How important will the Apple Vision Pro be for our photos and videos?

[CharlesH]

Apple just announced it's long rumored AR Headset, the Vision Pro. The tech community is going crazy over this device because of all the new capabilities it brings. Of course we can't actually get one until sometime next year, and the price could be out of reach for most consumers. In the mean time we can ponder how important this breakthrough device might be for our own photos and videos, for our own pursuit of capturing and viewing images that are important to us.

It does have it's own built in 3D camera, and you can play back where you have been, just like you were there again. But I've been thinking about displaying images from our L-mount cameras, and what it might add. In my case I shoot travelog HDR video for my fellow travelers to play on large screen HDR TVs. The Vision Pro is 4K+ HDR, and I will be following the reviews to try to gauge how well the Vision Pro performs, and whether this technology is here for the long term.

 

[pdk42]

I really know very little about VR headsets. And I’m probably a long way from the target markets for this sort of tech - I’m late boomer, don’t play computer games, don’t watch a lot of film/video, and would rather be out doing things than stuck inside with some goggles on. So at present it all seems a bit of an irrelevance from my point of view. I doubt I’d spend £/$/€ 500 on this, let along three and a half grand!

But maybe I’m just not thinking creatively enough and actually there is some use case that would benefit me. But right now I’m not seeing it.

 

[Michael_too]

Not much initially. I think augmented reality is currently interesting for a limited set of use cases. Designers, researchers, therapists, or high-end sales people, giving potential customers a more immersive preview of what they might buy. The glasses are currently too big/heavy/expensive for general entertainment or productivity use.
As the glasses get smaller and more affordable, they might become more widespread for a larger variety of more mundane tasks and entertainment. To make the glasses more attractive then conventional means they must work near perfectly, i.e. head tracking, image quality, mobility etc must all work flawlessly which it never really does up to now. Therefore people are willing to put up with them for a short, specific task, but not hours on end.
I don't see how the consumption of straightforward images is improved or altered with glasses like these. Maybe in some future people will not bother to buy large screens for home cinema use anymore but will use these glasses to effectively project a large screen wherever they want. Maybe it will even replace smaller screens if the quality and comfort of the glasses is good enough.
It might give a new impetus to the generation and consumption of 3d images and video (How many times has this been tried by now?) I wonder if they can fix the issue of focussing mismatch. An inherent problem with 3d where the image is virtually projected at a certain distance from the viewers eyes, but the "screen" being at a different distance forcing the eyes to focus on a distance different from where the object appears to be. This leads to eye fatigue after extended use.

 

[CharlesH]

I wonder if they can fix the issue of focussing mismatch. An inherent problem with 3d where the image is virtually projected at a certain distance from the viewers eyes, but the "screen" being at a different distance forcing the eyes to focus on a distance different from where the object appears to be. This leads to eye fatigue after extended use.

As I understand with the Vision Pro you only look at the screen, and a forward camera emulates what you eyes would see and shows this to you on the screen. Likewise the views you see of peoples faces and eyes looking out are not real, but an animated image of your face. So in this sense the device has solved the focusing problem.

I agree it is not obvious if there will be killer apps we will all want.

 

[pdk42]

 

[AlanC]

It's taken Apple 13 years to bring their "Pro" applications Logic (music production) and Final Cut (video) to the iPad, and the initial release of Logic is underwhelming, to say the least, if you're used to the macOS version. I wonder how long it's going to take to produce compelling applications for a new, and very different, platform?

Personally I can't come up with any use case where a VR/AR system would be beneficial for the type of photography or video work I do on a Mac. Plus I'm not remotely enthusiastic about the AR side: my iPhone is bad enough!

 

[inspiredtimothy]

I think most of this is pretty silly and people have shown to be very resistant to wearing big heavy goggles on their heads for long periods of time.

 

[pdk42]

Flight simulation systems would benefit from this sort of tech. That might be fun.

 

[AlanC]

Flight simulation systems would benefit from this sort of tech. That might be fun.

And then there are the remarkable uses Apple have come up with for AR; try reading up on the iPhone's door detection:

On supported models, you can use the Magnifier app to detect doors around you, help you understand how far you are from a door, how to open the door, and get a description of the door’s attributes.

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/iphone/iph35c335575/ios

 

[CharlesH]

I think most of this is pretty silly and people have shown to be very resistant to wearing big heavy goggles on their heads for long periods of time.

There are about 109 companies worldwide that sell AR/VR headsets, over 14 million of these were sold in 2022, and growing rapidly. They are mostly used for gaming.

 

[doum]

It's taken Apple 13 years to bring their "Pro" applications Logic (music production) and Final Cut (video) to the iPad, and the initial release of Logic is underwhelming, to say the least, if you're used to the macOS version. I wonder how long it's going to take to produce compelling applications for a new, and very different, platform?

Personally I can't come up with any use case where a VR/AR system would be beneficial for the type of photography or video work I do on a Mac. Plus I'm not remotely enthusiastic about the AR side: my iPhone is bad enough!

Touch interfaces are already far less productive than a good old keyboard/mouse combo.

It's not tomorrow the day before we'll have advanced applications that can be used properly by moving our arms and hands...

These devices may be nice for content consumption, but that's about it.

 

[robin0112358]

And then there are the remarkable uses Apple have come up with for AR; try reading up on the iPhone's door detection:

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/iphone/iph35c335575/ios

Thanks so much for that. Amazing that Apple even write their own parodies. "Important: Don’t use Door Detection for navigation or in circumstances where you could be harmed or injured."

So you'll know there's a door, but won't be able to use that knowledge in any way, not even for navigation. LOL!