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Meta Horizon OS

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Re: Meta Horizon OS

#731

Post by Eisenstein »

mcmcmc wrote: post #629
theptip wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don’t agree with this take. I’m sure Meta would be fine with other vendors taking over the low-end, if that meant there was a vibrant platform they controlled (ie the OS). They will lead with flagship models to push the boundaries of what the OS/tech can do. Why would they want to sell at/below cost forever? The reason they do this now is to make the platform viable. The only reason they are focusing on cheaper devic…

I think it really depends on if you think Meta wants to be a hardware company or if they want to continue being a data/advertising company.

"Our overall vision for the space is that we will be completely ubiquitous in killer apps, have very strong coverage in platform services (like Google has with Android) and will be strong enough in hardware and systems to at a minimum support our platform services goals, and at best be a business itself" - Zuckerberg's 2015 VR letter

* https://www.scribd.com/document/399594551/2015-06-22-MARK-S-...

Re: Meta Horizon OS

#732

Post by baby »

kotaKat wrote: post #406
baby wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because you need to buy apps to make use of your VR headset. Lets put it this way, do you need an account to use your Iphone?

No, in fact, I don't. My device is not signed into any Apple services right now or any Apple IDs. Anything my company needs to deploy gets pushed by MDM or via enterprise-signed applications.

You just told me that you are part of the 0.0000001% of users and so your point is moot

Re: Meta Horizon OS

#733

Post by baby »

woopsn wrote: post #304
baby wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Metaverse is what the Internet is if you add VR. It’s not hard to understand.

I understand. I read Snow Crash. Besides the Metaverse there was also a nuclear powered dog. My point is this -- by allusion to some concept with which an inventor wishes to form an association in the consumer's mind, their products are to be thought of as something different than they are, something too grand for plain language. This doesn't serve anyone but the inventor. The "Internet with head-mounted display" is…

What is your experience with VR? Have you been to the movies in VR? Or played board games with other players? Have you done social chat applications?

Re: Meta Horizon OS

#734

Post by baby »

mrguyorama wrote: post #257
Capricorn2481 wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> - lighter/more comfortable It's this and one other point: Games that people aren't bored of in an hour. To me, very few games have come out for VR that don't feel like gimmicky experiences. Even Half Life Alyx, as advanced as it was, kinda felt like a theme park ride after a while. I'm not sure if there's technical reasons for it, but it feels like nobody is taking VR development seriously. It's hard to justify str…

>I'm not sure if there's technical reasons for it, but it feels like nobody is taking VR development seriously. The "technical" reason for it is very very very simple: Nearly no video games are actually improved by "increased immersion" to an extreme. Chess won't be more fun because you have to physically move digital chess pieces around a virtual board, people playing Call of Duty do not want to physically move thei…

> Nearly no video games are actually improved by "increased immersion" to an extreme. Chess won't be more fun because you have to physically move digital chess pieces around a virtual board

Couldn’t disagree more. Experiences in VR are insanely immersive and this is why there’s so much love for VR.

Also, I played Catan (a board game) in VR and it was the most social experience I’ve ever had in a video game.

Re: Meta Horizon OS

#735

Post by Someone »

Eisenstein wrote: post #731
mcmcmc wrote: post #629

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it really depends on if you think Meta wants to be a hardware company or if they want to continue being a data/advertising company.

"Our overall vision for the space is that we will be completely ubiquitous in killer apps, have very strong coverage in platform services (like Google has with Android) and will be strong enough in hardware and systems to at a minimum support our platform services goals, and at best be a business itself" - Zuckerberg's 2015 VR letter * https://www.scribd.com/document/399594551/2015-06-22-MARK-S-...

That’s almost nine years ago. He may or may not have changed his mind.

It would help if Meta said something about that. Ideally for potential third party hardware manufacturers, they’d promise to leave the hardware market once a vibrant ecosystem exists.

Defining “vibrant” then would be hard to impossible, though. The edge cases are easy, but uninteresting. If none of the others are making money on hardware there is no vibrant system. If multiple other parties are making money, they probably wouldn’t care much whether Meta makes some money, too.

For in-between cases, where third parties make some money, Meta will have to choose between staying in the market because others don’t sell enough and Meta leaving the market so that others get more room to sell and thus become profitable.

Re: Meta Horizon OS

#736

Post by lern_too_spel »

ryanbrunner wrote: post #447
bonton89 wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So there’s no kind of existential danger to Quest here, but it remains to be seen if the hardware licensees can bring anything relevant to the table either. Why would I, as a potential hardware maker, wish to compete in a market where the existing main producer is a mega wealthy entity that is already dumping product below cost and is capable of doing so indefinitely?

Google did this early on with android - originally the Google devices (Nexus) were lower end, and high end devices were left to other manufacturers. They've flipped around recently, but I think the Nexus line was a decent enough idea at the time.

The Nexus devices were initially badly designed high end devices, starting with the Nexus One, which was among the first smartphones with an OLED screen but had too little internal storage to be useful. There was no intentional strategy there to build a bad product, just bad product designers making bad design choices.

Re: Meta Horizon OS

#737

Post by [deleted] »

Someone wrote: post #735
Eisenstein wrote: post #731

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Our overall vision for the space is that we will be completely ubiquitous in killer apps, have very strong coverage in platform services (like Google has with Android) and will be strong enough in hardware and systems to at a minimum support our platform services goals, and at best be a business itself" - Zuckerberg's 2015 VR letter * https://www.scribd.com/document/399594551/2015-06-22-MARK-S-...

That’s almost nine years ago. He may or may not have changed his mind. It would help if Meta said something about that. Ideally for potential third party hardware manufacturers, they’d promise to leave the hardware market once a vibrant ecosystem exists. Defining “vibrant” then would be hard to impossible, though. The edge cases are easy, but uninteresting. If none of the others are making money on hardware there is…

[deleted]

Re: Meta Horizon OS

#738

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

Nevermark wrote: post #718
asrael_io wrote: post #634

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really sure if the Vision Pro could be called the iPhone of VR. It's not nearly as popular and its demand has ground to a halt.

It is a wonderful indispensable device for a very special market. Particular Mac users who happen to particularly like the physical and mental ergonomics, and locational and furniture freedom, of arrangeable virtual screens and a beautiful visual isolation chamber on demand. (And in my case, who have dramatically customized the light shield and straps to be super comfortable for long periods. I would buy the next ver…

And that's why Meta will fail. The company doesn't have the branding or the technical imagination to create either a mass-appeal or a high-end prestige product. Apple has both, and its best VR effort appeals to a few thousand people.

As long as VR is limited to facehuggers the market will remain niche. VR glasses are a good few years (decades?) off.

In the meantime Apple will eat the high end and probably some of the low end.

So where does that leave Meta?

It doesn't help that Meta is more of an annoyance than brand. I'm not sure anyone actually likes Meta or Meta's products. While they're tolerated to some extent, they're perceived as fundamentally boring or irritating in a way that is deadly for brands.

Re: Meta Horizon OS

#739

Post by veidr »

Nevermark wrote: post #718
asrael_io wrote: post #634

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really sure if the Vision Pro could be called the iPhone of VR. It's not nearly as popular and its demand has ground to a halt.

It is a wonderful indispensable device for a very special market. Particular Mac users who happen to particularly like the physical and mental ergonomics, and locational and furniture freedom, of arrangeable virtual screens and a beautiful visual isolation chamber on demand. (And in my case, who have dramatically customized the light shield and straps to be super comfortable for long periods. I would buy the next ver…

I agree. I’m reading this (and now typing this reply) from the Vision Pro, while doing a 2-hour low-and-medium-intensity cardio workout on my elliptical trainer. Hard to overstate how much better this is than the old MBP/iPad plus big-screen TV setup I had.

I would also buy another AVP immediately, if I broke this, or if a better one came out,

But that is… extremely niche. The OS is as bad as iOS 1.0 was — but without the obvious utility to a huge number of people. I’m not sure Apple can pull this off.

But, I have all the Meta headsets, too, and have used them for this purpose. That gives me the perspective to understand that, while on one hand it is indeed “just another VR headset”, there has never been one actually usable for this before. Apple has the lead along a dew different axes. The question is, do they have the stomach to lose money on it for 10 years like Meta has>

(Even if they don’t literally sell it below cost, like Meta, it won’t work out if they don’t keep iterating as hard as they can on the software side. Like the first iPhone, it is simultaneously amazing, unprecedented, and objectively awful in many ways.)

P.S. I do easy work in here on the gym machines, too. Not just HN-reading. ;-)

Re: Meta Horizon OS

#740

Post by veidr »

veidr wrote: post #739
Nevermark wrote: post #718

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a wonderful indispensable device for a very special market. Particular Mac users who happen to particularly like the physical and mental ergonomics, and locational and furniture freedom, of arrangeable virtual screens and a beautiful visual isolation chamber on demand. (And in my case, who have dramatically customized the light shield and straps to be super comfortable for long periods. I would buy the next ver…

I agree. I’m reading this (and now typing this reply) from the Vision Pro, while doing a 2-hour low-and-medium-intensity cardio workout on my elliptical trainer. Hard to overstate how much better this is than the old MBP/iPad plus big-screen TV setup I had. I would also buy another AVP immediately, if I broke this, or if a better one came out, But that is… extremely niche. The OS is as bad as iOS 1.0 was — but withou…

BTW the key to getting work done in AVP while running on a machine (or any other active scenario, like housework or walking to the grocery store) is to enable some of the Accessibility features.

The normal dictation feature is so bad it is unusable for more than a sentence fragment. The one enabled via Accessibility is incredibly good, aside from a bit more latency than I’d like (but easy to get used to that), and enables mixed voice dictation and keyboard-typing, without switching modes.

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