Thoughts after Apple iPad event with implications for #VisionPro: Today, Apple positioned iPad and VisionPro for professional use, including movie production and sound editing (e.g., FinalCut & Logic Pro on the iPad), and training (VisionPro). They also updated the Apple Pencil. Here's an exciting idea:
An issue to some with Vision Pro has been the lack of strong integration of hand controllers, especially compared to more gaming-centric headsets. For serious use of VisionPro's initial major pro app, Excel, I think it helps to use a physical keyboard and trackpad, which it does support. But that's not rich enough for many more advanced uses.
I think in the not-too-distant future we’ll see the iPad integrated with VisionPro like the Mac started, if not more so. You’ll use an iPad, perhaps with a Magic Keyboard, and the new Apple Pencil Pro for professional-level control. Having both a pencil, with squeeze, twirl, haptic-feedback, hover, etc., along with the current full-motion hand and arm movement in 3D-space, gives you the start of a very rich and precise way of interacting with spatial computing. Moving on the hard iPad surface could be quite superior to waving something in the air or using a joystick. The Mac is not for using a pen, but the iPad is. I’m thinking long-term, not just the current headset. The videos they showed of their pro-apps on iPad, and the VisionPro update which included touting a film director using it to oversee the editing and visual effects for an upcoming film, hinted towards this convergence to me. I wonder if it's true.
@danb remove the iPad and you might be onto something. visionOS already supports many iPad apps. Just give it Apple Pencil support and allow for apps to more easily be pinned to a flat surface. Any surface could be a drawing surface or take it off a surface and work directly in 3D space with Zbrush or other sculpting apps.
If all the other spatial devices can track well enough with controllers not on a surface so could Apple Pencil with Vision Pro.
@kaplag Just on a plain surface could be interesting. I think the iPad helps with precise positioning (more than 150 dpi at 100 or more samples per second helps for a pen as I recall from my pen-computing days), charging, more computation, and an image under your hand. Not sure what support the pencil requires of the surface under it. (Remember the Wacom, etc., from the 1990's and later - it's been a long time since I was last in the precise pen world.) This is not gross motions but rather light feathering or more. Of course, Apple doesn't always seem that concerned with cost of a pro accessory.
