A fuck of a lot better than HomePod, LOL!

(Context: I have 2 Apple TV devices and 5 HomePod devices in my home, plus one Apple Vision Pro. I only like one of those more than my Pixel 9 Fold.)

The problem isn't that Vision Pro is a bad product. The problem is that it's built for a bad thesis. People don't want VR/AR goggles very much, or at least not many people do, and I think eventually we will stop trying to make this happen.

VR/AR has niche applications: gaming, industrial and military AR uses, assistive uses with people who are mobility challenged, education. These are niche uses. Even gaming is a niche-- most gamers have demonstrated that a big-ass monitor is preferred over goggles. Making the goggles better may push this a little but I doubt it's going to lead to a landslide of gaming demand.

VR/AR was largely a feature of dystopian sci-fi for a reason, too. Everyone jacking into goggles is dystopian. It's something that would appeal to people if the world got so shitty that you just don't even want to see what's in front of you, but I'd rather us spend our engineering effort making the world not get like that by solving some of our real world problems. I don't think I'm alone here.

It might be a good idea for long duration space flight, but personally if I were on a ship on the way to Mars I'd rather read books or hang with my ship mates and talk about the problems we're going to face when we land. If I decided to go into space I'd rather experience life in space -- including the boring parts and the hard parts -- than jack into some kind of VR escape world. I could do that at home.

He was a great designer with low business acumen (without Jobs).

His realm at Apple began crumbling when he executed a flawed strategy for the Apple watch launch as a fashion item, instead of a technology product geared toward health (Fitbit was 1st). It costed Apple 25M, and seemed like buying advertising from influencers (similar to 23andme launch).

I usually value this youtuber's insights, but he has recently been reaching the wrong conclusions: https://youtu.be/JUG1PlqAUJk?si=_Y87UQGdhIo92a7r&t=469

You tell me, was the iPhone innovative?

If apple would make them less fussy, flaky and maybe let them just work without you managing them - would this already a good reason to exist?

I think this is something apple done right in the past. Like holding your new AirPods just beside your phone and the phone recognizes them.

Anything more than air, water, shelter, food, and companionship is trivial.

I want to live like I'm in Star Trek. The good Trek, not the new stuff.

So when I wake up to pee in the middle of the night because I'm an old man my bathroom light turns on, dimmed to its lowest level, upon detecting my presence in the bathroom. I do my business and stumble back to bed and the light turns itself off.

When I leave home my front door locks, and when I pull into the driveway it unlocks. Also if the sun has set, the driveway, front porch, and foyer lights turn on.

When I say "hey Siri, it's movie time" my projector turns on, the lights dim, and if music is playing elsewhere it stops.

One day I was on the road for work and a package was unexpectedly delivered. I texted my neighbor to put it in my garage and opened my garage door from 2,700 miles away. When they replied that it was safe from the rain, I closed it.

Triviality. Beautiful, glorious, triviality.

I love it.

Apple and everyone else has agree to Matter.

But no one is going to buy an Apple home device if they aren’t already in the Apple ecosystem.

Besides, Amazon, Google and even Apple services are all cross platform. While there isn’t an iCloud app for Android, there is one for Windows.

I wonder if it might be useful if you had a phone, a tablet and one or two other form factors - but when you rub your finger on the detector, it loads your environment.

but I can't imagine having to wait to use my phone or tablet. maybe the living room TV or the kitchen assistant.

I don't know if this is still the case but the last time I saw this discussion, someone with experience using the "shared iPad" education feature said it seemed like a massive hack, and switching users was seemingly implemented by "seamlessly" doing a full reset of the iPad to the new user, taking a bunch of time to backup the old user and restore the new one, nothing like a quick user switch on macOS, and nothing you'd want to use as a family handing an iPad back and forth.