Wesley_Hilliard

mpantone said:

Meta's grand Metaverse vision is the failure. Their actual shipping VR hardware is acceptable and competitive.

I have an Oculus Rift S and it fulfills most of its 6+ year old limited usage cases at close to 1/8th the price of the AVR (not adjusted for inflation).

AVP has a clearly better display and refresh rate but those aren't not the sole metrics. My geriatric Rift S is WAY lighter and that's super important for VR HMDs, even if it's an ugly piece of Lenovo-manufactured plastic-wrapped crap.

The AVP is both too expensive and too heavy to be of much interest to Joe Consumer. This has been the ongoing problem for VR HMDs for the past 30+ years and Apple is continuing this dreadful narrative.

Stop sugarcoating Apple and their overpriced AVP. It is not worth its price which is why Apple quickly scaled back production.

And this discussion isn't limited to fancy VR hardware. Google Cardboard is pretty much dead because no one want to wear their smartphones on their heads, even if the mounting hardware is nearly free.

Stop thinking of VR as the Next Big Thing because it's not. Hell, wireless earbuds took over the world because Joe Consumer hates the bulk of headphones. VR HMDs have their place in some commercial, enterprise, and scientific workloads. The user experience sucks for 95% of Joe Consumer's waking hours.

And I'll point out right here that this tangent was brought to us by an AppleInsider staffer. This is supposed to be a thread about AI researchers and their salaries which is what I covered in my first response (reply #2).

At least stick with the bloody topic if you are going to hold forum participants to that same criterium.

mikethemartian said:

Stabitha_Christie said:

After the disaster that was the whole Metaverse, this just smells of desperation. Disaster is being generous, did anything come of the Metaverse other than the announcement? Anyway, so they are buying all the talent they can get but what is the vision? Their existing platforms, Facebook + Instagram, have become overrun by AI slop. So the plan is to make more slop creation tools? You can't hire your way into great products, you have to have an idea of what you are going to do. Zuck has proven that he isn't the idea guy, everything he has was stolen or purchased. 

Compared to the commercial success of the Vision Pro?

9secondkox2 said:

blastdoor said:

For any successful CEO close to retirement, their most important remaining job is working with the board to find successor candidates. Steve Jobs did his job well — he picked Cook. One thing that is especially remarkable about Jobs’ pick is that Cook is very different from Jobs. It would be very tempting to pick a “mini me” as a replacement. For Jobs, that might have been Ive. But because Jobs cared more about Apple than his ego, he picked someone very different from himself because he knew that is what Apple needed next. And Jobs was right Cook was great for Apple in the ten years after Jobs left. 

But Cook is no longer the best leader for Apple and Apple does not need a mini Cook as the next CEO. So Cook needs to find the right yin to his yang to be the next CEO.

Perhaps bringing Ive back would accomplish that. Definitely fits the “product guy” and “yin” role. 

Hard to see Ternus in the CEO role. Williams did seem like a fantastic fit (though I did not like him in the design lead role). Williams was like the genius who would never beat down anyone with his brain. He came across very blue collar, yet wielded the Ivy League intellect. The kind of guy, similar to Steve, to take the high and mighty concepts, tech, and prowess of Apple, and make it feel as comfortable and at-home as your dog curled up next to you on the couch. 

The little I know of Khan does not strike me as a good CEO successor as far as company product strategy . But he could surprise. He seems better suited to the COO role as Apple endeavors to build out manufacturing and sales ties with India. Not sure how his efforts with other nations have resulted. So he could just be an interim fill-in for Jeff or he could turn out to be a sleeper hit. He’s an ops guy with a mechanical engineering education. But his expertise is supply chain. Just like Cook. It does appear that msnuevering him into Jeff’s place sets him up as the CEO successor, but that leaves me a little concerned that he may end up being “discount Tim Cook” and have the same kind of leadership back to back. Not sure if that’s the best move forward after the current “supply chain guy” leadership.  He has a few years to show everyone what he can do. Maybe after Steve, that’s what will continue the journey? Or is it time for a  product visionary, with the ops guys bringing his visions to life? 

mattinoz said:

Retirement later in the year. 

So how do justify calling it turmoil when it has been planned for and the plan still has time to run. 

I get you need grabby headlines and Apple to keep business as usual in a country gone mad is likely to turn some people off. 

I would have thought putting the team directly under the CEO who you think is fairly busy but also sign they are supportive of the next tier of the leadership team to keep things moving along but aren’t ready to name someone as head.  Maybe they want to let a larger team shine move away from “single personality” narratives.