The Vision Pro seems very Tesla-like in the online chatter, in that people who’ve actually experienced it tend to be very positive about its prospects, but there are also a bunch of critics and outright haters who appear to be very keen to see it fail.
We also saw this to some extent with the Apple Watch but this is a much more niche/expensive device, so it’ll be easier to argue that it’s not a success regardless of how well it meets Apple’s expectations.
I’m looking forward to trying it out at the local Apple Store in Feb to make my own mind up.
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129 sats \ 2 replies \ @xz 9 Jan
"The arc of technology, in large part led by Apple, is for ever more personal experiences, and I’m not sure it’s an accident that that trend is happening at the same time as a society-wide trend away from family formation and towards an increase in loneliness."
I'm not so sure that the timing is purely a response to social change and managing a fall in expectations of living standards. This was always going to happen since Neuromancer. The question of timing, to my mind, would seem to have just as much to do with the need to facilitate revenue growth as sales of existing product lines are starting to lose market share.
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For me the timing is neither coincidentally nor on purpose.
For me the timing is just "too late".
We (humanity) spend the last decade in improving creating content and media and especially personal photography of life moments. But we spend little on experiencing all this. Sure screens are better and brighter. But reliving my memories from my phone camera on the biggest and most screen possible is just overdue.
It's just a screen in the end. A very sophisticated TV screen. But just a screen. 📺📺
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @xz 9 Jan
For me the timing is neither coincidentally nor on purpose.
Yes.
Opportunistic would entail some foresight into predicting how nascent technologies are developed to solve problems as the motivating force. Instead, it's just doubling-down on a path that's already revealed nasty side-effects.
The photo-sharing, and more recently GoPro generation is like the observation paradox. Outwardly, technology is impressive, and selective uses are a perfect fit. Thinking, Flight Simulator on early 48-128k home computers.
I remember trying a VR/AR headset with a tilting travelator at the beginning of the millennium, despite the graphics being less slick than a PS2, I was genuinely impressed. It's no different to the first time swiping an early iphone, until everyone has something similar in their hand.
What jars with me is the marketing and hype surrounding tech. It's not that it's not impressive. Depending on your age, the possibility to see the world move from open green spaces and non-ultra-heat-treated milk, to microprocessors and microplastics served as a supplementary nutritional benefit..
Okay. I will stop my rant.
But you are right, mimicking the optical technology of an insect is sophisticated technology. Indeed. (Where's my golf clap emoji.)
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Apple's vision doesn't include me. This is one scary ass company.
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161 sats \ 1 reply \ @davidw 9 Jan
Seems more are increasingly arriving at that conclusion.
I have a post coming on the good & the ugly of their decisions, but I first plan to share some solutions before dunking on Apple. They seem to be both raising people's awareness to privacy being of importance, whilst at the same time hijacking the narrative and being "economical with the truth" around the level of data collection & government access. Certainly not saints, but they are also not so net-negative as their peers in Microsoft and Google seem to be these days.
Hopefully FOSS can compete on functionality and features, not just privacy protection to topple Apple's influence. I'm optimistic ~nostr will create the "better-verse" eventually.
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No question Microsoft and Google are terrible too. Apple's arrogance, use of slave labor, closed wall philosophy, and treatment of innovative app developers leave them in a class of their own. I guess there's no point quibbling over who's more evil. I have a lifetime anti apple bias.
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