This is not the review that I was expecting to write for the Apple Vision Pro.
Last Friday, I took the day off work, and went down to the Apple Store in Polo Park, giddy as a kid on Christmas morning, to pick up my pre-ordered Apple Vision Pro. The demo and walk-through went very well, and I have nothing but praise for the store associate who led me through a basic tour of the AVP’s features. I picked up the eyes-and-hand navigation in no time. I marveled at the technology, declared it worth every penny I had spent, and walked out of the store, bags in hand, feeling on top of the world.
I was told that I was the first person in Manitoba to walk out of that store with an Apple Vision Pro. I wanted to be on the cutting edge of VR and AR. I wanted to be one of the cool kids. I was all set to go.
However.
I am currently at the point where, unless something changes quickly, I will soon be walking back into that same Apple Store, the same bags in hand, with a repackaged Apple Vision Pro and accessories (e.g. a carrying case), to return them all and get my money back.
Why? Well, I’m glad you asked.
I am returning the Apple Vision Pro for one reason and one reason only. During the order process, I scanned a copy of my eyeglasses prescription, since I will be unable to wear my glasses under the face-hugging, ski-mask-like design of the AVP.
When I showed up last Friday to pick up my unit, they cleaned and put my eyeglasses into a machine called a lensometer, which automatically measured my lenses and spit out a code, which then could then use to pull magnetic prescription lenses from the large collection of lenses they have kept in the back of the store, just for the purpose of demos. So, in other words, even though I didn’t have my prescription lenses ready yet, I could still go through the demonstration and walk-through process in store which, as I have said, went swimmingly.
The problem is, that I only have 15 days to return the Apple Vision Pro for a no-questions-asked, full refund. The clock started ticking the moment I left the store. And, as it turns out, my prescription lenses I ordered are currently still sitting in limbo in the United States, and I cannot get a hold of any real, live person at UPS to explain to me why they were unable to deliver them to me today, when they were promised:
All day, I kept refreshing the tracking page, waiting for it to move from “On the Way” to “Out for Delivery.” It never happened. The last status of my order was dated July 13th, showing that my prescription lenses were sitting in a UPS facility in Louisville, Kentucky, where apparently they have been sitting ever since. No word. No updates. No text or email messages with status updates (even though I had set them up).
This is when my nightmare started.
I spent the next few hours this evening trying, in vain, to connect to a real, live human being at UPS who could tell me why my prescription lenses were stuck in limbo. Every time, I landed up in an AI chatbot hell, which sent me in circles.
So I have decided to return my Apple Vision Pro and get my money back, because there is every possibility that my 15-day return window is going to close before I can even use the damn thing! I have assembled it, charged it, and put it on, once—and I can’t see a thing without the corrective lenses I need. I can’t even begin to set it up! The clock is ticking while I essentially have a useless, CA$7,700* paperweight on my hands. And I am getting angry.
Why Apple chose to partner up with UPS to deliver their prescription lenses, and why Apple forces you to order the device and the prescription lenses at the same time, instead of ordering the lenses ahead of time, is something that I do not understand. Maybe once I actually get my hands on my prescription lenses, then I will go back and buy one. But not before.
But I am not going to sit around and wait for UPS to get their shit together, and spring me from AI chatbot jail. I even tried to file a claim, only for it to be rejected, with a reference to the same telephone number with the same AI chatbot I had fought with all evening:
I was quite willing (eager, even) to pay through the nose to be a glorified beta tester for Apple, but not if I can’t even USE the device I bought! This whole sales process is screwed up for people who require prescription lenses, and until it is fixed, they can have their Apple Vision Pro back, and my money can sit in my bank account until they do get their act together. Enough. This is not the level of service I expect from a company like Apple, and the fact they decided to partner with UPS, and their shitty customer service, just blows my mind.
UPDATE Thursday, July 18th, 2024, 9:00 a.m.: My tracking page now looks like this:
Therefore, since I now have absolutely no idea when I can expect my prescription lenses, without which my Apple Vision Pro is useless, tomorrow I will be packing up my device, and returning it to the Apple Store to get a refund within the 15-day, no-questions-asked return period.
UPDATE Thursday, July 18th, 2024, 10:44 a.m.: I have just spent a very frustrating half hour on the phone with the Apple Store in Polo Park, which started by once again being interrogated by an AI chatbot who is pretending to type on a keyboard while telling me to please wait. When I finally got through to a real person, I could not find the original purchase receipt in my email at all, and I had to jump through several hoops in order for them to send me another receipt, which I will be printing off and bringing with me on Friday when I return everything.
I am getting angrier and angrier at this whole experience, and that anger has nothing to do with the specifications of the product itself; it has everything to do with how I am being treated as a customer. UPS gets most of the blame here, although my situation illustrates that Apple might need to rethink how the purchase process might need to be adjusted for people who require prescription lenses.
UPDATE Saturday, July 20th: So, I packed up my Apple Vision Pro and took it back to the Apple Store, where I spoke with both the business manager and the store manager. They told me that they wanted me to take advantage of the full 15-day return window, and therefore would not start the clock until my prescription lenses are released from limbo in Louisville and are in my possession!
Therefore, I took my boxes back home, and now we are working from both sides (mine and the store’s) to figure out why there has been a delay in delivery, and how to fix it. (Please note that all this happened beforethe Crowdstrike outage, which apparently is also affecting UPS. As of this morning, the status on my tracking page is still “The delivery date will be provided as soon as possible,” and they are still stuck in Louisville, Kentucky, where they have been sitting since July 13th.)
UPDATE Tuesday, July 23rd: Well, today UPS updated the tracking page for my prescription lenses to a status of Delay, with the message: “We’re sorry for the inconvenience. If you are the sender, please check with the receiver to confirm delivery. Otherwise, you may start a claim to provide a resolution.” In other words, UPS seems to have lost my lenses.
I once again tried to file a claim, filling out several pages of information on the UPS website, before I once again got the same error message as I did last week, which referred me back to their 1-800 telephone number and AI chatbot hell. After yelling at the chatbot for half an hour (which, apparently, has not been trained on the phrase I WANT TO MAKE A CLAIM), I finally got connected to a real, live human being in the Tracking Department, who referred me on to a woman in the Investigation Department, where I learned that it is now up to the sender (i.e., Apple, or perhaps Zeiss) to start an investigation into what went wrong. So, I have dutifully relayed all the information this women gave me to my contact at the Apple Retail Business office at their Polo Park store.
At this point I am ready to tear my hair out in frustration. It doesn’t help that I have also been fighting with both my bank and Canada Revenue Agency this week, over a mistake which my former financial planner made in 2022, leading to fines I have to pay for all three of the 2022, 2023, and 2024 tax years. This thing with Apple was the cherry on top of a shit sundae, a very bad week overall. But I digress.
So far, this has been a horrible customer service experience, easily the worst one since I tried to get my Valve Index VR headset repaired when it broke. As a result of that experience, I swore that I would never, EVER purchase a Valve Index VR headset for the virtual reality lab project I am currently working on for the University of Manitoba Libraries, because even though I like the Valve Index hardware, God help you if anything should go wrong, and you have to try and get support for a problem, or (God forbid) you want to talk to an actual person about the problem you are having.
Valve’s entire support system is set up to hinder, not help you, and keep you from talking a real person, much like the UPS setup (and, for that matter, the Canada Revenue Service). I might be able to forgive, but I will not forget, and my current experience with Apple, Zeiss, and UPS, is shaping up to be similar to my Valve Index debacle. (I note with a feeling of harsh satisfaction that my blogpost outlining my nightmare support experience with Valve shows up in the first page of Google search results when you search on “valve index support.” At least, it does for me. Your mileage may vary.)
You give Auntie Ryan a poor customer service experience, trust and believe that everybody will hear about it, sweetheart! (Or, as I often like to say, “I am that bitch.”)
At this point, Apple is going to work with the investigation team at UPS to find out what the hell happened to my first order, and we have already placed a second, replacement order, which is due to arrive July 27th to 29th. And Apple will issue me a refund for the first set of lenses, which we now assume are lost in Louisville. And I have received an apology both from the Apple Store, and from UPS, for the incovenience and hassle. So, now we wait.
*cost of a 1-terabyte Apple Vision Pro, two years of AppleCare warranty coverage, a carrying case, plus provincial and federal sales taxes (equivalent to US$5,628 at today’s exchange rate)
When you’re up to your ass in alligators, it’s hard to remember that your initial objective was to drain the swamp.
—Modern proverb, possibly Cajun
A picture of the equipment setup in the temporary virtual reality demonstration room in Elizabeth Dafoe Library, with a Meta Quest 3 headset (left, the white headset), and the Vive Pro 2 headset with the “wand” controllers (centre front, the black headset). You can see on the wall-mounted computer monitor behind them a view of the Sansar world No Spectators: The Art of Burning Man – 2nd Floor, a gallery experience by the Smithsonian.
So, as you might have noticed, I haven’t been blogging very much lately (again).
There are a few reasons why, chief among them that I have been through a library move. The building which houses the university science library where I work full-time has been closed, and both the staff and collections have been moved to other locations. The building is going to be completely gutted and renovated over the next 2-1/2-to-3 years. Moving a large library is a MAJOR undertaking, folks! And just days after the move in June, as luck would have it, we hosted a science librarians conference, which had attendees coming from all over North America. The last month has been hectic! I haven’t even had an opportunity to unpack most of my moving boxes in my new office!
But another reason why I haven’t been writing much lately is that the virtual reality lab project I am working on is starting to ramp up. While plans for the necessary room renovations for the future home of the XR (Extended Reality) Lab are proceeding (with a projected ready date of January 2025), I have been given a smaller room in the main arts and humanities library to set up a temporary virtual reality demonstration room, equipped with a wireless Meta Quest 3 VR/AR headset, plus a Vive Pro 2 PCVR setup, attached to a Windows PC with a good graphics card (see image above).
I have been spending most of last week and this week previewing and reviewing a curated selection of apps and experiences, and drafting a “menu” for both the Meta Quest 3 and the Vive Pro 2, which I will be giving to Libraries staff so they can decide what VR/AR experiences they would like to have. Most of them are brand new to virtual reality and augmented reality, so I still need to work out the best procedures for giving these demos, and cleaning the hardware between users, helping them avoid VR sickness, etc.
In fact, I have spent so much time hopping in and out of various VR apps to draw up the menus, that I have often given myself VR sickness, something which surprised me, as a virtual reality veteran! I have been using a wide variety of headsets since January 2017, and I am usually able to be in VR for two hours at a time!
I discussed this at the first meeting of the University of Manitoba VR/AR/MR/XR Group (a new group I helped organize, for U of M faculty, staff, and students working in virtual reality, augmented reality, mixed reality, extended reality, spatial computing—and whatever other umbrella term they come up with next!), and the head of the computer science department told me that, in his opinion, part of the problem is that many newer app developers don’t put the same amount of care and attention into designing affordances that the earliest VR apps had. He has a good point.
In other words, some VR/AR developers are just throwing stuff together using the new and improved content creation tools, without really doing proper testing. I do think that there is some merit in this idea, based on my own experience over the past two weeks. So I am finding that I am having to take breaks from all my VR/AR activity until the nausea passes. And it has reminded me that I definitely need to keep VR sickness top of mind when giving demos!
Along with off-the-shelf apps (educational and non-gaming, although some apps might have a gamification component) from both the Quest store (for the Meta Quest 3) and the Steam store (for the Vive Pro 2), I am also including in my menus some examples of educational worlds which people have created in various social VR platforms. Some examples are the NASA Apollo moon-landing exhibit in Sansar, The Universe microscopic-to-macroscopic experience in Resonite, and the Ancient Athens Acropolis and Agora worlds, which have been moved from AltspaceVR to VRChat. There’s a lot of content out there! I want Libraries staff to be able to experience as much of it as possible, to get a sense of the possibilities of this technology. (Right now, I am focused on free apps and experiences, but eventually I will have a budget to purchase software.)
So, I have been extremely busy, and sometimes I do feel a bit overwhelmed. Quite often, when I come home from work, the last thing I want to do is sit in front of a computer, and especially put on another virtual reality headset! So my trusty Valve Index, with the Knuckles controllers, is quietly collecting dust on my computer desk at home.
So I apologize for the lack of blog posts lately, but as you can see, I’m trying to keep a lot of plates spinning at the moment! I am going to have to put this blog on the back burner for the foreseeable future. Thank you for your patience and understanding.
I want to make it clear that, while I agree wholeheartedly with the changes Linden Lab have made, which are discussed in this editorial, I disagree with HOW these changes are being implemented by Linden Lab, and particularly with the June 30th, 2024 deadline, which I feel does NOT give businesses and individuals enough time to prepare for the impact of these changes.
I also feel that Linden Lab has failed to provide sufficient details to affected content creators and users, many of whom are now scrambling to accommodate the May 2nd changes to the Second Life Terms of Service within less than two months. This could have been handled better.
Also, please note that we are talking about child avatars, not real-life children. You have to be 18 years of age or older to access all areas of Second Life (if you are 16 or 17, you can create an account, but you are restricted to regions rated General). For those who are 13 to 15 years old, they can only access Second Life through an affiliated organization (e.g. a school), and will be restricted to the private estate of that organization. Only avatars approved by that organization will be able to enter these private estates. For further information, please see the Linden Lab official policy on Teens in Second Life.
Therefore, we are not talking about actual children (i.e. those younger than 13) in SL, and given the restrictions, there are few teenagers (aged 13 to 17) in Second Life; we are talking here today about adults (people aged 18 or older), who choose to be a child or teenage avatar in SL. Read on for a discussion of why some people might choose to do this.
UPDATE May 6th, 2024: Please note that the community forum moderators, in trying to wrangle this very long thread, have messed things up, so that any links in this blogpost to particular comments will likely fail! I have updated the link in this blue box, but I do not have time to go through and fix all the links to that thread in this blog post.
This ToddleeDoo child avatar, which I have owned without problem since June of 2017, will become illegal content on June 30th, 2024, under the new May 2nd, 2024 Second Life Terms of Service. While I agree wholeheartedly with these changes, I disagree with HOW they are being implemented and, as a result, I have made this avatar an adult woman instead (see below).
This blogpost is an update of sorts to the one I made exactly two months ago, on March 4th, 2024, about the allegations made by an anonymous writer who posted a detailed article on Medium, outlining serious allegations against a number of people, including employees of Linden Lab, the company that makes Second Life.
The allegations revolve around a very specific crime called sexualized ageplay (virtual pedophilia), which has been a serious, bannable offence in Second Life for well over a decade and a half. In 2018 on this blog, as part of list of controversies and scandals during the long history of Second Life, I wrote about previous ageplay-related scandals in SL and how Linden Lab responded in 2007:
The virtual pedophilia uncovered by two different news reporters in Second Life was a public relations disaster of the highest order for Linden Lab…
Linden Lab responded to the crisis by creating an official Ageplay Policy, where people involved in ageplay and virtual pedophilia activities were banned from the platform.
Our priority has always been to maintain a safe and welcoming environment for all while preserving the freedom of expression that makes our virtual world so special. That’s why we’re working to further enhance the safety and protection of the Second Life platform. These efforts include strengthening some of our community and employee policies as well as evaluating improvements to our age verification process.
One area of ongoing scrutiny both internally and externally concerns child-presenting avatars. We recognize and want to acknowledge the vibrant community of residents who enjoy roleplaying as such, and we also feel that it is crucial to reinforce our stance that sexualized ageplay is strictly prohibited. Today, we are updating our Child Avatar Policy to ensure a clear separation and to safeguard all community members. We know that this update has the potential to cause confusion or concern in our community, so we’ve prepared an FAQ which we will continue to update as questions come up.
We recently posted our initial response to community concerns about alleged violations of company and community policies by employees, contractors, and community members. Since that time, we have conducted multiple thorough investigations to look closely at whether there were specific infractions or problematic interactions that needed us to take action.
The investigation determined that all Lindens and contractors have stayed in compliance with our own community guidelines, as well as unwritten, ethical guidelines. I do not make this statement lightly, and I know there will be plenty of discussion. What I can say is that there is no incentive, monetary or otherwise, for me to mislead the community. At some point, the community has to trust that we, the Lindens, do well when the community thrives. We may make mistakes along the way, and we know that our community will engage with us when we do. Second Life is an enormous virtual world and we have to walk a very fine line between policing and preserving freedoms while also protecting the future growth and health of Second Life as a platform that respects diversity and creative expression among our community.
The findings did highlight opportunities for improvement. As a result, we are making updates to our internal policies to raise the standard for how Linden employees should respectfully engage with community members. This addresses multiple forms of engagement including how we present ourselves, how we interact with the community (even in moments of conflict), and how we minimize the perception of conflict of interest and favoritism in our interactions. Additionally, there have been specific actions we have initiated or finalized:
Committed to increased transparency and accountability
All weekend, I have been following a fast-growing thread on the official Second Life community forums, titled So what changed in the Terms of Service? (now at 105 pages and still showing no sign of slowing down or stopping). Trying to keep up with everybody’s opinions is like trying to drink from a firehose at full blast. I went to sleep last night at page 52, and when I lay down on the sofa and opened up the thread on my trusty iPad, it had grown to 102—and added another 3 pages as I was writing this blogpost!!!
I’m going to make an attempt to distill the discussion here, but keep in mind that this is still a fluid situation, some people have very strong opinions about how Linden Lab is going about this change (myself included), and I suspect that I am going to have to make quite a few updates to this blogpost!
I think the one change that is probably going to cause the biggest uproar among content creators and child role players is the new rule that child (or child-like) avatars now must have a baked-on modesty layer on their body’s skin.
Store owners have two months to make changes. However, I don’t see ToddleeDoo (for example) bothering to update any older versions of their body skins, and there are probably going to be a lot of SL users that remain ignorant of these changes, and still using older versions of child bodies and skins that (according to the FAQ, I just checked) will be in violation of the policy.
I have an alt with a ToddleeDoo Kid head and body, which I pull out maybe once or twice a year (I used to use it more often, and in fact I had made arrangements to leave that avatar to someone else in my will).
The last time I signed her in was to pick up the free LeLutka Noel head last December. I’m glad I had the foresight to do that, because I’ve decided today that, rather than try and update the skin on that ToddleeDoo body (which is many years old and probably no longer even supported by the store), I’m just gonna ditch the child avatar completely, and make her an adult. In fact, I just did that before signing on to read this thread! No more child avatars for me.
Fun fact: there were running battles for YEARS between content creators and management over at Sansar because ALL skins (even adult ones) had to have baked-on modesty panels! Of course, nobody really cares anymore, because Sansar is limping along on life support, but I wanted to remind everybody that we here in SL should not be complacent about our nudity (and sexual) freedoms! All it would take is a single change of ownership, and all that could change.
I suspect that many people who have little-used child and teen avatars are going to decide to do the same. It’s simply not worth the risk of having that account banned if you are AR-ed for not meeting these new body and skin requirements.
i want to make it clear that I agree wholeheartedly with banning child avatars from Adult regions and from places like nude beaches, as well as all the other changes announced today. I’m also somewhat in favour of the baked-on modesty panel idea for child bodies and skins, but it’s going to be a hard sell in certain quarters, I fear.
So I have decided to ditch my child avatar completely, rather than try to deal with the hassle of trying to upgrade her before June 30th, 2024, especially since I only log her in once or twice a year. I’ve redone her as an adult woman.
This is what April Mayflower looked likebefore May 2nd, 2024:
And this is what she looks like now, afterMay 2nd, 2024:
I replaced her ToddleeDoo head and body with the LeLutka Noel head and the Senra Jamie body respectively, both of which were free (Noel was a free gift last December, in an event I blogged about here). I now have a Senra Jamie avatar who I can use when I need to model any free apparel or footwear I pick up as a freebie, so for me, it’s not a total loss.
Among the new May 2nd, 2024 rules for child avatars (as outlined in the official Linden Lab policy titled Clarification of policy disallowing ageplay), is that child avatars must never be nude, and they are enforcing this by forcing child/teen avatar body and skin makers to have a modesty panel: “Child avatar content creators are required to add a modesty layer which is baked into child avatar skins or bodies, is not transparent, does not match the skin tone, and may not be removed.”
This (adult) Bakes on Mesh skin (shown here on the new Senra Jamie mesh avatar) is an example of the new requirement that all child/teen avatarrs in Second Life after June 30th, 2024 must have baked-on (i.e. unremovable) underwear.—no exceptions.
Q: I already have a child avatar that does not have a built in modesty layer. Can I still use that since I purchased it already?
A: No. Going forward, child avatars will be prohibited from being fully nude.
In other words, my child avatar will be prohibited after June 30th (or more specifically, would be liable to be the subject of an Abuse Report which could lead to me having my 16-year account banned), not because she is nude (something she never was), but that she could potentially be made nude.
Are Child Avatars of any age still permitted? Yes. This remains unchanged.
Can Child Avatars continue to interact with those representing Adults?Yes. This remains unchanged.
Are there any new restrictions on the kind of RP that Child Avatars can engage in? No, although any RP must now be in Moderate- or General-rated regions. “Family” RP, for instance, is still permitted. This remains unchanged.
Are there new restrictions on where Child Avatars can be?Yes. Adult-rated areas are characterized primarily by the fact that public sexuality and/or violence is permitted within them; because Child Avatars are not (and have not, for some time) been permitted near public sexuality, they are now restricted from entering Adult areas. This represents a change to old policies.
Are there new restrictions on what Child Avatars can wear?Yes. Child avatars are no longer allowed to be nude, and must, beginning in July, wear skins with baked-in “modesty layers.” They must also not wear clothing or attachments that represent or that accentuate the genital areas. This represents a change to old policies.
Are Child Avatars allowed to be present around nudity? No. This represents a change to old policies.
Have the penalties for which Child Avatars are liable should they contravene these rules changed?No. This remains unchanged, although there are a few new categories for which penalties can be assessed (see Adult regions, and nudity, above.)
Has the way in which abuse reports lodged against Child Avatars are judged by LL changed?No. This remains unchanged.
Has the appeal process for ARs changed?No. This remains unchanged.
Has there been any change in ability of landowners to restrict the access of Child Avatars to their land changed?No. This remains unchanged.
Most of this remains unchanged. Again, this all seems to me very doable, surely, although some clarifications from LL (particularly with regard to the modesty layer) would be appreciated.
It turns out that other virtual worlds, such as IMVU, have very clear and simple guidelines about what is and is not appropriate, and even provides pictures. SL? Not so much.
For example, below are IMVU’s images. Why the hell didn’t Linden Lab create something like this to share with content creators, preferably before changing anything?!?? This lack of details and specifics, when Linden Lab should have been on-the-ball and prepared before pulling the trigger on the Terms of Service changes on May 2nd, 2024, is causing no small degree of upset and confusion among content creators and those who own and use child avatars (the overwhelming majority of whom have absolutely nothing to do with sexual ageplay).
One person reported that the ToddleDoo creator, like so many child and teen avatar body and skin creators, was scrambling to meet these new requirements, without much guidance from Linden Lab:
Part of the issue is the rules for what the modesty layer should look like haven’t been given out. The creator at TD was expressing this yesterday in their Discord. She received no notice from LL [found out through the announcement, I believe.] She was working on trying to implement a fix that wouldn’t break content [or at least as little as possible], and was ready to start, but has been given no guideline on what to cover. So if even the creators don’t know what this layer should look like, where are we?
ToddleeDoo is one of many Second Life content creators who are scrambling (with precious little detailed guidance from Linden Lab) to meet new changes to the SL Terms of Service, within less than two months.
What it means is that few child/teen body and skin creators are going to be able to provide solutions for the customers in time to meet the June 30th deadline.
This whole business has started to feel like an almost panicky, knee-jerk response from Linden Lab, who should have provided some more guidance to content creators BEFORE announcing these changes.
I’m actually feeling really cranky at the moment. So LL isn’t going to budge on the modesty panel requirement, and I’m not going to budge on upgrading my outdated ToodleeDoo avatar. Therefore, I’m giving up on having any child avatars. I am DONE. I just feel sorry for the content creators and child/teen role players negatively impacted by this, who have little to no time to prepare. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if some creators follow the lead of Zooby, and exit the child avatar market altogether.
Zooby did have a line of baby and child avatars, which they apparently decided to stop selling very recently—a decision made, some people say, in the wake of the allegations made in the anonymous Medium article I mentioned earlier. (Hell, if I were them, I would have done the same thing. Linden Lab’s somewhat hamfisted, knee-jerk approach to these allegations is not inspiring confidence among content creators at the moment.) They still sell a line of animesh baby attachments, and some speculate that these, too, might be required to have modesty panels, even though they are not avatars per se, but scripted objects.
In this tangential discussion, there was a brief moment of hilarity when I shared that I had once, as a joke, once made an Octomom version of Vanity Fair, using some free prim babies I had picked up from a store which had mistakenly listed them for sale for L$0. Of course, somebody immediately asked to see Vanity as Octomom, so I dug around to find a picture to share:
Vanity fair as Octomom (pre-mesh, except for her head; these 8 babies were 34 prims each!)
We all laughed, but the fact remains: Linden Lab may decide to extend its rules to apply not only to child/teen avatars, but any object that looks like a child or teen, which could potentially be used (or rather, abused) for ageplay. These prim babies, which still linger in Vanity’s overstuffed inventory, might be headed for the pixel bin!
I mean, it’s no skin off my nose, but for the myriad businesses which cater to an adult audience roleplaying as children or teenagers in Second Life, these changes (with the associated lack of clarity over details), mean that this is not utterly outside of the realm of possibility.
My opinion is that Linden Lab is eventually going to have to make a choice: keep adult and sexual content and ditch child/teen avatars, or keep child/teen avatars, and ditch adult content.
Anyway, stay tuned! As I said, I wxpecct I will be making many updates to this blog post as the situation continues to evolve (and that 100-plus page thread on the SL Community Forums continues to grow).
UPDATE 8:39 p.m.: Perhaps nothing illustrates just how strongly people feel about this topic is than these two completely different responses to the same comment, posted within minutes of each other on the SL Community Forums yesterday.
Luna Bliss said:
I don’t think I’d call it a “punishment”, but if I was forced to change my avatar in major ways because there was sexual abuse in the world, I’d feel like there was something kinda wrong with me…like my way of being or self was at fault somehow. It’s not logical, I know, but I can see why child avatars are feeling they’re not quite okay now, and being targeted unfairly to be the solution for something they never caused.
I think you’re the only one who has actually managed to put into words how I am feeling. In principle the modesty layer is a good thing as it will keep us safe, but the fact we need it makes me feel sort of dirty, like I should be ashamed, or I’ve done something wrong, even though logically I know I haven’t. I won’t go into details, but like many kid avis I did not have the best childhood growing up and so being a kid avi in SL and having a loving family has been a way to heal.
—brodiac90
LittleMe Jewel responded:
I totally get it. [In my opinion], it is the same as when women in [real life] are told to dress a certain way if they don’t want to be raped. A rapist is the one that is wrong, not the ones that might be raped. Similarly, the pedophile is the one in the wrong, not the object of their attention.
But one user was having none of it:
What is wrong with barring people who run child avatars from adult rated sims and content? What is wrong with demanding that people who run child avatars take care that they do not display a sexualised child? What is wrong with demanding that they keep their profile clean of links to adult content and sites? What is wrong with demanding that people running child avatars stay away from adult activities and content?
For whom is the mandatory modesty layer a punishment? Certainly only for those who prefer to have none and these are the ones with an obvious interest in the sexualised display of a child, to themselves and to others.
—Vivienne Schell
And Luna Bliss (who started all this with her comment) responded:
I never claimed there was anything wrong with any of these remedies you cite. I only described the way in which some of the changes and extreme focus on these matters are affecting how some child avatars feel. Knowledge and feelings sometimes differ, you know, and can even exist at the same time under this difference. Scroll up to see what Brodiac90 said.
People who don’t use Second Life might not be aware that SL has strict age requirements. You have to be 18 years of age or older to access all areas of Second Life (if you are 16 or 17, you can create an account, but you are restricted to regions rated General). Therefore, we are not talking about actual children in SL; we are talking about adults (people aged 18 or older), who choose to be a child or teenage avatar in SL. Some even seek out other adults who roleplay as their parents. And the reason why some adults would choose this are varied. Some people are attracted to the idea of being a child again, a sort of do-over. I can see how someone who had a less-than-stellar childhood would be attracted to that prospect.
However, the current discussion and debate makes child avatars feel like they are being targeted, and the fact that they cannot even express how sad they feel about the necessity of these changes without being reprimanded and even attacked saddens me greatly.
Perhaps now you will understand why I no longer feel comfortable as a child avatar in Second Life; it’s just not fun anymore.It’s all become so HEAVY lately. Second Life has existed for so long because it was an escape from messy, painful, heartbreaking reality. People become children again in SL, sometimes to heal wounds from their own real-life childhoods, but even that innocent quest is getting tarnished in the current hothouse of rancourous, acrimonious, divisive debate.
I have a sinking feeling the next two months are going to be a very bumpy road for Second Life, and Linden Lab. And I wish I could say that I have 100% confidence that Linden Lab is going to do the right thing here, when they are no doubt feeling the pressure to do something (or, perhaps, to be seen to be doing something).
Wow, I am feeling bitter, jaded, and cynical tonight. Ironically, this is exactly when I would most want to log into Second Life to be a carefree little girl, who skips along wherever she goes, and sometimes chooses to fly up, up, and away, clutching a batch of big, brightly-coloured helium balloons…just to get away from it all for a few moments.
…and frankly, it kinda pisses me off that I’m probably not going to be able to do that anymore (or at least, not be able to do it without jumping through a whole lot of hoops). I still think it’s best to give up on the whole virtual childhood thing, at least for me. Like I said, it’s just not fun anymore.
UPDATE Sunday, May 5th, 2024, 7:26 a.m.: I just woke up, brewed a pot of coffee, and sat down to the So what changed in the Terms of Service? thread on the Second Life Community forums—only to discover that it was now 120 pages long! I got as far as page 76 before I went to bed last night, so it looks like I have a busy day ahead of me. Better pour myself a strong cup of black coffee and dive back in!
I’m a bit worried about the flood of ARs, not so much that it will affect many innocent child avatars (I doubt it will) but because the Governance budget is going to eat into Development, advertising, etc., just when those could otherwise benefit the platform’s future.
It might help if, in addition to explaining the whole elaborate AR appeals process (useful) they also issued a reminder that falsified ARs have consequences for the reporting account. Not to discourage people from reporting true violations they found personally offensive, but ARs as instruments of inter-resident conflict really can’t be tolerated.
(I’ve given up on making the argument many pages ago, but I still feel the Lab has unrealistic expectations about the effect of whitewashing the naughty bits of child avatar skins. It may have some benefit as a communications device, “Don’t touch the smooth parts or Sister Agnes will take a ruler to your evil little fingers”, but it’s not going to make Governance’s job all that much easier.)
By the way, there’s already been speculation that griefers will, yes, abusethe Second Life Abuse Reporting (AR) system (which has been in place for many, many years) to mass-report child avatars just because they hate child avatars. Some people have posted stories of this happening in the past. Of course, all this does is tie up resources which could be better used elsewhere, as Qie Niangao states.
There seems to be a lot of kibitzing going on over the specific words and phrases being used in the rules, and people are poring over it for any scrap of loopholes. Some issues that need to be specifically addressed (in direct words) in the FAQ are…
Change uses of the word “Layer” to “Panel” or “Patch”.. This is causing confusion as to whether the use of system clothing ‘layers’ are an acceptable alternative to having a modesty patch on the skin…
Similarly, change usage of the phrase “Baked onto” if you do not mean to imply that Bakes-On-Mesh Layers are an acceptable solution. Perhaps a better phrase is “Rendered or painted directly on the skin’s textures”, if that’s what you mean to imply…
Are grey crotch triangles and/or nipple-cover pastie style circles acceptable, or must this be an apparent clothing item? Do ‘girl presenting avatars’ with fully flat chests have to have bras? Is there an apparent age point where one is and isn’t required? Is a C-string style cover acceptable, or do child avatars need actual panties painted on? Are thongish panties or high-cut briefs compliant, or does everyone need knee-length boxers?
What specifically must be covered? It’s an uncomfortable question to ask and answer particularly from the corporate world of worries of sexual harassment, sensitivity, etc, but there must be no ambiguity here, for child avs and asset creators. Where is the line here?
…
Some folks seem to be getting the idea that this rule only applies to content creators, and that child avatar users themselves have no direct compliance requirements. I personally think it’s pretty clear, but I have 18+ years of experience in reading LL’s announcements. Child avatars can’t be forced to personally modify their skins, because child avatars largely don’t make their own skins, they buy them. The creators need to update their assets, the child avatars need to use compliant assets by June 30. This needs some clarification.
Personally, I felt that last part was very clear: adults roleplaying as child/teen avatars must have bodies and skins compliant with the new ToS by June 30th, 2024 (it’s even mentioned in the Child Avatar FAQs, which I have quoted earlier).
UPDATE Sunday, May 5th, 2024,9:13 a.m.:Theresa Ravenheart wrote about the detailed questions she submitted to the Second Life Community Roundtable, which will be taking place on May 20th, 2024 (more information here on that event). The recent changes to the Terms of Service will no doubt be a topic for discussion!
I submitted this to the Community Roundtable form on May 20th. If your avatar(s) fit into these categories: cartoons, kemono bodies, anime heads, adults in DD/lg or MD/lg dynamics, adults who enjoy dressing kawaii or youthful, individuals who use pet names like Daddy, Mommy, or babygirl, feral humanoids and animals, MLP, or any other adult avatar that could be questioned as “child-like”, I recommend that you also submit inquiries to the form regarding how this might affect you, so we can receive clear answers.
While I personally do not use child/teen avatars or associate with them, I do empathize with how this situation may impact them, potentially resulting in the loss of their identities and a significant portion of their attire and appearance.
My question to LL: My inquiry pertains to the recent updates on policies regarding Child Avatar and ageplay. How will this affect consenting adults who utilize adult avatars but affectionately refer to each other using terms such as Papi, Mami, Daddy, Mommy, babygirl, or babyboy, either due to their BDSM dynamic or simply as endearing pet names? It seems that even though they are adults and behave accordingly, there might be a concern of them being identified as child-like based on subjective criteria. As stated in the new terms “In some cases there may be an element of subjectivity as to whether an avatar (or other image) appears to be a minor. Objective factors which will be used to decide include whether an avatar has childlike facial features, is child-sized, has clothing or accessories generally associated with children, and whether, based on the circumstances, an avatar is speaking or acting like a child (“My Mommy says…”)“.
Given that we present ourselves as adults, utilizing adult avatars with adult features and behaviors, will there be repercussions for using common pet names?
Additionally, what about adults who incorporate items like pacifiers or diapers into their avatar aesthetics for various personal reasons—would this be considered inappropriate due to its association with child-like attributes?
Childlike can be a lot of things, holding a teddy bear, wearing roller-skates, dressing kawaii and girly, having your hair in pigtails, and on an on. Defining “childlike” in the context of adult avatars would greatly assist in understanding where boundaries lie.
Furthermore, how will these policies impact adult users who use feral avatars that may possess genitalia?
Determining the age of a feral animal avatar, such as a dog, horse, cat, or dragon, presents its own challenges.
Consider the communities centered around My Little Pony (MLP) adult avatars. While MLP may be perceived as childlike, what about adults who utilize these avatars in adult-oriented settings, comporting themselves as adults? They inhabit cartoon avatars but exhibit adult behaviors.
The same applies to communities revolving around Sonic Mobian, Kemono, Anime, and other adult cartoon avatars.
Establishing clear guidelines is essential to prevent misunderstandings. Subjectivity in judgments risks account penalties, hence the necessity for precise and measurable regulations.
I honestly think that this thread would die down if LL simply showed us a picture of what the modesty panel will/should look like. They have yet to do so letting residents make up in their head how bad it will be. Not a responsible way to rollout a major change, if you ask me.
I am now on page 99 of this thread, with another 25 pages to go.
UPDATE May 6th, 2024: Well, I am glad to report that the flurry of activity over the weekend has died down a bit. I’m still monitoring the thread (it’s now at 166 pages and still growing, albeit more slowly). Scylla Rhiadra said:
The new rules also protect child avis. And empower them.
And I do think that this is a point that sometimes is getting lost in the kerfuffle over the May 2nd Terms of Service update. These measures were updated in order to protect those people who choose to represent as children or teenagers in Second Life, where they are sometimes the target of creepy people. It also more clearly spells out what is considered unacceptable behaviour, which can be reported using SL’s Abuse Report feature, for action to be taken by Linden Lab. So it also empowers child avatars.
What I have found upsetting and troubling is just how vindicative some people have been in the comments section in this particular thread. On Saturday evening I posted:
Child avatars can’t even express their sadness about these changes (while agreeing with them) without getting attacked.
Everything has become a hothouse of rancorous, acrimonious, divisive debate, with little thought, feeling, or empathy for the content creators and child/teen role players who are most directly impacted by these changes. Express sorrow and you’re instantly branded a pedophile apologist. No wonder Coffee and Madi know of people who are packing up and leaving.
I predict a very rocky road ahead for SL and LL over the next couple of months.
Oh, and I forgot to mention that one of the many avid commenters on this thread, a child avatar named Madi Melodious, has made a handy panic button, which is a scripted HUD attachment which you can get for free from the SL Marketplace here. She describes it as:
A simple hud that monitors the maturity rating of a sim and compares it to the rating that you have it set for. If you accidentally teleport or enter a sim whos rating exceeds the huds setting, it will automatically teleport your avatar to s safe zone of your choice. The hud also monitors the sims rating you are in and will take you to safety if the rating changes while you are there.
So, if you are a child or teen avatar, you might want to pick up Madi’s Panic Button and wear it, in case you accidentally find yourself in a SL region rated Adult (where child avatars are now banned). The default settings for the HUD are as follows: the Sim Rating is set to Moderate, the Teleportion mode is Auto, and the default Safe Zone is the WelcomeHub. All these settings can be changed by the menu, which you can obtain by pressing on the HUD for two seconds or longer.
I have bought and tested this device, and it works flawlessly. Thanks, Madi!
Also, Tommy Linden (in charge of the Governance team at Linden Lab) posted this message to the thread about an hour ago:
Good morning!
You all posted quite a bit over the weekend! I just wanted to let you know that we are still working on more updates to the FAQ that will be added over the next couple of days. One of the things that we will be adding is an image to help provide clarity on the modesty layer.
I am very happy to hear that Linden Lab is listening to us, and that they will supply an image to help guide content creators who need to add a modesty layer to their bodies and/or skins.
UPDATE May 8th, 2024: Tommy Linden (in charge of the Governance team at Linden Lab) finally closed the discussion thread at 251 pages, with the following final comment:
I come with some updates, and what will be the final comment on this thread before I close it out. I want you all to know that I personally have read every single post in this thread, and I appreciate that for the most part, everyone tried to keep it on topic, and as a productive conversation. I know many other Lindens have been doing their best to follow along on this thread as much as possible as well. I also want to give a thanks to Dyna and Quartz for helping to keep this thread on track and civil.
We have updated the FAQ, it now contains images that demonstrate what we expect the modesty layers to look like. In addition, at tomorrows Governance Office Hours we will have models there displaying the modesty layers. We hope this provides some additional clarification regarding our expectations around what the modesty layer should look like. We have also added questions to the FAQ that we felt would be beneficial after reading through everyones feedback both on the forums, and in tickets… If we determine that more things are needed to be added to the FAQ, we will absoluately do so.
If you feel like you have more feedback to provide, you can always submit a support ticket, or if its a feature request, you can do so via our feedback portal https://feedback.secondlife.com/.
Last week, we announced an update to our child avatar policy in Second Life, and since then, we’ve received numerous questions and requests for further details. We understand the importance of these updates to our community and encourage everyone to keep consulting the continuously updated Child Avatar FAQ for answers to your queries.
Additionally, we invite all community members to join the Governance User Group on Thursday, May 9th, 2024, at 2pm PT. This meeting will provide further insight into these updates, including a presentation of what the new modesty layer could look like, ensuring clarity and compliance across our virtual world.
The decision to update the child avatar policy was not made lightly. It involved weeks of meticulous discussion and coordination across various departments at Linden Lab, with the Governance team at the forefront. Our goal was to balance the diverse needs and expressions of our community with the necessity to maintain a safe and respectful environment for all users. This delicate balance reflects our commitment to providing freedom of expression while ensuring that Second Life remains a welcoming space for everyone.
By taking these thoughtful steps, we are committed to enhancing our community’s experience, ensuring that Second Life continues to be a platform where creativity and expression can flourish within a framework that respects and protects every resident.
Unfortunately, I am at home sick, with a pinched nerve in my 60-year-old neck, and I was asleep in bed much of the day, so I missed today’s Governance User Group meeting. However, I have no idea that Inara Pey or another SL blogger will report on that meeting, so when I hear about it, I will let you all know! Here’s a video of today’s event:
One interesting quote from the Governance meeting today, which someone shared on the forums, was from Keira Linden, who said:
The other concern in regards to the modesty layer is how it will impact existing content. To be clear, we are requiring skin sellers to have the areas shown in the images use a modesty layer on the skin files. However, for existing content, bake layers and alphas can be a viable temporary solution but we would STRONGLY encourage everyone to move to a more permanent solution.
So, it sounds as though LL is willing to entertain the idea of using Bakes on Mesh and/or alphas as an interim measure, until modesty panels can be implemented by body and skin makers. This is good news for me! Maybe I don’t have to ditch my ToddleeDoo child avatar after all, since she has BoM underwear.
FINAL UPDATE May 24th, 2024: I did attend the Second Life Community Roundtable held on May 20th, 2024 (YouTube recording), where many questions about the Terms of Service updates around child/teen avatars were asked by SL residents, and answered by Linden Lab staff. It was made clear that Bakes on Mesh (BoM) underwear is not sufficient to bring an avatar into compliance with the new ToS, because it can still be removed. So I will be going ahead with my original decision to give up my ToodleeDee avatar, and convert her to an adult woman.
Another thing that happened recently involved the Second Life channel on the RyanSchultz.com Discord server, a 700+ member Discord associated with this blog, where we discuss, debate, and argue about (as the tagline of my blog states) “news and views on social VR, virtual worlds, and the metaverse.”
A member posted links to a couple of articles that appeared to be a follow-up to the original Medium article that sparked this whole controversy in the first place (which I talked about here), with new, potentially libellous accusations against some of the same people.
Once this was brought to my attention, I removed the links from the channel, and stated:
I am changing the rules on the RyanSchultz.com Discord as of today. I know that I have written, at length, about the sexualized ageplay controversy in SL on my blog, but I am now going to ask all of you, from now on, to please stop posting new sexualized ageplay links (often with new allegations) to my Discord server. Please post such links, and take these further discussions, somewhere else, thank you. I was willing to allow this discussion up until today, but I think at this point it’s just throwing gasoline on the fire. Thank you.
As a result, the person who had posted the links became very upset (because he felt he had been singled out), quit my server, and has apparently blocked me from messaging him (although we still do share some Discord servers in common). Today I posted the following message to everybody on my Discord:
I believe that the person who posted the articles in the second-life channel which contained allegations which were potentially libellous, has quit this Discord and has blocked me from messaging him at all. While I am deeply disappointed at his actions, and it is a very awkward situation for me because we both live in the same city, we have met in person, and might actually see each other in real life at future events,I still think that I made the right decision in removing the posts he made. As I already mentioned, I will be writing a new rule for this Discord that there will be no further discussion about sexualized ageplay in Second Life on the RyanSchultz.com Discord.
So, one of the unexpected ripple effects of the anonymous author who wrote that original Medium article, is that I have now lost somebody whose work I admired, and that I considered a friend and fellow metaverse colleague. I have actually met this person in real life, since they live in my city, which is going to make any future interactions (which are likely to happen, since we both are interested in virtual reality) somewhat awkward.
However, I stand by my decision to forbid any further discussion of sexualized ageplay on my Discord server. My server, my rules. And frankly, I will be very happy if I never have to bring up this topic again on my blog.
Many people are already talking about the death of the Apple Vision Pro…what’s the real story?
Four days ago, I blogged about a widely-circulated report by an Apple industry pundit, speculating that the computer maker was making significant cuts to the number of Apple Vision Pro (AVP) units it was planning to ship this year, and stating that demand for the brand new, high-end VR/AR headset had “fallen sharply beyond expectations.”
This report ignited no shortage of opinions on the matter, both pro and con, with some even going so far as to say that the Apple Vision Pro was “dead.” Matt Binder of Mashable, reporting on the kerfuffle, said:
In the days and weeks after its February release, Apple’s new AR/VR headset was the talk of social media. Tech reviewers raved about how using it was a glimpse into the future of home computers. And the Apple Vision Pro memes were in abundance. Who can forget the guy who wore an Apple Vision Pro at his wedding?
Then February came and went — and there’s not much talk about anymore. It turns out that there’s likely a good reason for the sudden silence around the product: the Apple Vision Pro simply isn’t selling.
So, what’s really going on? I decided to do a little digging to see what’s going on, and what it might mean for Apple and the AVP.
First, there has been no shortage of pushback on the claims made in the original Medium article written by Apple industry analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. For example, my fellow metaverse blogger Wagner James Au posted to his blog, New World Notes, citing a conversation he had with a former AVP developer Ari Bar-Zeev. Here’s a direct quote from Ari from Wagner’s blog:
I don’t work for Apple anymore and would certainly never speak for them. But I will say the analysts citing “dramatically lowered production numbers” have lost all credibility.
First the analysts said AVP was supply-limited to 180k units. Now they claim Apple is cutting production from 800k to down to 400k. We must have all imagined the report where Apple RAISED production goals first for such a cut to happen. But it makes for a good attention grabber! Let’s just look at the real numbers when they come out.
Honestly, my expectation was that every dev or enthusiast in the US who wanted one or needed one lined up to get one early on. Similar folks overseas are still waiting for their chance (and have gotten creative in the meantime).
Future growth would largely come from new apps that deploy many units for high-value use cases. Like when a certain consulting company reportedly bought 100k Quests for onboarding new employees during the pandemic…
I’ve said from the beginning that the AVP, as Apple’s first Spatial Computer, was not going to be an “iPhone moment” (which still took 5+ years to ramp) but more of a Lisa or Macintosh moment.
The Lisa was truly groundbreaking, but too expensive for most people. The first Macs still cost way more than an AVP in today’s dollars, and it also took a while before they became widely popular. But that’s the appropriate set of numbers we can look at to compare ‘apples to apples.’
To paraphrase, Ari is suggesting that we need to temper our expectations for a brand new product which has been out for less than three months. He also suggests that we need to change our perspective. We’ve become so used to Apple selling millions of iPhones and iPads and MacBooks, that we forget that it can take years before a new type of product gains traction in the marketplace.
In other words, don’t compare the 2024 Apple Vision Pro to the 2024 iPhone, or 2024 iPad, or 2024 MacBook Pro. Compare the 2024 Apple Vision Pro to the 1983 Apple Lisa (which is generally considered the first mass-market personal computer operated via a graphical user interface, something which we take for granted today). And yes, this does mean that we might be waiting for 5, 10, 15, or 20 years to see widespread adoption of concepts which the Apple Vision Pro introduced! This is a long game. (Oh, and by the way, that first Lisa personal computer cost US$9,995 in 1993, the equivalent of US$30,000 today. Throughout the history of technology, early adopters are usually among those willing to pay a steep price to be among the first.)
Headlines are circulating claiming Apple cut Vision Pro production by almost 50% due to weak demand. Here’s why they’re almost certainly false.
The source of these articles is a new note from supply-chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. Kuo’s claims sometimes turn out to be true, but not always, and his latest contradicts not only what we know about Vision Pro production, but what Kuo himself said just a few months ago.
Specifically, Kuo is claiming that Apple reduced its sales forecast for Vision Pro from a “market consensus” of 700-750K units to 400-450K units, a roughly 40% reduction.
There are two reasons this claim doesn’t make sense. Firstly, Kuo claims the decision is due to weaker than expected US demand, leading to a production cut ahead of global launch. Yet as recently as February Kuo said Apple’s US target for 2024 was 150-200K units, and in January he said Apple sold almost 200K preorders. MacRumors separately cited “a source with knowledge of Apple’s sales numbers” as saying Apple had sold 200K preorders, particularly ironic given it’s now presenting Kuo’s claim and as if it were official news.
But more importantly, in January Kuo was referencing Apple Vision Pro “achieving a shipment volume of 500,000 units” as the goal for 2024. And this isn’t just a random number – it’s what multiple sources report is Apple’s supply limit for the year, regardless of demand.
The Financial Times, The Information, and The Elec have previously reported that Vision Pro production is heavily constrained by the extremely limited supply of near-4K OLED microdisplays. All three sources reported that Sony, the supplier, can only produce enough microdisplays for less than 500K headsets in 2024. And Kuo himself agreed with this figure, saying in a September note that Vision Pro production in 2024 will be limited to “at most 400,000–600,000 units”.
Given this, why is Kuo suddenly claiming the “market consensus” was 700-750K units? It simply doesn’t make sense.
David goes on to suggest, “Don’t believe everything you read.”
I wanted to end this post by sharing some good commentary I found in a place I visit almost daily—the r/VisionPro subreddit community on Reddit (which, as I discovered today, also runs an associated Discord server). Obviously, there’s going to be some pro-Apple bias here, but it’s not just an echo chamber of apple fanboys, and there are some dissenting voices as well. Even a few doomsayers!
The feeling that I do get from avidly browsing the posts and comments on Reddit is that, for those people who have already bought the device (almost exclusively Americans, since the U.S. is currently the only country that is selling the AVP), they did their research ahead of time, and most seem to be pretty happy for it for two main use cases: productivity/business, and media consumption. This is not a gaming device, although you can certainly stream games to it, and if that is what you are looking for, you would be much better served by another headset. In particular, the people who use it to watch TV and movies rave about it, and the most common complaint is that there’s not enough content (they are clamouring for more 3D movies!). I think there’s going to be pressure on Netflix and other media companies who have sat things out thus far, to cater to a small, but well-heeled, new audience.
Also, it is now clear to me that this is not, and probably never will be, a multi-use device. This is not a device that lends itself to sharing with others, although there is a Guest Mode which allows you to give the AVP to somebody else to give them a brief taste of what it’s all about (somebody has even written up a document called How to Give an Insanely Great Apple Pro Demo).
The process to finding the best fit, so that the device is comfortable to use, is deeply personalized and often, frustrating for some new users (I mean, you literally have to scan your face with an iPhone Pro or iPad Pro as part of the purchasing process!). I have read accounts of people going through mutliple sizes of face shields (you can return them within 14 days without charge), and many different kinds of head straps, to find something that they can comfortably use. And yes, a few people have given up and sent the whole thing back for a refund.
Anyway, on to some of the more interesting comments I have seen on r/VisionPro (with links back to the comment in the comment thread for some context):
It’s an expensive, niche product from a company that people LOVE to hate, and actively root for them to fail. Apple is trying to lay a foundation, and people are patting themselves on the back for pointing out that the top-floor penthouse isn’t done yet. Meanwhile, I’m just appreciating that a company like Apple finally took the leap to make a headset that doesn’t feel like a plastic gaming device. It will take time for a new platform, that launched in one country 3 months ago, that almost nobody owns, to build up momentum and conversation. But, as always, doom & gloom is what gets clicks.
I am a developer, and I have just barely started scratching the surface of graphics programming. Making quality 3D software takes time, like decades’ worth of time. If you take a look at programs that truly utilize graphics processing, they are really decades-old apps: Photoshop(1987), Unreal Engine (1999), 3Dmax (1988), Blender (2002) and others. VisionOS, and developing for VisionOS is really not much different than tradition game development. Vision Pro is a totally different medium for input, and we are still looking for better ways to handle inputs. Obviously, there are controllers, but it would be really good if we could find a way to input without using any additional hardware and be cursor-level precise.
Vision OS itself is very young too. It is only 17 years old if you start counting from the iOS release, but even then, the VR part has started very recently. It is basically an iPadOS that is being run in a spherical environment with image analysis of the camera feed to interpret your hand gestures, position them in the sphere, and stitch together all the 8 cameras, and also render multiple apps simultaneously. AVP does all that in a small package while being completely silent for the most part. A lot of components in AVP have been released recently; ARM architecture in laptops started being a thing only in 2020, and it was a massive breakthrough with Apple designing them. Qualcomm only yesterday (April 24, 2024) announced Snapdragon X Elite, but there are no third-party benchmarks with it yet. AVP is a marvelous piece of tech available for $3500; prior to it, you couldn’t even buy a VR headset of this level of quality. Unfortunately, as part of being new products, it needs at least 2 years for good apps to pop up. If you’ve wasted $4000, imagine how much money tech companies are spending. You need a really good Mac (about $2000 for the cheapest Mac Studio), a Vision Pro (about $4000), and a developer costing over $120,000 per year. And you need a team of developers. Quality apps are coming; you have to give it some time.
As for now,really a device for the pro computer users. As a developer, I connect to my PC/Linux boxes using Moonlight and game at 1440p at 90FPS with WiFi 6. I lose hours playing AAA games while laying down in Mount Hood and listening to podcasts. It has phenomenal displays that nothing else compares to, screen quality-wise. It has a really good, power-efficient mobile chip (M2), iPad app compatibility, and great UX. It is one of the best things I’ve ever owned. Also, Apple already has M3 processors with hardware-level ray tracing. This would allow much more realistic rendering, and it makes me super stoked for the next iteration, whenever it will be. I am also excited to see what Meta will come up with next since there are good third-party processors that can be as power efficient as the Vision Pro.
In no way is this dead. There hasn’t even been a global launch. Developers need time to build great apps, and most of them haven’t even had access to buy a headset because it’s only available in the US. Once people get them, it takes time to build great apps and games, so this is a long term play.
Apple is taking feedback from developers, users, and staff, in which it will update the OS with features that will excite people to buy one. They are developing AI that they will be adding to the AVP that will excite people to buy one. There are so many things yet to come, that I think you will have at least 2 generations, similar to Hololens. Considering AVP has already sold more than the Hololens 2 did in their whole time selling them, there is a definite market there.
So, after all my reading and researching, my expectations are somewhat tempered, but I am still looking forward to when the Apple Vision Pro will be available for Canadians to purchase. You best believe that I will be hovering over my keyboard, waiting for the pre-order countdown clock to hit zero, with my new iPad Pro 11 ready to scan my face, and a copy of my eyeglasses prescription to hand. I’m in.
Yes, I am still willing to shell out some of my own hard-earned cash to essentially become a beta tester for a brand-new and very expensive product! Why? Because this device, and its potential, excites me. This feels like an important next step in my personal virtual reality journey, which started in December 2016/January 2017 when I bought my first VR headset, the Oculus Rift (original version). I’m all in (and may God have mercy on my soul and my wallet).
No, I will not be recommending the university library system I work for buy an AVP for the virtual reality lab project I am currently working on (I am specifying other hardware and software for that, which I am already familiar with). Why? As I said up top, the Apple Vision Pro is intended to be a personalized device, not a multi-user device. It will have a face shield, and prescription lenses, tailored to the shape of my face, my nearsightedness, and my astigmatism. The best I will be able to do is give interested users a brief Guest Mode session, but first I want to get comfortable with the device, and make sure that I have detailed, step-by-step instructions, much like this document, before I give any demos!
Wish me luck; I’m off on another adventure! And, of course, I will be blogging all about it here.
