5 ms·

It will be interesting to see how this plays out, and if there really is a viable Apple-scale device here. The overarching XR vision makes sense to me -- that

by jmull 3y ago

It will be interesting to see how this plays out, and if there really is a viable Apple-scale device here. The overarching XR vision makes sense to me -- that you could instantly drop into any kind of environment you might want to, whether for work or entertainment or socializing. But who creates these environments, and for what purpose? They seem like they'd be quite expensive if done well, and if not done well, you wouldn't want to go there unless you had to. If there aren't great places to go, what justifies a $3K headset? Meanwhile, with the reality of technical limitations, how good is the experience really going to be? I suspect you're going to be able to pay $3K to buy into some games and productivity software that, once the novelty wears off, are going to feel pretty mediocre and may never really get past the tech demo stage. And your hardware is going to be dreadfully obsolete in about 2-3 years too. IDK, maybe I just have a lack of vision and I'm too down on this stuff. I would like to try it and see!

themagician 3y ago
For me it comes down to optics. I've tried damn near every VR headset ever made, including many that never made it to production, and they all suffer from the same core issue: poor optics. Even industrial headsets that costs thousands are still using flat screen and lenses with fixed focal points (with few exceptions, but even then nothing truly extraordinary). Current optical designs mean that there is a large out of focus area when you look anywhere that isn't forward. That's just never going to fly for the general consumer. For VR to truly go mainstream you needs an optical system that is truly sharp, edge to edge. That probably means some kind of active optical system (like reverse OIS) or some kind of magic lens that currently only exists in theory. Instead what manufactures keep doing is trading off FOV for sharpness. If Apple has implemented a new optics system here I think they have winner and the industry will change overnight. If it's the same as current designs just a little better it feels DOA to me. I'm optimistic because I can't imagine Apple, of all companies, putting out a headset that's blurry at the edges.
- anonymouse008 3y ago
  This is true - but let me say this, you couldn’t pay me to wear an Apple Watch all day and you won’t be able to pay me to wear a headset. There’s just no dang reason to use these things like their creators want. Someone needs to be brave in these organizations and say “hey look, we tried pushing Siri for years and never gained the loved adoption that chatGPT has, why are we trying the same strategy here?” If the compute offering is not excellent, it does not deserve to be in a new context. Period.
  - themagician 3y ago
    I can imagine a headset that allows me to have the equivalent desktop space of quad HiDPI displays for the price of one display, and the ability to bring that anywhere. The ability to edit video on a display that is absolutely massive would be a win for me.
    - anonymouse008 3y ago
      Yes, this can definitely be true, but is the context really so that you can be social with someone else - or is it for you to have the creative space to work on an idea? I feel there's no idea of what the context is anymore - and that's what's killing all of these devices. No one can say 'this is the emphasis we gave these products for this reason' - because they all want the success of the iPhone, everyday use and wear. We have to allow the pendulum to swing back to specialized devices - that's why Teenage Engineering is so captivating.
      - crooked-v 3y ago
        You seem to be conflating "anywhere" and "social" in a way the post you're replying to wasn't using at all.
        anonymouse008 3y ago
        I mean to speak to the visual displays facing outward to show facial expressions to the room - if a true rumor, that’s an odd way to spend a BOM
- zmmmmm 3y ago
  > Current optical designs mean that there is a large out of focus area when you look anywhere that isn't forward You sound like you are a year or two out of date with your "current" understanding. The industry has moved to pancake lenses which make the view clear edge to edge. There's no more out of focus peripheral view, in recent headsets you read and look around using your eyeballs and not your head just like you would naturally. It is already known that the Apple headset uses this updated optical system, along with micro OLED displays at super high resolution (approx double current industry standards). The clarity and focus are going to be absolutely amazing.
  - themagician 3y ago
    You mean like the pancake lenses in the Quest Pro? Those are still what I'd consider garbage tier old tech. Probably the best we are going to get down the path of fixed focal point acrylic lenses, but definitely not what I'd call sharp edge to edge. The edges might qualify as "very soft" instead of "totally out of focus" but that's about the best you can say.
    - zmmmmm 3y ago
      Quest Pro is probably the leading example yes. If you're calling that garbage, then I think you're (a) setting impossibly high standards and (b) out of sync with most people's perception, as most people perceive these has having "edge to edge clarity".
      - themagician 3y ago
        Oddly enough, the reason I have so many VR headsets is because I mostly give demos to non-tech people. Quest Pro still gets the, "Pretty cool, but why is it so blurry," comments. Not as much as other headsets, but still enough that it will never fly for general use. Meta, to their credit, does a good job of masking the poor optics by keeping texture detail to a minimum in their own software and encouraging developers to do the same. I think people really into VR get so used to looking around with their head and having low expectations that they don't notice just how poor it is. By comparison it's good. In isolation, not so much.
- intrasight 3y ago
  My prediction is that negative refraction materials will arrive in a few years. Optics problems solved.
ly3xqhl8g9 3y ago
Had this Twilight Zone-like dream that all our visions of the future which include a screen are utterly wrong, Sci-Fi included. It's somewhat hard to argue that the Command-Line Interface is better overall than the Graphical User Interface, look at Apple, they made $2.75 trillion for themselves from the GUI. But with large language models now the easiness and even the beauty falls back into the CLI, a simple blank screen with a blinking prompt awaiting your commands, and maybe we could remove the screens altogether. Why do I have to write this message while staring into, funnily, an Apple screen, when I could be drinking my coffee admiring the city skyline and the mountains nearby while whispering gently the words into the wind. Why must I know that for whatever need that I have from a software product, I must press some menu button, then 3 drop downs down, select some weirdly named options, and then go back and drag and drop some asset into the window: just do the thing already, I don't care about your software-y details. The GUI might be dying, perhaps we should strive to kill it.

by jmull 3y ago

themagician 3y ago

For me it comes down to optics. I've tried damn near every VR headset ever made, including many that never made it to production, and they all suffer from the same core issue: poor optics. Even industrial headsets that costs thousands are still using flat screen and lenses with fixed focal points (with few exceptions, but even then nothing truly extraordinary). Current optical designs mean that there is a large out of focus area when you look anywhere that isn't forward. That's just never going to fly for the general consumer. For VR to truly go mainstream you needs an optical system that is truly sharp, edge to edge. That probably means some kind of active optical system (like reverse OIS) or some kind of magic lens that currently only exists in theory. Instead what manufactures keep doing is trading off FOV for sharpness. If Apple has implemented a new optics system here I think they have winner and the industry will change overnight. If it's the same as current designs just a little better it feels DOA to me. I'm optimistic because I can't imagine Apple, of all companies, putting out a headset that's blurry at the edges.

anonymouse008 3y ago
This is true - but let me say this, you couldn’t pay me to wear an Apple Watch all day and you won’t be able to pay me to wear a headset. There’s just no dang reason to use these things like their creators want. Someone needs to be brave in these organizations and say “hey look, we tried pushing Siri for years and never gained the loved adoption that chatGPT has, why are we trying the same strategy here?” If the compute offering is not excellent, it does not deserve to be in a new context. Period.
- themagician 3y ago
  I can imagine a headset that allows me to have the equivalent desktop space of quad HiDPI displays for the price of one display, and the ability to bring that anywhere. The ability to edit video on a display that is absolutely massive would be a win for me.
  - anonymouse008 3y ago
    Yes, this can definitely be true, but is the context really so that you can be social with someone else - or is it for you to have the creative space to work on an idea? I feel there's no idea of what the context is anymore - and that's what's killing all of these devices. No one can say 'this is the emphasis we gave these products for this reason' - because they all want the success of the iPhone, everyday use and wear. We have to allow the pendulum to swing back to specialized devices - that's why Teenage Engineering is so captivating.
    - crooked-v 3y ago
      You seem to be conflating "anywhere" and "social" in a way the post you're replying to wasn't using at all.
      - anonymouse008 3y ago
        I mean to speak to the visual displays facing outward to show facial expressions to the room - if a true rumor, that’s an odd way to spend a BOM
zmmmmm 3y ago
> Current optical designs mean that there is a large out of focus area when you look anywhere that isn't forward You sound like you are a year or two out of date with your "current" understanding. The industry has moved to pancake lenses which make the view clear edge to edge. There's no more out of focus peripheral view, in recent headsets you read and look around using your eyeballs and not your head just like you would naturally. It is already known that the Apple headset uses this updated optical system, along with micro OLED displays at super high resolution (approx double current industry standards). The clarity and focus are going to be absolutely amazing.
- themagician 3y ago
  You mean like the pancake lenses in the Quest Pro? Those are still what I'd consider garbage tier old tech. Probably the best we are going to get down the path of fixed focal point acrylic lenses, but definitely not what I'd call sharp edge to edge. The edges might qualify as "very soft" instead of "totally out of focus" but that's about the best you can say.
  - zmmmmm 3y ago
    Quest Pro is probably the leading example yes. If you're calling that garbage, then I think you're (a) setting impossibly high standards and (b) out of sync with most people's perception, as most people perceive these has having "edge to edge clarity".
    - themagician 3y ago
      Oddly enough, the reason I have so many VR headsets is because I mostly give demos to non-tech people. Quest Pro still gets the, "Pretty cool, but why is it so blurry," comments. Not as much as other headsets, but still enough that it will never fly for general use. Meta, to their credit, does a good job of masking the poor optics by keeping texture detail to a minimum in their own software and encouraging developers to do the same. I think people really into VR get so used to looking around with their head and having low expectations that they don't notice just how poor it is. By comparison it's good. In isolation, not so much.
intrasight 3y ago
My prediction is that negative refraction materials will arrive in a few years. Optics problems solved.

ly3xqhl8g9 3y ago

Had this Twilight Zone-like dream that all our visions of the future which include a screen are utterly wrong, Sci-Fi included. It's somewhat hard to argue that the Command-Line Interface is better overall than the Graphical User Interface, look at Apple, they made $2.75 trillion for themselves from the GUI. But with large language models now the easiness and even the beauty falls back into the CLI, a simple blank screen with a blinking prompt awaiting your commands, and maybe we could remove the screens altogether. Why do I have to write this message while staring into, funnily, an Apple screen, when I could be drinking my coffee admiring the city skyline and the mountains nearby while whispering gently the words into the wind. Why must I know that for whatever need that I have from a software product, I must press some menu button, then 3 drop downs down, select some weirdly named options, and then go back and drag and drop some asset into the window: just do the thing already, I don't care about your software-y details. The GUI might be dying, perhaps we should strive to kill it.