Ask HN: Is anyone working at least 4 hours daily on an Apple Vision Pro?
It's been 8 months since the initial reviews, so I would love to know if anyone has managed to really become productive and comfortable working hours a day on the Apple Vision Pro.
I feel like I would have been the ideal customer for it. I travel a lot and I'm a developer deep in the Apple ecosystem who is constantly wishing he had more screen real estate while bouncing between hotels and Airbnbs every few weeks.
I bought it and tried it for two weeks and ended up returning it. It's really cool, but even aside from the issues with 1.0 like not being able to just pull up individual app windows from my mac or multiple desktops -- it's just too impractical, it takes too much effort to get into this thing.
A phone, a tablet, a laptop, you can pick up, immediately use, put down, interact with the world around you, pick up again, zero friction, it's not restrictive, it's not an item of clothing, it doesn't take over your whole world and sensory system and thus alienate you from everyone and everything around you.
Not only is it that whole extra thing, but it needs to be plugged into a special battery pack, so you have another usb cable dangling onto this bulky pack which is daisy chained to your laptop or another charging port unless you want it to die in 2 hours. So you pull out your laptop, plug it into a charger, pull out your headset, plug it into its battery pack, plug that battery pack into your laptop, put on the headset, untangle yourself from the wires and figure out where to set the battery pack to be out of the way...
It's just so much faffing around. Plus it's fucking huge and takes up the majority of my backpack and I like to travel with a single carry on backpack.
A pair of Raybans with a usb c cable sticking out, maybe I could see that being legitimately usable without having to make a giant effort just to use it. It seems like a few companies are getting close to that, but I have yet to try those alternatives.
This is the best review I have ever read on the Apple Vision Pro. Also, we should probably stop lying to ourselves, and finally admit what we have known in hour hearts for a little while now: Apple is not anymore what it used to be. Reading this makes it clear…
Apple Vision Pro is the modern equivalent of John Sculley’s Apple Newton
Not sure this is really an Apple thing. Basically all the tech companies have released some VR or AR product that either flopped, or was downgraded to a niche industry product.
Remember just a few years ago when Meta was trying to convince us that the metaverse was the future.
Part of Apple's strength is getting into the market at the right time when technology is ready and offering a streamlined, just works experience. Apple Vision Pro is nothing like that and that's why the previous commenter said it's not the usual Apple...
Meta didn't stop with that though?
Just a few weeks ago they released new products that actually have a much bigger potential then the Vision Pro for the usecases virgildotcode imagined. I.e. Orion AR. As a person that only knows about it from the presentation/demos it kinda sounded like a crossover of VR headset and Google Glasses
https://about.fb.com/news/2024/09/introducing-orion-our-firs...
Though I sincerely doubt it will succeed at a wider audience either, even if it's mass market appeal is way higher.
The tech just isn't there yet - we'd need 4-8+k displays per eye with batteries that need to last at least 10 hours for this to become really viable (even if we could probably compromise batteries with a usb-c connection to the laptop for this particular usecase)
orion is not _released_ though. it is 'this is what we are working on'.
True, I really should've said announced.
Nonetheless, that should strengthen my point - as my comment was a rebuttal Gogachads nonchalant past tense wrt Metas ongoing investment into the metaverse. Metas main goal is still exactly that, ever since their pivot
My take away from the GP was that it's not so much as an issue with Apple'version of VR but about the state of the technology itself. The hardware today is too bulky and difficult to use as a daily driver.
May be Google was on to something with their glasses and may be some version of electrochromic glass goggles that also works as a display is the answer.
I agree that Apple is not what it used to be. They normally don't go for still evolving tech and swoop in with a better product(and experience) only after the product's viability is established.
Very much agreed. Here is the pair of Raybans with a USB-C cable sticking out: https://www.viture.com/store?pid=9412104487193
It works with phones, too, which is cool!
I tried a pair of those and returned them because the whole screen flying around was really disorienting.
The latest ones do have solutions for that (head locked vs space locked displays). This also was one of my requirements, but now I'm actively considering them. The main thing holding me back now is that the tech is improving so rapidly that picking a time to buy in is hard.
The product may be awesome but the website seems to be designed like a dropshipping site.
I tried these with much excitement. Unfortunately they give me immediate eye strain and headaches. The optics need a tremendous amount of work. 1080p is also not enough. But some people love them. It’s a product you just have to try and see if it works for you and return if they don’t.
Why do the glasses look photoshopped on to the models? Surely it wouldn’t have been that hard to take a photo of someone actually wearing them.
I don’t understand why they didn’t make this a gaming device. All this hassle would be worth it to play immersive shooter games or VR chat with full hand and face tracking.
No one is going to go through all that to open up Apple notes and YouTube when your phone and MacBook does exactly the same thing.
The gaming industry wants to bring their existing marketplaces and platforms and even when that's not explicitly prohibited Apple wants 30% of their gross revenue and requires each game implement their in-app purchases to collect it, so they are at an impasse.
>Plus it's fucking huge and takes up the majority of my backpack and I like to travel with a single carry on backpack.
I'm the same way. When I saw the reviews and the travel case, it seemed completely impractical for anyone who doesn't check luggage, on top of bringing a carry on and personal item.
I also prefer to look like a waste of time for any would-be thief of pickpocket. It seemed like a Vision Pro would put a target on my back that I didn't want.
> it doesn't take over your whole world and sensory system and thus alienate you from everyone and everything around you.
You sound like you are fundamentally unsuited to the device. You move around a lot and don't like being isolated. I work in my Quest 3 primarily because it isolates me and takes over my whole sensory system. I love going to work on beaches, mountain tops, or co-working with friends or colleagues virtually. You sound like you want literally the opposite of all that.
What's up with Raybans? They make the cheapest looking vanilla generic glasses I've ever seen, put a tacky logo on the lens and sell for a fortune. Why does anyone buy them?
Ray-ban along with almost every other glasses and sunglasses brand, and also almost all retailers of glasses are all owned by a megacorp called Luxxotica. The prices are all completely arbitrary and fixed.
Beyond this basically all prices for every consumer item are completely arbitrary. They almost never reflect real value and almost always are priced based on what people are willing to pay. Act accordingly.
I’m genuinely not sure how to say this without a little bit of snark, but do you…know how fashion works?
Sunglasses do seem to be taking the piss more than other items. An expensive pair of leather shoes can easily be justified by the cost of the materials, manual labor, build quality, and extended lifespan over cheaper options.
While sunglasses seem to be a bit of injection moulded plastic with some lenses for a 20x markup.
It’s mainly because of the Luxxotica monopoly.
If course, there are a lot of sunglasses that are not name brands and those a much cheaper.
For most clothing items, there are the luxury name brands, but then there are also affordable options like Uniqlo which sell basically the same thing for a very reasonable price.
For sunglasses, at least in Australia, you get the sunglasses stores that have $200-$400 nice looking sunglasses, and then $30 speed dealer sunnies at the servo. There's nothing in between and no one cloning the name brand styles for cheap.
They’re vanilla now because everyone copied their designs decades ago. They’re the original.
Doesn’t mean they’re worth the cost, but now you know.
I want people to think that I fly my biplane while wearing a furry leather bomber jacket on the weekends.
The visual quality of the Apple Vision Pro is extremely far ahead of any other headset. I generally don't like Apple products and I think they made plenty of mistakes with Vision Pro, but the visual quality is exceptional for our time.
I wouldn't advise anyone to buy it, but I would strongly encourage everyone to try it out in an Apple Store.
I'm waiting for the Freeza Scouter model (Dragon ball Z). One full imersed eye and ear experience. That's the perfect ergonomics.
All we really need is the ability to check someone's power level anyway, what the hell else would convince me to put digital glasses on for!?
Yes, I do. It’s an amazing monitor and combination iPad. It’s very different than what is easy to describe - partially because it defies convention in so many ways - but I use it with my Mac and then will have mail and chat and music floating on the sides.
Btw I said iPad. Apple says it’s a computer. Falls short in some key ways, but not unfixable
It is heavy but I don’t mind it. I can see how that might be a deal breaker.
Btw I honestly think that if apple wants to market this thing as a computer, they need to include a keyboard and trackpad. It adds so much to the utility factor that it’s basically indispensable for me. That it works well without one is testament to apples amazing engineering, but they really should be packing those in imho
These things are going to be killer productivity devices if
- price down. obviously.
- lower weight, better battery
- combo keyboard and mouse accessory offered that fits into a carrying case
- able to host Mac apps, or a Mac vm, or something similar. Let me run vs code, IntelliJ, and a terminal with a local container with my build tools. Or blender. Or photoshop. Etc etc etc
Btw protip, tea tastes fine through a metal straw
I'm of the opinion that Apple will never natively allow unmanaged code outside macOS due to app store revenue. I mean if the AVP fails it would be a huge write down but if it wins and allows people to circumvent the Apple tax that's still a fail for the company.
I know. This is the real reason, not the purported "security issues". Apple just wants to sell their hugely expensive cake and eat it. The only reason that macOS is not locked down is historical. Because it's always been open and people would be screaming if they took it away.
It's a shame as a user. I paid for the device, I should decide what happens on it. Apple doesn't have an innate right to store revenue.
You could still do enforcement through legal rather than technical means, though.
Disallow installing apps from outside the App Store, provide no system UI to do so. Prohibit apps from being app stores themselves or running code that didn't pass app review, with exceptions for dev tools etc. Make apps able to escape the sandbox, at least in some ways.
Even if an app somehow sneaks past app review and gives users unfettered access to their devices, it can't ever get too many users. If it's unpopular, it's not a concern to Apple, if it becomes popular, Apple will know about it and can levy very heavy contractual fines on the dev.
It's worth mentioning none of these concerns affected Android / Google Play, even though it's fairly easy to sideload and even install custom app stores there.
The only phones that come with alternative stores are from Chinese manufacturers, which isn't going to be an issue for Apple as the operating system isn't open source.
Didn’t Samsung introduce their own App Store?
https://galaxystore.samsung.com/
it ships both app stores on every android phone. In my experience, people only use the Samsung store by accident
I was just refuting the “only Chinese phones have alt stores” factoid.
The OPs main point was that the existence of sideloading or third-party app stores hasn't led to major security issues. And apps still have to comply with the sandboxing.
Your ideas are explicitly illegal in the EU and, if the law ever passes, would be illegal in the US too. Frankly I think we are past having to figure out ways for Apple to tax software usage in all circumstances, just wait for the law to catch up and it's all moot. In fact, just the Epic case seeks to rewrite what amounts to 70% of App Store spending: gacha games being able to link to their own billing options.
> The legislation aims to prevent Big Tech companies from "self-preferencing" their own products at the expense of competitors.[3] Under AICO, covered platforms would be forbidden from disadvantaging other companies' products or services.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Innovation_and_Choice...
that still sounds like technical means
>It is heavy but I don’t mind it.
Consider trying a counter weight. Hunting supply stores sell them for nightvision goggles, and when I tried one on my friend's Valve Index it was shocking how much better it felt.
To note, counter weight helps alleviate single pressure points when stationary or slowly moving.
It will make it significantly worse for people moving their head a lot or walking around.
That's the same issue as the Airpod Max, which are extremely well balanced but just so damn heavy, so I guess people just build neck muscles ?
Sounds like Apple's product designers failed here.
Nah, it was the right call. Advertising it at nearly 2x the weight so X% of people find it more comfortable is a bad trade off.
I use mine all the time and don’t notice the weight. Perhaps because I use various types of helmets frequently. It is far far far less noticeable than a motorcycle helmet, and far less noticeable than a good full face bike helmet.
I haven’t tried the Apple vision, but from other VR products, the problem isn’t the weight on your head, it’s where it’s distributed. Having all that weight resting on your cheeks quickly becomes uncomfortable and makes the muscles on your face sore.
> tea tastes fine through a metal straw
I can't help but think about this story every time I hear someone talk about metal straws.
https://www.today.com/health/health/metal-straw-punctures-th...
> Btw protip, tea tastes fine through a metal straw
Sounds burny
Bamboo straws work well too. But you'd still want the tea to be not too hot. Some quick searching resulted in Sipify straws.
was this a microplastics thing or a dogwhistle coded for some dark net activity? i hav eno idea
No, it's just easy to burn yourself sucking a hot liquid through a straw.
I tried, and went back to laptop+monitor. In theory it would be great when on the go, but it doesn't really function without a laptop present, which makes it pretty unwieldy as you need two devices. In theory it would be good in a the back seat of a car or when walking around, except the software doesn't allow you to do that (windows are pinned to space outside the car, you can't make them follow you). When I'm at a desk, I guess it would be better than a _bad_ monitor, but I have a nice big 8k screen and it's both better looking and more comfortable.
What 8k screen are you using? Do you recommend it?
I do on days when I work from home. I like to move around the house when I code so I’ll do a bit of work from a couch each day to spend time with the pets , and then I just take my laptop+headset to get a good large screen experience.
I also watch movies+shows regularly on it but that’s on the order of 2-3h of use at a time.
Any difference in eye strain compared to pre-vision era?
No. The focal distance for most headsets is further than monitor distance so in theory it’s less strain on the eyes, but other lensing considerations put it at about equal
I would use it more but after an hour I have ENORMOUS bags under my eyes that last for 24-36 hours. I've tried multiple 3rd party accessories but to little success. My wife is not a fan.
Otherwise I would code and work in them for a few hours a day. I find the environment incredibly focusing.
I do not have this issue using the Oculus Pro, or any of the myriad headsets I've had in the past.
Try a head strap that doesn't put pressure on your face. Like an aura strap. I'm sure there's some third party options available. I use the bobovr for my quest but don't have the money for AVP.
[flagged]
I couldn't. I don't know anyone else who has actually bought one, mine was provided through work but even there no one uses it. I tried, and tried, but it's too heavy, gives me eye strain and I finally gave up on it. I went to the Apple store thinking maybe I was wearing it properly, and they took me through the demo but it's just not for me. The Quest was actually better but there the weight of the helmet eventually forced me to stop using it. Maybe one day we will have glasses instead of a helmet because the technology is really cool.
I am a developer and coding in vision pro for around 2 months. It is heavy, without third-party accessories, it is unbearable. But with 3d printed gadgets and band, the weight problem is solved 80%. I code in mac virtual desktop, enlarge it and push it as far as possible. The text is clear enough in most of time. But the resolution is still low, i hope the ultra wide virtual desktop feature can solve the problem. Using two keyboards (one built in, one external) to mimic split keyboard, so i can stay in a comfortable pose and type. Installed a thirdparty extension to make modifier key works cross keyboards. Normally 1-3 hours per day.
I do like work in VP, it feels more isolated and easier to focus. There are some side effects, e.g, less water drinking, tend to sitting for longer time etc.
Mind sharing which accessories you like the most ?
Yes, I do. I use it a ton when on the road, see [0] but I wasn't sure how much I'd use it at home.
Turns out that I'll typically be at my standing desk for some / most of the morning then move to the Vision Pro in another part of the apartment in the PM. I enjoy using the VP a lot, even after 8 months it still has a magical feel for me, but I also find that immersion is a great focus boost.
One recent app that sucked up a lot of "Vision Time" for me was Fly [1], which is basically Google Earth in the VP. Flying above 3D cities in particular is amazing and being able to dip into Street View to look around a location very cool.
Yup, it's heavy and not particularly comfortable, though I've long since grown accustomed to both, but if it broke I would likely buy another. It's that useful/enjoyable for me.
[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40663619
[1]: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/fly-explore-the-earth/id650196...
Not my cup of tea, but there's some folks that use the xreal glasses which might be more comfortable than vision pro as it's more like having a fixed screen in front rather than being in VR: https://www.reddit.com/r/ErgoMobileComputers/search/?q=glass...
I have done, and I’m pretty comfortable working for hours in it, but I generally only use it for work when I’m away from my home office, so nowhere close to daily.
Yes, on WebXR and Unity-based “fully immersive” projects. Usually 8-10 hours a day, though not straight through.
I've tried but I honestly start getting a headache after an hour, more from the weight of the device on my head than eye strain. And that's with the dual loop band
I bought one bc I travel a lot and it's been a game changer for me. Both in terms of watching movies and also getting some work done.
Having the something similar to a multi monitor setup in a portable setup is amazing.
the negatives are the battery and the weight after couple hours. I can do a max of two 2-3 hour sessions per day and anything more would be pretty rough. Ideally I just do one 3 hour session and the rest on MacBook.
is it cool...yep! is it a necessity? nope. would I recommend it? nope. do I love it and use it a lot? yep
I can't wait to see what Apple does with this after 2-3 generations. i still think VR is looking for that killer app.
No. The thing has like 2.5 hours of battery life. You'd have to plan your day around it or get battery extenders.
If anyone is succeeding here I hope they have a stronger neck and head structure than I do.
I was present when Randy Pausch made the empirical lecture on screen real estate at CMU almost two decades ago. I believed strongly in that argument and was lucky to hear it before the last lecture.
However, as my work and tools evolved, I found myself abandoning the triple monitor Windows, Mac, Linux setups I used for the kind of portability work I did then.
And so while I did the apple vision pro demo when I interviewed at Apple this summer I experienced probably the most legitimate and extreme dichotomy between the value proposition of infinitely extensible screen real estate and diminishing returns on that real estate.
Put simply, that dichotomy is standing on the shoulders of poorly designed HCI for decades. Apple gets a free pass on design here but they should be held to a much higher standard.
If they were, we'd have something approaching Bret Victor's dynamic land or at least a desktop metaphor not siloed in a Cartesian model hundreds of years old when what we need is n-dimensional.
The data out-dimensioned displays decades ago. What the world needs now is a better tiling window manager, not another attempt to solve the problem by extending human vision while causing head and neck trauma we may never understand.
Raymond Loewy said, "most advanced yet acceptable, not most advanced yet bone crushing.
When I used apple vision pro, I found the experience so compelling I pinged all my friends working in AR singing its praises and potential applications in things we'd worked on together: radiation oncology treatment devices, visualization, robotics, and autonomy. But the thing that stopped me in my tracks was the ungodly physical trauma that accompanied the experience. That's saying something given I am an adult with nearly perfect health and no orthopedic issues whatsoever.
The thing that shifted my perspective on screen real estate was realizing that monstrous monitors are big tech's mcmansion hell. I did my day job on an 11 inch Chromebook running Linux a decade ago. I still ask why I need the morbidly obese MacBook pro m I have now with a 16 inch display and 32 GB ram.
Soon we'll see that big tech is just reading big pharma's playbook from decades ago. The reason it's hard to see now is that big tech did not finish reading the playbook, particularly as it applies to side effects foisted on an unsuspecting public. Give it a few years. I hope I'm wrong.
I want to, but it’s too heavy. Also, Universal Desktop was just slightly too buggy for daily driving last time I tried it. It has received lots of updates and bugfixes though so I should give it another shot.
I haven’t used it recently because I don’t travel with my AVP (again because it’s too heavy).
You can only use first party desktop extension if you use iCloud. Naturally I firewall off all Apple services from my desktop computers.
I only use it for watching movies at times but nothing beyond that.
Have you tried the Meta headset for movies?
When traveling, the Xreal Air 2 glasses are fantastic for watching video or playing games on your switch or steam deck. It’s light and comfortable, the FOV is good enough IMO, and the image quality is pretty solid (plus it’s using OLED). They don’t have to be charged at all and you don’t stand out as much as if you were wearing a full headset.
Only for playing games though. I don't own a Vision, but had a meta quest 2 for a short while and used only for playing games. Given it away to a friend who is also using it for playing games or for some VR sims. Nothing more. It gets claustrophobic very easily.
I have a q3 and it’s pretty solid for a couple hours. I do use a neck fan as I’m a sweaty person. Graphics are good though, and the quest doesn’t abstract away the filesystem - I can plugin a flash drive with content or literally scp movie files over to the filesystem on the headset. Just took an international flight and it was great with their airplane mode.
Am not a fan how Apple doesn’t let you treat devices as actual computers. Quest is android and didn’t lock us out of that.
I do not use Facebook products since they jacked my Oculus 1 with a forced Facebook login.
Nope.
Anyone want to buy an (Oculus) Quest Pro. It's barely used! ;@)
I use the Apple Vision Pro pretty much every workday for at least one to three hours. Sometimes, when I’m deep in coding or other major projects, I’ve been in it for over five or more hours at a stretch. I use it exclusively with my MacBook Pro or iMac as an immersive display, with the Magic Keyboard and Trackpad paired to the computer. This setup is basically perfect. I frequently have some mellow ambient music in the background, which, in combination with the immersive work environment, helps me concentrate like never before for long stretches without getting distracted.
A major improvement happened with the release of beta version 2 of their operating system, which made the keyboard visible even when the immersive environment is fully turned up. This change allowed me to have the best of both worlds. Obviously, I have it plugged into an outlet through the battery or it would never last for such a long time. I’ve tried going back to the Oculus, but there’s no comparison. I love it!
Zero interest in headsets
Thanks for your contribution
Haven't event touched one or see one around me.
I seriously guess if there is more than one or two in my hole country.
As a comparison, there are lots of iPhones and MacBooks here.
*whole, I'm very curious what part of the world are you from?
I'm in the UK and know loads of people with Iphones or apple laptops, but zero people with the headset, and don't really know anyone with any interest in it.
I've never even heard of a single person talking about it.
I'm in the US and don't know anyone with one personally, but I did try one out at the store. Though I was looking at houses on Zillow yesterday and saw one sitting on the desk in one of the shots. I suspect the home owner works for Apple, due to a lot of the other stuff that was also in the room.
I think the price is the main reason few people know anyone with one. VR and new tech aside, how many people do you know who would spend $3,500 on a computer? Of that list, how many people do you know who would spend $3,500 on a secondary computer? I'm the only person I know who would even consider it.
I’ve never heard a single U.K. friend talk about their Aston Martin but there are plenty on the road. I’m just not in the economic group that buys them.
Feel like the Apple Vision is the same way, to a lesser extent. Current price tag makes it a rich person’s plaything.
Why bother correcting one letter being left off? You also forgot a comma after "curious".
Using a comma after curious is considered a comma splice and is a stylistic choice. Language stylistically evolves over time based on how individuals collectively use it over generations. See [0].
A lot of modern grammar is purely stylistic and each writer can ultimately choose how to incorporate various grammars without impacting the overall meaning of what they're saying. To this point, a colon or dash is actually typically considered more "appropriate" according to modern standards. Your own choice of a comma is indicative of how style varies across practitioners of a language. And I'm not going to argue about your usage of a comma— it's your choice! Your message still gets across.
On the other hand, "whole" and "hole" are two completely different words, with two completely different meanings. The spelling is not just stylistic. It's a semantic issue, not grammatical. I assume from OP's username that English may not be their first language, and so I offered some helpful, non-judgemental feedback on which word is more appropriate.
I then asked a follow-up question with the intention of engaging them in a positive conversation about their experiences as a developer in a third-world country.
You, on the other hand, have responded to me from a judgemental position, attempting to frame me as a hypocrite or someone offering unnecessary judgement. I was being helpful to someone who might not have the same experience with English as you or I. Your comment does not come across as seeking to begin a positive engagement.
[0] https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/233348/is-it-ok-...
FWIW due to the cost and the ostentatious nature of the device, most of us won’t leave the house with one