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VisionOS and the Future of Input
Ever since the computer first arrived, keyboard and mouse has been the standard. You have a flat surface with raised little squares that you smack with your fingers. You have another little rounded shape with a flat bottom you move around, and click with.
This awkward, clunky interface has significant culture war elements, in that an entire class of powerful people arose - specifically people who didn't have traditional status markers like height, strength, or indomitable physical presence. Instead these 'nerds' or 'geeks' or whatever you want to call them specialized themselves in the digital realm. Now, the Zuckerburgs and Musks of the prior generation rule the world. Or if they don't, they soon will.
These outdated interfaces seem perfectly normal to everyone who has only used them. Sure many people have used a controller for video games, and may think that controllers are superior for some cases, but not others. Keyboard and mouse is the only way to operate when it comes to a computer, most people surely imagine.
That being said, it's actually quite easy to dip your toes into alternate input methods. Talon is a system that utilizes voice to let you do practically anything on a computer. You can move the mouse, click on any object on your screen, dictate, edit text, and you can even code quite well. Talon's system even supports mapping operations, sometimes very complex ones, to custom noises you record on your own.
On top of that you can integrate eye tracking, using a relatively inexpensive device. If you've ever used voice control combined with eye tracking, you can operate around as fast as someone who is decent at using a keyboard and mouse.
If you have ever used these systems, you probably know that because most digital setups are built for keyboard and mouse, it's not necessarily perfect. Keyboard and mouse still hold the crown.
But. There is a certain magic to controlling a computer through your voice, or your eyes. It begins to open your mind to new possibilities, the idea that there are better, faster, easier, more natural ways of interfacing with a computer than the defaults we have been stuck with.
Enter Apple's VisionOS.
If you haven't seen the recent demo of Apple's new VisionOS they're breaking brand new ground. The entire OS is built around looking at things, and making minute hand motions to control the icons you're looking at. There are no controllers, no physical interfaces whatsoever besides your eyes and your hands. It's breathtaking to watch.
In a review from John Gruber, a well respected old head in the VR space and a creator of markdown, the possibilities behind this new technology are apparent. Gruber describes how
Now Apple does tend to get a ton of hype, but this reaction of being amazed by the experience is surprisingly common among earlier reviewers:
The implications of this 'spatial operating system' are varied and multitudinous, of course. There will be all sorts of productivity gains, and new ways of interacting with the digital world, and fun new apps. However I'm most interested in how this innovation could shift the balance of power back to the strong and physically capable, away from the nerds.
No longer will clunky interfaces make sense - instead computers will be optimized around healthy, fully functional humans. Ideally the most intuitive and common control schemes will reward physical fitness and coordination. Traits which nerds lack in droves.
Will we see a reversal of the popularity that being a nerd or geek has gained in the past few decades? Only time will tell.
I'm not seeing this at all. First off, while the VisionOS sounds really cool, fundamentally it sounds pretty similar to the iPad - a device for consuming content, not creating it. Sure the interface is cool, movies look nice, and properly recorded immersive experiences are super awesome. But I don't see how it's a significant advantage in any type of content creation. For writing text and creating graphics, it's pretty much the same interface you can use now, except with a bigger virtual screen. You're going to be entering text by typing on a real or virtual keyboard I guess, or maybe speaking, either of which you can already do. If you want to do something more technical like writing code or system admin, it doesn't seem super well suited to the precision required. Sure it can do it, but it'll be emulating a conventional 2D UI with keyboard, so not really doing anything that you couldn't already do with any regular computer.
I guess you could also code by voice, per the video. But 1. I don't get that at all. Maybe you can type up some basic code if you know the special words and phrases, but it doesn't seem very practical to me to maintain or debug a large complex program. And 2. even if you could, you can already do that with a regular computer with a microphone and that software.
I don't see the supposed culture war impact at all either. First, I don't buy that "nerds" / tech workers are significantly less fit as a whole than the general population. I'm a developer and have worked with hundreds of others, they seem pretty average to me - a few are more muscular or athletic than usual, most have pretty standard office worker physique, a relative few look a bit more like the stereotypical nerd but are still perfectly capable physically. Next, even if that was the case, I don't see what VisionOS and related technologies would have to do with it - nothing about it is more physically intense than walking around a room. The number of people of all walks of life who would find anything about it the least bit physically challenging is probably effectively zero. Finally, as far as physical prowess being less important for societal status, that goes back at least to the start of the Industrial Revolution, if not further. Blame the backhoe, not the PC. A new user interface for PCs that may or may not make any difference in how they're effectively used won't make any difference at all.
Do you not think people could dictate essays, draw with their hands, edit music, etc with this tool? Why does this entire OS seem fundamentally based on consumption to you?
It's not necessarily about physical intensity - it's about ease of use. Clearly I could expand on this point since many others seem confused as well. I'm betting that right now many people who would otherwise be more economically useful are not because they don't have the temperament, ability, or inclination to learn how to type quickly or move a mouse around quickly. With VisionOS and later generations, we'll see much more 'natural' inputs, or at least have a lower barrier to entry than, say, learning to type at 100 wpm.
Sure, you could do that, but what's the advantage over conventional hardware? I can do all of those things just fine with any ordinary computer and off-the-shelf accessories and software that has been available for years. The only really new thing that this device has is the immersive VR experience. That's cool, but I don't see how that gets you anything for creating content.
I don't think that's the case. Keyboards and mice have been dominant because they are very easy to use. Sure, it's not easy to type 100wpm with good accuracy, but pretty much everyone can type 10wpm. Typing 100wpm isn't that useful outside of stenography anyways. Typically the limiting factor is how fast you can think of more meaningful words of text or working lines of code to type, not how fast you can physically type them. In fact, I'd bet that whatever the solution VisionOS uses for typing (we haven't seen that yet, gee I wonder why that is, you'd think if they have an awesome solution to getting text from the user's mind to the device they'd have shown us), it's less intuitive than a keyboard. How much skill does it take to get 10 correct wpm into a VisionOS document versus a regular computer with a regular keyboard?
And that's before we get into things like, how easy is it to read text or data off of a physical page while typing it or something loosely based on it into a VisionOS document?
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