Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo believes that that to date, investors have overestimated customers' actual desire and demand for mixed and virtual reality headsets True that.
True that.
However I feel that what they need isn’t a slick new device from Apple, they need a reason to have one. Gaming? Not really, while there’s some hard core gamers, casual games are a much bigger slice of the market and they don’t need one. Business? Not really, there are a FEW specialized fields that might benefit, the adoption is going to be slow, and most businesses have no use for them. Movies? Not hardly, even watching at home people like to socialize, not be walled off in their own little private theatre.
It’s really cool tech, but nobody has made a case for why every person should have one. Or even every household, or the vast majority of people. I’ve played with VR, and AR systems. They are cool as heck, but cool is not a use case. Cool is not a need.
You evaluation of the situation is right on point. The development of a use case is what Apple has a way of providing. Many of their products and services receive the same ridicule when info leaks before they get to show their vision. Remember very few employees below the executive level ever gets to see the complete Product before it’s revealed. I’m sure this is even worse since hybrid workers are a thing.
This is a tough one. Apple has been very successful in stepping in where others have underserved or failed. Bot in those cases the underlying need was still quite clear.
For example, there were a plethora of MP3 music players available long before the iPod showed up. But no single player provided all the necessary pieces in such a compelling and easy to consume manner. Likewise, there were plenty of smart-ish cellphones with the ability to deliver phone, messaging, a subset of web functionality, entertainment, and a lot of the same features the iPhone did, but none of them were nearly as compelling and easy to use as the iPhone.
Apple jumped in well after the needs and demand had been established. The problems existed and Apple came up with amazing solutions.
With the AR/VR headset I for one have a hard time identifying the needs and demands that Apple is going to do much better. This is a case where Apple has to create the need and demand part of the equation too, which makes it a whole different story. Most of the use cases I hear people describe around the Apple headset are trying to convince us that there is a problem that fits the solution we have already arrived at. Solution in search of a problem.
It’s not impossible to go from solution to problem. Lasers were developed long before the multiplicity of problems they could solve using lasers became apparent. But this approach is one that takes much longer ti develop. Companies like Apple want success quickly and investors aren’t going to sit around to wait for science projects to turn into cash cows.
We will see, but it’s somewhat difficult today to see where this will go tomorrow or, hopefully not, someday, because someday is too long to wait.
It's definitely not a solution looking for its problem.
We know that because both AR and VR are already being put to good use.
The question is not so much 'what can it do for me? ' but 'at what cost?', both in terms of economic cost and practicality.
AR especially is data driven and content must be freely available to make it attractive.
If I'm running a museum, hospital, zoo, public transport system or whatever, I would have to package up that content and make it available. I won't want to support different platforms. It will have to be based on a standard. From a user perspective I'd be looking to see content universally available, not walled off.
VR on the other hand is perfectly feasible within a closed system but having walls within a device probably isn't very user friendly.
In both cases, data transport infrastructure is key and, right now, it doesn't exist in quantity or capacity for widespread use. With FTTR it is very doable in domestic settings but general outside use is another story.
When the two technologies are mixed together in an XR setting, things like being able to view your phone screen through your glasses take on a whole new dimension.
I happen to live in a place with 340 days of sun on average per year. Viewing even the best phone screens in full sun is a royal pain. Being able to read my screen through a HUD style experience would be a godsend. Eye tracking technology for hands free use would also be appealing.
The use cases are there. There are solutions out there too, but for differing reasons, they can't gain widespread traction. Apple is not immune to those problems either.
Obviously, miniaturisation is one of them. Battery life, transport speed, processing speed, optical quality, weight etc all have to be tackled and whoever manages to bring a product to market at an affordable price will be well positioned to take advantage on some levels but at the end of the day (and it was the same for the internet), content creation will be key and that is going to be better if it is 'open'.
Good points. No doubt that AR and VR have some niche problems and domains that are a good fit. But for the population of Apple product users, I.e., consumers, which is what Apple most wants to please, I would still be hard pressed ti come with an “elevator speech” that make a large number of current Apple customers have an “aha” moment.
Hopefully Tim Cook or one of his technical evangelists will be able to come up with such a speech. The size of the “aha” had better be enough to justify the cost and inconvenience of the technical solution that Apple is going to present us with, which is more to your point.
I’m beyond digging into details and specifics or conjuring up interesting things it “might” do until Apple gets my attention. That’s what is missing today and I don’t think I’m alone because unlike the iPhone the fundamental need isn’t obvious. Not yet. Apple still has work to do and the technology pundits and clever renditions of what might be aren’t moving the needle in terms of getting my attention.
Knowing the demand etc. is all very business oriented. And of course it's important in order to make a successful launch. However I think the much bigger elephant in the room question is whether there's actually a healthy future for AR/VR at all? Or is there only a dystopian future when a huge portion of people eventually much rather would like to stay in VR and live in the matrix than to take it off, and that's the world we'll be living in. Whether Apple wants it or not, I think they're going to make a compelling presentation, which unfortunately will lead to the latter.
There's probably as much interest in VR at Apple as there is in AAA gaming. We would've seen some hint of them moving in that direction. And short of the demonstration of the iMac Pro being able to produce/develop VR content, there hasn't been anything to lead us to believe that they believe its a technology currently worth investing in.
AR on the other hand they do have an obvious interest in and have been working on, we've all seen it and a lot of us have probably played with it on our iPads and iPhones and even AirPods. Not mention all the visual AI recognition technologies they've been working on; text, scene, object, face, eye tracking. And sensors LiDAR, infrared, gyroscope, compass, etc. And even display technologies such as micro LED. And extremely powerful mobile chips.
And to be at all successful, they'll need to offer different lens shapes and prescriptions.
I don't believe this first iteration, at least as much as I've seen rumored, is meant to be worn on the street. Prescription lenses and shapes won't be important until a standalone Google-Glass-like product is ready. At that stage, they may find a willing partner like Warby Parker was for the old Google product. https://www.fastcompany.com/1671929/google-glass-gets-hip-with-warby-parker
This is a tough one. Apple has been very successful in stepping in where others have underserved or failed. Bot in those cases the underlying need was still quite clear.
For example, there were a plethora of MP3 music players available long before the iPod showed up. But no single player provided all the necessary pieces in such a compelling and easy to consume manner. Likewise, there were plenty of smart-ish cellphones with the ability to deliver phone, messaging, a subset of web functionality, entertainment, and a lot of the same features the iPhone did, but none of them were nearly as compelling and easy to use as the iPhone.
Apple jumped in well after the needs and demand had been established. The problems existed and Apple came up with amazing solutions.
With the AR/VR headset I for one have a hard time identifying the needs and demands that Apple is going to do much better. This is a case where Apple has to create the need and demand part of the equation too, which makes it a whole different story. Most of the use cases I hear people describe around the Apple headset are trying to convince us that there is a problem that fits the solution we have already arrived at. Solution in search of a problem.
It’s not impossible to go from solution to problem. Lasers were developed long before the multiplicity of problems they could solve using lasers became apparent. But this approach is one that takes much longer ti develop. Companies like Apple want success quickly and investors aren’t going to sit around to wait for science projects to turn into cash cows.
We will see, but it’s somewhat difficult today to see where this will go tomorrow or, hopefully not, someday, because someday is too long to wait.
It's definitely not a solution looking for its problem.
We know that because both AR and VR are already being put to good use.
The question is not so much 'what can it do for me? ' but 'at what cost?', both in terms of economic cost and practicality.
AR especially is data driven and content must be freely available to make it attractive.
If I'm running a museum, hospital, zoo, public transport system or whatever, I would have to package up that content and make it available. I won't want to support different platforms. It will have to be based on a standard. From a user perspective I'd be looking to see content universally available, not walled off.
VR on the other hand is perfectly feasible within a closed system but having walls within a device probably isn't very user friendly.
In both cases, data transport infrastructure is key and, right now, it doesn't exist in quantity or capacity for widespread use. With FTTR it is very doable in domestic settings but general outside use is another story.
When the two technologies are mixed together in an XR setting, things like being able to view your phone screen through your glasses take on a whole new dimension.
I happen to live in a place with 340 days of sun on average per year. Viewing even the best phone screens in full sun is a royal pain. Being able to read my screen through a HUD style experience would be a godsend. Eye tracking technology for hands free use would also be appealing.
The use cases are there. There are solutions out there too, but for differing reasons, they can't gain widespread traction. Apple is not immune to those problems either.
Obviously, miniaturisation is one of them. Battery life, transport speed, processing speed, optical quality, weight etc all have to be tackled and whoever manages to bring a product to market at an affordable price will be well positioned to take advantage on some levels but at the end of the day (and it was the same for the internet), content creation will be key and that is going to be better if it is 'open'.
Good points. No doubt that AR and VR have some niche problems and domains that are a good fit. But for the population of Apple product users, I.e., consumers, which is what Apple most wants to please, I would still be hard pressed ti come with an “elevator speech” that make a large number of current Apple customers have an “aha” moment.
Hopefully Tim Cook or one of his technical evangelists will be able to come up with such a speech. The size of the “aha” had better be enough to justify the cost and inconvenience of the technical solution that Apple is going to present us with, which is more to your point.
I’m beyond digging into details and specifics or conjuring up interesting things it “might” do until Apple gets my attention. That’s what is missing today and I don’t think I’m alone because unlike the iPhone the fundamental need isn’t obvious. Not yet. Apple still has work to do and the technology pundits and clever renditions of what might be aren’t moving the needle in terms of getting my attention.
Apple is not likely looking to attract general consumers at this point. Any first generation product at this price point is focused on high end first movers, industry pros and developers. They need more developers on board but also real user feedback. They can’t move forward without revealing the product to see which consumer and business groups gravitate towards it and address the applicable market.
ThIs is more of a Mac Moment than IPhone. When you consider the Mac was preceded by Lisa which was 4 times the price.
Lisa being out in the wild using the graphical interface that would be a precursor to MacOS was an expensive $10,000 device with a new paradigm in computer UX interaction.
I believe this is what Apple is preparing, so it makes sense to follow the same path they did with their longest running successful product that had to do the same.
... And to be at all successful, they'll need to offer different lens shapes and prescriptions.
Different lens shapes make sense for stylistic reasons, but maybe various prescriptions could be handled if adaptive or otherwise adjustable optics are used. Something like this: https://www.deepoptics.com/
The above technology is geared toward the multi-focal needs of presbyopia, but maybe any given prescription could be addressed with optics that allow a one-time initial calibration. (The latter would not need to be dynamically adjustable, but eye-tracking and distance ranging would probably need to be part of any AR system, so probably most of the parts will be there to handle presbyopia too).
The killer app for these glasses would be to replace a physical screen / monitor with a huge virtual one.
You’d still use a keyboard and trackpad, just have a huge screen.
That would be enough for me to buy them.
This is a great application of AR. But AR could provide so much more than a large virtual monitor for a desktop workstation. No need to confine documents within a "screen" area. A virtual desktop could have all your open documents placed in a virtual 3D space, wherever you wanted them, anchored in locations on your desk or "floating" above it. Manipulation via keyboard/mouse/trackpad or even gesture ala Minority Report.
In this scenario, one would need a very high resolution graphic system, but with eye tracking, a foveated display system would only need to render detailed images of what you are looking directly at.
We just need a headset that’s built to higher specs and can do more then play a few overpriced games.
I think Apple has a good chance of getting there. Although success should be judged over a few generations of headsets. The biggest thing that concerns me is the rumored lack of motion controllers. Hopefully there is at least a controller available as an addon.
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I’m beyond digging into details and specifics or conjuring up interesting things it “might” do until Apple gets my attention. That’s what is missing today and I don’t think I’m alone because unlike the iPhone the fundamental need isn’t obvious. Not yet. Apple still has work to do and the technology pundits and clever renditions of what might be aren’t moving the needle in terms of getting my attention.
https://www.fastcompany.com/1671929/google-glass-gets-hip-with-warby-parker
https://www.deepoptics.com/
The above technology is geared toward the multi-focal needs of presbyopia, but maybe any given prescription could be addressed with optics that allow a one-time initial calibration. (The latter would not need to be dynamically adjustable, but eye-tracking and distance ranging would probably need to be part of any AR system, so probably most of the parts will be there to handle presbyopia too).
In this scenario, one would need a very high resolution graphic system, but with eye tracking, a foveated display system would only need to render detailed images of what you are looking directly at.
higher specs and can do more then play a few overpriced games.
https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/google-glass-changing-quadriplegics-life/story?id=19918986
This is a bigger market than most people are aware of.