I am NOT an Apple fanboy. Ask me about Apple networking. Go ahead. (It sucks). My house has a single mode fiber optic network with a mellanox 40gbe switch at its core. I’ve been building PCs for 22 years.
I’m a photographer and videographer. I dabble in music creation and audio editing. I love video games. I’ve been using VR since the oculus development kit when we needed outside in tracking cameras and the exact brand of usb extension cable mattered. I worked in game development. I did VR development.
I’ve had a bunch of sets over the years THE most insane experience was a game called elite dangerous which is a space flight and exploration game on PC running through the Valve Index. The game itself isn’t great but it was one of those holy fuck I’m in space in the future oh my god kinda things. The hours I spent in that game just being in space flying a starship I will never forget.
I own a quest pro. I gave a go at using it for more than just very limited experiences like porn or Netflix. I tried to use it as a screen for my pc, for exercise, for gaming. If you don’t own one it has a lot of usability problems. Getting up and leaving the room can cause it to subtly forget your positioning so the room isn’t quite aligned anymore. Passthough isn’t great. It misaligns color closeup. Think of your hand in black and white and a flesh colored ghost. Now offset that ghost by a half inch to the right or left. It’s still better than the quest 2. Laying down it’s uncomfortable though. Also the controllers are worse than the quest 2.
My refrain through the years has been I love VR but it’s not ready yet.
I bought the vision pro yesterday and that refrain changed. I may have built my last computer. For those of you old enough to remember the best way I can describe this is that it feels like the difference between a good pocket pc like the Toshiba e805 and the original iPhone. That is to say they are superficially similar but the reality is that they aren’t close.
Tracking is seamless even in pitch black. I can read my phone through the external camera. Yeah I can text using the vision pro itself but what I mean is that I can sit down and read my actual phone with the headset on. It’s like looking through slightly foggy ski goggles without the tint. Tracking is unbelievably good. It doesn’t seem to forget where things are. I can pull up a window and leave the house at night with the headset on and come back later and that window will still be there. It’s comfortable in a way the quest 2 and especially the pro weren’t.
It’s usable for real work. My friend is testing his as an aid to writing as we speak because he can keep his research up on screens alllllllll around him as he types which should make his work easier and allow him to take his whole workspace with him when he travels.
For myself I’m not sure I’m ready to give up my art monitor for editing but it’s good enough that I’m going to see how close it is using pass through from a MacBook. I need to replace my old razer laptop next week to test it.
I’m convinced it needed to cost this much. They had to prove the concept could work for real and not just as a technology demonstrator. I don’t know if they could have done it for less.
This generation is expensive, this generation is short on software, and this generation just showed everyone else how it is done. I truly think this is the future of nearly all computing for end users. I don’t say that lightly. I’m going to miss building computers. it’s been such a big part of my life. I remember backpacking through the desolation wilderness with the boy scouts when I was 13 with a stack of magazines planning my first build alone because nobody I knew had the skills to help me and I did it myself I created a skill entirely mine that no teacher or parent gave me. It is mine. it’s that foundational to me. but I will gladly never do it again if I can have the future Apple just showed us.
I look forward to slr making it onto the vision pro. I’m willing to wait.
