Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The saga of Apple’s troubled mixed reality headset

arstechnica.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 201 posts

Re: The saga of Apple’s troubled mixed reality headset

#151

Post by na85 »

Jemm wrote: post #2

Designers, like Ive, should not be left unchecked. As part of an overall team they have value, but they should never be given carte-blanche as Ive had.

Indeed, it's clear that Ive hasn't been a positive force on Apple's products for a while. His pathological fetish for thinness at all costs resulted in objectively inferior products.

Apple can and does make mistakes, for example the touch bar, and the MacBook keyboard.

If Ive is involved I predict that this product will experience a brief but intense surge in popularity based primarily on the novelty factor and social media influencers followed by a rapid decline into irrelevance.

Re: The saga of Apple’s troubled mixed reality headset

#152

Post by paulcole »

pharke wrote: post #128
paulcole wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Therefore, VR should be a replacement for large displays in productive work, not a device that everyone is wearing outside or casually watching videos with. The use cases are professional I hope you’re wrong about this. I hope there will be a great personal (non-work) use case for the next generation of VR/AR. Something like gaming, watching sports (always have awesome “seats”), movies with friends, maybe map/gps/e…

Social experiences are the use case you're looking for. Multiplayer gaming is a lot more fun in VR, watching video together with people is great, even just hanging out and socializing is great and it beats video or voice hands down. You're right that it's currently in the dork stage of development, the internet went through that period as well. I'd enjoy it while it lasts though, I dread the day when it's fully monet…

The internet is much improved since the end of the dork stage of development. Don’t know why HN romanticizes slow connections and a few text websites made by obsessives. Tik Tok, YouTube, etc. are leaps and bounds better than anything I saw online pre-1999.

I can’t wait for VR/AR to be fully monetized and mainstream. I’m sick of speculative VC-funded crap that I can’t pay for because they’re in “growth mode.” When something’s monetized at least then I have some faith that it’ll be around for awhile.

Re: The saga of Apple’s troubled mixed reality headset

#153

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

onion2k wrote: post #146
Geee wrote: post #30

Productivity is correlated with display size, and VR should be the next step in productivity, because it allows your whole space to become a display and an interface. When paired with powerful hardware and innovative software it should be the next step in computing. Therefore, VR should be a replacement for large displays in productive work, not a device that everyone is wearing outside or casually watching videos wi…

It would be possible to dive into code and see it all at once like an intricate factory. Our brains are capable of navigating very complex environments, but this capability is lost when its viewed through a small window. People can learn 3D environments by viewing them in a 2D screen very happily, and millions of gamers do exactly that every day. I can still remember my way around the map in GTA 3 about 20 years afte…

Gaming environments are more like 2.5D. There aren't many games which are fully open in 3D, because the world isn't, and humans can't fly.

The "flight" in GTA is more like a moving viewpoint than a space full of 3D objects and affordances.

Full immersive 3D navigation through code and file systems would be an interesting experiment. I suspect we'd get used to it very quickly, and we'd then wonder why we spent so long tied down by virtual paper metaphors. (I could be wrong, of course.)

Re: The saga of Apple’s troubled mixed reality headset

#154

Post by Petersipoi »

pharke wrote: post #114
jayd16 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People do it now, if we're talking about CAD software of an engine model. I'm not sure they're clamoring for more 2d monitors. I think being able to reach into the model in 3d space is probably more natural than mouse clicks and manually moving viewports around.

As someone who has been getting into CAD lately and has several years of experience working on 3D models in Blender, I would very much prefer to be able to walk around the model and make adjustments here and there rather than using keyboard shortcuts and the mouse. More display space in VR should have an emphasis on "space" rather than "display". If we're talking about programming instead, an intuitive way to switch…

> and spending a few hours talking to people virtually will no longer leave you with a headache and eye-strain

I'd love to know if this is true. I've heard that in a VR headset, your eyes are always focused at the exact same distance, even if it appears like something is far off in the distance. And that this can lead to eyestrain. Can anybody here speak to that?

Re: The saga of Apple’s troubled mixed reality headset

#155

Post by zmmmmm »

puranjay wrote: post #19
jitl wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, no one has released a VR system with mass market appeal. I have and enjoy a Valve Index, but it’s stayed in the box for more than a year because I can’t figure out a socially viable spot for it in my new house. Maybe Ive’s influence on this product will make a big difference.

VR seems to have an insurmountable motion sickness problem. I tried the Quest with a dozen friends and half of them felt sick enough within minutes to never try it again.

I'm a bit sceptical of this comment.

I've probably shown mine to ~30 people and not a single one had motion sickness with any of the "safe" experiences, assuming the device is adjusted properly (IPD). If you stick them on a roller-coaster or a super laggy app as their first experience then yeah that's going to be a problem. But for safe experiences - I think there is a percentage of people who experience disorientation or nausea but it's certainly not half (maybe 10% or so).

Re: The saga of Apple’s troubled mixed reality headset

#156

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

layer8 wrote: post #79
Geee wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can turn also turn your head and move around in your room, i.e. your whole room could be full of separate displays, or just pieces of code floating in space. It's not just how much you see at a time, but how easily you can switch context.

Counterpoint: It’s faster to Alt+Tab (or using other keyboard shortcuts) than to move around the room.

It really isn't because you can't see everything at once. And I'm sure VR/AR will provide equally fast shortcuts for moving between anchor spaces.

I have three monitors, and it's still not enough. I would be thrilled if each of my monitors had four times the apparent area in a 3D space that layered applications and documents behind each other in some approximately intuitive way.

Re: The saga of Apple’s troubled mixed reality headset

#157

Post by Petersipoi »

pharke wrote: post #130
ttul wrote: post #89

Apple won’t release this product unless it is mind blowing. If Bloomberg’s reporting is true, then we should all be looking forward to a very cool demo at WWDC and an incredible product some time in 2023. Very few people predicted the iPhone accurately before its launch. And it’s reasonable to say the iPhone blew minds because Apple figured out multitouch AND reduced the latency of the interface to the extend require…

I'm not so sure. I think they will deliver something but I have a feeling that Meta is going to beat them to the punch as far as a productivity focused device is concerned. Meta might wind up with most of the market share while Apple trails them although I'm sure that most people who own a MacBook Pro will buy an Apple headset as well. I think this is more of a PC vs Mac situation than it is Android vs iPhone.

I would be shocked if Meta can convince the masses to buy their headset over Apple's. If Meta tries to beat Apple on price, their headset won't be very capable and won't be much different than what is already out there (which the masses aren't interested in). If they try to compete with Apple by releasing a similarly priced and similarly capable headset, Apple wins every time. I think you're underestimating how much people dislike Meta/Facebook/Zuck. And I'm not just referring to techies either. "Normal" people hate them too.

Re: The saga of Apple’s troubled mixed reality headset

#158

Post by zozbot234 »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #153
onion2k wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be possible to dive into code and see it all at once like an intricate factory. Our brains are capable of navigating very complex environments, but this capability is lost when its viewed through a small window. People can learn 3D environments by viewing them in a 2D screen very happily, and millions of gamers do exactly that every day. I can still remember my way around the map in GTA 3 about 20 years afte…

Gaming environments are more like 2.5D. There aren't many games which are fully open in 3D, because the world isn't, and humans can't fly. The "flight" in GTA is more like a moving viewpoint than a space full of 3D objects and affordances. Full immersive 3D navigation through code and file systems would be an interesting experiment. I suspect we'd get used to it very quickly, and we'd then wonder why we spent so long…

> Full immersive 3D navigation through code and file systems would be an interesting experiment. I suspect we'd get used to it very quickly

inb4 "It's a Unix system, I know this!"

Re: The saga of Apple’s troubled mixed reality headset

#159

Post by krrrh »

ttul wrote: post #89

Apple won’t release this product unless it is mind blowing. If Bloomberg’s reporting is true, then we should all be looking forward to a very cool demo at WWDC and an incredible product some time in 2023. Very few people predicted the iPhone accurately before its launch. And it’s reasonable to say the iPhone blew minds because Apple figured out multitouch AND reduced the latency of the interface to the extend require…

I feel the same way but it’s also worth remembering that while the first iPhone was a hit amongst early adopters, it didn’t really become ubiquitous until the 4 or 4S, which were also vastly superior devices which had a few years of iterations based on experience of early adopters. The same is true of the Apple Watch, which also blew away the competition on first release, and was still called a failure but was a sleeper hit, by itself a larger business than most of Apple’s competitors.

I expect Apple’s AR product to be functional, and dubbed a niche failure by the tech commentariat, but by 2026 really start to eat into the smartphone market.

Meta and Google are just less capable of making humane software, and while they may release slightly better devices from a technical perspective they’ll miss out on the light touch that such an immersive experience will require for normal people to feel comfortable with it.

Re: The saga of Apple’s troubled mixed reality headset

#160

Post by nakedgremlin »

I'm excited overall about these 'leaks' and details surfacing from Apple and Meta. I'm optimistic the AR side will win (versus VR only), but overall, by being shepherded by these big orgs, I expect hardware costs to reduce dramatically for end users. Lower costs will pull in more users and allow us to really design experiences for a wider AR audience.
Post reply on HN