[throwaway_bad]

Augmented reality is a great example. Everyone knows that it will become a "Big Thing" in the future. Like why would smartphones be the final form factor of personal computing? Of course there will be something that will dethrone it.

But despite every big company throwing a couple billions at the problem for the last few years (Facebook's $2 billion acquisition of oculus, Google's $500 million investment into Magic Leap, Apple's acquisition of Metaio/ARkit, Microsoft Hololens), all we have are literal toys!

So now you can't talk about AR as a serious subject anymore. People all dismiss it, saying we are still too early. I imagine it's like that for every "toy to big thing" transition.

[simonh]

I think there’s a very good chance the smartphone will be the dominant form factor essentially forever. Anything smaller won’t be good for presenting visual information, and when you don’t need it, it isn’t stuck to your face.

Alternatively taking a long view, how many times do you think the dominant form factor of personal computers (in the general sense, including smart phones) will change? Another 3 times, another 5? Every 20 years forever?

The only exception I can think of is a direct neural link, but that’s generations away and even then I’m not entirely convinced. Maybe in the very long term.

[QuinnWilton]

> You could use glasses, but not everyone wants to wear them.

What about contact lenses?

[nine_k]

Remember the PC revolution.

Altair was a toy. Atari 2600 was a toy. TRS-80, Sinclair Spectrum, Apple II — all toys. Amiga was almost not a toy, and Aople Macintosh and IBM PC were mostly not toys anymore.

From there on, businesses started to use massive amounts of PCs, thanks to killer apps like word processors and spreadsheets.

Prices fell, home users took note, and a real explosion began.

It took mere 20 years, say, from 1980 to 2000.

[ianai]

In that 20 years the hardware and software exponentially grew in capacity and decreased greatly in cost. Computers turned into something you’d want in your pocket once they could be unobtrusive enough to be tolerable with you all day.

On that note, who knows what would AR require in order to take off. It probably needs to be something you can get 80% of the killer features without wearing glasses. It also needs to support whatever frames glass wearers want to wear. It might require actual visual implants as I don’t think there’s a way to turn a contact lens into a display.

[rimliu]

I, for one, do not know that AR will become a "Big Thing". It is fine for some applications, but not enough to be Big.