I currently have no use for spatial photos, can’t justify the price of the Vision Pro headset, and really don’t have a reason to have strong motivation.
Looking back at old family photos, I see sepia from my parents, faded from when I was a kid, and low rez/faded even from when my kids were little, looking across that timeline, the march of technology is clear. Older photos are noticeably older (even when not printed).
However I have a phone that can take spatial pictures and has extra storage, and I just had to raise my iCloud storage. Assuming spatial photos and videos becomes commonplace, it will be another noticeable jump in photo technology. Reviewers of the Vision Pro rave about them
Do you think
- spatial photos will become common/normal, or are just a fad like 3D tv?
- is there a standard format or is it Apple specific?
- it’s worth getting a jump on the technology for personal photos, even without a use yet? Presumably I will have a use at such time as I look back on personal photos
It’s a fad for now, I think, but it doesn’t make them worthless. We’d need more ways to view them other than just a $4000 headset and tiny display (Looking Glass) to make them mainstream. Personally I don’t see that happening for another decade at least
“looking Glass” looks like a pretty cool idea. I was definitely tempted but a little too steep for me
$4000 headset?
I thought I read that the vision pro with a warranty is $4000? I have no interest regardless of the price so I haven’t looked into it at all and could be wrong
Tbh until today I thought it was $1800 for some reason. I just learned it was actually $3500 and you are correct about $4000 if you add 2 years of AppleCare+
Currently this is just a gimmick/fad. There’s been no end of special photography/movie formats that required special headset viewers in the past and no matter how much attention they got at the time they ultimately failed to stick around due to this requirement. Consider these examples from three different centuries:
I struggle to see what’s different with the vision pro for this use case today. No matter how well it works, the headset requirement will relegate it to a novelty/fad.
There’s two differences which are notable.
You can capture them with your phone.
And they can be viewed by everyone without the headset as normal video.
Right now it’s only spatial videos, not photos, fyi.
I am a VR enthusiast, and own a Vision Pro already, so my opinion is obviously biased in its favor.
That out of the way, being able to take a spatial video on the go and relive it in headset is mind-blowing. Taking videos at concerts and drag shows has been my favorite so far but even just little memories feel grounded.
I have lots of footage of my dog playing at the beach that makes me wish I had this technology before I lost pets from the past.
The video format is handled in a way that if you aren’t using a headset it just plays back as 2D video and anything that could play video from your phone before can handle it.
The only downside is that it is resolution and frame rate limited, so if you really don’t think you ever will view them in a headset then you’re making a trade off for no reason. 1080 at 30 is what it’s captured at.
For me I never used to take videos or panoramas because I wouldn’t view them again after. This tech makes it so I will and I do, so it’s not a trade off, it’s just a benefit.
Maybe I’ll play with it a bit, but I actually don’t take much video because I’d never watch it. “Live Photos” were a perfect feature for me because it give just emotional go movement to look more alive while still being “just a photo” that I might look at