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All About the iFace

As Steve says in his intro, it’s a COMPUTER that you wear on your FACE. Cool or creepy?

As Steve says in his intro, it’s a COMPUTER that you wear on your FACE! Its official name is the Apple Vision Pro, and it it $3,500 of immersion in the virtual world. Did you ever find yourself white-water rafting and think, ‘Boy, I sure wish I could work on my Powerpoint presentation right now!’ then this is the device for you. It comes complete with an artificial projection OF YOUR OWN EYES so can can barely even tell that you are wearing one! Is it cool or creepy?

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32 replies on “All About the iFace”

I know nothing about the Vision Pro, but based on what I’m hearing I’m concerned that over time it will train people to prefer fantasy over reality. We’ve already made the first step — people would rather text than talk to a real live person. Thank you, iPhone. It seems like personal interaction is a thing of the past and the Vision Pro increases the escape into the make-believe.

as i can’t handle vr at all i doubt i’ll be to handle this new tech at all. though the tech sounds interesting the apple tax of 2 grand is a bit harsh, of course there is the Uighur tax as well. but apples labor practices are always a separate topic

Or be ghastly.
Do you really want to see what’s underneath most people’s clothing? Really??
Some things are best left unseen and not even subject to my imagination.

I agree that the money is not a problem. Back in the 90s (I think) I first saw a flat screen tv at Best Buy and it was $16,000! But as they made more and more the price came down. That’s normal.
My concern is that this encourages the escape from reality even more. We already have a large and growing lobby pushing “fantasy is the new reality.” Don’t like your real gender? Just declare you are the other, and Poof, it is so! Even to the point people feel justified in demanding that everyone else must accommodate your fantasy as if it were real.
As individuals and as a nation, a society, we have very real challenges to deal with. We can’t adequately deal with reality when our approach to life is make believe!

With three different VR systems, I use VR a lot.

First off, I want to say that the processing power of a MacBook is nowhere near pushing the envelope for VR or AR applications.

For example, a MUCH less expensive Quest has even less processing power. But I can wirelessly connect my Quest to my liquid-cooled i9 10 core 4GHz, RTX3080 desktop. I can play games that require that much horsepower, or I can float my desktop in a virtual environment with complete control of it. Alternatively, I can skip the desktop entirely and play games or applications natively on the Quest – for about one sixth the cost of the iFACE.

I don’t see anything in the iFACE that is worth several times the cost of other VR/AR systems.

…connect my Quest to my liquid-cooled i9 10 core 4GHz, RTX3080 desktop.
Okay, now you’re just bragging. And I hate you.

Yea, but to me fair most people wouldn’t catch the brag. The average person heard 1.21 Gigawatts into the flux capacitor.
Or they turned their head with the same look my dog gives me when I use words to explain why she needs to stop barking at the vacuum.
Either way nice system that I can neither afford nor would put to very good use.

Um, my wife claims I am very average…..and even I got the 10 core spec. Varoom varoom – the computer, not my wife.
That power with a flight sim would be mesmerizing. I’d still stick that 777 with 301 souls on board into the parking lot at LAX, but it’d be visually stunning!

So interesting aside as a nod to our Internet Overlords.
One of the topics on Backstage was a new treatment for tinnitus (pronounce however you like).
That episode, being backstage, is hosted on YT.
When I started this episode here at BWDC, hosted on Rumble, I had an ad. Unusual in itself as there usually aren’t ads before RA episodes when I watch them here.
More unusual. It was an ad for (wait for it) tinnitus treatment.
So to our insect overlords at all things WWW, keep up the great work.
BTW – my wife bought the shoes already. You can stop showing us ads for the same sandals.

No No No…..Mrs Ron needs in all colors and extras when a pair or two or twenty wear out…..you must keep buying! It’s the patriotic thing to do.

I am not sure if my ad blocker (which does normally block Youtube ads) is blocking them here (even though I have it turned off for this site) is holding the YT ads. I suspect the backstages just do not have ads on them since they are private videos.
Today and the last Ruble video both have had ads, though they don’t always for me. In my case, they were the same ad, but for a new tiny air conditioner thing that runs on water.

I am reminded of my first time in a motion base simulator at NASA in 86. We were simulating IFR landings using lasers to track the pilots eye movements on the gauges. First time in, even though we weren’t moving I felt dizzy looking at the “ground”.
The technology for following where the pilot was looking was very cool.
Surprised it has taken this long to get into a device that people can use.
Though I will admit, I have no real idea why one would use this.

So, Apple….I can wear your computer and ‘imagine’ I’m snowboarding down a run at a resort in the Lake Tahoe area, or…..I can wear real goggles and snowboard down a run at a ski resort at Lake Tahoe…for real. Fake experiences, or real experiences. Gee, thanks but no thanks Apple. I’ll take reality. I’ll leave these toys to when I eventually become Captain Pike. (Or Metaman Zuckerberg)

HA! Double plus for the Captain Pike reference.
But, really what you do with these is wear them when you are snowboarding in Lake Tahoe, then while you are on the lift back up, you can get work done. So you can go snowboarding while you work.
Best of both worlds!
Just don’t try to work while going downhill. Then you’ll do George of the Jungle and then be Captain Pike!

Or worse, Sonny Bono…..rest his soul.
Can you imagine the pile up at the top of the lift when these bozos get too into their work via their iFace googles????
Comedy gold! A scene not duplicated since the original “Dawn of the Dead” zombie pileup at the end of the mall escalator!!!

I’ve been waiting since around 1990 when the first Virtual Retina Displays came out. VRDs use microwatt lasers to do a laser show directly on the back of the eye. 30 years ago the proof of concept was 400×400 dpi and only in the color red. Now the technology is only used in military helmets. Too bad, because you wouldn’t need any little displays, just extremely tiny lasers using hardly any energy and weighing next to nothing.
I’ve always wanted a laptop that was just a keyboard and a pair of glasses, without the LCD display. That would make the screen size huge, as well as keeping it all private. Imagine your local coffee shop with dozens of hipsters all wearing this iFace device!

At that price tag, I see these being sold to the military more than to the general public. I’ve tried the Oculus device, which is similar, and it hurt my face – the weight on the nose is real. I also got a bit seasick, in a way I don’t get from actual motion. Perhaps my brain would get used to it eventually, and perhaps the Apple Vision Pro is so much lighter that it wouldn’t hurt (though I doubt it), but that price tag wouldn’t make me want to try.

I think the Apple device is heavier than the Quest or Rift, as it is less plastic and more metal and glass – according to Steve.
Meanwhile, the best way to not get seasick in VR is to use teleporting instead of smooth movement when changing you location. Makes a huge difference.

I already spend way too much of my time in front of a screen of some sort. To Keith’s point below (or above depending on how you sort comments) we have long ago instituted device free zones: dinner being the primary one.

I don’t know about you, but I’m getting “fight or flight” about devices and their effect on our national psyche. Walking down the street, sitting in an office, standing in a commuter train, everybody’s looking at their phones.
When my kids got old enough to vote, I told them that no matter how great the new proposed government expenditure sounded, don’t vote for it if it contracts your freedom. Now I’m wondering if given access to anything and everything under the sun at the touch of a button has created something unforeseen and wrong created by our freedom to choose mixed with our fallen nature. It has turned us into blinded to reality lemmings, a country that is a dumbed down version of the movie “Idiocracy”.
While I have no desire to limit what people have access to view and I’m opposed to limiting time on devices, I do have the freedom to give my viewpoint out to my loved ones. If asked, I’ll tell my kids that I’d limit time on devices for the grandkids. That said, if the device was as cool as this one, maybe I’d suggested swapping quantity of time for quality of time and they could use something like this, but only for an hour a day, max.

I still worry about privacy on items like this. Yes, Apple says there are all about privacy. But one must wonder just how much they are all about privacy. With all of those cameras and speech to text microphone, how can they not collect private information and/or your conversations with it and others while wearing it?

IP snooping is incredibly easy and revealing. For example, it reveals that an Android smartphone uploads about a gigabyte of data every month to Google’s and the manufacturer’s servers — pretty much everything you do on your phone, unless you explicitly stop it with privacy measures. Even those can be iffy. An iPhone uploads a few hundred kilobytes of data each month — a tiny fraction that Android does — that mostly consists of the location data required for cell service to function.
So, yeah, based on what third parties (many of whom would dearly love to bust Apple) have proven, Apple is pretty dang reliable on privacy.

While watching pr0n no doubt. But he’ll be a member of congress so they’ll blame Trump.

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