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

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

#51
post #42

I feel like they have struck gold with the Meta Ray-ban glasses. Perfect form factor, looks cool, not obtrusive, has actual features that people want to use. That IMO is the future of wearables + AR/VR + AI, not a bulky headset.

Every company knows this, the problem is that you can’t fit the compute you need for AR/VR + AI into a form factor like this, at least not right now.

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

#52
post #2

The Vision Pro is a solution looking for a problem. This is the same problem plaguing Apple Home. It just feels very - so what? Tech nerds like it because it's "cool", but everybody else is wondering why would I ever need this thing? Personally, I think they need to be thinking of a more Apple Watch type device wearable in normal glasses frames. Something more akin to Google Glass, and yes, I'm familiar with the term…

> Or maybe these are just products we don't need? That's exactly it, they're products we don't -need-. If you already have a smartphone, that's good enough. This is the same problem that plagues the AI assistant devices - it doesn't matter what they can do, they won't replace your smartphone. Which means you're asking someone to carry (and pay for) a smartphone + an extra device. That's a big ask. It's also the reaso…

> If you already have a smartphone, that's good enough.

Sure, but I don't think nearly enough people are sufficiently critical of their need for a smartphone either; I tend to think of it like cars, we've just allowed ourselves to let these devices service so much our day-to-day tasks that they seem like necessary appendages. If it goes away, we panic and buy another one, never stopping to sit with that absence. If my mac had a built-in cellular modem, I'd leave the phone at home most days. It's not useless, but it is completely incidental to my life in terms of what I actually would need it for. Likewise, if people didn't have cars, they wouldn't likely have a life that's only palatable because they have one.

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

#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. It was profound.

The Vision pro's lack of a killer app because development is unintuitive, userbase is small, the UX is alien and the hardware costs of constructing these experience is still rather high. Give it a few years. The hardware is already there. This isn't a solution in search of a problem. This is PalmOS, a solution that is too early to the market.

I have family with disabilities. Being able to teleport my loved ones to places they could never go themselves is worth the $3000. If I could record my most profound memories with 'VR recorder', I would. My parent missed my graduation because of being continents away. You think they wouldn't want to be teleported to it ? Wedding photographers cost $4000+, so we can relive those memories through shoddy snapshots. Why not be teleported back to the most beautiful day ?

Don't knock it till you try it.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wK63OSmF1FM

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

#54
post #2

The Vision Pro is a solution looking for a problem. This is the same problem plaguing Apple Home. It just feels very - so what? Tech nerds like it because it's "cool", but everybody else is wondering why would I ever need this thing? Personally, I think they need to be thinking of a more Apple Watch type device wearable in normal glasses frames. Something more akin to Google Glass, and yes, I'm familiar with the term…

(1) Price matters. If Detroit was selling $25k reasonably sized EVs they'd be selling like hotcakes, even if they had limited range. There are a few people who will pay $75k+ for a luxury EV but they bought a Tesla 10 years ago. If Detroit wanted to sell XXXL EV SUVs at crazy high prices they should have done it ten years ago. Now it's too late and they have to make the kind of cars BYD does or pass legislation to keep BYD out of our market.

The Meta Quest consumer has proven they'd rather save a few bucks and buy an MQ2 instead of a better MQ3. It's a big problem for Meta because they're never going to move towards making better games that need an MQ3 to run.

(2) VR > AR Apple's just plain wrong about the focus on AR. The Apple Vision Pro has the hardware to provide far superior immersive world application story than the MQ3 but the software (and maybe controller) story isn't there. Apple acts as if there was something morally wrong with VR, like it is putting your hands in their toilet with all the conviction they have that it is OK to take 30% of all the revenue of the app economy. Sorry, visiting VR worlds is half the value you could get out of a product and throwing out half the value is like doubling the price.

A cheap set of XReal glasses can say "this is just good for watching the HDMI output of a game console" but at Apple Vision Pro prices product that expensive really has to "do it all" with no excuses. People really do subscribe to VR fitness apps, they really do have fun playing games like Asgard's Wrath 2 or games like Riven. Have you ever heard anyone say that they were engaged with an app for the Vision Pro?

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

#55
post #2

The Vision Pro is a solution looking for a problem. This is the same problem plaguing Apple Home. It just feels very - so what? Tech nerds like it because it's "cool", but everybody else is wondering why would I ever need this thing? Personally, I think they need to be thinking of a more Apple Watch type device wearable in normal glasses frames. Something more akin to Google Glass, and yes, I'm familiar with the term…

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.

> 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

I've found glanceable notifications on my smartwatch to be really useful.

Dismissing or answering calls without taking out my phone (or without my phone at all since the watch has mobile connectivity), quickly seeing text messages (especially 2 factor auth codes).

The remote viewfinder for my camera lets me actually be in family photos. And of course exercise tracking (reminders to get a few thousand more steps today are helpful). AR/VR goggles would be useless for any of those, and make the last two worse.

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

#56
post #37

Computer headsets. Blockchain. AI. Really hitting the mark recently.

Not sure why AI is on that list.

Maybe "what most companies use AI for" (i.e. glorified data collection) or "what most companies try to pass off as useful AI" (i.e. what we used to call machine learning, but now that ecommerce app can also tell you your latest sales in the form of a poem).

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

#57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well now we know at least one person uses them.

He's the CEO of EssilorLuxottica saying that they've sold more units of the latest version in a few months than the previous version did in 2 years. https://www.reuters.com/technology/artificial-intelligence/n... These things ARE selling, the product is just early.

The CEO of a company selling them says he likes them, and they are selling more quickly than a product which flopped. I am not particularly swayed by this information!

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

#58
post #40

Honestly, this is a shame, because I think a lot of the vision pro's flaws are Apple problems. That said, meta seems to have found a sweet spot in price/performance, so maybe in a few generations we will have something with the quality of vision pro that is not locked down

I still can’t believe they expected people to be excited about a floating iPad OS UX as the main experience.

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

#59
post #2

The Vision Pro is a solution looking for a problem. This is the same problem plaguing Apple Home. It just feels very - so what? Tech nerds like it because it's "cool", but everybody else is wondering why would I ever need this thing? Personally, I think they need to be thinking of a more Apple Watch type device wearable in normal glasses frames. Something more akin to Google Glass, and yes, I'm familiar with the term…

I feel like Apple missed the ZIRP window to release this to a larger quantity of tech nerds who weren’t continually worried about being laid off.

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

#60
post #2

The Vision Pro is a solution looking for a problem. This is the same problem plaguing Apple Home. It just feels very - so what? Tech nerds like it because it's "cool", but everybody else is wondering why would I ever need this thing? Personally, I think they need to be thinking of a more Apple Watch type device wearable in normal glasses frames. Something more akin to Google Glass, and yes, I'm familiar with the term…

There was a time when you didn't "need" a PC, either, and they were seen as just nerd toys and things yuppies used to balance their checkbooks, back when "balancing your checkbook" was a thing you had to do. This changed with the advent of the Web, and held until desktops gave way to smartphones. If you could time-travel back to the 80s and 90s, plenty of folks would have scoffed that anyone would ever "need" a compu…

> If you could time-travel back to the 80s and 90s, plenty of folks would have scoffed that anyone would ever "need" a computer, let alone a computer in their pocket.

Is that true? I feel like people have imagined portable communication / computing devices forever[1]. People maybe couldn't imagine that they could ever be small enough to be practical, but the utility of such a device was pretty obvious. Similarly, I think "VR" as a concept has obvious value and applications. However current implementations fall far short of what is necessary to unlock that value for most people / scenarios.

[1] https://www.geeksandbeats.com/2016/02/star-trek-technology-t...

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