If you have spent much time with other VR headsets you can absolutely imagine yourself using this, and while this version is excessively negative, I came to essentially the same conclusion. There is a big hole where the experience should be.
It’s like they tried to be the next Nike and build a better sneaker except no one actually has a need for face-shoes to begin with.
MP3 players were bad, but everyone listened to music. Smartphones were a convergence that everyone was working on and wanted, and everyone needed a phone, but the experience was lacking. The dominant cool-kid response was not “why?” but “finally” when the iPod and then iPhone dropped.
They still have a year — perhaps there is more coming — but this does not have the feel of “finally” for VR/AR that still seems possible, and no one needs VR, yet.
The original iPod didn't officially run on PCs, at the time easily the dominant platform and only became fully compatible with the third generation model. iPhone didn't ship with an app store and while it nailed a bunch of UI paradigms, it was limited compared to much of the competition for the first year or so.
I think it'll take longer than that for Vision to bake, it seems rough, it's just that the idea that Apple products are released fully formed has never been particularly true.
Fair points — I guess my main point is at their core they served known, simple functions and people knew what they did. There had been music players and phones in mainstream use for decades.
The correlate here I suppose is “watching things” or “using computers” but the function together with the price point so far feels to me more like PARC than Apple.
It’s like they tried to be the next Nike and build a better sneaker except no one actually has a need for face-shoes to begin with.