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gregday posted:Can you get up and walk behind a window/app? What does the back of an app look like? From the back they're grey translucent panels.
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Feb 3, 2024 02:10
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| # ¿ May 17, 2024 15:33 |
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 I spend too much money on things. Initial thoughts and reactions, in no particular order: - The stare-and-pinch UX is mostly pretty good, but I keep having small issues and I can't tell if it's a software thing or that I'm psyching myself out or because I'm dealing with a new prescription (just got the new glasses today) or what. - This is a better TV than any TV I've ever owned, and it's not limited to one place. If it was in the form factor of a pair of sunglasses or even heavy ski goggles I would chuck my TV out the window and never buy one again. (But, I live alone, so I'm not dealing with sharing with anyone.) Yes, that's including the battery life; I have a small place and having a couple of extra chargers in places to sit would make things easier than having a dedicated TV area. - The weight is absolutely noticeable even with the double strap, and frankly it's weird they didn't combine the top strap with the padded back piece because that would be more comfortable than either version alone. It's not unbearable, but use for extended periods (e.g. movie watching or VR shitposting) will probably involve laying down for now so it's just against my face instead of dragging downward. I expect this to get much, much better once a third party like BoboVR or Kiwi releases a properly counterbalanced alternative. - Environments are extremely well done. The dial goes from 'dumb gimmick' to 'hey, that's really useful' the first time you have a movie going and want to be able to see a side table next to you without it interrupting the 'dark' area in front of you. Also, the fake darkness in passthrough works really well, and the only giveaway that you actually have the lights still on is that you can see the bloom on the bulbs in the passthrough view. - Passthrough is more than good enough to use a phone or computer screen in 720p- to 1080p-like quality. - The hand tracking is fantastic. The cutout effect can be fuzzy depending on virtual environment, but the actual location tracking is rock solid, so unlike Meta's garbage you can be confident that virtual interaction targets will work. - The virtual keyboard is extremely usable. It's been a little janky for me if I try to full on touch type, but I can do at least two finger typing as fast as my hands can move, so it's 100% usable for the stuff you would expect to use it for (passwords, usernames, quick shitposts, etc). It's at least 10x better than the nightmare that is the Meta virtual keyboard. I expect that with some iterations they should be able to project this thing on a table and have full speed typing (as long as you don't mind sore fingertips). - I would have expected some way to persistently pin panels to a physical location, but it doesn't exist. Whenever you recenter (by holding the crown button) it takes everything you've opened with you, even if all those panels were placed in separate locations. I suspect this is in part a consequence of the very limited app management, and that they either haven't figured out a good Stage Manager analogue yet or they have a half-complete version queued up for visionOS 2. - Macbook mirroring is buttery smooth and stable and, if not for the weight again, this would instantly replace large monitors for work purposes too. Using a Macbook or bluetooth keyboard/mouse to control visionOS apps is also extremely smooth; you can just look at a panel and click to activate it and then you've got basically an iPad keyboard/mouse interface on that panel. However, there aren't any shortcuts for going between or managing panels (which I think keys into the same as the previous item). - For how tight the battery life is on this thing, there's no way to get a persistent battery life widget (or even one that only shows up when the immersion mode isn't turned on). It's a real Apple-istic choice to try and ignore the problem instead of making it easier for people to work around it. - I am extremely comfortable walking around my place using passthrough. There's a little bit of motion blur, but none of the visual warping of things up close, lag spikes, etc of the Quest 3. I have, at least so far, zero fear it's going to misplace me and result in some kind of comical obituary. - Light seal experience so far is generally positive. There's a tiny little bit of light leak around my nose but I don't know if that's because my sizing is off (I did delivery instead of the in-person pickup, so I may make an appointment to see about trying any other similar sizes) or if it's just that they can't get it quite that perfect. Even as-is, it's a much closer fit than the Quest 3 and I don't have a big nose gap to squintily see things around me with in full VR (but with the crown I shouldn't actually need that, so good). - Generic panel sizes (Macbook mirroring, browser, etc) seem to max out at about 150 inches diagonal, give or take (very rough estimation based off my TV). Henrik Zetterberg posted:How many phub windows can you have playing simultaneously in your living room? All of them. Open Safari and you can drag out any number of tabs into separate panels playing videos simultaneously. I'm sure it'll choke up eventually, but not any sooner than an M2 Macbook would anyway. I said come in! posted:Have you tried yet just using it with your Macbook (if you have one) and doing just work or casual browsing / use with a keyboard and mouse? The experience is about the same as having a very large 4K-ish monitor floating there (including the slight fuzz you would expect from stretching 4K to 60+ inches). It's not quite perfect visually but it's more than good enough that I don't have to mess with font sizes or anything. In terms of use it feels 100% like having a hardware monitor hooked up via a cable, at least so far: responsiveness and lag, Youtube video quality, etc. Haven't tried any twitch games with it, but I could definitely play Civ on this thing and not tell it apart from playing it on a giant TV aside from this big weight on my face. Roadie fucked around with this message at 04:52 on Feb 3, 2024 |
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Feb 3, 2024 04:28
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Three Olives posted:I'm curious if either of you happen to own a Meta Quest 2/3. I have a Quest 3, and it's been great for games, but it just totally sucks for literally anything else in ways that I think the AVP has just mostly conquered in one swell foop. Will I keep using the AVP daily? Well, I dunno at the moment, but I will reevaluate once I get a third-party headstrap that makes it signficantly more comfortable. It's already way, way more appealing than the Quest 3 for basic stuff like watching 3D movies, since the multitasking means now I can have the virtual theater while also getting my ADHD fix of having Discord open in the background or whatever, and the no-controller focus means there aren't all the inevitable friction points when it comes to doing literally anything that's not a game needing several non-physical action triggers. I think honestly, the only limiting factors against this being my daily driver instead of my mix of Macbook and iPad are (a) weight (b) battery life and (c) can't run VS Code and some other niche stuff to go with my code jockey side projects. And... yeah, that's a lot, but is it, really? I think this product line is going to have some insane potential down the line once there are more hardware refinements. gregday posted:If you watch tv with your family on the couch, don’t replace that experience with a thing strapped to your face.  We're still a long way away from any supernerd futures where you're going to use this thing in any social-ish context outside of VR or doing SharePlay watch parties with Discord groups or something. I can totally see those possible supernerd futures, but we're at least 0.75 pounds and $2500 away from them.
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Feb 3, 2024 05:37
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gregday posted:A future version/OS update where you can watch the same movie with someone else 500 miles away in the theater mode over SharePlay will be amazing. This is already a feature at the OS level. It's up to apps to mash that up with any immersive stuff they have.
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Feb 3, 2024 05:48
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FuzzySlippers posted:Have you used any AR media viewing /virtual monitor glasses like the Nreal or Rokid ones? That’s what these seem closer to than VR dedicated headsets like the Quest.Beyond the price it seems like Apple has solved the current AR glasses problem of being too low res and having lovely software, but the form factor seems dramatically worse for being heavy rear end goggles instead of glasses. This, I think, goes with Apple deciding that this is the minimum feature set they were willing to go with (e.g. "iPad on your face", not merely a screen extender like the Nreal/Xreal) and that they would rather eat the cost of only selling to turbonerds for the first 5 or 10 years of iterations than have a device with the reputation of "just" being a fancy iPhone accessory. FuzzySlippers posted:Basically any usage except rare very immersive games I want less visual coverage and the world around me being easily accessible. Even for most vr games like Beat Saber I’d rather not be stuck in my own black void. Synth Riders does that, with a "portal" that only turns into full immersion if you crank up the dial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nos7u4VqmRo FuzzySlippers posted:I’ll be curious how many they sell because I thought this was more like an expensive developer preview than a big release but it seems to be getting plenty of marketing so I guess this is a big push? 200K preorders, give or take, with rumors all over the place on Apple's expectations, but a target of 500K to 1 million sold in the first year seems like a common average in them.
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Feb 3, 2024 09:32
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Three Olives posted:I feel like this is 100% making my point, that room looks depressing as gently caress and hard to imagine anyone living in that has $3,500 to blow on a VR headset. Man, what? You are really stretching hard here for something to hate because nerds bad, I guess.
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Feb 3, 2024 11:34
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One odd discovery, prompted by a Reddit post talking about potential non-light-seal head strap alternatives: If I take the AVP, remove the gasket, and just hold it up against my face with the bottom bit up against the bridge of my nose, it works fine, the FOV is way better, and there's just enough space for my eyelashes even with the Zeiss lenses. I'm wondering now if there was supposed to be less space inside the light seal and they had to bulk it out for some reason, and I'm hoping third-party bands take advantage of this.
Roadie fucked around with this message at 08:36 on Feb 4, 2024 |
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Feb 4, 2024 08:33
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One more minor AVP discovery: If you take a floating window and put it front of a real object, it's fully opaque. If you put it behind a real object, it's very slightly transparent (like maybe 5%) in regards to that object only, while still fully opaque in regards to everything behind the window. I assume this is so that if you do that, then get up and walk around, you can still see the outline of your counter or ottoman or whatever even though the window is still painted mostly over it, and won't walk into it. This is pretty minor, but it's wild to think about the amount of processing happening on board just for that little feature. Roadie fucked around with this message at 00:09 on Feb 5, 2024 |
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Feb 5, 2024 00:07
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Void-X is neat, with a mix of a defined play area with AR effects around the player, and I think it hits a perfect combination for a 'play for 5 minutes while still semi-immersed' kind of game. I hope it will set a precedent for AR games that do something more interesting with the media than just having a floating passthrough version of a 3D level.
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Feb 12, 2024 08:23
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Re: casual on-off wear, the BOBOVR style halo strap makes a huge difference for the Quest 3. It looks a lot bulkier and more complicated than the 'simple' straps, but you put it on and take it off with the same motions as a big hat without needing to otherwise adjust things.
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Feb 13, 2024 23:28
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| # ¿ May 17, 2024 15:33 |
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At this point, literally the only reason for anyone to buy an AirPods Max over the Beats Studio Pro is that the BSP doesn't have the auto-switching between devices. That's it. That's the whole reason.
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Mar 21, 2024 18:52
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