On AR Glasses

full disclosure, I used to work with people on the apple vision pro team. that device was their honest to goodness dream to get out the door in some form.

by now I've had the chance to try out two of these new "ar" headsets. a samsung galaxy xr headset and the (M2) apple vision pro.

the vision pro is, in my mind, spectacular technology that falls short of some usability issues that would make it essential for the blind, for folks who have less room for big screens, for having easy access to an honest to goodness 3D camera.

I like that it can track all of my fingers, that windows can be reshuffled with ease using my eyes as a cursor. every image looks more sharp and well defined than on any screen to my aging eyes. if you've seen the old 80s movie "brainstorm" where images look more "real" than in real life, the way the vision pro's screens, landscapes and windows light up against the real world makes that fantasy real.

yeah the headset is heavy. it also feels fragile and being frank, folks with special needs, especially those who can't see everything that they're doing, aren't going to be the most careful about handling equipment. that's the real dealbreaker, the durability, which is hard to think of how they might adequately address when this kit is horrendously expensive as it is.

now the biggest caveat? developers are more skeptical than ever of building new businesses on apple's storefronts in 2024/5 than they were in 2008 - and they were plenty of skeptics then - so I imagine outside a few vanity projects, nobody really has a huge incentive to write software that really takes advantage of the insane bits that this device can do.

I'm not even sure that apple does when their major money maker is still the iphone with a side of mac. like the ipad ended up being "just" a big iphone, the vision pro feels in some ways like an iphone headset.

the samsung galaxy xr... the first thing I noticed is that the tracking of my fingers wasn't as good as vision pro, might be a software shortcoming to be addressed later. very picky about doing gestures with thumb and forefinger, whereas the vision pro does allow for variations. and the cursor where my eyes are, while welcome, is already an accessibility feature on the vision pro.

the device does feel a bit more durable than the vision pro, although that might just be from the lack of fabric and softer materials used to make it. time will tell if it's better for folks hard of seeing.

youtube on the galaxy xr is... fine? I was a user of the third party youtube client "juno" on the vision pro until it wasn't possible to use much longer. these days I feel like apple devices handle youtube on a browser just fine, and I feel the same about youtube on the galaxy xr.

some videos do have a "180 degree" view that's kind of neat to see on a headset? I feel this way too about "360 videos" and similarly formatted stuff on the vision pro. yes it feels a bit more natural in a headset than in a browser window where you click and drag to see things around you, but the types of videos that youtube tends to host in general don't really benefit from this IMAX-like treatment. just give me a tiny window to put a video in so I can do other stuff on the side. THANKS.

both platforms seem to lean on tablet-like views for apps that aren't made for the headsets. at that point I go back to my previous thesis that those apps might as well have been a website.

I personally thought "vr headsets" as a category were the most ridiculous thing ever, completely at odds with the notion that you and I should be going outside, taking walks, enjoying life and the world that's outside. now I feel like there's potential, though the easiest pitch to make within a big technology company is to sell this as a more interactive television. well, aren't all things?

this is a product category that takes massive amounts of money to move forward, heralded by folks who don't really need to believe in this beyond a suggestion for what's next after phones. boring.

maybe we'll see things go further in five, ten years if the money's back and the folks doing more experimental bits are allowed to have a seat at the table.

until then, it's a better, more hideously expensive ipad. that's just okay.

Transcript of text messages sent by Interipelli, November 9, 2025