4 ms·

64% of US adults wear eyeglasses. Heat exists. We're already basically at the limits of physics for making CPUs faster and heat dissipation is a huge issue ev

by Bud 4y ago

64% of US adults wear eyeglasses. Heat exists. We're already basically at the limits of physics for making CPUs faster and heat dissipation is a huge issue even for products that you don't have pressed against your face and eyes all the time. Humans interact chiefly via sight. But it has still been "obvious for ages" that wearable displays are going to be some big inevitable hit? No it hasn't. And why on earth would Apple have made this tech a priority ten years before it was viable as a consumer product? P.S. No, Apple's desktop computer operation has not been "neglected" lately; they actually have been giving the Mac a lot of care and feeding, as evidenced by the really nice new MacBook Pro re-design, and the Mac Studio. The opposite of what you said is true.

xoa 4y ago
>64% of US adults wear eyeglasses. ??? I do too. What does this have to do with anything? The lens is irrelevant for something that projects right onto the retina (trivial to correct for). Hell, I'd love it for that reason alone, would be a huge improvement for my computer usage. >We're already basically at the limits of physics for making CPUs faster and heat dissipation is a huge issue even for products that you don't have pressed against your face and eyes all the time. Lol? Also that you think this is relevant either is kind of confusing. >Humans interact chiefly via sight. Yes, hence why wearable AR/VR displays are obvious. >But it has still been "obvious for ages" that wearable displays are going to be some big inevitable hit? No it hasn't. Yes, it has. >And why on earth would Apple have made this tech a priority ten years before it was viable as a consumer product? For the same reason they were thinking about the "iPad" and then "iPhone" (tablet consideration actually came first internally even though in 2004 it was redirected toward the phone first) long, long before it "viable as a consumer product" duh. You don't get out ahead of things by waiting until after your competitors do it to get started, you make it happen early with your own R&D. >No, Apple's desktop computer operation has not been "neglected" lately; they actually have been giving the Mac a lot of care and feeding, as evidenced by the really nice new MacBook Pro re-design, and the Mac Studio. This is just pathetic. You cite the MacBook Pro as support for desktop computers and consider just this last year as a trend. I've been using Apple systems since the late 80s. Desktop systems have absolutely been massively neglected in the last decade. The Mac Pro got updated TWICE in TWELVE YEARS (the first of which was total shit), and that was after Apple pushed it massively up market vs their reliable good tower. The Mac Mini also had multiple years of just being left to sit there. There was zero in between them except the AIOs. And we're not talking about big redesigns but just basic normal CPU updates and the like that every single other computer manufacturer on the planet does like clockwork as a matter of course. They might, maybe, be turning that around now but a single release does not make a trend. And that desktop systems were a distant last place in Apple's priorities vs iDevices or notebooks has been extremely obvious and is utterly uncontroversial since the 00s. That's just a statement of fact. In terms of raw income the balance shifted dramatically mid 2000s in favor of notebooks, and then of course later to iDevices. The Intel transition was driven primarily by the needs of the notebooks, not that everything else didn't come along for the ride. And Apple's corporate structure doesn't do multitasking boring stuff that well in exchange for doing single stuff incredibly well.
- Mirioron 4y ago
  >For the same reason they were thinking about the "iPad" and then "iPhone" (tablet consideration actually came first internally even though in 2004 it was redirected toward the phone first) long, long before it "viable as a consumer product" duh. You don't get out ahead of things by waiting until after your competitors do it to get started, you make it happen early with your own R&D. But that's exactly what happened with the iPad though. Apple's competitors had already released tablet-type devices for years, they just weren't really ready as consumer products: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Tablet_PC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Tablet_PC
  - xoa 4y ago
    I can't tell if you're trying to be serious or are being sarcastic. Like, Apple started work on the Newton in the late 80s and released the first one in 1993 too. So what? Viable consumer product for these things involved innovations in tech like multitouch capacitance vs resistance displays, a critical tipping point of processor, battery, wireless and display tech, the right UX and stack behind it, etc. But Apple didn't get there in 6 months, they did it on the back of years and years of R&D ahead of time. Same with stuff like their own chips, the PA Semi acquisition was in 2008, and the first real fruit (actual custom Apple core) was the A6 in 2012. Bringing it all the way back to notebook form factors took until the M1 (where PA Semi actually was aiming at with the 7W PWRficient), 12 years later. I'm genuinely befuddled that the idea of "get started years early" is a radical proposition to some people on HN. You also don't get useful patents in a field (critical nowadays in tech) without being way out in front. Even if the vast majority of R&D ends up leading to dead ends it's still worth it when it's important enough and gets close enough. Identifying the likely optimal display mechanism has been primarily a matter of physics and biology. Without implants, can't do better than photons directly onto retina which also easily deals with lens/focus issues. There's never been anything to indicate that's physically impossible either. So "just" a matter of lots of hard work, but Apple has the kind of profit and strategic outlook to justify that. They've done so repeatedly. And this is central to their core business and talents as well. That other lesser tech might be of use in niches that aren't of interest to Apple, or that earlier efforts can't hit the strict superset tipping point, misses the forest for the trees.

by Bud 4y ago

xoa 4y ago

>64% of US adults wear eyeglasses. ??? I do too. What does this have to do with anything? The lens is irrelevant for something that projects right onto the retina (trivial to correct for). Hell, I'd love it for that reason alone, would be a huge improvement for my computer usage. >We're already basically at the limits of physics for making CPUs faster and heat dissipation is a huge issue even for products that you don't have pressed against your face and eyes all the time. Lol? Also that you think this is relevant either is kind of confusing. >Humans interact chiefly via sight. Yes, hence why wearable AR/VR displays are obvious. >But it has still been "obvious for ages" that wearable displays are going to be some big inevitable hit? No it hasn't. Yes, it has. >And why on earth would Apple have made this tech a priority ten years before it was viable as a consumer product? For the same reason they were thinking about the "iPad" and then "iPhone" (tablet consideration actually came first internally even though in 2004 it was redirected toward the phone first) long, long before it "viable as a consumer product" duh. You don't get out ahead of things by waiting until after your competitors do it to get started, you make it happen early with your own R&D. >No, Apple's desktop computer operation has not been "neglected" lately; they actually have been giving the Mac a lot of care and feeding, as evidenced by the really nice new MacBook Pro re-design, and the Mac Studio. This is just pathetic. You cite the MacBook Pro as support for desktop computers and consider just this last year as a trend. I've been using Apple systems since the late 80s. Desktop systems have absolutely been massively neglected in the last decade. The Mac Pro got updated TWICE in TWELVE YEARS (the first of which was total shit), and that was after Apple pushed it massively up market vs their reliable good tower. The Mac Mini also had multiple years of just being left to sit there. There was zero in between them except the AIOs. And we're not talking about big redesigns but just basic normal CPU updates and the like that every single other computer manufacturer on the planet does like clockwork as a matter of course. They might, maybe, be turning that around now but a single release does not make a trend. And that desktop systems were a distant last place in Apple's priorities vs iDevices or notebooks has been extremely obvious and is utterly uncontroversial since the 00s. That's just a statement of fact. In terms of raw income the balance shifted dramatically mid 2000s in favor of notebooks, and then of course later to iDevices. The Intel transition was driven primarily by the needs of the notebooks, not that everything else didn't come along for the ride. And Apple's corporate structure doesn't do multitasking boring stuff that well in exchange for doing single stuff incredibly well.

Mirioron 4y ago
>For the same reason they were thinking about the "iPad" and then "iPhone" (tablet consideration actually came first internally even though in 2004 it was redirected toward the phone first) long, long before it "viable as a consumer product" duh. You don't get out ahead of things by waiting until after your competitors do it to get started, you make it happen early with your own R&D. But that's exactly what happened with the iPad though. Apple's competitors had already released tablet-type devices for years, they just weren't really ready as consumer products: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Tablet_PC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Tablet_PC
- xoa 4y ago
  I can't tell if you're trying to be serious or are being sarcastic. Like, Apple started work on the Newton in the late 80s and released the first one in 1993 too. So what? Viable consumer product for these things involved innovations in tech like multitouch capacitance vs resistance displays, a critical tipping point of processor, battery, wireless and display tech, the right UX and stack behind it, etc. But Apple didn't get there in 6 months, they did it on the back of years and years of R&D ahead of time. Same with stuff like their own chips, the PA Semi acquisition was in 2008, and the first real fruit (actual custom Apple core) was the A6 in 2012. Bringing it all the way back to notebook form factors took until the M1 (where PA Semi actually was aiming at with the 7W PWRficient), 12 years later. I'm genuinely befuddled that the idea of "get started years early" is a radical proposition to some people on HN. You also don't get useful patents in a field (critical nowadays in tech) without being way out in front. Even if the vast majority of R&D ends up leading to dead ends it's still worth it when it's important enough and gets close enough. Identifying the likely optimal display mechanism has been primarily a matter of physics and biology. Without implants, can't do better than photons directly onto retina which also easily deals with lens/focus issues. There's never been anything to indicate that's physically impossible either. So "just" a matter of lots of hard work, but Apple has the kind of profit and strategic outlook to justify that. They've done so repeatedly. And this is central to their core business and talents as well. That other lesser tech might be of use in niches that aren't of interest to Apple, or that earlier efforts can't hit the strict superset tipping point, misses the forest for the trees.