Upgrade - 499: We Have All the Cushions

Episode Date: February 12, 2024

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Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 from relay fm this is upgrade episode 499 for february 12th 2024 this show is brought to you by factor delete me and nom nom my name is mike hurley and i am joined by jason snell hi jason hi mike hurley we're right on the precipice of 500 now it's amazing amazing yep amazing incredible it'll be a big episode next week forget about this no no this episode will be great keep listening to this one also a big episode today but it'll be another big episode in fact we're just like big episode after big episode this i know we've gone like there was a it was real quiet there for a while and then all of a sudden bang zoom hit after hitting yep i have a snow talk question for you comes from me and i want to know jason did you enjoy the super bowl you know the super bowl was extremely
Starting point is 00:00:55 entertaining except you know that i neither team played very well honestly um although i think part of that is that the other i think part of that is that the other team was very good i mean that this is we have this tendency to focus on like the offenses didn't do a lot and therefore the teams were disappointing but i think the truth is that the defense has played really well and the off and they're both very good teams and so they struggled but they also made mistakes um what i liked about the super bowl also was that in the end um either team could have won by making one more play um literally both teams if they had lost would have had a litany of things that if they had just done that one thing differently they would have won the game unfortunately it was a replay of the super bowl for four years ago uh and my my uh beloved 49ers
Starting point is 00:01:43 lost but it's fine. Again, Patrick Mahomes, they called him, I think Tony Robo called him the Michael Jordan of football. I mean, he is kind of that. He's young, he's talented, he's already won three Super Bowls. Anyway, a little bit of a bummer because my childhood team lost the Super Bowl, but as I was telling our pal Lex Friedman today, NFL football is probably my third fourth favorite sport and so
Starting point is 00:02:08 that eases the pain a little bit i assumed you've supported the 49ers but you never talk about them so i wasn't sure if you did actually no and i i'm i'm somewhat ambivalent about the nfl um i used to be more of a 49ers fan there there were yeah yeah but i mean baseball obviously is number one and then you know between soccer and college football um the nfl is in there but it's probably you know third or fourth in my heart so that makes it a lot easier when i was younger actually when i was younger it was great because the 49ers won the Super Bowl five times. That was awesome. And they haven't won since. But I'm older and I appreciated all those wins. So it's a lot easier to get over that. Once your team has won, especially in a formative age, it's a lot easier to accept loss after that because you've been there and you've seen it and you've had that life experience. And that's how I felt when the Giants won the World Series in 2010. They had been my lifelong team and my favorite team and had never won. And that was a magical moment. And I would love them to do well going forward, just I would love the 49ers to do the same. But it's not the
Starting point is 00:03:17 same once you've been on the mountaintop. I was thinking how unique yesterday was in the sense that there have been eight days in my life where my favorite football team is playing in the Super Bowl. And that was one of them. And then I thought, wait a second, a very old Detroit Lions fan and a very old Cleveland Browns fan have never had that experience because they've never been in the Super Bowl at all. So I should, you know what? I got it pretty good. And it was it was a tight, taut, stressful game. And I made some, I heated up some bagel dogs,
Starting point is 00:03:53 like little hot dogs inside bagel wrappers. And we ate those. So, you know, we had a good day. I watched the halftime show. I think Usher was very fun. Did a good job. Okay. I'm going to upgrade listeners already know that I am an old, but I'm just going to put
Starting point is 00:04:10 it out there. I don't know who Usher is. I don't know anything about Usher. I mean, Usher has been around for like 30 years, but. Yeah, no, I got the sense very clearly that I think, uh, one of the things about, um, having kids especially is that you lose whole periods of time where you're so like, I can't tell you anything about usher, but I can tell you a lot about the wiggles.
Starting point is 00:04:30 Okay. So, but I'm going to say this from a position of being a complete usher, like no knowledge guy. He's real good. Like that was a great show. Yeah. Incredibly talented.
Starting point is 00:04:43 Really great performance. Loved the many channelings of Michael Jackson as a child of the eighties. I was like, That was a great show. Yeah. Incredibly talented. Really great performance. Loved the many channelings of Michael Jackson as a child of the 80s. I was like, he had a guy, he had a glove on at one point. There were guys dressed as Michael Jackson in his dance group at various points. The guest stars were really great. Alicia Keys, all Vision Pro users know, our close personal friend, Alicia Keys. She came out and killed it um so anyway yeah there's a uh there's a great documentary about the the wiggles on prime video
Starting point is 00:05:12 so check that out michael jackson was very much an influence for usher uh usher's first album was in i think 94 or something like that so he's been around for a long time i was a big fan of 8701 uh which is one of my like was one of my favorite i really liked i thought we did a great job uh i i really enjoyed the show yeah and also music halftime show of course yeah music halftime show and and i will also say is just you know as a person who loves love and fairy tales i'm happy that the chiefs won because i just think it's great i just love the whole thing and i know people hate it and i get it but i love it i just love that taylor was there and like it's just fun for me i just think no complaints incredible what a time to be alive i have no hate in my heart for patrick mahomes and for the kelseys and taylor swift obviously no none at all
Starting point is 00:06:00 i i'm i'm bummed out because the 49ers had many opportunities, like the Chiefs did, to make a decisive move, one thing different, and would have won the game. And in the end, actually, I mean, really, in the end, neither of them did, sort of, until the very, very end. So it was one of those games. So I just have to shrug and say it is a great story. I realized that everybody else in the world was uh hoping to see taylor swift be happy watching the chiefs win and that's what happened yeah i mean i can imagine too like as far as like a super bowl goes like very exciting feel like it to unfold in the like a very closing moments of the game like that is a an exciting thing unless it's your team overtime
Starting point is 00:06:43 too there's only been two overtimes in Super Bowl history. I mean, it came down. There was a moment in the fourth quarter where they're like, oh, this is a great one. It's coming down to the end. And Lauren sitting next to me on the couch is like, come on. It's not a great one. But it is coming down to the end. So it is dramatic in that way. It was an
Starting point is 00:07:00 exciting one maybe for that. Exciting, messy game. It wasn't a... They were like fumbles and interceptions and dropped punts. It's better than a domination, though, right? Like if you're watching the sporting event. Oh, for sure. For sure.
Starting point is 00:07:16 For sure. What you want, if you're CBS and you're selling lots of commercials especially, is a close game to the end and bonus uh overtime time for more commercials like great like you absolutely want that and it is drama um it was very dramatic anyway did i enjoy it sure am i sad a little but that's okay a couple of items of follow-up well one is a follow-up section inside a follow-up which we'll get to in a second great um but last week we did uh we did in upgrade plus we did an extra segment where we put on our vision pros and we had a persona call and we uh our edit video editor chip put it into the video version on youtube so i'll put a link in the show notes to the
Starting point is 00:08:02 to our full video version of last week's episode. If you're intrigued in seeing what it looks like when me and Jason were talking to each other with our personas in a picturing picture, uh, there's a way to do that. We actually have, we have a video of just that segment too. If people want to see that,
Starting point is 00:08:16 that there's a video of just that. I would, I would quite like people to click the link for the actual full YouTube public video though. You see, so it increases the view count and, feeds the algorithm you see rather than on the unlisted video which won't help us out well you know it's listed now with a better title because i think it'll be better for the algorithm but this is youtube talk we don't need to talk about whatever you know whichever
Starting point is 00:08:40 way you do it i'm gonna did you just click the link you can go watch the thing you know and that will be fine. Yeah, watch it. Well, I mean, we did, it chipped it an amazing job because it is us in the Vision Pro headsets and our personas talking for about eight minutes. So you can get the full experience of Mike's mouth not opening and the whole thing.
Starting point is 00:08:57 Cool. Then that's going to be in the show notes. Go get it. I don't know if you've done it yet, Jason, but it's still unlisted. But the title, the title's good. I relisted it. I don't know what it's, I'll re-un-d-list it or whatever they do on the youtubes you know this is youtube everything everything takes 10 more clicks than the two clicks it's supposed to
Starting point is 00:09:14 take i don't want to i don't want to give away too much about um conversations i have with our friend cgp gray but i did have a youtube conversation with CGP Grey where I said, I'm going to boil it down to its specifics. I said, are there things we should be thinking about strategically about our videos? And he was like, yes, but don't listen to anybody's advice
Starting point is 00:09:41 because it's all wrong. I was like, perfect. Yeah. That sounds about right. I was like, perfect. Yeah. That sounds about right. I think so. Yeah. All right.
Starting point is 00:09:52 DMA Today time. DMA Today. Talking about the DMA. Is this a song that I should know? Or is that like an original? Only if you're an American who remembers the ads for USA Today in the 80s on TV. But yeah, anyway, DMA Today. Here we are. Jason created artwork.
Starting point is 00:10:11 So if you use a podcast app that shows chapter artwork, you will now see DMA Today artwork. Enjoy. DMA. We made this up last week. Now it's a segment. Yes. And so there's basically a couple of items of follow-up that i wanted to address uh that were related to this and then also a couple more um debate items from our listeners i feel like we're having a slow debate with our audience
Starting point is 00:10:36 so sort of this comes from matt who says in your disagreement with sc Scott's feedback on last week's episode about the burden of a 50 cent core technology fee places on developers, you said that free apps can just remain in the app store under the current rules. That is true, but only if the apps are a type of app that is allowed in the app store. Consider emulators, explicitly legal by US law, but banned from the app store. And Ro row also wrote and i'll say lots of people wrote in for variation of this row added in particular open source applications that apple doesn't want on the platform are effectively prohibited by the proposal all right so here's the problem with podcasts is we're not gonna we cover every issue, every episode. I have talked about emulators and
Starting point is 00:11:29 app store rejection policies on, it's got to be at least a half dozen, if not a dozen episodes of Upgrade. Not going to mention it every time. So you're right. Yes, I can't mention every single issue, but this is absolutely true. One of the whole points of what's going on here, and one of the reasons you might want to be in an external marketplace is that you're making a product that Apple has decided they don't want on their platform. And therefore, how do you get it out there? I guess if you're using open source code that does not allow you to charge money for it, it's extremely difficult. If the license allows you to do that, then perhaps you could charge a dollar for something and do it that way. But yes, absolutely the case that there are apps that I thought I even said last week, open source apps.
Starting point is 00:12:25 But anyway, yes, I'll agree. I don't understand the you haven't talked about it part because God, we have talked about it so much, but okay, yes, I agree. I don't think anybody said we didn't talk about it, but I guess it's implied. Look, here's the thing. I don't have a lot of sympathy for this argument because they don't exist on the app store currently.
Starting point is 00:12:49 Well, the other context of last week's discussion is we were talking about the challenge for people who are in the app store with their apps and they're free. And would they go to the marketplace, which is not this scenario. This is a different scenario where you are saying, should I bring my app now inside Apple's official policy here? Because let's be clear, these apps already exist. They just exist through like Alt Store and they're completely outside of Apple's domain. And this is like they're bringing them
Starting point is 00:13:16 into Apple's domain. Would they do that? But the conversation last week was mostly about people who have free apps on the App Store. Would they enter into this system? And that's, you know, it's a different argument. Right, this doesn't seem difficult to me, right?
Starting point is 00:13:28 Like, if you're an open source app, go on the App Store as it is currently. You're not going to make any money, so what's the problem? No problem to you, right? If you're an open source app or an emulator or whatever, and you're not accepted onto the App Store, well, you're currently not on the app store
Starting point is 00:13:45 anyway so nothing's changed for you if you want to be well you have to charge and you know i'm sure you can work it out right like maybe the open source apps could come together into some kind of store and like there's like a fee for all of these apps but it's a non-profit organization you know like there are ways around it like my point is like if an app currently doesn't exist on the app store this hasn't changed that because they still don't exist before or after like in theory there's now a path for these apps but there's a fee for it and i understand that might be umlegant. It might be difficult, potentially impossible. But it's like Schrodinger's App Store, right?
Starting point is 00:14:30 They don't currently exist on the App Store, so nothing's changed. There is now a path in which they could, but that doesn't, in my eyes, really affect anything. I don't know. I feel like all I'm doing is creating more fodder for next week's dma it's it's fine i i just um i do think that there is a scenario that is going to be uh potentially an issue here where it's open source apps that are are prohibited by the license for to charge who essentially can't be more than at a million. Although, I wonder, is there a feature of a side loading, you know, sorry, an alternative app marketplace of like, we'll warn you when you get near a million and you can just...
Starting point is 00:15:13 Cut it off. Turn it off at that point. I know what you're saying about that, but like, those apps don't exist right now. So like, nothing's changed. We don't know. It hasn't changed. It hasn't changed that it hasn't changed this is like a new question one of the things that we felt was a positive of having
Starting point is 00:15:29 alternative app marketplaces or side loading was going to be that the idea that i can develop an app and know that it will come out because apple can't say no i can put it somewhere else um does run into this but you're right it's theoretical because those apps have not been in the app store and we were really talking about apps that were in the app store for free and what those developers could choose to do i appreciate the feedback i don't disagree with it i'm just i'm just a little frustrated because i feel like we've spent tens of hours 20s you know so many hours talking about these topics and it it feels like the listeners are coming and saying i can't believe you didn't mention this thing it's's like, well, it's not what we were talking about. We cannot assume that people remember everything we've spoken about.
Starting point is 00:16:09 It is a private joke at this point, but also a public one, of like, I can't believe you didn't read my blog post, and this started with Casey. We can't assume people remember. I appreciate it, but at the same time, we can't talk about every single issue in every single episode. It's not possible. So I agree.
Starting point is 00:16:31 But in the context of the DMA, maybe we didn't fully cover this one thing because we got a lot of feedback about this specific thing. But now we said it. And I'm sure you made it better and I made it worse again. We'll find out next time on DMA Today but i have balance i have more so i want to read a quote from mark zuckerberg about apple's proposal i've edited this a little bit because it was a little um it was a spoken and then transcribed by the verge so i edited it a little bit for clarity for clarity mark says i don't think that the Apple thing is going to have
Starting point is 00:17:05 any difference for us. I would be very surprised if any developer chose to go into the alternative app store that they have. They made it so onerous, and I think it's so at odds with the intent of what the EU regulation was, that I think it's going to be very difficult for anyone, including
Starting point is 00:17:22 ourselves, to really seriously entertain what they're doing here. And there's somebody inside apple who's like mission accomplished well but this is the thing it's like from apple's perspective this is exactly what they wanted but this might be the exact thing they don't want when it comes to the approval from the european union well even even if the EU and the European Commission say, look, Apple is in compliance with the DMA, if nothing happens,
Starting point is 00:17:51 it seems to me that it will be unlikely that they will stop and say, well, we tried, right? Yeah. That's probably not what will happen. Instead, what will happen
Starting point is 00:18:00 is that they will take things like Mark Zuckerberg's comments and say, oh, we need to do more. And we'd previously spoken about the idea that apple and you would you would reference this and i thought it was really insightful that apple's gonna do the best that they can to highlight every possible risk that appears from an alternative app store app, right? That like any scam, any anything, Apple's going to like shout about it. And in the expectation of that,
Starting point is 00:18:30 I would like to look at it from the other side based on some news that came out this week. But I will start by reading from Apple's developer guidelines regarding alternate app stores. Apple say, if not properly managed, alternative distribution poses increased privacy,
Starting point is 00:18:44 safety and security risks for users and developers. This includes risks from installing software from unknown developers that are not subject to the developer program requirements, installing software that comprises system integrity with malware or other malicious code, distribution of pirated software, exposure to illicit, objectionable, and harmful content due to lower content and moderation standards and increased risk of scams, fraud, and abuse. This past week, an app called LastPass
Starting point is 00:19:13 appeared on the App Store, basically creating a spoof of the password app LastPass. So, this app didn't necessarily seem to be trying to steal login information, but they were trying to get you to sign up for a subscription. You think you're signing up for LastPass, but you're not. This app has since been removed, but this is an example of something that
Starting point is 00:19:36 never should have gotten through AppReview. And then I feel like with the DMA rules in our minds, these things are also going to happen where it's going to be much easier to highlight areas where app review falls down. And we've never expected them to be perfect. But Apple is speaking in such high and mighty terms about the risk of fraud from alternative app stores. Their own app store has this problem and has always had this problem and will continue to have this problem. And I just thought this was particularly interesting. I probably got more attention because of the DMA, but I think is a very good example of the kinds of things
Starting point is 00:20:14 that I think we're going to be talking about a lot where there's going to be a bunch of tit-for-tat with this stuff. I feel like this is one of the things that our sort of specific community talks about a lot that is the counter argument to apple's claims that they are the great protector of the platform is that we have endless examples of dangerous and bad apps that just get approved yeah while at the same time perfectly reasonable apps get rejected for no apparent reason and sometimes require like whole media blitzes in order to get somebody at Apple to pay attention
Starting point is 00:20:52 and approve it. And it's very confusing why some stuff that is terrible just slides on through and then other stuff that's perfectly fine and following the rules gets rejected multiple times. So this is the, you know, yeah. What are the developers multiple times so this is the you know yeah what are you what are the developers paying for if this is what the they get i don't think that it would necessarily i don't think it's fair to like point at every possible scam and say haha but like something like this specifically should never have gone through right like no because this is a spoof app of a massive company with huge privacy implications
Starting point is 00:21:27 right that like this could have been an app to ask for your last pass login right like you know and maybe trick people into giving that information away like but it didn't seem like it was doing that but it never should have gotten through app review like there should be and i'm sure are, types of applications that if they look like they're supposed to be something else, they don't get through. And I bet they mostly focus on that copyright material. I bet you couldn't do like Dibny Plus.
Starting point is 00:21:54 You know what I mean? Like, oh, sign up for Dibny Plus. No, it's not going to happen, is it? With like Mikey Moose or something. That's not going to happen. But LastPass did. Nestflix. Nest not, that's not going to happen. But LastPass did. Nestflix. Nestflix.
Starting point is 00:22:08 It's not going to happen. Probably. Well, I don't know. I don't know if they would care so much about Netflix right now, but. Okay. But they're serious partners. Yeah. This episode is brought to you by Factor.
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Starting point is 00:23:53 So they were able to fulfill the stuff that we eat. Wonderful. And then the quality was good. And the real clincher here is that I put a lot of boxes of factor meals in our fridge and would go there to discover that they were gone because Lauren has, you know, she goes works at the library and has to make herself a lunch every day. And she would just steal them because they passed her test. We got a new batch of factor meals and she just began siphoning them off at a rate of roughly one per day. And so I didn't even get to have very many of those because she took them away. And I think that is a true endorsement because we get a lot of podcast products in our house. And that one was a hit because it actually, you know, you think you're heating up something, maybe microwaving something.
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Starting point is 00:24:58 Our thanks to Factor for their support of this show and all of RelayFM. So we've got a lot of Vision Pro to talk about, obviously. We've had more time with that. Don't we ever. I want to start by talking about your review. So you published a, how many word reviews? 8,000 word reviews.
Starting point is 00:25:17 That's chunky. That is a chunky review for you. It's the longest review I have written in quite a while. I've been in the 5,000 5 000 4 000 word camp for a while and i just i steven hackett then did this shortly thereafter and it's that thing where you're writing and you're like oh i'm 3 000 words in and there's no end in sight and it ended up in about 8 000 words yeah which isn't a surprise to me because like you know i've recorded many episodes of podcasts about the vision pro now we did a i was really happy with the episode of cortex that
Starting point is 00:25:43 we did um which i'll put in the show notes too can't wait to listen we're doing this and like i still like i was using it today obviously and i'm still finding out things that i like and dislike about it right like it's still happening like i'm still forming opinions about this well that's that's the other thing about doing, doing this is I end up saying to myself, uh, I need to, I need to finish, right? Like I need to get it out there and I've got, I could, I could have written 20,000 words, right? But then the, the review wouldn't be out there for ages. out there for ages and so i decided i would uh you know i would call it at some point and say okay this is the first thing and then i i know i can write about all sorts of aspects of it but at some point you just gotta kind of get the first response out there and then move on with the rest
Starting point is 00:26:39 of your life which is what i was trying to do i loved your framing so like the which i recommend people go read this. People should go read this. Even if you just read the intro and outro, you should read more, but like the framing of your review being that like, you know, you, you were there when computers started and it was very similar to this. Like, I love this quote. There was very little software available and the suggestions your computer salesperson would give to adults were impractical things like keeping a recipe database or balancing your checkbook.
Starting point is 00:27:10 Like these are the kinds of things that are happening when people are getting Macs for the first time and stuff like that. Well, it's before that. It's even, it's the Apple IIs
Starting point is 00:27:17 and Commodore PETs and TRS-80s in the very, very, very early, and it extended for a while, but especially in that earliest of personal computer time, it was clear these, you know, it's like got got to get a computer. We got to get them in schools, get them for home. If you can afford it, they were very expensive, you know, uh, five,
Starting point is 00:27:34 $6,000 in today's dollars for a personal computer. And it didn't do anything. Um, today's stuff. I mean, the vision pro does a lot more than these things do, but it still gave me that feeling of, yeah, it does a lot more, but what do you do with it? What is the practical application for it? And it feels very much like it's a technology searching for a practical application, but very clearly cutting edge, futuristic, we got to get on board. uh that's the vibe that that this really reminded me of is that is that which is we don't know quite what it's for yet we're trying we're throwing a bunch of things out there that may be things that you could do to apply this to your life they're not that practical but still it's cutting edge and it's the future and you should probably pay attention to it that that i get the same feeling from this as i do from that era when i was a little kid. And, you know, like, I think it's relative too, right? Because we were talking about this some months,
Starting point is 00:28:29 so many months ago about the table stakes for the Vision Pro, right? Like the base stuff that a computer of any kind needs now, they had to build, which they did. But then we're building from the table stakes. Like, all right, it does all the stuff a computer should do, but what do you use it for? So the question is still the same, thing from the table stakes like all right it does all the stuff a computer should do but what do you use it for like so the question is still the
Starting point is 00:28:46 same even though the vision pro is more capable than an apple 2 was like what it can like just do straight out of the box right
Starting point is 00:28:55 obviously it's much more capable and there's there's software for it which was one of the issues with the early personal computers is that
Starting point is 00:29:01 there wasn't a lot of software available but the the use case searching for a use case is the thing that is similar. Absolutely. You say in your review, this is the most impressive piece of hardware I've ever seen. Of Apple hardware? Yeah. It is.
Starting point is 00:29:18 I mean, if you take the light seal off and you just kind of hold the thing, like those displays are incredible and they're so tiny and then and the thing i know we talk about how heavy it is and all but like the core unit of it is so small and it's this glass aluminum thing um i mean they put a lot of work into it it's a very impressive it's all packed in there again i feel like there's two things you can you can say you can be appreciative of what it is and how it was built and how cutting edge it is. And you don't have to believe it, right? You don't have to believe in it to appreciate those things. And so that's what I was trying to say is,
Starting point is 00:29:54 this is, let's stop and appreciate it for a minute. And then we'll talk about whether it's implausible, impractical, what's going on with it. But clearly this is not apple doing a half-hearted job this is full-throated apple trying its best to make a cutting-edge product and i love to see it love to see that one of the things i've been pretty i think i've actually been pretty surprised about is it has become pop cultureified in the past week quite quickly. Like, lots of celebrities are wearing them and producing social media content wearing them.
Starting point is 00:30:34 Sure. But not as a joke, right? Like, I think it has become a little bit of a status object. I think similar to how the Apple Watch did at first, even though people were statusifying with the gold one um but i think it's the look of the hardware as has allowed for that right it looks it looks expensive as well as the fact that it is expensive and i think that leans itself into a certain type of person online the type of person who've been using it right like
Starting point is 00:31:07 that it seems to be popping up all over the place for me at the moment anyway yeah how did you write this review did you write it using the vision pro i wrote part of it in OneWriter, which is my iPad app of choice for writing and is available as a compatible app. I wrote about the first half of it in that. And then after a, I gave some feedback to Simon, the developer of Runestone, a text editor that is out for Vision Pro, about this challenge I was seeing where whenever I tried to type, it made the window wide, even though the text was narrow. And he and I talked about that a little bit.
Starting point is 00:32:00 And then all of a sudden there was an update. It wasn't even a test flight build. There was just an update that fixed that issue and i switched over and then i used uh runestone to write the rest of it and runestone doesn't have like all the features that i want that that one writer has but it's good it's a good solid markdown text editor and it gave me the experience of of writing um not just writing on the vision pro but writing on the vision pro in an ipad app and then in a vision pro native app and the difference there which was kind of interesting the the ipad app all the targets are smaller um but at the same time it was a familiar app it was
Starting point is 00:32:38 a full featured familiar app it's set up to sync to dropbox and uh and runestone syncs with icloud so i kept having to like copy my review back and forth this turned out to be good because at the end of the process i was just kind of i had one writer open and i i did something with my hands and it interpreted it as a swipe all the way to the left to delete the file. Okay. Okay. Yeah. It was a drop back box. I was able to undelete it and I did have a copy somewhere else, but I had that thought of like, well, this isn't great.
Starting point is 00:33:12 Right. And I think that's a good example of things that iPad app developers might not anticipate about how easy it might be to, for example, just delete a file with a swipe gesture, because the swipe gesture is no longer quite as explicit. It can be done really, really accidentally. And, you know, undo on a Vision Pro doesn't seem to exist, or at least is not that common. Anyway, the actual act of writing was pretty good. I started writing and I wrote a little bit in BBEdit in a Mac, but the truth is that the text clarity is greater. I mean, it's fine in the Mac, but it is nicer.
Starting point is 00:33:47 The text is nicer in Vision Pro in an iPad app and even nicer, honestly, in a Vision OS app. I did a lot of it with I was sitting on my couch for a lot of it with just the keyboard in my lap. I had environments on for some of it. I had environments not on for some of it. I had environments not on for some of it. I had this thing where, especially when I like let my dog outside, I would dial in the environment enough so that when I was staring straight ahead, I was seeing the environment. But if I looked off to the right, to the doors in our living room to see if the dog was out there or whatever, I could see whether the dog was out there or whatever.
Starting point is 00:34:21 Um, and that was good. I wrote some of it at my dining room table with just a magic keyboard and a magic track pad in front of me, no monitor, right? But using the Vision Pro and that worked fine as well. So I can say authoritatively that one can write an 8,000 word review in the Vision Pro. That is absolutely absolutely true would it be my choice to always do that for everything i write i don't know probably not but maybe i do a lot of those sort of like i'm gonna go right in a different environment things like i don't write as much at my desk as you would think i do a lot of'm going to go right in the other room now that I've got Studio B or right at the bar on an iPad or in the summertime, right in the backyard.
Starting point is 00:35:10 And I do that. And I used to do it at cafes. I do that to get out of my usual workspace and like shift gears. Well, now you could just go to a different environment and sit at the same desk. And maybe sit in a more comfortable place because ergonomically there are more places that I could sit and work and have a screen in front of me, like on the couch, when I could do that with a laptop in my lap. But one of the reasons I'm sitting at the bar is that I've got an iPad in a stand and that is where I do that. And that's fine, but also this might be a little more flexible ergonomically so I don't know I'm open to the idea of using this uh for writing but um I definitely
Starting point is 00:35:53 did it for this review I felt that was important and I think it was I wanted to touch on a couple of things that you said there so like I obviously the the mac display the mac virtual display is not as clear but it's clear but it's just a little fuzzy it reminds me of like if you use a non-retina display with your mac right right like a non-retina resolution display of your mac is what it looks like everything is perfectly readable it's just not crisp no i did the thing where i actually um sized it for the size of my studio display and placed it right where my studio display was. And that allowed me to say, oh, don't do this. Right.
Starting point is 00:36:32 Like if you've got a studio display, you should use the studio display. Or make it bigger. Because it's not as good as that. But that doesn't mean it's a failure. Right. It is a, yeah, it's a non-retina or at least less than what we're accustomed to thing. And we know people who have multiple monitors and those aren't all retina displays, right? Like, so you can, you can do it and you can get up close
Starting point is 00:36:51 and see, you know, see it pretty well, but that's not really how you would work with it. Normally you would from a normal working distance, it's lower resolutions, perfectly usable, but yeah, it's not that high resolution that we're used to this will be more useful i think if they uh add multiple display support for mac mode at some point because then you could really emulate the i've got two slightly less than resolution retina resolution monitors in a side by side or an up and down configuration i know that people love that i don't do that but i know people do love that that would be nice i mean so today i did all of my show prep using my vision pro sitting in front of my studio display and i because i wanted to to see what that would be like and it was for me just a truly fantastic experience so i had the the Mac, which is where I was.
Starting point is 00:37:47 I had that as the main screen in the middle. I had Google Docs in there because it's way better on the Mac because Google, it's just not good in a web browser. It will be better when they have an app, which I'm confident they will at some point. And I had all these windows around me, right? The Vision OS apps. I felt like I had multiple monitors going on confident they will at some point and i had like all these windows around me right like the vision os apps i felt like i had multiple monitors going on yes because i could have all of my chat windows
Starting point is 00:38:10 slack yeah i had messages over on my right i'd slack over on my left yeah music up top and i had the mac in the middle and it was where i was doing a bunch of stuff i was reading your article in safari vision os a vision of Safari, because it was nicer to read. But then at one point, the copy-paste stopped working between my two devices. But I've really enjoyed that today. And I don't know what to do about that in a way, because as soon as I took it off and looked at my display,
Starting point is 00:38:41 it's like, oh, that is nicer. But now I feel kind of like hamstrung by not having all of these other windows around me like that can be huge and i love being in the environment because it's nicer than looking at the white wall behind my desk so it was uh i've got to try and contend with this a little bit because yeah and i could feel it when i was reading your review you're talking about you make a bunch of references to and i found them enjoyable about the idea of like this is going to restart the ipad versus mac war right yep the ipad wars yeah because it's like oh there's going to be people that are going to be trying to like
Starting point is 00:39:20 force some stuff and like maybe jump through some hoops yeah i mean i didn't i didn't mention federico by name but like he obviously i think it's going to happen with him but in general like remember we had the ipad wars where it was like oh i can do work on an ipad i'm going to force it i'm going to push this i'm going to explore this which i love that because it's really hey here's a new computing platform let's see what it can do let's take it out for a spin is it all going to be something that everybody wants to do well no but no, but that's not the point. The point is to try and see where the edges are and what the issues are. I've always appreciated the people who did that. I sort of did that to a certain extent, but never to the extent that many other people did. I look at this and I think, oh, same thing's
Starting point is 00:39:59 going to happen. And we're going to get the same arguments again. And I think what I said in the review is, sarcastically, oh boy. Can't wait to bring back the iPad wars as the Vision Pro wars. But it's because it is so iPad-esque that people are absolutely going to try that. That said, I had that moment, Mike, where I thought, I don't know if I mentioned this last week or not, but I had that moment where thought huh would I have bought that studio display for studio b now or would I have been just like I can just put a laptop back there and use the vision pro when I want to be back there and and like I think maybe that would I wouldn't have I think maybe I wouldn't have even though because I because again not that I would not buy a studio display I have one and I would not have not not have one at all. But I bought a second one for a second workspace because I felt like I had no other decent options. And now I keep
Starting point is 00:40:51 thinking, one, I could use that space much more as a temporary space when I need to use a Mac to record a podcast. Do I need a big monitor for that? And, you know, do I even need to work, work there at all? I can work kind of anywhere with a vision pro and a macbook air so i i don't know but it's certainly a different set of circumstances it feels like the the mac display is quite polarizing in how people find it to be useful or not i feel like the more content i consume of people talking about this the more i get some people say that it's like it is the best thing and it absolutely makes the device and then others were saying this is absolutely unusable and it's very interesting to me to hear the polarizing of
Starting point is 00:41:38 it yeah i'm not really sure what's causing it with people i don't get it i i do i we'll talk about this later but i do think that part of this is actually ergonomic related because some of the takes that i've heard about mac mode i can't square it with reality because and that's the problem everybody's welcome to their own opinion but i hear descriptions of things like the mac mode as being like really substandard and blurry and artifacty and all these things it's like i have a vision pro and eyeballs yeah and i don't see it i do not see it which leads me to believe that this is not necessarily an opinion but instead might have something to do with somebody having a vision issue or a light seal issue or something that is not, because I do not see it. I don't understand anybody who would say that it's unusable. I think that there's a really good debate to be had about, since it is
Starting point is 00:42:39 lower resolution, what is it good for? But I think it is good if you are traveling with a laptop and want a big screen and then not only is it a big screen but it's a big screen where some of the apps you might have open there you can now open envision os and keep your big screen in the center for the very mackey stuff you need i i think it's kind of great i think it's one of the banner features of the product yeah i i'm not going to go so far as to say you should never buy a monitor again because having you know gone back and forth like retina monitor that's real it's 27 inches that's right in front of your face is pretty nice um i'm also a little bit baffled and again i don't know whether this counts as ergonomics or not but i have also heard some people who are go well yeah the problem with uh the vision os is the field of view and so like you have to turn your head uh to see stuff
Starting point is 00:43:30 and and and i think don't people i mean if you have two monitors you have to turn your head then you can't you can't are people staring forward and then using their eyes and going side to side and leap keeping their head locked i mean you in the human real world, you also move your head around in order to look at windows if you've got a very large display. It's one of the reasons I don't have a very large display is that it sometimes seems like it's just way over there, really far away.
Starting point is 00:43:56 And one of the nice things about Vision OS is I can arbitrarily move those windows around to anywhere I want so that I can look at them instead of having a monitor that is fixed and on a stand or something. So I don't know. I am on the pro Mac virtual display side, not like 100% over there, but I admit to being baffled by some of the negativity about it.
Starting point is 00:44:19 I think there's a debate to be had about when it's good to be used and when it's not, but it's pretty solid in my experience i was i was impressed with it i think the variance of opinions on all things vision pro related is fascinating to me i feel like there is a lot of conversation about things people feel they do and don't do like i've heard a bunch of people now talk about doing things on a Mac when they're not looking at them. And I don't think that's real. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:44:56 Or maybe this is so different to me. Well, I've heard this multiple places on multiple podcasts. John Syracuse was talking about it. I've heard lots of people talk about this now of like, oh i i'm always doing things on my mac without looking at them and and i'm just not sure that that i can't i don't understand how that's possible so like i think that more than anything with the vision pro and vision os i think there are way more divides in the your mileage may vary than any product
Starting point is 00:45:27 they've made before. Because I think that we're bumping up against things people do, things people think they do, and things people can't think they do. Invisible, I don't even want to say invisible ergonomics, invisible ways of working with computers that we all took you know we're all our own individual quirky people right but we but i think part of being a person is being like i just do this thing we all do this right we all do this right right right and then you get a moment like this where you're like oh no they do what and then there's that second layer which is i don't believe that they actually do what they say they do right and there's no way to unless you get a camera on them right you can't you have to take their word for it and and i i
Starting point is 00:46:16 agree i've had some moments where i'm like oh yeah i just i just move my uh my pointing device and without looking i do a thing with a window and I'm like, what? I don't, I don't understand that, but okay. Like, all right. I guess that's your, your thing.
Starting point is 00:46:30 I also was a little baffled by some of the criticism that I've heard about, um, uh, selecting windows in vision OS. Now the criticism that, that multiple windows in front of one another on the Z axis is bad. I agree with is if you get a window trapped behind another window and you're like oh my god and you can't toggle you can't command tab you can't command
Starting point is 00:46:49 tilde you've got to like take your window and move it out of the way and then get that other window and move it away and then move your other window back and i hate it absolutely the case however i had great success in if i have a window sticking out you know of another window behind it being able to look at the back window and tap and then it comes forward i have 100 i didn't have any trouble with this constantly like it to me feels just like the mac right that like yeah if there's a window in front of the other window i just click the other window and it comes forward and i've done this the windows on top of each other you can see the corner of the other one you You tap it and you can bring it forward. Yeah, if it's a little,
Starting point is 00:47:25 I mean, the difference is the precision, right? Like if it's really close, it's not great. And I'm actually a little surprised that they aren't doing something with Vision OS that they do on the iPad now, where if a window is entirely behind another window, they slide it a little bit. So it's poking out enough for you to be able to select it,
Starting point is 00:47:44 which is a great user interface thing. I think i kind of like that it doesn't do that that it just it just leaves it there i mean maybe it would be an option i just want to be in full control of the placement of all my windows that's one of the things i love about vision os i get that my only hesitation is sometimes due to nothing you want a window is completely behind another window and probably i didn't want to put it there and it's lost in that scenario what is the problem uh that i a window that i want to grab is invisible because it's hidden behind another window yeah and for me to get it i need to move a window and then move another window and maybe move another window back you can also launch it
Starting point is 00:48:30 again and it just brings it to the front i mean yeah and i'm not saying that's ideal but i'm saying like it's a thing you can do right you can ask your assistant or you can bring up the thing and just launch launch it again have you had the the minority report thing i've had a few a few moments where i really felt like i was in minority report where i have had a window and i need to bring it into my vision more it's off to the side and i literally like look at it and i go flip and now it's close to me and i go and i do something and then i go okay now be gone and i grab it again and i go flip and I put it back out to the left. I'm like, oh, that's window management. Right, like music, I mostly just leave the mini player.
Starting point is 00:49:10 But if I want to do something more, I'll grab the mini player, bring it down, open it up, do what I need, put it back. Like I love spatial computing. Like I love this idea of I'm sitting on my desk and I have all of these windows around me i do kind of like the the fact that they make the the cone but i would like to be able to more easily rotate them on their x-axis right oh interesting just slide slide them all around i this is this
Starting point is 00:49:40 gets to something that i think is on my top on my wish list of vision os2 which is just i feel like there needs to be more window management scaffolding. It's like, I understand it's a 1.0. Yes. And I say that in the article, it's like, I get it.
Starting point is 00:49:51 It's a 1.0, but clearly one of the places window management scaffolding, right? Like it just doesn't exist really on vision OS because it doesn't really exist on iPad OS and iOS with the exception of stage manager, which is, this is not that. Um, but the Mac has it. And I kept finding myself at rotating the windows around you. Uh, like you're
Starting point is 00:50:11 spinning a carousel is a great idea. I thought about like expose where they all kind of show up or being able to toggle between them in some way. Cause you're right. There are workarounds, but like I kept thinking or spaces that save the idea that I'm like, save this collection, but now I want it to go away and do something different, but then come back to it later. And like, I'm sure they'll get there. But like, those are all the idea of like having an expose, the most important for me is there needs to be some kind of memory of my window placement with a restart. Yes. Because this thing, the standby battery is bad.
Starting point is 00:50:58 Like it's bad. If you do not have it plugged in, it will be dead tomorrow. Like I've experienced that multiple times. And so then all of my window management from the previous day is blown away. And like what I ideally want is it to work like a Mac that doesn't use stage manager because stage manager, by the way, every time you reset, it just blasts all your stages into infinity and you have to reset them all up again. But Macs without Stage Manager, I can't believe that that happens, by the way, considering this feature exists.
Starting point is 00:51:28 If you don't use Stage Manager, your Mac remembers where your window placement is. But that's what I want VisionOS to do that when I restart, it does that. Otherwise, give me some kind of shortcut placement or something, you know, that I can say open them and put them here and put them
Starting point is 00:51:44 there or whatever. I made a shortcut, by the way. This is hilarious. I just want to see what happens, right? Because you can make shortcuts to open apps, right? I made a simple shortcut that opened three apps because I thought what I could do is I could run a shortcut. It opens my five apps and I just move them, right?
Starting point is 00:52:00 So it's like less buttons. So it had three actions. It was open Safari, open Todoist, open Notes. What happened was it opened Safari, then it opened Notes, but Safari was gone. So it was just opening one app at a time, but resetting everything. It was very weird.
Starting point is 00:52:20 If anybody's had better luck with shortcuts for this than me, let me know. i don't know what happened but it was like it just removed all of like the other app it was very peculiar yeah but they need to have some kind of i think that's the start and then like window management in general needs to be better have you come across the force quit yet yeah oh yeah what a wild thing that that is there i i don't remember how i got it i think if you press and hold a button i think it might i don't know which it is you get a little force quit menu which is of all of the things to have that is hilarious to me that force quit is there right like ipad os doesn't have force quit you have multitasking where you can swipe them away but it is very interesting to me that like they chose to have
Starting point is 00:53:16 a force quit menu buried within vision os is yeah it's kind of incredible really yeah it's a mac like kind of thing yeah you press and hold both buttons down and the force quit comes I love it I think it's hilarious yeah get rid of that so going back to your review were there any apps for you I would say actually during the review process that were missing like did you have any issues with um like there was an app that you needed or wanted for the writing of it? I think Discord was the one that I actually check in on regularly that really I had to use the Mac to use. I mean, I guess I could log in in Safari, but I did not want to do that. There is a compatibility mode though.
Starting point is 00:53:57 Is it? Yes. I didn't see it there when I was working on it. Yeah, I have it. You have it? Okay. All right. No right no i mean the truth is it mostly most of the apps that i needed were there that i use are there and and and again ipad compatibility mode was helpful so speaking of ipad capability mode i'll just say it here because it's in the review i feel like the ipad apps are maybe scaled a little too small, maybe. Yes.
Starting point is 00:54:28 But I feel like the Vision OS apps are too big. I feel like they're not quite dense enough. And I know this is a real intangible thing, and I get why they're so big. But I have a moment where sometimes I'm working with both iPad apps and Vision OS apps. And the iPad apps are like, here's all this content in a little tiny box. And the vision OS apps are, here's a little bit of content in an enormous box. And I think, and this, you know, it's related to other window management issues that we should, or app window management topics that we should talk about. Like, I want to minimize things, right?
Starting point is 00:55:08 I want to, so many of these VisionOS apps are so huge that I can't keep them open all the time, but I don't really want to close them, and I don't have a thing to do. And like, mini player, apps with mini players are great, like music, and I was using Longplay, which has a mini player.
Starting point is 00:55:24 So great. and i had that moment i'm like oh i've got fantastical open it's great it's enormous i can't believe there isn't a small version of fantastical i've already complained to them about the fact that i that i want to reduce it down i want to be able to reduce it down to the sidebar yeah right but like what i really want is not just for them to invent a mini player. I want Apple to say, here is a way you can have your app minimize. And if you want to show something that is widget-like, you can do that. And otherwise, we'll show an icon. And then when you tap on it, it springs back out. And that's just not there. Again, it's 1.0. I get it. But like, I kept having those moments because these VisionOS apps are beautiful, but they are huge. And the iPad apps are more compact. And I'm not saying that the iPad apps are the right size. I'm saying that I appreciated their compactness when compared to VisionOS apps, which to me seemed to be huge.
Starting point is 00:56:25 And one way you could fix that is to scale everything down a little bit. Another way that would help would be to have a little more of an affordance to pop them into mini player mode quickly when you don't need them at that moment. And then when you tap on them, they spring back out. And that is another window management thing that needs to happen down the road. So I'll give you a couple of points on that. For Calendar, I've been using an app that I found on Mac Stories called Day Ahead, which is wonderful.
Starting point is 00:56:55 There's a beautiful little app for like just having there and visualizing a day. Yeah, I think the idea of having some kind of, if it wasn't widgets, like maybe it could be widget but maybe it's also just like small apps right that can expand would be great um and yeah vision os does feel like this really weird mix of mac ideas and ipad ideas together right where it's like right you can have the windows wherever you want but you can't minimize them you just close
Starting point is 00:57:23 them like on an ipad right like because they'll be ready for you when you come back but it's like yeah but we thought the ipad was already a weird mix of iphone and mac and vision os is like wait a second it is even weirder because it is even more like the mac but without the underlying without the underlying 40 years of mac window management rules so it's sort of like, close it maybe, I guess. And again, I get they needed to ship this. I get that it's 1.0, but this is one of those areas where it's like, oh boy, you got a lot of work to do here.
Starting point is 00:57:54 You got a lot of work to do here because some of this stuff is really great. And then you're like, okay, I don't need to see the calendar right now, but I'm going to want it again in a little bit. And they're like, well, you just got to close it, man. That's all you can do. That's sorry. That's it. That's all you can do. The iPad compatible apps though, for me, is where I have the majority of my eye tracking failure. I think it's because stuff is so small and close together. And so I think there is a middle ground though, I'm sure. Right. small and close together and so i think there is a middle ground though i'm sure right uh i feel like fantastic cows is is an example of an app that has a lot going on and i deal with it fine
Starting point is 00:58:32 like it looks a lot like the ipad app like it's not like they spaced everything out way too much no like yeah it's not like the future like lift recedes into the background i mean it is just a vision os vision os updated version of their iPad app, but it's good. It just seems, you know, it's big and I don't want to keep it open all the time. And I don't really want to, I guess I can put it,
Starting point is 00:58:53 hide it behind other windows or whatever. But you're right, the touch targets, I guess they're eye targets, right? But the scaling of the iPad app, like I said, I appreciate the density, but it is where most of my uh failures happen i'll also say i think it varies from app to app because like apps that are super ipad apps that are super optimized for the pointer or hover and pointer support are way better on vision os right ones
Starting point is 00:59:23 that always give you feedback wherever you're looking, which is the equivalent of hovering an Apple Pencil, right? This is one of those cases where Apple is recycling all these things as they move their platforms forward. So they did the pointer support that is also the hover support for the Pencil,
Starting point is 00:59:40 and it's now the hover support for gaze in VisionOS. And the ones that do that pretty well are navigable and then there are other ones that do it less well and that they're harder to use but i also agree that yeah in general the the gaze targets are all small enough that it i find that hard sometimes i was in slack i think which actually does a pretty decent job but i had a moment where i was trying to tap on an item in the sidebar and like i couldn't do it yeah like it was either it was either the one below it or the one above it and i couldn't get it to look at the one until i grabbed the window moved it over made it bigger stared at it for a little while it knows what it did and then it finally selected. And that's a sign. I do really appreciate, by the way, iPad compatibility mode, I didn't mention this
Starting point is 01:00:28 before, has rotation support. So there's a little icon in some apps that support rotation in the upper right that you can tap and it goes from portrait to landscape and back again. And so when I wrote all those words in one writer, I was using it in vertical orientation. So I had a big sheet of paper in front of me and that was really great actually. But I mean, I've had compatible apps. I guess what I would say, I don't know what you think about it. Like there are issues, but they're, they're usable and I'm really glad they're there. This episode is brought to you by Delete Me.
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Starting point is 01:03:14 And I felt like we shared a moment in your review. You said seeing a friend give a toast at another friend's wedding and being able to look around to spot other people in the crowd, that was special. So I remember this happening uh during my wedding i i think steven was giving a toast my toast and i saw jason stand up and walk and take a panorama and i thought to myself oh that's good i would quite like that and you sent it to me and i i have that panorama i've looked at it multiple times and you sent it to me again recently with a second that I didn't have. Actually, you took two.
Starting point is 01:03:46 And I opened that panorama and I looked at it. And the panorama is odd in spots, right, as they tend to be. Yeah. But I got a huge lump in my throat because I was back at my wedding. Yeah. And it was very surreal and very very emotionally touching it was really cool yeah i mean what was great about is not only is it you know you and adina are there and steven's giving a toast but like all these people i know are sitting at these tables especially the table
Starting point is 01:04:19 right in front of me so i'm able to see uh i saw tina syracuse john's not there because john is also shooting photos at this point but like david smith is there and i mean and gray is there and and like david sparks and i mean it's just all these my kids are there yeah all right that will probably be the biggest assembly of relay fm hosts ever i think um which is uh is very nice to me. Yeah, it's a fun thing. And this is the thing. I know that Apple has talked a lot about the 180 video that they're doing, their immersive video, and the spatial video from the iPhone and from the Vision Pro and the 3D spatial shots you could do with the Vision Pro. But the panorama, if you get a good panorama it really is spectacular and
Starting point is 01:05:09 i have been shooting panoramas for before there was digital photography i i was shooting panoramas when you had to have special software to stitch the panoramas together and then eventually like photoshop added it uh and then eventually your phones just had a panorama mode and boy, it wasn't that nice, but I've been doing it for a very long time. And I have some that I shot so much that, you know, you can, it's most of the way behind me too. And depending on the angle and Apple processes is the other funny thing, right? It shows a panorama as a, as a, as a photo. And then there's a little like panorama button at which point it enters this mode and it's doing stuff right it is finding a way to place that panorama in the right way and and de-distort it and do all these things to put it around you and it's not i mean you look up and you can see your
Starting point is 01:05:55 ceiling and you look down you see your floor like it's not completely immersive but it's powerful. I was looking at a thing I shot about a year ago now on a bridge over a river in New Zealand and like, Oh, it's so good. Like I'm on that bridge again, looking down at that bright blue water, light blue water coming out of the glaciers. And it really,
Starting point is 01:06:23 I mean, it's not the same as like, Oh, now you're, you're, it's like a memory because it's a 3d video. mean it's not the same as like oh now you're you're it's like a memory because it's a 3d video it's not quite the same as that but it's pretty great i mean it is pretty great not enough reason to buy this like on its own but like i think an un uh under appreciated thing that it can do and then of course my thoughts immediately went to well you can't make panoramas into environments because they're not as immersive as that. But I started to think, one, I feel like there's going to be,
Starting point is 01:06:50 I wonder if there will be options down the road to build a more immersive environment from panoramas or from panorama mode, right? Like iOS might get a thing where you shoot more of it all the way around and it creates an environment that you can use not animated not with sound but like an environment you might be able to inhabit in the vision pro uh either to work or just to be in i wonder about that and i also wonder about generative ai and if they might actually be able to do stuff where you can take a panorama and then fill it with generative ai because it's like probably mostly like sky and stuff, and maybe it fuzzes out at the edges and then goes to nothing or goes to just sort of a harmonious color. But not only would that be nice to look at, but I do wonder if some of these shots, these panorama shots, I could work in that panorama if it was just a little bit more. So I don't know. I think they're great. I do. You're right. I do love panoramas. They're really good. And I have them. Mike, in 1997, when my parents sold the house I grew up in, I shot panoramas of every room in the house and many things outside.
Starting point is 01:07:57 And I made a QuickTime VR of it back in the day. Back in the day. And now I got to get those files out. And I have them all on a film camera by the way shot on a film camera so i've got the scans and i can rebuild those and those are gonna you talk about you talk about having that house burned down like i talk about having memories uh and being able to be present in a memory um i can't wait to be able to do that and i've seen more examples of like and i've had
Starting point is 01:08:26 like photos and videos you know i've been sending around like the the spatial ones sometimes they hit i'll let you sit on my couch yeah they sometimes they they hit like sometimes they do like you know i had a we were visiting with a friend a while ago and they took a video of me and adina and it was like this weird i watched it today they sent it to me and they were like and it was kind of like oh it's like i have a memory of myself it was very sometimes they work sometimes they don't um i i've i think i said this on last week's episode but i don't remember now like the examples that i have that I've taken it is way better to have no movement of the phone like if the phone is still and there's movement occurring that is what makes a good spatial video yeah that that's it's a
Starting point is 01:09:18 different techniques and what works and what doesn't but I think that there is a at least I don't know if it's the only way it works but a way that it works is that you are there it's still and you're in the moment instead of once once you start panning around it there's an author and it's not you it also loses the i feel like it loses the impact of the effect a little bit too when there's when there's movement um like that's caused by the camera i feel like it's just not as, it's just not as effective, I think. But yeah, I'm intrigued to see the advancement of this stuff. I did today, I took a 3D photo
Starting point is 01:09:57 of the desk in front of me and then opened it and it freaked me out because it was like, ah, my desk, because it also was like a it was like ah my desk because it also was like a little bit higher than my desk
Starting point is 01:10:08 but it like it made my brain like go weird for a second like I'd fallen it was very strange I don't recommend doing that
Starting point is 01:10:16 or do it but it's weird be aware of that I've travelled with my vision probe I will tell you right now I chickened out of wearing
Starting point is 01:10:25 i'm wearing it on the plane i didn't do it and there were two reasons for this one i feel like i want to be that guy i want to be that guy because that guy like the idea of that guy had already proliferated enough over the week that i didn't want to be that guy plus we took off nearly midnight i had to sleep and so i just slept yeah yeah yeah slept and so I didn't do it but I also feel like as time went on it felt less important to do that but what I'll say is the Vision Pro is heavy for travel
Starting point is 01:10:54 like it's not impossible but that thing in a backpack is not comfortable to carry did you have a case? I have the Apple case yeah does that fit in your your backpack in the backpack i have yes i will say it fits it actually fits horizontally in my backpack too i use the belroy venture ready i'm going to put a link to it in the show notes if somebody wants a backpack where
Starting point is 01:11:20 they can fit it in like i was was able to fit my dongle bag, which is also a Bellroy tech pouch, my Vision Pro thing, and my AirPods Max in a case, like a full hard case. It will all fit in the bag. So this bag is great for Vision Pro. But then I have my laptop and my iPad in there as well
Starting point is 01:11:42 because that was what I had on the trap. And that's a lot. Like it's, you've got a lot going on in that bag it's heavy um but yeah it is a fantastic computer for traveling so when I got home I wanted to uh finish and post cortex because it was done and like that's still like multiple hours of work for me. But I was at home, so I only had my laptop. So I used the Vision Pro and then I had a huge screen. And logic on a 13-inch laptop is not a great experience. But I had a 40-inch monitor with logic on it instead.
Starting point is 01:12:18 Like, the Vision Pro is perfect for making a small laptop more functional and more ergonomic more ergonomic like it really is an excellent pairing with those two things and so like it will be a great travel computer for sure but you have to be aware of the fact that it is heavy it is heavy i'm traveling uh toward the end of this week. And I'm looking forward to experiencing all of the issues that come with it, pro and con. I'm very much looking forward to it. Yeah. I think you're going to dig it.
Starting point is 01:12:56 I do. I think you'll dig it. But you just need to be aware that if you put it in a backpack, you're going to feel it. Because do you have the case? Do you have a case? I do not have a case. Okay. You've case okay you gotta get it i'm going i'm going no i'm going no case i don't i i'm gonna go no case and i'm gonna see what the issues are and then i'll i'll decide i i didn't i got to see the apple case the big puffy pillow um don't think i really like it but um but i'll decide
Starting point is 01:13:22 whether i want a case or not. How are you going to travel with it? You're going to put it in a bag? Yeah. Oh. Okay. I'll put it in a bag. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:13:37 You've got bigger guts than me, is what I'll say, putting that thing just straight into a backpack. It feels, I don't know if it feels delicate, but I treat it delicately, if that makes sense. The main part of it's pretty solid. There are the little bands and all that, but I don't know. I'll stick some socks in there and pad it. So today is the first day I worked in the studio with it, and I answered two very important questions for myself. Okay. One is, which I was really worried about, how was it going to deal with the terrible overhead lighting that I have?
Starting point is 01:14:12 Right? I've spoken about this on the show before. Oh, right. That Mac webcams struggle with it. It was fine. Nothing. No flickering, nothing. So thank you to Apple for dealing with that. And also, I was wondering,
Starting point is 01:14:26 will my fancy keyboards plugged in via USB work with universal control? And they do. They work fine. Of course they do. But mice don't. What is going on with that? Oh, do the mice even not work in universal control?
Starting point is 01:14:43 Nothing. Huh. Interesting. So my logitech mouse it just stops at the edge of the mac and doesn't it stops at the edge wow that's wild i don't know what the thinking is there because mice work they don't like ipad yeah they don't like it weird they think mice are afraid of uh vision pros so that that was very very strange to me but i was super happy that my nice i care more about the keyboard because i use a mouse and a trackpad at my desk um i use both and so i can just use that and also to be honest i'm still mostly using um eye tracking than a trackpad when i'm when i'm like going from window to window like I just use the mouse on my Mac and then I look at something on another window and I'm using eye tracking and
Starting point is 01:15:32 typing and stuff like that so I use that combo and I love that combo that you have all of these different input methods it's like one of the things I loved about iPad um talking about that quickly I've had a lot of people say to me like oh why is nobody talking about the fact that you can directly manipulate an app because it's not a good experience is why like you know what i mean you can bring an app to you and you can like scroll it and tap it and that kind of stuff oh yeah right right yeah you can't nice to do like i hate it it's not a good experience which is like the reason like people i'm seeing a lot of videos made about it like oh look you can do this it's like it looks good for a video but it is not a nice experience to like try and scroll and stuff like that yeah
Starting point is 01:16:15 what the videos don't show is that inside you're touching a thing that isn't there has no feedback like typing on that keyboard is terrible enough but the idea that you're now tapping on the you know it's it's not there on the invisible place and and not and your finger just passes through and when it passes through it registers the tap it's i hate it it's awful yep the eye tracking is great the kind of like finger tracking is not good right like it you know so it is not a good experience to do that like you can but you shouldn't you really should be using all the other different methods of input that they have yeah agreed what else would you like to talk about today oh um
Starting point is 01:16:59 uh i didn't realize this but there are some videos in the Disney Plus app that are high frame rate, including Avatar. And Disney has said, I think Titanic is going to go in there and high frame rate. One of the things that we haven't talked about a lot is this device supports high frame rate video. And so like the Avatar movies
Starting point is 01:17:19 are in 48 frames a second 3D. And while it is, you know, high frame rate is weird in the sense that you almost get that soap opera effect a little bit but at the point avatar is so unreal already and honestly getting rid of motion judder and having everything be smooth especially in these you know almost entirely cgi 3d scenes in avatar it's really good. I actually really like it. There are moments where I'm watching Avatar and I feel like I'm literally just watching a video game cut scene, but I think that that's because video game cut scenes are literally trying to be movies.
Starting point is 01:17:55 And this is a movie that's trying to be a movie too. It's not trying to be a video game cut scene, but there are those moments that I have that where I'm like what is this um but the high frame rate video oh like again not for everything it's got issues but i'm curious and i would actually really like to see if um if whoever is it would be in max i don't know where the lord of the or the hobbit movies that were shot in high frame rate are but i'm actually kind of curious i know that people a lot of people didn't like it, but like, this is a device that's capable of showing high frame rate and capable of showing 3d. And I think that's cool because we don't have a lot of like video viewing devices that,
Starting point is 01:18:33 that will offer those things. Um, so anyway, I just wanted to mention that, that there it's actually in like a, I think a Disney press release that, that they, they have these movies that are going to be in high frame rate.
Starting point is 01:18:45 That's cool. Um, I, I, I mentioned last week, release that, that they, they have these movies that are going to be in high frame rate. That's cool. I, I, I mentioned last week, by the way, that some of my movies were in 3d, but not in 3d. It turns out a bunch of people sent this in and including,
Starting point is 01:18:56 I heard from somebody inside at Apple who said that like, it's an issue with movies anywhere where you buy it on a disc and you put in a code and then it goes in your iTunes library where it was not registering. So the issue was it said you could play it in 3D, but it didn't play in 3D. It was a Movies Anywhere movie. And they seem to have adjusted that on the store side, where now it doesn't say you can play it in 3D. Now, it's still a real bummer because one, I'd like it if I could. Thank you very much. There's probably a licensing issue there where like the Movies Anywhere, you don't get the 3D issue there where like the movies anywhere you don't get the 3d like how some of them you don't get the 4k upgrade you just have to stay back with whatever you bought right that's kind of a bummer but it's also a user it's still a
Starting point is 01:19:33 problem because there's no way for me to say I would like to give Apple money to get the 3d version of this it just isn't possible like if you got it via movies anywhere now, it's not going to say it's in 3d for you, but you also can't get it in 3d. It's sort of blocked. Now that may be a short-term fix and there's a long-term issue and they may be dealing with the licensing, but anyway,
Starting point is 01:19:56 a little bit of followup. That was what was going on. It's a movie I bought on disc and the rights aren't there for that movie apparently. And so it doesn't get it doesn't get shown we promised to talk about ergonomics and i do want to talk about ergonomics a little bit i went to the apple store because i still have had issues on and off with optic id and i've talked to some people who have said they think that that is because i'm too far away
Starting point is 01:20:23 and that my light shield is the wrong size. So I reran the light shield measurement, which keep in mind, I ran on the day I ordered it and it gave me a different size, a smaller size of light shield. It gave me the, I want to say 21W, which was completely sold out because it's the most popular size. I went on Apple support site. They have the ability to ask, they ask you a bunch of questions about that. You're fit. You can't just specify a size.
Starting point is 01:20:53 So I, I started like answering all the questions in different ways to see what sizes it was trying to give me. A friend of mine who works at Apple suggested a smaller size that is about the same size, just slightly smaller than the 21W that has apparently worked for some people. And I did a swap with that. So I'm going to get that today and try it. And hopefully that will be better and I'll be a little closer. Because what happened was I took my cushion off. And that meant I was a little closer to the display.
Starting point is 01:21:30 It's not, you know, without the cushion, it's not going to be comfortable for very long. But I did it to see if I could get a little closer. And then Optic ID started working perfectly. I thought, oh, okay. So that was the main issue for why you wanted to change was because of Optic ID. It wasn't that you weren't finding it uncomfortable i had people say that one of the reasons you can really improve your field of view a bit if you're closer obviously which does make sense and that you might be able to see things better but for me it was really that optic id would just
Starting point is 01:21:58 sometimes not work so i went into the apple retail store and they're very friendly, but, um, and they, and they, they were sold out of my size. I, I talked to somebody who sent me to somebody who sent me to somebody. I ping ponged around the store. Eventually I got an appointment that was only for like 10 minutes later for a
Starting point is 01:22:16 fitting. But the guy who gave me the fitting was very nice, but like had clearly never done this before or almost never done this before. And like, I have my whole thing in a shopping bag. I've got like, I've got all the vision pro stuff and he goes over and he like gets one and brings it to me and has me try it.
Starting point is 01:22:32 And it's the one that's the common one that they're sold out of. And he's like, yeah, is that better? And I'm like, well, the optic ID works. So yeah,
Starting point is 01:22:38 maybe this is better. Um, but he, he can't sell it to me. And I say, well, what should I do? And he says, well, you should do a swap.
Starting point is 01:22:46 But when I go to the swap, even though that was the size I tried, I can't say, send me that size. I have to go through this thing. So here's the larger issue. And I, I'm going to take this out. I am not blaming anybody in Apple retail because I think they are overwhelmed and trying their best, but I've also heard like other people talking about this who are describing things
Starting point is 01:23:09 that I have not seen. Here is my gut feeling. I think there is an enormous ergonomics problem with Vision Pro fitting. And what Apple needs is to train
Starting point is 01:23:20 their retail people well about walking through different sizes, about not just scanning with the app, but walking through different sizes, figuring out the right ones. And from my perspective in my store, it felt like they were really not experienced in doing that. And what we know from a lot of reports from a lot of places
Starting point is 01:23:43 is that the emphasis that Apple placed on training for Vision Pro and Apple Retail was on the marketing experience of the walkthrough. And again, not placing any judgments on the retail employees. I'm placing judgments on the people at corporate who are in charge of retail. I think Apple made a huge mistake in not focusing on the ergonomics of getting these things to fit. It smells to me like somebody said, oh, we wrote a thing in the app that scans your face and gives you the right size and it'll solve it. But I can tell you from my personal experience that it gave me different sizes at different times. And then when I went in, they scanned my face again. It was the new size that I had scanned at home, but it was not the size I scanned on day one.
Starting point is 01:24:30 And then they didn't have it and they didn't really know what to do. And when they told me what my right size was, I couldn't actually go through the process on the website of ordering a replacement because it wouldn't let me put in that size. So I think they screwed this up. I think that Apple retail needs people trained in a truly extensive sizing experience where they not only know to try multiple sizes and know what to look for in terms of with the person who's trying them on. And not just rely on an app and then sort of shrug and say, well, we don't have that size, good luck. The website needs to be changed too. But like, I feel like they dropped the ball here
Starting point is 01:25:13 where they actually have a product that it's seeming based on some of the things that I'm noticing people say and how they do or do not conform to what I've noticed. It seems to me that this is a product that actually needs a lot of work in terms of getting that light shield to be the right size, the right fit for somebody. And when I go into retail, it feels very much like they have gotten a lot of work
Starting point is 01:25:40 on how to do a demo, but are a little bit at sea when it comes to giving a user a proper fit. And that feels like a mistaken emphasis and maybe they'll get better. I know it's early days, but like using a clever app to scan your face clearly isn't good enough since it gives different results. And that when you go in for your, your sizing appointment appointment i feel like at least in my experience it ended up being kind of a well this is what the app says so we'll try it out and i had somebody tell me later that i should have asked for other sizes but like how would i know to ask for other sizes in the moment yeah the person doing it should know right right? And I think he was under-trained, but he should be like,
Starting point is 01:26:28 well, here's the size that we scanned and here's the one that's bigger and here's the one that's smaller. And now here's a process we go through to determine on your Vision Pro or on our demo Vision Pro, depending on what the deal is, whether it fits or not.
Starting point is 01:26:41 So I got this gut feeling now that some people are reporting things that, that strike me as being very weird about the vision pro. And I think it's probably ergonomics. I think it's probably the fit of the light seal. It might be their eyes. It might be the lenses. There may be other things going on too. I get that this is a really complicated product, but again, my experience at the Apple store was very much like they aren't good enough at this part and this part seems like it might actually be really really important so yep that's my takeaway i i agree with what you're saying i think part of the issue that they're gonna have and will
Starting point is 01:27:19 continue to have is like i don't know if they know yet how people find it and how it works for them from a fitment perspective i know i know and also people don't have the language to express what they are or aren't experiencing like i've been thinking to myself like i hear people talking about i'm like i wonder if i am doing it right. Am I using the right cushion? Do I have the right light seal? We don't truly know. And that is a complication of the experience. So for example, for me, I have two light seals at different sizes.
Starting point is 01:28:03 Because I originally bought it without prescription lenses because it was all i could do at the time and then bought my prescription lenses and then it told me i needed a different size light seal for my prescription lenses and i wonder like do people have i don't know when maybe you can tell me i don't know when you buy the reading lenses do they resize you i have no idea because they made me do the scan again. And I wonder, like, maybe if you don't get sized or maybe people didn't get sized correctly or whatever. They do ask. They do ask, do you need lenses?
Starting point is 01:28:36 And I think that goes into the sizing. Right. The presence of lenses, for sure. But, like, there's something going on. Like, I know there's something going on there with, like, and and it can this isn't for everyone but for some people you end up with a different size light seal if you get lenses so i don't maybe like what if it failed during the scan and then people got lenses but now they have the wrong light seal because now their eyes are too close or whatever right like right it's complicated it's like all right there
Starting point is 01:29:04 are two cushions very complicated why are there two cushions like i genuinely feel like i was i don't know why they're there yeah and i'm hearing what's communicated what feels to me like kind of like urban legends about what the cushions do right uh-huh and so right and i feel like it's getting away a little bit now because the potential buyers are hearing me and they're hearing you and they're hearing Federico and John and Siri. And everyone's just talking about what they're doing. And they're like, I was listening to App Stories today. And John was like, I tried this cushion and it was better. And Federico was like, oh, I should try it.
Starting point is 01:29:42 And I'm like, oh, should I try it? But it's complicated and and this is what the retail so and how do you do that well if you can't go to a retail store you're going to deal with this sort of thing and i guess that's that's how that's going to happen and and that seems to be why the web is the way it is where they're like what was wrong with your fit and then they generate a size for you based on your, your original size and what's wrong with your fit. Very clever. But if, first off, if you get a new different size, you can be like, you can't put in, give me that size. So that's annoying. But at the retail, if you're at retail, this is where they have the power to say, we have all the cushions. We have all the light seals in this drawer and we're going to bring them out and we're going to try them. And we've got a method and we're going to tell you
Starting point is 01:30:28 how does this feel and what to look for, what to feel for. And I get that that's hard and they may not know, but that needs to be the solution here for a $3,500 product, by the way. It's like, that needs to be done right. And it doesn't feel to me, at least in my experience, that they are doing it right. And I get that it's hard, but you can't have people doing urban legends about light seals and cushions. And I had somebody say, hey, here's the size you really want to get if you want good field of view. I'm like, okay, but aren't we all different? And like, are people going to get the wrong ones and all of that? And that's why you need somebody who's got all of them and a process to walk you through it. And I know that that's what they intend to do, but at least based on my experience that what I got was what let's scan your face.
Starting point is 01:31:21 Oh, that size. Well, we, we can try it. Although we don't have it in stock here it is is it good i i i mean optic id worked i don't know he's like great okay we're done i'm like well that's not how that's not how it should be like it should be a process it should be uh we got i mean opticians optometrists would be like a or b which one is better right we're not we're not doing that but we are doing sizing, right? Or like getting clothes in two different sizes and trying them on. Like you kind of want to bracket
Starting point is 01:31:50 what got measured and go through that. And like, I got none of that. I don't know if that, if I just got a bad one, I don't want to throw my guy under the bus. It felt like, because again, it felt like he wasn't very well trained on it. And I don't know whether that's this store didn't train him well, or whether Apple as a whole is not training people well for this, but I know that they all got trained about exactly what words to say while walking you through Encounter Dinosaurs or whatever, right? I know they got trained on those words. And my experience in the retail store is you chose the wrong thing to focus on. it to help create better recipes for every breed size and digestive sensitivity. Nom Nom delivers freshly made dog food with every portion personalized to your dog's needs so you can
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Starting point is 01:35:23 Let's finish out with some Ask Upgrade questions. We got lots and lots of Vision Pro Ask Upgrade questions, and I encourage people to keep sending them in. We won't get to them all today, but we will get to them. So please keep sending them in. Dylan writes in to say, and this is actually, I wanted to do this one first because it follows on from what we were just talking about. Are you having any lens glare inside of your Apple Vision Pro? This happens for me during high contrast movie scenes or when viewing any bright content against dark environments. These moments make the viewing experience look smudged
Starting point is 01:35:55 and lower the device's overall immersion. Apple Vision Pro is a brilliant device, but this drawback is unfortunate given the price point. I am wondering if my Zeiss lenses have anything to do with it. I have absolutely seen the lens glare. I only really noticed it in very dark environments where there's a very bright image in the center. So basically that's, yeah, movies in a dark environment.
Starting point is 01:36:21 And it's absolutely there. It's like a lens flare. It happens at the sort of toward the bottom and it is a bit distracting and it is, it's kind of a bummer. I mean, my answer is, is use a different environment. But if you want to be in the dark movie theater and have that kind of feel, um, it it's, it's there. I'm wearing Zeiss lenses. Absolutely. I don't know whether it magnifies it or not. Um, but not, but it's definitely a real thing. This is funny because today I was having the same lens glare issues
Starting point is 01:36:52 with all the lights on in my studio just sitting and doing work. So this is one of the things, what's causing it? I don't know, right? Is it reflection? Is it light coming in? Like this is like another of these things where I feel like I'm again like everything we've been talking about today hearing completely different uh uh examples and reasons and possible theories about something that we just don't understand yet but yes there is some glare zach in the discord is saying it happens without inserts so my expectation is
Starting point is 01:37:24 there could be multiple things going on here that if you're in a dark environment and there's some bright light it may reflect but also you can just if light gets in like you've got light getting in from somewhere that also it could reflect from the screens i don't know but there is glare going on that's for sure we go from glare to to Blair. Blair asks, do you think the one virtual display limit when mirroring from a Mac is a hardware limitation
Starting point is 01:37:50 or could support for multiple displays or breaking Windows out of a single Mac display be added in a future software update? So Ben Thompson has said, he said it in his Stratechery article about the vision pro that he has heard that there are people inside of apple that have more than one mac display running on the vision pro which is not a surprise to me so i don't know if i don't think it's a hardware
Starting point is 01:38:16 display a hardware limitation i think it's just a processing thing and it's probably easier to do it with one rather than multiple maybe there's an issue with like certain macs might not be able to do it and so that might add a complication that they just didn't want to deal with right now like if like the m1 and m2 max can't do it but the uh the the pro and max models can and so they they're keeping it simple for now but maybe i mean it would be great it would be great if you could do two yes it would be great. I know there's like an open source thing that has like, it's a hack where you can pull windows out. I mean, that would be great if Apple could at some point make it so that Mac OS windows just kind of like float in wherever you want. That would be cool. But I think it's
Starting point is 01:38:58 unlikely because it would require a real complete rethink of all of the you know interactions with windows so i think it's less likely that something like that would happen um but but who knows i mean maybe they would do something like make the your desktop be transparent or translucent instead of having a desktop pattern on it and so it sort of feels more like vision os even though it's not but um two displays would be nice tim writes in and asks connecting to a mac from vision pro seems useful but it makes me wonder why the why they don't simply allow you to run mac os as an app natively on the device the specs seem in the same ballpark as a Mac, and it would make the Vision Pro an even better travel device if you didn't need an actual Mac with you. Do you think this is a technical
Starting point is 01:39:50 limitation or a policy choice on Apple's part? Well, as somebody who's been championing the idea of iPadOS getting support for virtualized MacOS at some point with a high-end iPad Pro, uh, virtualized Mac OS at some point with a, with a high-end iPad pro, it can be done. I would say that vision pro is doing a lot already. And so pushing this hardware even further with something like this seems, uh, like a lot, I think in the long run, it's a possibility. You also have the input problem, which is to run a Mac. You have to pretty much have to have a track pad and a keyboard. And the best way to get that is to connect to a Mac. But do I think it's possible that in the long run, Vision Pro devices, Vision OS devices could run a Mac just on their own? Sure. Right. I don't know if they ever will. I think that there are
Starting point is 01:40:41 probably some technical limitations and policy choices here. but tim is right like it's not like this hardware can't run mac os because we know that it does in other configurations it's just that this hardware is doing other stuff and is you know it's busy with that stuff i i don't know if they even tried um but i do think this is a potential future for iPad and for Vision OS is could you just run Mac OS virtualized in a Mac app in certain modes with
Starting point is 01:41:14 certain input devices connected? Maybe, but I don't think it's going to happen anytime soon on Vision Pro. I will say, for me, I do much more like the idea of using Vision Pro to connect to my mac rather than being a mac right because then it would be an empty mac right an empty mac that you'd have to sync and you'd have to do all those things exactly yeah i mean i get the idea of like oh well now you
Starting point is 01:41:39 don't even need to travel with a mac wherever you go a mac is with you but the Mac, wherever you go, a Mac is with you. But the truth is wherever you go, you'd still need the keyboard and the trackpad, right? You'd still need that. So there is an argument to be made that at that point, perhaps you should bring your Mac and have your Mac with you. But, um, you know, I don't think it's impossible, but you're absolutely right. That as somebody who is now maintaining two different places where I work, like every time i sit down at one after it's been a while i'm like oh geez that thing isn't here and that setting isn't here and i need to did i update this app over here and like there is an advantage to having it be yours and not another mac that has to sync all the things from your mac yep uh and kevin writes in to say many if not most of the initial Vision Pro reviews have called out
Starting point is 01:42:27 how big you can make windows, especially video and how impressive this is. But I find it a little puzzling and wonder if you could comment based on your experience. What's the practical difference between a small window positioned close to your face and a large virtual screen in a virtual movie theater? Is watching a movie on a massive window in Vision Pro really any different from sitting closer to a 4K TV in your living room? I mean, the truth is that the Z-axis is kind of a lie in Vision Pro. Everything is always sort of the same size. It's just sort of where it is in the stack. But you can also resize images. So I would say is the practical difference is actually between a movie window
Starting point is 01:43:07 that is in the center of your vision, but it's only sort of like in a narrow field or you make it really big. And now it's like you're sitting in the first row of a movie theater where you can't actually even see the whole picture in your vision without turning or looking in the corners. That's the difference here is that you can make them really big. Now, could you sit closer to the 4k TV in your living room and get a similar thing? Um, yes, you could, but, um, that, you know, people don't do that and people, and, and, and
Starting point is 01:43:42 yeah, I mean, yeah, I, that's what i would say is yes you could you could get really close although the quality is very good i what i i see when i get close to my 4k tv i see a lot of artifacts yeah which i don't feel like i see so much on vision pro but um the idea is that you can be anywhere and be up as close to the screen as you want. Whereas in the real world, you, you know, unless you put your TV right next to your couch, you're probably like looking at it from a distance. And so,
Starting point is 01:44:12 yeah, I don't know. I think that's, to me, that's the difference. I mean, look, it's all a,
Starting point is 01:44:18 it's perspective and it tricks your brain. It's like, why even go to the cinema, right? Like, what is it about seeing a cinema screen that you like? Then why not just always sit really close to your television? Like, there is a perspective thing that feels good.
Starting point is 01:44:31 Like, having, like, a really large window, it just looks cool. And it's like, oh, wow, look at the size of that screen. I could sit very close to my TV, but that's just not comfortable for me. Like, I wouldn't like that. But it's nice to be able to sit and relax and have a screen that's just not comfortable for me. I wouldn't like that, but it's nice to be able to sit and relax and have a screen that's really large. It just looks cool, and it feels
Starting point is 01:44:51 like I'm at a cinema, even though I'm not. If you would like to send in your questions for a future episode, go to upgradefeedback.com. It's also where you can send in your follow-up or any other feedback that you have about the show please go read jason's excellent review in full over at sixcolors.com it's
Starting point is 01:45:12 definitely worth checking out you can hear us both here on relay fm where we have multiple shows you can also hear jason on the incomparable.com as well and if you want to check out my product work go to cortexbrand.com. You can find us online on Mastodon. Jason is at jsnell on zeppelin.flights. I am at imike, I-M-Y-K-E, on mike.social. We're also on threads. I am imike, and Jason is jsnell there as well. You can watch video clips of the show on TikTok and Instagram and full episodes and clips on YouTube. We are at Upgrade Relay on all of them. Thank you to our members, the supporters of Upgrade Plus.
Starting point is 01:45:49 Thank you so much. If you do, you get longer ad-free versions of the show and tons of great benefits of being a RelayFM member. Go to getupgradeplus.com to find out more. Today in Upgrade Plus, we're going to rank the environments in Vision Pro, which me and Jason are both very excited about. Thank you to our sponsors, NomNom, DeleteMe, and Factor.
Starting point is 01:46:10 But most of all, thank you for listening. We'll be back next time for episode 500 of Upgrade. Until then, say goodbye, Jason Snow. Goodbye, everybody.

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