[drrotmos]

> Would I rather work on this all day instead of a laptop?

That really is the $3,500 question. Can I see myself preferring to work streaming my Mac's screen to a Vision Pro for my IDE, having and things like Slack and e-mail off to the side running on the headset? I don't know, but if I can, this seems worth it to me.

[ARandumGuy]

All day is the key component. Most VR headsets recommend taking breaks every half hour, which isn't just a "cover your ass" warning. I know I can't use my personal headset for much longer without feeling woozy after I take it off.

By comparison, I'm at my laptop for 7+ hours just for work. I would need to see compelling evidence that the Vision Pro is safe and comfortable to use for that long before I'd even consider replacing my laptop. And if it can't replace the computers or displays I use, then it's just a $3,500 gimmick.

[asdff]

To be fair you are supposed to get up, walk around, and refocus your eyes on something far away every 20 mins or so no matter what computer you are using.

[BowBun]

But that isn't fair, since we know a vast majority of all-day computer users don't do this. The impact that a screen inches from your eyeballs has on you physically is simply higher, although both carry costs.

[brookst]

Headsets focus your eyes much further away than desktop monitors.

Standing and walking, though, they're still going to be important.

[qintl55]

They say that the battery on that is ~2 hours (?) So probably not for work yet.

[gnicholas]

I work sitting in a chair, looking at a screen. If I were to work using one of these, I would just plug it in like my computer and screen currently are. Though it would be nice to go outside and work in my hammock, on a gigantic floating screen!

[RandallBrown]

Depending on your work, I imagine you'll still want a desk for typing.

I can't imagine writing code using only my voice.

[gnicholas]

I have a lap desk with a BT keyboard and trackpad. I assume I'd want to bring the keyboard to my imaginary hammock desk. The trackpad (and lap desk) might not be necessary, assuming that pointer manipulation can be done via gestures.

I agree that dictation would not be enough for most people. I don't code, but writing emails is not a fun experience with Apple's current speech-to-text offerings.

[golergka]

They have just integrated transformers into autocorrect though

[citruscomputing]

Coding by voice is pretty doable, actually! Check out Talon if you're interested.

[FabHK]

As the excellent video "Windows Vista Speech Recognition Tested - Perl Scripting" hilariously demonstrates.

(I trust that technology has improved over the last 15 years, though Siri is fairly similar.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MzJ0CytAsec

[cyphereal]

I can - telling CodeGPT what I'd like it to do.

[paxys]

If we ever reach that stage then why would you have a job at all? Anyone can tell ChatGPT what to do.

[c1b]

Its AR

[mostlysimilar]

It can be plugged in for all-day use.

[asdff]

You can buy two or three and swap them out. Chicken scratch for a company when engineers cost so much these days anyhow.

[xp84]

I was disappointed to see that the battery cord, with the magnetic headset-side connector, seemed hardwired at the battery end. Though this is very in character for Apple. You can bet that each "battery with proprietary cord tail" will be at least $199. Look what they charge for an iPhone "battery pack" -- a $2 ring of magnets, a $5 battery, and a bit of plastic = $99.

Given the initial cost is so high, it's both frustrating that they will continue to nickel and dime you, and at the same time unlikely that someone dropping that kind of money will even blink at buying an accessory which actually is less than the sales tax on the device itself.

[derefr]

Who cares how much the Apple battery pack costs? Does literally anybody buy Apple's own MagSafe accessories instead of getting cheap third-party ones?

I feel like this is similar to the Mac Pro coaster wheels: a case of consumers getting upset about something that was never meant to be sold "ala carte" to individuals in the first place; but rather only exists to be purchased in bulk on the Apple Business Store by institutional buyers who wants every component to be under warranty and able to be returned for depreciation, and who don't even look at the cost breakdown before clicking "Buy."

[xp84]

> Who cares how much the Apple battery pack costs?

Since I wrote this, I have seen a screenshot that implies that a USB-C dongle might exist (in box? Who knows), which would allow plugging in normal batteries with a normal cable, but I can explain good reasons to get upset about this kind of thing:

When they use a proprietary connector on the top end and hardwire it to the battery on the other end, that creates a ton of problems:

1. Fraying cable? Chuck the good Li-ion battery in the trash and buy a new $200 one! Apple loves the Earth so much :)

2. The proprietary connectors are probably patent-encumbered, meaning the only ones available third-party are either overpriced because they're paying a steep MFi royalty, or they're made by fly-by-night Chinese companies with no quality control. This is the entire history of the Lightning (and Dock) connectors. With those, they added on DRM chips IN the cables too. That useless increased complexity makes the 3rd-party alternatives worse and unreliable because they have to reverse-engineer the standard. Everybody who has ever bought a 3rd-party Lightning cable has experienced this failure mode. So, many consumers absolutely do pay $20 a pop for Apple-branded cables, or they (absurdly, in my opinion) carry around the single, delicate Apple cable from their device box from place to place until it fails, and then buy another one.

Another perfect example of this is the Watch. Apple chose to make that a closed proprietary standard instead of using USB or publishing specs. They offer a couple models of crappy first-party chargers, one of which costs a fortune. I bought third-party Watch + phone combo chargers years ago. When Apple switched to USB-C Watch chargers, the watches in that generation and after will only charge incredibly slowly over the course of about 8 hours using any USB-A Apple charger, or any third-party charger -- chargers which worked quickly on the old watches. It's impossible to tell now which third-party Watch charger sold today might use the "newer" standard, or even really to know what changed! The only solution is to re-buy a bunch of first-party obnoxious pucks-with-a-cable-hardwired for $25 a piece.

[imwillofficial]

Facts

[utopcell]

The problem is not the cost, it's the experience. You _could_ be carrying multiple laptop batteries with you also. It would make the laptop itself lighter and thinner, but it would be a larger hassle overall.

[briandear]

You can plug it in directly too. It’s not just battery packs.

[interestica]

They did mention that their dual chip pipeline/low latency reduces the "woozy" effects (because it lines up better with what your brain is expecting I guess). It will be interesting to see

[wnolens]

These days I've moved over to pomodoro technique to be able to get any work done in the face of WFH distractions and general indifference to my work.

So strapping on immersive goggles for 30m-1h chunks and taking lots of breaks actually fits my current work model perfectly and might improve my productivity.

It all comes down to.. how clear is text?

[cesarvarela]

I think that price tag is not for end consumers, but early adopters/builders. There is going to be a gold rush of "maybe I can make that flashlight app that makes me a millionaire".

Fun times incoming.

[yowzadave]

> maybe I can make that flashlight app

I wonder if you could make a literal flashlight/headlamp, either by using the front-facing display as a light, or just leveraging the infrared/lidar sensor to make night-vision goggles

[olyjohn]

Great. A bunch of VR shit apps just like the regular app store.

[paxys]

A bigger question is – does it support mouse input? Because none of their demos showed it, and without it the headset is basically dead on arrival for any real work.

[rad_gruchalski]

> You’re able to place multiple apps in the real world space and can type with either voice or a virtual keyboard, but you can also use Bluetooth keyboards and trackpads, and with a glance at your Mac, you can use it on a large virtual display.

https://www.macworld.com/article/1940428/apple-vision-pro-de...

[youreincorrect]

My bigger worry is how I would type, if that's at all possible. My assumption, like the sibling comment notes, is that eye tracking would replace mouse input.

And I'm not yet typing code by talking to a computer. Maybe AI will work for 'typing' by talking and using copilot or some similar tech, but I've yet to try that and am not that confident that software has caught up to allow me to navigate folders and files within a codebase, edit the code, restart any servers if that's necessary, test (run tests, or visit a page, or send a curl request), post a pull request, etc. All of the disjoint steps I need to do to work, which change depending on the task, would need to work confidently in a system like this for me to switch over. And if speech is the way forward, I think my wife is going to be pretty upset with me since I WFH.

[mostlysimilar]

You can pair a bluetooth keyboard and mouse, it was shown in the keynote.

[youreincorrect]

If I'm just going to use this sitting at my desk, I'll stick with my monitor instead.

[filoleg]

The beautiful part is that the headset makes any desk (at my apartment, when visiting parents, in the office, etc.) my desk, which is exactly the same every time no matter where I am. Without bajillion cables and with instantaneous setup time. And would allow me to not worry about the physical constraints of the surface and take up no actual physical space on the desk.

[retrocryptid]

If you have no desk, are you putting the keyboard on your lap? Sounds fumbly.

[caconym_]

You can use a Bluetooth keyboard pretty much anywhere you can sit with it on your lap or a table in front of you. One might legitimately worry about looking like a huge dork in public, but for a lot of people I imagine there is a lot of appeal to a device that can throw up a virtual array of multiple monitors anywhere they want to sit down and get some work done.

[l33t233372]

Yes let me just rip the keyboard I carry with me out of my back pocket.

[retrocryptid]

Sure. But you can use a laptop on any table.

[mostlysimilar]

That's fair. My monitor is a constrained space. If this headset is light and comfortable and can give me unlimited real estate without compromising on text clarity and resolution, I'd happily wear it all day at my desk.

[youreincorrect]

Hey, I think that's fair too.

[dzhiurgis]

I've been coding from a couch for 6 years or so, this can be done.

If anything, this headset could use cameras to superimpose your fingers on keyboard if you can't memory type.

[HDThoreaun]

They're positioning this as a productivity product. You'll probably be able to just use a keyboard. Get ready to learn to type without looking at the keys I guess, but I think most people already can with only a few issues.

Imo most useful case for this is watching youtube in bed, I'd just keep a bluetooth keyboard/mouse on my nightstand.

[anthonymckay]

"Get ready to learn to type without looking at the keys I guess"

Why wouldn't you be able to look at the keys? This is AR, you can see everything around you still, including a physical keyboard right in front of you.

[prawn]

I'd guess if they owned the ecosystem (headset and keyboard) they could make for very accurate "pass through" showing the keyboard isolated over the background (arbitrarily change the desk surface, or have a floating keyboard, etc).

Remove your hands from the keyboard for a bit and have it set to disappear.

[svnt]

You could do this with Immersed on a Quest 2 but you’re right the ecosystem is what will make or break that option.

Personally I hope there is no keyboard at all. Seems with depth cameras mapping your hands, eye tracking, perfect speech-to-text, and some user training you could do some cool stuff.

[SkyPuncher]

Even further, there are two downward facing cameras. I bet they restrict these (for privacy), but I wouldn't be surprised if they come out with something to help you see your keyboard via those cameras

[olyjohn]

Did you say porn? I think you meant porn. Not YouTube.

[spudlyo]

The demo I saw showed a guy at a standing desk, using a Magic Keyboard and Magic Trackpad. I remember I grimaced thinking what his shoulders must feel like typing with his hands so close together on that tiny, shitty little keyboard. It made me think of little T-Rex arms.

[rjmunro]

The keys on the magic keyboard (and therefore hand positions) are no closer together than on other keyboards. It just doesn't have the numeric keypad part.

If you want an ergonomic keyboard with a gap in the middle, any bluetooth keyboard will work with a Mac, iPhone or iPad, so I imagine it would with this too.

[brailsafe]

Seems like they mentioned t-rex arms which are characteristic of non-ergo keyboards, all of which are generally terrible. I really wish Apple would just make a better version of the Sculpt now that MS is out of that game.

[MacsHeadroom]

They showed a demo with Bluetooth touchpad (and keyboard) input.

[tracerbulletx]

They mentioned the magic trackpad, so I can't imagine a mouse wouldn't also work.

[zebnyc]

Maybe they will sell you an iGlove )in the future) to go along with this so that you can type / click on your virtual keyboard & mouse

[swores]

They've already made it clear that you can do that without a glove... (as well as optionally using physical devices instead).

[olyjohn]

I want it to work with the original NES Power Glove, or I don't want it at all.

[anamexis]

I don't think that's self-evident. If the eye tracking is really good, it could obviate the need for a mouse.

[beebeepka]

Why would it obviate the need for a mouse? I can focus on something and expect my cursor elsewhere. Especially in games

[jnwatson]

5 minutes with an existing eye tracker will show that this is completely infeasible. Your eyes move too much for it to work.

Perhaps you could use it to bring windows forward.

[anamexis]

Because any time you're doing fine-grained work with your cursor, you're looking at it. I'm not talking about games.

[beebeepka]

I can see where you are coming from but it doesn't make too much sense to me. Why can't we have both.

[xp84]

it seemed pretty obvious we do have both. It showed a "magic trackpad" being used. Seems like it supports pointing devices normally.

[rad_gruchalski]

> That really is the $3,500 question.

For me the question rather is: is being able to work from the sofa a couple of hours a day without having to stare at a small screen worth $3.5k? Certainly.

[randyrand]

Maybe I am in the minority, but I have no problem using my laptop on the couch for a few hours. It's quite comfortable.

[dathinab]

it's not about if you can but if you should

you should at least take a brake where you use your legs every hour or more often because if not it will noticeable increase the chance of blot clots in your veins and in turn stuff like heart attacks (long term wrong behavior leading to increased risk over the long term, no relevant per-case risk)

similar you should change the focus distance of you eyes often enough as it does reduce eye strain (similar light conditioning in your room) and the easiest way to do it is to look not at your screen e.g. when standing up and moving around (and if well done maybe the glasses from Apple can simulated depth in a way which does lead to changes in eye focus)

Having a walking band below your desk and looking around your room outside of the window or similar will also fix this issues quite efficiently, at the cost of being less lazy (and issues for people with certain kind of back issues).

[SkyPuncher]

It's very comfortable until you've used a VR display (like an NReal Air). You can relax all of the muscles in your body and still get work done.

[rad_gruchalski]

Yes, mostly. But sometimes not. Sometimes I wish I could have those 32 inches on the vesa while still sitting on the sofa.

[practice9]

And for me spending more than 2 hours per day with laptop on the sofa is a recipe for neck pain and migraines. The angle is just not right.

If the headset is more ergonomic for this situation, it will find its target audience for sure. The battery is designed for 2 hours sessions, but the device can run indefinitely while on charger

[josephg]

Yeah I’m approaching 40, and if I spend more than 30 minutes or so with a laptop on the couch I get crippling shoulder pain at night while I’m in bed. So this sounds like a lovely way to avoid that problem but - even with a headset strapped to your face, what do you think you’ll be using as input devices? I’ll still want a trackpad and keyboard in my hands. (Waving your arms around all day isn’t fun). And if I have to balance a keyboard on my lap anyway, aside from a bigger virtual screen, what’s the point?

[kanwisher]

No neck pain cause you aren’t looking Rowan at a laptop but in a neutral head position

[rabuse]

I'm with you on this. I see these as a wonderful option for being productive just about anywhere, if the experience is actually what was demoed.

[its_ethan]

Is the small screen you're referring to your laptop, or the tiny screens in the headset?

[rad_gruchalski]

I'm not a native English speaker so I thought I missed a comma somewhere. But rereading my previous comment I'm rather certain I mean the small screen to be the one of the laptop. Even the 16" model gives only so much space to work with.

[mgrandl]

I can 100% see myself preferring working on this thing over a Mac, as long as I don’t need a Mac to host my dev environment.

[byteware]

I mean, depending on the work using it as a thin client would make the most sense imo, compiling still takes a toll on the battery life even with m2 magic

[rtkwe]

It really depends on how the fake screens actually look in use. You need a decent multiple of the number of pixels in the screen you want to emulate on your AR glasses to be able to pull it off well and so far we haven't really gotten it. I do not see myself getting these till they're a third or less the price either unless they're issued to me for work for some reason.

[acomjean]

Anytime its on your face, you could be working.

Front and center, your work. anytime, anywhere. depending on how its implemented you can't get away. Hope they include a power button.

But 2 hours of battery life is a good amount of work, though it seems short somehow. Nice to know there is a limit on it taking over your time.

[oezi]

The key question is if this thing will stay cool enough to be comfortable.

[dathinab]

Why?

Because if well done I get my reasonable high multi monitor like setup everywhere I want, no matter weather I'm sitting or lying or on the train or at home.

Fun thing is if you just skim the article it looks as if they copied https://simulavr.com/ :=) (They didn't this was developed independent of each other and Apple put some tweaks in it which they claim no one else did and gave it a new name and claim they are the first, like always.)

[ignoramous]

Exactly. You know it is worth it when corp pays for the gadgets ;)

I mean, how terribly over-priced is the Mac, and yet...

[donbongo]

This is the same question i'm asking myself too