- Hey, guys, welcome to another episode of "Double Tap" on YouTube, I am Steven Scott. - And I'm Shaun Preece. - Who are you? - Hello. - There you go. I thought I'd let you introduce yourself for a change. - Thank you. - Why am I introducing him, why am I doing this? - You're actually gonna let me talk. - Why am I doing your job? - This is unbelievable. It's a whole new world. - I didn't say that. I didn't say I was gonna let you speak. I said, I would let you introduce yourself. - Sorry, sorry. - That's as far as I'm prepared to go. Apple Vision Pro. - Mm. - What's the point? - Well, you've changed your tune, haven't you? That was a 360, actually. - Is it though? - Well, yeah, like me, - Is it? - You were so excited when that, you know, when it was announced, we went, "This is it! "This is the thing for us." You were as excited as anyone else. - I was so excited - There you go. - When Vision Pro came out, right? - Yeah. - But I think there's been a bit of a reckoning going on in my life. - Oh? - Where I've been thinking a lot about this, and I think, look, I have to be... I gotta lay this out properly so people understand where I'm coming from here. - Okay. - I think, I think Vision Pro is brilliant, and I think people who, you know, will buy it, and generations to come, that the generation 2, 3, 4, whatever one it is that gets to the price point that seems more accessible to more people, I think is gonna make a huge difference, is gonna change everything, I don't deny that. The reviews I've been reading say that this device is going to, you know, change everything, again, like the way the iPhone did. People are really going to move over to this kind of spatial computing, as they call it. - Yeah. - Not from this generation. I think you've gotta forget the hardware inside this generation for a moment. You've gotta forget the weight, you've gotta forget the power, the battery pack, the wires. You've gotta forget all that stuff. This is generation one, right? Or even generation zero, I might argue. - Zero. - It's day one for this product, and you know, it's gonna take a long time to get it to the form factor that everyone's happy with, with the capabilities and everything else, so, let's just accept that, right? But I'm talking as a blind guy, here. For me, I'm looking at this product, and I'm thinking two things. I'm thinking, what's the point? Why would I buy this? Why would I spend my money buying a device like this? And I guess that reason it comes up is because perhaps I fear a little bit that Apple moved towards this kind of spatial computing as the future, and the world of computing as we know it changes, because Apple do guide the way, you know? They changed a lot, I mean, look, Blackberry was killed off by the iPhone, no denial of that, - So was the headphone jack. - Right, the Blackberry- - So was CD drives. - Exactly, a lot of... - Floppy drives, yes. - Physical keyboards on phones disappeared. Now, I'm not saying we're gonna get to the stage where, you know, laptops of old, and you know, MacBooks of old and all that are gonna die off, but down the line, who knows? If this is where spatial computing, if this is where computing goes, I mean, this device, this Apple Vision Pro is a computer on the head. I mean, it's got an M2 processor in there, it's got, you know, decent processing, more than decent processing. - Amazing. - It's got all the capability. I suppose part of me worries that it's the future, and we are gonna have to buy into this, and I don't really know why. And it's also vision-focused, which is a little bit worrying, but then I suppose the other argument is everything's vision-focused, - Everything, yeah. - Right, so, I guess that argument could stand with anything. - It gives us sort of chills of the everything is going touchscreen days, I suppose, you know? - Yes, yeah, exactly. - Where we're losing physical buttons. How on earth am I gonna be able to use that as a visually impaired person? - And also, physical gestures, right? So, I know that there - Yes. - Are alternative input methods, I get that, and that will be the case for a long time, but again, those are alternative input methods. The main input methods are eyes and hands. - Yeah. - And, you know, yes, Apple are fantastic with accessibility. They will offer other ways to do it. You can use many different methods, we talked about that before. Lots of different ways to use this device, which is brilliant, but I, again, I just, I think you've hit it in the head. This is a touch screen moment for us blind people, and only for us, right? For everyone else, they're all excited about it. - Of course. - Everyone's wanting to buy one, I get it, and I don't wanna take that away from anybody. I really don't, so, sighted people, you enjoy it. If you are having fun with your Apple Vision Pro, enjoy it. I am hugely jealous I can't use it. That's the God's honest truth. - Me too. - But, but, I do worry for us, a little bit here, because like the touchscreen moment, when we all got very nervous, how do we get around it this time? Because this is vision-focused, there's no way around it. You wear it in front of your eyes. - Well, I think we're in a better place than we were when touchscreens were introduced, because accessibility, I'm gonna say this, but I hope most people will agree is much more thought about now, or at least much more listened to when we start shouting about it. I mean, we've already gone through the accessibility features that are in the Vision Pro out of the box, all right, there's so many different ways, as you've mentioned, to interact with it. Eye gaze isn't gonna work for us, so, there's a way to use it without that. You can use speech, you can use different gestures, so, there's so many different ways to interact with this, but I think for me, it just comes down to does anyone actually know the use case for this that isn't visual? Because everything I see, you know, everyone's talking about gaming, maybe, and maybe not so much with Apple, but with VR gaming, and the other use is, of course, watching movies, media consumption. Now, what is the difference for us from a VR headset and a pair of decent headphones or earbuds? Because- - Or or even just earbuds. - Just ear, well, exactly, - Just AirPods Pros, I mean, that to me, that is the Apple Vision Pro for blind people, right? - Absolutely, because you can disregard the visual aspect. Now, of course, we're talking about certain levels of blindness here, right? Because for low vision, there may be some great use cases for this, for zooming in, for increasing contrast. It may give you actually better access to your computer than a normal monitor. You know, the screen- - James Rath, blind filmmaker. - Yes. - He tried it on in the Apple store, he said he could see better as a result of using this headset than he could with the naked eye, - Yeah. - With his eye condition, so, you're absolutely right. Low-vision people could really benefit. I think this could be huge for low-vision people. Again, I wanna be very clear on this. I'm talking about this from my point of view. I'm talking about me. - Yes. - It's all about me. I'm talking about me, nobody else. - No. - So, you might love it, and for low-vision people, it might be amazing, and I wish you all the best with it, and I hope it really does. I want it to be amazing for you. I want all the companies like OrCam, and Envision, and Be My Eyes, and all the specialist companies that create these ridiculously expensive headsets to build apps to go into this kind of thing, because honestly, it could change people's lives. I think it really could. I think it could be a huge product, but is it a product for blind people? Now, that leads me on to my next question. Is it okay that blind people don't have a say in this, don't get a seat at this table? Now, we do get a seat at the table, we can buy it, we can use it, but is it okay that we don't, or if we don't? And how does that work out? - Of course, you know what? I think it's a case of not everything can be accessible to that degree. Now, we've mentioned- - Well, that's kind of my main question. Are there certain products? - Yes. - This came up in conversation on "Access Tech Live" - A car. - I threw this question in, and yeah, well, yeah, exactly. Well, maybe one day, - Self-driving, yeah. - But, you know, but Marc made an interesting question on "Access Tech Live" the other day, he said, "Is it just the case that some products "are just not for you?" - Yeah, and I want to be - And I want, - Outraged. - And I kind of jumped on that, and said, "Well, hang on, you know, as long as it's accessible," you know, or at least the option is there for accessibility, that's fine, but I think we have to maybe just accept the world doesn't revolve around us. - Yeah, and I think most of us do. I mean, that's not to say that it shouldn't be... For example, going back to the touchscreen, when the iPhone was first released, it's like, well, we're never ever gonna be able to use that, right? And then accessibility came along. It's like, wow, okay, now, I get it, and we can use it quite easily, it's fantastic. And there could be a case for things where people say, well, how on earth could a blind person use that in the first place? And I'm sure people are saying that for the Vision Pro in the mainstream right now. - Absolutely, yeah. - Dismiss it straight out of hand, where in fact, you know, VoiceOver is built in, and we can navigate around it and whatever else, but I think you are right. I don't think that everything... It may be usable, but is it practical to use? I don't know, but the fear is that that's almost a side question. The fear is that, okay, is everything going in this direction? Everything was going, as soon as the iPhone came out, and touchscreens just caught on fire, everything was going touchscreen. - Yeah. - We were afraid, because it was locking us out, and if everything goes to VR headsets, you know, in the future, we're just putting on a pair of Ray-Ban glasses, and everything's overlaid visually, I am worried about that sort of future. - I'm worried about outside of Apple, for sure. - Yes. - Because I don't believe other companies have the respect for accessibility, and those companies will go ahead with visual first. Audio will be part of it, but accessibility is not guaranteed, and it's certainly not guaranteed for us, so, I think that there's that part of it that I do get a little bit nervous about what happens in the long term. Not from Apple, though, not from Apple, Because I think Apple, you know, as a company that have proven themselves to be a company that really, you know, focuses in on making sure its products are accessible. It does lead me to another question, though, specifically on Apple. It leads me to a question about resources. Now, we blind people who use VoiceOver on the Mac or on iPhone, on Apple TV, or iPad, or even the Watch, - Yeah. - Which is available on, and I'm talking here about VoiceOver, 'cause that's what I use, the screen reader. So, I use that on all my devices, and a lot of us have noticed degradation over the years. My question is, should we allow, or should we expect Apple to point resources to a product like the Vision Pro, say, VoiceOver, for example, which is built for blind people to navigate, and does that take away the resources and development that could go into improving existing VoiceOver capabilities on these other devices? In essence, what I'm asking is does it affect, is it having a knock-on effect if these resources, if this team is being stretched to try and include every product in the line? Is it a point where we, as blind people, should say, right, okay, you know, enough's enough? Forget Vision Pro with VoiceOver, forget that. Let's focus on making the Mac a better experience, or the Watch, or the iPhone, or whatever it might be, and not stretch those resources too thin? - That's a really complicated question. I kind of agree with you, but then again, we're almost giving a pass for something not being accessible at that point. - But a visual product like this, which were the best one in the world for someone who's totally blind with no vision or no useful vision? - Yeah. - Is this something you're gonna spend that kind, I mean, today especially, you're not gonna spend - How many people in the mainstream are gonna - That money on. - Spend that money, anyway? I mean, you know, the price tag is irrelevant in the case of- - But at least they can use all of it, right? They can enjoy the TV shows. I'm kind of joking around when I say, you know, just blind people just buy a pair of AirPods, but that's the truth of it. - It's absolutely true. - You're gonna get the same experience. - Yeah. - And you'll save a fortune, and you can buy it today, and you can use it with everything. - All right, calm down, okay. I just, I worry that, and I don't know the answer to this. I don't know how it's spread and will never know. Apple will never tell us this, I could ask, - Of course, no, no. - And they'll never tell me the answer, but if I asked Apple, you know, where are your resources? They'll say, well, you know, we've got plenty of resources we can... We know that they're a huge company, you know, I pretty much fund most of their products - Yes, you do. - And purchases, and research and development, I think, but, you know, I know that they're a big company, but I don't think the accessibility team is that big, and I just worry that so much effort is being made to make all these products accessible, which is a good thing, - Yes. - But, and it should be, for low-vision people, for people with physical issues, for whatever it might be, but for totally blind people, should we give Apple a pass? - But that's assuming, I mean, the accessibility goes beyond, you know, no usable vision, obviously, and we've talked about that, haven't we? Different disabilities, et cetera, and also, low vision, so if there's no accessibility team working on that, then they're gonna miss out. - I'm talking about VoiceOver, I'm talking blind people, totally blind. - So, you're saying- - Not talking about low vision. - Yeah, but there's still gotta be an accessibility team to work on other disabilities when it comes to this device, you know, people- - Yeah, but you'd have to write VoiceOver for Vision OS, right? You'd have to build that, so, - Well, I mean... - The resources are being built. It's not a copy paste, right? There isn't a file somewhere, - Well, how different, no. - VoiceOver.setup.file, - And then they just copy that into the Vision Pro, and suddenly, oh, there you go, problem solved. Oh, it's working. - How different is iPad OS to iOS? How different is Watch OS to all those? The kernel is probably the same, so, porting is probably not much of an issue. It's all about tuning to the various interfaces, the eye gaze, the gestures. - I don't know about that. If you look at all the issues that you have with VoiceOver one device to the next, it doesn't sense, it doesn't give you the sense that there's some kind of uniformity between them, because surely if something breaks on one device, it would break on the other. - Maybe, yes. - I think you're wrong, is what I'm saying, Shaun. - Yeah, I think I picked that up. - I'm saying you're wrong. - Yeah, I just think it's dangerous territory to get into, to say, ah, well, okay, - Why? - We'll give you a pass on this one, because it's not really for us? - Why is it, why is it dangerous territory to suggest that a product which is built entirely around visuals, - Yes. - For us blind people to say, do you know what, we'll take a pass on this one. - Well, because we don't know at the minute. Maybe this is down to the gen zero thing? We don't know what the use cases for this are. The two that I gave, which were gaming and media consumption, watching Netflix on it. I mean, that's what you come to, but is there another thing that we're not getting here when it comes to spatial computing or VR? Is there another practical use that we can use? Honestly, I don't know. I still look at the Apple Watch and say, why am I wearing this? So, you know, the Apple TV, I was so excited about, because I thought the App Store on it, this could do so many things. Turns out I'm just using it for streaming Disney Plus and Netflix, so, who knows what there is? Look, I totally, I'm with you, because it's a visual thing, but I get a little bit nervy when we say, oh, well, that's visual, so it's nothing to do with you blind people over there. I don't know. There's more to it than that, but it's not an easy - But I'm a blind guy. - Question, yes. - I'm not gonna buy this thing. Are you telling me there's loads of totally blind people that are queuing up that are gonna buy Apple Vision Pro? - No, no, no, absolutely not. - Even four generations down the line? I mean, is it gonna be the case that we could just use a phone and something else? I mean, I don't know, look- - Well, you could say that now. - Maybe it's early days, and that's the problem? Maybe it's the form factor that's putting us off? - You've just bought the - Maybe that's the whole thing? - Meta glasses. - Yeah. - The Meta Ray-Ban glasses. Now, if the Vision Pro, if we have all that computing power, all the cameras, all the processing of the sensors available that are in the Vision Pro in a form factor, like just a pair of Ray-Ban sunglasses, are you telling me you wouldn't be interested in that? The ability, the wearable camera, which is something that we all want as blind people, we want the ability for a wearable camera on our face. I mean, even that is something that interests me. The screens in front of my eyes don't, obviously. Maybe it is just the - Yeah. - Form factor? - I'm interested in your comments. You know what to do. You press that button that says, Comment, and you type things in there, and we can read them, and reply. Thank you, Shaun, it's been an interesting conversation today. I'm intrigued to see what people think. - Absolutely. - Do keep subscribing and telling your friends. Tell 10 of your friends to tell 10 of their friends, to tell 10 of their friends - Oh. - About this channel, and that means we will get at least three more subscribers. - Hooray. - Possibly in the next year. That's it for today, thank you very much. We'll catch you next time, goodbye. - Thank you, bye-Bye.