An Autopsy of Apple's Vision Pro

28:11And the second is I've been watching in it. I've been watching Beef. Have you watched Beef? I have not. No? Yeah, it's a crazy show. It's on Netflix. And I watched the last two episodes in there. So what was the fitting experience? So you, I assume, got it straight from Apple. Did they do any kind of fitting experience with you? They did. But it was very similar to the fitting experience that anyone else goes through, which was on the app. Really. That was the, you know, I enrolled my face. I did the sort of weird head turns looking at the phone. It then gives you prediction of what size you're going to be.

28:48And that was all I really did. But they nailed it. No special. They actually nailed it though? I think mine fits pretty well. I mean, it's really interesting because now, so the first week I had it, I really couldn't show it to anyone that was part of the agreement with Apple and couldn't really let other people wear it. And then after the embargo broke and we were able to start sharing this, I had a lot of colleagues want to test it out. By the way, I'm convinced that's how I actually got sick because they were all breathing in my face computer. And when you put it on them, like you can definitely see this thing does not fit them, right?

29:22Right. It's mostly men and they have big heads and, you know, literally and figuratively. And they come out of like the demo that I've done with them with like a giant red stripe on their head. Like it looks like they've gone scuba diving. And I don't have that. I just don't have that. I mean, in the initial hands-on I did with Apple in June at WWDC, I actually did have that. I had that like red mark across my forehead. And, you know, thinking back on it, it was probably because they hadn't figured out the fitting situation. so when i got mine i had a horrible experience my first four five days with it i scanned with the app at five in the morning on the day you order it and scan my face and it gave me 21w i then immediately was checking like reddit and people saying oh i got that i don't know if this is right and then when it came out i put it on i'm like this is not this does not feel right so i got a 23W based on a Reddit post.

30:21And I just, every so often I'd put it on and it wouldn't feel right. It wouldn't be in focus. The eye tracking wasn't working. I just assumed it sucked. And then scraping through Reddit more, I found someone else with the same size situation. They said, oh, buy the N cushion size. And it was night and day. And it just feels to me like this is a massive supply chain issue that Apple is not considering. Or is it that they got the sizing wrong when you first did it but that's what i mean though it's the supply chain of the actual scan it almost feels like they should not be relying on it i don't know if you've heard of anyone else i'm not even trying to load a question here have you heard of anyone else having this problem i haven't i haven't i mean that's good i mean so you know and they have the two and so it was the it's the light seals what you're saying the different it was the light seal and the light seal cushion cushion yeah yeah so and i have two cushions because or maybe they everyone gets two cushions but they say you should use the bigger light seal cushion if you plan to use the lenses the the um prescription lenses i don't know if you have those i don't i also only got one one cushion with mine when i bought it yeah i actually think that i had the extra cushion because i had the lenses too.

31:41Right. Which is a little comfier. And the thing is, when it's working now, it's great. But I feel like the real elephant in the room is the keyboard. The keyboard is just astonishingly bad. Yeah, yeah. Steve Jobs, I'm surprised he didn't come out of the grave like an angry zombie over this one. It's awful. I mean, I assume it's a place that they're definitely looking at how do we make a typing experience better there. Yeah. I think that, like, you know, could they, with swiping, you know, sort of the swipe input. Kind of like gesturing in the air, almost. Exactly. Would that be better? Probably.

32:23Right? It's just so weird because the experience feels cool, but then you get to the common way of entering text into stuff, which is very common, and that you should be able to do on anything. And it's just, it almost doesn't feel like an Apple product. I know. And you, like, I don't know if you've had this too, where it's like, you can't touch type on that, right? Oh, no. You want to like look down, you have to look at this virtual keyboard, but then you're looking up to see where your text is going in and is it going right? And they have like a little thing above the keyboard where you can see the text as it's typing out.

33:02But it's, all of this is just not natural. And I even showed in my videos, like, thank God for a real keyboard and you can pair it with Bluetooth. So it's like the killer accessory for this is actually a, you know,$99 keyboard that Apple's going to sell you. One thing I loved in your review is when you said you can have all of this for the low, low price of like$5 ,000. And you had the MacBook Pro, the keyboard, the this and that. It just feels like the experience is not complete without that keyboard, in my opinion. Yeah, I agree. I agree. I mean, I think it's fine if you're like going to just type in one show, right?

33:34and you're like, okay, let me go to Netflix and type in beef. That's fine. Or you can use voice to do that. But when you are really trying to do something in there, like you're trying to type an email or you're, I've been doing a, I've actually been writing, like a ton of stuff I've been writing in there. I wrote the 4 ,000 word script for the full episode on the Vision Pro. I can't write on a laptop sitting down. I have to be at a desk. Otherwise my rat brain doesn't focus properly. But I was able to sit on the couch and write this just sitting there. And that's remarkable. I find the focus parts remarkable.

34:06I think it's, and some people have been remarking about this on social media and various think pieces, but the irony of this being the killer computing platform for just 2D, basically notes or documents, right? Like, that's what we have gotten. The future is actually just big floating documents in our sky. Well, to that point, do you think that this or a device like this is the future? So, I mean, look, that's where I kind of took my review. And now I've had some distance from it and been able to reflect. And again, also just thinking about where is this going to fit into our lives? That was the number one thing I wanted to answer in this review was, OK, they've made this crazy piece of technology.

34:50How are we going to use it in our daily lives? And it just seems natural, especially when we have these new pieces of tech, you know, whether it was the iPhone or smartphones or tablets, et cetera. Like we're going to try to do the things that we did on other devices first. That makes sense, right? We're going to try to work on it. We're going to try to watch TV and videos on it. Like we've been trying to do that with all of our personal tech. And so when it comes to like changing those things, sure. But like the future for me and those things, like we are still going to have a good future writing documents on our computers, right?

35:25Like the whole entire AI vision right now is to make that easier, working easier. So what I was trying to really look at is like, where are going to be the things that are just going to break out of the mold of the current things we do on these devices? And where will it be better? And this is where I kind of got into this cooking situation, which has gone viral. And just for listeners, if you haven't seen Joanna's review, she is able to place, with the Vision Pro, you're able to place timers above things while cooking. She made a pasta dish, I believe. Yes, yes. And so this has become the running joke.

36:00like, well, did you not know you could also set multiple timers on your phone? And did you not know? And Colbert is, you could maybe pipe the audio in here. He's now being making fun of me on his late night show saying, well, what else would you do? Buy two ovens? I think Colbert needs to not throw so many stones in glass houses with how deeply unfunny midnight is. But that's a separate podcast. I think that whole thing has really annoyed me as well. Not because I'm particularly defensive of Apple, But it's like, if you're going to do that kind of thing about a new device, there are so many. You could have sat with the Oculus Quest and done the same thing.

36:41Oh, I can work out while wearing a headset. Well, I can also do that without anything. I can just do jumping jacks. You can make that kind of thing. Sure. And actually, here's a good question. Do you think that this is going to make people more antisocial? Because that feels like the weird meme I'm seeing. that's like, oh, this is shutting people off from the world? Yes. Just let me finish answering the first one because I feel like I didn't do it great. No, it's my fault. I was going on and on. But my point in that review, and maybe I haven't articulated this well, I've seen a lot of analysis of the review, which thank you everyone for spending time reviewing the review.

37:17But the point was to show things that aren't the typical things, the things that could bring this into the future and that actually make things better and change the way we use these devices. And I felt that that situation with the cooking really illustrated it. Here is a real life thing you're doing. It's better to actually have this headset on than use your phone because you don't have to hold a phone and cooking with your holding a phone or even touching a phone in the kitchen is a pain. Everyone knows that. And on top of that, it was just this idea of blending the virtual with the real really, really stuck out to me there.

37:56Like I have a physical thing. It is this pot of pasta. It is boiling. And I see a digital interface over it. And I'm not saying that needs to be every use case. But that is where I felt like, okay, I can see the future. So that is how I'm trying to answer the, yes, I think this is the future. We still need to have the use cases and the apps to prove out what those things are going to be. the thing i and you kind of glanced at this in the review but i understand why this wouldn't have come up but it's it feels like the apps are not there though like very basic apps are not there youtube being the obvious one and there is by the way a 499 youtube app that people are hyping as a replacement it's a goddamn web wrapper that developer should be kicked off the app store Anyway, but like Slack isn't there.

38:46Signal isn't there. Yep. Very basic thing. Slack is there, but they're there as an iPad app, and it's horrible. It's not the same. It's horrible. I mean, I didn't even have time in the review, but like there was a couple of places where I was cursing because you cannot select. I mean, this is the issue with putting the iPad apps in. They weren't, they were created for touching, right? So you actually, when you're using the Slack app in the Vision Pro, you want to bring it closer to you and then actually tap in the air versus using the pinch gesture. But no, absolutely. And look, we've seen already momentum this week with YouTube saying they're going to create and more apps coming.

39:24I mean, ChatGPT announced, like, there's going to be some momentum and we're going to get some of these apps. But what I'm more interested in is like, what are these going to be these ideas of these apps that we don't have right now that don't run on our computers? I agree. We have to have those other ones because, hey, how do we work in there if we don't have Slack? I mean, how do you work without Slack? It's impossible. I'm just joking. I don't really. I'm a major Slack user, but would happily use anything else to work. So I think those things will come with time. But on the isolation thing, I think that's – so that is the number one reason I have not picked it up more.

40:03And I think might end up being part of, you know, what happens after this first wave of real big interest. It doesn't feel like something I'd ever use around a person. Exactly. And I live with a person. I don't know about you. I live with – As do I. Yeah, I live with my wife and I live with two kids. So I live with, like, a lot of things. And a dog. And there's a lot of things going on in here. And I had this situation this weekend. I was like, I'd love to watch another episode of The Beef in here. But my wife is sitting right here. I'm going to put this on on the couch and she's going to do what?

40:36Right? And then you start to think like dystopian, like, oh, what if we both had them? And we both sat here with these on looking at the wall. Eh, I don't, even if that was an amazing experience, is that what I want to do on Saturday night? It feels very, doesn't feel particularly intimate. No, no. When mine arrived, I was with my fiance, and I played with it, but I put a hard cap on when I stopped because it felt strange using it with another person around. It felt very much like rejecting anyone around me. Even with pass-through, it felt kind of strange. Well, and the pass-through thing, while they've done a lot more than the others, right, to put some screen on the front, like, it's all kind of bullshit.

41:25Like, nobody really knows that you're looking at them. If I had, like, a dollar for every time I asked, hey, can you see my eyes in this? Yeah. Right? I had the same thing. And the answer was always no. Right. The answer is always no. And you're constantly asking. It's just like, please stop asking me if I can see your eyes. Like, I cannot see your eyes. Oh, the persona thing is awful. I just, why bother with that? I don't know what they were thinking. I know it's this, to describe for the listeners, it's you scan your face using the Vision Pro and it spits out a 3D clone of your face that is not flattering, I should add.

42:01Yeah. And it mimics your facial actions. If someone FaceTime videos you during your use of the Vision Pro, I just don't, I know why they did it, but they shouldn't have. Yeah, I think, look, I hit on this really hard in my review because I had not laughed so hard. I don't remember the last time I laughed so hard. When I saw my persona, I couldn't, I was like crying of laughter. I think it's the funniest thing I've ever seen. It just doesn't look like me. And then I would call people and they would be laughing and they would say, never call me again looking like this. Like, and maybe mine was worse than others.

42:34It seems like to be the case. I have - Oh, I have no neck in mine. I refuse to show it to anyone. Yeah, I mean, look, most people look bad. I just look like I look terrible. I'm another level of bad in mine. So it makes me look so I used to be about 100 pounds heavier than I currently am about buck 90 right now. It makes me look like I weigh 300 pounds, which is not great for my self-esteem, I should add. But it also looks strange. Yeah. It looks very weird. It looks strange. And like, and look, there's a lot about they didn't want to go the route of what Meta had done, which make us look like cartoons.

43:11So they're trying to make us look more realistic. And maybe eventually they get there and they've slapped the beta label on there just to make it clear, like, we are not done building this thing. I get why they couldn't ship without it. Like, how are you going to ship? We've just been. I actually can answer that. Memoji. The Memoji works fine. No one is going to expect you to do a video call while wearing this bloody thing. So do the Memoji. Make it fun. I agree. And that's there for the taking. Like our iPhones already have emojis that are like mapped to our face. Like it works. I think they didn't want to go the route of meta.

43:48Like they didn't want to be competing with like Mark Zuckerberg cartoon face. You know, like. And the irony is that they also released an incomplete product that kind of sucks. So who's laughing now? Probably Mark Zuckerberg. I don't know. Right. But I mean, look, on the other hand, we just spent 10 minutes talking about working in this thing. So how are you going to release a device for working in this day and age where you should be working at your home office and you can't video call on it? Like you had to have something. I don't know. I find the whole thing quite confusing. I think you could even just have a still image of the person that would do the same job.

44:23That's true. I don't know why they didn't do that. So I've got two more questions for you. Do you think that Apple rushed this out? No and yes. did they rush this particular version out? No, it actually works really well, right? There are some small bugs and I'm sure maybe you've... I don't know. Selecting on even Google Docs is extremely broken. Basic things like that don't feel like... But that's not... So that's the design issue, right? Can you navigate the whole web with the way this is designed? The only reason I push back on that is, you're right, the whole web, But Google Docs, what, billions of users?

45:06It just feels, the reason I ask is because, to me at least, it feels rushed because they didn't do their due diligence with other developers. Keep going, sorry. But then there's the flip side of, hey, these developers need to feel, and I believe Google will come along once they see, oh, wow, look, we're really seeing X amount of people for X amount of time working here. We should probably do something, right? Microsoft did it. Microsoft has apps in there. They have almost all of Microsoft 365 in there. So, like, they're making a bet before it's ready. I think also Microsoft has nothing to lose because they don't have their own headset coming.

45:42They've sort of abandoned that. Yeah, HoloLens is kind of dead in the water. Yeah. But, I mean, look, I think, so this particular version, we all know this is, you know, this is the first generation. I've actually called it, is this negative one generation? Should this have sort of been, you know, as people have called it, a dev kit and all of these things? it's certainly not a mainstream product. Right. The question, like, really is, should they have waited five years? Right? Right. And would Steve Jobs, as everyone's saying, would he have waited the five years? Would he have said, okay, we've got this, so we can do this now, but we need to wait five more years till we can slim down this, and we can make this, and we can do this?

46:19And that's actually my final question for you. How do you think Steve Jobs would have done this? I was asked this on another podcast. Yes, I think I keep thinking about, well, it's funny what you said before, you know, you put it on wrong and or you didn't put it on wrong, but you had some issues with it. Right. And there's the famous Steve Jobs quote, you're holding it wrong. Yeah. Right. And Steve Jobs hated touchscreens on laptops because he didn't like poking the air. Yeah. Yes. And here we are. But like what he has said to you, you know, you're you're wearing it wrong again. And to me, too, because sometimes I'll put it on and it's like, you know, it's not aligned exactly to my eyes.

47:01And so if I look at something, it's slightly off and then I've got to, like, change it a little bit. Right. Right. And would he have been OK with that? Would he have said, nope, we've got to wait. We've got to wait a number more years to get this right, to get all of these things right into a thing that people would wear? Or what if he looked at it sort of like, we've got to get it out there? I don't know. I don't feel like he was a got to get it out there guy. it just feels like a very different Apple experience. It lacks, it's almost fun in the way it lacks it. But when it's, I feel like in a, like it's kind of funny, I guess it's not really fun, but it feels like also the format of the Vision Pro really emphasizes the problems.

47:43When something goes wrong in this environment, it's so claustrophobic. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Well, and I think also if we, what we know to be true, and I think Nilay Patel's review on The Verge did a really good job of this, is what we know to be true is what Tim Cook sees the vision of this being, right? He sees a vision of us, really an augmented reality type of glasses where we can see the real world and this digital overlays are there. But to get there, they had to make a lot of sacrifices in the here and now. And so now we have a VR headset that's trying to function as a AR mixed reality headset, but it really is a VR headset.

48:22and again would Steve Jobs have said nope we're just going to wait till we get there we're going to wait five years we're going to wait 10 years I don't know Joanna thank you so much for joining me anytime I'd love to see your persona soon oh god I will be hiding that from the world

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50:42All of this comes together to just make it impossible to recommend the Vision Pro in its current form. It's too expensive. Its experience is too variable. The supply chain and infrastructure to get this thing fitted is too thin, and the developer community is just far too sparse. Without a Bluetooth keyboard, it's claustrophobic, frustrating, and unproductive. With one, it becomes a highly customizable and consistent desktop space that I can pop up wherever I am. The pass-through feature gives me as much awareness as I need of the world around me as I'd like, though not to the extent I'd ever use it in public.

51:16I can move around, I can close things and resize things with tiny gestures. And when it works, it looks and feels very cool. And it's far more natural than an iPhone or an iPad or a MacBook, I guess. When it works and with the right fit, it's much, much more consistent. Looking and pitching at menu options feels great. And you can sweep and move through apps and website like a weird little wizard. When it works, I have more space to work with than my regular setup, which is a 48-inch curved gaming monitor on a massive L-shaped desk. But that's when it works. And if you're one of the hundreds of thousands of people who bought this, perhaps you're listening to this and thinking, oh, it's not meant to be this bad.

51:54And it isn't. But how the hell are you meant to know that? Because Apple certainly hasn't tried to make that the case. Apple has not put in the time, the energy and the thought to making this the launch it deserved to be. I truly believe the Vision Pro could be something revolutionary. It needs to be smaller. It needs to be$2 ,000 if not$2 ,500 cheaper. It needs to have the apps. But when it works, it really is something new. It is something I will be using a lot. It is something that I think could change how we consider computing, how we consider the spaces we work in and the ways we work in them.

52:37And indeed, if Apple actually respected their customers, if Apple had the love for their customers that I believe they used to have, this wouldn't be a problem. None of this would be. And I just don't think they care enough. And I can't say it's worth$3 ,500. Despite its warts, I really do plan on keeping my Vision Pro. And I'm going to use it a great deal, particularly when I'm traveling. But for the price of a Vision Pro, I can get a brand new MacBook Air, a 15-inch one, a terabyte iPhone, and still have hundreds of dollars left to spare. While I love the immersive nature of this whole thing, there's nothing it does better.

53:14And there's plenty of things it can't do at all. There are few reasons why the Vision Pro should have shipped in such terrible shape, other than the fact that Apple needed to show double-digit revenue growth to board investors. Apple has done very little work to confirm that the very basic parts of the internet work with any reliability. Websites that you'd expect to be perfect like Google Docs, like Google itself, like Twitter even, are just not ready for this. And Apple clearly didn't reach out to any of these providers to make sure they did. The app ecosystem marvels the iPhone app store when it first launched.

53:50The problems I've experienced with the Vision Pro are annoying. they're frustrating, they get in a way of an experience I've really wanted to enjoy and may indeed enjoy in the future. And it's not clear if they're a result of bad quality control or the limitations of hardware and software. It really isn't obvious. But the problem here is pretty simple. The Vision Pro is an intriguing and exciting look into the future. Except that future is one where a near$3 trillion tech firm ships us beta hardware with Alpha Software, and hopes that will thank them for the privilege of helping them fix it.

54:36I've been Ed Zitron. Thank you for listening to Better Offline. The editor and composer of the Better Offline theme song is Matt Ossowski. You can check out more of his music and audio projects at mattosowski.com. M-A-T-T-O-S-O-W-S-K-I.com You can go to betteroffline.com to find more episodes, find my newsletter, Where's Your Red app, or even shoot me an email at ez at betteroffline.com. You can find this podcast on iHeartRadio's app or anywhere else you find podcasts. Thank you for listening.

55:11Better Offline is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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