Apple Vision Pro - Replacement for TV display? (1 Viewer)

[Mark Booth]

If you aren't watching Apple's WWDC Keynote today, and you are a movie fan, you should be watching!

Apple is introducing Apple Vision Pro today, the company's approach to mixed reality. The features looks FANTASTIC!

At the moment I'm typing this, the price hasn't been announced yet. But OMG, Vision Pro looks awesome!

Mark

 

[Alex...]

The Vision Pro will be controlled by the user’s eyes, hands, and voice. It will “start at $3,499” and launch in early 2024.

Apple Unveils Hotly-Anticipated Headset: The Vision Pro

Disney CEO Bob Iger announced a partnership between Disney and Apple to bring Disney experiences to the Vision pro.

www.hollywoodreporter.com

 

[Mark-P]

Great. The only thing that matters to me is that they claim you’ll be able to watch 3D movies with it. Whether Apple is going to start selling 3D movies or if there will be a way to integrate your 3D Blu-rays (doubtful) remains to be seen.

 

[DaveF]

Short Answer: Eventually yes. Right now, key unknowns to learn about: No info on actual image quality (brightness and contrast ratio, to first order). Likewise audio, as it's two-channel pseudo surround via bone-conduction.

 

[DaveF]

Great. The only thing that matters to me is that they claim you’ll be able to watch 3D movies with it. Whether Apple is going to start selling 3D movies or if there will be a way to integrate your 3D Blu-rays (doubtful) remains to be seen.

It's possible that MoviesAnywhere, et al, will provide no-cost 3D digital copies to prior redemptions of digital codes from 3D blu-ray bundles.

 

[Mark Booth]

From the hands-on article linked below...

Additionally, 3D movie content like the second Avatar movie that Apple demoed surpasses anything you've ever seen in a theater or theme park experience.

I got to play with the Apple Vision Pro and saw the future of computing. Again.

Apple Vision Pro is the company's first truly new computing platform device, and the biggest change in physical form factor, in about 10 years. While it looks...

www.techspot.com

Now, I am not a 3D fan (at all). But it seems possible, perhaps even likely, that even the 2D movie-watching experience with Apple Vision Pro could surpass how we watch movies at home now. And, if that turns out to be true, I don't see how any self-described "movie fan" could resist.

Mark

 

[DaveF]

Simply display quality, quite possibly with dual 4K OLED screens.

But so many other details for simple comfort of viewing.

Can I convince my wife to wear a headset a 2 to 3 hour movie, so we can watch “together”? Can I convince her to wear one every single night when we’re watching TV?

How comfortable is it to relax in the recliner, head in a headset and resting on the seat back, and having a power cord snaking down your left side to an outlet. There’s an outlet nearby right, to be plugged in for a 3 hour movie because the battery is 2 hours long.

I’m bullish long term. I’m skeptical short term.

 

[Edwin-S]

Simple answer.....no. People didn't even want to wear a pair if lightweight glasses for 120 minutes to watch a movie, However, they are going to spend 3500 bucks to wear a heavy set of goggles and a battery pack that lasts two hours to replace their TV? Not bloody likely.

 

[DaveF]

Simple answer.....no. People didn't even want to wear a pair if lightweight glasses for 120 minutes to watch a movie, However, they are going to spend 3500 bucks to wear a heavy set of goggles and a battery pack that lasts two hours to replace their TV? Not bloody likely.

If I were a bachelor and Vision pro performs as hoped, I could see $3500 as a good value over a $6500 88” LG G3 OLED and especially over a $25,000 NZ9 projecting onto a $5000 120” screen. The potential for literally 10x better value from a headset is intriguing. For the geek bachelor.

But bring the roommate, the spouse, the kids, the friends and family into the social viewing and no way, not in 2024.

 

[Edwin-S]

I'm single and I would be hard-pressed to spend the 5000 Canadian that this would cost just to watch 3D films, a format that barely anything except cheesy 50s films is getting releases in.

Not even Avatar: The Way of Water in 3D could get me to spill 5 G's for a niche Apple product for which hardly anything except their own software will be available for.

The install base for this would have to be huge for game developers or anyone else other than Apple to start putting out entertainment software for it.

I'm a sucker for new tech, but this is something that someone else would have to make successful in adoption, before I'd go anywhere near it. And, by that, I mean IPhone successful.

 

[Mark Booth]

Our daughter lives in a different state. Since COVID we have guests over far less frequently. Besides, there's no way I'd remotely consider buying enough Apple Vision Pro headsets for guests to wear them too.

But.. what if our friends buy their own? Would they bring them over and we'd watch a movie together via those headsets?

Beyond that, I am in a unique position. My wife is legally blind. She only has about 30% field of vision in one eye and has no light perception whatsoever in the other eye. So, would an Apple Vision Pro even work for her? That's the unknown piece of the puzzle.

I suspect not. And there's no way I'd sit there with a headset on while my wife is watching the same movie or show via a traditional TV. However...

About 2-3 times a week, I end up watching a movie after my wife has gone to bed. Our living room is on the opposite end of the house from the master bedroom and my wife says the sound system doesn't bother her or keep her awake (unless I really crank it up). And I can most definitely picture myself using an Apple Vision Pro for this type of situation.

And, in all likelihood, just ONE Apple Vision Pro would be enough.

Mark

 

[Mark Booth]

I'm single and I would be hard-pressed to spend the 5000 Canadian that this would cost just to watch 3D films, a format that barely anything except cheesy 50s films is getting releases in.

Not even Avatar: The Way of Water in 3D could get me to spill 5 G's for a niche Apple product for which hardly anything except their own software will be available for.

The install base for this would have to be huge for game developers or anyone else other than Apple to start putting out entertainment software for it.

I'm a sucker for new tech, but this is something that someone else would have to make successful in adoption, before I'd go anywhere near it. And, by that, I mean IPhone successful.

Edwin, You sound the same as about 75% of my friends sounded when I purchased an original iPhone on June 29, 2007.

I kind of pride myself on having a good feel for what will and won't be successful in the consumer electronics field. I correctly predicted the success of the iPhone and iPad WELL before each of those products were known hits. Likewise, I was confident that 3D television was doomed from the start.

The *only* significant negative about the Apple Vision Pro (that I've seen so far) is price. And there are PLENTY of people who will pay that price. But, more importantly, over time, I predict the price will go down while the usefulness and cleverness and irresistibility of the Apple Vision Pro will go up.

It seems unlikely that Apple will sell as many Apple Vision Pros as it sells iPhones or iPads. But I am pretty confident it will still be a hugely successful product. Time will tell.

Mark

 

[Edwin-S]

Edwin, You sound the same as about 75% of my friends sounded when I purchased an original iPhone on June 29, 2007.

I kind of pride myself on having a good feel for what will and won't be successful in the consumer electronics field. I correctly predicted the success of the iPhone and iPad WELL before each of those products were known hits. Likewise, I was confident that 3D television was doomed from the start.

The *only* significant negative about the Apple Vision Pro (that I've seen so far) is price. And there are PLENTY of people who will pay that price. But, more importantly, over time, I predict the price will go down while the usefulness and cleverness and irresistibility of the Apple Vision Pro will go up.

It seems unlikely that Apple will sell as many Apple Vision Pros as it sells iPhones or iPads. But I am pretty confident it will still be a hugely successful product. Time will tell.

Mark

We will see. The issue that I see is not only the price but the market failure of AR and VR. The market keeps sending out signals loud and clear that no one, other than tech heads and hobbyists, wants to wear a helmet or goggles.for entertainment purposes and even less for doing actual work, but tech companies don't want.to listen.

Maybe this time it will be different, but I doubt it. Maybe 3D TV would still be here if tech companies had spent as much time and money trying to jam it down people's throats as they trying to do with AR/VR goggles.

 

[Mark Booth]

Those who are/were fans of 3D TV have greatly overestimated the allure of the feature.

The Apple Vision Pro will be far more successful than the AR/VR headsets that have come before it. We'll have to wait and see how much of Apple's patented technology gets ripped off by Samsung.

Mark

 

[YANG]

hmmm... u know what i see?
a VR over the eyes goggle with advance display tech squeezed in and slapped with an APPLE marque, to make it "PREMIUM"!
should this turns successful, maybe luxury marques like Chanel/Hermes/LV could seek partnership to get their names slapped on as well?

 

[Mark Booth]

The hardware and software on the inside is what makes it premium, not the Apple logo. It just so happens that Apple is the company making a premium product for its customers.

Mark

 

[Edwin-S]

Those who are/were fans of 3D TV have greatly overestimated the allure of the feature.

The Apple Vision Pro will be far more successful than the AR/VR headsets that have come before it. We'll have to wait and see how much of Apple's patented technology gets ripped off by Samsung.

Mark

Well, the same can be said for people who think Apple can make a technology that has continually failed in uptake, by mainstream consumers, successful by making it 7x more expensive and changing the name to "spacial computing".

 

[Mark Booth]

John Guber's first take on Apple Vision Pro:

First Impressions of Vision Pro and VisionOS

In the same way that the introduction of multitouch with the iPhone removed a layer of conceptual abstraction — instead of touching a mouse or trackpad to move an on-screen pointer to an object on screen, you simply touch the object on screen — VisionOS removes a layer of abstraction spatially.

daringfireball.net

Some quotes from his article:

First: the overall technology is extraordinary, and far better than I expected. And like my friend and Dithering co-host Ben Thompson, my expectations were high. Apple exceeded them. Vision Pro and VisionOS feel like they’ve been pulled forward in time from the future. I haven’t had that feeling about a new product since the original iPhone in 2007. There are several aspects of the experience that felt impossible.

It does not magically look indistinguishable from real life, but it does not feel like looking at a screen at all. I perceived absolutely no latency. I definitely could not see pixels — the experience is “retina” quality.

Again, it doesn’t look at all like looking at screens inside a headset. It looks like reality, albeit through something like a pair of safety glasses or a large face-covering clear shield. There is no border in the field of vision — your field of view through Vision Pro exactly matches what you see through your eyes without it. Most impressively, and uncannily, the field of view seemingly exactly matches what you see naturally. It’s not even slightly wider angle, or even slightly more telephoto. There is no fisheye effect and no aberrations or distortion in your peripheral vision. What you see in front of your face exactly matches what your own eyes see when you lift the Vision Pro up over your eyes.

Those are very important factors if, ultimately, my main use case would be to watch a virtual gigantic movie screen on the other side of my living room!

Apple Vision Pro is sounding more and more like a VERY viable alternative to a big screen TV. It's very exciting!

Mark

 

[Jesse Skeen]

I couldn’t watch a movie seriously like that for the same reason I wouldn’t use headphones for serious listening to anything other than 2-channel music.

 

[Mark Booth]

I couldn’t watch a movie seriously like that for the same reason I wouldn’t use headphones for serious listening to anything other than 2-channel music.

How do you know if you've never tried it? Perhaps you meant to say, you don't THINK you could watch a movie like that?

Mark