Comment by al_borland

1 day ago

I find it so odd that Apple put so much weight behind the VisionOS design, rolling it out to all platforms, considering so few people have Vision Pro. The justification for bringing some iOS ideas to macOS made sense, because everyone knows how to use iOS and is familiar with those conventions.

I’m curious if we’ll see another major shift with the new deign lead, or if the higher ups will want to run with Liquid Glass for a while after so much investment, and not wanting to alienate users by radically changing design direction too often. Or if Liquid Glass is here to stay as long as we have Vision Pro, because VR/AR demand that style of UI, so everything else needs to fall in line for consistency’s sake.

I think I’d be more apt to switch to Linux if it wasn’t for all the mobile integration macOS and iOS have. Giving that up is a tough sell. It also means finding new solutions for managing photos, music, notes, and a bunch of other things. I also struggle to find non-Apple hardware I find acceptable. I’ve used Linux on and off for over 20 years, and in the past few years is gotten to the point where I think I could daily drive it with little to no compromise, in a bubble. But mobile really bursts that bubble.

> I find it so odd that Apple put so much weight behind the VisionOS design, rolling it out to all platforms, considering so few people have Vision Pro.

I suspect they began working on Liquid Glass before the Vision Pro was publicly unveiled, so they didn't know what the public response would be.

What I honestly find more baffling is that they thought the Vision Pro would sell well. It just isn't a good product.

Perhaps they're still banking on a future where the Vision Pro becomes a pair of real glasses. In which case, Liquid Glass is the type of interface you'd want to have.

  • I thought I saw various comments to the effect that the Vision Pro is just a developer thing to bootstrap the app ecosystem, a prelude to a real consumer product. But if that is the case I’m slightly confused as to why they aren’t sharing more of their roadmap…

    • Since when does Apple share their roadmap of anything? They have been super-secretive for decades.

    • I mean, if this was the strategy, it has clearly failed, right? The Vision Pro doesn't have anything approaching a thriving app ecosystem.

      And if this was the strategy, I'd have expected to see that consumer product by now. It has been almost two years.

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  • > What I honestly find more baffling is that they thought the Vision Pro would sell well.

    Those monopolies seem so scared to "miss the next smartphone" that they invest heavily in whatever their competitors do. Everybody was running after VR/AR headsets, now everybody is running after AI.

    They see the others run somewhere, they run in that direction. Just in case.

    • > Those monopolies seem so scared to "miss the next smartphone" that they invest heavily in whatever their competitors do.

      Monopolies so scared of the competition?

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It’s not actually really the same as the visionOS design, merely inspired by it.