Connected 
Connected 488: hot guy, incredible actor, hot dude
Apple Vision Pro is here, and this week, @imyke and @ismh share their initial impressions while @viticci keeps refreshing the tracking information on his order.
Hawke Bassignani@connected @imyke I appreciated @ismh’s take on Personas and giving the option to use Memoji because they only look like you.
One thing to add to the discussion is self-representation differing from physical, IRL appearance for queer people, especially in the trans community. It’s very common to adopt alternate personas (no pun intended) that better reflects one’s identity.
Hopefully, they add the feature in the future!
@connected @imyke @ismh This isn’t a specific miss of the show! It’s a recurring issue that reasserts itself regularly in tech.
For example, Facebook (a decade ago) made a huge deal during their “Timeline” phase of product development that your name had to match your drivers license, forcibly changing or banning lots of queer people and drag performers until loud pushback reversed the policy.
Tech is sometimes not fully reflective of human diversity. 🤷🏻♂️
Myke Hurley@hawkeward @connected @ismh I totally understand this! Is worth noting that for personas it will scan you however you choose to present yourself.
@imyke @connected @ismh Absolutely true. It's cool that Apple lets you "stage" yourself when you scan, then keeps that persona for future use.
That said, folks don't always look exactly the way that they want… especially as putting on a lot of makeup, if required, is not super compatible with wearing a face-computer.
Physical self-representation can lag behind personal identity, esp. for trans people. It's why so many queer people represent themselves online as illustrations, not photographs.
@hawkeward @connected @ismh the persona is fixed. you wouldn’t need the make up every time you use it
@imyke I know that... I think we're not understanding each other.
When I say "Folks don't always look exactly the way that they want," I mean that the way you look these days (not today, but in the present time) may not have caught up to what your self-identity is, especially if you're midway through physical transformation while all-the-way through your other identity transformation(s).
(Also just in case it wasn't clear, I am also a Vision Pro owner and understand how Personas work today.)
And setting aside makeup (it was a side point), there's something very limiting (and a no-go for some folks, esp. queer folks) about Apple's Persona system basically saying, "You'll be exactly how you physically look like, or you'll be literally nothing."
That's *fine* for now; it's how Zoom/Meet/Teams work w/r/t video calls. But Memoji is right there and already in iOS FaceTime, but they chose not to use it (for now).
Fine decision *for now*, but I hope that they open things up in the future.