Towards the end, when he starts talking about the open vs closed model, I find it pretty depressing that meta is the "open" model in this case. I'm pretty sure you still require a Meta account to use the headset. Not sure I consider that "open".
I would love to have a headset that was running Simula (or something similar). I tried Simula with a Valve Index and the resolution was just too low for me. But I could definitely feel like it was "the future".
I travel a lot now and work on one laptop screen. Having a small(ish) headset that I could travel with and then have a VR workspace instead of a single laptop monitor has the potential to be game changing (maybe).
I don't think VR/AR is the absolute future of all computing, but it provides an exciting direction.
Will the quest ever really break into the productivity space with apples headset? Probably as a Chromebook like device and Apple controlling the high margin ground which I think is most likely .
The main problem with headsets is that the pass through isn’t as seamless as Apple’s and it can always get cheaper and faster .
See the Quest 3. Before the AVP people were saying $500 is too expensive for a VR headset, but the Zuck can now advertise it as a AVP alternative that's more functional and also 7x cheaper than what the AVP offers for the money, now that Apple set the market price point.
Apple joining the club is a win-win for the industry players and the consumers.
It also didn't help that it was released near the end of the Quest 2 life cycle and people could predict that a more consumer friendly version would be released in the near future. The Quest 3 was announced ~6mo later and released a year after the Quest Pro.
I got a Quest 2 for my son, and having played around with it for a bit, I stand by my view. There are some neat applications, but for the most part it seems like something that will start gathering dust once the novelty wears off.
What is the "killer app" that people see here?
They would if they could but fortunately their contribution to linux don't do any of that.
It’s more than only just protecting the LAN, though. From their track record, I assume everything I do in Quest will be tracked, analyzed, and monetized in great detail. I might be convinced to trust Facebook hardware, or least not to care too much about my privacy, for gaming and only for gaming. I’d never consider it for anything else.
There's tons of ink being spilled today about "VR" vs "Spacial Computing", about how "lonely" and "alienating" the tech is, etc. But as these headsets become common everybody will forget this. Talking to someone wearing a VR headset will not require an external screen with weird eyes, it will be just like talking to someone wearing sunglasses, ie completely unremarkable.
Yet it absolutely changed the world.
The Quest is a great system for gaming and toy applications. But it's a glorified game console, much like the Mac's contemporaries upon release like the Commodore 64; it didn't kickstart a revolution in how we compute. The Vision Pro did, we just haven't felt the full effects yet.
Disclaimer: I am not saying that I'm a fanboy but at the very least videos like this take Zuck from "Alien Man who likes Sweet Baby Ray's" to "Well, he's not the _worst_ billionaire."
It would be neat if VR was the actual product. I am suspicious of this pivot to "Open" from meta.
More discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39365919
Also the Apple Privacy dog and pony show is getting old and most people nowadays see right through it.
It's more of a business issue than a technical one.
what things?
The exact thing will be happening to the AVP once the hype and novelty wears off. It's neat for a few apps and use cases, but nothing game changing YET for the entire consumer base to convince average people they REALLY need to go out and by one, other than that every tech youtuber and influencer has one to show off.
I think the big changes will come in the future once it becomes more mainstream and more killer aps come to them.
For me it's (3D) movies/shows: I generally don't watch movies, I am more a TV show guy. But I'm blown away by 3D movies. I don't like cinemas either, so for me the killer app is "home cinema". Also started to watch 2D movies/shows on it and the "huge screen" is amazing. Agreed an actual home cinema would give me the same effect, but the Quest is a lot more flexible, portable and smaller.
Same. So far VR seems a solution in search of a problem. Developers are scrambling to find the killer app for it while it should have been the killer app. And headsets gather dust on shelves.
Only thing I’d like to use one is to watch movies in bed.
I'm not sure your mind would change with a 3 but its really not valid to base things on the Quest 2.
> What is the "killer app" that people see here?
For some people (myself included), it's Beat Saber. Super fun rhythm game that wouldn't work outside of VR. Very useful for exercise.
In fact, VR is good for exercise in general. There's a lot of rhythm/fitness/sports games, or ones that aren't explicitly targeted at that area but still give you a workout, like Gorilla Tag. Having a big library of games-that-are-also-exercise that you can use at home is a big benefit. If you're the kind of person who likes games, this is probably a more effective use of your money than, say, a treadmill.
Of course, some people like various VR games for their own sake. Playing something like Blade & Sorcery or Dungeons of Eternity is certainly much more immersive than regular video games. I felt like a murderous sociopath when I first played B&S, and the graphics aren't even that good!
There's also people who want to use VR for productivity purposes, like having infinite screens, though I think for most people the comfort level isn't there yet.
And lastly, porn. Of course there's VR porn.
It just feels like a dead end technology.
In my industry the cost of a test bench is also higher, sure.
AR could have some uses but the tech needs to be so much better that it's a pipe dream for now.
I really don't get the hype for those things; I have tried many and never ever I really felt I needed or wanted one. In fact all the things I did in the headset I would rather do outside.
People talking about a gimmick game that exist in other forms on pretty much every platform are stuck in a fantasy world...
Regardless, none of what you said stops it from being a killer app to many people who enjoy VR.
Then the actual development happens on my laptop or maybe the cloud with something like codespaces or whatever the competitors are. I don't really know much about that space. In my head, I can imagine it being amazing.
On the other hand, I can't see myself ever using the AVP, because I'm sure Apple would lock it down too much. Right now, I'm pretty sure my girlfriends iPad pro would be good enough to replace my laptop. All the hardware is there, it even has usbc so theoretically I could hook up an external monitor and my keyboard. But the software is just too locked down to be of any use. I'm fairly confident that will be the case with the AVP as well (it definitely is today).
Productivity apps are already a part of the quest platform that allow for rdp or something similar but they require tethers.
The Quest 3 is decently powerful for a lot of tasks, not for everything but certainly basic office stuff.
I do wonder if this newfound respect/admiration is because he's one of the last founder/CEOs of software big tech and FB stock has more than doubled in a year.
which is to say, still not the least bit human
Of course, there's the issue of actually getting them, since the Quest store is different from the usual Google Play store.
However, on iOS, I bet the app store policies wouldn't allow it.