The last time Apple introduced a new general purpose computing device was the iPad, 14 years ago.
This one just doesn’t feel as big. When the iPad was introduced, everyone was shocked by the very low price and the sleek form factor compared to previous Windows tablet devices.
Those are exactly the weak points of the Vision Pro: it’s very expensive and very heavy, according to reports.
The hands-on sessions that Apple gave to journalists earlier this week seemed a bit underwhelming. The reporter for the Verge wrote that it feels like the Quest, but with higher resolution.
That’s a worrying sign! Imagine if the first hands-on of the iPhone had been “it’s like a BlackBerry but with better DPI screen.”
Of course Apple is usually very good at consistently evolving their platforms. Maybe the non-Pro model will be something else.
> Since the iPad's initial introduction back in January, many of us still wonder why we should drop hundreds of dollars for what is termed as a large iPod.
There were also a significant number of jokes about the name, relating it to a feminine hygiene product.
I bought one day 1 and pretty much everyone thought I was nuts and just an Apple zealot. However, as I took it places and used it, people saw it and became much more interested and took it more seriously as a product.
I was definitely in the former camp, and eventually bought one because other people seemed to like it, and so took it more seriously as a product. But.. it was after buying it that I realized the emperor didn't really have any clothes, and it was either mostly an expensive status symbol for people who couldn't care less about the money, or a device with just a few specific and very useful purposes. My grandpa uses it for Planespotting, which seems perfectly appropriate to me. Now it's been 10 years, and I've never really thought about buying another one, because it's just not a general computing device that I've been able to make useful for a breadth of things I use devices for. It's only ever been effective for reading reference books, playing YouTube videos (before the app and browser support went away), reading pocket articles, browsing the web, and maybe a few games. Everything else just didn't prove effective, for me anyway. Even trying to watch regular videos on it is a total pain.
I can agree with a lot of this, depending on the user. I’m pretty similar to you. I got it and used it, because it was new and novel, but over time the usage faded. I tried going back to the iPad mini, since I liked that form factor best, but it’s sitting a few feet from me, powered off, and hasn’t been used in months.
My dad on the other hand, who is one of the people who bought and iPad after seeing mine, uses it all the time. He actually has 2 of them, a 10” and a 12.9”, and he uses both of them regularly enough that he feels they are both justified for his use cases. He still does use his Mac as well, but his iPads get a ton of use for reading the news, email, photography related things, and maybe some other stuff. He’s retired now, so that might be part of it.
Maybe if didn’t work in IT and simply consumed whatever the apps allowed me to consume, I could get by with an iPad as my computer, but I want to do stuff an iPad can’t do. I also pretty much always want a keyboard and mouse, and when that’s always bolted on to an iPad, it might as well be a MacBook. I never found the appeal of touch screen laptops.
Ya I'd agree with those points. People who put iPad pros to good use either don't have any other significant general requirements, or the few things they use it for are either consumption or illustration, where touch, a big screen, and no complexity are the selling factors.
I'm not personally producing intricate illustrations, but I know a tiny number of people who do, and I don't think it's occures to them they'd need anything but that and their phone.
"iPad? Why did they name it after a tampon hahahaha never getting one of those. Similarly priced laptops are more powerful and have a keyboard." TBF the early models weren't as good and didn't have the keyboard and Apple Pencil of today.
They also ran iOS without really much adaptation for the form factor. Now it's called "iPadOS" and has functionality that differentiates it from an iPhone. You can even dual screen the thing if you're a weirdo.
I love using it as a second screen when I’m out at a coffee shop. It works so seamlessly and I can throw Slack on there while I code, without looking like a complete weirdo
If you want, it's possible to wire it up too! I use the included USB-C cable to connect it directly to my MacBook. It's much more reliable that way, especially if you're on a flaky WiFi connection.
Isn't that the rub, though? The majority of iPad users don't use the keyboards or Pencils. They're just using the iPad. That's exactly why the original was so successful.
To a first approximation, that's what it still is all these years later. The software might be called iPadOS now but it's not fooling anyone that it's much different to iOS.
There are some specific use cases like creating digital artwork and certain gaming/video where the difference between an iPhone and and an iPad really is arguably a difference in kind. But, yeah, especially with larger iPhones (even sub-Max) I've come to see an iPad as increasingly optional for most purposes.
Yes, I would agree. I use an iPad Pro for 3D modeling as well as drawing and graphic design. For those applications (especially 3D modeling) the M1 and large screen make a massive difference.
Yeah, but just like I said back then, that's like saying that a bathtub and a swimming pool are the same because they're both masses of contained water. The difference is explicitly in the size.
> ‘I recall lots of people dismissing the iPad as "just a big iPod Touch".’
The interesting point here is that Apple’s competitors at the time didn’t even have a product that could come close to the iPod touch, and yet Apple was already taking the product into a completely new direction.
The iPod touch doesn’t exist anymore. Turns out the paper-like size combined with the simple UI made all the difference. And nobody scaling down from $2k Windows tablets could have figured that out. That’s how Apple created a beautifully designed tablet for only $499 and everybody else was left scrambling.
With the Vision Pro, Apple doesn’t seem to have that kind of advantage. But I’d be very happy if it exceeds my expectations and is also successful in the market. I’ve been waiting for VR all my life. The Quest has come tantalizingly close but still misses the applications that would make it a part of my daily routine.
I'm not sure it's a dismissal, as in "an iPod Touch with a big screen" is quite a good pitch. Like even now, if we ever get 16" iPads it's just an iPad with a massive screen, but I'd be all over it.
I have an older version of one of the big iPads. The thing is that I never got into using it for digital animation/art that I envisioned doing at one point. And for routine travel content consumption stuff it was just bigger and heavier--but otherwise not a better experience.
I use mine (12" M1 Pro) as a portable music studio - touch screen is fantastic for this so I vastly prefer Logic on the iPad to the Mac, but it's mighty cramped even on the 12".
It was a dismissal from people who didn't see the utility of a parallel product that was just bigger. Just because someone sees the utility of a small SUV doesn't mean they will automatically want to also buy an F-150.
There were tear downs showing this tiny little iPod shaped SoC shoved into the case and connected to a massive battery. The SoC was underpowered considering it was running a 1024x768 screen and support was dropped almost immediately.
The iPad 2 teardown showed an SoC which seemed a lot more custom designed for the iPad, and the "big iPod" criticism died around that point.
this is exactly as I remember it as well... it was quite mem'ed on that dimension alone, as to why would you need a giant one of the thing they already had.
They did, but before it was released it was predicted to cost over $1000, often confidently assumed to be well over a kilobuck. Instead it was $499. It was also much thinner and with better battery life than the experts had predicted.
It was more of a shock than the M1 was in recent times.
Not defending Apple here: I do believe the Vision Pro will be a resounding "meh".
> When the iPad was introduced, everyone was shocked by the very low price and the sleek form factor compared to previous Windows tablet devices.
What I remember is everyone making fun of it, including the name¹, for being “just a big iPod Touch”.
Similarly, the iPhone wasn’t taken all that seriously² on launch. The App Store wasn’t even an idea yet, let alone a reality.
That is to say this always happens: people discount a new thing and use as contrast something else which was also discounted at the time but framed as if it had always been perceived by the current lens.
I have no idea if the Vision Pro will “succeed” (however we define that), but we can be reasonably sure that the current version is the worse it will ever be. In other words, it will get better and it’s too soon to judge its impact.
It's not like the criticisms for the iPhone were wrong. The iPhone launched at what would in today's prices be about $2000. ($700 is $1000 today, plus you had to sign a contract that would otherwise have given you a "free" phone worth a similar amount). Plus it didn't have an app store. Both of those would have prevented the iPhone's success, but both were very quickly corrected.
The 2007 iPhone was a limited niche product. The 2008 iPhone was not.
Right. Or in other words: it was too early to say how big the iPhone was going to be, and everyone who said it was going to be a flop had such tunnel vision they were incapable of perceiving the first version is not the last version.
It's hard to appreciate today but, early on for most people, the iPhone wasn't a "OMG, I have to get one of these right now" product. I had bought a Treo in late 2006 I think because I had a foot injury that meant I had to travel super-light. While I did get a 3GS a few years later, I don't recall any pressing urgency and there tons of stories related to carrier coverage etc.
The timing sucked for me, though. In 2007 I was between jobs and after the announcement was ready to jump into making apps but thwarted because it was not possible. By 2008 I was employed again and missed the gold rush.
By that same merit, it’s worth noting that the Apple II in today’s prices was nearly $6300. And the VisionPro is almost undoubtedly going to premier more mature than either the iPhone or the Apple II.
Part of it was that the whole “tablet” idea hadn’t taken off and had been tried a number of times, so the general consensus was “it’s a good value for a nice version of a thing nobody seems to want.”
The iPad and the iPhone were heavily criticized when they came out. While both were pushing some good tech, they were also going against the general wisdom of what made a product in each category.
The things that the iPhone was criticised for - no 3G was the biggest one - were easily fixed in the next iteration.
The problems with the vision pro seem more fundamental, primarily cost. Apple really needs to sell it with zero margin or as a loss leader to build marketshare because $3000 is absurd and will really damage its branding "weird face hugger for rich people"
When the iPhone first came out it's cost (even subsidised) was ridiculed. I'm not sure how it compared to BB at the time but for normal consumers it was high, now all these years later it's almost tripled in price and people still line up to buy it. I agree the AVP is going to suffer from the price but I also think Apple isn't looking for this to be the mass market device, more of a way to get the diehard fans in and using it before they make just a "Apple Vision" (no pro). We will see.
I think they are in part counting on it as a status symbol. iPhone, iPad, and a few others are ubiquitous in the US market. Additonally, they kinda "blend in" amidst competitor devices with similar designs.
But the Vision Pro will be eye- catching and hard to miss, with a large profile and unique design.
Going straight for the high end of the market is risky when you depend on developer ecosystems for value. The iPhone was expensive at launch but didn’t really take off until it added the App Store and came down in price.
If they get a handful of celebrities walking around with these things it may become a status symbol. Or it may become a joke, especially if somebody crashes their Ferrari while wearing one.
You would be surprised [0]. I've watched movies on flights with a VR headset, and I'm excited to do that with the AVP - it should be a much more usable experience.
Yes, same goes for any "first gen" Apple product in a category: The Apple I, 128k Macintosh, iPod, Apple Watch.
The thing all these first-generation products have in common (including the Apple Vision Pro) is that they are eminently skippable and usually followed by more popular, better-spec'd lower-cost models within a year or two.
People were very skeptical about the lack of a keyboard on iPhone, and it was missing a few basic features like copy/paste, but it was incomprehensibly small in person and other phones couldn’t touch the capabilities.
Yea. Remember all the memes of the iPad being 4 iPhones taped together? It was widely criticized and considered to be a flop by some. A pointless device even.
It was kinda that, though, wasn't it? I think Vision Pro might be a similar evolution. IMO this is a tool for professionals and media enthusiasts. After proving out some use cases they'll transition later generations like how the iPad Pro has grown into stuff like graphics editing.
What, the iPhone too? The iPad was called a big iPhone (especially when they showcased on stage that you can run iPhone apps with 2x magnification), but I remember there being a lot of hype for the iPhone.
Maybe for some people. A lot of people, esp. reporters and the like who loved their blackberries were heavily negative towards not having a physical keyboard..
It's kind of hard to imagine that this was the reality, given where we are today.
I'm not sure if BlackBerries were really ever a thing in Europe. All the business-type people had Nokia Communicators here (the last of which was released in 2007).
If memory serves right, after first few versions of iPod Touch was out everyone was wondering why Apple is not cramming in the phone functionality as well.
iPhone maybe was criticized by the likes of Ballmer and Nokia/Blackberry execs from business strategy perspective, but I'm not sure that sentiment was universally shared by consumers.
EDIT:
OK my memory has failed tragically. Will leave this comment here nevertheless.
I wonder how much of that is due to the specific nature of this type of product, and how it compares to those past launches.
With iPhone & iPad, you had products that people could very easily imagine using. The iPhone was the combination of three technologies people were already familiar with, the iPad was the iPhone, but bigger.
It is really difficult to imagine using a VR headset if you haven't used one before -- there simply isn't a frame of reference. And even if you have used an Oculus or a SteamVR headset, an interface built around eye & tracking is still completely novel.
I think a lack of mass-market appeal is something that is inherent to a product like this, which makes it a very different product from a marketing perspective than iPhone or iPad.
It makes sense to me that, rather than trying to copy-paste the iPhone or iPad launch, Apple would instead put out an exclusive halo product early, allow a few years for the public to build familiarity with it and settle on the core use-cases, all while they observe and iterate behind the scenes on a more accessible version for a wider audience.
> The hands-on sessions that Apple gave to journalists earlier this week seemed a bit underwhelming. The reporter for the Verge wrote that it feels like the Quest, but with higher resolution.
That's my #1 issue with the Quest and productivity/work is what I most want out of a VR/AR device at this point in time. Gaming on the quest was fun but it wore off (really shined playing with friends online but people are busy). Being able to work in a virtual space is very exciting for me and I can't wait to try it out.
The Quest 2's resolution was almost there for me--I could even spend a few hours at a time working on code in Immersed before I started to feel the eye strain. The Quest 3 has made it good enough that I could go all day if I wanted to. The only real sticking point now is the discomfort of wearing it on my face for that long.
Lol when the iPhone came out, literally everyone was criticizing it for how expensive it was.
Also, looking at the functionality it had when it first came out, it wouldn't have really been very useful for me (no app store, basically just an iPod + shitty browser + phone).
Anyway, does anyone actually think that VR isn't going to revolutionize computing over the next 10 years?
TBF back then no site was optimized to be viewed on a small screen, only after the iPhone and then Android came along did we get "mobile-friendly" or even "mobile-first" sites...
That's not entirely true. WAP browsing was the norm for most mobile devices. The stuff we call "mobile-friendly" now is light years ahead of what we had then.
Fennec (Mozilla Firefox for Mobile) was already a thing before iPhone was released.
The distortion here is that capacitive touch took on with iPhone release. Which lead to a surge of websites supporting such (albeit usually optimized for iPhone/iOS + Safari).
No mainstream phone launched with Fennec. Safari on iPhone was a game changer when everyone else was used to WAP browsing which was all scaled down, text-based web pages.
Of course, but that doesn't mean Fennec wasn't miles ahead. I mean, the original iPhone didn't even have multitouch zoom. Innovation vs invention. People have rose-tinted glasses about the past. They forget the bad, only remember the good.
Sorry but you're wrong. It doesn't matter if Fennec was miles ahead if there was no device to use it on (unless you knew the magic incantations to get it working on one) and the original iPhone did have multitouch zoom too. Jobs demoed it on-stage.
Absolutely, I don't believe VR will revolutionize computing in the next 10 years. It already has had two chances of doing so. Like 3D screens it has a wow effect but isn't that much better given its very real downsides.
Video conferencing using existing equipment and connections is arguably just about the only more immersive virtual experience that has really taken off. And that was somewhat forced on people and plenty here are still "FU. I'm not turning my camera on" in a work context as it is.
We can conceive of other uses but turns out that you can either get most of the way there for far less money and effort and/or the market for "spare no expense" is tiny.
When the iPhone came out they lowered the price by 1/3rd 3 months later. This brought it in-line with Palm/Windows/Blackberry handsets. The browser was also really incredible compared to other phones/devices at the time.
I think the fundamental problem of the Apple Vision Pro as it stands is that you can't put it in your pocket like the iPhone. It's also a lot more awkward to put in a shoulder bag than the iPad is, and the iPad hasn't exactly revolutionised computing either.
When the iPhone came out, people criticized it for the lack of keyboard and 3G. The price was similar to other premium phones of the time.
VR has always been about to revolutionize computing in the next n years. The technology has been available for decades, but so far nobody has been able to find good mainstream use cases for it.
How has the technology been available for decades? There are many requirements for useful headsets beyond just strapping a low-resolution screen to each eye. Even the Vision Pro at $3500+ isn't quite there yet: it's heavy, external battery with a short battery life, has a limited field of view.
The technology to make VR/AR useful for specialized applications has been available for decades. For example, South African fighter pilots had AR sights in the 70s, and the Soviets copied the idea in the 80s. The technology has improved over the decades, but so far nobody has found good mainstream uses for it.
I do think this is going to be similar to the iPhone launch in 10-20 years. The VR headsets that we have in 2035 will be useful, affordable, and revolutionary.
What? No, they're calling it a spatial computer because they don't want it to be lumped in the same category as the other VR devices. Because... theirs is $3500 while other VR devices are $400.
They literally just built a VR headset... do you seriously not think the Apple Vision Pro is a VR headset?
Your description also fits the Meta Quest 3, which is clearly marketed as VR headset. Granted, the Apple device has far better hardware and seems to be more polished, but the capabilities are very similar from what we've seen so far.
At the very least it's a VR and AR headset so no, it's not just a VR headset. And, considering Apple's track record on stuff like this, it's probably more accurate to call it a spatial computer since spatial awareness while using it can be adjusted on the fly. You can't do that with any VR headset right now.
Remember, the first iPhone shipped with no ability to copy and paste stuff, sort glued hardware inside the case, and no ability to add a microSD card like those of the Nokia phones of the time. If the first iPhone pre-order was posted on HN, it would have received a similar comment… :-)
It is a first gen device. It is not for everybody, and it is going to be severely lacking in feature set. The key is what they are trying to genuinely bring to the table rather than what is missing(or that it is heavier or needs a battery hanging on the side - these are fixable things in the next iterations).
I see this as in the same category as 3D TV. Unless they're really into air combat simulations or use it professionally for some kind of visualisations, I can't see people wanting to sit on their couch with a big headset on. I would be interested to try it, but will wait for a rich friend to buy it first.
3D TV didn't even add much to purchase price. I needed a TV for a new room and bought one with 3D but it wasn't appreciably more expensive than an otherwise equivalent screen.There was never a lot of 3D content though. I bought the handful of discs of the good 3D movies and that was about it.
I'd try it as well but if the addressable market is the gamers who hang on each NVIDIA GPU release I couldn't count on this being very interesting. Even console gaming generally is something of a niche market in the scheme of things.
The DPI is pretty critical here though. A big part of their pitch is that you can use this to work. You can open huge windows all around you full of readable text. Seems like it'd be great for coding. Especially since it has the AR too, so you're not totally isolated while you're doing that.
Main problem could be too much weight for long sessions. But it's 600 grams, fairly close to the face with a very wide headband, and custom-fitted. Seems like it might be reasonably comfortable.
The iPad was arguably rather a pre-1.0 version when it came out.
And I must say I rarely use mine around the house. I'm admittedly not a kid that writes papers on an iPhone and doesn't even want a laptop but it's just much easier to use a laptop for searching/writing/etc.
Doing much less travel than pre-COVID, I'm not even sure I'll replace my iPad when it goes out of support. A MacBook Air and Kindle combo does most things as well or better and weighs only marginally more.
I think I use my devices in pretty much exactly the way Apple planned for their use. My laptop gets used for work. My iPad gets used for reading, email, and light web browsing. My phone is what I take with me when I leave the house. The iPad also doubles for travel for me. I use all 3 nearly an equal amount of time and use Handoff and all that stuff regularly between the 3.
The iPhone was widely mocked for costing $500 with a 2-year contract with AT&T at release. It also didn't have native apps and only worked with AT&T. The big jump for Apple was the next release of the iPhone 3G that brought the price down toe $200 (with contract) and also opened up the platform for native apps.
The iPhone was $600 at launch, and when features were compared to other (much cheaper) phones, it didn’t stack up. It didn’t take videos, had a bad camera, slow internet speeds, etc, etc, etc.
The iPhone didn’t win because it had the most features, it won because it made the features it had much easier to use… so people actually used them. Other phones could technically do stuff, but it was so annoying to do, no one did it. Not long before the iPhone launched I had a friend get a Moto Q. She was determined to get the most out of it and learn how to use everything. She was carrying a massive manual with her in her purse. The iPhone did those things without the need to study a manual for weeks or months.
It is also the distortion field. You never heard people say the Nokia N95 (even though it was a very successful device) or the BlackBerry or the Macbook. So regardless, there is no 'the iPhone'. There was an original iPhone which IIRC didn't even have 3G. It couldn't do MMS. It couldn't do copy/paste. It was a crippled device, but it did a couple of things very well. It shows that in order to be successful the first iteration of a new product line doesn't have to be perfect.
The argument falls apart when you remember that more than one person outside of RIM owned a BlackBerry. Who has a Quest? Also? Who had a BlackBerry? Just the people who had a reason to own a BlackBerry. Everyone else just waited for the iPhone to exist.
This isn’t the iPad release, it’s the Apple Watch release. It’s a flag-planting, limited capability, system for early adopters that’s meant to be a ramp to a more practical v2.
I don’t think most people will have a use for the Vision Pro, but, for the people that do, it’s in a different league from what’s currently available.
The mass market iPad/iPod Touch version of the Vision will be out in a few years.
There is no reason this first iteration would not sell out. There are enough people with more money than sense or wishing to have an additional status symbol to sell it regardless of its qualities and defaults.
The question is will it have enough appeal for the technology to trickle down to more affordable devices that the general population is willing to actually buy? And will it happen before we can implant chips directly into our brain? So far VR has occupied nothing less but a niche market.
I remember the exact opposite. People were saying it’s just a bigger iPod touch, didn’t have a full fledged OS etc. Most online discussion said it would be a complete failure.
uh yeah, i remember it quite differently. everyone was dismissive of the ipad...i remember even thinking how phones were getting bigger and what was the point.
> Apple makes the arrogant assumption of thinking that it knows what you want and need. It, unfortunately, leaves the “why” out of the equation — as in “why would I want this?” The Macintosh uses an experimental pointing device called a ‘mouse’. There is no evidence that people want to use these things. I dont want one of these new fangled devices.
Given that at least 2 companies (including Microsoft) were already shipping mice for IBM PCs by 1984, and there were various pointing devices on engineering workstations, it seems like Dvorak was mostly just in his controversial mode.
As much as you guys mention them, I have never, ever experienced an "Apple fanatic" in real life. I'm probably the closest thing to an Apple fanatic and that's only because I buy a lot of their products. I pre-ordered a Vision Pro because I see a lot of use for my business and some new avenues for services I can offer to clients. I'm not tempering any expectations. I'm very excited for this thing.
I think we don't really need to look that far. I have never seen a Hackernews posts that downvoted so many completely normal replies like in this one.
I am expecting this here to be downvoted the same just for mentioning it.
I think you’d get downvoted for not contributing anything and it would have nothing to do with these supposed “fanboys”. You made a claim with no evidence to support it that was so general it might as well be meaningless and then added some preemptive persecution. If I could downvote your comment, I sure would.
This one just doesn’t feel as big. When the iPad was introduced, everyone was shocked by the very low price and the sleek form factor compared to previous Windows tablet devices.
Those are exactly the weak points of the Vision Pro: it’s very expensive and very heavy, according to reports.
The hands-on sessions that Apple gave to journalists earlier this week seemed a bit underwhelming. The reporter for the Verge wrote that it feels like the Quest, but with higher resolution.
That’s a worrying sign! Imagine if the first hands-on of the iPhone had been “it’s like a BlackBerry but with better DPI screen.”
Of course Apple is usually very good at consistently evolving their platforms. Maybe the non-Pro model will be something else.