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New report on Apple’s VR headset: 8K in each eye, potential $3k price tag

arstechnica.com

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Re: New report on Apple’s VR headset: 8K in each eye, potential $3k price tag

#51

Post by bostonsre »

trixie_ wrote: post #28

Apple CPU/hardware + Apple display technology + Apple software would easily justify the 3k price. And people would pay it. Not just because it's Apple, but because Apple has the means to vertically integrate the entire tech stack into a high end product that far surpasses what their competitors are capable of. Google Android software and Qualcomm hardware have been trying for a decade and still can't match Apple. So…

Yea, this will probably push VR to critical mass to get widespread adoption. Their brand loyalty is crazy, they could sell 20m toasters a year if they wanted.

Re: New report on Apple’s VR headset: 8K in each eye, potential $3k price tag

#52

Post by bigiain »

mycall wrote: post #13
hppb wrote: post #9

I could see this as a virtual office, as some of the comments speculate. If I had a set of AR glasses that projected what appeared to be an 8K monitor on top of my dining room table, and integrated with my MacBook Pro for input / output, and that had batteries to last a workday, I’d pay $2K/$3K. Even more if it worked well at brightness levels I’d have in my backyard. Never mind gaming, mobile high-quality virtual of…

Furthermore, I would be willing to use 16-bit colors for higher resolution.

16 bit colours on a pair of 8K screens is the best part of half a gigabyte per frame...

I assume sir will be wanting 60 or 120 FPS as well?

:-)

Re: New report on Apple’s VR headset: 8K in each eye, potential $3k price tag

#53

Post by ryanianian »

garaetjjte wrote: post #24
hppb wrote: post #9

I could see this as a virtual office, as some of the comments speculate. If I had a set of AR glasses that projected what appeared to be an 8K monitor on top of my dining room table, and integrated with my MacBook Pro for input / output, and that had batteries to last a workday, I’d pay $2K/$3K. Even more if it worked well at brightness levels I’d have in my backyard. Never mind gaming, mobile high-quality virtual of…

I'm confused by people saying that they would use VR for work. My head hurts after one or maybe two hours of using it, and if I would work whole day in it?... ugh.

The headaches are commonly a result of low resolution, low frame-rate, insufficient lighting, or bad hardware design (too tight or heavy or not adjustable for your head/face/glasses/etc). These are nontrivial problems to solve.

Re: New report on Apple’s VR headset: 8K in each eye, potential $3k price tag

#54

Post by jayd16 »

LeoPanthera wrote: post #3

I was hoping that Apple would be making AR spectacles, and not a VR headset. I was really excited by the possibilities of Google's Glass and really disappointed when they killed it off. I want a HUD in my glasses. I want to read text messages and get navigation directions without having to look down at a screen.

Honestly, I think the bulk of the benefit of Google Glass can be had with a smartwatch. Its not like Glass was able to do any AR or scene detection.

Re: New report on Apple’s VR headset: 8K in each eye, potential $3k price tag

#55

Post by bostonsre »

Strom wrote: post #43
endisneigh wrote: post #14

What's the necessary resolution in each eye needed to be "retina"? Once we reach that will it be the end of the "monitor era"? A lot of interesting things can happen once you no longer need monitors. Though sharing with others will still be a practical limitation so I doubt they'll go anywhere for now. Once you no longer have monitors I think there will have to be a UI and UX shift around how you interact with things…

Depends on the field of view angle you want to achive, but 8K is unlikely to be enough. Back in 2015 Michael Abrash said: In order for it to have retinal resolution across a field of view of 180 degrees it would have to have something on the order of 16K by 16K resolution [per eye]. [1] -- [1] https://youtu.be/UDu-cnXI8E8?t=4232

> Apple will liberally use an already-known VR technique that involves using eye-tracking to render objects in the user's periphery at a lower fidelity than what the user is focusing on.

Should be enough if they don't have to render that full view, but only what the retina is focusing on I would think.

Re: New report on Apple’s VR headset: 8K in each eye, potential $3k price tag

#56

Post by juancampa »

ihunter2839 wrote: post #36
LeoPanthera wrote: post #3

I was hoping that Apple would be making AR spectacles, and not a VR headset. I was really excited by the possibilities of Google's Glass and really disappointed when they killed it off. I want a HUD in my glasses. I want to read text messages and get navigation directions without having to look down at a screen.

I used Google Glass in person for about 10 minutes, and after so much oh-ing and awing over the tech, for me it was pretty disappointing to experience. It felt like I was using a cheap Android system from 2012 overlayed onto reality and, uh, it wasn't that great. That being said, I only got to see a few basic apps in action, and maybe I didn't get the full tour of the hardware's abilities. Personally, I think that VR…

Judging any bleeding edge tech by its first prototype is not particularly useful. The point is not what Google Glass was, but what could've become with steady improvements.

VR cannot replace AR anytime soon due to some obvious safety issues. At the moment they are and will remain separate things IMO

Re: New report on Apple’s VR headset: 8K in each eye, potential $3k price tag

#57

Post by iandanforth »

offtop5 wrote: post #50

Thank God, with oculus being hostile towards consumers this provides a much-needed option,. I strongly suspect this will be the first year pro model, and next year so we'll see a consumer model. Assuming it runs on an a12 or an a14 chip existing iOS apps, I.e Unity projects will run out of the box. So I could imagine developers being able to get games out within a month or so. I do wonder if Unity has some type of to…

Don't expect this to be a consumer focused VR headset. MR is for work, and this will be closer to a hololens usecase than a general purpose gaming system.

Re: New report on Apple’s VR headset: 8K in each eye, potential $3k price tag

#58

Post by gambiting »

abiogenesis wrote: post #32
uncledave wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey some of us Apple fanboys are cheap asses :)

That sounds like an oxymoron.

Why? You can be an apple fan and just not in the right bracket to afford the latest devices. I know plenty of people who love apple but they are still on iPhone 7 and 2015 macbook since they cannot afford anything newer. That's absolutely fine. It's like I love Omega watches but I can't afford a brand new one - so I have a vintage one instead since that was what I could afford.

Re: New report on Apple’s VR headset: 8K in each eye, potential $3k price tag

#59

Post by riggsdk »

jayd16 wrote: post #30
riggsdk wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since they do mention eye-tracking they can heavily exploit foveated rendering which will make the resolution extremely high at the exact point where your eyes are looking and much lower in the outer regions of your vision. This is practically unnoticeable (if done right) and allows for much more interesting performance optimizations. Full 2x8K in 90Hz is impossible otherwise.

Part of the problem with foveation is its pretty noticeable and mildly annoying for not a huge gain.

It greatly depends on the techniques used for rendering. Current rendering engines are focusing on pixel perfection at every part of the screen as they don't know where you are looking. More and more games use a hybrid between path/raytraced effects and other shader effects that could benefit from knowing where the viewer is actually looking. Especially raytracing can get huge speedups from sampling less rays: https://www.peterstefek.me/focused-render.html

Nvidia has researched in temporarally stable resoultion reduction at the edges (needed or you'll notice flickers in the blurring) as well as enhancing contrast which the eye is more sensitive to in the peripheral vision than sharp details.

Put a lot more research into this as well as proper support in the major 3D game engines and we have a winner.

Re: New report on Apple’s VR headset: 8K in each eye, potential $3k price tag

#60

Post by bilbo0s »

garaetjjte wrote: post #24
hppb wrote: post #9

I could see this as a virtual office, as some of the comments speculate. If I had a set of AR glasses that projected what appeared to be an 8K monitor on top of my dining room table, and integrated with my MacBook Pro for input / output, and that had batteries to last a workday, I’d pay $2K/$3K. Even more if it worked well at brightness levels I’d have in my backyard. Never mind gaming, mobile high-quality virtual of…

I'm confused by people saying that they would use VR for work. My head hurts after one or maybe two hours of using it, and if I would work whole day in it?... ugh.

I think the comment said he wanted an AR headset. Which is a bit different than VR.
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