Note to the analyst and to Apple: The rest of the industry won't wait until 2025 for consumer AR wearables. There is already an established price point for consumer XR devices. It is $300. At that price they fly off the shelves as long as they are really good and continue to add features over time. Apple could get a higher price for a more advanced headset with a sleeker design but probably not more than $500. XR has to be affordable because everyone knows they will be throwing away their current headset in a couple of years when the next generation is released.
While the others above took some issue with this comment, I actually agree completely with it. Apple can’t afford to treat AR/MR the same way it’s treated smart speakers and smart homes. This is the future of computing technology for the next 50 years, or at least until we all get chip implants. As such, the battle for supremacy of this market will be fierce. While I appreciate Apple’s attention to quality and detail as well as their patience to not release something until it is perfect, this is simply not a market that they can allow someone else to get an early upper hand in. Read some of Zuck’s comments on AR and VR…Facebook is pushing hard at being the gatekeeper of this next stage of evolution. I can’t imagine a worse reality than that.
Apple needs to enter this market sooner rather than later, even if the result is nothing more than a glorified beta product similar to the Series 0 Apple Watch. Let its loyal customers help foot some of the R&D cost while allowing the product to naturally evolve in the market like the Watch has.
What is MR? How would contact lenses work or even be powered?
The “prediction” is for contact lenses to be released within 20 years, which is the same as saying “if the technology existed,” which it doesn’t.
And we have no idea if it's even possible. It would require transparent circuits, normally transparent/sometimes opaque and lit display, and probably a transparent wireless power antenna. That would all have to be less than a millimeter thick, and flexible. It would have to accommodate corrective lenses for users who wear contacts for vision correction, or it would have to handle vision correction itself. Oh, and it would have to be completely non-toxic and oxygen permeable.
Maybe in a hundred years. Maybe never. But I don't think there's a chance that this is going to happen in 20 years. The materials to do it simply don't exist now.
Easy—no doubt this will be solved! First of all: Consciousness—especially perception of our surroundings—are basically an iterative two-step process of 1. Presentation of a simulated draft, 2. Verification or rejection, repeat. Thus the origin of the content of our consciousness is completely fake and the result of a “best-guess engine”. —and no one has ever complained about this and demanded a more detailed, realistic experience from their brain 🤭👀 Therefore you can be certain these devices will make it to market, as the preconception of the need to deliver infinite detail and accuracy by these devices are (worryingly) incorrect!
Hopefully Apple remembers that computer hardware is useless junk without software making it work.
Why would anybody spend a grand on a headset to play Apple Arcade or watch a movie?
I am sure there are better uses for these devices. One that has been cited in the past is the ability to direct worker performing a repair by integrating what he sees with repair instructions. Plus, it sounds like the F35 is already using some version of headset to provide information to its pilot.
Note to the analyst and to Apple: The rest of the industry won't wait until 2025 for consumer AR wearables. There is already an established price point for consumer XR devices. It is $300. At that price they fly off the shelves as long as they are really good and continue to add features over time. Apple could get a higher price for a more advanced headset with a sleeker design but probably not more than $500. XR has to be affordable because everyone knows they will be throwing away their current headset in a couple of years when the next generation is released.
Also, if those contact lenses don’t have user upgradable RAM and PCI slots, nobody will buy them.
VR - Virtual Reality, the user is fully "immersed", to the extent provided by the device, almost always audio and visual, sometimes haptic with additional equipment, in a manufactured world. Usually used for gaming.
AR - Augmented Reality, the user is viewing the real world, with additional elements to "augment" the experience, such as navigation or instructional aids. Usually used in the context of helping the user accomplish some task in the real world, such as navigation, equipment repair, even surgery.
MR - Mixed Reality, the user is viewing the real world, with virtual elements added, mostly for entertainment purposes, e.g. Pokemon Go and some newer Quest 2 games that overlay game elements onto your real world home floor plan. There is some overlap with AR, but the most common focus so far seems to be gaming, rather than assistance.
XR (xR) - an umbrella term encompassing VR, AR, and MR.
Note to the analyst and to Apple: The rest of the industry won't wait until 2025 for consumer AR wearables. There is already an established price point for consumer XR devices. It is $300. At that price they fly off the shelves as long as they are really good and continue to add features over time. Apple could get a higher price for a more advanced headset with a sleeker design but probably not more than $500. XR has to be affordable because everyone knows they will be throwing away their current headset in a couple of years when the next generation is released.
Typical ‘Apple overpriced and behind the curve’ babble.
Note to the analyst and to Apple: The rest of the industry won't wait until 2025 for consumer AR wearables. There is already an established price point for consumer XR devices. It is $300. At that price they fly off the shelves as long as they are really good and continue to add features over time. Apple could get a higher price for a more advanced headset with a sleeker design but probably not more than $500. XR has to be affordable because everyone knows they will be throwing away their current headset in a couple of years when the next generation is released.
Gosh, since you know Apple's markets better than they do, have you considered applying w/ Apple? Or sending Cook a memo? It would be a shame if they didn't capture your entirely relevant market data.
Note to the analyst and to Apple: The rest of the industry won't wait until 2025 for consumer AR wearables. There is already an established price point for consumer XR devices. It is $300. At that price they fly off the shelves as long as they are really good and continue to add features over time. Apple could get a higher price for a more advanced headset with a sleeker design but probably not more than $500. XR has to be affordable because everyone knows they will be throwing away their current headset in a couple of years when the next generation is released.
Sounds like what was said about phones, then tablets, heck it’s been repeated year after year about computers for 40 years. Well, some how this story keeps coming back with every market Apple approaches. They prove them wrong every time.
Note to the analyst and to Apple: The rest of the industry won't wait until 2025 for consumer AR wearables. There is already an established price point for consumer XR devices. It is $300. At that price they fly off the shelves as long as they are really good and continue to add features over time. Apple could get a higher price for a more advanced headset with a sleeker design but probably not more than $500. XR has to be affordable because everyone knows they will be throwing away their current headset in a couple of years when the next generation is released.
Also, if those contact lenses don’t have user upgradable RAM and PCI slots, nobody will buy them.
Note to the analyst and to Apple: The rest of the industry won't wait until 2025 for consumer AR wearables. There is already an established price point for consumer XR devices. It is $300. At that price they fly off the shelves as long as they are really good and continue to add features over time. Apple could get a higher price for a more advanced headset with a sleeker design but probably not more than $500. XR has to be affordable because everyone knows they will be throwing away their current headset in a couple of years when the next generation is released.
Gosh, since you know Apple's markets better than they do, have you considered applying w/ Apple? Or sending Cook a memo? It would be a shame if they didn't capture your entirely relevant market data.
I did actually. They refused (at the time) to even consider telecommuting but two different groups wanted to hire me. I didn't want to move to the bay area or to commute the long drive to my home. I bet it is different now though but I love my current job. Apple does implement a lot of the bug reports I send them even some which have turned into some significant features in iOS.
Note to the analyst and to Apple: The rest of the industry won't wait until 2025 for consumer AR wearables. There is already an established price point for consumer XR devices. It is $300. At that price they fly off the shelves as long as they are really good and continue to add features over time. Apple could get a higher price for a more advanced headset with a sleeker design but probably not more than $500. XR has to be affordable because everyone knows they will be throwing away their current headset in a couple of years when the next generation is released.
While the others above took some issue with this comment, I actually agree completely with it. Apple can’t afford to treat AR/MR the same way it’s treated smart speakers and smart homes. This is the future of computing technology for the next 50 years, or at least until we all get chip implants. As such, the battle for supremacy of this market will be fierce. While I appreciate Apple’s attention to quality and detail as well as their patience to not release something until it is perfect, this is simply not a market that they can allow someone else to get an early upper hand in. Read some of Zuck’s comments on AR and VR…Facebook is pushing hard at being the gatekeeper of this next stage of evolution. I can’t imagine a worse reality than that.
Apple needs to enter this market sooner rather than later, even if the result is nothing more than a glorified beta product similar to the Series 0 Apple Watch. Let its loyal customers help foot some of the R&D cost while allowing the product to naturally evolve in the market like the Watch has.
The Apple Watch is a great comparison. It is not an essential item, like a phone or computer, and the entry models are affordable so replacing them every few years seems reasonable as the tech evolves. It was also one of the first touch screen smart watches and set the standard for all the competitors that followed. The Apple Watch is worth owning even without third party apps as a stand alone product. As described the Apple VR headset is the opposite of all of this. It is late to the game and vastly overpriced. Worse, there is now a large market for VR games and none of them will work with Apple's glasses unless they are ported to the Mac. Apple will have an uphill battle for developers if they hope to sell to the consumer market.
I can't wait to buy the headset. Apple far out-engineers the industry in ultra portable devices. I'm sure it will be amazing. I'll pick it up right away if it's $1000 or $3000. It will be great to finally have a professional headset option for the Mac. I hate using Windows, but have no choice since the HTC Vive Pro support was discontinued. I hope it will have a tethered mode like the Quest. The final device certainly won't have that Apple logo on the front. Apple doesn't put their logo on wearables.
Apple is thought to deploy products in AR and MR in three phases, with the first being a "helmet type" in 2022. It will be followed by a "glasses type" product in 2025, then contact lens-based hardware between 2030 and 2040.
I know that Ming Chi Kuo has a relatively good track record on actual products but I think in this case he's gone from "reading the tea leaves" to snorting them.
A "helmet type" in 2022? The Apple I know does not release "experimental" products but actual products.
His "glasses" prediction in 2025 is far enough away into the near future that even if it doesn't pan out, very few will remember he made it.
As for his "contact lenses" between 2030 and 2040, I doubt that any Apple executives have any form of roadmap for that far into the future.
Comments
First of all: Consciousness—especially perception of our surroundings—are basically an iterative two-step process of 1. Presentation of a simulated draft, 2. Verification or rejection, repeat.
Thus the origin of the content of our consciousness is completely fake and the result of a “best-guess engine”.
—and no one has ever complained about this and demanded a more detailed, realistic experience from their brain 🤭👀
Therefore you can be certain these devices will make it to market, as the preconception of the need to deliver infinite detail and accuracy by these devices are (worryingly) incorrect!
These analysts will finally be able to pull ideas right out of their …..
VR - Virtual Reality, the user is fully "immersed", to the extent provided by the device, almost always audio and visual, sometimes haptic with additional equipment, in a manufactured world. Usually used for gaming.
AR - Augmented Reality, the user is viewing the real world, with additional elements to "augment" the experience, such as navigation or instructional aids. Usually used in the context of helping the user accomplish some task in the real world, such as navigation, equipment repair, even surgery.
MR - Mixed Reality, the user is viewing the real world, with virtual elements added, mostly for entertainment purposes, e.g. Pokemon Go and some newer Quest 2 games that overlay game elements onto your real world home floor plan. There is some overlap with AR, but the most common focus so far seems to be gaming, rather than assistance.
XR (xR) - an umbrella term encompassing VR, AR, and MR.
LOL - the fact that this list has to pull from the 1980s and '90s speaks volumes. Keep dreaming, son.
I don’t know about “unfortunately”...
A "helmet type" in 2022? The Apple I know does not release "experimental" products but actual products.
His "glasses" prediction in 2025 is far enough away into the near future that even if it doesn't pan out, very few will remember he made it.
As for his "contact lenses" between 2030 and 2040, I doubt that any Apple executives have any form of roadmap for that far into the future.