Apple Events WWDC23

[JoeJ]

So many great things they could do with it, just quickly aside from iVisor:

I have it:

iVoid

That's the impression Zuckerberg has created at least, so now also Apple has to deal with it too.

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?

There are hits, but they came late. Alyx, some Sony franchises with big names, some others like Doom or Skyrim.
But the point is: Hits were not needed to make the VR gaming niche persistent. Gimmicks like Beat Saber were enough. It's driven by gamers enthusiastic about increasing immersion in any way possible. They wanted it long before announcement, and they are happy with what they got.

But such user base does not exist for a non-game consumer AR market, trying to improve quality of life with something like immersive communication, watching TV and photos, or just putting 'helpful' ads everywhere.
So i really think they need killer apps beyond first class UX, and i'm sure they work on it.

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'

Good point.
Solution: Wear some iVisor too. Otherwise your wealthy Apply fanboy cousin won't open the door anyway, confusing you with some beggar.

 

[xz321zx]

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?

They were promised oled wallpapers, meanwhile they were sold 4K displays with abysmal diagonals. Sure some will just stop waiting even if it means some walled ecosystem while the "less discerning consumer" will buy the long awaited oled monitor ( with heatsink and overclocked eye tracking no less xdd).

 

[JoeJ]

They were promised oled wallpapers, meanwhile they were sold 4K displays with abysmal diagonals. Sure some will just stop waiting even if it means some walled ecosystem while the "less discerning consumer" will buy the long awaited oled monitor ( with heatsink and overclocked eye tracking no less xdd).

So you think people who want a huge screen will buy it?
That's a point. But you forgot that huge screens are mostly desired by families, not single people.

If i look around at night, i can see huge TV screens through the windows of my neighbors. They must be like 2 x 4 m huge. I myself have completely missed such screens already exist.
No idea about quality or price, but surely cheaper than buying 4 Vision Pro for the whole family so they could watch something 'together'.

Besides, if i had stereo goggles, i would not want to use them to watch old school flat 2D movies. Feels like getting only half for the money. 2h battery life also is a bit constraining to watch movies.

But yeah, if you live in some crowded city in a tiny apartment, it's a practical and economical option.
If such goggles can make your room feel larger and more open, that's maybe a real selling point. But not sure if this works. The VR i've tried (cheap Google Cardboard) had the opposite effect.

 

[WhiningKhan]

So many great things they could do with it, just quickly aside from iVisor

iLid. Or perhaps to keep it real, describing physical effects and most likely usage:
iFucker.

 

[xz321zx]

The closer the screen the more it appears flat because you recognize it due to binocular "background processing" , you can keep telling yourself there's depth but it's just not the same, and that hurts a lot of genres because? Let's take for example SPACE EXPLORATION game- it's highly likely mass effect would work better if it wasn't for the need for VISCERAL hi-octane stuff on every corner because devs had to overcompensate for the lack of subtlety offered by nearby flatscreen. So I don't think gamers need to repeat that immersive headline AAPL is selling, when in reality the opposite of immersion is "immersion breaking", so that "new" stuff is actually kind of normal, it's just the perfomance grade offered by suitably large screen.

 

[JoeJ]

Refresh rate is usually 90 fps: https://9to5mac.com/2023/06/08/apple-vision-pro-display-refresh-rate/

The closer the screen the more it appears flat because you recognize it due to binocular "background processing" , you can keep telling yourself there's depth but it's just not the same, and that hurts a lot of genres because? Let's take for example SPACE EXPLORATION game

Well, if my goal is to make a space exploration game, display limitations are my very least problem. I'll hit some other walls much earlier, e.g. to make infinite procedural crap interesting enough so it feels worth to explore.
ME is not a space exploration game, and i doubt they would had made it one if displays were better.

But why do you think stereo goggles increase comfort, although they introduce new but very serious issues such as motion sickness and vergence accommodation conflict?
Yes, we do get better depth perception, but the price is high: We can't move, and we can't show close up stuff. So our game design options are much more restricted than any better user experience could ever justify.
Apple does nothing new to address this?

Btw, while googling for correct spelling, i saw somebody claims for a solution of VAC, but hidden behind paywall: https://www.spiedigitallibrary.org/...arable-headset/10.1117/12.2315620.short?SSO=1

 

[Scott_Arm]

Here's another impression of the Vision Pro with some details that I was interested in.

First Impressions of Vision Pro and VisionOS

In the same way that the introduction of multitouch with the iPhone removed a layer of conceptual abstraction — instead of touching a mouse or trackpad to move an on-screen pointer to an object on screen, you simply touch the object on screen — VisionOS removes a layer of abstraction spatially.

daringfireball.net

...I definitely could not see pixels — the experience is “retina” quality. Apple is not yet stating what frame rate Vision Pro runs at, but I’m guessing it runs at 90 frames per second, if not higher.

Again, it doesn’t look at all like looking at screens inside a headset. It looks like reality, albeit through something like a pair of safety glasses or a large face-covering clear shield. There is no border in the field of vision — your field of view through Vision Pro exactly matches what you see through your eyes without it. Most impressively, and uncannily, the field of view seemingly exactly matches what you see naturally. It’s not even slightly wider angle, or even slightly more telephoto. There is no fisheye effect and no aberrations or distortion in your peripheral vision. What you see in front of your face exactly matches what your own eyes see when you lift the Vision Pro up over your eyes. Imagine a set of safety glasses that used a glass treatment that gives the world a slight bit of a “film look”. A slight tint (that tint might get dialed in closer to reality by next year — to me it felt ever so slightly warm, color-wise), and a slight bit of visually flattering smoothness to everything.

...You know how when you use AR on an iPhone or iPad — the built-in Measure app is a perfect example — and virtual UI elements or items move around a little bit relative to reality as you pan and rotate the iPhone or iPad? There’s nothing like that in VisionOS. Virtual elements are utterly stable. Obviously that’s what you want in an XR experience, but to my knowledge no other headset can achieve this stability. My understanding is that this profound stability — this palpable realness of virtual elements — is thanks to the extraordinary precise eye-tracking that Vision Pro achieves. Uncanny is often a pejorative — e.g. with the uncanny valley — but in this case I use it as strong praise. It is simply uncanny how Vision Pro makes virtual elements as spatially stable as the walls and furniture and people in the room around you.

 

[hoom]

Never actually occurred to me before but reading that: How does stuff like that work for those of us who wear glasses?

 

[Scott_Arm]

Never actually occurred to me before but reading that: How does stuff like that work for those of us who wear glasses?

More money. You have to buy corrective inserts. It doesn't fit over glasses. I think some other headsets do. But maybe that's to bring the lenses closer to the eyes to have that wide fov. Don't know.

 

[JoeJ]

Never actually occurred to me before but reading that: How does stuff like that work for those of us who wear glasses?

Some estimate on extra costs:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1666226082368897027

 

[xz321zx]

VAC

is not exclusive to wearable, it's just at least 10x easier to solve there because it's easier to generate multiple or even continuous (to a good degree) depth planes it only needs 1mm mechanical travel for example. They 100% have something they just don't want to get into some stupid outnerding contest (and by looking at this thread that's not even the worst thing some people engage in xd).

 

[hoom]

Uh ok so I'm never buying anything like this then unless for whatever reason I find myself having a ludicrous amount of $$$ and nothing better to do with it... or they actually somehow really take off & become a thing everyone needs to have like you basically can't function now without a smart phone to do 2FA.

Didn't Google glass tech at least theoretically work with existing lenses?

 

[Scott_Arm]

Uh ok so I'm never buying anything like this then unless for whatever reason I find myself having a ludicrous amount of $$$ and nothing better to do with it... or they actually somehow really take off & become a thing everyone needs to have like you basically can't function now without a smart phone to do 2FA.

Didn't Google glass tech at least theoretically work with existing lenses?

I think you had to buy prescription lenses for Google Glass. HoloLens accommodates glasses but it has a narrow field of view and it can’t do VR because it’s not sealed from external light. I think the Meta Quest headsets can be worn over glasses and they’re probably closest to Apple Vision Pro in terms of supporting both AR and VR.

 

[milk]

Here's another impression of the Vision Pro with some details that I was interested in.

First Impressions of Vision Pro and VisionOS

In the same way that the introduction of multitouch with the iPhone removed a layer of conceptual abstraction — instead of touching a mouse or trackpad to move an on-screen pointer to an object on screen, you simply touch the object on screen — VisionOS removes a layer of abstraction spatially.

daringfireball.net

I wonder if they are doing some kind of 3D spacial reprojection to the front facing camera captures to correct the POV to exactly the same of the wearers actual eye positions.

 

[Scott_Arm]

I wonder if they are doing some kind of 3D spacial reprojection to the front facing camera captures to correct the POV to exactly the same of the wearers actual eye positions.

The main thing I'd hope for is other companies figuring this stuff out and basically copying it for a cheaper price.

I've seen Casey Muratori make the argument that the iPhone was a huge success because it was incredibly responsive and simple to use, even though it was lacking a lot of features from other phones and didn't have an app store. It basically beat out the competitors on feeling "natural" to use. I think Vision Pro kind of looks like it's going the same way. Other companies are in a spec race, or a race to the lowest price, where the interface and immersion breaking elements are not necessarily the priority. Apple is basically looking at it as where the bar sits to address the issues that cause a person to take it off, like being cumbersome to use, looking strange. Apple won't accept a screen door effect, unstable AR elements, an unnatural fov/viewpoint, or having to use controllers to interact. Without discussing price, I think where they missed is the weight and the battery life. Seems like they've tried to minimize all of the things that would make a person fatigued from wearing it for extended periods of time, but the weight is contrary to that, and none of it matters if you run out of battery.

 

[JoeJ]

I wonder if they are doing some kind of 3D spacial reprojection to the front facing camera captures to correct the POV to exactly the same of the wearers actual eye positions.

I guess related artifacts would make things worse. Likely accuracy of depth sensors is limited and artifacts could not be avoided. But yeah, interesting question.

I wonder even more how they do foveated rendering. Iirc, Apple GPU VRR is a bit different. Maybe it can not only shade at low res, but also raster at low res. That's what would be needed.

This is also why it would be hard for them to get Oculus or Steam games on board. GameKit emulated CP runs 40fps on M2 Max. Foveated could help, but no current rendering tech is ready for it. Games need a proper port and a lot of work.
Though, i doubt Apple would allow other stores on their platform anyway.
Somewhere i have read they plan to invest 2 trillions(!) to generate content partnering with Disney for example. But i guess i got this wrong. Or maybe it was about movies rather than games.
GameKit shows Apple invests into games. But then there is no controller, so hard to tell how serious they are.
One thing is clear: No controller means we end up at casual mobile grade games only again, which isn't serious enough for my taste.

 

[JoeJ]

The main thing I'd hope for is other companies figuring this stuff out and basically copying it for a cheaper price.

Yeah, that's where it becomes interesting. If it happens. People must first confirm they want such devices, i guess.

 

[Scott_Arm]

Yeah, that's where it becomes interesting. If it happens. People must first confirm they want such devices, i guess.

I'm not convinced they'll ever be more than niche unless they keep getting smaller and smaller, but I'm guessing the structure of the lenses will limit how small they can really get. Personally, I'm single in an apartment, and my tv and my work setup take up a lot of space. Something like this could simplify my space a lot, but that's assuming you never have people over where you'd want to watch a movie or tv together. The idea of groups of people sitting down to watch a movie together with headsets on seems very strange. I think VR/AR are always going to be somewhat awkward in social environments, despite this weird attempt to project eyes on a front screen. I could actually see it being more acceptable in work environments where you're not there to socialize.

I'm a pretty avid movie watcher, so that's actually an aspect that I'm most interested in.

The second type of experience is the consumption of 2D content, like photos and videos. Watching a regular movie on a virtual huge screen is incredible. It’s way more like watching a movie in a real cinema than like watching on a TV. One of the movies Apple had us watch was James Cameron’s Avatar: The Way of Water, both in a window floating in front of us, and then in “theater mode”, which immersively removes your actual physical surroundings. Cameron shot Avatar 2 with state-of-the-art 3D cameras, and the 3D effect was, as promised, better than anything I’ve ever seen in a theater or theme park. I don’t generally like 3D feature-length movies at all — I find myself not remembering them afterwards — but I might watch movies like Avatar this way with Vision Pro. But even though Avatar is 3D, it’s still a rectangular movie. It’s just presented as a very large rectangle with very compelling 3D depth inside that rectangle.

First Impressions of Vision Pro and VisionOS

In the same way that the introduction of multitouch with the iPhone removed a layer of conceptual abstraction — instead of touching a mouse or trackpad to move an on-screen pointer to an object on screen, you simply touch the object on screen — VisionOS removes a layer of abstraction spatially.

daringfireball.net

Now whether the actual product lives up to that person's impressions is what we'll have to wait for.

 

[JoeJ]

I'm not convinced they'll ever be more than niche unless they keep getting smaller and smaller

Size matters, but i don't think it's the main obstacle. It's the invasive aspect of technology, and what's a better symbol for such invasion than something you put very close to your eyes. Glasses, contact lens, so maybe brain implant is the next step. Dystopian SciFi fantasy, or obvious association?
Idk, but current generations have consumed enough SciFi, so there is primal fear. We don't want to become a Borg society, we don't want to be tracked in data centers, we don't want to trade the wonders of life and nature against a simulation lie.
Maybe that's exaggerated concerns, but it raises the question: Do we want to extend our reality with something virtual? Or do we not, but rather expect we would be forced to do so, e.g. to work?
That's why i'm so doubtful. Things like comfort or costs come only after that. Wearable computing may be just too close to us. We might prefer to keep it locked away in some box at a distance.

That's also why Apple is in a much better position than Facebook. Apple is expensive, but they don't promise you to get a lot of friends while throwing ads at you.
That's more worth than 'finally you can't see the pixels anymore!', i think.
So if you want to watch movies, i'd expect Apple serves you well, not only because their tech is usually good and works.
I want something similar: Just playing games.
And would assume that's the things most people want. I really don't see anything social here. There is nothing social about tech in general, imo.
But then here's the problem: Movies and games are clearly VR. It's about fantasy and ignoring the real world for some time, not about augmenting it in any way.
So why not just some video glasses, without bunch of tracking HW you do not need? Or some Valve headset, actually coming with nice controllers to play?
Even if we combine our interests, still no need for AR beyond some gimmicks. Why should we pay for it then?

I guess Apple will not answer this question, and maybe they shouldn't.
They might just give the option and hope app developers come up with something.

Oh, maybe showing the real world just on the edges of the screen would fix the motion sickness problem for games, for example? Immersion might suffer a bit, but could be worth it.
Time to reactivate my Apple dev account, hehe...

The closer the screen the more it appears flat because you recognize it due to binocular "background processing" , you can keep telling yourself there's depth but it's just not the same, and that hurts a lot of genres because? Let's take for example SPACE EXPLORATION game- it's highly likely mass effect would work better if it wasn't for the need for VISCERAL hi-octane stuff on every corner because devs had to overcompensate for the lack of subtlety offered by nearby flatscreen.

Quoting this again, because i think you overestimate the importance of subtlety. I mean, subtlety by definition is not important, but subtle. Thus, even if we manage to nail subtlety, no huge change on the big picture is to expected. Simple logic.
But you also overestimate the importance of display quality in general. Remember the GameBoy for example. Worst display ever, one of the most successful toys ever. You could barely see anything on the screen, it did not even had some colors, and still people loved it. This implies what people love about games is not what is shown on the output device, but what happens inside the box. The simulation of a small world which is fun to interact with. The reward of mastering a hard but fair challenge. The progress of some exciting story. Things like that.
In other words: Smoke On The Water rocks, no matter if composed and played on some Gibson or Fender, no matter if heard on some hifi amp or some crappy ear plug. It's the song that shatters the earth, not the speaker.

 

[xz321zx]

I'll just surmise JoeJ can't help being antithetic to Marshall McLuhan and this stuff reads like a rallying cry for the "Less discerning consumer" xd