Mastodawn

Today I received an incredible surprise care package containing a 1TB Apple Vision Pro (M2), official case, weighted ResMed dual strap, and developer strap, all for which I am incredibly thankful. 🤯

Finally, after 2 years, I will be able to dive in to visionOS properly*

(And no, it wasn't from Apple)

*in as much as is possible in a non-supported country, which Apple has made /as painful as possible/, but I will complain about that in due time

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Steve Troughton-Smith Oct 29

My custom satellite TV app works great on visionOS 👌

I can pick up a 70" virtual tv screen and wander round the house with it, or bring it to the moon or a desert island

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Steve Troughton-Smith Oct 29

One aspect of the Vision Pro experience that really fucking sucks is the Apple TV app.

Not because it's bad.

Because its contents are completely unavailable if Vision Pro isn't supported in your country.

That means no Apple shows, no Paramount+, no nothing. Deep links go nowhere.

You can sometimes play these TV shows and movies using the Apple TV website (but not always), but that's it.

The Apple TV experience is 75% of the value of a Vision Pro, and it's just not available to me in Ireland

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Steve Troughton-Smith Oct 29

I can understand the App Store not being available (though I disagree with that, too), but to lock away my access to the services I'm already paying per month for is a bit of a gut punch — especially when it's some of the only content Vision Pro *has* right now.

(I knew this going in, for the record, but now I've experienced it I want to share how I feel about it)

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Steve Troughton-Smith Oct 29

In other news, visionOS is *gorgeous* in practice. It’s easy to forget that when discussing it from afar

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Steve Troughton-Smith Oct 29

If you think Apple's immersive environments are cool, try Disney's. The Alien: Earth one is fucking terrifying. It genuinely feels close to real life in quality — no uncanny valley here. That's the first VR I've seen that I could believe

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Steve Troughton-Smith Oct 29

It’s kinda shocking to see just how few key developers support visionOS. For example, 2 years on and Dropbox is still completely unavailable on the platform. Good luck having productivity apps if you can’t access your files

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Steve Troughton-Smith

Speaking of shocking, the visionOS 26 shell crashes to an Apple logo an alarming amount of times per day. It crashed while I was dictating audio, it crashed when I entered an immersive space in Disney, and it crashed when I tried doing a FaceTime call. I could tell the OS was in rough shape from the Simulator, but this is deep into unfinished territory

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Steve Troughton-Smith Oct 29

The displays in the Vision Pro are effectively perfect; I don’t think they would benefit at all from more pixels. What the device could really do with are much better cameras and optics. A variable focal distance would go a long way to making this feel great. The passthrough cameras though need to be 10X better for anybody to take them seriously. I still don’t know how Apple convinced pundits who tried this at WWDC23 that passthrough was as good as they claimed. Y’all need help

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Steve Troughton-Smith Oct 29

Passthrough vs in-headset content. It handles low light better than the Quest 3, but it's still not great

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Steve Troughton-Smith Oct 29

I’ve had the headset on for maybe 8 hours today, comfortably. It is so much heavier than the Quest 3, but there is effectively nothing in the OS that can make you motion sick…

…except for ‘Immersive View’ of spatial video. An optional mode in Photos, hidden behind a button — a button I would recommend never ever pressing, because only a couple seconds of that can make you very sick 🤮 Use it for stabilized fixed-perspective content only

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Steve Troughton-Smith Oct 30

One very zen thing to try on visionOS is to lie on your back and look at the stars in the moon environment at night

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Steve Troughton-Smith Oct 30

This much was obvious before, but Vision Pro has a massive input problem: text entry and editing *sucks*.

I still think the platform would benefit greatly from a combined keyboard/trackpad accessory, purpose-built, and that's the kind of thing Apple could and should build

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Steve Troughton-Smith Oct 30

Something that slipped my mind is that you can AirPlay iPad and iPhone screens to the Vision Pro, which is kind of cool. Sadly, it doesn’t support any kind of touch handling

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Steve Troughton-Smith Oct 30

I do wish you could capture multiple Personas and swap between them at will. Business, casual, etc

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Steve Troughton-Smith Oct 30

It is abundantly clear that Vision Pro is a developer kit, and the software and platform should have a 'beta' label. There are many big problems that need to be solved, and they will still take years of effort. Should it exist? Absolutely. There should be a high-end headset, a 'cheap' headset, and whatever happens with glasses — these are all different products, and they'll drive the ecosystem forward in different ways. Above all, Apple, start making peace with developers. Give them kits, and $

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Steve Troughton-Smith Oct 30

Every Apple Developer should be able to log into the developer site and order Vision Pro hardware, light seals in any size, and the developer strap. In every country.

It boggles the mind that they haven't taken this step already

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Steve Troughton-Smith Oct 30

FB20871373 — Every developer should be able to order Vision Pro from the developer site, in any country

#radars

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Steve Troughton-Smith Oct 30

I had a lot of complaints about the original version of visionOS, but they have addressed pretty much all of my most-critical feedback in the OS releases since. If they actually had a good-enough relationship with developers to fill this thing with software, it would be an incredible computing device.

With an empty App Store, though, it’s still merely an expensive toy. There are so many ways they could have fixed that in the time since launch, Apple just need to get over themselves…

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Steve Troughton-Smith Oct 30

3D RealityKit content in visionOS is kinda shocking. It feels real, completely believable. Like there’s a physical object floating in front of me. The way it reacts to light is wild, and how it reflects the view out of my (irl) window. I am shook

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Steve Troughton-Smith Oct 30

The more time you spend in visionOS, the more you fool your brain into thinking that these floating windows are physical objects in real space. The visual quality is that good. It's like a superpower, being able to summon 'UI' everywhere you go

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Steve Troughton-Smith Oct 30

I’m using Moonlight, which works pretty well, but I really wish I had Windows Virtual Display on visionOS as well as Mac Virtual Display so I could have both my Windows and Mac monitors side by side like in real life

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Steve Troughton-Smith Oct 30

I really love visionOS 26's ability to snap and align windows to flat surfaces, like walls, or monitors. Makes it really easy to replace my real displays with virtual displays

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Steve Troughton-Smith Oct 30

Seeing your own apps floating in augmented reality is a deeply emotional experience. I made this? Holy shit.

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Steve Troughton-Smith Oct 30

I made this? I made this

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Steve Troughton-Smith Oct 30

I’m really falling in love with visionOS, you guys

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Steve Troughton-Smith Oct 31

The Disney environments make me wonder what Pixar could do if they made a 'movie' (short, stage play, etc) entirely in RealityKit. The Monsters Inc Scare Floor makes me feel like I'm *in* the movie. Not in VR.

There is a level of fidelity here that's impossible to describe without being there yourself. No pixels, no discernible textures or polygons. You're just… there

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Steve Troughton-Smith Oct 31

Testing my apps from the top of a mountain feels kinda profound 😂

Speaking of which, I did bringup on my Broadcasts 4 codebase on visionOS, which was something I wasn't planning anytime soon

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Joe Beam Oct 31

@stroughtonsmith
Wow!

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Dave DeLong Oct 31

@stroughtonsmith I've felt for a while that Environments are one of the huge un-tapped potentials for visionOS. Imagine wandering around Hogwarts, or the Millennium Falcon, or a Halo installation, or the Avengers tower, or …

The possibilities are endless and no one's really doing anything with it.

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Sim Oct 31

@stroughtonsmith how did Apple not send you one of these on day one. Your ability to just build and demo the platform with enthusiasm would have helped them so much

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Collin Allen Oct 31

@stroughtonsmith We did do a Coco experience in VR: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=688XEeK80GQ

Coco VR Trailer

YouTube

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Mike Cane Oct 31

@stroughtonsmith But what can you DO? Seems like Star Trek Holodeck without the ability to, you know, DO something.

Oh, and when I went to the Apple Store last time, they had a table of that thing. No one was asking to try. I didn’t either.

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Josh Hrach Nov 2

@stroughtonsmith I want to see The Archive do something similar with all of the Star Trek environments they have built into the app.

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Mike Cane Oct 31

@stroughtonsmith So do you think Spatial Computing is a thing?

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Steve Troughton-Smith Oct 31

@mikecane yes?

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Paul McGrane Oct 31

@stroughtonsmith I feel like I would adore it if my eyes were amenable to it! (or perhaps if I could afford it). As opposed to the other way, I'm sure it is LONG for this world!

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Hwee-Boon Yar Oct 31

@stroughtonsmith If you use Netflix or Prime but haven't try Supercut, try it https://apps.apple.com/us/app/supercut-streaming-hub/id6478435954 . Not sure if there's a better app for this, but I like it and it's worth paying just to experience it.

‎Supercut – Streaming Hub

‎Supercut is the acclaimed streaming app that provides the best way to experience Netflix and Prime Video on Vision Pro. "Supercut is a proper visionOS app that delivers a first-class experience for Netflix and Amazon Prime Video subscribers on Apple Vision Pro." — 9to5Mac "The new app makes for a…

App Store

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rstevens 🐳💨✅Oct 30

@stroughtonsmith what a perfect little floating ipod

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Jamie Blumberg Oct 30

@stroughtonsmith One of the first things I did when I got a Vision Pro was to load up the sample app I had built in it. It was genuinely exciting.

But then I returned it because it gave me migraines so womp womp

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Josh Hrach Oct 31

@stroughtonsmith Also a great way to persist a Messages chat somewhere. My wife’s chat is always available on my office wall.

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GK Oct 30

@stroughtonsmith What’s wrong with an RDesktop client?

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John Cleary Oct 30

@stroughtonsmith VNC + Screens? (I assume the WindowsApp RDP client from iPad doesn’t work?)

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Nico Reese Oct 30

@stroughtonsmith I especially love the way the home and Control Center hand gestures work and UI appears on your body. I hope this is something they expand upon. Maybe notifications can actually appear on your wrist instead of that very awkward top position they're in now.

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Buck Oct 30

@stroughtonsmith Would enjoy having one ... if it wasn't 1/4 the price of my car.

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TheEJJ 🇨🇦Oct 30

@stroughtonsmith One of the things I remember after being in VisionOS was how cumbersome and heavy my phone felt afterwards. There’s no lighter screen than one that’s weightless.

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Robert Petersen

Oct 30

@stroughtonsmith it’s gonna be crazy once pass through is good enough and battery tech catches up.

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MarkV Oct 30

@stroughtonsmith Have you tried Mac Virtual Display? Curious how you’ll feel about coding in VR.

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erin sparling Oct 30

@stroughtonsmith if you haven’t yet, make sure to try the TGV Inoui app. It’s so good, especially for convincing you that you’re on a real train.

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Keir Oct 30

@stroughtonsmith the fact that half of their own apps are still just running the iPad version says pretty much everything about their priorities 😂

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GK Oct 30

@stroughtonsmith yeah. And they are scratching their heads why sales ale so low.

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Taylor Hadden Oct 30

@gklka @stroughtonsmith I don't think they are. The rumors and leaks about the expected sales were _never_ high. They know it's not a mass-market device.

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Jonathan L.Oct 30

@stroughtonsmith thanks for sharing this up to date view on the Vision Pro from a non-skeptic pov. Learning a lot. Camera pass through was the most disappointing to me when I tried it out. The displays are capable of so much more detail than what the cameras can capture.

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gameshack_

Oct 30

@stroughtonsmith Do you think in it's current state it's worth what they're asking for? What would be a fair price / value?

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Steve Troughton-Smith Oct 30

@gameshack_ if they were honest and slapped a Developer Kit label on the hardware, and a Beta label on the software, then sure.

I think $1,999 is probably where it will end up, with a much-cheaper model with phone components

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Ben Guild Oct 30

@stroughtonsmith I mean, the iPhone and iPad (without keyboard case) barely scrape by, as well. 🫤

Never has matched BlackBerry or PC.

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Nico Reese Oct 30

@stroughtonsmith I wonder if they‘ll ever release the Sky View feature https://www.reddit.com/r/VisionPro/comments/1963nyu/apple_has_possibly_cut_the_open_sky_environment/

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Alex Rosenberg Oct 30

@stroughtonsmith I kinda enjoy using the toilet while looking out at the moon surface like Dr. Manhattan.

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Andrew Grant Oct 30

@stroughtonsmith it's still striking to me how solitary all the environments on Vision Pro are. A type of “last person on Earth” experience.

The environments on Meta Quest are lower fidelity but just feel warmer due to the settings and little signs of life.

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Jonathan Hendry Oct 29

@stroughtonsmith

Pre-game with Dramamine.

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Timo Hetzel Oct 29

@stroughtonsmith my buddy recommends Gravity in 3D if you want a good barf.

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Derek Oct 29

@stroughtonsmith is making Mac virtual desktop the killer app? I’ve not heard anyone reference another USP, especially compared to any of Apple’s other page more popular products. At least not yet

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James Thomson Oct 29

@stroughtonsmith I don’t know if it’s just rose tinted glasses, but when I tried a pre-release version at the developer kitchen, the passthrough seemed better. Maybe it was just because it was much better than anything I’d tried before.

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Hunter Hillegas Oct 29

@jamesthomson Also, at least in the room I was in at Apple, the lighting was basically perfect which I think made it seem better.

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ebbi Oct 29

@stroughtonsmith I felt exactly the same when I tried it at an Apple Store. Was very underwhelmed with pass through quality, especially given the hype it generated by reviewers.

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Nico Reese Oct 29

@stroughtonsmith I hear the startup beep sound multiple times a day when it's been sitting on its dock for weeks (connected to power). I can only assume it crashes during sleep.

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Steve Troughton-Smith Oct 29

@nicoreese don’t we all…