Apple Vision Pro – Lesson in product positioning
discoflip.comI'm still not sold on the "productivity angles" for this. Love the PSVR2, and Beat Saber alone is typically enough to get folks all in on it. Having a steering wheel for the haptic feedback makes Gran Turismo insanely immersive.
Doing the same things without the feedback on input, though? Feels odd. I can almost see the argument for "you can just hook up your keyboard for the productivity," but I think we are well past the diminishing returns on screen size for most folks.
I am hopeful that this can lead to some more money spend on the ideas. Hard not to see some of this having impact in the future. But really hard for me to see it as an amazing creation/productivity tool.
How about the potability of the screen? The screen is available anytime, anywhere. On a flight, doctor's waiting room, line at DMV etc.
But it isn't? At least, not for productivity uses. You will have to have your keyboard and the external battery with you. Which is a surprising amount of junk to carry everywhere.
I can almost see this being ok for waiting room and flights. The waiting room, though, you will not want to lose your situational awareness. Odds are high that someone is going to be calling your name. Not necessarily walking up to you to get your attention.
In lines, this is right out. You can't walk while using it. The explicitly are not supporting you moving through a large room, as I recall.
Makes sense. Maybe by v5 when the battery is internal and it is light enough it could unlock more use cases. I feel they have added several features for situational awareness with video pass through, but might need more.
I don't know how long it will take, all told. I think VR has come farther than a lot of folks realize. Certainly hoping that folks buy this and it establishes a market.
I'm just far less sold on two points from Apple. First is the productivity angle. Is akin to the iPod being productive. Yes, it can happen. By and large, though, it is a consumption device. Would love to see numbers exploring that.
Second stickler is the attempt at using all gestures. Even Beat Saber benefits greatly from the feedback on my handles when I hit blocks. Having frictionless gestures just feels unlikely to be as nice as they demo. Reminds me of "Jedi" demos where you swing a light sabre. Neat, until you realize you can't pantomime getting blocked that well. Heck, even blocking is tough if you don't know when the block landed.