They need to go back and read the Newton’s postmortem. With every new detail about this devices release - it’s becoming clearer and clearer this device just is not ready.
I was excited iPad apps could be directly ported over to VisionPro - but now after hacking with it in XCode - it’s evident this device and its APIs have no idea that customer intent drives context.
This lack of customer awareness is so interesting because all the designers in WWDC videos outline context with great labor. They forget a space is only part of an intent, and an intent is not a click or scroll. Intents demand a certain context, not the other way around - they’re scratching at old scars of starting with technology first then working to some customer experience.
Everyone pulls up the SJ D3 interview to say VisionPro is what Steve would want - but just like everything he says, if you only quickly listen you miss the full history and intent -
he says something along the lines of “headphones are just as good as amazing audio systems, displays on your face need to get better before we can recreate the plasma tv experience” - only after a lot of reflection did I come to understand this means audio passive consumption and display passive consumption. The customer intent for a display on face context is to recreate watching a plasma tv - following this intent means you end up with something completely different than what is happening now (I think SOL has nailed this, but perhaps focused too niche on the use case). Only later do you pull forward interactivity - as in the delay between headphones and Siri, which is still lagging.
> They need to go back and read the Newton’s postmortem. With every new detail about this devices release - it’s becoming clearer and clearer this device just is not ready.
In fact their actions suggest they already know this. It feels like Apple felt obliged to show .. something, anything .. after so many years of work (7 years? Just a guess).
I think this limited appointment-only release is part of a cautious wait-and-see approach.
> They need to go back and read the Newton’s postmortem. With every new detail about this devices release - it’s becoming clearer and clearer this device just is not ready.
Neither was the Mac that sold abysmally for years and Apple was propped up by the Apple // series
And neither was the iPod. They sold less than 1 million in the first two years.
Or the Apple iPhone that barely captured 1% market share tte first year (Jobs stated goal)
Or the Apple Watch which was slow, with bad battery life and a horrible SDK. It took years for Apple to have a coherent focus.
Number of unit sales isn’t the measure of success for a new paradigm. Everyone knows this. The quality of ideas and the affordances to achieve human aims is what makes a success.
The development process from what I read is not great for Apple Watches. But at first, you couldn’t even create real apps just projections from the phone.
Thankfully the dev process has improved to ~5seconds to hit a breakpoint on a real watch - which is the only way to work with live HealthKit/HKWorkout data.
> This lack of customer awareness is so interesting because all the designers in WWDC videos outline context with great labor. They forget a space is only part of an intent, and an intent is not a click or scroll. Intents demand a certain context, not the other way around - they’re scratching at old scars of starting with technology first then working to some customer experience.
Could you elaborate on that? I'd like to better understand
Every time I try to type something in response it comes out overly verbose -
Basically think of what you want to achieve, it’s the intent. Then think what happens if it happened automatically, that’s the ideal context (why pills for losing weight is so enticing). Then actually try to solve the problem in tech in the best way, and then you’ll see that the intent drives what tech context is truly great - as in you’ll end up creating dedicated hardware and software; what’s happened is that this platform has become good enough for many use cases and everyone is looking for the next best “good enough” when this current generation of tech platforms was built for a specific intent very different from what’s next
Tell me if this is what you're saying: It'd be better if they picked a use case, e.g. consuming movies/TV shows, and designed a device around that specific goal, rather than focusing on broader capabilities. Is that kinda what you're saying?
Yes, the best portable media player begot the best mobile phone. The best mobile phone begot the best general computing device - the general compute structure is emergent not core.
Think AirFryers and Convection Ovens - focused, small package, easy to use, etc vs…
I was excited iPad apps could be directly ported over to VisionPro - but now after hacking with it in XCode - it’s evident this device and its APIs have no idea that customer intent drives context.
This lack of customer awareness is so interesting because all the designers in WWDC videos outline context with great labor. They forget a space is only part of an intent, and an intent is not a click or scroll. Intents demand a certain context, not the other way around - they’re scratching at old scars of starting with technology first then working to some customer experience.
Everyone pulls up the SJ D3 interview to say VisionPro is what Steve would want - but just like everything he says, if you only quickly listen you miss the full history and intent - he says something along the lines of “headphones are just as good as amazing audio systems, displays on your face need to get better before we can recreate the plasma tv experience” - only after a lot of reflection did I come to understand this means audio passive consumption and display passive consumption. The customer intent for a display on face context is to recreate watching a plasma tv - following this intent means you end up with something completely different than what is happening now (I think SOL has nailed this, but perhaps focused too niche on the use case). Only later do you pull forward interactivity - as in the delay between headphones and Siri, which is still lagging.