you wouldn’t want like a surprising, like, horrific, gory scene popping up in your virtual world, or like a horrible, like, if a kid’s wearing it, like a horribly inappropriate environment.
So, on the one hand, it, I think, bolsters Apple’s arguments for control.
On the other hand, I feel like something that I’m meant to be totally immersed in, that’s my personal space, you know?
That’s my space.
Even if Apple’s providing me with the technology to give it to me, the idea that I could be in a space that encompasses all of my vision, and I have, ultimately, everything has to go through Apple in order for it to be there, somehow that rings a little differently to me than Apple controlling just what’s on a little platform in front of my face, you know, a platform on my hand or on my monitor.
I can always look away from that, but while I’m living in Apple’s headset world, somehow it bristles a little more for me.
Petey That’s really interesting.
I hadn’t thought about that perspective.
I know Apple said during the announcement that they are very, trying to be thoughtful about privacy, and so I’m expecting this to be the most locked down of any Apple platform.
You know, it’s like you have the Mac on the one side as kind of the most open, and then you have the iPad, iPhone, watch, somewhere the Apple TV is in there, I’m not sure where.
And then, definitely on the extreme side, you’re going to have the Vision Pro.
I have a feeling they will be very restrictive of the types of apps they approve for launch.
It’s not my rosy scenario that I described with my app being approved in just like several hours.
I don’t think it’s going to happen, at least not right away.
I think they’re going to just really hammer developers on making sure that they don’t use certain APIs and whatnot, which is all fine.
The privacy, I like that Apple is kind of aware of privacy, potential problems, although I also don’t applaud them for it that much, because it doesn’t cost them anything to do that.
It’s kind of like what Ben Thompson calls a strategy credit, where it’s aligned with their business model to talk about how much they love fighting on behalf of users in terms of privacy.
So, it’s not like they’re really going out on a limb with this, whatever.
But it’s still good.
It’s still good that they care about it.
It can be good for us and for Apple, right?
Yeah, exactly.
Exactly.
So, I’m not complaining.
But I do think it’s going to make this device pretty locked down compared to what we have on the Mac.
I think you’re right.
But I think I will still have, assuming I end up ever owning one of these and using it, I think I will still have more of an inclination to want control over what I have on that device.
And I can imagine all the motivations people have to jailbreak iPhone devices.
I think the motivation to jailbreak a Vision Pro is going to be huge.
That’s interesting.
There’s obvious pornography type applications that I think Apple has already said they’re not going to support or allow.
Maybe I’m wrong about that.
I don’t know if they’ve said that, but I’m sure you’re right.
They don’t allow that on the phone.
They don’t allow that.
But I bring that up because it’s just the most obvious example of an industry that will fight to get on this device one way or another.
And there are lots of other interests people have, though, that don’t have huge industries with them and they’ll want to whatever, I don’t know, whatever thing it is that somebody figures out how to do.
I guess what I’m getting at is I really think the device, so I don’t mind that, for instance, Apple’s privacy initiative and privacy commitment leads us to a place where technologically apps running on this device can’t access certain things like they can’t access.
Cameras.
Right, the cameras.
They can’t see where your eyes are going.
Things like that, like I can see, I know some people are upset that apps can’t access that, but it’s a level playing field.
It’s the device.
The device decides what the device can do and what software that runs on it can do.
And I think I like the idea that Apple protects customers by making the devices behave in ways that outright block obviously harmful things and empower users to accept things that are questionable, where there could be doubt.
And this is basically the whole idea of on the Mac, you know, I actually don’t think it’s a bad idea that on the Mac you get a little notice that says you downloaded this off the web, are you sure you want to launch it, you know?
And I don’t think it’s a bad idea that Apple has a mechanism that says, that allows developers to submit and then they say we can tell there’s no, as far as we can tell, there’s no malware in here.
But what I think would be a bad idea is if, you know, users had no other choice, like on iPhone, users have no choice.
They can’t say, I have this device, it’s capable of doing things for me.
There’s this person over here who has an app that’s perfect for me, but I can’t install it because Apple didn’t approve it.
No, I think this is such an important distinction to make between the technological, like the, like what APIs can you use on a platform, just period, and the actual human approval of what you can and can’t do.
And those are just worlds different.
You know, like on the Mac, we talk about sandboxing sometime.
That’s like a technical kind of limitation to help apps be as safe as possible in the system.
So they don’t go mucking around with other things on the disk and potentially causing problems from bugs or malware or anything.
And, you know, we can debate the APIs and the exceptions and things like that, but I have no problem with technical like API limitations.
And so like you mentioned in the eye tracking, you’re right, that’ll be a, that’ll be a technical, there’s no API for that, right?
It’s the Apple, they don’t need to use some subjective, you know, judgment of, of an app where it can do that.
It’s just the API doesn’t exist.
That is totally fine.
And I would love for Apple to lean more on those technical limitations than on the, are you approved to even develop for this platform at all?
And it’s really interesting, like when you hadn’t thought about it too much in terms of you would like the headset to be kind of more open because it’s a personal device that you’re, I mean, when you put it on, you don’t see anything except what the device shows you, at least for now, you know, maybe again, 10.
Well, except for the transparency, of course, but yeah, right.
No, but that’s, but that’s, but it’s all fake, right?
I mean, it controls your reality, even, even to the extent that it lets your reality through.
Exactly.
And I think eventually, and I think I said 10, 15 years, something like that, eventually the, we will have devices, headsets that are smaller and that you will just be able to see through, right?
Like more like augmented reality glasses.
And so then that won’t quite apply, but for this, for these initial devices, yeah, they control everything you see.
So I totally get wanting it to be something you feel like you have more control over.
And unfortunately, I guess that’s kind of in contrast to what I said about this spectrum of like openness with Apple platforms, where on the one side you have the Mac and on the other side, I think you have the headset.
And if the headset will eventually replace the Mac, which is kind of like the, I think one of the kind of the goals of like, you know, monitors are obsolete, just put the headset on, then it’s kind of, it’s kind of a conflict.
That’s a problem.
Yeah.
Well, I didn’t expect us to get down the path.
We had it on our list to talk about more about the Apple headset.
And we’re really just talking about this like tangential issue to the headset.
But I think it’s really interesting.
And I think it’s going to be something.
It’s one of these things.
We’re scratching the surface of what’s probably going to be huge discussions, not just with Apple’s headset, but in general, if these things take off, if they become as popular as Apple thinks they’re going to become, it’s going to be societal questions, political questions, you know, government regulation, brave new world, I guess.
Yeah.
And I, like, I’ve been a little bit negative on this, the show, although I’m trying to, I don’t know, I’m trying to be a little bit balanced in it.
But the, I don’t think it’s going to take off.
I really think this is, I think this is dead on arrival.
I really don’t think this is a product that’s going to take off now.
Eventually, maybe they’ll get there.
But it’s no, I don’t think people want this product.
I think it’s going to take off slowly, and it’s going to satisfy a niche, several niche audiences.
I’m just, I’m stating this not as a response, really.
Here’s what it basically, I think we’re setting our, drawing our lines in the sand here, and we’re going to see three years or whatever, what happens.
So here’s my take.
I think it’s going to take off slowly, niche audiences, kind of like the Apple watch.
And then we’re going to find out what it’s actually good for.
And then it’s going to surprise us with the thing that everyone uses it for.
And it might not, and it might not be any of the things yet that have been discussed.
Okay.
I mean, just since we’re putting our cards on the table, I don’t think it takes off.
I do think it finds kind of a nation that, that I think people that can afford the first batch, I think, I think they’re going to love it.
I think it’s technically really well implemented, but I don’t think it’s going to be good for anything in the near term that will attract the mainstream.
So even in three years, this is going to be, it’s going to be like a little blip on Apple’s bottom line.
It’s not going to be like the watch.
Great.
Well, we will find out.
Yeah.
All right.
Well, thanks everyone for listening to the show this week.
Thanks to our sponsor, Revenue Cat.
Talk to you next time, Daniel.
See you then.