[HN Gopher] Developer tools to create spatial experiences for Ap...
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Developer tools to create spatial experiences for Apple Vision Pro
 
Author : todsacerdoti
Score  : 170 points
Date   : 2023-06-21 20:06 UTC (2 hours ago)
 
web link (www.apple.com)
w3m dump (www.apple.com)
 
| dagmx wrote:
| I'm very excited to see what people will be developing. The
| feedback from early press has been incredibly positive from just
| first party applications, but third party apps are where a lot of
| things will come up that Apple themselves likely haven't thought
| of.
 
  | withinboredom wrote:
  | > third party apps are where a lot of things will come up that
  | Apple themselves likely haven't thought of.
  | 
  | Until they sherlock it. Honestly, I'd be terrified to come up
  | with something that became too popular in their app store.
 
    | dagmx wrote:
    | There's also nothing stopping some third party undercutting
    | your app as well.
    | 
    | I'm of the mind that it's a risk worth taking , because it's
    | an opportunity that wouldn't have presented itself otherwise
 
      | withinboredom wrote:
      | I meant once you become somewhat popular, it's got to be
      | terrifying. Not necessarily that it's terrifying before you
      | start. When you first start out, there's a billion things
      | happening and this isn't one of them.
 
    | threeseed wrote:
    | Most of the time they simply acquire the company.
    | 
    | And so you have a lot of success and then you make a lot of
    | money during an acquisition.
    | 
    | Sounds like the opposite of terrifying to me.
 
| Kydlaw wrote:
| I may have missed this information, but did they announce
| somewhere the configuration required to be able to develop
| applications on this platform? I'd really like to try out their
| SDK, but without knowing the minimum requirements, I don't really
| dare invest in a Mac (knowing that I won't be able to add RAM
| after purchase, for example).
 
  | etchalon wrote:
  | You can develop for the platform on any Mac, including their
  | lowest end M2 products like the Air or Mini.
  | 
  | The device itself is running the base M2, so there's reason you
  | can't right code using a device with the exact same chip. I
  | would recommend at least 16G of RAM, with 32 being more future-
  | proof. Rumor is the device has 8 on-board.
 
  | kitsunesoba wrote:
  | It's basically the same stack as on iOS/iPadOS, so it's going
  | to have the same requirements.
 
| mikenew wrote:
| I actually think the killer feature for this thing is already
| there: a hands-free, mostly passive consumption device that can
| seamlessly switch from full attention entertainment (or work) to
| partial attention consumption.
| 
| I think it will work a bit like wireless headphones with audio
| passthrough. I can sit at my PC and hear audio from whatever I'm
| doing, but I can also get up and move around and still hear that
| audio. The audio passthrough, even though it's not perfect, is
| easily good enough for me to hear my environment and even carry
| on a conversation without having to take them off, and I can
| pause whatever music or podcast or video I'm listening to just by
| pressing a button on the side.
| 
| I think the headset will provide a similar experience in that you
| can push whatever random YouTube video you were watching out of
| your direct line of sight, and then get up and go make yourself
| lunch while you're still half paying attention to it. Not only
| that, but you can _interact_ with it using your eyes + minimal
| hand gestures.
| 
| The really intense, fully-present experiences (like gaming on a
| current headset) will probably still happen, but I think most
| people won't be spending much of their time there, similar to how
| the total amount of time spent in modern, intense, realistic
| gaming is tiny compared to how much time people spend scrolling
| feeds and mindlessly consuming content.
 
  | alfonsodev wrote:
  | I thought so but what about the camera position not being same
  | as your eyes, would you be able to drink from a cup of coffee
  | and coordinate?
  | 
  | Or have a similar experience to the living with lag video, this
  | time no because time lag, but eye hand not coordinating.
  | 
  | https://youtu.be/_fNp37zFn9Q
 
    | causality0 wrote:
    | You don't use your eyes to drink from a cup of coffee, unless
    | it's to check how much coffee is in the cup. Eyes are not
    | required for proprioception.
 
      | atchoo wrote:
      | You do use your face though and goggles can make drinking
      | from a mug tricky. Hot drinks can also mist up your lenses
      | if you linger near your nose hole.
      | 
      | My experiments using straws in VR just led me to stabbing
      | myself in the gum, lip, nose and cheek in various painful
      | ways. The perfect vessel is a long neck beer bottle. Easy
      | to get into your face-hole and won't bang against your
      | goggles. The downside is how easy it is to knock over.
 
  | paul7986 wrote:
  | Maybe the headset is the next iPHone, but i doubt it rather
  | Apple Smart Glasses that should be bred from the headset is the
  | next iPhone. Lightweight smart glasses that do amazing things
  | created by Apple and developers will make everyone want to own
  | a pair of smart glasses.
 
    | makeitdouble wrote:
    | A lot of people are looking for the next iPhone.
    | 
    | My bet would be there is none in our generation and we spend
    | the rest of our life with two kind of computing: one that
    | fits our hand and other devices to deal with the rest.
    | 
    | The question becomes, is this inherently better and more
    | convenient than a laptop ? If it's not, it will stay a nice
    | accesory, like the watch is a nice accessory.
 
| jonplackett wrote:
| Really curious how the simulator will work for this!
 
| bee_rider wrote:
| I wish as a developer tool Apple would let people run Vision Pro
| apps on an iPhone in something like Google cardboard.
| 
| It would be an awful consumer experience of course, but it would
| be nice just to try and get ready for the real devices.
 
  | jml78 wrote:
  | Part of the magic is the eye tracking and exterior cameras
  | tracking hands. Without those, I don't see how what you suggest
  | would be very helpful
 
    | bee_rider wrote:
    | Surely not every app will use the hand and eye tracking.
    | 
    | Let the user attach a pair of mouses (one for eyes, one for
    | hand).
    | 
    | > Next month, Apple will open developer labs in Cupertino,
    | London, Munich, Shanghai, Singapore, and Tokyo
    | 
    | It can be pretty janky and still be more convenient than
    | traveling to one of six cities.
 
      | leodriesch wrote:
      | Eye and hand tracking are supposedly the only way to
      | interact with the device, so unless your app is not
      | interactive at all, you will use them.
 
  | pj_mukh wrote:
  | So theoretically pieces of ARKit in iOS are the same as in
  | VisionOS.
  | 
  | In fact I'd be surprised if VisionOS doesn't readily eat up all
  | of ARKit dev patterns,
 
| rafark wrote:
| Crossing fingers for this to take off. There's a lot of potential
| applications for a device like this.
 
| charliea0 wrote:
| Boy the this timeline is turning out to be very cyberpunk.
| 
| I wonder how long before people start bumping into lamp posts
| because they are distracted by one of these.
 
| MicropenisMike wrote:
| In a world where headsets are as ubiquitous as smartphones, what
| happens to social media like Discord, or Reddit?
 
| Jeff_Brown wrote:
| To paraphrase The Economist, "This device is amazing, and now
| Apple needs developers to figure out what it's for."
| 
| https://www.economist.com/business/2023/06/06/apples-vision-...
 
  | detourdog wrote:
  | I'm most intrigued by the handtracking I'm hoping that ends up
  | beig distinct.... eventually.
 
  | mentos wrote:
  | Unreal Engine developer here, super thrilled to see Apple
  | spitefully choosing to only support Unity with no mention of
  | UE. I imagine due to the bad blood between Epic and Apple over
  | AppStore lawsuits.
 
    | readyplayernull wrote:
    | When Unreal had those super expensive licenses in the order
    | of +$200k most indie devs moved to Unity, so the average
    | Unity dev doesn't have lots of resources to spend on a pricey
    | headset and the expectation of very high quality titles.
    | Either too few devs will ship anything or quality will be
    | low.
 
    | buildbot wrote:
    | Apple _really_ holds grudges.
    | 
    | After the Nvidia blamed them for their failing GPUs, they
    | literally never shipped anything Nvidia ever again. There's
    | probably an alternate universe where metal does not exist
    | because Apple and Nvidia became friends and just optimized
    | cuda for macOS
 
    | dylan604 wrote:
    | Having a disliked corporate daddy definitely has its knock on
    | effects
 
  | leejoramo wrote:
  | In 1981, I received a computer as a birthday gift at the young
  | age of 13. Likely the first micro-computer in my small
  | California town. When I took it to my Junior High science fair
  | people were like stunned by a kid with a computer. When you
  | turned on the computer, all you got was a flashing cursor wait
  | for you to program in BASIC. The next year, a successful local
  | business person asked me, if I thought in the future most
  | people would have computers. I said yes. They replied they
  | didn't think that would ever happen. And they didn't see, the
  | need for it in their business, even after seeing VisiCalc. In
  | less than 5 years, they had computers in thier business for
  | Lotus123. And not long after, they had computers in their home.
  | I have seen this pattern repeat many times. I have also seen
  | many branches of computer tech die (amiga, os/2, palm....) But
  | from my point of view "figure out what it's for" is the
  | ultimate computer hackers playground. And perhaps Vision Pro
  | will be the first headset "worth criticizing" regardless of its
  | success.
 
    | adamredwoods wrote:
    | I feel the computer revolution was seen by many. The Vision
    | Pro won't be nearly as explosive, if at all. It's essentially
    | an interface for personal electronic space, and that space is
    | being explored by hackers every where with all kinds of
    | devices. So 'figure out what its for' is being explored by
    | many, and doesn't have to be exclusive to Apple devices.
 
    | tailspin2019 wrote:
    | > When you turned on the computer, all you got was a flashing
    | cursor wait for you to program in BASIC.
    | 
    | > from my point of view "figure out what it's for" is the
    | ultimate computer hackers playground
    | 
    | I don't have much to add to this fantastic comment.
 
    | macNchz wrote:
    | I feel much the same way about having been given my own
    | computer with internet when I was about the same age in the
    | late 90s.
    | 
    | Following developments in VR/AR for a while, I've felt like
    | we've been in a "business computers before spreadsheets",
    | "home computers before the internet", "mp3 players before the
    | iPod", "PDAs before the iPhone" sort of period, wondering if
    | we'd see a sea change platform emerge. I generally have a low
    | tolerance for hype, but I'm excited about the potential here.
    | Can't wait to experiment with developing software for it!
 
      | fumar wrote:
      | Perhaps it is not the next iPhone but the next Mac. It is a
      | better at home or at work general computing device. I am a
      | cynic and I see it as the next iPad.
 
        | threeseed wrote:
        | Or it may be the next TV.
        | 
        | You sitting on your couch as virtual events and shows
        | happen around you.
 
  | thebricklayr wrote:
  | Honestly, I'm excited to start building AR-enhanced cooking
  | experiences for Umami[1].
  | 
  | I worry though: is the passthrough reliable enough to use a
  | sharp kitchen knife safely while wearing it?
  | 
  | [1] https://www.umami.recipes
 
    | makeitdouble wrote:
    | Isn't there also the issue of the device overheating ?
    | accidental water projection ? oil projections ? Camera
    | fogging ? The battery dying while doing something and you're
    | suddenly blind ?
    | 
    | I think the Apple demo of people mostly sitting on a couch is
    | not a lack of imagination, but a pragmatic approach of how
    | this device should be used.
 
      | thebricklayr wrote:
      | You may be right. My hope is the AVP is at least step
      | toward something that could make potentially dangerous
      | physical activities, like cooking, safer (e.g., by showing
      | you the temperature of a surface before you touch it with
      | your hands, as suggested elsewhere in this thread).
 
    | basisword wrote:
    | I feel like even if it is good enough it's only a matter of
    | time until it lags and you lose a finger. Lulling us into a
    | false sense of security is the real danger.
 
  | mpolichette wrote:
  | Computers were invented to speed up calculations, and yet the
  | primary thing we use them for today is to read the news and
  | send each other messages and memes...
  | 
  | I think it's totally reasonable, to expect developers to find
  | the real use
 
    | furyofantares wrote:
    | Hopefully it's as open as macOS, or at least much, much
    | closer to it than iOS. Otherwise the options for exploration
    | are limited by Apple.
 
      | threeseed wrote:
      | New opportunities for abuse do exist with Vision Pro. If
      | you allowed free reign access to the sensors people could
      | record the inside of your house/work, capture your face,
      | fingerprints, retinal pattern etc.
      | 
      | And again with Objective-C it's impossible to prevent
      | private API usage unless you have some sort of App Store
      | model which can inspect the binaries and prevent abuse.
      | 
      | So it's ultimately going to be the same as iOS.
 
        | Someone wrote:
        | > And again with Objective-C it's impossible to prevent
        | private API usage unless you have some sort of App Store
        | model which can inspect the binaries and prevent abuse.
        | 
        | A alternative is to sandbox applications to prevent them
        | from calling anything else than the official API, and to
        | use a less restrictive sandbox for applications signed by
        | a key owned by the vendor.
 
      | ohgodplsno wrote:
      | It is more locked down than both.
 
    | paxys wrote:
    | Computers had a 100% open platform from day 1. Tell me, will
    | Apple allow a pornography app for the Vision Pro?
 
      | basisword wrote:
      | It has a web browser. You can access anything you want via
      | that, same as the phone.
 
    | paxcoder wrote:
    | [dead]
 
    | jacquesm wrote:
    | It's the users that will find the real use.
 
      | moffkalast wrote:
      | Is that why they call them users?
 
        | jacquesm wrote:
        | Not necessarily. Developers and product designers assume
        | that users are going to use their product in a particular
        | way. In my - limited - experience in those roles users
        | tend to find _entirely_ different ways to use your
        | product that you never ever would have thought of, and if
        | you had thought of them would have had significant impact
        | on the product itself. The resulting impedance mismatch
        | tends to be overcome with ruthless applications of duct
        | tape, post-it notes, bending and twisting of parts and -
        | unfortunately - the overruling of safety devices and
        | lock-outs.
 
      | pohl wrote:
      | So -- pornography, then.
 
        | jacquesm wrote:
        | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36424434
 
        | thesuperbigfrog wrote:
        | A killer app might be:
        | 
        | "Better Than Life: Las Vegas"
        | 
        | Games, gambling, shows, and porn all in one "so immersive
        | you won't want to leave" experience.
        | 
        | "Disney ain't got nuthin' on this!"
 
| hbcondo714 wrote:
| > apply for a developer kit starting next month
| 
| Mark your calendars!
 
| canogat wrote:
| Piano lessons. I'm genuinely excited for piano lessons on this
| thing.
 
  | sbrother wrote:
  | I'm working on AI piano lessons right now (extremely rough
  | landing page at https://trebel.la/ while I work on the core
  | tech). I am drooling at the idea of integrating with this thing
  | one day...
 
    | throwaway675309 wrote:
    | https://www.sightreadingfactory.com/
    | 
    | You may want to look to Sight reading factory. They do a
    | pretty good job allowing you to dynamically generate
    | unlimited sheet music according to your pianistic capability.
 
  | taeric wrote:
  | A good keyboard and many great apps to learn are far cheaper.
  | And will have tactile feedback. I'm.... curious what you expect
  | this to bring to it?
 
  | mellosouls wrote:
  | Already available on other platforms like Quest via apps like
  | PianoVisiom.
  | 
  | https://youtu.be/kLQsUIS01nM
 
  | jnsie wrote:
  | Synthesia integration would be super cool
 
    | dylan604 wrote:
    | $20 worth of psilocybin would work on a shoestring budget
    | compared to the $3500 vaporware
 
      | throwuwu wrote:
      | I could be wrong but I don't think mushrooms will help you
      | learn piano
 
      | drewbeck wrote:
      | Synthesia [0]
      | 
      | [0] https://synthesiagame.com/
 
        | dylan604 wrote:
        | Doh! what's the name for when people can see colors for
        | sound?
 
        | drewbeck wrote:
        | Synesthesia! The app name is clearly inspired by that
        | word, so it makes sense the wires got crossed
 
      | furyofantares wrote:
      | Synthesia is an app for learning piano that works kinda
      | like Guitar Hero. It's a play on the words synth and
      | synesthesia.
 
| jedberg wrote:
| I'm not skilled enough to do it myself, but I can't wait for the
| AR apps to help with physical skills, especially things like art.
| 
| I do ceramics on the wheel, and having an app that can show me
| techniques, highlight areas that are thin or weak, critique my
| technique in real time, and so on, would be something I would
| definitely pay for.
| 
| Same with painting.
| 
| I can't wait to see the AR apps!
 
  | astrange wrote:
  | Both of those things seem like they have a chance of
  | splattering on the cameras.
 
    | jedberg wrote:
    | I'm sure there will be a thriving ecosystem of protective
    | accessories.
 
      | astrange wrote:
      | Eh, I just mean it's hard to do AR if you're getting paint
      | on the AR camera. I guess you could just keep swapping
      | protective covers.
      | 
      | Although it might not matter - even cracks on a camera lens
      | affect the picture less than you'd think, because they're
      | out of focus.
 
        | jedberg wrote:
        | Or just wipe it off.
 
  | chasd00 wrote:
  | cooking too, it would be really neat if you can incorporate
  | other sensors. like a little avatar telling you the pan is too
  | hot/cold. I can def. see things like a floating recipe while
  | you do messy prep so you don't have to wash/dry your phone to
  | scroll to the next step.
 
    | thebricklayr wrote:
    | A temperature indicator is such a good idea. I'm going to add
    | this to Umami.
 
  | dylan604 wrote:
  | Do you have to tell it the style? Like if you're trying to do a
  | portrait, but it's in Picasso mode vs Michelangelo mode, does
  | your portrait have a funky face
 
    | jedberg wrote:
    | Lol that would be an awesome feature!
 
| woeirua wrote:
| I think it's very important for people to get out of the HN
| bubble when discussing this. $3500 is just way too expensive for
| mass customer adoption. Meta is struggling to get customers to
| adopt the Oculus hardware when its an order of magnitude less
| expensive. I can't see why _any_ developer would sink tons of
| money into building custom apps on this platform when there will
| be less than a few hundred thousand users next year.
 
  | dorkwood wrote:
  | To be fair, the Oculus experience is pretty bad. Mine only has
  | three eye-width settings, none of which match my face, so my
  | vision is always blurry. And whenever I use hand tracking, it
  | only picks up my "clicks" about 20% of the time. It's not
  | surprising to me that no one wants to use it.
 
  | zimpenfish wrote:
  | > Meta is struggling to get customers to adopt the Oculus
  | hardware when its an order of magnitude less expensive
  | 
  | I rarely use my Rift S these days - not because the hardware
  | isn't good - but because the software experience is an absolute
  | dog's anus. Wanted to play Beat Saber the other day. Turned on
  | the PC. 25 minutes later, ready to open Steam. Whoops, now the
  | Oculus app says its out of date. Another 10 minutes faff
  | because what it actually meant was "you need to migrate to a
  | Meta account". Then I had to sit through the tutorials again.
  | Then Steam decided Beat Saber needed updating and took 45
  | minutes to download 800MB on gigabit fibre. Finally, after just
  | about 90 minutes, I could play Beat Saber.
  | 
  | $3500 to not sit through that absolute omnishambles of a
  | torture ever again? Sign me up.
 
    | [deleted]
 
  | gehsty wrote:
  | Meta are struggling to make a worse device popular. Maybe $3.5k
  | is the cheapest a truely compelling headset product can be made
  | for at the moment.
 
  | ericd wrote:
  | To get a head start on other developers for when there are tens
  | or hundreds of millions of users.
 
  | EwanG wrote:
  | The presumption, from an investing standpoint anyway, is that
  | working on this version will give you a first mover advantage
  | for a V2 in two years that will have slightly upgraded chips,
  | similar display, and cost half as much.
 
    | woeirua wrote:
    | Half as much is still no where close to where they need to be
    | to get mass market adoption.
 
  | etchalon wrote:
  | It's also possible that Meta is struggling because a $500
  | dollar VR headset isn't a broadly compelling experience given
  | all the compromises they had to make to get it to $500 bucks.
  | 
  | "Smartphones" weren't the most dominant phone category until
  | after the iPhone.
  | 
  | It's really hard to know until units start shipping though.
 
  | lnrd wrote:
  | Because this is a first iteration specifically made for
  | developer to start to get their app running, so that when the
  | consumer less expensive model will be released a couple of
  | years down the line there's already an app ecosystem ready.
  | 
  | It's a strategic release aimed at devs and early adopters, the
  | consumer level device will come in the future at a complete
  | different price point. That's when mass customer adoption might
  | happen.
  | 
  | Also Meta is struggling also because their device is a novelty
  | without many great software. See a pattern?
 
    | throwaway675309 wrote:
    | "so that when the consumer less expensive model will be
    | released a couple of years down the line there's already an
    | app ecosystem ready."
    | 
    | ....
    | 
    | You think that developers are going to create a thriving
    | ecosystem of apps when there's no market until several years
    | down the line? Bit of a Chicken or the egg problem isn't it?
 
    | woeirua wrote:
    | Just saying, Microsoft already tried this with the HoloLens,
    | and pivoted hard and fast into B2B only.
 
  | kitsunesoba wrote:
  | You don't need a new codebase to have a visionOS app, you just
  | need to tick a checkbox on an existing iOS project. Deeper
  | integration will take longer but that checkbox will get you 90%
  | of the way there as long as the project was built using UIKit
  | or SwiftUI.
 
  | chazhaz wrote:
  | This isn't a mass consumer device. $3500 is what Apple's
  | charging to folks with great ideas who want to dictate what the
  | future of "special computing" looks like. This is for early
  | adopters pretty much exclusively.
  | 
  | The rest of us will get the apple vision se in 2028 when the
  | territory's been mapped out
 
| dahwolf wrote:
| Quite the uphill battle for a developer.
| 
| This is different territory compared to marginally useful 2D app
| that millions of developers produce.
| 
| To make a believable virtual/3D experience requires enormous
| investments if you don't want it to look like a video game from
| 25 years ago. It's quite telling that Apple rushed through the
| 3rd party demo session at the event, as every example looked
| terrible. As terrible and useless as 99% of AR apps produced thus
| far.
| 
| I would suspect that only giants like Disney could produce a
| "killer app" experience that woes people and make this worth the
| money and discomfort.
| 
| And on top of that, yes, lots of developers will produce what are
| basically 2D apps where they take an existing app and project it
| in space, possibly showing multiple sub screens. Slightly more
| useful if done well, at best. Financially likely the only
| realistic scenario for most developers but it also cheapens the
| appeal of this device.
| 
| Not to mention that you need to apply way more real world
| scrutiny to possible scenarios. As an example, somebody suggested
| a cooking app.
| 
| To solve what problem, exactly? Cooking is instructions and
| timers. Yet with this device one can project more information.
| What information, exactly? Cooking requires free movement, to
| grab items, throw things in the trash, but here you are with a
| thing strapped to your head with low visibility. Possibly wired
| as you need to be thinking about battery during a long cooking
| session. Maybe you're cooking with two people, as couples
| sometimes do, then what? Countless real downsides, merely
| theoretical upsides.
| 
| Don't get me wrong? Will the tech elite embrace it and will a few
| influencers rave on about this cooking app on their channel?
| Sure. But that's not my point. My point is that you need
| convincing apps with tremendous added value to offset the price
| and discomfort of this device.
| 
| Without that, it will be solo movie watcher pro.
 
| thih9 wrote:
| I remember the hype about ARkit and that it has been presented as
| a general purpose UX pattern, when in practice I saw it get
| popular only in specialized areas.
| 
| I'm curious how spatial experiences will fare.
| 
| Also, I don't like that the gesture tracking in the dj app video
| demo seems laggy, especially when moving the fader.
 
  | threeseed wrote:
  | From people who've used the device the gesture and eye tracking
  | is flawless.
  | 
  | But how those SDK events gets translated into UI control
  | movement is obviously going to be dependent on each developer.
  | And I suspect the variance in quality will be much greater than
  | with iOS given everything is in 3D.
 
    | ctvo wrote:
    | > But how those SDK events gets translated into UI control
    | movement is obviously going to be dependent on each
    | developer. And I suspect the variance in quality will be much
    | greater than with iOS given everything is in 3D.
    | 
    | Why is the variance any different? You're provided a tuple
    | representing where the user is looking similar to the
    | location of their fingers? You're provided a hook for when
    | the user clicks (with their fingers) in various ways?
    | 
    | This all relies on Apple to accurately capture those inputs
    | at the device and OS level to provide it to developers, which
    | they've apparently done a very good job at. The abstractions
    | on top of this don't feel very different than those that
    | exist on any other platform.
 
      | pornel wrote:
      | In VR gaming there's already a huge variance in UX. Many
      | developers treat VR as just a mouse look + gamepad. Only
      | the top few games design bespoke interactions where you
      | move hands naturally interacting with the world, instead of
      | pointing at things and pressing A/B buttons.
      | 
      | I suspect majority of visionPro apps will be mostly iOS
      | apps with iOS gestures, maybe with one or two 3d gimmicks.
 
      | threeseed wrote:
      | I built a number of iOS apps in the early days of the SDK
      | and I remember it took a while for the community to learn
      | the best techniques to efficiently render complex tables in
      | scroll views.
      | 
      | The same thing will happen here except that you have the
      | additional issue of learning how to efficiently render 3D
      | assets in response to user events. After all most
      | developers do not come from a gaming/VR background.
 
  | drewbeck wrote:
  | > I remember the hype about ARkit and that it has been
  | presented as a general purpose UX pattern, when in practice I
  | saw it get popular only in specialized areas.
  | 
  | Once Vision dropped it was clear to me that ARkit was always
  | meant to be used with this device, and that most of the
  | iPhone/iPad apps that use it are not the final intended use
  | case. I don't think you can judge Apple's AR success based on
  | the existing hardware.
 
    | pornel wrote:
    | In retrospect, several things they've released were in
    | preparation or fallout from the xrOS project.
    | 
    | * AR was an odd proposition for the iPhone, and lidar was an
    | overkill for its gimmick apps, but it was obviously preparing
    | devs and apps for the "spatial computing".
    | 
    | * iPadOS got mouse support, but only with a clunky fat
    | mitten-pointer. This UI makes more sense when it's limited by
    | eye tracking precision.
    | 
    | * Continuity features. Controlling a nearby iPads was a nice-
    | to-have, but for visionPro that doesn't have its own I/O, a
    | seamless integration with nearby devices is a must-have to
    | get work done.
 
| javajosh wrote:
| I'm not joking when I say I want to write software for this thing
| that can help you get the most out of a psychedelic experience. I
| think the combination could be powerfully positive (or negative,
| of course).
 
  | erybodyknows wrote:
  | I believe Brian Eno created a generative audio-based version of
  | this. Each session is a unique composition.
  | 
  | EDIT: It was an app called Wavepaths, here is a link to the
  | Rolling Stone article.
  | (https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/hot-
  | digita...)
  | 
  | EDIT pt.2: Here is the app itself. (https://wavepaths.com/)
 
    | germinalphrase wrote:
    | Link anyone?
 
  | urbandw311er wrote:
  | Yikes. Imagine being so messed up that you forgot you had the
  | headset on and became trapped in an altered world.
 
    | javajosh wrote:
    | So, a mundane episode of Black Mirror.
 
    | latexr wrote:
    | You'll be back when the battery dies.
 
      | jeron wrote:
      | god forbid you are plugged into the wall - you'll be stuck
      | until your power bill isn't paid
 
      | Workaccount2 wrote:
      | Or just accept that you have died, until the psychedelics
      | wear off.
 
      | PartiallyTyped wrote:
      | Getting interrupted mid-trip must be very annoying, or so I
      | have heard.
 
  | Karsteski wrote:
  | Why would you be joking, that's a great idea lol
 
  | __alias wrote:
  | This reminds me of the time me and some friends took LSD at a
  | zoo.
  | 
  | We ended up realising we were way more fascinated by the signs
  | than any of the animials.
  | 
  | Then ended up hysterically laughing when we realised that we
  | were at a zoo mesmerised by everything but the things we
  | planned to be mesmerised by
 
    | javajosh wrote:
    | Signs are quite potent signals, static objects designed to
    | inform and direct. It's only by long habituation that we
    | ignore their power. I'm not at all surprised that they
    | captured your attention!
 
  | gwill wrote:
  | it'd be interesting to shape the experience based off of
  | biometrics from an apple watch as well as pupil dilation/eye
  | movement if possible.
 
    | javajosh wrote:
    | yes, ideally it would be generative and reactive. There was a
    | throw-away idea at the end of Stephenson's "The Diamond Age"
    | that altered the appearance of a woman based on your
    | reaction, to make her more and more attractive to you...this
    | idea generalizes in some interesting ways. Even better if
    | there existed a small affordable fMRI machine or at least a
    | way to measure alpha, delta, theta waves etc and maximize
    | _those_.
 
    | scyzoryk_xyz wrote:
    | At the same time terrifying, I'm happy that they mentioned
    | they're closing off that area from developer access. I don't
    | want the app to know where I'm looking, or how I'm looking
 
  | watmough wrote:
  | I have no doubt that Jeff Minter will be right on that ...
  | 
  | https://www.polygon.com/23613576/jeff-minter-profile-akka-ar...
 
  | sva_ wrote:
  | If you're actually interested in working on combining
  | psychedelics with VR, here's a lab doing exactly that, which is
  | currently hiring: https://www.intangiblerealitieslab.org/join-
  | us
  | 
  | It is academic work though, so the salary is not very
  | competitive.
 
| bagels wrote:
| Apple expects to sell 150k units next year. I'm sure there will
| be a couple of popular apps, but beyond those couple, what is the
| financial incentive to develop for it?
 
  | diegocg wrote:
  | The users of these glasses will be rich people who love to
  | spend money on new shiny things
 
    | suction wrote:
    | [dead]
 
  | spacebanana7 wrote:
  | Those 150k units will be purchased by some of the most
  | desirable customers in the world.
  | 
  | People who spend $3500 on a headset have a lot of disposable
  | income. Perhaps enough to pay $200 for a VR game with good
  | marketing.
 
    | [deleted]
 
    | suction wrote:
    | [dead]
 
    | astrange wrote:
    | People who spend $3500 on a headset are
    | industrial/professional users who will make more than $3500
    | in value for it. That is why Microsoft HoloLens, and a lot of
    | commercial AR products you've never heard of, cost even more.
 
      | spacebanana7 wrote:
      | Apple is a consumer brand. The same people who buy $5000
      | sneakers or handbags may well buy a vision headset.
      | 
      | The brand + price tag is enough to sell at least a few
      | thousand Vision units regardless of technical
      | specifications.
 
        | etchalon wrote:
        | Apple is a consumer brand that sells a $50,000 tower
        | computer.
 
        | astrange wrote:
        | A few thousand sales is nothing[0], and assuming your
        | users are stupid doesn't make for a good business even if
        | it seems cool to say it.
        | 
        | [0] it's enough for enterprise sales, but they're
        | charging much much more than $3500 one time.
 
    | Analemma_ wrote:
    | Especially if you're first, or close to first, with a killer
    | app with a high attach rate. I read that something like 50%
    | of PC VR headset owners buy Beat Saber, contrast that with
    | attach rates measured with scientific notation like 1e-3 for
    | most mobile apps that aren't from huge megacorps. If you can
    | make the Beat Saber equivalent for Apple's platform it could
    | be lucrative indeed.
 
  | devsegal wrote:
  | Can you share where you got that number from? Is it in one of
  | their recent keynotes ?
  | 
  | thanks
 
    | bagels wrote:
    | Yeah, I googled it, maybe the source isn't reliable, sorry.
 
      | tcmart14 wrote:
      | I heard closer to 600K in sales. But I do think, regardless
      | of the actual number, Apple doesn't plan to sell millions
      | of theses. At least not this iteration of the device. Which
      | is something I've seen parroted quiet a bit.
 
  | izzydata wrote:
  | If they sell 150,000 units somehow and it only has 2 apps on
  | the market then you could expect an extremely high percentage
  | of those people to buy your app.
 
  | grecy wrote:
  | You might want to read similar comments that were made about
  | the iPhone when it was launched. And the iPad, and the Apple
  | Watch.
  | 
  | My personal answer is that I don't know what it's going to be
  | used for, but I'm betting that it will be used A LOT once that
  | use is figured out.
 
    | atchoo wrote:
    | > You might want to read similar comments that were made
    | about the iPhone
    | 
    | What comments do you want to share from 2007 that will be
    | relevant? The iPhone was released without an App Store and no
    | intention to support 3rd party native apps until developers
    | demanded it. The App Store was released after millions of
    | units had already shipped. A speculative platform of
    | uncertain consumer interest, shipping a tenth of the units in
    | the first year compared to iPhone cannot be compared to a
    | once in a generation phenomenon where the dev platform was
    | pulled out of the vendor by demand.
    | 
    | It will be interesting to see how it turns out but the use
    | cases Apple showed so far are kind of laughable: photos,
    | movies, meditation apps, facetime, 2d games etc. The only
    | tangible benefit was "a big screen". There is more chance
    | these goggles end up in a drawer than an iPhone which was
    | already used compulsively through out the day.
    | 
    | > and the Apple Watch
    | 
    | It's a popular product but are there many developer success
    | stories on the Watch? AFAIK a handful of fitness/media apps
    | are popular but doesn't it otherwise suck as an app platform?
 
    | jacquesm wrote:
    | Whoever manages to slip a porn application by the censors is
    | going to clean up (financially).
 
      | faangsticle wrote:
      | There's no sideloading? Typical. At least the EU will fix
      | that soon.
 
      | jeron wrote:
      | If anyone is familiar in the Cyberpunk 2077 universe, it
      | seems reminiscent of "Brain Dances". I could see an app
      | that can play and interact with pre-recorded footage and
      | provide the ability to view that experience in a 3D space
 
        | CodeCompost wrote:
        | Dude, check out the 1995 film "Strange Days".
 
        | IggleSniggle wrote:
        | I thought that was one of the few built-in features that
        | was advertised as shipping with Vision Pro?
 
        | entropicdrifter wrote:
        | Just FYI, you can just say Cyberpunk. Cyberpunk 2077 is
        | based off of the long-running tabletop rpg Cyberpunk.
        | Same universe, different stories/media.
 
      | jonplackett wrote:
      | Totally Innocent 3D Video Player Pro(tm) coming right up.
 
    | bagels wrote:
    | I agree, long term, if it's a success, there will be more
    | opportunity. It might be too early right now to risk the
    | investment.
 
  | lvl102 wrote:
  | They will sell more than that. At least 500K. You're
  | underestimating Apple's pull. Heck buy two. Save one completely
  | wrapped. Sell it 20 years later.
 
| brody_hamer wrote:
| Fs fryf
 
| [deleted]
 
| elforce002 wrote:
| I'm hyped, ngl. I'm adding SwiftUI and Reality Kit to the list of
| things to learn this 2023. Better be prepared for 2024 when this
| thing goes mainstream.
 
| jacquesm wrote:
| I feel very vulnerable with a device like that on my head. I've
| been playing with VR hardware in various iterations since the mid
| 80's and I haven't seen anything yet that managed to get me to
| overcome that feeling. As well as nausea due to lag. I wonder how
| this one will do but at the current price point it just isn't all
| that interesting, it also reminds me of the way Google Glass was
| introduced and hyped and what eventually became of it. But Apple
| tends to have a much better product strategy than Google.
 
  | matwood wrote:
  | If someone can crack the VR/AR code, it will probably be Apple.
  | Not saying they will though.
  | 
  | It bodes well that Kara Swisher seems to really like the device
  | and she's one that has tried all the headsets and been fairly
  | skeptical. Using hands as the primary control seems like a
  | pretty big breakthrough. The default of mostly pass through of
  | the surrounding environment sounds like it also addresses the
  | nausea.
  | 
  | You're right at this price point it's definitely a gen 1/dev
  | device. Gen 3 is where it'll likely get interesting, assuming
  | some killer applications are created.
 
  | ianlevesque wrote:
  | The form factor of the Quest Pro helps with that quite a bit,
  | where you're essentially wearing it like a hat, and the sides
  | and bottom of the device don't contact your face or seal out
  | all the light. There are notorious stories of people punching
  | through walls or TVs playing VR games, but being able to see
  | the room in the periphery is both less distracting than you'd
  | think and gives you enough spatial awareness to not really have
  | those issues.
 
    | withinboredom wrote:
    | > There are notorious stories of people punching through
    | walls
    | 
    | Bahaha, reminds me of the time when I first got the PSVR and
    | my friend comes over. We're playing an FPS demo that came
    | with it (PS Worlds? I think). It's this scene where you're in
    | the passenger seat of the car, shooting up people on
    | motorcycles that are shooting at you. Anyway, I'm standing
    | off to the side watching the TV when out of nowhere, my
    | friend punches me in the face.
    | 
    | I happened to be standing exactly where the NPC driver was
    | sitting in the VR world and my friend wanted to try punching
    | the character.
 
  | germinalphrase wrote:
  | My instinct is that this entire product is basically a dev kit
  | for whatever Apple wants to release in 10-15 years. Get
  | something high quality in peoples' hands and hope the use case
  | bucket trickles full.
 
    | erybodyknows wrote:
    | I suspect this is the case. This device will be to the future
    | iXR devices what the iPods were to the first iPhone.
 
    | rvz wrote:
    | Correct.
    | 
    | This first version of the visionOS product line is not the
    | one that will be the 'iPhone' moment.
    | 
    | We are looking at the device that will be ready for these app
    | in the next 5 - 10 years which by that time the device will
    | be smaller that this first version.
    | 
    | Probably going to be called 'Apple Vision' in the form of AR
    | glasses.
 
      | jacquesm wrote:
      | 'Correct' as in: you have inside information that confirms
      | this or 'I agree'?
 
        | dylan604 wrote:
        | If someone had actual information of that type from Apple
        | and released it on a public forum, they will be hearing
        | from Apple's legal team in 5...4...3....
        | 
        | Otherwise, it just seems like a confirmation of their
        | reading of the tea leaves.
 
        | rvz wrote:
        | I think both of you need to look at the amount of patents
        | related to the Apple's AR glasses and their related
        | vision products a lot more since it give lots of obvious
        | clues about where Apple will take their Apple vision
        | based products.
        | 
        | All publicly available for everyone to see. [0] No inside
        | information needed at all.
        | 
        | [0] https://www.patentlyapple.com/face-object-
        | recognition/
 
        | dylan604 wrote:
        | right, you've read the tea leaves.
 
        | rvz wrote:
        | The tea leaves, breadcrumbs and obvious clues that tell
        | the truth as close as possible that defines the next
        | phase of Apple's AR/XR products all to the source as
        | public as possible.
        | 
        | Correct either way.
 
      | withinboredom wrote:
      | Hmmm... it's light and physics, not sure how it could get
      | much smaller. Lighter, maybe. Thinner, maybe. But smaller,
      | no.
      | 
      | Not unless someone figures out the contact lens or the
      | direct brain uplink.
 
      | jsjohnst wrote:
      | > This first version of the visionOS product line is not
      | the one that will be the 'iPhone' moment.
      | 
      | You mean it's not a device that's significantly more
      | expensive and less capable from a feature perspective than
      | the competition at launch (aka the 1st gen iPhone)?
 
  | Palm7 wrote:
  | They talked about this briefly on the WVFRM podcast [1].
  | Apparently the pass-through is significantly better than other
  | headsets they've tried to the point that they felt comfortable
  | walking around and overcoming that sense of vulnerability you
  | describe. Still, $3500 is quite a lot.
  | 
  | [1] https://youtu.be/17-aVWFa098?t=5084
 
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