I was fully expecting to see this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JkIs37a2JE

installed a Windows update, (…) and I have Google Chrome set as my default browser

It’s subtle but if you look closely and read between the lines you can see what the real issue is.

You’re mixing AR and VR all the time. VR has a lot of entertainment potential that will be realized once the tech gets better and cheaper, probably fairly soon. For AR to be useful for normal users it will have to replace phones, not PCs. I can see people using it on the subway to browse isntagram or while walking for navigation and answering calls. For this it will have to become super small and light, just like normal glasses. Vision pro is 600g + battery pack. We’re decades away from something that will be able to compete with phones.

Ok, I see how you could get confused and think we’re talking about some non-existing, future product instead of the device this post is actually about. No problem, this happens.

When it comes to AR in general Magic Leap was pushing it hard for a very long time and after they released actual device their value quickly dropped. AR for general public is a gimmick, it doesn’t solve any problems, no one wants it. It has very interesting applications in some very specific fields and definitely will find it uses with professionals but when it comes to your dream of looking at 15 4k screens while sitting on a toilet most people are happy with just their phones.

Sure as long as ‘all the virtual monitors you might ever want’ is exactly one monitor. You do know that Vision Pro can only simulate one display when working with a Mac? We’re talking about specific device not some imaginary thing Apple will release 10 years from now. Jesus, Mac fanboys are just the worst…

read some news, take some notes, write them into a document… while still sipping your coffee,

Because I cannot sip at my coffee while looking at my monitor? What a strange idea.

You don’t know what effort is needed to update an app for Vision Pro. For most apps it’s probably just marking a checkbox in the XCode and releasing an update. What special features will you add to PCalc? It will just float in front of you like every other app. Do you need to write any special code to make it work on Vision Pro?

the kinds of apps that would actively benefit from this technology and that the users actually want and will use.

Pre-installed apps optimized for Vision Pro:

App Store
Encounter Dinosaurs
Files
Freeform
Keynote
Mail
Messages
Mindfulness
Music
Notes
Photos
Safari
Settings
Tips
TV

Here’s a full list of third-party apps confirmed for VisionOS so far:

Disney+
Microsoft Excel
Microsoft Word
Microsoft Teams
Zoom
WebEx
Adobe Lightroom
Unity-based apps and games (titles TBC)
Sky Guide

Yeah, because when I use Safari, Notes and Word what I REALLY need is augmenter reality.

It’s not 150 unique apps. The article says:

It’s not just Netflix, Spotify, and YouTube that don’t have apps for Apple’s Vision Pro at launch.(…) As of this weekend, the AR/VR device’s App Store has just 150+ apps that were updated for the Vision Pro explicitly

You can watch Netflix on the Vision Pro in a browser but they didn’t create a specific app for it like for example for iOS. 150 other apps were updated to run on the device. We’re not talking about apps that run only on Vision Pro, just apps that have specific Vision Pro version. It’s like if when Apple released the iPad only 150 apps were tested, maybe slightly adapted and marked in AppStore as iPad compatible.

150 is nothing. There are millions of apps in the AppStore, all (if not all, most) of them could be updated to run on the VisionPro and developers of only 150 bothered to do it. That’s terrible result.

Yes but the SciFi movies are not about people living in wood shacks so we don’t see them.

You know how in SciFi movies everyone has the same phone? This is why.

I’m sure it differs from phone to phone but on the one stock android phone that I have somewhere it’s impossible to remove the search widget from the screen which is pretty insane. I can’t imagine using a stock android any more.

dystopian level of “prettifying” everything in the AI-generation world.

So like all the ad campaigns, TV shows and movies in the real world?

Here’s what I think happened: we got used to shitload of content and personal pages couldn’t keep up.

My first experience with the internet was a dial-up model. It wasn’t cheap so we were basically counting minutes. In a short session I would check my email, download new winamp skin, open a link some friend send me and maybe visit some chatroom. That’s it. Back then each page was a gem because the content was super rare. For example I could download all the Monty Python sketches. Where would you find them if not on some obscure website? They didn’t have it in the library.

Then broadband happened so you could spend hours online. People started forming small communities and curating content. bash.org and similar pages happened. We started getting used to opening a link daily and seeing new funny pics and memes.

Finally corporations realized that to keep people on a page it has to show something new every fucking second and social media happened. Today we spend more time online than offline and refresh some pages every 15 minutes to see what’s new. Static, personal pages can’t keep up. Yes, you can create a Melisandre fan page, paste couple of pictures and start writing some fan fiction but who will read it? 30 years ago if I found such website I would save every single pick to disk and put a link to the page on www.myhomepage.com/links but today? It’s pointless. It’s all already on IMDB, one ddg search away. Personal pages are not the rare gems they used to be.

That’s were all the pages are…

With Spanish and Basque you can work as a translator in Spanish parliament. Nice.

Let’s face it, we lost the fun, early web long time ago. It was all taken over by corporations and when Mozilla dies (and that’s now if) they will finish locking it up and the only way to browse it will be by using official, ad filled tools. Best thing we can do is to prepare ourselves for the world without web (www?). We’ll still have apps and communicators and of course will still use websites at work but the days of ‘browsing’ will soon (well, hopefully not very soon) be over.

I still don’t understand why PDAs are no longer a thing. Make a phone a bit thicker, add ports, thumb keyboard… I remember being able to SSH to servers from my Zaurus and actually do things using the hardware keyboard. Or SSH to my n900 and install packages there. With android I just lost the interest. It doesn’t feel like a personally computer anymore.

Yep, corporations denied us this feature long enough that most of us gave up and stopped trying. Sometimes I wish I was just another mindless consumer loving everything that’s new and shiny instead of liking actually useful things…

The original value was based on as revenue which is down now. It has nothing to do with VC hype or non paying users.

My opinion is that kids only want to use phones because they see parents use them all the time. If parents would use phones only for calling, kids would not find them interesting. Of course giving up phones is super difficult, beyond what parents are willing to do. And of course I’m talking about small children, not adolescents.