Dex

Big hearted fluffdragon...

...fictional ex-90s platformer mascot, nerd, plural, Ξ˜Ξ”.


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scalie.club/@Dex

(previously: an ipad for your face)

specifically, today i'm thinking about the productivity angle, just apple's built-in apps rather than thinking how game developers will handle things with hand tracking only.

we know that it's going to have a mix of native apps, and flat ipad apps that you can presumably either view in a cinema like environment or pin to your walls in augmented reality

and productivity has to be one of the big sells for this thing, to try and justify the price
but would you ever want to try and handle email on a virtual screen with not even the slightest hint of tactility on the keyboard? at least with a touch keyboard you feel fingers against glass

and so i'm thinking about some of the apps that i think will go fully immersive


facetime

facetime is the big rumoured headline app. talk to people one on one as a photorealistic avatar (ignoring the dysphoria), or talk to people in a group as your memoji (which means i can at least remain a dragon, even if more noodle than normal)

for headset-to-headset communication, sure, fine, whatever. where this kind of feels like it'll potentially break down is headset to any other device - because people are calling to see you rather than your photorealistic avatar. (and presumably, in headset what you'd see is a video wall)

apple being apple i'm pretty sure there'll be a way to quickly transfer the camera to a connected iphone or mac, but then you've still got the headset strapped to your face

maps

theoretically, there's already a pretty clear route for this one set by google earth VR, and it'll probably work fine for basic finding and visualizing directions and maybe displaying some extra information if you're out and about walking with augmented reality.

it might still feel a little flat though; at least outside of major cities apple don't seem to have topology shown in their 3D view, just simple representations of buildings - so you'd basically feel like just a dot on the regular map rather than exploring the globe 1

notes and freeform

both of these allow for drawing, which is why i'm lumping these in, i can see some encouragement for sticking augmented reality sticky notes wherever you like around your room or a virtual whiteboard that maybe surrounds you

but will they allow for drawing in 3D, or just on the abstractions of note/whiteboard - again considering that these will need to be stored and shared with other devices

like probably the optimal thing would be updating the apple pencil framework to support 3d drawings so a lot of apps could just get that for free, with a 2D view provided for backwards compat reasons - but both the apple pencil and your hand would have the same issue of "how do you tell it when you're meaning to draw vs. not meaning to draw", unless they announce a new apple pencil that has a button

garageband

this feels obvious for setting you up in a virtual music studio but e.g. how many instruments will they update to have 3d models

tv

another pretty obvious choice, although i think the more important thing is updating the system video player to allow theatre mode or pinning to a wall so the vast majority of video apps get it for free

to be continued?

there's probably other built in apps to consider along with all the third party ones but this feels enough for now

summary

as i've said before, i don't know if any of this will be compelling enough for the high price that's apparently going to be asked, particularly with how limiting the ipad can feel with the things it should be able to do from a hardware perspective but can't because the software won't let you, so an ipad for the face won't feel much different

but if they can hit an actually reasonable price point with a future version... well, there's some advantages to a headset that's properly tied in with our other devices?

i am definitely more excited for valve's deckard than i am apple's headset - but much like the steamdeck, i can't see myself signing in to anything on deckard as a standalone device other than steam and a handful of other gaming related launchers and services (e.g. GOG, RetroAchievements).
it is of course nice having no digital distractions from conversations with friends across the globe, but we've missed texts from family while in VR, and that just isn't suitable for a headset that seems to have the expectation of working as well as playing 2

still a whole lot of questions to be asked though, many of which i suspect will not be answered at WWDC (e.g. is it supported by steam vr on non-apple devices, what do the controllers look like for games that just can't be controlled with handtracking, etc. )


  1. i'm now curious if anyone has made a macro mod for MS Flight Simulator 2020

  2. presumably there are linux apps that can act how a pebble used to in terms of iphones being able to forward notifications? kde connect is the main one I know of for Android, but it's missing notification sync from iOS


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