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Mark Zuckerberg on Apple’s Vision Pro headset

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Re: Mark Zuckerberg on Apple’s Vision Pro headset

#591

Post by grncdr »

imiric wrote: post #555
landhar wrote: post #514

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If we go further back in time, mobile phones were bricks used only by business people [...] But they were widely used by business people, and I’m assuming that was an important aspect of permeating into the other demographics. To me, what happened with cellphones is similar to what happened with personal computers. It first entered households of people that needed them for work, and as the tech evolved, so did thei…

> But they were widely used by business people, and I’m assuming that was an important aspect of permeating into the other demographics. Similarly to how VR headsets are used by gamers and tech enthusiasts today. Just like VR for gaming, not everyone was willing to pay exhorbitant prices to lug around a briefcase of a phone, and use it only for poor quality phone calls. > AR/VR devices are attempting this the other w…

> Sure, but the actual current use case doesn't matter. Once the capabilities, price and user experience improve, it will become more appealing to a mass audience.

I'm not the poster you're replying to, but I think you've missed their point here.

Market penetration of mobile phones was (initially) driven by the advantages they provided as a work tool. This growing market that was willing to pay helped drive the cost vs. utility down to the point where non-business use cases became viable.

Goggles with screens in them have had a very different history. There are exceedingly few people/careers who have gotten a good ROI from buying and using a headset, so most sales are driven by entertainment (and a small number of enthusiasts).

Apple (and Meta) can definitely continue to subsidize the development of this technology to bring the price down, but expanding from a niche market for entertainment devices to a market of professional tools is the opposite of what's worked for new technologies in the past.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg on Apple’s Vision Pro headset

#592

Post by cracrecry »

curiousgal wrote: post #487
kickbutt22 wrote: post #472

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would agree that the putting goggles over your face is absurd and it will never be a hit, not in a million years. However! Having that proof of concept to be able to manipulate your environment with just a gesture of your fingers and simply by looking at something - this I believe can be extended to external cameras, screens, and all sorts of IoT devices.

Not to mention how dry your eyes would be from wearing that thing for hours, like seriously, why is no one talking about that?

I have used several VR devices. Never had a problem with dry eyes.

>why is no one talking about that?

Because it is not an issue for most people?

Re: Mark Zuckerberg on Apple’s Vision Pro headset

#593

Post by psychphysic »

nologic01 wrote: post #393

There is something quite remarkable and puzzling about the VR/AR and now SC (spatial computing) space. All major (ad)tech companies are convinced that this is a major market that will materialize and be profitable if the right combination of hardware and software is developed. Their VR "visions" differ but only at the margin. No matter how you execute it, we are talking about people (homo sapiens) putting a major som…

The key for me will be if it can meet it's core proposition of making a virtual world as good as the real one.

At a basic level of I'd be willing to binge netflix on it rather than a TV. That would be the start.

What if I preferred it to going to the cinema? Already a win.

What if it can make it feel like you're having lunch in a restaurant? Perfect.

It doesn't really do any of these things. More like having wallpaper of a photograph of a restaurant

Re: Mark Zuckerberg on Apple’s Vision Pro headset

#594

Post by piyush_soni »

nologic01 wrote: post #393

There is something quite remarkable and puzzling about the VR/AR and now SC (spatial computing) space. All major (ad)tech companies are convinced that this is a major market that will materialize and be profitable if the right combination of hardware and software is developed. Their VR "visions" differ but only at the margin. No matter how you execute it, we are talking about people (homo sapiens) putting a major som…

That's why I always believe Google's Glasses and their vision were way ahead of their time - they were not strapping a big device to your head like all these other ones. Unfortunately, for legal and whatever reasons it didn't take off. But as a person who already wears prescription glasses I'd have definitely wanted to wear that instead.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg on Apple’s Vision Pro headset

#595

Post by LeoPanthera »

d--b wrote: post #580
LeoPanthera wrote: post #558

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nobody gave a shit about smart phones before the iphone. 2 out of 3 isn't bad, but this is revisionist history, and simply wrong. Nokia dominated the pre-iPhone smartphone market with Symbian phones, which supported 3G for years before the first iPhone, which didn't even have 3G. And are we assuming that Blackberries aren't "smartphones"? Because I think they probably are.

Not saying it didn't exist, but that it wasn't mainstream. Ask your mother if she's ever heard of Symbian phones...

She's certainly heard of Nokia phones, the majority of which (in later years) ran Symbian.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg on Apple’s Vision Pro headset

#596

Post by djtango »

Root_Denied wrote: post #506
m_mueller wrote: post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's still a couple of years out, but what about a little thought experiment: Let's say you had a pair of normal looking glasses that do everything that Vision Pro is doing now [1] and cost, say, 1500 USD. This would IMO be a no-brainer, as you can then augment any space and activity you want with having views into the digital world - for work, for hobbies, you name it. That would IMO be a mass market device…

Augmented Reality (AR, or I guess "spatial computing" now) has always been what I thought would push the whole thing over the edge, and not VR. The "killer app" for VR is immersive experiences - while there's a niche for them, and I think we'll see more and better iterations, I don't think it has the growth potential that AR does. The killer app for AR is the pair of glasses that pops up information as an overlay on…

Had to scroll down surprisingly far to find this comment.

The iPhone moment for this space IMO is... the iPhone (sans phone)

Imagine something of google glass form factor tethered to a personal computing device (the size of an iPhone) for external battery and CPU.

Basically Iron Man glasses. IMO glasses that can do everything a phone can, with baked in Google Lens is already a killer feature.

Imagine having everything in focus auto-translated while abroad.

Once you get certain social features like both visualizing the same thing I think that will be the ChatGPT moment for the space.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg on Apple’s Vision Pro headset

#597

Post by wasmitnetzen »

sneak wrote: post #523
layer8 wrote: post #469

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It can, but that only appeals to gaming or movie/TV aficionados, and otherwise is only for very occasional use as a novelty. It’s not something that would become an integral part of most people‘s life like a smartphone.

> It can, but that only appeals to gaming or movie/TV aficionados I think you just described something like 95%+ of the US population. TV and movies and games are exceedingly popular.

Most of them usually watch the Currently Popular Thing on their phone with their $50 headphones. That's not what an aficionado does.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg on Apple’s Vision Pro headset

#598

Post by spi »

nologic01 wrote: post #393

There is something quite remarkable and puzzling about the VR/AR and now SC (spatial computing) space. All major (ad)tech companies are convinced that this is a major market that will materialize and be profitable if the right combination of hardware and software is developed. Their VR "visions" differ but only at the margin. No matter how you execute it, we are talking about people (homo sapiens) putting a major som…

I am seeing a rather clear (if incomplete) parallelism with 3D television (which, oddly, I never see mentioned, even by detractors). What was it, 10 years ago? All TV producers pushed it hard (it was impossible to buy a high end TV without it). AAA movie producers pushed it hard (a lot of blockbuster movies were _designed_ to be 3D first).

Just like with VR, the technology wasn't new: I had watched a 3D movie some 30 years ago at a theme park, liked it, threw up and passed out afterwards, for the first and only time in my life - doing it after a rollercoaster was not a great idea. Just like with VR, it required you to put something on your eyes that people found awkward - and ultimately, this was possibly what made them unpopular, if you want to relax, you don't want to focus on your hardware.

A bit like VR, the early glasses were cheap and disposable (just pieces of red/blue plastic); the "pro" versions with active filtering were significantly more expensive and technological. But for all that, they didn't solve the main issue, i.e. they weren't less intrusive, if nothing else more so (heavier, requiring batteries, etc.). In this case, I'm not sure if the Apple vision is a step forward or backward - if I understand correctly it makes the experience "better" than other visors, but it is also bulkier.

A lot of optimism on this technology comes from saying "it is not yet mature, give it time, the first iPhone was very limited, etc.". But the main issues I see seem just too hard to surpass in a few technological iterations: - The experience is limited to the eyes. No matter how magic Apple is, I'm not ready to believe that in 5 years wearing something as simple as a goggle will give me tactile feelings or anything else. Though I'll admit, 3D vision might be enough. - Battery power won't evolve tenfolds. The first iPhone didn't have a shorter battery life than the current ones, and that's because research for better batteries and more efficient CPUs is already cutting-edge - a 2x improvement would be huge already. Everybody just assumes it will get better, but not everything does, or at least not always fast enough. - The main issue everybody notices is lack of apps and, in general, something to do with it. Here, people cite the iPhone as an example of thing that developed a lot of apps, which made all the difference between the first and later versions. This might happen thanks to the Apple Vision Pro, but I'm not ready to believe it without proof. Just a few years ago, Apple pushed hard, very hard, the touch bar on basically all of its users. Certainly more than half the developers (not just mac developers; all developers) had it integrated in their working machine, whether they wanted it or not. Yet, I only saw apps starting integrating functionalities there years later, and it was often half-baked things, and even when they were not I found myself never using them - the old hotkeys, or the F-keys, were easier to memorize, and faster. And Apple did roll back on that, now I have again physical buttons which I very happily use to change screen light or volume.

All in all, maybe this technology will fly, maybe it won't, but if we look at the past we shouldn't forget the large fraction of technologies that didn't make it, or which at most thrived as a niche sector unlikely to ever explode. Not everything that Apple makes needs to be the new iPhone - and why should that be a problem, really?

Re: Mark Zuckerberg on Apple’s Vision Pro headset

#599

Post by nologic01 »

Al-Khwarizmi wrote: post #519
nologic01 wrote: post #447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never had the same feeling about tablets. If anything, I am still somewhat surprised that they have (in relative terms) flopped. I was really expecting much more widespread use given it is quite a sweet-spot form factor (small and lightweight to carry around to far more places than a laptop yet offering a good fraction of the laptop functionality)

In my view it's the opposite: the worst of both worlds. If I need to do work involving lots of typing, precise clicking or sitting for a long amount of time, I'd rather use a laptop (or desktop). And for less demanding stuff, the smartphone (which I'm already carrying everywhere by default) is enough. The tablet sits in an awkward middle and I don't really find much use for it.

I think the tablet market share agrees with you. We've also got touch sensitive notebook screens that removed the edge from a pure tablet experience.

Which is something important to keep in mind when discussing VR adoption. A few people getting overly excited (or overly dismissive) is not necessarily a good predictor.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg on Apple’s Vision Pro headset

#600

Post by michaelt »

imiric wrote: post #467
liendolucas wrote: post #423

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I share similar thoughts. If we go back in time to the mobile phone era, just before the iphone was released, the mobile market was actually flourishing and very solid: companies like nokia, motorola and blackberry managed to make mobile phones something as common as a TV, almost everyone had one. At the time Apple introduced the iphone with its touchscreen and virtual keyboard, forever game changers to the whole mob…

> If we go back in time to the mobile phone era, just before the iphone was released, the mobile market was actually flourishing and very solid If we go further back in time, mobile phones were bricks used only by business people and tech enthusiasts. They didn't have mass market appeal because the technology wasn't there yet. Once devices got to be more powerful, compact and capable, everyone wanted one and the mark…

> If we go further back in time, mobile phones were bricks used only by business people and tech enthusiasts. They didn't have mass market appeal because the technology wasn't there yet.

Mobile phones are something of a special case, if you ask me, because the technology for voice calls and several days of standby time arrived quite a bit before affordable service did.

In 1988 a stockbroker could make calls from his speedboat for $250/month, and by 1998 a teenager could call his parents after soccer practice for $10/month.

You could describe that as "the technology getting there" because of more efficient radio signalling schemes enabling lower prices. But you could also say the user offering was unchanged[1], and the most important difference was the price.

[1] Except for SMS and the snake game

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