After reading initial impressions from people who bought it this weekend I’m disappointed! I wasn’t interested in the AVP myself, I don’t have any Apple products, but still I had hoped for this thing to become a big success, which would have really FINALLY kickstarted the VR industry. And in a certain way it maybe did, there’s been for the first time big attention from the mainstream media outlets in a way that we haven’t seen before. But damn, the first impressions are disappointing!
I’ve read people saying that the FoV is “substantially” smaller than other headsets like the Quest 3, which surely is disappointing. But then people also claim that the passthrough quality is barely any better than the Quest 3!!! Wow that’s really disappointing, I figured Apple would have nailed it here. The comfort already had been critized before. Some people now actually seem to like it but still enough people who are disappointed here.
And then the use cases, it really beats me how Apple used to blow that up. There’s only a limited amount of native apps for the headset. We already knew this wasn’t really a gaming headset, no controllers and of couse no access to SteamVR. So that’s already a huge downside. But then, the other big use case people buy VR for also totally failed: porn! Apple doesn’t allow it on their platform, ok, that’s one thing but it really surprised me to read you can’t even play 180/360 movies! There’s just not a player supporting it!! Now I do think that will probably change with time but it’s quite incredible to me that Apple didn’t have a 180/360 player available at launch.
And then the price, $3500 for a 256 GB Version? One can only laugh!
All in all, damn, this is a botched up launch. If this was Pimax, people would shrug their shoulders (and probably wait for the re-launch, or the 3rd launch, or how many times did the Crystal launch? LOL). But Apple??? I didn’t see this one coming for sure. They just messed this up, big time.
I mean how are they hoping this thing will sell? What are they hoping people will tell their friends? “Hey listen up man I just bought the AVP and it’s frikking awesome!!!” “Really, what can you do with it?” “Well ehmm I can see my phone in 3d in front of me!!! And I can watch a movie in 2D, just like on my TV” LOL. Damn, Apple, what were they thinking?
Then again, Apple is not stupid, they 100% thought about all this. Maybe one reason is that they never planned this to be a gaming device. So if there would have been a 180/360 player at launch, then what would this be? How would people see the device? It might result people seeing this thing as a PORN ONLY device. Which might become a problem in the future as people would not really take the product seriously or socially accept it which maybe could limit future sales. But then again, WHAT does apple want this thing to be? I just don’t see it … If they think of this thing as just a virtual phone replacement and that they’re hoping people will put this thing on all the time, I’d say they’re going to fail. That’s just not going to happen when the comfort is not 100% perfect. Only with a real lightweight device this MIGHT happen one day.
Well, we are not the target audience – the church of Apple is; Their priorities are not in the slightest the same as ours (heck, half of it is just fashion/status), and this is a first iteration – essentially a devkit, so we’ll see whether things go anywhere over time, or it just fizzles out…
Influencer types are beginning to make themselves visible wearing the thing in public, extolling the just about sufficient passthrough resolution, and I am quite curious what some of those amongst them who wear strong glasses will make of it, when they discover the old argueable up-side for some, to the fact these devices are single focal depth…
Hahaha yeah I’ve seen mostly happy comments too. I’m puzzled. Nobody has come up with a good use case for this thing but everybody seems to love it! Maybe it’s just what @jojon said and it’s all just about fashion/status.
It just seems to be what we said before, you do what you did before on your phone, but now on your headset, with giant screens which of course do have an advantage over a small phone screen. But I can’t help but think that the major part of it is just fashion/status.
And that is exactly why Apple is currently achieving this.
An amazing home theatre and a great multi-screen workplace is nothing to sneeze at tbh and I think the AVP will have really set the standard for succesfull UI intergration into AR/VR.
I am very much looking forward to it and expect I will judge it by entirely different metrics than the usual nits, PPD, FOV metrics.
Yeah but for sub $2000 you can get an amazing home theater that will have sharper/better image than the AVP. And for production nothing beats a real sharp monitor and a good mechanical keyboard IMHO (ducky keyboard 4 life LOL).
To me it all makes no sense at all, apart from the fashion/status aspect which I can understand (but not relate to)
Also I’m just only now really starting to understand to which kind of future this is going to lead. I mean I always wanted VR to become big. But damn, soon everybody in public will be wearing this, everybody will have a camera on his head all the time, recording whenever they want. Everybody is going to hide their face behind a headset. Man, should have been careful what I wished for, LOL, really not sure if the world is becoming a nicer place.
I use a Sony VPL-XW 5000ES in my home cinema and it’s good, but definitely not amazing.
From what I hear 3D movies are insanely good on the AVP and I’m very much looking forward to re-living my Maldives holiday I just got back from through the spatial videos I took with my iPhone.
And I don’t do production, I do mainly eMails, online meetings, kanban boards, mind maps and insanely large spreadsheets as well as (virtual) site evaluations. The ability to mirror my mac and additionally place as many apps as I want literally anywhere across my entire house has me pretty damn excited and there is nothing close to offering that right now.
XR-4 will be my go to for simracing, Apple for media consumption, chilling and work. Now I only need one more light and high-res AIO HMD for roomscale games.
3D movies dont even play at the moment at least 180/360 doesn’t, only the Apple spatial video’s work. And the math just makes no sense, no way that you can get to a sharpness that beats a good 4k TV.
Haha yeah this is what everybody says it seems. It’s all about mirroring apps anywhere you like. We’re all different but at the moment I just find it hard to imagine that this is something exciting. I work mostly in my home office anyway where I have a high-end monitor and PC. I just dont think the AVP at this point in time can replace that.
I mean I do too believe it’s the future. One day it will be as good as a high-end TV and computer setup. And that day might come sooner than later. But at the moment I just have a hard time believing that it already is that good. It just makes no sense.
Then again, maybe I’m that guy who was telling everybody how CD wasn’t as good as Vinyl and I should just get with the program LOL
So… Without actually doing any math, I reckon the AVP should be about-, or at least not far from, the same sort of PPD as a computer monitor, or a high resolution TV set, for the distances the viewer typically sit from them.
Add the fact it is high quality OLED, and the pair of familiar old factors, with VR, of the mask excluding ambient light, and each eye having a display of its own, for crosstalk-free stereo video, and I can only imagine we’re talking a pretty damn nice virtual cinema screen, for a solo viewer.
Use cases… For me, it’s like the whole thing has been with “tech” for decades now – effectively the entire world is all about the facebooks, and the twitters, and the whatsapps, etc, whereas somebody like myself has zero interest in any of that guff… And like with computers and other “nerdy” things before, the hipsters who used to mock those who use them, and until now have mocked VR, will (…or may) take over, using the devices foremost to run all that that stuff that I don’t care one jot for, and calling familiar things by alternative i-trademark terms, which will quickly become the standard nomenclature, and of course the inventing source.
…and naturally, in social life much of it will exhibit the the ususal pattern, of the kid who comes to school (…and adults are not better in the slightest), not wearing the “in” brand of sneakers, or the trendy bag, or the right “cool” added-fragrance eraser, will be condescended to; Aren’t humans lovely.
When I set it to 4k resolution, 3 meters viewing distance (=118 inch) and 80" TV size I get a PPD of 117. Whereas the AVP is only 34 PPD
Which must make sense. I’m sure that with the AVP, if the lenses are sharp enough, you can see at least SOME SDE. I know I could with the varjo Aero which should have a similar PPD. You’d really have to focus and try, but you could still see it. But it’s just impossible to spot any pixels at 3 meters from my TV.
But even aside of PPD, the whole experience is just way more relaxing on a good TV than to sit 2-3 hours with a headset on. Of course the big disadvantage is that it’s a lot harder to drag your 80" TV around than a headset if you’d like to watch TV in a different room, LOL. But nah … to me it still doesn’t make much sense at this point in time.
