In other words, the impressive PSVR 2 hasn’t been as popular as Sony may have hoped, Meta Quest Pro sales barely scratch the surface of the Quest 2’s nearly 20 million units sold, and the ByteDance-owned Pico is struggling, too.
There have already been some signs that high-end VR isn’t taking, especially Meta’s decision to cut the Quest Pro’s price from $1,500 to $1,000 just over four months after the product first launched. But given that Apple’s headset is rumored to cost around $3,000 — double the Quest Pro’s starting price — the iPhone maker could have a steep road ahead as it tries to get traction for its headset.
I have my sincerest doubts about consumer VR/AR goggles, but at the same time – it’s generally not a good idea to bet against Apple.
The problem with consumer VR is it’s not VR, it’s a pair of screens strapped on a person’s head. This creates an effect where your eyes sense motion but your sense of balance doesn’t, making people sick. This greatly limits the applications of consumer VR to games where the player character is not moving (if motion sickness is to be avoided).
Apple will make an augmented reality AR headset that can be used while a person is walking in the real world, shaking up the industry. Haters will point out it’s not a new invention, much like the idea of a finger-driven touchscreen in the iPhone wasn’t a new invention, and that “any other company could have done it”. But guess what, so far those other companies haven’t done it (with the exception of Google Glass, which covers too little of a user’s field-of-view to be useful).
> But guess what, so far those other companies haven’t done it
Microsoft HoloLens?
I have not seen the Google toy, but I have seen lots of hololenses and projects with it. MS have also set up a shitload of tooling for
Did they make it generally available to the public? Nope. I am sure Microsoft also had some iPhone-like prototype internally (Zune with GSM probably) which never saw the light of day due to internal bureaucracies and general management timidness. Meanwhile, Apple shipped the iPhone as a generally-available product right from the reveal date and always showed confidence in the product.
Hololens 2 is available for purchase right now, from the Microsoft Store or other online sites (such as CDW)
Well, Microsoft wasn’t making much of their own hardware back then, but there were already Windows CE phones that were full touch on the market YEARS before the iPhone.
The O2 XDA II, for example, is a touch-driven Windows CE phone released in late 2003, nearly 4 years before the iPhone.
I’d say Cook is desperate for an innovative product to continue to justify his CEO position. It’s more likely the VR idea will see the same lay offs and reductions in R&D as AI voice assistants have seen this year as businesses have admitted to the reality that they’re just bad ideas. Sure people will still use them, but the reality that they will always be a very small niche with little ROI is setting in. Also, remember when Apple appeared to be hiring a bunch of self-driving car engineers?
dark2,
Business will always ebb and flow and while I agree the usual suspects are inflating the hype as they always do, but I still predict AI will be quite a bit more impactful than just a “very small niche”. As AI costs come down and human labor costs go up, more and more people are going to find they’ve been made redundant. It’s just simple economics. Even intellectual jobs that have historically been a hedge against automation aren’t safe this time around.
Cook doesn’t need new, innovative products to justify his position as CEO. He needs increased profit.
And, Apple’s net profit has more than doubled since he took over. For investors, that’s what really matters.
Drumhellar,
That’s true. Some users aren’t happy with Tim Cook, but corporations don’t actually exist to make users happy. The quiet part they don’t say out loud is that customers are a means to end, the CEO’s real job is to create profits for the shareholders. There’s a lot that I’ll criticize apple for: planned obsolescence, vendor locking, fighting right to repair, monopoly tactics, walled gardens, not paying their fair share of taxes, and so on. But many of these things that are bad for consumers are viewed favorably by wall street standards and Tim Cook’s been a great CEO for them.
He does have to explain the 40% drop in Mac sales, which is way more than other manufacturers. https://www.cnbc.com/2023/04/10/apples-mac-shipments-fall-more-than-40percent-worse-than-major-rivals-idc.html
“Did they make it generally available to the public? Nope.”
Wrong, it’s avaliable and has been for å long time. There have been supply issues, like the rest of the electronics industry, but nothing special. They have mature tools and have pushed it quite hard in some market segments. Lots of activity by 3rd party vendors developing and offering customized solutions.
VR in the way current companies envisioned it is a niche product. It doesn’t matter how much more money they throw into it. That won’t change. Someday i can imagine VR will get more general recognition. But not in the way current tech giants envisioned it. Then VR will suddenly work for such companies too. That is when somebody else will do the ground work. And they can just buy, copy or steal it. It’s 16 years now Apple. Since you introduced iPhone. And now you feel you are up to VR? With AI? Meh.
I don’t think there has ever been a great time to be in VR, To be fair to apple. I mean from the virtual boy to the current devices, its just never been good enough and always too expensive. John Carmack is walking away, That should be a good sign to everyone that its not feasible now. It takes a massive bank roll and a singular talent to lead something like this. Apple has the former but like Meta, not the later. I think Oculus/Meta combination was the best hope for it, they had the money and the talent, but the money didn’t listen to the talent so both left in massive quantities.
Specifically in regards to John Carmack and Facebook, my understanding is that John Carmack is still very hopeful and excited about VR but he became sooooo frustrated with Facebook as an organization, due to things like the layers of management, the decisions by committee, the insistence of linking everything to a Facebook account and advertising… those kinds of things.
I’m not saying I disagree with the rest of your points about VR, price, and popularity, but I disagree that Oculus / Meta was the best hope for it.
…actually, the more I reread your comment, “the money didn’t listen to the talent”, maybe we agree more than I first thought. 😀
Bill Shooter of Bul,
Here here!
It’s always seemed like a neat fad, but that’s the problem. Every time it comes up it’s a passing fad. You’re right that’s it’s too expensive. something cheaper could bring about VR waves in the future, but even assuming it became affordable for the masses it just doesn’t seem like people enjoy being strapped into these things long term.
Honestly I can’t say I have this much confidence in any one person. IMHO it could fail with him or it could succeed without him. Oh well.
That assumes money and talent are sufficient, but sometimes people aren’t interested. Not only speaking of end users, but also consider youtube & twitch streamers. These headsets aren’t particularly glamorous and the resulting stream is relatively nauseating. There are some solid niche applications, but sustained mainstream appeal will probably remain kind of limited. Maybe the sex industry could pull it off.
I really just meant that as in, I really agree with Carmack’S vision for success here and not Meta’s I like the idea of a low cost device that was butter smooth, then once adoption is up, continue to iterate. A good counter argument is that, the people working on it had to be goaded into using their own product. not exactly a signifier of drive or belief in the mission.
People really need to understand the difference between VR and AR.
For all indications, apple’s device is focused on augmented reality. Which actually makes tremendous amount of sense since Apple is likely to be the vendor who can crack that market segment finally.
From reports I’ve heard its capable of both. But I don’t think there is a market for either at the current price points and capabilities.
In my mind for AR to be a thing, it would have to cost similar to a set of one of the famous brands of sunglasses, and also be as small as them.
But AR is inherently going to be extremely privacy violating. Pretty much the only way for it to ‘augment reality’. At least with VR, it doesn’t need my location every second to be able to display stuff. How many people want these big companies being able to see whatever the user can see?
Sure, phones already track everyone ‘s movements, but AR can tell if you are looking at spam on the shelf, or checking out the hot waitress at the bar.
leech,
Incognito mode to the rescue, haha.
But yeah, it is creepy on a few different levels. Presumably the wearer agrees to the click wrap terms and conditions. At least when it came to google glass a lot of places were banning it because it was creepy to others. Google’s mistake was that they didn’t look like normal glasses / shades. If apple does the same thing, but with a discrete form factor, they might have better “acceptance” on the basis that crowds won’t be aware they’re even in use. They won’t protest what they don’t know is there.
There is a tremendous market for AR. Much bigger than smart watches, for example.
It has access to the user’s eyes for far longer periods than a watch, tablet, or even the smartphone. It’s apple’s wet dream, and I am sure it will take them a couple of generations, but apple is likely the one’s who will get it right. As they have the ecosystem for it. At this point, the glasses are too bulky.