General VR discussion thread

[Kaido]

So class-wise, the Magic Leap 2 is $3,300. The Microsoft HoloLens 2 is $3,500. So the base price isn't technically out of line with what's available on the market today. Questions I have include:

1. With OpticID, can you have someone else wear it & it be usable? I bought an aftermarket adjustable headset strap for my Quest 2, so if my wife or nephews want to play, it's an easy swap.

2. How easy is it to swap out the glass? I heard "magnets". I wear glasses but my wife doesn't. They also said that not all eye prescriptions are supported, so I'm guessing things like bifocals, trifocals, prisms, etc. might be an issue.

3. This is a hands-on thing, but if they really got Retina-level displays for text, that's going to be a really big deal in the business world. DCC, FINTECH, etc. can all create multiple giant monitors "for free".

4. Will this work with Windows? Can I RDP into my desktop? Can I have multiple windows floating around?

5. Will this work with Steam? It has Unity support.

6. Who exactly is the target market? Single people with cash to spare? Creative professionals who work exclusively within an Apple environment?

6. Will your 3D-scanned Avatar work in Zoom? Because shoot, I'd buy it if I could lay in bed all day & do my Zoom meetings LOL.

 

[Kaido]

If someone seriously insisted on wearing one of those things while trying to talk to me I would just turn around and walk out.

 

[JujuFish]

I'm sure it's an amazing piece of tech, and I wouldn't mind trying it out, but I'm not in Apple's ecosystem and $3,500 is an early adopter price if ever I've seen one.

 

[Kaido]

I'm sure it's an amazing piece of tech, and I wouldn't mind trying it out, but I'm not in Apple's ecosystem and $3,500 is an early adopter price if ever I've seen one.

I do think it's a bit odd that (1) they spent 10 years working on it, only to (2) release it at the exact same market price as other AR headsets. I mean, Apple stuff is always premium-priced, but I'm really curious about what their sales target is going to be in the first year, as far as what number of units they're hoping to sell....

 

[gorobei]

does anyone think they missed an opportunity by not calling it eye-OS?

 

[GodisanAtheist]

I watched a rundown of it by MKBHD, and its sort of weird, cause it's really designed to do 2d things in a 3d space based on what I can see.

Basically recreate a computer or a TV in your space.

In standard Apple fashion, the UI and interface elements look incredible, and the decision to spin off a dedicated OS might pay big dividends down the road, but I still ask myself WHY.

For $3500 I can get a nice 65" OLED 4K TV and multiple 4K monitors in real space. If I'm at work, I can even point at my real monitor to show someone else what I'm looking at.

Very firmly in neat toy for disposable income territory.

 

[igor_kavinski]

In standard Apple fashion, the UI and interface elements look incredible, and the decision to spin off a dedicated OS might pay big dividends down the road, but I still ask myself WHY.

It's THE reality distortion field Apple users always wanted. Now they can be surrounded by it. No need for their minds to work hard to create one.

 

[gorobei]

the hardware specs and features feels like they know this is a business product for potentially real usage by industrial, design, and manufacturing professionals.

but the presentation and marketing points are trying to point to some future when this will be relevant to the consumer.


my own theory is that they got the the primary hardware to a point where they can lock in the long term manufacturing contracts(while the specs wont get obsoleted), got the OS software to a finished enough state, but know they dont have a compelling consumer product or application that could justify a $1500-2000 price. so they are bumping the price to a 'pro'fessional 3k range to serve as dev kits to find a sufficiently apple brand hype-able use case later.

the head strap snow goggles appearance is just them ignoring the lessons on ergonomic best practices from prior headsets makers. adding the oled on the front is just a weird cringy flourish that they can do because they are apple.

but it is nice to know that the cameras, displays, and hand tracking software have reached this level for possible future non-apple vr/ar hardware. now i am really curious about the ms hololens and where it stands. the biggest absence i saw was no addressing of vergence given the '2hr immerse yourself' vibe. but hats off to the software team for getting the os eyetracking to the 'it just works' stage.

In standard Apple fashion, the UI and interface elements look incredible, and the decision to spin off a dedicated OS might pay big dividends down the road, but I still ask myself WHY.

For $3500 I can get a nice 65" OLED 4K TV and multiple 4K monitors in real space. If I'm at work, I can even point at my real monitor to show someone else what I'm looking at.

Very firmly in neat toy for disposable income territory.

technically the power usage, hardware, manufacturing tooling cost, and mounting hardware for multiple monitors would eventually exceed a single headset over the years. at the same time it is portable while the monitors are not. it is a solution for traveling business types. i dont know that there are enough of those sorts of people to generate enough sales.

 

[igor_kavinski]

Ya know, if it were small like a google glass and it had a killer AI app that let couples see each other as celebs while doing the deed, that would send sales and babies through the roof!

 

[Kaido]

the hardware specs and features feels like they know this is a business product for potentially real usage by industrial, design, and manufacturing professionals.

but the presentation and marketing points are trying to point to some future when this will be relevant to the consumer.

That's exactly my takeaway as well.

 

[Kaido]

i dont know that there are enough of those sorts of people to generate enough sales.

That's my question as well! Things I would use it for:

1. I would like to build a house someday & it would be perfect for that because of the AR capabilities. Right now, Quest + Enscape works. But if I ever get around to that project, once that project is over, the VR/AR feature would no longer be needed because it would be completed.

2. Personal productivity: I have ADHD & get off-track easily, and also need some visual help sorting out logic. I use Plectica (online mind-mapping) to help me flesh out ideas visually & use things like named smartphone timers. An AR headset would allow me to work IRL but get persistent visual popup reminders & organization assistance, so that would be pretty nice!

3. Games, I guess. I have an original Vive & a Quest 2. Happy with both, lack of ongoing content is really the only issue. Thinking about saving up for a Playstation VR2 to try some new games, dunno if I really want to invest in a whole console just for it tho.

 

[Kaido]

20-minute video by MKBHD:

 

[quikah]

technically the power usage, hardware, manufacturing tooling cost, and mounting hardware for multiple monitors would eventually exceed a single headset over the years. at the same time it is portable while the monitors are not. it is a solution for traveling business types. i dont know that there are enough of those sorts of people to generate enough sales.

Traveling business types are generally traveling to interface with multiple teams of people. Not sure what use a VR headset would be in facilitating physical interactions with other people.

 

[gorobei]

Traveling business types are generally traveling to interface with multiple teams of people. Not sure what use a VR headset would be in facilitating physical interactions with other people.

travelling programmers, cg animators, video editors, photography post process type power users will typically have larger than 40" or 3+ 27" monitors at home/office due to wanting the extra visual real estate. going from those battle stations to a single laptop screen is painful.
(the cg studio i worked at frequently sent animators to australia for on set previz animation. they sent back snapshots of the crappy folding table with a 13" laptop and cheapo dell 17 or 19" monitor. this was before DTR was even a notion. a year or 2 later one of our riggers showed off his humongous at the time gaming laptop with dedicated gpu and all the other animators could do was drool)

travel edc blogs for coders are usually a 17" DTR or a 14/15" and a chromebook. the whole gaming laptop segment took off because professionals wanted the extra cpu/gpu horsepower and monitor size not for gaming but for work. (not sure if the mac soc is strong enough for those use cases). but having the virtual equivalent of 6+ monitors by way of vr headset is an actual market.

hell even the finance folk that travel could use it. at home they typically have 2 or 3 super ultrawide monitors vertically stacked with realtime stock price feeds.

 

[Kaido]

travelling programmers, cg animators, video editors, photography post process type power users will typically have larger than 40" or 3+ 27" monitors at home/office due to wanting the extra visual real estate. going from those battle stations to a single laptop screen is painful.
(the cg studio i worked at frequently sent animators to australia for on set previz animation. they sent back snapshots of the crappy folding table with a 13" laptop and cheapo dell 17 or 19" monitor. this was before DTR was even a notion. a year or 2 later one of our riggers showed off his humongous at the time gaming laptop with dedicated gpu and all the other animators could do was drool)

I'm curious about Windows compatibility for things like Remote Desktop...

 

[quikah]

travelling programmers, cg animators, video editors, photography post process type power users will typically have larger than 40" or 3+ 27" monitors at home/office due to wanting the extra visual real estate. going from those battle stations to a single laptop screen is painful.
(the cg studio i worked at frequently sent animators to australia for on set previz animation. they sent back snapshots of the crappy folding table with a 13" laptop and cheapo dell 17 or 19" monitor. this was before DTR was even a notion. a year or 2 later one of our riggers showed off his humongous at the time gaming laptop with dedicated gpu and all the other animators could do was drool)

travel edc blogs for coders are usually a 17" DTR or a 14/15" and a chromebook. the whole gaming laptop segment took off because professionals wanted the extra cpu/gpu horsepower and monitor size not for gaming but for work. (not sure if the mac soc is strong enough for those use cases). but having the virtual equivalent of 6+ monitors by way of vr headset is an actual market.

hell even the finance folk that travel could use it. at home they typically have 2 or 3 super ultrawide monitors vertically stacked with realtime stock price feeds.

Cool, don't you need to collaborate with the people you travel to though? How do you do that with VR goggles?

 

[gorobei]

Cool, don't you need to collaborate with the people you travel to though? How do you do that with VR goggles?

you can keep trying to pretend that travel is only about collaboration, but there are people who have to be productive after the meeting. the virtual display space is for productivity. you put the headset on when you are doing the actual work.

previz animators generally dont spend hours with the client sitting over their shoulder while they work taking feedback, you are considered blessed if you get more than 10 minutes of the director's time. they get the instructions on the general direction of the shot and then do variations as few as 3 or 4 but sometimes as many as 8 or 10 if the permutations are equally valid. they present those clips at dailies and the client scrubs through them all and picks the ones they like. cranking out multiple variations in animation software takes time. the faster you are the better. having the orthogonal views, timeline, keyframe curves, render cam view up at the same time is infinitely better than cycling between views because you only have one monitor.

more monitors = more better, it doesnt matter whether they are real monitors or virtual.

there are probably a couple hundred journalists at computex right now. some percentage of them will be cranking out multiple videos each day if not each hour. video editors typically run 2 or 3 large monitors with 3 to 5 keyboards or custom macro hotkey devices on their primary rigs. you cant pack up, fly, setup, work, teardown, repack that rig for every trip. viewing footage bins as thumbnails vs 540p(quarter res samples) with live preview is more than a quality of life improvement. it is less time spent scrolling/dragging/clicking/zooming. it is time saved and money saved. a vr headset virtual display allows them to get closer to their preferred setup for max PRODUCTIVITY. they dont wear it while shooting footage or talking with the client/interviewee.

and if you are so concerned about having to see during collaborations, you know there is the AR ms hololens.

if you want to argue that the people wearing the apple or any other vr headset look silly, no one here has ever pretended that wasnt the case.

 

[quikah]

you can keep trying to pretend that travel is only about collaboration, but there are people who have to be productive after the meeting. the virtual display space is for productivity. you put the headset on when you are doing the actual work.

Geez, why so defensive? Curious what the use case would be. Travel for me is only worthwhile if I need to work closely with someone, otherwise just do it over zoom or something.

I really don't see how you can use the thing for more than an hour or so though. VR is murder on my eyes. More power to you if you can make it work.

 

[Red Storm]

I watched a rundown of it by MKBHD, and its sort of weird, cause it's really designed to do 2d things in a 3d space based on what I can see.

Basically recreate a computer or a TV in your space.

In standard Apple fashion, the UI and interface elements look incredible, and the decision to spin off a dedicated OS might pay big dividends down the road, but I still ask myself WHY.

For $3500 I can get a nice 65" OLED 4K TV and multiple 4K monitors in real space. If I'm at work, I can even point at my real monitor to show someone else what I'm looking at.

Very firmly in neat toy for disposable income territory.

I haven't had to point out something on my monitor in person to someone else in maybe 10 years now. But that's mainly because I work remote, thankfully.

Why is it weird that it's designed to be a general computer that runs in AR? You're no longer confined to the number of displays you have (or the room where those displays are). You can take all of your windows anywhere in the house, even lay down in bed and multitask as if you were sitting at your desk. Precise eye tracking with simple hand gestures is definitely the future of personal computing interface control. I love the idea of saying goodbye to physical monitors and a mouse, and one day the keyboard as well.

 

[Kaido]

I'm going to withhold judgement until I try it. $3.5k is market price for top-quality AR currently (Magic Leap 2 & HoloLens 2), so the price isn't astronomical for its actual class.

The whole problem with Quest & co. is simply content. I absolutely love my OG Vive & Quest 2, but I want more good GAMES to play! VR also has the somewhat annoying feature of having games you replay feel like reruns because they're physically-lived experiences, so VR games tend to feel stale a lot quicker than screen games, in my experience. So we need a constantly flow of new & good game releases to keep the headsets relevant.

AR has the potential to be game-changing if done right. I'm considering picking one up specifically for a work application concept I've been mulling around. The ecosystem & Windows integration are a couple question marks I have around it. Hefty investment either way!

 

[Red Storm]

I'm going to withhold judgement until I try it. $3.5k is market price for top-quality AR currently (Magic Leap 2 & HoloLens 2), so the price isn't astronomical for its actual class.

The whole problem with Quest & co. is simply content. I absolutely love my OG Vive & Quest 2, but I want more good GAMES to play! VR also has the somewhat annoying feature of having games you replay feel like reruns because they're physically-lived experiences, so VR games tend to feel stale a lot quicker than screen games, in my experience. So we need a constantly flow of new & good game releases to keep the headsets relevant.

AR has the potential to be game-changing if done right. I'm considering picking one up specifically for a work application concept I've been mulling around. The ecosystem & Windows integration are a couple question marks I have around it. Hefty investment either way!

Regarding Windows integration, we already have remote desktop apps for iOS, so I would imagine that you have to be able to control them with the Vision Pro's input method (eye tracking and hand gestures). If we can interact with Windows PCs in this way I would be stoked, but I'm no dev so maybe it's not possible.

I don't think Vision Pro is in the same class as VR gaming headsets. Those things are just accessories to gaming. Vision Pro is going for general computing in AR space. It honestly could not have a single VR game and I would still look forward to getting one. But VR games will definitely be made for it.

 

[Kaido]

Regarding Windows integration, we already have remote desktop apps for iOS, so I would imagine that you have to be able to control them with the Vision Pro's input method (eye tracking and hand gestures). If we can interact with Windows PCs in this way I would be stoked, but I'm no dev so maybe it's not possible.

I don't think Vision Pro is in the same class as VR gaming headsets. Those things are just accessories to gaming. Vision Pro is going for general computing in AR space. It honestly could not have a single VR game and I would still look forward to getting one. But VR games will definitely be made for it.

So they're actually going to be doing some pretty huge stuff with spatial gaming! The Apple Vision Pro (AVP) headset will launch with over 100 Apple Arcade games:

Apple Vision Pro will launch with over 100 arcade games

Apple has revealed that its new Apple Vision Pro headset will launch with game controller support, and also an existing library of 100 Apple Arcade games on day one.

appleinsider.com

In addition, it will support Unity out of the box, which makes cross-platform gaming a reality, which will open a lot of doors for ports of existing games & for developers to easily make new games using the enhanced AR & tracking capabilities of the AVP:

UNITY’S BETA PROGRAM FOR CREATING SPATIAL EXPERIENCES

Create spatial experiences for Apple’s visionOS with Unity. Apply for the beta now.

create.unity.com

 

[Kaido]

VPS (Virtual Positioning System) + Augmented Reality

https://twitter.com/x/status/1701636414490714233

 

[aigomorla]

LMAO...

yes i want my real world to look like minecraft?

 

[igor_kavinski]

yes i want my real world to look like minecraft?

Agree. That's a useless application of the technology.