Alright you guys, who else was insane enough to plonk down 4K+ for a proper AVP?
Excited for February 2nd? Or a hypocrite because you have gotten used to Meta‘s closed (kinder)garden?
Disgusted by the lack of controllers or excited for the first actual professional company to enter the spatial computing market? There, I said it.
I don’t think it’s fair to say meta has a closed garden. It’s certainly not as open as a PC but it’s more open than typical consoles as you can sideload whatever you want and use it as a dev kit easily etc. I expect them to try and tighten it down in the future but for now it’s relatively open imo. (obviously could be a lot more open, I just don’t think it’s more closed than an apple product by any stretch of the imagination).
Anyway, I didn’t order it because it’s way out of my price range unfortunately. Not keen on apple products but if I could have afforded the AVP I would have bought it instantly.
Out of interest, how are you going about getting it in Germany? Getting a friend to send it, heading over yourself? I’m glad they didn’t make it too difficult to buy from another country, if even just to give scalpers less ammunition ha.
I’m very excited to hear thoughts and impressions, I really enjoyed your impressions of the XR4 so keen to hear your thoughts on the AVP.
You’re absolutely right, Meta is keeping their garden way more open than I would have anticipated, my comment was only meant in jest.
The ordering process did require a VPN so I guess it’s still a hurdle for many customers.
I always use a shipping service from the US and did so this time around as well.
That means that on top of the $4k for the 1TB AVP there will be around another 25% in taxes and import duties so it’s definitely a hefty sum. But ever since I got into VR I was waiting for what Apple would make of the technology so purchasing it is basically fulfilling a +10 year old plan.
Additionally I am gifting it to myself for my 40th birthday so that should suffice to justify it to myself 
I am really looking forward to it and comparing it visually and ergonomically to the XR-4. On the other hand this is the first HMD where I’m more excited for the UI and UX than the tech specs by themselves.
I will share here once I have it in hand and might make it a combined thread with my XR-4 experience.
On that note, Varjo’s optical team has identified the ‘black shadow’ issue and have announced that if they can’t fix it in software, they will replace all affected HMDs.
Ha, treat yourself! Really looking forward to your feedback on it, hopefully it doesn’t take too long to arrive. I imagine it will be an exciting headset to own both initially but also as more ideas start to emerge and as it matures. I have a feeling this will be apple’s first product that will have a notably different experience from day 1 to day 365 but maybe they have it more figured out from the get go then I am anticipating.
And that’s great to hear about the XR4, although at that price I guess you’d expect good support.