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Why is everyone talking about the still vaporware Apple goggles when Microsoft is actually selling Hololens (a direct competitor to Magic Leap) for longer than
by janoc 7y ago
Why is everyone talking about the still vaporware Apple goggles when Microsoft is actually selling Hololens (a direct competitor to Magic Leap) for longer than ML is even on the market.
Yeah, I do get it, Apple and all, but this is ignoring the elephant in the room.
- hurricanetc 7y agoYou cannot directly purchase the Hololens yet, and even if you could it’s $3,500.
- tw04 7y agoThe price tag is exactly why you can't "buy directly" as you say. It's not currently intended for consumers - they understand the price point makes that a non-starter. Given that the COGs aren't going down anytime soon, I'm in complete agreement with that choice. On the flip side, if you've got an actual business case for hololens, acquiring them is rather trivial. And quite frankly for the use-cases I've seen hololens deployed, $3,500 a pair is barely a rounding error in the project budget.
- jorvi 7y agoIt is slightly laughable to complain about Microsoft selling their AR glasses for €3500 when their direct competitor would (will?) be Apple, who have no qualms selling a €1000 aluminium stand or €50 000 desktop computer. Expect a solid premium over Microsoft's pricing.
- brianwawok 7y agoiPhone and macbooks have done well because they are in the consumer price range. $5,000 mac pro is not targeted to the consumer market. I doubt it is responsible for 1% of Apple's profit. If apple does VR, they want it in everyones house - not in a few hundred. That's not the scale they operate at.
- Retric 7y agoApple charges what the market will bare, and frankly there is no market for a 3,500$ AR headset. PS: 28 cores and 1.5TB of RAM is still very much workstation territory. Few people need that, but it’s a solid investment if you’re in that group.
- moooo99 7y ago> 28 cores and 1.5TB of RAM is still very much workstation territory But its still a rather overpriced workstation. However, thats not the topic. Microsoft also charges what the market will bare, but it is a completely different market. MS has been quite focused on their B2B products for a while, so selling the expensive Hololens to companies and not private users makes perfect sense. So if you're in that group, its a solid investment
- hurricanetc 7y agoWho is complaining about pricing? I merely pointed out that the Hololens is not a consumer product.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- KallDrexx 7y agoWhat ever happened to Hololens revision 2? Wasn't that supposed to be announced last year?
- janoc 7y agoAFAIK, they have jumped the gun a bit. It is shipping but only to selected partners because they have some major image quality issues: https://www.kguttag.com/2019/12/18/hololens-2-not-a-pretty-picture/ https://www.kguttag.com/2019/12/18/hololens-2-not-a-pretty-p...
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- ethagknight 7y agoOne good reason- Because when Apple solves the equation, everyone else tends to fall in line. Microsoft gets props for having the product out for sure, but Apple is searching for the magic recipe to sell 10 million. Every quarter.
- janoc 7y agoWell, good luck for them. The problem is that unless they manage to pull some incredible technological feat, it won't really happen. Physics is a bitch, there are some real reasons why you can't make AR glasses thin and sexy like sunshades and costing sub $1000 to boot.
- AndrewKemendo 7y agoI just bought a $1000 iPhone. It's not even the most advanced model either. I'm certain Apple could make an AR (ish) headset that is amazing for $2k
- janoc 7y agoA phone is a commodity with little technological known-how required to pull off today. iPhone sells for $1000 because people will pay so much for it but that doesn't mean that the technology in it costs so much. However, when a single diffraction waveguide (the piece of glass that forms the display of devices like a Hololens or Magic Leap) which is the only known way how to make a flat-ish display (otherwise you need bulky mirrors or prisms) costs hundreds of dollars (and you need 3 per eye minimum, one for each color), then it is hard to see how Apple would pull that off. And that's only a display. At least if we are talking a proper AR device, not a personal HUD/"smartglasses" like the Google Glass.
- Ajedi32 7y agoQuoting from another HN comment I favorited a while back: > Something that doesn't exist is just so much more exciting than something that does. Real things have caveats, limitations, and costs. Right now Apple's glasses aren't real, so they have no caveats, limitations, or costs: only raw potential. That's way more exciting than a real product which we already know is too expensive for the average consumer to use.
- crystaln 7y agoApple isn't hyping their goggles, so vaporware isn't really a fair label.
- janoc 7y agoBut everyone else is talking about them as if it was a done deal.
- Invictus0 7y agoNo one is talking about them, it is still a skunkworks project like their self-driving car.
- janoc 7y agoThey have abandoned the self-driving car and laid off the entire team. And the "no one is talking about them" kinda doesn't match with the coverage of Apple rumors - and even this discussion.
- dominotw 7y ago> Microsoft is actually selling Hololens (a direct competitor to Magic Leap) Like MS selling zune and music subscription decades before it became a norm ?
- serverQuestion 7y agothis so much this. For some reason Microsoft does all these awesome things without winning the market (again)
- brosinante 7y agoYet people still refuse to accept that sometimes, being first makes little difference, delivering something well polished and usable as well as having a track record of quality is worth a lot, and people make choices for reasons other than release timelines.
- ProZsolt 7y agoBeing first only matters when you solve a problem people already have. Polishing doesn't matter it that case because you ease people's pain. If you create a thing that people don't want currently polishing and marketing all that matters.
- neuronic 7y agoZune was announced on November 14th, 2006. iPod 1st Gen was released in 2001. What are you raving about?
- dominotw 7y agodid you miss the second part of my sentence?
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 7y agoMicrosoft's approach is clunky and unsexy that's why. You wear an entire PC on your head essentially. Apple's approach seems to be powerful iPhone in pocket, wirelessly talk to a dumb display/sensors on your head. Look what Apple did with watches...
- janoc 7y agoSure they did. Except those watches don't need several cameras to track your movement without which the AR overlays aren't possible. Those cameras need video processing - that's big, hot and heavy compute capability somewhere nearby the camera itself because you can't stream that e.g. using Bluetooth to a phone in your pocket. That compute also sucks batteries dry like there is no tomorrow, so a large battery has to be somewhere. Oh and if you want to actually display an overlay to the user (and not only some text in the corner of your eye like Google Glass did), then you need fairly large optics - laws of physics won't budge only because it is Apple. That's why the Hololens is so clunky and unsexy. Magic Leap has put the compute and batteries in the user's pocket, but then there is a cable between the two (and the goggles aren't much lighter/less clunky really).
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 7y agoYes. My idea is that Apple will do the compute on their iPhones in the user's pocket with a wireless connection between the two. The glasses will be an accessory to the phone. Perhaps their plan is to start small and scale up only as much as will be "sexy" year over year. Rather than go all in on a massive headset and shrink with iteration.