Meta's current gen and upcoming stuff out of their R&D lab is pretty impressive, but much like what Apple is rumored to be putting into their headset, it is SO expensive that they're limited to large corporations/governments with deep pockets who are also willing to develop a use-case for the technology.
I guess my point is: Yes, this stuff is better than Microsoft's Hololens. However, it is also a product targeting the same niche market, and the Hololens hasn't really been successful. Turns out most organizations don't want to buy expensive headsets to then develop most of the key software themselves when any other alternative exists.
A lot of people have faith that anything Apple will release will just be successful by the virtue of the Apple-y-ness of it. But realistically how big do you think the market for a $2-3K headset is? Are you going to buy one? I'm certainly not.
The Quest 2 ($400) is maybe near the current best case scenario in terms of cost-to-user experience ratio. Anything better has huge diminishing returns, and we'll likely be waiting a few years minimum until technology has advanced enough to be affordable. We know, today, what it will look like since everyone's R&D lab has produced a few demos of it, but we also know, today, what it would cost to put into your hands.
I largely agree with what you’ve written. I love my Quest 2 even though I own other headsets, but I feel that the Quest Pro is largely a failure. How you market a headset with a PPD of only 22 as a headset for work? 35 PPD is the minimum if you want to read text. The only headset capable of that is the $1999 Varjo Aero. What’s even more puzzling is that there’s currently no good way of extending the Quest Pro’s battery life
Edit: The pro new controllers are nice, but I have no clue how they will enhance work when your hands will likely be in front of you compared to either gaming or fitness. They should have kept the focus on the headset itself and saved the controllers for the Quest 3 release.
Whether Meta and the other manufacturers will admit it or not, they need Apple to make VR & AR acceptable to the masses and workplaces. Despite the name change, meta still cannot escape its past yet. The Quest 2 is a revolutionary consumer device that is largely ignored because of meta’s poor public image
The selling point will be that it can put another person in the same room with you. That's a massive leap in communication, on par with the introduction of mobile phones. Originally mobile phones cost thousands of dollars and had a limited market. Everyone wanted them but couldn't afford them till the price came down over time. It'll be the same way with VR headsets that are capable of doing teleportation like the Apple headset is rumored to be able to do.
From Mark Gurman: "The headset’s FaceTime software will realistically render a user’s face and full body in virtual reality. Those avatars will allow two people — each with an Apple headset — to communicate and feel like they’re in the same room."
Probably not. And I say that while having the first commercial Oculus Rift, a HTC Vive and a Quest 2.
However, that's not important. When Apple does something, people pay attention. If Apple invests in and releases a product, you know other companies will follow. Companies will be scared and won't want to miss the boat. Samsung will release a design that will be cheaper and look mostly the same. Other manufacturers will try to come up with their own spin on things. All of a sudden, you have a battleground.
Think about this: Meta is hemorrhaging cash. They would be widly profitable but are in the red because of VR investments. Apple has plenty of cash (although stock has taken a beating with the rest of the market) and is also dedicating tons of R&D. What are they seeing that we are not seeing?
This is the exact sort of thinking that got the Soviet shuttle (the Buran). "The Americans wouldn't be crazy enough to build a spaceship as big as the shuttle for no reason, would they? They must have a pretty good reason we are not seeing, so let's build our own and figure out later." It does not have to be true. Maybe Meta and Apple are way off the mark and high on fumes from Milpitas. At the end of the day, it doesn't matter.
If the worst problem we can think of about this tech is how much it costs, that won't be a problem for much longer. It never is. It may take some time, but it will happen. We forget how much precision is required to make a CPU, an old fashioned hard drive, or a modern display. They all cost millions of dollars not that long ago and had to drop by _several orders of magnitude_. A VR headset costing 3k has to drop to maybe a third of its price to reach cellphone prices. If you drop by one order of magnitude you get to Quest's levels (before the price hike).
We need killer apps and comfortable headsets that are accepted by society. That's it. They look dorky today, but so did bluetooth phones until Apple released theirs. Now, they are fashionable.
You'd pay that for a laptop. And I think that's part of this, these companies really believe they're looking at the next consumer device on the scale of the iPhone if they can just get the transportability and input interfaces figured out. The quest 2 is so very close, it's just a tad too heavy, a tad too low quality display, and with a mobile operating system.
Just replacing the custom android OS on that thing with a fully fledged iOS like interface would go a very long way IMO.
> A lot of people have faith that anything Apple will release will just be successful by the virtue of the Apple-y-ness of it.
Apple is rational. They won't sell this with marketing, they'll try to grow a developer community, just like with Mac, iPhone, iPad. My thing is, no matter what it is, it's a solution without a problem. I honestly can't believe they'll actually release it, and if they do, I won't believe it will be successful until it is. Just because Apple is Apple doesn't mean they can do the impossible. Usually Apple will take what is there and make it better. But with this, there's really nothing there to speak of, just a very small amount of splintered vociferous supporters of VR, and even less with AR. Watch, they'll downvote my comment soon enough. Apple needs to sell this to a lot of people that wouldn't think they needed or wanted it. But this isn't an iPod, so I just don't get how it can possibly be made essential or even sexy. Trying to make VR/AR a successful seller is like trying to fight a land war in Russia in winter.
The quest pro is more tech preview and dev platform than actual consumer product. Meta is planning to release their quest 3 this year, which is supposed to be a lot cheaper
I'm skeptical about this timeline and this tech, but hear me out... a lot of folks in this thread and in past threads about this subject have viewed this through a consumer lens. But why wouldn't Apple be looking into commercial uses with deep pocket buyers instead? They've expressed an interest in health care in the past, for example. Truckers who need info and who don't exactly have CarPlay in their rigs - this becomes a heads-up display of road / weather / gas info.
Even in the consumer world - my game-playing son already has a headset with a microphone attached while he's on his PS4. The VR headsets with the PS4 (or xbox, or whatever...) have been clunky in the past and had limited games, but it doesn't negate that there are already consumers being conditioned to use headsets here that could be extended in some way.
Finally - look at all the people wandering around with AirPods in their ears... is it really that hard to imagine some extension to this in glasses form or some other lightweight, non-intrusive form where the iPhone has the smarts and the headset is just another augmentation like the Watch?
>But why wouldn't Apple be looking into commercial uses with deep pocket buyers instead?
Because Apple has never makes things with business-to-business intent. Sure, there's iOS MDM, and what little passes for networking in macOS in general (and briefly, the Xserve), but that's the full extent to which they're made for business use.
It's all only ever been higher-end consumer-level stuff, and the fact that some businesses happen to use their gear is more a happy accident than anything Apple themselves explicitly planned for- they didn't have a good rackmounting solution for years after you'd find businesses hacking together server room mounts for the circular computers.
So no, I don't think they'll be explicitly courting businesses- sure, they could almost certainly make a good run at it (especially with the technological edge they enjoy now, but will likely lose to Nuvia-Qualcomm in the coming years), but that's just not how they've worked for their entire existence as a company.
Aside from the fact that Apple doesn't have an enterprise sales organization, at this point in time the market for profession AR glasses is probably around 1% of what Apple needs for a product to be viable.
How skeptical though? This is a company with an extreme attention to detail, who've demonstrated expertise in compact, high quality, powerful devices. And they're bringing a product to market some time after Meta already has the (from all accounts very decent) Quest 2. I think they've got as good a chance as anyone.
But I don't think truckers and medical enterprise are really the target market. Those people might find a use for this product, but Apple focus their high-end products and advertising on trend leaders, media professionals, creative prosumers/aspirants.
I'm trying to figure out what Apple is doing. The Apple Watch drove the need for the AirPod. I imagine the Apple Eye(?) would be the screen for the Apple Watch? Could it make a virtual touch screen interface that you could use and you could use your Apple Watch like an iPad? I suppose you could use it with your phone too? That might have some utility but I'm skeptical. But I could see Apple marketing this as an Apple Watch accessory.
Bonus points if they can also market it as eye safety, i.e. the material is such it can protect your eyes like safety glasses. Even more bonus points if you can select your frames (think watch bands) and I can replace my prescription glasses and sunglasses. These are the things that might make this economically viable and attract consumer interest.
I wonder if they'll be able to have outer displays as well as inner displays. Cameras internally to relay the wearer's face/expressions. So it can look somewhat like a transparent face shield, or it can be opaque from the outside. That would mean they can show expressions, show visualisations, etc.
Designed to work with an iPhone but also sometimes use with a computer, as a supplemental interface layer that surrounds or superimposes.
Their recent pro products love pushing DaVinci Resolve, so as something that has loads of modes and palettes, I could see them tying in with that, and Resolve having new features for creating mixed reality or immersive video.
They have tie-ins with media - concerts, shows, movies - and watching these in a collaborative or immersive fashion.
I'm probably not part of the target audience of this - I don't enjoy VR and I honestly feel like proper XR is still years beyond our reach.
But I will say that, as someone who travels quite a bit, I would love to just have some nice, high resolution glasses, that would emulate my monitor setup back home with minimal drawbacks. That alone would make me quite happy.
The Apple headset would be probably overkill for this, I know. Regardless, it surprises me that there are very few vendors aiming at delivering such a straightforward feature.
This is about the only XR use case I’m remotely interested in, but I think it would require infeasibly high res displays.
Using my own unremarkable setup as an example, 2560x1440 is about as low as you’d want to go for a single 27” screen, for a comfortable level of sharpness and amount of content on-screen. If that’s taking up say 40% of your FOV, that’s 6400x3600 per eye (for the simplified example of a 16:9 display overlaid across your entire FOV). That feels a ways off still, especially for a portable device.
I know some of Meta’s offerings (current? Future? I’ve been bad at keeping up with this stuff due to general apathy) are offering a virtual desktop, I wonder how readable/useable it is. Maybe I’m wrong about this stuff.
There are multiple SAAS startups offering this feature but affordable hardware isn’t there yet going this route. A Varjo Aero is capable, but it’s $2000 for just the headset and it needs a PC that likely runs $4000 and up. For other headsets, text just isn’t readable.
The closest product so far is from NReal, founded by a former Magic Leap engineer.
I really like the idea of using XR for sports training, like in snowboarding goggles or cycling classes. Almost all road cyclists use some sort of stem mounted computer for GPS and/or fitness tracking, and it would be amazing if someone made a descrete HUD that allowed you access that info without having to look down while you're riding.
I hope they advance the state of the art for software in XR. The BS-Beyond has proven how good Hardware can be. Now we just need Apple Spatial Software to show how good Software can be.
The big question I have about the future of AR/VR/XR is how do we have shared experiences across devices without putting significant compatibility code on the developers?
It's gonna be huge when someone nails it. Huge for work. Huge for home. The next Smartphone revolution; Smartphones took the Internet from a place you physically go (a desktop computer, or a laptop that's not terribly portable and that nobody's gonna carry all the time) to something that could follow you around. It put the Internet everywhere—not like water on tap, but like air.
AR glasses are going to mean the Internet's not just available everywhere, but is available on the real world, all the time, which is a pretty big distinction, about as big as the smartphone revolution.
A bunch of stuff that's kinda sucked will suddenly be great. AR tools. AR games. QR codes. Questions we used to have to ask our phones will simply be answered, automatically ("what's this song I'm hearing?", "who's that person?"). Voice assistants will become far more useful (get used to hearing a lot more people in public talking to their assistant—it'll be weird or seem dickish and annoying at first, but then, so did texting in public or talking on the phone in public, until, in a very short span, they didn't anymore)
Of course, we'll see if Apple's the one who finally cracks it. Someone's going to, I'm pretty sure, and I think all the major tech companies agree—they've all been pouring money into AR R&D for years and years, even though it's been clear the whole time that, on a phone or table or gaming device (Nintendo DS) it's got terrible UX, and there's no fixing that without new hardware. They must all believe wearables are going to be A Thing before too long.
According to various reports, Apple views this as the successor to the smart phone. Unlike everyone else, they are focusing more on everything other than games.
This also explains why Meta is still committed to plow billions into XR to secure their own viable hardware platform.
I'm supper bullish on Apple on this one. If a company can figure out how to properly do AR is Apple. We might be approaching the next revolution on personal computing after the iPhone.
[+] [-] Someone1234|3 years ago|reply
I guess my point is: Yes, this stuff is better than Microsoft's Hololens. However, it is also a product targeting the same niche market, and the Hololens hasn't really been successful. Turns out most organizations don't want to buy expensive headsets to then develop most of the key software themselves when any other alternative exists.
A lot of people have faith that anything Apple will release will just be successful by the virtue of the Apple-y-ness of it. But realistically how big do you think the market for a $2-3K headset is? Are you going to buy one? I'm certainly not.
The Quest 2 ($400) is maybe near the current best case scenario in terms of cost-to-user experience ratio. Anything better has huge diminishing returns, and we'll likely be waiting a few years minimum until technology has advanced enough to be affordable. We know, today, what it will look like since everyone's R&D lab has produced a few demos of it, but we also know, today, what it would cost to put into your hands.
[+] [-] chaostheory|3 years ago|reply
Edit: The pro new controllers are nice, but I have no clue how they will enhance work when your hands will likely be in front of you compared to either gaming or fitness. They should have kept the focus on the headset itself and saved the controllers for the Quest 3 release.
Whether Meta and the other manufacturers will admit it or not, they need Apple to make VR & AR acceptable to the masses and workplaces. Despite the name change, meta still cannot escape its past yet. The Quest 2 is a revolutionary consumer device that is largely ignored because of meta’s poor public image
[+] [-] idaseing|3 years ago|reply
From Mark Gurman: "The headset’s FaceTime software will realistically render a user’s face and full body in virtual reality. Those avatars will allow two people — each with an Apple headset — to communicate and feel like they’re in the same room."
[+] [-] outworlder|3 years ago|reply
Probably not. And I say that while having the first commercial Oculus Rift, a HTC Vive and a Quest 2.
However, that's not important. When Apple does something, people pay attention. If Apple invests in and releases a product, you know other companies will follow. Companies will be scared and won't want to miss the boat. Samsung will release a design that will be cheaper and look mostly the same. Other manufacturers will try to come up with their own spin on things. All of a sudden, you have a battleground.
Think about this: Meta is hemorrhaging cash. They would be widly profitable but are in the red because of VR investments. Apple has plenty of cash (although stock has taken a beating with the rest of the market) and is also dedicating tons of R&D. What are they seeing that we are not seeing?
This is the exact sort of thinking that got the Soviet shuttle (the Buran). "The Americans wouldn't be crazy enough to build a spaceship as big as the shuttle for no reason, would they? They must have a pretty good reason we are not seeing, so let's build our own and figure out later." It does not have to be true. Maybe Meta and Apple are way off the mark and high on fumes from Milpitas. At the end of the day, it doesn't matter.
If the worst problem we can think of about this tech is how much it costs, that won't be a problem for much longer. It never is. It may take some time, but it will happen. We forget how much precision is required to make a CPU, an old fashioned hard drive, or a modern display. They all cost millions of dollars not that long ago and had to drop by _several orders of magnitude_. A VR headset costing 3k has to drop to maybe a third of its price to reach cellphone prices. If you drop by one order of magnitude you get to Quest's levels (before the price hike).
We need killer apps and comfortable headsets that are accepted by society. That's it. They look dorky today, but so did bluetooth phones until Apple released theirs. Now, they are fashionable.
[+] [-] jhaenchen|3 years ago|reply
Just replacing the custom android OS on that thing with a fully fledged iOS like interface would go a very long way IMO.
[+] [-] Maursault|3 years ago|reply
Apple is rational. They won't sell this with marketing, they'll try to grow a developer community, just like with Mac, iPhone, iPad. My thing is, no matter what it is, it's a solution without a problem. I honestly can't believe they'll actually release it, and if they do, I won't believe it will be successful until it is. Just because Apple is Apple doesn't mean they can do the impossible. Usually Apple will take what is there and make it better. But with this, there's really nothing there to speak of, just a very small amount of splintered vociferous supporters of VR, and even less with AR. Watch, they'll downvote my comment soon enough. Apple needs to sell this to a lot of people that wouldn't think they needed or wanted it. But this isn't an iPod, so I just don't get how it can possibly be made essential or even sexy. Trying to make VR/AR a successful seller is like trying to fight a land war in Russia in winter.
[+] [-] phyrex|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] poulsbohemian|3 years ago|reply
Even in the consumer world - my game-playing son already has a headset with a microphone attached while he's on his PS4. The VR headsets with the PS4 (or xbox, or whatever...) have been clunky in the past and had limited games, but it doesn't negate that there are already consumers being conditioned to use headsets here that could be extended in some way.
Finally - look at all the people wandering around with AirPods in their ears... is it really that hard to imagine some extension to this in glasses form or some other lightweight, non-intrusive form where the iPhone has the smarts and the headset is just another augmentation like the Watch?
[+] [-] qball|3 years ago|reply
Because Apple has never makes things with business-to-business intent. Sure, there's iOS MDM, and what little passes for networking in macOS in general (and briefly, the Xserve), but that's the full extent to which they're made for business use.
It's all only ever been higher-end consumer-level stuff, and the fact that some businesses happen to use their gear is more a happy accident than anything Apple themselves explicitly planned for- they didn't have a good rackmounting solution for years after you'd find businesses hacking together server room mounts for the circular computers.
So no, I don't think they'll be explicitly courting businesses- sure, they could almost certainly make a good run at it (especially with the technological edge they enjoy now, but will likely lose to Nuvia-Qualcomm in the coming years), but that's just not how they've worked for their entire existence as a company.
[+] [-] sensitivefrost|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] droopyEyelids|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] prawn|3 years ago|reply
But I don't think truckers and medical enterprise are really the target market. Those people might find a use for this product, but Apple focus their high-end products and advertising on trend leaders, media professionals, creative prosumers/aspirants.
[+] [-] mumumu|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] taylodl|3 years ago|reply
Bonus points if they can also market it as eye safety, i.e. the material is such it can protect your eyes like safety glasses. Even more bonus points if you can select your frames (think watch bands) and I can replace my prescription glasses and sunglasses. These are the things that might make this economically viable and attract consumer interest.
I'm still skeptical.
[+] [-] prawn|3 years ago|reply
Designed to work with an iPhone but also sometimes use with a computer, as a supplemental interface layer that surrounds or superimposes.
Their recent pro products love pushing DaVinci Resolve, so as something that has loads of modes and palettes, I could see them tying in with that, and Resolve having new features for creating mixed reality or immersive video.
They have tie-ins with media - concerts, shows, movies - and watching these in a collaborative or immersive fashion.
[+] [-] manuelabeledo|3 years ago|reply
But I will say that, as someone who travels quite a bit, I would love to just have some nice, high resolution glasses, that would emulate my monitor setup back home with minimal drawbacks. That alone would make me quite happy.
The Apple headset would be probably overkill for this, I know. Regardless, it surprises me that there are very few vendors aiming at delivering such a straightforward feature.
[+] [-] deergomoo|3 years ago|reply
Using my own unremarkable setup as an example, 2560x1440 is about as low as you’d want to go for a single 27” screen, for a comfortable level of sharpness and amount of content on-screen. If that’s taking up say 40% of your FOV, that’s 6400x3600 per eye (for the simplified example of a 16:9 display overlaid across your entire FOV). That feels a ways off still, especially for a portable device.
I know some of Meta’s offerings (current? Future? I’ve been bad at keeping up with this stuff due to general apathy) are offering a virtual desktop, I wonder how readable/useable it is. Maybe I’m wrong about this stuff.
[+] [-] chaostheory|3 years ago|reply
The closest product so far is from NReal, founded by a former Magic Leap engineer.
[+] [-] robbyking|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] modeless|3 years ago|reply
Probably not yet high resolution enough for it to make sense, but higher than most alternatives, and the comfort and portability should be good.
[+] [-] Sholmesy|3 years ago|reply
Boy do I have the product for you!
https://www.nreal.ai/air/
Exists, in the real world, shipping from Amazon, many reviews on YouTube.
[+] [-] dmitriid|3 years ago|reply
A "straightforward" feature that requires packing cpu, gpu, ram, battery and screen into form factor of glasses.
[+] [-] koolala|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] verdverm|3 years ago|reply
https://github.com/microsoft/MixedRealityToolkit-Unity
Though it would be nice if everyone could get on an open standard, like https://www.khronos.org/openxr/
The big question I have about the future of AR/VR/XR is how do we have shared experiences across devices without putting significant compatibility code on the developers?
[+] [-] unknown|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] FormFollowsFunc|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Femtiono|3 years ago|reply
I really not seeing the writing for a mixed reality headset on the wall at all.
[+] [-] yamtaddle|3 years ago|reply
AR glasses are going to mean the Internet's not just available everywhere, but is available on the real world, all the time, which is a pretty big distinction, about as big as the smartphone revolution.
A bunch of stuff that's kinda sucked will suddenly be great. AR tools. AR games. QR codes. Questions we used to have to ask our phones will simply be answered, automatically ("what's this song I'm hearing?", "who's that person?"). Voice assistants will become far more useful (get used to hearing a lot more people in public talking to their assistant—it'll be weird or seem dickish and annoying at first, but then, so did texting in public or talking on the phone in public, until, in a very short span, they didn't anymore)
Of course, we'll see if Apple's the one who finally cracks it. Someone's going to, I'm pretty sure, and I think all the major tech companies agree—they've all been pouring money into AR R&D for years and years, even though it's been clear the whole time that, on a phone or table or gaming device (Nintendo DS) it's got terrible UX, and there's no fixing that without new hardware. They must all believe wearables are going to be A Thing before too long.
[+] [-] chaostheory|3 years ago|reply
This also explains why Meta is still committed to plow billions into XR to secure their own viable hardware platform.
[+] [-] valcron1000|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cammikebrown|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] coffeebeqn|3 years ago|reply