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I think LIDAR could be very cool but as the article alludes it definitely has the "Chicken & Egg" problem is that you need the hardware so developers can develo

I think LIDAR could be very cool but as the article alludes it definitely has the "Chicken & Egg" problem is that you need the hardware so developers can develop, and you need the software to justify having the hardware. Sounds like even the API isn't on-tap quite yet. It would definitely be cool if you could e.g. walk around a room and scan it into a home re-modelling app. I know the stated aim is more AR, and that's fine, but I can see apps using LIDAR far beyond that for example a clothing app scanning your body to determine perfect size. Usage though depends a lot of level of detail, particularly using it to scan people instead of surfaces.

xoa 7y ago
>it definitely has the "Chicken & Egg" problem is that you need the hardware so developers can develop, and you need the software to justify having the hardware. Although it's worth pointing out that the "Chicken & Egg" problem actually has a real life answer that applies equally to a lot of scenarios it's posited. In terms of "which came first" the answer is definitively eggs, with macrolecithal eggs and birds themselves evolving from dinosaurs and other previous ancestors. Evolution sees use of "existing hardware" which then undergoes incremental change, competitive ones of which are kept. Similarly, in a developed platform you don't actually need software to justify incremental advances in hardware. The justification for the hardware is all the other already useful stuff it does and has inherited from previous generations. Apple, and other established platform companies, can get away with bootstrapping from the hardware side that way. Just as with other evolutionary processes sometimes there are even things that just fail to stick (like Force Touch) for better or worse, but even dead ends don't kill the whole platform. I guess it's also kind of another side of a certain degree of dominating market power. Often it's used for ill, but sometimes certain kinds of monopolies and lock-in can also give companies more freedom to experiment and look for longer term gains even if it's not justified in the next few quarters. At any rate work got a few of these and it wasn't for LIDAR at all, wouldn't change the value if it never did anything. Except for an odd network issue I'm working through they're nice upgrades from previous iPad Pros so far. But from this demo LIDAR certainly could be put to real use in some architectural brainstorming for example, so happy to see it there.
tootie 7y ago
I wonder if this is a reaction to Soli from Google. The use case isn't the same but it's related. It's also got a real chicken-egg problem. Typically they'd preview this for some developers to have at least demo apps available at launch but idk what they're cooking up here.
yellow_postit 7y ago
I think LIDAR in the iPad/iPhone is going to be as useful as the touchbar on Mac laptops.

xoa 7y ago

>it definitely has the "Chicken & Egg" problem is that you need the hardware so developers can develop, and you need the software to justify having the hardware. Although it's worth pointing out that the "Chicken & Egg" problem actually has a real life answer that applies equally to a lot of scenarios it's posited. In terms of "which came first" the answer is definitively eggs, with macrolecithal eggs and birds themselves evolving from dinosaurs and other previous ancestors. Evolution sees use of "existing hardware" which then undergoes incremental change, competitive ones of which are kept. Similarly, in a developed platform you don't actually need software to justify incremental advances in hardware. The justification for the hardware is all the other already useful stuff it does and has inherited from previous generations. Apple, and other established platform companies, can get away with bootstrapping from the hardware side that way. Just as with other evolutionary processes sometimes there are even things that just fail to stick (like Force Touch) for better or worse, but even dead ends don't kill the whole platform. I guess it's also kind of another side of a certain degree of dominating market power. Often it's used for ill, but sometimes certain kinds of monopolies and lock-in can also give companies more freedom to experiment and look for longer term gains even if it's not justified in the next few quarters. At any rate work got a few of these and it wasn't for LIDAR at all, wouldn't change the value if it never did anything. Except for an odd network issue I'm working through they're nice upgrades from previous iPad Pros so far. But from this demo LIDAR certainly could be put to real use in some architectural brainstorming for example, so happy to see it there.

tootie 7y ago

I wonder if this is a reaction to Soli from Google. The use case isn't the same but it's related. It's also got a real chicken-egg problem. Typically they'd preview this for some developers to have at least demo apps available at launch but idk what they're cooking up here.

yellow_postit 7y ago

I think LIDAR in the iPad/iPhone is going to be as useful as the touchbar on Mac laptops.