Waveform: The MKBHD Podcast - Apple Vision Pro Turns One: Spatial Reality Check

Episode Date: January 29, 2025

This week, Ellis sits down with Andrew and David to discuss everything Apple Vision Pro! It has been almost exactly one year since the Apple Vision Pro was first released, so we thought it'd be a good idea to talk with actual developers about what they like and don't like about building apps for Apple's new device. Enjoy! P.S - Thanks so much to Grégoire Lemoulant and Cihat Gündüz for taking the time to speak with us! Links: Fried Guy Dinosaur experience: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvzTRCul860 Immersive io soccer video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rZjQpD3-3k Gregoire Piano App: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/piano-flowing-tiles/id6472594978 Twitter: https://x.com/agathacapp Cihat: Posters App: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/posters-discover-movies-home/id6478062053 website: https://www.fline.dev/ Twitter: https://x.com/Jeehut?ref=fline.dev Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/jeehut.bsky.social?ref=fline.dev Mastodon: https://iosdev.space/@Jeehut?ref=fline.dev Music provided by Epidemic Sound  Shop the merch: https://shop.mkbhd.com Socials: Waveform: https://twitter.com/WVFRM Waveform: https://www.threads.net/@waveformpodcast Marques: https://www.threads.net/@mkbhd Andrew: https://www.threads.net/@andrew_manganelli David Imel: https://www.threads.net/@davidimel Adam: https://www.threads.net/@parmesanpapi17 Ellis: https://twitter.com/EllisRovin TikTok:  https://www.tiktok.com/@waveformpodcast Join the Discord: https://discord.gg/mkbhd Music by 20syl: https://bit.ly/2S53xlC Waveform is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Say hello to Tim's Selects, Tim's Everyday Value Menu. Enjoy the new spinach and feta savory egg pastry or our roasted red pepper and Swiss pinwheel, starting at only $2.99 plus tax. Try one or try our full Tim's Selects lineup. Terms apply. Prices may vary at participating restaurants in Canada. It's time for Tim's. This week on The Gray Area, we're talking to Chris Hayes about how our digital devices have changed us. On The Grey Area, we're talking to Chris Hayes about how our digital devices have changed us. Now it's like traffic or air travel.

Like, it's a thing that we all just experience as a bummer that you just talk to about like, doesn't it suck that? You know, we can't pay attention. The phones are always going off. Listen to The Grey Area with me, Sean Elling. New episodes every Monday, available everywhere. All this being said, I wanted to ask you guys next. How many people in real life, blood in their veins, human beings...

Zero. I know where you're going with this. How many people do you know that spent their money on a Vision Pro? Zero. What is up, people of the internet? No, it is not Marques. It is your typical producer. Today, host Ellis Rovin, and I'm joined by two lovely co-hosts, Andrew and David, and it is time for another waveform bonus episode.

Are you guys ready? I am. I'm ready to party. The HVAC is also broken in this room right now, so we are wearing jackets. It is very cold, but we will do anything. I'm so cold. It is freezing.

To make a waveform episode for you all. It's eight degrees Fahrenheit. It is single digits outside. This table, this metal table is so cold. My computer's not plugged in. I think it might die. I'm jealous of you people washing the dishes because your hands are probably warm right now.

Oh my gosh, yeah. If we had a sink and some dirty dishes in here right now, like going at it right now. I'd be so happy. Oh yeah. Anywho, guys, today I wanna talk about one of my favorite products. Favorite products, do you wanna take a guess

at what it is? I think I know what it is already. We already know what it is. You already know what it is. Wait, you both already know what it is? Yeah, because you guys told us what the episode was about. Did we really?

Oh, I don't know. I don't remember. I kind of know. I helped collaborate a couple. Well, you know, many of my favorite products, like Books Palma, Honda Moto Compacto, Diet Coke. Right. So this one fits perfectly in line with all three of those. Apple Vision Pro.

Right. Because actually Apple Vision Pro is not like any of those products at all. It's really expensive, doesn't do a whole lot. And yet I just think it rules. I just think it really does. is not like any of those products at all. It's really expensive, doesn't do a whole lot, and yet I just think it rules. I just think it really rules. And so for those of you that are not psychopaths like me, you probably didn't know that Apple Vision Pro

is gonna turn one soon in early February. That will be- Man, it feels like it's been out for- Longer. Really? Well, I guess it got's been out for- Longer. For- Really? Well, I guess it got announced six months before it came out. Yeah.

And there was some testing. So it's been talked about for over a year, but like it is officially a year old now. That's true. And it was teased and rumored for even longer. Yeah, for a long time. Back when it was just like, Apple's working on ski goggles

that you can play beat saber on But yeah, I was a year old and I wanted to talk about it because I feel like it's in this sort of Interesting place it hasn't really been adopted But some people are full send on it you have crazy people like me who love this thing and can't really express why? I mean, it's like, it's the most advanced technology I've ever used, even if it doesn't really have much of a purpose. It's one of those things that, like, blew your mind when you used it, and then I put it down and never yearned for it ever again. Right.

No, so this is a great segue. I want to hear, before we dive in, how much of you guys used Vision Pro? What have been your thoughts? What are your favorite things? What are your least favorite things? Let me know. So, I mean, the technology in general is just so interesting.

Like, it's fun to use your eyes to select things, and the fact that you can basically have your hands anywhere as long as the cameras can see them, and the tapping gestures, like all that stuff's really great. I love the spatial stuff. I love the pin the spatial pinning. It's so like it's so fine and it doesn't like wiggle like a lot of the other VR headsets do. I did use it a little bit more when they updated the Mac virtual display

thing that you can have with it. You can have it in ultra wide mode. I thought that was cool. I still yearn for like many displays because for some reason I like multiple displays more than I like a single long display. Same. Okay, in that case it's not some reason. Yeah, but you know, it's still a big heavy thing on your face that makes my iPads,

but not the Apple iPad, the face red marks on my face. Wait, can I ask a quick question that hopefully won't derail us too much? You actually got to use it at Apple campus. I did. Oh, that's right. Compared to the demo that you got versus when we got one in here

and you were actually using it, were there any major differences that struck you? Not really, I mean in the demo situations, they do things that try to make your brain go wow. So for example, they did the dinosaur demo in there, which is where a hole opens up in the wall and you can see into this Jurassic world and then the T-Rex comes out.

It's sort of this crazy sense of scale thing, which gave me the same feeling as the first time I ever tried an HTC Vive, because I did a demo at a Microsoft store called the blue where you're on a pirate ship underwater that had sank and then there's a whale that like swims over near you and it makes your heart start racing. That was back in like 2015 or something, obviously. But yeah, they not not really I would say It's more advanced now like they had less functionality back then

And I think especially with the stuff with the personas like being able to have multiple people in a room interacting on the same Thing is useful. So I'm glad they updated it, but it's still a little bit far off from where it needs to be. Okay, Andrew, what about you? I just think how easy and natural it was to get in the headset and just do what you wanted to do. VR is this magical experience, and I call it one of the things that non-techy people, when you show it to them, it's the coolest thing they've ever seen.

We are all in this space, and we see stuff like this, and maybe we're a little jaded, but like when I put my mom in a VR headset, she freaked out. When I put like a little cousin in a VR headset, they freak out. So this just took that extra step of being like natural to use, which was awesome.

But again, agree with David, it's so heavy and so uncomfortable in long periods of time. I felt like if I were to actually use it day to day, I would have to have like one of those lean back chairs from like Grandma's Boy or whatever it is, where the guy's programming lean back. I would have to have my head supported all the time. Yeah.

And correct me if I'm wrong, Andrew, but you prefer to do things the ocky way. Meaning you prefer Oculus. Oh, the Oculus? Or it's not called the Oculus anymore. Quest. Yeah. Quest. I thought it was or I like playing all the oculus anymore. That's all yeah I thought it was oh It's the meta oculus. I like This stuff. I like the most about VR is playing games

I don't see it as a productivity thing quite yet, and I think that's where most of these are going So like I like to play beat saber I like to do virtual reality experiences and that quest focus and vision pro games are lacking right now I think a lot of that has to do with the fact too that a lot of the games that are more Immersive you move a lot and you shouldn't be moving a lot with this on your face because it's so heavy That's a neck brace. Yeah, yeah for sure one-way ticket to neck brace Yeah, also because they are trying to kind of get the hand gestures to be the main interaction point with this device It's a little difficult for developers to figure out

Okay How do we use our hands instead of a controller because most of the like? Quest games and stuff have been used with the controller being like a pointer So it's yeah, you know, it's difficult they had like they came out with a fruit ninja, which was a throwback But besides that there hasn't been a lot of interesting games for it. No, and it's funny that you guys brought that up out the rip because we will totally be diving into that.

But before we dive into that, sort of the exposition of why we're here today is Adam and I got in touch with two developers who made apps for Apple Vision Pro. One of whom was really into it and really thinks this is like a great platform to develop for, great platform in general. The other actually fully abandoned working on Vision Pro.

He was just like, I don't see a path forward in its current state for like being a developer. And it was really interesting to see the things that they agreed on, the things that they disagreed on. Obviously there's no one answer. It's this giant, complicated behemoth of a platform. So we're gonna show some clips from those interviews.

We're gonna talk about it. We're gonna get some of your opinions and we're gonna have a lot of fun. But before we dive in, let's introduce the two developers we spoke to who are not actually here. The way I said that made it sound like they were gonna like, bring them in, boys! Like, no, it's not that.

The first guy we talked to, quick side note, my New Year's resolution for the year was to stop doing that thing that podcasters do a lot where they're like, sorry if I'm not pronouncing this right. Okay. Because every time I hear a podcaster do that, I'm like, well, you didn't wanna Google it?

You know what I mean? Or ask them. I spent a lot of time Googling the pronunciation of this first guy's name, Grégoire, he's French. After practicing that in the mirror a lot, he was like, you can call me Greg. And I was like... Whatever. Hey, you took the effort for it.

Yeah. Good job. Thank you. That's all I wanted to hear, guys. So Greg is the developer behind one of the most popular Vision OS apps. It's called Piano Flowing Tiles. We've seen a version of this on a lot of different headsets, but this is the one that people say works. I've tried similar apps on Oculus and I think I tried one on Vive like years ago

and it just, it was close, but it didn't actually work. From what I know, it's similar, it's basically like Guitar Hero, but on a real piano. Bingo. That is exactly, bingo. Let's go, baby. Yeah, so that's kind of the gist of it. And what's really interesting is that it is

one of the few actual AR, true AR. You are interacting with reality and it is being augmented by the headset. The other guy we talked to was this really cool dude named Chihat, who is an indie developer, spends most of his time in the iOS world, has also done a few Mac apps. His, I think, I don't know if it's his most popular app,

but the one we ended up talking about the most was this thing called Posters, and it's just this idea of you have a space, you wanna put stuff on the wall, bada bing bada boom. Very simple, or you would think it's very simple, but actually getting it to work turned out to be a little trickier.

That's a great idea, by the way. Like I hadn't thought about it, but if you're gonna be sitting in these virtual spaces, why not be able to flare it up? Right, and especially because, this is gonna sound crazy. My favorite Vision Pro feature, obviously most of the time I use it,

I'm doing remote desktop. And I love the environments. And I specifically love that you can scale the environments. You can have full and no and everything in between. And every environment, if you've never used the Vision Pro, has a time of day setting. You could be in Hawaii at day or you can be in Hawaii at night.

And when you scale up with the knob, the digital crown, I don't know what they call it. Digital crown. Digital crown. When you use the digital crown to sort of scale up the environment, it starts in front of you, and then the more you scale it up, the more it wraps around you.

But, so if you have it in 50%, it sort of is 180 degree Hawaii. And then if you turn, I just turned away from the mic. Forgetting I'm on a podcast. If you turn away from the mic, or turn away from the front of you, God, I'm so good at this. If you turn around, that's what I'm trying to say.

If you turn around, you're still, it's your normal world behind you. But if you choose the nighttime option, it changes the light behind you so that it's still your office. It's still, I'm still in the studio, but it's nighttime in the studio. And to me, that is the thing that makes it truly immersive.

Like when I'm at my desk in the studio, noise canceling, headphones on, Vision Pro on, no one can bother me. And I turn around and I see Tim working in the heart of darkness. I'm just like, this is it, this is it, baby. So yeah, the idea of like augmenting these spaces that you're still in while you're using it, amazing.

Jihaat also built a lot of dev tools. He runs a really great blog for developers. Very cool guy. I really hope we get to do more stuff with him in the future. So I want to kick off this by saying both of these developers tried Apple Vision Pro for the first time at these things called Developer Labs in Europe. Are you guys familiar with these? Yeah.

Really? You want wanna shoot? I believe that basically Apple set up these labs for developers to go and try to like experience the Vision Pro and kind of like understand how to build for them early. Exactly, so the gist of it is you bring a Mac, your personal Mac, you bring your code, and there will be someone there who is a Vision Pro expert

and will help you get your code running. And so a lot of people were bringing iPad apps that they wanted to run on Vision Pro, because if you don't know, you can run a lot of iPad apps just out of the box. And it's fine. It's fine. It's fine.

Yeah, it's nothing to write home about. Too it's fine. You know yeah, it's nothing nothing to write home Too bad Instagram doesn't have an iPad app so real And neither of them had had much of a major interest in VR prior to Apple vision Pro Greg said that he had tried the quest Was not impressed Didn't wasn't interested in it did not put on another headset until Vision Pro. Chihat had never worn a headset. And disclaimer, I am not going to differentiate

between VR and AR headsets in this episode. Because we're talking about, we're comparing flagship headsets. We're comparing quest vision Pro Yeah, I've do not come at me saying this is an AR headset This is a VR head we're talking about as two screens in front of your eyeballs with some cameras and some motion tracking Ability and a whole lot of chips and it's not worth our time here. They're also all converging now anyway Yeah, yeah, quest 3S is like, it upgraded the color pass through

and now it has higher fidelity, higher frame rate. They're all trying to be Vision Pro and Vision Pro is like, how do we shrink? Yeah, so if you're- That's kinda what's trying to happen. If I truly upset you by not delineating these things, write to me on Blue Sky. Let's start an argument.

We can get into it. For the world to see. So if I call Vision Pro a VR headset, and for some reason that is not accurate, sue me, I don't know. It's spatial computing. Spatial computing. God, do you even listen to Apple when they talk?

Does AR stand for Apple Reality? Like are we there yet? Don't give them that idea. I mean AI, they're probably gonna do it Apple intelligence Apple reality. Yeah, I could see it. Anyway. Yes. Anyway, so I was like jihad. That's crazy You are a tech dude you write code you've never worn A headset before vision Pro Even I had done that and I for the long time a long time was like the anti-VR person in the world. I was like, this is apocalyptic and scary and dumb.

You still kind of are when you're not wearing it. I know. That's so, that is so real. I'm like, get these headsets off. And then I put it on, I'm like, I love it. Keep it on my face. Don't stick it away. I know.

And it's funny, everyone else flips too. Everyone else is like, oh my God, I love these headsets are so great. And then they come in the office and they see me sitting at my desk with the blue eyes on and they go, this is so weird, I hate this. One time Marquez just walked by me and I heard him say under his breath,

he was like, God, this is the world now. I mean, I think that that kind of highlights the fact that these headsets are made for just solo interaction You know, this is this is the whole thing that people have talked about especially with a vision. Yeah, it's a lonely experience It's a cool experience, but it's not made to be interacted with with other people in the real world No, totally and which is the dystopian part of that part of the reason I wear it is because we have a kind of a chaotic Studio and I got some work to do get a zone out zone in I in. That's true. I gotta, what is it? Focus. What's the thing that was?

Lock in. But if you don't lock in, you'll spend the rest of your life clocking in. Locked in. You like that one? Grindset bros? That one's for you. I'm cutting this.

No! Anyway. Sponsored by Severance Season Two. See, I asked Jihad, I was like, how did this happen? What, why, and he said kind of exactly what you brought up at the beginning of the episode, Andrew. Basically, the reason why I didn't ever wear a headset, like a VR headset before is because I'm not interested

in VR gaming. I am a gamer, I would say, I play games from time to time, not a hardcore gamer, but I was never really interested in VR gaming and all other headsets to me were VR, like gaming headsets. And this was the first one where I also knew, like, okay, this is really focusing on apps and things with UI that are not necessarily games. And he did not see any existing headset as anything other than a gaming device. And obviously, you can virtual desktop on the Quest. The Quest actually has some really cool

virtual desktop features. My favorite of which being the desk cutout that you can have lots of peripherals and controllers that are still accessible to you in the Quest. And in the Vision Pro actually. Well, the Vision Pro only with the Magic Keyboard and the Magic Mouse. Yes, which is like.

Super messed up. Super, I mean mean not gonna lie This might be the year of the magic keyboard for me I really love my magic keyboard like home. I like as long as you don't use the mouse. We're fine I'm a mouse. I'm a mouse is where I draw the line. No, no, I'm a trackpad guy And it's not even about the fact that charges from the bottom. It's just a bad mouse Wow at David and Mel. Yeah, I said it I Will say blue sky me it's gonna be hard to switch at work because Andrew built me Just a bad mouse. Wow. At David and Mel. Yeah, I said it. I will say. Blue sky me.

It's gonna be hard to switch at work because Andrew built me just like the Lexus of keyboards. This thing is like, it's butter. For us it's the Lexus, for him it's like a Honda Civic. That's so funny. No, Lexus works. I'm just riding a Ferrari right now. I swear to God you could bake a croissant

with how buttery this thing is. Yeah, and so it made sense, right? Like Vision Pro, like we said, is too heavy to play Beat Saber on. Like it just doesn't work well as a gaming headset. And I thought that was sort of an interesting thing about it. Like there's this, it really,

I had never thought about it this way, but I don't know anyone who owns a Quest that didn't buy it for gaming. Yeah. Actually, I take that back. I know one dude, his name's Tim, and he is a very unique character. Not our Tim?

Not our Tim. Because all that applies to our Tim. It is hilarious. My Tim is a graphic designer as well. Interesting. It must be the name. It must be. Yeah, but I would say that most people

definitely buy these for gaming. All of the ads that Meta releases around the Quest are primarily gaming-focused ads. Right. As of late, they're trying to push that, but they're definitely trying to go more the productivity route. I think they're edging into the productivity zone

because they're trying to eat Apple's lunch. They're like, this is $500, and Apple's is $3,500, so. But the problem with using Quest, the problem that I had using Quest as a productivity tool is another thing, or touches on another thing that both of these developers, Chi-Yat and Greg, agreed on, which is the best part about the Vision Pro is how intuitive it is.

It feels so intuitive. And you put your headset on and you already know how to use it. Sure. There's maybe like 15 seconds where you're like, whoa, whoa, I have to know where my eyes are pointed. Yeah. And then after that, you're just like in it. Like the touching feels natural.

Where you put your hands feels natural. Everything just begins to like click. And that's what makes it such a cool productivity device. All this being said I wanted to ask you guys next, how many people in real life, blood in their veins, human beings? Zero. I know where you're going with this. How many people do you know that spent their money on a Vision Pro? Zero. I might know one. Marques doesn't count. Marques does not count. That Pro? Zero. I might know one. Marquez doesn't count. Marquez does not count.

That's not true. I do know a couple, yeah. I know one person who just buys pretty much everything that's Apple that comes out. Okay. I want to dive into your answer first. I also know one. I know not much more after that.

That's perfect. But it's sort of like this person, every time there's a new Apple product. New iPhone every time, new Apple watch every time Okay, and you think that is the the biggest reason they bought this thing. Oh Of people I know outside of our tech worlds, but like there's really only they only sold so many There's not that many people outside of our tech worlds. Yeah, I there's like none that I know person Yeah, my my friend Ramsey's who I played dota with he lives in Egypt

I was gonna say that's a fire Egyptian name. It is and you said he lives in Egypt. He lives in Egypt Nice. All right swag He bought a vision Pro one because he just really likes technology stuff and two Because he wanted to play dota 2 in a virtual environment With a giant display giant virtual display and he was hounding me because his m1 Max MacBook Pro was like dropping frames while playing it on the vert on the vision Pro virtual So he was like, please test the m4 Pro so I can see if I if I bought a new laptop I would work and he said it does so really yeah

Yeah, he mostly uses it for that though Okay, primarily to play Dota 2 on a massive virtual this that sounds awesome. That's kind of sick. I tried it It was awesome. Really? Yeah I really tried to game with the virtual display and I could not get a single game to even open really Dota 2 is like 15 years old so that is true. Yeah, also it runs. Yeah, it runs on them on the Mac And it's just like it's like you're mirroring your Mac in the vision pros what I'm no no same But like every single time I try to do it there would be some like graphics error Oh, I'd get like I'd get the scary window that had this red circle with the exclamation point

And it really critical graphics. Oh weird you're done, bro No but I mean valve specifically tries to make all of their games run on every platform seamlessly, and Dota 2 is Mac native as well as Windows native, as well as Linux native, so. Interesting. Yeah. Interesting. Well, you're not alone. Greg and Jihad also do not know

many people. Anyone that? A single person who purchased it, which is crazy. And I tried to look up the actual sales numbers, it's Apple, which confused me. I thought publicly traded companies had to sort of publish this stuff, but. They group it into categories, so that's how they do it. Found some estimates that in this first year

of Vision Pro sales, they sold as low as 220,000 units. I saw some estimates that they sold as high as half a million units. That's not very many. There's not that many people out there with this headset. I mean, like what, there is no killer feature. Like it's a fun party trick. It's super fun party trick, but for $3,500,

you can buy a nice MacBook Pro for that price. Okay, and Chi-Hot totally agrees with you. Firstly, price and everyone who puts it on. I think there's one reason people I know would actually buy it, because everyone who has seen those, for example, the soccer, the football video with the short one. Everyone who's seen that and who likes to watch football really, really wants to have the device with live sports events. They would buy it immediately if there were live sports football of their favorite team or something like that, because it's the best experience. You can watch it from your home. It's sometimes like some people think it's better than actually being there because you can change the camera perspective, which you can't do when you're sitting there

and you just have your one angle. And I think that's the reason people could buy it, but currently it's just too expensive and too heavy. I think the only pain point is the price. Really? Yeah. I think it's very, very easy to develop on it. It's very intuitive.

So I think the only pain point is the price. Before I dive into the next point, I wrote this in the script. Do we still say killer app? Do I sound like a boomer when I say killer app? Really? Like if I say killer app, like the Silicon Valley bros aren't gonna be like,

no one's talking about killer apps anymore. No, what they say, they say product market fit. You don't have to say that, but killer app is still a valid term. I think for a new category, it definitely is valid. Right? I just figured it, because it's such a 2010 thing to say, like, dude, I think Urban Spoon is the killer app. You know, if you guys remember Urban Spoon.

Boy, would they, right? I loved Urban Spoon, but this is not about Urban Spoon. Well, it actually specifically applies to this because it needs a singular app that makes it worth buying. But there just isn't a singular app that has been released that's like, I buy Vision Pro for that app. You know what I'm saying? Like, Marquez buys MacBooks for Final Cut. He could really care less.

I mean, I'm sure he likes the integration with the other Apple stuff he has, but he would be much more open to using a Windows computer if Windows ran Final Cut. Yeah, this is a lot of talk about somebody not here right now. I miss the janay rule. I, he would agree with me. I don't know.

I know this. I'm not gonna speak on Marquez when he's not here, but I don't know, bro. I don't know about that one. Andrew, what do you think? If Marquez had used Windows? Yeah, he used to But would he switch back if final cut was switched back? I'm saying he'd be open to using you'd be I think he'd be open to using it interesting just fascinating

Um, who knows I would both Greg and she hot agree that Marquez would be open Yes, no. That this price is such an issue to getting people adopt. And it creates this vicious cycle, right? High price, low adoption. Low adoption, there's not an incentive for devs to start making stuff for this thing. Right.

And of course, content is missing as well. And content isn't arriving because the big players don't want to invest because there are not enough users. to start making stuff for this thing. Right. And of course, content is missing as well. And content isn't arriving because the big players don't want to invest because there are not enough users. And there are not enough users because the big players don't invest. So this is like a chicken and egg problem. And one thing that Chihat said that really got my thinking gears turning was he used that term invest.

He said, there are not enough users and these big players are not interested in investing their time and money because when you're a big development studio, you, you move, you're like a big ship. You move slowly and expensively. And that sort of is where indie developers are supposed to come in, right? They can move faster. They can invest faster. They can get these things moving. And yet, we don't see that. And I was super curious why we're not seeing that. And the answer was kind of interesting.

Neither of them said developers are not being supported by Apple. Totally. But it all comes back to this user-based, cyclical issue. I think the main problem is the user base not being big, because then you don't have the big motivation to also... Usually, you release an app, you bring out the first version, and then you iterate. You improve it, improve it,

and then you add more features, more ideas. And that's not really something that motivates something on Vision Pro, because there are not so many users, and you can't really make a lot of money with it. So most people who are on it really have to just poker. And you say, maybe there will be the users at some point, and then I will have my app ready. No, I understand that stands from indie developers too,

because say you're an indie developer, and you're not working for some big studio, and you want to build out your skills. The reason a lot of indie developers too, because say you're an indie developer and you're not working for some big studio and you wanna like build out your skills, right? The reason a lot of indie developers make apps is because they're just like, oh, this like hones my development skills and it's just a fun project, but why would you make a fun project if nobody's gonna use it, you know what I mean?

There's also that like magical moment where you just like make a fun app, in many cases a task app, and then you just tweet about it randomly, and then all of a sudden people on the internet just go, oh I want to try that out. And then you meet me, Adam. And then randomly they either get really popular or they just they have this big stage, but there's nobody to actually use this vision pro. And you're spending this time learning how to code for vision pro pro, but it's like, it's not, you don't have faith that they're gonna like expand

the ecosystem to where people are still going to be using Vision OS in the future. And with that high price tag, I don't know if an indie developer, Like, wants to buy one. Yes, totally. And think about how amazing an experience an indie developer, an indie team would have to make

to justify a $4,000 piece of hardware for some app. They could buy one of those Nvidia AI computer mini PC things for that price. Dude, you could just like $3,000. You could buy like an entire like room in your house full of sick stuff for $4,000. could buy like an entire like like room in your house full of sick stuff for $4,000 you know what I mean we got to go cut to a commercial break, but when we get back we're gonna talk about the experience of actually writing code and developing on this thing and what it's been like to

Despite the price despite the low user base to forge ahead and try and write programs In vision Pro but until then We'll be right back below user base to forge ahead and try and write programs in Vision Pro, but until then, we'll be right back. So, Support for Waveform comes from Shopify. This year is only a few weeks old and you're still filled with that new year, new me energy. And if your desire is to finally ditch that job you've hated for the past few years and maybe start your own business now, it's the time to strike. But that comes with a lot of questions. Questions like, how am I going to make this year different? Or how am I going to

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Welcome back. We're talking about Vision Pro. We're talking to developers. We're talking code. We're talking $4,000 price tags, all of it. One interesting thing Chihat said to me is, and I think I mentioned this to you in passing, Andrew, but I asked both Greg and She Hot,

what do you do in Vision Pro when you're not developing for it? Because you both own one for development purposes, but you also use it. Greg gave me very normal answer. I like to watch movies in it. It's great for watching movies. Big screen, your house, your couch.

It's kind of hard to drink a beverage without a straw in Vision Pro as someone who drinks a lot of coffee. Getting a coffee, feeling the coffee mug clink against the glass is pretty scary. I can't imagine the hot steam coming up onto the glass is not just absolutely, it had the issue where it was like. It has the cameras on the bottom too.

I haven't. It was splitting though too, remember? Yeah. Well, the one that I, the one in the office has not split. It did? Oh the bottom too. I haven't it was splitting though to remember Yeah, well the one that I the one in the office has not split it did Oh Brandon Brandon's day But I I be clinking I'd be clinking that thing But what do you think she hots favorite thing to do in vision pro was because it really surprised me and it is the first Time I had heard someone give this answer when I asked you the question. Do backflips. Do backflips, that is exactly correct. It's funny, like the weight of it actually sort of creates this center point of mass that you can whip your body around like really, no.

It probably would. You said he doesn't game, right? Does not game. And it's not movies. The first thing I would like think of that would actually be beneficial to have something is some sort of like 3D rendering or modeling so you can see things in a 3D space.

Interesting, but not what he said. What else can you do in this thing? He said he loves it for reading manga. Oh. And I was like, if you're looking at a page, doesn't the foveated rendering ruin that experience? Only the thing you're looking at is in focus, really, and the rest of it's unrendered gobbledygook? Well, the thing about manga specifically is that most of the things I draw,

it's like pictures and the text is quite big. Like, you... I can also read other stuff, but I wouldn't necessarily read a book in it. But for manga, it's perfect because you mostly like look at the pictures and read the text for it, and then you just swipe every 15 seconds or so, and then you don't have to hold anything. It's really awesome. Enough about manga. Never.

Never. Yeah, you're so right. I don't read any manga. I barely know anything about it. But I want to talk about developing on Vision OS because have you been in the app store on Vision OS? Not in a very long time. It is like going to a mall in 2025. There is like- The lights are out. The lights are out, there's dripping from the ceiling. There's like three stores and they're all like half open.

There's always one Kohl's attached to like the side of it that is still open. Exactly, gotta get that blue light special. always one Kohl's attached to like the side of it that is still open. Exactly, gotta get that blue light special. That's Kohl's, right? I don't know. I have no idea. Kohl's is not a restaurant. Anyone here, anyone talking about the blue light special?

One of those old timey stores would, there'd be like this thing where like in the middle of the day. Kmart. Kmart, this blue light would come on and it would signify like an ultra deal and you'd have to like run to one part of the store and like, wow.

I hate everything about that story. Before Fortnite, real life was actually kind of like Fortnite. I don't know if you guys knew this. Anyway. Interesting. Ellis, 2025. Before Fortnite.

Just spit it. Continue. Ellis, 2025. Before Fortnite. Shush, Bill! Continue. So both of them said developing for AppleVision Pro is not particularly difficult if you're already coming from traditional Mac app

slash iOS app. And one of the reasons that is is because over the years, Apple has actually made developing for iOS and developing for Mac more and more similar with Swift. And I think that's a really cool thing, especially now that both devices are running on Apple Silicon, obviously the M series and the A series

are very different chips, but they're more similar than, you know, we're not gonna use the word Intel around here, but you know what I mean. Wow. And so they both said, if you're used to using Apple's APIs, you can kinda get started pretty easily. And that is actually where their perspectives began

to differ. And one thing, you know, Greg has this really complicated AR app. It's you need to model a piano, but not really display it because you need to be able to see the actual piano you're sitting at. And then that needs to be pinned to a physical location in the world.

And then you need to be generating these objects that world, and they need to be generating these objects that fall linearly, and they need to land on the right keys, because if they're even a little bit off, the app is useless. You're not getting useful information for playing this piano. And he found the Apple APIs to be pretty useful for that purpose.

He said he had to model the piano himself, which took a little bit of time. But after that, things like the spheres that represent the notes, there's an API for that. Getting them to stream down, there's an API for that. And Chi-Ha actually had sort of an opposite experience. So the interesting thing about the Vision Pro is there are two different worlds within the Vision Pro. One world is you open your app and you say, my app is the only app that can run now.

All other apps have to be gone. And when you enter that mode, you get access to more functionality. You get access to things that the camera is tracking, like the walls, the surfaces, the tables that the device is finding in your room. So you can do more. In that case, you can actually do a lot of stuff. You could do skeletal tracking, you could do many things, but that goes back to basically how I see the Vision Pro as a VR device right now, because that I would call

that the VR mode, because you only have this one app that can do something, and even if it does augment like reality augmentation stuff, it can't do it together with other apps that also may may be augmenting or trying to augment reality. And that's like, technically, that's called the full space for apps. If you run it in the full space, then you can have access to all those. But if you run it in the other one, in the shared space, where all the apps can be open, where you can have like a window here, a window there,

and move them around, you can't access any of these APIs. And that's the thing that I think makes this device really interesting as an AR device, if you can open multiple apps and do things with those. This was so interesting to hear, because the ability to multitask this spatial computing environment was, to me, the signature selling point of the Vision Pro.

And the fact that it's actually sort of harder to develop in that mode really, like, was not something I expected to hear. The thing that I'm thinking that it's mostly lacking is the AR part. Like there's basically I personally don't see the Vivint Pro as an AR device yet because the software is missing. Really? Wait, okay. Wow. Okay. Damn. You're really giving me a lot here. What's missing from the AR part of it? Well, what is augmenting reality? It means you can augment reality

by adding stuff to your reality, right? So when I wanna add stuff to my reality, like I have an app where you can basically open posters and pin them to your walls. And then that's like augmenting reality. You can do that, it works. Like my app is there, but as soon as you switch the device off and turn it back on, the augmenting of the reality is gone.

So I would state that the augmentation of reality is just temporary right now. It's not persistent. And this doesn't make it really an AR device because I can't really augment my room. I can't really augment my place. Just imagine if I was basically creating a new dimension of world where I have different kinds of things in my home and I can switch it on and off whenever I want. And maybe I have multiple different ones. I have one for work, one for leisure time, and one for when I pass it on to guests. So that's the kind of AR that I'm imagining and seeing as AR, and that's completely missing right now. That's something that the Quest does well, actually, is your home space that you have

on the Quest. You can customize, and it can be very personalized to use that every time you turn it on, if you land in the home space by default, then you have all your stuff. And it's in the same space, right? Remind me, is the Quests home space, are you referring to? Like the boundary that you draw? It's called a Quest Home or something? But are you referring to the weird sort of room

that you can choose? Or it's not a pass-through experience? No. It's a, yeah. Right, so it's a very different thing. It is different. VR versus AR. But yes, VR versus AR. But I do think you raised this really good point

that persistence is so important in manufacturing any reality, whether it's an augmented version of our existing reality or it's a complete virtual reality. I will say like one of the huge things that multiple people have brought up many times is that I would love to use this thing sitting in front of my computer, but the problem is that when I want to like pin windows around me and like do all this setup so that, oh in my kitchen, it has this really amazing thing where like you can keep things in other

rooms but the fact that when you turn it off and then turn it back on, all of that is gone. that, oh, in my kitchen, it has this really amazing thing where you can keep things in other rooms, but the fact that when you turn it off and then turn it back on, all of that is gone. It makes it really difficult to use this thing redundantly. And it's like beneficial, like, oh, I'm gonna use it in my living room now. Oh, I'm gonna use it in my kitchen now. I'm gonna use it in my bedroom now.

And without that persistence, it's so much effort to just set things up every single time. Yes, and that just to me, just feels like this giant blind spot that's like almost worse than the price. It's not worth it than the price, $4,000 is so much money. But seriously, it's like- It's a huge blind spot.

Even as someone who only uses this thing at my desk at work, Literally not a single other time. Having to reset all my windows every time I get to work, sucks. It sucks so bad. And when this thing got announced, I remember all these commercials where it's like, you can pin your cooking instructions to your toaster.

And then it'll be, and it's like, what's the point of that? It's like picture the real world version of that where every time you leave a sticky note somewhere in your house and then you leave your house, it's gone. No, it's all back in a stack and you have to re-stick it. Yeah, that's like even worse somehow. So naturally, I had to ask.

That's a great analogy. So naturally I had to ask, right? But Vision OS 2. Well, that's already out. I know, but it fixed this, right? Like, they fixed it. Like, they added the necessary APIs. They sort of, like, you know, fixed it.

No. No. And Chihat, once again, and this is his opinion, this is not, like, based on, like, hardcore reporting, but he sort of enlightened me with this. Vision OS 2, in my point of view was like an update that basically fixed or filled gaps more or less that developers already expected to be there from day one.

So Vision OS 2, I wouldn't say it brought any new APIs, new functionalities, new tools that enable developers to do new stuff. They just felt like, they just heard, listened to the developer feedback who said like, hey, this is missing, this is buggy. That kind of stuff was important too. But in my point of view, Vision OS 3

is going to be the first post-feedback release of Vision OS. To me, it was crazy that they called it Vision OS 2 in the first place because they really kind of just improved on things that were obviously missing. The big thing about it was they kind of just took the feedback from reviewers and people that were buying it that were like, it's very hard to recommend without these very obvious features.

And they tried to add those in as quick as possible, but they didn't like change, like add APIs, like you said, and like totally change how you use the device. I think that would be a real 2.0, so it's pretty wild that they didn't just call it 1.5. I know, especially given the timeline of it. Vision Pro comes out in February, and then in June, the Vision OS 2 beta happens.

I can't remember if that was the developer beta or the public beta, but it's like, they're not going to be adding crazy new features once the beta is out. Like it's pretty, I mean, unless I fundamentally misunderstand how to develop software. So Jihad, like he said,

it really feels like Vision OS 3 is gonna be the first real new thing we get. Does he have like a wish list of things that he wants to see in Vision OS 3? I'm so happy you asked. Not only does he have like a wish list of things that he wants to see in vision. I'm so happy you Not only does he have a wish list, but it is beautifully written unbelievably clear and on his blog flying dot-dev fline.dev and an article called why I stopped building for vision OS and what could bring me back and

his wish list, number one, magnetically pinning windows and objects to surfaces. This sort of exists, right? Like it does recognize surfaces, you can sort of put stuff up against them, kind of. It's a little bit messier than that, but still isn't persistent, doesn't really accomplish like a full mixed reality experience

number two advanced room scanning with editable 3d models And he's talking about a hybrid API that combines the power of room plan and the 3d scanner Apple clearly has a lot of experience with lidar. Yeah at this point. Yeah, lots of Apple devices have lidar Number three skeletal recognition for fun AR interactions. I'll be real, I don't understand rigging in 3D stuff. Not a developer, I don't know if you knew this. So I'm not even gonna try to explain how skeletal stuff works,

but it has something to do with rigging or maybe not. Oops. And then more interactive, immersive video experiences. Like we should be able to have a 3D video that you can more walk around, maybe I don't know. Like Apple Maps, like he says. Exactly, like an Apple Maps. And we actually had a really funny conversation about Apple Maps because I am an avid

Microsoft Flight Simulator player. And are you guys familiar with the Bing Maps integration? No. Really? No. I didn't even know that was a prize. I didn't know there was Bing Maps. Okay, so Bing Maps exists.

Google or Microsoft owns all of this map data. And they also own Azure, right? The cloud computing platform. And they have this big partnership with a little company. I don't know if you've ever heard of them, OpenAI. I don't actually know if OpenAI's models are part of this, but I would assume it's part of this just sort of extended family of nonsense.

But when you're playing Microsoft Flight Simulator, they leverage open source map data and Bing Maps data with an AI running on Azure cloud to recreate the entire world in 3D. To the point, because they're using real up-to-date satellite maps from big maps, if you fly over your house, not only will you be like, hey, that's my house, I recognize it.

You'll be like, that's my car parked outside. Yeah. It's awesome, it's awesome. So when you're flying around the neighborhood you grew up in, you can use like real landmarks to navigate. Or like when I'm flying around Los Angeles where I grew up, it's like amazing. I can be like, there's my,

there's actually something really beautiful about being in the sky and seeing your entire childhood neighborhood at once and being like, that's the park where I played baseball. That's my elementary school. And like a decade of memories being experienced once, it's amazing. Anyway, this is all to say, this is possible.

We have the technology, it's in a stupid video game. So Jihad like was really frustrated. He felt like he wasn't, he didn't have the APIs necessary to truly make the AR experiences of his dreams. Meanwhile, Greg's experience was actually like way more rewarding. He found the new workflows of, you know,

coding on a Mac, putting on the headset, writing a few more lines of code in the headset, testing it out, taking it off, challenging but rewarding and something to think about. And he also said something that I thought was really cool, which is that when you write iOS apps, you're constantly thinking about how do I put everything in this box, this rectangle,

in a way that like makes the most sense, right? And then when you're working with Vision Pro apps, all of a sudden you have, in theory, limitless amounts of space. And what do you do with that? How do you not overload the user, but also how do you not underwhelm the user? And I was just like, wow,

that is such a fun brain shift to get to do. But once again, like Apple are really helping and how to design stuff in 3D. And I think it's so cool. When you build an app on an iOS, you have to think in a small rectangle. You have to hear. You have all the space around you

to bring information. It's so cool. And that's why I wanted to like come up on the piano. The notes are falling from the sky. And it's cool to see. Greg also said that he found Vision OS 2 to have some really meaningful improvements, specifically for the piano app.

Anchor points are much more stable. You know, when you put an anchor in the real world, you want it to be very stable. You know when you put an anchor in the real world you want it to be very stable for example for the piano application. I don't want it to shift like even some millimeters it will show the wrong note for example on the piano so I really want it to be very accurate and I think with Vision OS 2 they improved it a little bit. So it's very, very good accuracy. And when you put an encore on the real world, it will stick.

When you say, hey, in the real world, this point is here, there's a lot less jitter, which, as I'm sure you could imagine, for something like the piano app is a lot better. Kind of important. It's also funny because that sounds like a 1.x update, not a 2.0 update, because it's fixed, right? It's a thing that exists that was improved upon.

Exactly, Andrew, exactly. So one thing that I was really curious about as someone who doesn't develop is how different is coding for iOS versus Macintosh? God, it feels weird to say Macintosh, but I'm gonna say it. How different is iOS and Macintosh? And then how different are those two things

from Vision Pro from a developer's perspective? And one thing that both of these devs brought up is that over the years, Apple has really pushed these sort of semantic solutions, where back in the day, if you were coding for Mac and you wanted to put a search bar in a specific place, you would enter in coordinates. Sometimes they're UV coordinates,

sometimes they're other kind of coordinates. You would pin it to that location, bada bada bada. You'd start to like build your layout, right? Over the years, Apple has really made it such as that they know where the best place for a search bar is in an iOS app. It's not gonna be buried in a hamburger menu. It's not gonna be at the lower left-hand side of the screen.

Like you know where the magnifying glass is supposed to go. Oh boy. Yeah, at the bottom of the Safari window. And so when you're writing Swift code, oftentimes what you're saying is not put the search bar at the top of the screen. You're saying, put the search bar in the search bar place. One thing that definitely is different on Vision OS

than on Mac OS or iOS is that it didn't have that old system where you could describe like, I wanna have a button at this coordinate and it looks exactly like that. It just doesn't have that. Same as the watchOS by the way. On watchOS you can't also do that. On iOS, because we had this old systemOS, you can't also do that. On iOS,

because we had this old system before 2019, there was this old system. And on the Mac, it's still there. You can still use it and you can always fall back to it. Like Apple didn't drop support for that old system. It's still there. You can use the new one, which had these baked-in functionalities, or you can choose to use the old one, but on Vision REST, we don't have it. Basically, when they introduce new platforms nowadays, they say, okay, we only introduce the new system, you have to use it, and the new system is more restricted,

and you can't, like, UI-wise, there are things you can't really control yourself in detail. So it's a bit different, but still you can make a lot of custom stuff still when it comes to, like, window UIs and stuff like that. And I would see the limitations more in the parts that are not just buttons and UI elements like you have on iPad, etc. And other platforms, but the stuff that Division Pro should actually excel at being AR and VR. Which on the one hand, at first I was like,

that sounds not fun. That sounds like Apple is telling you how to do things. And both Greg and Chi-Ha responded, they were like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. It's not like that, bro. Like obviously sometimes it's fun to have freedom as far as your user interface goes. But for the most part, when you're making an app,

the user interface is not creative expression. Like you need it to be intuitive so that people can actually use your dang thing. And it can bog you down, like having to write all of this code. But something really interesting that they mentioned is that on both Mac OS and iOS, you can always fall back on the old system.

You can always override the prescribed semantics. You can always go back to the coordinates. That is not true on Vision Pro. And it's because there's no legacy system that Vision Pro is building upon. I mean, technically it's a fork of iPad OS, but at the same time, you don't get any of those old tools. And I thought that was like a really interesting

thing as a developer because Vision OS is different from MacOS and iPadOS where with, or iOS. iOS has been around since 2007. We know the best place, I'm gonna use the search, we know where it is. We've figured it out, I'm gonna use the search, but we know where it is. We've figured it out. We've gone through the fire, but we don't know these things yet for Vision Pro.

Like we have an idea of what's probably gonna work well, and it seems like it's going all right. We all agree that this thing is very intuitive, but also, I don't know, I sort of think we should have the freedom to get a little messy. We're new in this thing. I see, I mean, I think no one will ever be upset with more freedom. But one thing, I mean, we all agree that the thing Apple nailed with Vision Pro was the intuitiveness. So that means

they probably found out quite a few things correctly as like, do you trust them? Do you not trust them? It sounds like they have, I mean, I know it it's over over a decade of research of iOS stuff knowing where certain things are supposed to go And this is fairly new but they seem to have hit it pretty well off the bat. So I Think they know that with the interaction stuff But I think that in terms of the way that app should work and how they should be pinned and how you should interact With the actual UI elements, I think that's maybe something that might be interesting for developers to kind of mess around with.

It's always interesting for developers. I totally agree with that. But like, I don't know, using it feels really intuitive. It feels like that's the thing they nailed. Well, there's also the delineation between interfacing with a floating window versus interfacing with like an object or something like that Yeah, you know what I mean like a window. I think Apple knows what they're doing But something else entirely it might be might be different

Do you think once more developers or once there's more people on board with this they'll kind of revert back to a grid system? there's more people on board with this, they'll kind of revert back to a grid system. You don't think they'll give the freedom once people are like, oh, we're used to this, like we get it now, it's been five, 10 years of spatial OS, whatever it's called. And then be like, okay, here's a little bit more freedom now that we kind of know where everything is.

Or like, this is them, just like, this is where it goes, that's fine. I mean, it's possible that Apple, it feels like Apple wants to have more and more and more control moving forward in general. Yeah. And it seems like maybe because the iPhone and the Mac have been out for so long,

they can't necessarily just flip a switch and say, we're taking away all your control, but for a completely new paradigm, they feel more emboldened to do that. Well, and also I got the impression that Apple views the those, the coordinate system is just like one example, right, but a lot of these sort of, you do everything from scratch as sort of a legacy

way of building these things. And Apple does not seem like the kind of company that is going to fall back on a legacy. And I'd also like to raise, there's another really common development platform, he's not looking at me, there's another really common development platform. He's not looking at me. There's another really common development platform that works like this.

Not exactly like put this in the best place, but this is sort of how HTML works. It works a bit like HTML on the web, where you more describe what you want to have, and then the browser decides how it renders it. And this time, the system now decides how it's rendered. Yeah, so I think being a developer for the Apple Vision Pro, you're in this very weird place where you have all of these tools, and yet in order to realize this device as sort of what Apple

advertised, you're actually missing a bunch of key tools, and there's no guarantee anyone's actually going to give you any money for this stuff. You know, Jiho brought up this really good point that when the Vengeance Pro first came out, he was like, there's gonna be this gold rush moment. It's gonna be like the iPhone where like people are paying a dollar for the beer app. And that, it was sort of like that for a week, but he said after a week, it was just like,

just sort of stopped. Anyway, we're gonna take another break. When we get back from the break, we are gonna try our best to look to the future and see what's in store for this magical piece of garbage. And until then, am I wrong? Am I wrong? David, David, David, you and I were in the same boat, right?

Like we live in New York, we're around lots of people, they know we're tech folk. And we get asked, should I buy a Vision Pro? And I always say no. Well, I say try, I say go to an Apple store and experience it because it's very fun and then you don't need to buy it. Exactly.

It's a magical piece of garbage. That's true. It's going a little bit far. I don't think so. I don't think so. It's magical. You put it on and you go, Ji-Hot said something.

Ji-Hot was like, after I gave it to some of my older family members and they took it off, they got kind of freaked out because they were like, how do I know I'm not wearing the headset right now? Oh my gosh. Oh no, we can't go down this rabbit hole. No, but all I'm saying is that is magic.

And personally, personally, I really hate that thing that people say where they're like, any sufficiently advanced piece of technology is indistinguishable from magic. Hit the wrong button for me. Yeah, I hate that one. And we can get into that at another time.

But Apple Vision Pro is magic, undeniably. And it also doesn't do anything. Ergo, it is a magical piece of garbage. I'm not gonna take any, I love Vision Pro. I'm like the biggest Vision Pro guy in the office and I firmly believe magic trash. And without giving many of my hosts a chance to respond, I'm gonna take it to commercial. Speaking of, FanDuel's Kick of Destiny 3 is happening live Super Bowl Sunday.

You should watch. It's going to be a hoot. While you're at it, download FanDuel, North America's number one sports book. You can bet on touchdowns, turnovers, heck, even total kicker points, don't you know? Anywho, enjoy your podcast or whatnot. Please play responsibly. 19 plus and physically located in Ontario. If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or the gambling of someone close

to you, please go to connectsontario.ca. Welcome back to the freezer, AKA the Waveform Studio. We're cold and I'm Ellis and we're gonna be talking about the future of Vision Pro and where we think it's heading. And I poked and prodded these developers as hard as I could to try to be like, speculate, speculate, speculate. And they just wouldn't, they were like, I don't know.

So that's our job as your resident morons. I would like to go first with my speculation. Sure. Okay. I am doubtful Cheaper Vision Pro will come out. I want it to. I see it as pretty much the only way this platform is going to survive. You mean like ever or like soon,

like in the next year or two? I don't want to say ever because it's not... Look, we had this big year this year where both Meta and Snap unveiled these tiny glasses. They're not even 1% as powerful as Vision Pro. They don't have as high a resolution. They don't work as well in almost every way. That being said, the degree to which the form factor was scaled down is nuts.

It's very compelling. It's super compelling. And if I were Apple, I would at least be thinking, maybe this is where this is going and not a big giant headset. And you already have this really powerful base that is Vision OS. I could see not spending money developing

a cheaper, slimmer headset, going back to hardcore research mode, cultivating Vision OS into something that will eventually run on glasses, and just waiting for other people to do the necessary research to make these things. I don't think that's what's gonna happen. You don't think that's what's gonna happen.

What do you, David and Mel, think is gonna happen? I think that they are gonna try to make it slimmer. They're absolutely gonna try to make it cheaper. And there might even be a situation where they subsidize the price a little bit. Of course. They're Google. It costs Google $50 more than it cost them to make the Nexus 7 to sell it because they

just needed to adopt Google Play users. And that works very well for them. So what Apple needs to do is they need to make it less annoying to wear. They need to make it cheaper. And they need to make a killer app that actually makes people want to use it every day, or just enhance the work features where you do have permanent spatial pinning and that kind of stuff. And I think that considering chipsets are getting faster and lower power and all this kind of stuff, they could even, I don't know, switch to an A series chip at some point.

It probably doesn't need to run an M series chip. I don't know. I mean, a lot of the stuff is getting easier to run. The chipsets are getting faster. The node size is shrinking. Like I think that they could potentially put it on a smaller chip later down the line. But yeah, I think the build quality is allowed to take a hit if it means it can go smaller And if they could sell it for $1,500 or or less I think that that could be a winner, but they need they need to make it cheaper If you go on vision pro r slash vision pro, I think that's what it's called You almost always see people bragging. They were like, I just finished my Vision Pro setup.

And it's always Mac mini, Magic Keyboard, Apple Vision Pro, no monitor. Like that is the thing people are most stoked about. And I don't really, I like that you said $1,500 because the alternative to a Vision Pro in that setup is a studio display, which is also overpriced. Yep, definitely.

But I think the idea of you're building an at-home desktop setup, Vision Pro versus studio display, actually kind of makes sense. Both have speakers, both have a webcam. It just sort of depends sense. Both have speakers, both have a webcam. It just sort of depends, you know, what your vibe is. I was gonna take the very common Andrew route and go somewhere in between both. Wow. Wow, you coward.

I kind of like agree with both of you. I think we all agree that the Metaglasses and the Vision Pro are the two far ends of the spectrum and they're both battling to the middle of that and they just started at different routes. So the form factor is better on Metaglasses if you can create that, but the computing power is nothing. Where the form factors, they just focused way too much

on over quality, controlling it, and it's just not comfortable to wear, but the computer power is insane. I like what David said of this, think of how the Quest 3, now the Quest 3S, I don't know what they would call it, because it wouldn't be Vision Pro, it would be Vision SE, would be that $1,000 version

that's maybe a little more plastic, which is funny to think plastic is lower quality, but will be so much more comfortable on my head and lighter. So like something like that, I think we totally see it because they need to keep developing inside a vision. And if we're already seeing, if one of our two developers we talked to is like,

I'm not doing this anymore, not a great route for developers. So they need something to keep them around and they need something that, you know, you need the research of how people are using it. So if you make it $4,000, you make it way too expensive. You need to make it accessible. So I also agree with subsidizing some, and then they're going to work down towards the better form factor.

But I think we are, you know, as impressive as Snap and Meta are with their glasses, we are just so far away from that being the form factor of like actually producing what you wanna use in everyday life and being able to afford it. And it seems like what you need to make a budget version of this, whenever I talk to engineers, not just Apple, but Meta, Snap, all over the place

who are working on these problems, I get wildly different answers. Like I was talking, I'm not gonna name any names, but I was talking to engineers at one company who were like, yeah, you know, getting a stable image to both of your eyes is really tough because you have almost no tolerance for any flex. Like as soon as one of the displays moves ever so slightly,

all of a sudden, your brain is struggling to like combine them into a stereoscopic image. I then asked that to another company and they were like, sounds like a skill issue. And I was just like, I don't know what to believe, man. There's no like standard in this. And I think all the companies are working. And we've had them admit that too.

They're like, this is what we want with this. We think it's going to be the standard, but we're also ready to like switch gears and move to the thing that universally becomes the standard. So no, I mean, I think some people believe that like a smaller field of view and higher resolution is more important than Meta's wider field of view and lower resolution You know I mean yeah And there's just two there's just a lot of different competing camps on how this is gonna go and this goes This is almost a protocol question. Yeah, because there's just a lot of competing standards until eventually people figure it out

I know you know it's really funny that you brought up that dichotomy because it really does actually make the vision Pro make a little bit more sense because the Apple solution to do we go with Higher resolution or do we go with more field of view? Yes. Yes both and make it in the same. Yeah Yeah, that's that's something else that I was thinking about I think that they know that they need to make this cheaper and lighter and made it more plastic, but Apple has entered a stage in their company's lifespan where everything they make is jewelry.

They don't really sell a product that isn't supposed to be like jewelry. You know what I mean? What do you mean by jewelry? Expand on that. Like the fit and finish and the build quality and everything is just like insane. Material quality. The tolerances, the materials, materials titanium like freaking everything they make is just like

They so I think that they're scared of making something that feels like it could be a little bit cheaper Whereas meta is just like I don't know dude throw at the wall like figure it out It doesn't really matter if it's plastic. It doesn't we're just trying to like advance the technology and we're trying to put this people's hands We're trying to put this excuse me. We're trying to put this on people's heads. Yeah Who's doing that though? Metta meta? The funny thing is though is it really solidifies my original thought and I think a lot of us agreed with this of like the Apple vision Pro Feels like it was a dev kit that they sold to consumers

And the consumer aspect of it didn't work out quite as well. Yeah, yeah. It's a technology advancing prototype that they fixed the fit and finish on to sell it to people who are willing to spend a lot of money. And arguably made it worse to do that. Yeah. I know, I know.

And it's like, as somebody who really uses it a lot, it's one of the few tech products I've used in the past year that really just lights a fire in me. I have a question for you though. I would kill for fire right now. I have a question for you though, Ellis. Yeah. You're using the studio's unit.

No, absolutely. I would never buy this thing. There was one. This is the problem. There was one time, it's a magic piece of trash and I love it and it's the best thing you can buy and it's not worth it. And like every, no, once or twice, I've like gone on eBay. You can get a used one.

What's the- Probably 2,600 or something. Cheaper, like 22. Still a lot of money. Yeah, it's a lot. Even that is like too much for me because it's like I could buy, oh, they're lower, I'm seeing them for 1850.

Go to sold listings. Oh yeah, let's go to sold listings. How do I do that? Cheapest one, 13, 1389. Was it broken? No, sealed Apple Vision Pro. Wow. Whoa, that's not a great look.

But it might be, it's a 21 medium. I don't know if that's like, oh, you little, little small head guy. One third of the value in one year. I'm seeing 14. I'm seeing 26. I'm seeing 31. Interesting, okay. Seems like they're selling all over the place. Clearly various. I'm not going to lie, David.

If someone came up to me on the street and was like for 13 for 13 I might yeah I might could see you considering that for 13 I think I think I might do it actually for 13 but I think anyway now what if it was made of plastic entirely and still worth and still cost $1,300 yeah but it still had the same experience and was lighter that sounds better that's what I'm saying. That's nice. Jesus. I just learned something about myself You like to because I was like Cuz I was like, I don't know about that. Like I don't want a plastic Yeah, and this is probably what Apple was thinking too, but I think they're wrong

Damn so is Are people like me just impossible to satisfy? Yes. Yep. Yeah. Well, before we go, I wanted to ask you guys a question. What is the killer app that you think would ignite Division Pro's sales? That would make you go $4,000? Nothing.

Yeah, I'm done. I love flat screens and I love my laptop. I don't know. I don't need to. It's great. It's fun. It's awesome. But the way I see it, like you're just doing the same thing in a different paradigm. And I don't like I'm not a sculptor, right? I can see from like a 3D modeler's point of view, how this could be really incredible if you really like, I don't know how to tactile feedback or something, and it actually felt you were sculpting something. For me, I write words, I consume articles. I don't need to do that in 3D space versus on a flat display.

Yeah, I think I just really don't see myself in a position of using it. It would have to be productivity wise because entertainment wise, I think there's still something weird about, I live in a house with my wife and a kid now, being inside of a Vision Pro feels really weird if they're in the same room as I am.

So maybe if I was single in an apartment and really liked watching a lot of sports and stuff like that. Maybe there's some cool exterior sports apps that could fit in there, but uh... That Chi-Hot brought up a really good point that if they nailed the soccer football experience, oh my god, like this thing would fly off the shelves. I also want to note that like I think a lot of the reason a lot of people love like the Quest is because they can have a YouTube video playing

on the side while they're doing their dishes. All comes back to the dishes. No, there's so many times I've been on a FaceTime call with someone in Vision Pro, and then I'll just send them a screenshot, and it'll be the FaceTime call, a pretty normal size, and then I'll have a 70-foot Family Guy funniest moments compilation right next to me.

I'll be like, great call. So I got it. We need to focus our energy. We need to be paying more attention to what we're doing at any given time. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. We need family guy funniest moments compilations. I think my killer app, killer experience,

I mean, on top of my absolutely hilarious productivity app idea that I'm still waiting for someone to implement, where your tasks chase you around the house and the more important tasks move faster and are scarier. Yeah, literally a killer app. Literally. That's so nice.

Now, I would like to see, I, so I am in this sort of unique space where I am one of the few audio professionals who works more in headphones than on speakers. That's like a pretty not normal thing for audio folk. And if I could get really killer audio integration, like if I could, if there was a headphone jack and I could like fully like use it as like a sound card

and have like truly no latency direct, like I mean, I guess I can already do that out of my interface, but then I still have to have like this headphone core, I don't know, like to me, that's where it comes in super clutches, like when I'm in a mix and I'm wearing my headphones and I just wanna like lock in. Yeah, that's a good point.

So like you're using the Vision Pro as your main computer to do the audio mix. Right now I'm using it in remote desktop. Right, exactly. Same difference. And like I know I've talked to a bunch of mix engineers who all say, man, I wanna mix in this thing. Audio nerd moment.

One of the ways we tell what we're hearing is our brain is constantly comparing the information we have between our two ears. Part of the way sound makes it to our ears is it comes across our nose and our cheekbones and is actually like directed across our face to our ears. When you have a big thing right here, it makes stuff sound different.

And sometimes it can be harder to perceive a clear stereo image with ski goggles on your face. You guys are missing the one thing that would make this instantly fly off the shelves. Even at $4,000. I said soccer. Better. GTA 6.

If it had an exclusive game. Dude, that would be too much. People would go crazy. Do you remember how... Apple's problem. No, but do you guys remember how gnarly it was when GTA 5 came out on Next Gen, quote unquote, Next Gen consoles, Xbox One, and they added the first person mode, which wasn't in the 360 release.

And everyone was like, wait, I don't like this. No, there was this moment where everyone was like, like GTA, it's like fun to be irreverent in GTA, but all of a sudden in first person, it feels too real. It makes it too real. Yeah, it's like, this is less fun now. I think, I think in VR, it would be way too real. Yeah, it's like, this is less fun now. I think in VR, it would be way too real.

When the Vive was the most popular headset in 2015, there was a game that came out that was basically like Call of Duty, but first person, and people loved it. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Okay, I'm gonna close with this because I had a really interesting experience last weekend

that I didn't think about Vision Pro, but now I'm thinking about it as a pertains to Vision Pro. If you live in one of the cities where this movie is screening, I highly suggest you go see it. It's a movie called Grand Theft Hamlet. Have you guys heard of this? No, you guys went to it.

Grand Theft Hamlet is a staging of Hamlet entirely within Grand Theft Auto. And when Mariah put it in Slack, I was like, this sounds stupid, I'll go see it. It was so beautiful and I cannot stop thinking about this movie after seeing it. And that would be a pretty cool thing for Vision Pro. If I could, actually, if this existed

and the community existed, this might be the thing. Cause like, I'm kind of interested in exploring in exploring theater, especially after seeing this movie. And I don't want to go to a place. I don't have enough time. So if I could like wear this thing and use my creepy apple persona as a character on a stage and read a soliloquy. So like live events? I guess I'm thinking specifically like theater.

Like something that you have multiple people and you're interacting and you're playing and... And you like kick a ball and it goes into a net. No. Well, maybe. Maybe for... Yeah. Okay. All right. My co-hosts are freezing. I'm somehow doing fine. Normally I'm the cold one. This is weird. Anyway, I'm going cold one. This is weird. Um, anyway, I'm gonna wrap it up here. I wanna give a big, big thank you to Jihad and Greg

for coming on the show. You can find Jihad on Blue Sky, Twitter, Mastodon. We'll put his links in the show notes. And if you're watching the video, it'll be somewhere on the screen. Gregor, is there anything that you would like to share about yourself, about developing for Vision Pro, something that you feel like to share about yourself, about developing for Vision Pro, something that you feel like

people might not know without you telling them anything before you wrap up the call? Yeah, just one thing. I know there are a lot of developers who develop iOS apps, and I really encourage them to step into the 3D world. It's not that hard. If they are able to build stuff in 3D, it's okay in 3D world, it's not that hard. And if they are able to build stuff in 3D, it's okay in 3D. And Greg is also on Twitter.

Also, don't forget, if you are a dev, if you're interested in indie development, I highly recommend checking out Jihad's blog. That is FLINE.dev. Again, thank you guys so much for speaking with us. You were so helpful, so informative, and probably a little annoyed talking to someone who knows as little about this stuff as I do.

Anyway, I'm Ellis. That's Andrew. That's David. Adam's over there. We're freezing. We're gonna wrap. What does Marques know? He goes, peace.

Catch you guys in the next one. Yeah, catch you guys in the next one. Yeah. Catch you guys in the next one. That sounds so forced. Ellis out. Keep this. Ellis out. Waveform was produced by Adam Allina and Ellis Rovin. We're partnered with Vox Media Podcast Network

and our channel's music was created by Vane Silp. Bingo. Shh. Shh. Shh. Shhh!