I find it helpful to invert the perspective; let’s assume we have perfect VR/AR; what would monitors be good for when you can call up arbitrary number of windows anywhere in your visual field?

There are maybe some information-radiator type use cases. Probably things like big screens at live events / shows.

But for individual users, I think anything a monitor can do, an endgame AR display can do, and more flexibly.

Why would you (personally, I’m interested in your viewpoint) want a monitor if you had a perfect AR display that you could dismiss into thin air when you didn’t need it, or conjure up a 6-screen dev environment when you did need it? You could put your keyboard and mouse down at any comfortable chair and be as productive as your current dev setup with your optimal monitor count.

(My claim was even stronger than yours, I don’t think they need to be perfect to be better, but since you volunteered it, let’s explore that extreme.)

I’m assuming “perfect” is something completely unnoticeable like lightweight glasses or contacts BTW, and I think there is a bunch of good stuff before perfect.

> I’m assuming “perfect” is something completely unnoticeable like lightweight glasses or contacts BTW, and I think there is a bunch of good stuff before perfect

If that's the case, and if your perception of your real environment is in no way hindered, then I agree -- monitors wouldn't have an advantage.

Short of that, though, I would strongly prefer monitors over VR.

> you can call up arbitrary number of windows anywhere in your visual field?

This is not something I personally would want to do. I want my computer/user interface to be constrained to a specific part of my visual field. Even if it's all in VR, that's how I would use it anyway.

I'll be interested to see if views on this have shifted this time next week after Apple's announcement.

For my part, I think the notion of putting down giant expensive phyiscal rectangles that are geolocked to one physical position just to use computers is going to seem like a quaint artefact of history in a few years.