other than the constant, high-pitched “eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee” i’ve heard for the last 30 years?

AdGuard Pro. Blocks everything.

You have basically described how everyone who has seen the ad cannot understand the concepts of nuance or metaphor, for these are not what they criticize.

Don’t get me wrong: I don’t like the ad, either, mostly just because I don’t like ads in general. I just find this one pretentious redirect once again, and I’m bored. It tries to cram a tired message into an overwrought concept so they can avoid saying the same thing for the 20th time: it’s a bit faster and does bit more than the previous model.

But just because the ad is dumb and boring and overwrought doesn’t mean that some of these rather absurd criticisms are valid, either. Hugh Grant criticized it as a ‘destruction of the human experience’.

Really

sigh

Edit: I want to explain this further—

The ad tried to employ the visual metaphor of “constructive destruction” in that they were distilling that closet/room full of creative hardware into the iPad— but so much focus was on the destruction of it all and so little on the results of that “distillation” that the ad just comes of communicating that the new iPads are fucking dreamkillers. Hard sell! Or that all of your hard work or that all of the “real tools” that creatives break their backs with are meaningless nothings to Apple… lots of bad symbolism there.

Apple (or their ad agency) was likely going for the fruit > blender > delicious smoothie visual metaphor and missed by a lightyear. My brothers and sisters in the Flying Spaghetti Monster, people are getting fired over this. Wow.

Ugh, I hate to be the one to say this, but…

Futurama predicted it

In no way am I advocating that they change the game. I appreciate your view on the matter.

Wait, GTA III came before VC?

now it’s happened with the launch of a major new product class— and it has failed *spectacularly*.

I said the launch failed, not the product itself. It’s not my fault that you don’t understand what you read.

Strange— you say I’m wrong, yet you don’t say how or about what, nor do you offer explanation or evidence. Also, I never said it “failed” nor that it was a “failure”, but at least you acknowledge I said that it’s a niche product (which sorta contradicts the “failure” claim, doesn’t it?)

I’m glad you like yours, and I also look forward to future iterations.

Since you’re clearly not willing to listen to anyone but your own biased arguments, cherry-picked articles, and your own bias despite your own admitted lack of first-hand knowledge or experience, and you insist on making on fallacious argument after the next, this conversation is over since now you’re just sea lioning.

Blocked.

You are twisting my words, cherry-picking, making false equivalencies, and ignoring a ton of evidence, all while ignoring your own massive bias.

Sorry buddy, but you’re wrong to compare the Vision Pro to Apple’s other product launches of late. The only one I can think to compare it to is the Lisa.

You’re comparing apples and oranges here, while at the same time both overblowing the initial criticisms of the original iPhone while ignoring the amazement and praise it initially got compared to how little praise weighed against the (ok, near-) universal criticism the Vision Pro is getting.

It’s nowhere close. Not by galaxies.

You, yourself, admit you were “late to the smartphone game”— I was there, and I can tell you: pretty much everyone had iPhone mania. Stores couldn’t keep them on the shelves. They sold on eBay for outrageous markup. And while a few didn’t like them, most people adored them despite their quirks.

That’s just not the case with the Vision Pro.

I owned an original iPhone and saw its immediate potential as a revolutionary device. That thing got me laid more than once.

This is different.

Look, I see what this could become, but Apple hadn’t thought through some important parts of creating an entirely new computing UX. And the device’s expense and design are serious problems that devices like the iPhone didn’t have to overcome.

Everyone immediately knew how to use and integrate the iPhone into their lives, despite some very vocal critics and some valid complaints. The Vision Pro is a device that has no clear purpose, no “killer feature”, and whatever allure it may have is worn off by its outrageous and prohibitive price brought by the fact that’s it absurdly over-engineered.

As a result, it’s almost universally panned.

I can think of 100 use cases just for me. Maybe 500.More for other specialists in other industries. What I can’t do - even as a UX designer - is even imagine 100,000 use cases, which I can for… a phone or an iPod or and iPad. More even.

And Apple hasn’t engineered this device for those use cases. If they had, and marketed this device as such, we would be having a very different conversation.

But they didn’t.

And that’s a shame

Generally speaking, Apple’s very good about “hitting the now” with new tech, but they really missed the mark with this one. This tech is just too far ahead of its time. This is a real General Magic moment.

Hopefully, of the many things Apple learns from the Vision Pro Gen 1 is that building a massively over-engineered Rolls Royce MR face-computer is that they’ve finally hit a wall with both their bonkers product pricing scheme and their magical thinking about their internal product visions always seamlessly translating to widespread consumer reality. I mean, especially on the latter point, they’ve been falling flat for a few years, but mostly with smaller products and services, but now it’s happened with the launch of a major new product class— and it has failed spectacularly.

Don’t get me wrong: the Vision Pro is revolutionary wrt what it can become, but Apple released a product that was way too fucking expensive and which didn’t have the ecosystem of support functions to make it clear to everyone even what it’s for. It’s not an MR/AR/VR headset. It’s a FACE-COMPUTER which operates in MR only, and very few people can really wrap their heads around using a computer only that way, especially since even Apple hasn’t made it work that way very well or even made a case for why it should (outside of extreme edge cases)— yet.

This is future tech for a future when we’re ready for and need it. Right now, people just want an MR peripheral, not a whole ass FaceMac. And - for goddamn sure - nobody wants to pay for one.

Removed by mod

Filoni and Favrau have learned how to leverage the development of the personal relationship of fandom and tie it to the development of quality long-form storytelling in prestige television for streaming. And they’re passionate about the franchise and material.

Terry Matalis showed a great capacity for this when he took over PIC S03, as have the showrunners/producers of Prodigy, especially how they’ve held their shit together during the whole debacle that’s been going on with the production of that show. Ya know… Trek’s greatest asset WRT storytelling was decades of both the 26 episode/season allowance plus the episodic format. It gave so much breathing room to explore the Trek universe and to develop characters. Today, we have galaxy-sized budgets, but the space and time we have to tell these stories has shrunk so much that Trek hasn’t really adapted to it still. And it has suffered for it.

Trek needs to remember that it’s relationship with its core fandom is one of its greatest assets and to leverage that to start developing much more personal stories and storylines rather than flagrantly flipping us the bird to chase ever-diminishing profits by producing shows that are all flash and no substance, run and written by people with no knowledge of Trek, if not open contempt for it.

Yeah, the plot of the PT and the characters were just so dull and weird. Lucan can’t do dialogue.

But Andor really shines with its political intrigue and that’s what I love so much about it. Seeing inside the ISB is awesome! that and how it tells such a deep, human story that’s as much about the characters as it is about the universe it’s in.

See, that’s the thing about Andor that really stands out from even The Mandolorian (although there’s a good deal of it there): these don’t feel like characters a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away. Lucas wrote stories based on character archetypes from ancient mythology. Filoni and Favrau write characters and storylines based on allegory and metaphor for people here and now, today and in timeless social and political struggle and strife. They’re relatable, so their dramas, their struggles, their hopes and aspirations for freedom resonate with us on a much closer level. They become personal. We identify with them. And, as a result, we become personally invested in their journey and their fate.

Guilty pleasure: I really loved all of the boring political intrigue of the prequel trilogy and learning how the government of the Galactic Republic worked and how Palpy maneuvered into power and then overthrew the Republic and reorganized it into The Empire. I found all that boring shit fascinating, even as those films were, to their purpose, boring failures amd their stories told terribly. Because I’m a filthy neeeeeeerd.

For the PT, I was more interested in the story than the plot, and then relied more on Close Wars for coverage of the era, for Anakin story/plot, and, of course, Ahsoka.

I really must agree! While an occasional cinematic outing can be enjoyable, Trek is at its best on the small screen!

Edit: incidentally, for as much as I love the OT, I feel the same applies for the Star Wars franchise. Dave Filoni and John Favrau have done more with that franchise that Lucas ever could!