14 ms·

The saga of Apple’s troubled mixed reality headset

123 points by andyjohnson0 4y ago

Jemm 4y ago
Designers, like Ive, should not be left unchecked. As part of an overall team they have value, but they should never be given carte-blanche as Ive had.
- JKCalhoun 4y ago
  I was surprised to find myself agreeing with the point of view ascribed to Ive. My takeaway though is that the device itself and how it should look/work is not obvious, and that is a bad thing. For a device like the iPhone, iPod a few people kicking around ideas over sushi could very quickly (and with wild enthusiasm, no doubt) come to agree on the basic form, basic functionality. If our VR-future has to be shoe-horned into existence, maybe it was not to be. If anything, I want to see "the cyber" go away, not become more pervasive.
- jitl 4y ago
  On the other hand, no one has released a VR system with mass market appeal. I have and enjoy a Valve Index, but it’s stayed in the box for more than a year because I can’t figure out a socially viable spot for it in my new house. Maybe Ive’s influence on this product will make a big difference.
  - puranjay 4y ago
    VR seems to have an insurmountable motion sickness problem. I tried the Quest with a dozen friends and half of them felt sick enough within minutes to never try it again.
    - _jaej 4y ago
      You just need to start with the basics, take a break the moment you feel ill, and keep going. Within a few weeks most people are entirely used to it.
      - kalleboo 4y ago
        That may be, but you're going to need an extremely compelling use case for people to go through with that.
      - puranjay 4y ago
        But…why? Why would you persist with something that makes you sick even when the enthusiasts admit they use it once or twice a month?
        andybak 4y ago
        Not sure who you’re speaking to but I use it several times a week.
        DonHopkins 4y ago
        Puking doesn't stop some people from drinking!
        krrrh 4y ago
        Unlike drinking, using a VR set won’t help you get laid.
        pharke 4y ago
        Sorry, those people aren't enthusiasts. There are people that spend 8 hours a day in VR. Hell, there are a lot of people that fall asleep in VR.
        Deritiod 4y ago
        Huh? I only know one person who used bis VR set extensively like for 2-3 month and then falled back to play egoshooters. 'a lot of people' != Not market relevant
        pharke 4y ago
        That's cool but try jumping in to Pavlov or VRChat on a Friday night and then tell me there isn't a thriving community. It's not mainstream but it definitely isn't dead.
    - imglorp 4y ago
      This might be especially true if they're prioritizing aesthetic concerns over performance: per OP, they axed the compute-heavy base station. Carmak talks about increasing frame rate and increasing depth calculation as mitigators against sickness. BTW I feel sick merely playing Quake 1 at arm's length from a small monitor. https://www.techradar.com/news/oculus-might-have-a-fix-to-end-vr-motion-sickness-for-good https://www.techradar.com/news/oculus-might-have-a-fix-to-en... https://www.lifewire.com/how-new-tech-could-prevent-vr-motion-sickness-5181084 https://www.lifewire.com/how-new-tech-could-prevent-vr-motio...
    - _flux 4y ago
      May I ask, what kind of experiences did they try on the device? It seems well-accepted hypothesis that having artificial locomotion in VR can induce motion sickness (cases where the VR body moves but your own body doesn't), whereas with "sit", "stay still" or "walk around IRL" (and even "teleport around") scenarios are highly unlikely to cause it. There is a still a lot of experiences left in the latter scenario, though it does exclude driving games (in particular if you don't see the cockpit) or first-person shooting-and-moving-around games. And then the worst thing to do with newcomers is to put them down for a ride in a VR rollercoaster.
    - pharke 4y ago
      It's only insurmountable if you never try it again. There is a learning curve where some people feal quite sick at first and then slowly get used to it. You can mitigate this with "training wheels" settings in the experience like blinkers, cages, hiding the VR body, and alternate locomotion schemes like teleporting. Some people even swear by just setting up a fan to blow air on them while they're using VR.
    - zmmmmm 4y ago
      I'm a bit sceptical of this comment. I've probably shown mine to ~30 people and not a single one had motion sickness with any of the "safe" experiences, assuming the device is adjusted properly (IPD). If you stick them on a roller-coaster or a super laggy app as their first experience then yeah that's going to be a problem. But for safe experiences - I think there is a percentage of people who experience disorientation or nausea but it's certainly not half (maybe 10% or so).
      - redisman 4y ago
        I got nauseous after a few hours of Half Life Alyx. Until then my test was going smoothly. I would imagine most games where you can move freely would be fairly bad for me. I even took a Dramamine to try to play some more which worked but wasn’t something I’d want to do often
        zmmmmm 4y ago
        Half-life Alyx is pretty bad actually. Even I as a veteran get a tiny bit queasy with that occasionally - definitely wouldn't class it as one of my "safe" experiences. But even then "after a few hours" is pretty long really. Most people wouldn't stay in VR that long anyway. Native Quest games are the best as they are entirely on-device with no latency anywhere.
  - lostgame 4y ago
    >> On the other hand, no one has released a VR system with mass market appeal. Quest 2 would like a word with you?
    - dreamcompiler 4y ago
      I have both Quest models. They were fun for about a week and now they just collect dust. I've forgotten I own them. Part of my problem with Quest is the "ick" factor of knowing that FB is looking over my shoulder whenever I turn the thing on. Giving up your privacy seems to be the price of just about every cool technology nowadays, and it means the tech has to be absolutely spectacular to make me pay that privacy price. My Tesla is sufficiently spectacular. Quest is not.
    - jitl 4y ago
      Quest 2 has impressive sales figures – 8 million in 2021, which is a quarter of Apple Watch at 32 million the same year. But the market for Quest 2 is very much games – I don't see much application outside that area, nor have I heard of break-through must-have or games.
  - bnolsen 4y ago
    The Oculus quest 2 definitely has fit that bill. It has game console level sales. How truly useful and confirtable it is may be questionable, but it certainly supports a market.
    - ceeplusplus 4y ago
      But not game console level software sales. Xbox has 1) recurring revenue from online subscriptions 2) recurring GamePass revenue 3) a huge library of games and gamers who tend to buy many games often. Average software spend for Quest 2 is estimated at $125/user [1], which is a mere 2 games without DLC on Xbox. By contrast I'd be willing to bet software revenue/user for Xbox is well in the hundreds. [1] https://arinsider.co/2021/08/02/how-many-quest-2s-sold-in-q2/ https://arinsider.co/2021/08/02/how-many-quest-2s-sold-in-q2...
      - Auracle 4y ago
        Quest games are also fairly cheap compared to console games as a whole, so they might be somewhat equivalent in overall software purchased. Also, a lot of people are still hopping on the Quest/VR train so I would expect that number to go up.
    - astrange 4y ago
      Are the users actually using it? Nerd dads are famous for buying anything that might run an NES emulator, then not using it after it turns out their kids have better things to do than listen to square waves.
    - Deritiod 4y ago
      I bought an HTC vive pro + wireless + index Ctrl. I did that to play around as I was playing with 3d programming and I'm a nerd. And while friends and family know that and a few tried it out for a little bit and liked it, no one cares. Which is fine but it is a gimmick. I was hoping it would get more traction with real life training like how to use a lathe but nothing really came out or is in some internal companies.
- na85 4y ago
  Indeed, it's clear that Ive hasn't been a positive force on Apple's products for a while. His pathological fetish for thinness at all costs resulted in objectively inferior products. Apple can and does make mistakes, for example the touch bar, and the MacBook keyboard. If Ive is involved I predict that this product will experience a brief but intense surge in popularity based primarily on the novelty factor and social media influencers followed by a rapid decline into irrelevance.
Angostura 4y ago
"A partial indication of the probable issues involved in the saga". Not quite as snappy a headline, I agree.
- jeromegv 4y ago
  Even the saga term is a strong term. At the end of the day Apple did the right call so far, not launch a crappy product. They didn't go the Google way of having to launch and then discontinue it. I'd rather have them spend years figuring it out instead of launching a product with no clear goal without any problem to solve.
  - smoldesu 4y ago
    How can we say "Apple did the right call" without knowing what their call was, knowing if this article is true, knowing what the product even looks like, or even knowing how successful the product was relative to the rest of their lineup? For all we know, this project is scrapped and dead.
    - internet2000 4y ago
      If they launch something that’s garbage, that was the wrong call. If they don’t, it was the right call.
      - smoldesu 4y ago
        And what if they don't release something that could have changed the world? Would "shelving" the iPhone be the right move too?
drcode 4y ago
The correct solution to the vr isolation problem is to have passthrough AR, then digitally remove the helmets of the other people in the same room. That way, as long as everyone is wearing a helmet, it looks like no one is wearing a helmet.
- jitl 4y ago
  > as long as everyone is wearing a helmet Sounds like a good solution for a low probability situation. Eye visibility for normal humans is much more practical than issuing every human a VR system and requiring they wear it at all times to maintain the illusion.
- chii 4y ago
  why shouldn't the other people be rendered as an avatar they choose like in VR chat?
  - Deritiod 4y ago
    It's inhuman. It's gimmicky? I'm really curios of Fashion conces people really like avatars. I don't think so and I also don't think that the apple brand is a good fit for it. Real life Avatars with light enhancements will also be weird I think Let's see.
aaron695 4y ago
AR simply has no known value to users, the best SciFi has to offer is sex ads while walking down the street. AR is technically impossible with current and near future tech. All these companies are lying and faking and delaying to collect $ while people like HN are stupid enough to believe in them. Zuckerberg's latest video blanked out the "AR" glasses. Google also lied and used fake demos glasses in theirs. Magic Leap = lol The far easier and probably useful VR has gigantuous issues to move forward. For instance there's no way to create content. $100 million games go to half a billion dollar games. People don't want to move their heads when relaxing. At best it might be useful at work where people are forced to do things but that's also contentious, most people don't even want to turn the Zoom camera on.
- JKCalhoun 4y ago
  Yes but, you're asking a hammer salesman to see that a problem does not involve nails. Tech wants to tech. Like you though, both figuratively and literally, I'm not buying VR.
- jsjohnst 4y ago
  All of your recent posts showed as dead, but I vouched for this one so I can reply as I very much disagree with one part. > AR is technically impossible with current and near future tech. This is simply not true, there’s been numerous AR products built (just not runaway success stories). IMHO, it’s not “technically impossible”, it’s “prohibitively expensive” generally to get the experience that’s been hyped.
  - rswail 4y ago
    F-35 pilots would also tend to disagree, sure, their helmets have been through a lot of revision and development, but they do provide (apparently) good enhancements for pilots coming from more conventional (eg HUD) environments.
  - aaron695 4y ago
  - 4y ago
xoa 4y ago
I was most surprised to find out that wearable displays haven't been a top front and center strategic priority from day 1, and instead they were thinking about the stupid ass car thing: >Apple CEO Tim Cook has been relatively hands-off from the product compared to others like the iPhone... The Information's sources say that Apple's mixed reality efforts began almost accidentally when the company purchased a German AR startup called Metaio to use some of its technology on Project Titan, its self-driving car project. Which is just wild and highly contrary to my expectations. It's been obvious for ages that, while quite a ways from hitting the tipping point, wearable displays are the natural next big disruption in the personal electronics space following in the steps of the PC, notebooks, smartphones and tablets. A retinal scanning display will be able to hit the limits of human visual acuity while also being portable, which completely obsoletes every single other display we use and has massive implications for a lot of our basic modes of interaction. Suddenly there is no connection between "screen size" and device, where you are etc, it's just a matter of tradeoffs with how much power is behind it. With an industry standard even embedded devices could have virtual "displays" with lots of info. If you think about the form factor of nearly everything portable we use, it's "a display, with stuff attached to it" (either attached to the back in the case of phones/tablets or on a hinge to a rectangle that otherwise matches the screen in the case of notebooks). The display bit almost completely defines the basics of how portable it is, how it's used, and the limits on thermal dissipation and roughly how much energy it can have. But a wearable display once again abstracts the human-computer visual interface part from everything else, which means single rectangles are no longer required. Belts, smoother ovoids that can be more easily pocketed, and who knows what else all become possible ways to hold enhanced computation/storage beyond what the wearable itself can do. And as someone enters LAN range (or sits down and plugs in even) of more computation power (in the form of a desktop computer say, or networked computers) there could be seamless switchover. And it's not as if this is 50 years in the future either, the pieces have been steadily coming together. Products like the RETISSA [0] demonstrate the potential that a company with Apple's resources could get to work polishing. The opening up of 6 GHz spectrum and WiFi 7+ along with a long awaited new shift in networking means LAN data rates are there too. To say there are implications for, oh, products like the iPhone, iPad, and Macbooks (or even iMacs) is a bit of an understatement. With enormous irony if anything Apple's heavily neglected desktop section might be one of the ones that'd best survive. But whomever gets it right and gets the ecosystem going has the potential to really mess up established players. Given how Apple accomplished multiple disruptions and has repeatedly stated they're alert to it and the importance of being willing to go after their own cash cows early before someone else does it, I'd sort of assumed in the background this was one of their key strategic projects even if it was like a 10 year one. It's fascinating to find that no, actually not! And Ive's influence without the leash of Jobs to make sure form and function stayed linked really seems to have been pretty toxic. Whatever Cooks' other strengths keeping that reigned in doesn't seem to have been one of them. I guess the forces of organizational inertia are always incredibly powerful. ---- 0: https://en.retissa.biz/ https://en.retissa.biz/
dontbenebby 4y ago
I had a low tech cyberpunk rig set up (Sony noise cancelling headphones + 4K screen on a laptop rather than an expensive, large tv and fancy speakers) I am not sold at all on "VR". It's one of those things, like "Firefox OS", that drained Mozilla's coffers when they should have focused on designing their own Android build the way we went from Knoppix[1] to Kali[2] in a very short time. (I wish I could have stayed, but my Chrome loving supervisor who told me he doesn't even use the browser decided I didn't do enough work to be hired on full time before he moved from Brooklyn to Switzerland) [1] https://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=knoppix https://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=knoppix [2] https://www.kali.org/get-kali/ https://www.kali.org/get-kali/
- perryizgr8 4y ago
  > drained Mozilla's coffers It will take a loooong time to drain Apple's money vault, though. They can keep spending stupid money on bullshit projects for years before anyone even notices.
KVFinn 4y ago
The cost of the external eye displays seem absolutely crazy. Two extra external displays in raw hardware. But worse, they are on the front in exactly the place you want to place the passthrough cameras, so now you have to do extra image processing to virtually reposition the input as if it were on the eyes. So it makes passthrough dev more difficult. It must be extremely compelling to see those eye screens in action. It must be selling onlookers on the device. That's the only that could justify that much effort?
- jdlshore 4y ago
  I had assumed a single oval-shaped display and headset, along with notches for cameras. I also don’t see slightly displaced cameras as causing a significant problem. Brains are pretty adaptable to vision changes.
  - KVFinn 4y ago
    In the linked article in The Information, they talk about the screens making getting the passthrough working more challenging.
- nsriv 4y ago
  EDIT: If meant to be used untethered, those screens would also soak up battery.
Geee 4y ago
Productivity is correlated with display size, and VR should be the next step in productivity, because it allows your whole space to become a display and an interface. When paired with powerful hardware and innovative software it should be the next step in computing. Therefore, VR should be a replacement for large displays in productive work, not a device that everyone is wearing outside or casually watching videos with. The use cases are professional; such as programming, CAD, design etc. I believe that properly implemented VR would allow utilizing full visual-spatial capabilities of our brains, totally eliminating the process of hunting for files and switching windows. It would be possible to dive into code and see it all at once like an intricate factory. Our brains are capable of navigating very complex environments, but this capability is lost when its viewed through a small window. I wish they'd explore this area, rather than go for a mass market appeal. What kind of software is possible, and how much productivity can be increased with maxed out hardware with high resolution VR? I'm not sure if 4K resolution with a M2 chip is powerful enough for a truly innovative product. Maybe it is, but there's still room for a "pro" product. I don't think there's a use case for glasses-type product, with a watch-like functionality and environmental AR which would show information pop-ups everywhere. We already have information overload, and we don't need any more of that.
- mumblemumble 4y ago
  That sounds absolutely exhausting to me. Perhaps, in a lab setting, doing straightforward, focused tasks like the ones they use in these productivity studies, I could sustain a productivity boost long enough for the researcher to get a two-tailed p<0.05. Make me do it in real life, though, 40 hours a week, week after week after week, and I expect I would burn out very quickly. I like my work well enough, but I don't think I want to actually stick my whole head inside of it.
  - DangitBobby 4y ago
    Maybe not all the time, but it would be great for me to be able to travel and not have to worry about taking a huge productivity hit without my desk and monitors.
qgin 4y ago
Have to say I agree with Jony Ive on all of these points. The idea of an AR wearable that is tethered to a fixed base station is so very lame. Why even bother with AR when you can only augment the reality that is in your office or bedroom? Also the eye-view outer display is essential for situations where one person is using the goggles but others aren’t. How unsettling would it be for someone to look at you, be able to see you, but for their upper face to completely obscured by goggles? How could you have an in person face-to-face conversation with someone like that?
- ttul 4y ago
  I believe it’s most likely that Apple will be releasing an untethered device. It would not be Apple if you needed a wire and a separate box. A 4K display per eye, a powerful and efficient SoC on the latest node, and some really fine industrial design will surely be within Apple’s reach. Everyone will have to build apps for this thing. If it’s real, it will be every bit as successful as iPhone.
  - redisman 4y ago
    Maybe it’ll tether to the iPhone. It already has all that and just needs a display
- null_shift 4y ago
  The fixed base station is a fundamentally different tradeoff for AR vs VR. Base station for AR would be detrimental, as you inherently want to explore and interact with the world around you. For most VR use cases that is not the case, and I can see the argument for the benefits of a base station (higher performance) outweighing the costs (limited movement).
  - treesknees 4y ago
    One solution to this for AR is using "fog computing", where your AR device may offload its computation to a node on the local network that's more powerful but also not as far away (in terms of latency) as a cloud server. Perhaps with the continued adoption of UWB 5G, those AR basestations could exist at cell towers or in local establishments - think about a clothing store running fog nodes to allow AR users to visualize wearing different clothes as they see them in the store. I haven't read more than the abstract, but it seems there is some good research going into this. It must be years off however, as we barely have LTE networks in some locations, let-alone UWB 5G to even begin supporting this type of architecture. https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9103475 https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9103475
ttul 4y ago
Apple won’t release this product unless it is mind blowing. If Bloomberg’s reporting is true, then we should all be looking forward to a very cool demo at WWDC and an incredible product some time in 2023. Very few people predicted the iPhone accurately before its launch. And it’s reasonable to say the iPhone blew minds because Apple figured out multitouch AND reduced the latency of the interface to the extend required so that it felt natural to use. If they mail AR in the same way, they will have the next iPhone. I am bullish on the prospect of this happening.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- pharke 4y ago
  I'm not so sure. I think they will deliver something but I have a feeling that Meta is going to beat them to the punch as far as a productivity focused device is concerned. Meta might wind up with most of the market share while Apple trails them although I'm sure that most people who own a MacBook Pro will buy an Apple headset as well. I think this is more of a PC vs Mac situation than it is Android vs iPhone.
  - Petersipoi 4y ago
    I would be shocked if Meta can convince the masses to buy their headset over Apple's. If Meta tries to beat Apple on price, their headset won't be very capable and won't be much different than what is already out there (which the masses aren't interested in). If they try to compete with Apple by releasing a similarly priced and similarly capable headset, Apple wins every time. I think you're underestimating how much people dislike Meta/Facebook/Zuck. And I'm not just referring to techies either. "Normal" people hate them too.
  - dvngnt_ 4y ago
    meta has the head start, but never bet against apple for revenue. VR is still new for casuals. if apple releases new hardware people will buy it and you'll see an explosion of devs creating apps for it.
- 4y ago
moistly 4y ago
I am eternally surprised that Boeing has not developed augmented reality headsets for its maintenance crew. Overlaying specs and instructions onto the components being serviced would be a godsend for productivity, compliance, and personal safety. Edit: ditto for automotive assembly/repair. Power plant maintenance. Basically all complicated engineering fields could make excellent use of AR.
- nsriv 4y ago
  This is the space that Microsoft's HoloLens and to a much lesser degree the prior Google Glass project stepped into.
- p_l 4y ago
  Boeing was involved with industrial version of Google Glass, Microsoft is pushing Hololens heavily in that space as well - in fact you can buy Hololens integrated with safety hat - and there's explicit stuff to integrate with MS ERP stuff. Uptake seems to be mainly in high end civil engineering so far, but a lot of those solutions are things you are not going to read about outside a niche press.
- CamperBob2 4y ago
  I'll never be able to find a reference to it, but I distinctly remember AR goggles being used for aircraft maintenance 10-15 years ago, if not farther back than that. It's a very obvious application, and not a new one at all.
  - moistly 4y ago
    It cheers me to hear that. It’s such a natural high-value application. I’m surprised I haven’t seen articles about it in my geekspace.
whywhywhywhy 4y ago
It’s so telling how much WWDC has been dedicated to ARKit over the past many years yet not a single viable use has been shipped. AR through a phone or iPad is lame and close to useless. Only looks good in video demos till you use it yourself and see how clumsy it is interacting through a tiny window. Very clear they have a headset in mind for all this but are struggling to ship.
steve76 4y ago
nakedgremlin 4y ago
I'm excited overall about these 'leaks' and details surfacing from Apple and Meta. I'm optimistic the AR side will win (versus VR only), but overall, by being shepherded by these big orgs, I expect hardware costs to reduce dramatically for end users. Lower costs will pull in more users and allow us to really design experiences for a wider AR audience.
zmmmmm 4y ago
> an outward-facing screen on the front of the headset that showed images of the wearer's facial expressions and eyes to people around them Quite a juicy tidbit, this is not something I had even contemplated as a possibility. I struggle to imagine how this will work without looking bizarre. And the effect on battery life of doubling the screens would have to be significant.
- angry_octet 4y ago
  If it was a full mask like that clunky iRobot film it would be interesting, but I can't see it working for a half mask with just eye displays. Eye tracking is notoriously hard to de-glitch but they could be using some fancy ML to make it better.
perryizgr8 4y ago
The only way AR truly succeeds is when we figure out how to fit all the tech inside a transparent contact lens. Wearing some headset and looking at a screen inches from your eyes is never going to cut it.
etempleton 4y ago
I wonder what this could be that Apple feels it is close to consumer ready. Apple targets the premium mass market. They do not release products that sell a few million; they release products that sell 10 million or more a year. Anything less is a failure. So either Apple has figured out something really compelling in AR/VR that everyone--not just gamers and nerds--will want, or they are reaching.
- mr_toad 4y ago
  Rumour has it they want to replace the phone.

123 points by andyjohnson0 4y ago

Jemm 4y ago

Designers, like Ive, should not be left unchecked. As part of an overall team they have value, but they should never be given carte-blanche as Ive had.

JKCalhoun 4y ago
I was surprised to find myself agreeing with the point of view ascribed to Ive. My takeaway though is that the device itself and how it should look/work is not obvious, and that is a bad thing. For a device like the iPhone, iPod a few people kicking around ideas over sushi could very quickly (and with wild enthusiasm, no doubt) come to agree on the basic form, basic functionality. If our VR-future has to be shoe-horned into existence, maybe it was not to be. If anything, I want to see "the cyber" go away, not become more pervasive.
jitl 4y ago
On the other hand, no one has released a VR system with mass market appeal. I have and enjoy a Valve Index, but it’s stayed in the box for more than a year because I can’t figure out a socially viable spot for it in my new house. Maybe Ive’s influence on this product will make a big difference.
- puranjay 4y ago
  VR seems to have an insurmountable motion sickness problem. I tried the Quest with a dozen friends and half of them felt sick enough within minutes to never try it again.
  - _jaej 4y ago
    You just need to start with the basics, take a break the moment you feel ill, and keep going. Within a few weeks most people are entirely used to it.
    - kalleboo 4y ago
      That may be, but you're going to need an extremely compelling use case for people to go through with that.
    - puranjay 4y ago
      But…why? Why would you persist with something that makes you sick even when the enthusiasts admit they use it once or twice a month?
      - andybak 4y ago
        Not sure who you’re speaking to but I use it several times a week.
      - DonHopkins 4y ago
        Puking doesn't stop some people from drinking!
        krrrh 4y ago
        Unlike drinking, using a VR set won’t help you get laid.
      - pharke 4y ago
        Sorry, those people aren't enthusiasts. There are people that spend 8 hours a day in VR. Hell, there are a lot of people that fall asleep in VR.
        Deritiod 4y ago
        Huh? I only know one person who used bis VR set extensively like for 2-3 month and then falled back to play egoshooters. 'a lot of people' != Not market relevant
        pharke 4y ago
        That's cool but try jumping in to Pavlov or VRChat on a Friday night and then tell me there isn't a thriving community. It's not mainstream but it definitely isn't dead.
  - imglorp 4y ago
    This might be especially true if they're prioritizing aesthetic concerns over performance: per OP, they axed the compute-heavy base station. Carmak talks about increasing frame rate and increasing depth calculation as mitigators against sickness. BTW I feel sick merely playing Quake 1 at arm's length from a small monitor. https://www.techradar.com/news/oculus-might-have-a-fix-to-end-vr-motion-sickness-for-good https://www.techradar.com/news/oculus-might-have-a-fix-to-en... https://www.lifewire.com/how-new-tech-could-prevent-vr-motion-sickness-5181084 https://www.lifewire.com/how-new-tech-could-prevent-vr-motio...
  - _flux 4y ago
    May I ask, what kind of experiences did they try on the device? It seems well-accepted hypothesis that having artificial locomotion in VR can induce motion sickness (cases where the VR body moves but your own body doesn't), whereas with "sit", "stay still" or "walk around IRL" (and even "teleport around") scenarios are highly unlikely to cause it. There is a still a lot of experiences left in the latter scenario, though it does exclude driving games (in particular if you don't see the cockpit) or first-person shooting-and-moving-around games. And then the worst thing to do with newcomers is to put them down for a ride in a VR rollercoaster.
  - pharke 4y ago
    It's only insurmountable if you never try it again. There is a learning curve where some people feal quite sick at first and then slowly get used to it. You can mitigate this with "training wheels" settings in the experience like blinkers, cages, hiding the VR body, and alternate locomotion schemes like teleporting. Some people even swear by just setting up a fan to blow air on them while they're using VR.
  - zmmmmm 4y ago
    I'm a bit sceptical of this comment. I've probably shown mine to ~30 people and not a single one had motion sickness with any of the "safe" experiences, assuming the device is adjusted properly (IPD). If you stick them on a roller-coaster or a super laggy app as their first experience then yeah that's going to be a problem. But for safe experiences - I think there is a percentage of people who experience disorientation or nausea but it's certainly not half (maybe 10% or so).
    - redisman 4y ago
      I got nauseous after a few hours of Half Life Alyx. Until then my test was going smoothly. I would imagine most games where you can move freely would be fairly bad for me. I even took a Dramamine to try to play some more which worked but wasn’t something I’d want to do often
      - zmmmmm 4y ago
        Half-life Alyx is pretty bad actually. Even I as a veteran get a tiny bit queasy with that occasionally - definitely wouldn't class it as one of my "safe" experiences. But even then "after a few hours" is pretty long really. Most people wouldn't stay in VR that long anyway. Native Quest games are the best as they are entirely on-device with no latency anywhere.
- lostgame 4y ago
  >> On the other hand, no one has released a VR system with mass market appeal. Quest 2 would like a word with you?
  - dreamcompiler 4y ago
    I have both Quest models. They were fun for about a week and now they just collect dust. I've forgotten I own them. Part of my problem with Quest is the "ick" factor of knowing that FB is looking over my shoulder whenever I turn the thing on. Giving up your privacy seems to be the price of just about every cool technology nowadays, and it means the tech has to be absolutely spectacular to make me pay that privacy price. My Tesla is sufficiently spectacular. Quest is not.
  - jitl 4y ago
    Quest 2 has impressive sales figures – 8 million in 2021, which is a quarter of Apple Watch at 32 million the same year. But the market for Quest 2 is very much games – I don't see much application outside that area, nor have I heard of break-through must-have or games.
- bnolsen 4y ago
  The Oculus quest 2 definitely has fit that bill. It has game console level sales. How truly useful and confirtable it is may be questionable, but it certainly supports a market.
  - ceeplusplus 4y ago
    But not game console level software sales. Xbox has 1) recurring revenue from online subscriptions 2) recurring GamePass revenue 3) a huge library of games and gamers who tend to buy many games often. Average software spend for Quest 2 is estimated at $125/user [1], which is a mere 2 games without DLC on Xbox. By contrast I'd be willing to bet software revenue/user for Xbox is well in the hundreds. [1] https://arinsider.co/2021/08/02/how-many-quest-2s-sold-in-q2/ https://arinsider.co/2021/08/02/how-many-quest-2s-sold-in-q2...
    - Auracle 4y ago
      Quest games are also fairly cheap compared to console games as a whole, so they might be somewhat equivalent in overall software purchased. Also, a lot of people are still hopping on the Quest/VR train so I would expect that number to go up.
  - astrange 4y ago
    Are the users actually using it? Nerd dads are famous for buying anything that might run an NES emulator, then not using it after it turns out their kids have better things to do than listen to square waves.
  - Deritiod 4y ago
    I bought an HTC vive pro + wireless + index Ctrl. I did that to play around as I was playing with 3d programming and I'm a nerd. And while friends and family know that and a few tried it out for a little bit and liked it, no one cares. Which is fine but it is a gimmick. I was hoping it would get more traction with real life training like how to use a lathe but nothing really came out or is in some internal companies.
na85 4y ago
Indeed, it's clear that Ive hasn't been a positive force on Apple's products for a while. His pathological fetish for thinness at all costs resulted in objectively inferior products. Apple can and does make mistakes, for example the touch bar, and the MacBook keyboard. If Ive is involved I predict that this product will experience a brief but intense surge in popularity based primarily on the novelty factor and social media influencers followed by a rapid decline into irrelevance.

Angostura 4y ago

"A partial indication of the probable issues involved in the saga". Not quite as snappy a headline, I agree.

jeromegv 4y ago
Even the saga term is a strong term. At the end of the day Apple did the right call so far, not launch a crappy product. They didn't go the Google way of having to launch and then discontinue it. I'd rather have them spend years figuring it out instead of launching a product with no clear goal without any problem to solve.
- smoldesu 4y ago
  How can we say "Apple did the right call" without knowing what their call was, knowing if this article is true, knowing what the product even looks like, or even knowing how successful the product was relative to the rest of their lineup? For all we know, this project is scrapped and dead.
  - internet2000 4y ago
    If they launch something that’s garbage, that was the wrong call. If they don’t, it was the right call.
    - smoldesu 4y ago
      And what if they don't release something that could have changed the world? Would "shelving" the iPhone be the right move too?

drcode 4y ago

The correct solution to the vr isolation problem is to have passthrough AR, then digitally remove the helmets of the other people in the same room. That way, as long as everyone is wearing a helmet, it looks like no one is wearing a helmet.

jitl 4y ago
> as long as everyone is wearing a helmet Sounds like a good solution for a low probability situation. Eye visibility for normal humans is much more practical than issuing every human a VR system and requiring they wear it at all times to maintain the illusion.
chii 4y ago
why shouldn't the other people be rendered as an avatar they choose like in VR chat?
- Deritiod 4y ago
  It's inhuman. It's gimmicky? I'm really curios of Fashion conces people really like avatars. I don't think so and I also don't think that the apple brand is a good fit for it. Real life Avatars with light enhancements will also be weird I think Let's see.

aaron695 4y ago

AR simply has no known value to users, the best SciFi has to offer is sex ads while walking down the street. AR is technically impossible with current and near future tech. All these companies are lying and faking and delaying to collect $ while people like HN are stupid enough to believe in them. Zuckerberg's latest video blanked out the "AR" glasses. Google also lied and used fake demos glasses in theirs. Magic Leap = lol The far easier and probably useful VR has gigantuous issues to move forward. For instance there's no way to create content. $100 million games go to half a billion dollar games. People don't want to move their heads when relaxing. At best it might be useful at work where people are forced to do things but that's also contentious, most people don't even want to turn the Zoom camera on.

JKCalhoun 4y ago
Yes but, you're asking a hammer salesman to see that a problem does not involve nails. Tech wants to tech. Like you though, both figuratively and literally, I'm not buying VR.
jsjohnst 4y ago
All of your recent posts showed as dead, but I vouched for this one so I can reply as I very much disagree with one part. > AR is technically impossible with current and near future tech. This is simply not true, there’s been numerous AR products built (just not runaway success stories). IMHO, it’s not “technically impossible”, it’s “prohibitively expensive” generally to get the experience that’s been hyped.
- rswail 4y ago
  F-35 pilots would also tend to disagree, sure, their helmets have been through a lot of revision and development, but they do provide (apparently) good enhancements for pilots coming from more conventional (eg HUD) environments.
- aaron695 4y ago
- 4y ago

xoa 4y ago

I was most surprised to find out that wearable displays haven't been a top front and center strategic priority from day 1, and instead they were thinking about the stupid ass car thing: >Apple CEO Tim Cook has been relatively hands-off from the product compared to others like the iPhone... The Information's sources say that Apple's mixed reality efforts began almost accidentally when the company purchased a German AR startup called Metaio to use some of its technology on Project Titan, its self-driving car project. Which is just wild and highly contrary to my expectations. It's been obvious for ages that, while quite a ways from hitting the tipping point, wearable displays are the natural next big disruption in the personal electronics space following in the steps of the PC, notebooks, smartphones and tablets. A retinal scanning display will be able to hit the limits of human visual acuity while also being portable, which completely obsoletes every single other display we use and has massive implications for a lot of our basic modes of interaction. Suddenly there is no connection between "screen size" and device, where you are etc, it's just a matter of tradeoffs with how much power is behind it. With an industry standard even embedded devices could have virtual "displays" with lots of info. If you think about the form factor of nearly everything portable we use, it's "a display, with stuff attached to it" (either attached to the back in the case of phones/tablets or on a hinge to a rectangle that otherwise matches the screen in the case of notebooks). The display bit almost completely defines the basics of how portable it is, how it's used, and the limits on thermal dissipation and roughly how much energy it can have. But a wearable display once again abstracts the human-computer visual interface part from everything else, which means single rectangles are no longer required. Belts, smoother ovoids that can be more easily pocketed, and who knows what else all become possible ways to hold enhanced computation/storage beyond what the wearable itself can do. And as someone enters LAN range (or sits down and plugs in even) of more computation power (in the form of a desktop computer say, or networked computers) there could be seamless switchover. And it's not as if this is 50 years in the future either, the pieces have been steadily coming together. Products like the RETISSA [0] demonstrate the potential that a company with Apple's resources could get to work polishing. The opening up of 6 GHz spectrum and WiFi 7+ along with a long awaited new shift in networking means LAN data rates are there too. To say there are implications for, oh, products like the iPhone, iPad, and Macbooks (or even iMacs) is a bit of an understatement. With enormous irony if anything Apple's heavily neglected desktop section might be one of the ones that'd best survive. But whomever gets it right and gets the ecosystem going has the potential to really mess up established players. Given how Apple accomplished multiple disruptions and has repeatedly stated they're alert to it and the importance of being willing to go after their own cash cows early before someone else does it, I'd sort of assumed in the background this was one of their key strategic projects even if it was like a 10 year one. It's fascinating to find that no, actually not! And Ive's influence without the leash of Jobs to make sure form and function stayed linked really seems to have been pretty toxic. Whatever Cooks' other strengths keeping that reigned in doesn't seem to have been one of them. I guess the forces of organizational inertia are always incredibly powerful. ---- 0: https://en.retissa.biz/ https://en.retissa.biz/

dontbenebby 4y ago

I had a low tech cyberpunk rig set up (Sony noise cancelling headphones + 4K screen on a laptop rather than an expensive, large tv and fancy speakers) I am not sold at all on "VR". It's one of those things, like "Firefox OS", that drained Mozilla's coffers when they should have focused on designing their own Android build the way we went from Knoppix[1] to Kali[2] in a very short time. (I wish I could have stayed, but my Chrome loving supervisor who told me he doesn't even use the browser decided I didn't do enough work to be hired on full time before he moved from Brooklyn to Switzerland) [1] https://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=knoppix https://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=knoppix [2] https://www.kali.org/get-kali/ https://www.kali.org/get-kali/

perryizgr8 4y ago
> drained Mozilla's coffers It will take a loooong time to drain Apple's money vault, though. They can keep spending stupid money on bullshit projects for years before anyone even notices.

KVFinn 4y ago

The cost of the external eye displays seem absolutely crazy. Two extra external displays in raw hardware. But worse, they are on the front in exactly the place you want to place the passthrough cameras, so now you have to do extra image processing to virtually reposition the input as if it were on the eyes. So it makes passthrough dev more difficult. It must be extremely compelling to see those eye screens in action. It must be selling onlookers on the device. That's the only that could justify that much effort?

jdlshore 4y ago
I had assumed a single oval-shaped display and headset, along with notches for cameras. I also don’t see slightly displaced cameras as causing a significant problem. Brains are pretty adaptable to vision changes.
- KVFinn 4y ago
  In the linked article in The Information, they talk about the screens making getting the passthrough working more challenging.
nsriv 4y ago
EDIT: If meant to be used untethered, those screens would also soak up battery.

Geee 4y ago

Productivity is correlated with display size, and VR should be the next step in productivity, because it allows your whole space to become a display and an interface. When paired with powerful hardware and innovative software it should be the next step in computing. Therefore, VR should be a replacement for large displays in productive work, not a device that everyone is wearing outside or casually watching videos with. The use cases are professional; such as programming, CAD, design etc. I believe that properly implemented VR would allow utilizing full visual-spatial capabilities of our brains, totally eliminating the process of hunting for files and switching windows. It would be possible to dive into code and see it all at once like an intricate factory. Our brains are capable of navigating very complex environments, but this capability is lost when its viewed through a small window. I wish they'd explore this area, rather than go for a mass market appeal. What kind of software is possible, and how much productivity can be increased with maxed out hardware with high resolution VR? I'm not sure if 4K resolution with a M2 chip is powerful enough for a truly innovative product. Maybe it is, but there's still room for a "pro" product. I don't think there's a use case for glasses-type product, with a watch-like functionality and environmental AR which would show information pop-ups everywhere. We already have information overload, and we don't need any more of that.

mumblemumble 4y ago
That sounds absolutely exhausting to me. Perhaps, in a lab setting, doing straightforward, focused tasks like the ones they use in these productivity studies, I could sustain a productivity boost long enough for the researcher to get a two-tailed p<0.05. Make me do it in real life, though, 40 hours a week, week after week after week, and I expect I would burn out very quickly. I like my work well enough, but I don't think I want to actually stick my whole head inside of it.
- DangitBobby 4y ago
  Maybe not all the time, but it would be great for me to be able to travel and not have to worry about taking a huge productivity hit without my desk and monitors.

qgin 4y ago

Have to say I agree with Jony Ive on all of these points. The idea of an AR wearable that is tethered to a fixed base station is so very lame. Why even bother with AR when you can only augment the reality that is in your office or bedroom? Also the eye-view outer display is essential for situations where one person is using the goggles but others aren’t. How unsettling would it be for someone to look at you, be able to see you, but for their upper face to completely obscured by goggles? How could you have an in person face-to-face conversation with someone like that?

ttul 4y ago
I believe it’s most likely that Apple will be releasing an untethered device. It would not be Apple if you needed a wire and a separate box. A 4K display per eye, a powerful and efficient SoC on the latest node, and some really fine industrial design will surely be within Apple’s reach. Everyone will have to build apps for this thing. If it’s real, it will be every bit as successful as iPhone.
- redisman 4y ago
  Maybe it’ll tether to the iPhone. It already has all that and just needs a display
null_shift 4y ago
The fixed base station is a fundamentally different tradeoff for AR vs VR. Base station for AR would be detrimental, as you inherently want to explore and interact with the world around you. For most VR use cases that is not the case, and I can see the argument for the benefits of a base station (higher performance) outweighing the costs (limited movement).
- treesknees 4y ago
  One solution to this for AR is using "fog computing", where your AR device may offload its computation to a node on the local network that's more powerful but also not as far away (in terms of latency) as a cloud server. Perhaps with the continued adoption of UWB 5G, those AR basestations could exist at cell towers or in local establishments - think about a clothing store running fog nodes to allow AR users to visualize wearing different clothes as they see them in the store. I haven't read more than the abstract, but it seems there is some good research going into this. It must be years off however, as we barely have LTE networks in some locations, let-alone UWB 5G to even begin supporting this type of architecture. https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9103475 https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9103475

ttul 4y ago

Apple won’t release this product unless it is mind blowing. If Bloomberg’s reporting is true, then we should all be looking forward to a very cool demo at WWDC and an incredible product some time in 2023. Very few people predicted the iPhone accurately before its launch. And it’s reasonable to say the iPhone blew minds because Apple figured out multitouch AND reduced the latency of the interface to the extend required so that it felt natural to use. If they mail AR in the same way, they will have the next iPhone. I am bullish on the prospect of this happening.

deleted 4y ago
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pharke 4y ago
I'm not so sure. I think they will deliver something but I have a feeling that Meta is going to beat them to the punch as far as a productivity focused device is concerned. Meta might wind up with most of the market share while Apple trails them although I'm sure that most people who own a MacBook Pro will buy an Apple headset as well. I think this is more of a PC vs Mac situation than it is Android vs iPhone.
- Petersipoi 4y ago
  I would be shocked if Meta can convince the masses to buy their headset over Apple's. If Meta tries to beat Apple on price, their headset won't be very capable and won't be much different than what is already out there (which the masses aren't interested in). If they try to compete with Apple by releasing a similarly priced and similarly capable headset, Apple wins every time. I think you're underestimating how much people dislike Meta/Facebook/Zuck. And I'm not just referring to techies either. "Normal" people hate them too.
- dvngnt_ 4y ago
  meta has the head start, but never bet against apple for revenue. VR is still new for casuals. if apple releases new hardware people will buy it and you'll see an explosion of devs creating apps for it.
4y ago

moistly 4y ago

I am eternally surprised that Boeing has not developed augmented reality headsets for its maintenance crew. Overlaying specs and instructions onto the components being serviced would be a godsend for productivity, compliance, and personal safety. Edit: ditto for automotive assembly/repair. Power plant maintenance. Basically all complicated engineering fields could make excellent use of AR.

nsriv 4y ago
This is the space that Microsoft's HoloLens and to a much lesser degree the prior Google Glass project stepped into.
p_l 4y ago
Boeing was involved with industrial version of Google Glass, Microsoft is pushing Hololens heavily in that space as well - in fact you can buy Hololens integrated with safety hat - and there's explicit stuff to integrate with MS ERP stuff. Uptake seems to be mainly in high end civil engineering so far, but a lot of those solutions are things you are not going to read about outside a niche press.
CamperBob2 4y ago
I'll never be able to find a reference to it, but I distinctly remember AR goggles being used for aircraft maintenance 10-15 years ago, if not farther back than that. It's a very obvious application, and not a new one at all.
- moistly 4y ago
  It cheers me to hear that. It’s such a natural high-value application. I’m surprised I haven’t seen articles about it in my geekspace.

whywhywhywhy 4y ago

It’s so telling how much WWDC has been dedicated to ARKit over the past many years yet not a single viable use has been shipped. AR through a phone or iPad is lame and close to useless. Only looks good in video demos till you use it yourself and see how clumsy it is interacting through a tiny window. Very clear they have a headset in mind for all this but are struggling to ship.

steve76 4y ago

nakedgremlin 4y ago

I'm excited overall about these 'leaks' and details surfacing from Apple and Meta. I'm optimistic the AR side will win (versus VR only), but overall, by being shepherded by these big orgs, I expect hardware costs to reduce dramatically for end users. Lower costs will pull in more users and allow us to really design experiences for a wider AR audience.

zmmmmm 4y ago

> an outward-facing screen on the front of the headset that showed images of the wearer's facial expressions and eyes to people around them Quite a juicy tidbit, this is not something I had even contemplated as a possibility. I struggle to imagine how this will work without looking bizarre. And the effect on battery life of doubling the screens would have to be significant.

angry_octet 4y ago
If it was a full mask like that clunky iRobot film it would be interesting, but I can't see it working for a half mask with just eye displays. Eye tracking is notoriously hard to de-glitch but they could be using some fancy ML to make it better.

perryizgr8 4y ago

The only way AR truly succeeds is when we figure out how to fit all the tech inside a transparent contact lens. Wearing some headset and looking at a screen inches from your eyes is never going to cut it.

etempleton 4y ago

I wonder what this could be that Apple feels it is close to consumer ready. Apple targets the premium mass market. They do not release products that sell a few million; they release products that sell 10 million or more a year. Anything less is a failure. So either Apple has figured out something really compelling in AR/VR that everyone--not just gamers and nerds--will want, or they are reaching.

mr_toad 4y ago
Rumour has it they want to replace the phone.