For air travel, I really like my Xreal Air glasses now that I have a newer iPhone 16pro. Just plug in the USB-C cable, and you have a virtual 60" screen in front of you which works perfectly for Netflix, etc. And they cost less than 10% of the cost of an AVP, and are not limited to 2-3 hours of battery life (they get power from the phone).
Note that if you have an older (lightning) iPhone, don't bother with these. They require a pair of dongles. Not only does that make things really awkward, but one of the dongles ends up apparently blocking HDCP, and prevents you from using anything but ... your own... downloaded content.
Taking a flight as an opportunity to indulge in a moment of blissful idleness is great... on a three-hour flight.
But on a 14-hour trans-continental flight, you've gotta have something to do. If nothing else, to distract you from how uncomfortable it is to be effectively confined to your seat + a few feet of narrow walkway for that long. That's more confined than a prison cell!
Good for you. I can't sleep sitting on plane. The only times I've been able to to sleep is (1) getting a free upgrade to 1st class where I could lie down (2) a mostly empty plane where I could stretch out across three seats.
Like you, I cannot sleep on vehicles, but I used benzos on a recent flight, and it was like an instant time-skip forward during nighttime of the destination time zone, which helped with jet lag. Benzos are pretty terrible for you if used regularly, but if you have the self-control to limit your usage to a few long flights a year, it would be irrational not to take advantage of them. (I am not a doctor)
Benzos are my flight go-to. I got them for some flight anxiety, since my stupid brain started getting scared of flying, but boy do they just make the time go by and I manage to doze. It's not good quality, but it beats the total lack of sleep I'd customarily get.
Outside of flying, I have no temptation or desire to take them thankfully, so a prescription with ten pills lasts me literally years.
One word of caution there (aside from other dangers of benzos): I had a friend use them on a flight from the US to UK, and apparently was still obviously intoxicated from them when arriving, and got rejected at the border, put in a holding area, and sent back on the next flight. If going through a place where you'll actually have to talk with an immigration officer, not necessarily the smartest thing.
Melatonin isn't a sleep drug. It's something your brain makes naturally at the end of the day when it gets dark etc. As I understand it, it's part of your bio clock and is not much more than your brain telling your body it's time to go to sleep. But if you're on a plane and you're nervous about flying, you won't fall asleep any more than in any other situation where you're nervous and not lying in your bed. You don't necessarily need something stronger, you need something different.
I am sorry, melatonin doesn't really do anything. It might give some the extra "kick" to fall asleep in a relaxed situation at home, but it definitely is not useful for "I need to go asleep while being pretty wound up" which is what people are talking here.
One not-oft-mentioned thing melatonin seems to do (at least in my own experience) is that it cancels out the effects of earlier-consumed caffeine in preventing sleep. So if you're overtired and awake only because of caffeine, melatonin will put you out pretty quickly.
I couldn't sleep on planes my entire life until one year I did Europe-Korea 8 times and it became so routine it started working.
The routine part, I think, is what took the "I won't sleep on this long flight" anxiety away somehow, because I started learning the rhythm of the flight. For example, there is no point to try and sleep until the initial meal is served, you'll just get woken up anyway. So now I just spend that time thinking and daydreaming and being bored, then I quietly eat my meal but stop at feeling overly fully, and by the time it's over I start to get tired.
I also realized that a sleeping mask is a great aid for me (on the other hand, I don't need earplugs/earphones). This came as a great surprise, as I don't typically need darkness to sleep well, but something about the sensory deprivation in the plane setting seems to do the trick.
What I'm saying is, I used to describe myself as the "I don't sleep on planes" guy for a good decade, but then it started working; don't give up yet.
BTW, to give this a software dimension: I was recently on a flight with an airline I hadn't used before, and I really liked a UI in their in-flight infotainment that showed the entire flight as a timeline with all meaningful events penciled in (when the meals are, etc.) and a recommendation during which blocks to sleep. That was really nice and thoughtful.
> BTW, to give this a software dimension: I was recently on a flight with an airline I hadn't used before, and I really liked a UI in their in-flight infotainment that showed the entire flight as a timeline with all meaningful events penciled in (when the meals are, etc.) and a recommendation during which blocks to sleep. That was really nice and thoughtful.
Do you recall which airline this was? Given similar pricing, this seems like a useful differentiator that would sway my decision of which airline to pick.
Not sure why not mention the airline in the post directly. Is this some kind of avoiding advertising for the brand? Really curious. Can't be click bait or SEO on hn.
Ironically, probably just sleepiness - I was posting from bed with an infant that wakes up periodically. Sadly WiFi is not opt-in in my bedroom :-)
It was Finnair from Berlin to Seoul, via Helsinki.
Edit: I found a YouTube video showing a version of this feature from 8 years ago, but I think the one I saw was a bit more refined: https://youtu.be/5-CrsPAZslg - still, interesting that it's this old and I haven't seen it anywhere else.
Not if you have a medical condition like sleep apnea.
I wish I could go to sleep on a plane. I’m someone who can sleep in most vehicles. Unfortunately it’s that same reason I can, which is why I shouldn’t.
You can use your CPAP machine with a external battery pack on airplanes. I do this regularly when flying long distances. In principle you should be able to also just plug in to the power sockets but for some reason this goes against most airlines policies.
The reason airlines don’t allow CPAP to be plugged in is because they don’t want people to suffocate if the power goes out in the cabin. But that’s just bonkers because CPAP masks have an escape valve for that purpose already.
In the end, I gave up arguing with the airlines and just keep myself busy on flights. It makes the travel much less comfortable but the one upside is I almost never have jet lag.
Knowing nothing, I was curious (there's also an apnea comment). It seems travel CPAP and APAP (auto pressure) is a thing, but travel BiPAP (inhale/exhale pressures; required by some conditions) not so much. A recent reddit comments suggest non-existent (exhalation relief only). Most all need Heat Moisture Exchange plugs. Yet I noticed eg the Philips BiPAP Pro Bi-Flex, bit of a brick (1.5 kg; 2500 linear cm - but qualifies as a medical device), but its spec says ok for airlines w/o humidifier attachment. So I'm puzzled.
So airlines allow 2 batteries of up to 160Wh (with airline approval) and as many 100Wh batteries as you can carry [note: I have not actually tried to show up to the TSA security line with a suitcase full of 100Wh batteries, so your mileage may vary].
A BiPAP machine uses 50-150 Watts, according to a random Google query, so you're looking at somewhere between 500 and 1400 Wh of total storage to get your 9 hours of sleep on a plane.
So what you're looking for is (a) a way to daisychain these batteries together so that you don't need to wake up ever 40 minutes to 2 hours to swap batteries and (b) a way to plug in your BiPAP machine, if your battery packs are all USB-C and your BiPAP isn't.
Sorry, my bad - regional availability and cost were the challenge, not BiPAP-ness. A Luna TravelPAP looks 20 W max and there's a USB-C cord. Heat and humidity is separate - a disposable sponge.
Given 100Wh batteries, I've wondered if one could kludge a TSA-compatible carry-on electric mobility device, like skateboard wheels plus selfie sticks, as a one-bag travel scooter. My hungry laptop already needs several. Or carry a conversion kit for an "amazon, use, then give away" inexpensive manual kick scooter.
Ehm this is not really accurate. Not many people use a BiPAP machine. They're only for very old people who have serious difficulties breathing. A BiPAP machine can serve a largely different pressure for exhaling and inhaling, a normal CPAP machine can only do that with about 2cmH2O difference which isn't a lot. But normal people have no issue exhaling against the output of a CPAP anyway so it's not a problem.
For this reason BiPAPs have much more beefy motors so they can ramp up and down quickly. Or perhaps two separate motors, I have never taken one apart (I have normal CPAPs which is basically just a pressure fan in a box with some regulation electronics)
But anyway my point is, a normal CPAP doesn't use that much power. It may use more than that if a humidifier is used (which is probably not a bad idea on a plane, but it requires distilled water which is an issue to bring on the plane in sufficient quantity). Because the humidifier is just a heater and heaters use lots of power.
I don't use a humidifier, my CPAP has a PSU of about 60W but I doubt it uses more than 20. The problem is more that they are not USB-C powered, nor are there official USB-C converters for it. I could probably construct one but bringing home-built electronics on a plane is probably not a great idea either.
So yeah I don't think this will be a great option tbh. If power is provided on the plane it would work but I've never seen this on my flights except in business/first.
BiPAP is very very rare. It's only for very frail people that probably don't fly anyway. A BiPAP can lower the pressure considerably when the user exhales, that's why. They need power to ramp up/down quickly. Most people have a normal CPAP or an Auto CPAP. The auto mode is often used to determine the optimal pressure and then that is set to be fixed (because the ramping up/down of the auto mode can be annoying).
Travel CPAPs are a thing but you can't just buy one where I live. They're only supplied by the medical service here, and they don't do travel versions. It's not allowed to buy one yourself (and they're very expensive, around 700 bucks).
> you can't just buy one where I live [...] very expensive
Ah, ok. Tnx. I assumed availability(eg [1]), so with a $1k-ish cost similar-order to travel, I wandered off looking for other obstacles.
The HME plugs used with travel CPAPs instead of a humidifier, with calcium chloride foam to transfer heat and moisture from exhalation to inhalation, looked interesting tech with winter coming. But for day-ish replacement.
Oh yeah I can't stand humid air anyway, it makes me feel like choking. So I do without a humidifier even though I get nosebleeds in winter. I tend to rub some lip balm inside my nose and it alleviates it somewhat :P
And yeah the Resmed Airmini and Breez Z2 are the only ones I've seen for sale in my previous country (where it was legal to buy them personally if you have a prescription) but they added up to well over 1000 euros with the battery kit which for some weird reason is not included. For my country (medium-wage) that's pretty steep.
Got the screen right there, watch a random movie like the rest of the Hoi Poloi!
I think it's honestly a great moment for cultural leveling. There's always a couple classics in the machine. I (un)seriously judge people who feel the need to get Wifi access on flights so that they can just chat on Discord. You have an excuse to just watch a movie!
I would expect that the people who came up with this meaning know exactly what the original slang means, and did it intentionally. Though yeah, I'm sure there are people who use it who don't know what it really means.
I don't think that's what it means. Raw dogging a flight means staying awake while doing nothing.
I suppose most people that want to "raw dog" a flight will fall asleep eventually, so I guess there's that. But I think getting buzzed and just slipping into a bad nap for like 12 hours is a bit different, at least to my mind.
Much of Europe to Japan, LAX to China or Australia, NYC to India or Japan (opposite directions). It's really quite common, you can check around by airport using this map with the duration filter set to 14+ https://www.flightconnections.com/flights-from-new-york-ewr
To add to a sibling comment: Thanks to the Ukraine war and having to fly around both Russia and Ukraine, this is many additional routes from Europe toward East now that used to be shorter.
Being 6'8" makes it very challenging due to no head support. I would love to come up with some kind of elastic harness rig that would also not be rejected by security protocols.
for me its rather ear plugs _without_ nc. the nc cancels out the droning of the engine and aerodynamics but it leaves conversations, music and crying babies. with simple earplugs the droning (which i don't mind) helps covering up voices. of course anc + random noise is the silver bullet.
doesn't it depend on how long the flight is? the effect of alcohol is pleasant and relaxing for few hours. after that it gets me sleepless tired and my legs need to fidget more than otherwise.
I write this while on a United IAD-SFO direct (a bit over 5 hours), sipping a scotch on the rocks.
I've gotten the AVP demo at Apple HQ 3 times now, twice before release day. I really like it, can't imagine dropping $5000 of my own cash on it. Maybe for V2. I had a similar reaction to the Airpods Max. V2 is here. Meh. In this case, my boss has indicated we can get a few for testing, but the check's still in the mail. I have a certified-for-actual-flight-training VR system next to my desk at the office and have used that more than anyone else in the office that I'm aware of. So despite some of the most compelling, hard, spatial problems on Earth, medicine and national defense - everything from protein docking to casualty evacuation in contested environments, I'm hanging tight for now.
Does the screen stay in one place or does it move when you move your head? That turned out to be the thing that made viture glasses unusable for me. I get that slam can be hard but I would be okay with sticking a target sticker up somewhere in my field of view and having the glasses force the screen there.
I think you need the XReal Beam in addition to the glasses to be able to anchor the screen in space, without it the screen is just fixed to the glasses.
I'm using a Quest3 for coding when I'm travelling with the Immersed app. It is a bit of a setup, but it allows using a USB-C cable for the connection. It also can open multiple virtual screens. I usually have 4 screens open. The resolution is not as good as the VisionPro but having 4 screens in a slightly lower resolution allows me to be able to read everything quite well.
My understanding is that I can just use them as an external monitor, so if I'm traveling I could plug in my linux laptop and just have an external monitor to work on and could play music through them at the same time.
That sounds really tempting to me, travel work setups are always sub optimal.
I have a portable external monitor, and can bring my mechanical keyboard, and if there's a spare TV I might also use it.
But it's still not the same as a proper home setup.
Even for working on a couch, it would be nice to have a screen in front of you so you don't have to slouch.
My understanding is that they can be used standalone as a monitor, or if you want to actually do VR stuff, play VR games etc, you need to buy a "XREAL Beam" or "XREAL Beam Pro" which does the VR apps etc?
Not too sure on the differences between Air, Air 2, Air 2 pro etc, but for my requirements they would all probably be fine.
Still works with a USB-C computer, or tablet, or Xreal's own Beam Pro. I'm sticking with my 13 Mini as a phone but still happy to travel with Xreal Air glasses.
I have Nreal Air glasses (they changed name?), they aren't useable for programming really, image is too soft, but neat for watching Netflix on the train etc.
I got the prescription inserts for the xreal air 2 pro. They were a little more expensive than I would’ve liked ($150 plus $40 because I need -8 SPH) but I have somewhat severe myopia.
Interesting, always wanted to try AR for office work because I travel a lot but the glasses part has always been a killer. Do they work with Linux at all?
Actually historically they are pretty finicky about resolution and refresh rate - it's only with the last firmware update or two that they work with RPi reliably for example - I couldn't come up with a working X config for a long time.
For my 12 hour transatlantics, nothing beats a Steamdeck for me. Sure it’s less immersive than a VR or xreal but it doesn’t really matter once you get into the game. I can easily play for 8 hours and barely notice the flight.
Those look pretty cool. Can you make the image from the input source fill your field of view? My issue with all of these headsets so far is the dumb "virtual screen" that's "equivalent to a 60-foot screen 100 feet away!"
My concerns are around the normalization of pointing high-resolution cameras at people around you all the time. Perhaps this specific device may have a company behind it that, at least at the moment, will resist handing the video feed with you in it to the data brokers.
Make no mistake though, the data brokers are foaming at the mouth to get access to high-resolution constantly-streaming video content that includes your face, your location, and your activities. Imagine the sorts of things that are going to be sold to whoever is buying.
"Jake Jacobs, who is married, is striking up a lengthy conversation with the young woman seated next to him. His wife might be interested in ads for divorce lawyers."
"Jeff Jones is taking a middle-of-the-week flight to San Jose, and he just finished writing an email to a recruiter from another company who is based out of that city. His company is paying the data broker for intel on employees who may be shopping around, so let's get this info to them stat."
"Jennifer Smith looks to be 3 months pregnant and is flying from Texas to Colorado. She's reading a Planned Parenthood pamphlet. The State of Texas passed a law in 2026 requiring data brokers to report on such activities, so of course we'll let them know."
As competing products come along that are cheaper than the Apple doohickies in part because of the subsidies they get from the data brokers, portable VR headsets are going to bring along a significant deterioration of our already-dismal privacy protections.
>My concerns are around the normalization of pointing high-resolution cameras at people around you all the time.
This already exists with CCTVs on every major city streetcorner and Ring cameras on every doorstep. Not to mention Tesla cloud-connected cameras pointed inward and outward.
But we don't have CCTV in bathrooms, locker/changing rooms or swimming pools etc. You can't take a Tesla in there either (please don't give Elon any ideas though).
While I can't promise that all CCTV operators are honest people, at least there's some chance of going after the company involved if there's a mess-up. Random people on the street where you have no idea who they are filming you, that's a different thing.
Randos installing hidden cameras in women's toilets seems to be a big enough problem in South Korea that some of the public toilets at major stations are security checked for them every single day, as far as I know. I don't want those people anywhere near me with an always-on camera, even in public fully-clothed spaces.
"Newer seat-back entertainment systems on some airplanes operated by American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, United Airlines and Singapore Airlines have cameras, and it’s likely they are also on planes used by other carriers." https://apnews.com/article/4c3ca3b46c704c6080ba026729fc8d21
Try getting CCTV footage passed as admissible in court in most of Europe. It's basically impossible, even at HD resolutions. That's if you can even get hold of the footage under GDPR - as it requires the police to request the footage and follow up with the business to ensure its passed on.
Most of the CCTV and Ring cameras are pretty lousy and they're in fixed locations. All the time I'll be out walking and hear an obnoxious "You are currently being recorded" announcement, but I'm far enough away from that cheap camera that I'm probably a shadowy figure in a grainy video.
These VR headsets on the other hand are high-quality, very close to other people, and mobile.
To the degree that this is a risk, I'd note that airports and train stations tend to have a _large_ quantity of cameras in them; some of them owned by the airport operator, some by law enforcement, and some by lessees of retail space within the airport.
This problem is real, but it is better managed by creating massive, punishing fines for companies that engage in that behavior than it is by attempting to ban augmented reality devices (or laptops, or tablets, or phones, or any other camera-containing device).
Just like we had with TVs and other screens. Interestingly enough though, when I look around in my office, the majority of people in my team wear glasses, so there's that...
The current top comment in this thread recommends AR glasses from a Beijing-based company which has indirect Chinese state involvement (through Alibaba). So yeah...
> Imagine the sorts of things that are going to be sold to whoever is buying.
Gargoyles represent the embarrassing side of the Central Intelligence Corporation. Instead of using laptops, they wear their computers on their bodies, broken up into separate modules that hang on the waist, on the back, on the headset. They serve as human surveillance devices, recording everything that happens around them. Nothing looks stupider; these getups are the modern-day equivalent of the slide-rule scabbard or the calculator pouch on the belt, marking the user as belonging to a class that is at once above and far below human society.
Stephenson, Neal. Snow Crash: A Novel (pp. 140-141). Random House Worlds. Kindle Edition.
This is complete science fiction / FUD. Amazon can't even stop showing you ads for vacuum cleaners after you buy a vacuum cleaner, you think they have the compute for something that sophisticated?
If 1% of people buy a second vacuum that ad placement could be very rational.
Some people have big houses, others want to buy another brand, and some people love their cleaner so much they buy a similar one for their cousin's birthday.
Not able to compute that won't stop them reselling or holding it.
At some point it will leak, and available for sell to PI or someone will more personal interest on you
No one has the storage capacity necessary to store that much audio content, let alone video.
Furthermore, the incremental benefit over traditional ad targeting via search or web history is probably pretty marginal, and not nearly worth the effort/cost. All of these scenarios (Jake Jacobs' wife, Jeff Jone, Jennifer Smith) are already going to show up in a traditional search history, why would an ad company go through all that effort to get data they already have? This is real life not a Mission Impossible movie.
It’d probably be mostly happening on-device. Why waste their own compute on it when they can just drain your battery and send themselves only the pertinent details.
I won't buy a device with cameras slapped all over it either. But anyone fearmongering over this has not thought through what it would take to do this at scale and really consider how this is worthwhile over existing tracking methods. The amount of compute required to squeeze useful targeting data out of hours of video is just not cost-effective compared to the plentiful data from your activity on a phone or laptop. In all your examples, the same signal would be visible from online activity that is practically guaranteed to be there.
> Perhaps this specific device may have a company behind it that, at least at the moment, will resist handing the video feed with you in it to the data brokers.
In that case go with devices made by Meta. As selling the raw data is the last thing they would do.
Oh yeah, no, you're definitely streaming high-definition video from the airplane. You'd better put your phone in airplane mode. The front camera is silently recording and selling your complaints about the airplane food to a competing airline in full HD. Some say they can tell from your pores. Airlines specifically upgraded in-flight wifi to 100 Gbps upload so that we could get seamless data brokering on-demand. A data broker I know sometimes hits a button to get instant live-streaming access to the inside of the seatback pocket. He really likes it. "He's watching Modern Family S4 E3" he laughed the other day. "He doesn't know the airline doesn't have S4 E4! He's going to be so disappointed"
It is also one of the few public places to 'safely' do it.
Would you feel comfortable wearing one and limiting your awareness of your surroundings on a public bus? In a coffee shop? Sitting outside a coffee shop? In a park? In a pub?
And also your answers may be yes if you are male, but I can imagine in the current world we live in a lot of women would feel potentially at risk if they were wearing these in public.
You assume that most train rides offer a good view, and a view that the commuter would find novel.
If I’m taking a commuter train every day , my view is not something great. Most of the time it’s rundown houses, tunnels or fences. This has been my experience in the UK, US and Canada.
If I’m taking a more long distance train, you assume I’m sat on the side with a view. Ever taken a mountain train? One side just gets rocks wizzing by.
You also assume they’re travelling in weather and a time of day that affords them a good view. Traveling at night? Traveling in misty weather?
And all that aside, you assume they’d prefer to look at the same things you do.
I guess that is based on experience as I have commuted in the swiss alps for years by train. There is even a tunnel when you are comming from Freiburg in direction of Lausanne/Geneva where you can count down the exact moment the tourists will let escape a collective woooaaaaah once the train exit the tunnel to a majestic view of Lake of Geneva with the alps and the Mont Blanc in the background.
There are some views you never get tired of looking at, especially as seasons, weather, clouds and time of the day makes it an ever changing postcard.
All in all in most of europe the trains usually offer nice views and I often find myself daydreaming about climbing that dirt trail on the left with my bike, riding my motorbike on that twisty road on the right side a few minutes later and what kind of life was it living 500 years ago in the old castle I can see here.
Maybe record that amazing commute so the less fortunate train travelers can play it on an Apple Vision Pro? Bit of a rubbish arrival surprise at work, but we can solve that next!
This is one of the most tone-deaf moments I have ever seen in an internet discussion. The guy lives in the closest thing we have to heaven on earth, a bountiful paradise of gorgeous beauty admired from afar the world over, and says to those of us living in crap-world that we should be grateful for what nature gives us.
At the same time, I feel you are being dismissive of the beauty around us every day. I used to bus the same route every day for months; and every day I would look out my window and just take it in. People watching, seeing buildings grow under construction, the changing of the trees. The sunset is always beautiful, imo.
Because not everyone has the same view afforded to them at all times?
Again, you are fortunate to have a view that you enjoy. That doesn’t extend to others, unless you believe that there are no other situations on the planet other than your own.
I am not living there anymore and I still like to take the train and enjoy looking at the window. Sometimes it is just looking at people doing stuff.
You might find that real life is boring, I find that most tv shows and movies are super predictable, following the very similar scenaristic mechanics and aren't more entertaining. Obviously some are also very nice, but these are the ones you would like to watch comfortably on your sofa or in a theater, not in a train or plane anyway.
Still, are those temporary inconveniences so dull that you can't read a book or something? Why cling to a desperate need for hyper stimulation when you could just relax with a newspaper or book. Oh jeez, it's misty out, and I forgot my ridiculous VR goggles, guess I'll just be sad :(
My comment, in retrospect, came across needlessly aggro and dismissive, and I apologize for that; the downvotes were justified and I don't know what frame of mind I was in. Your comment struck me as a complaint about circumstances though rather than interest, to which I'd say have at it, do what you want to do with the tech you want to do it with; I just personally can't relate to the temporary lack of novelty during a commute seeming like a sensible reason for spending so much on this particular kind of device that doesn't really seem to serve another purpose. A steam deck, iPad pro, portable gaming system perhaps, all kinds of others, but the AVP seems like a bit out of scope somehow. I personally bring along a Nintendo DS, or a book, or whatever else, but I'd kind of think if my commute was so sufficiently long and dull that I'd want something more substantial, I'd just really start looking into a much bigger change.
I've taken the train across the Canadian prairies, and my god is that dull, but I just chatted with people, did a bit on my laptop, looked out the window since there always is one, read, used my Gameboy. If I wanted to completely immerse myself in anything but the train experience, I'd just fly, it's cheaper anyway
Out of curiosity, have you tried the Vision Pro ? I legitimately ask because it sounds like you think it isolates you somehow from the rest of the world around you.
But you can still see the world and communicate with others. Why is that materially different than being engrossed in a handheld video game with headphones in?
Also all your examples of other stuff you do to occupy the time, they are all temporary. Why do you think the Vision Pro user would use it the whole ride?
I think this is down to the Boolean nature of “is this normalized or not”
Because it’s not normalized, people don’t afford it the same benefit of the doubt of other things that they have normalized in their life.
No I haven't, and I am somewhat curious, but I'm also keeping up with it through some of the swift/apple podcasts and YT channels I follow. For me it's more about the cost, physical overhead, and (apparent) lack of other utility, which all-together would to me be sort of a more involved commitment than some little thing I may or may not ever bring out..
I'd only ever consider bringing something that is nearly invisible to both myself and others in terms of weight and required infrastructure, wouldn't bring anything with me for the purpose of occupying my attention that I can't forget I have, or that would consume more than a negligible amount of space/weight; I'll bring a book, but not a tome
Incidentally, Canadian cross-country trains don't even have outlets at the seat as far as I know; they're quite old sadly.
That said, I buy almost no superfluous electronics for raw consumption, and even an iPad Pro would be wildly out of scope, as nice as they seem to be, since although they do have other utility, I can't picture myself doing more than reading or watching videos. On-the-go entertainment is something I try to keep at arms length so I can spend that time at peace.
Fwiw, I do also hope it doesn't become normalized, not to squash others' potential for fun, but because our existing devices already enable people to protect themselves from social interaction on a large scale, which strikes me as damaging.
I'd add that this is all really only applies to various modes of commuting and travel, I have no qualms with the device itself, only the idea of using it regularly in-transit.
When I take trains in Europe, I tend to look out the window, and they often have nice views.
When I take trains in the USA, I usually look out for a few seconds every couple of minutes, because it's mostly the same -- lower-middle class housing or warehouses if we're in a city, or ugly terrain outside of a city.
I have to say, taking the night train from Moscow to St Petersburg was eye opening.
I went from modern metropolis of skyscrapers and tower cranes to run down rusty industrial facilities that wouldn't look out of place in a STALKER game to sod roofed villages that look as they might have when Napoleon was making an ill fated expedition. Then of course a vast expanse of nothing at all.
Having ridden both routes, the Amtrak from Denver to Reno has a spectacularly better view than the Eurostar from London to Brussels. The food is also better.
These kinds of broad comparisons are utterly useless. Continents are much too large for that kind of thing to be anything resembling accurate.
> The work part though? I had the same feeling as with the iPad early on. I need a keyboard and a mouse to be productive.
Both my iPad Pro and my Vision Pro have a keyboard and trackpad:
- The iPad Pro of course uses the excellent Magic Keyboard.
- The Vision Pro uses an Apple keyboard w/o numpad side by side with the Magic Trackpad, in a custom tray to hold both. (Make sure that your carryon's front pocket can hold the full tray.)
For sure if I thought I could only do work on a MacBook not an iPad Pro (what most people seem to think, insisting iPad is a consumption device), then I definitely couldn't work on a Vision Pro.
But once you've figured out how to code (e.g. VSCode using blink code, or Koder, Working Copy, Textastic, etc.), do graphic design (e.g. Affinity suite), or run Office on an iPad (Teams, Outlook, Word, PowerPoint, Excel), the Vision Pro does those too but with "all the app windows at once" (ofc, iPad Pro 13" makes excellent use of Stage Manager for window groups).
All that said, I haven't felt a burden to pull AVP out on the plane.
iPad Pro 13" HDR with AirPods Pro USB-C using Spatial Audio that anchors to your iPad screen seem more than enough. Especially since you can share audio with a seat mate who also has AirPods, and both watch the same movie together.
Not often talked about: for doing real work, do consider a fresh glasses prescription and the Zeiss add-ins. To keep windows rectangular instead of trapezoid, insist you're under 40 regardless of your age, otherwise Zeiss do a stealth "progressive" that warps window sizes.
"Spatial Audio" is "simulated" surround. Apple is undoubtedly using its engine to pan the audio as you move around in this example, but the main point is to market Dolby Atmos as useful with only two speakers.
> "Spatial Audio" is "simulated" surround. Apple is undoubtedly using its engine to pan the audio as you move around in this example, but the main point is to market Dolby Atmos as useful with only two speakers.
Apple Music marks Dolby Atmos and Spatial Audio separately. They are not the same experience for the listener. They do work well together.
Since we only have two ears, a degree of our surround cue comes from where the sounds are when we move our heads.
Apple's "motion tracking in space" spatial audio implementation taps into that to an uncanny degree, because your own motion is not simulated. Real motion in real space results in a real sound difference from the sound model that, you're right, is simulating how that motion should sound relative to the origin.
As a listener, you start to forget the sound isn't centered out there on the anchor point, and then you start thinking the surround sounds are really surrounding you...
Note that I disagree with the second explainer's final section that surround sound speakers like Sonos are the same "spatial audio" as the motion tracking sound modeling Apple is doing.
I agree with the first explainer that Apple's Spatial Audio is a system that takes advantage of the gyroscopes and sensors in the listening device and headphones to, yes, “simulate” a 3D listening space that stays static as you move your head.
Apple Vision Pro can recognize a Macbook and turn that screen into the "theater" screen so you can continue using your Macbook as is with the keyboard and trackpad.
There was even a Youtuber that got annoyed of the black screen on the Macbook when doing this that he removed the screen from a Macbook altogether[0].
I don't see why won't you be able use a keyboard if you can touch-type. I can imagine that a CAD or an animation app could make great use of the 3D views, a mouse for precise coordinate input, and a keyboard for numeric and text input.
I wonder how soon will Maya or CATIA offer good enough integration. Maybe they already offer it at the high end.
It's really unfortunate that they decided for an ios variant instead of a macos variant for the vision pro. Even if the power of macos (a real filesystem and the software library) is hidden behind a 'expert mode' or some shit.
I want to replace my macbook, I don't want to replace my ipad. I can't work properly on my ipad unless i'm using it as a dumb terminal. And at the price point of a macbook that's what it should be replacing.
People may point out that i can use it to mirror my macbook screen.. but now i'm paying 2x to replace a screen. I think this is a primary misplay in he vision pro strategy.
Give me a windowing system that lets me place windows, not in a little box that is essentially a virtual monitor, but wherever i want in my immediate vicinity. Let me put my goland/ide window front and center, let me put a terminal to the left, and my music player above.. whatever.
I'd take a vision pro with much of the compute hardware stripped out but that I can tether to a macbook via usbc/thunderbolt as well.. just not an ipad strapped to my face.
> I want to replace my macbook, I don't want to replace my ipad. [...] People may point out that i can use it to mirror my macbook screen.. but now i'm paying 2x to replace a screen. I think this is a primary misplay in he vision pro strategy.
> From our perspective, we still think the main problem with the AVP is that it only supports native iPad apps (at least for 2D apps) [...] The AVP does allow you to tether to another Mac, but this relegates its usability to that of a "laptop aid" rather than a "laptop replacement". [...] We want to do this for the engineers and knowledge workers who need the extra capabilities in VR, and for the people who want to completely replace their laptop, rather than their tablets!
"It’s a fantastic device to travel with—Be it by train or by plane, it offers an unparalleled opportunity to selectively tune out your environment and sink into an engaging activity like watching a movie or just working on your laptop. "
Lord forgive you have a new unexpected experience while traveling or expose yourself to the underclasses or subject yourself to the shtty social environment you helped create...
I recently took a long flight and brought my Quest device, set to travel mode. It worked great! Pretty much the same experience as this article describes.
One protip, I bought a 512G flash drive and loaded it with content. Then I could pop the drive in and play movies off it. I did not want to deal with needing connectivity for DRM or other server checks.
Highly recommend that people try this out, the next time you travel. It’s a killer use case for VR.
Aside from the Meta integration which will always be a non-starter for me, it would be great if Quest and other headsets followed Apple's design with an external battery pack. I wonder if there are/will ever be "dumb headsets" that are powered/ran by a phone.
Do you know that you can create a Meta account with a one-time email address, fake name, and no connection to any other Meta service but the Quest platform? That may still be more connection to Meta than you prefer, but to many "Meta integration" implies an automatic linkage to Facebook or Instagram.
They only recommend your real name in case you need to recover your account.
----
To create a Meta account using your email address, you will need to provide:
Email: You can only create one Meta account per email address.
First and last name: We recommend using your real name in case you need to recover your account or manage your store purchases.
Birthday: You need to be at least 13 years old (or the applicable age in your region) to set up and manage your own Meta account. If you are between 10 and 12 (or the applicable age in your region), then you need a Meta account that’s managed by a parent or guardian.
Password: This must be at least 8 characters. Avoid passwords that someone could easily guess.
You can extend your Quest with third-party accessories to do this. I got a better head strap with external battery support + 2 batteries and charger from BoboVR. With the magnetic snap-in the batteries can be easily replaced mid-play, in essence providing infinite charge time.
I have a Quest 2 and a Quest 3 - both headsets allow you to continue using them while they're plugged into an external battery pack or charger, so you can absolutely do this already.
I agree it'd be nice to have an external CPU pack for heat and weight reasons, but we're not quite there yet. The closest thing currently is wireless streaming via a PC running Steam VR, but that's not exactly portable.
I believe XREAL headsets are exactly that. Bulky sunglasses form factor, Pepper's Ghost optical setup, dumb display by itself + 3DoF for comfort with an adapter, takes DP Alt input.
Pretty much yes, there are already hints that this will be coming but for the current experience what would be the benefit Quest with battery included is already the same weight as the Vision Pro without the battery. So just add an external battery bank via USB and you have the same weight experience
Yeah, as a first-gen Quest owner I got no idea what they're going on about. My favorite feature is how light it feels with the battery included - I can use it comfortably with no wires for 2-3 hours, then take it off and let it recharge. If I need more runtime, I plug it in.
If Meta made new versions of the Quest without the battery built in I think I'd actively avoid it.
Why? There's are already 1000s of external batteries. Unless you mean you think Meta should do it so they can charge 4x of any other battery like Apple does?
Quest is also lighter than Vision Pro, even with it's built in battery
The very first gen of untethered headsets were powered by the phone. They quickly realized that the phone stack in that phone stole too many resources to reach the performance they wanted. The Quest came out "shortly" after that Carmack presentation.
I have a Quest One collecting dust, but now I'm thinking it might be fun to bring it on a long flight if I know the onboard entertainment will be really lacking--some airlines I've been on have really reduced the TV/movie selections for some reason.
An iPad works pretty well for in-flight entertainment like video or reading. Though I’ll just bring a Kindle on a shorter trip where I sort of know I won’t be watching video.
There’s a headphone port in the Quest 3. I just got a $20 set of wired headphones for it. I think you can connect via Bluetooth for wireless but I have t tried.
Depends on the content, but some disc rips, some ytdl, some internal corporate stuff that I just hit Save As. The nice thing about the Quest, it is pretty much just a computer so lots of formats can get played (and you can even just copy files to the filesystem in a format the e.g. BigscreenVR or other video player apps can read)
Life is way too short to spend it worrying about what other people think about this type of thing. Reality is, they almost never care and are far more concerned about their own problems than whether someone else looks like a dork.
I think that will fade. I don't know if you remember how mocked the airpods were when they first came out ("They look like q-tips"). All it'll take is a few celebrities spotted using one and they'll turn cool in no time.
You're not wrong, but I think there's at least a couple of orders of magnitude of awkwardness between the Airpods and the the Vision Pro that will have to be overcome, before the VP becomes mainstream.
There were times when going to an office wearing a T-shirt felt crazy, like going to an office while wearing a bikini, or wearing a clown attire, would be now. It changed maybe in late 1990s.
Things like these change very slowly, then suddenly, once the views of the perceived majority around most people change enough that the people start to see the new state as proper and confirmant, a new norm.
I don't think it will pass, but I think subsequent versions will be slimmer and less mock-prone. In 10 years people will look back at the first version the way people look back at the first bulky cell phones.
Oh, I have no doubt that it will get better over time, but I think people forget that part of the early adopter tax is often that you look like a fucking dork. Which in my mind isn't a bad thing - it shows that you're committed to making it work. There's something noble about that, wouldn't you say?
It's possible for those concerned with this to overcome it! Most people are way more focused on themselves than whatever a random person is wearing in public, and will likely forget the encounter the second they set foot off the plane.
At least the AVP seems like a reasonably engineered piece of equipment. The cybertruck has a seemingly unending list of flaws documented in /r/cyberstuck.
Just reading this blog makes me feel like it is actually not a great device to travel with. For me, a good travel device is one that takes up minimal room when packing to the point where it becomes easy to forget I even have it in my bag. The Vision Pro typically requires its own dedicated spot on top of your carry on as you go through the airport - kind of the opposite. The author talks about just packing it with a single cover for the goggles but that also makes me nervous given its MSRP
A kindle/book/tablet seems superior in this regard. You get your entertainment for the plane and you don't have to worry about unpacking it on the plane, being precious with a very expensive piece of equipment and they are negligible in terms of lugging around/storing in your hotel. You can even reasonably use these if you have a little down time waiting in a line, during quick trips, will be without power for a while, etc.
The last time I remember flying with a tablet, it was so suspicious that airport security hauled me into a private room and interrogated me about it. They questioned why I didn't take it out of my bag for the scanner (since it was a 'laptop'). They asked what it was. They made me turn it on and use it. They were extremely rude and kept me holed up for a long time while investigating it.
So I don't fly with a tablet any more haha! Although, I get that time has passed and I would no longer be accosted so much, I assume. Must be pretty common now. My story takes place in ~2011 with the Motorola Xoom tablet. I guess they had never seen a tablet before.
I was also working hard on a plane one time, writing code to access barometer data on mobile devices to build a distributed weather sensor network that could be activated in software. The flight attendant came by and told me, "okay, time to put your toys away sweetie" referring to my tablet and phone. Oooooooooh my god.
In the 13 years since your experience, airport security around the world has had time to be extremely blasé about most electronic devices.
That said, security rules vary from airport to airport. SFO with TSA Pre is practically a no-op, but CDG security requires that you remove from carry-on any device with a >20cm dimension!
I believe the main reason laptops have to be separated is because they appear as just a large chunk of metal on the X-ray. A tablet would look similar.
Pre-iPad, most airport staff (who aren't hardcore techies, or might not have the privilege of higher education) might think of a tablet as a laptop anyway.
The author (me) specifically recommends to not buy the bulky travel case from Apple and instead, just use the default front cover + a lens protector.
This is specifically to not to take up any extra room than is necessary. The only room it takes up is essentially the width of the HMD itself (even negating the strap)!
FYI, you may want to revisit a couple of your "only me" points on the AVP with the release of the Quest 3S.
The 3S has an IR blaster that allows it to work in total darkness. Meta also enabled a travel mode[1] a couple of OS revisions ago (back in June or so).
For those that might find themselves nervous with a naked AVP, consider this popular option, a Syntech Hard Carrying Case compatible with various goggles:
I've stopped carrying my over-ear noise-cancelling headphones for this reason. They take up like a quarter/half of a normal item-sized backpack. I can sleep with plane noise. But I always bring a sleep mask, because I can't sleep with bright lights turning on and off all the time. I did recently get some in-ear headphones w/ noise cancelling, perhaps they're enough.
There's always the fear of losing stuff when you're moving objects around so much, too. One less thing to worry about.
In my experience my Airpod Pros and Huawei Freebud Pros achieve 95% of the audio and noise cancellation quality of my Sony XM3s that I just barely use the big headset anymore. I understand that they are technically different categories of products but for me and a lot of other non-audiophiles I know switched to TWS earbuds once they got half decent ANC.
There are both wired and wireless noise canceling earbuds that work well. Never had an interest in the bulky over the ear ones. I pack pretty light even for 2-3 week trips.
Just putting in my take for the vision-pro-curious, coming from a tall/big tech guy with excellent vision who owns one:
I kept mine this whole time and I still actually use it regularly and it still amazes me. There's a steady trickle of interesting things that appear for it, and it's VERY useful as a giant virtual extended laptop screen if you have a Macbook. Especially if you are in a recliner and can tilt the virtual screen above your head a bit- vastly more comfortable. Very much looking forward to the extra large virtual curved monitor they're working on, hopefully this fall.
The thing is still kind of magical.
When I first got it, I would get some eye fatigue and/or dizziness after about an hour of using it, but that seemed to improve after a couple weeks (adaptation?) and I can now use it for 2-3 hours at a time uninterrupted without any discomfort. Chewing ginger apparently helps (same as with VR headsets).
Drinking coffee from a mug with it on is difficult. Get a straw.
I'm a big guy (6'3", 260lbs) and the headset is still a bit heavy.
The gestural and eye-focus UI is extremely good, my only complaint is that I still find it hard sometimes not to make erroneous inputs which can get frustrating, but that is more the fault of web UI's with closely-clustered controls that were not designed with this interface in mind- but sometimes with text input as well, it's sometimes frustrating.
The quality of the passthrough video (AR) can be improved, it's a bit shimmery (although still clear enough to comfortably read things on your phone or watch). It's stitched together from a bunch of cameras so it is surely already a technical feat.
For those who wear N95s on planes, I can confirm that 3M Aura 9205+ works great with Vision Pro※ and doesn't hinder using it at all, nor reduce comfort, at least for my head and face shape.
※ - Tested during my 30 min demo (more like 45 mins) at the Apple Store.
I used to think this especially since airlines touted how good the air filtration was when COVID hit.
It's actually quite poor and significantly worse than most indoor spaces I've entered (most spaces aren't great at around 800-1600ppm). On planes I've measured※ very high CO2 levels (1800-4000ppm), with the worst air during boarding and deplaning. This matches the findings of others (both amateur and professional researchers).
Apologies, I specified "filtration" but meant "quality", which I would define as filtration + fresh air intake.
I'd have expected a better mix (more fresh air) since even with filtration removing many particulates and viruses, high CO2 levels still cause worse cognitive performance.
It's hard to get lots of fresh air into a pressurized plane, so I'm willing to have a good bit of leeway on that front. And airflow patterns are important; a lot of fresh air running from front to back would likely do more harm than good.
I love how the recent availability of cheap PPM and CO2 sensors spawned a whole new subculture of air quality paranoia.
Based on Veritasium's recent video, given the cabins are pressurized by bleeding air off of the jet engine might not be too surprising about CO2 or particulates. However the cabin air is also exceptionally dry.
I don't know, but I always tended to get sick after flying. I started wearing a mask while flying during COVID and it's the one place I still do it. Not scientific but I feel like I have gotten sick after flying less frequently since then. It could even just be the effect of making myself breathe humid air in what's normally an extremely dry environment.
There are long periods where the filters aren't running during startup and shutdown, you'll notice once the seatbelt sign turns on at the beginning and right after it turns off at the end, things get stale super quickly and the temps start rising. That's because they turned off/haven't switched to air supplied by the jetway yet.
A few family members caught covid on a plane despite everyone needing a negative covid test before departure and wearing a FFP2 mask during the whole flight.
Put a lot of people in close proximity for a long time and it's going to be very hard to prevent transmission of airborne viruses...
Airplane air is clean but there are just too many people aboard and for too long. Something like a quarter of all air travel passengers get a respiratory illness within a week. Some hypothesize that the incredibly low humidity of cabin air (in most aircraft, except the very newest) makes it easier to acquire infections. A face mask, in addition to its normal role, also solves this problem because it is very humid inside the mask.
Slightly OT but I much prefer the 9211+: the vent[*] makes a difference in comfort when worn over long periods. Or the 9105 / 9105S which sticks out further away from the face, and its elastic design makes it a bit quicker to don / doff at checkpoints.
[*] Yes I'm prioritizing my comfort over safety for others, but that's the American Way (tm), isn't it.
Thanks for this recommendation; I was considering ordering these for my next trip since they should fit the same as 9205+.
(I don't see an issue with wearing an exhalation vent next to folks who aren't wearing masks themselves. If they cared about the air they'd also be wearing a mask. If I sat next to someone wearing one I'd switch back to the 9205+.)
There are masks with full N95 filtration that have a fan built in to pull the air through the filter. Makes it much more comfortable to wear for long periods.
(I switch to a mask with no metal in it for airport metal detectors, but I can switch back again immediately afterwards.)
Same here. I use the Honeywell Saf-T-Fit masks, with the exhaust, either N99 or P100. They have a soft cushion where it touches the face and I find it's far superior in comfort on long flights to masks without the soft inner part. A little more expensive, but I'll never fly with a regular N95 again.
If you kept reading to understand the context of that image, you'd realize that it could be any size, but that you need to enable "partial virtual environment." That was the entire point of that chapter/image, to showcase the three different modes (full virtual, partial, and full pass-through with collision).
I'm no fan of the AVP, but it is inane to post a comment on a picture from the article without taking the time to read the text surrounding it to understand the context. The blog went to great pains to set out the pros/cons, limits/advantages, just to have people half-read it or just look at the pictures...
Sure you can. Just increase the size of a virtual window to fill the entire avaiable field of view (110 degrees or so). It's basically the same effect as sitting in a close-to-the-front row of a theater.
There are VR headsets with wider FoV, but they're pretty bulky as of yet because of the limits of current costs-less-than-literally-$10,000-a-unit optics.
I used to wonder how people watch movies on their iPhone then realized many people sit so far from their living room TV screen that if they held up their iPhone it would be the same apparent size.
By contrast, you can readily set the apparent screen size in the AVP to 40+ degree angle:
× 1.2 (corresponding to 40-degree viewing angle)
THX recommends that the "best seat-to-screen distance" is one where the view angle approximates 40 degrees,[26] (the actual angle is 40.04 degrees). Their recommendation was originally presented at the 2006 CES show, and was stated as being the theoretical maximum horizontal view angle, based on average human vision. In the opinion of THX, the location where the display is viewed at a 40-degree view angle provides the most "immersive cinematic experience", all else being equal. For consumer application of their recommendations, THX recommends ... multiplying the diagonal measurement by about 1.2.
Yes and for some reason I would probably find it weird watching a moving with a weird landscape being shown around the "virtual screen" instead of...reality.
Sort of. Headsets have limited FOV per eye. You can blow up the screen to be huge, but you'd only be able to see part of it at a time. But yeah, 110 degrees FOV can accommodate a very big screen.
The field of view is deceptive in 2d photos. With the VR headset your focal point is at infinity, and in practice it feels more like sitting in front of a big 60" TV on your couch.
I’m not a working while travelling kind of person (I often have the ambition to work while flying, but for some reason I always feel too tired); my Vision Pro stays in my bag for the duration of the flight. For work when away from home more generally, however, I find it a fantastic device. It’s basically a portable Apple Studio Display that I can use wherever I go. As someone in a long distance relationship who is often away from home for long periods of time, this is extremely useful.
Paying three grand for a monitor you can buy for your 'second place' for a few hundred dollars seems like a choice.
I'm in the same position. I considered the vision pro, but couldn't justify it, even if I used it on the flights etc. I depend on my switch/steamdeck for the plane, laptop if i have to work (I try not to, it's terrible)... and then I just went on amazon and bought a pair of 27" lg widescreens for a few hundred a piece. When I'm not in her apt we stow one of them in a closet (she dislikes two monitors on a purely aesthetic level). I fly in with my laptop and my keyboard and I'm ready to go.
I bought mine used for significantly less than three grand. And the thing is, I don’t have a single fixed second place. My life is rather complicated and nomadic, having a portable big screen is very convenient.
weird to film someone doing their job just to prove you could ask for tea without taking off your big vr headset. hope they asked for permission to post this.
Really interesting point about the utility of the look-and-pinch interaction rather than waving your hands around in the tight space confines of the plane. This was definitely my main issue using the Quest which was otherwise a fantastic experience.
You're confusing multispectral and hyperspectral. If it was hyper you'd have the ability to slide through at image "cube" where the z axis is wavelength. Would be cool, but current hyperspectral cameras are extremely low resolution because they're just a prism array on top of an off the shelf panchromatic sensor using blocks of pixels to form that z axis.
In my experience working with multi/hyperspectral systems, usually for turning brown kids into various forms of air pollution, or at least that's all anyone seems to want to buy them for.
Also, as another user is probably allewding to, certain thin synthetic fabrics are semi-transparent to particular wavelengths in the IR band.
I just did a two-way total 12 hour Hawaii flight and watched 12 hours of Apple TV series in a fully immersive environment completely isolated using Vision Pro. As long as the airplane seats have AC charger, you're good to go. I also use the Dual Solo Knit Band mod to increase head comfort.
>Once Vision Pros start to become more affordable, I foresee regular travelers buying Vision Pros just to have an amazing in-flight entertainment system. It’s truly that amazing.
Some big assumptions there.
Honestly, I'd much rather just use a tablet, which is a much more flexible device once I arrive.
For those who didn't read the whole article, the conclusion is ->
"
As it stands, as a first generation product that’s heavy, very expensive, and has a very underbaked OS and app ecosystem, I have a tough time recommending anyone to go out and buy one. That being said, I’m taking it on every flight I go on.
"
Have AVP since day one. I have traveled probably 5-6 times on planes since then. One for the first one I took it with me. Sure, it was a nice experience to watch a movie. But I would rather to watch the same movie or tv show with SO, than to watch it in a questionable better environment.
The main issue, it is heavy and bulky for traveling.
> But damn, based on how well it all works now, you can just tell by the 4th or 5th generation, Apple Vision Pro will be on the face of every frequent flyer.
And they can stop paying extra for business class, because it stops mattering.
Or a normal/skinny weight. Even my shoulders are too wide for modern economy seats.
I fly a lot of business class, and the comfort and space is what you pay for, not entertainment. But having good wifi helps a lot, even in a cramped seat.
The times I've flown business, the best part has been how the seat can fold down fully so one can sleep property and lying down. None of the other stuff really mattered to me.
Just flew across the Atlantic on lay-flat seats. They are absolutely a massive improvement over anything I’ve flown in before but I still couldn’t sleep well. Maybe I’m too big (6’ 2” and not skinny) but I couldn’t lay completely flat because I ran out of leg room as the seat reclined.
This is the main reason I see to get a vision pro - basically a travel friendly monitor. Glad to see it does well under these conditions, though it's still a tough sell considering the price tag.
Airlines should rent these, already set up for movies or whatever. I'd pay to give it a try. I wouldn't want these taking up my carry on space going to and from the airport or to deal with security, so that's another advantage.
Absolutely not. First, the light seal would be different for each person, making for a subpar experience (an experience you’re paying for). Second, given the germs and potential disease spread via the face/eyes, this seems like a terrible idea unless you were able to sterilize each AVP after each flight, a task that might work for the Bose headphones they put in business class, but that would def be a thing I wouldn’t trust most airlines to do well. Third, you know these things would break all the time, again, leading to a subpar rental experience.
That said, I am a little surprised the Middle Eastern and Asian airlines haven’t adopted these for their international first class cabins (your Singapore Suites, Ethiad Apartments and the private rooms on Emirates).
Another bonus, which I've found traveling with my Vision Pro, is when I get to my AirBnb/Hotel, I don't have to log into my streaming services when I want to relax. I've brought my whole home theater experience with me.
Why would you need to re log-in into streaming services in a hotel? How does AVP alleviate that need?
Do you mean you watch it on a smart TV in a hotel? Then I guess you could connect a laptop to that TV with an HDMI cable and not have to re-log in, right?
kinda true, but I'm surprised how some apps expect you to watch movies upright (TV+, Disney), which makes watching movies laying down quite "non ergonomic". ;)
The Meta Quest 2/3 finally fixed that a few months ago [1], where you "tilt" the horizon of the entire OS [2]. So it doesn't matter if an app doesn't support it -- you can lie on your bed and watch a screen directly above you even if it was only designed for horizontal use. It's a game-changer if you have back/neck problems.
Does the AVP not have something equivalent? To be honest, I was surprised it took Meta so long to get around to implementing it.
AVP doesn't support it when in 'theater mode' but if your video is a typical window you can simply lie down and recenter it onto the ceiling. The horizon stays locked but any windows can be parallel to the ground.
Remember to turn off the AVP between charging it at home and using it on the flight. You do this by "choking" it, i.e. pressing both buttons physical for ~10s, to bring up the "Power Off" dialog, so it's really not obvious.
I once had my AVP completely discharge between charging it one night, and wanting to use it on the flight <24h later. I'm guessing that the motion from the packing and trip to the airport was constantly waking it up, draining power.
I've never tried traveling wearing a VR headset, but I did get a Legion Go that I like to use in that scenario. It's basically a Steam Deck with a nicer screen, more powerful GPU, and shit battery that needs to be constantly charged.
As I learned when I tried to charge it with a 140W Apple charger, planes have current limitations. If you plug in too high of a wattage charger, it can totally disable the power socket.
One of the dances to figure out if you're going to use a VR headset on a plane is how high a wattage can the plane constantly support. Then again, you probably don't want your face physically tethered to the middle seat anyway.
> But damn, based on how well it all works now, you can just tell by the 4th or 5th generation, Apple Vision Pro will be on the face of every frequent flyer.
A 4th or 5th generation Apple Vision Pro (and other corresponding advancements) may obviate the need for a lot of travel.
You mention hiking several times, I assume it is something you enjoy. Now, imagine, instead of regularly having to travel to Yosemite from your local suburban area, you instead go live in Yosemite and use your headset to do the things you did in your suburban area. More hiking, less time spent in transport.
Well when you account for the time spent travelling, the time spent socializing and shmoozing, the boxed lunch hour, etc, that adds up to a whole lot of wasted time on top of what could have easily been a 45 min zoom meeting, or an email. Its fun I guess if you get all your social outlet from your coworkers, but if you get it from anywhere else it probably feels like you just got drafted when you get sent to meet the distributed team in person.
You are missing the point here. Plenty of things can’t be a 45 minutes meeting. Sometime what you incorrectly call schmoozing and I call building a bond is the point and is extremely necessary. People are not machine.
> In fact, of all the screens and displays in my house, my Vision Pro is hands down the highest quality display that I own, so I very much look forward to watching visually compelling movies in it.
How does a vision pro compare to a say 60 inch 4K tv, in terms of perceived sharpness (I get that it has more pixels, but they are closer to your eye and cover your whole field of view)? I owned an OG quest, and for me watching movies just didn't quite match up to the experience of an actual tv.
I have an LG OLED C1 65" and the Vision Pro movie experience is nearly the same as the TV, except that you have to deal with all the lens glare in the Vision Pro, which is a big downside. An upside is that films like Encanto are in 3D, which looks really good for Pixar/CGI movies and pretty garbage for every other movie I've tried in the headset (for me, real films with 3D look like paper cut outs layered over each other and it's very distracting and looks lame).
But a nice 65" OLED TV is still cheaper than a Vision Pro, so I can't recommend it unless you are in a situation where you literally cannot put a big OLED TV in your space, or you're desperate to take your OLED TV with you on flights.
I also have a Quest 3 and without OLED for true HDR, it loses right away, and then it loses further on resolution. Audio quality is really good on Quest 3, but... If I really wanted to use a headset to watch a movie, I would use the Vision Pro, hands down. If I only had the Quest 3 on hand, I wouldn't watch a movie.
The easy way to mostly deal with the lens glare is use one of the background environments that's dim rather than black. It's the high contrast the entire time that really makes it visible.
"real films with 3D look like paper cut outs layered over each other and it's very distracting and looks lame)."
Probably because those movies are FAKE 3-D trash that studios troweled out, killing one thing that is highly piracy-resistant and theater-boosting.
Most people complaining about "3-D" movies have probably seen only two real ones: Avatar, and something from Pixar. The vast majority of movies marketed as 3-D were not shot in 3-D, but rather processed into fake 3-D in post. The result: exactly what you describe, lame cut-outs.
Just another reason that the studios and media conglomerates deserve no sympathy when they whine about piracy or declining revenues. They screw actors, writers, theater owners, and the audience... when they've had (and ignored) interesting avenues available to revitalize their industry and audience.
Considering the high price of Vision Pro I'm surprised it does not include high quality spatial sound over-ear headphones. Required for Cinema experience which currently seems to be it's best use case, plus the overhead strap could help support its heavy weight for better comfort.
> (the video itself was blacked out when capturing the screenshot).
I already disliked DRM like this, where the user's device acts against them, but something about the form factor makes me extra uneasy about it. Maybe the fact that it's directly on your face, integrating tightly with your vision.
Hopefully by the time we move onto AR contact lenses or implants there'll be some good user-respecting alternatives, though I'm not too hopeful.
I love flying with my Apple Vision pro. I love how I can just "delete" the environment around me when I have settled in, and I can enjoy massive movies, tv shows, and I even run Retro Arch + an Xbox Controller paired to the headset.
It's a great travel buddy, and then when I get to where I am going I have a massive workspace and screen for my mac packed away inside the Vision.
Why does Apple insist on putting all the content into a little box? I want whatever I'm playing to FILL the viewing area. Likewise with trying to work, which is indeed another huge potential benefit to this thing as plane travel becomes more and more customer-hostile. Reviews I've read reported that it's tedious to try to work with the puny virtual Mac screen.
Also, Apple's fear of I/O has crippled the Vision Pro. If they had put a (3-D-capable) video input on it, it would have instantly found uses amongst gamers, 3-D artists, travelers, programmers, cinematographers... but instead it's another Apple product that's profoundly hobbled into being a toy.
A forward-thinking perspective, balancing enthusiasm with pragmatism. Yet is Apple really onto something that could transform how frequent travelers engage with tech on the go?
While this seems like a good use case for mixed reality headsets like the AVP, I still find it kind of creepy that someone is hiding most of their face while also potentially filming everything that's going on.
Airlines spend a fortune moving screen and other kit needed for in-flight entertainment around: the fuel costs alone can be low seven figures a year for that added weight. And then are the content licenses.
Meanwhile customers are turning up with devices with their own licensed content (they’ve already paid the streaming services or paid for the download), but can’t use it on the plane.
It’s pretty obvious what should happen, and what eventually will, but it’ll take a while.
too expensive and fragile for airlines themselves, at least outside of first class, but I think air travel is a killer app.
I do find the idea of a plane full of goggled humans packed in like sardines to be a touch dystopian, but I feel that way about the infotainment screens already.
Well, the Vision Pro has no substantial unique features which aren’t available via the older Quest even.
Sure, Apple over-engineered the lenses to the point of excluding people who don’t conform to the prescribed possibilities… and the App Store is limited to pedestrian experiences of 2D apps rebuilt to work on visionOS and a handful of cool VR/MR apps.
All that aside, I wouldn’t travel with something so expensive and fragile. Putting on and off, looking for where to place it while talking with staff / other people… sounds very uncomfortable.
>The fact that you just look at the buttons that you’d like to interact with and pinch your fingers while your hand is resting on your lap is a massive plus for not looking like a dweeb.
i dunno. repeatedly making little pinchies in your lap with your $3500 goggles on still seems very dweeb-coded to me. i almost did a spit take when i looked up how much the vision pro costs, lol
Recently discovered that on long flights, ear plugs (that just block noise, no music!) and a kindle is way more enjoyable for me. Less headache. Can’t imagine having a vision pro on a 10h flight
"The movies that play in virtual screens are native to the films’ aspect ratios, which can vary movie to movie, eliminating the black bars of “letterboxing” and “pillarboxing” you typically have on iPads, iPhones, or MacBooks."
Then proceeds to show screenshots where more than 50% of the screen is background. Just because you decided to show cloud instead of black doesn't mean it's not letterboxing.
The screenshots are misleading. "Inside" an AVP watching a movie the corner to corner angle can exceed THX recommendation of 40 degrees.
Doesn't seem like a lot until you hold a protractor up to your eyeball. And then you realize how much area falls outside that angle, surroundings you don't think about at the theater.
The AVP has to render that unwatchable area for you as well, and it ends up in screenshots.
Lol, adding a hue is usually a crutch for a too small screen with lifted blacks... which doesn't paint the pro in a very positive light!
Ironically by adding a gue to a nomral screen, you're effectively 'adding' pixels to the display... unlike the pro which wastes pixels on the 'hue' because many of them are not in the ideal viewing angle.
I really want to travel with my AVP, but it's far too large and heavy. I simply haven't that kind of space in my slim commuter backpack "personal item" that holds my electronics, and my carry-on is already overweight with camera lenses and clothing. It also hurts my face to wear it for long periods because of the weight.
One area in which they’re significantly worse is tracking — they only really work well with the screen in a fixed position relative to your eyes, but this has been great for a movie.
I bought an xreal pro hoping for a cheaper vision pro while technology catches up.
Honestly xreal's marketing is generous at best. They seem to really try to push it as being an AR device when its really nothing more than a monitor stuck to your face that you can't change the size of.
Using the beam or the software on your computer adds some AR ability, but due to the way it works on your Mac it really is not a pleasant experience and uses a ton of resources. The tracking is not great.
The lack of any sort of pass through (all you can do is dim it) makes it fairly useless in many situations, like the one mentioned in this article.
Options are great, and it is great that is significantly cheaper. But I bought the xreal pro, I keep trying to use it for watching something, games, programming or other work. But every time I use it for maybe 20 minutes and just get frustrated and put it away for a few more weeks.
It is one of the reasons I think that the price (and size) of the vision pro is justified. The tech to make something smaller and cost less just isnt here yet. All of those headsets like the xreal have serious compromises while trying to push an "AR" narrative for features they just don't really have.
The marketing does make them look amazing. Though seems light on specs etc, it is kind of difficult to even figure out the difference between the models.
I do love the idea though and it is tempting.
I don't love programming on a laptop without external monitors, so I like the idea of having a decent monitor in a pair of glasses.
I couldn't justify the price of a AVP, as I would only be using them as an external monitor. And I would worry about Linux compatibility.
> Be it by train or by plane, it offers an unparalleled opportunity to selectively tune out your environment and sink into an engaging activity like watching a movie or just working on your laptop.
The more time passes, the less I can shake the feeling that the world would be better if we tuned out our environment less.
> But damn, based on how well it all works now, you can just tell by the 4th or 5th generation, Apple Vision Pro will be on the face of every frequent flyer.
If it even gets that far. I’d almost be willing to take that bet, but 5 generations for this device could mean more than a decade so I don’t think any of us can say for sure.
All that said, I haven’t read the full review yet and I doubt it’ll do anything to convince me, but still I appreciate you writing it up and putting it out there. From what I’ve read so far it looks well thought out and it clearly took some effort, so kudos.
> The more time passes, the less I can shake the feeling that the world would be better if we tuned out our environment less.
That may or may not be true in general, but air travel is one of the most oppressive environments people regularly find themselves in. Being in an extremely crowded environment with very little personal space is psychologically uncomfortable for a lot of people. And it's basically not possible to escape that environment until the plane lands, which is typically hours of time. If it's OK to tune the world out anywhere, it's got to be in an airplane.
Weirdly enough I love being on a plane (and airports). There's something psychologically freeing about them that I feel whenever I fly. I look forward to flying so much. And it's not like I'm flying first class or anything - I fly economy every time.
Maybe if I flew more frequently I'd grow to dislike it (I fly maybe once a year), but honestly airports and flying are my favorite part of a trip (yes, I like them more than any possible destination). TBF I haven't flown to anywhere particularly exciting but I fail to imagine any place matching the pleasure of an airport + flight. After writing this it sounds ridiculous but I'm 100% serious - I can't quite explain why I enjoy it so much.
I don't like flying that much but airports are an interesting place. I like people watching and just the spectacle of it all.
There's some funny tweets about airports like:
"The airport is a lawless place, want to get drunk at 7AM? Go right ahead. Tired? Just sleep on the floor. Chips cost $15".
edit: came back to post this, i definitely get an odd feeling of liberation once i'm at an airport. I travel sometimes for work and once i get in to the airport waiting to board I feel like work and every day life ceases for a time and i'm free to do whatever. It's odd because i'm trapped in this building with hundreds if not thousands of other people waiting to get on a pressurized metal tube blasting through the sky at hundreds of miles/hr. Nothing very liberating about that but for some reason being in the airport feels that way to me.
> I travel sometimes for work and once i get in to the airport waiting to board I feel like work and every day life ceases for a time and i'm free to do whatever.
Yes, this is very much how I feel. 0 responsibilities and there's nothing I can actually accomplish during my time there. I just sit there reading a book or something, just waiting.
Can't stand airports, because from the instant you arrive, the success of your trip is now basically out of your hands but also incredibly precarious.
Maybe there's some ticketing snafu and it takes an hour just to drop your checked bag (sanctimonious carry-on fliers hold your posts like you hold the seventeen bags you try to drag on the plane)
Maybe security is insanely backed up or just run by incompetents, like the time at SFO where it took them 30 minutes to screen the 10 people in front of me.
Then once you get past security, a whole new list of potential problems comes up:
Maybe the incoming flight is delayed, possibly delayed so much you're going to miss your connection.
Maybe you'll board but the plane will be broken because the airlines don't believe in preventive maintenance, and you'll have to deplane again.
Maybe you'll board but due to various circumstances in airport operations you spend 3 hours sitting on the tarmac while the airplane gets increasingly hot and your toddler gets increasingly fussy.
I do - I like to arrive early at the airport so it's just a long line to me. Unpacking my stuff to get xrayed is indeed a hassle but it's not a big deal to me.
> Being in an extremely crowded environment with very little personal space
I don't disagree with you but I can tell you don't take the NYC subway or Paris metro or the London Underground with any regularity. If you think an airplane is "extremely crowded" then you have no words to describe actual mass transit.
> air travel is one of the most oppressive environments people regularly find themselves in
How much of this would be solved by VR though? To me the unpleasantness of flying mostly comes down to physical discomfort. The seats are cramped, the air is dry, the food isn't great, the bathroom situation is uncomfortable, and you can't really walk around. VR would visually transport you somewhere else, but physically, you're still very much on a plane.
As someone with generalized anxiety I hate almost every part of flying from the point at which I leave the house until I arrive, but none of what you mentioned bothers me terribly.
I'd be curious to try a device like this and see if it helps. I usually just use noise cancelling headphones and play a game or watch movies, which isn't too different from removing myself into VR, but I'm also aware that sometimes completely removing my sense of my surroundings can be more unnerving.
There's a reason people watch movies on planes - it's to distract you from the uncomfortable environment you're in. VR is more immersive than a 2D screen so it's more distracting.
I understand tech reviewers and journalists raving about having something to do on planes, as they probably spend an awful lot of time there. Then perhaps sales people also flighting on company's dime.
But regular people don't spend much time on planes, and many of them don't need it to be an entertaining or efficient time, they can just spleep if the flight is long enough (I can't imagine lugging along a luggage the size of the Vision Pro for just a 2 hour flight)
In particular the plane staff won't let you tune completely out if you're awake: the whole safety sequence , take off and landing, turbulences, the in-flight meal, all the guidance for international flights, your neighbours when you've pulled the middle seat etc.
Many regular people bought tablets, expensive noise canceling headphones and other hardware with the express purpose of using it on a flight 2-6 times (1-3 round trips) a year. Of course, it gets used outside of a plane too - but that applies to VR gear just as well.
If they can get the price below $1500, I'm sure many regular people will buy it even if they fly less than 10 times a year.
> That may or may not be true in general, but air travel is one of the most oppressive environments people regularly find themselves in.
Most people don't regularly travel by plane. This is a very "1%" (as shorthand for a privileged minority of people globally, not literally exactly 1% of the population) problem.
>The most recent such poll was conducted online between January 9-31, 2023, in which Ipsos interviewed roughly 11,000 adults age 18+ from the continental U.S., Alaska, and Hawaii.
Same poll can result with statement "100% of Americans use internet."
Yeah, but “Rest of World cannot afford luxury travel” is not a notable fact. The US is rich. Americans are rich. For many things, the US is the only market where it’s feasible. A self-driving car is useless in India (1/6 of all people), for instance. Labour costs are too low.
It’s clear the Vision Pro didn’t find its market but I don’t think it’s an air travel thing.
80% of those people are flying economy class and already get along fine with earbuds and their phone. The remaining 20% that can afford something like Vision Pro almost certainly will choose not to.
If those uncertain people decide they want to distract themselves with VR, do you think they'll buy the $350 headset or the $3,500 one?
I just don't see the market Apple envisions materializing. I'd expect 20 people to be using a Quest in economy before you see 2 people using a Vision Pro in business.
The author specifically says he believes people will be using the 4th or 5th iteration of the Vision Pro for this purpose. Why are you comparing prices of devices that won't exist for another 5+ years?
Because you and I both know Apple will never be price-competitive with the commodity segment. They are a luxury brand that relies on luxury margins, so I want to know why their business model will succeed.
If plane seating is anything to go by, most people don't want a luxury experience but a practical and cheap one instead. Most seats aren't reserved for premium passengers because they are a minority, maybe a profitable audience but not at all the primary one.
> Because you and I both know Apple will never be price-competitive with the commodity segment.
OG iPhone: $799
iPhone 3G: $199
> They are a luxury brand that relies on luxury margins, so I want to know why their business model will succeed.
Apple has shown many times over they don't need to be price competitive with the commodity segment. If you want to know why their business model will succeed, why not just look at their current business model which has been massively successful? Arguably the most successful business model in the history of consumer hardware.
Google’s AI tool says that 20-25% of the world’s population flies at least three times a year. Not a good source, but at least a surprising statistic if true.
Some hard data says that 12% of US flyers take 66% of flights [1]. Those are all likely very frequent fliers, and is much more than 1%.
Families tend to get spread out and vacations tend to be very short. There is a strong encouragement to meet for recognized holidays, so these are by far the busiest times at airports.
Last year, the prediction was 4.7 million people in the US traveling by plane over the thanksgiving holiday, which demolishes the 1% comment immediately.
You are greatly underestimating how common it is for Americans to travel by plane. Almost half of Americans fly at least once a year. It is sufficiently inexpensive that almost everyone can readily afford to.
A little bit of both, and they are related. Trains are a tough sell because they aren't competitive for most travel. Even at 300kph, they're only good for local-ish travel (by that, I mean up to perhaps as much as 1000km). Would be great for Portland to Seattle, or Portland to LA, but if you're going out of region (which is extremely common), an airplane will be way faster and almost certainly cheaper too.
I'd love a moderately fast train, say 200kph, between cities like Portland and Seattle. That's a great use case.
But as a nationwide network, there won't ever be a suitable rail alternative, unless it gets subsidized. Amtrak is already stupidly expensive for what you get.
The flying experience is oppressive in the sense of being a constricting, heavy-handed and overbearing environment, indifferent to your inconvenience or discomfort.
Where else can you get a full body cavity search, be denied water, be delayed by several hours without so much as an apology, be nickle-and-dimed with overpriced shitty food and $5 fees for a cab to drop you off, and have your luggage smashed up, all under one roof?
Of course, I'm not sure the Apple Vision Pro can do much to improve on the situation.
I hope you repeat that lecture to everyone wearing an eyemask trying to sleep, or wearing heaphones for their in-flight movie (god forbid they brought noise-cancelling ones!)
This completely depends on the person. The environment of a plane (dry humid air, loud engine humming, babies crying etc) is oppressive to a lot of people, even more so if you're neuro-atypical.
> My prediction is that the experience would get even shittier. Since everyone would be tuned out, there’d be even less reason for the airline to care.
What can the airlines do to make it worse? I suppose they could cut out soda and pretzels. And get rid of the HUD on the back of the chair. But I don't think most people care that much about that stuff, especially since a lot of chairs have power outlets on them, even in coach.
IMO, the thing that people really care about is the amount of space they have access to - both width and depth. And I'm not sure how much more airlines can realistically squeeze that.
Lovely, just what we need: cheap devices with a motion-sickness-inducing laggy passthrough, poor resolution screens (when they work at all), covered in other people’s face grease.
I'd bet on them removing screens and not replacing them, potentially also getting rid of the headphone jack.
Perhaps they extend the charging ports some airlines are offering, with a bit more juice than a phone's battery to let people use their device for a bit longer.
That's a really interesting idea. Do planes have access to Starlink now? I could see a market for passengers to purchase a vr headset and decent inet connection on a flight. It would be tough to keep the headsets in good shape and clean though...
> And it's basically not possible to escape that environment until the plane lands
You can buy a business class ticket. I will hasard that the overlap between people who can afford to buy a 3000$ VR headset and people who can fly business is pretty much total.
My brother in god, you can travel from any point of the Earth to any other point on the Earth in less than a week. At what point are modern people going to “deal with it”?
> My brother in god, you can travel from any point of the Earth to any other point on the Earth in less than a week. At what point are modern people going to “deal with it”?
Clearly people do "deal with it" since lots of people fly all the time. But that doesn't mean that the experience can't be improved.
But the improvement has almost nothing to do with entertainment options. It’s about space and comfort. To a lesser degree cabin service but that quite a way down the list.
> The more time passes, the less I can shake the feeling that the world would be better if we tuned out our environment less.
Agreed 100%. Apologies for linking to my own essay, but I think this can be more generally stated as a difference between "isolated" and "integrated" arts. A device like the Vision Pro (and most tech devices, for that matter) is pushing society further and further into isolated chambers, and thus further incentivizing media and creators to focus on creating isolated aesthetic experiences, not ones that are integrated with the environment.
This is such a baseline unquestioned assumption that we have about the structure of the tech economy, that to think a company like Apple would make a device that brings people together in the real world seems absurd.
I have a little unproven hypothesis that fits that last statement, that it would be absurd for a company like Apple to bring people together in the real world.
My hypothesis is that these companies want to make money by "taking" your senses. They want your attention to be with them at all times, by being in your ear so you'll hear them, by being on your wrist so you'll feel them, by being on your eyes so you'll see them.
I'm thinking these companies are building up technological ecosystems - Apple's specialty! - that they hope will eventually form a proxy for you to experience reality. Because if they can convince you to experience life through them, they'll have your wallet too.
Maybe it's just a silly thought of mine, but it kind of fits.
Very well put. I agree with you, and yet I still wouldn’t give up using my Vision Pro. Though I hope I’ll be able to draw the line at the Apple NosePods ;-)
A phone is fundamentally a communications device. I use mine to catch rides, figure out where I'm going, call and text my loved ones, all of these things connect me to other people. I listen through headphones to music, and to talk to people, neither of these are isolating experiences. AirPods even have a mode which specifically turns off audio when someone is speaking to you, I like this, because I do enjoy listening to music or a podcast when I'm alone at the grocery store, and I do not like to be isolated by that from people around me, or the cashier.
I also use it to take photos, and then share them with people I care about, sometimes photos of people I care about, which I can then enjoy when they aren't around. These things enhance my senses, they don't steal them.
Phones certainly have some apps available which are addictive, I see people enduring self-imposed isolation in the presence of others due to that addiction, and that's sad, which is why I've dropped those social networks from my life and don't have those apps installed. Apple doesn't make those apps though, the closest thing is Messenger, which is a way to communicate with others, it doesn't have upvotes, it isn't public, none of those things.
I don't see a way to square all that with the thesis that Apple's specialty is isolatory sensory theft. Even the headset, which is clearly not designed to enhance the social parts of life, has several features which exist specifically to connect the user at least in part to their surroundings, and I think the fact that Apple never sold a VR headset without those features is a better reflection of their corporate philosophy than some paranoid yarn about how they make more money if users are cocooned in some Apple-provided sensory replacement bubble.
Did you mean to say Meta? Because if so, you made the mistake twice in the same post.
No, I made no such mistake. Nor was I talking about a "cocoon" or anything "isolatory".
Taking what I said about a commercially sensical strategy about selling a - what was the word I did use? Proxy - through which you can experience the world, and then spinning some paranoid yarn about not experiencing the world at all... Now that is kind of strange.
Thanks for sharing, I for one found it relevant! I've always found it somewhat monstrous how much art is in museum archives -- surely "showcasing stuff behind glass" is something our civilization can manage??
I'd quibble that what you're really pointing to here is capitalism, though. Architecture isn't monotonous because of our cultural attitude towards architects/Architecture, it's monotonous because capitalists build most buildings, and they're predictably interested in perceived efficiency above all else. There's good reason to argue that beautiful surroundings augment worker productivity so it's not even a clean tradeoff, but in practice, only the richest companies and universities end up taking that risk with beautiful structures[1][2][3] and/or sculptures/fountains/gardens/etc. Obviously, the same dynamic applies to the exclusivity of contemporary art galleries and private collections.
In Apple's(/"tech"'s) defense, I think they'd absolutely love to sell integrative products whenever possible. The Nintendo Switch was originally marketed[4] as such, and despite being a bit goofy, I imagine it helped sell a lot of units. That's why Apple spent ungodly amounts of money trying to make real AR work before compromising with "passthrough" -- they know that people are social creatures, and that a huge driver of their sales is perceived social value.[5] Again: the problem is the system of incentives, not individual bad actors.
I agree that the fundamental issue may simply be capitalism itself, but I am more prone to blame it on a kind of individualism, both in culture and in the nature of how corporations sell products as individual objects to individual people, and not to any larger social organization. (Except as a placeholder for a group of individuals.)
The difficulty is in imagining some kind of economic structure in which an Apple or Microsoft could make billions from selling products/services that are somehow public goods, or enhancing public spaces. We can conceive of top design minds at Apple spending billions to create a new personal computing device, but the same minds working on a way to improve public spaces – say, by removing graffiti easily, or planting trees easily – just somehow doesn't make sense or fit into the "types of things" they would do.
It may also just be a fundamental structural issue, as I talked about in the latter part of the essay. There are far fewer legal restrictions on individual objects than there are on spaces. I.e., while everyone can use an iPhone everywhere, using a device to remove graffiti would come up against all sorts of property rights laws.
It's quite a difficult topic to wrap one's mind around, at the end of the day. But yeah in general I agree that it's not necessarily individual bad actors, and incentives are a huge part of it.
I was on a flight not too long ago where the two people sitting next to me had apparently just met. They were from different countries travelling for different reasons. They had a friendly chat for a while about where they were from, why they were on that plane, and some things they enjoyed to do. The whole interaction lasted maybe twenty minutes, from sitting to take off. Then they said “cheers”, one of them went to sleep and the other began watching something on the phone. They didn’t speak again until we landed and from the outside it didn’t feel any of them felt awkward for even a second.
I’m not suggestion you strike up a conversation with your seat partner on a plane, but if you do you don’t have to feel beholden to them.
So what I get out of this is that while they were nice and friendly and had a good chat, they also tuned each other out for basically the entire flight. Sounds like an example in favor of dagmx's argument, which is not to be unfriendly, but that friendliness is rarely a way to pass multiple hours in a plane.
They didn’t “tune each other out” nor did they tune out the world entirely. Any of them could have resumed the conversation if they wanted to. Heck, I could have easily started up a conversation with them if I felt like it. That’s not tuning out, it’s simply not interacting.
Have you never sat in someone’s company, be it a pet or another person, each doing your own thing yet the presence of another made it more pleasant? That doesn’t mean tuning out the other person, quite the contrary.
The intangible benefit of "I could have talked to them, but didn't, and it was nice to be nearby" is going to be a minuscule part of the plane experience.
It doesn't support the idea above of "it would be nice if people were bored enough to be friendly" as a way to handle entire plane trips, it just suggests a slightly different way of focusing on your own activities.
And what you described versus a vision pro is like, a difference between being 75% tuned out and 85% tuned out. It's not all that impactful.
And with a headset on, they could have still resumed the conversation.
Or is it also rude if one tries to sleep? Or if they decided to listen to music or watch a movie on the screens?
Really the fact is that all those things are normalized and this isn’t. The arguments against it would equally apply to all of the rest of the things people do on planes to occupy their time.
Your story just says what my comment does though. They ignored each other the rest of the time.
Nobody is saying you tune out the entirety of the world the second you sit down. But there is an awful amount of people acting like the environment around you on a plane is worth paying attention to the entire time
Read, sleep, think, stare out the window… While you can argue reading and sleeping are tuning out the environment, I’m never completely disengaged from my surroundings. Even if you stare at a screen with headphones on¹, someone can still get your attention via your peripheral vision.
Either way, I get why people do it, I was making more of a general point. It’s common for me to be walking down a street and see other people, also walking, so glued to their phones they notice nothing around them, to the point they have no reaction to near collisions.
I also find it telling that while the author mentioned (and I quoted) planes and trains, all of the many responses so far has centred on planes.
¹ Which I don’t do but won’t criticise anyone for it either.
> The more time passes, the less I can shake the feeling that the world would be better if we tuned out our environment less.
While I appreciate the sentiment behind the statement, try living in an area where 90% of the environment is car stereos with subwoofers cranked so loud that you can practically see the air vibrating around you and get back to me. Given that (at least in the west), noise pollution is never really going to be properly legislated, the ability to tune it out is a god send.
On the flip side, continuously tuning out discomfort is a vicious cycle. You need to feel some of it to be motivated to do something to change your situation.
I’m not advocation for never taking a break, I’m saying that we keep doing more and more of it and should perhaps consider dialling it down. Or at the very least not take tuning out as a slam dunk desired benefit without adverse consequences.
>The more time passes, the less I can shake the feeling that the world would be better if we tuned out of our environment less.
Depends on what environment that is. I mean, is there some value in hearing an ambulance siren at full volume while I'm walking down the street? Or the sound of people trying to get my attention to hand me some flyer? Or the sound of the BART?
i agree but i think what the parent and other folks up thread are saying makes sense. It's nice to have the choice to tune in or tune out but no one wants that decision made for them. No one wants to be forced to engage with 100+ random people in very close proximity with really no option to standup let alone leave like on a plane. Another way to look at it is imagine the person to your left and to your right are super fans of the political party opposite to yours. That wouldn't be very fun unless you like to fight for 3hrs.
They are designed to be heard at a distance and through automobile glass, not walking beside it on a sidewalk. Besides, the siren is not a meaningful signal to me: I’m not on the road.
This is kind of why I like living near highways and train tracks. Most people live in suburbs and they don’t hear the noise of the city. They just miss out on so much environment. Sadly, my wife hates this (she is not in tune with her environment) and so we moved from a place where there were crazy people screaming to a place which is relatively quiet.
Sometimes I’m at home and there aren’t any sirens or bells or people screaming and I just think about how out of touch we are with the environment.
This has spread to everyone. Paul Graham has lost his connection to the environment and instead writes about silence. What a fool! If only he was more in touch with his environment.
Anecdotally, I heard way more leaf blowers while living in the city than in the suburbs. Lots of times in the suburbs people just leave them on the ground. But it gets to be a gross mess pretty fast in an urban environment so they are cleaned up relentlessly through the fall.
Yes, it would be wonderful to be able to tune out the wretched poor people. Maybe a future headset will include a forcefield to actively repel potential muggers or oncoming vehicles.
This is an astoundingly uncharitable attempt to make my otherwise personal assertion classist. Am I to meet my overstimulating environment head on, further exasperating my anxiety and mental exhaustion simply to please others who think my condition is actually a signal of wealth? I am not able to do so, and I am not apologetic about it.
We're getting closer and closer to the world Solaria in Asimovs universe.
I'm personally trying (and to some degree failing) to disengage from screens and other digital interactions.
My advantage is that I live quite remotely and can just hop into my boat and go fishing or something without the phone, but the craving that result in are scary.
> it offers an unparalleled opportunity to selectively tune out your environment and sink into an engaging activity like watching a movie or just working on your laptop.
I generally agree with this sentiment of people being too tethered to technology and not paying attention to the world around them, but I don't see a problem with it on a flight. You're generally going to be seated in one place for hours at a time. It's much more infuriating to be walking out of the subway here in NYC and people are just in zombie mode walking up the stairs slowly while staring at their phones. Or down busy streets. Or driving in their cars.
I coincidentally demoed the Vision Pro this past weekend and expected to hate it, but was pretty impressed with it. I definitely don't want people walking around NYC with it strapped to their faces, but on a long plane or train ride I can see it being pretty nice.
Well put! Though I would argue that the issue being discussed is not short-term distraction in highly dangerous situations like driving a car or sharing a sidewalk in NYC, but rather the long-term psychological effects of filling every spare moment with entertainment. Ever since being forced to bus an hour+ to high school (sans smart phone! Can you imagine?!) I've learned to appreciate what long stretches of contemplation can do for a person. Or, at least, do for me.
Of course, my attention span typically maxes out around 2h unless I'm in a particularly thoughtful place in life, such as my bus ride to a new city after undergrad graduation, or the flight home after a big family event. And, of course, being in the window seat is a must -- you'd have to be something of a zen master to peacefully "raw-dog" a flight by just starting at the seat in front of you!
Rant aside, I absolutely agree that being stuck in place for hours at a time is good reason to want some form of entertainment, and this is arguably the perfect application for VR. Being stuck on a long bus/train/plane without entertainment can feel downright claustrophobic, and it's not like there's any communication with others anyway. Other than the nice flight attendants, which we still have, for some weird reason -- I thought it was a nice touch to clarify that talking to them with the headset for more than a phrase or two feels disrespectful.
> Though I would argue that the issue being discussed is not short-term distraction in highly dangerous situations like driving a car or sharing a sidewalk in NYC, but rather the long-term psychological effects of filling every spare moment with entertainment.
Correct. And I also had in mind how those individual psychological effects affect our interactions with the rest of reality and other living beings, which collectively shapes society.
I’m reminded of something I read years ago (I don’t recall the source at all and am likely adding details) which argued that US politics were less aggressively divisive in the past because politicians from both sides regularly saw each other and spent time together, meaning they could form more empathy and see the opposition as real human beings and not caricatures. As they spend less time together, it’s easier to fall into the trap of seeing the other side as a “them” unworthy of respect.
> I thought it was a nice touch to clarify that talking to them with the headset for more than a phrase or two feels disrespectful.
> but rather the long-term psychological effects of filling every spare moment with entertainment.
Oh, for sure. I mean I'm in my 40s and have never owned a TV and have spent every morning with my meditation practice for a very long time. Even on 14+ hour flights I tend to just sit there, maybe listening to music a bit, but largely doing my meditation practice. I'm totally on board with people being present in their environments.
But of all the places for someone to use something like the Vision Pro, an airplane seems totally reasonable to me. I'm much more concerned with people needing to scroll TikTok while on the escalator at Whole Foods and what that says about society than someone watching a movie on an international flight!
> Other than the nice flight attendants, which we still have, for some weird reason
They're trained to get everyone off the plane in under 90 seconds in case of emergency. The handing out of drinks and snacks is a pleasant side effect of their presence.
There is something subtle going on with the "passthrough" feature. All the marketing and fans continually point to it in a way that feels like tacit acknowledgement of this very point wrt "tuning out." We are all primed for full VR Wall-E experience machines to suck us up into our own world, but the future seems to be more and more about the overlay. Not replacing one picture with another, but just painting and filtering ontop of the original. Not "I am somewhere else right now", but "I am here, but I am doing something you can't see."
Which, I gotta say, is an even darker formulation at the end of the day! Like at least if we all plugged in and went the Oasis we are truly sharing some base experience of the place; or if its going to be solitary experience machines, at least those experiences would be holistically directed towards me in some consistent package; but with this stuff, you start to think about how much more ground these crooks can still take in stratifying the experience of simply the world itself as we perceive it.
It's obviously hyperbole. I'm a fairly frequent traveler at this point and probably will continue to be in another decade, and there is no plausible future in which I'm strapping on a VR headset for the duration of a flight. Sometimes I'll read a book but not consistently. More often than not, I watch the landscape pass and get a thrill out of recognizing landmarks from high above. I also like to count the rubberized tracks in a city as it consistently surprises me how many there are when I can never seem to find one to run on where I actually live.
On the other hand, I try to take a middle ground here. As much as I get annoyed and shake my fist at clouds these days when I'm trying to run past people on the sidewalks and they've got their faces buried in phones and don't see me coming, I can recognize a lot of people seem to have a deep-seated need for non-stop mental stimulus they don't seem to get from the real world for whatever reason and I'm not going to judge them for that. They're just different from me and that's fine.
But I do exist too and it'd be nice if reviewers like this didn't typical mind everyone, either.
I take out my earbuds even saying Hi to the bus driver I can't imagine talking to a flight attendant while wearing a VR device. It seems very uninterested in the person you are talking to.
Could be just me but I think a lot of older generations share this experience. It is not hard to take out your earbuds or take off your VR device to show you are paying attention to the person you are talking to.
There's a huge shift in this field at the moment. I personally find it disrespectful to talk to people while wearing headphones/earbuds and I'd still consider myself young but a lot of younger people, especially u25 seem to find this completely normal.
I'm not sure I like this development. Ignoring the "disrespectful" part, it has become accepted to toy with your phone while listening to someone and let's be honest, we all know you're not REALLY listening or engaging with the conversation.
I think your perception of what is being played inside the earbuds may be why you're confused about this. Around here it's extremely common for people to keep their earbuds in for short conversations, but everyone will pause and activate surrounding sounds while they talk. There are obviously assholes who don't, but in general it's completely normal to assume someone wearing earbuds is listening to you.
Contradictory to your experience with it being young people who wouldn't listen to you it tends to be the 45ish business man who continues to talk on their phone in my experience.
I think it's a little disingenuous for you to take what I said out of the context I said it in, but you're right as far as it's in my anecdotal experience. Which is why I said "around here", but I guess I could've made it even clearer.
I personally also take them out. But don’t see it as rude or disrespectful if others don’t.
Especially with AirPods gaining hearing aid functionality, it shouldn’t be a sign of lack of focus.
As an aside, I personally able to concentrate _more_ in certain scenarios when I am fiddling or have background noise playing. It quiets the part of my brain that otherwise gets distracted. I use that method for video conferences to increase the amount I am focused on the speaker and content.
What about earbuds aiding in hearing? Lots of scenarios where earbuds can help with hearing and not impede it. I use AirPod Pros on flights for cancelling out the loud background noise of the plane but it makes talking to others much easier.
It doesn't give any social cues on how you are using it. That is, people cannot tell whether you are using earbuds to block outside sound or to enhance outside sound. Therefore it doesn't work, until social norms change.
I remember the real hearing aids of yesteryear. They look sufficiently different from earbuds that they are always acceptable.
>Could be just me but I think a lot of older generations share this experience.
I am only 32 and wouldn't consider myself old.
I used to get very uncomfortable, maybe even angry, when people at the cashier in the supermarket just did not get off their headphones and just leave a simple hello to the person at the counter. Nowadays I am just mildly irritated sometimes, but I still think it's stupid. Especially if the cashier is a really nice and polite person. Leaving on your headphones and not saying a word, sometimes not even giving them a look, feels like a f- you in their face. Just be nice to other people and it even works if you are a very socially awkward person like me. The world can be nice and even give you a smile every once in a while.
This obviously got worse since corona. Germany used to be a cash-heavy country, but now since "everyone" is just paying by card, they just pull it out, wave around with it to signal that they want to pay with it, so that they don't even have to say one single word. So weird.
Yes, I found it funny that the interaction the reviewer did participate it (asking for tea) was okay to conduct while still strapped into the AVP Face Jail, but:
> One caveat is that, out of respect, if the conversation is more than the “what would you like? Tea please” deal, I do remove the headset to make direct eye contact with them. I feel that it would be sort of odd to have a full-on conversation with someone if they’re wearing a headset (like bro, just take it off and let’s talk like humans).
So there's an implied metric of "meaningful interaction" where, below a certain threshold, it's okay to treat the other person as an NPC?
Perhaps I'm being an uncharitable curmudgeon here, but I even take my earbuds out when I'm asking for tea on a flight.
It's a hassle for you to take it off and disconcerting for the other person if you don't. If the interaction is quick, doing nothing could be overall optimal.
It actually is a real pain to put the headset on and off frequently. Much, much more so than earbuds. It's a major UX issue.
I don't even really see people take off headphones in this scenario, just uncovering an ear. It would be fairly hilarious to see someone lift up one side of an AR headset to make (singular) eye contact, tho.
> A big bonus for watching movies in VR on a plane is the fact that you don’t need to conscious about movies that contain graphic scenes. You don’t need to turn down the brightness and rotate the screen away from children!
Ah! I was not understanding why would anyone prefer this over other less invasive or smaller options, but now I get to the real advantage! /s
It's always interesting when I see this take because I was raised the opposite way and was really surprised to learn a few years back from articles like [1] that some people consider this an etiquette breach.
From what I can tell there are two populations: those who prefer to recline and those who prefer not to. As long as an entire column of seats belongs to one population you're fine (if everyone wants to recline no one loses space, we all just shift around to a configuration in which everyone is more comfortable). But when you have someone more comfortable staying upright sitting behind a recline-preferenced person, that's where issues arise. It's not clear to me whether it's morally wrong for the front person to recline in that case, given that's basically just preferencing the default of "upright", which is arbitrary.
Nothing here should be read as justifying people who don't pay attention to what's going on behind them and/or recline suddenly/aggressively. It's always something that should be done with a glance behind and a smooth, gentle motion. Maybe also a word to the person sitting behind though again I'm not convinced that's a moral imperative.
i do prefer to recline. i choose not to, even though the airline says that i am entitled to, because i know that reclining has a high likelihood of inconveniencing the person behind me (primarily due to loss of legroom and inability to use a laptop).
Same here; except I'll recline after dinner on long-haul flights, because that's the point virtually everyone does, especially when the lights are dimmed. I would never recline on <4 hour flights, and am irked by those who do.
(I wonder if it simply driven by an individualistic vs. collectivist mindset?)
Personally I don't get on a high horse about it and just deal with it, but if the person ahead of me reclines I lose leg room that me reclining does not give back.
A little bit of reclining means the difference between my head drooping forward or to either side if I fall asleep (very uncomfortable) or staying in a vertical position with the weight slightly on the back of the head (far more comfortable).
This is really a case of "don't hate the player, hate the game" (be mad at the airlines for packing people in like sardines, don't be mad at the people for trying to take a bit of extra comfort which has been made available to them)
Or get mad at yourself for not paying for more space. Airlines are a business, and you chose that particular seat knowing full well ahead of time what the parameters of that purchase were.
Would airlines be able to offer more space for more money? Sure they would. Would people pay for it? The market has already answered!
That's fair if you fail to consider that I am 6'3", my partner and child are much smaller, and I'd essentially be the only one to gain from such an upgrade while having to pay for 3x, unless I wanted to sit separately from them and endure much consternation. lol
Being in an airplane seat for any amount of time is unpleasant. IMO, getting upset at the person in front reclining the allocated 2 inches to ease some of that discomfort sounds vaguely narcissistic. If you want to get upset, get upset at the airline.
For air travel, I really like my Xreal Air glasses now that I have a newer iPhone 16pro. Just plug in the USB-C cable, and you have a virtual 60" screen in front of you which works perfectly for Netflix, etc. And they cost less than 10% of the cost of an AVP, and are not limited to 2-3 hours of battery life (they get power from the phone).
Note that if you have an older (lightning) iPhone, don't bother with these. They require a pair of dongles. Not only does that make things really awkward, but one of the dongles ends up apparently blocking HDCP, and prevents you from using anything but ... your own... downloaded content.
As I get older, a gin and tonic (or two) is what makes air travel more relaxing.
Taking a flight as an opportunity to indulge in a moment of blissful idleness is great... on a three-hour flight.
But on a 14-hour trans-continental flight, you've gotta have something to do. If nothing else, to distract you from how uncomfortable it is to be effectively confined to your seat + a few feet of narrow walkway for that long. That's more confined than a prison cell!
Nah. I do Europe-Korea frequently, and I've definitely slowly settled into a happy optimum of sleeping 7-8 hours inbetween the meals.
Killing time is a rather slower flight experience than being unconscious.
I'm very happy WiFi continues to be an expensive opt-in product. If it was always-on, I'm sure I'd break the above habit.
There are many people that cannot sleep on planes so "just go to sleep" is not exactly a great response to people looking for entertainment.
Good for you. I can't sleep sitting on plane. The only times I've been able to to sleep is (1) getting a free upgrade to 1st class where I could lie down (2) a mostly empty plane where I could stretch out across three seats.
Like you, I cannot sleep on vehicles, but I used benzos on a recent flight, and it was like an instant time-skip forward during nighttime of the destination time zone, which helped with jet lag. Benzos are pretty terrible for you if used regularly, but if you have the self-control to limit your usage to a few long flights a year, it would be irrational not to take advantage of them. (I am not a doctor)
Benzos are my flight go-to. I got them for some flight anxiety, since my stupid brain started getting scared of flying, but boy do they just make the time go by and I manage to doze. It's not good quality, but it beats the total lack of sleep I'd customarily get.
Outside of flying, I have no temptation or desire to take them thankfully, so a prescription with ten pills lasts me literally years.
One word of caution there (aside from other dangers of benzos): I had a friend use them on a flight from the US to UK, and apparently was still obviously intoxicated from them when arriving, and got rejected at the border, put in a holding area, and sent back on the next flight. If going through a place where you'll actually have to talk with an immigration officer, not necessarily the smartest thing.
I am lucky to live in a state where marijuana is legal and basically had a THC candy before boarding a 14 hour flight to Sydney.
Slept like a baby with munchies being the only side effect
Why something so strong and not melatonin?
Real question, never tried any.
Melatonin isn't a sleep drug. It's something your brain makes naturally at the end of the day when it gets dark etc. As I understand it, it's part of your bio clock and is not much more than your brain telling your body it's time to go to sleep. But if you're on a plane and you're nervous about flying, you won't fall asleep any more than in any other situation where you're nervous and not lying in your bed. You don't necessarily need something stronger, you need something different.
I am sorry, melatonin doesn't really do anything. It might give some the extra "kick" to fall asleep in a relaxed situation at home, but it definitely is not useful for "I need to go asleep while being pretty wound up" which is what people are talking here.
One not-oft-mentioned thing melatonin seems to do (at least in my own experience) is that it cancels out the effects of earlier-consumed caffeine in preventing sleep. So if you're overtired and awake only because of caffeine, melatonin will put you out pretty quickly.
Why benzos over Ambien?
I couldn't sleep on planes my entire life until one year I did Europe-Korea 8 times and it became so routine it started working.
The routine part, I think, is what took the "I won't sleep on this long flight" anxiety away somehow, because I started learning the rhythm of the flight. For example, there is no point to try and sleep until the initial meal is served, you'll just get woken up anyway. So now I just spend that time thinking and daydreaming and being bored, then I quietly eat my meal but stop at feeling overly fully, and by the time it's over I start to get tired.
I also realized that a sleeping mask is a great aid for me (on the other hand, I don't need earplugs/earphones). This came as a great surprise, as I don't typically need darkness to sleep well, but something about the sensory deprivation in the plane setting seems to do the trick.
What I'm saying is, I used to describe myself as the "I don't sleep on planes" guy for a good decade, but then it started working; don't give up yet.
BTW, to give this a software dimension: I was recently on a flight with an airline I hadn't used before, and I really liked a UI in their in-flight infotainment that showed the entire flight as a timeline with all meaningful events penciled in (when the meals are, etc.) and a recommendation during which blocks to sleep. That was really nice and thoughtful.
> BTW, to give this a software dimension: I was recently on a flight with an airline I hadn't used before, and I really liked a UI in their in-flight infotainment that showed the entire flight as a timeline with all meaningful events penciled in (when the meals are, etc.) and a recommendation during which blocks to sleep. That was really nice and thoughtful.
Do you recall which airline this was? Given similar pricing, this seems like a useful differentiator that would sway my decision of which airline to pick.
Not sure why not mention the airline in the post directly. Is this some kind of avoiding advertising for the brand? Really curious. Can't be click bait or SEO on hn.
Ironically, probably just sleepiness - I was posting from bed with an infant that wakes up periodically. Sadly WiFi is not opt-in in my bedroom :-)
It was Finnair from Berlin to Seoul, via Helsinki.
Edit: I found a YouTube video showing a version of this feature from 8 years ago, but I think the one I saw was a bit more refined: https://youtu.be/5-CrsPAZslg - still, interesting that it's this old and I haven't seen it anywhere else.
Just curious how tall are you? At 6'3 I thought I'd never learn that skill.
Like everything else, it's a skill you can train.
Not if you have a medical condition like sleep apnea.
I wish I could go to sleep on a plane. I’m someone who can sleep in most vehicles. Unfortunately it’s that same reason I can, which is why I shouldn’t.
You can use your CPAP machine with a external battery pack on airplanes. I do this regularly when flying long distances. In principle you should be able to also just plug in to the power sockets but for some reason this goes against most airlines policies.
Mine doesn’t support that.
The reason airlines don’t allow CPAP to be plugged in is because they don’t want people to suffocate if the power goes out in the cabin. But that’s just bonkers because CPAP masks have an escape valve for that purpose already.
In the end, I gave up arguing with the airlines and just keep myself busy on flights. It makes the travel much less comfortable but the one upside is I almost never have jet lag.
With my CPAP need that's not going to work :(
Knowing nothing, I was curious (there's also an apnea comment). It seems travel CPAP and APAP (auto pressure) is a thing, but travel BiPAP (inhale/exhale pressures; required by some conditions) not so much. A recent reddit comments suggest non-existent (exhalation relief only). Most all need Heat Moisture Exchange plugs. Yet I noticed eg the Philips BiPAP Pro Bi-Flex, bit of a brick (1.5 kg; 2500 linear cm - but qualifies as a medical device), but its spec says ok for airlines w/o humidifier attachment. So I'm puzzled.
So airlines allow 2 batteries of up to 160Wh (with airline approval) and as many 100Wh batteries as you can carry [note: I have not actually tried to show up to the TSA security line with a suitcase full of 100Wh batteries, so your mileage may vary].
A BiPAP machine uses 50-150 Watts, according to a random Google query, so you're looking at somewhere between 500 and 1400 Wh of total storage to get your 9 hours of sleep on a plane.
So what you're looking for is (a) a way to daisychain these batteries together so that you don't need to wake up ever 40 minutes to 2 hours to swap batteries and (b) a way to plug in your BiPAP machine, if your battery packs are all USB-C and your BiPAP isn't.
Sorry, my bad - regional availability and cost were the challenge, not BiPAP-ness. A Luna TravelPAP looks 20 W max and there's a USB-C cord. Heat and humidity is separate - a disposable sponge.
Given 100Wh batteries, I've wondered if one could kludge a TSA-compatible carry-on electric mobility device, like skateboard wheels plus selfie sticks, as a one-bag travel scooter. My hungry laptop already needs several. Or carry a conversion kit for an "amazon, use, then give away" inexpensive manual kick scooter.
Ehm this is not really accurate. Not many people use a BiPAP machine. They're only for very old people who have serious difficulties breathing. A BiPAP machine can serve a largely different pressure for exhaling and inhaling, a normal CPAP machine can only do that with about 2cmH2O difference which isn't a lot. But normal people have no issue exhaling against the output of a CPAP anyway so it's not a problem.
For this reason BiPAPs have much more beefy motors so they can ramp up and down quickly. Or perhaps two separate motors, I have never taken one apart (I have normal CPAPs which is basically just a pressure fan in a box with some regulation electronics)
But anyway my point is, a normal CPAP doesn't use that much power. It may use more than that if a humidifier is used (which is probably not a bad idea on a plane, but it requires distilled water which is an issue to bring on the plane in sufficient quantity). Because the humidifier is just a heater and heaters use lots of power.
I don't use a humidifier, my CPAP has a PSU of about 60W but I doubt it uses more than 20. The problem is more that they are not USB-C powered, nor are there official USB-C converters for it. I could probably construct one but bringing home-built electronics on a plane is probably not a great idea either.
So yeah I don't think this will be a great option tbh. If power is provided on the plane it would work but I've never seen this on my flights except in business/first.
BiPAP is very very rare. It's only for very frail people that probably don't fly anyway. A BiPAP can lower the pressure considerably when the user exhales, that's why. They need power to ramp up/down quickly. Most people have a normal CPAP or an Auto CPAP. The auto mode is often used to determine the optimal pressure and then that is set to be fixed (because the ramping up/down of the auto mode can be annoying).
Travel CPAPs are a thing but you can't just buy one where I live. They're only supplied by the medical service here, and they don't do travel versions. It's not allowed to buy one yourself (and they're very expensive, around 700 bucks).
> you can't just buy one where I live [...] very expensive
Ah, ok. Tnx. I assumed availability(eg [1]), so with a $1k-ish cost similar-order to travel, I wandered off looking for other obstacles.
The HME plugs used with travel CPAPs instead of a humidifier, with calcium chloride foam to transfer heat and moisture from exhalation to inhalation, looked interesting tech with winter coming. But for day-ish replacement.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHSc1N0ervY
Oh yeah I can't stand humid air anyway, it makes me feel like choking. So I do without a humidifier even though I get nosebleeds in winter. I tend to rub some lip balm inside my nose and it alleviates it somewhat :P
And yeah the Resmed Airmini and Breez Z2 are the only ones I've seen for sale in my previous country (where it was legal to buy them personally if you have a prescription) but they added up to well over 1000 euros with the battery kit which for some weird reason is not included. For my country (medium-wage) that's pretty steep.
Got the screen right there, watch a random movie like the rest of the Hoi Poloi!
I think it's honestly a great moment for cultural leveling. There's always a couple classics in the machine. I (un)seriously judge people who feel the need to get Wifi access on flights so that they can just chat on Discord. You have an excuse to just watch a movie!
> a moment of blissful idleness
Popularly known as “raw dogging” or “barebacking” a flight, apparently.
https://www.gq.com/story/why-men-are-rawdogging-flights
Great example of people who are ignorant of slang, using it in inappropriate contexts.
I would expect that the people who came up with this meaning know exactly what the original slang means, and did it intentionally. Though yeah, I'm sure there are people who use it who don't know what it really means.
Slang evolves.
slippery slang slingers
I don't think that's what it means. Raw dogging a flight means staying awake while doing nothing.
I suppose most people that want to "raw dog" a flight will fall asleep eventually, so I guess there's that. But I think getting buzzed and just slipping into a bad nap for like 12 hours is a bit different, at least to my mind.
> I don't think that's what it means. Raw dogging a flight means staying awake while doing nothing.
That sounds an awful lot like idleness.
>But on a 14-hour trans-continental flight
Now you've got me wondering if that's even possible. Ankara to Singapore? Durban to Algiers?
Edit: to be clear, I was nitpicking "trans continental", ie., flights within the same continent.
Europe -> South America, the southernmost parts like Montevideo or Buenos Aires.
There are direct flights from Madrid that take around 13-14 hours.
Transcontinental means within a continent. Last time I checked Europe and South America are not the same continent.
That would be intercontinental. Trans is across, inter is within.
Sorry, brain fart.
Much of Europe to Japan, LAX to China or Australia, NYC to India or Japan (opposite directions). It's really quite common, you can check around by airport using this map with the duration filter set to 14+ https://www.flightconnections.com/flights-from-new-york-ewr
Yep, I live in Melbourne. It's the trans-continental bit I was querying.
Ah, good catch - I read right through that.
To add to a sibling comment: Thanks to the Ukraine war and having to fly around both Russia and Ukraine, this is many additional routes from Europe toward East now that used to be shorter.
Auckland to London is about 23 hours.
Not in a single leg though, surely.
You typically have to stop in LA, Singapore, or the UAE. The NZ -> Europe flights are brutal, and the trip back is typically even longer.
true … longest non stop is something like london to perth aus at 16 hours
That and ear plugs with noise cancelling headphones and an eye mask and I can sleep through it all.
Being 6'8" makes it very challenging due to no head support. I would love to come up with some kind of elastic harness rig that would also not be rejected by security protocols.
I can't even do this at home, let alone in a semi-public place around strangers. Being blind and deaf makes me feel uneasy.
That’s what the gin and tonic step is for
for me its rather ear plugs _without_ nc. the nc cancels out the droning of the engine and aerodynamics but it leaves conversations, music and crying babies. with simple earplugs the droning (which i don't mind) helps covering up voices. of course anc + random noise is the silver bullet.
doesn't it depend on how long the flight is? the effect of alcohol is pleasant and relaxing for few hours. after that it gets me sleepless tired and my legs need to fidget more than otherwise.
Helps for nodding off on the flight, too.
go for a bloody Mary. the extra beta carotenoids are good for the skin under increased uv in high altitude. or so i tell myself.
veritasium made a video about airplanes and he specifically talks about tomato juice in planes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjDYfvPW4mA&t=908s
valeu por compartilhar.
good video. now i have two excuses for the flight bloody Mary.
This, and watching nothing but the real-time flight map.
I write this while on a United IAD-SFO direct (a bit over 5 hours), sipping a scotch on the rocks.
I've gotten the AVP demo at Apple HQ 3 times now, twice before release day. I really like it, can't imagine dropping $5000 of my own cash on it. Maybe for V2. I had a similar reaction to the Airpods Max. V2 is here. Meh. In this case, my boss has indicated we can get a few for testing, but the check's still in the mail. I have a certified-for-actual-flight-training VR system next to my desk at the office and have used that more than anyone else in the office that I'm aware of. So despite some of the most compelling, hard, spatial problems on Earth, medicine and national defense - everything from protein docking to casualty evacuation in contested environments, I'm hanging tight for now.
a good pair of earbuds is what does it for me
Cranberry and vodka but basically yeah
Does the screen stay in one place or does it move when you move your head? That turned out to be the thing that made viture glasses unusable for me. I get that slam can be hard but I would be okay with sticking a target sticker up somewhere in my field of view and having the glasses force the screen there.
I think you need the XReal Beam in addition to the glasses to be able to anchor the screen in space, without it the screen is just fixed to the glasses.
No, that's not right - you can anchor the screen in space with their app. Source: NReal/XReal v2 user.
Does such a thing exist that works for coding? Don't need the AR. My posture/back could use this for when I'm not working at my desk.
I work lying down using my Meta Quest 3 sometimes when my back gets sore. I love it.
I don't know your situation so grain of salt, but the best thing I ever did for my back pain was to start deadlifting.
Can you elaborate? Do you use Virtual Desktop or have something like termux and ssh in to a separate box?
I use immersed. I use it on both my windows based work laptop as well as my Ubuntu based private laptop. It's pretty easy, and pretty smooth.
https://immersed.com/
I've been looking for this as well but have never heard anyone that found glasses good enough for coding.
I'm using a Quest3 for coding when I'm travelling with the Immersed app. It is a bit of a setup, but it allows using a USB-C cable for the connection. It also can open multiple virtual screens. I usually have 4 screens open. The resolution is not as good as the VisionPro but having 4 screens in a slightly lower resolution allows me to be able to read everything quite well.
When I tried Apple Vision Pro I thought the quality might be good enough for coding. I don't think I could bear wearing it for long periods, though.
These actually look pretty cool, and affordable.
My understanding is that I can just use them as an external monitor, so if I'm traveling I could plug in my linux laptop and just have an external monitor to work on and could play music through them at the same time.
That sounds really tempting to me, travel work setups are always sub optimal. I have a portable external monitor, and can bring my mechanical keyboard, and if there's a spare TV I might also use it.
But it's still not the same as a proper home setup.
Even for working on a couch, it would be nice to have a screen in front of you so you don't have to slouch.
My understanding is that they can be used standalone as a monitor, or if you want to actually do VR stuff, play VR games etc, you need to buy a "XREAL Beam" or "XREAL Beam Pro" which does the VR apps etc?
Not too sure on the differences between Air, Air 2, Air 2 pro etc, but for my requirements they would all probably be fine.
For the price of an AVP, you can buy an Xreal for yourself, everyone in your row, the pilot, and flight attendant.
With a Samsung phone you can even get a whole desktop to work on. With bluetooth mouse and keyboard you can be really productive
Still works with a USB-C computer, or tablet, or Xreal's own Beam Pro. I'm sticking with my 13 Mini as a phone but still happy to travel with Xreal Air glasses.
Keeping things simple and still enjoying all the tech perks
I have Nreal Air glasses (they changed name?), they aren't useable for programming really, image is too soft, but neat for watching Netflix on the train etc.
I wear prescription glasses. Does Xreal Air help folks like me or forces me to use Contacts?
update: nvmd. I found this - https://vroptician.com/prescription-lens-inserts/nreal-air
I got the prescription inserts for the xreal air 2 pro. They were a little more expensive than I would’ve liked ($150 plus $40 because I need -8 SPH) but I have somewhat severe myopia.
I use the Viture which supports negative prescriptions by an adjustment dial on the optics.
Interesting, always wanted to try AR for office work because I travel a lot but the glasses part has always been a killer. Do they work with Linux at all?
I think they're just a usb-c monitor, so no reason it wouldn't.
Actually historically they are pretty finicky about resolution and refresh rate - it's only with the last firmware update or two that they work with RPi reliably for example - I couldn't come up with a working X config for a long time.
AKA DisplayPort
For my 12 hour transatlantics, nothing beats a Steamdeck for me. Sure it’s less immersive than a VR or xreal but it doesn’t really matter once you get into the game. I can easily play for 8 hours and barely notice the flight.
How do you hold it comfortably? It's so heavy my weak pathetic arms got tired after half an hour or so.
Ended up selling my Deck and using a much lighter handheld instead.
I have struggled with the same experience. It's just too heavy for me.
I tried to find a feature/spec comparison of different xreal air models currently for sale on their website and utterly failed.
Or they intentionally want to confuse people
It's pretty bad.
Air: the originals, still rather good, just reinforce the fragile temples
Air 2: the current standard, pile of minor upgrades and higher durability
Air 2 Pro: same as the Air 2 with an electronic dimming option for the lenses
Air 2 Ultra: the Air platform dev kit
The very bottom of the Air 2 page has an Air/2/Pro comparison.
Steam Deck and AKGs. I've finally chipped away at that monstrous Steam library.
What are AKGs?
AKG is perhaps most-famous for making some rather revered lines of microphones. They also make very good headphones.
Yeah basically very big headphones. No need for noise cancelling if you have a thick closed back... well sorta
Can you use them with a steam deck? That would be a pretty cool use case!
Absolutely. Been travelling with a SD and Xreal Airs for the past 2 years. Fantastic for gaming and video consumption.
Does the device ignore head tilt, keeping the screen in-place as your head moves?
It appears to have that mode they call "Body Anchor" - limits the device to 72Hz with "minimal latency".
https://www.xreal.com/air2/
That's only with the XReal Beam. I don't know if it's possible to use the Beam and an external device like the Steam Deck together though.
Edit: yes, it appears it has a passthrough for displaying an external device - it does introduce a little latency though.
There's also a fantastic plugin specifically for the Steam Deck that adds a bunch of excellent functionality.
Never known this exists. How’s the experience from HN users here? I may get the Aair as it is on-sale now.
How well does it work with ios screen mirroring? I assume it's not like when I plug my iphone into my monitor and I have a portrait display.
It’s exactly like that. You get a mirrored display in portrait mode. It’ll rotate if you disable orientation lock and hold it in landscape.
Those look pretty cool. Can you make the image from the input source fill your field of view? My issue with all of these headsets so far is the dumb "virtual screen" that's "equivalent to a 60-foot screen 100 feet away!"
My concerns are around the normalization of pointing high-resolution cameras at people around you all the time. Perhaps this specific device may have a company behind it that, at least at the moment, will resist handing the video feed with you in it to the data brokers.
Make no mistake though, the data brokers are foaming at the mouth to get access to high-resolution constantly-streaming video content that includes your face, your location, and your activities. Imagine the sorts of things that are going to be sold to whoever is buying.
"Jake Jacobs, who is married, is striking up a lengthy conversation with the young woman seated next to him. His wife might be interested in ads for divorce lawyers."
"Jeff Jones is taking a middle-of-the-week flight to San Jose, and he just finished writing an email to a recruiter from another company who is based out of that city. His company is paying the data broker for intel on employees who may be shopping around, so let's get this info to them stat."
"Jennifer Smith looks to be 3 months pregnant and is flying from Texas to Colorado. She's reading a Planned Parenthood pamphlet. The State of Texas passed a law in 2026 requiring data brokers to report on such activities, so of course we'll let them know."
As competing products come along that are cheaper than the Apple doohickies in part because of the subsidies they get from the data brokers, portable VR headsets are going to bring along a significant deterioration of our already-dismal privacy protections.
>My concerns are around the normalization of pointing high-resolution cameras at people around you all the time.
This already exists with CCTVs on every major city streetcorner and Ring cameras on every doorstep. Not to mention Tesla cloud-connected cameras pointed inward and outward.
But we don't have CCTV in bathrooms, locker/changing rooms or swimming pools etc. You can't take a Tesla in there either (please don't give Elon any ideas though).
While I can't promise that all CCTV operators are honest people, at least there's some chance of going after the company involved if there's a mess-up. Random people on the street where you have no idea who they are filming you, that's a different thing.
Randos installing hidden cameras in women's toilets seems to be a big enough problem in South Korea that some of the public toilets at major stations are security checked for them every single day, as far as I know. I don't want those people anywhere near me with an always-on camera, even in public fully-clothed spaces.
I feel it's harder for a tesla to capture footage of a teenager reading a pamphlet on a plane, but who knows what Elon's plans are.
The airlines can do that themselves:
"Newer seat-back entertainment systems on some airplanes operated by American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, United Airlines and Singapore Airlines have cameras, and it’s likely they are also on planes used by other carriers." https://apnews.com/article/4c3ca3b46c704c6080ba026729fc8d21
I fly a lot (though not in the US) and have never seen that. Would personally boycott airlines where I notice cameras in the back seats, wtf!
cctvs are fixed, this is mobile ! not the same difference.
Try getting CCTV footage passed as admissible in court in most of Europe. It's basically impossible, even at HD resolutions. That's if you can even get hold of the footage under GDPR - as it requires the police to request the footage and follow up with the business to ensure its passed on.
Most of the CCTV and Ring cameras are pretty lousy and they're in fixed locations. All the time I'll be out walking and hear an obnoxious "You are currently being recorded" announcement, but I'm far enough away from that cheap camera that I'm probably a shadowy figure in a grainy video.
These VR headsets on the other hand are high-quality, very close to other people, and mobile.
>Most of the CCTV and Ring cameras are pretty lousy and they're in fixed locations.
The CCTVs in Chicago are 360 degree panning plus up/down, and can zoom-in four blocks away with enough resolution to make out a face and license plate. https://www.chicagotribune.com/2024/09/29/chicago-police-cam....
Here is an example of the cameras in action: https://x.com/CWBChicago/status/1445124776742227980
Did you have to pick a video where somebody is killed?
It's Chicago and that's pretty normal there.
Lol. Lines like this make it clear that anyone speaking about it has never actually lived in Chicago.
They may own a big hotel, run for public office, or (here) they may link a source or two leveraging a couple of neighborhoods raising statistics.
But they clearly never lived in, or know what it's like to live in, Chicago.
No need to live there to know its reality. This type of violence is normalized there.
https://heyjackass.com/
Q.E.D. :)
Don't confuse temporary with forever. I remember folks dismissing digital cameras out of hand, and now you can barely buy an alternative.
To the degree that this is a risk, I'd note that airports and train stations tend to have a _large_ quantity of cameras in them; some of them owned by the airport operator, some by law enforcement, and some by lessees of retail space within the airport.
This problem is real, but it is better managed by creating massive, punishing fines for companies that engage in that behavior than it is by attempting to ban augmented reality devices (or laptops, or tablets, or phones, or any other camera-containing device).
My concern is the unforeseen consequences this might have on our eyes, long-term.
Just like we had with TVs and other screens. Interestingly enough though, when I look around in my office, the majority of people in my team wear glasses, so there's that...
The current top comment in this thread recommends AR glasses from a Beijing-based company which has indirect Chinese state involvement (through Alibaba). So yeah...
Also, at least in Europe, you would be filming people against their will, which could be a GDPR violation.
> Imagine the sorts of things that are going to be sold to whoever is buying.
Gargoyles represent the embarrassing side of the Central Intelligence Corporation. Instead of using laptops, they wear their computers on their bodies, broken up into separate modules that hang on the waist, on the back, on the headset. They serve as human surveillance devices, recording everything that happens around them. Nothing looks stupider; these getups are the modern-day equivalent of the slide-rule scabbard or the calculator pouch on the belt, marking the user as belonging to a class that is at once above and far below human society.
Stephenson, Neal. Snow Crash: A Novel (pp. 140-141). Random House Worlds. Kindle Edition.
This is complete science fiction / FUD. Amazon can't even stop showing you ads for vacuum cleaners after you buy a vacuum cleaner, you think they have the compute for something that sophisticated?
If 1% of people buy a second vacuum that ad placement could be very rational.
Some people have big houses, others want to buy another brand, and some people love their cleaner so much they buy a similar one for their cousin's birthday.
Opportunity cost is much higher than the revenue generated from a redundant vacuum
Not able to compute that won't stop them reselling or holding it. At some point it will leak, and available for sell to PI or someone will more personal interest on you
No one has the storage capacity necessary to store that much audio content, let alone video.
Furthermore, the incremental benefit over traditional ad targeting via search or web history is probably pretty marginal, and not nearly worth the effort/cost. All of these scenarios (Jake Jacobs' wife, Jeff Jone, Jennifer Smith) are already going to show up in a traditional search history, why would an ad company go through all that effort to get data they already have? This is real life not a Mission Impossible movie.
It’d probably be mostly happening on-device. Why waste their own compute on it when they can just drain your battery and send themselves only the pertinent details.
I won't buy a device with cameras slapped all over it either. But anyone fearmongering over this has not thought through what it would take to do this at scale and really consider how this is worthwhile over existing tracking methods. The amount of compute required to squeeze useful targeting data out of hours of video is just not cost-effective compared to the plentiful data from your activity on a phone or laptop. In all your examples, the same signal would be visible from online activity that is practically guaranteed to be there.
> Perhaps this specific device may have a company behind it that, at least at the moment, will resist handing the video feed with you in it to the data brokers.
In that case go with devices made by Meta. As selling the raw data is the last thing they would do.
Oh yeah, no, you're definitely streaming high-definition video from the airplane. You'd better put your phone in airplane mode. The front camera is silently recording and selling your complaints about the airplane food to a competing airline in full HD. Some say they can tell from your pores. Airlines specifically upgraded in-flight wifi to 100 Gbps upload so that we could get seamless data brokering on-demand. A data broker I know sometimes hits a button to get instant live-streaming access to the inside of the seatback pocket. He really likes it. "He's watching Modern Family S4 E3" he laughed the other day. "He doesn't know the airline doesn't have S4 E4! He's going to be so disappointed"
Yes, the chairs on the Titanic aren't perfectly aligned with one another.
Agree with author that the plane seems to be the only place where it is socially acceptable to wear the skimask.
My wife still makes fun of me when I'm working at home with Vision Pro - I wouldn't wear it out in public. See: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41836437
It is also one of the few public places to 'safely' do it.
Would you feel comfortable wearing one and limiting your awareness of your surroundings on a public bus? In a coffee shop? Sitting outside a coffee shop? In a park? In a pub?
And also your answers may be yes if you are male, but I can imagine in the current world we live in a lot of women would feel potentially at risk if they were wearing these in public.
Train travel is great with one too.
You have a whole screen (large windows) at the side of your seat with landscape and stuff to actually enjoy on a train.
You assume that most train rides offer a good view, and a view that the commuter would find novel.
If I’m taking a commuter train every day , my view is not something great. Most of the time it’s rundown houses, tunnels or fences. This has been my experience in the UK, US and Canada.
If I’m taking a more long distance train, you assume I’m sat on the side with a view. Ever taken a mountain train? One side just gets rocks wizzing by.
You also assume they’re travelling in weather and a time of day that affords them a good view. Traveling at night? Traveling in misty weather?
And all that aside, you assume they’d prefer to look at the same things you do.
I guess that is based on experience as I have commuted in the swiss alps for years by train. There is even a tunnel when you are comming from Freiburg in direction of Lausanne/Geneva where you can count down the exact moment the tourists will let escape a collective woooaaaaah once the train exit the tunnel to a majestic view of Lake of Geneva with the alps and the Mont Blanc in the background.
There are some views you never get tired of looking at, especially as seasons, weather, clouds and time of the day makes it an ever changing postcard.
All in all in most of europe the trains usually offer nice views and I often find myself daydreaming about climbing that dirt trail on the left with my bike, riding my motorbike on that twisty road on the right side a few minutes later and what kind of life was it living 500 years ago in the old castle I can see here.
Maybe record that amazing commute so the less fortunate train travelers can play it on an Apple Vision Pro? Bit of a rubbish arrival surprise at work, but we can solve that next!
This feels like you’re judging others for not being fortunate enough to live in the same place you do. It’s a bit narcissistic of a viewpoint imho.
I think he’s just saying he has a nice train ride.
No, he’s telling other people to also act like he does.
It’s great he can enjoy it but it’s self centered to tell others to do the same.
This is one of the most tone-deaf moments I have ever seen in an internet discussion. The guy lives in the closest thing we have to heaven on earth, a bountiful paradise of gorgeous beauty admired from afar the world over, and says to those of us living in crap-world that we should be grateful for what nature gives us.
At the same time, I feel you are being dismissive of the beauty around us every day. I used to bus the same route every day for months; and every day I would look out my window and just take it in. People watching, seeing buildings grow under construction, the changing of the trees. The sunset is always beautiful, imo.
Why must we always escape?
Because not everyone has the same view afforded to them at all times?
Again, you are fortunate to have a view that you enjoy. That doesn’t extend to others, unless you believe that there are no other situations on the planet other than your own.
Aren't you escaping too? You could be alone with your thoughts, but instead you are piping inconsequential outside details into your brain.
Isn’t that escaping too? You could be engaged in the real world forming real connections but instead have self isolated.
Probably the point is that there are many mindstates to be in and maybe we should just let folks do their thing.
I mean you literally live in Switzerland. It's the most photogenic place on the planet.
Some of us live in places like Baltimore, or Staten Island.
I am not living there anymore and I still like to take the train and enjoy looking at the window. Sometimes it is just looking at people doing stuff.
You might find that real life is boring, I find that most tv shows and movies are super predictable, following the very similar scenaristic mechanics and aren't more entertaining. Obviously some are also very nice, but these are the ones you would like to watch comfortably on your sofa or in a theater, not in a train or plane anyway.
Still, are those temporary inconveniences so dull that you can't read a book or something? Why cling to a desperate need for hyper stimulation when you could just relax with a newspaper or book. Oh jeez, it's misty out, and I forgot my ridiculous VR goggles, guess I'll just be sad :(
Because other people might enjoy things other than books or newspapers?
Seriously, is everyone on here so narcissistic that they can’t imagine other people want other things?
My comment, in retrospect, came across needlessly aggro and dismissive, and I apologize for that; the downvotes were justified and I don't know what frame of mind I was in. Your comment struck me as a complaint about circumstances though rather than interest, to which I'd say have at it, do what you want to do with the tech you want to do it with; I just personally can't relate to the temporary lack of novelty during a commute seeming like a sensible reason for spending so much on this particular kind of device that doesn't really seem to serve another purpose. A steam deck, iPad pro, portable gaming system perhaps, all kinds of others, but the AVP seems like a bit out of scope somehow. I personally bring along a Nintendo DS, or a book, or whatever else, but I'd kind of think if my commute was so sufficiently long and dull that I'd want something more substantial, I'd just really start looking into a much bigger change.
I've taken the train across the Canadian prairies, and my god is that dull, but I just chatted with people, did a bit on my laptop, looked out the window since there always is one, read, used my Gameboy. If I wanted to completely immerse myself in anything but the train experience, I'd just fly, it's cheaper anyway
Out of curiosity, have you tried the Vision Pro ? I legitimately ask because it sounds like you think it isolates you somehow from the rest of the world around you.
But you can still see the world and communicate with others. Why is that materially different than being engrossed in a handheld video game with headphones in?
Also all your examples of other stuff you do to occupy the time, they are all temporary. Why do you think the Vision Pro user would use it the whole ride?
I think this is down to the Boolean nature of “is this normalized or not”
Because it’s not normalized, people don’t afford it the same benefit of the doubt of other things that they have normalized in their life.
No I haven't, and I am somewhat curious, but I'm also keeping up with it through some of the swift/apple podcasts and YT channels I follow. For me it's more about the cost, physical overhead, and (apparent) lack of other utility, which all-together would to me be sort of a more involved commitment than some little thing I may or may not ever bring out..
I'd only ever consider bringing something that is nearly invisible to both myself and others in terms of weight and required infrastructure, wouldn't bring anything with me for the purpose of occupying my attention that I can't forget I have, or that would consume more than a negligible amount of space/weight; I'll bring a book, but not a tome
Incidentally, Canadian cross-country trains don't even have outlets at the seat as far as I know; they're quite old sadly.
That said, I buy almost no superfluous electronics for raw consumption, and even an iPad Pro would be wildly out of scope, as nice as they seem to be, since although they do have other utility, I can't picture myself doing more than reading or watching videos. On-the-go entertainment is something I try to keep at arms length so I can spend that time at peace.
Fwiw, I do also hope it doesn't become normalized, not to squash others' potential for fun, but because our existing devices already enable people to protect themselves from social interaction on a large scale, which strikes me as damaging.
I'd add that this is all really only applies to various modes of commuting and travel, I have no qualms with the device itself, only the idea of using it regularly in-transit.
When I take trains in Europe, I tend to look out the window, and they often have nice views.
When I take trains in the USA, I usually look out for a few seconds every couple of minutes, because it's mostly the same -- lower-middle class housing or warehouses if we're in a city, or ugly terrain outside of a city.
I have to say, taking the night train from Moscow to St Petersburg was eye opening.
I went from modern metropolis of skyscrapers and tower cranes to run down rusty industrial facilities that wouldn't look out of place in a STALKER game to sod roofed villages that look as they might have when Napoleon was making an ill fated expedition. Then of course a vast expanse of nothing at all.
You’d enjoy the Amtrak from Seattle to Vancouver along the water at sunset. You can buy a glass of wine and enjoy the majestic views.
Having ridden both routes, the Amtrak from Denver to Reno has a spectacularly better view than the Eurostar from London to Brussels. The food is also better.
These kinds of broad comparisons are utterly useless. Continents are much too large for that kind of thing to be anything resembling accurate.
That gets old after about an hour.
Especially if you're travelling through cityscapes that aren't that appealing.
It’s nice to have something to switch to
Can you elaborate on the working part?
I tested the device in an Apple Store and was blown away by the experience. Such an amazing tool to explore, enjoy and relax.
The work part though? I had the same feeling as with the iPad early on. I need a keyboard and a mouse to be productive.
> The work part though? I had the same feeling as with the iPad early on. I need a keyboard and a mouse to be productive.
Both my iPad Pro and my Vision Pro have a keyboard and trackpad:
- The iPad Pro of course uses the excellent Magic Keyboard.
- The Vision Pro uses an Apple keyboard w/o numpad side by side with the Magic Trackpad, in a custom tray to hold both. (Make sure that your carryon's front pocket can hold the full tray.)
For sure if I thought I could only do work on a MacBook not an iPad Pro (what most people seem to think, insisting iPad is a consumption device), then I definitely couldn't work on a Vision Pro.
But once you've figured out how to code (e.g. VSCode using blink code, or Koder, Working Copy, Textastic, etc.), do graphic design (e.g. Affinity suite), or run Office on an iPad (Teams, Outlook, Word, PowerPoint, Excel), the Vision Pro does those too but with "all the app windows at once" (ofc, iPad Pro 13" makes excellent use of Stage Manager for window groups).
All that said, I haven't felt a burden to pull AVP out on the plane.
iPad Pro 13" HDR with AirPods Pro USB-C using Spatial Audio that anchors to your iPad screen seem more than enough. Especially since you can share audio with a seat mate who also has AirPods, and both watch the same movie together.
Not often talked about: for doing real work, do consider a fresh glasses prescription and the Zeiss add-ins. To keep windows rectangular instead of trapezoid, insist you're under 40 regardless of your age, otherwise Zeiss do a stealth "progressive" that warps window sizes.
I had no idea that’s what Spatial Audio meant. I thought naively that it was just another marketing jargon for surround sound.
Now I wish I had gone for the bose QC ultra buds instead of the QC II buds.
More about Apple's spatial audio and head tracking:
https://support.apple.com/guide/airpods/control-spatial-audi...
"Spatial Audio" is "simulated" surround. Apple is undoubtedly using its engine to pan the audio as you move around in this example, but the main point is to market Dolby Atmos as useful with only two speakers.
> "Spatial Audio" is "simulated" surround. Apple is undoubtedly using its engine to pan the audio as you move around in this example, but the main point is to market Dolby Atmos as useful with only two speakers.
Apple Music marks Dolby Atmos and Spatial Audio separately. They are not the same experience for the listener. They do work well together.
Since we only have two ears, a degree of our surround cue comes from where the sounds are when we move our heads.
Apple's "motion tracking in space" spatial audio implementation taps into that to an uncanny degree, because your own motion is not simulated. Real motion in real space results in a real sound difference from the sound model that, you're right, is simulating how that motion should sound relative to the origin.
As a listener, you start to forget the sound isn't centered out there on the anchor point, and then you start thinking the surround sounds are really surrounding you...
Here are two different explainers:
- https://appleinsider.com/articles/21/05/18/apples-spatial-au...
- https://www.gearpatrol.com/tech/apple-spatial-audio-vs-dolby...
Note that I disagree with the second explainer's final section that surround sound speakers like Sonos are the same "spatial audio" as the motion tracking sound modeling Apple is doing.
I agree with the first explainer that Apple's Spatial Audio is a system that takes advantage of the gyroscopes and sensors in the listening device and headphones to, yes, “simulate” a 3D listening space that stays static as you move your head.
Apple Vision Pro can recognize a Macbook and turn that screen into the "theater" screen so you can continue using your Macbook as is with the keyboard and trackpad.
There was even a Youtuber that got annoyed of the black screen on the Macbook when doing this that he removed the screen from a Macbook altogether[0].
0. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUa_pPUbpGQ
I don't see why won't you be able use a keyboard if you can touch-type. I can imagine that a CAD or an animation app could make great use of the 3D views, a mouse for precise coordinate input, and a keyboard for numeric and text input.
I wonder how soon will Maya or CATIA offer good enough integration. Maybe they already offer it at the high end.
>if you can touch-type
And for the majority of us that cant?
They could if the Vision Pro had a video input.
The Vision Pro might be brilliant for consuming content, but if you're trying to get work done...
It's really unfortunate that they decided for an ios variant instead of a macos variant for the vision pro. Even if the power of macos (a real filesystem and the software library) is hidden behind a 'expert mode' or some shit.
I want to replace my macbook, I don't want to replace my ipad. I can't work properly on my ipad unless i'm using it as a dumb terminal. And at the price point of a macbook that's what it should be replacing.
People may point out that i can use it to mirror my macbook screen.. but now i'm paying 2x to replace a screen. I think this is a primary misplay in he vision pro strategy.
Give me a windowing system that lets me place windows, not in a little box that is essentially a virtual monitor, but wherever i want in my immediate vicinity. Let me put my goland/ide window front and center, let me put a terminal to the left, and my music player above.. whatever.
I'd take a vision pro with much of the compute hardware stripped out but that I can tether to a macbook via usbc/thunderbolt as well.. just not an ipad strapped to my face.
> I want to replace my macbook, I don't want to replace my ipad. [...] People may point out that i can use it to mirror my macbook screen.. but now i'm paying 2x to replace a screen. I think this is a primary misplay in he vision pro strategy.
The SimulaVR guys (who are working on a competitor to the Vision Pro) had the exact same opinion (https://simulavr.com/blog/chassis-adjustments-and-apv-reacti...):
> From our perspective, we still think the main problem with the AVP is that it only supports native iPad apps (at least for 2D apps) [...] The AVP does allow you to tether to another Mac, but this relegates its usability to that of a "laptop aid" rather than a "laptop replacement". [...] We want to do this for the engineers and knowledge workers who need the extra capabilities in VR, and for the people who want to completely replace their laptop, rather than their tablets!
I saw someone parked in their car wearing one.
At least they were parked.
At least you’ve got some tech freedom at home
"It’s a fantastic device to travel with—Be it by train or by plane, it offers an unparalleled opportunity to selectively tune out your environment and sink into an engaging activity like watching a movie or just working on your laptop. "
Lord forgive you have a new unexpected experience while traveling or expose yourself to the underclasses or subject yourself to the shtty social environment you helped create...
I recently took a long flight and brought my Quest device, set to travel mode. It worked great! Pretty much the same experience as this article describes.
One protip, I bought a 512G flash drive and loaded it with content. Then I could pop the drive in and play movies off it. I did not want to deal with needing connectivity for DRM or other server checks.
Highly recommend that people try this out, the next time you travel. It’s a killer use case for VR.
Aside from the Meta integration which will always be a non-starter for me, it would be great if Quest and other headsets followed Apple's design with an external battery pack. I wonder if there are/will ever be "dumb headsets" that are powered/ran by a phone.
Do you know that you can create a Meta account with a one-time email address, fake name, and no connection to any other Meta service but the Quest platform? That may still be more connection to Meta than you prefer, but to many "Meta integration" implies an automatic linkage to Facebook or Instagram.
They only recommend your real name in case you need to recover your account.
From https://www.meta.com/help/quest/articles/accounts/account-se...:
---- To create a Meta account using your email address, you will need to provide:
Email: You can only create one Meta account per email address.
First and last name: We recommend using your real name in case you need to recover your account or manage your store purchases.
Birthday: You need to be at least 13 years old (or the applicable age in your region) to set up and manage your own Meta account. If you are between 10 and 12 (or the applicable age in your region), then you need a Meta account that’s managed by a parent or guardian.
Password: This must be at least 8 characters. Avoid passwords that someone could easily guess.
Presumably this also links to your shadow profile and all of the traffic to the FB tracking pixels from your IP.
You can extend your Quest with third-party accessories to do this. I got a better head strap with external battery support + 2 batteries and charger from BoboVR. With the magnetic snap-in the batteries can be easily replaced mid-play, in essence providing infinite charge time.
I have a Quest 2 and a Quest 3 - both headsets allow you to continue using them while they're plugged into an external battery pack or charger, so you can absolutely do this already.
I agree it'd be nice to have an external CPU pack for heat and weight reasons, but we're not quite there yet. The closest thing currently is wireless streaming via a PC running Steam VR, but that's not exactly portable.
XREAL Air do this, the headset itself is the size of sunglasses, and powered by the USB C used for display in.
I believe XREAL headsets are exactly that. Bulky sunglasses form factor, Pepper's Ghost optical setup, dumb display by itself + 3DoF for comfort with an adapter, takes DP Alt input.
Pretty much yes, there are already hints that this will be coming but for the current experience what would be the benefit Quest with battery included is already the same weight as the Vision Pro without the battery. So just add an external battery bank via USB and you have the same weight experience
Yeah, as a first-gen Quest owner I got no idea what they're going on about. My favorite feature is how light it feels with the battery included - I can use it comfortably with no wires for 2-3 hours, then take it off and let it recharge. If I need more runtime, I plug it in.
If Meta made new versions of the Quest without the battery built in I think I'd actively avoid it.
> with an external battery pack
Why? There's are already 1000s of external batteries. Unless you mean you think Meta should do it so they can charge 4x of any other battery like Apple does?
Quest is also lighter than Vision Pro, even with it's built in battery
The very first gen of untethered headsets were powered by the phone. They quickly realized that the phone stack in that phone stole too many resources to reach the performance they wanted. The Quest came out "shortly" after that Carmack presentation.
Too bad Apple's fear of I/O ruled out that kind of connectivity. No card slot, no external drive capability, and no video input.
No sale.
and less space than a Nomad, you say?
I have a Quest One collecting dust, but now I'm thinking it might be fun to bring it on a long flight if I know the onboard entertainment will be really lacking--some airlines I've been on have really reduced the TV/movie selections for some reason.
An iPad works pretty well for in-flight entertainment like video or reading. Though I’ll just bring a Kindle on a shorter trip where I sort of know I won’t be watching video.
Sounds great, what did you use for audio?
There’s a headphone port in the Quest 3. I just got a $20 set of wired headphones for it. I think you can connect via Bluetooth for wireless but I have t tried.
Would guess regular wired headphones/earplugs, as bluetooth has a lag which is pretty bad for gaming.
I exclusively use bluetooth headphones when gaming. The lag is actually not that bad unless you're playing something like a rhythm game.
How did you acquire the content? Buy the blu-rays and rip them?
Depends on the content, but some disc rips, some ytdl, some internal corporate stuff that I just hit Save As. The nice thing about the Quest, it is pretty much just a computer so lots of formats can get played (and you can even just copy files to the filesystem in a format the e.g. BigscreenVR or other video player apps can read)
Once you buy the blu-rays, there's no need to rip them. You can just download them, as you already have a license.
Come to think of it, you can skip the first step too, and just download them.
I guess the flip side of this is that you look like a fucking dork.
Life is way too short to spend it worrying about what other people think about this type of thing. Reality is, they almost never care and are far more concerned about their own problems than whether someone else looks like a dork.
I think that will fade. I don't know if you remember how mocked the airpods were when they first came out ("They look like q-tips"). All it'll take is a few celebrities spotted using one and they'll turn cool in no time.
You're not wrong, but I think there's at least a couple of orders of magnitude of awkwardness between the Airpods and the the Vision Pro that will have to be overcome, before the VP becomes mainstream.
There were times when going to an office wearing a T-shirt felt crazy, like going to an office while wearing a bikini, or wearing a clown attire, would be now. It changed maybe in late 1990s.
Things like these change very slowly, then suddenly, once the views of the perceived majority around most people change enough that the people start to see the new state as proper and confirmant, a new norm.
Imagine the first person wearing bell bottom jeans. Some folks just DGAF, and next thing you know ...
I don't think it will pass, but I think subsequent versions will be slimmer and less mock-prone. In 10 years people will look back at the first version the way people look back at the first bulky cell phones.
AirPods also make you look like a dork.
airpods at least had the equivocal wired headphones normalizing that look for a decade before they appeared.
Depending on your circles. In many doing what a celebrity does means squat, or backfires. Better watch our peers.
I don't recall the AirPods ever being mocked. Why would they be, after years and years of almost identical-looking earbuds being sported in public?
But long before that we had DoucheTooth (or BlueTool, whichever you prefer) earpieces. Now those were mocked.
You can check out Reddit threads around the launch https://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/51yazy/this_is_what_...
Airpods aren’t cool though, the majority don’t wear them nor can they afford them.
You appear to be a bit unclear on what cool means.
Air pods are about as cool-looking as a hearing aid. At best, they're utilitarian.
Are you sure you’re not conflating cool with elitism?
Zillions of people are out there wearing cheap AirPod knockoffs too.
I don't think any ear buds are "cool", but certainly nobody cares, it's perfectly normal.
I was a high school computer nerd in the 80's. They all said that about me then too, and I didn't care.
But to your point, it will probably get slicker over time. For this one, they erred on the side of high fidelity, and they nailed it pretty well.
Oh, I have no doubt that it will get better over time, but I think people forget that part of the early adopter tax is often that you look like a fucking dork. Which in my mind isn't a bad thing - it shows that you're committed to making it work. There's something noble about that, wouldn't you say?
Upvote for doubling down on the "look like a fucking dork" phrase. I wasn't sure at first if this was self-deprecating humor, but now I am. Neeeeeerd!
"early adopter tax"- love that, may have to borrow it
And you're right! And some of us will happily pay that! It is the _bleeding_ edge, after all.
It's possible for those concerned with this to overcome it! Most people are way more focused on themselves than whatever a random person is wearing in public, and will likely forget the encounter the second they set foot off the plane.
Yup, the person wearing one literally gets the “drives a cybertruck” spotlight.
At least the AVP seems like a reasonably engineered piece of equipment. The cybertruck has a seemingly unending list of flaws documented in /r/cyberstuck.
And yet the Cybertruck was the 3rd highest selling Electric vehicle in the US this year.
This says more about the average car buyer in the US than anything else to be honest.
Also be sure not to let anyone see you browsing HN.
HN isn't well-known outside deep tech circles. anyone who clocks you reading it probably reads it too.
So much judgment, but at least that won't change for me then
The main impediment I would experience to wearing this on a plane.
Just reading this blog makes me feel like it is actually not a great device to travel with. For me, a good travel device is one that takes up minimal room when packing to the point where it becomes easy to forget I even have it in my bag. The Vision Pro typically requires its own dedicated spot on top of your carry on as you go through the airport - kind of the opposite. The author talks about just packing it with a single cover for the goggles but that also makes me nervous given its MSRP
A kindle/book/tablet seems superior in this regard. You get your entertainment for the plane and you don't have to worry about unpacking it on the plane, being precious with a very expensive piece of equipment and they are negligible in terms of lugging around/storing in your hotel. You can even reasonably use these if you have a little down time waiting in a line, during quick trips, will be without power for a while, etc.
The last time I remember flying with a tablet, it was so suspicious that airport security hauled me into a private room and interrogated me about it. They questioned why I didn't take it out of my bag for the scanner (since it was a 'laptop'). They asked what it was. They made me turn it on and use it. They were extremely rude and kept me holed up for a long time while investigating it.
So I don't fly with a tablet any more haha! Although, I get that time has passed and I would no longer be accosted so much, I assume. Must be pretty common now. My story takes place in ~2011 with the Motorola Xoom tablet. I guess they had never seen a tablet before.
I was also working hard on a plane one time, writing code to access barometer data on mobile devices to build a distributed weather sensor network that could be activated in software. The flight attendant came by and told me, "okay, time to put your toys away sweetie" referring to my tablet and phone. Oooooooooh my god.
In the 13 years since your experience, airport security around the world has had time to be extremely blasé about most electronic devices.
That said, security rules vary from airport to airport. SFO with TSA Pre is practically a no-op, but CDG security requires that you remove from carry-on any device with a >20cm dimension!
> The flight attendant came by and told me, "okay, time to put your toys away sweetie" referring to my tablet and phone.
The audacity! I hope you called them sweetie too.
I believe the main reason laptops have to be separated is because they appear as just a large chunk of metal on the X-ray. A tablet would look similar.
Pre-iPad, most airport staff (who aren't hardcore techies, or might not have the privilege of higher education) might think of a tablet as a laptop anyway.
I was under the impression that because the components are packed so tight it is difficult to scan anything beneath the laptop. Happy to be corrected.
The author (me) specifically recommends to not buy the bulky travel case from Apple and instead, just use the default front cover + a lens protector.
This is specifically to not to take up any extra room than is necessary. The only room it takes up is essentially the width of the HMD itself (even negating the strap)!
FYI, you may want to revisit a couple of your "only me" points on the AVP with the release of the Quest 3S.
The 3S has an IR blaster that allows it to work in total darkness. Meta also enabled a travel mode[1] a couple of OS revisions ago (back in June or so).
[1] https://www.meta.com/help/quest/articles/in-vr-experiences/o...
For those that might find themselves nervous with a naked AVP, consider this popular option, a Syntech Hard Carrying Case compatible with various goggles:
Small: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0C4YFV9F9/
Medium: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09QPN321B
Syntech recommend medium. Folks likely would prefer small, but caution about cracking glass front.
I've stopped carrying my over-ear noise-cancelling headphones for this reason. They take up like a quarter/half of a normal item-sized backpack. I can sleep with plane noise. But I always bring a sleep mask, because I can't sleep with bright lights turning on and off all the time. I did recently get some in-ear headphones w/ noise cancelling, perhaps they're enough.
There's always the fear of losing stuff when you're moving objects around so much, too. One less thing to worry about.
In my experience my Airpod Pros and Huawei Freebud Pros achieve 95% of the audio and noise cancellation quality of my Sony XM3s that I just barely use the big headset anymore. I understand that they are technically different categories of products but for me and a lot of other non-audiophiles I know switched to TWS earbuds once they got half decent ANC.
> They take up like a quarter/half of a normal item-sized backpack
I love the Sony XM3/XM4 for this reason. They fold up to a very compact volume
There are both wired and wireless noise canceling earbuds that work well. Never had an interest in the bulky over the ear ones. I pack pretty light even for 2-3 week trips.
I lost my favorite hair comb on my last trip, so I'm literally building a detailed packing checklist spreadsheet for next time I go anywhere.
I travel regularly with a vr headset and it takes a minority of my carry on space packed in a protective case. Non issue.
It is not necessarily the space used but the inconvenience of packing/unpacking stuff from a carry on bag in a cramped environment.
I guess that would be different if I was flying first or business class.
Yes exactly.
Just putting in my take for the vision-pro-curious, coming from a tall/big tech guy with excellent vision who owns one:
I kept mine this whole time and I still actually use it regularly and it still amazes me. There's a steady trickle of interesting things that appear for it, and it's VERY useful as a giant virtual extended laptop screen if you have a Macbook. Especially if you are in a recliner and can tilt the virtual screen above your head a bit- vastly more comfortable. Very much looking forward to the extra large virtual curved monitor they're working on, hopefully this fall.
The thing is still kind of magical.
When I first got it, I would get some eye fatigue and/or dizziness after about an hour of using it, but that seemed to improve after a couple weeks (adaptation?) and I can now use it for 2-3 hours at a time uninterrupted without any discomfort. Chewing ginger apparently helps (same as with VR headsets).
Drinking coffee from a mug with it on is difficult. Get a straw.
I'm a big guy (6'3", 260lbs) and the headset is still a bit heavy.
The gestural and eye-focus UI is extremely good, my only complaint is that I still find it hard sometimes not to make erroneous inputs which can get frustrating, but that is more the fault of web UI's with closely-clustered controls that were not designed with this interface in mind- but sometimes with text input as well, it's sometimes frustrating.
The quality of the passthrough video (AR) can be improved, it's a bit shimmery (although still clear enough to comfortably read things on your phone or watch). It's stitched together from a bunch of cameras so it is surely already a technical feat.
The FOV is OK, but more is always better.
The immersive environments (and being able to dial them in and out) are FANTASTIC. Shout-out to the Bora Bora one in vOS 2.0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKueDGv4OVQ and the Marvel and Star Wars ones provided by the Disney app https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lisof6XWtII&t=491s I also love the moon one. Each one has both a "daytime" and "nighttime" view as well.
It's fantastic on a plane, if dorky.
Haven't used mine in a while, can you recommend some apps for it as I try out the 2.0 OS?
For those who wear N95s on planes, I can confirm that 3M Aura 9205+ works great with Vision Pro※ and doesn't hinder using it at all, nor reduce comfort, at least for my head and face shape.
※ - Tested during my 30 min demo (more like 45 mins) at the Apple Store.
Not criticism, genuinely curious: why? I thought cabin air was exceptionally well cycled and filtered, much more so than other indoor spaces.
I used to think this especially since airlines touted how good the air filtration was when COVID hit.
It's actually quite poor and significantly worse than most indoor spaces I've entered (most spaces aren't great at around 800-1600ppm). On planes I've measured※ very high CO2 levels (1800-4000ppm), with the worst air during boarding and deplaning. This matches the findings of others (both amateur and professional researchers).
※ - using Aranet4
Are CO2 levels a useful way to measure filtration?
Are we expecting almost all the clean air to be from outside, minimal amounts from recirculation?
Apologies, I specified "filtration" but meant "quality", which I would define as filtration + fresh air intake.
I'd have expected a better mix (more fresh air) since even with filtration removing many particulates and viruses, high CO2 levels still cause worse cognitive performance.
It's hard to get lots of fresh air into a pressurized plane, so I'm willing to have a good bit of leeway on that front. And airflow patterns are important; a lot of fresh air running from front to back would likely do more harm than good.
I love how the recent availability of cheap PPM and CO2 sensors spawned a whole new subculture of air quality paranoia.
Based on Veritasium's recent video, given the cabins are pressurized by bleeding air off of the jet engine might not be too surprising about CO2 or particulates. However the cabin air is also exceptionally dry.
How does an N95 help with CO2 levels?
I would wager it's not a matter of helping filter out CO2, but rather CO2 is one way to assess how effective the air management is on a plane.
I don't know, but I always tended to get sick after flying. I started wearing a mask while flying during COVID and it's the one place I still do it. Not scientific but I feel like I have gotten sick after flying less frequently since then. It could even just be the effect of making myself breathe humid air in what's normally an extremely dry environment.
There are long periods where the filters aren't running during startup and shutdown, you'll notice once the seatbelt sign turns on at the beginning and right after it turns off at the end, things get stale super quickly and the temps start rising. That's because they turned off/haven't switched to air supplied by the jetway yet.
A few family members caught covid on a plane despite everyone needing a negative covid test before departure and wearing a FFP2 mask during the whole flight.
Put a lot of people in close proximity for a long time and it's going to be very hard to prevent transmission of airborne viruses...
At the very least so one doesn’t sneeze over the person on the next seat.
Airplane air is clean but there are just too many people aboard and for too long. Something like a quarter of all air travel passengers get a respiratory illness within a week. Some hypothesize that the incredibly low humidity of cabin air (in most aircraft, except the very newest) makes it easier to acquire infections. A face mask, in addition to its normal role, also solves this problem because it is very humid inside the mask.
Slightly OT but I much prefer the 9211+: the vent[*] makes a difference in comfort when worn over long periods. Or the 9105 / 9105S which sticks out further away from the face, and its elastic design makes it a bit quicker to don / doff at checkpoints.
[*] Yes I'm prioritizing my comfort over safety for others, but that's the American Way (tm), isn't it.
Thanks for this recommendation; I was considering ordering these for my next trip since they should fit the same as 9205+.
(I don't see an issue with wearing an exhalation vent next to folks who aren't wearing masks themselves. If they cared about the air they'd also be wearing a mask. If I sat next to someone wearing one I'd switch back to the 9205+.)
There are masks with full N95 filtration that have a fan built in to pull the air through the filter. Makes it much more comfortable to wear for long periods.
(I switch to a mask with no metal in it for airport metal detectors, but I can switch back again immediately afterwards.)
Any recommendations for such masks?
The Philips "Fresh Air" or "Fresh Breeze" mask (different names in different regions).
Same here. I use the Honeywell Saf-T-Fit masks, with the exhaust, either N99 or P100. They have a soft cushion where it touches the face and I find it's far superior in comfort on long flights to masks without the soft inner part. A little more expensive, but I'll never fly with a regular N95 again.
https://www.amazon.com/Honeywell-14110404-SAF-T-FIT-Particul...
I really wish they were made in not-stark-white. And, is it just me, or have these steadily been going up in price?
3M make some colorful Aura masks, for Brazil. I wish they were more universally available.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSs4KMEuWkk
Wait... you can wear an N95?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_N95
How does wearing a Nokia phone affect anything?
I burst out laughing when I saw the size of VR screen is the same size as the screen on the chair in front of him.
If you kept reading to understand the context of that image, you'd realize that it could be any size, but that you need to enable "partial virtual environment." That was the entire point of that chapter/image, to showcase the three different modes (full virtual, partial, and full pass-through with collision).
I'm no fan of the AVP, but it is inane to post a comment on a picture from the article without taking the time to read the text surrounding it to understand the context. The blog went to great pains to set out the pros/cons, limits/advantages, just to have people half-read it or just look at the pictures...
I've never seen anyone claim that you could maximize content to truly full-screen on these things. Can you?
Sure you can. Just increase the size of a virtual window to fill the entire avaiable field of view (110 degrees or so). It's basically the same effect as sitting in a close-to-the-front row of a theater.
There are VR headsets with wider FoV, but they're pretty bulky as of yet because of the limits of current costs-less-than-literally-$10,000-a-unit optics.
OK, thanks for the info.
I used to wonder how people watch movies on their iPhone then realized many people sit so far from their living room TV screen that if they held up their iPhone it would be the same apparent size.
By contrast, you can readily set the apparent screen size in the AVP to 40+ degree angle:
× 1.2 (corresponding to 40-degree viewing angle)
THX recommends that the "best seat-to-screen distance" is one where the view angle approximates 40 degrees,[26] (the actual angle is 40.04 degrees). Their recommendation was originally presented at the 2006 CES show, and was stated as being the theoretical maximum horizontal view angle, based on average human vision. In the opinion of THX, the location where the display is viewed at a 40-degree view angle provides the most "immersive cinematic experience", all else being equal. For consumer application of their recommendations, THX recommends ... multiplying the diagonal measurement by about 1.2.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optimum_HDTV_viewing_distance
Yes and for some reason I would probably find it weird watching a moving with a weird landscape being shown around the "virtual screen" instead of...reality.
It can be any size that you’d like.
In fact, the virtual display is higher resolution/high scaled than 13 inch MacBook (source: https://azadux.blog/2024/10/08/traveling-with-apple-vision-p...)
Sort of. Headsets have limited FOV per eye. You can blow up the screen to be huge, but you'd only be able to see part of it at a time. But yeah, 110 degrees FOV can accommodate a very big screen.
The field of view is deceptive in 2d photos. With the VR headset your focal point is at infinity, and in practice it feels more like sitting in front of a big 60" TV on your couch.
I’m not a working while travelling kind of person (I often have the ambition to work while flying, but for some reason I always feel too tired); my Vision Pro stays in my bag for the duration of the flight. For work when away from home more generally, however, I find it a fantastic device. It’s basically a portable Apple Studio Display that I can use wherever I go. As someone in a long distance relationship who is often away from home for long periods of time, this is extremely useful.
Paying three grand for a monitor you can buy for your 'second place' for a few hundred dollars seems like a choice.
I'm in the same position. I considered the vision pro, but couldn't justify it, even if I used it on the flights etc. I depend on my switch/steamdeck for the plane, laptop if i have to work (I try not to, it's terrible)... and then I just went on amazon and bought a pair of 27" lg widescreens for a few hundred a piece. When I'm not in her apt we stow one of them in a closet (she dislikes two monitors on a purely aesthetic level). I fly in with my laptop and my keyboard and I'm ready to go.
I bought mine used for significantly less than three grand. And the thing is, I don’t have a single fixed second place. My life is rather complicated and nomadic, having a portable big screen is very convenient.
Fair, i split my time right now between seattle and nyc, made sense just to buy extra monitors for nyc.
weird to film someone doing their job just to prove you could ask for tea without taking off your big vr headset. hope they asked for permission to post this.
I was wondering exactly the same : did the flight attendant consent to being in a video on the internet while doing her job ?
It's all the problematic parts of Google Glass, normalized by the Apple branding. What could go wrong?
I am surprised I had to scroll down this far to find this. This was deeply upsetting to me
Really interesting point about the utility of the look-and-pinch interaction rather than waving your hands around in the tight space confines of the plane. This was definitely my main issue using the Quest which was otherwise a fantastic experience.
One feature I'd love to see in see-through VR sets is hyperspectral vision. Would be useful to see IR and UV around you.
You're confusing multispectral and hyperspectral. If it was hyper you'd have the ability to slide through at image "cube" where the z axis is wavelength. Would be cool, but current hyperspectral cameras are extremely low resolution because they're just a prism array on top of an off the shelf panchromatic sensor using blocks of pixels to form that z axis.
Useful how?
Identify hot surfaces could be an obvious thing for IR. For UV, you could at least delight yourself with seeing flowers the way bees do.
And birds!
https://www.uvbirds.com/
You know how
That’s very funny
That as well.
In my experience working with multi/hyperspectral systems, usually for turning brown kids into various forms of air pollution, or at least that's all anyone seems to want to buy them for.
Also, as another user is probably allewding to, certain thin synthetic fabrics are semi-transparent to particular wavelengths in the IR band.
how long did you work in the space before your conscience caught up with you?
I avoid those jobs, though sometimes you find out that things weren't as benign as originally pitched.
I just did a two-way total 12 hour Hawaii flight and watched 12 hours of Apple TV series in a fully immersive environment completely isolated using Vision Pro. As long as the airplane seats have AC charger, you're good to go. I also use the Dual Solo Knit Band mod to increase head comfort.
>Once Vision Pros start to become more affordable, I foresee regular travelers buying Vision Pros just to have an amazing in-flight entertainment system. It’s truly that amazing.
Some big assumptions there.
Honestly, I'd much rather just use a tablet, which is a much more flexible device once I arrive.
For those who didn't read the whole article, the conclusion is ->
" As it stands, as a first generation product that’s heavy, very expensive, and has a very underbaked OS and app ecosystem, I have a tough time recommending anyone to go out and buy one. That being said, I’m taking it on every flight I go on. "
Have AVP since day one. I have traveled probably 5-6 times on planes since then. One for the first one I took it with me. Sure, it was a nice experience to watch a movie. But I would rather to watch the same movie or tv show with SO, than to watch it in a questionable better environment. The main issue, it is heavy and bulky for traveling.
> But damn, based on how well it all works now, you can just tell by the 4th or 5th generation, Apple Vision Pro will be on the face of every frequent flyer.
And they can stop paying extra for business class, because it stops mattering.
Sounds like you're under 6' tall. (I've never flown business-class, though.)
Or a normal/skinny weight. Even my shoulders are too wide for modern economy seats.
I fly a lot of business class, and the comfort and space is what you pay for, not entertainment. But having good wifi helps a lot, even in a cramped seat.
The times I've flown business, the best part has been how the seat can fold down fully so one can sleep property and lying down. None of the other stuff really mattered to me.
Just flew across the Atlantic on lay-flat seats. They are absolutely a massive improvement over anything I’ve flown in before but I still couldn’t sleep well. Maybe I’m too big (6’ 2” and not skinny) but I couldn’t lay completely flat because I ran out of leg room as the seat reclined.
It was an amazing ride other than that.
I love the tech, but don't want the isolation from reality, I like to look around, away from a screen while thinking when I work.
I don't mind using my laptop or iPad for movies and work on planes...
To each their own...
This is the main reason I see to get a vision pro - basically a travel friendly monitor. Glad to see it does well under these conditions, though it's still a tough sell considering the price tag.
Airlines should rent these, already set up for movies or whatever. I'd pay to give it a try. I wouldn't want these taking up my carry on space going to and from the airport or to deal with security, so that's another advantage.
I don’t want your pink eye infected skin flakes in my eyes. Have you seen how airlines “clean” plane seats?
So don’t rent it?
There are already tons of places you can go and rent time with VR. Or even just 3D movies and experiences where you need special glasses.
Airlines already have reusable noise cancelling headphones and drink glasses in first class.
You can boil a glass not a vr headset
Absolutely not. First, the light seal would be different for each person, making for a subpar experience (an experience you’re paying for). Second, given the germs and potential disease spread via the face/eyes, this seems like a terrible idea unless you were able to sterilize each AVP after each flight, a task that might work for the Bose headphones they put in business class, but that would def be a thing I wouldn’t trust most airlines to do well. Third, you know these things would break all the time, again, leading to a subpar rental experience.
That said, I am a little surprised the Middle Eastern and Asian airlines haven’t adopted these for their international first class cabins (your Singapore Suites, Ethiad Apartments and the private rooms on Emirates).
"I use a single 12k mAh Anker battery bank".
Is it really? Or is it a 12G nAh battery bank?
Another bonus, which I've found traveling with my Vision Pro, is when I get to my AirBnb/Hotel, I don't have to log into my streaming services when I want to relax. I've brought my whole home theater experience with me.
Why would you need to re log-in into streaming services in a hotel? How does AVP alleviate that need?
Do you mean you watch it on a smart TV in a hotel? Then I guess you could connect a laptop to that TV with an HDMI cable and not have to re-log in, right?
Correct, I don't have to log into the streaming service on the TV. HDMI + Laptop would do this too if I traveled with a laptop and HDMI cable.
kinda true, but I'm surprised how some apps expect you to watch movies upright (TV+, Disney), which makes watching movies laying down quite "non ergonomic". ;)
The Meta Quest 2/3 finally fixed that a few months ago [1], where you "tilt" the horizon of the entire OS [2]. So it doesn't matter if an app doesn't support it -- you can lie on your bed and watch a screen directly above you even if it was only designed for horizontal use. It's a game-changer if you have back/neck problems.
Does the AVP not have something equivalent? To be honest, I was surprised it took Meta so long to get around to implementing it.
[1] https://www.engadget.com/you-can-now-lie-down-while-using-a-...
[2] https://www.meta.com/en-gb/help/quest/articles/headsets-and-...
AVP doesn't support it when in 'theater mode' but if your video is a typical window you can simply lie down and recenter it onto the ceiling. The horizon stays locked but any windows can be parallel to the ground.
also not with 3d "Windows" (e.g. Cut-The-Rope).
I can lay down and recenter the windows to float above me
yes, with windows. But not with Theater Mode or 3d "Windows" (e.g. Cut-The-Rope).
Chromecast from your phone?
That is also an option
One gotcha to add:
Remember to turn off the AVP between charging it at home and using it on the flight. You do this by "choking" it, i.e. pressing both buttons physical for ~10s, to bring up the "Power Off" dialog, so it's really not obvious.
I once had my AVP completely discharge between charging it one night, and wanting to use it on the flight <24h later. I'm guessing that the motion from the packing and trip to the airport was constantly waking it up, draining power.
I think it's just constantly on Wifi, checking for updates, like any iOS device.
I just disconnect power.
I've never tried traveling wearing a VR headset, but I did get a Legion Go that I like to use in that scenario. It's basically a Steam Deck with a nicer screen, more powerful GPU, and shit battery that needs to be constantly charged.
As I learned when I tried to charge it with a 140W Apple charger, planes have current limitations. If you plug in too high of a wattage charger, it can totally disable the power socket.
One of the dances to figure out if you're going to use a VR headset on a plane is how high a wattage can the plane constantly support. Then again, you probably don't want your face physically tethered to the middle seat anyway.
> But damn, based on how well it all works now, you can just tell by the 4th or 5th generation, Apple Vision Pro will be on the face of every frequent flyer.
A 4th or 5th generation Apple Vision Pro (and other corresponding advancements) may obviate the need for a lot of travel.
Will it let me feel the breeze at the top of Half Dome?
Or have me chase a squirrel around after it stole my snacks?
Or have me feel the pride of accomplishing a long hike that I trained for?
Or let me talk with interesting people along the route and hear about their travels?
Or help me find an incredible pizza restaurant with concepts that aren't in my local suburban area?
Or give me the health benefits of hiking outdoors?
I'm not sure how a headset could ever obviate the desire for travel
A need for a lot of travel, not all travel.
You mention hiking several times, I assume it is something you enjoy. Now, imagine, instead of regularly having to travel to Yosemite from your local suburban area, you instead go live in Yosemite and use your headset to do the things you did in your suburban area. More hiking, less time spent in transport.
Certain types of travel will always exist. But traveling for work? That's an entire idea I can get behind avoiding.
Me too, but if you're not avoiding it now the Apple Vision will not make a big difference
Why can't you avoid it now? Just open zoom. No need for gen 5 avp.
And yet everyone who has ever worked with an offshore team knows that nothing beats time spent in the same room. I don’t expect VR to change that.
Well when you account for the time spent travelling, the time spent socializing and shmoozing, the boxed lunch hour, etc, that adds up to a whole lot of wasted time on top of what could have easily been a 45 min zoom meeting, or an email. Its fun I guess if you get all your social outlet from your coworkers, but if you get it from anywhere else it probably feels like you just got drafted when you get sent to meet the distributed team in person.
You are missing the point here. Plenty of things can’t be a 45 minutes meeting. Sometime what you incorrectly call schmoozing and I call building a bond is the point and is extremely necessary. People are not machine.
that's not consumerism!
I don't know. Memory is not like reality, even computer-assisted memory
> In fact, of all the screens and displays in my house, my Vision Pro is hands down the highest quality display that I own, so I very much look forward to watching visually compelling movies in it.
How does a vision pro compare to a say 60 inch 4K tv, in terms of perceived sharpness (I get that it has more pixels, but they are closer to your eye and cover your whole field of view)? I owned an OG quest, and for me watching movies just didn't quite match up to the experience of an actual tv.
I have an LG OLED C1 65" and the Vision Pro movie experience is nearly the same as the TV, except that you have to deal with all the lens glare in the Vision Pro, which is a big downside. An upside is that films like Encanto are in 3D, which looks really good for Pixar/CGI movies and pretty garbage for every other movie I've tried in the headset (for me, real films with 3D look like paper cut outs layered over each other and it's very distracting and looks lame).
But a nice 65" OLED TV is still cheaper than a Vision Pro, so I can't recommend it unless you are in a situation where you literally cannot put a big OLED TV in your space, or you're desperate to take your OLED TV with you on flights.
I also have a Quest 3 and without OLED for true HDR, it loses right away, and then it loses further on resolution. Audio quality is really good on Quest 3, but... If I really wanted to use a headset to watch a movie, I would use the Vision Pro, hands down. If I only had the Quest 3 on hand, I wouldn't watch a movie.
The easy way to mostly deal with the lens glare is use one of the background environments that's dim rather than black. It's the high contrast the entire time that really makes it visible.
"real films with 3D look like paper cut outs layered over each other and it's very distracting and looks lame)."
Probably because those movies are FAKE 3-D trash that studios troweled out, killing one thing that is highly piracy-resistant and theater-boosting.
Most people complaining about "3-D" movies have probably seen only two real ones: Avatar, and something from Pixar. The vast majority of movies marketed as 3-D were not shot in 3-D, but rather processed into fake 3-D in post. The result: exactly what you describe, lame cut-outs.
Just another reason that the studios and media conglomerates deserve no sympathy when they whine about piracy or declining revenues. They screw actors, writers, theater owners, and the audience... when they've had (and ignored) interesting avenues available to revitalize their industry and audience.
Considering the high price of Vision Pro I'm surprised it does not include high quality spatial sound over-ear headphones. Required for Cinema experience which currently seems to be it's best use case, plus the overhead strap could help support its heavy weight for better comfort.
> (the video itself was blacked out when capturing the screenshot).
I already disliked DRM like this, where the user's device acts against them, but something about the form factor makes me extra uneasy about it. Maybe the fact that it's directly on your face, integrating tightly with your vision.
Hopefully by the time we move onto AR contact lenses or implants there'll be some good user-respecting alternatives, though I'm not too hopeful.
I love flying with my Apple Vision pro. I love how I can just "delete" the environment around me when I have settled in, and I can enjoy massive movies, tv shows, and I even run Retro Arch + an Xbox Controller paired to the headset.
It's a great travel buddy, and then when I get to where I am going I have a massive workspace and screen for my mac packed away inside the Vision.
I am a big fan.
Why does Apple insist on putting all the content into a little box? I want whatever I'm playing to FILL the viewing area. Likewise with trying to work, which is indeed another huge potential benefit to this thing as plane travel becomes more and more customer-hostile. Reviews I've read reported that it's tedious to try to work with the puny virtual Mac screen.
Also, Apple's fear of I/O has crippled the Vision Pro. If they had put a (3-D-capable) video input on it, it would have instantly found uses amongst gamers, 3-D artists, travelers, programmers, cinematographers... but instead it's another Apple product that's profoundly hobbled into being a toy.
> I want whatever I'm playing to FILL the viewing area.
There's literally a preset for "front row in a theater" when playing media.
Literally? As opposed to what?
As opposed to, say, figuratively having a movie theater equivalent by resizing a virtual window to be very large (which you can also do).
> Also, Apple's fear of I/O
How many other VR headsets do you know of with print support?
Hahaha! Who the hell asked for "print support?"
12kmAh -> 12Ah
False.
12 kilometer * amp * hours is simply a very long lightsaber.
A forward-thinking perspective, balancing enthusiasm with pragmatism. Yet is Apple really onto something that could transform how frequent travelers engage with tech on the go?
If the truly cared about that they would let us run a desktop OS on their iPhones so we don’t carry laptops all around.
How many android users actually use their phone for this?
The utility of a MacBook (or any laptop) is the display, keyboard, and trackpad, not the compute
While this seems like a good use case for mixed reality headsets like the AVP, I still find it kind of creepy that someone is hiding most of their face while also potentially filming everything that's going on.
Maybe the devices found their target audience: airlines
Airlines spend a fortune moving screen and other kit needed for in-flight entertainment around: the fuel costs alone can be low seven figures a year for that added weight. And then are the content licenses.
Meanwhile customers are turning up with devices with their own licensed content (they’ve already paid the streaming services or paid for the download), but can’t use it on the plane.
It’s pretty obvious what should happen, and what eventually will, but it’ll take a while.
too expensive and fragile for airlines themselves, at least outside of first class, but I think air travel is a killer app.
I do find the idea of a plane full of goggled humans packed in like sardines to be a touch dystopian, but I feel that way about the infotainment screens already.
> With this setup, I haven’t scratched or damaged the headset itself at all over the 5-10 flights that I’ve taken it on
What does 5-10 means here?
Author is unclear how many flights they've been on with the headset, i.e. could be 5 flights, could be 7, could be 10
> unparalleled opportunity to…
Well, the Vision Pro has no substantial unique features which aren’t available via the older Quest even.
Sure, Apple over-engineered the lenses to the point of excluding people who don’t conform to the prescribed possibilities… and the App Store is limited to pedestrian experiences of 2D apps rebuilt to work on visionOS and a handful of cool VR/MR apps.
All that aside, I wouldn’t travel with something so expensive and fragile. Putting on and off, looking for where to place it while talking with staff / other people… sounds very uncomfortable.
This is not traveling. This is sitting in a plane with Vision Pro, instead of sitting at home/office.
Can I read a book with it, too? Or just enjoy the boredom without much digital interaction?
you can use the iPad kindle app and it works great.
Why would you ever want to instead of an actual book/Kindle? (just curious)
>The fact that you just look at the buttons that you’d like to interact with and pinch your fingers while your hand is resting on your lap is a massive plus for not looking like a dweeb.
i dunno. repeatedly making little pinchies in your lap with your $3500 goggles on still seems very dweeb-coded to me. i almost did a spit take when i looked up how much the vision pro costs, lol
Recently discovered that on long flights, ear plugs (that just block noise, no music!) and a kindle is way more enjoyable for me. Less headache. Can’t imagine having a vision pro on a 10h flight
I just sleep and teleport
"The movies that play in virtual screens are native to the films’ aspect ratios, which can vary movie to movie, eliminating the black bars of “letterboxing” and “pillarboxing” you typically have on iPads, iPhones, or MacBooks."
Then proceeds to show screenshots where more than 50% of the screen is background. Just because you decided to show cloud instead of black doesn't mean it's not letterboxing.
The screenshots are misleading. "Inside" an AVP watching a movie the corner to corner angle can exceed THX recommendation of 40 degrees.
Doesn't seem like a lot until you hold a protractor up to your eyeball. And then you realize how much area falls outside that angle, surroundings you don't think about at the theater.
The AVP has to render that unwatchable area for you as well, and it ends up in screenshots.
You can do the same thing with any screen by holding it the appropriate distance.
Keep in mind that all that unwatchable area is pixels that aren't being used to improve the movie image.
> You can do the same thing with any screen by holding it the appropriate distance.
Exactly! Commented earlier: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41862459
> Keep in mind that all that unwatchable area is pixels that aren't being used to improve the movie image.
Or maybe it's like the Philips Ambilight+Hue, that people swear adds immersion by letting content color the environment around it.
Lol, adding a hue is usually a crutch for a too small screen with lifted blacks... which doesn't paint the pro in a very positive light!
Ironically by adding a gue to a nomral screen, you're effectively 'adding' pixels to the display... unlike the pro which wastes pixels on the 'hue' because many of them are not in the ideal viewing angle.
I really want to travel with my AVP, but it's far too large and heavy. I simply haven't that kind of space in my slim commuter backpack "personal item" that holds my electronics, and my carry-on is already overweight with camera lenses and clothing. It also hurts my face to wear it for long periods because of the weight.
These are an order of magnitude cheaper and will display whatever you can stick USB-C into:
https://www.xreal.com/
One area in which they’re significantly worse is tracking — they only really work well with the screen in a fixed position relative to your eyes, but this has been great for a movie.
I can’t get them setup to program on well tho
I bought an xreal pro hoping for a cheaper vision pro while technology catches up.
Honestly xreal's marketing is generous at best. They seem to really try to push it as being an AR device when its really nothing more than a monitor stuck to your face that you can't change the size of.
Using the beam or the software on your computer adds some AR ability, but due to the way it works on your Mac it really is not a pleasant experience and uses a ton of resources. The tracking is not great.
The lack of any sort of pass through (all you can do is dim it) makes it fairly useless in many situations, like the one mentioned in this article.
Options are great, and it is great that is significantly cheaper. But I bought the xreal pro, I keep trying to use it for watching something, games, programming or other work. But every time I use it for maybe 20 minutes and just get frustrated and put it away for a few more weeks.
It is one of the reasons I think that the price (and size) of the vision pro is justified. The tech to make something smaller and cost less just isnt here yet. All of those headsets like the xreal have serious compromises while trying to push an "AR" narrative for features they just don't really have.
The marketing does make them look amazing. Though seems light on specs etc, it is kind of difficult to even figure out the difference between the models.
I do love the idea though and it is tempting.
I don't love programming on a laptop without external monitors, so I like the idea of having a decent monitor in a pair of glasses.
I couldn't justify the price of a AVP, as I would only be using them as an external monitor. And I would worry about Linux compatibility.
I've used Google's Daydream on flights. I agree, it's great.
If I saw someone wearing one of these on a flight, I’d think they were a complete dickhead.
> Be it by train or by plane, it offers an unparalleled opportunity to selectively tune out your environment and sink into an engaging activity like watching a movie or just working on your laptop.
The more time passes, the less I can shake the feeling that the world would be better if we tuned out our environment less.
> But damn, based on how well it all works now, you can just tell by the 4th or 5th generation, Apple Vision Pro will be on the face of every frequent flyer.
If it even gets that far. I’d almost be willing to take that bet, but 5 generations for this device could mean more than a decade so I don’t think any of us can say for sure.
All that said, I haven’t read the full review yet and I doubt it’ll do anything to convince me, but still I appreciate you writing it up and putting it out there. From what I’ve read so far it looks well thought out and it clearly took some effort, so kudos.
> The more time passes, the less I can shake the feeling that the world would be better if we tuned out our environment less.
That may or may not be true in general, but air travel is one of the most oppressive environments people regularly find themselves in. Being in an extremely crowded environment with very little personal space is psychologically uncomfortable for a lot of people. And it's basically not possible to escape that environment until the plane lands, which is typically hours of time. If it's OK to tune the world out anywhere, it's got to be in an airplane.
Weirdly enough I love being on a plane (and airports). There's something psychologically freeing about them that I feel whenever I fly. I look forward to flying so much. And it's not like I'm flying first class or anything - I fly economy every time.
Maybe if I flew more frequently I'd grow to dislike it (I fly maybe once a year), but honestly airports and flying are my favorite part of a trip (yes, I like them more than any possible destination). TBF I haven't flown to anywhere particularly exciting but I fail to imagine any place matching the pleasure of an airport + flight. After writing this it sounds ridiculous but I'm 100% serious - I can't quite explain why I enjoy it so much.
I don't like flying that much but airports are an interesting place. I like people watching and just the spectacle of it all.
There's some funny tweets about airports like: "The airport is a lawless place, want to get drunk at 7AM? Go right ahead. Tired? Just sleep on the floor. Chips cost $15".
edit: came back to post this, i definitely get an odd feeling of liberation once i'm at an airport. I travel sometimes for work and once i get in to the airport waiting to board I feel like work and every day life ceases for a time and i'm free to do whatever. It's odd because i'm trapped in this building with hundreds if not thousands of other people waiting to get on a pressurized metal tube blasting through the sky at hundreds of miles/hr. Nothing very liberating about that but for some reason being in the airport feels that way to me.
> I travel sometimes for work and once i get in to the airport waiting to board I feel like work and every day life ceases for a time and i'm free to do whatever.
Yes, this is very much how I feel. 0 responsibilities and there's nothing I can actually accomplish during my time there. I just sit there reading a book or something, just waiting.
Can't stand airports, because from the instant you arrive, the success of your trip is now basically out of your hands but also incredibly precarious.
Maybe there's some ticketing snafu and it takes an hour just to drop your checked bag (sanctimonious carry-on fliers hold your posts like you hold the seventeen bags you try to drag on the plane)
Maybe security is insanely backed up or just run by incompetents, like the time at SFO where it took them 30 minutes to screen the 10 people in front of me.
Then once you get past security, a whole new list of potential problems comes up:
Maybe the incoming flight is delayed, possibly delayed so much you're going to miss your connection.
Maybe you'll board but the plane will be broken because the airlines don't believe in preventive maintenance, and you'll have to deplane again.
Maybe you'll board but due to various circumstances in airport operations you spend 3 hours sitting on the tarmac while the airplane gets increasingly hot and your toddler gets increasingly fussy.
Do you have to deal with the TSA where you fly? I take psychological damage any time I have to deal with them.
I do - I like to arrive early at the airport so it's just a long line to me. Unpacking my stuff to get xrayed is indeed a hassle but it's not a big deal to me.
I have TSA pre-check and while you still have lines now and then 5 to 10 minutes is pretty normal when I leave for a flight.
Waiting in line is not the problem.
I actually don't mind the flying bit too much but I absolutely hate airports...
> Being in an extremely crowded environment with very little personal space
I don't disagree with you but I can tell you don't take the NYC subway or Paris metro or the London Underground with any regularity. If you think an airplane is "extremely crowded" then you have no words to describe actual mass transit.
> air travel is one of the most oppressive environments people regularly find themselves in
How much of this would be solved by VR though? To me the unpleasantness of flying mostly comes down to physical discomfort. The seats are cramped, the air is dry, the food isn't great, the bathroom situation is uncomfortable, and you can't really walk around. VR would visually transport you somewhere else, but physically, you're still very much on a plane.
As someone with generalized anxiety I hate almost every part of flying from the point at which I leave the house until I arrive, but none of what you mentioned bothers me terribly.
I'd be curious to try a device like this and see if it helps. I usually just use noise cancelling headphones and play a game or watch movies, which isn't too different from removing myself into VR, but I'm also aware that sometimes completely removing my sense of my surroundings can be more unnerving.
There's a reason people watch movies on planes - it's to distract you from the uncomfortable environment you're in. VR is more immersive than a 2D screen so it's more distracting.
> people regularly find themselves in.
To me this is the most intriguing part of it all.
I understand tech reviewers and journalists raving about having something to do on planes, as they probably spend an awful lot of time there. Then perhaps sales people also flighting on company's dime.
But regular people don't spend much time on planes, and many of them don't need it to be an entertaining or efficient time, they can just spleep if the flight is long enough (I can't imagine lugging along a luggage the size of the Vision Pro for just a 2 hour flight)
In particular the plane staff won't let you tune completely out if you're awake: the whole safety sequence , take off and landing, turbulences, the in-flight meal, all the guidance for international flights, your neighbours when you've pulled the middle seat etc.
Many regular people bought tablets, expensive noise canceling headphones and other hardware with the express purpose of using it on a flight 2-6 times (1-3 round trips) a year. Of course, it gets used outside of a plane too - but that applies to VR gear just as well.
If they can get the price below $1500, I'm sure many regular people will buy it even if they fly less than 10 times a year.
> That may or may not be true in general, but air travel is one of the most oppressive environments people regularly find themselves in.
Most people don't regularly travel by plane. This is a very "1%" (as shorthand for a privileged minority of people globally, not literally exactly 1% of the population) problem.
I don't think it's a 1% problem, but it's a 40% problem:
https://www.airlines.org/new-survey-nearly-90-percent-of-ame...
44% of Americans flew commercially in 2022.
>The most recent such poll was conducted online between January 9-31, 2023, in which Ipsos interviewed roughly 11,000 adults age 18+ from the continental U.S., Alaska, and Hawaii.
Same poll can result with statement "100% of Americans use internet."
Well, about 94% of the American population use the internet so it's a good base by which to conduct reliable surveys.
And a lot of those probably flew once to visit family at the holidays.
There's a whole world outside of the USA.
Sure, but 11% of the global population fly in a year
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S095937802...
And how many of those are regular vs. irregular trips?
Probably not enough to make the statement that flying is a situation people find themselves in regularly.
Yeah, but “Rest of World cannot afford luxury travel” is not a notable fact. The US is rich. Americans are rich. For many things, the US is the only market where it’s feasible. A self-driving car is useless in India (1/6 of all people), for instance. Labour costs are too low.
It’s clear the Vision Pro didn’t find its market but I don’t think it’s an air travel thing.
80% of those people are flying economy class and already get along fine with earbuds and their phone. The remaining 20% that can afford something like Vision Pro almost certainly will choose not to.
People used to get along fine with a magazine or book; that doesn't mean they weren't ready for something better.
If those uncertain people decide they want to distract themselves with VR, do you think they'll buy the $350 headset or the $3,500 one?
I just don't see the market Apple envisions materializing. I'd expect 20 people to be using a Quest in economy before you see 2 people using a Vision Pro in business.
The author specifically says he believes people will be using the 4th or 5th iteration of the Vision Pro for this purpose. Why are you comparing prices of devices that won't exist for another 5+ years?
Because you and I both know Apple will never be price-competitive with the commodity segment. They are a luxury brand that relies on luxury margins, so I want to know why their business model will succeed.
If plane seating is anything to go by, most people don't want a luxury experience but a practical and cheap one instead. Most seats aren't reserved for premium passengers because they are a minority, maybe a profitable audience but not at all the primary one.
> Because you and I both know Apple will never be price-competitive with the commodity segment.
OG iPhone: $799
iPhone 3G: $199
> They are a luxury brand that relies on luxury margins, so I want to know why their business model will succeed.
Apple has shown many times over they don't need to be price competitive with the commodity segment. If you want to know why their business model will succeed, why not just look at their current business model which has been massively successful? Arguably the most successful business model in the history of consumer hardware.
Google’s AI tool says that 20-25% of the world’s population flies at least three times a year. Not a good source, but at least a surprising statistic if true.
Some hard data says that 12% of US flyers take 66% of flights [1]. Those are all likely very frequent fliers, and is much more than 1%.
1. https://www.businesstraveller.com/business-travel/2021/03/31...
1% of 300 million is still a 3 mill market size in the US alone.
They didn't say most, they said people.
> Most people don't regularly travel by plane. This is a very "1%" problem.
Except, they do in a country like the US that has massive distances between cities.
Even in the US, most people (50+% of the population) certainly doesn't regularly (say, more than once a decade) travel by plane.
Families tend to get spread out and vacations tend to be very short. There is a strong encouragement to meet for recognized holidays, so these are by far the busiest times at airports.
Last year, the prediction was 4.7 million people in the US traveling by plane over the thanksgiving holiday, which demolishes the 1% comment immediately.
4.7m is ~0.05% of ~8bn
If you look at everything in the larger group of world population you’ll end up with a lot of useless info.
You are greatly underestimating how common it is for Americans to travel by plane. Almost half of Americans fly at least once a year. It is sufficiently inexpensive that almost everyone can readily afford to.
49% in the last year according to this https://www.airlines.org/dataset/air-travelers-in-america-an...
Statista survey pre-pandemic says majority fly every year https://www.statista.com/statistics/316365/air-travel-freque...
Americans fly quite often.
Oh wow, I didn't imagine it's this many people. I stand corrected, thank you for looking up the numbers.
I think that's supposed to be
> Except, they do in a country like the US that don't have any other suitable alternatives
A little bit of both, and they are related. Trains are a tough sell because they aren't competitive for most travel. Even at 300kph, they're only good for local-ish travel (by that, I mean up to perhaps as much as 1000km). Would be great for Portland to Seattle, or Portland to LA, but if you're going out of region (which is extremely common), an airplane will be way faster and almost certainly cheaper too.
I'd love a moderately fast train, say 200kph, between cities like Portland and Seattle. That's a great use case.
But as a nationwide network, there won't ever be a suitable rail alternative, unless it gets subsidized. Amtrak is already stupidly expensive for what you get.
> most oppressive environments people regularly find themselves in.
It's boring but not oppressive. It's okay to let the mind wander without completely disconnecting yourself from reality.
The flying experience is oppressive in the sense of being a constricting, heavy-handed and overbearing environment, indifferent to your inconvenience or discomfort.
Where else can you get a full body cavity search, be denied water, be delayed by several hours without so much as an apology, be nickle-and-dimed with overpriced shitty food and $5 fees for a cab to drop you off, and have your luggage smashed up, all under one roof?
Of course, I'm not sure the Apple Vision Pro can do much to improve on the situation.
I hope you repeat that lecture to everyone wearing an eyemask trying to sleep, or wearing heaphones for their in-flight movie (god forbid they brought noise-cancelling ones!)
This completely depends on the person. The environment of a plane (dry humid air, loud engine humming, babies crying etc) is oppressive to a lot of people, even more so if you're neuro-atypical.
>And it's basically not possible to escape that environment until the plane lands
Ever heard of closing your eyes ?
For five hours?
It takes a lot of meditation practice to get up to "entire plane flight" level.
> That may or may not be true in general, but air travel is one of the most oppressive environments people regularly find themselves in.
What do you think is going to happen if, as the author predicts, “Apple Vision Pro will be on the face of every frequent flyer”?
My prediction is that the experience would get even shittier. Since everyone would be tuned out, there’d be even less reason for the airline to care.
> My prediction is that the experience would get even shittier. Since everyone would be tuned out, there’d be even less reason for the airline to care.
What can the airlines do to make it worse? I suppose they could cut out soda and pretzels. And get rid of the HUD on the back of the chair. But I don't think most people care that much about that stuff, especially since a lot of chairs have power outlets on them, even in coach.
IMO, the thing that people really care about is the amount of space they have access to - both width and depth. And I'm not sure how much more airlines can realistically squeeze that.
My prediction is that airlines will start offering VR headsets much like they added seatback screens.
Lovely, just what we need: cheap devices with a motion-sickness-inducing laggy passthrough, poor resolution screens (when they work at all), covered in other people’s face grease.
Devices owned by someone else pointing a camera at your eyes and doing eye tracking...
Solution: bring your own!
I'd bet on them removing screens and not replacing them, potentially also getting rid of the headphone jack.
Perhaps they extend the charging ports some airlines are offering, with a bit more juice than a phone's battery to let people use their device for a bit longer.
That's a really interesting idea. Do planes have access to Starlink now? I could see a market for passengers to purchase a vr headset and decent inet connection on a flight. It would be tough to keep the headsets in good shape and clean though...
> Do planes have access to Starlink now?
There's a number of airlines that have signed contracts, like United. I think it'll take a while for everything to be completely rolled out.
Sounds like a lovely way to get pink eye.
> And it's basically not possible to escape that environment until the plane lands
You can buy a business class ticket. I will hasard that the overlap between people who can afford to buy a 3000$ VR headset and people who can fly business is pretty much total.
In a crowded plane you don't want to sit next to someone who tuned out their environment
Why not? It sounds pretty good to me.
Tuned out, plays something like fruit ninja and makes a hard cut to the right … in your face
And then the person next to you needs to jostle you because they need to use the bathroom.
> psychologically uncomfortable
My brother in god, you can travel from any point of the Earth to any other point on the Earth in less than a week. At what point are modern people going to “deal with it”?
> My brother in god, you can travel from any point of the Earth to any other point on the Earth in less than a week. At what point are modern people going to “deal with it”?
Clearly people do "deal with it" since lots of people fly all the time. But that doesn't mean that the experience can't be improved.
But the improvement has almost nothing to do with entertainment options. It’s about space and comfort. To a lesser degree cabin service but that quite a way down the list.
> The more time passes, the less I can shake the feeling that the world would be better if we tuned out our environment less.
Agreed 100%. Apologies for linking to my own essay, but I think this can be more generally stated as a difference between "isolated" and "integrated" arts. A device like the Vision Pro (and most tech devices, for that matter) is pushing society further and further into isolated chambers, and thus further incentivizing media and creators to focus on creating isolated aesthetic experiences, not ones that are integrated with the environment.
This is such a baseline unquestioned assumption that we have about the structure of the tech economy, that to think a company like Apple would make a device that brings people together in the real world seems absurd.
I wrote a bit more about this idea here: https://onthearts.com/p/modern-culture-is-too-escapist-part
I have a little unproven hypothesis that fits that last statement, that it would be absurd for a company like Apple to bring people together in the real world.
My hypothesis is that these companies want to make money by "taking" your senses. They want your attention to be with them at all times, by being in your ear so you'll hear them, by being on your wrist so you'll feel them, by being on your eyes so you'll see them.
I'm thinking these companies are building up technological ecosystems - Apple's specialty! - that they hope will eventually form a proxy for you to experience reality. Because if they can convince you to experience life through them, they'll have your wallet too.
Maybe it's just a silly thought of mine, but it kind of fits.
Very well put. I agree with you, and yet I still wouldn’t give up using my Vision Pro. Though I hope I’ll be able to draw the line at the Apple NosePods ;-)
This is such a strange take to me.
A phone is fundamentally a communications device. I use mine to catch rides, figure out where I'm going, call and text my loved ones, all of these things connect me to other people. I listen through headphones to music, and to talk to people, neither of these are isolating experiences. AirPods even have a mode which specifically turns off audio when someone is speaking to you, I like this, because I do enjoy listening to music or a podcast when I'm alone at the grocery store, and I do not like to be isolated by that from people around me, or the cashier.
I also use it to take photos, and then share them with people I care about, sometimes photos of people I care about, which I can then enjoy when they aren't around. These things enhance my senses, they don't steal them.
Phones certainly have some apps available which are addictive, I see people enduring self-imposed isolation in the presence of others due to that addiction, and that's sad, which is why I've dropped those social networks from my life and don't have those apps installed. Apple doesn't make those apps though, the closest thing is Messenger, which is a way to communicate with others, it doesn't have upvotes, it isn't public, none of those things.
I don't see a way to square all that with the thesis that Apple's specialty is isolatory sensory theft. Even the headset, which is clearly not designed to enhance the social parts of life, has several features which exist specifically to connect the user at least in part to their surroundings, and I think the fact that Apple never sold a VR headset without those features is a better reflection of their corporate philosophy than some paranoid yarn about how they make more money if users are cocooned in some Apple-provided sensory replacement bubble.
Did you mean to say Meta? Because if so, you made the mistake twice in the same post.
No, I made no such mistake. Nor was I talking about a "cocoon" or anything "isolatory".
Taking what I said about a commercially sensical strategy about selling a - what was the word I did use? Proxy - through which you can experience the world, and then spinning some paranoid yarn about not experiencing the world at all... Now that is kind of strange.
Thanks for sharing, I for one found it relevant! I've always found it somewhat monstrous how much art is in museum archives -- surely "showcasing stuff behind glass" is something our civilization can manage??
I'd quibble that what you're really pointing to here is capitalism, though. Architecture isn't monotonous because of our cultural attitude towards architects/Architecture, it's monotonous because capitalists build most buildings, and they're predictably interested in perceived efficiency above all else. There's good reason to argue that beautiful surroundings augment worker productivity so it's not even a clean tradeoff, but in practice, only the richest companies and universities end up taking that risk with beautiful structures[1][2][3] and/or sculptures/fountains/gardens/etc. Obviously, the same dynamic applies to the exclusivity of contemporary art galleries and private collections.
In Apple's(/"tech"'s) defense, I think they'd absolutely love to sell integrative products whenever possible. The Nintendo Switch was originally marketed[4] as such, and despite being a bit goofy, I imagine it helped sell a lot of units. That's why Apple spent ungodly amounts of money trying to make real AR work before compromising with "passthrough" -- they know that people are social creatures, and that a huge driver of their sales is perceived social value.[5] Again: the problem is the system of incentives, not individual bad actors.
[1] Google's newest 'Bayview' campus: https://blog.google/inside-google/life-at-google/bay-view-ca...
[2] Huawei 'Ox Horn' campus: https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/1fuo1tt/huawei_has_bu...
[3] Vanderbilt University's main campus: https://admissions.vanderbilt.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/4...
[4] "The rooftop party" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UzJdYXk6tjA
[5] The iPhone's status among teens: https://www.phonearena.com/news/Heres-why-iPhones-are-so-pop...
I agree that the fundamental issue may simply be capitalism itself, but I am more prone to blame it on a kind of individualism, both in culture and in the nature of how corporations sell products as individual objects to individual people, and not to any larger social organization. (Except as a placeholder for a group of individuals.)
The difficulty is in imagining some kind of economic structure in which an Apple or Microsoft could make billions from selling products/services that are somehow public goods, or enhancing public spaces. We can conceive of top design minds at Apple spending billions to create a new personal computing device, but the same minds working on a way to improve public spaces – say, by removing graffiti easily, or planting trees easily – just somehow doesn't make sense or fit into the "types of things" they would do.
It may also just be a fundamental structural issue, as I talked about in the latter part of the essay. There are far fewer legal restrictions on individual objects than there are on spaces. I.e., while everyone can use an iPhone everywhere, using a device to remove graffiti would come up against all sorts of property rights laws.
It's quite a difficult topic to wrap one's mind around, at the end of the day. But yeah in general I agree that it's not necessarily individual bad actors, and incentives are a huge part of it.
What environment on a plane would someone be better out not tuning out?
It’s a multi hour flight. I don’t know anyone around me, most are asleep.
Many people already tune out the noise with their noise cancelling audio products.
Why would it be weird to tune out the visuals too?
The Vision Pro lets me also see people while wearing it and they can see my eyes. If I’m tuned out and someone approaches me they fade through.
Meanwhile someone with the headset can watch movies on a larger screen and feel less claustrophobic.
Well they probably mean it would be nice if people were bored enough to be friendly.
That would require a serendipitous level of
- sitting next to someone who you get along with and don’t run out of things to talk about for the entire duration of the flight
- neither one of you wanting to sleep or do anything else for the duration of the flight either
- not caring about the other passengers around you who might also want to sleep
I was on a flight not too long ago where the two people sitting next to me had apparently just met. They were from different countries travelling for different reasons. They had a friendly chat for a while about where they were from, why they were on that plane, and some things they enjoyed to do. The whole interaction lasted maybe twenty minutes, from sitting to take off. Then they said “cheers”, one of them went to sleep and the other began watching something on the phone. They didn’t speak again until we landed and from the outside it didn’t feel any of them felt awkward for even a second.
I’m not suggestion you strike up a conversation with your seat partner on a plane, but if you do you don’t have to feel beholden to them.
So what I get out of this is that while they were nice and friendly and had a good chat, they also tuned each other out for basically the entire flight. Sounds like an example in favor of dagmx's argument, which is not to be unfriendly, but that friendliness is rarely a way to pass multiple hours in a plane.
They didn’t “tune each other out” nor did they tune out the world entirely. Any of them could have resumed the conversation if they wanted to. Heck, I could have easily started up a conversation with them if I felt like it. That’s not tuning out, it’s simply not interacting.
Have you never sat in someone’s company, be it a pet or another person, each doing your own thing yet the presence of another made it more pleasant? That doesn’t mean tuning out the other person, quite the contrary.
The intangible benefit of "I could have talked to them, but didn't, and it was nice to be nearby" is going to be a minuscule part of the plane experience.
It doesn't support the idea above of "it would be nice if people were bored enough to be friendly" as a way to handle entire plane trips, it just suggests a slightly different way of focusing on your own activities.
And what you described versus a vision pro is like, a difference between being 75% tuned out and 85% tuned out. It's not all that impactful.
And with a headset on, they could have still resumed the conversation.
Or is it also rude if one tries to sleep? Or if they decided to listen to music or watch a movie on the screens?
Really the fact is that all those things are normalized and this isn’t. The arguments against it would equally apply to all of the rest of the things people do on planes to occupy their time.
Your story just says what my comment does though. They ignored each other the rest of the time.
Nobody is saying you tune out the entirety of the world the second you sit down. But there is an awful amount of people acting like the environment around you on a plane is worth paying attention to the entire time
> The more time passes, the less I can shake the feeling that the world would be better if we tuned out our environment less.
I’m curious what you do on a 6 hr plane ride that’s not tuning out your environment?
Read, sleep, think, stare out the window… While you can argue reading and sleeping are tuning out the environment, I’m never completely disengaged from my surroundings. Even if you stare at a screen with headphones on¹, someone can still get your attention via your peripheral vision.
Either way, I get why people do it, I was making more of a general point. It’s common for me to be walking down a street and see other people, also walking, so glued to their phones they notice nothing around them, to the point they have no reaction to near collisions.
I also find it telling that while the author mentioned (and I quoted) planes and trains, all of the many responses so far has centred on planes.
¹ Which I don’t do but won’t criticise anyone for it either.
> The more time passes, the less I can shake the feeling that the world would be better if we tuned out our environment less.
While I appreciate the sentiment behind the statement, try living in an area where 90% of the environment is car stereos with subwoofers cranked so loud that you can practically see the air vibrating around you and get back to me. Given that (at least in the west), noise pollution is never really going to be properly legislated, the ability to tune it out is a god send.
On the flip side, continuously tuning out discomfort is a vicious cycle. You need to feel some of it to be motivated to do something to change your situation.
I’m not advocation for never taking a break, I’m saying that we keep doing more and more of it and should perhaps consider dialling it down. Or at the very least not take tuning out as a slam dunk desired benefit without adverse consequences.
I read recently that Apple is working on foldables for 2026 and AR/XR glasses for 2027, and a non-pro Apple Vision I think next year?
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2024-10-13/apple-...
>The more time passes, the less I can shake the feeling that the world would be better if we tuned out of our environment less.
Depends on what environment that is. I mean, is there some value in hearing an ambulance siren at full volume while I'm walking down the street? Or the sound of people trying to get my attention to hand me some flyer? Or the sound of the BART?
I think there might be some psychological benefit just in experiencing life and being in the moment, even though it isn't all pleasant.
I listen to books or music during a lot of my daily walks, but I've noticed that when I don't, I sometimes experience life differently.
i agree but i think what the parent and other folks up thread are saying makes sense. It's nice to have the choice to tune in or tune out but no one wants that decision made for them. No one wants to be forced to engage with 100+ random people in very close proximity with really no option to standup let alone leave like on a plane. Another way to look at it is imagine the person to your left and to your right are super fans of the political party opposite to yours. That wouldn't be very fun unless you like to fight for 3hrs.
I wasn't arguing (and didn't really see others arguing) for compulsory mindfulness, which I don't think is even a thing.
I like to be able to ear any siren around me, to be honest. They're the way they are for a reason.
They are designed to be heard at a distance and through automobile glass, not walking beside it on a sidewalk. Besides, the siren is not a meaningful signal to me: I’m not on the road.
This is kind of why I like living near highways and train tracks. Most people live in suburbs and they don’t hear the noise of the city. They just miss out on so much environment. Sadly, my wife hates this (she is not in tune with her environment) and so we moved from a place where there were crazy people screaming to a place which is relatively quiet.
Sometimes I’m at home and there aren’t any sirens or bells or people screaming and I just think about how out of touch we are with the environment.
This has spread to everyone. Paul Graham has lost his connection to the environment and instead writes about silence. What a fool! If only he was more in touch with his environment.
I genuinely can't tell if this comment is serious or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law .
> Sometimes I’m at home and there aren’t any sirens or bells or people screaming and I just think about how out of touch we are with the environment.
at least in the suburbs you can engage with and experience the leaf blowers.
Anecdotally, I heard way more leaf blowers while living in the city than in the suburbs. Lots of times in the suburbs people just leave them on the ground. But it gets to be a gross mess pretty fast in an urban environment so they are cleaned up relentlessly through the fall.
"at full volume"
Yes, it would be wonderful to be able to tune out the wretched poor people. Maybe a future headset will include a forcefield to actively repel potential muggers or oncoming vehicles.
This is an astoundingly uncharitable attempt to make my otherwise personal assertion classist. Am I to meet my overstimulating environment head on, further exasperating my anxiety and mental exhaustion simply to please others who think my condition is actually a signal of wealth? I am not able to do so, and I am not apologetic about it.
We're getting closer and closer to the world Solaria in Asimovs universe.
I'm personally trying (and to some degree failing) to disengage from screens and other digital interactions.
My advantage is that I live quite remotely and can just hop into my boat and go fishing or something without the phone, but the craving that result in are scary.
> it offers an unparalleled opportunity to selectively tune out your environment and sink into an engaging activity like watching a movie or just working on your laptop.
https://southpark.fandom.com/wiki/Buddha_Box
I generally agree with this sentiment of people being too tethered to technology and not paying attention to the world around them, but I don't see a problem with it on a flight. You're generally going to be seated in one place for hours at a time. It's much more infuriating to be walking out of the subway here in NYC and people are just in zombie mode walking up the stairs slowly while staring at their phones. Or down busy streets. Or driving in their cars.
I coincidentally demoed the Vision Pro this past weekend and expected to hate it, but was pretty impressed with it. I definitely don't want people walking around NYC with it strapped to their faces, but on a long plane or train ride I can see it being pretty nice.
Well put! Though I would argue that the issue being discussed is not short-term distraction in highly dangerous situations like driving a car or sharing a sidewalk in NYC, but rather the long-term psychological effects of filling every spare moment with entertainment. Ever since being forced to bus an hour+ to high school (sans smart phone! Can you imagine?!) I've learned to appreciate what long stretches of contemplation can do for a person. Or, at least, do for me.
Of course, my attention span typically maxes out around 2h unless I'm in a particularly thoughtful place in life, such as my bus ride to a new city after undergrad graduation, or the flight home after a big family event. And, of course, being in the window seat is a must -- you'd have to be something of a zen master to peacefully "raw-dog" a flight by just starting at the seat in front of you!
Rant aside, I absolutely agree that being stuck in place for hours at a time is good reason to want some form of entertainment, and this is arguably the perfect application for VR. Being stuck on a long bus/train/plane without entertainment can feel downright claustrophobic, and it's not like there's any communication with others anyway. Other than the nice flight attendants, which we still have, for some weird reason -- I thought it was a nice touch to clarify that talking to them with the headset for more than a phrase or two feels disrespectful.
> Though I would argue that the issue being discussed is not short-term distraction in highly dangerous situations like driving a car or sharing a sidewalk in NYC, but rather the long-term psychological effects of filling every spare moment with entertainment.
Correct. And I also had in mind how those individual psychological effects affect our interactions with the rest of reality and other living beings, which collectively shapes society.
I’m reminded of something I read years ago (I don’t recall the source at all and am likely adding details) which argued that US politics were less aggressively divisive in the past because politicians from both sides regularly saw each other and spent time together, meaning they could form more empathy and see the opposition as real human beings and not caricatures. As they spend less time together, it’s easier to fall into the trap of seeing the other side as a “them” unworthy of respect.
> I thought it was a nice touch to clarify that talking to them with the headset for more than a phrase or two feels disrespectful.
Agreed.
> but rather the long-term psychological effects of filling every spare moment with entertainment.
Oh, for sure. I mean I'm in my 40s and have never owned a TV and have spent every morning with my meditation practice for a very long time. Even on 14+ hour flights I tend to just sit there, maybe listening to music a bit, but largely doing my meditation practice. I'm totally on board with people being present in their environments.
But of all the places for someone to use something like the Vision Pro, an airplane seems totally reasonable to me. I'm much more concerned with people needing to scroll TikTok while on the escalator at Whole Foods and what that says about society than someone watching a movie on an international flight!
> Other than the nice flight attendants, which we still have, for some weird reason
They're trained to get everyone off the plane in under 90 seconds in case of emergency. The handing out of drinks and snacks is a pleasant side effect of their presence.
There is something subtle going on with the "passthrough" feature. All the marketing and fans continually point to it in a way that feels like tacit acknowledgement of this very point wrt "tuning out." We are all primed for full VR Wall-E experience machines to suck us up into our own world, but the future seems to be more and more about the overlay. Not replacing one picture with another, but just painting and filtering ontop of the original. Not "I am somewhere else right now", but "I am here, but I am doing something you can't see."
Which, I gotta say, is an even darker formulation at the end of the day! Like at least if we all plugged in and went the Oasis we are truly sharing some base experience of the place; or if its going to be solitary experience machines, at least those experiences would be holistically directed towards me in some consistent package; but with this stuff, you start to think about how much more ground these crooks can still take in stratifying the experience of simply the world itself as we perceive it.
It's obviously hyperbole. I'm a fairly frequent traveler at this point and probably will continue to be in another decade, and there is no plausible future in which I'm strapping on a VR headset for the duration of a flight. Sometimes I'll read a book but not consistently. More often than not, I watch the landscape pass and get a thrill out of recognizing landmarks from high above. I also like to count the rubberized tracks in a city as it consistently surprises me how many there are when I can never seem to find one to run on where I actually live.
On the other hand, I try to take a middle ground here. As much as I get annoyed and shake my fist at clouds these days when I'm trying to run past people on the sidewalks and they've got their faces buried in phones and don't see me coming, I can recognize a lot of people seem to have a deep-seated need for non-stop mental stimulus they don't seem to get from the real world for whatever reason and I'm not going to judge them for that. They're just different from me and that's fine.
But I do exist too and it'd be nice if reviewers like this didn't typical mind everyone, either.
I take out my earbuds even saying Hi to the bus driver I can't imagine talking to a flight attendant while wearing a VR device. It seems very uninterested in the person you are talking to.
Could be just me but I think a lot of older generations share this experience. It is not hard to take out your earbuds or take off your VR device to show you are paying attention to the person you are talking to.
There's a huge shift in this field at the moment. I personally find it disrespectful to talk to people while wearing headphones/earbuds and I'd still consider myself young but a lot of younger people, especially u25 seem to find this completely normal.
I'm not sure I like this development. Ignoring the "disrespectful" part, it has become accepted to toy with your phone while listening to someone and let's be honest, we all know you're not REALLY listening or engaging with the conversation.
I think your perception of what is being played inside the earbuds may be why you're confused about this. Around here it's extremely common for people to keep their earbuds in for short conversations, but everyone will pause and activate surrounding sounds while they talk. There are obviously assholes who don't, but in general it's completely normal to assume someone wearing earbuds is listening to you.
Contradictory to your experience with it being young people who wouldn't listen to you it tends to be the 45ish business man who continues to talk on their phone in my experience.
> in general it's completely normal to assume someone wearing earbuds is listening to you
Just because you emphatically state that something is normal, that does not make it normal
I think it's a little disingenuous for you to take what I said out of the context I said it in, but you're right as far as it's in my anecdotal experience. Which is why I said "around here", but I guess I could've made it even clearer.
I personally also take them out. But don’t see it as rude or disrespectful if others don’t.
Especially with AirPods gaining hearing aid functionality, it shouldn’t be a sign of lack of focus.
As an aside, I personally able to concentrate _more_ in certain scenarios when I am fiddling or have background noise playing. It quiets the part of my brain that otherwise gets distracted. I use that method for video conferences to increase the amount I am focused on the speaker and content.
What about earbuds aiding in hearing? Lots of scenarios where earbuds can help with hearing and not impede it. I use AirPod Pros on flights for cancelling out the loud background noise of the plane but it makes talking to others much easier.
It doesn't give any social cues on how you are using it. That is, people cannot tell whether you are using earbuds to block outside sound or to enhance outside sound. Therefore it doesn't work, until social norms change.
I remember the real hearing aids of yesteryear. They look sufficiently different from earbuds that they are always acceptable.
These days there's open earbuds that look a lot like hearing aids
>Could be just me but I think a lot of older generations share this experience.
I am only 32 and wouldn't consider myself old.
I used to get very uncomfortable, maybe even angry, when people at the cashier in the supermarket just did not get off their headphones and just leave a simple hello to the person at the counter. Nowadays I am just mildly irritated sometimes, but I still think it's stupid. Especially if the cashier is a really nice and polite person. Leaving on your headphones and not saying a word, sometimes not even giving them a look, feels like a f- you in their face. Just be nice to other people and it even works if you are a very socially awkward person like me. The world can be nice and even give you a smile every once in a while.
This obviously got worse since corona. Germany used to be a cash-heavy country, but now since "everyone" is just paying by card, they just pull it out, wave around with it to signal that they want to pay with it, so that they don't even have to say one single word. So weird.
Yes, I found it funny that the interaction the reviewer did participate it (asking for tea) was okay to conduct while still strapped into the AVP Face Jail, but:
> One caveat is that, out of respect, if the conversation is more than the “what would you like? Tea please” deal, I do remove the headset to make direct eye contact with them. I feel that it would be sort of odd to have a full-on conversation with someone if they’re wearing a headset (like bro, just take it off and let’s talk like humans).
So there's an implied metric of "meaningful interaction" where, below a certain threshold, it's okay to treat the other person as an NPC?
Perhaps I'm being an uncharitable curmudgeon here, but I even take my earbuds out when I'm asking for tea on a flight.
It's a hassle for you to take it off and disconcerting for the other person if you don't. If the interaction is quick, doing nothing could be overall optimal.
It actually is a real pain to put the headset on and off frequently. Much, much more so than earbuds. It's a major UX issue.
I don't even really see people take off headphones in this scenario, just uncovering an ear. It would be fairly hilarious to see someone lift up one side of an AR headset to make (singular) eye contact, tho.
> A big bonus for watching movies in VR on a plane is the fact that you don’t need to conscious about movies that contain graphic scenes. You don’t need to turn down the brightness and rotate the screen away from children!
Ah! I was not understanding why would anyone prefer this over other less invasive or smaller options, but now I get to the real advantage! /s
The action-man sized tent in the viewers trousers might give the game away.
The problem with flying today is deregulation. It made flying cheap and for the masses. Completely killed the experience.
tangent, but: i think reclining your seat in economy class is incredibly selfish. i wish they'd weld them all.
It's always interesting when I see this take because I was raised the opposite way and was really surprised to learn a few years back from articles like [1] that some people consider this an etiquette breach.
From what I can tell there are two populations: those who prefer to recline and those who prefer not to. As long as an entire column of seats belongs to one population you're fine (if everyone wants to recline no one loses space, we all just shift around to a configuration in which everyone is more comfortable). But when you have someone more comfortable staying upright sitting behind a recline-preferenced person, that's where issues arise. It's not clear to me whether it's morally wrong for the front person to recline in that case, given that's basically just preferencing the default of "upright", which is arbitrary.
Nothing here should be read as justifying people who don't pay attention to what's going on behind them and/or recline suddenly/aggressively. It's always something that should be done with a glance behind and a smooth, gentle motion. Maybe also a word to the person sitting behind though again I'm not convinced that's a moral imperative.
[1] https://thepointsguy.com/airline/airplane-seat-reclining-eti...
i do prefer to recline. i choose not to, even though the airline says that i am entitled to, because i know that reclining has a high likelihood of inconveniencing the person behind me (primarily due to loss of legroom and inability to use a laptop).
Same here; except I'll recline after dinner on long-haul flights, because that's the point virtually everyone does, especially when the lights are dimmed. I would never recline on <4 hour flights, and am irked by those who do.
(I wonder if it simply driven by an individualistic vs. collectivist mindset?)
Personally I don't get on a high horse about it and just deal with it, but if the person ahead of me reclines I lose leg room that me reclining does not give back.
A little bit of reclining means the difference between my head drooping forward or to either side if I fall asleep (very uncomfortable) or staying in a vertical position with the weight slightly on the back of the head (far more comfortable).
This is really a case of "don't hate the player, hate the game" (be mad at the airlines for packing people in like sardines, don't be mad at the people for trying to take a bit of extra comfort which has been made available to them)
Or get mad at yourself for not paying for more space. Airlines are a business, and you chose that particular seat knowing full well ahead of time what the parameters of that purchase were.
Would airlines be able to offer more space for more money? Sure they would. Would people pay for it? The market has already answered!
That's fair if you fail to consider that I am 6'3", my partner and child are much smaller, and I'd essentially be the only one to gain from such an upgrade while having to pay for 3x, unless I wanted to sit separately from them and endure much consternation. lol
(for the record, i don't get mad at people over this and i don't think people should get mad at others for this.)
nice stance to have if everyone around you has the same in a full plane.
as soon as one person starts reclininig, you can die on that hill all alone and i'm reclining faster than you can sigh in disappointment
Being in an airplane seat for any amount of time is unpleasant. IMO, getting upset at the person in front reclining the allocated 2 inches to ease some of that discomfort sounds vaguely narcissistic. If you want to get upset, get upset at the airline.