Call me cynical, but we’ve been hearing about VR and AR for the last 10 years with continual promises that it’s the next big thing and will be going mainstream, but it still hasn’t beyond the gaming market.
why will an Apple VR headset be any different?
Because it's still nascent tech and we're only starting to see previews of next gen VR tech. AR is even further behind for obvious reasons.
There are companies currently shipping AR products like this:
It's clear to see all the issues with it. It sits further out from the face as it only has 1080p resolution. It is tethered to a smartphone for processing. It has bulky cameras for tracking, no LIDAR. It uses a plastic clip-on for VR mode, which covers the tracking cameras. It uses the phone for interacting with the content and you point it like a magic wand. Bright content looks quite opaque but black looks transparent.
Snapchat made AR glasses too:
This is untethered but again sits off the face and with on-device processing only has 30 minute battery life. This also increases cost considerably.
These products are amateur attempts at making an AR wearable but they show what can be done by amateurs. It's easy to see how Apple could make a much better product than these today. Firstly, higher resolution displays so that the glasses can sit closer. 8K per eye is probably ideal but 4K will look fine for first gen. On-device processing is too bulky and leads to poor battery life, Apple could improve over Snap with their silicon but it still leads to a heavy product.
Tim Cook and Jony Ive said tethering wasn't good and this is true on the above glasses if the cable is in the way. They also said they didn't like bulky products like the VR nerd helmets. There are ways to tether more effectively but given the job ads Apple posted above where they are looking for people in AR/VR to handle hardware accelerated video encoding and streaming, that suggests processing on a separate device and streaming wirelessly. Apple has been doing hardware accelerated ProRes in Apple Silicon but they mentioned H.264/5. Some kind of ProRes streaming format should be small enough to stream and way quicker to encode than H.264/5.
For the sake of privacy, you wouldn't want content to show on the lens like in the above mockup, it would be better to have it show opaque squares blocking the content from the outside.
This kind of streaming product isn't out of reach today and would be the best fit for Apple's ecosystem. Some people think of AR as being an eventual computer replacement. In the near-term it's more of a display replacement. It's a way to get computers to conform to the user's environment rather than the user always compromising their environment to use a computer. Mobile devices went some of the way but the displays are too small and people still have to sit near the TV to watch movies or play games and sit at a desktop or laptop to use them.
With streaming glasses, if someone wanted to play Nintendo Switch/Playstation/XBox games, they could just sit anywhere and the TV in on their face. Then they can swipe the UI over and be on the Mac system or iOS checking emails, building apps etc.
I don't see why Apple would ever want to make a VR nerd helmet when they can just make a comfortable AR wearable work in VR mode by blocking incoming light. An electrically controlled mirrored surface would be better:
Comments
It's clear to see all the issues with it. It sits further out from the face as it only has 1080p resolution. It is tethered to a smartphone for processing. It has bulky cameras for tracking, no LIDAR. It uses a plastic clip-on for VR mode, which covers the tracking cameras. It uses the phone for interacting with the content and you point it like a magic wand. Bright content looks quite opaque but black looks transparent.
Snapchat made AR glasses too:
This is untethered but again sits off the face and with on-device processing only has 30 minute battery life. This also increases cost considerably.
These products are amateur attempts at making an AR wearable but they show what can be done by amateurs. It's easy to see how Apple could make a much better product than these today. Firstly, higher resolution displays so that the glasses can sit closer. 8K per eye is probably ideal but 4K will look fine for first gen. On-device processing is too bulky and leads to poor battery life, Apple could improve over Snap with their silicon but it still leads to a heavy product.
Tim Cook and Jony Ive said tethering wasn't good and this is true on the above glasses if the cable is in the way. They also said they didn't like bulky products like the VR nerd helmets. There are ways to tether more effectively but given the job ads Apple posted above where they are looking for people in AR/VR to handle hardware accelerated video encoding and streaming, that suggests processing on a separate device and streaming wirelessly. Apple has been doing hardware accelerated ProRes in Apple Silicon but they mentioned H.264/5. Some kind of ProRes streaming format should be small enough to stream and way quicker to encode than H.264/5.
For the sake of privacy, you wouldn't want content to show on the lens like in the above mockup, it would be better to have it show opaque squares blocking the content from the outside.
This kind of streaming product isn't out of reach today and would be the best fit for Apple's ecosystem. Some people think of AR as being an eventual computer replacement. In the near-term it's more of a display replacement. It's a way to get computers to conform to the user's environment rather than the user always compromising their environment to use a computer. Mobile devices went some of the way but the displays are too small and people still have to sit near the TV to watch movies or play games and sit at a desktop or laptop to use them.
With streaming glasses, if someone wanted to play Nintendo Switch/Playstation/XBox games, they could just sit anywhere and the TV in on their face. Then they can swipe the UI over and be on the Mac system or iOS checking emails, building apps etc.
I don't see why Apple would ever want to make a VR nerd helmet when they can just make a comfortable AR wearable work in VR mode by blocking incoming light. An electrically controlled mirrored surface would be better:
but a blackened surface does the job ok.