Thoughts on Vision Pro
andrewhart.meI owned one and this article is perfectly accurate. This guy hit the nail on the head on everything.
Passthrough is massively oversold, even if it's technically impressive. They set expectations way too high.
The comfort is the #1 reason I don't own a Vision Pro anymore. I feel exactly as the author put it, "relieved," when I take it off.
I feel significantly more disconnected from my family when I have it on because I have no easy way to share my content with them. A massively improved guest mode, better casting, or something else would go a long way here.
The eye tracking + tap is incredible, but Apple tried to shoehorn this into everything. It should have been the primary mode of interaction with a detailed/precision interaction when needed. Eye tracking + tap is simply not good enough for power user use cases. It was such a relief to go back to my Quest after Vision Pro because the controllers were so precise and easy to use.
And finally, I'll mention that the OS + standardization of UX is HUGE. The Quest feels like a crappy Chinese clone in comparison. Every single window has a completely different way of moving, adjusting, etc. Sometimes you click in the center, sometimes you click under, sometimes you can't move it at all. On the Vision Pro, everything is standardized. I'd love to see Meta fix this.
> I feel significantly more disconnected from my family when I have it on because I have no easy way to share my content with them. A massively improved guest mode, better casting, or something else would go a long way here.
This whole paragraph sounds downright dystopian.
“A family that shares content together, stays together”
If I had a family member who insisted on wearing a headset all the time I’d probably be calling them a glasshole (Vision Pro is so much more obnoxious than Google glass ever was)
Ehhh idk. I actually knew one of the famous glassholes (one of the guys interviewed in the infamous glassholes documentary). He was a well known nuisance outside of the Google glass thing, to boot.
He was taking pictures of people at clubs and whatnot and it wasn't obvious he was doing that because the glass was discreet.
With the vision pro you're basically screaming "I have cameras pointed at you, at my surroundings, at my eyes and at my crotch" without any ambiguity.
You're right that we need to be aware of this because we can and WILL be exploited via these avenues, but for now at least, it's kinda the other way around - a family that stays together naturally wants to share content with each other.
"Hey, let's play a game!" What sort of game? "One we can play together" Welp looks like this multi-thousand-$$ toy is out then, lets go back to traditional games.
> a family that stays together naturally wants to share content with each other.
“Content” is the worst euphemism I’ve ever heard. You have been fully exploited.
Real families want to share quality family time in the real world, not “content”
> Real families want to share quality family time in the real world, not “content”
You've never gone on a nice trip and then when back home with relatives streamed photos/video of that trip to a TV to share?
I've never done this, nor has any of my friends or family. Not attaching any sort of value judgement to this one way or another, but just saying that it isn't a universally common sort of activity.
Showing photos and videos to friends and family is a pretty common thing to do?
In the 90ies most people just passed prints around, or if it was pictures of a special occasion people would pass a photo album around. The more elaborate version would be inviting people to look at slides on a projector.
Nowadays most people show photos and videos on their mobile phone, and if you are fancy you put them on a TV with Airplay or Chromecast (or whatever the Android version is called).
It appears to me that this is a culturally dependent sort of thing, which is why I said it isn't "universally common" rather than it isn't common.
For instance, I'm a graybeard and in my entire life, I've only seen people do that a couple of times. And even then, the people being shown the media were putting up with it out of politeness. What people in my part of the US tend to do is tell the stories of the trip rather than show pictures. People here usually don't want to see pictures or video, they want to hear the stories.
Okay: "naturally wants to share experiences with each other." Or is that too web 1.0?
VR/AR has the capacity to bridge technology platforms that have hitherto been kept separate, sometimes by cultural forces, and sometimes for good reason. Words like 'content' are ripe for misinterpretation - I'd be more careful about assuming too much about strangers on the internet, mate.
To be fair, I should have been less vague, especially on a thread about an apple product where people tend to get a bit evangelical.
> You have been fully exploited.
That's a bit harsh. "Content" can mean a wide variety of things, and smartphones/tablets are capable of displaying such a wide variety of things.
We strive to curtail our own usage of devices around our young daughter at home. The extent of her screen time is maybe 1-2 movie nights per month.
But she and I do around 5-10 minutes of Duolingo/Pimsleur every day. She asks every morning if we're going to "do French" today (even though we switched to Hungarian for most of this year).
Are we fully exploited?
Once a SV PR department is done with it, I’m sure that families will not share ‘content’ but ‘experiences’.
You can always go out and play with a stick and a rock. If you live somewhere where there is a stick and a rock.
I also feel like the lack of precise/physical controls is going to make gaming a non-starter. Which is really the main reason I’m excited about VR in the first place.
Owning a Rift and a Quest 2 has pretty much convinced me I'll never be into VR. VR makes for incredible immersion but, for me, terrible gaming. Instead of putting the cool stuff from games into reality, it puts the worst parts of reality into my games. Instead of walking and crouching with a touch of a finger, now I have to walk and crouch. To look behind me I have to actually turn around. Instead of everything being in focus all the time, I have to look at things one by one. Not for me.
I'm a bit of a VR enthusiast. I have 8 headsets (DK1, Quest 1, Quest 2, Oculus Go, Vive Pro 2, HP Reverb G2, Pico 4, Pimax Crystal). I will easily spend 2 - 6 hours a day in VR. That said, I just refuse to play any game with a stupid movement system. If I can't use my control to move around, I am not going to play the game. It's great to have those options for people who want them, but when a game tries to force me to walk in my personal space or physically turn, they are going to lose me. I don't have the balance to do that stuff.
Is there anything good enough to substitute for a 1080p monitor for a lengthy period of time?
The Pico 4 is actually a really good headset. It's not officially released in the US market, but can be imported from EU sellers, which is how I got mine. The resolution is pretty good and good enough to replace a monitor, imo. I've used it with the Immersed app and liked it. It's also really small and light compared to other headsets.
The Pimax Crystal has great resolution and virtually no glare, but it is too heavy and bulky to wear for extended periods of time.
At work, I have setup and support the Meta Quest 3. It's also a good headset, but I don't feel compelled to get one at all. The visuals comfort are on par with the Pico 4, but the Pico 4 is cheaper and not dragged down by the Meta software. Though, it should be noted that I use it for PCVR almost exclusively with Virtual Desktop.
I would assume someone could easily integrate a controller for their app using the Game Controller framework [1]. So its not impossible. The only complaint I could see is there not being a standardize visionOS physical controller. But I assume that you could assume the PlayStation DualSense or SteelSeries Nimbus+[2] is probably what you should target controls for.
[1] https://developer.apple.com/documentation/gamecontroller/
[2] https://www.apple.com/shop/smart-home/accessories/gaming
Unfortunately, a gamepad is just not sufficient for immersive VR gaming: you need something like the Meta Quest controller. And the lack of a first-party controller means that games will be forced to build sub-par gesture based controls as the default, with physical controls as an afterthought. (We already saw this play out with the Apple TV.)
As a result, I highly doubt we'll get anything as advanced as Half-Life: Alyx on the platform.
>As a result, I highly doubt we'll get anything as advanced as Half-Life: Alyx on the platform.
How many years of VR gaming on how many other devices have produced how many Half-Life: Alyxs? And even Alyx was basically a vanity experiment designed to sell hardware. There simply isn't much content that has justified the medium yet. At a certain point I wonder if the future of VR gaming is just providing the biggest screen in your house to play your traditional games with a Bluetooth controller.
Off the top of my head:
* Universe Sandbox was the first pinaccle I experienced and still hasn't been topped in its own curious way. It demonstrated at the very beginning where VR UX could go, and that has nothing to do with stupid floating 2D planes.
* RecRoom "dungeons" are the best collaborative gameplay that I have experienced.
* No Man's Sky.
* Alyx.
> a gamepad is just not sufficient for immersive VR gaming
This seems strange, since so many folks love giant ultrawide screens for immersion whether playing console or PC and whether with controller or mouse+keyboard. They carry on how much immersion there is, and it's not nearly as visually immersed. So it seems less likely it's about the controller.
If they find the ultrawide immersive, and the controller is fine, why not AVP, since the "look around" control is just turn your head?
Do you not feel immersed when driving a car? You have fewer controls, and can't run around, you just sit there in your car seat, turn the wheel, turn your head, and gas and brake.
It’s like how physically interactive Wii Sports felt 18 years ago, but even more so.
Could you play have played a bowling game with a gamepad instead? Sure. But then it doesn’t feel at all like bowling, it feels like playing a bowling video game.
The interaction through VR game controllers takes that concept much further, playing Walkabout Mini Golf or Eleven Table Tennis feels practically like the real thing. Playing those games with thumb sticks and buttons would be basically pointless.
It's funny you mention that metaphor in particular: driving a car does feel less immersive to me than walking. When I drive, I'm in the car; when I walk, I'm in the world.
Totally, the small windows, soundproofing and not to forget electric drive and assistance of modern cars makes driving a rather surreal experience.
Motorcycles are much more immersive and ironically I think that they feel safer for that reason.
Right, to me AVP feels more like the motorcycle than the car than the ultrawide.
I also learn new road networks (2D graphs) much MUCH better on motorcycle than car.
For sims, it works well enough. But it won't work for something like a shooter, or a Beat Saber equivalent.
But then you’re limiting the reach of your app even further to tiny % of people who have Vision Pro but also the tiny % who have the controller you designed it for.
Really vr games don’t shine with a traditional controller it’s actually the precision hand tracking from controllers not the 3d that makes them good. So you’d have to build for something specific then hope enough people own both to make you money.
> I owned one and this article is perfectly accurate. This guy hit the nail on the head on everything.
Strangely enough, I don't own one, but just assumed this guy had hit the nail on the head with everything. Everything else I've read felt like it was pushing an agenda, this guy's writing just seemed like it was accurately weighing the pros and cons as he saw them.
What is the UX experience for basic web HTML input elements? (text/date/range/slider/select/...) Have they been changed for visionOS?
How about flutter apps like https://flutter.github.io/samples/web/material_3_demo/
I've been complaining that flutter is the next flash, meaning that by rendering their own UX instead of using the platform's they're basically making dead end apps. They'll claim devs just need to reship their apps with the latest version but that's means all old flutter apps are abandonware. It also ignores that the next platform they'll run into the same problem again.
agree very much here. apple - we're missing many intuitive gestures. lets ditch the cursor paradigm eye tracking is set to work on. in the real world we have proprioception that lets us accurately interact with the environment without looking at what we're doing.
>Passthrough is massively oversold, even if it's technically impressive. They set expectations way too high.
As a Vision Pro owner, kinda, but kinda not?
I have a really low-power glasses prescription (-1/-1.5) and I've come to the conclusion that everyone saying this has the priviledge of being born with perfect (irl) vision. It's intentionally a little bit out of focus to obscure the screen door effect, which I understand might be disorienting to people who've never had to wear glasses.
But taking that into account, it's incredibly clear. If you've used any other pass through, it's night and day. I will frequently put on my headset having forgotten that the cover is on, and when I take it off my brain genuinely reads that as uncovering a transparent lens. The slightly reduced HDR, slight desaturation, and almost imperceptible visual snow all added up still don't detract enough from that to say it is not close to "lifelike".
It's not perfect, but it's incredibly close - and probably better than a good chunk of the population's uncorrected vision.
I mean, the comparison images in the article almost make the point for me. The left image, when adjusted for brightness/contrast (which the human vision system does automatically absent other stimulus, e.g. when all you can see is the headset) has a greater resemblance to what a cloudy day looks like IRL compared to the completely oversaturated, amateurly HDR'd image on the right.
I’m -3.25 (or right around there) and I found the AVP pass through lackluster. Better than anything else I’d tried but I completely agree with the “oversold” point. The quality just isn’t all the way there yet and the blur when moving isn’t great.
The passthrough camera has fairly low resolution compared to the inner displays, so if it looks "lifelike" to you, it's probably time to consider getting your glass prescription updated. Comparing the VP to the Quest 3, it's a significant upgrade (and should be, for the 7x price), but neither of them is anywhere close to "lifelike."
That...isn't even how myopia works. Do people actually think us short-sighted people see the world in 480p or what?
I mean I’ve got myopia and that’s not far off. I’m -6.75 in each eye. I’d say it’s more like 240p stretched over a giant display. At least in my case without glasse, I just see blobs of moving colour, not unlike very heavy compression/artifcating. I can make out people, vehicles etc, but I couldn’t tell one individual or vehicle from another. Just the shapes.
I'm not as short-sighted (-3 in each, plus astigmatism of around 2.5 in my left eye) but to me there is a clear difference between the lack of focus that I have without my glasses and low resolution videos viewed with corrected vision. There's even a clear difference between both of those and e.g. reduced visibility from fog or haze.
And this isn't just down to videos being shown on a screen - just looking at digital photos with a critical eye also shows the difference between an out-of-focus shot (which approximates myopia) and a shot that's simply taken with a low-res sensor. One of the standout points is the way that lights look - low-res but in-focus shots don't have the "bokeh" effect.
It’s not lifelike if you critique it, and especially if you look at detailed scenes with some distance to them - e.g, if I look at trees in the street outside my front window.
However in my living room during daylight, if I’m using the Vision Pro normally - i.e. interacting with apps, and not just staring at real world scenes to critique passthrough, then it easily creates the illusion that the content is in the room, and it doesn’t feel like I’m looking through a device. It has a long way to go, but it’s definitely capable of creating the illusion.
So, to gather anecdata, a question to you: do you wear corrective lenses or contacts in your day-to-day life?
I never said I couldn't tell the difference between my corrected vision and the vision pro. But it's probably close to as clear as my uncorrected vision, which is how I experience life the majority of time. In a very real way, it is lifelike. My reaction to the cover coming off is "oh, I don't have my glasses on" not "oh, I'm looking at a screen". In no world would I have the same reaction to the passthrough on any other VR headset I own.
The latency, lack of screen door, minimization of warping artifacts, and yes, even the resolution, are at a place where someone who doesn't have the privilege of 24/7 perfect vision could easily mistake it at first glance. There's lots of places to improve (mostly the blur when moving your head), but we're at the point where "not literally indistinguishable" is the point of contention.
Also, keep in mind "lifelike" has never even meant "literally undisguisable" in the first place. People have been using it to describe graphics since the PS1, so I think it's fair to use to describe something that looks more like life than the majority of even present-day "realistic" 3D games.
> my uncorrected vision, which is how I experience life the majority of time
Is this common? I have myopia and I wear my contacts 100% of my waking hours. I can’t tolerate being without them, and can’t really tolerate glasses either.
My prescription is low enough that I don't need my glasses for close-up things like my own computer monitor (it actually gives me a little bit of eyestrain). And since I can walk around inside just fine without them, I usually don't bother putting them on when I'm at home unless I'm watching TV, and don't bother wearing them in the office if I'm not in a (face to face) meeting where I need to see someone else's screen.
I bought Vision Pro and used it as is for three weeks, then put it away for a couple weeks because of degree of difficulty for me, definitely NOT a techie.
On a whim I went to the optometrist, got examined and a prescription for glasses (I use over-the-counter 1.25x readers from CVS), then uploaded the Rx to Zeiss using their iPhone app, and ponied up $149 for their optical inserts.
Since the inserts arrived and I put them in, my experience overall with VP has been better: still way too difficult and confusing, but movies and TV shows, which were the only redeeming factors in my initial three weeks of use, seem really, really crisp and vivid, more so than initially.
Take these observations with a grain of salt, after all, it's a series of one 75-year-old retired neurosurgical anesthesiologist's experiences.
But if you've already dropped 4k, well, that's a lot of sunk cost to write off without trying everything possible to make it work.
At least that was my thinking.
> The only way to check progress over slow hotel wifi was to look at the progress circle, which is also the cancel button. I was aware that every time I checked progress, I was one finger-spasm away from cancelling the whole download.
oooof
> Every app on Quest has to reinvent how buttons work, how a scroll view works, how far away from the user the content should be etc.. and every app works differently.
kinda shocked there's not a Material Components equivalent for Quest. I guess it's designed like a game system (where custom menus are standard), but that's a reinforcing loop. As long as there's no standard component system, it'll continue to be game-centric.
Now I'm not sure what their army of designers were doing?
This is 101 of product design - put in place a standard UI Guidelines. This is particularly important for a 'platform' player like what Meta is aiming for (Ex. from other platform/OS - Windows UI Guidelines, Apple's Human Interface Guidelines, Google's Material Design, etc..)
> This is 101 of product design
I think there's an emphasis on shipping a feature over shipping a cohesive product. Shipping simple vs functional one.
and churn seems to be getting in the way of mature products.
Heard the same from the friends working there, that seems to be the case. Apple is much more product and design focused on the other hand
I'm actually not sure which button does what on the Quest. I usually click them all until something happens.
There’s a game on my Quest - I don’t remember which one - where when you hold the controllers up close to your face it pops up the controls, with arrows pointing to each button.
That should be all but standardized, other than exceptions in games where that could be a problem.
It’s not so bad when you’re used to the system, but giving it to someone and trying to explain what button does what isn’t exactly fun. You usually end up needing to move their fingers for them, and playing a weird version of that scene from Ghost with my father-in-law isn’t my version of a good time.
> I was downloading Star Wars for my flight back to London. The only way to check progress over slow hotel wifi was to look at the progress circle, which is also the cancel button. I was aware that every time I checked progress, I was one finger-spasm away from cancelling the whole download
Oh god this.
The last 10 years of UX trends where everything has to be two or three different actions behind a single tap or tap and hold does NOT translate well onto AVP. Most iPad apps are nigh unusable, esp those with high information density. Vision is not quite as precise as a mouse cursor but it definitely not as imprecise as a tap, but only when the UI is predictable. Because where you are looking is also how you read, every informational field also needs to include either both the information and the action, or they need to be separated out.
So far there is no bigger culprit than the native Music app. The bottom of the player has like three nested buttons that all do different shit. The same place you look to see what song is playing is also a hidden progress/playback scrubber and also a shortcut to switch to the miniplayer if you happen to look at the eye catching album art icon directly next to the title of the song. It’s maddening.
Try hanging up a call on your smartphone and your counterpart hanged up a a fraction of a second before you. Now you call someone (pretty deep down) in your recent call list.
Or click "Connect to Bluetooth headset" in Windows. Congratulations, your headset just connected itself, so you now you disconnected it.
Just brilliant, overall.
My mother got her first iphone years ago and was just petrified of the phone app.
I couldn't blame her. You touch ANYTHING, even the spam caller in recent calls, and it immediately calls.
why oh why can't there be a setting - on by default - confirm before dialing?
It’s not the specific solution you want (and that would be a good one to have) but one option might be enabling the touch accommodations in the accessibility settings and increasing the touch delay slightly so that it takes a more deliberate touch to activate. Downside is that it applies across the whole system and applies to typing on the keyboard too
It won't help at all. The problem is that Apple seems to hate explicit buttons, so you never know what tapping something will do. Here's an example in the phone app:
- in the contacts tab, tapping a contact will show details
- in the call list tab, tapping a contact will call them
There is no way to know ahead of time. You have to try it out, and then remember that the two tabs behave differently.
I have accidentally called people when I just wanted to look at their contact details more than once, and I've been using an iPhone for 15 years or so.
I mean, the horizontal middle of the screen could be "dead" and a call only only initiated to the left or right.
Or whatever. There are many solutions and they chose to go for one of the most frustrating designs possible.
My favorite is watching TV and pausing a video in Netflix or whereever, then resuming and wanting the controls to disappear. If I 'cancel/return', they are removed. If I wait a while, they disappear by themselves. But if I 'cancel/return' the splitsecond the app removed them by itself, boom I just stopped the player. Just ignore input for a moment after the auto-remove ffs.
> Try hanging up a call on your smartphone and your counterpart hanged up a a fraction of a second before you. Now you call someone (pretty deep down) in your recent call list.
I do this daily and it infuriates me.
I am also a fast typer on both touch and physical. As a result I often type into an auto complete box (e.g. kagi, gmail, etc) and see the result I want come up midway through my type. As I'm going to click or tap it, I am often in the 200ms window where that result is replaced by another or the list is reordered in some way.
Dynamically loading webpages are also a plague of the last decade for the same reason. They load an initial layout, often interactable. Then as you're going to click or tap, they dynamically load other elements or content, reordering and moving things around the page!
If you don't have anything n̵i̵c̵e̵ ̵t̵o̵ ̵s̵a̵y̵,̵ ̵d̵o̵n̵'̵t̵ ̵s̵a̵y̵ ̵a̵n̵y̵t̵h̵i̵n̵g̵ ̵a̵t̵ ̵a̵l̵l̵ ready to load, don't load anything at all.
YES! I counted 5 discrete actions that I had to perform in sequence in order to turn off Vision Pro. Why not an On/Off switch? Or are they saving this for Gen 2?
Unplugging the power is the primary on-off switch.
No, you say “hey siri shutdown” or hold the power (crown) and volume, just like any other Apple device: https://youtu.be/3GgHWCMHjnM
Hold two buttons, then swipe?
The Apple Music team is off doing their own BS. The Music app is also trash in other platforms with terrible UX.
The Home tab in the music app shows exactly 1 tile of information on my 15 Pro Max. That's 3.6 million pixels and they couldn't be bothered to fit more than 1 item without scrolling.
One of the most important and key points I hope Apple iterates on in an upcoming version is some type of universal undo action.
It's immensely frustrating to be watching a video in the photos app and swipe a tiny bit wrong only to lose all current progress in the video even after you swipe back. Even scrubbing controls for long videos (1+ hours) can be super finnicky and it's tough to select accurately. The traditional scrubbing method of holding while moving vertically to scrub at slower speeds doesn't seem to work either.
As a result, I'm often catching myself in frustrating situations where I'd like to just __UNDO__ whatever action I previously took was. Either jumping around a video to the previous timestamp, or undoing the close safari tab button I didn't mean to select, or any number of other things I accidentally press due to the options being just a little too close to each other.
It's just a mild annoyance, but it's something that would massively improve my experience with using the device, as someone who has spent a LOT of time in it nearly every day since release.
The gesture could be a fist clench, naturally occurring when you angrily realise you've deleted the wrong thing.
You mean like this https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/arthurs-fist ?
Or you could use Vision Pro Sounds
Some iPhone apps have a "shake the phone to undo", but I've never ever seen anyone use this feature. So, perhaps not a useful precedent.
But I've seen plenty of people being confused by the popup about undoing when they just as shake their phone a little bit for other reasons (moving around for example).
I always disable this feature.
It's really funny when apps use the shake gesture to file bug reports
> Every app on Quest has to reinvent how buttons work, how a scroll view works, how far away from the user the content should be etc.. and every app works differently. On visionOS, all of this is handled by Apple, and every app looks and feels the same.
I remember the days when EVERY application in Windows had "File" in the upper left hand corner. You could make a good bet that "Edit" was next and "Preferences" was somewhere in there as well.
Being "good with computers" back then had a lot to do with knowing the standard layout of applications to help guide you through where things ought to be or, at least, could plausibly be found.
I applaud Apple for keeping this going in this modern world we live in of SAAS websites that each do their own thing.
> The biggest innovation with Vision Pro is visionOS. visionOS provides native app frameworks, so developers can build apps for it. That sounds ridiculously obvious, and yet its something Meta have failed to offer for years. Every app on Quest has to reinvent how buttons work, how a scroll view works, how far away from the user the content should be etc.. and every app works differently. On visionOS, all of this is handled by Apple, and every app looks and feels the same.
Meta does have standardized utilities for translating movement to touch/drag/etc. interactions on arbitrary virtual surfaces:
https://developers.facebook.com/blog/post/2022/11/22/buildin...
https://developer.oculus.com/documentation/unity/unity-isdk-...
But it doesn't seem (AFAIK) to answer the other side of this, which is the UI design system so apps have a consistent look and feel. Which is perhaps more common coming from a game development perspective, but ever since the Mac OS shareware days, Apple's understood that it's empowering to a certain kind of developer if you make it easy/the default path for them to build experiences that match a standardized look and feel. I'm honestly surprised that Meta didn't at least make an optional SDK for this.
I think this is inevitable when you look at the original team at oculus, there were a lot of gaming folks (John Carmack was their CTO!) and I have no doubt that lives on in the culture today, for better or worse.
I doubt a UI toolkit or standard OS primitives were even on their radar.
From what I've heard, they've just recently elevated some really talented leaders who understand the interplay between the gaming world and line-of-business-app needs, so I'm hopeful they're moving in the right direction!
But, historically, it was a misstep not to build these kinds of developer tools and design systems the moment https://forwork.meta.com/quest/business-subscription/ became a glimmer in their eye.
I agree that Meta has tried but their solution is really completely different than a more traditional OS UI. Meta provides low level convenience functions SDK for the various native app development frameworks (mostly Unity and Unreal) to access the hardware and facilitate common movements, but the actual UI implementation is up to the app author resulting in a helter skelter hodge podge of varying UI from app to app. Even in the first link you provided above, after introducing many alternate concepts then it shows screenshots of wildly varying interfaces across multiple apps.
With a total of 10 buttons on the controller it's a (usually) minor annoyance that one app chooses to use one button to choose an action and another chooses a different button. Sometimes it can be really frustrating to try a bunch of buttons and see what works. I've put quite a few people through the AR demo that shipped with the Quest 3 and noticed that VR-naive people vary a lot in how quickly they figure out the idea that you can use a controller to shoot a gun.
100% agree. Sounds minor but one of the biggest usability issues for new user since the launch of the standalone quest is the confusion of users on whether to use trigger or X / A button as primary action.
And I'd say it's more than a minor annoyance, it's wild that the issue has existed for nearly a decade and their UX team thinks it's ok.
Because apps on Quest are universally games, and those pretty much never use standard controls. They don't even all use the same engine, so Meta would have to provide a UE SDK, a Unity SDK, etc.
I never felt this was remotely an issue with the Quest, and more than it is with desktop games.
It's annoying as hell for applications like Immersed and for media players. If every app had a different way to position windows and the UI was good in 50% of them it would be one thing but every app I've seen with floating windows is terribly awkward, although anybody can think up a number of alternatives that ought to work better.
> Meta does have standardized utilities for translating movement to touch/drag/etc. interactions
The page you linked to is full of links to Unity APIs / SDKs. So meta doesn't have them, Unity does.
That is completely psychotic blacking out single frame screenshots for copyright reasons. Copyright is truly out of control and just comically ridiculous at this point.
It's not blacking out on purpose, rather it's a side-effect of the DRM chain. The DRM content is rendered outside of the UI chain, so it cannot be captured as part of a normal screenshot or video. The same happens on macOS (and even windows) if you try to screen record while watching DRM L1 content such as Netflix, Apple TV+, etc.
Widevine and HDCP can seriously suck it. Look at any torrent site and tell me that it stops piracy
DRM is on purpose.
Always has been. Tom Scott did a great video on copyright [1] - it's long overdue to revamp.
>But using without the Light Seal is a massive improvement. You’re closer to the screen, so it reduces the tunnel vision and expands the effective field-of-view. And rather than a black edge, you have a frame, with outside visibility.
Same thoughts for Quest 3. I use mine exclusively without the light seal now. It is a huge improvement in the ability to just casually use the thing among friends and not seem like a weirdo, and having your peripheral vision massively adds to the overall comfort of the experience. I've found paradoxically that it increases the feeling of presence for passthrough when it feels like you're just looking through a pair of glasses instead of something suction-cupped to your face. This whole idea of "locking in" to VR and closing out the outside world needs to go away. True AR that doesn't remove you from the world is the only future for these devices.
This goes ditto for controllers. The vast majority of people have never held a game controller in their lives. We (as gamers and nerds) take it as second nature, but I've seen it as the single biggest barrier to entry with demoing VR to random folks. Sticking with hand/finger based gesture tracking and rejecting controllers was the absolute best decision Apple made for Vision Pro.
> Sticking with hand/finger based gesture tracking and rejecting controllers was the absolute best decision Apple made for Vision Pro.
Designing the UI around hand/eye tracking was smart but not supporting VR controllers at all is stupid.
Reminds me of how stubborn they were about bringing mouse support to iPads.
>Designing the UI around hand/eye tracking was smart but not supporting VR controllers at all is stupid.
It was a strategic decision. It says "This is not a game console, it's a general purpose computer", and paves the way for opening more people up to the idea. Controllers are a crutch that no one actually wants. We want to be able to just naturally do things in VR/AR the same as we would in reality. And vision based hand/finger tracking has gotten to a point where controllers really are nothing more than an input device now. There's no need for them at all to have 6DOF control, the way there was in the Lighthouse/Constellation days.
>This whole idea of "locking in" to VR and closing out the outside world needs to go away.
Why?
>True AR that doesn't remove you from the world is the only future for these devices.
Again, why? What if I want to be removed? I bought my VR headset during the pandemic precisely for indoor escapism.
I want to be transported and immersed into another universe, not see AR stuff floating around between the same four walls of my tiny apartment that I see all day everyday. It would drive me nuts and I can do that stuff on the cheap with my phone/Ipad.
I think you're both misunderstanding how this works.
AR should be without the light seal, VR should be with the light seal, simple as that.
Exactly!
(Until the lens cups your whole eye socket and delivers your natural FOV.)
>I want to be transported and immersed into another universe, not see AR stuff floating around between the same four walls of my tiny apartment that I see all day everyday. It would drive me nuts and I can do that stuff on the cheap with my phone/Ipad.
Yes, because you are the target demographic for the current crop of headsets that are essentially just expensive niche gaming peripherals. There will always be a market of a couple hundred million people for that. But the other 7 billion people on earth do not want that. They want spatial computing. They want something that fits as seamlessly into their lives as a smartphone, and can be used in public without looking like a weirdo. They'll never even consider VR/AR until that is achieved.
>expensive niche gaming peripherals
GPUs were also called exactly that in the early to mid 90s and now they're a trillion dollar industry so maybe keep an open mind and not be so set in your ways on something so new.
>GPUs were also called exactly that in the early to mid 90s and now they're a trillion dollar industry
Yes, and they remained exactly that until a new use case opened up in the last 5 years that average people found highly valuable. Nvidia did not become a trillion dollar company on the back of PC gamer sales. It was a fundamental shift in technology where their hardware/software was well positioned to take advantage of, i.e. what Apple and Meta are banking on for AR vs. VR.
>Yes, and they remained exactly that until a new use case opened up in the last 5 years that average people found highly valuable.
Yes, they were a multi dozen billion dollar gaming company before, not a multi trillion dollar AI one today. They were hardly swimming in poverty on the backs of gamers were they.
>Nvidia did not become a trillion dollar company on the back of PC gamer sales.
The video gaming industry is one of the most lucrative ones to date, bringing more money yearly than movies and music combined according to PWC.
Apple not taking active part in that would be stupid.
> what Apple and Meta are banking on for AR vs. VR.
For what? That killer AR/VR app we've been waiting for for the past 5-7 years to show up any day now?
The lackluster sales of headsets of any kind, especially Apple's overpriced ones, proves the average joe doesn't want headsets strapped to their faces all day. They'd much rather spend the day staring at their phones but that market is already saturated and stagnant when the current iPhone looks and does the same things as the iPhone from 4 years ago and the EU is gonna crack you walled garden.
AR could have a future once it takes the shape of a sleek pair of raybans like in Iron Man, not a 1kg headset strapped to your face with a clunky corded power brick in your pocket. But considering recent semiconductor and battery tech progress, we're very very far away from that future becoming a reality.
Immersive experiences work. I am playing Demeter on the MQ3 which is an AR game where you control a platforming character in a floating island that materializes in your room. It is fun but not anything you couldn’t experience in full VR in a game like Angry Birds VR which you can’t play on AVP because… The whole look and pinch thing goes only so far. It is great for a demo but it means the apps won’t be there other than tablet apps that hang in the air.
I am still puzzled as to how to implement navigation in WebXR for the AVP.
If you had a true optical passthrough AR headset that is one thing but it is absurd for a $3500 device which is hardware capable of immersive apps to be kneecapped by software and the control scheme.
In my opinion, the reason why companies like apple and meta prioritize ar over vr is because they see ar as the next disruptive technology, while vr is niche limited to games and entertainment. They want AR to be integrated into daily life with widespread adoption. Similar to how people who never owned a desktop computer would own an iPhone.
Huh? Meta has never really prioritized AR in any of their devices. It was always in afterthought.
It’s been clearly prioritised with the Q3. Perhaps as a last second pivot, but the intention is clear, especially given the demo app shipped with it. I expect to see an even bigger turn towards it with the next release.
Nah, it is going to make them always a bridesmaid instead of a bride.
Meta is able to offer immersive experiences where a much larger world is mapped into your virtual space and you can move around and grab things and use tools through controllers. Apple is offering hardly anything in comparison except for a $3500 replacement for a $350 TV. Or, “boy I just flew in from an AR experience for 15 minutes and boy are my arms tired” or “I am in terror at looking at anything because it might trigger an irreversible action”.
Apple supports third party controllers they just don’t provide any.
Which is the ideal balance since they are an inconvenience if you have a keyboard/mouse in front of you and are using the Vision Pro as a replacement for multiple monitors. After all not everyone is using it for gaming or entertainment.
With the MQ3 I sometimes use a Bluetooth mouse and keyboard and put down the controllers. Works fine.
That said, every "floating windows" application for the MQ3 I've seen has a terrible awkward interface for placing windows, everybody from Karl Guttag on down have noticed this and suggested many mechanisms that might be better (say point a beam somewhere to put the center of the screen somewhere, use the thumbstick to rotate and scale) but we are still stuck with bad UIs. This is one area where AVP has really done better.
I can't use my apple brand magic mouse to navigate instead of waving my arms around, so I'm not sure how much controller support one can honestly say there is
They support Xbox and PlayStation controllers, which are fine for 2d gaming in a floating window, but they don’t support VR controllers like the Quest or PSVR
Apple doesn’t support those specific controllers.
But i’ve not seen anything preventing third parties from supporting their own controllers in games over Bluetooth.
A gamepad is not sufficient for immersive VR gaming.
I'm still very curious exactly what people had in mind for this. Like, from all reports, it is a very good VR headset. But... what do people think they will use a VR headset for?
Heck, the PS5 VR headset seems to be having trouble selling, and it is very good at what it is designed for. Anyone buying the PSVR2 knows they are getting it to play games. Solo games, at that. Yes, you can do a party mode for Beat Saber and a few other games. No, it isn't much more compelling than any other "group" version of video games. It is very immersive, though.
So, what did the non-gamer community hope for from this? What is there to feed those hopes?
It's a very good XR headset. My primary use is to use it as a portable display, so I'm not chained to my desk all day. Also great for travel. Great to watch movies too.
Since it runs most iPad apps, it can be used for some light productivity workflows even without a Mac. You can use Bluetooth keyboard if you need to type a lot, but the virtual keyboard is surprisingly decent for quick replies.
I'd be interested in seeing stats on how often people actually "get away from their desk" in a way that needs a computer. Specifically ways that aren't already covered by a phone.
I want the full Mac experience while sitting in an Eames lounge chair at the office or at home. A laptop forces you to look towards your lap, while a headset would allow you to make full use of the headrest as you gaze at the ceiling. I am young and healthy, with the Aeron chair, Ergotron VESA arm, adjustable desk, etc. all dialed in, and yet my body aches after the sixth hour of computer use. So I look forward to having one more ergonomic position for real computer work when I purchase the Apple Vision Air 2 someday.
Something tells me your neck would ache after the sixth hour of a headset on it. Though, I'm largely sympathetic to the idea. I get that looking down feels off. Oddly, I'd also wager it is more similar to how things have historically been done. Used to writing and such was much more "at hand level" than it was elevated. Even physical work is often such that you are looking down more than up.
Sucks to say, but it is almost certainly the case that you need fewer 6 hour stints of work. Go for a walk. Think. Do some physical labor. All things are likely a good idea to help with aching bodies.
The best practice is to vary your posture throughout the day. Think two hours sitting at desk, two hours standing, two hours lounging in the headset. I take breaks as needed but there’s value in a new technology enabling one to work for longer ie new tech unlocking productivity gains is generally desirable. I should mention that I am tall, and that laptop in lap gets less comfortable the longer your torso is.
Right, I try not to be too prescriptive, so apologies for taking the worst read of what you said and assuming you wanted to be in the headset straight 6 hours. :D
I'm not short, so I definitely appreciate having a desk where my monitors let me hold my head higher. I just don't know how much the extra monitor space really helps me. Especially tough as any change in setup usually gives me an initial boost.
I find the VR ideas interesting, but I am rather turned off from the ideas that were shown in the advertising for this one. Games and maybe in flight use seem nice. Games I already have with the psvr2. In flight... I just don't fly that often. Everything else, my home is way too chaotic for some of it, maybe?
At any rate, annoyed with myself for seeming like I'm attacking your idea here. That was rude of me. I'm genuinely curious on what got people to pick this up over other VR solutions. I think VR has gotten way better than folks realize and that most people have written it off.
This message reads like the scene from Fight Club where Jack describes his apartment.
Just putting it out there that it might not actually be dialed in if it’s hurting you
I work from home, so I like to move around the house during the day or even work outside, which is surprisingly great with AVP as there are no reflections on the screen. Also, my lounge chair is vastly more comfortable than my desk chair, and with AVP I can maintain a good posture while keeping my laptop on my lap.
>So, what did the non-gamer community hope for from this? What is there to feed those hopes?
There are still so many people who have never touched VR who are somehow hyped up and convinced this is somehow more magical or more special than everyone elses headset.
Basically it's just the normal reality distortion effect. Sooooooo many comments of "the original iPhone wasn't perfect either". So?
What is weird, is I suspect it is flat out a good headset. At the price, almost certainly better than the alternatives.
VR has come a LONG way and it works surprisingly well for anything where you aren't expecting to walk. Gran Turismo could legit work as a teaching tool for driving. Yes, you lose some force feedback from the likes of braking; but a good steering wheel goes a long long way to the rest of the experience. (Heck, reality is the wheel alone is probably good for an immersive experience.)
I still don't get why folks would be so pumped over the rest of the ideas. Especially with how cheap large decently high resolution monitors have become.
> what do people think they will use a VR headset for?
Or, what other than VRChat factors for AR/MR/VR/XR/"Spatial Computing Device" to not go flatline and fold?
I'm most interested in the virtual screens (no more large monitors) and the opportunity for AI assisted instructions / guidance as I do tasks like home repair.
This sounds neat, but I confess I'm already not clear that my large monitors count as a massive productivity increase over my laptop monitor. Certainly helps in some ways, but once I know what it is I need to do, the laptop is never a blocking item.
The home repair ideas is certainly a neat one. Guessing it will be a while before the content is readily available in large quantities?
The PSVR2 is less comfortable than the original, and they completely dropped first party support for it after launch.
It's a shame, as it could have been pretty great.
Curious what first party support you mean? They just aren't building a lot of games?
And I didn't have the original, so I can't compare. I do like the thing, and I use it about as much as I thought I would. Any game where you "walk" is a bit much for me. Any game where you are controlling something that moves, or you have things fly at you is fine. Toss, I think, is an in between that also works really well.
+1 on guest mode. Handing the headset to someone else is a high-friction point with the calibration that needs to be done on every swap. Oftentimes I want to show someone the current experience without needing to setup a mirror and handing over the headset is the most intuitive way to do so.
U+F8FF is private use and will only display on Apple devices, FYI.
huh, TIL... that's almost worth an HN submission of its own
if anyone else is wondering like I was, this was a fun read: https://superuser.com/questions/1205451/how-can-i-display-th...
Also, this is against Apple's style guide, for those who celebrate.
> In text, don’t write the name Apple Vision Pro by combining the symbol with Vision Pro.
> Correct: Get started with Apple Vision Pro.
> Incorrect: Get started with Vision Pro.
https://help.apple.com/pdf/applestyleguide/en_US/apple-style... (p. 28)
On Macs (and presumably iOS devices with a keyboard hooked up) it can be produced by pressing ⌥⇧K and will render so long as the receiving text field can render a system font that contains the symbol.
Only under the "ABC" text input. Even "ABC - extended" has this shortcut wired for the "circle" diacritic (e.g. " ̊").
And the keyboard layout is one of the supported ones.
Fellow Vision Pro owner here, I recognise many of the articles critiques, yet I do still enjoy working in augmented reality. Like he says, it is a impressive "v1" product.
I know that I might be a little biased as I really organised my work flow around using iPad, selecting apps that work for me.
The transition to VisionOS is much easier then, as most of the apps are simply there in 3D space. I have tried to connect my MacBook, but then you have this weird mix of UX concepts (mouse, keyboard, look+tap), that's not for me.
In my experience I find it comfortable enough that I forget sometimes that I am looking at digital content. Here on X I added a few photos to give you a little extra context of how I work: https://x.com/wlmiddelkoop/status/1769765197948850463?s=20
I know something’s off about the visionOS keyboard—but I can’t put my finger on it.
I spit my coffee out at this one hahahaahaha
“ The most practical solution is to use a physical keyboard, via Mac Virtual Screen or connecting one directly, but this is a bandaid solution. ”
Just silly. If you cannot easily input data without and extra accessory than it’s just a fail in this case. Imagine building the headset and then booking up a keyboard and then sitting next to an outlet because it doesn’t hold a charge very long…… almost like using a laptop may be more efficient.
Honestly looks like we are still a few years away from cool cyberpunk level VR/AR.
I would love to hear from people that have tried to use this headset whilst wearing prescription glasses. Is Apple's own statement "You cannot wear Apple Vision Pro while wearing eyeglasses." accurate?
I just tried on mine for only a few seconds. Technically, it seemed to work. However, because I had to remove the prescription lenses, the device wanted to redo hand and eye setup, so I quickly took it off again.
Notes on the experience...
- On the solo loop band I had to turn the knob to loosen the strap a lot to get enough clearance to position my glasses within the device. The dual loop band probably would not work at all (I didn’t try).
- My glasses are just barely narrow enough to fit within my light seal (25W). It's definitely not a guarantee everybody's glasses will fit into their own light seal.
- Once in, the eye tracking was very off, basically unusable. However, I did not do gaze calibration with my glasses on. That would probably improve things, but I suspect the device will always have issues correctly tracking gaze through glasses because normal glasses lenses can distort your eyes more than it’s expecting.
- There's really not much space between your glasses and the inside lenses on the vision pro. It seems like your glasses would start rubbing up against the inside lenses very easily, causing permanent scratches on one or the other.
So technically you can, but I would not recommend it. I’d rather just spend the $150 for the official lenses.
You’ll have multiple issues. I’ve tried using prescription glasses with many eye tracking solutions in the past and they all have the same issues.
1. There’s very little space for your glasses and you’ll end up scratching both your glasses and the optics
2. You’ll partially obscure eye tracking.
3. Eye tracking will be significantly warped across your glasses. You’ll have drastically reduced quality. This is extra bad if you’re astigmatic.
Prescription inserts or contacts are the correct way to use these kinds of devices for strong reasons.
As long as I cannot install applications of my own choosing onto a headset, the entire thing is dead to me. Imagine macOS having such a restriction, for a supposed future of computing.
Smartphones are the future of computing and have this restriction
Correction, Apple smartphones have that restriction. Android and Linux based smartphones allow user to install any affiliation of their choice.
Not Android ones.
I was surprised the video playing over water which seems to be one of the best demos of the device, the reflection is running a frame behind the video above the water so when a cut happens theres an obvious mismatch in the reflection.
Doesn't feel it would be difficult to fix this with video playback, sorta thing I'd expect Apple to solve.
The delusion of tv scuba goggles is exactly why big tech has no taste, it’s out of touch. All you Raspberry Pi guys, no non techie person is looking at these toys like the first iPhone back in 2007.
We really need a new Steve Jobs to shake things up. Someone to say “this is stupid, show me again in 15 years”. When they’re actual glasses and cost less than $1000
Agree with his assessment on passthrough. I think it's the #1 disappointment I've found with the Vision Pro. It's good, def better than other devices I've used but it's no where near as good as it has been described.
That being said, video experience, other graphics are a lot better than I expected.
This article is 100% accurate. I found myself agreeing with everything written here.
Hopefully someone at Apple reads this and takes it to heart when deciding what to improve for a V2. I might actually buy one if they address some of these problems, despite having been avoiding the hype until a coworker bought one and let us try it.
Passthrough was really disappointing. That part actually kind of shocked me, so many reviews online stating they forgot they were wearing the headset. I can't imagine how, though - it's like looking through drunk goggles. The rendered content was unbelievable though.
I own a Valve Index and the Vision Pro blew it out of the water for pixel density. Mind-blowing.
It needs a vertical top strap to not need it extra tight
The Vision Pro has been a massive disappointment for me and my colleagues. I was ready for the flood of Hacker News articles praising its capabilities as well as tips and tricks, including "look what I did today with it!". This discourse was promised to me by many regular HN commenters and I can't believe we're at a state where the general feeling is that the Vision Pro doesn't live up to the HN hype.
HN has always seemed ambivalent to me. There's a crowd of enthusiasts for it but a surprisingly strong contingent of sceptics (about VR in general, but also specifically this device).
My take is however that yes at this point, Vision OS has failed to hit the aspirational goal of launching XR into the mainstream. There's no App store gold rush, after the initial couple of weeks of hype most people forgot it exists, and I'm truly surprised that Apple seems to have even fumbled the ball on content. That seemed like the easy part to me, but no new environments, nothing new to watch, the Apps hitting the store are mostly toys and really zero things that haven't been done before or fully explored on other devices. Nobody is raving about watching sports on it. etc etc.
What I really hoped was that the novel features of the Vision Pro would kick off a new wave of creativity in terms of what is possible. When I saw people pulling 3D objects out of web pages and onto their desk it really seemed like this could be a true start of something.
The one upside I think is that the slightly anemic launch is probably going to bias Apple to be more open and less controlling than they would otherwise. I hope so.
My guess is, there’s a significant chunk of people who tried Quest or some other VR device that’s close, so AVP is not the first to the market device. Expectations have been set, comparisons are inevitable, and I would say a lot of use cases have been explored already. Sure, you can probably do things in a more refined way in AVP, and some cool VisionOS specific stuff, but it’s generally within the same realm as other VR devices.
Apple will have an uphill battle until they show experiences that cannot be replicated in other devices, rather than “you can do X here as well, maybe slightly better”.
I held off from ordering for the same reason — bought Quest, tried it for a week, still sitting in my shelves since last year. Every advertised thing for AVP I can already do on my phone or laptop, without the need to strap on/off an object onto my face.
I really hope they come up with cool stuff and make it more comfortable to wear, but until then, I don’t think it’ll gain a mainstream adoption.
I like to think there's some level of self-awareness on HN. You can be excited about it as a tech nerd (with salary to afford such an expensive device), while recognizing that it's not going to attract the average person.
The pervasive blocking of copyrighted content in screenshots and screen sharing sounds mildly dystopian. The article lists several examples where this actually hurts the Vision Pro (in terms of ability to share cool moments or being able to demo it), so I wonder why the feature made it in? Is it a move by Apple to make sure immersive videos don't get pirated and made available to Quest and Vive users, or is there external pressure from studios?
FWIW, this is also the case for many video platforms on Mac and iOS (and I assume Windows and Android as well). It's not limited to Vision Pro. I believe this is because of studio pressure.
My unvalidated assumption is that if I can take screenshots of a movie on my Mac, I can also record the full content and duplicate the movie. Thus, this is a copy protection measure.
studio pressure
A better way to think of this might be 'voluntary commercial agreements entered by gigantic corporations'. The results are some mildly annoying misfeatures inflicted on consumers (the 'dystopia' in the GP comment) and wide, cheap, on-demand availability of unfathomable quantities of digital content (the 'utopia' we actually live in).
Concur. I wasn't really happy with my phrasing but it seemed like OK shorthand; I like yours.
I feel confident that it's Apple trying to appease its media partners. I think after Apple pulled the rug out from under the music industry, the film and television industry panicked. They were unwilling to make a deal where content was not chained down with a stake to the ground.
In my opinion, there are two kinds of people who work in Hollywood:
- People who make movies, who probably don't care if you pirate the movie much because the studio is going to screw them over in their pay anyway. These people want as many folks to see the movie in all its different ways as possible.
- People who run the studios, whose salaries, bonuses, etc, are all attached to investors, who want to see the film returns increase. These people want you to see the movie, but only you, only after you pay, for each viewing, in the time, place, and conditions they set.
This is user-hostile. Not everything that can be enforced should be enforced.
Anyway, the one thing that is even more user-hostile is sending app-makers screenshot-was-made events without telling the users. This is a thing on Android.
Apple is user-hostile and user-empowering at the same time.
It’s cute that you think that companies can demand things from film studios.
But in the real world that doesn’t happen and Apple needs their support to get this content on the platform in the first place.
>> It’s cute that you think that companies can demand things from film studios.
The snark does not really add anything to the discussion.
Apple is the second largest company in the world by market cap. I think they have some leverage.
And yet the decades of on the ground evidence from iOS, macOS, AppleTV and now Vision Pro is that (a) market cap means nothing, (b) Apple has about as much leverage as everyone i.e. none and (c) film studios dictate the rules.
Glad that soon generative AI will dictate the rules.
Well, I had more freedom on my old VHS recorder.
Not for want of trying. VHS tapes were frequently produced with MacroVision that would distort the image on copy.
Curiously, you can trivially find "web rips" for virtually every popular streaming-only show. Yet another instance where DRM obstructs everyone but the intended parties.
It's the same on iPhone for i'm guessing DRM content
This also doesn't make sense for the copyright owner interests. Don't you want people to share screenshots of your movies and shows?
I agree it doesn't make any sense. But this is unfortunately the deal with Hollywood and they surely just ported the same functionality from iOS.
If I can take a screenshot, I can copy the whole movie.
Technically, yes. Practically, it's unfeasible. Legally, there's a pretty sharp distinction between copying one frame to share with friends or on social media and copying all the friends with an intent of copying the entire movie.
if you can see it you can copy it.