Yes AR was always going to be better for productivity than VR. Being able to see your surroundings is pretty essential to working with others.Ben Lang's RoadtoVR hand on. He's always worth a read on MR hardware.
Hands-on: Apple Vision Pro isn't for Gaming, But it Does Everything Else Better
While Apple’s new Vision Pro headset isn’t going to satisfy the existing base of consumer VR users, it’s mastering the rest of the basics better than anyone else. Probably 90% of what consumers are using VR headsets for today is entertainment, and of that entertainment, most of it is gaming. And...www.roadtovr.com
Apple Events WWDC23
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Haha, 'spatial computing' was yesterday.
It's called 'facial computing' now, according Kotaku.
Lol, real tech expert journalists at work here, i guess.
They mention 'spatial photos' at least. I already wondered why this was not shown in the video. Taking photos from multiple angles, then viewing a generated 3D scene from that would be a good selling point for AR device.
Ars says the photo become cardboard cutouts
This is cool. Apple has a new Game Porting Toolkit for converting Windows games to MacOS and it supports DX12. It's basically API translation from D3D12 to Metal with Rosetta emulation for x86 to ARM.
www.digitaltrends.com
The speculation here is that this could be ported over to Wine/Crossover so they can just launch games and play them like in Linux. Looks like the Game Porting Toolkit stuff that's required for this is open sourced.
developer.apple.com
Looks like they're making more serious efforts to bring games over to mac.
Edit:
Another great Fireship video
Apple may have just enabled thousands of Windows games on Mac | Digital Trends
Apple's Game Porting Toolkit makes it easy to get Windows games on Mac, but Apple didn't talk about the fact that it could enable thousands of games right away.
www.digitaltrends.com
The speculation here is that this could be ported over to Wine/Crossover so they can just launch games and play them like in Linux. Looks like the Game Porting Toolkit stuff that's required for this is open sourced.
Bring your game to Mac, Part 1: Make a game plan - WWDC23 - Videos - Apple Developer
Bring modern, high-end games to Mac and iPad with the powerful features of Metal and Apple silicon. Discover the game porting toolkit and...
Looks like they're making more serious efforts to bring games over to mac.
Edit:
Another great Fireship video
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Here's some info on the input for the Vision Pro from an application developer perspective.
developer.apple.com
Design for spatial input - WWDC23 - Videos - Apple Developer
Learn how to design great interactions for eyes and hands. We'll share the design principles for spatial input, explore best practices...
But wait, does it mean a DX12 game gfx api calls go through DX12->DXVK, and then from VK to Metal?
So using two API translation layers?
And the only proper crossplatform API we (would) have is used only as a kind of middle man in a runtime emulation jungle?
Something is wrong here.
But still good news.
Btw, there is one flaw about the Vision Pro nobody has mentioned yet.
It's the name. 'Vision Pro' is no name. It's like calling your new born kid 'biped'.
That's not typical for Apple. Usually they care, and come up with good catchy names. Lisa, Macintosh, iPod, some other iThings.
This time they did not spend effort on naming at all. It's like they're not really confident about their product.
Reminds me on some YT vid i've seen about the Vision, trying to answer the question 'what problem does the device solve?'.
Their answer was something like 'Peoples everyday life is repetive and empty, and our world is depressing and dystopian already now. So you can use VR to escape and have a good time.'
I don't buy it. But Apple has not shown any reasonable applications such as design work, so this answer is maybe the only remainder.
Personally i think VR has only one consumer application: Games. Be in the game. That's an argument. And we all had this VR dream long before Palmer Luckey intended mass production. So it's something people actually want.
But Apple did not really show off this either.
All they have shown is a very expensive head mounted web browser and virtual screen. All 2D stuff, which already works well on flat screens and phones, without a need to strap on some prosthesis.
I doubt a lot of people will be interested at this point. Before launch they need to show some killer apps.
How about releasing an iPhone with eye tracking? That would be a blast. Typing on tiny on screen keyboard sucks.
I really want eye tracking. also on desktop flat screen. I want a new convenient input device, and i want foveated rendering to reduce costs.
But i don't want to wear goggles.
The other aplication shown this far was the Black-Mirror-esque immersive volumetric photo/video viewer, which you have to be looking like robocop during the moment the event actually happened the first time to capture.
Relieve, however many times you'd like, a moment you never were fully present in because you had a helmet on and a pair of 4k screens glued to your eyes when it first happened.
'Darling! The baby... it's coming! Ouch... It's coming right now!!!'
'Wait, honey. I'll put my iVisor on before i look at it. So we can relive and memorize this moment in glorious 4K and full immersion when we're old.'
From what I've read they're going D3D12 straight to Metal3.
People already do that with their phones
Or see concerts through their phone screens which they will never replay once the alcohol has worn off.Stereoscopic video is not the main selling point of this product. The spatial computing part seems very promising though.
Once it's time for second wind of stereo,photomode in games will be 100% overhauled because of it, I still keep my stereo screenshots around from 2012 from the first wave (with MSAA xd xd). Back then you had to cfg edit for free camera and time freeze and it was ofc worth it. Apple having stereo roadmap is nothing less than earth shattering news. AAPL Nokia moment averted as far I'm concerned xd.
Oh and mostly anything "new" after 2012 was just sugarcoated "orthostereoscopy" anyway:
Once that wears off we're back to extreme (hyper)stereo anyway.
It's most likely a stopgap and by cutting weight you'll arrive at transparent stuff by necessity.
Yeah, my comment was meant half a joke, half serious.People already do that with their phones
I remember the time when first mobile cell phones came up. At first everybody laughed at people using this on the streets. Our gov TV and radio made jokes too.
But then it became normal pretty quickly, long before smart phones have arrived.
So maybe, will people wear smart glasses all the time somewhat soon?
Hehe - 'I love your eyes, darling! But can you color them blue for me?' - 'Sure, sweetie pie!', ...changing eye color shown on visor with an eye blink.
Oh, and when i was a kid, there were Xray glasses to order from the catalogue, so you could see everybody nude. That was the promise at least. I'm sure it did not work and was a scam.
But now, with some AR goggles plus AI post processing? Maybe clothes become obsolete completely, and we'll download some Fortnite costumes instead.
What do you mean? 'Stereoscopic 3D' has a well defiend function and purpose. But 'spatial computing' is just a marketing term. It sounds hip, just like 'metaverse', but it does not mean anything.
Personally i see things like: You want to buy furniture for your penthouse. You open Ikea app, and then you see the offered furniture in your room. You see how it fits and how it looks.
That's useful, but it has a cost. You need to buy expensive goggles, Ikea needs to invest in complex software, data and cloud infrastructure.
This will happen only after enough people have the goggles.
Just, Apples contribution is no game changer just because it's better than former and similar tech. What can Vision do that Hololens could not?
So why should the metaverse / AR / VR dream (whatever it is) now start to become real, after MS and Meta have achieved nothing?
I'm not even sure this happens even if they get form factor down to regular glasses. Because i can do all those things with phones and web browsers almost just as well.
We will see. To me this looks like the usual modern, made up tech industry trend. They served us well for decades, but now they're beyond peak and have problems to come up with new products we really want.
So instead they try to convince us about products we didn't demand. Metaverse, AI, crypto money, NFTs, huge GPUs... up to human brain computer interface. As a consumer i have no interest in any of this.
But hopefully i'm just too pessimistic. I really like how Apple shows you just what you get. Contrary to Zuckerberg, talking about a vision without defining it, while obviously just panicking to become obsolete otherwise.
I do see an opportunity to evolve games a bit further. Not too much, but it's something.
If Apple develops more interest in gaming that's good as well.
hoom
Veteran
For a product/class struggling desperately for weight, cost & battery life, that screen is a ridiculous addition.
As Alex from AJS put it 'if I went to the effort of going to visit someone and they don't take that shit off to talk to me I'm gonna want to punch them in the face'
Maybe it'll be gone in the iVisor-S?
Seriously why the hell don't they have some clever iName for this???
So many great things they could do with it, just quickly aside from iVisor:
V-i-sor
iBand
iHat
iCap
iFez
iShade
iVeil
iAdem
Kep-i
T-i-ara
Cool-i
iShanka
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So among the HMD products which have attempted to define the raison d'être for these devices, we have HoloLens, which would be used in vertical markets for training technicians or in military applications.
Then we have Meta which promotes their HMDs as a way to enter the meta verse, to interact in virtual spaces.
But I don't think either of those applications have set the industry on fire.
HoloLens isn't a big part of MS financials, though they may have a few big contracts. Didn't they lay off people at the unit?
Also Meta and the whole meta verse thing isn't catching on. They may have moved a fair amount of devices but these virtual worlds they created are said to be ghost towns. Avid gamers may play VR games regularly but what are the big VR hit games?
That is not to say that "spatial computing" will be the thing that cracks the whole question about whether masses of people will regularly put on HMDs for general computing or games or whatever.
The jury is still way out on this category. People assume this could be one of the next big things, based on some sci fi novels?
I can see people using it at home, even if they reduce the size, weight and cost of the HMDs, but go around public with it? Probably going to get backlash like Google Glass did.
Hell some people get annoyed with others wearing masks during the pandemic. They're going to be less tolerant of people who cover up their eyes and maybe parts of their face with devices which are loaded with cameras and sensors which could be surreptitiously recording them.
Then we have Meta which promotes their HMDs as a way to enter the meta verse, to interact in virtual spaces.
But I don't think either of those applications have set the industry on fire.
HoloLens isn't a big part of MS financials, though they may have a few big contracts. Didn't they lay off people at the unit?
Also Meta and the whole meta verse thing isn't catching on. They may have moved a fair amount of devices but these virtual worlds they created are said to be ghost towns. Avid gamers may play VR games regularly but what are the big VR hit games?
That is not to say that "spatial computing" will be the thing that cracks the whole question about whether masses of people will regularly put on HMDs for general computing or games or whatever.
The jury is still way out on this category. People assume this could be one of the next big things, based on some sci fi novels?
I can see people using it at home, even if they reduce the size, weight and cost of the HMDs, but go around public with it? Probably going to get backlash like Google Glass did.
Hell some people get annoyed with others wearing masks during the pandemic. They're going to be less tolerant of people who cover up their eyes and maybe parts of their face with devices which are loaded with cameras and sensors which could be surreptitiously recording them.
