Traveling with Apple Vision Pro

> The more time passes, the less I can shake the feeling that the world would be better if we tuned out our environment less.

Agreed 100%. Apologies for linking to my own essay, but I think this can be more generally stated as a difference between "isolated" and "integrated" arts. A device like the Vision Pro (and most tech devices, for that matter) is pushing society further and further into isolated chambers, and thus further incentivizing media and creators to focus on creating isolated aesthetic experiences, not ones that are integrated with the environment.

This is such a baseline unquestioned assumption that we have about the structure of the tech economy, that to think a company like Apple would make a device that brings people together in the real world seems absurd.

I wrote a bit more about this idea here: https://onthearts.com/p/modern-culture-is-too-escapist-part

Thanks for sharing, I for one found it relevant! I've always found it somewhat monstrous how much art is in museum archives -- surely "showcasing stuff behind glass" is something our civilization can manage??

I'd quibble that what you're really pointing to here is capitalism, though. Architecture isn't monotonous because of our cultural attitude towards architects/Architecture, it's monotonous because capitalists build most buildings, and they're predictably interested in perceived efficiency above all else. There's good reason to argue that beautiful surroundings augment worker productivity so it's not even a clean tradeoff, but in practice, only the richest companies and universities end up taking that risk with beautiful structures[1][2][3] and/or sculptures/fountains/gardens/etc. Obviously, the same dynamic applies to the exclusivity of contemporary art galleries and private collections.

In Apple's(/"tech"'s) defense, I think they'd absolutely love to sell integrative products whenever possible. The Nintendo Switch was originally marketed[4] as such, and despite being a bit goofy, I imagine it helped sell a lot of units. That's why Apple spent ungodly amounts of money trying to make real AR work before compromising with "passthrough" -- they know that people are social creatures, and that a huge driver of their sales is perceived social value.[5] Again: the problem is the system of incentives, not individual bad actors.

[1] Google's newest 'Bayview' campus: https://blog.google/inside-google/life-at-google/bay-view-ca...

[2] Huawei 'Ox Horn' campus: https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/1fuo1tt/huawei_has_bu...

[3] Vanderbilt University's main campus: https://admissions.vanderbilt.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/4...

[4] "The rooftop party" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UzJdYXk6tjA

[5] The iPhone's status among teens: https://www.phonearena.com/news/Heres-why-iPhones-are-so-pop...

I agree that the fundamental issue may simply be capitalism itself, but I am more prone to blame it on a kind of individualism, both in culture and in the nature of how corporations sell products as individual objects to individual people, and not to any larger social organization. (Except as a placeholder for a group of individuals.)

The difficulty is in imagining some kind of economic structure in which an Apple or Microsoft could make billions from selling products/services that are somehow public goods, or enhancing public spaces. We can conceive of top design minds at Apple spending billions to create a new personal computing device, but the same minds working on a way to improve public spaces – say, by removing graffiti easily, or planting trees easily – just somehow doesn't make sense or fit into the "types of things" they would do.

It may also just be a fundamental structural issue, as I talked about in the latter part of the essay. There are far fewer legal restrictions on individual objects than there are on spaces. I.e., while everyone can use an iPhone everywhere, using a device to remove graffiti would come up against all sorts of property rights laws.

It's quite a difficult topic to wrap one's mind around, at the end of the day. But yeah in general I agree that it's not necessarily individual bad actors, and incentives are a huge part of it.

I have a little unproven hypothesis that fits that last statement, that it would be absurd for a company like Apple to bring people together in the real world.

My hypothesis is that these companies want to make money by "taking" your senses. They want your attention to be with them at all times, by being in your ear so you'll hear them, by being on your wrist so you'll feel them, by being on your eyes so you'll see them.

I'm thinking these companies are building up technological ecosystems - Apple's specialty! - that they hope will eventually form a proxy for you to experience reality. Because if they can convince you to experience life through them, they'll have your wallet too.

Maybe it's just a silly thought of mine, but it kind of fits.

Very well put. I agree with you, and yet I still wouldn’t give up using my Vision Pro. Though I hope I’ll be able to draw the line at the Apple NosePods ;-)

This is such a strange take to me.

A phone is fundamentally a communications device. I use mine to catch rides, figure out where I'm going, call and text my loved ones, all of these things connect me to other people. I listen through headphones to music, and to talk to people, neither of these are isolating experiences. AirPods even have a mode which specifically turns off audio when someone is speaking to you, I like this, because I do enjoy listening to music or a podcast when I'm alone at the grocery store, and I do not like to be isolated by that from people around me, or the cashier.

I also use it to take photos, and then share them with people I care about, sometimes photos of people I care about, which I can then enjoy when they aren't around. These things enhance my senses, they don't steal them.

Phones certainly have some apps available which are addictive, I see people enduring self-imposed isolation in the presence of others due to that addiction, and that's sad, which is why I've dropped those social networks from my life and don't have those apps installed. Apple doesn't make those apps though, the closest thing is Messenger, which is a way to communicate with others, it doesn't have upvotes, it isn't public, none of those things.

I don't see a way to square all that with the thesis that Apple's specialty is isolatory sensory theft. Even the headset, which is clearly not designed to enhance the social parts of life, has several features which exist specifically to connect the user at least in part to their surroundings, and I think the fact that Apple never sold a VR headset without those features is a better reflection of their corporate philosophy than some paranoid yarn about how they make more money if users are cocooned in some Apple-provided sensory replacement bubble.

Did you mean to say Meta? Because if so, you made the mistake twice in the same post.

No, I made no such mistake. Nor was I talking about a "cocoon" or anything "isolatory".

Taking what I said about a commercially sensical strategy about selling a - what was the word I did use? Proxy - through which you can experience the world, and then spinning some paranoid yarn about not experiencing the world at all... Now that is kind of strange.