[Original title] The Apple Vision Pro’s Killer App Is … Kitchen Timers?
On February 5, Apple The company finally let a few people try out Apple Vision Pro, the most daring and innovative masterpiece since the launch of the iPhone in 2007. This device, known as "space computer", is by no means an ordinary virtual reality（ VR ）Head display.
Although Apple Vision Pro sold for up to $3499, bookings were snapped up in just a few minutes. According to industry estimates, its sales volume has reached 200000 units before consumers have the opportunity to experience them personally. There is no doubt that Apple Vision Pro has become the focus of the technology world.
However, the reality is always full of surprises. You can't believe that the killer application of this cutting-edge technology product is the kitchen timer 。
Kitchen virtual timer explodes
The kitchen timers of Apple Vision Pro are like those smart notes pasted on pots and pans, but unlike real notes, they will never fall into delicious soup, nor will they cause fire, because they only exist in the virtual world.
This is the unique opinion of Joanna Stern, a senior technology columnist of the Wall Street Journal. She recently wore Apple Vision Pro， He proved that he was more courageous than 98% of science and technology journalists.
She excitedly shared: "One of the coolest things I do with Apple Vision Pro is cooking. I can set a virtual timer in the kitchen and hover over the pot. At that moment, I seemed to see the future."
What makes people laugh and cry most is that what Stern said is true. Cooking is really a highlight of Apple Vision Pro in real applications, although it may get dirty in the kitchen.
Thanks to its precise space tracking technology, Apple Vision Pro allows people to create virtual hover timers. Whether you turn your head to check the stock price or interact with the augmented reality (AR) dinosaur, the timer will stay in place steadily. Or, you can use it to do anything that makes you feel that it's worth more than $3500.
David Paul Morris, a technology journalist, spent several hours studying in depth the impact of pioneers like Stern on Apple Vision Pro feedback. This device is undoubtedly very attractive. But what is frustrating is that people always seem to focus on the kitchen timer. Morris felt that we were trapped in a technological purgatory with the theme of kitchen timers, and the way to escape seemed far away.
Kitchen timer: the cycle of technology
At the beginning of 2008, Morris set foot on the road of full-time science and technology reporter. At that time, he might not have foreseen the collapse of Lehman Brothers and a series of financial storms that followed six months later. However, it was also in that year that Android was born.
Prior to this, Morris had struggled in the mobile game industry. His daily job is to search for Java games on feature phones for publishers, and then sell them to British mobile networks. Occasionally, he also writes point of sale marketing copy for the 200kb Lego Batman game. For people like him, the rise of app stores is undoubtedly a revolution, which makes people happy.
However, after the carnival, what did we usher in? Smart watches were once expected to be the next outlet of mobile technology, just like smart phones. But the result? All we got was a kitchen timer.
MacSparky's audience is more concerned about technology products than most people. According to a survey conducted by the website in 2023, the timer function has become the most common use of Apple watches so far. The mobile life center of Stockholm University also pointed out in a 2016 study called "Vivo Smart Watch" that kitchen timers are one of the key ways for this technology to enter people's lives.
This research vividly described a scene: "A couple was cooking, and one of them was grinding cheese. It only took a few seconds for the cheese to be ground, but in this short moment, another person's watch rang the alarm clock. The watch wearer looked at the watch, lifted the alarm, and then quickly removed the pan of cooked pasta from the fire. The watch alarm clock is so elegantly integrated into the cooking process that it hardly causes any interference. "
Bubble and reality of Internet of Things
About 2015, we witnessed the rise of the so-called "Internet of Things Revolution". For a while, "Internet of Things" has become a popular word in the mainstream media, and its frequency is almost comparable to today's "artificial intelligence".
"Life will never be the same as before", which was an implicit message at that time, but there was no real clear reason to support it. In practice, for consumers, the Internet of Things just means that Amazon's Echo smart speakers are full of people's homes, and they are mainly used as kitchen timers.
According to a study conducted by Experian in 2016, the two features of Amazon Echo are the most frequently used. The timer function still ranks first, with 84.9% of users using it. "Play a song" ranked second, accounting for 82.4%.
Of course, the Internet of Things has now been integrated into urban infrastructure, helping to improve agricultural efficiency and other application scenarios. However, technology giants like Apple have been looking for the "next big thing" in the field of consumer technology. If Apple If Vision Pro is reduced to kitchen timer again, it may become synonymous with this function.
Maybe Apple has always known this. After all, Apple will not really enter the era of multi timer concurrency until iOS 17, which is released in September 2023. Science and technology critics also have some responsibility in this regard, because they have overemphasized the comparison between Siri and Alexa, and criticized Siri for not judging the cooking time of sausage and potato at the same time, as if this is the key criterion for measuring technical achievements.
Executive office tools?
In addition to the kitchen timer, let's further discuss the practical application of this high-profile technology product in the office scene. Apple expects us to believe that spatial computing will become a new frontier in our work. However, when we study its practical application in depth, we find that all these do not seem so convincing.
Apple Vision Pro controls by touching with the thumb and forefinger, which is an impressive technology. However, in actual work, whether this operation mode is practical is questionable. As Marques Brownlee, a technology expert on YouTube, said, "The biggest challenge is whether you can accurately control the content you see. For us, who are used to traditional computers and user interfaces, this new way of interaction takes time to adapt."
When we look forward to the future office scene like that in the Minority Report, the reality makes us feel a kind of mandatory single task constraint. For users with certain technical literacy, they may find that working with Apple Vision Pro is not as efficient as expected.
In terms of input, users can only use their index fingers to type, which makes us seem to return to the basic stage of learning typing. Most users may choose to give up this virtual keyboard and connect it to the real keyboard to improve work efficiency.
For those workers who are used to communicating with others or speaking loudly in meetings, Apple It seems that Vision Pro is more difficult to become a real working device. The problem is that the use of this head display may remind users of the convenience of those kitchen timers.
"Terror Valley" effect
In the process of setting up Vision Pro, users need to create a "character", that is, their own virtual image. This image, based on the user's facial features, is displayed on the dim OLED panel outside the head display for viewing by people around. However, there is a huge gap between actual results and expectations. As Brownlie said: "It doesn't look like the eyes in advertisements at all."
During the video call, the simulation effect of the user's own face also makes people feel as if they are in the Valley of Terror. This image is a bit like a PS3 level game character, but it seems to be different from the real self. From the perspective of publicity, it is easy for Apple to make us believe that Vision Pro can capture users' facial expressions in real time, but in fact, it only converts the static facial expressions captured previously into animation. Perhaps these animations were captured months or years ago.
This is not just a simple animation effect, it is closer to the popular facial filter on Instagram. However, this is not a pleasant prospect for the future. Imagine that we are addicted to reading poor books written by artificial intelligence and communicating with strange animations of friends who no longer meet us, while the melting of the polar ice sheet has flooded our homes. This scene makes people want to return to the era of simple kitchen timers.
Applause for Apple engineers
When we talk about Apple Vision Pro, should we quote that classic metaphor and call it "the emperor's new clothes"? From a technical point of view, this is not accurate. Vision Pro has really made incredible achievements in some aspects.
First of all, the visual clarity of its micro OLED display has reached 60 pixels per degree (60 PPD), which is already extremely high. This is basically an upgraded version of Apple's retina display in the field of VR head display. Since 2010, this display has been a benchmark for the screen quality of mobile phones and tablets.
This is why when you heard that Vision Pro can present the "4K screen" effect, you didn't mention the actual size of the screen. The actual resolution of this virtual screen depends on the display size you set. But for individual users, the clarity of 60 PPD is almost the same as that of ordinary people, so the impact is not significant.
According to the data provided by Apple, we speculate that the resolution of each eye of Vision Pro is about 3280 x 3508 pixels, and the total resolution is 6560 x 3508 pixels, which is undoubtedly excellent.
However, what is more impressive is the perspective function of Vision Pro, that is, the view of the actual environment around you. Compared with GoPro's performance in low light environment, it is no inferior. In a weak light environment, the quality of mobile video is often unsatisfactory, while Meta Quest 3's perspective function performs poorly in all aspects. However, Vision Pro can show amazing perspective effect.
The Vision Pro external camera must provide 90 frames of image data per second. At a high frame rate, it is more difficult for the camera to shoot in a weak light environment. Of course, in Joanna Stern's dark kitchen, the perspective effect of this product may not be comparable to that of Marquis Brownley's studio. But even in such an environment, the performance of Vision Pro is absolutely satisfactory.
Apple's engineers deserve the credit they deserve. Even if the SLR camera is placed in Vision Before Pro, it was difficult to achieve such effect.
Vision Pro lacks fun
However, following Apple's consistent style, this technology giant does not seem to find much fun in Vision Pro. In order to make us believe that this head display has almost nothing to do with "VR head displays" such as Meta Quest 3 and Quest Pro, Apple deprived us of the opportunity to experience the best VR games ever. At present, no amazing VR games have announced their support for Vision Pro, and even Netflix applications are absent. A Netflix spokesman said: "Our members will be able to watch Netflix on the Vision Pro web browser just as they watch it on the Mac."
In addition, Apple's persistence in high-end hardware is amazing. As the core materials, aluminum magnesium alloy and glass make their weight ratio Meta Quest 3 increased by 26%. That doesn't include the 300g battery you plan to hide in your back pocket, but Apple doesn't seem to want you to consider this before buying.
Apple seems to want us to believe that this hardware is an eternal masterpiece, rather than an outdated product sent to the Museum of Science and Technology Heritage five years later. However, the reality is cruel. People do take Meta Quest for fitness activities, but Daring John Gruber of Fireball said that Vision Pro is not suitable. He wrote: "Apple did not promote Vision Pro from the perspective of fitness. After all, it is too heavy. No one is willing to tie a 650g device to their face. One day, Apple will launch a head display suitable for fitness, but the Vision Pro is obviously not good."
Apple's expectation of Vision Pro is not too high. It only hopes that we can regard its success as a breakthrough, rather than a continuation of the current VR hardware. This is reasonable when Meta's VR department lost billions of dollars. However, it is unclear whether there are enough products that can break through the boundaries of enthusiastic and rich Apple fans and enter the families of ordinary people.
However, don't forget that this is only the first generation Vision Pro. Are we looking forward to the next generation? The answer is yes, just like today's technology industry. Otherwise, how can we continue to pay attention to our watered spaghetti? (small)
