John Gruber on the Apple Vision Pro: “The virtual movie screens look immense, as though you’re really in a movie theater, all by yourself, looking at a 100-foot screen.” This is exactly why I would buy this: IMAX experience at home.
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Discussion 4 comments
The Vision Pro looks great, but my problem is it is such a solitary thing. Regardless what Apple's marketing shows, I can't imagine putting that thing on and working from the kitchen while my wife and kid hang out next to me. Same with watching a movie. I'm not going to sit with my partner, even if both of us had headsets, watching a movie together. If I'm watching a movie with that thing in I'm doing it an a room by myself. It's just a lonely product.
True. But so are computers, phones, headphones, etc. — this isn't a problem unique to the Vision Pro.
I'd argue that headphones and individual screens are less alienating... if you're absorbed in a song on headphones, I can still wave at you and you can read my aggravated lips, and if you're absorbed in a game on your phone, I can still yell your name until you look up. If you block out all of your senses, then we rely on features of the device to still deliver some presence, like the weird eyes on the outside and the gauzy video of someone looking in your direction when you're immersed. This makes sense — it's the logical extreme of a "personal computer", and if you want a personal IMAX experience on a crowded plane, here it is!
An IMAX experience is more fun with multiple people though! So is almost anything you can do with a computer. I think this product will increase people's appetite for having spatially-aware features grounded in reality. Why not have eye tracking for what you have on your desk? Why not remember what tabs I had open when my laptop was on the kitchen counter compared to when I was in bed? Why not project images onto your environment so everyone else can see what you're seeing?
The future will end up looking far more like Dynamicland than AR glasses (no matter how thin and unobtrusive) for a very simple reason: no one likes interacting with someone who is seeing a different reality than themselves.
Just for comparison purposes for those noting the cost ($3500), RCA sold an early color TV set with a teensy screen in 1954 for $495, the equivalent of around $5600 in today's dollars.
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