Well, of course I bought one, who else on this board, or the other board, or the previous board or 2+2 was more likely to get one of these besides me? And because my life is the way that it is, I’m still waiting for the prescription optical inserts to arrive so things are a little fuzzy. Even with the blur, I’m pretty happy I got it. 3D Avengers on Tatooine was as cool as watching a drive in from a land speeder should be. The sound is really good. I’m going to reserve judgement on the eye tracking until I get the inserts in place. I’ll post some screen shots tomorrow, but imagine any screen you use for computer stuff being the size of a drive in and you’ll be in the ball park of this thing.
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Cool!
Any experience with VR before this/comparisons?
I’m jealous but I’m kinda hesitant to be an early adopter on this kind of thing
Total out of pocket?
Do these make you motion sick? Do you have propensity to get seasick/carsick/etc at baseline?
I’d be curious to hear how it compares to Oculur Quest VR, or other similar products, if you have experience with them. Oculus blows my mind sometimes, and I’ve got to imagine this would be even more incredible.
I am buying them for my large adult teenage sons to ensure they never get a girl pregnant
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I had wanted to get into VR for a while but then the best VR was owned by Facebook and required tying your account to Facebook and that didn’t appeal to me at all, so this is the first headset I’ve ever owned. Yes, I know Apple knows everything about me but I trust they are the most privacy aware of any of the big tech companies.
Meta made the news by spending 10 billion dollars on this and not being very successful, Apple has been working on this for around 10 years and have probably spent at least that much on it, and they have that much and more they can continue to support it with. The goal is that the hardware keeps getting smaller and lighter and that the apps keep pace. Sony can only make about 2 million of the panels a year so that puts the top end on these at a million a year, it isn’t supposed to be mass market yet. I don’t think there is a wrong answer to “should I get one.” It’s not often we see a whole new platform get started.
With Apple Care, an extra battery, the carrying case, and the optical inserts it was a little over 5 grand all in. I unexpectedly had $900 in my “wellness” account at work and was able to offset $400 with gift cards. (The online purchase process was confusing and only one path led to using gift cards, and my pick up window was moving farther into the future than I wanted so I didn’t get to use all of them.) I got the 1 Gig version because I knew watching movies on this thing was going to be a big use case.
I wore it for around 2 hours last night, not moving much at all, and had no problem with motion sickness, my understanding is that motion sickness is mostly caused by the lag between what your eyes see in the headset and what your brain thinks is going on. The pass through on this thing is very low maintenance so I’m hopeful I won’t, I haven’t done any movement games like beat saber or anything though. The single strap headset became uncomfortable after 30 or so minutes but the double strap headset felt fine for much longer. I’m confident there will be some third party straps that will be eve better for my giant baby head.
I’ve never used any of the other headsets, my understanding is that the hardware is miles ahead, better screens, better hand tracking, better sound but the application software may be farther ahead on the other platforms; better games, better productivity, etc. Better screens and sound gives the Apple Vision a head start on media consumption and even without my glasses the 3D effects in movies and photos is pretty amazing. We’ll see if the developers step up and come up with some killer apps.
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It’s not causing weird headaches/eye problems /eye strain?
Not yet, we’ll see when I get the prescription inserts. It’s so fuzzy now I can’t get things into focus, with the inserts it could be close enough to in focus that I can squeeze it in and wear my eyes out. (I am not a doctor of eyes)
When I got the VR headsets you inserted your phone into a few years back I played it for a few hours, got a bad headache, and concluded that VR was not for me. Maybe I’ll dip my toe in in a few years if people report that issue is fixed.
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Here is a link to a video showing the transition from pass through to one of the Environments they provide; Mt Hood. The screen still showing is my work M2 Pro laptop. I’d post the video directly but I’m tired of trying to convert a mov to something this site
will host.
…
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I am an early adopter and not strapped for cash, but woof! My “I don’t need this but I’m going to buy it anyway” recent purchase was a pretty high-end 3D printer and I’m definitely still way under $2K with all the bells and whistles (including furniture, filament, etc). I think the tech is very cool but I would imagine that price is going to have to come wayyyyyyyy down. But I’m sure it will, and like you say it’s not supposed to be mass market yet.
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I pretty much maxed out the purchase, min to get in is around 3500, but that’s without Apple care and is risky. But yeah, it is expensive.
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How’s the experience of watching a movie with this?
Watching movies on it is fantastic! Even with it out of focus, being able to have a screen effectively twice as big as my 65 inch television with amazing sound and a wide variety of backgrounds instead of the sun streaming into the window behind it washing everything out is a killer app. When they figure out how to let you watch something with other people it will be really cool.
Nice headset! What are the display specs, technicals on the lenses, and such?
this will be me
https://twitter.com/SwiftOnSecurity/status/1753578650207695085
except instead of an ipod it’s me driving a 1992 Honda Accord wagon
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It’s like a 5k monitor per eye. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6PF3Ihmiyc this may have the actual deets, there were a ton of videos out talking specs before anyone got hands on. Now there are a ton of videos about why it’s the best/worst thing ever…
The immersive photography is supposed to be really impressive, out of focus you can still feel more depth than looking at a regular photo.