Abstract: Vision Pro, which was well received in the pre-sale stage, seems to be not fragrant after a Spring Festival.
The Spring Festival holiday has ended, and after the start of work, I sorted out the news in the infinite remembrance of the holiday, and found an interesting phenomenon - Vision Pro, which was well received in the pre-sale stage, seems to be not fragrant after a Spring Festival. It seems that more and more people are saying "it's not worth it", is that really the case?
White prostitution experience? Vision Pro suffers from a "wave of returns".
Let's start with the wave of returns that began in the late Spring Festival. Apple officially said that from February 2, early adopters who received the Vision Pro can get a full and unconditional refund within 14 days, and now, that time has come, and many buyers have shared their decision to "return".
When it comes to the reasons why users return their products, "comfort" is the first priority. Most buyers who returned the VR said they felt a headache when wearing the Vision Pro, and it was accompanied by motion sickness when using any VR headset. It should be noted that since most of the weight of the Vision Pro is concentrated on the front end, this makes the weight distribution of the entire device very unfocused, and it will feel uncomfortable after wearing it for a long time.
Source: The Verge
Some netizens have compared the weight of Vision Pro with other devices: Vision Pro is about 600g to 650g, which is equivalent to a 12A 9-inch iPad Pro, three iPhone 15 Pro Max, a whole bunch of bananas of around 20 centimeters stacked on top of each other – imagine what it would be like to put that weight over your face for two hours? Because of this, Vision Pro trialists have reported that the comfortable time of wearing the Vision Pro simply does not allow them to watch a movie. In addition, the overly heavy front end is not very friendly to users with a low nose bridge, which means that the device will slip off the face or will not be able to block the light sufficiently.
For example, Parker Ortolani, product manager at The Verge, said that using the device caused the blood vessels in his eyes to rupture, and he is not the only one who has experienced this situation, but other users have experienced redness in their eyes after using the Vision Pro. (But in fact, VR headsets have been causing dry and red eyes for years.) ）
Now, Ottolani has returned the device, saying, "Although it was as magical to use as I had hoped, it was too uncomfortable to wear even for short periods of time due to the weight and strap design." I want to use it, but I'm afraid to wear it. ”
It seems that as exciting as the Vision Pro's technology is, the comfort issue isn't enough to sustain the desire of users to continue using it.
Then there's the inevitable visual fatigue of using Vision Pro. One might think that interacting with just your eyes and fingers would be intuitive and convenient, but this is not always the case. Eye tracking on the Vision Pro can be uncomfortable for the eyes, leading to sore and tired eyes. While this problem will improve as the wearer gets used to it, it's still a big reason for some users to consider returning the device.
In addition to comfort, there is a small issue with the hardware - some users will feel that the light seal of the Vision Pro does not fit well enough, and light will leak in through the gap in the bridge of the nose, ruining the experience. Even if a simple replacement of the light seal is all that is required to solve this problem, there are still users who return the product for this reason.
But hardware isn't the only problem. Another common reason for returns is that Vision Pro doesn't offer enough productivity relative to.
One user on Threads, a Meta social platform, noted that wearing the Vision Pro and looking at the interface of Figma, a design and development tool, made them feel dizzy, and that the device was not suitable for their work. Another engineer wrote on the social media platform X, "Focusing on the problem is a headache"; Carter Gibson, a senior manager of community management and moderation at Google, said, "In'window'Multitasking between is difficult, and Vision Pro doesn't support multiple file types at all. I also don't see how creating a slideshow in VP would be more effortless than using a mouse and keyboard. ”
There are users who use Vision Pro as an external monitor for Mac.
In addition, there have been claims that the Vision Pro does not render well for smaller texts — especially when compared to the Retina display in the Apple ecosystem — and that it is common for the Vision Pro to stutter during standard computing tasks, which is clearly problematic for a device sold for productivity and work.
The absence of a killer app is certainly a major point of user complaints. Alexander Torrenegra, a Colombian-American entrepreneur, packed the device as it was after two hours of use:
One user of Reddit said that he only used Vision Pro 4 times in 11 days of having it and couldn't convince himself to keep it; Some claim that once the hype surrounding the device subsides, the lack of utility will become a general consensus.
At the moment, there is no data on how many returns there are, and in fact, we don't know exactly how many devices Apple has sold. According to an article published by AppleInsider, the return rate of Vision Pro does not seem to be higher than that of other Apple products, in addition to buyers who really feel that the experience is not good and return the goods, there are also people who just want to prostitute the 14-day experience for nothing, record an unbox**, and then return the device.
Interestingly, one retail store employee called these kinds of people "goddamn YouTubers" and "those guys, every time, every product."
It's hard to say how feedback from these early adopters will affect the future of Vision Pro. Many of those who have said they will return the device have also pointed out that they are eager to try the second-generation Vision Pro. In many ways, Vision Pro is just a prototype of the first generation, and only some wealthy fans and all those who want to get involved in the future of spatial computing will be really interested - and there aren't many of them.
Professional Display Expert Batch Vision Pro: Not worth $3499
Recently, display expert Karl Guttag published a preliminary technical analysis of the image quality of the Vision Pro. He concludes: "The Vision Pro's display quality is good compared to almost all other VR headsets, but it is very poor compared to the most modest modern computer monitors." Today's consumers don't spend $100 on a computer monitor that looks as bad as a Vision Pro. —and the subtext of this sentence is, not to mention that it costs $3,499.
Karl Guttag says that the optics of **p are highly distorted, and the distortion is a function of where the eye is located and pointed. As a result, every pixel in a 2D image must be resampled at least once, if not multiple times, resulting in an inevitable loss of fidelity, even for 2D images with a much lower resolution than a **p display.
After conducting a comparative study, Karl Guttag concluded that **P does not have the resolution required for some applications. In the case of "spatial computing applications", *p is "cheating" by making everything bigger. But doing so loses information density, making it more energy for the user's eyes and head to see the same amount of content, and the user simply can't see that much at once.
As early as when the Vision Pro was just unbanned** review, the editors of The Verge also pointed out some problems related to the display, such as noticeable motion blur when turning the head, the display field of view is not wide, the field of view looks smaller than the 110-degree horizontal angle of view of the Quest 3, and there are distortions and vignettes around the edges of the lens.
It can be seen that even though Apple has tried its best to overcome some technical limitations, there are still some problems that cannot be solved.
Zuckerberg "poured oil": I think the Quest 3 is better when I run out
In the overwhelming sound of "returns", the "friend" Meta - especially its CEO Zuckerberg obviously will not miss this good opportunity to promote himself. Zuckerberg recently posted a new post on social media, saying that after experiencing the Vision Pro, he felt that the Quest 3 was a better product.
Zuckerberg said: "I ended up trying Apple's Vision Pro. I have to say that before that, I expected the Quest to be more valuable for most people because it was really good and seven times cheaper. But after using it, I don't just think the quest is more valuable. I think Quest is the better product. ”
"Overall, Quest is better suited for most of the things that people do with mixed reality, like playing games, hanging out with friends, socializing, and exercising," he says. In Zuckerberg's "review," he claimed that the Quest 3 is more comfortable to wear, "which does make a big difference to your face." Zuckerberg commented.
In addition to this, Meta's CTO Andrew Bosworth also posted his evaluation after trying out the Vision Pro, saying that it is "very uncomfortable to use" and "I think it weighs too much and is not well distributed". Bosworth bluntly said that he wants users to choose the Quest 3 over Apple's, and commented that it is "saving himself $3,000".
Too many questions? It's a long time coming
In fact, the weight and comfort of Vision Pro are all common problems, which were mentioned as early as the beginning of the release, as well as in the reviews of the major ** before the pre-sale, but it may be because it is not the end consumer, and the technology supported by the device is praised more at the beginning, but the most real experience is ignored.
And these neglected use experiences, after reaching the hands of consumers, began to be valued, and more people began to consider whether such an expensive and uncomfortable, and at the same time not much useful equipment is necessary to continue to keep or buy.
It was previously reported that design work on the second-generation Vision Pro began before the first product was announced during the company's WWDC 2023 keynote. According to Bloomberg journalist Mark Gurman, the second generation of the device will have us waiting for quite some time, at least another 18 months.
In this way, it gives Apple enough time to make improvements to the Vision Pro.
On the other hand, it's not that users who have returned the product are completely disappointed with the Vision Pro, they still have certain expectations for its next-generation product. "I believe it will make great strides over time, like the Apple Watch and iPad, but at the moment, it's a very expensive toy with a lot of potential," said one Reddit user. Previously, Musk also said that Vision Pro may not have fully realized its potential at the time of release, but significant developments may occur in the future.
A few days ago, OpenAI's CEO Sam Altman just published his high evaluation of Vision Pro, arguing that this new space computer product is the "second most impressive" technology since the iPhone was introduced in 2007. Funnily enough, he also retorted when some netizens questioned the name of Vision Pro, calling ChatGPT's name "worse".
In the eyes of technology professionals and some consumers in the industry, the potential of Vision Pro is huge, but it still needs time to develop. Maybe it's the third generation, maybe it's *** and it will make a big difference.
Now, if you have to compare, for the average VR player, the $3,000 cheaper Quest 3 may really be a better choice. In addition, according to the grapevine, Huawei's "Vision headset" is not far away. Apple, Meta, or Huawei products, how would you choose?
Wen Qing Yueling (the article is not marked on the Internet).
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