Comment by JumpCrisscross
3 years ago
> Does someone watch an entire 2+ hour movie with a sweaty headset strapped to them (and plugged into a socket) instead of on a couch with their family/friends?
Flights. This might become a must-have for the jet-setting class. That not only makes Apples first-year numbers, it fertilizes the market for developers.
VR movies in economy maybe. To tune out the awful experience of sitting in a 17" wide seat with not nearly enough leg room.
Nobody is paying business or first class prices and wearing a VR headset. Certainly not devoting carry on baggage space for it.
> Nobody is paying business or first class prices and wearing a VR headset. Certainly not devoting carry on baggage space for it.
Why not? The screens aren’t that great. And I may want to watch my own content.
It's actually pleasant to interact with the flight attendants. They have nice things to share, like snacks, drinks, and food.
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I fly business class all the time and would absolutely use this.
I get to watch my own content on a significantly larger and better quality screen.
I bet they absolutely will. If I could afford business/first, I'd absolutely buy something like this just to be able to watch content or work on a bigger screen and without the constant interruptions you get on in-flight entertainment.
Then in economy, not having to cram a laptop where it can get crushed by the seat in front, or craning your neck, etc - that'd be fantastic.
The Quest Go came out in 2018 (first "real" VR headset for this kind of thing) and I've never ever seen someone use one in flight. Not once in four+ years. I average about one flight a month.
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Oh they 100% absolutely will. Also, most people in business class don’t actually pay full price. It’s mostly upgrades and such.
I met someone at a party once who does this. I later found out they founded a popular video game streaming website.
I’m not sure. If you regularly pay for first class, then these goggles probably seem downright cheap. P
But it fertilizes the market for what kind of developers? Currently I see no real convincing reason why this should be substantially different than existing headsets except for a better operating system experience.
I can see this being an exceptional gaming device if the screen specs are anything to go by. But any game that would justify spending the substantial premium for that device would likely need an extra PC with really beefy specs, bumping the price up even higher, further limiting the target audience.
I've read other peoples thoughts about 3D modelling usecases. For most CAD related use-cases this thing is almost definitely overspeced considering the shitty textures most CAD prototypes utilize. Maybe it would be cool for architecture studios, but thats also a fairly limited audience.
I'm sure developers will come up with very creative use-cases for that device, but I cant imagine most of them being as impactful in the average persons everyday life as the introduction of the iPhone was. What I'm very certain is that this device is launching at a bad time economically. 3.5k is a significant expense, even for people with higher incomes. In a time where disposable incomes shrink and uncertainty is continuing to stress many employees, I don't think as many people would be willing to drop the 3.5k on that device as maybe 3 years ago.
But hey, maybe this comment will age as poorly as the famous dropbox one.
Completely agree with your points here. I personally see nearly zero times when I would use this given what I've seen so far. I imagined consuming content with the cheap Oculus Go would be cool, but mine has been gathering dust for years.
This Apple device seems like a moonshot. I am actually really glad for them to use some of their $100B+ of cash to take a shot at this product rather than other things that might be more sure-fire profit makers. I think if there is a killer app for AR/VR, we haven't seen it yet, and also, it'll be mind-blowing. But I think the chance of that happening anytime in the next 5 years is minimal. It's a low probability of something really awesome, so I'm rooting for it even though Apple is overall not my favorite company.
Existing headsets are predominately VR.
This is the first true mixed reality headset as it allows you to gradually transition between VR to AR. That's going to make the headset a lot more usable outside or in collaborative environments.
Maybe it would be cool for architecture studios, but thats also a fairly limited audience.
A guy I know does VR high quality architectural renderings of apartments etc that are sold off plan. So the potential buyer can actually go through their apartment before it’s even built. That doesn’t seem like a small use case.
I also thought flights were a compelling use case until I saw that the battery life was “up to” a whopping 2 hours
Aside from the in-seat power, I think another likely solution will be third parties like Belkin making a less "apple-esque" but longer lasting battery that's compatible with the magnetic connector. The OEM solution looks quite small as is. [1]
1 https://www.apple.com/v/apple-vision-pro/a/images/overview/d...
Interesting, it doesn't show a way to charge that brick. I assumed it would have USB-C for charging, though perhaps MagSafe makes more sense given the propensity of the user to stand up and start walking without realizing he's plugged into the wall!
I also wonder if it will use the other type of MagSafe (like on the iPhone) charging. I could see the argument for convenience, but presumably this would be significantly slower charging than over USB-C.
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Or the 10,000 battery bricks that have existed for 10 years.
Unless it's plugged in, in which case it can be used indefinitely. Many planes today allow you to plug in devices from your seat.
Many also do not. Maybe even most?
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Usually very limited amperage, almost certainly insufficient to keep this thing going indefinitely.
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Two extra batteries will likely be trivial cost in the context of a $3500 device, not sure why this isn't clear to everyone critiquing the battery life?
I'm assuming 3rd parties (like Anker, Belkin, etc) will be producing batteries for this not long after it's launched that will run much larger. If we assume the Apple battery for 2 hours is something like 40Wh, a 100Wh battery (the TSA max I believe) will give you 5 hours (enough for approximately 2-3 movies), which seems like plenty.
i can certainly see the appeal of a VR headset on flights, but if that's all i'm buying it for why would i go for a $3500 apple device instead of a $299 headset from meta?
can i even use noise-cancelling headphones with the reality pro, or is it locked to the built-in spacial audio headest? because i'd rather block out the noise than the peripheral vision on a plane.
a) Meta Quest is heavier, bulkier with significantly poorer quality displays.
b) You can use any earphones you like. There are videos of people using the AirPods Pro which are the best noise cancelling IEMs on the market today.
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The screens are totally different, as are the apps.
on a flight you just plug it into your seat
Maybe, but you'd need to wear bulky Bose on top of the VR headset to get decent audio quality + noise cancelation.
> you'd need to wear bulky Bose on top of the VR headset to get decent audio quality + noise cancelation
I have a Bose and AirPods Pros, and I can't say one is a class above the other.
Vision Pro has speakers, not earphone or headphone. Noise cancelling won't work. Apple will just recommend a AirPods Pro if you want a NC.
XReal(Nreal) glasses are much cheaper and lighter and with good reputations for that use case.
Does anyone know what is the privacy status of XReal? I would like to buy one, but I'm quite concerned about privacy.
I kept picturing someone, having turned the "immersiveness" crown to the max and put on noise-cancellation, sitting in a window seat, smiling and calmly watching Ted Lasso all the way down while everyone around them braces for impact and grabs their life preservers!
That actually sounds preferable to being fully present, in that situation. I'd rather go out peacefully than screaming in panic
As somebody with severe airphobia, this is reason enough to buy this thing
Doubt. It might provide an (expensive) escape from the misery that is economy class, but if you are travel in first class or on private jets then you're already living in a very pleasant version of the world.
That’s my take as well. You can stretch out, watch a movie on a flat screen TV, sleep, stand up and walk around, have food and drink with a sturdy table, or curl up with a book or otherwise. I recently did international first class for the first time and wasn’t particularly dying to escape the hellishness of it all.
All the most enjoyable stuff I've done in VR has involved, at a minimum, lots of arm movement, and typically also leg movement as well. Think Beat Saber, or Half-Life: Alyx. I don't really see this working in a seated plane environment.
We're talking about watching movies, not playing rhythm games.
Is it going to be worth $3500 to have a better movie experience on an airplane? Absolutely not. Is it going to be awesome? Probably.
It depends on how often you fly. I can see a frequent flyer benefiting from this, or maybe airlines will just had them out to their biz class flyers.
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I don't know if watching movies is a great use case for VR though? Unless it's gonna be a fully immersive 3D experience, I'd rather just watch it on a normal screen and give my eyes and head a rest.
My M2 air works great on flights no matter the seat configuration and I'm not small person. Costs a lot less than the ar as well.
For productivity, the M2 MBA is great. But for movie-watching, this is no comparison. I'm not a member of "the jet-setting class", but I completely agree that this is going to be de rigueur for those folks. I wouldn't be surprised if first class cabins came with free rentals in the near future.
They need a better story for the lenses for that to become a reality. Anyone who needs corrective lenses will need to bring their own and my guess is they are going to cost around $500. I’ll eat my shoe if they are less than half of that cost.
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Flights is one of the most compelling use cases for me personally. I’m tall and would love this. I also could use my ergonomic keyboard while looking up and ahead.
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Flights are my most compelling use case for my Nreal Airs.
Nothing worse than being 1" too deep and having to work at a terrible, awkward angle.
They focus on AR experiences, so doesn't fit into flights. Why would I need to see my sweaty passenger?
They've said there's a "crown" (like on their watches) on the headset you can turn to adjust seeing your surroundings or not. And there's a video demonstrating that on the page this thread links to. So no, you're not stuck seeing your surroundings if you don't want to see them.
there's a lot of graded levels of visible background in the keynote
On flights you want noise cancellation. Maybe you could pair these with noise-cancelling AirPods, but then would you still get the "spatial audio"?
1. Airpod pros have spatial audio
2. Their presentation showed someone using it with airpods on a plane
https://twitter.com/techAU/status/1665790510093697024
How do airpods compare with noise canceling Bose over the ear? (Genuine question, not rhetorical)
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This sounds absolutely awful and everyone on the flight will think you're a massive tool. It also costs $3500, people that can afford that just for flights are flying business or first class anyhow. I also don't know how much hand room you need to navigate the thing and personally don't like the idea that the person next to me on a flight could be watching porn, flights are already kinda gross.
Who cares what anyone else on a flight thinks of them?
My goal on a flight is to spend as little time as possible interacting with anyone else, and then trying to purge the experience from my mind minutes after landing.
A headset that makes it all disappear sounds like a godsend.
You may not care, but social pressure is effects -most- people. If you think you look like a moron to everyone around you, you're much less likely to take part in something. If a "headset that makes it all disappear" is a Godsend...why haven't you already bought the various headsets currently available that could already do that and worn it on a flight? I imagine there are two reasons, it looks silly and because it has no brand value associated with it (like Apple), it looks -really- silly.
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The idea that everyone who spends $3500 for a bleeding-edge device is surely spending $10k for a first class ticket is absurd.
Business class from Seattle to Tokyo is only $6k these days. That is compared to $1500 in economy though. Even if I could afford this new VR system, I still couldn’t afford international business class.
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I know HN is generally people that make decent money in tech, but $3500 for most people is a lot of money, especially for a first-generation unproven product. You are much more likely to find a person in business class that is buying this than a person in coach. That's just a fact. Meanwhile, there is no reason to wear the headset in first or business class because you aren't trying to escape the grim realities of the airplane.
Might as well go all in after you land, get into your Tesla, put it in auto-pilot to home and continue looking absurd driving the down the road.
There was a lot of negativity online about the iPad and iWatch. I knew they'd all be successful the first time I boarded a flight after their intro.
Everyone in first class had one. As first class goes, so goes at least America.
That's an arbitrary over-generalization. I'm sure first class was carrying blackberries long after 2007.
Phones, Tablets and smart watches existed and had big market penetration before those products were introduced. The same is true of earbuds, wireless and otherwise. This is a space with incredibly low penetration, it will be much harder to get traction.
Fair comparison, I felt the same about the AirPods. What these three devices have in common? They are not pro devices and their physicality is portable and easily accessible. Is the same true for the Vision Pro? I am purposefully excluding price.