3 Comments
Apr 26Liked by Nick Potkalitsky

Great read, Nick!

To be honest, it never even crossed my mind that the Apple Vision Pro is / could be billed as an education-enhancing device. I always saw it as a high-end toy for individual users, not a tool to be used in the classroom where social interactions tend to be encouraged.

But this just shows that I'm perhaps stuck in the old ways - there's certainly the potential of remote collaboration, interactive educational games that require groupwork to solve, etc. But I guess for that to become reality, the price would have to come down dramatically, all the tech issues you've outlined need to be ironed out, and it'll probably a pretty huge mindset change within educational institutions.

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Thanks, Daniel,

Yes the push has been heavily leaning toward education since the original conceptualization of this product. There are couple immersive education spaces already created for Vision Pro. The idea is that student would be invited into these space to conduct scientific observations and experiments. Pretty cool. But as you say... cost of entry is prohibitive in light of the questionable benefits. Why not just go outdoors and do something comparable?

The real long-term value which I don't address in this piece lies in the way such devices might help students who cannot use hands but still need to compute. The use of eyes as a computing agent would be a game-changer. But this would be a more speciality function -- and would not involve the VR takeover of education that Apple is imagining right now. Be well, Daniel!!

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That's curious. I must've missed that entire promotional aspect of it! And the specialized cases you outline do make a lot of sense, along with situations where being physically present is a challenge. Will be interesting to see how this space unfolds!

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