What spatial computing era will look like ⋆ This week in AI ⋆ Rebooting Productivity - Slow vs Fast

This week I found myself talking to accomplished thirty-somethings with fat wallets, and guess what? They've never heard of ChatGPT or the generative AI of last year and change.

I put my 'AI Whisperer' hat on, on a mission to make folks AI-literate - Yes, I'm fun at parties 🥳 - all excited about the life-changing info I was about to drop.

What followed was a symphony of discomfort: eyes glazed over, half-hearted excuses trickled in, and one by one they drifted away. It made me sad.

You'll be replacing people like this in a few years. They won't know what hit them.

Thing 1 - Apple joined the VR/AR race a.k.a. we entered spatial computing era

It's stunning, that this will be old one day.

Apple's VR/AR headset announcement (9:21 min)

The original iPhone cost about $500 - or $720 adjusted for inflation.

Starting at $3499, Apple Vision Pro - despite what people are saying - won't replace the iPhone (any time soon).
Nor will it get into the ring with $999 Meta's Quest Pro. Not when it costs north of $1500 to make it.

Take a look

1. Next-Level UX: No controllers here! Apple Vision Pro makes you a maestro, conducting your own symphony of apps with just your eyes and your hands. And with the best eye tracking and hand gesture recognition in the biz, who needs buttons?
   You can just look at an input field, speak what you want to put in, then pinch your fingers to submit.
2. The Mighty Crown: With the crown's immersion dial, you can control your levels of immersion like a DJ controls the bass.
3. EyeSight: Your own virtual bodyguard for awkward social interactions. It alerts you if someone's walking in on you, so you can... I don't know... put a pillow over your activity?
4. Dual-chip Design (M2 + R1): If the M2 and R1 chips were a band, they'd be rocking the charts with their hit single, "Lag-Free and Loving It."
5. Persona Feature: Vision Pro scans your face and digitizes it. Then uses cameras on the inside to recreate your facial expressions. That's how you appear in Facetime since a selfy cam won't do. Does that mean you don't need to put on makeup and can always look your best self?
6. VisionOS Team: They've been cooking up some magic under the radar, and now, it's showtime!
7. Apple Ecosystem Integration: Apple Vision Pro isn't just a lone ranger out on the tech frontier. It's playing well with its Apple family, as expected. Got a message on your iPhone? View it in the blink of an eye in your VR world. Want to connect to your Mac? Just look at it, and boom, your 13-inch screen fills the whole room.

Apple Vision Pro seems like the Swiss Army knife of spatial computing.

Step back

16'' M2 Max MacBook Pro also starts at $3499 👀

And now you know what Vision Pro is competing with - and beating it on many levels.

They don't call it "the era of spatial computing" for no reason.

Battery life of about 2 hours is a bit short for some experiences. Premium materials make it a bit heavy. But come on...

Thing 2 - This week in AI

AI advancement didn't pause for Apple's revolution in computing.

• Deepmind's AlphaDev discovers a faster sorting algorithm.
• Google's Bard now runs code in the background when it detects computational prompts
• Synthesis school announced (waitlisted) AI math tutor for kids
• Facebook Research released a simple and controllable model for music generation.

Thing 3 - Slow vs Fast Productivity

We basically just throw an unlimited amount of work at individuals and say it's up to you to self-regulate. An impossible task to ask.

- Cal Newport

Cal proposes, I think, to rewire your brain for slow productivity.

Your brain rewards you with positive feelings (that sweet, sweet dopamine) when you complete tasks you perceive as important. But when you're overloaded with work, it's overwhelming and leads to unhappiness. This disrupts your natural cognitive processes.

• Fast productivity - complete as many tasks as possible in a short time
• Slow productivity - focus on meaningful accomplishments over the years, not just days or weeks.

Slow productivity aligns better with your brain's natural functioning and leads to higher-value outcomes. The usual rush to finish tasks can distract you from the sustained effort needed to achieve significant goals.

Till next week!

Cheers, Zvonimir