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XBOX might be turning a profit if the 360 recall didn't happen and they didn't completely flub One. They're in a better spot these days. The iPhone didn't come

XBOX might be turning a profit if the 360 recall didn't happen and they didn't completely flub One. They're in a better spot these days. The iPhone didn't come out of nowhere, it was an assemblage of past ideas and technologies mixed in with a few important new ones (multitouch is a biggie) in a market where there were plenty of devices that could functionally do the same things it could do. I think some forget that it didn't even launch with the ability to run apps. What made the product a breakout hit was nailing accessibility. The Metaverse thing is hype bullshit in an attempt to get people to take Meta's toy seriously, with the real long term goal to make AR glasses that are truly accessible. No sim sickness, no face brick, no heavy strap, no controllers required, full 6DOF with eye tracking, varifocal etc. A lot of problems to solve, but that would make for a consolidation device much like iPhone/smartphones were and getting there first means an app store monopoly and the warm corporate comfort of of app sale percentages.

senttoschool 4y ago
You can argue that VR isn't coming out of no where. We've had many companies make VR headsets for years. We've had games ("metaverse") such as WoW and Second Life for 2 decades now. Nintendo VirtualBoy came out nearly 30 years ago. When I say that the iPhone "came out of nowhere", I meant that it was so much more advanced than what came before it that it felt like it came out of nowhere.
- scheeseman486 4y ago
  It wasn't "so much more advanced", it used a heavily power constrained ARM SoC with limited memory running a software stack ported over from desktop and gosh could you ever feel it. They applied UX lessons learned from Newton and competitors and the product required a few iterations before hitting mass market potential, I think people forget how shitty every iPhone was before 3GS. It came out of nowhere only if you weren't paying attention. Correct that VR isn't coming out of nowhere either, though I didn't really imply otherwise. Virtual Boy isn't VR though as there's no head tracking which is a prerequisite, it's a HMD with stereoscopy. Even 3DOF being VR stretches the definition. The first consumer VR headset that was capable of representing a true virtual environment was a tie between the Rift and Vive. "Metaverses" stretch back further to MUDs.
  - senttoschool 4y ago
    >It wasn't "so much more advanced", it used a heavily power constrained ARM SoC with limited memory running a software stack ported over from desktop and gosh could you ever feel it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnrJzXM7a6o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnrJzXM7a6o I highly recommend watching this.
    - scheeseman486 4y ago
      Sure, that presentation was masterclass marketing. But keep in mind that most of the innovations they made were in improving accessibility (admittedly very important) and even the core enabling technology of those improvements wasn't developed in-house, but obtained through an acquisition of Fingerworks. There were full-screen phones before iPhone (in particular a design from Sony which is referenced as an influence for the iPhone) and smartphones in general had been in the market, covering most of the same use cases, for about half a decade. You know what other presentation of his is amazing? The Macintosh one. You know, the product that knocked off Xerox. The iPhone was a huge milestone, but it wasn't a gift from god, Apple builds on the shoulders of giants like everyone else does. e: Watching that demo again, I am reminded of the moment he loads up a full blown webpage and it running absolutely terribly. On WiFi, too, not the 2G you were stuck with on mobile which pushed web browsing to near unusability.

senttoschool 4y ago

You can argue that VR isn't coming out of no where. We've had many companies make VR headsets for years. We've had games ("metaverse") such as WoW and Second Life for 2 decades now. Nintendo VirtualBoy came out nearly 30 years ago. When I say that the iPhone "came out of nowhere", I meant that it was so much more advanced than what came before it that it felt like it came out of nowhere.

scheeseman486 4y ago
It wasn't "so much more advanced", it used a heavily power constrained ARM SoC with limited memory running a software stack ported over from desktop and gosh could you ever feel it. They applied UX lessons learned from Newton and competitors and the product required a few iterations before hitting mass market potential, I think people forget how shitty every iPhone was before 3GS. It came out of nowhere only if you weren't paying attention. Correct that VR isn't coming out of nowhere either, though I didn't really imply otherwise. Virtual Boy isn't VR though as there's no head tracking which is a prerequisite, it's a HMD with stereoscopy. Even 3DOF being VR stretches the definition. The first consumer VR headset that was capable of representing a true virtual environment was a tie between the Rift and Vive. "Metaverses" stretch back further to MUDs.
- senttoschool 4y ago
  >It wasn't "so much more advanced", it used a heavily power constrained ARM SoC with limited memory running a software stack ported over from desktop and gosh could you ever feel it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnrJzXM7a6o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnrJzXM7a6o I highly recommend watching this.
  - scheeseman486 4y ago
    Sure, that presentation was masterclass marketing. But keep in mind that most of the innovations they made were in improving accessibility (admittedly very important) and even the core enabling technology of those improvements wasn't developed in-house, but obtained through an acquisition of Fingerworks. There were full-screen phones before iPhone (in particular a design from Sony which is referenced as an influence for the iPhone) and smartphones in general had been in the market, covering most of the same use cases, for about half a decade. You know what other presentation of his is amazing? The Macintosh one. You know, the product that knocked off Xerox. The iPhone was a huge milestone, but it wasn't a gift from god, Apple builds on the shoulders of giants like everyone else does. e: Watching that demo again, I am reminded of the moment he loads up a full blown webpage and it running absolutely terribly. On WiFi, too, not the 2G you were stuck with on mobile which pushed web browsing to near unusability.