Anyone using the Vision Pro as a virtual Mac screen, with environment bonuses, is someone who would like the option to drag Mac windows for powerful apps off their "Mac screen" and be their own windows.
And those Mac apps would be even better if in "Mac" windows on Vision Pro, I could have 3D models, an interface taking advantage of 3D for plotting, etc.
Instead, Apple believes the Vision Pro is an iPad Minus, instead of being the most powerful working machine they have. More Pro, than Mac Pro.
Sure, produce a "Vision" or "Vision Air" that is basically an iPad with 3D for the low end. But please let the "Pro" in Vision Pro fulfill its potential as the most powerful environment of them all. Stop holding back its potential. The iPhone and iPad need things simplified for their simpler interfaces. But Vision Pro's interface, with keyboard and trackpad, far exceeds a Mac's interface potential. Let' go, Apple!
Importing Mac-level capabilities, even up to the computing power of MacStudio Ultras, but only as a 2D screen in a 3D environment, just screams for so much more. The new top-capability Apple interface/device.
And a new level of computing/interface capability, will pull in the creatives/developers who will go on to add even more use cases. Instead of badly porting iPad apps.
Completely agree with Ben Thompson. Apple doesn't understand the potential of their own product, even as the hardware exists today, or last year.
Agree, it would be awesome to move all your mac windows all over the place instead of being constrained in a virtual display. That would cut the amount of displays you need o have in order to be able to see more without switching between stacked windows, I will be tempted to buy one, if that were possible.
I have 3 displays and I am tempted to replace them with a single one, but bigger (with something like the Samsung Odyssey Ark).
If you want big: get 98” 4k TV, then two 55” TV’s as portrait wings. In portrait the heights of the 55” screens match the 98” screen perfectly.
Mount all three on a wall, with regular TV mounts. Your desk is now clear.
But I recommend just one large TV on your wall if you want to consolidate.
https://imgur.com/a/led-cove-lighting-0OBnR9j
But I still use the Vision Pro.
> Apple believes the Vision Pro is an iPad Minus
Well you don't have to use the touchscreen, which was always rather awkward for many tasks, particularly anything productivity oriented. Even on my laptop i basically never use windows, but I still find the ipad to be unusable for anything but browsing and reading books and scrolling.
I'm sure they can do more. I'm just not sure "more" has anything to do with dragging windows around.
But maybe it's just me; I think it's easier to command-tab (or opt-tab) around than use my eyes. Unless I need to drag something between windows, which only happens about once a month or so.
> I'm sure they can do more. I'm just not sure "more" has anything to do with dragging windows around.
You get one Mac "window", with all your other windows jammed into it, as is necessary for physical screens, but entirely unnecessary for real 3D space.
Those "windows" could be frames containing three dimensional graphs, design structures, the list goes on and on.
The combo of eye selection, gestures + keyboard and trackpad are already wonderful. They need a little smoothing out, but work great already.
The contrast in power between Mac-in-Vision vs. the iPad-like-apps in Vision is dismal. The former is power but artificially flat and constrained, the latter is toy but with huge interface potential. The obvious software imposed (not hardware) gap in the middle, when using both, is enormous.
The device is made for so much more. As in, real computing in the "spacial computing". Otherwise, it is just a toy or an expensive Mac screen replacement. A waste of what should be a huge new category win for Apple.
Man, I just want to code from a more relaxing neck angle. I don't think all this is going to be very useful for that. I'm sure these ideas will be useful for something, but.... people have been talking about minority report for decades and trying to materialize it always ends up wasting attention processing too much at once.
For whatever reason, Apple delivered the hardware. But kneecapped the software.
They seem to see everything since the iPhone as a kiosk first, computer second. Which makes some degree of sense, Mac with keyboard/trackpad assumed vs. iOS/touch (with optional keyboard/trackpad) and covering many smaller sized screens.
But the Vision has much wider interface and interaction potential than Mac, not less. If Apple would let the Pro version of Vision, be a Spacial Mac. The new power high end.
(With a Vision Air, for the iOS-like, consumer, lower end market.)
Well, how else are they going to keep up their services revenue? Because at the end of the day, that's why they created the walled garden in the first place.
Orators learned the "palace of memory" trick for remembering long speeches. In that same vein, then, it does seem less demanding to simply be able to see where you put things.
Whether that's done by walking around, or just by glancing around on a 3D overlay (as suggested above for the Vision Pro), I like neither to have to search through stacks or folders of icons, nor to use Spotlight search fields. But perhaps the different types of cognitive loads result in what some people call different personal organizational styles or preferences. The "Clutterbug"[0] quadrant taxonomy comes to mind.
Good points.
There really is an amazing untapped space of ideas on how to better navigate information.
Even in 2D interfaces, simple things: folders that looked fatter log-relative to how much they contain would add useful context and associative cues, and positive/subjective feelings of "real" recognizable locations vs. just a recursive "interface", when tap-tapping through folders.
An idea I implemented:
I hide a ".home" (zero byte) file in macOS folders I view as being at the top of a folder hierarchy. Then created a button in the finder toolbar that looks like a house. I can drill down a few folder layers, then pop right back to the hierarchy top by clicking the house button.
Just a simple thing. Ordinary users would understand the value of designating "home" folders. And once you have it you can't live without it.
For 3D:
I think traversable "Spaces" on screens were a great interface idea, done half way. and ripe for 3D extension. A space should be something that can be named, opened, closed, opened on another synced device, opened two years later. Duplicated or branched. I.e. a living persistent active project state of an open work state. With sub-spaces, for sub-projects, that can quickly be zoomed in and out of.
The latter would magnify the benefits of working on many different projects in a 3D environment, where having many things open and visible is really helpful, but laborious to continually reconfigure.
How nice to go into a rabbit hole on something important but not urgent, and be able to come back a year later to the same information still visibly organized where you left it. No context lost.
If there is an obvious "Minority Report" type power-user interface to be had, it would be that. Quickly navigating between presistent project/activity interface layouts with gestures. High value, high friction removal, with very low-bandwidth user direction needed.
> Man, I just want to code from a more relaxing neck angle.
Then just get an Xreal air. You can buy 20 of them for the price of one vision pro, and they work great as a simple display.