Very nice project.
A feature suggestion: add context variables (${file}, ${fileBasename}, ${workspaceFolder}) so that I can run external commands on the opened file.
The dynamics between the person in front of the camera and the spectator sure are interesting with all this "social media" we are surrounded by. What a strange world we live in.
It’s one of the main reasons I don’t use mainstream social media. It has always irked me how on the one hand people are unknowingly being used as laughingstock, but on the other hand users are unknowingly wasting their attention on making a platform billions, and making some questionable people millionaires.
Very cool visuals and site!
Could I make a suggestion:
You show the masses (1,1,1), but not the starting positions, which alter the course of events too.
If you're going to update that frequently, you may want to consider something that allows for cooldown like this [1]. I've gotten more nervous about supply-chain attacks over the last few months.
FB's main monorepo was named WWW, and you needed to refer to it every 5 minutes, so everyone pronounced it "dub-dub-dub". A surprisingly hard habit to break once you leave their employment
Apple’s strategic position is to be the main device by which apps and AI can gain access to end users. This puts them in a nice position to charge a toll on everything that passes through their device. Now if someone were to come out with a new type of device and a new paradigm that could disrupt iPhone as the main device, Apple would be in trouble.
Not long ago, Zuck seemed really confident about metaverse/AR/VR. Apple took the disruption threat seriously and countered with AVP. Now it looks like metaverse flopped. I suspect the priority of AVP has gone down inside Apple accordingly.
Hadn't the Metaverse already well and truly flopped before the AVP came out? It's a cool device, but when it was released I felt like Apple was a couple years late and 3499 dollars short.
Interesting view, but not quite. The Big Changes in computing happen when both the mode of access, the demographic, and the primary use case change. So historically computing evolved from corporate server + batch -> real time "personal" scientific and technical -> mass market commodified PC for business and gaming -> social media, entertainment, and 'personal bureaucracy' (tickets, bank statements, and such) on mobile.
At each step the tech gets smaller and more physically accessible, the use case gets more interactive and less demanding and serious, and the demographic gets wider and less technically educated.
Apple owned a huge part of the last change with the iPhone.
What's the next step in the series?
Clearly it's not a huge device you strap to your face.
But it's also not an easy question to answer. What is the next step after social media?
From a software POV it's AI, but where's the matching hardware? The next gen has to be even smaller, multimodal, but still physically interactive, likely always on.
Glasses are the closest, but not there yet.
So I think we're still in the early Nokia mobile stage. The concept exists and the current tech is beginning to be workable, but the gamechanger refinement and perfection of the concept is still a way off.
It’s definitely glasses. Once you try any even low res HUD glasses like the Vuzix Z100, or even the Vision Pro, you might realize how annoying it is that phones, tablets, and even books subtly force you to look downwards all day.
There’s no reason I shouldn’t be able to for example take a stroll in the park and read my email, song lyrics, etc.. without craning my neck downwards or holding my phone right in front of my face. The content should just be where my eyes are looking. Even laying on the couch to watch a movie is annoying when you have to hold your arm up and shift the balance of your iPad all the time to stop getting tired. Just put it in front of me. For input, I favor a ring you can scroll and squeeze.
I’ve thought about hanging a book-holder from the ceiling by a string for this reason. Maybe a ton of helium or a quiet drone would work too. I think thats’ the frontier..having our current setups but just floating around us.
The tech is workable. The issue is the AVP is heavy and big. So I'd say we're still at the Motorola brick phone not even the Nokia stage yet. Shrink the AVP down to glasses size and I'll agree on the Nokia analogy.
I’d argue the fact that the hardware is still big and clunky means the tech isn’t workable. If it was about as light and easy to get on and off as a chunky pair of ski-goggles I think they’d have been onto something, but big and heavy with no “killer app” or feature makes it a tough sell.
VR gaming is a niche even among hardcore gamers. There’s some value in spatial computing for just being a more ergonomic way to do computer stuff (i.e. not being in a fixed position all day, being able to walk around while you work) but it’d need to be able to hit everything a Mac can do with no compromises to be worth it at that price (and at the cost of making you look goofy). So far it seems like it’s only found real utility in some very specific industrial and scientific research contexts, which is very cool but probably isn’t the lane a mass market consumer products manufacturer wants as their play long-term.
I agree with you, but the critical thing about AVP (just like iPhone, just like iPod, just like Mac) is the user interface. The device is just hardware to deliver the UI.
Apple’s UI work on AVP is under-appreciated. It’s been improving over the years, as real usage showed the need for things like shared world anchors and coordinates, prediction for pose estimation, etc.
The hardware isn’t ready yet. At this point I half-think the UI won’t be truly real until we have BCI (brain-computer interface for the offended party above). But it may well take a decade to really land what an always-on, sometimes-invisible AR UI looks like and how it works.
I found the AVP UI work to be bad honestly. I walked right up to a surface to touch it, you can't. Holding my eyes still so it registers what I'm looking at, not what I'm touching, was horrible and super unintuitive.
Everything has to be half the size or less, 3-4 times faster use less power etc… plus an even better more integrated operating system, not just with the device itself, but with the whole family of Apple devices, ecosystems and there are no shortcuts to get there and the cost will be the cost.
Maybe but Apple doesn’t really have to worry because Meta basically is a website company, operating systems and high end hardware are beyond them (and no you can’t buy your way in there are no shortcuts not at that level), but the Apple Vision has its own problems.
The processors have to be what? Three or four times faster and the battery life has to be at the level of a MacBook Pro with everything squeezed into a device half its current size how many years away is that 3-4 years? And don’t forget the accessory processors that Apple designed specifically for that Vision Pro.
Are smart glasses not the modern, practical implementation of the metaverse. I don’t think Meta were banking on games and low-poly avatars for their next generation of revenue, it was more about building (and then — hold onto your lunch please — monetizing) new forms of social connectivity. The only difference is that your permanent social camera went from being in-game to in-reality.
They failed to come up with a strong selling point. Health is the big seller for Apple Watch. But AVP, at its price point, needs something better than "well you can watch movies on a big screen or work in a café while looking silly".
It absolutely failed to justify its price point IMHO. If it were affordable people would be finding uses for it, but when it is that expensive you basically need a business justification for buying one. That means you won't have a hobbyist community finding new and interesting things to do with it.
This leaves Apple and maybe a handful of subsidized third parties as the only people making applications for it, which is pretty much a guarantee that it will remain a tiny niche industry.
This, 100%. The only other headset I was aware of even remotely in AVP's price zip code was the Valve Index, priced at $999 and the AVP was three times that.
And even then I proooobably would've been able to justify it? But no external connectivity at all just sank it for me. Like if it had a DP port on it so I could hook it up to a gaming PC, I would've probably at least picked one up second-hand, possibly even new when my bonus hit but 3 large for... what? Email in my house? Movies shown in a way that makes it damn hard to eat popcorn?
As someone else said, it’s a developer kit. It was supply constrained and priced accordingly. IMO it was a mistake to not just call it a developer’s kit, abd promoting it as a consumer product was just weird.
But I guess the downside of the DK approach is it means telling developers when the “real” device will ship, which I’m not sure anyone knows.
As you note, the concept of a developer kit for a product that doesn't exist makes little sense. Why would I as a company spend the time and money developing for a product that isn't even on the roadmap?
But remember health was a small thing when the watch was launched. Then the focus was on notifications, communications etc. Fitness was more of a ”oh and it also tracks your heart rate”
I have no interest in using a headset in public or doing work on one.
Watching movies on a big screen would be interesting, but they still do not sell the device in my country in Europe, so I had no way to demo it and judge whether the quality is adequate for a home theater experience.
As a medical device for the vision impaired, AVP has a built-in audience that is used to paying top dollar, especially if paying means just a co-pay. It also eliminates popular disquiet about improper recording--no one will complain about a device that helps the vision impaired get around. Why neither Apple nor Meta went down this path is inexplicable.
I'm partially sighted. I've yet to see an AVP demo that made me want to try one out as an access tool. In fact, everything I've seen so far suggested it would be a hinderance. Can you suggest how it could help? What am I missing?
(I accept, I could book a demo at an Apple Store...)
I think they're kind of saying that's the problem, that intuitively having a screen inches from your face displaying things that are further away in decent detail, with things like contrast and saturation and brightness color palettes being modifiable should have some obvious possibilities for people with limited vision - but Apple wasn't interested in developing for and demonstrating these options.
I'm near-sighted, so I can see how magic glasses that let me focus on everything as if it's six inches away could be nice. That being said, normal prescription glasses work very well for my particular vision impairment, and "You only have to buy glasses once more ever, but they're $3000, weigh over a pound, and need to be recharged" isn't a great value proposition for my needs, but it doesn't take much imagination to figure that being able to toggle even just dark, high contrast, or colorblind modes irl would be nice for some people. Not worth it for me, but possibly for others.
Apple never goes all in for gaming. They are more than happy to base most of its software revrnue on Skinner boxes, but otherwise it feels like it wants little to do with games.
Every 4-5 years they need something to show off their tech and they begrudgingly look to gaming studios to provide some demos for them. They get the demos, get some hype, then put it straight back into the box. Devs move on because they know their audience isn't there anyway. Rinse and repeat. This last time was to help show off their unified architecture with AAA games running on an IPad.
Seriously, this (and pron) is the only use case that will appeal to the mass market for a single user, un-shareable, stupid looking, immersive thing like this.
For nice hardware with hardly any content, not making huge strides to get existing VR content on it was a terrible strategy. And Apple can afford to just buy one of the bigger players to get content too.
I think the lack of a AppleVision non-pro that was just some really good screens and a battery, hooked up to your iPhone/MBA/MBP for use as an immersive display was a miss. I tried the AVP but realized I didn't want/need to strap a Macbook to my face: I have a computing device, I just wanted the display.
Scrap the passthrough cameras, the LCD eyes, and all that complexity.
Yeah? It's just a display for sitting on the couch or in an airplane, watching videos or viewing a huge virtual desktop. Scrapping the cameras would save a ton on size, BOM, and complexity. Basically a "Pimax Dream Air" formfactor.
I'd love the ability to have AVP immersion with my MBP on a flight, and combined with Airpods, you'd be able to block out everything. I don't need to walk around and wouldn't need to interact through it. It's like transparency for Airpods: an overengineered alternative to just taking an airpod out (or in this case, lifting the headset up).
Not if you’re driving it from your iPhone or MacBook. You’ll still need chips, but certainly not a M series processor, coprocessor, tons of storage, etc.
> Expensive boutique manufacturer that basically catered to a niche audience of media professionals.
As much true back then, as it is in 2026, with the added category of some GNU/Linux users buying shiny hardware and then complaining macOS UNIX implementation doesn't overlap with GNU/Linux, beyond regular POSIX.
Seriously? They were tiny, media production niche, crazily priced machines 30 years ago. Almost zero marketshare or mindshare, and most people (in e.g. EU) didn't even know anyone who owned a Mac.
Yes, it was pretty much Atari, Commodore, Acorn and PC over here, plus some lesser known brands, like MSX on Netherlands.
However even today, if you go to the European countries less fortunate with their economies, having anything Apple is usually obtained via credit, or some contract bundling, for example with the cable or Internet operator, naturally bound to a minimal duration of 24 to 36 months contract.
Not something like in US and countries with similar economies where most people don't think twice to get Apple gear, and quickly pre-order new gear after each couple of new product announcements.
> However even today, if you go to the European countries less fortunate with their economies, having anything Apple is usually obtained via credit, or some contract bundling
Given how many iPhones I've noticed suddenly showed up in hands of regular people, including teenagers, in the last couple years in Poland, I imagine there's healthy second-hand/used devices market going too. iPhones have reputation of being long lasting devices (battery shenanigans notwithstanding), maybe the reputation is true.
Not exclusively so. They were 'big' in some schools with their original Apple 2 lines. Even looked good, considering the later models. By school I mean anything between grade 5 and 13.
Microsoft certainly did throw Apple a $150MM lifeline that was sorely needed, else they were looking at bankruptcy within weeks. I would say that "saved" them.
Commodore, Acorn, Arm Holding, SGI, Sun, and Next were relatively small compared to the Wintel juggernaut, but this did not imply that the technology driving them was inferior. In fact, much of it was superior.
What likely saved Apple was the fact that despite undergoing three CEOs, they did not squander the $150 million settlement with Microsoft.
But they still had sufficient funds, equivalent to $2 billion at today’s value, to continue their operations. They also had a team of highly skilled individuals who went on to develop a new operating system, OSX, and build computers with G3, G4 processors. They have also released new iMacs, Mac laptops, and Mac desktop computers to the public.
Does this imply that with $2 billion today, plus or minus $1 billion, one can achieve all these accomplishments and grow into a large technology company? It seems like an unlikely long-shot that Microsoft saved Apple.
In hindsight, it appears that Apple had some exceptionally talented individuals, certainty more talented than the group at Microsoft and Intel.
Because both Microsoft and Intel, in hindsight, sat on their laurels for the better part of two decades.
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this did not imply that the technology driving them was inferior
Does this imply that with $2 billion today, plus or minus $1 billion, one can achieve all these accomplishments and grow into a large technology company?
You're the only one implying those things!
It seems like an unlikely long-shot that Microsoft saved Apple.
Why unlikely? They got into financial trouble due to bad decisions. They needed a bail-out from a former arch-rival to dodge bankruptcy. They eventually achieved huge success due to better decisions. There's nothing contradictory there.
If that’s true, then someone else should catch up real quick is gonna have to have Apple Silicon and at least two operating systems in house I do believe one other company will come up, but you’re not gonna like the part of the world they come from.
Apple Silicon was autopilot. Or more specifically the insanely cool decision happened under Jobs, and everything else is just coasting (i.e. repeating the same business success again and again without taking very many risks). Their first custom core design was the A6 in 2012, a year after his death, but they bought the team that made the design (P.A. Semi) in 2008. It took the team about a decade and change to scale up to something that could power a laptop, but the decision was made very early on and was specifically part of the same set of decisions that Apple has been coasting off of ever since. If Apple hadn't bought its own chip design firm they likely wouldn't have remained competitive long-term, in the same way that their computers got really uncompetitive for a few years before every major architectural transition.
Unless by "Apple Silicon" you specifically meant "the decision to transition from x86 to ARM". There is actual work there, but not a lot of risk. Apple famously maintained an internal x86 port of Mac OS X for years after Rhapsody was shitcanned and renamed "Mac OS X Server", so doing the same with ARM isn't that worse. iOS was derived from OSX; and just having iOS already up and running on ARM is already a good deal of the way towards a macOS port to ARM. In fact, it got easier as iOS got more technology hand-me-downs from macOS.
Especially when combined with competitors' bad decisions. A lot of the stuff Microsoft pulled with Windows 10 and 11 made the Mac platform look attractive.
"When I started learning Emacs, my dad gave me his .emacs file. (That's what we used back in ye olden days instead of .emacs.d/init.el and stuff.) I used it without modification for many years. Eventually I learned how to write my own functions and customizations. This package aims to give other users a similar experience. When someone comes to me and expresses their desire to learn Emacs, I can point them at this to help them get over the initial hump, but not coddle them so much that they're afraid or unable to change things to their liking."
I feel the same way. I don't like or dislike Stallman, and certainly disagree with him on a lot of stuff, but I can appreciate what he stands for and for GNU in general.
I love Elpaca! The built-in package management story has gotten so much better in the past 10 years, but Elpaca is so, so good. My personal config is kinda the antithesis of Bedrock—it's bloated, slow, and uses over 100 packages. Elpaca handles installing/updating/managing those like a charm, however.
I kept Elpaca out of Bedrock because I wanted a strictly built-ins-first experience, but if anyone asks what I use when they outgrow package.el, Elpaca is my first and only recommendation.
I've done use-package, straight, quelpa, tried elpaca a few years back when the hype grew and it was a buggy mess, back to use-package when it was merged into core. I'm tired boss. There's a little too much churn I feel these days.
I dislike the default package management system, but until a better one is merged into core, I'll keep updating my packages manually once a year when I remember.
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