> And there's very little to do with it.

My household grabbed an Oculus Quest 2 in late 2020. We used it for maybe 6 months tops and since then it has gathered dust. The games are either too expensive for a short experience or exhaustively immersive to the point they require too much activation and sustained energy. The library at the time was also very small so I would be curious to charge up the headset and see what has changed.

I think our headset was around $500 USD... Fortunately the Quest 2 experience taught us that $3500 USD for the Vision Pro was _absolutely_ not going to be worth the cost.

I was really into VR in the beginning. My friend got the occulus DK1 and my mind was blown. I got a DK2 which ironically felt less immersive since the field of view was smaller but still very impressive.

I demoed it to a lot of my friends and everyone was very impressed but no one ever asked to go back. When I realized this knew there was a problem and that when I started doubting the adoption of VR.

Once Meta/Facebook bought occulus, I full checked out and never bought another VR head set ever again.

I still managed to make a VR version of one of my games before fully quitting. I don’t know what it would take for me to care about VR again.

I'm the opposite. I backed the DK1 but it was unusable to me. Way too nauseating. The high persistence tablet display was horrible, the pixels were so massive.

Then when Facebook took them over they finally had the chance to buy first class custom made components instead of going for scraps from the mobile industry. I don't like Facebook/meta either but their cash was desperately needed.

I also really appreciated the gift of the Rift consumer version, they were under no obligation to do that.

I thought sim racing with VR was one of the coolest gaming experience I’ve ever had. But once I got busy and tried to go back to it while not having a dedicated setup, it seemed like a real PITA and I just stopped doing it. The heat, weight, variable motion sickness, and cable madness didn’t seem worth it.

A lot of these things are much better on later models. No more cables even with pcvr. Quest 3 is thinner. The heat will probably stay but personally I don't notice it so much. I don't VR in summer but that's because it gets so hot here that just walking around is enough to make me sweat profusely.

I demoed it and thought it was cool but way to heavy on my face for me to want to use it. I get kind on annoyed by the weight of even regular glasses. Though funnily enough I don't mind wearing an open face crash helmet with a visor with the weight carried by the top of my head rather than my face. I thought that might be a better way to do it.

There's a heck of a lot more to do with the Quest at this point, as it actually has a software library. Developers don't actively trust Meta, but at least get some impression Meta want them to develop things.

Apple considers developers so far below them nobody is willing to touch it with a pole.

There are definitely a few with UX problems, and there are a few apps completely missing - like ProtonMail - but overall bringing iOS and iPadOS apps into visionOS feels pretty natural.

If visionOS is to succeed, that's how it will do it. visionOS and iOS/iPadOS will continue to be developed in parallel, with new UX conventions slowly making their way to the traditional devices. Over time, apps built using Apple's platform will "just work" in visionOS as well.

In fact, while I hadn't thought about it until now, that's probably exactly why they're doing a visual refresh of iOS 19. Reporting seems to emphasize the "visionOS style" widgets, and it's apparent to me at least that that's going to lead to deeper and more complete integration between the platforms.

I don't think Apple is done with Spatial Computing. I wish the Vision Pro had done a bit better, especially its native software ecosystem, but I don't think it has been a failure at all. There were likely lots of reasons they launched it: to test the market's readiness for the product, to introduce new UX conventions, to get direct user feedback, to allow developers onto the platform, etc. They didn't have to make money on the Vision Pro (though, I think they did).

People here are always saying how hard it is to build a hardware startup; how just _shipping the product_ is a milestone that most of them never reach. Hardware is hard. I see the Vision Pro as Apple applying Agile to hardware. They shipped an MVP. It's not a "VR headset", it's a "Spatial Computing device". That lets them see how people actually use it, refine, and iterate.

The only reason you don't see this approach more often is that most companies have neither the capital nor the risk tolerance to do it. Apple spent $30B on R&D in FY2023.

Games (and other forms of entertainment) is where it actually brings something to the table. I don't think I'd ever want to play flight or space sims not in VR, for example. And it doesn't even need to be very involved; e.g. if you have VR headset that works with Steam, be sure to check out Polynomial: https://store.steampowered.com/app/379420/Polynomial_2__Univ...

There are some adjacent niche uses, as well. High-res fractal viewing, for example.

But as to productivity... I tried using various virtual desktop software, but the image quality is just not good enough to match what I'm used to with my 4K displays. Even 4K per eye is not good enough for that, since any usable virtual display won't fill the entire visible space.

> It demos incredibly well. And there's very little to do with it.

Reminds me of the VR storyline in HBO's Silicon Valley.