Apple Vision Pro could take four generations to perfect
It may take a couple of years for Apple to perfect the Apple Vision Pro, a report claims, with employees who worked on the headsets believing it could take four generations.
Apple Vision Pro
Apple's first-generation releases of products are usually impressive, as the Apple Vision Pro launch demonstrated. However, it usually takes a few iterations before products become exceptionally good.
While reviews of the headset propose that it hints at Apple's future but with the difficulties of modern technology's limitations, some inside Apple have similar feelings about the device.
In Sunday's "Power On" newsletter for Bloomberg, Mark Gurman offers that the Apple Vision Pro is "more of a preview of the future than the future itself. It's too heavy and cumbersome, the battery life is far too short, and there aren't enough dedicated apps." Gurman adds there are more bugs in visionOS that you'd expect from an Apple product, "even a first-generation one."
As for when to expect the best version of the headset to arrive, Gurman offers that the software update process needs to be adjusted to speed up the release of bug fixes. The software "feels like" a beta version, and about a year away from being refined enough for everyday consumer use, he adds.
On the overall package, Gurman refers to "some people in the Vision Products Group" within Apple, who say it "could take four generations before the device reaches its ideal form." This is said to be similar to the progression of the iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch.
Until Apple brings out a refined version, "The Vision Pro is essentially a prototype - just one where you have to pay Apple for the privilege of testing out," Gurman summarizes.
Read on AppleInsider
Comments
And four generations? Laptops didn't hit their "perfect" form factor in four generations. More like 20 years. The reality is that the AVP is right in line with other headsets in terms of the form factor and generally blows their doors off with the functionality.
By all accounts, Vision Pro is already impressive, the problem is the market and uses are still undefined. It’s hard to design a product when you don’t really know how people will use it. In that way VP and VR/AR are different from past products. They’re emerging technologies that are still trying to find their place in the market so unlike other products where Apple is refining the product and interface for the users, this time the users are learning how to use the product at the same time.
https://www.macworld.com/article/205387/apple-rolls.html
If spacial computing really does turn into something, I think 5-ish years will hit its stride. That’s a little closer or iPhones and iPads. It depends on how fast Apple iterates and gets the price down.
Clearly some engineers are not happy that Tim told them to deliver. If Tim is in need of someone to manage that backlog a bit more efficient, then he can just DM me here :-D
1) Traditional looking glasses or even just AR glasses are impossible with this design and primary usage. Perhaps that will be the non-Pro Vision, but I doubt that. That seems more like a different product category altogether.
2a) It also excels at interactive education. It's a bit limited right now — it is just 9 days on the market — but the two astronomy apps I've tried and the human heart app are amazing. I think there's a microbiology and engineering one I can try. And just wait until we get more environments from 3rd-parties and video shot with the latest (and newer) iPhones. There will be a lot more immersive education tools that will be made possible soon enough.
2b) I can see this being used to help people with specific trauma and phobias, as well as a way to help people who can't easily interact with the world in ways most of us can.
Reviewers have all said they don't see pixels so 4K displays are enough for the foreseeable future and the display cost will fall. The passthrough camera quality was lower than expected for some people so that will need better exterior cameras. Current M2 is 5nm, if they can get the power down to half at the same performance (M4-M5), they may be able to cut the fans and fan motors, which would allow significant reduction in form factor and weight.
Reducing build cost from $1700 -> $1200 would bring retail price down to $2499. $1499 would be a very accessible price point but difficult for Apple to reach as long as they stick with high margins. If they can aim for $1999, that would allow refurbs and used items to get under $1500. If AVP 2 can hit $2499, old AVP 1 models will drop below $2k.
A lot of people would happily buy a used AVP 1 under $2k just for watching movies, browsing the web, looking at photos. The capability of AVP 1 already justifies a purchase, most people just don't have this much disposable income.
It's a line that was never true but still gets touted every time someone says Apple should have something that others have had for a while.
With the VP, Apple has run into a lot of the problems all manufacturers have had. Perhaps it was announced/released too early. Time will tell, although it certainly seems like some aspects are not quite ready for prime time. Enough, globally, to justify baking for another 6/12 months before release?
Irrespective of that, literally everyone in the market has a roadmap to the same objectives and they will be met at some point.
If you want to use the baking/cooking analogy, you always wait until a cake is fully baked before you remove it from the oven, but that doesn't mean it's ready for consumption and prevention. There's cooling down, laying with other cakes, icing, decorations, cutting, prevention on a a plate and serving. I'd say that AVP's HW isn't just fully baked but made into an amazing layered cake with icing and frosting in a very presentable way. Other companies have not done this. Touch ID and Face ID on the iPhone would be a great example where it was fully baked and presented in a great way while many Android-based vendors decided to ship out solutions that were very much half-baked or didn't even have all the necessary ingredients in the batter to begin with because they felt they had to present more than anything else.
Therefore, people who complain about weight will just need to get over it because it's not going away anytime soon. You can make it lighter than now, but never light enough to satisfy the "it weighs too much" people.
The Apple Vision core features software/hardware are as low as they will ever be Apple won't be taking anything out however the M3,M4,M5 and the R2,R3,R4 versions are coming and they won't be 1500 dollars and something else will be added in time a in house Apple modem. I don't think Apple is interested in cheap, they are interested in being the best at the upper end of the market.
The original iPhone came out in 2007 seventeen years ago the size of it and the current iPhones aren't that far off most if not all are actually bigger (mainly because of the end user demanding more functionally) batteries are about the same relatively speaking still waiting on that massive tech break thru. In headsets battery, SOC's, screens, camera's, servo-motors need to get a lot better and even smaller, and with those improvements the right to repair goes out the window the tools needed to repair would be in the millions of dollars. Out of reach of any local chop shops by the way.