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i was sleep deprived when watching the announcement but now that i look back at it the Apple Vision Pro feels like a fucking fever dream.
Apple wanted to make an AR headset, not a VR headset. the difference is you remain aware of your surroundings while using it. normal so far
the only problem is… transparent displays suck. like, you don't want everything to be overly bright and semi-transparent. this looks good in hollywood films but it's not a good experience in general in real life. you can dim the room or use shades but that's still a compromise
alternatively, you can go for a fully opaque display. basically, make a VR headset: you don't see the outside world at all. so you lose that awareness of your surroundings, which is scary and antisocial.
or, well, you could do passthrough with a camera, but this usually sucks. anyone who's played the 3DS's AR games or used basically any smartphone AR app will know that this passthrough isn't very convincing.
also, you have a screen strapped to your face. if people can't see your eyes, it's like you're not there.
…
Apple looked at this and said “skill issue”
Apple knew they couldn't make the impossible display technology happen, so instead they apparently threw everything at making passthrough so convincing that you'd think it's using impossible conditionally-opaque display technology
it's so audacious. the result is the world's most expensive AR headset (by parts cost), one on which Apple might never turn a profit.
it's so absurd. the number of cameras, the quality of display, the amount of signal processing hardware needed to recreate the world in real-time
it's surreal. you want to create the illusion of seeing someone's eyes behind glass, but there's an opaque screen in the way, so they put a fucking 3D display on the outside!
it's technological sorcery: you can't construct a window with a camera and a monitor, right? fake transparency is surely impossible, right?
it's a cyberpunk nightmare product. in order to work at all, it must precisely surveil you at all times, and it must convince you that a fake version of reality is reality, that you're awake while you're dreaming. it could lie to you and you wouldn't be mentally prepared for it
if it is what Apple claim it to be, then it is science fiction become real. if it is what Apple claim it to be, then it is terrifying, and majestic, and so many words I will never be able to find.
and I genuinely believe Apple aren't bluffing. there's no reason to think they are
it is an object plucked straight from a nightmare, a thing that must not be unleashed upon this world and which will make the next iMessage privilege escalation bug into an existential terror the likes of which you've never seen before
and i want one.
,
@ar@is-a.cat
@hikari passthrough had come a long way since 3ds. even a few years ago a gaming pc + index had a passthrough mode that was actually fast enough (though the camera positioning meant that the view was part to the front from what you'd expect)
@hikari tbh passthru is quite convincing in Quest 2; although it has some nice glitches due to temporal/spatial image processing to keep feedback time under 20ms
@yottatsa how bad's the screen-door?
@hikari noticeable, got used to it pretty fast.. still low-key wanna try Quest Pro/Quest 3 with colour passthru