12 ms·

Apple’s secretive AR and VR Headset plans altered by internal differences

165 points by hhs 6y ago

user982 6y ago
tldr: Ive: "Thinner."
- melling 6y ago
  “ Ive balked at the prospect of selling a headset that would require a separate, stationary device for full functionality. He encouraged Rockwell and his team to redevelop N301 around the less powerful technology that could be embedded entirely in the device.”
Razengan 6y ago
They could have captured both ends of the scale with two different devices: a powerful VR (for Mac/iPad) as well as a slimmer always-worn AR (maybe an iPhone companion like the Apple Watch). They need VR credibility, especially after Valve dropping Mac support for SteamVR: https://www.macrumors.com/2020/05/01/valve-drops-steamvr-mac-support/ https://www.macrumors.com/2020/05/01/valve-drops-steamvr-mac...
- Cactus2018 6y ago
  >They need VR credibility 5 months until they bring in John Carmack? https://www.theverge.com/2019/11/13/20963899/john-carmack-stepping-down-cto-of-oculus-work-on-ai https://www.theverge.com/2019/11/13/20963899/john-carmack-st...
  - andybak 6y ago
    Are you suggesting that Carmack is sitting out his non-compete period and has already been poached? If not - then I'm suggesting it. ;-) Interesting theory.
mrkstu 6y ago
Interesting news as it pertains to the ARM Macs. Implies the graphics capabilities may be substantially better than most of us were anticipating- much better than the already very good iPad graphics.
nick-garfield 6y ago
Hmm that's a bit disappointing.. I feel like Ive and Cook could be wrong on this one. If desktop/mobile is an appropriate parallel, then it seems like they've decided to undercut their desktop machine to have the "ergonomics" of a mobile device while still not being mobile. If the VR headset is a stationary experience, then what's wrong with having a hub sitting around nearby?
- fossuser 6y ago
  I’d guess the AR headset is more interesting to Apple and probably not a stationary experience. The goal is new UI extension of iOS similar to the watch. Eventually making it so you don’t need to pull out your iPhone to interact with software (and the world) at all. Probably at first will be notifications and such. No idea if there’s any truth to this video, but it makes sense to me that Apple would focus on this as the next platform when the hardware becomes possible: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5J_6oMMG7Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5J_6oMMG7Y I think there’s huge potential for a massive shift in capability if this is done right.
karpodiem 6y ago
I agree that having this tethered to a stationary hub inhibits the scope of this being a device which can be worn anywhere. If anything I could see the iPhone acting as the hub (for the first few generations at least) in the same way the iPhone is the hub for the Apple Watch. Not sure what protocol they would use to communicate, Bluetooth doesn't have the bandwidth and Wifi is still a power hog.
- cwe 6y ago
  UWB that is in the iPhone 11's.
artfulhippo 6y ago
Ive is right. Thin (aka chic aka sexy) is on-brand for Apple. Glasses you can wear all day outside are a marvelous way to augment human capabilities. A bulky headset that only works with a desktop or game console is a niche product. VR gaming is mostly compelling to people who are sexually unfulfilled. Apple builds products that are desired by attractive rich people, which is key to having premium brand pricing power and therefore high profit margins.
- bserge 6y ago
  Ngl, had us in the first half :D
- kaibee 6y ago
  > VR gaming is mostly compelling to people who are sexually unfulfilled. Apple builds products that are desired by attractive rich people, which is key to having premium brand pricing power and therefore high profit margins. There's... a lot to unpack here.
  - throwaway98797 6y ago
    <<VR gaming is mostly compelling to people who are sexually unfulfilled.>> <<Apple builds products that are desired by attractive rich people>> Ergo atteractive rich people are sexually unfulfilled. Scratching my head here.
- short_sells_poo 6y ago
  > VR gaming is mostly compelling to people who are sexually unfulfilled. Ouch. You can't just throw statements like that around without any supporting evidence. Where did you get that from? Can you link any studies?
- vorpalhex 6y ago
  > VR gaming is mostly compelling to people who are sexually unfulfilled. I would dramatically question that, both because most of the VR experiences that are well rated currently are entirely non-sexual and because most of the VR sex experiences are pretty disappointing. Even a really expensive setup is basically just a mostly non-interactive 2d video wraparound. Though it was funny to put my wife in one (with her consent) and hear her responses.
mark_l_watson 6y ago
I think Tim Cook and Apple made the correct decision. I own an Oculus Quest, which is fairly light weight and totally self contained while my Brother owns a more capable Oculus device that is tethered to his gaming PC. I use my Quest many times a day, often for just a few minutes at a time. It is so easy to get up from my desk, and jump into a ping pong game, enjoy a favorite part of Vader Immortal, randomly try a VR art piece, etc., etc. I don’t want to spend huge amounts of time on the quest, rather to just use it the way I would take a walk or a hike. I love the Oculus Quest, and if Apple sells something better with good content, then I am all in.
- zitterbewegung 6y ago
  Swapping out the SOC from an Oculus quest to an a13 or higher would be extremely compelling for me to buy. Other than ease of use Oculus Quest the price point (sub 500) might be another factor but OTOH I don't think that's a big factor if its an apple product.
  - whatch 6y ago
    > Swapping out the SOC from an Oculus quest to an a13 or higher would be extremely compelling for me to buy. I agree, but I believe the battery will need upgrade as well
    - entropicdrifter 6y ago
      It might help the balance of the system to put the battery at the back of the headband, like this: https://uploadvr.com/vr-power-battery-quest/ https://uploadvr.com/vr-power-battery-quest/
- xwdv 6y ago
  Agreed, since picking up a Quest my use of tethered VR has dropped significantly. Self contained VR is the way forward IMO. I would only use tethered VR for seated simulations such as flight or racing, which would typically use more peripherals anyway.
forgingahead 6y ago
The article ended abruptly for me, which was confusing. (Bloomberg has this weird black magic used by news sites where articles blend into one another, leading to buggy behaviour.) Here's the full text in archive: https://archive.vn/Ue3Kp https://archive.vn/Ue3Kp
shadowtree 6y ago
The same post-Jobs Ive that caused the keyboard fiasco. Some of the decisions made under him should be re-visited it seems, his product instincts beyond the design were flat out wrong.
- benologist 6y ago
  Ive checked out ages ago, and even before that Apple Park must have occupied most of his last decade. Meanwhile the butterfly keyboard is rumored to return next week so maybe we should start blaming the executives who actually run the company? https://www.macrumors.com/2020/06/12/arm-based-macs-12-inch-macbook-revival/ https://www.macrumors.com/2020/06/12/arm-based-macs-12-inch-...
- skellera 6y ago
  Seriously, his reasoning for not needing better graphics in VR is out of touch with the purpose of VR. I now wish he left sooner so they would’ve focused on the best possible VR experience.
  - m463 6y ago
    Both VR and AR require a lot of horsepower. I think VR might need less horsepower than AR. I wonder if either of them will be as generally useful for a wide group of people day to day. I don't mean useful as in apps, I mean tolerated by eyes and brain.
intopieces 6y ago
It’s interesting that Ive had hesitations about building a product that takes the user out of reality. I also have that hesitation about VR; that is, I don’t like the fact that it takes up my entire field of vision, and I am hesitant to adopt a new screen technology when I don’t feel like I have properly reckoned with the screens I already have. I hope that Apple will have Screen Time on this device.
- gfodor 6y ago
  Ultimately we will have software modulation of all photons hitting your retina, in hardware packages that are unobtrusive. To not be aiming there seems to be swimming against the tide.
  - intopieces 6y ago
    It certainly makes sense for Apple to aim there. But I'm not sure that I want to go there. Perhaps I will have to in order to keep up.
    - gfodor 6y ago
      Yup, I’m afraid so.
deltron3030 6y ago
Do you remember the Avegant Glyph VR headset from a few years ago? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEmVyMm8opE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEmVyMm8opE Apple should perfect this idea instead, make it look like a normal set of highend overear headphones from the outside, and integrate a AR screen into the headband. This form factor is a winner for bulkier AR/VR headsets because people already wear headphones around their necks, people are used to seing other people wearing them like that. Meaning that one of the biggest barriers of adoption (where to store it, looks) is already solved. A portable mobile cinema/AR viewer, and a Macbook/Ipad auxiliar screen through USB-C would be enough for a v1. They'd have the capability to integrate powerful technology into such a package.
- bsanr 6y ago
  The Glyph was simply a display with speakers. I agree that the form factor visually pleasing, and they weren't uncomfortable to wear (save for extended periods, where it was easier than even with VR sets to develop dry eyes), but adding in everything necessary to make them a true AR/VR headset with inside-out 6DoF tracking, let alone the SoaC, would have drastically changed its shape and size.
  - deltron3030 6y ago
    It doesn't have to be a "true AR/VR headset" to become a hit if it can enhance activities like coding or media production on a mobile device by providing a screen alternative.
bsanr 6y ago
If this is really what went down, it's highly disappointing, and potentially a market-losing choice akin to Microsoft chopping off the internal processing for the original Kinect (which left it far too under-powered to perform its core competencies). VR is already computationally-intensive; adding in the features necessary for AR UX and still trying to achieve a compelling experience on, essentially, mobile hardware is a fool's game (ask anyone who has been underwhelmed by Magic Leap and, again, Microsoft's offerings). From a performance perspective, perhaps the latency of using an wireless connection to a hub was concerning, but if it wasn't, that would have been the only way to achieve the kind of exceptional performance expected of a market-defining product launch of an Apple product. They really shot themselves in the foot on this one, for a guy who was about to jump ship anyway. >For Ive, who left last year after almost three decades at the company, a more realistic experience was potentially problematic: He didn’t want Apple promoting technology that would take people out of the real world. And, on a philosophical level, that's not his decision to make. People build artificial worlds to suit or make up for their imperfections; that's just who we are as a species. I notice that those who are successful in the real-life social or corporate world are often horrified at the prospect of those not being central to the average person's experience, but the truth is that they're just as manufactured and distracting from "reality" as anything else. What is reality? I would say, "The base layers of Maslow's hierarchy," with everything above being artifice. Apple's contemporaries have shown that one doesn't need a false 3D overlay of their apartment to be swayed by the unreal; all you need is a willing mind and a text editor/reader. The problem is therefore orthogonal to the medium, and instead a matter of mental self-regulation of the near-limitless bounds of our imaginations. Let's get that figured out and stop trying to hold technology back.
_bxg1 6y ago
I have to side with Ive here. Apple is not a gaming company, and that's the only consumer motive I could see for a bulky headset that's tethered to a base station. Any other use would be pure novelty. Plus, the already-small market is being well-served by traditional VR headsets. But a new wearable - a lifestyle product, slim and stylish enough to go anywhere and slide into a pocket if need be - is right up Apple's alley. On top of that, there's the incredibly obvious solution of pairing it to the user's iPhone for heavy-lifting, making use of those absurdly powerful mobile chips and gaining a new source of ecosystem synergy (or lock-in, depending on your perspective) in the process. It's shocking to me that someone holding such high regard in Apple could be so out of touch.
- twoodfin 6y ago
  Indeed. I'm surprised they're even trying the "stationary" product rather than just working directly towards a glasses version of the Watch. Gurman's sources are good enough that I imagine he has the narrative right, but this sounds a little bit like the iPad / iPhone evolution in retrospect: As I understand the history, the iPad was actually under development first, but it became obvious that the better initial market to target with the technology was smartphones. It wouldn't shock me if they belatedly have the same revelation again. Maybe they have sold themselves on a kind of "meet in the middle" strategy, where major YoY improvements in AR-enhanced smartphones build a market for mobile-focused apps, while the HUD technology is ramped up and refined in an environment where you don't worry so much about power and portability. But again, if I were Apple, I'd stick to mobile and wait until they are ready to leapfrog everyone else rather than try to build a market with awkward enthusiast tech.
dharma1 6y ago
Tethering the headset to an iPhone in your back pocket to offload the processing still makes the most sense to me. By the time this thing comes out, iPhone 13 or 14 will be pretty powerful, and most people already own one so the headset can be a lot cheaper and more lightweight. Wireless tethering would be best, but a thin wire would be fine too, I'd probably prefer that to having a radio on my temple all the time. I wonder what kind of display tech they are planning to use - laser projection or something else? I've been seeing tiny 1" OLED displays from China lately with 2560x2560 resolution on Alibaba, pretty cool. But of course they block your vision, unlike a projector.
- istorical 6y ago
  The main problem with this approach is you decimate your phone's battery life anytime you use it as a remote processing unit for VR/AR, at least in the case of Samsung Gear VR that's what John Carmack learned. Users end up having to calculate whether they'd rather use the VR device or have more spare battery to get them through the day / until next charge.
victor106 6y ago
> He started building his team in late 2015, and what grew into a 1,000-strong group of engineers There were about 30 people in the original iPhone team. Something tells me larger teams find it hard to bring out innovations faster. https://www.theverge.com/2017/6/13/15782200/one-device-secret-history-iphone-brian-merchant-book-excerpt https://www.theverge.com/2017/6/13/15782200/one-device-secre...
- davee5 6y ago
  Apple has been working on glasses at least since 2006 and perhaps earlier, far longer than this article indicates. Perhaps there's not continuity in these projects, but I suspect an R&D team or two has been working on this for over a decade. Whether or not you still believe it, Apple generally releases new new products when they're ready. "Apple started working on an augmented reality headset at least as early as 2006, but put the idea on ice because it seemed a mere curiosity compared to the iPhone. The possibility of some sort of iGlass device was confirmed by Tony Fadell, the former iPod division head who is now the CEO of Nest Labs, during an interview for the oral history." https://www.fastcompany.com/3018060/apples-iglasses-are-real-heres-why-you-might-never-see-them https://www.fastcompany.com/3018060/apples-iglasses-are-real... https://www.computerworld.com/article/2474968/innovation--apple-was-developing-google-glass-like-prototypes-in-2006.html https://www.computerworld.com/article/2474968/innovation--ap...
kgin 6y ago
The untethered headset makes sense from the perspective of Apple’s history. One of Apple’s core tenets is that convenience trumps everything. Often to the chagrin on power users. Always to the chagrin of spec lovers. But it has worked very well for them until now.
neonate 6y ago
https://archive.vn/Ue3Kp https://archive.vn/Ue3Kp
mrfusion 6y ago
What does this mean to me as an apple prosumer? When will this come out? What will it be like?
- ohazi 6y ago
  More like Google Glass and less like Microsoft Hololens / Magic Leap One
modeless 6y ago
If Apple had been first to market with a "wireless tether" VR headset that could have been interesting. A straight Quest competitor seems like an uninspired choice, especially as Apple has never been great at gaming, and the market seems less than Apple-sized. AR glasses on the other hand they could bust wide open, but it all depends on the display technology. Literally nothing else matters unless the display is a huge breakthrough. I doubt that it will be good enough by 2023, unless Apple goes for a niche market first and expands wide a few generations later. But that doesn't really seem their style.
- sjroot 6y ago
  Apple doesn’t care about first to market. They will take the time necessary to refine a huge breakthrough.
baybal2 6y ago
I have heard quite different info from one man working at Apple supplier. Apple for long tried to license display tech from Beijing university, a solid state microled chip with microlenses, but they never agreed on lump sump payment Apple wanted, despite it being "n-times the price" of their whole IP trading business. So, it became a blocker, with relationship souring, and them resorting to "patenting around," poaching their engineers, and other nasties. They tried to recreate the chip by themselves, but Beijing uni got a tip of it, and claimed that Apple is now "IP tainted" by what they saw under NDA, and them hiring their engineers. And so, Apple went on developing "ordinary" transparent VR glasses instead. A company called Kura is said now to reuse the same chip from Beijing university IC company in their own take on what Apple tried originally.
- pwthornton 6y ago
  I'm not sure if I'd put a lot of stock in an Apple supplier knowing more than people who talk to internal engineers. The idea of a combined VR/AR device sounds silly, and I think Ive is right: AR is where Apple should be focusing right now. There is something there for AR, and Apple has been laying the groundwork for AR for years with iOS and iPad OS. VR is very much stuck in a niche right now, and it seems like it will be for awhile.
  - baybal2 6y ago
    What they say about N421 is pretty much is what they were saying a generic "transparent VR" or "lightweight AR" display would be, and what the technology would allow. Think of Google Glass sans camera, and creepiness. For anything else, there is simply no practical tech on this planet. The lowest common denominator for "a real world usable AR" is well known: an emissive display, and a simple reflective projection system on some semitransparent medium/mirror dots/viewfinder-overlay-like prisms. No magic. Pretty much everything else requires battery packs bigger than the glasses themselves, especially if you want daylight visibility. > I'm not sure if I'd put a lot of stock in an Apple supplier knowing more than people who talk to internal engineers You will be surprised how much RnD stuff Apple outsources around in China. Maybe they design their products in California, but they definitely engineer them here in Shenzhen. I had hard time understanding why they were so skittish talking about their RnD centres in China, and even once denying their existence, when the whole city knew of them, and where they are.
zmmmmm 6y ago
Any company with a VR product that didn't react to the Oculus Quest would be making a mistake in my view. It is suboptimal in nearly every way, but the first headset in my view that is "good enough" in every single way to be a blockbuster hit. The strategy for Apple of simply starting with the Quest and using its superior chips and overall hardware expertise to make it twice as fast and half the weight, while tying it into the iOS ecosystem should be extremely straight forward and basically make them the dominant VR player overnight. I imagine that for someone like Rockwell this isn't nearly as exciting as introducing a revolutionary tech breakthrough. But Apple has never been good at that. They are good at significantly raising the bar on what other people have already done badly. One giant question I have in this space is, where the hell is Google? Are they really so burned by Google Glass that they are going to give up on an area that has a small but realistic chance of being a large part of the future of both consumer and business computing?
- akhilcacharya 6y ago
  They straight up gave up on Daydream VR - the Pixel 4 doesn’t even support it! Really poor timing considering I think the Quest (for mobile) and Alyx (for tethered content) are an inflection point for the medium imho.
- vl 6y ago
  Google developed VR headset internally for years, but in typical Google fashion this seems to be half-assed effort that didn’t go anywhere.
  - runawaybottle 6y ago
    Stadia seems like such a good tie in for a VR headset. Not sure what they are thinking here.
- jkestner 6y ago
  Google did put a couple hundred million into Magic Leap. If they weren’t feeling burned before...
Geee 6y ago
Bicycle for the mind. That should be the primary vision for the product. They shouldn't be thinking about market segments or if it looks cool enough. Just make the next step in human-computer interaction. Make history. “When we invented the personal computer, we created a new kind of bicycle... a new man-machine partnership... a new generation of entrepreneurs.” — Steve Jobs, c. 1980
- m463 6y ago
  I think Steve Jobs would have sold it internally. And gotten people to work together by hook or by crook. People don't realize Steve Jobs was the great integrator. The ipod was a great achievement, but it was dwarfed by his ability getting the music people and the computer people together.
Razengan 6y ago
By the way, here's an example of cool everyday-AR could be, if done right: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fm-4GPSnj94 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fm-4GPSnj94 The killer applications of AR would be when glasses are as ubiquitous as smartphones and display the same virtual world for everyone: Imagine walking outside and seeing your neighbor's favorite fictional character mowing their lawn, because that's the avatar they chose to display themselves to other AR users. Or seeing kids battling their Pokémon in the park. :)
- hn_throwaway_99 6y ago
  That YouTube video you showed, though, just left me wondering "why?" I mean, it looked cool, but we've all basically got our phones always in reach. If anything, I'd like to get rid of plastic cards, not get more that would require glasses and an unintuitive interface to figure out what to do. It just looked like a million other AR demos I've seen: gimmicky with less utility than what I've got now. I can imagine a place for AR, but "worse interface for something I can do right now on my phone" is not it.
  - Razengan 6y ago
    > gimmicks > worse interface for something I can do right now on my [computer] Were quite literally the arguments people used against the advent of smartphones. :) What problems do you think smartphones solved? People were not exactly clamoring for them. Why do you think the Apple Watch became so successful? When you don't HAVE to hold a phone to be able to do something, you wouldn't want to. In fact, I could see smartphones being supplanted by a combination of smartwatch + AR glasses.
    - postingawayonhn 6y ago
      > What problems do you think smartphones solved? Mobility
- mirthflat83 6y ago
  this blew my mind.

165 points by hhs 6y ago

user982 6y ago

tldr: Ive: "Thinner."

melling 6y ago
“ Ive balked at the prospect of selling a headset that would require a separate, stationary device for full functionality. He encouraged Rockwell and his team to redevelop N301 around the less powerful technology that could be embedded entirely in the device.”

Razengan 6y ago

They could have captured both ends of the scale with two different devices: a powerful VR (for Mac/iPad) as well as a slimmer always-worn AR (maybe an iPhone companion like the Apple Watch). They need VR credibility, especially after Valve dropping Mac support for SteamVR: https://www.macrumors.com/2020/05/01/valve-drops-steamvr-mac-support/ https://www.macrumors.com/2020/05/01/valve-drops-steamvr-mac...

Cactus2018 6y ago
>They need VR credibility 5 months until they bring in John Carmack? https://www.theverge.com/2019/11/13/20963899/john-carmack-stepping-down-cto-of-oculus-work-on-ai https://www.theverge.com/2019/11/13/20963899/john-carmack-st...
- andybak 6y ago
  Are you suggesting that Carmack is sitting out his non-compete period and has already been poached? If not - then I'm suggesting it. ;-) Interesting theory.

mrkstu 6y ago

Interesting news as it pertains to the ARM Macs. Implies the graphics capabilities may be substantially better than most of us were anticipating- much better than the already very good iPad graphics.

nick-garfield 6y ago

Hmm that's a bit disappointing.. I feel like Ive and Cook could be wrong on this one. If desktop/mobile is an appropriate parallel, then it seems like they've decided to undercut their desktop machine to have the "ergonomics" of a mobile device while still not being mobile. If the VR headset is a stationary experience, then what's wrong with having a hub sitting around nearby?

fossuser 6y ago
I’d guess the AR headset is more interesting to Apple and probably not a stationary experience. The goal is new UI extension of iOS similar to the watch. Eventually making it so you don’t need to pull out your iPhone to interact with software (and the world) at all. Probably at first will be notifications and such. No idea if there’s any truth to this video, but it makes sense to me that Apple would focus on this as the next platform when the hardware becomes possible: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5J_6oMMG7Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5J_6oMMG7Y I think there’s huge potential for a massive shift in capability if this is done right.

karpodiem 6y ago

I agree that having this tethered to a stationary hub inhibits the scope of this being a device which can be worn anywhere. If anything I could see the iPhone acting as the hub (for the first few generations at least) in the same way the iPhone is the hub for the Apple Watch. Not sure what protocol they would use to communicate, Bluetooth doesn't have the bandwidth and Wifi is still a power hog.

cwe 6y ago
UWB that is in the iPhone 11's.

artfulhippo 6y ago

Ive is right. Thin (aka chic aka sexy) is on-brand for Apple. Glasses you can wear all day outside are a marvelous way to augment human capabilities. A bulky headset that only works with a desktop or game console is a niche product. VR gaming is mostly compelling to people who are sexually unfulfilled. Apple builds products that are desired by attractive rich people, which is key to having premium brand pricing power and therefore high profit margins.

bserge 6y ago
Ngl, had us in the first half :D
kaibee 6y ago
> VR gaming is mostly compelling to people who are sexually unfulfilled. Apple builds products that are desired by attractive rich people, which is key to having premium brand pricing power and therefore high profit margins. There's... a lot to unpack here.
- throwaway98797 6y ago
  <<VR gaming is mostly compelling to people who are sexually unfulfilled.>> <<Apple builds products that are desired by attractive rich people>> Ergo atteractive rich people are sexually unfulfilled. Scratching my head here.
short_sells_poo 6y ago
> VR gaming is mostly compelling to people who are sexually unfulfilled. Ouch. You can't just throw statements like that around without any supporting evidence. Where did you get that from? Can you link any studies?
vorpalhex 6y ago
> VR gaming is mostly compelling to people who are sexually unfulfilled. I would dramatically question that, both because most of the VR experiences that are well rated currently are entirely non-sexual and because most of the VR sex experiences are pretty disappointing. Even a really expensive setup is basically just a mostly non-interactive 2d video wraparound. Though it was funny to put my wife in one (with her consent) and hear her responses.

mark_l_watson 6y ago

I think Tim Cook and Apple made the correct decision. I own an Oculus Quest, which is fairly light weight and totally self contained while my Brother owns a more capable Oculus device that is tethered to his gaming PC. I use my Quest many times a day, often for just a few minutes at a time. It is so easy to get up from my desk, and jump into a ping pong game, enjoy a favorite part of Vader Immortal, randomly try a VR art piece, etc., etc. I don’t want to spend huge amounts of time on the quest, rather to just use it the way I would take a walk or a hike. I love the Oculus Quest, and if Apple sells something better with good content, then I am all in.

zitterbewegung 6y ago
Swapping out the SOC from an Oculus quest to an a13 or higher would be extremely compelling for me to buy. Other than ease of use Oculus Quest the price point (sub 500) might be another factor but OTOH I don't think that's a big factor if its an apple product.
- whatch 6y ago
  > Swapping out the SOC from an Oculus quest to an a13 or higher would be extremely compelling for me to buy. I agree, but I believe the battery will need upgrade as well
  - entropicdrifter 6y ago
    It might help the balance of the system to put the battery at the back of the headband, like this: https://uploadvr.com/vr-power-battery-quest/ https://uploadvr.com/vr-power-battery-quest/
xwdv 6y ago
Agreed, since picking up a Quest my use of tethered VR has dropped significantly. Self contained VR is the way forward IMO. I would only use tethered VR for seated simulations such as flight or racing, which would typically use more peripherals anyway.

forgingahead 6y ago

The article ended abruptly for me, which was confusing. (Bloomberg has this weird black magic used by news sites where articles blend into one another, leading to buggy behaviour.) Here's the full text in archive: https://archive.vn/Ue3Kp https://archive.vn/Ue3Kp

shadowtree 6y ago

The same post-Jobs Ive that caused the keyboard fiasco. Some of the decisions made under him should be re-visited it seems, his product instincts beyond the design were flat out wrong.

benologist 6y ago
Ive checked out ages ago, and even before that Apple Park must have occupied most of his last decade. Meanwhile the butterfly keyboard is rumored to return next week so maybe we should start blaming the executives who actually run the company? https://www.macrumors.com/2020/06/12/arm-based-macs-12-inch-macbook-revival/ https://www.macrumors.com/2020/06/12/arm-based-macs-12-inch-...
skellera 6y ago
Seriously, his reasoning for not needing better graphics in VR is out of touch with the purpose of VR. I now wish he left sooner so they would’ve focused on the best possible VR experience.
- m463 6y ago
  Both VR and AR require a lot of horsepower. I think VR might need less horsepower than AR. I wonder if either of them will be as generally useful for a wide group of people day to day. I don't mean useful as in apps, I mean tolerated by eyes and brain.

intopieces 6y ago

It’s interesting that Ive had hesitations about building a product that takes the user out of reality. I also have that hesitation about VR; that is, I don’t like the fact that it takes up my entire field of vision, and I am hesitant to adopt a new screen technology when I don’t feel like I have properly reckoned with the screens I already have. I hope that Apple will have Screen Time on this device.

gfodor 6y ago
Ultimately we will have software modulation of all photons hitting your retina, in hardware packages that are unobtrusive. To not be aiming there seems to be swimming against the tide.
- intopieces 6y ago
  It certainly makes sense for Apple to aim there. But I'm not sure that I want to go there. Perhaps I will have to in order to keep up.
  - gfodor 6y ago
    Yup, I’m afraid so.

deltron3030 6y ago

Do you remember the Avegant Glyph VR headset from a few years ago? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEmVyMm8opE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEmVyMm8opE Apple should perfect this idea instead, make it look like a normal set of highend overear headphones from the outside, and integrate a AR screen into the headband. This form factor is a winner for bulkier AR/VR headsets because people already wear headphones around their necks, people are used to seing other people wearing them like that. Meaning that one of the biggest barriers of adoption (where to store it, looks) is already solved. A portable mobile cinema/AR viewer, and a Macbook/Ipad auxiliar screen through USB-C would be enough for a v1. They'd have the capability to integrate powerful technology into such a package.

bsanr 6y ago
The Glyph was simply a display with speakers. I agree that the form factor visually pleasing, and they weren't uncomfortable to wear (save for extended periods, where it was easier than even with VR sets to develop dry eyes), but adding in everything necessary to make them a true AR/VR headset with inside-out 6DoF tracking, let alone the SoaC, would have drastically changed its shape and size.
- deltron3030 6y ago
  It doesn't have to be a "true AR/VR headset" to become a hit if it can enhance activities like coding or media production on a mobile device by providing a screen alternative.

bsanr 6y ago

If this is really what went down, it's highly disappointing, and potentially a market-losing choice akin to Microsoft chopping off the internal processing for the original Kinect (which left it far too under-powered to perform its core competencies). VR is already computationally-intensive; adding in the features necessary for AR UX and still trying to achieve a compelling experience on, essentially, mobile hardware is a fool's game (ask anyone who has been underwhelmed by Magic Leap and, again, Microsoft's offerings). From a performance perspective, perhaps the latency of using an wireless connection to a hub was concerning, but if it wasn't, that would have been the only way to achieve the kind of exceptional performance expected of a market-defining product launch of an Apple product. They really shot themselves in the foot on this one, for a guy who was about to jump ship anyway. >For Ive, who left last year after almost three decades at the company, a more realistic experience was potentially problematic: He didn’t want Apple promoting technology that would take people out of the real world. And, on a philosophical level, that's not his decision to make. People build artificial worlds to suit or make up for their imperfections; that's just who we are as a species. I notice that those who are successful in the real-life social or corporate world are often horrified at the prospect of those not being central to the average person's experience, but the truth is that they're just as manufactured and distracting from "reality" as anything else. What is reality? I would say, "The base layers of Maslow's hierarchy," with everything above being artifice. Apple's contemporaries have shown that one doesn't need a false 3D overlay of their apartment to be swayed by the unreal; all you need is a willing mind and a text editor/reader. The problem is therefore orthogonal to the medium, and instead a matter of mental self-regulation of the near-limitless bounds of our imaginations. Let's get that figured out and stop trying to hold technology back.

_bxg1 6y ago

I have to side with Ive here. Apple is not a gaming company, and that's the only consumer motive I could see for a bulky headset that's tethered to a base station. Any other use would be pure novelty. Plus, the already-small market is being well-served by traditional VR headsets. But a new wearable - a lifestyle product, slim and stylish enough to go anywhere and slide into a pocket if need be - is right up Apple's alley. On top of that, there's the incredibly obvious solution of pairing it to the user's iPhone for heavy-lifting, making use of those absurdly powerful mobile chips and gaining a new source of ecosystem synergy (or lock-in, depending on your perspective) in the process. It's shocking to me that someone holding such high regard in Apple could be so out of touch.

twoodfin 6y ago
Indeed. I'm surprised they're even trying the "stationary" product rather than just working directly towards a glasses version of the Watch. Gurman's sources are good enough that I imagine he has the narrative right, but this sounds a little bit like the iPad / iPhone evolution in retrospect: As I understand the history, the iPad was actually under development first, but it became obvious that the better initial market to target with the technology was smartphones. It wouldn't shock me if they belatedly have the same revelation again. Maybe they have sold themselves on a kind of "meet in the middle" strategy, where major YoY improvements in AR-enhanced smartphones build a market for mobile-focused apps, while the HUD technology is ramped up and refined in an environment where you don't worry so much about power and portability. But again, if I were Apple, I'd stick to mobile and wait until they are ready to leapfrog everyone else rather than try to build a market with awkward enthusiast tech.

dharma1 6y ago

Tethering the headset to an iPhone in your back pocket to offload the processing still makes the most sense to me. By the time this thing comes out, iPhone 13 or 14 will be pretty powerful, and most people already own one so the headset can be a lot cheaper and more lightweight. Wireless tethering would be best, but a thin wire would be fine too, I'd probably prefer that to having a radio on my temple all the time. I wonder what kind of display tech they are planning to use - laser projection or something else? I've been seeing tiny 1" OLED displays from China lately with 2560x2560 resolution on Alibaba, pretty cool. But of course they block your vision, unlike a projector.

istorical 6y ago
The main problem with this approach is you decimate your phone's battery life anytime you use it as a remote processing unit for VR/AR, at least in the case of Samsung Gear VR that's what John Carmack learned. Users end up having to calculate whether they'd rather use the VR device or have more spare battery to get them through the day / until next charge.

victor106 6y ago

> He started building his team in late 2015, and what grew into a 1,000-strong group of engineers There were about 30 people in the original iPhone team. Something tells me larger teams find it hard to bring out innovations faster. https://www.theverge.com/2017/6/13/15782200/one-device-secret-history-iphone-brian-merchant-book-excerpt https://www.theverge.com/2017/6/13/15782200/one-device-secre...

davee5 6y ago
Apple has been working on glasses at least since 2006 and perhaps earlier, far longer than this article indicates. Perhaps there's not continuity in these projects, but I suspect an R&D team or two has been working on this for over a decade. Whether or not you still believe it, Apple generally releases new new products when they're ready. "Apple started working on an augmented reality headset at least as early as 2006, but put the idea on ice because it seemed a mere curiosity compared to the iPhone. The possibility of some sort of iGlass device was confirmed by Tony Fadell, the former iPod division head who is now the CEO of Nest Labs, during an interview for the oral history." https://www.fastcompany.com/3018060/apples-iglasses-are-real-heres-why-you-might-never-see-them https://www.fastcompany.com/3018060/apples-iglasses-are-real... https://www.computerworld.com/article/2474968/innovation--apple-was-developing-google-glass-like-prototypes-in-2006.html https://www.computerworld.com/article/2474968/innovation--ap...

kgin 6y ago

The untethered headset makes sense from the perspective of Apple’s history. One of Apple’s core tenets is that convenience trumps everything. Often to the chagrin on power users. Always to the chagrin of spec lovers. But it has worked very well for them until now.

neonate 6y ago

https://archive.vn/Ue3Kp https://archive.vn/Ue3Kp

mrfusion 6y ago

What does this mean to me as an apple prosumer? When will this come out? What will it be like?

ohazi 6y ago
More like Google Glass and less like Microsoft Hololens / Magic Leap One

modeless 6y ago

If Apple had been first to market with a "wireless tether" VR headset that could have been interesting. A straight Quest competitor seems like an uninspired choice, especially as Apple has never been great at gaming, and the market seems less than Apple-sized. AR glasses on the other hand they could bust wide open, but it all depends on the display technology. Literally nothing else matters unless the display is a huge breakthrough. I doubt that it will be good enough by 2023, unless Apple goes for a niche market first and expands wide a few generations later. But that doesn't really seem their style.

sjroot 6y ago
Apple doesn’t care about first to market. They will take the time necessary to refine a huge breakthrough.

baybal2 6y ago

I have heard quite different info from one man working at Apple supplier. Apple for long tried to license display tech from Beijing university, a solid state microled chip with microlenses, but they never agreed on lump sump payment Apple wanted, despite it being "n-times the price" of their whole IP trading business. So, it became a blocker, with relationship souring, and them resorting to "patenting around," poaching their engineers, and other nasties. They tried to recreate the chip by themselves, but Beijing uni got a tip of it, and claimed that Apple is now "IP tainted" by what they saw under NDA, and them hiring their engineers. And so, Apple went on developing "ordinary" transparent VR glasses instead. A company called Kura is said now to reuse the same chip from Beijing university IC company in their own take on what Apple tried originally.

pwthornton 6y ago
I'm not sure if I'd put a lot of stock in an Apple supplier knowing more than people who talk to internal engineers. The idea of a combined VR/AR device sounds silly, and I think Ive is right: AR is where Apple should be focusing right now. There is something there for AR, and Apple has been laying the groundwork for AR for years with iOS and iPad OS. VR is very much stuck in a niche right now, and it seems like it will be for awhile.
- baybal2 6y ago
  What they say about N421 is pretty much is what they were saying a generic "transparent VR" or "lightweight AR" display would be, and what the technology would allow. Think of Google Glass sans camera, and creepiness. For anything else, there is simply no practical tech on this planet. The lowest common denominator for "a real world usable AR" is well known: an emissive display, and a simple reflective projection system on some semitransparent medium/mirror dots/viewfinder-overlay-like prisms. No magic. Pretty much everything else requires battery packs bigger than the glasses themselves, especially if you want daylight visibility. > I'm not sure if I'd put a lot of stock in an Apple supplier knowing more than people who talk to internal engineers You will be surprised how much RnD stuff Apple outsources around in China. Maybe they design their products in California, but they definitely engineer them here in Shenzhen. I had hard time understanding why they were so skittish talking about their RnD centres in China, and even once denying their existence, when the whole city knew of them, and where they are.

zmmmmm 6y ago

Any company with a VR product that didn't react to the Oculus Quest would be making a mistake in my view. It is suboptimal in nearly every way, but the first headset in my view that is "good enough" in every single way to be a blockbuster hit. The strategy for Apple of simply starting with the Quest and using its superior chips and overall hardware expertise to make it twice as fast and half the weight, while tying it into the iOS ecosystem should be extremely straight forward and basically make them the dominant VR player overnight. I imagine that for someone like Rockwell this isn't nearly as exciting as introducing a revolutionary tech breakthrough. But Apple has never been good at that. They are good at significantly raising the bar on what other people have already done badly. One giant question I have in this space is, where the hell is Google? Are they really so burned by Google Glass that they are going to give up on an area that has a small but realistic chance of being a large part of the future of both consumer and business computing?

akhilcacharya 6y ago
They straight up gave up on Daydream VR - the Pixel 4 doesn’t even support it! Really poor timing considering I think the Quest (for mobile) and Alyx (for tethered content) are an inflection point for the medium imho.
vl 6y ago
Google developed VR headset internally for years, but in typical Google fashion this seems to be half-assed effort that didn’t go anywhere.
- runawaybottle 6y ago
  Stadia seems like such a good tie in for a VR headset. Not sure what they are thinking here.
jkestner 6y ago
Google did put a couple hundred million into Magic Leap. If they weren’t feeling burned before...

Geee 6y ago

Bicycle for the mind. That should be the primary vision for the product. They shouldn't be thinking about market segments or if it looks cool enough. Just make the next step in human-computer interaction. Make history. “When we invented the personal computer, we created a new kind of bicycle... a new man-machine partnership... a new generation of entrepreneurs.” — Steve Jobs, c. 1980

m463 6y ago
I think Steve Jobs would have sold it internally. And gotten people to work together by hook or by crook. People don't realize Steve Jobs was the great integrator. The ipod was a great achievement, but it was dwarfed by his ability getting the music people and the computer people together.

Razengan 6y ago

By the way, here's an example of cool everyday-AR could be, if done right: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fm-4GPSnj94 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fm-4GPSnj94 The killer applications of AR would be when glasses are as ubiquitous as smartphones and display the same virtual world for everyone: Imagine walking outside and seeing your neighbor's favorite fictional character mowing their lawn, because that's the avatar they chose to display themselves to other AR users. Or seeing kids battling their Pokémon in the park. :)

hn_throwaway_99 6y ago
That YouTube video you showed, though, just left me wondering "why?" I mean, it looked cool, but we've all basically got our phones always in reach. If anything, I'd like to get rid of plastic cards, not get more that would require glasses and an unintuitive interface to figure out what to do. It just looked like a million other AR demos I've seen: gimmicky with less utility than what I've got now. I can imagine a place for AR, but "worse interface for something I can do right now on my phone" is not it.
- Razengan 6y ago
  > gimmicks > worse interface for something I can do right now on my [computer] Were quite literally the arguments people used against the advent of smartphones. :) What problems do you think smartphones solved? People were not exactly clamoring for them. Why do you think the Apple Watch became so successful? When you don't HAVE to hold a phone to be able to do something, you wouldn't want to. In fact, I could see smartphones being supplanted by a combination of smartwatch + AR glasses.
  - postingawayonhn 6y ago
    > What problems do you think smartphones solved? Mobility
mirthflat83 6y ago
this blew my mind.