Meta cancels high-end mixed reality headset after Apple Vision Pro struggles • Hacker News Board

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

#301

Post by justinclift » Sat, Aug 24, 2024, 7:19 AM UTC

geoelectric wrote: post #111

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.…

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…

Hopefully Asahi Linux can be run on the thing, so it can be useful outside of Apple's walled garden too. :)

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

#302

Post by thfuran » Sat, Aug 24, 2024, 7:21 AM UTC

wraptile wrote: post #297

thfuran wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you saying that it's unethical to buy something that most people in the world can't afford?

I'm saying it's unethical to start a new medium/platform where majority of the world would be simply be left out.

Is it unethical to sell a luxury watch or car? Is it unethical to start a pizza shop that only delivers locally?

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

#303

Post by johnnyanmac » Sat, Aug 24, 2024, 7:21 AM UTC

adastra22 wrote: post #243

johnnyanmac wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

People have been fearing a recession for the last 16 years.

Sure, but it didn't stop them during the "great resignation" from moving around. Actions speak louder than words.

Statistically speaking, people are a lot more hesitant to switch jobs right now. That definitely points to legitimate fears (regardless of the objective economic outlook).

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

#304

Post by Espressosaurus » Sat, Aug 24, 2024, 7:26 AM UTC

Animats wrote: post #227

As Carmack (the game guy, head of Oculus, etc.) says, until the headgear gets down to swim goggle size, it's not going to get any traction, and until it gets down to eyeglass size, it's not going mainstream. The Apple Vision Pro was an unexpected dud. Something more eyeglass sized, with phone-like functionality and good design, would have been more in line with Apple's aesthetic. Instead, it was another half brick on…

You say it was unexpected, I say it was entirely expected given the form factor (comfort), battery life (awful), and lack of a killer app to drive adoption (if anyone knew what that was, Meta and Microsoft would be all over it already).

But Apple has tons of money, so they can learn from the devices in market now and decide how best to target Gen 2.

Microsoft seems to be exiting AR other than the military contract. Meta continues spending billions on their research project that might someday be a product, though they also continue iterating on their VR products.

We're still waiting for the tech to get cheap enough, small enough, and with a good enough ecosystem people will want to put up with it.

Meanwhile, Apple put out a tech demo to test the market. And probably to light a fire under the VP in charge of the program.

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

#305

Post by light_triad » Sat, Aug 24, 2024, 7:30 AM UTC

There was an interesting email from Zuck released during one of their trials where he explained why they were focused on VR: it was basically all about Apple and wanting to own the next platform.

Makes sense although gaming is and will remain the most significant use case for VR in the foreseeable future

The original email is from 2015, posted on HN in 2022: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33538742#33540359

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

#306

Post by slim » Sat, Aug 24, 2024, 7:33 AM UTC

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #163

If you’re asking yourself: Why are all these giant companies going hard on AR and repeatibly in cycles it’s for one reason: Egocentric data and full control of the highest bandwidth human I/O (vision + sound) is the most important possible data pipeline to get Its the penultimate data pipe, with direct connection to the brain being the ultimate data pipe (see:Neuralink) Every company that is winning and going to win…

All they want is mind control. All of them. All the time

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

#307

Post by rajnathani » Sat, Aug 24, 2024, 7:33 AM UTC

Yes, also whatever high-end device they launch would also have a lower market capture from the TAM of high-end VR/XR headsets thanks to Apple being nearly uncompeteable in the hardware for it.

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

#308

Post by Kiro » Sat, Aug 24, 2024, 7:39 AM UTC

Animats wrote: post #227

As Carmack (the game guy, head of Oculus, etc.) says, until the headgear gets down to swim goggle size, it's not going to get any traction, and until it gets down to eyeglass size, it's not going mainstream. The Apple Vision Pro was an unexpected dud. Something more eyeglass sized, with phone-like functionality and good design, would have been more in line with Apple's aesthetic. Instead, it was another half brick on…

Do you have a source for that quote from Carmack?

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

#309

Post by wraptile » Sat, Aug 24, 2024, 7:44 AM UTC

thfuran wrote: post #302

wraptile wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm saying it's unethical to start a new medium/platform where majority of the world would be simply be left out.

Is it unethical to sell a luxury watch or car? Is it unethical to start a pizza shop that only delivers locally?

Not even the same thing. Watch or a car is not a platform. Clearly you're allergic to understanding my point so how about we end this here. Have a good day.

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

#310

Post by echoangle » Sat, Aug 24, 2024, 7:57 AM UTC

deisteve wrote: post #180

Der_Einzige wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Watching the same dynamic play out in GenAI. Stability AI refused to cater to this crowd (the chief actual users of their models) and are paying like hell for it. The reality is that coomers ARE the market for a lot of GenAI, no matter how much puritans don't want to admit it.

its incredible how different the West is to Japan the lack of judeo-christian moral nannyism hardly means a dangerous society but a peaceful one just look at all the accusations on X and calling Japan weird and worse

Are you saying Japan has a more relaxed stance on porn? Don’t they have government mandated censorship of nude images? I would call that more strict, not less.