You may not understsnd context so I will lay it out for you a little. Apple is presumable spending millions of dollars telling people that the AI in the new iPad is something customers should consider when buying s tablet and presumable the iPad excels in some way in doing this. In that context I personally will stick with the old one I have. Clearly this sort of AI could be important to you so please have at it and decorate the virtual world. Have fun with that!
I am in the market for a new iPad as my current one is four years old and slow. As someone mentioned though, is this what it has all come to - placing furniture into a live scene? Remember when wearables at CES were the next great thing in fashion and lifestyle that was going to change everything? Or 3D TV was going to change the way we consumed media? For all the billions spent by these big companies I was hoping for a little more I guess. Till it does I’ll buy furniture the old fashioned wayand go to a furniture store and try stuff out. Who is using AI successfully right now? Big businesses where I suspect were we are the furniture! I will probably wait another year before upgrading I guess.
If you need an ipad today for your current use cases, what does the AR stuff matter, and how could they possibly make you wait?
It’s like you’re trying to express something, but decoding it is very difficult.
You said your ipad is slow and needs replacing, but because you don’t like AR use cases you’re going to just not get one at all, despite it not being a use case you intend to use. That makes....no sense. Try again?
i have an ipad pro and it’s a kickass tablet. the speed is awesome, the size is awesome, the screen is awesome, the new refresh rate is awesome, the tweaked iOS UX is awesome (split screen, float over windows, etc). Apple never told me much about the “AI” and even if they did it wouldn’t make this device any less awesome at the jobs to be done that i have for it today.
but go ahead, cut off your nose to spite your face. seems legit.
I’ve really been waiting to see what great things AR will provide. Dropping furniture in a park will be so handy!
/s
It’s funny how many of you latch on to one use case to scrap an entire product. I haven’t seen it yet but I read somewhere that IKEA has an app where you can try out furniture inside your own house to see how they fit before actually going to the store to buy it. Or an online reading glasses retailer now has a special app for iPhone X to place the glasses on your face before you order them. Very useful cases, depending on how they work, of AR.
I am in the market for a new iPad as my current one is four years old and slow. As someone mentioned though, is this what it has all come to - placing furniture into a live scene? Remember when wearables at CES were the next great thing in fashion and lifestyle that was going to change everything? Or 3D TV was going to change the way we consumed media? For all the billions spent by these big companies I was hoping for a little more I guess. Till it does I’ll buy furniture the old fashioned wayand go to a furniture store and try stuff out. Who is using AI successfully right now? Big businesses where I suspect were we are the furniture! I will probably wait another year before upgrading I guess.
I hope you read @Firelock's post above. I think drawing on top of pages or images in real time and projecting this to a live audience qualifies as an excelkent use case of augmented reality.
edit: maybe "human-augmented reality" if you want to split hairs about it.
Huh? I’m confused how @Firelock’s comment is an example of AR. I thought AR meant using the device’s camera to view the reality around you and then augmenting it somehow (like by inanely dropping virtual furniture into a park). Firelock’s examples, to me, read as if documents are being marked up in real-time and projected. Doesn’t come off as AR to me, but is still a great use of the iPad.
Maybe I’m just not understanding what AR is supposed to be.
I am in the market for a new iPad as my current one is four years old and slow. As someone mentioned though, is this what it has all come to - placing furniture into a live scene? Remember when wearables at CES were the next great thing in fashion and lifestyle that was going to change everything? Or 3D TV was going to change the way we consumed media? For all the billions spent by these big companies I was hoping for a little more I guess. Till it does I’ll buy furniture the old fashioned wayand go to a furniture store and try stuff out. Who is using AI successfully right now? Big businesses where I suspect were we are the furniture! I will probably wait another year before upgrading I guess.
I hope you read @Firelock's post above. I think drawing on top of pages or images in real time and projecting this to a live audience qualifies as an excelkent use case of augmented reality.
edit: maybe "human-augmented reality" if you want to split hairs about it.
This is not an example of AR, by any stretch. Also not sure why AI is getting thrown in here as well, that also has nothing to do with this.
This is why I added the edit "human-augmented reality," to make it clearer that I'm stretching the conventional concept of AR as machine or AI-augmented reality.
The very conventional concept, I want to say. Use your imagination here for a minute. What we're taliking about with AR is the ability to use the computer in real time to overlay information, whether data or images, over "reality," which we usually think of as a real-time picture of the world as captured by that same computer.
The data or image overlay can come from anywhere, including the Internet or the brain of the person holding the device, doesn't matter, as long as the Reality is being Augmentd, seems to me. The portable, large-sceen iPad with Pencil input, maybe with voice input too, plus some sort of markup app, seems uniquely suited to be a device for annotating a view of reality in real time.
So this girl is climbing tree's and whatnot on her expensive iPad Pro with Cell service with the $100 pencil? Rich Parents I guess.
I love my 12.9" iPad Pro. I haven't done much in the way of "Augment Reality". I don't use the pencil much. I'm glad I went with the larger one even though I had planned on getting the 10.5" version first. I upgraded from a really slow iPad 3.
As for voice assistants, Apple is lacking in this area. Siri is everywhere on Apple devices, but that's it. That's fine, but when Google released theirs, it was with 3 different devices. Amazon has about 7-8 of them at this time. What does Apple have, ZERO. With a $350 HomePod coming at some point, but blowing their own release deadline.
I'm a growing Homekit house, but I have Alexa on my Ecobee 4. Which personally is almost useless. Would have been better to get the Ecobee 3 and then a Echo Dot. I also have a Google Home Mini, why not at $30. As I figured, they have their issues. BUT, many people are using them because they're BLIND, or some type of Medical reason, which makes it hard to get around, etc. They can use them to ask questions, and turn on lights and adjust the temp, answer a call, etc. It makes their life easier.
Personally, I don't want these things littering my house. But that's the only way these things are really useful. My Google Mini is in my Master Bedroom and it's locked into there by the power supply and so it's worthless everywhere else I'm at. So you would need these things all over your house. It still doesn't take care of your front or back yard or away from home. This is where the Apple Watch is really great. Because It can pretty much do everything those devices do, but do it everywhere I'm at by just lifting my wrist and saying "Hey Siri". So I find the Apple Watch far more useful. But it is a 1 person device, where these smart speakers work for the whole family.
But I have been using my iPad Pro and my Google Mini and asking them both questions. Hey Google first and then Hey Siri, and both have been giving me similar results. For me Siri works really good. It does get better as you use it. It also helps to do the basic training of Siri. Controlling your home by voice is great and where I think voice assistants really come into their own.
I'm still not seeing the big WOW factor with AR. VR, who knows if it'll stick around this time or not, but it really hasn't gone mainstream yet either. For Apple to come out with Siri first, and really started out by limiting the capabilities that it used to be able to do, and then slowly bring some of that back, but really in general moving sssllooowwww in this area, that a company like Amazon is just Wowing everyone with the Echo's, and then here comes Google, and Apple is still at a snails pace. Really, a snails pace with everything they've been doing. Everything Apple is doing is moving at a snails pace. When was the last time Apple blew past their own launch date? They've been close to missing, but but flat out blown by? If that's not a sign of moving slow, I don't know what is.
I’ve really been waiting to see what great things AR will provide. Dropping furniture in a park will be so handy!
/s
It’s funny how many of you latch on to one use case to scrap an entire product. I haven’t seen it yet but I read somewhere that IKEA has an app where you can try out furniture inside your own house to see how they fit before actually going to the store to buy it. Or an online reading glasses retailer now has a special app for iPhone X to place the glasses on your face before you order them. Very useful cases, depending on how they work, of AR.
I have a buddy that his company prints a publication, and with the lack of interest in reading physical publications these days, they instituted the AR platform into the physical article that when you launch the app on the iPhone or iPad and scan over the area of the physical article it will show you its virtual content over that particular page in the publication. Now I know there can be some uses for AR I am just not seeing it in the grand scheme of things that it is said to be of an all new mighty powerful tool. I asked my friend if you have to use your iPhone to see this content then if that person already has the digital device in hand, why not just read it online and have all that content already naked in? I could not see the person holding the phone or tablet over a paper article to read the content. It seems clunky and cumbersome.
I remember very early during the iPhone 3gs i Had there was an app that used AR to show you nearby restaurants or other points of Interest and its distance to where you are. I thought this was COOL and will be the future, but i used that app once and thought it was stupid to hold my phone in the air to see things, when I got the same results with navigation in the google maps app.
Oh well to each there own, but I just dont see the wonders of AR.
I’ve really been waiting to see what great things AR will provide. Dropping furniture in a park will be so handy!
/s
It’s funny how many of you latch on to one use case to scrap an entire product. I haven’t seen it yet but I read somewhere that IKEA has an app where you can try out furniture inside your own house to see how they fit before actually going to the store to buy it. Or an online reading glasses retailer now has a special app for iPhone X to place the glasses on your face before you order them. Very useful cases, depending on how they work, of AR.
Back in June, when Apple first announced ARKit, there were articles and comments all of the place about how amazing AR was going to be. But most of the examples used were just interesting uses of AR, not things that most would find useful on a regular basis.
Personally, I wouldn’t say either on of the examples you provided is “very useful”. Hasn’t Snapchat been able to add glasses to people’s faces for a long time without AR? So, that’s nothing new. I can see how previewing how furniture would look in your own home could be moderately useful, but only when you’re shopping for furniture, and only when you’re shopping at (currently) IKEA. But I don’t find either of these “very useful”, mostly from the standpoint of how often does someone purchase glasses or furniture? Using myself as the example, my wife and I built a new hose in 2012. About 2 years later we refurnished the living room replacing furniture that was about 20 years old. In 2017 we finished our basement and bought a couple of sofas to put down there. So, if the store we shop at had an app that let us preview the furniture in the room we would have had 2 uses for it in 5 years.
I’ve really been waiting to see what great things AR will provide. Dropping furniture in a park will be so handy!
/s
It’s funny how many of you latch on to one use case to scrap an entire product. I haven’t seen it yet but I read somewhere that IKEA has an app where you can try out furniture inside your own house to see how they fit before actually going to the store to buy it. Or an online reading glasses retailer now has a special app for iPhone X to place the glasses on your face before you order them. Very useful cases, depending on how they work, of AR.
I have a buddy that his company prints a publication, and with the lack of interest in reading physical publications these days, they instituted the AR platform into the physical article that when you launch the app on the iPhone or iPad and scan over the area of the physical article it will show you its virtual content over that particular page in the publication. Now I know there can be some uses for AR I am just not seeing it in the grand scheme of things that it is said to be of an all new mighty powerful tool. I asked my friend if you have to use your iPhone to see this content then if that person already has the digital device in hand, why not just read it online and have all that content already naked in? I could not see the person holding the phone or tablet over a paper article to read the content. It seems clunky and cumbersome.
I remember very early during the iPhone 3gs i Had there was an app that used AR to show you nearby restaurants or other points of Interest and its distance to where you are. I thought this was COOL and will be the future, but i used that app once and thought it was stupid to hold my phone in the air to see things, when I got the same results with navigation in the google maps app.
Yeah, clunky, cumbersome and making something require MORE effort. Sounds terrible.
The app you’re referencing sounds like AroundMe or something similar. I used that AR mode a couple of times in AroundMe but it seems like a mode that would work better in glasses or a HUD in a car. As you mentioned, I can get similar information already just by looking in Maps. But I can see some usefulness in putting an overlay on a building in AR as I get within sight of it.
I’ve really been waiting to see what great things AR will provide. Dropping furniture in a park will be so handy!
/s
It’s funny how many of you latch on to one use case to scrap an entire product. I haven’t seen it yet but I read somewhere that IKEA has an app where you can try out furniture inside your own house to see how they fit before actually going to the store to buy it. Or an online reading glasses retailer now has a special app for iPhone X to place the glasses on your face before you order them. Very useful cases, depending on how they work, of AR.
Back in June, when Apple first announced ARKit, there were articles and comments all of the place about how amazing AR was going to be. But most of the examples used were just interesting uses of AR, not things that most would find useful on a regular basis.
Personally, I wouldn’t say either on of the examples you provided is “very useful”. Hasn’t Snapchat been able to add glasses to people’s faces for a long time without AR? So, that’s nothing new. I can see how previewing how furniture would look in your own home could be moderately useful, but only when you’re shopping for furniture, and only when you’re shopping at (currently) IKEA. But I don’t find either of these “very useful”, mostly from the standpoint of how often does someone purchase glasses or furniture? Using myself as the example, my wife and I built a new hose in 2012. About 2 years later we refurnished the living room replacing furniture that was about 20 years old. In 2017 we finished our basement and bought a couple of sofas to put down there. So, if the store we shop at had an app that let us preview the furniture in the room we would have had 2 uses for it in 5 years.
So, I'm guessing IKEA should close shop because you don't use their stores often?
AR helps people buy more from the same store (trying stuff out does that) and buy more without having to get into the store (they can know if it looks good without going to the store, a obstacle to the sale usually) or buy something they know will fit or be the right color (less returns).; that's the main uses.
It also differentiates their brand from the competition and it also has a brand halo effect.
While you may not be a heavy user, there are many people who go to IKEA and the like many times a year. If those users buy 5% more "stuff" because of these apps, or return less of them. That's a win.
I’ve really been waiting to see what great things AR will provide. Dropping furniture in a park will be so handy!
/s
It’s funny how many of you latch on to one use case to scrap an entire product. I haven’t seen it yet but I read somewhere that IKEA has an app where you can try out furniture inside your own house to see how they fit before actually going to the store to buy it. Or an online reading glasses retailer now has a special app for iPhone X to place the glasses on your face before you order them. Very useful cases, depending on how they work, of AR.
Back in June, when Apple first announced ARKit, there were articles and comments all of the place about how amazing AR was going to be. But most of the examples used were just interesting uses of AR, not things that most would find useful on a regular basis.
Personally, I wouldn’t say either on of the examples you provided is “very useful”. Hasn’t Snapchat been able to add glasses to people’s faces for a long time without AR? So, that’s nothing new. I can see how previewing how furniture would look in your own home could be moderately useful, but only when you’re shopping for furniture, and only when you’re shopping at (currently) IKEA. But I don’t find either of these “very useful”, mostly from the standpoint of how often does someone purchase glasses or furniture? Using myself as the example, my wife and I built a new hose in 2012. About 2 years later we refurnished the living room replacing furniture that was about 20 years old. In 2017 we finished our basement and bought a couple of sofas to put down there. So, if the store we shop at had an app that let us preview the furniture in the room we would have had 2 uses for it in 5 years.
So, I'm guessing IKEA should close shop because you don't use their stores often?
AR helps people buy more from the same store (trying stuff out does that) and buy more without having to get into the store (they can know if it looks good without going to the store, a obstacle to the sale usually) or buy something they know will fit or be the right color (less returns).; that's the main uses.
It also differentiates their brand from the competition and it also has a brand halo effect.
While you may not be a heavy user, there are many people who go to IKEA and the like many times a year. If those users buy 5% more "stuff" because of these apps, or return less of them. That's a win.
I’m not sure how you got that IKEA should close from my comment. My comment was more along the lines of, how often do people purchase furniture? Previewing furniture using AR seems like something most people will use their phones for very infrequently, and thus doesn’t come off as “very useful”, especially compared to other things people do regularly with their phones.
Sure, people make many trips to IKEA, but are they really buying furniture that they are first “trying out” with the app in there residence before making the trip? For most people, furniture is a fairly large purchase and one that isn’t made all that often. How many sofas or dining room sets are people buying for themselves on a regular basis?
While using AR may differentiate their brand I’m not sure how much of a difference that would make overall. Would you buy an ottoman from IKEA because their app uses AR when you actually prefer an ottoman from a different brand?
What other apps, aside from the IKEA app, are people using to try AR with before making purchases? This is an honest question. Aside from forums I’ve never heard anyone mention using AR to see how something looks before making a purchase, and usually that’s in the context of what’s possible, not what is actual.
I am in the market for a new iPad as my current one is four years old and slow. As someone mentioned though, is this what it has all come to - placing furniture into a live scene? Remember when wearables at CES were the next great thing in fashion and lifestyle that was going to change everything? Or 3D TV was going to change the way we consumed media? For all the billions spent by these big companies I was hoping for a little more I guess. Till it does I’ll buy furniture the old fashioned wayand go to a furniture store and try stuff out. Who is using AI successfully right now? Big businesses where I suspect were we are the furniture! I will probably wait another year before upgrading I guess.
I hope you read @Firelock's post above. I think drawing on top of pages or images in real time and projecting this to a live audience qualifies as an excelkent use case of augmented reality.
edit: maybe "human-augmented reality" if you want to split hairs about it.
Huh? I’m confused how @Firelock’s comment is an example of AR. I thought AR meant using the device’s camera to view the reality around you and then augmenting it somehow (like by inanely dropping virtual furniture into a park). Firelock’s examples, to me, read as if documents are being marked up in real-time and projected. Doesn’t come off as AR to me, but is still a great use of the iPad.
Maybe I’m just not understanding what AR is supposed to be.
I am in the market for a new iPad as my current one is four years old and slow. As someone mentioned though, is this what it has all come to - placing furniture into a live scene? Remember when wearables at CES were the next great thing in fashion and lifestyle that was going to change everything? Or 3D TV was going to change the way we consumed media? For all the billions spent by these big companies I was hoping for a little more I guess. Till it does I’ll buy furniture the old fashioned wayand go to a furniture store and try stuff out. Who is using AI successfully right now? Big businesses where I suspect were we are the furniture! I will probably wait another year before upgrading I guess.
I hope you read @Firelock's post above. I think drawing on top of pages or images in real time and projecting this to a live audience qualifies as an excelkent use case of augmented reality.
edit: maybe "human-augmented reality" if you want to split hairs about it.
This is not an example of AR, by any stretch. Also not sure why AI is getting thrown in here as well, that also has nothing to do with this.
This is why I added the edit "human-augmented reality," to make it clearer that I'm stretching the conventional concept of AR as machine or AI-augmented reality.
The very conventional concept, I want to say. Use your imagination here for a minute. What we're taliking about with AR is the ability to use the computer in real time to overlay information, whether data or images, over "reality," which we usually think of as a real-time picture of the world as captured by that same computer.
The data or image overlay can come from anywhere, including the Internet or the brain of the person holding the device, doesn't matter, as long as the Reality is being Augmentd, seems to me. The portable, large-sceen iPad with Pencil input, maybe with voice input too, plus some sort of markup app, seems uniquely suited to be a device for annotating a view of reality in real time.
Ok, I mean I can make up new terminology too. But annotating a projected presentation in real time is not augmented reality by any traditional sense of the term. Words have meaning.
I’ve really been waiting to see what great things AR will provide. Dropping furniture in a park will be so handy!
/s
It’s funny how many of you latch on to one use case to scrap an entire product. I haven’t seen it yet but I read somewhere that IKEA has an app where you can try out furniture inside your own house to see how they fit before actually going to the store to buy it. Or an online reading glasses retailer now has a special app for iPhone X to place the glasses on your face before you order them. Very useful cases, depending on how they work, of AR.
Back in June, when Apple first announced ARKit, there were articles and comments all of the place about how amazing AR was going to be. But most of the examples used were just interesting uses of AR, not things that most would find useful on a regular basis.
Personally, I wouldn’t say either on of the examples you provided is “very useful”. Hasn’t Snapchat been able to add glasses to people’s faces for a long time without AR? So, that’s nothing new. I can see how previewing how furniture would look in your own home could be moderately useful, but only when you’re shopping for furniture, and only when you’re shopping at (currently) IKEA. But I don’t find either of these “very useful”, mostly from the standpoint of how often does someone purchase glasses or furniture? Using myself as the example, my wife and I built a new hose in 2012. About 2 years later we refurnished the living room replacing furniture that was about 20 years old. In 2017 we finished our basement and bought a couple of sofas to put down there. So, if the store we shop at had an app that let us preview the furniture in the room we would have had 2 uses for it in 5 years.
So, I'm guessing IKEA should close shop because you don't use their stores often?
AR helps people buy more from the same store (trying stuff out does that) and buy more without having to get into the store (they can know if it looks good without going to the store, a obstacle to the sale usually) or buy something they know will fit or be the right color (less returns).; that's the main uses.
It also differentiates their brand from the competition and it also has a brand halo effect.
While you may not be a heavy user, there are many people who go to IKEA and the like many times a year. If those users buy 5% more "stuff" because of these apps, or return less of them. That's a win.
I’m not sure how you got that IKEA should close from my comment. My comment was more along the lines of, how often do people purchase furniture? Previewing furniture using AR seems like something most people will use their phones for very infrequently, and thus doesn’t come off as “very useful”, especially compared to other things people do regularly with their phones.
Sure, people make many trips to IKEA, but are they really buying furniture that they are first “trying out” with the app in there residence before making the trip? For most people, furniture is a fairly large purchase and one that isn’t made all that often. How many sofas or dining room sets are people buying for themselves on a regular basis?
While using AR may differentiate their brand I’m not sure how much of a difference that would make overall. Would you buy an ottoman from IKEA because their app uses AR when you actually prefer an ottoman from a different brand?
What other apps, aside from the IKEA app, are people using to try AR with before making purchases? This is an honest question. Aside from forums I’ve never heard anyone mention using AR to see how something looks before making a purchase, and usually that’s in the context of what’s possible, not what is actual.
Yes, people are trying out virtual furniture before deciding to go pick it up or order it. That’s the point. I would’ve used this a ton in the past instead of clumsily figuring stuff out with a measuring tape and graph paper. This is a new product, and it seems that your main argument is that it’s not very useful TO YOU (maybe you’re not the target audience?) yet also complaining that the tech isn’t more widely adopted already by other retailers. ¯\(°_o)/¯
People buy new furniture at places like IKEA *all the time*. Have you been to one? People move and need new dressers, bookshelves, kitchen islands, accent tables, night stands, and hell yes given the option to see what that night stand looks like next to the bed you’re standing by if given the option. It’s not like they’re charging you for the app, and people aren’t getting their money’s worth or something by not using it more than once every x months.
Again with people complaining about use cases that don’t apply to them as if they don’t apply to anyone.
I’ve really been waiting to see what great things AR will provide. Dropping furniture in a park will be so handy!
/s
It’s funny how many of you latch on to one use case to scrap an entire product. I haven’t seen it yet but I read somewhere that IKEA has an app where you can try out furniture inside your own house to see how they fit before actually going to the store to buy it. Or an online reading glasses retailer now has a special app for iPhone X to place the glasses on your face before you order them. Very useful cases, depending on how they work, of AR.
Back in June, when Apple first announced ARKit, there were articles and comments all of the place about how amazing AR was going to be. But most of the examples used were just interesting uses of AR, not things that most would find useful on a regular basis.
Personally, I wouldn’t say either on of the examples you provided is “very useful”. Hasn’t Snapchat been able to add glasses to people’s faces for a long time without AR? So, that’s nothing new. I can see how previewing how furniture would look in your own home could be moderately useful, but only when you’re shopping for furniture, and only when you’re shopping at (currently) IKEA. But I don’t find either of these “very useful”, mostly from the standpoint of how often does someone purchase glasses or furniture? Using myself as the example, my wife and I built a new hose in 2012. About 2 years later we refurnished the living room replacing furniture that was about 20 years old. In 2017 we finished our basement and bought a couple of sofas to put down there. So, if the store we shop at had an app that let us preview the furniture in the room we would have had 2 uses for it in 5 years.
So, I'm guessing IKEA should close shop because you don't use their stores often?
AR helps people buy more from the same store (trying stuff out does that) and buy more without having to get into the store (they can know if it looks good without going to the store, a obstacle to the sale usually) or buy something they know will fit or be the right color (less returns).; that's the main uses.
It also differentiates their brand from the competition and it also has a brand halo effect.
While you may not be a heavy user, there are many people who go to IKEA and the like many times a year. If those users buy 5% more "stuff" because of these apps, or return less of them. That's a win.
I’m not sure how you got that IKEA should close from my comment. My comment was more along the lines of, how often do people purchase furniture? Previewing furniture using AR seems like something most people will use their phones for very infrequently, and thus doesn’t come off as “very useful”, especially compared to other things people do regularly with their phones.
Sure, people make many trips to IKEA, but are they really buying furniture that they are first “trying out” with the app in there residence before making the trip? For most people, furniture is a fairly large purchase and one that isn’t made all that often. How many sofas or dining room sets are people buying for themselves on a regular basis?
While using AR may differentiate their brand I’m not sure how much of a difference that would make overall. Would you buy an ottoman from IKEA because their app uses AR when you actually prefer an ottoman from a different brand?
What other apps, aside from the IKEA app, are people using to try AR with before making purchases? This is an honest question. Aside from forums I’ve never heard anyone mention using AR to see how something looks before making a purchase, and usually that’s in the context of what’s possible, not what is actual.
Yes, people are trying out virtual furniture before deciding to go pick it up or order it. That’s the point. I would’ve used this a ton in the past instead of clumsily figuring stuff out with a measuring tape and graph paper. This is a new product, and it seems that your main argument is that it’s not very useful TO YOU (maybe you’re not the target audience?) yet also complaining that the tech isn’t more widely adopted already by other retailers. ¯\(°_o)/¯
People buy new furniture at places like IKEA *all the time*. Have you been to one? People move and need new dressers, bookshelves, kitchen islands, accent tables, night stands, and hell yes given the option to see what that night stand looks like next to the bed you’re standing by if given the option. It’s not like they’re charging you for the app, and people aren’t getting their money’s worth or something by not using it more than once every x months.
Again with people complaining about use cases that don’t apply to them as if they don’t apply to anyone.
It appears you are misunderstanding what I’m saying. In an earlier post someone commented that furniture previewing is a “very useful” example of AR. My point is that people don’t need to buy furniture all that often, so I wouldn’t call it “very useful”. How often do you supposed people move and need “new dressers, bookshelves, kitchen islands, accent tables, night stands“? It’s not like this is a weekly or monthly occurrence. And I don’t know many people that move and don’t bring their existing furniture with them. Clearly you are moving in much richer circles than I am.
As I mentioned, since building a new house we’ve made furniture purchases twice in 5 years. Yes, it would have been handy to preview our furniture (which I also mentioned earlier so I don’t know where you come up with thinking I’m complaining it’s not useful to me but also wish it was more widely available) before making the purchase but doing that 2 times in 5 years is hardly “very useful” in the context of all the other uses of a cell phone.
PS: I understand that there are a lot of people buying furniture at IKEA. But are individuals buying furniture on a weekly or monthly basis? I doubt it. Again, how many sofas or bedroom sets does one person or family need? Personally, my wife and I bought a new bedroom set about 12 years ago and have yet to replace it. Are there really people out there buying new IKEA bedrooms all the time?
Edit: Also, someone mentioned in another comment that people are regularly using AR to preview their furniture and then buying it without going into the store (maybe I misunderstood but that’s the way it read to me). If that’s the case it seems like a mistake to buy furniture without sitting in it first. Do people really do that? Would you buy a car without driving it?
I’ve really been waiting to see what great things AR will provide. Dropping furniture in a park will be so handy!
/s
It’s funny how many of you latch on to one use case to scrap an entire product. I haven’t seen it yet but I read somewhere that IKEA has an app where you can try out furniture inside your own house to see how they fit before actually going to the store to buy it. Or an online reading glasses retailer now has a special app for iPhone X to place the glasses on your face before you order them. Very useful cases, depending on how they work, of AR.
Back in June, when Apple first announced ARKit, there were articles and comments all of the place about how amazing AR was going to be. But most of the examples used were just interesting uses of AR, not things that most would find useful on a regular basis.
Personally, I wouldn’t say either on of the examples you provided is “very useful”. Hasn’t Snapchat been able to add glasses to people’s faces for a long time without AR? So, that’s nothing new. I can see how previewing how furniture would look in your own home could be moderately useful, but only when you’re shopping for furniture, and only when you’re shopping at (currently) IKEA. But I don’t find either of these “very useful”, mostly from the standpoint of how often does someone purchase glasses or furniture? Using myself as the example, my wife and I built a new hose in 2012. About 2 years later we refurnished the living room replacing furniture that was about 20 years old. In 2017 we finished our basement and bought a couple of sofas to put down there. So, if the store we shop at had an app that let us preview the furniture in the room we would have had 2 uses for it in 5 years.
So, I'm guessing IKEA should close shop because you don't use their stores often?
AR helps people buy more from the same store (trying stuff out does that) and buy more without having to get into the store (they can know if it looks good without going to the store, a obstacle to the sale usually) or buy something they know will fit or be the right color (less returns).; that's the main uses.
It also differentiates their brand from the competition and it also has a brand halo effect.
While you may not be a heavy user, there are many people who go to IKEA and the like many times a year. If those users buy 5% more "stuff" because of these apps, or return less of them. That's a win.
I’m not sure how you got that IKEA should close from my comment. My comment was more along the lines of, how often do people purchase furniture? Previewing furniture using AR seems like something most people will use their phones for very infrequently, and thus doesn’t come off as “very useful”, especially compared to other things people do regularly with their phones.
Sure, people make many trips to IKEA, but are they really buying furniture that they are first “trying out” with the app in there residence before making the trip? For most people, furniture is a fairly large purchase and one that isn’t made all that often. How many sofas or dining room sets are people buying for themselves on a regular basis?
While using AR may differentiate their brand I’m not sure how much of a difference that would make overall. Would you buy an ottoman from IKEA because their app uses AR when you actually prefer an ottoman from a different brand?
What other apps, aside from the IKEA app, are people using to try AR with before making purchases? This is an honest question. Aside from forums I’ve never heard anyone mention using AR to see how something looks before making a purchase, and usually that’s in the context of what’s possible, not what is actual.
Yes, people are trying out virtual furniture before deciding to go pick it up or order it. That’s the point. I would’ve used this a ton in the past instead of clumsily figuring stuff out with a measuring tape and graph paper. This is a new product, and it seems that your main argument is that it’s not very useful TO YOU (maybe you’re not the target audience?) yet also complaining that the tech isn’t more widely adopted already by other retailers. ¯\(°_o)/¯
People buy new furniture at places like IKEA *all the time*. Have you been to one? People move and need new dressers, bookshelves, kitchen islands, accent tables, night stands, and hell yes given the option to see what that night stand looks like next to the bed you’re standing by if given the option. It’s not like they’re charging you for the app, and people aren’t getting their money’s worth or something by not using it more than once every x months.
Again with people complaining about use cases that don’t apply to them as if they don’t apply to anyone.
It appears you are misunderstanding what I’m saying. In an earlier post someone commented that furniture previewing is a “very useful” example of AR. My point is that people don’t need to buy furniture all that often, so I wouldn’t call it “very useful”. How often do you supposed people move and need “new dressers, bookshelves, kitchen islands, accent tables, night stands“? It’s not like this is a weekly or monthly occurrence. And I don’t know many people that move and don’t bring their existing furniture with them. Clearly you are moving in much richer circles than I am.
As I mentioned, since building a new house we’ve made furniture purchases twice in 5 years. Yes, it would have been handy to preview our furniture (which I also mentioned earlier so I don’t know where you come up with thinking I’m complaining it’s not useful to me but also wish it was more widely available) before making the purchase but doing that 2 times in 5 years is hardly “very useful” in the context of all the other uses of a cell phone.
PS: I understand that there are a lot of people buying furniture at IKEA. But are individuals buying furniture on a weekly or monthly basis? I doubt it. Again, how many sofas or bedroom sets does one person or family need? Personally, my wife and I bought a new bedroom set about 12 years ago and have yet to replace it. Are there really people out there buying new IKEA bedrooms all the time?
Edit: Also, someone mentioned in another comment that people are regularly using AR to preview their furniture and then buying it without going into the store (maybe I misunderstood but that’s the way it read to me). If that’s the case it seems like a mistake to buy furniture without sitting in it first. Do people really do that? Would you buy a car without driving it?
I completely understand what you're saying. I just disagree with your interpretation of what "very useful" means. Ikea has a catalog app. The AR is just a handy feature you can use to determine if you want to buy something. That is "very useful" to many people trying to buy furniture, regardless of how often they use it. Your anecdotal furniture buying history is not applicable, and you don't shop at IKEA apparently so WHY do you even care? It's not about YOU.
The AR features in Google Translate where you can point the camera at a printed document and see it translate and replace words in real time is "very useful", even though I don't usually travel internationally more than once a year. Frequency of use doesn't have any bearing on usefulness in a situation.
On another note, IKEA is hardly rich-people furniture. But yes, people move all the time, especially when they're younger, in college, living in shared housing, etc. Much of it is largely disposable as it doesn't hold up over many moves. And not all furniture is meant to be sat in — do you *really* need to see a console table or bookshelf in person? No. Some things you may order online without testing it out in person first, other things you may not. Your car analogy is ridiculous.
I’ve really been waiting to see what great things AR will provide. Dropping furniture in a park will be so handy!
/s
It’s funny how many of you latch on to one use case to scrap an entire product. I haven’t seen it yet but I read somewhere that IKEA has an app where you can try out furniture inside your own house to see how they fit before actually going to the store to buy it. Or an online reading glasses retailer now has a special app for iPhone X to place the glasses on your face before you order them. Very useful cases, depending on how they work, of AR.
Back in June, when Apple first announced ARKit, there were articles and comments all of the place about how amazing AR was going to be. But most of the examples used were just interesting uses of AR, not things that most would find useful on a regular basis.
Personally, I wouldn’t say either on of the examples you provided is “very useful”. Hasn’t Snapchat been able to add glasses to people’s faces for a long time without AR? So, that’s nothing new. I can see how previewing how furniture would look in your own home could be moderately useful, but only when you’re shopping for furniture, and only when you’re shopping at (currently) IKEA. But I don’t find either of these “very useful”, mostly from the standpoint of how often does someone purchase glasses or furniture? Using myself as the example, my wife and I built a new hose in 2012. About 2 years later we refurnished the living room replacing furniture that was about 20 years old. In 2017 we finished our basement and bought a couple of sofas to put down there. So, if the store we shop at had an app that let us preview the furniture in the room we would have had 2 uses for it in 5 years.
So, I'm guessing IKEA should close shop because you don't use their stores often?
AR helps people buy more from the same store (trying stuff out does that) and buy more without having to get into the store (they can know if it looks good without going to the store, a obstacle to the sale usually) or buy something they know will fit or be the right color (less returns).; that's the main uses.
It also differentiates their brand from the competition and it also has a brand halo effect.
While you may not be a heavy user, there are many people who go to IKEA and the like many times a year. If those users buy 5% more "stuff" because of these apps, or return less of them. That's a win.
I’m not sure how you got that IKEA should close from my comment. My comment was more along the lines of, how often do people purchase furniture? Previewing furniture using AR seems like something most people will use their phones for very infrequently, and thus doesn’t come off as “very useful”, especially compared to other things people do regularly with their phones.
Sure, people make many trips to IKEA, but are they really buying furniture that they are first “trying out” with the app in there residence before making the trip? For most people, furniture is a fairly large purchase and one that isn’t made all that often. How many sofas or dining room sets are people buying for themselves on a regular basis?
While using AR may differentiate their brand I’m not sure how much of a difference that would make overall. Would you buy an ottoman from IKEA because their app uses AR when you actually prefer an ottoman from a different brand?
What other apps, aside from the IKEA app, are people using to try AR with before making purchases? This is an honest question. Aside from forums I’ve never heard anyone mention using AR to see how something looks before making a purchase, and usually that’s in the context of what’s possible, not what is actual.
Yes, people are trying out virtual furniture before deciding to go pick it up or order it. That’s the point. I would’ve used this a ton in the past instead of clumsily figuring stuff out with a measuring tape and graph paper. This is a new product, and it seems that your main argument is that it’s not very useful TO YOU (maybe you’re not the target audience?) yet also complaining that the tech isn’t more widely adopted already by other retailers. ¯\(°_o)/¯
People buy new furniture at places like IKEA *all the time*. Have you been to one? People move and need new dressers, bookshelves, kitchen islands, accent tables, night stands, and hell yes given the option to see what that night stand looks like next to the bed you’re standing by if given the option. It’s not like they’re charging you for the app, and people aren’t getting their money’s worth or something by not using it more than once every x months.
Again with people complaining about use cases that don’t apply to them as if they don’t apply to anyone.
It appears you are misunderstanding what I’m saying. In an earlier post someone commented that furniture previewing is a “very useful” example of AR. My point is that people don’t need to buy furniture all that often, so I wouldn’t call it “very useful”. How often do you supposed people move and need “new dressers, bookshelves, kitchen islands, accent tables, night stands“? It’s not like this is a weekly or monthly occurrence. And I don’t know many people that move and don’t bring their existing furniture with them. Clearly you are moving in much richer circles than I am.
As I mentioned, since building a new house we’ve made furniture purchases twice in 5 years. Yes, it would have been handy to preview our furniture (which I also mentioned earlier so I don’t know where you come up with thinking I’m complaining it’s not useful to me but also wish it was more widely available) before making the purchase but doing that 2 times in 5 years is hardly “very useful” in the context of all the other uses of a cell phone.
PS: I understand that there are a lot of people buying furniture at IKEA. But are individuals buying furniture on a weekly or monthly basis? I doubt it. Again, how many sofas or bedroom sets does one person or family need? Personally, my wife and I bought a new bedroom set about 12 years ago and have yet to replace it. Are there really people out there buying new IKEA bedrooms all the time?
Edit: Also, someone mentioned in another comment that people are regularly using AR to preview their furniture and then buying it without going into the store (maybe I misunderstood but that’s the way it read to me). If that’s the case it seems like a mistake to buy furniture without sitting in it first. Do people really do that? Would you buy a car without driving it?
I completely understand what you're saying. I just disagree with your interpretation of what "very useful" means. Ikea has a catalog app. The AR is just a handy feature you can use to determine if you want to buy something. That is "very useful" to many people trying to buy furniture, regardless of how often they use it. Your anecdotal furniture buying history is not applicable, and you don't shop at IKEA apparently so WHY do you even care? It's not about YOU.
The AR features in Google Translate where you can point the camera at a printed document and see it translate and replace words in real time is "very useful", even though I don't usually travel internationally more than once a year. Frequency of use doesn't have any bearing on usefulness in a situation.
On another note, IKEA is hardly rich-people furniture. But yes, people move all the time, especially when they're younger, in college, living in shared housing, etc. Much of it is largely disposable as it doesn't hold up over many moves. And not all furniture is meant to be sat in — do you *really* need to see a console table or bookshelf in person? No. Some things you may order online without testing it out in person first, other things you may not. Your car analogy is ridiculous.
Interesting that my anecdotal furniture buying history is not applicable but apparently yours is. I also don't know why it matters that I haven't shopped at IKEA. We're talking about AR and furniture. I didn't realize I was going to need to be so specific and touch on every possible piece of furniture someone might buy when I used a sofa as an example. I just figured you would be able to extrapolate that out to other types of furniture.
Yes, I prefer to see my furniture in person (and not just furniture, there are many things I won't order online because I want to "experience" them first). I'll sit on it, recline on it, I'll feel a table's surface, check if something is top heavy, check how a draw feels and sounds when I open and close it. To me aesthetics aren't the only part I pay attention to. Sure, it would be nice to see how it looks in my house, but that's just part of the process. So, yes, I want to see a console table or bookshelf in person, but again, it's so I can touch it, not just see it. One time we had someone purchase an ottoman for us. She had seen it, thought it would go well in our room and sent us a picture. We talked about it and ultimately approved buying it. It's terrible, no doubt the worst piece of furniture we have. There isn't much padding so it isn't particularly comfortable to rest my feet on. It's very light but feels and sounds like a thin, plywood box but at the same time is difficult to move because it won't slide well and needs to be lifted. But it looked nice in the photo. All of those things are something an AR preview won't tell you.
My car analogy is not ridiculous, it's the same thing. Feeling, looking (as in sight lines), hearing (like how a door closes or how much outside noise comes in) are all part of my buying process.
I think all we're arguing about here is the word "very". Earlier I mentioned I would find AR previewing of furniture moderately useful and I still feel that way. To me, ("to me" is something I've said throughout BTW) it isn't "very useful" because seeing it is only part of a purchasing decision.
I’ve really been waiting to see what great things AR will provide. Dropping furniture in a park will be so handy!
/s
It’s funny how many of you latch on to one use case to scrap an entire product. I haven’t seen it yet but I read somewhere that IKEA has an app where you can try out furniture inside your own house to see how they fit before actually going to the store to buy it. Or an online reading glasses retailer now has a special app for iPhone X to place the glasses on your face before you order them. Very useful cases, depending on how they work, of AR.
Back in June, when Apple first announced ARKit, there were articles and comments all of the place about how amazing AR was going to be. But most of the examples used were just interesting uses of AR, not things that most would find useful on a regular basis.
Personally, I wouldn’t say either on of the examples you provided is “very useful”. Hasn’t Snapchat been able to add glasses to people’s faces for a long time without AR? So, that’s nothing new. I can see how previewing how furniture would look in your own home could be moderately useful, but only when you’re shopping for furniture, and only when you’re shopping at (currently) IKEA. But I don’t find either of these “very useful”, mostly from the standpoint of how often does someone purchase glasses or furniture? Using myself as the example, my wife and I built a new hose in 2012. About 2 years later we refurnished the living room replacing furniture that was about 20 years old. In 2017 we finished our basement and bought a couple of sofas to put down there. So, if the store we shop at had an app that let us preview the furniture in the room we would have had 2 uses for it in 5 years.
So, I'm guessing IKEA should close shop because you don't use their stores often?
AR helps people buy more from the same store (trying stuff out does that) and buy more without having to get into the store (they can know if it looks good without going to the store, a obstacle to the sale usually) or buy something they know will fit or be the right color (less returns).; that's the main uses.
It also differentiates their brand from the competition and it also has a brand halo effect.
While you may not be a heavy user, there are many people who go to IKEA and the like many times a year. If those users buy 5% more "stuff" because of these apps, or return less of them. That's a win.
I’m not sure how you got that IKEA should close from my comment. My comment was more along the lines of, how often do people purchase furniture? Previewing furniture using AR seems like something most people will use their phones for very infrequently, and thus doesn’t come off as “very useful”, especially compared to other things people do regularly with their phones.
Sure, people make many trips to IKEA, but are they really buying furniture that they are first “trying out” with the app in there residence before making the trip? For most people, furniture is a fairly large purchase and one that isn’t made all that often. How many sofas or dining room sets are people buying for themselves on a regular basis?
While using AR may differentiate their brand I’m not sure how much of a difference that would make overall. Would you buy an ottoman from IKEA because their app uses AR when you actually prefer an ottoman from a different brand?
What other apps, aside from the IKEA app, are people using to try AR with before making purchases? This is an honest question. Aside from forums I’ve never heard anyone mention using AR to see how something looks before making a purchase, and usually that’s in the context of what’s possible, not what is actual.
Yes, people are trying out virtual furniture before deciding to go pick it up or order it. That’s the point. I would’ve used this a ton in the past instead of clumsily figuring stuff out with a measuring tape and graph paper. This is a new product, and it seems that your main argument is that it’s not very useful TO YOU (maybe you’re not the target audience?) yet also complaining that the tech isn’t more widely adopted already by other retailers. ¯\(°_o)/¯
People buy new furniture at places like IKEA *all the time*. Have you been to one? People move and need new dressers, bookshelves, kitchen islands, accent tables, night stands, and hell yes given the option to see what that night stand looks like next to the bed you’re standing by if given the option. It’s not like they’re charging you for the app, and people aren’t getting their money’s worth or something by not using it more than once every x months.
Again with people complaining about use cases that don’t apply to them as if they don’t apply to anyone.
It appears you are misunderstanding what I’m saying. In an earlier post someone commented that furniture previewing is a “very useful” example of AR. My point is that people don’t need to buy furniture all that often, so I wouldn’t call it “very useful”. How often do you supposed people move and need “new dressers, bookshelves, kitchen islands, accent tables, night stands“? It’s not like this is a weekly or monthly occurrence. And I don’t know many people that move and don’t bring their existing furniture with them. Clearly you are moving in much richer circles than I am.
As I mentioned, since building a new house we’ve made furniture purchases twice in 5 years. Yes, it would have been handy to preview our furniture (which I also mentioned earlier so I don’t know where you come up with thinking I’m complaining it’s not useful to me but also wish it was more widely available) before making the purchase but doing that 2 times in 5 years is hardly “very useful” in the context of all the other uses of a cell phone.
PS: I understand that there are a lot of people buying furniture at IKEA. But are individuals buying furniture on a weekly or monthly basis? I doubt it. Again, how many sofas or bedroom sets does one person or family need? Personally, my wife and I bought a new bedroom set about 12 years ago and have yet to replace it. Are there really people out there buying new IKEA bedrooms all the time?
Edit: Also, someone mentioned in another comment that people are regularly using AR to preview their furniture and then buying it without going into the store (maybe I misunderstood but that’s the way it read to me). If that’s the case it seems like a mistake to buy furniture without sitting in it first. Do people really do that? Would you buy a car without driving it?
I completely understand what you're saying. I just disagree with your interpretation of what "very useful" means. Ikea has a catalog app. The AR is just a handy feature you can use to determine if you want to buy something. That is "very useful" to many people trying to buy furniture, regardless of how often they use it. Your anecdotal furniture buying history is not applicable, and you don't shop at IKEA apparently so WHY do you even care? It's not about YOU.
The AR features in Google Translate where you can point the camera at a printed document and see it translate and replace words in real time is "very useful", even though I don't usually travel internationally more than once a year. Frequency of use doesn't have any bearing on usefulness in a situation.
On another note, IKEA is hardly rich-people furniture. But yes, people move all the time, especially when they're younger, in college, living in shared housing, etc. Much of it is largely disposable as it doesn't hold up over many moves. And not all furniture is meant to be sat in — do you *really* need to see a console table or bookshelf in person? No. Some things you may order online without testing it out in person first, other things you may not. Your car analogy is ridiculous.
Interesting that my anecdotal furniture buying history is not applicable but apparently yours is. I also don't know why it matters that I haven't shopped at IKEA. We're talking about AR and furniture. I didn't realize I was going to need to be so specific and touch on every possible piece of furniture someone might buy when I used a sofa as an example. I just figured you would be able to extrapolate that out to other types of furniture.
Yes, I prefer to see my furniture in person (and not just furniture, there are many things I won't order online because I want to "experience" them first). I'll sit on it, recline on it, I'll feel a table's surface, check if something is top heavy, check how a draw feels and sounds when I open and close it. To me aesthetics aren't the only part I pay attention to. Sure, it would be nice to see how it looks in my house, but that's just part of the process. So, yes, I want to see a console table or bookshelf in person, but again, it's so I can touch it, not just see it. One time we had someone purchase an ottoman for us. She had seen it, thought it would go well in our room and sent us a picture. We talked about it and ultimately approved buying it. It's terrible, no doubt the worst piece of furniture we have. There isn't much padding so it isn't particularly comfortable to rest my feet on. It's very light but feels and sounds like a thin, plywood box but at the same time is difficult to move because it won't slide well and needs to be lifted. But it looked nice in the photo. All of those things are something an AR preview won't tell you.
My car analogy is not ridiculous, it's the same thing. Feeling, looking (as in sight lines), hearing (like how a door closes or how much outside noise comes in) are all part of my buying process.
I think all we're arguing about here is the word "very". Earlier I mentioned I would find AR previewing of furniture moderately useful and I still feel that way. To me, ("to me" is something I've said throughout BTW) it isn't "very useful" because seeing it is only part of a purchasing decision.
My furniture buying history is applicable because I have shopped for or purchased IKEA furniture on many, many occasions in the past where this use of AR would've saved me a lot of time. Yours is not because you are going out of your way to describe your way of infrequently buying furniture that you would seldom or never consider using this feature for, therefore it's not "very useful" to YOU. Again, you're going to great lengths to describe how you test drive furniture, but there are countless scenarios that involve seeing something at IKEA then needing to come home and measure out a space for it, or imagine what it'd look like in that context, OR vice versa where one might shop options in the app and try out multiple shelving units against a wall before going to IKEA and looking at it in person. It doesn't have to be one way or the other.
I just simply don't get why people go out of their way to describe their narrow use case as an explanation for why something is not perceived to be useful, "very" or not. Sort of like the other guy who said he needs a new iPad, but wasn't interested in the new iPads because they have AR capabilities he didn't need, as if that made any sense. That's all.
Comments
You said your ipad is slow and needs replacing, but because you don’t like AR use cases you’re going to just not get one at all, despite it not being a use case you intend to use. That makes....no sense. Try again?
i have an ipad pro and it’s a kickass tablet. the speed is awesome, the size is awesome, the screen is awesome, the new refresh rate is awesome, the tweaked iOS UX is awesome (split screen, float over windows, etc). Apple never told me much about the “AI” and even if they did it wouldn’t make this device any less awesome at the jobs to be done that i have for it today.
but go ahead, cut off your nose to spite your face. seems legit.
I haven’t seen it yet but I read somewhere that IKEA has an app where you can try out furniture inside your own house to see how they fit before actually going to the store to buy it.
Or an online reading glasses retailer now has a special app for iPhone X to place the glasses on your face before you order them.
Very useful cases, depending on how they work, of AR.
The very conventional concept, I want to say. Use your imagination here for a minute. What we're taliking about with AR is the ability to use the computer in real time to overlay information, whether data or images, over "reality," which we usually think of as a real-time picture of the world as captured by that same computer.
The data or image overlay can come from anywhere, including the Internet or the brain of the person holding the device, doesn't matter, as long as the Reality is being Augmentd, seems to me. The portable, large-sceen iPad with Pencil input, maybe with voice input too, plus some sort of markup app, seems uniquely suited to be a device for annotating a view of reality in real time.
I love my 12.9" iPad Pro. I haven't done much in the way of "Augment Reality". I don't use the pencil much. I'm glad I went with the larger one even though I had planned on getting the 10.5" version first. I upgraded from a really slow iPad 3.
As for voice assistants, Apple is lacking in this area. Siri is everywhere on Apple devices, but that's it. That's fine, but when Google released theirs, it was with 3 different devices. Amazon has about 7-8 of them at this time. What does Apple have, ZERO. With a $350 HomePod coming at some point, but blowing their own release deadline.
I'm a growing Homekit house, but I have Alexa on my Ecobee 4. Which personally is almost useless. Would have been better to get the Ecobee 3 and then a Echo Dot. I also have a Google Home Mini, why not at $30. As I figured, they have their issues. BUT, many people are using them because they're BLIND, or some type of Medical reason, which makes it hard to get around, etc. They can use them to ask questions, and turn on lights and adjust the temp, answer a call, etc. It makes their life easier.
Personally, I don't want these things littering my house. But that's the only way these things are really useful. My Google Mini is in my Master Bedroom and it's locked into there by the power supply and so it's worthless everywhere else I'm at. So you would need these things all over your house. It still doesn't take care of your front or back yard or away from home. This is where the Apple Watch is really great. Because It can pretty much do everything those devices do, but do it everywhere I'm at by just lifting my wrist and saying "Hey Siri". So I find the Apple Watch far more useful. But it is a 1 person device, where these smart speakers work for the whole family.
But I have been using my iPad Pro and my Google Mini and asking them both questions. Hey Google first and then Hey Siri, and both have been giving me similar results. For me Siri works really good. It does get better as you use it. It also helps to do the basic training of Siri. Controlling your home by voice is great and where I think voice assistants really come into their own.
I'm still not seeing the big WOW factor with AR. VR, who knows if it'll stick around this time or not, but it really hasn't gone mainstream yet either. For Apple to come out with Siri first, and really started out by limiting the capabilities that it used to be able to do, and then slowly bring some of that back, but really in general moving sssllooowwww in this area, that a company like Amazon is just Wowing everyone with the Echo's, and then here comes Google, and Apple is still at a snails pace. Really, a snails pace with everything they've been doing. Everything Apple is doing is moving at a snails pace. When was the last time Apple blew past their own launch date? They've been close to missing, but but flat out blown by? If that's not a sign of moving slow, I don't know what is.
I remember very early during the iPhone 3gs i Had there was an app that used AR to show you nearby restaurants or other points of Interest and its distance to where you are. I thought this was COOL and will be the future, but i used that app once and thought it was stupid to hold my phone in the air to see things, when I got the same results with navigation in the google maps app.
Oh well to each there own, but I just dont see the wonders of AR.
Personally, I wouldn’t say either on of the examples you provided is “very useful”. Hasn’t Snapchat been able to add glasses to people’s faces for a long time without AR? So, that’s nothing new. I can see how previewing how furniture would look in your own home could be moderately useful, but only when you’re shopping for furniture, and only when you’re shopping at (currently) IKEA. But I don’t find either of these “very useful”, mostly from the standpoint of how often does someone purchase glasses or furniture? Using myself as the example, my wife and I built a new hose in 2012. About 2 years later we refurnished the living room replacing furniture that was about 20 years old. In 2017 we finished our basement and bought a couple of sofas to put down there. So, if the store we shop at had an app that let us preview the furniture in the room we would have had 2 uses for it in 5 years.
The app you’re referencing sounds like AroundMe or something similar. I used that AR mode a couple of times in AroundMe but it seems like a mode that would work better in glasses or a HUD in a car. As you mentioned, I can get similar information already just by looking in Maps. But I can see some usefulness in putting an overlay on a building in AR as I get within sight of it.
AR helps people buy more from the same store (trying stuff out does that) and buy more without having to get into the store (they can know if it looks good without going to the store, a obstacle to the sale usually) or buy something they know will fit or be the right color (less returns).; that's the main uses.
It also differentiates their brand from the competition and it also has a brand halo effect.
While you may not be a heavy user, there are many people who go to IKEA and the like many times a year.
If those users buy 5% more "stuff" because of these apps, or return less of them. That's a win.
Sure, people make many trips to IKEA, but are they really buying furniture that they are first “trying out” with the app in there residence before making the trip? For most people, furniture is a fairly large purchase and one that isn’t made all that often. How many sofas or dining room sets are people buying for themselves on a regular basis?
While using AR may differentiate their brand I’m not sure how much of a difference that would make overall. Would you buy an ottoman from IKEA because their app uses AR when you actually prefer an ottoman from a different brand?
What other apps, aside from the IKEA app, are people using to try AR with before making purchases? This is an honest question. Aside from forums I’ve never heard anyone mention using AR to see how something looks before making a purchase, and usually that’s in the context of what’s possible, not what is actual.
Yes, people are trying out virtual furniture before deciding to go pick it up or order it. That’s the point. I would’ve used this a ton in the past instead of clumsily figuring stuff out with a measuring tape and graph paper. This is a new product, and it seems that your main argument is that it’s not very useful TO YOU (maybe you’re not the target audience?) yet also complaining that the tech isn’t more widely adopted already by other retailers. ¯\(°_o)/¯
People buy new furniture at places like IKEA *all the time*. Have you been to one? People move and need new dressers, bookshelves, kitchen islands, accent tables, night stands, and hell yes given the option to see what that night stand looks like next to the bed you’re standing by if given the option. It’s not like they’re charging you for the app, and people aren’t getting their money’s worth or something by not using it more than once every x months.
Again with people complaining about use cases that don’t apply to them as if they don’t apply to anyone.
As I mentioned, since building a new house we’ve made furniture purchases twice in 5 years. Yes, it would have been handy to preview our furniture (which I also mentioned earlier so I don’t know where you come up with thinking I’m complaining it’s not useful to me but also wish it was more widely available) before making the purchase but doing that 2 times in 5 years is hardly “very useful” in the context of all the other uses of a cell phone.
PS: I understand that there are a lot of people buying furniture at IKEA. But are individuals buying furniture on a weekly or monthly basis? I doubt it. Again, how many sofas or bedroom sets does one person or family need? Personally, my wife and I bought a new bedroom set about 12 years ago and have yet to replace it. Are there really people out there buying new IKEA bedrooms all the time?
Edit: Also, someone mentioned in another comment that people are regularly using AR to preview their furniture and then buying it without going into the store (maybe I misunderstood but that’s the way it read to me). If that’s the case it seems like a mistake to buy furniture without sitting in it first. Do people really do that? Would you buy a car without driving it?
The AR features in Google Translate where you can point the camera at a printed document and see it translate and replace words in real time is "very useful", even though I don't usually travel internationally more than once a year. Frequency of use doesn't have any bearing on usefulness in a situation.
On another note, IKEA is hardly rich-people furniture. But yes, people move all the time, especially when they're younger, in college, living in shared housing, etc. Much of it is largely disposable as it doesn't hold up over many moves. And not all furniture is meant to be sat in — do you *really* need to see a console table or bookshelf in person? No. Some things you may order online without testing it out in person first, other things you may not. Your car analogy is ridiculous.
Yes, I prefer to see my furniture in person (and not just furniture, there are many things I won't order online because I want to "experience" them first). I'll sit on it, recline on it, I'll feel a table's surface, check if something is top heavy, check how a draw feels and sounds when I open and close it. To me aesthetics aren't the only part I pay attention to. Sure, it would be nice to see how it looks in my house, but that's just part of the process. So, yes, I want to see a console table or bookshelf in person, but again, it's so I can touch it, not just see it. One time we had someone purchase an ottoman for us. She had seen it, thought it would go well in our room and sent us a picture. We talked about it and ultimately approved buying it. It's terrible, no doubt the worst piece of furniture we have. There isn't much padding so it isn't particularly comfortable to rest my feet on. It's very light but feels and sounds like a thin, plywood box but at the same time is difficult to move because it won't slide well and needs to be lifted. But it looked nice in the photo. All of those things are something an AR preview won't tell you.
My car analogy is not ridiculous, it's the same thing. Feeling, looking (as in sight lines), hearing (like how a door closes or how much outside noise comes in) are all part of my buying process.
I think all we're arguing about here is the word "very". Earlier I mentioned I would find AR previewing of furniture moderately useful and I still feel that way. To me, ("to me" is something I've said throughout BTW) it isn't "very useful" because seeing it is only part of a purchasing decision.
I just simply don't get why people go out of their way to describe their narrow use case as an explanation for why something is not perceived to be useful, "very" or not. Sort of like the other guy who said he needs a new iPad, but wasn't interested in the new iPads because they have AR capabilities he didn't need, as if that made any sense. That's all.