It's got its use cases that don't align with the kind of topics here, so it's not discussed. Doesn't make it dead, just unpopular with the HN crowd. Maybe even fair to say unpopular with the mainstream crowd. But so was the first, Mac-only iPod, and here we are. I have one. I use it every day for a handful of things, but I don't come on here and talk about it.
But I think this was the classic strategy of pricing out everyone except for those who will build on it or be excited by it, then make a polished v2 with wider appeal once there’s content.
I would counter that people adopted iPods en masse a lot faster than they will ever adopt a VR headset. VR is only ever going to be a niche use case. I think those use cases in entertainment realm are the only use cases that could get wide adoption and even then its someone wearing it for 1-2 hours.
I think this might suffer from a product class that needs widespread adoption to fund development in order to get smaller form factors and it will never get the widespread adoption.
I agree that the iPod was adopted faster, but that definitely wasn't version 1, and the early versions were heavily mocked before they were adopted. It was too expensive, it was Mac only, it used FireWire, which was not widely available, things like that. Not the challenges that the Vision Pro (and VR) will face, but still challenges. Apple figured out how to get Windows support, then how to shrink the form factor when it made sense. I imagine they'll do that again.
The iPod weighed a pound and fit in your pocket. The Vision Pro is worn on your face and covers your eyes. Humans are one of the species of animal that hates things covering their faces and eyes.
FireWire was very widely available on Macs of the era, which is why it made sense amongst other things. (USB 1.1 is very slow, FireWire could also provide power, Apple invented FireWire)
Also worth noting: when the iPod came out, iTunes had been around for a while. Many people had a decent music library on the Mac (from ripping CDs or Napster), and with the iPod, you just plugged it in, and within minutes you had the entire library in your pocket to go, including metadata (playlists, play counts, etc.).
My Mac keyboard had broken the day I got my iPod. I was able to dock my iPod, sync up my huge collection of music in a few minutes and then head out with my new iPod to buy a cheap replacement keyboard.
iTunes had been around for a while if you consider SoundJam MP as part of the iTunes legacy. It memory and a quick Google search serve, iTunes was about a year and a half old when the iPod came out. I guess that's old for CD-distribution days.
The best part about FireWire (from the perspective of someone who never actually used it) was that it was very tolerant of uneven voltages; thus, all iPods that could use it (which went at least through the first Nanos) had very, very inexpensive car power adapters - they could just use the "12V" that's really more like 13.4 V. No real circuitry inside, just a cord to plug into the iPod.
Yeah but Macs were pretty close to the bottom of their popularity in 2001 and Firewire was near non-existant on PC. It was really only a high-end PC thing or maybe an add-on for those FW capable camcorders. When the iPod launched USB 2.0 was already out, available on okayish PCs (not Macs yet though) and was pretty much fast enough as was seen with later USB 2.0 capable iPods.
People who spent the money on a Vision Pro are the most likely people to try to convince others it's some amazing future device...
VR has been around for years and years, and still has not become mainstream. The core issues remain, and Apple did nothing to resolve them - nor do I suspect they are capable of resolving them.
Untold fortunes have been thrown down the VR rabbit hole by some of the most heavily invested companies, and still today it's a mediocre experience after the novelty wears off.
Have you tried it? The claim that they haven’t fixed any of the core issues is legitimately strange.
The screens inside as a significant jump in image quality, to the point that for a single TV/movie watcher, the Vision Pro is probably going to be the best device for that media. As the price comes down and the inevitable screen sharing becomes possible, it will be the best for multiple people, too.
Eye tracking and pinch to click is also a big jump in usability. That, along with the excellent pass through, makes it way more comfortable to use in public.
There are a lot of features that will make it better in the future, like less weight, even better screens, better battery life, etc., but to claim Apple didn’t fix any core problems with the current device is uninformed.
At my work, I've had the opportunity to work with several headsets of different flavours, and eye tracking and pinch to click is not an Apple innovation. It was definitely in the Quest Pro, and possibly some others (its been a while since I worked in that department). When I first got to mess with it, I very quickly knocked up a demo of a huge pair of eyes looking at you that matched the rotation of your actual eyes, which is a surprisingly creepy effect
I can't comment on whether the quality of the features (display, interaction, tracking etc) are any better than the competitors, but the existence of those features is not innovative in itself. They're an iteration, and from what I hear, not necessarily a large one
the switch to iPod from Walkman/Discman was as obvious as VHS to DVD. it was something everybody wanted even if they didn't know it until they were shown the new thing. not everybody wants knowingly or not a VR headset. that's not a solve of an everyday problem for anybody but a fraction of people.
I didn’t mean to center it on HN. I simply don’t see it discussed anywhere even though it was front and center on most social media feeds. Discussion of it vanished seemingly within a week.
