Can be an app that exists on other platforms or a new idea, as long as you don’t mind sharing.
Since we’re still a relatively small magazine it might be fun to have a conversation starter as a sticky post each week. Next Saturday I’ll start a thread to collect ideas for the following week’s question!
I don’t want to hate on AR/VR, I think it has its place, but I feel like adding more information and more technology in our faces is going in the wrong trajectory. So far it isolates us more from the people right in front of us. I guess if it turns out that with AR we can exist in the same room as friends and family that live in different places in a way that isn’t weird, then that might change my mind.
It’s interesting: Vision Pro is the first headset with so many features intended to reduce isolation – EyeSight, Breakthrough, AudioPods – but it seems to get this criticism much more than others. (It’s not just you: a lot of people feel this way, and Apple’s attempts to address the issue don’t invalidate the viewpoint.)
I wonder if it’s because Apple’s marketing is the closest most people have come to seeing a headset used in actual public spaces or in everyday life, as opposed to seeing it in the isolated rooms and workspaces of Meta, Microsoft, and Sony’s marketing. By drawing attention to their workarounds, Apple’s also drawing attention to the issue.
It reminds me of the increase in public concern about stalking after Apple released AirTags – the first keychain tracking device with features intended to combat stalking. Tile had been on the market for years at that point, but it was Apple that received the criticism because they’d drawn awareness to the issue.
I’m also old enough that I remember these same concerns being raised about personal stereos, and it was certainly true: earphones are still my favorite way to shut out my surrounding environment, especially somewhere noisy like a bus or train. But it’s not as though the older generation complaining about them were engaged in empathy-expanding conversation with each other: they’d bury themselves in books and newspapers in the surrounding seats.