5 ms·

Apple delays its mixed reality headset by two months, to debut at WWDC this June

53 points by astlouis44 4y ago

valcron1000 4y ago
I'm supper bullish on Apple on this one. If a company can figure out how to properly do AR is Apple. We might be approaching the next revolution on personal computing after the iPhone.
- cammikebrown 4y ago
  If Apple can pull of AR then we won’t even need iPhones anymore, and that is absolutely wild.
koolala 4y ago
I hope they advance the state of the art for software in XR. The BS-Beyond has proven how good Hardware can be. Now we just need Apple Spatial Software to show how good Software can be.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- verdverm 4y ago
  Microsoft MRTK is a great display of the possibilities. Super disappointing they nuked that team recently... https://github.com/microsoft/MixedRealityToolkit-Unity https://github.com/microsoft/MixedRealityToolkit-Unity Though it would be nice if everyone could get on an open standard, like https://www.khronos.org/openxr/ https://www.khronos.org/openxr/ The big question I have about the future of AR/VR/XR is how do we have shared experiences across devices without putting significant compatibility code on the developers?
  - astlouis44 4y ago
    WebXR is the ultimate open standard we need everyone getting on board with, Apple included.
    - verdverm 4y ago
      WebXR seems to be limited to targeting browser technology. The standard should address more than browsers, as OpenXR does, which includes WebXR in the stack. WebXR is not appropriate for Unity / Unreal based stacks I think that gaming platforms, because they have long had to deal with the confluence of multi-user, low-latency, permissioned systems, are better poised to be the basis for shared experiences in XR
  - dns_snek 4y ago
    > Though it would be nice if everyone could get on an open standard, like [OpenXR] Isn't this already the case? As far as I'm aware all major headsets support OpenXR, it's the games that are lagging behind. Hopefully this is going to include Apple, of course.
    - verdverm 4y ago
      You're right about headsets, it's more about the tools for building that need to be on standards. This is where the pain comes for developers. It's like iOS v Android v web, we have to build 3 frontends today. With VR/XR that pain could be worse, because the libraries and modalities can add to the complexity. I suspect this will come down to Apple deciding if they want to play nice with everyone or build a moat by making snowflakes. Maybe our tools like Unity can manage this, to reduce the pain...?
- FormFollowsFunc 4y ago
  Hopefully they have been working away on RealityKit. The current version seems to be far from complete.
coffeebeqn 4y ago
I’ve been hearing that for 5 years. Apple is just about to make AR/VR a thing for the masses. Just listen to this random rumor I found
Someone1234 4y ago
Meta's current gen and upcoming stuff out of their R&D lab is pretty impressive, but much like what Apple is rumored to be putting into their headset, it is SO expensive that they're limited to large corporations/governments with deep pockets who are also willing to develop a use-case for the technology. I guess my point is: Yes, this stuff is better than Microsoft's Hololens. However, it is also a product targeting the same niche market, and the Hololens hasn't really been successful. Turns out most organizations don't want to buy expensive headsets to then develop most of the key software themselves when any other alternative exists. A lot of people have faith that anything Apple will release will just be successful by the virtue of the Apple-y-ness of it. But realistically how big do you think the market for a $2-3K headset is? Are you going to buy one? I'm certainly not. The Quest 2 ($400) is maybe near the current best case scenario in terms of cost-to-user experience ratio. Anything better has huge diminishing returns, and we'll likely be waiting a few years minimum until technology has advanced enough to be affordable. We know, today, what it will look like since everyone's R&D lab has produced a few demos of it, but we also know, today, what it would cost to put into your hands.
- phyrex 4y ago
  The quest pro is more tech preview and dev platform than actual consumer product. Meta is planning to release their quest 3 this year, which is supposed to be a lot cheaper
- Maursault 4y ago
  > A lot of people have faith that anything Apple will release will just be successful by the virtue of the Apple-y-ness of it. Apple is rational. They won't sell this with marketing, they'll try to grow a developer community, just like with Mac, iPhone, iPad. My thing is, no matter what it is, it's a solution without a problem. I honestly can't believe they'll actually release it, and if they do, I won't believe it will be successful until it is. Just because Apple is Apple doesn't mean they can do the impossible. Usually Apple will take what is there and make it better. But with this, there's really nothing there to speak of, just a very small amount of splintered vociferous supporters of VR, and even less with AR. Watch, they'll downvote my comment soon enough. Apple needs to sell this to a lot of people that wouldn't think they needed or wanted it. But this isn't an iPod, so I just don't get how it can possibly be made essential or even sexy. Trying to make VR/AR a successful seller is like trying to fight a land war in Russia in winter.
manuelabeledo 4y ago
I'm probably not part of the target audience of this - I don't enjoy VR and I honestly feel like proper XR is still years beyond our reach. But I will say that, as someone who travels quite a bit, I would love to just have some nice, high resolution glasses, that would emulate my monitor setup back home with minimal drawbacks. That alone would make me quite happy. The Apple headset would be probably overkill for this, I know. Regardless, it surprises me that there are very few vendors aiming at delivering such a straightforward feature.
- robbyking 4y ago
  I really like the idea of using XR for sports training, like in snowboarding goggles or cycling classes. Almost all road cyclists use some sort of stem mounted computer for GPS and/or fitness tracking, and it would be amazing if someone made a descrete HUD that allowed you access that info without having to look down while you're riding.
  - velp 4y ago
    Or for maps/vehicle information for motorcycles. Blind spot monitoring? Overlaid turn-by-turn directions? Etc
- chaostheory 4y ago
  There are multiple SAAS startups offering this feature but affordable hardware isn’t there yet going this route. A Varjo Aero is capable, but it’s $2000 for just the headset and it needs a PC that likely runs $4000 and up. For other headsets, text just isn’t readable. The closest product so far is from NReal, founded by a former Magic Leap engineer.
- deergomoo 4y ago
  This is about the only XR use case I’m remotely interested in, but I think it would require infeasibly high res displays. Using my own unremarkable setup as an example, 2560x1440 is about as low as you’d want to go for a single 27” screen, for a comfortable level of sharpness and amount of content on-screen. If that’s taking up say 40% of your FOV, that’s 6400x3600 per eye (for the simplified example of a 16:9 display overlaid across your entire FOV). That feels a ways off still, especially for a portable device. I know some of Meta’s offerings (current? Future? I’ve been bad at keeping up with this stuff due to general apathy) are offering a virtual desktop, I wonder how readable/useable it is. Maybe I’m wrong about this stuff.
Femtiono 4y ago
I'm super curious what the target audience will be. I really not seeing the writing for a mixed reality headset on the wall at all.
- chaostheory 4y ago
  According to various reports, Apple views this as the successor to the smart phone. Unlike everyone else, they are focusing more on everything other than games. This also explains why Meta is still committed to plow billions into XR to secure their own viable hardware platform.
  - sawert 4y ago
    Ya, you nailed it. If AR is possible to build someone will build it and if they do it will (in due time) completely supersede the iPhone and destroy Apple's revenue. They literally cannot afford _not_ to compete in this market. Facebook's aggressive move here makes sense considering all of the scar tissue they have from not controlling their own destiny on mobile.
- yamtaddle 4y ago
  It's gonna be huge when someone nails it. Huge for work. Huge for home. The next Smartphone revolution; Smartphones took the Internet from a place you physically go (a desktop computer, or a laptop that's not terribly portable and that nobody's gonna carry all the time) to something that could follow you around. It put the Internet everywhere—not like water on tap, but like air. AR glasses are going to mean the Internet's not just available everywhere, but is available on the real world, all the time, which is a pretty big distinction, about as big as the smartphone revolution. A bunch of stuff that's kinda sucked will suddenly be great. AR tools. AR games. QR codes. Questions we used to have to ask our phones will simply be answered, automatically ("what's this song I'm hearing?", "who's that person?"). Voice assistants will become far more useful (get used to hearing a lot more people in public talking to their assistant—it'll be weird or seem dickish and annoying at first, but then, so did texting in public or talking on the phone in public, until, in a very short span, they didn't anymore) Of course, we'll see if Apple's the one who finally cracks it. Someone's going to, I'm pretty sure, and I think all the major tech companies agree—they've all been pouring money into AR R&D for years and years, even though it's been clear the whole time that, on a phone or table or gaming device (Nintendo DS) it's got terrible UX, and there's no fixing that without new hardware. They must all believe wearables are going to be A Thing before too long.
poulsbohemian 4y ago
I'm skeptical about this timeline and this tech, but hear me out... a lot of folks in this thread and in past threads about this subject have viewed this through a consumer lens. But why wouldn't Apple be looking into commercial uses with deep pocket buyers instead? They've expressed an interest in health care in the past, for example. Truckers who need info and who don't exactly have CarPlay in their rigs - this becomes a heads-up display of road / weather / gas info. Even in the consumer world - my game-playing son already has a headset with a microphone attached while he's on his PS4. The VR headsets with the PS4 (or xbox, or whatever...) have been clunky in the past and had limited games, but it doesn't negate that there are already consumers being conditioned to use headsets here that could be extended in some way. Finally - look at all the people wandering around with AirPods in their ears... is it really that hard to imagine some extension to this in glasses form or some other lightweight, non-intrusive form where the iPhone has the smarts and the headset is just another augmentation like the Watch?
- sensitivefrost 4y ago
  If you've ever tried to manage Apple products on an enterprise level, you'll find it hard to believe they give a shit about enterprise.
  - guhidalg 4y ago
    And it's good for them they don't. I can imagine few things more potent at stifling innovation than corporate IT.
- droopyEyelids 4y ago
  Aside from the fact that Apple doesn't have an enterprise sales organization, at this point in time the market for profession AR glasses is probably around 1% of what Apple needs for a product to be viable.
  - ghaff 4y ago
    >Aside from the fact that Apple doesn't have an enterprise sales organization While I agree with the broader point (Apple probably wouldn't do AR for a niche enterprise use case), it does have some level of enterprise sales. I'm pretty sure a company that provides thousands of MacBooks to its employees has an Apple account rep.
prawn 4y ago
I wonder if they'll be able to have outer displays as well as inner displays. Cameras internally to relay the wearer's face/expressions. So it can look somewhat like a transparent face shield, or it can be opaque from the outside. That would mean they can show expressions, show visualisations, etc. Designed to work with an iPhone but also sometimes use with a computer, as a supplemental interface layer that surrounds or superimposes. Their recent pro products love pushing DaVinci Resolve, so as something that has loads of modes and palettes, I could see them tying in with that, and Resolve having new features for creating mixed reality or immersive video. They have tie-ins with media - concerts, shows, movies - and watching these in a collaborative or immersive fashion.
taylodl 4y ago
I'm trying to figure out what Apple is doing. The Apple Watch drove the need for the AirPod. I imagine the Apple Eye(?) would be the screen for the Apple Watch? Could it make a virtual touch screen interface that you could use and you could use your Apple Watch like an iPad? I suppose you could use it with your phone too? That might have some utility but I'm skeptical. But I could see Apple marketing this as an Apple Watch accessory. Bonus points if they can also market it as eye safety, i.e. the material is such it can protect your eyes like safety glasses. Even more bonus points if you can select your frames (think watch bands) and I can replace my prescription glasses and sunglasses. These are the things that might make this economically viable and attract consumer interest. I'm still skeptical.

53 points by astlouis44 4y ago

I'm supper bullish on Apple on this one. If a company can figure out how to properly do AR is Apple. We might be approaching the next revolution on personal computing after the iPhone.

cammikebrown 4y ago
If Apple can pull of AR then we won’t even need iPhones anymore, and that is absolutely wild.

koolala 4y ago

I hope they advance the state of the art for software in XR. The BS-Beyond has proven how good Hardware can be. Now we just need Apple Spatial Software to show how good Software can be.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
verdverm 4y ago
Microsoft MRTK is a great display of the possibilities. Super disappointing they nuked that team recently... https://github.com/microsoft/MixedRealityToolkit-Unity https://github.com/microsoft/MixedRealityToolkit-Unity Though it would be nice if everyone could get on an open standard, like https://www.khronos.org/openxr/ https://www.khronos.org/openxr/ The big question I have about the future of AR/VR/XR is how do we have shared experiences across devices without putting significant compatibility code on the developers?
- astlouis44 4y ago
  WebXR is the ultimate open standard we need everyone getting on board with, Apple included.
  - verdverm 4y ago
    WebXR seems to be limited to targeting browser technology. The standard should address more than browsers, as OpenXR does, which includes WebXR in the stack. WebXR is not appropriate for Unity / Unreal based stacks I think that gaming platforms, because they have long had to deal with the confluence of multi-user, low-latency, permissioned systems, are better poised to be the basis for shared experiences in XR
- dns_snek 4y ago
  > Though it would be nice if everyone could get on an open standard, like [OpenXR] Isn't this already the case? As far as I'm aware all major headsets support OpenXR, it's the games that are lagging behind. Hopefully this is going to include Apple, of course.
  - verdverm 4y ago
    You're right about headsets, it's more about the tools for building that need to be on standards. This is where the pain comes for developers. It's like iOS v Android v web, we have to build 3 frontends today. With VR/XR that pain could be worse, because the libraries and modalities can add to the complexity. I suspect this will come down to Apple deciding if they want to play nice with everyone or build a moat by making snowflakes. Maybe our tools like Unity can manage this, to reduce the pain...?
FormFollowsFunc 4y ago
Hopefully they have been working away on RealityKit. The current version seems to be far from complete.

coffeebeqn 4y ago

I’ve been hearing that for 5 years. Apple is just about to make AR/VR a thing for the masses. Just listen to this random rumor I found

Someone1234 4y ago

Meta's current gen and upcoming stuff out of their R&D lab is pretty impressive, but much like what Apple is rumored to be putting into their headset, it is SO expensive that they're limited to large corporations/governments with deep pockets who are also willing to develop a use-case for the technology. I guess my point is: Yes, this stuff is better than Microsoft's Hololens. However, it is also a product targeting the same niche market, and the Hololens hasn't really been successful. Turns out most organizations don't want to buy expensive headsets to then develop most of the key software themselves when any other alternative exists. A lot of people have faith that anything Apple will release will just be successful by the virtue of the Apple-y-ness of it. But realistically how big do you think the market for a $2-3K headset is? Are you going to buy one? I'm certainly not. The Quest 2 ($400) is maybe near the current best case scenario in terms of cost-to-user experience ratio. Anything better has huge diminishing returns, and we'll likely be waiting a few years minimum until technology has advanced enough to be affordable. We know, today, what it will look like since everyone's R&D lab has produced a few demos of it, but we also know, today, what it would cost to put into your hands.

phyrex 4y ago
The quest pro is more tech preview and dev platform than actual consumer product. Meta is planning to release their quest 3 this year, which is supposed to be a lot cheaper
Maursault 4y ago
> A lot of people have faith that anything Apple will release will just be successful by the virtue of the Apple-y-ness of it. Apple is rational. They won't sell this with marketing, they'll try to grow a developer community, just like with Mac, iPhone, iPad. My thing is, no matter what it is, it's a solution without a problem. I honestly can't believe they'll actually release it, and if they do, I won't believe it will be successful until it is. Just because Apple is Apple doesn't mean they can do the impossible. Usually Apple will take what is there and make it better. But with this, there's really nothing there to speak of, just a very small amount of splintered vociferous supporters of VR, and even less with AR. Watch, they'll downvote my comment soon enough. Apple needs to sell this to a lot of people that wouldn't think they needed or wanted it. But this isn't an iPod, so I just don't get how it can possibly be made essential or even sexy. Trying to make VR/AR a successful seller is like trying to fight a land war in Russia in winter.

manuelabeledo 4y ago

I'm probably not part of the target audience of this - I don't enjoy VR and I honestly feel like proper XR is still years beyond our reach. But I will say that, as someone who travels quite a bit, I would love to just have some nice, high resolution glasses, that would emulate my monitor setup back home with minimal drawbacks. That alone would make me quite happy. The Apple headset would be probably overkill for this, I know. Regardless, it surprises me that there are very few vendors aiming at delivering such a straightforward feature.

robbyking 4y ago
I really like the idea of using XR for sports training, like in snowboarding goggles or cycling classes. Almost all road cyclists use some sort of stem mounted computer for GPS and/or fitness tracking, and it would be amazing if someone made a descrete HUD that allowed you access that info without having to look down while you're riding.
- velp 4y ago
  Or for maps/vehicle information for motorcycles. Blind spot monitoring? Overlaid turn-by-turn directions? Etc
chaostheory 4y ago
There are multiple SAAS startups offering this feature but affordable hardware isn’t there yet going this route. A Varjo Aero is capable, but it’s $2000 for just the headset and it needs a PC that likely runs $4000 and up. For other headsets, text just isn’t readable. The closest product so far is from NReal, founded by a former Magic Leap engineer.
deergomoo 4y ago
This is about the only XR use case I’m remotely interested in, but I think it would require infeasibly high res displays. Using my own unremarkable setup as an example, 2560x1440 is about as low as you’d want to go for a single 27” screen, for a comfortable level of sharpness and amount of content on-screen. If that’s taking up say 40% of your FOV, that’s 6400x3600 per eye (for the simplified example of a 16:9 display overlaid across your entire FOV). That feels a ways off still, especially for a portable device. I know some of Meta’s offerings (current? Future? I’ve been bad at keeping up with this stuff due to general apathy) are offering a virtual desktop, I wonder how readable/useable it is. Maybe I’m wrong about this stuff.

Femtiono 4y ago

I'm super curious what the target audience will be. I really not seeing the writing for a mixed reality headset on the wall at all.

chaostheory 4y ago
According to various reports, Apple views this as the successor to the smart phone. Unlike everyone else, they are focusing more on everything other than games. This also explains why Meta is still committed to plow billions into XR to secure their own viable hardware platform.
- sawert 4y ago
  Ya, you nailed it. If AR is possible to build someone will build it and if they do it will (in due time) completely supersede the iPhone and destroy Apple's revenue. They literally cannot afford _not_ to compete in this market. Facebook's aggressive move here makes sense considering all of the scar tissue they have from not controlling their own destiny on mobile.
yamtaddle 4y ago
It's gonna be huge when someone nails it. Huge for work. Huge for home. The next Smartphone revolution; Smartphones took the Internet from a place you physically go (a desktop computer, or a laptop that's not terribly portable and that nobody's gonna carry all the time) to something that could follow you around. It put the Internet everywhere—not like water on tap, but like air. AR glasses are going to mean the Internet's not just available everywhere, but is available on the real world, all the time, which is a pretty big distinction, about as big as the smartphone revolution. A bunch of stuff that's kinda sucked will suddenly be great. AR tools. AR games. QR codes. Questions we used to have to ask our phones will simply be answered, automatically ("what's this song I'm hearing?", "who's that person?"). Voice assistants will become far more useful (get used to hearing a lot more people in public talking to their assistant—it'll be weird or seem dickish and annoying at first, but then, so did texting in public or talking on the phone in public, until, in a very short span, they didn't anymore) Of course, we'll see if Apple's the one who finally cracks it. Someone's going to, I'm pretty sure, and I think all the major tech companies agree—they've all been pouring money into AR R&D for years and years, even though it's been clear the whole time that, on a phone or table or gaming device (Nintendo DS) it's got terrible UX, and there's no fixing that without new hardware. They must all believe wearables are going to be A Thing before too long.

poulsbohemian 4y ago

I'm skeptical about this timeline and this tech, but hear me out... a lot of folks in this thread and in past threads about this subject have viewed this through a consumer lens. But why wouldn't Apple be looking into commercial uses with deep pocket buyers instead? They've expressed an interest in health care in the past, for example. Truckers who need info and who don't exactly have CarPlay in their rigs - this becomes a heads-up display of road / weather / gas info. Even in the consumer world - my game-playing son already has a headset with a microphone attached while he's on his PS4. The VR headsets with the PS4 (or xbox, or whatever...) have been clunky in the past and had limited games, but it doesn't negate that there are already consumers being conditioned to use headsets here that could be extended in some way. Finally - look at all the people wandering around with AirPods in their ears... is it really that hard to imagine some extension to this in glasses form or some other lightweight, non-intrusive form where the iPhone has the smarts and the headset is just another augmentation like the Watch?

sensitivefrost 4y ago
If you've ever tried to manage Apple products on an enterprise level, you'll find it hard to believe they give a shit about enterprise.
- guhidalg 4y ago
  And it's good for them they don't. I can imagine few things more potent at stifling innovation than corporate IT.
droopyEyelids 4y ago
Aside from the fact that Apple doesn't have an enterprise sales organization, at this point in time the market for profession AR glasses is probably around 1% of what Apple needs for a product to be viable.
- ghaff 4y ago
  >Aside from the fact that Apple doesn't have an enterprise sales organization While I agree with the broader point (Apple probably wouldn't do AR for a niche enterprise use case), it does have some level of enterprise sales. I'm pretty sure a company that provides thousands of MacBooks to its employees has an Apple account rep.

prawn 4y ago

I wonder if they'll be able to have outer displays as well as inner displays. Cameras internally to relay the wearer's face/expressions. So it can look somewhat like a transparent face shield, or it can be opaque from the outside. That would mean they can show expressions, show visualisations, etc. Designed to work with an iPhone but also sometimes use with a computer, as a supplemental interface layer that surrounds or superimposes. Their recent pro products love pushing DaVinci Resolve, so as something that has loads of modes and palettes, I could see them tying in with that, and Resolve having new features for creating mixed reality or immersive video. They have tie-ins with media - concerts, shows, movies - and watching these in a collaborative or immersive fashion.

taylodl 4y ago

I'm trying to figure out what Apple is doing. The Apple Watch drove the need for the AirPod. I imagine the Apple Eye(?) would be the screen for the Apple Watch? Could it make a virtual touch screen interface that you could use and you could use your Apple Watch like an iPad? I suppose you could use it with your phone too? That might have some utility but I'm skeptical. But I could see Apple marketing this as an Apple Watch accessory. Bonus points if they can also market it as eye safety, i.e. the material is such it can protect your eyes like safety glasses. Even more bonus points if you can select your frames (think watch bands) and I can replace my prescription glasses and sunglasses. These are the things that might make this economically viable and attract consumer interest. I'm still skeptical.