SimulaVR's Reaction to Apple

These guys seem cool, but if you're going to attack Apple, "it runs Apple's locked-down OS!" and "they don't provide hardware specs!" are not the avenues to go with. These are the exact same problems people have been berating Apple for for years/decades, and the market has repeatedly and decisively demonstrated that it doesn't give a shit.

I really feel for George and team. It seems like they&#x27;re quite a ways from a commercial product, far enough so that market leaders are likely to be established by the time they&#x27;d be ready to ship.<p>Critique #1 is about unknown implementation details, and we&#x27;ll know that soon enough. In the meantime, an article on IEEE Spectrum says, &quot;…journalists who’ve tried the device say it’s competitive with other AR&#x2F;VR headsets, which offer a FOV between 100 and 120 degrees. That should place the headset’s pixels per degree around 50 to 70 PPD.&quot;¹<p>Critique #2 talks about the massive ecosystem advantage of the Apple Vision Pro, but I think the thesis — that HMDs will not replace PCs&#x2F;laptops — is the wrong way to think about their value.<p>¹ <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;spectrum.ieee.org&#x2F;apple-vision-pro" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;spectrum.ieee.org&#x2F;apple-vision-pro</a>

&gt; While a premium VR headset built over iOS apps is a step in the right direction, we worry it could seriously hinder the device&#x27;s ability to serve as a true laptop replacement.<p>This remains the holy grail for work focussed headsets. Can I truly replace my laptop with it?<p>It seems the Vision Pro allows you to pair and cast screens, but not replace an entire macbook pro. A disappointment for sure but maybe it will be available in V2, V3, etc.

Simula is really, really interesting to me. The whole time I was watching the Apple presentation, I was thinking about how much I&#x27;d love the spacial computing facet of the Vision Pro but with a Windows or Linux machine so I could actually do things I do regularly.<p>Given that I don&#x27;t use a laptop very much anymore, I&#x27;ve refrained from buying a SimulaVR machine. But I&#x27;m really, really tempted to, and depending on how it evolves I might just yeet it and get one anyway.

&gt;Critique #1: Apple included almost no hard specs on the headset&#x27;s visual capabilities (PPD or FOV).<p>&gt;Critique #2: The Vision Pro seems to be built on top of Apple&#x27;s iPad&#x2F;iPhone ecosystem, which could hinder it from becoming a true PC&#x2F;laptop replacement.<p>These are both indicators and flexes of Apple&#x27;s strengths. Apple doesn&#x27;t want to tell users what the hard specs are on their headset. Not because they&#x27;re trying to deceive the user, but because they don&#x27;t want the user to care. They don&#x27;t want the experience to be hampered by comparisons to other products or considerations of &quot;how real&quot; the experience can be. They want it to be it&#x27;s own experience. An experience where the conversation isn&#x27;t ever &quot;Which programs can I run on this...&quot; or &quot;how fast does it go?&quot; because it&#x27;s holistic. A big confirmation of this is how often Apple compares its products to their predecessors instead of competitor products.

You are mistaken in seeing iOS frameworks as a limitation. It is an advantage! It is the natural fit for the eye tracking and hand gestures because those apps will work flawlessly with no change.<p>You are also mistaken in thinking Mac OS can&#x27;t work with Vision Pro, because it can. Apple has put a trojan horse in Vision Pro by giving us any number of screens we want to use with our Macs. In the future Apple will bundle Mac OS and iOS in Vision Pro. It is the ultimate evolution of computing. This is my prediction. Vision Pro will replace both the iPhone&#x2F;iPad and Mac. All of it can coexist perfectly in Vision Pro.<p>This is what you should do. Copy Apple. Make your headset work with Android. Allow Linux and Windows to also be able to work through the headset with existing computers, by providing virtual screens. In the future you can offer a version of your headset with either Linux or Windows, but Android must definitely be in the first version of your headset. This is the only chance you have.

These guys are out here asking for VC money and a $2700 pre-order price, critiquing Apple for not publishing PPD yet... they don&#x27;t publish expected battery life or weight, probably 2 of the most important specs for a &quot;use for work&quot; wireless VR rig....???<p>If I was advising these founders, I&#x27;d be advising them to do some deep soul searching right now. I can&#x27;t see this going well for them at all, building a niche VR system for the 40% of developers who use linux and at the same time looking for VC funding (implying this will be a scaled business not a lifestyle business) seems like a recipe for disaster.

I&#x27;m stoked that you&#x27;re building this open with Linux! I&#x27;m willing to tolerate a lot of (what&#x27;s the opposite of polish?) but for me it has to be open and workable with my current setup (which is all Linux), and I don&#x27;t want it loaded with privacy invasive analytics. I&#x27;ll put down a lot of money to buy something like that.<p>My advice in no particular order (I know you probably already know all this but I already typed it so I&#x27;ll post it):<p>1. Get something shipping ASAP. This space is rocketing forward now at an electic pace and the ecosystem for the average person is going to get locked behind walled gardens if something open doesn&#x27;t get out there. If it were me I would try to get beta units available soon and let the open source community and early adopters run with this thing while you stabilize&#x2F;polish. Don&#x27;t rush to &quot;stable&quot; too quickly, but also don&#x27;t prevent shipping too long that competitors beat you to the release line.<p>2. When you market this to consumers, don&#x27;t hide the &quot;Linux&quot; part since people like me will be very attracted by that, but don&#x27;t emphasize it either because most people don&#x27;t know what it means. Just describe &quot;computer workstation on your face&quot; rather than &quot;linux machine on your face.&quot;<p>3. Provide factory images so people can hack with the hardware but still escape back to supported territory. If you do this, there will be a ton of open source interest and efforts and they will not only develop awesome apps for you, but they&#x27;ll port a lot of stuff too. If I were you, I&#x27;d be making open source collaboration a huge part of my strategy.<p>4. I would also be looking at things Valve did with the Steam Deck for tips&#x2F;guidance.

&gt;&quot;you won&#x27;t be able to run powerhouse apps from macOS to get your more serious work done&quot;.<p>There&#x27;s nothing to suggest that powerhouse apps won&#x27;t be developed for visionOS. The hardware is capable and at this price point it seems that the point of apple&#x27;s hardware+platform is for the Autodesk&#x2F;Adobe&#x2F;Avids of the world to bring 3D-first workflows to professionals.<p>At the moment we use flat 2D paradigms to design 3D output. The VR era provides developers the opportunity to shed 2D design paradigms and operate directly in the third dimension.<p>If the objective is to just run 2D macOS apps on VR hardware, then VR is nothing more than an expensive novelty. A VR headset can be so much more than an expensive alternative&#x2F;second display.<p>What VR is missing is &quot;Developers developers developers&quot;, and attracting developers requires significant investment and commitment to a platform, not just a product.

A possible issue that came to my mind now: what&#x27;s the weight of these headsets? Compared to glasses, which are lighter, they extend significantly from the vertical axis of the body. I wonder if we&#x27;re going to develop a thick neck and&#x2F;or neck pains instead of carpal tunnels. Nobody is 20 or 30 yo forever.

&gt; In VR you can sit up, lean back, walk or even lay down while you compute…all in a compact form factor that saves on desk space. We believe that in 10 years, nearly every office worker in the developed world will be using VR&#x2F;AR to perform their work.<p>Ummm.. &quot;walk&quot;??<p>Reminds me of that funny Google glass parody video. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=t3TAOYXT840">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=t3TAOYXT840</a>

&gt; we are explicitly building headsets which are meant to 100% replace your PC&#x2F;laptop as your primary working device.<p>This seems like a mistake. I&#x27;d be more intrigued if the vision was for seamless experience across workstations, laptops, phones, vehicles, tablets and kiosks with or without a stylus, and immersive computing with or without a headset.

Great post - got through all important points in a very concise letter. Vision Pro is a <i>super</i> awkward name, but I do like that it forefronts &quot;pro&quot;; VR games that really blow people away without needing a ton of space are a bit far off IMO*, but we are <i>so</i> close to replacing laptops with something that&#x27;s 1000x more convenient and powerful.<p>I hope they&#x27;re able to stick to their ambitious production schedule and they hit the shelves around the same time (early 2024). I&#x27;ve never rooted for any product harder than I am for SimulaVR, and that&#x27;s saying a lot considering my dark days Kickstart-ing video games...<p>*: If you disagree and love your VR games, tell me: how often do you break it out in favor of a traditional monitor? My experience tells me not very often, unless you have a great setup or are into a seated timesink game like Elite Dangerous.

Summary: they give a lot of praise to what Apple showed, and mention two negatives:<p>- “they didn’t give us detailed specs”<p>- “it seems to be tied to the iPhone&#x2F;iPad ecosystem, not the macOS one”<p>Neither of these is certain to be a negative of the product.<p>That, combined with the repeated “we’re looking for investors” makes me wonder whether this company will survive.

&gt; Insanely good text clarity. Higher pixel density (35.5 PPD) than any portable VR headset currently on the market (e.g., 56% higher than the Quest Pro &amp; 220% higher than the Valve Index).<p>I&#x27;d order one right now if I could believe this was good enough for coding. But my only experience with VR is with an HTC Vive XR Elite headset with 1920x1920 per eye, and that turned out not to be nearly good enough to read comfortably at a reasonable font size. I&#x27;m quite willing to be convinced, but apparently the only way to do that now is to be a prospective angel investor in the company and wait for the single review unit to be passed around.

&gt;Insanely good text clarity. Higher pixel density (35.5 PPD) than any portable VR headset currently on the market (e.g., 56% higher than the Quest Pro &amp; 220% higher than the Valve Index).<p>And on the Simula product page:<p>&gt; • 35.5 PPD pixel density (higher than any other portable VR headset on the market)<p>Microsoft Hololens 2: 47 PPD (1)<p>Varjo VR-3: 70 PPD (2)<p>Food for thought.<p>(1) <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.microsoft.com&#x2F;en-us&#x2F;hololens&#x2F;buy" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.microsoft.com&#x2F;en-us&#x2F;hololens&#x2F;buy</a><p>(2) <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;varjo.com&#x2F;products&#x2F;vr-3&#x2F;" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;varjo.com&#x2F;products&#x2F;vr-3&#x2F;</a>

Why position yourself next to Apple and compare yourself to them? I respect that their main value proposition is replacing the PC. That is awesome compared to Oculus which has no value prop. However I suspect Mark would pivot towards work and enterprise more now, but Android is probably a bigger hindrance to work than Apple&#x27;s ecosystem, which I suspect is much closer to macOS. So Simula and others have to position themselves separately from both these big platforms.

The smart way to go would be something like Apple CarPlay, so in three years when the computing device is out of date, you can just use a new computing device to project into your vr headset.<p>Not good if you want people to throw away the old headset and buy a new one, perhaps good if your selling point can be longevity and its associated advantages of cost and environmental friendliness.

Deckard&#x27;s releasing as a response to Apple would be great for Spatial Computing. I&#x27;m not sure if Simula is interested in 3d spatial computing like Apple or is doing 2d spatial computing like 1980&#x27;s text terminals.

No offense, but this thing looks like junk compared to Apple&#x2F;Meta&#x27;s headsets.

these tools are suppose to be about building connections.<p>but they are prohibitive. expensive and require you to operate within a corporate walled garden.<p>it is more about segregation.

LOL they’re fucked

&gt; Simula is raising institutional capital for the mass production of our headsets. We&#x27;re also soliciting angel investors who might be interested in alpha testing our Review Unit headsets (helping us form a bridge to our institutional round). More details on this below.<p>Another one getting pumped with VC money and inevitably going to push this project for an exit.<p>First Bitwarden, then GGML, and now SimulaVR.<p>Not again.