Can see a benefit to Apple though in not having all the technology in Vision Pro, but having fast wi fi with the technology elsewhere, even pocket sized resulting in much lighter vision pro and a better viewing experience.
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$1,700 'Spacetop' Laptop Uses AR Glasses Instead of a Display
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If Apple won’t put a powerful OS like macOS on the AVP, I’d like them to make a portable version of the Mac mini that could provide this for the AVP. slip the cube into your backpack and use the AVP to connect to it.
Having to use a computer on the go, potentially anywhere and everywhere, in settings where placing a physical display in front of the you is less than ideal or impossible, and lighting/reflections can be a nightmare-
This is not a solution to a made-up problem. Some of us are living that life.
Add to that the various ergonomic issues of where you get to place your laptop and the problem is, in my opinion, extremely real for a lot of computer users.
Yes, the specs and software of this particular product gets in the way of being useful for everyone.
But if Apple offered the exact same product, same lightweight AR glasses but with the headless laptop running MacOS, then this 'Spacetop' would be flying off the shelves even at $2000-$3000 for a 256/16 configuration.
Well, AVP paired with a MacBook is actually that. It's just not going to be used like a 'Spacetop' because none of us have the necks to do full work weeks with a 600 gram headset. That's adding ergonomic issues where there previously were none.
Instead of doing a whole new OS and independent product, Apple should have made AVP a lightweight pair of AR glasses that run through a Mac via a cable and then present everything on your Mac inside a VisionOS-like interface. Would have made the headset lighter and less expensive while giving the user far better specs that can easily be upgraded without having to buy a new AVP.
AVP is essentially an iPad inside a pair of glasses. Too heavy and expensive, and VisionOS is superfluous if you just want to do work on your Mac in AR.
It would seem that the displays are probably a bit too transparent to be really useful in most settings:
Notice how they've place these big, black plastic screens for the testers to look at?
Would appear to me that you'll be squinting and straining to work with these in many bright environments, or whenever the surface in front of you isn't flat, uniform and painted with a dark color.
Also, it appears as if the field of view is very different to what is shown in the ad but more like a small square display? So you'll constantly be moving your head to view the entire desktop and can't just move your eyes?
Kinda meh at $2000
Notice how they've place these big, black plastic screens for the testers to look at?
Would appear to me that you'll be squinting and straining to work with these in many bright environments, or whenever the surface in front of you isn't flat, uniform and painted with a dark color.
Also, it appears as if the field of view is very different to what is shown in the ad but more like a small square display? So you'll constantly be moving your head to view the entire desktop and can't just move your eyes?
Kinda meh at $2000
Most web apps are so poorly written that they require more RAM/CPU power than a native app.
It's no where near perfect yet, but I gotta say this is probably the most interesting and practical approach I have seen to AR for real-world usage so far.
Caveats are obviously the custom operating system that makes the device essentially a Chromebook, and the low-ish battery life for something this light is surprising, but I like the general direction this is taking personally.
Caveats are obviously the custom operating system that makes the device essentially a Chromebook, and the low-ish battery life for something this light is surprising, but I like the general direction this is taking personally.
An idiom in search of an original point.
Wow. I haven’t used an actual desktop since I don’t know when. But to be frank I don’t know the last time I used my laptop as a laptop. I just dock it as a desktop.
My thoughts too. At least this is striving to actually be in the productivity market, unlike the VP. But I have to give them credit. Without this and the VP‘s failing attempts we won’t ever get to where they need to be.
When I first heard about this, I figured it would be at least one or two versions away from being an actual usable product. But looking at the device on their web page, it just makes me so angry. It seems so unbelievably poorly designed that, if the product were released like this, I don’t think I’d ever look at the company again.
I know this is just early days and it is an artist mockup, but let’s count the design choices:
1. Cable seems to plug into the front center of the device, right where your hands would be. Would the cable attaching in the back be too much to ask?
2. 1.7k for something that is less than a chromebook or an iPad. Web apps only. Why even bring this to market?
3. THE BULGE. Why has no one mentioned the bulge?? Are you poorly designed or just happy to see me? That bulge is a disaster. It immediately makes the device almost unusable to me in nearly every situation. You can’t pack it easily. You can’t transport it easily. You can’t put it in a backpack without worrying. You can’t carry it under an arm. You can’t stack anything on it. If someone sits on it by accident the glasses are destroyed. Would it have killed them to make the compartment that holds the glasses a single solid piece that meshes with the rest of the “keyboard” portion? There is a reason these devices, in general, conform to simple rectangular shapes. Is their next idea credit cards that are shaped like ball bearings?
I know this is just early days and it is an artist mockup, but let’s count the design choices:
1. Cable seems to plug into the front center of the device, right where your hands would be. Would the cable attaching in the back be too much to ask?
2. 1.7k for something that is less than a chromebook or an iPad. Web apps only. Why even bring this to market?
3. THE BULGE. Why has no one mentioned the bulge?? Are you poorly designed or just happy to see me? That bulge is a disaster. It immediately makes the device almost unusable to me in nearly every situation. You can’t pack it easily. You can’t transport it easily. You can’t put it in a backpack without worrying. You can’t carry it under an arm. You can’t stack anything on it. If someone sits on it by accident the glasses are destroyed. Would it have killed them to make the compartment that holds the glasses a single solid piece that meshes with the rest of the “keyboard” portion? There is a reason these devices, in general, conform to simple rectangular shapes. Is their next idea credit cards that are shaped like ball bearings?
Sort of. It's apparently Android-ish, so Linux kernel, but not Linux user environment.
It would be somewhat more useful if you wipe it and put Xubuntu on it, I suppose, maybe.
But I'm betting those glasses are absolutely horrible to try to actually use as a monitor. I know they'd drive me nuts, I absolutely hate wearing glasses because having frames in my field of vision is awful, that's why I wear contacts. I kind of like the 'screenless laptop' concept, but I'd want a more capable computer, not some halfassed web browser box that probably has Chrome instead of Firefox. And I'd obviously need at least a TB of storage, 128GB isn't gonna cut it. And real VR glasses, full eye coverage and light blocking.
So this one is a nope.
Another competitor to drive the AR/VR industry. I love it... great things are going to happen here.
How insecure people must be that they worry about this kind of thing. Anyone with so little to offer that they laugh over glasses are not worth considering. People of merit will just care what work that person is putting out, and if it works for them, that's cool. We need to get past this insecurity, "if it doesn't look cool, it's no good", because looking cool is just vanity that changes every year.
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Hard to be very productive without a keyboard, so I‘d want it to be a headless MacBook, plus thermals wouldn’t be good in a backpack. But actually, I’d rather just keep the physical built-in display for when the headset isn’t needed or when sharing the screen, since the thin display barely has any footprint. So it would just be a normal MacBook.
The problem now though is one can only have one mirrored macOS desktop display. To add much more productivity value though, I need multiple extended desktops, or ideally independent Mac app windows like native Vision apps. I’m sure this would require a wired connection though, which I hope Apple isn’t too reluctant to embrace in the near future.
My first time hearing about Viture, does anyone know how much better the image quality is on the AVP vs the Viture (1080p) when watching Apple TV+/movies ? I've found that the 1-2x a week I use my AVP that its just for watching a movie, but don't think I can ever finish one in a single sitting due to how uncomfortable the AVP is, and if the Viture image quality is comparable might be worth considering.
If it tries to look too cool it probably isn’t, just like someone who wears sunglasses at night or an Hawaiian shirt in the winter. Yes, make fun of it.
Make it slideload MacOsX so I can run MacOsX app I torrentated!!! EU my king please sue Space glasses company they don’t let me slideload anYtHiNg I want.
I wonder why they didn’t hook up with Microsoft during this whole “Windows on ARM” thing such that, out of the box, you connect it to a Surface computer and be displays for it? Oh, wait, they want SpaceOS to be the MetaOS to iOS’s VisionOS? But I thought MetaOS wanted to be the AndroidOS of macOS?
IT TOTALLY HAS AN ARM SoC! Literally no reason why it can’t run macSocsX. They just want us to buy two devices!!