Welcome to the Vision Pro, Apple’s most complex piece of hardware yet. So complicated that we’ll need more than one teardown to tackle it. First up: Those creepy eyes.
It's an Apple device, what did you expect?
The thing even has an external battery pack, and instead of using USB-C so you could use any power bank you already own, they designed a completely new proprietary connector. In 2024.
Who the fuck does that anymore, except Apple?
I can see the argument for having a connector that can’t be pulled out: if you were crossing a busy street or walking down a stairway with one of these strapped to your head and the cable came out, you’d be instantly blind.
You can use any USB battery with it, just plug it into the battery pack. Why? Because releasing this without a battery and leaving it to the customer to source one would be super weird.
Actually, if it breaks you get Apple to fix it. I think anyone who is spending $$3500+ on a portable device knows to be careful with it and doesn’t want it to break.
Just think about it for a moment. Apple made a mask, that when you wear it in your face, projects a 3D animated avatar if you face on the outside. That is so weird, f’ed up and dystopian.
I won’t argue about whether this is dystopian, but the practical reason for the face projection is that they wanted to make this not just something you wear sitting alone in your basement, like most other VR headsets. They wanted it to be usable around other people, at a workplace, with family, etc.
Interacting with someone wearing a full face blind is just weird, so they thought that making the eyes visible would help make this a bit more socially usable.
I’m not sure that’s really going to work out — seems at least as awkward as Google’s failed Glass project — but Apple’s design decision has some merit.
Google Glass really feels smarter in this particular regard.
Also they decided to stuff everything into the headset.
Maybe making it a separate thing and moving as much mass and volume as possible to something worn on your belt or your back would be a better idea. EDIT: But I do understand how this doesn't fit their marketing.
I'm convinced that the only reason they did the eye thing is so they can get micro transactions for people buying custom eyes like cats and aliens and shit.
The face projection was likely an afterthought. They were already deep into the 3D face scan into avatar world with things like continuity camera and lidar. Granted, I don’t believe they are currently able to reposition the face into a completely different angle (top down into forward facing) with continuity camera, but that’s where their tech was going anyway. And they wanted to be able to have user facial expressions in device regardless.
All they did in this case was slap a screen on the front and display the avatar the thing is already generating, then call it a feature and upcharge with a 1000% markup on the total cost.
It’s a gimmick, that’s all it ever was. Meant to make this look like a sleeker device than it is with some clever marketing.
A real semi-transparent mask with a projector with a computer with an open architecture would really be a cool thing. Wouldn't be VR or AR, of course. Just projecting text and lowres pictures, like Google Glass. But I'd like that, to be frank. Only not just for one eye, that'd cause headaches and anxiety.
It’s a gimmick, that’s all it ever was. Meant to make this look like a sleeker device than it is with some clever marketing.
Typical Apple. Sad when they do that when a much sleeker device or a much better experience actually exists. Like in 2007, ya knaw ...
It's not as weird as the Meta Quest, where you literally have no idea wether the person wearing it is looking at you or not.
The view of someone's eyes is very low quality - I'll give you that. But it's better than nothing at all. And I'm not sure they could've done better without doubling the price of the product.
Nah, it's actually much weirder and more unsettling. You can't tell if someone's looking at you when they wear sunglasses either. No one cares. I'd much rather deal with that than creepy inhuman eyes.
Although there are better solutions than making a facsimile of real eyes, like putting a user-customisable avatar eye/indicator or something on top, which wouldn't get quite as uncanny. At least, not any more than wearing a sleep mask with an eye design on top.
Imagine engineering something that complicated only for it to be a disappointing product. I have no doubt it's a step toward better products but at the same time they could've done better. Maybe spend more time polishing the actual parts that matter instead of creating the world's most complicated weird fake blurry eyes?
I don’t think it is a disappointing product, I think it is pretty amazing actually.
Blurry eyes, yeah, that outward facing screen is an interesting choice but it makes sense with that they were going for. Based on all the tech in the Vision Pro I doubt that outward facing screen added much in terms of cost to the Bill of Materials but it is a nifty thing to try out. I’d rather have companies experimenting with this type of thing than only making predictable products over and over again with only minor improvements.
I don’t think it is productive to bad mouth a product that you probably haven’t even tried yet and probably would not be buying anyway.