thadec

The main issue with AR/VR headsets isn't the cost, apps or use case. The problem is that almost no one wants to strap these things to their face, especially for extended periods of time and particularly in public. When I heard about Apple entering this area I was thrilled. I bought a Google Daydream back in the day, and while it was very good for watching Netflix while on my exercise bike there is NO WAY that I would have gone out in public with it, if only because it obstructs your field of vision. So when I saw that it was just an Oculus Rift/PlayStation VR with superior internals and - we hope - a better UX/UI experience I was disappointed. I was hoping that Apple would be the ones to actually succeed with Google's other failed idea in this area - Google Glass - just as Apple succeeded with Google's failed Android Wear/WearOS concept with the Apple Watch. Sure, everyone hated Google Glass, but I chalked that up to dislike and mistrust of Google. I was thinking that were Apple to make a "similar but better" version of the same product, it would be embraced by the same crowd who hated phablets, OLED, curved screens, widgets, pro tablets with stylus and oh yeah smartwatches (the first LTE etc. smartwatches were mocked to no end) etc. when they were Samsung distinctives but fell in love with them when Apple copied them.

Yes, I know that crowd claims that "Apple didn't do it first but it right." Well I was hoping Apple would do Google Glass right, like make AR/VR glasses that looked like (oversized) Top Gun style Ray Ban sunglasses - I was an 80s kid so sue me - and provided some method of being able to see what was going on around you continuously, or at least (almost) immediately when you wanted/needed to.

Apple didn't gain much market share with Apple TV or the HomePod because - despite all the hype - they didn't fundamentally improve on what was already there. It was just the Amazon Fire TV and Amazon Echo (and the Google competitors) except way more expensive and with less functionality. Apple's offering a slightly better than what already exists VR headset except costs 5-10 times as much, it isn't going to gain much traction. I believe that app makers feel the same way. You have to remember that these things aren't new at all. They have been around since at least 2014 with some of the most successful companies in the world - not just "free services with advertising" companies like Facebook and Google but companies that actually excel at consumer products with huge customer bases like Valve (Steam), Samsung and Sony - haven't moved the needle. The Vision Pro seems so similar to previous "failed to barely successful niche" efforts that everyone is in a wait and see mode.

I haven't given up hope. As Apple has stated multiple times that they are fully invested in this area, I hope that this is merely a dev kit of sorts to get the ball rolling. And that 4 years from now, when the 5nm M2 chip that is in the current Vision Pro will be a 1nm chip, Apple will deliver the Ray Ban style glasses that I was hoping for. And if I recall correctly, Apple actually does want to solve the "you won't be able to interact with what is around you" problem. Consider the extremely underrated anime Denno Coil - yes it is on Netflix https://www.netflix.com/title/81299264 - where the AR glasses looked like laboratory goggles and it superimposed 3D images on the real world instead of shutting the wearer off from them. As a result, Denno Coil's was the opposite of Ready Player One, as where the latter was used as an escape from a (terrible) real world, Denno Coil's tech integrated it and the user with it. If Apple can pull it off, good for them. But if not, well it will join Google Cardboard and Samsung Gear VR (Samsung didn't support Google's platform because they were fighting at the time, so Samsung supported the Oculus tech instead, and the result was neither succeeding) as failures. 

netrox said:

Also, an interesting note that no one seems to mention is that when Apple was marketing how their MacBook Air M2 is faster than Intel laptops... if you look at how they conducted their tests ... they literally compared the baseline Macs with 8GB with 256GB SSD against PCs with 16GB RAM with 512GB SSD!

"Testing was conducted by Apple in April and May 2023 using production 13-inch MacBook Air systems with Apple M2, 8-core CPU, 8-core GPU, 8GB of RAM, and 256GB SSD, preproduction 15-inch MacBook Air systems with Apple M2, 8-core CPU, 10-core GPU, 8GB of RAM, and 256GB SSD as well as Intel Core i7-based PC systems with Intel Iris Xe Graphics, 16GB of RAM, 512GB SSD, and the latest version of Windows 11 available at the time of testing." https://www.apple.com/macbook-air-13-and-15-m2/#footnote-6

netrox said:

People complain about how Apple is little on RAM on iPhones when real life usage show no effect at all despite Androids needing TWICE MORE RAM to just function.

You are 0-2. The minimum RAM for an Android phone is 2 GB. Most Android phones sold have 4 GB. 
Also, it isn't merely about speed. See above: lots of "pro" programs need 8 GB - or more - of RAM just to run. Which is why a lot of the people defending this focus on stuff like web browsing, basic productivity apps like Microsoft Office plus low-to-moderate RAM tasks like front end scripting (HTML and Javascript), app development and video editing for YouTube. No one is talking about 3D animation, software development/engineering or high resolution photo editing. 

Another thing: that 16 GB RAM Core i7 that you mentioned doesn't cost $1600! It actually only costs $900! Not a bargain basement made out of plastic deal either but a serious device that companies buy their workers like a Lenovo ThinkBook. No, $1600 gets you an Intel Core i9 HP Envy with an Nvidia RTX 4060 card. And if you don't mind a little plastic and a lesser known brand, it gets you an Asus Creator Q with 24 GB RAM, 1 TB SSD and an Nvidia RTX 3050 card. Personally not a fan of that RTX 3050 but you get my drift. 

Finally, Intel will - to a degree - emulate Apple's unified memory using their "tiles" concept. They aired a trial balloon in a press release but pulled it real fast when they got some pushback, but it is coming. Even if it doesn't arrive in December with 14th gen you can bet they are working OEMs hard to sell the idea for 15th gen. Won't be as fast as unified memory but it will mean a real performance boost. 

auxio said:

gatorguy said:

nubus said:

Google asked EU to open iMessages. That won't happen. Android users are now stuck with RCS while iPhone users get the best of both worlds. And Google... from "only Android supports Flash" to "only Android supports RCS". This is just another USP being taken away from Android. Smart move by Apple.

Google doesn't want the job of securing RCS and it's privacy. They HAD to because the carriers and the GSMA refused to accept the responsibility. They'll dance in the rain when they no longer have to spend money and resources on RCS things that should not have had to. 

I agree with you here. The carriers are dog slow at moving anything forward. They're happy to just sit back and make money off the cellular infrastructure they own/lease/had created for them by governments. They typically get forced to move forward by tech companies who need new infrastructure for their devices. So in that sense, I'm happy that Google (and now Apple) are pushing them forward on this.

That said, I'm not entirely convinced that Google isn't interested since, if the carriers go with their RCS server/router technology (Jibe), that'll at least give them information about who's connected to who in the world with the knowledge of user/customer IDs and who is messaging who (even if they can't see the content of those messages). I'm fairly certain this is why Apple is pushing back on the E2EE side of things and working with GSMA.

Nah, that isn't the reason. It is nuts how certain Apple fans have convinced themselves that everyone who competes with Apple is bad, including even companies that were once major Apple partners and suppliers. 
1. Google actually had a GREAT messaging strategy in its pre-Android and early Android days (Google Chat - which included video - and Google Voice). Indeed, it even preceded Apple's efforts in this area. Problem: they trashed it to compete with Facebook, resulting in the Google Hangouts debacle.
2. After Google Hangouts failed, Google realized the need to compete with iMessage. So they created Allo (messages) and Duo (video). Allo failed and was yanked. Duo was very successful, but only outside the U.S. Google also created Meet to kinda sorta replace Hangouts for its enterprise Workspace customers.
3. With Duo and Meet video was "fine" but Google still needed a modern messaging protocol to replace the ancient insecure SMS/MMS. So Google chose RCS, which had originally been proposed years ago but failed because no one adopted it. It was never supposed to compete with iMessage. After the failure of Duo, Hangouts and Allo - plus Chat/Voice never reaching its potential - Google really did merely want a better messaging client. 

So I don't get people who attribute nefarious intent on Google's part here. Was Google supposed to stick with a 1980s messaging protocol just to maintain Apple's advantage? Or is adopting rich text support, group chat support and end-to-end encryption somehow bad? You have some desire to punish people for choosing not to buy iPhones by forcing outdated insecure tech on them or something? Yes, Google maintains the servers but what choice did they have? The mobile carriers could have but refused. Google solved a real problem for their users that no one - the carriers, regulators, Apple - was going to lift a finger to. I don't see how this makes them the bad guy.

Apple isn't going to use Google's encryption? You know who is happy about that? Google. Google has been trying to get GSMA to adopt encryption for years. Whether Apple gets GSMA to adopt it or implements their own solution, it benefits Apple. So long as Apple handles the messages properly it doesn't matter. So no, it isn't some scheme to invade iPhone user's privacy. Google was already perfectly capable of doing that already with SMS/MMS and so was everybody else. That's why Apple's refusal to adopt RCS so long never made sense. To put it another way, it proves that Apple's alleged focus on privacy was just marketing. Apple knew that its consumers were communicating with Android device owners using very insecure SMS/MMS and didn't lift a finger. 

This isn't necessarily a loss for Apple - the green and blue bubble thing will still exist - but it is definitely a win for Google and Android users. And there are absolutely no downsides either. 

The difference between Google Glass and this is what exactly?

leighr said:

Firstly, the ITC need to look at how all the other watchmakers, including all the cheap Chines knockoffs, are monitoring blood oxygen. If they infringe the same patents, then bans need to be implemented across the board. Too often, Apple is seen as an easy target for law suits, because they’re cashed up, but the ITC needs to ensure consistency in these matters. 

Apple doesn’t like licensing/pay-per-purchase deals, as their volume of sales becomes a cash cow for other companies, and an open door for patent trolls. If this is determined to be a legitimate patent infringement, then Apple will need to work through the options. 

That said, there are thousands of Apple patents that are infringed regularly. The whole Android OS I heavily infringes on Apple’s iPhone inventions (“and boy did we patent it” - Steve Jobs), so there needs to be consistency here. Do they ban every android device, not to mention all the other Chinese and Samsung copied products, from AirPods to laptops, that continue to be sold despite obvious copyright and patent violations. 

In the short term, Apple could simply stop the alleged patent violations and simply “estimate” the blood oxygen, until they either come up with another sensor, or buy the patent. I would expect a software update to do this in the coming weeks, and a more long term fix in about a month. 

What makes you think that other companies are infringing? Evidence that they aren't.
1. Masimo has sued over this same tech before and won (against Philips). So why would they sue Apple and not Google/FitBit, Samsung, Withings, Oura, Garmin etc? Especially the smaller outfits that don't have Apple's infamous legal teams and resources. Start with the small fry, use them to establish precedent and that makes the case against Apple much easier. Instead, out of all the companies that offer SpO2 smartwatches Apple is the only one that they are suing.
2. Not only did Samsung clearly license the tech, but they partnered with Masimo for other products also: https://investor.masimo.com/news/news-details/2020/Masimo-and-Samsung-Partner-to-Package-Masimo-SafetyNet-with-Select-Samsung-Phones-to-Speed-COVID-19-Response-Efforts/default.aspx

As for Android, "the whole Android OS I heavily infringes on Apple’s iPhone inventions" is not true and never has been. The precedent was set with Apple versus Microsoft over Windows: that you can't patent general UX/UI concepts. And it was re-established again when Microsoft tried to go after various Linux desktops that copied Windows XP (these days they mostly copy macOS). Also, what was there to patent anyway? While it is fair to say that Apple invented touchscreen smartphones, Apple didn't invent the touchscreen, or even the handheld touchscreen device. Apple also didn't invent the app store concept. They also didn't invent the "icons on a home screen" layout. That leaves two things.
A. the multitouch patent. This was made essentially worthless by this court ruling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_Corp._v._CLS_Bank_International (Apple patented multitouch in 2005 and the case that basically nullified it was filed in 2007)
B. the pinch-to-zoom patent. Apple lost on this issue to Samsung in 2012. Keep in mind: Apple went from trying to get the ITC to ban Samsung Android devices unless Samsung agreed to a $50 per device licensing fee - which would have meant many tens of billions paid by Samsung to Apple annually and prevented Samsung from being able to sell budget Android devices entirely - to Samsung merely having to pay Apple a few hundred million over "trade dress." And Samsung only had to pay that because they literally left a paper trail on "let's copy Apple's trade dress." Had they not done this, they would have beaten Apple in court over that just as they did everything else. And it is also why Samsung is the only company that Apple ever successfully sued despite everyone copying Apple's designs, many even more closely. While the ~$500 million that Samsung paid Apple is nothing to sneeze at, compare that to the $8 billion that Samsung was stuck with to Microsoft over using the Windows filesystem (I think NFTS) in Android devices. Samsung eventually just turned that judgment into a cross-licensing deal.  

mathpunk said:

I think Apple has lost its focus.  They can't even build a modem, but sure, let's build a car!  Siri is a mess, the Swift compiler has a lot of problems, all sorts of software is buggy, they still can't figure out what to do with the iPad, and now there is the Vision Pro which has no clear reason to exist.  

Not even a pro-Apple guy but let's go.
1. Apple can build a modem. But why should they? It would provide no benefit at all over cheaper products available from other companies. There is a list of products that Apple should make - general purpose monitor, smart TV, printer, home audio, home security - but generic stuff like networking and storage equipment aren't among them.
2. Siri is a mess ... when compared to Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant and Samsung Bixby? The former two are losing BILLIONS for their owners and the latter is an embarrassment. 
3. All right maybe this is legitimate.
4. In isolation? Sure. In comparison with software provided by literally everybody else? Not a chance.
5. They sold 46 million of them in 2023 which was a down year. Creative professionals love it and thanks to Apple Arcade it is actually getting traction with serious gaming. The only real threat to the iPad on the horizon is the possibility that Windows tablets are going to take off once Intel reaches 5nm this year: https://liliputing.com/onexplayer-x1-gaming-tablet-with-detachable-controllers-and-intel-meteor-lake-launches-in-china-global-launch-coming-soon. And if you are one of those people who keeps insisting that iPads should have beaten Windows laptops by now ... well let's just say that you aren't someone who actually uses Windows and leave it at that. That was never going to happen, especially considering that an iPad Pro actually costs as much as an entry level productivity or gaming Windows laptop and that is without the Magic keyboard and trackpad.
6. My prediction is that 5 years from now the Vision Pro is going to be radically different from the dev kit that they are pushing now. If you were to listen to what Apple's management has been saying about AR and VR the past 3 years you would understand why I think this way. The final version of the Vision Pro is going to be a lot closer to Google Glass - except actually good this time - than the face huggers from Aliens.

So you are 1 for 6. Aim for a better ratio next time. 

macxpress said:

eightzero said:

macxpress said:

Apple should just buy Masimo and take their patents and shut them down. Problem solved! 

Has to be a reason/ some reasons Tim et. al. hasn't done this. Wonder what it/they might be.

Might be cheaper in the long run versus a licensing deal. I know it may not be a popular solution for some but if it's the cheaper route in the end then why not? 

Good grief. Investigate how long it took Google to buy FitBit. Answer: so long that when it finally went through, it was too late. FitBit was basically dead as a brand (more on this later), Apple had like 70% of the premium smartwatch market with Samsung having nearly all that was left. The U.S., the EU, the Australian government etc. all fought tooth and nail to keep Google from buying FitBit for years. As a matter of fact, the U.S. technically never agreed to the purchase. (Likely because they knew that they had no legal case.) They just sat on it, hoping that Google would just give up and go away. Google - appropriately in my mind - decided that it was an egregious abuse of power and said "We are going to go ahead and pull the trigger; feel free to either fine us or sue us to roll back the acquisition later." The U.S. huffed and puffed ... and did nothing because they knew that they would lose. 

But here is the deal with FitBit: they were going bankrupt. And they had no other prospective buyers. (Google likely regrets buying them at this point.) Had Google not bought them, they would have declared bankruptcy and their spare parts - patents and user health data - would have been auctioned off to the highest bidder. That's exactly what happened with one of FitBit's competitors back in the day, JawBone. Some penetration tester (that is a cybersecurity thing by the way) found out that there is actually a server out there still collecting data from the JawBone Fitness trackers to this day and no one knows who owns the server or what they are doing with the data that they are collecting. Had that happened with FitBit it would have been a nightmare, meaning that Google buying them and keeping FitBit data away from the companies that would have bought it from the bankruptcy courts was actually a positive thing. And yet the governments still fought it tooth and nail and was able to keep the acquisition tied up for years.

So, what makes you thing that the U.S., the EU etc. would let Apple go anywhere near Masimo, a leading manufacturer in a vital, strategic and heavily regulated sector (healthcare)? If Apple had a legitimate interest in taking Masimo's place as a provider of healthcare equipment, then they would at least consider it for maybe a half hour before saying "no." But Apple buying them just to grab their patents and shut them down over a grudge? Yeah, sure the government would go all for that. Go to their website. Look at the huge range of healthcare products and services they provide. (It isn't just SpO2 monitors.) You be the one to make the case that Apple just licensing Masimo's IP is somehow a worse outcome for the healthcare industry than Apple buying them just to take their patents - which again is WAY more than SpO2 stuff - and shutting them down.

longfang said:

nopenopenope said:

I’m just here to refute the entire premise. No, you shall not use a Vision Pro in public. It is somehow both invasive and oblivious at the same time. You have a choice. Don’t.

You don’t get to dictate what other people do. 

This was the consensus opinion with Google Glass. He is just being consistent instead of "it is bad when Google does it but good when we do it."

MikeJB said:

I read that a third party Apple Vision Pro app was created to allow YouTube videos in an independent AVP window. I suspect that since one was created, the powers-that-be over at YouTube figured it would be in their own interests to release an AVP app themselves (as reported on Apple Insider recently).

Google can shut that off if they want to, just as they shut off repeated attempts to bring YouTube to Windows Phone and also shut off third party apps to Amazon Echo Show devices back when the two companies were (more overtly) feuding. Two things going on here.
1. Google is waiting to see if Vision Pro succeeds without being one of the reasons that it succeeds. If Vision Pro sells 5 million units in 2025, they don't want any part of that 5 million people to buy it in order to look at YouTube. 
2. Speaking of the 2025 thing, yes Google, Samsung and Qualcomm are working together on their own device. They have been ambivalent about whether to actually release it. I have read that it can be out as early as 4Q this year if Samsung wants to badly enough. Samsung will release the Galaxy 6 Fold and Flip, Galaxy 7 Watch and Galaxy Ring in 3Q, so 4Q would be when the Galaxy S23 FE and the Galaxy Fold FE are going to be released (Samsung times the Galaxy FE releases to steal the thunder from the Google Pixel, which releases in October). Despite the legendary capacity of the Apple fandom to convince itself otherwise, it would be stupid for YouTube to be on the Vision Pro before it is on Google's device. But if Samsung decides not to push for a release this year, Google will move forward with Vision Pro apps for YouTube and Google TV, though do not expect them to go all out - at least not initially - like Disney did for Disney+.

People who have a problem with 2., well when did Apple approve Stadia again? Over 5 years and there is still no Android app for Apple TV+ (other than the Android TV one) ... you have to use the browser. And no, there is no Safari browser on Android either, and wasn't even when there was still a Safari browser on Windows. No iTunes or Apple Movies and TV on Android either. So the people who believe that Google has some obligation to provide day one support for every single Apple product and platform, I say it is perfectly fine for Google to wait awhile. And now that YouTube Premium/YouTube Music has surpassed the 100 million subscribers threshold - and YouTube TV is doing well also - they can afford to wait. Or at least wait until NFL Sunday Ticket on YouTube TV is an exclusive on Google's own competing headset for awhile first.