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

Meta cancels high-end mixed reality headset after Apple Vision Pro struggles

macrumors.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

201–210 of 543 posts

Re: Meta cancels high-end mixed reality headset after Apple Vision Pro struggles

#201

Post by theshackleford »

SoftTalker wrote: post #33
jowday wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If anything, what I’ve heard from friends at or adjacent to Meta is that they’re paring back metaverse ambitions and capabilities on their future devices because of the success of the Ray-Bans glasses and the relatively middling sales of the Quest 3. The Ray-Bans are also a weird anomaly since they’re leaning on the Ray-Bans designer pricing to justify a lot of the cost. If you’re already buying a pair of luxury sung…

I'm constantly losing, scratching, or breaking sunglasses. I buy them at $30 tops, not $300.

Some of us can’t live without glasses and can’t afford to be this careless.

Re: Meta cancels high-end mixed reality headset after Apple Vision Pro struggles

#202

Post by AlexandrB »

deisteve wrote: post #170
talldayo wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd believe that better if Meta didn't also deliberately provide a sideloading mechanism and encourage homebrew. It's a believable end-goal, but it doesn't seem to be the direction they want to go in the immediate future.

you are reading too much into Meta. They arent the NSA

True, the NSA needs a FISC warrant to conduct mass surveillance.

Re: Meta cancels high-end mixed reality headset after Apple Vision Pro struggles

#203

Post by hedora »

lostlogin wrote: post #85
screye wrote: post #53

A counter point on premium VR headsets. They are teleportation devices. I've used every popular VR device, but one Vision Pro experience stood out - 'The Haleakala environment'[1] It was literally like being transported there. I know because I had been in that exact spot a few years before. I have a rich visual memory which served as reference, and no exaggeration, it felt like was there. I was immediately in tears.…

> I have family with disabilities. This has an interesting history. I’m struggling to find it and hope I have it right. John Gruber or maybe Accidental Tech Podcast did a segment on an podcast ages ago in relation to accessibility settings on the iPhone. Whoever it was credited a particular Apple engineer who pushed hard with accessibility features arguing that at some point, everyone has some sort of issue (sight, h…

It's nice that they try, but I wish the accessibility features weren't so terrible.

Case in point: I put off getting a new prescription, and ended up setting the font size up + enabling bold text on my iPhone. The first party apps often don't work well.

Of everything on my phone, GasBuddy handled it best. It's basically unusable with large fonts, but it suggested I go into per-app settings and disable display accessibility settings just for it. Now that I know that's a thing, I can blacklist the 90% of apps on the phone that don't display right, I guess.

Since the new glasses arrived, I'll probably just disable accessibility. However, my experience doesn't bode well for people that actually need reading glasses and want to use their phones when they're out and about.

Re: Meta cancels high-end mixed reality headset after Apple Vision Pro struggles

#204

Post by johnnyanmac »

m3kw9 wrote: post #128
geoelectric wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is that I don’t really see the Vision Pro as Palm OS. Palm OS was out for years and years and was really successful, all things considered. Sure, it wasn’t as ubiquitous as iOS or Android now, but it obviously filled a niche for a large enough number of people that it stuck around and pioneered that market. I had a Kyocera 6035 Palm “smartphone” over half a decade before the iPhone came out, and the Handspr…

Is just too pricey and a bit cumbersome for masses, the tech is good and we could all use it even just for some experiences that can only be done in VR

Too pricey in a time where many fear a recession. So it's an even worse launch to market than usual.

Re: Meta cancels high-end mixed reality headset after Apple Vision Pro struggles

#205

Post by jrm4 »

screye wrote: post #53

A counter point on premium VR headsets. They are teleportation devices. I've used every popular VR device, but one Vision Pro experience stood out - 'The Haleakala environment'[1] It was literally like being transported there. I know because I had been in that exact spot a few years before. I have a rich visual memory which served as reference, and no exaggeration, it felt like was there. I was immediately in tears.…

Makes sense:

But do you need to BUY one? This is the thing I realized with VR sets, personally.

They are a great day at the fair, but who goes to the fair EVERYDAY?

Re: Meta cancels high-end mixed reality headset after Apple Vision Pro struggles

#206

Post by kjkjadksj »

Miraste wrote: post #117
geoelectric wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is that I don’t really see the Vision Pro as Palm OS. Palm OS was out for years and years and was really successful, all things considered. Sure, it wasn’t as ubiquitous as iOS or Android now, but it obviously filled a niche for a large enough number of people that it stuck around and pioneered that market. I had a Kyocera 6035 Palm “smartphone” over half a decade before the iPhone came out, and the Handspr…

My hope is that the Vision Pro is like the Apple Watch. It launched without a clear idea of why people would buy it--originally Apple tried to sell their bland aluminum box as a fashion accessory--and it was only after multiple iterations that they found out health and fitness was the main appeal and focused on it. If they pay attention to how people do use VR headsets, maybe they can do that again.

The cost of the device is way off. Apple watch is still vaguely in line with the prices of other nice ish watches. $400 or so. Expensive but not otherworldly so. Vision pro is so expensive you rule out the middle class. Its price point was conceived by people who haven’t left northern california for some time.

Re: Meta cancels high-end mixed reality headset after Apple Vision Pro struggles

#207

Post by kjkjadksj »

Retric wrote: post #190
geoelectric wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, that’s another good comparison. The Palm equivalent in that comparison would be Fitbit and possibly Pebble. Apple waited until there was a proven market in wearables, then figured out how to combine that market with the strengths of their existing ecosystem to improve upon value. Then they propped up the model line with $$$ until they actually became good enough for people to buy. I’m relatively optimistic they…

They have a long history of ridding the cost curve down, but it’s not that fast. The 2010 iPad was 720$ adjusted for inflation, the current iPad better in basically every way starts at 350$. Original 2007 iPhone would be 908$ inflation adjusted while the iPhone SE is 429$. My guess is it’s either discontinued or the 2040 Vision (non pro) is going to be strictly better in basically every way but still more than 1000$…

Pricing the se and base model ipad is a bit disingenuous. You look at the flagships and they kept up with inflation adjusted pricing. Iphone and ipad 1 were flagships. Not old hardware released for a song.

Re: Meta cancels high-end mixed reality headset after Apple Vision Pro struggles

#208

Post by kjkjadksj »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #204
m3kw9 wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is just too pricey and a bit cumbersome for masses, the tech is good and we could all use it even just for some experiences that can only be done in VR

Too pricey in a time where many fear a recession. So it's an even worse launch to market than usual.

Forget recession fears. Most people don’t have $3500 lying around flat out.

Re: Meta cancels high-end mixed reality headset after Apple Vision Pro struggles

#209

Post by AlexandrB »

fullshark wrote: post #9
kevinventullo wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I contend that almost every problem solvable by a wearable can be solved “well enough” by a smartphone, to the point where an additional device is not worth the trouble for the marginal benefit (unless you’re a person who likes gadgets). For exercise specifically I do see the value of a watch form factor since people don’t want to carry a phone in their exercise gear. But, that’s pretty niche.

Yeah we might end up just circling back to VR over AR and prioritizing immersive gaming, the only thing you can't do on a smartphone / desktop.

The problem with VR gaming is that movement that doesn't match real world movement tends to make people barf. The types of games you can build in VR is just so much more limited as a result. For example, it's very cool to imagine a VR MMO but it would be hell to actually play it.

Re: Meta cancels high-end mixed reality headset after Apple Vision Pro struggles

#210

Post by kjkjadksj »

jrm4 wrote: post #205
screye wrote: post #53

A counter point on premium VR headsets. They are teleportation devices. I've used every popular VR device, but one Vision Pro experience stood out - 'The Haleakala environment'[1] It was literally like being transported there. I know because I had been in that exact spot a few years before. I have a rich visual memory which served as reference, and no exaggeration, it felt like was there. I was immediately in tears.…

Makes sense: But do you need to BUY one? This is the thing I realized with VR sets, personally. They are a great day at the fair, but who goes to the fair EVERYDAY?

Exactly. All the use cases for new tech like vr headphones or watches or whatever is just the exact same functionality I already have in another form factor. Why bother. I don’t need to pay $400 to look at incoming texts on my wrist instead of the slab in my pocket I already own. I don’t need to spend $3500 to look at 40 foot wide emails.
Post reply on HN