skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I'm betting that even Apple can't get this form factor to take off in mainstream use cases.

Maybe in very niche cases, but there's a lot of dead bodies on the VR/AR hardware hill even there with Hololens, MagicLeap, etc.

Then again Oculus sold like 20M units, so who knows...
They did a nice slight of hand to make it look more impressive.

The first FaceTime demo had actual people.

The second FaceTime demo showed the ML model and it lacked multiple people.
This will be a rare Apple L. I'm calling it.

The last major new product was the Apple Watch. The launch strategy for that was flawed. Many may have forgotten it was launched as a luxury product including a $10,000 version (which was ridiculous). This was when the former Burberry CEO was (briefly) at the helm of Apple Retail.

From the 2nd generation it pivoted to health and fitness, which has a market. But the market is still tiny. I'd still call it an eventual success.

But nobody wants VR. Like, literally nobody. It is and will remain a niche, at this or any other price point. Many see it as a stepping stone to AR. I remain skeptical that AR will be technically possible at all. If it is it will takes years if not decades for the tech to get there and there are fundamental problems (eg dealing with focus, rendering true blacks). It's one of these things that is a popular idea in sci-fi without considering the barriers.

I can actually see Apple pulling this within a few years, if it even takes that long. Maybe they'll hang onto it for the promise of AR but I'm skeptical.
No you couldn't because eGPUs are not supported.
For all the tech inside a device you can wear on your head it is quite impressive even for the $3499 price tag.

I will hold off judgement until I can actually use one. While it certainly has some goofiness and kinda dystopian vibes in some of the demos shown it also has some very interesting use cases that could be something almost everyone uses day to day like the TV or computer.

But who knows, predicting the future is hard :)
Do you think people will enjoy living with a headset strapped to their face? The shots of that dad playing with his daughters while wearing the device seemed like a stretch that I'm surprised Apple took. This is the company that takes its "Human Interface Guidelines" seriously.
I’d pay 3.5k to have three large screen monitors working at home without cluttering up the house with 3 actual large monitors.
> tiresome multiscreen development environment

...that fits in your bag. This is huge for folks like me that want to travel without lugging around a large display. If the visual integrity is there, it's gonna be worth it for me.
From my understanding, the Quest's focal distance is at 1.3m

https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/1371485209603022853

Valve Index reportedly around 6 feet

https://www.reddit.com/r/ValveIndex/comments/by1j2z/focal_di...
It might be, but you still need the MacBook Pro if you want to use this as a Mac. So this is just the display, that can access some iPad apps.

Although I still think it's pretty awesome, need to give it a few years and see the price come down and a few versions later, this tech will be very interesting in the 5-10 year time space, what a crazy time that is going to be with AI and all this stuff.
This is obviously off-topic; so perhaps we should move it elsewhere... however;

It gets very slightly worse every year. I often get the feeling like the presenter has had a "cleanse" of all unclean thoughts, bitterness and humanity and all that's left is an excessively soft, fragile and beige demeanour. Almost inhuman.

I guess it's a risk aversion tactic by Apple, as it is a $1T company; it must have a lot of protectionism.
Agreed for some reason I had a really repulsive reaction to seeing that as well. Feels like this is the next step in people turning more inward. A screen strapped to our face at all times.
End of this year.
> And I'm aware of at least one government grant programs that requires patents apart of their application process

Any examples? Interesting, first time hearing about this
Less space than a nomad, too
This is a very specific type of virtue signaling that I find very funny
Especially if the answer is "no" you should insist that they dispose of it properly as WEEE...
This is awesome! I'm excited to see the update! I wish there had been an update to the camera though. It's great I just use it a lot and would love to see how they improved pieces of it!
So either you park your car at the train station, and then the train station needs a parking space for you and according to this math it still counts as another one even if it's outside the city. Or you live within walking distance of mass transit, which most people can't because there isn't enough relevant land zoned for that kind of high density development for everyone to live in even if they wanted to.

But I'll do you one better. If you work from home you don't need the parking space or the office space.
nah they're not competing for the same customers.

Metas headsets are affordable enough that people buy them for their kids. Apple's headset isn't competing with that.

It's like saying "That bugatti obsoleted all the affordable cars" - not really.
At 3500 this will be niche at best. They'll sell half the units of Watch Ultra if they're lucky.
Ask HN: Are Apple announcements the peak traffic times for Hacker News?
I've never see so many errors on Hacker News as I have today and it makes me wonder if Apple announcements are the peak traffic times for Hacker News -- and if not, what are the historic high traffic event/points.
Usually Apple comes along and builds it so well that people will actually start using it. Oculus and the others are still a pretty niche thing.
On desktop benchmarks no Apple CPU in top 20 (AMD beats the most powerful apple chip by 2.5 times):

https://www.cpubenchmark.net/desktop.html

On laptops it looks the same (AMD is 2.x times faster):

https://www.cpubenchmark.net/laptop.html

So where is the astonishing performance Apple claims all the time?

Yes, I know it consumes less power, but my laptop is docked 95% of the time, so I'd rather have more power than more battery life.
If you want to convince someone to start doing something, comparing it to cigarettes is probably the worst possible idea.
Biggest notes:

- 3d camera built-in to the device is huge, photo and video got so big online because smartphones meant we all had cameras on us and they made sharing those media easier, we may finally see stereo photo and video content go beyond adult content if consumers can record stereo video with this device they already have and upload to YouTube, Tiktok, etc

- Microgestures as input like two finger pinch and flicking up the hand are really wise. Gorilla arms syndrome sucks and means most people prefer to sit there and play Call of Duty rather than jump around and play Beat Saber or Wii Bowling.

- FOV seems to be full field of view, unlike Hololens and Magic Leap
I agree. This was more amazing than I had expected upfront. I can envision myself using this for developing code as well, but I think I will have a hard time convincing my boss…
Funny I had the same comparison for $3500. We are 10+ years from a virtual vacation or augmented staycation could deliver similar benefits.
I get the impression this model is intended to introduce the product line to the market and give developers something to build on while Apple fine-tunes the hardware. The thing is way overpriced for the average consumer but the tech inside it is wild. I expect we'll see more consumer-friendly models in 2024-2025.
More worrying that they could grab a photo off FB and spoof a family member. Lots of people would ignore the number if the face and name were familiar. How many people actually memorize phone numbers any more?
This first version sure but if they're able to bring the costs down and maintain the relative power it's a pretty neat implementation of the idea.
Honestly, it really doesn't seem different at all.

AR is also where other notable headset makers are betting, Quest has had hand controls for quite a while (which made the "clunky controllers" dig fall flat).

It definitely seems more refined, but then again, it's over 2x the cost of the competition, so that would have to be taken as read.
* $3500 price tag
* 2D / "Arcade" games support (lol)

I'm a buyer 3-4 generations in if price comes down significantly and I can replace my monitors with it. The seamless use with a mac for work will be really nice - but isn't worth $3500 to me for a gen 1 device / experience.

For now, I'm probably just going to get a Quest 3 when it drops this September. In terms of a virtual work environment - immersed is _almost_ there on a Quest 2. Maybe Quest 3 will be the ticket to a compelling experience. If not, well... I still have my library of dozens of VR games to make it worth $600 (or w/e).

Still, excited to see what Apple does with this platform over the next five or so years. The "macbook air" version of this a few years down the road will probably be more my speed!
I will happily go on the record as saying that this will be as revolutionary as the Apple TV. Perhaps even less so (if such a thing is possible).
another product to add to the apple walled garden, you will have to go through the vision store for everything, and they will capture their share from all the transactions happening inside it. It's incredible how apple can be so innovative and nobody can fight such prevalence. Will be a handset with the same features, but that you can connect to an open operating system someday? i would like to think that it will happen someday.
Their cost comparison to a 4k tv, surround sound, high end laptop, etc does seem reasonable for a single person, but it does indeed break down for a family. Everyone sitting on the couch watching a movie, but you with your goggles getting a completely different experience.
Interesting that they didn't mention a pancake lens. It isn't one?

edit: the other thread is growing faster: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36200708
Ask the UK government…
It looks like they aren't since they said it will use an M2 chip
To replace a laptop (for me), I need to be able to type. It does not look easily possible from what I have seen, but missed the first part.
You can not in good faith argue that executives along the way didn't turn a blind eye to these issues when they saw the price tag for those contracts.

edit:
Here's more to back my point:

https://9to5mac.com/2023/05/22/iphone-maker-wistron-quits/

If Apple isn't paying it's manufacturers enough to turn a profit then how long until a manufacturer cuts corners and abuses labor to make money?
how do u watch a movie together?
I don't know where you work, but I haven't had an office all to myself ever, a desk is pretty much all I have ever been allotted, and it has usually been an open one at that. I have one place to go to work(usually). But I have almost countless places I could go for shopping or experiences...and that is where the parking problem arises.

...If I did have a house, my driveway would not be open to others, so either you have an empty plot of driveway, or a car that is not being used in it...both of those things are not productive. My "empty" house still has utility. My family could be using it. It is storing all of my possessions. It is a source of comfort for knowing I have a place to go to rest.

Anyways, the productivity footprint of shared spaces is very different from those that are exclusively mine, and spaces that are exclusively mine are very limited...essentially my home and my car. I'm not arguing that everyone ditch their cars and start biking to work, American infrastructure is not there, but the time I have spent in cities that do have this infrastructure have been absolutely wonderful.
> Almost 60 billion $s went from the market cap (maybe not much for a giant in Apple's scale but still interesting).

This is the same exact thing that happens with every Apple event. I can't think of a time their stock went up after an announcement event.
With M2 on board and other silicon chip it actually is a computer, not to mention it comes with its own OS.
I think you are wrong. I looked and in Rust doc it says that: "Removes the last element from a vector and returns it, or None if it is empty". You better be doing check for "None".
macOS Sonoma adds Game Mode, a new design for desktop widgets, and more
I believe Pentium 4D counts more than Pentium 2, but Pentium Pro does count and it was part of why it was so expensive (comparably). The slot-mounted CPU modules were essentially avoidances of multi-chip-modules or large easily broken (thus low yield) dies, and ran a normal PCB.
I'm sure that will look super realistic.
“Some circumstantial evidence is very strong, as when you find a trout in the milk.”
—-H.D. Thoreau
> ... bring the powerful capabilities of their Mac into Vision Pro wirelessly, creating an enormous, private, and portable 4K display with incredibly crisp text.

If this "incredibly crisp text" is true, then I want it. Nobody has done this yet.
Because making the lenses movable and adjustable by software is significantly more complex than making them replaceable?
> Some say $3499 is a high price

As a golfer I can assure you plenty of people will happily spend that amount and more on their hobby.
You never know if the person you're interacting is actually listening to something and distracted or not.

Remember when I used to go to the office and I had to guess whether my colleagues were on a call, listening to music or "available" because there was no way to know from the outside since they never removed them.
$3500 to watch movies or use it as a virtual monitor. With 2 hours of battery life.

Tough sell...
And easily one of the most enjoyable computing experiences out there. Very physical. And cooperative multi-player by nature. Many great things here.

I wish Web NFC had a publish mode where we could web hack something like this.
No tech spec sheet other than the battery life:

"The external battery supports up to 2 hours of use, and all‑day use when plugged in."
It's interesting that HN is completely overloaded right now...with people coming to announce how unimpressed they are and how it isn't for them.

The displays in this device are crazy. I honestly didn't think they'd be able to put together a value proposition, but I think they legitimately did. It's super expensive, and some of the cost of the device seems kind of silly (if I heard correctly, the display on the front is 3d and gives different perspectives based upon the viewers), so obviously they're going to have a lot of room to improve value in subsequent generations.

But it's going to be a hit. HN is going to be swamped with "How I used Vision Pro to..." posts when it comes out.

One element that didn't get a lot of play (if any...though I was distracted with work) -- did they talk about using it as a display for a Mac? I'd love to use a real keyboard mouse interacting with flexible Mac displays.
23 megapixels across both displays, but you are only looking at them as one, so in reality about half that.
Wagner captures Russian commander as Prigozhin feud with army escalates
They'll probably push payment plans for this, but it might take some enticement. We are getting used to higher sticker prices anyway because of inflation.
Awesome trailer, but the Meta Quest 3 can do the same things, with somewhat worse hardware but that's acceptable considering its 7x cheaper.

The biggest improvements over it are the higher resolution, the spatial audio and using a PS5/xbox controller to play regular apple arcade games. They are heavily leaning into the "use it as a large monitor aspect" which is something Meta Quest sucks at because of poor resolution.
People are going to reply to you and say "what made the iPod different from the Nomad"... inarguably the iPod was hugely successful where the Nomad wasn't.

I don't think it's a great comparison. The MP3 players in the pre-iPod era were all made by tiny players no-one had heard of. The Oculus in particular has absolutely massive backing and still hasn't amounted to a lot.

I suspect the differentiator will be software, not hardware. In particular the willingness of third parties to create software. Apple has a good record there at least.
Julia Evans is a better blogger than I'll ever be, but I've been trying to get back into blogging. These tips are great, and all things I need to keep in mind. "You need to be original" and "writing boring posts is bad" are two thoughts that often keep me from writing on a subject.
I'm torn - it can replace my monitors, but then I'm tethered and wearing a headset all day. It can replace my TV, but then I can't watch a movie with my wife or family. And $3500 can buy a pretty nice monitor and TV setup.
There isn't. That is why the UK government likes it for their use, but wants to ban or backdoor parts of it (E2EE) for everyone else.
> I was always uncomfortable trusting any of the existing apps

I still cannot understand why people are so trusting of things they put on their phone. It is so much easier for anyone to get into your phone as opposed to your house or a safe in your house.

You all are giving so much up just for this convenience, which will one day become inconvenient.
'Pro' as in 'Prototype' I guess.
All day use if you plug it into wall power.
I guess they had to call it a "spatial computer" in an
attempt to overcome the shock that they want $3,500 for
a VR headset

With "computer" I think they're trying to emphasize the fact that it's standalone, not an add-on?

That may seem silly, but I have not paid much attention to VR/AR and I had assumed that headsets like the Meta Quest 2 were tethered to some other device. A quick search before this post showed me that is not the case, but I was actually ignorant about that fact. So apparently there are dopes like me who need to be told that these flagship headsets are standalone computing devices.
A bit unrelated, but it is "per se".
Will it let me block people, like in Black Mirror?
You can't watch a 2+ hour movie - the battery only lasts 2 hours.
AirPods redefine the personal audio experience
The sweat box is actively cooled this time. I'm concerned about the price as well though, even if it is fantastic beyond all expectations of what was presented that's a really hard price for most to justify for the feature set shown. Showing things like true and proper Disney+ integration day 1 gives hope for big name support vs just special one off demos for headsets of the past though. At the same time, they are going to need a lot more properly integrated apps for it to reach success status.
Agreed, I think this is going to be big, but it does very much have the feel of a first apple product. Especially wearing it to record 3d videos, I am sure now that there will be a 3d camera on the next iPhone pro.
DOA at the announced price of $3499. I don't think even the Reality Distortion Field can overcome the intrinsic problems with VR/AR, namely that most people simply do not want to deal with the hassle of strapping something to their face or clearing a sufficiently large area for room-scale experiences.
It's because you have to wear a battery pack
The display tech looks really cool. The eye pass through thing on the front of the device looks goofy as hell, it looks okay but viewed from an angle it looked weird because it didn't match up exactly with the face beneath.

Overall though, I think if it's anywhere near as good as those CG demos showed it to be, it could be the start of something new. But it reminds me of when Microsoft showed off HoloLens, the demonstrations of that made it look amazing, but supposedly the real device wasn't as impressive. The fact that Vision Pro is actually a full VR headset with cameras for pass through should make the whole AR experience 1000x better. I'm interested in what the battery life will be like too. It needs at least 4-6 hours to be usable for work or leisure. Anything less than that and there's no point.

Price wise, it's actually way cheaper than I thought. I fully expected this to be an Apple enthusiast device targeting at least $4999. But $3499 is cheap enough that someone could reasonably save to afford it and those with good disposable income could buy them. It's still expensive, don't get me wrong. But that's the price of a high end TV or a high end desktop.
Oh wow an anonymous hn user makes an optimist statement about new technology - lots riding on that!
Yes, that part also shocked me. It looks like they've completely lost their mind, and don't realize they're shooting a remake of black mirror..
Compared to how much progress the iPhone made from initial launch to now, the potential for this product line is very exciting.
I have an in-law who also got very, very rich young and decide one day "I'm going to be a photographer", and he spent a large chunk of money to become a very good fashion photographer (which he is). My friends who started out to become photographers had a bit harder time of it.
It does have similar vibes, but personally I wouldn't have the same negative reaction if the same functionality was added to the iphone. There's just something inauthentic with the digitally projected eyes.
"Apple's new VR Headset" not so much. It seems very much to be an AR headset. As a person who uses VR daily, I was curious if it would move VR forward, but it seems unrelated. Maybe one day they'll address tracking of peripherals such as is used for full body tracking and gaming, but for now it looks like just a virtual desktop & movie platform, which is fine since the competition doesn't do those particularly well, but time will tell if the difference is groundbreaking or just iterative. I do dream of a day when I don't need a monitor anymore, but unless their specs are out if this world, we're probably at least 5 years away.
$3499 USD prices this way beyond the grasp of everyone but a small minority of enthusiasts and professionals.

In a world of $1000 cellphones, $2000 computers and $40k cars, I wouldn't be so sure. I suspect if the prices do stay this high, it'll get priced on a monthly like how many people pay for their phones or cars.
It seems like Apple knows this first generation hardware isn’t going to sell much but they’re going forward anyway. Should be interesting to see what the next couple generations looks like.
The AirPods you see all the time is because wearing them is a fashion statement. You're "hip" or "rich" or whatever you want it to signal. Airpods are advertising themselves by people wearing them and influencing others to buy them. That's what driving the sales.

No one will be wearing this in public. And if anything, the person in the office using this first will look dorky. So I can't see it having the same appeal/free advertising.
Presumably, they would go the SE route where the Pro model retains highest performance and price while the SE model inherits the tech from past generations.
i'm leaning more to the iphone side, theres not a chance apple is gonna allow webxr and have developers distribute products without apples cut.
I don't see this taking off until there is a killer app that sells these things
Swap batteries with a click. Granted, I'm sure they'll cost $1,000.
Given you can use your mac’s screen on it, it’s almost moot depending on the app or latency involved. But knowing Apple it’ll probably be more iPhone since they’ve even been pushing App Store on Macs more too
I'm wondering that too, but from the presentation it looked a lot more "iPhone" than "mac". The only thing they demo'd that looked like a real desktop was an actual mac being mirrored in the display. Everything else seemed like an app you had to install through a new app store.
Thanks! That was interesting!
Lot of potential.Beautifully designed. I can see it selling a million a year. Questioned that before but I can see enough demand for 1M units a year. Could be an iPad level business if they keep miniaturizing it.
Two questions I'm interested in:

1) Are these machines still limited to running a maximum of two macOS VMs?

2) Can they drive more than a single 8k display?
With the M2 chip they should have called it the "eye mac"
how many degrees field of vision?