I've always found the Apple Watch to be more of a fashion accessory or a toy. People seem to really love them and showing them off.
Apple is a luxury fashion company first, and a tech company second.
Apple’s Best Hope for New Headset: a Smartwatch-Like Trajectory
121–130 of 191 posts
Re: Apple’s Best Hope for New Headset: a Smartwatch-Like Trajectory
#122If it is as described I think it is insane for Apple to launch this product. Comparing it to the state of the Apple Watch is pretty strange because if nothing else the Apple Watch was functional, self contained, worked, and was under $1,000. Even if it didn’t work you could put it on and ignore it. A VR/AR headset is nothing like that and at $3,000 is a significant investment for most everyone. But who knows. I haven…
Bet your manager’s manager’s manager will get one. Then your manager’s manager. Then your manager. If you sit on Zoom calls all day it sounds amazing.
That… doesn’t sound particularly amazing. As someone who sits in a lot of Zoom calls, I’m not sure I’ve ever found myself thinking “I wish this was more intrusive”.
Re: Apple’s Best Hope for New Headset: a Smartwatch-Like Trajectory
#123In which way will they make it different from the Meta headsets? The Apple branding won't be enough to turn an average headset into a successful product. My guess would be that their headset is just a set of goggles that requires an iPhone for computation. Then, they can sell them for $300 or even $150. The article suggests that VR is a tool for long-distance relationships. For $300, that could become possible.
Apple sells WHEELS for a Mac Pro for $700!
You think that same Apple will sell, what may be a totally new revolutionary product of less than half the cost of WHEELS?
Try again.
Re: Apple’s Best Hope for New Headset: a Smartwatch-Like Trajectory
#124Apple has come a long way from the time when not even the engineering team working on a product would know what it really was until Steve Jobs unveiled it on stage. Now everything gets leaked like at every other company. Did Apple even have a hundred executives in 2008?
> Now everything gets leaked like at every other company.
Does it get leaked though?
First, there are the "expected" predictions (a new phone is coming in the fall!) that keep failing to predict what actually will happen with hardware or software on the phone (iPhone 14 was to be foldable and made out of titanium with new exciting ways of interacting with the OS ffs)
Second, there are outrageous claims about new hardware that either fail to materialise completely (AR/VR was definitely coming two years ago and absolutely one hundred percent definitely coming last year, and will absolutely certainly no doubt about it come this year), or are not nearly in the ballpark of what is actually going to be released (rumors of a desktop-level CPU were around since probably the first A-series chips, but literally no one predicted either M-series or the transition process).
The one actual leak I remember when an iPhone pre-production version was left at a bar almost a decade ago now.
Re: Apple’s Best Hope for New Headset: a Smartwatch-Like Trajectory
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
What part of having something strapped to your face all day while on Zoom calls sounds amazing? As someone who spends all day on zoom calls this is the last thing I want.
Not having to sit sounds pretty amazing. Assuming it can match my monitor quality. I think of a headset as headphones for your eyes.
> Not having to sit sounds pretty amazing.
Well you’re not going to be able to walk around unless it’s some AR mix, but I can imagine it being very confusing, with trips over furniture galore.
Re: Apple’s Best Hope for New Headset: a Smartwatch-Like Trajectory
#126Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not having to sit sounds pretty amazing. Assuming it can match my monitor quality. I think of a headset as headphones for your eyes.
I'm unclear what's being suggested here. The "headphones for your eyes" analogy is incorrect, because if you're on a call, then you can listen via headphones while, for example, making food, or taking care of children, or doing chores. But you can't do any of those things if you can't see your surroundings. Taking over your vision is far more disruptive than taking over your hearing. You might as well be sitting.
I don’t always need to pay full visual attention to what’s on screen, and I assume there will be a way to keep someone’s boring slide presentation on a side while cooking or walking.
Re: Apple’s Best Hope for New Headset: a Smartwatch-Like Trajectory
#127Earlier quoted context omitted.
Where was this persistent iteration and overnight success with Homepod, Airpower, butterfly keyboards, touchbar, force touch, MobileMe, Ping? Apple has had its share of failures like any other company, and kills products like any other company. There is plenty of precedence for their AR headset to just fizzle out.
Butterfly keyboards, touch bar and force-touch were features rather than products - most of these were actually iterated out of the product, although the touchbar is still in the latest MacBook Pro's. As a side point, 3D touch was brilliant IMO! These were all part of the persistent iteration of the iPhone and Macbook, hardly failed products. Also Homepod has just had a second version (released 2023), and a third ver…
The touch bar only makes an appearance in the 13” MBP, and the 13” MBP is very much the current generation’s Mac That No-one Should Buy (as was the non-retina 13” MBP that hanged around for _years_ after the MBA essentially obsoleted it); unless you have very specific needs you probably want an Air.
The current ‘normal’ MBPs don’t have touchbars.
Re: Apple’s Best Hope for New Headset: a Smartwatch-Like Trajectory
#128HoloLens is (soon to be was) a great AR device. Certainly useable and competent but it suffered from the same issue over and over: once the gee wiz demo was over, outside of a few very niche uses, people went back to using their laptops and smartphones. Because it’s easier to just pull out your smartphone, get whatever you need done, then put it back in your pocket. This rapid and random access is why people love sma…
Apple addresses these issues by selling it to architects, engineers, designers, and other professionals who have an actual use case for the device.
They sell million or less in year or two. This is simply too expensive to be a consumer device. There must be at least 5-6 years of iteration until it finds use on the mass market.
Re: Apple’s Best Hope for New Headset: a Smartwatch-Like Trajectory
#129Earlier quoted context omitted.
> and suddenly they'll have a real market to compete in With ads. Good luck, Meta.
FWIW, this is exactly the sort of 400 IQ chess play Mark Zuckerberg has been playing for the past half-decade, and the one this website has kicked the piss out of him for time immemorial. So which is it? Is VR a dehumanizing medium with no redeeming qualities, or is it a horizon of content and potential yet to be unlocked? It feels like HN's opinion on it changes every 15 minutes. Personally, I think VR is a bust. Th…
> All Zuckerberg needs to 'win' is a cross-platform killer app. If Apple's hardest spin on this is "FaceTime with 3D characters"
As opposed to Zuckerberg literally pouring billions into exactly poorly executed Facetime with 3D characters that even his own employees are unwilling to use?
Re: Apple’s Best Hope for New Headset: a Smartwatch-Like Trajectory
#130Initial product will be weak, just like the original iPhone (no App Store, slow, poor battery life, etc) and Apple Watch (no development, no health tracking, small screen, poor battery life). The thing about Apple is not to judge based on v.1 but to watch the iteration. They are the most persistent company in the world. Compare to Google which seems to have ADHD. Apple will iterate and iterate and in 5 years we’ll al…
Where was this persistent iteration and overnight success with Homepod, Airpower, butterfly keyboards, touchbar, force touch, MobileMe, Ping? Apple has had its share of failures like any other company, and kills products like any other company. There is plenty of precedence for their AR headset to just fizzle out.
Maybe the Newton is a better example, although they did revisit the concept many years later.