Only Apple could have made Apple Vision Pro, say firm's design chiefs
In a new interview, Apple's Alan Dye and Richard Howarth talk about the challenges of Apple Vision Pro and of when they knew it was working.
Exploded view of Apple Vision Pro (Source: Dan Winters via Wallpaper* magazine)
As Apple Vision Pro arrives in people's hands after a decade or more of rumors and anticipation, two of the people behind it have been discussing its aims, and its journey to reality.
"We had the feeling that this could be great, but we had no idea how to achieve it," Richard Howarth, Vice President of Industrial Design at Apple, told Wallpaper magazine. "Many of the problems we were trying to solve were huge, seemingly unsolvable and required entirely new technical innovations."
"Getting to some of those ideas is very hard," said Alan Dye, Apple's Vice President of Human Interface Design. "And then protecting those ideas, all through the process of making them real and obsessing over those details, and working hard to arrive at a point where there's no other way we could have done it, and it just feels natural, intuitive, easy to use and comfortable to wear, that's the real hard work."
"No product more than Apple Vision Pro exemplifies the nature of how we've designed the studio and worked as a studio for over a decade," continued Dye. "This product required, more than ever, that we bring hardware and software, all the disciplines across the studio together, to create one singular product experience."
"We also start a project at the same time," said Howarth. "The hardware isn't developed and then we put software on it, and the experience isn't designed and then the hardware is created to enable it."
"It happens symbiotically... we create it together," he continued. "We all understand the principles and high-level goals and then we move along together, one step at a time as a single team, so there's no distance between us."
Designing icons for Apple Vision Pro
Dye says that Apple only got fully into Apple Vision Pro when its staff understood that "the product could be used for connection, for bringing people together and helping to enrich their lives, as we do with so many other Apple products."
Then at the other end of such a years-long process, Dye says that Apple also knew when it was ready.
"When the product, as a piece of hardware and software, is a complete experience and feels inevitable, that's when we know we're done," he said. "That's where we are at with Apple Vision Pro. It just works, it feels familiar and it feels like something only Apple could have done."
Apple Vision Pro is in stores now and starts at $3,499.
Read on AppleInsider
Comments
It's understandable but still ridiculous.
Anybody that thinks only 'they' could do something really needs to rethink things.
The very notion that only one company or group of people can achieve something is crazy in itself.
As long as you take it as marketing fluff it's fine. Taking it seriously is more worrying.
I think they might have meant that only they could have done it "right", out of the gate. Samsung and the like will most surely copy it and release a sub-par product just like all the other tech manufacturers. Apple is never the first, but almost always the best, in the end. And of course we all pay for it as well...That said, I have no intention of buying one, but it's cool to see what the future might hold in this realm. I'm thinking a pair of actual glasses with this tech at some point. Obviously the hardware will need to be shrunk down incredibly small to fit in a pair of normal looking spectacles.
MS HoloLens does have the premium price and their specs are (mostly) better than Meta Quest but fall very short of AVP's, but MS isn't marketing HoloLens to the consumer market. Now that Apple has cleared a path which legitimizes the VR/AR market for mass consumption — just like Blackberry phones saw their largest sales boom after the iPhone was released even though their ultimate collapse was already sealed. I fully expect to see Quest come out with better tech in a more expensive VR headset and more R&D put in by every competitor to better compete with and try to shave off VR sales scraps from Apple.
Another way of looking at it is taking a gander at what HW and SW are used in other VR/AR headsets. Even with the MS HoloLens price that starts higher than what Apple sells AVP for, they're still using Qualcomm Snapdragon 850 or Intel Atom for their CPU. Not exactly the Apple Silicon M2 with LPDDR5 RAM. So if not Apple, what company has both the vertical and horizontal integration to have efficiently created something that is on the same level of visionOS and AVP HW? I can't think of one.
The easiest answer to 'why' is because it is a difficult sell for a huge outlay for a product that will sit in a price band that represents a limited market.
On top of that, the AR/VR element will only ever take off once content is available.
We know that a lot of that content will be byte heavy and we need to move it around at lightning speed with ultra low latency. Preferably on open standards too.
Current technology cannot handle that. We don't even have enough capacity today to handle mass use of AR/VR.
Of course, solutions are coming but won't begin to be deployed until 2025.
Later this month, if you're at MWC you'll find lots of demos on this.
I'm happy it is out but let's not forget the tradeoffs that are present right now (weight, comfort, battery, charging etc).
But that is one thing. Trying to claim only such and such company can do something is completely different.
When reading comments take a deep breath, dial back the defensiveness and ponder what other contexts the comment could in.
could create “Apple Vision Pro”.
And yes, there was little time for pondering as my peppers were burning. I was popping in and out and it went straight over my head.
https://www.eurasiantimes.com/china-dares-us-b-21-raider-with-its-8500-km-ranged/
One company designed and built twenty one B-2's 40 years ago, and is in production on the first six B-21's today.
https://www.defensenews.com/air/2024/01/23/pentagon-oks-b-21-for-low-rate-production-after-successful-tests/
One country is still in the process of design and build of its clone of the B-21.
China wants to invade Taiwan, but is running out of time.
The B-21 scares them.
So it is with the Apple Vision Pro.
Competitors are scared...
There are many developers out there in the world, but innovation also requires mastering UX, reading the trends, seeing the future, and have the capabilities to capture all of this at the right moment in time.
If you add those constraints, I think Apple is in a class with very few competitors. And I definitely don’t think companies like Samsung is in there. Their strengths lie somewhere else.
Are you really that out of touch with reality?
Apple has been implementing technologies brought to market by those two companies for years now. Lots of hardware.
In the case of Huawei alone, it was once rumoured that Apple was licencing almost 800 of its patents.
What would a phone be without cellular and Wi-Fi? How much has Apple brought to market when compared to Huawei and Samsung?
Are you even aware that both those companies have years of experience with VR/AR/XR? And smart glasses too.
That Huawei (and very likely Samsung) is actively remedying some of the bigger, non-front facing issues involved? That Apple is a very latecomer to this.
Don't confuse lack of a product with lack of ideas. There is little to nothing truly new (in terms of ideas) in the VP.
It remains a visor setup with all the current traits of the industry. There will be variations here and there but basically it follows the trail opened by others.
Ideas need to be transformed into products but the number one reason a souped up visor (like VP) hasn't come to market until now, is cost.
Everyone loves to be wary of Meta (and with good reason) but the sneak peek into its projects shows where everyone wants to go.
The options being developed are extremely expensive so companies reduce their goals in order to produce an 'affordable' product and reach a wider market. After all, surely, putting devices out there is what counts. Advancing the industry.
Real-time OS, dedicated chipsets, improved optics, eye tracking, gestures etc.
None of those ideas are in some way Apple exclusive.
But let's look at just one of the major (but logical) tradeoffs of the VP: The battery and charging.
Did you know that Huawei cracked that problem years ago but simply hasn't brought it to market yet? At least externally (I believe it's in use internally).
It would actually be perfect for the VP too.
A ceiling mounted laser setup to continuously charge multiple devices simultaneously. Think about that for a moment.
Now, wouldn't that be good?
I say perfect for the VP because the solution requires a line of sight connection. Hardly an issue for a head mounted device. Or a shelf or table mounted device. Think HomePod etc.
Of course, cost, (even for Apple) is an issue and no doubt lots of tradeoffs were made along the way for the VP. Those tradeoffs are universal and largely offset by how expensive you want the finished device to be. Some are outright impossible today for other reasons.
That's the reality of business.
I'm very glad they ran with it. It's better out than in a lab, once it reaches a practical usage point. People who get one will enjoy a visually superior experience at the very least.
Does a controller mean less of an experience? Not at all. Tradeoffs again. The VP won't recognise anything above the headset and will have issues with low light. Tradeoffs again. Controllers don't have those issues and are cheaper. They have their own issues but that is how things go.
But don't confuse business with 'knocking something off' because, if anything, Apple has spent the last few years knocking those companies off and Android in general!
At least by the wholly general use of knock off that you are trying to use.
In terms of what is used, and how, you can be sure some things will work out better than others and everyone in the industry will take a look at what others are doing and try to implement the best solutions.
That's how things work
Do you think Apple went into this without doing exactly that? It would be crazy if they hadn't.
Apple will have a whole room of VR headsets from competitors.
Apple has spent years now implementing features from competitors in lots of areas.
In terms of software, what do you actually know about the competition? How are you reaching your 'knock off' conclusions if you don't know about other solutions?
If we talk about almost all of the major features announced for iOS over the last few years, how many already existed elsewhere?
The 'multi device' aspect of sharing cameras, audio etc isn't new. Far from it. Is Apple knocking off Huawei? Blatantly?
What about security certifications?
https://www.huaweicentral.com/huawei-hongmeng-gets-eal6-highest-level-security-certificate/
Will we see an Apple kernel in Fintech any time soon?
Bugs? Didn't Apple recently have to put a massive focus on improving the quality of its systems?
Quality you say?
'HomeOS' is now rumoured.
Do you know that competitors already have fully integrated 'HomeOS' systems that extend far, far beyond anything Apple/Matter/Thread etc are bringing to market (or are about to bring to market)?
FTTR included. Mesh systems. Distributed security. Distributed file systems. Distributed authentication. Integration across the board on systems that were built, from the ground up for the task. It's all been announced or implemented already. And built deep into the very design of the system.
What about the interconnect and the network stack to support it?
Is Apple providing a system-wide Nearlink equivalent?
With cars too, and not just a CarPlay 'skin' on the infotainment system of the car but a full car OS with deep integration into the vehicle.
Integration that allows cars to create ad-hoc networks among them for communication. That can seamlessly connect with the 'HomeOS', placing video calls with the living room TV, controlling all aspects of that 'HomeOS'.
AFAIK Apple isn't even in the running here.
Development of roadside technology to communicate with vehicles AND the wireless side of making that communication happen?
No.
Where is all that from Apple?
'Knock-offs' you say?
I think you need to rethink that. Carefully and deeply.
Now that Samsung can get their hands on a few Vision Pro’s and send them back to Korea for study and reverse engineering, Samsung will wonder how to do it better, and cheaper while being profitable. It can get to any two of the three choices. And the early projections are Samsung only plans a limited run of 50K units for the whole year, probably to gauge the Android VR market for a likely $2K to $2.5K or more device. Otherwise, it won’t ever be profitable unless they want to subsidize it and somehow make it up on content like consoles do.