It is a hardware issue, in the way that those kitchen gadgets to peel eggs or neatly slice butter into perfect cubes are a hardware issue. The application is just not mainstream and the usability of it has built-in challenges that aren’t about improving the specs.
VR is cool and I hope it remains viable for enthusiasts, but it’s definitely not the next cell phone and it’s never going to be as long as it involves strapping a screen to your face.
I think that it’s theoretically possible to have a killer app for VR, something that a lot of people really want and that you can only really do with VR.
But I don’t think that that killer app exists yet. As I mention in another comment, VR might be a worthwhile buy today for hardcore flight-simmers, but I don’t think that it is for most other people.
Maybe if Facebook, Microsoft, Apple, Valve, Sony, etc all put off competing on this long enough to try to put together said killer VR app that ensures that they actually have a market to compete in.
thinks
On the hardware side…hmm. What would make me want to get a VR headset?
I don’t know if I’m a typical consumer, but I have a lot more interest in a monitor-replacement head-mounted display for portable computers than in VR stuff. Like, if you give me something that I can plug into a laptop or phone and can display high-resolution text better than my laptop display – where I can’t carry a large monitor or suspend the monitor right in front of my face – without blowing a bunch of battery power, that’s interesting to me. Existing VR headsets aren’t really aimed at that, as they blow pixels on peripheral vision, and tend to use a fair bit of battery power. The thing should be able to reduce power usage relative to a laptop, given that it had to emit less light to get a given brightness.
I’m fine with it burning power in VR gaming, but not when it’s just being used as a monitor. I want it to be comfortable enough that I can have the thing on my face for eight or more hours.
Like, if I get a VR headset, I want it to be because I’m ready to use it as my primary display device, not just as a neat game peripheral that I haul out when I’m playing a game. I do own a bunch of neat game peripherals, like a HOTAS rig, and my experience over the years has been that they tend to gather dust, aside from a decent gamepad…and gamepads benefit from games being developed for the console market.
If I get VR as an extra for gaming, that’s nice too.
I’m not terribly price sensitive as long as the thing is something that I’m going to use for a long time – my experience has been that I normally use a monitor for a long time, so the cost per year is low relative to the unit price. I doubt that existing VR headsets will do that, as the technology isn’t mature.
I don’t know if that’s what the broader market would care about, though – a low-power, 2D monitor replacement.
I think one of the big things that would be great is having a shared space between 2 or more people who can all be in, and interact with, a virtual/augmented environment. Say you and I are working on a prototype of some sort. We can put a model of it in our shared space, and manipulate it together. we can see what it looks like in the real world, touch it, move it, change it, shape it, etc. Tony Stark kinda stuff. Lots of people in maker space, or engineering, design, etc. would go nuts for this I’d imagine. But I think one of the things we lack right now is physical feedback. It’s really hard to wave your hands around in the air trying to manipulate something but having no feedback at all. And I don’t know what it would even take to make that work. Having gloves with some sort of haptics is a start, but it’s not enough.
Otherwise, why do I gaf about my spreadsheets floating in front of me? Watching a movie could be fun, but I can just watch a regular tv and not have a massive headache and feel like my eyes are being ripped out 20 mins into it. If it’s just going to be another monitor, then I don’t see how you’re going to drive mass adoption with that
Apple doesn’t want it to be VR. They want people to buy this expensive VR headset and wear it all day, but you can’t wear it in public because of how silly it looks, and you can’t carry it around everywhere because it doesn’t fit in your pocket and you can’t just toss it in a bag without damaging it, and you can’t even just wear it around your house unless you’re moving from outlet to outlet. The Vision Pro is an impossible cross between Facebook’s Quest Pro and Smart Glasses products. The technology to make a successful product out of it doesn’t exist yet.
There are ways to use the Vision Pro as a regular VR headset, but then you’re paying for things you’re not using.
in case you were wondering, you can attach a bluetooth keyboard and trackpad. or you can use it to act as a monitor for your macbook, so you could type on that. theres a virtual keyboard too, but if course it would suck to work on (based on second hand reports, i’ve never used one)
i think “really big screen” for movies or laptop display is about it for useful work features. also, some people like to put windows everywhere and work like that ig.
I don’t think it is even a software issue. The problem is the use case. The VR market just isn’t that useful outside of gaming and even within gaming, it isn’t worth it.
I’d get VR googles if I were really hardcore into flight sims and had a modern flight sim that I were willing to sink a lot of time into. I think that they’re legitimately a good match there. And they compete favorably both in price and performance with some of the alternatives that people have used in the past for that, like a wall of monitors and eye-tracking systems.
But I don’t think that they’ve met the threshold for being worthwhile for most people in most other genres.
Yeah, it’s the use case. Qualcomm had smartphones in the 80s, General Magic had the smartphone in the 90s, but it took more than another decade to actually combine phone and browser into the right form factor and fast enough mobile connection and a world wide web to make it work.
For AR there were moments too. Niantic with global positioning, 5G with fast mobile internet, but that was not enough.
Input method isn’t clear yet (Apple may have solved it with gaze-pinch), form factor not consumer market ready. Actual use case that is worth the price point? Nah
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Another VR tech demo fail…
we don’t have hardware issue here, we got a software issue
With every fucking clown mega corp looking to corner the market, no progress made… I am sorry this is not a cell phone, it won’t pop like that.
Open source it, create standards and inter operability. Until that is done, I am not buying anymore of shiti hardware demos.
It is a hardware issue, in the way that those kitchen gadgets to peel eggs or neatly slice butter into perfect cubes are a hardware issue. The application is just not mainstream and the usability of it has built-in challenges that aren’t about improving the specs.
VR is cool and I hope it remains viable for enthusiasts, but it’s definitely not the next cell phone and it’s never going to be as long as it involves strapping a screen to your face.
I see you point… i am coming from “gamer” angle… i will wear strap the fucking box but nothing to do more than like 30 min before i get bored.
could also be because i am old.
I think that it’s theoretically possible to have a killer app for VR, something that a lot of people really want and that you can only really do with VR.
But I don’t think that that killer app exists yet. As I mention in another comment, VR might be a worthwhile buy today for hardcore flight-simmers, but I don’t think that it is for most other people.
Maybe if Facebook, Microsoft, Apple, Valve, Sony, etc all put off competing on this long enough to try to put together said killer VR app that ensures that they actually have a market to compete in.
thinks
On the hardware side…hmm. What would make me want to get a VR headset?
I don’t know if I’m a typical consumer, but I have a lot more interest in a monitor-replacement head-mounted display for portable computers than in VR stuff. Like, if you give me something that I can plug into a laptop or phone and can display high-resolution text better than my laptop display – where I can’t carry a large monitor or suspend the monitor right in front of my face – without blowing a bunch of battery power, that’s interesting to me. Existing VR headsets aren’t really aimed at that, as they blow pixels on peripheral vision, and tend to use a fair bit of battery power. The thing should be able to reduce power usage relative to a laptop, given that it had to emit less light to get a given brightness.
I’m fine with it burning power in VR gaming, but not when it’s just being used as a monitor. I want it to be comfortable enough that I can have the thing on my face for eight or more hours.
Like, if I get a VR headset, I want it to be because I’m ready to use it as my primary display device, not just as a neat game peripheral that I haul out when I’m playing a game. I do own a bunch of neat game peripherals, like a HOTAS rig, and my experience over the years has been that they tend to gather dust, aside from a decent gamepad…and gamepads benefit from games being developed for the console market.
If I get VR as an extra for gaming, that’s nice too.
I’m not terribly price sensitive as long as the thing is something that I’m going to use for a long time – my experience has been that I normally use a monitor for a long time, so the cost per year is low relative to the unit price. I doubt that existing VR headsets will do that, as the technology isn’t mature.
I don’t know if that’s what the broader market would care about, though – a low-power, 2D monitor replacement.
I think one of the big things that would be great is having a shared space between 2 or more people who can all be in, and interact with, a virtual/augmented environment. Say you and I are working on a prototype of some sort. We can put a model of it in our shared space, and manipulate it together. we can see what it looks like in the real world, touch it, move it, change it, shape it, etc. Tony Stark kinda stuff. Lots of people in maker space, or engineering, design, etc. would go nuts for this I’d imagine. But I think one of the things we lack right now is physical feedback. It’s really hard to wave your hands around in the air trying to manipulate something but having no feedback at all. And I don’t know what it would even take to make that work. Having gloves with some sort of haptics is a start, but it’s not enough.
Otherwise, why do I gaf about my spreadsheets floating in front of me? Watching a movie could be fun, but I can just watch a regular tv and not have a massive headache and feel like my eyes are being ripped out 20 mins into it. If it’s just going to be another monitor, then I don’t see how you’re going to drive mass adoption with that
Apple doesn’t want it to be VR. They want people to buy this expensive VR headset and wear it all day, but you can’t wear it in public because of how silly it looks, and you can’t carry it around everywhere because it doesn’t fit in your pocket and you can’t just toss it in a bag without damaging it, and you can’t even just wear it around your house unless you’re moving from outlet to outlet. The Vision Pro is an impossible cross between Facebook’s Quest Pro and Smart Glasses products. The technology to make a successful product out of it doesn’t exist yet.
There are ways to use the Vision Pro as a regular VR headset, but then you’re paying for things you’re not using.
What can you even do with it?
No normal VR games.
Do they want people to use it for work or at home? How do you work with a VR headset, do they expect you to write emails with it?
If not for work then what? Why would you use it at home if you can’t game on it? There is always porn but there are also cheaper solutions for that.
in case you were wondering, you can attach a bluetooth keyboard and trackpad. or you can use it to act as a monitor for your macbook, so you could type on that. theres a virtual keyboard too, but if course it would suck to work on (based on second hand reports, i’ve never used one)
i think “really big screen” for movies or laptop display is about it for useful work features. also, some people like to put windows everywhere and work like that ig.
I don’t think it is even a software issue. The problem is the use case. The VR market just isn’t that useful outside of gaming and even within gaming, it isn’t worth it.
I think we just have not received the APP/GAME to make the platform viable.
You could be right, the format just aint no good no matter how good of game/app it is.
Or maybe devs are working too much to port normal game into VR instead of taking VR centric approach.
There are a lot of VR centric games out there on other platforms. Yet demand for those VR systems are also very low.
VR in its current form doesn’t seem to be worth it and the additional AR capabilities don’t seem worth it either.
I’d get VR googles if I were really hardcore into flight sims and had a modern flight sim that I were willing to sink a lot of time into. I think that they’re legitimately a good match there. And they compete favorably both in price and performance with some of the alternatives that people have used in the past for that, like a wall of monitors and eye-tracking systems.
But I don’t think that they’ve met the threshold for being worthwhile for most people in most other genres.
Yeah, it’s the use case. Qualcomm had smartphones in the 80s, General Magic had the smartphone in the 90s, but it took more than another decade to actually combine phone and browser into the right form factor and fast enough mobile connection and a world wide web to make it work.
For AR there were moments too. Niantic with global positioning, 5G with fast mobile internet, but that was not enough.
Input method isn’t clear yet (Apple may have solved it with gaze-pinch), form factor not consumer market ready. Actual use case that is worth the price point? Nah