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Apple’s new headset meets reality

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Re: Apple’s new headset meets reality

#291

Post by jdprgm »

freetime2 wrote: post #285
jdprgm wrote: post #280

One thing which I don't get why people don't seem to get is long term (and perhaps with this release from Apple) headsets should be replacing tv's for at least a substantial amount of viewing. For example I have a fairly high end 4k projector setup but in an apartment with limits on light control. Even with a dedicated room and $3k allocated to a projector and a screen and high enough resolution (which i'm expecting…

I just don’t care that much about fidelity on my TVs. By far the majority on content we watch on TV is YouTube and news, where immersiveness is actually undesirable. And nobody in my house can tell the difference between 4k and HD, so I’ve always opted for the cheaper HD Netflix plan. So for me, a more immersive viewing experience isn’t worth the hassle of needing to strap a device to my head.

I don't really watch cable news so hadn't considered it but yeah makes sense as similar to sports in a lot of situations and more passive viewing. If you aren't the kind of person who watches films and scripted shows like me where all the lights are off and I want no other external sound and a total immersive experience than sure it invalidates my points. Obviously not for all but an option for a lot.

Re: Apple’s new headset meets reality

#292

Post by agnosticmantis »

Why not a lightweight, unobtrusive AR glass that uses the iPhone as the main compute engine and delivers notifications, navigation, speech recognition & translation to the glass in a clear way. None of this has to be super high-quality or super low-latency, and I’d still pay 500 too buy it.

I don’t care for VR, games or metaverse. Tell me what plant/insect I’m looking at, what’s that star/satellite in the sky, help with measurements. Simple useful stuff that doesn’t need me to wear a supercomputer on my head.

Re: Apple’s new headset meets reality

#293

Post by r00fus »

melling wrote: post #84
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #13

I don't think there is a consumer market for head mounted AR anymore - if there ever really was. That makes me sad having been in AR since 2010 - and knowing what we could do with it if done right. I just don't think society currently has an appetite for a $3000 product that gives the wearer visual superpowers (that is the promise after all) and is an impossible to ignore distinction between classes. I honestly think…

“ I just don't think society currently has an appetite for a $3000” Yep, that’s an easy one. Guess what. It’s not for general use. I have no idea where AR/VR is going. However, I’m all for Apple spending part of its large cash reserve in R&D. I guarantee something useful will come out of it. Hopefully, someone with a little vision comes along and says “you know what we could do with this technology…”

Correct. Arguably an Apple employee in the future will leave and rethink it to be successful when technology or the market is right.

Even as an Apple enthusiast, I think this product is destined to be this year’s HomePod.

Re: Apple’s new headset meets reality

#294

Post by white_dragon88 »

usernew wrote: post #253
bredren wrote: post #80

>underscoring the narrative that the company’s biggest victories were initiated under his predecessor, Apple co-founder Steve Jobs What does the author consider to be a victory? Tim Cook was elevated because he had the operational capability to grow Apple. Jobs did not consider Cook to be a product design person. But Jobs trusted Cook to find and keep people who could design products. By any stretch of the imaginatio…

[flagged]

That’s a whole lot of salt for something that actually exists and wasn’t a load of hot air. AirPod max headphones are brilliant devices. M1 chips have made laptops fast, quiet and cool while maintaining a very impressive speed (there’s nothing gimped about the MacBook). Iphones continue to be market leaders for a reason, they unite classical consumers You can not like it, but you can’t deny it.

Maybe part of the reason they did so well is that competition sucked. Windows is a blob of cruft on top of cruft, isolating Microsoft into its own developer bubble. Android OS has been a very mixed platter, known for relying on carriers and manufacturers to keep the phones up to date (which they provably suck at)

Re: Apple’s new headset meets reality

#295

Post by OkGoDoIt »

dom96 wrote: post #184
cubefox wrote: post #138

From the information available so far, the Apple headset will be fairly close to Meta's Oculus Quest in terms of hardware: Portable and with external cameras to allow for orientation and "mixed reality". Maybe Apple is on the right track here, since the Oculus Quest has sold more units than all the other VR headsets combined. But there is one big difference: Apple's headset will be a very expensive premium product (a…

> It may be more feasible to sell $3000 smartphones than to sell VR headsets at this price. Sure, now it is. But what about when the iPhone was first introduced? It didn't cost anywhere near this much money. For a new product category such as this it makes sense to start out with a cheap product so that as many people adopt it as possible, then you can begin introducing more expensive versions when you have the apps…

The original iPhone was cheaper than iPhones are today, but it was ridiculously expensive compared to every other phone on the market including smartphones. It was $800 after the carrier subsidy with a two-year contract. Most windows phones and blackberries and trios and comparable devices that had substantially more functionality at the time were between free and $200 with the carrier subsidy. The iPhone had a superior user experience, but very limited functionality and an extremely high price point. Obviously the functionality improved pretty quickly and the price point came down a bit, although it never really came down much, mostly everything else just got more expensive.

Re: Apple’s new headset meets reality

#296

Post by jnsie »

jnsie wrote: post #72
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #13

I don't think there is a consumer market for head mounted AR anymore - if there ever really was. That makes me sad having been in AR since 2010 - and knowing what we could do with it if done right. I just don't think society currently has an appetite for a $3000 product that gives the wearer visual superpowers (that is the promise after all) and is an impossible to ignore distinction between classes. I honestly think…

> I don't think there is a consumer market for head mounted AR anymore anymore, or yet? I think the biggest barriers are form factor and price. History suggests that price of such devices will increase over time. Whether the tech can be squeezed into a form factor that will be desirable to the masses is another problem altogether. The fact that apple (according to this article) have not managed to do it suggests to m…

Typo fix: should have said "History suggests that price of such devices will *decrease* over time."

Re: Apple’s new headset meets reality

#297

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

avalys wrote: post #242
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One product often left out, which may have started with Jobs, but delivery should be attributed to Cook is the new Apple HQ. The initial impact has crumbled due to Covid WFH. > However, this campus may turn out to be a force multiplier going forward. If so, it is a victory, but not in the minds of consumers. Curious, have you ever actually talked to anyone that worked there? While I have admittedly only talked to a…

Apple Campus 2 is about a superblock away from Apple Campus 1, so unless we’re talking about someone whose 5-minute commute doubled to 10 minutes, no one’s commute doubled in any sense where the comparison is meaningful.

I don't know all the details but I'm pretty sure they consolidated a bunch of offices to Apple HQ when it first opened - for this person it was definitely not a 5 to 10 minute change.

Re: Apple’s new headset meets reality

#298

Post by jnsie »

zamnos wrote: post #76
jnsie wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't think there is a consumer market for head mounted AR anymore anymore, or yet? I think the biggest barriers are form factor and price. History suggests that price of such devices will increase over time. Whether the tech can be squeezed into a form factor that will be desirable to the masses is another problem altogether. The fact that apple (according to this article) have not managed to do it suggests to m…

Right. $3,000 is obviously a luxury/niche product, but $450 Nreal Air (which is a product you can buy today off Amazon) much less so. It's like 3D TVs, the idea will never die. Even if it's doesn't work out time around (which I doubt, having spent a tiny bit of time with an Nreal Air), expect to see it again in 10 years or so.

Really curious about Nreal Air but would love to try before buying. Have you experienced them? If so, what's your take?

Re: Apple’s new headset meets reality

#299

Post by jemmyw »

zamnos wrote: post #175
deet wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I strongly doubt that the campus is any more of a force multiplier than a collection of far cheaper class A office buildings of similar capacity, with similarly serene grass and vegetation connecting them.

And that, dear reader, is how we ended up with hundreds of bland copy-cat Android phones to the iPhone. There's something to be said, mentally, for working somewhere that's inspiring. A shitty office in yet a clone of all the other office parks, buried in office-park-landia of San Jose, is not it. Even a stroll through the secret underground parking lot at Apple is inspiring with all the exotic cars that are owned by…

That doesn't really ring true. iPhones are the baseline and Android has that plus the cheap models plus all the whacky weird and wonderful. iPhone has good build quality and reliability - it's the Toyota Corolla. But if there had been no Android then there would be no large screen iPhones, maybe no push on the camera specs. If Apple make a foldable it'll be because they saw Android do it and waited until they could do it better.

Re: Apple’s new headset meets reality

#300

Post by fnordpiglet »

zamnos wrote: post #175
deet wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I strongly doubt that the campus is any more of a force multiplier than a collection of far cheaper class A office buildings of similar capacity, with similarly serene grass and vegetation connecting them.

And that, dear reader, is how we ended up with hundreds of bland copy-cat Android phones to the iPhone. There's something to be said, mentally, for working somewhere that's inspiring. A shitty office in yet a clone of all the other office parks, buried in office-park-landia of San Jose, is not it. Even a stroll through the secret underground parking lot at Apple is inspiring with all the exotic cars that are owned by…

No one can build a generic human chicken coop that’s more inspiring than a space you create for yourself. Office space is soul crushing because it has nothing of your soul in it. It’s just human chattel storage.
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