Working in VR/MR or just playing?

DCTonkaTruck

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Jun 21, 2014
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I think Alex Kipman says he spends most of his work day wearing his Mixed Reality Headset... I know I can use a web browser in Mixed Reality and the Mail/Calendar/Contacts app seems to work, but are there other productivity apps that you are using in MR/VR to get through the work day? I think for me, if I could run SQL queries, SFTP File and do some text file editing, I'd probably be able to manage. It'd be ideal if I had Word, Excel and Outlook also... but maybe that's just on the horizon.
 
There's the VR desktop app that's the desktop as we know it.
So also Office. I don't have my headset yet, but I'm curious how that would work.
 
There's the VR desktop app that's the desktop as we know it.
So also Office. I don't have my headset yet, but I'm curious how that would work.

You can download office mobile, and it works fine in the vr environment.....EXCEPT, you can't use more than one instance of Word, Excel, OneNote etc.

When you open a new window, it tombstones your original one. So that kind of kills the idea that everyone has of having more than one screen of an app to be more productive with VR with multiple instances, like having multiple monitors in the real world.

Interestingly, you can have more than one instance of the Edge web browser open though, so I suppose you could use office online or google docs.

Another thing, I use OneNote a ton, but as of now it's kind of broken in the VR environment.

Hopefully Microsoft gets around to fixing the 'only single instances' of it's office apps in mixed reality. Then we could actually get some work done in there!
 
You can download office mobile, and it works fine in the vr environment.....EXCEPT, you can't use more than one instance of Word, Excel, OneNote etc.

Also in the Desktop VR app? I can't image there's a limitation there, like on a non-VR desktop.
 
Even when I'm working on something for WMR I don't keep the headset on very often. Perhaps because this is my first HMD and I need to get used to it, but even with the upgraded padding that HP unit has it's just not comfortable enough to leave on through extended periods of time.

The "desktop" app is decent for working. If I resize it to about the size of a 30" monitor and place my virtual body far enough away I think it looks great and isn't too hard to read. Though I haven't tried very hard, I haven't been able to get multiple instances of desktop to open and run as multiple monitors in WMR. Since I use two monitors IRL I'd have to be able to use more than one in WMR to feel productive. Most of the work I've done so far is from Unity or WebVR in Edge which can bypass the cliff house entirely so I've spent very little time in it.