Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: On the Apple Vision Pro, published by Zvi on June 14, 2023 on LessWrong.

Apple is offering a VR/AR/XR headset, Vision Pro, for the low, low price of $3,500.

I kid. Also I am deadly serious.

The value of this headset to a middle class American or someone richer than that is almost certainly either vastly more than $3,500, or at best very close to $0.

This type of technology is a threshold effect. Once it gets good enough, if it gets good enough, it will feel essential to our lives and our productivity. Until then, it’s a trifle.

Thus, like Divia Eden, I am bullish on using the Tesla strategy of offering a premium product at a premium price, then later either people decide they need it and pay up or you scale enough to lower costs – if the tech delivers.

Gaming could be a modest benefit. Mark Zuckerberg points out on the Lex Fridman podcast that with no native controller this could be a poor VR/AR gaming platform. Mark suggested this could drive demand for the more reasonably priced Occulus.

This doesn’t apply to traditional gaming with the VR used to improve the screen and mobility, assuming you can get connected to devices that allow real gaming (e.g. console devices or PCs, not iPhones and Macs.) Apple lets you hook up a PS5 controller or mouse and keyboard if you like, but only directly integrates with Apple devices.

My current impression of existing VR/AR is that it is in the ‘not worth much’ section of the curve. The games and activities are fun to try out, but not worth sustained engagement. Productivity wasn’t there at all.

Can Apple do better? Are we there? There’s definitely a bunch of new tech here.

Your New Computer Interface?

That’s how their presentation pitch starts. ‘All your favorite apps,’ controlled by your eyes and finger scrolls and taps.

Do we want to use a phone or computer in AR or VR? It makes sense to go use case by use case.

Watching movies, shows and other media? Sounds good if quality is there. Automatically darkening the rules and resizing the screen seem like awesome features. Looks like experience quality is there. The question is, what does this offer that’s ten times better than a television screen, other than mobility? Otherwise, cost plus the trivial inconveniences involved will be big problems.

Looking at your old videos and photos, and also taking photos and videos? Experience quality here seems fantastic. Banking memories and vistas for later viewing seems killer, and the amount you’re taken ‘out of the moment’ seems vastly lower, much better than ‘hey let me take some photos.’ The obvious catch is, how much does wearing the headset take you out of the moment inherently?

Playing traditional games? I mean, hell yeah, let’s go, if they’ll let us. Battery life on the go is questionable but you can plug in or presumably buy and carry multiple batteries. Which games can we hook up? For now you will have to go through a Mac or iPhone. The question is how big a barrier that is in practice.

Do video calls from anywhere and have no one be able to tell, thanks to your realistic digital avatar? Shut up and take my money. TechCrunch confirms that this works. Ars Technica and others warn that the digital avatars are currently a bit uncanny valley, and standard Zoom may still end up getting used anyway until things get sufficiently better. I expect the tech here to advance rapidly. This comes down to the social question. Will others be down for you using it?

Would I want to read this way, either books or the web? Hard to know without a demo, both in terms of screen and interface. Is this friendly to your eyes? Is the scrolling experience better than a phone or mouse, is it precise enough? What about using those fancy eye monitors, seeing where you were reading and scroll along? How else can we enhance the experience?

The mindfulness application...