> I guess it was just too obvious to demo. Or is it?
Gaming can't be good, because there's no controllers. Even if the hand and eye tracking is absolutely S-tier, you're never getting something like button input from swinging your empty hands around, twitching your fingers. Just the occlusion from the back of your hand would be enough enough for that to be impossible.
Fitness might be more doable, but even then I think you're going to be very limited with hand tracking only. I think there's a reason why Apple skipped over those segments almost entirely.
EDIT: I meant "VR" controllers, as in things that are tracked in 3d space. Of course you can use a game pad or MKB, but that kinda misses the point of being in VR in the first place.
I hate VR controllers. I'd prefer to play VR games without them. I'd prefer they do hand and eye tracking to determine what I'm doing, like look at a zombie and and go pew pew pew with my finger guns.
The only VR headset I've tried that can do hand tracking (Oculus Quest) sucks at it and games there didn't pick up on it as an input at all, as far as I know.
However, just because VR controllers won't exist for the Apple Vision at release it doesn't mean they never will. Perhaps Apple will release some later, or it'll be a third party release. Heck, someone might unironically release a Nintendo Power Glove style controller that works incredibly well with Apple Vision.
That’s a unique take. Especially for guns in VR which feel incredibly natural with a controller that is basically a pistol grip with a trigger. For people really into Pavlov they even sell kits to mount the controllers together into a rifle configuration with attachments for a shoulder strap and buttstock. I’ve never heard of a successful shooter game that uses finger guns.
My family went to a Sandbox VR store and played a zombie game. In it they gave you “guns” that the cameras could track. I put guns in quotes because when you remove the headset you see that you were basically holding a stick with reflectors on it, but in VR it sure felt gunish.
Why do you say there are no controllers? I was reading about bluetooth keyboards and interacting with a laptop, so why wouldn't a bluetooth controller be feasible (say, before launch)?
I mean it's not impossible, but Apple would have to design and manufacture one. If they're planning on it it's weird that they wouldn't mention it.
VR controllers aren't simple the way a game pad is. They need a full tracking solution, which means sensors with base stations, cameras with some form of vision based tracking, or the headset needs to be able to track them based on some reference points (infrared lights or something). And that tracking needs to be fast, precise, and correctly positioned relative to the headset.
Using the Index controllers with the Lighthouse base stations is kinda plausible from a technical standpoint, but that would mean Apple would need to allow the headset to work with SteamVR, and that seems very unlikely at this point.
If camera based hand tracking works already, it seems like a Bluetooth controller wouldn't be that hard to add in after the fact. Didn't PSVR just use a single camera and a glowing orb?
At 1:31:50 in the Keynote video they mention “Bluetooth accessories like Magic Trackpad and Magic Keyboard” and show those on a table and a person typing on the keyboard. I don’t believe the cursor of the trackpad is shown (but I’m on my phone and my eyes aren’t as good as they used to be!). I bet it’ll work like on iPadOS.
1) Console controls are not a suitable alternative to proper VR controllers
2) What makes you think the PS5 controller was connected to the headset, and not the headset being used as a TV showing the output of a PS5?
Re: 2, they showed it being used to play Apple Arcade games and since they already have support for that it’s unlikely that they have deep philosophical objections.
Re: 1, it’ll be interesting to see how well the camera system works in practice. All of the reviews are quite positive about precise movements so it might be that they’re throwing hardware at this problem but I’d also be surprised if they were not very carefully tracking performance – if the accuracy isn’t there, it’d take an unusually un-Apple like product manager to risk a billion dollar investment rather than enable that class of device.
Using controllers isn't about accuracy, it's about occlusion and haptics.
Using only gestures means no haptic feedback and it gets de-synced as soon as the camera can't see what you're doing.
Take Apples gestures for example (e.g. tap your thumb and index finger together to click). As soon as your hand is rotated in such a way that your own fingers are hidden from the camera, you actions stop being applied. This will also happen should one hand cross the other, or resting your arms down while standing, or reaching up for something, or even resting on a couch with your knee up.
It supports Bluetooth input. I wonder if the visual tracking system that tracks the hands is so good that it could accurately track controllers. Then third party motion controllers could be relatively cheap and plentiful.
Assuming it could run Virtual Desktop, there’s your Half Life Alyx in ultra high res.
I agree that keyboard and mouse is superior, but as a grown-up with a family, it's rather infeasible. The Steam Deck has been great; I actually play a game for 30 minutes maybe twice a week. I'm hesitant to even try keyboard and mouse on some games because it will spoil the experience with a controller. When I have the rare luxury of a free evening alone at my desktop, I'm more likely to play VR.
having a virtual screen that is way bigger than the space you are in is a huge selling point for me. I'm more interested in this than VR stuff honestly.
if it was under 1k usd I would probably pick one up for work. maybe give it a few more years.
Gaming can't be good, because there's no controllers. Even if the hand and eye tracking is absolutely S-tier, you're never getting something like button input from swinging your empty hands around, twitching your fingers. Just the occlusion from the back of your hand would be enough enough for that to be impossible.
Fitness might be more doable, but even then I think you're going to be very limited with hand tracking only. I think there's a reason why Apple skipped over those segments almost entirely.
EDIT: I meant "VR" controllers, as in things that are tracked in 3d space. Of course you can use a game pad or MKB, but that kinda misses the point of being in VR in the first place.