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Mark Zuckerberg on Apple’s Vision Pro headset

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Re: Mark Zuckerberg on Apple’s Vision Pro headset

#761

Post by coffeebeqn »

sumedh wrote: post #683
marcus_holmes wrote: post #502

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The simplest contrast is ChatGPT vs VR right now. OpenAI is up to over a billion of users and hundreds of millions of subscribers in There is no demand for VR outside gaming. Efforts to try and create that demand are failing.

> There is no demand for VR outside gaming. How big was the demand for the first mobile phone?

The pitch was very common sense - you can make calls without being tethered to your home/office physical phone line. They were just too big, expensive and low coverage in the beginning for most people.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg on Apple’s Vision Pro headset

#762

Post by brookst »

nologic01 wrote: post #393

There is something quite remarkable and puzzling about the VR/AR and now SC (spatial computing) space. All major (ad)tech companies are convinced that this is a major market that will materialize and be profitable if the right combination of hardware and software is developed. Their VR "visions" differ but only at the margin. No matter how you execute it, we are talking about people (homo sapiens) putting a major som…

An interesting comment because it’s so contrary to my lived experience as a backer of Oculus DK1, among many other VR attempts going back to the VFX1 in 1995.

> for the pursuit of. . . What exactly?

Experience. Fun. Productivity. Emotion. All of the same things we look at screens for. I’m surprised that’s not clear.

People (homo sapiens) have sought these things in many mediums for as long as we’ve been sapiens. There is nothing categorically different about seeking these things in the kind of immersion that (so far) only headsets can give.

In the future we’ll have glasses and then BCI. I’m excited for both.

But if you’re seeing XR as pushed by waves hands with no consume pull or enthusiast hacking, I think you’re not looking with truly open eyes.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg on Apple’s Vision Pro headset

#763

Post by ChrisLTD »

planb wrote: post #548
mtrovo wrote: post #491

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it really the same though? I can see how this is proposing a different approach on how to present VR but apart from tech folks nobody seems to care. Where on iPhone case from day 1 one could tell it was actually really really useful. And you also have to consider the price tag as well, I can think about many things that I would spend money on first even if I had those 3500 dollars. Maybe I'll change my mind when I…

> but apart from tech folks nobody seems to care. Where on iPhone case from day 1 one could tell it was actually really really useful This was exactly the same when the iPhone was introduced. Only tech folks could tell it was actually really really useful. Other people were just like "So browsing the internet o a phone is better now. But why would I need to browse the internet one a phone?"

All my friends, even the non-tech nerds, wanted to try the first gen iPhone when I got it. The appeal was clear from the get go.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg on Apple’s Vision Pro headset

#764

Post by andsoitis »

marcus_holmes wrote: post #502
roomey wrote: post #482

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry, but buying things on the internet wasn't laughed at, if anything people were worried about it cause of their credit card numbers. It was that basis of the dot com boom of the late 90s. Everyone saw the potential and lashed money into it. It didn't deliver at the time, but that dynamic is totally different to vr headsets. Think smart phones, they weren't pushed, people wanted them in a serious way

The simplest contrast is ChatGPT vs VR right now. OpenAI is up to over a billion of users and hundreds of millions of subscribers in There is no demand for VR outside gaming. Efforts to try and create that demand are failing.

I don't know that comparing ChatGPT (a particular instance of a branch of AI) to the entire category of VR (not a particular instance of a branch of VR) makes too much sense.

AI has been around since the 50s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_artificial_intellig...

VR has been around since roughly a decade later: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_reality#History

Re: Mark Zuckerberg on Apple’s Vision Pro headset

#765

Post by coffeebeqn »

williamcotton wrote: post #662
Al-Khwarizmi wrote: post #515

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They didn't really live up to the hype, though. It was said that they would replace laptops. While they have their space in the market, sales are in a declining trend, and considerably behind laptops. (I was like you and still am, by the way... I don't find tablets comfortable. I only bought one once, and I think the number of times I actually used it can be counted with both hands).

Kids love tablets and parents on trips love that kids love tablets!

They’re convenient consumption devices. I’d never work on one but I can watch something on it. Personally I have a phone full that niche but I get that having a giant phone is nice to some people. But keeping kids calm during a plane ride is a great use case

Re: Mark Zuckerberg on Apple’s Vision Pro headset

#766

Post by pavlov »

From a purely technology point of view, Meta is well placed. There isn't an enormous gap between what their hardware does vs. Apple.

Display resolution, eye tracking and hand tracking are problems that can be solved today with a more expensive device. (The Quest Pro is a weird compromise because it's not that much of an upgrade from the base Quest. It has powerful eye tracking, yet the software doesn't use it. The whole device really feels like it's an internal hardware testing platform that got a public release because Meta wanted to show the world they're working on something beyond the consumer headset.)

Historically this kind of timing against Apple has boded well. Windows 2.0 looked ugly and for end-users was little more than a glorified MS-DOS file manager, yet ended up winning the market in five years. Same thing happened in smartphones. Android 1.0 was a hasty design reset to catch up to the iPhone, yet it became the world leader in smartphones.

If Meta wants to be the Windows and Android of this generation of computing, they need to think hard about the platform aspect. The Microsoft and Google platforms wouldn't have taken off if the companies hadn't actively worked to open them up to other vendors. Meta can't just be the "poor man's Apple" in their own proprietary garden, or they will end up like Atari ST, Commodore Amiga, BlackBerry 10 and others who tried that approach in the past.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg on Apple’s Vision Pro headset

#767

Post by innocentoldguy »

erichmond wrote: post #755

Everything about how Meta / Zuck is approaching this is showing how nervous and anxious he is about all of this. From the panic announcement of the Quest 3 before the Vision Pro unveiling to this statement, which, seems weirdly honest. Calling out "it was a person sitting on a couch by themselves" when that's the ONLY way you can use your Quest 2, given how bad passthrough works. Given their vision of the future is a…

I agree. Meta's Quest devices are little more than an Android-based cell phone strapped to your face. Zuck has bet his company on his Metaverse idea and it appears Apple will utterly stomp him if their device performs half as well as they claimed in their WWDC keynote. The only thing Zuck has going for him is price. Some people will settle for Meta's lesser quality at a fraction of the price.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg on Apple’s Vision Pro headset

#768

Post by activiation »

anonzzzies wrote: post #14

Keep bickering ya’ll ; it’s all better for us people who want to get work done. Apple made it more serious and even shows they actually support some of the Vision of Zuck. Let all big corps come in and compete for whatever their vision is. I just want holodeck hardware and software with weeklong battery life. This is getting is closer. One of the things that the Apple announcement will do; because it supports all iOS…

> I just want holodeck hardware and software with weeklong battery life. This is getting is closer.

I thought the battery last only about 2 hours

Re: Mark Zuckerberg on Apple’s Vision Pro headset

#769

Post by pr0zac »

adverbly wrote: post #736
curiousllama wrote: post #730

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Watch movies, play tabletop games, exercise, play existing video games, visualize interior design, attend a virtual concert, etc etc All of those are use cases, and obvious ones. Your argument is “none of these seem compelling to me” (you’re not pulling) which is fine, but don’t ignore the comment’s point that they could soon be compelling to you (which is why they’re being pushed). This is especially true for networ…

> Watch movies, play tabletop games, exercise, play existing video games, visualize interior design, attend a virtual concert, etc etc Literally all of those are possible with your cell phone at slightly lower fidelity. We're not talking about zero to one applications here. Cell phone fundamentally unlocked new applications via mobile connected GPS, computer, camera, screen, accelerometer, internet. Fidelity is not w…

To expand on this, it seems like the majority of people I know actually prefer consuming media on small screens, especially if I include people under 20 in that assessment.

On top of that so far VR only offers a bigger screen and can’t actually produce high fidelity images. My 4K TV has more pixels and produces a clearer picture with more detail and resolution. Only offering bigger doesn’t feel like a good selling point or revolutionary change.

I think unique games like Beatsaber (which I fucking love and play regularly) are an example of a completely new use case unlocked as a possibility because of VR but those are only compelling to a small percentage of people. VRs big problem is it hasn’t found a similar completely new experience that’s not just a new way to do existing things moderately better (often only in a some areas while being worse in others) and is actually compelling to a large audience. Until it does the potential audience is going to remain small.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg on Apple’s Vision Pro headset

#770

Post by brookst »

ethbr0 wrote: post #739
curiousllama wrote: post #730

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Watch movies, play tabletop games, exercise, play existing video games, visualize interior design, attend a virtual concert, etc etc All of those are use cases, and obvious ones. Your argument is “none of these seem compelling to me” (you’re not pulling) which is fine, but don’t ignore the comment’s point that they could soon be compelling to you (which is why they’re being pushed). This is especially true for networ…

Those are all things you can already do! And big, nice screens are already very cheap. The Vision Pro's problem is that it lets you do something you can already do "some percent better." But "some percent better" isn't what any of the companies pushing this need, because that doesn't translate into the volumes they need to sell. "Fundamentally different" does, but no one has described any use case like that. Examples…

I strongly disagree that only 100% novel uses are meaningful, and I disagree even more that “phone calls anywhere” or “web anywhere” are meaningful — nobody care about phone calls or the web. They care about what those enable: talking to people or doing research or shopping or whatever.

But, sure, fundamentally different: being able to surround yourself with any environment you want. Being able to navigate that environment with physical movement. Seeing a movie that exists in a sphere around you.

You may not want those things, just like my mom could not understand why anyone would want a smartphone, but that does not mean other people get no value.

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