MostafaP]

Any chances to get a video comparing it to HoloLens 2? I'm specifically interested in the eye-strain intensity, especially since the HoloLens is an actual AR/MR headset (meaning it's actually transparent) and doesn't need video passthrough.

[GoStormPlays]

8 minutes ago, MostafaP said:

Any chances to get a video comparing it to HoloLens 2?

Kinda doubt that that will happen. HoloLens really isn't a public-facing product. 

[GoStormPlays]

17 minutes ago, saltycaramel said:

Nowadays people also watch/consume a lot of stuff on their own, let's all collectively get over this. 

Likely most everyone who watched this video was watching it alone.

[GoStormPlays]

On 3/4/2024 at 5:14 AM, 05032-Mendicant-Bias said:

The apple strap reminds me of the mouse that charge from below, but worse. Apple is notorious for doing "form over function" sometimes.

I believe the second strap that Apple ships with the Vision Pro provides a little more adjustment.

[GoStormPlays]

Pretty decent review overall. I don't watch a whole ton of LTT reviews, but I quite liked this one. This video was probably written and filmed before this story, but I would've liked to see a touch on SteamVR support. Really the only thing keeping me from really liking this headset is lack of Beat Saber.

 

Honestly, it would be sick if Beat Saber came out with a native version for this headset. There's a lot potential with stage/real life merging that could come with an Apple Vision Pro releas of this game (as shown with the room mapping with Fruit Ninja in this review).

 

CMON META I PLEAD OF YOU

[Nullcaller]

I think this video is to a regular old review what a 3D movie is to a regular old movie. It feels mainly focused on the nice flow and visuals, with some amount of structure to hold it all together. It's a good review, like Avengers is a good movie. But it's no Oppenheimer.

 

It does bring a PC guy up to speed on how good exactly the Vision Pro is, but I just feel like, after a month in production, it should have been at least just a little bit more, and it saddens me. Not in a snobbish "your lack of elegancy disgusts me" kind of way, but in a "I was invested in it because I wanted to hear a new and exciting take" kind of way.

 

The production issues feel a little bit weird in the video. Showing how the Vision Pro behaves with a poor WiFi signal may actually be pretty valuable, but Linus only mentions this as an annoyance, not as a thing to keep in mind about the product. The Alex's FOV bit is a little disorienting, because it lasts just enough for you to shift your entire attention from what the heck was going on in the video previously onto the Alex segment, and ends precisely at the moment that process ends, leaving you with a "what the heck just happened?" feeling.

 

I think this is perhaps the best review for the dozens of us that are considering actually buying the thing. Which, in my opinion, makes it less exciting for the rest of us that ain't buying it anyway.

 

The best review for those of us that just want to understand the tech powering the Vision Pro and its current state, is perhaps (funnily enough) Snazzy Labs'. There's also a long episode of the Genius Bar Podcast with Quinn of Snazzy Labs as a guest, where he further explains some fun stuff about the technologies of VR. Varifocal lenses are a particularly interesting subject that comes up, and it would have been nice to include some of that information in the LTT review as an explanation for Linus' mysterious eye fatigue after wearing Vision Pro for a while. Snazzy Labs is not a channel that I typically watch for reviews of any kind, it's more of a "and now my brain is gonna be pleased with the shiny lights and funny words of this magic man" type of content for me. Yet here we are.

 

The Verge's review, I think, is probably the best to watch to understand the impact the Vision Pro may potentially have on our future, which at this particular moment is pretty much none.

 

Which brings me to my last point. I think the Vision Pro review may very well benefit from being redone in 3-6 months, when more apps are available for it natively, if they are truly optimized for the Vision Pro. At that point, maybe you will also be able to have some fun with the developer flap hinge thingie with the USB-C port. It's only USB 2. But the darn thing has a MacBook worth of power in it, maybe someone can force it run something. Third-party strap manufacturers will probably ramp up production by that point (i.e. build a hundred or so straps in countires where manual labor costs nothing and call it a day). It'll be interesting, at the very least. And it'll be able to tell a bit more definitely, whether or not Vision Pro is doomed to fail, or set to succeed, provided Apple keeps investing in it.