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I am really struggling to see how this can succeed. Maybe it will be like Apple Pay, lackluster adoption for a time and then years down the line starts to gain

I am really struggling to see how this can succeed. Maybe it will be like Apple Pay, lackluster adoption for a time and then years down the line starts to gain marketshare. Even for me a geek who works in the apple ecosystem with a relatively high paying job who would love to mess with this thing it would be hard for me to justify spending 3k+ on a headset like this. Combine that with the fact that building compelling virtual reality experiences is just difficult, where are the apps going to come from? Maybe I will be totally wrong, I am excited to see it though.

bottom999mottob 3y ago
Here's an idea: tack it on as complimentary to the Apple Car. Sunk cost, so all the whales buy it and you get more locked into the Apple ecosystem!
highwaylights 3y ago
It feels a lot like it’s been pursued all the way to a releasable product and there’s just too many wheels in motion to stop and think if it’s really a worthwhile idea. We could be wrong and people are happy to hand over 3k for this, but it’s just hard to understand how for a whole bunch of reasons. Are they going to get third parties to build software for this? Where is the volume to support that going to come from? Who’s going to want to go first and risk 3k on something that might flop and be on eBay for a fraction of the price in a year? There’s just so many hurdles to clear for this.
- sp332 3y ago
  Microsoft got people to pay $3k for a 2010 version of this tech. And USD is worth 40% less since then.
  - rebuilder 3y ago
    Not very many people, I don’t think
  - deleted 3y ago
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- ianbutler 3y ago
  Just to point out this sounds like the exact criticisms you might have levied at Apple for the original iPhone. Not that this will go the same way, but they've done it once the dramatic world changing effect.
  - pavlov 3y ago
    The iPhone cost roughly the same as 2007’s competing smartphones that were already selling millions of units (e.g. the Nokia N95), and it offered completely unique capabilities. Today there is a high-volume VR headset in the market, the Quest 2, but the new Apple device is projected to be nearly ten times more expensive and it seems to be more of an incremental advancement of the state of the art. But we’ll see… I hope Apple pulls a rabbit out of the hat.
    - hammyhavoc 3y ago
      What were those "completely unique capabilities" at launch? There was no App Store. It didn't record video. It didn't have 3G. It was actually a fairly ho-hum phone.
      - dragonwriter 3y ago
        The combination of screen size, resolution, and non-broken browser to render non-mobile-specific websites tolerably. That's how it broke the “smartphones are niche because the mobile web sucks, and the mobile web sucks because there are so few users that its not worth improving” barrier.
        chasd00 3y ago
        Don’t forget Apply also got the soft keyboard right which was no small feat. People were dead set against it but here we are no physical keyboards anywhere on smartphones.
        dragonwriter 3y ago
- rsynnott 3y ago
  > We could be wrong and people are happy to hand over 3k for this There'll be _some_; remember Google Glass? I'm not convinced there'll be enough to make it any more than a niche oddity, though (even the numbers quoted in the post imply that; Apple doesn't launch that many products where they only expect to produce 500k in six months...)
kmos17 3y ago
I remember the original Macintosh launch, and just prior to that the failure of Lisa, both were very expensive for their time. I’m also skeptical but Apple has managed to pull it off even if like you point out it might not be an instant success, the main question will be can they take an idea that everyone has been excited about for a while but couldn’t get quite right and hit a home run. Also excited to see what they come up with.
- anonymouse008 3y ago
  Your perspective here is invaluable: do you think pulling over all the other apps from Mac, iPad and iPhone is enough to make this device compelling at day 0? There’s no huge productivity shift like there was for spreadsheets to visicalc that pushes our perception for what’s possible - so something has to make this device compelling in a different way.
- brookst 3y ago
  The original Macintosh was $7500 in today’s dollars. It did ok.
  - pavlov 3y ago
    Not really. Sales collapsed after an initial rush of excitement. By the end of 1984, Apple was selling only 10,000 Macs per month, much less than they had projected. Jobs was ousted a couple of months later.
    - asimpletune 3y ago
      The success of the Mac was to show what a pc could be. This headset is the same. Both Apple Watch and iPhone sucked when they came out, but they were good enough at showing what the future could be; enough for people to buy them. Both have improved dramatically around 5-10 years after release. This headset should be thought of as a dev unit, except substitute dev with early adopters. If it’s good then there will definitely be a value add in maybe 5-10 years. If it sucks then they’ll just have failed at creating a compelling headset experience that has broad appeal, just like everyone before them. It’s important to realize just still how early we are in the computing revolution, and how much of the growth curve there’s left.
roflyear 3y ago
From apples perspective it is a small project that costs them close to nothing.
deleted 3y ago
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Geee 3y ago
You're probably not putting this in the right category. It's not a headset, but a powerful computer with two 4K displays. This is the first iteration of a product category which eventually replaces desktop and laptop computers. Next time you're buying a new computer, you might buy this instead.
- pohl 3y ago
  One could have spoke similarly about the Apple Watch, but it’s still tethered to a phone. I’d love to just have the watch.
  - lostgame 3y ago
    My God, me; too. Never - ever - could understand why Apple wouldn’t just sell the watch as a potentially standalone device. I know, it’s Apple; but at the same time, you’re easily going to sell 2-3 times more of them, and; like the iPod, it can easily introduce them to the Apple ecosystem and when it comes time to buy a new phone; they’ll maybe say ‘well, I’ve already got an Apple Watch and really like it…maybe I’ll get an iPhone this time my contract expires.’ But it’s Apple business logic. I’ve used their products pretty much exclusively for nearly 20 years (I’m an iOS/WatchOS dev and have used Logic to make music for 15 years) but I’ll never understand many of their decisions.
    - dagmx 3y ago
      The watch can be used completely standalone. Even fairly notable tech industry folks like Linus from LMG use it even though he’s a Samsung phone user. The only part you need the phone for is initial setup.
      - charlie0 3y ago
        Yes, and not everyone has an iPhone for the first step. There are lots of iPhone users, but lets not pretend Android users are an insignificant userbase.
basisword 3y ago
Apple Pay was great from day one - depending on where you lived. In the UK contactless payments are the standard and already were when Apple Pay was released meaning I could use it in 99% of retailers, even small ones.
- omnimus 3y ago
  It was the case for most of europe actually.
  - c-hendricks 3y ago
    Same with Canada. Apple Pay having "lackluster adoption" might be one of those uniquely American issues.
    - rsynnott 3y ago
      As I understand it, the US didn’t really have contactless payment pre-apple/google pay _at all_, so it’d naturally be a harder transition than in places where it was already rolled out. Even today, you’ll occasionally see terminals in Europe which don’t actually support Apple Pay as such; it’ll work, because it acts like a normal contactless card, but only up to 50 euro, because the terminal doesn’t know it’s authenticated.
      - c-hendricks 3y ago
        Sounds like you're aware of why it's a uniquely American thing. You forgot to mention companies that did accept it but stopped after they implemented their own payment system (which again only applies to American branches of their stores).
status200 3y ago
The announcement coming from WWDC makes me think that the first wave is mostly for developers to build on, and then the cheaper/more advanced headsets coming later will be the ones marketed to regular users. I was on the fence until Palmer Luckey gave it a thumbs up, now I am cautiously optimistic.
- twoodfin 3y ago
  The rumor mill has been consistent for over a year that the “mass market” iteration is coming in 12–18 months (I’d guess they’re targeting holiday season 2024). I think people are underestimating how effective a “cost-almost-no-object” version is going to be at generating interest. There will be lines at Apple Stores as soon as it’s available to try. The model is iPod / iPod mini|nano. Everyone wanted the former, everyone bought the latter.
  - JimDabell 3y ago
    > I think people are underestimating how effective a “cost-almost-no-object” version is going to be at generating interest. There will be lines at Apple Stores as soon as it’s available to try. Not to mention all the developers who want to build something for the mass-market iteration. This is going to be like the original launch of the App Store, where even small gimmick apps get a lot of attention. If you want in on the gold rush, you’ll have to buy the first version.
amelius 3y ago
> I am really struggling to see how this can succeed. It could work if they allowed pr0n on it. They already offer the privacy which makes it a much better proposition than a Quest where Zuck is always watching over your shoulder. But Apple will probably nanny it to death.
- pavlov 3y ago
  Nothing stops you from watching porn in the Quest web browser. It has private browsing mode like every other browser. I don’t think this is the killer app for headsets though, unless maybe someone comes up with a volumetric production pipeline for truly immersive participatory experiences…
  - amelius 3y ago
    How do I know if activating private mode in the Quest web browser is not equivalent to sending a signal to Meta that "now extra juicy information is coming in"?
    - pavlov 3y ago
      How do you know activating private mode in Chrome isn’t doing the same with Google? After all that’s their business model too.
      - amelius 3y ago
        Good question, that's why I use Firefox ;)
    - sebzim4500 3y ago
      Becuase the stuff people use private browsing for is useless information for Meta. Why do you believe that Zuckerberg wants to see your porn preferences?
    - jayd16 3y ago
      You can packet sniff it if you're really concerned, no? There's been no evidence for what you suggest.
moonchrome 3y ago
If they can execute well on a simple use case - virtual desktop for professionals -this will be justifiable to me. I spent >1000€ on my last 5k ultra wide five years ago. This promises to be a portable unlimited screen space - if I can use it 8h+, OS integration is there - I could see myself spending that kind of money. Having a portable workspace anywhere with a chair and desk is big - especially when desk/chair dimensions now don't play a factor.
- chasd00 3y ago
  “Portable workspace “ is an interesting concept to me. Something more than a laptop screen. It would be hard to get input devices right when you’re wearing a headset though.
  - amelius 3y ago
    > It would be hard to get input devices right when you’re wearing a headset though. I suppose this is where Augmented Reality comes into play.
    - jakeinspace 3y ago
      I've never been convinced by an AR keyboard-like interface. You need tactical, physical feedback. I really can't imagine anything short of direct brain interface being a good replacement for physical input devices, specifically the keyboard, though LLMs will maybe make voice interfaces tolerable for certain creative tasks.
    - trafficante 3y ago
      This is how Meta does it: With supported keyboards (basically Apple and Logitech’s offerings atm), they load up a tracked 3D model of the keyboard and then pull in an overlaid video feed of your real hands. With non-supported keyboards, the video feed is more of a small “window” that also captures the keyboard. And when it works, it’s honestly very impressive (especially with color passthrough). I fully expect Apple to have a more robust and less buggy version ready to go - and with the much higher specs they’ll probably be able to get a lot of “wows” from the demos.
jayd16 3y ago
This is probably more like a dev subsidized devkit than a real product. I doubt even Apple thinks $3k is sustainable.
bee_rider 3y ago
Where’d you get $3k from? $3k seems a bit high. OTOH I wouldn’t pay $3k for a laptop, and Apple seems to sell plenty of $3k laptops.
- deleted 3y ago
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0zemp2c 3y ago
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jonathantf2 3y ago
What do you mean about Apple Pay? Ever since it came out I've seen it absolutely everywhere.
GeekyBear 3y ago
> I am really struggling to see how this can succeed. People seem to forget this every time, but this version of the tech is aimed at developers and early adopters, just like version one of Hololens was. It's also priced like Hololens was. The consumer focused version in a thick sunglasses form factor comes later.
- refulgentis 3y ago
  Or, not at all - we’re on year, what, 8 of that? There isn’t anyone reputable who thinks there’s a short term breakthrough coming, especially after Metas $$$$ swings at it and Apple failed to. c.f. Bloomberg recent piece on this; tldr lot of internal strife at Apple because that’s what they were supposed to do and simply couldn’t. Now it’s limping out the door because they might as well ship something. Lead was saying as recently as a year ago that glasses were 3 years out, but they were shelved because there’s no path to it
  - GeekyBear 3y ago
    > There isn’t anyone reputable who thinks there’s a short term breakthrough coming One big thing Apple has going for it is that they will iterate on a product year after year instead of doing one hardware update and giving up like Microsoft did. Regardless, developers need hardware in their hands if you want third party apps for the new platform.
    - anonymouse008 3y ago
      I've built too many experiments to attempt to make this visual wearable plane worth it, and if these devices try to do anything more than hands free reading, they are a worse experience to achieve the same task. Think about its 'most compelling' consumer use case - Lifelike Avatars in FaceTime. Which one do you think is preferred, cooking in the kitchen and wearing a headset, or propping your iPhone up and FaceTiming while cooking? Where on earth does it 'change the experience' to have a real-life like avatar? We have the 'life like' avatar right now with Zooms - and the reason Zooms suck is innately the human part, not the rendering part - most meetings could be emails or 5 min phone calls. Everyone had spreadsheets and publishing needs (Mac), portable music players (iPods), cellular phones (iPhone), headphones (AirPods), home wireless music speakers (HomePods)... think of fitbit / pebble, 1980s VR and then todays VR ?
screye 3y ago
$3k+ is exactly the right price point. A customer cannot be disappointed from a product they don't buy. And the type of enthusiast who spends 3k+ on it, will be satisfied before they even wear it. At 3k+ it will likely be the unchallenged top headset on the market, and that alone will mean that tech nerds will be raving over it. > where are the apps going to come from? Gaming whales exist. Enterprise customers exist. Microsoft got a $2b from the DOD for building the holo-lens 2 at tech demo levels of product quality. IMO, VR is 1 UX breakthrough away from finding a money-generating niche. And UX breakthrough/popularization is Apple's bread and butter.
- twoodfin 3y ago
  Agree, and would add that “apps” is likely the wrong mindset: This thing is going to be all about experiences. Yoga on the beach. Standing on the pitch during Ted Lasso. Watching the Apollo moon landing from the surface of Tranquility Base. Either they have the immersion and UI model that makes this kind of content viscerally “wow”, or they don’t have a product. I’m guessing they have a product.
  - hnaccount_rng 3y ago
    I had that visceral “wow” while reading your post. I’m not saying that’s what they’ll do. But that _is_ one way of leveraging the content/IP from TV+ and could serve as an impressive demonstration which is fun to work on.
    - twoodfin 3y ago
      … and Fitness+, Arcade, Music, … This platform, if it works, will supercharge the value of their service offerings.
  - anonymouse008 3y ago
    Have you ever been to a live action theater and dinner thing? Like Tony and Tina’s wedding and the lion king - it’s corny as hell and meant to be consumed in small doses.
  - 3y ago
pfannkuchen 3y ago
High quality head mounted screen could be a huge breakthrough for ergonomic work. Staring at a fixed plane and orienting your body with respect to the plane is pretty mechanically unnatural for the human system and it causes a lot of problems.
- alexose 3y ago
  I tend to agree with this take. It's interesting to think about what you could do with an "infinite" screen, especially if it's socially acceptable to wear in a cafe, on a plane, etc.
  - pfannkuchen 3y ago
    Even just at home. Removing a major ergonomic constraint from the ~8 hours of daily work computer screen staring would be huge.
sebastianavina 3y ago
I thought the same about the iPad. who in their right mind would like a huge screen like a phone, without a good way to input information like a keyboard or a mouse. what would be the use case for a product like that? watch youtube? boom
- sssilver 3y ago
  I thought the same about Apple Watch. who in their right mind would like a watch they need to charge every night? bam
  - ChildOfChaos 3y ago
    Isin't the watch still a massive waste of time though?
    - SoftTalker 3y ago
      I don't find anything compelling about it either. I don't even like my iPhone that much. Half the time I pull it out of my pocket to find that the camera is on (no way to disable that) or I've made some other gesture that has opened up a dialog with no obvious means to dismiss it.
  - steve_adams_86 3y ago
    My watch mostly replaced my phone. It’s a game changer. I thought they were fairly superfluous and unnecessary and expected they’d actually phase it out within 5 years.
ktosobcy 3y ago
I think problem with Apple Pay you experienced was due to US not being up to speed with contactless payments (or chip one for that matter as well)? In Poland you coild use contactless cards for a veeeeery long time, so when mobile payments came it was just swapping card for a phone. What's mote, before Google / Apple pay, banking apps offered mobile payments, first Via dedicated sim card and then via app
- timeimp 3y ago
  +1 for Australia. People literally switched banks to get Apple Pay here. I think the whole "chip-and-pay" thing in the US is so very laughable - everyone else has been with it for at last a decade. It's a shame it took forcing merchants to wear the cost instead of banks making the terminals more affordable - then again, I am talking about the banks here.
michelb 3y ago
I think Apple just needs to get this out. If it’s somewhat decent it may spur development in 3D and vr/ar tooling on the mac platform again, something which is sorely lacking after Apple’s disinterest and inability to have good GPU’s. Having this in the hands of developers could be great, Apple can followup with an affordable hardware product a few years later. It’s basically Apple’s hololens, with hopefully a different fate.

bottom999mottob 3y ago

Here's an idea: tack it on as complimentary to the Apple Car. Sunk cost, so all the whales buy it and you get more locked into the Apple ecosystem!

highwaylights 3y ago

It feels a lot like it’s been pursued all the way to a releasable product and there’s just too many wheels in motion to stop and think if it’s really a worthwhile idea. We could be wrong and people are happy to hand over 3k for this, but it’s just hard to understand how for a whole bunch of reasons. Are they going to get third parties to build software for this? Where is the volume to support that going to come from? Who’s going to want to go first and risk 3k on something that might flop and be on eBay for a fraction of the price in a year? There’s just so many hurdles to clear for this.

sp332 3y ago
Microsoft got people to pay $3k for a 2010 version of this tech. And USD is worth 40% less since then.
- rebuilder 3y ago
  Not very many people, I don’t think
- deleted 3y ago
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ianbutler 3y ago
Just to point out this sounds like the exact criticisms you might have levied at Apple for the original iPhone. Not that this will go the same way, but they've done it once the dramatic world changing effect.
- pavlov 3y ago
  The iPhone cost roughly the same as 2007’s competing smartphones that were already selling millions of units (e.g. the Nokia N95), and it offered completely unique capabilities. Today there is a high-volume VR headset in the market, the Quest 2, but the new Apple device is projected to be nearly ten times more expensive and it seems to be more of an incremental advancement of the state of the art. But we’ll see… I hope Apple pulls a rabbit out of the hat.
  - hammyhavoc 3y ago
    What were those "completely unique capabilities" at launch? There was no App Store. It didn't record video. It didn't have 3G. It was actually a fairly ho-hum phone.
    - dragonwriter 3y ago
      The combination of screen size, resolution, and non-broken browser to render non-mobile-specific websites tolerably. That's how it broke the “smartphones are niche because the mobile web sucks, and the mobile web sucks because there are so few users that its not worth improving” barrier.
      - chasd00 3y ago
        Don’t forget Apply also got the soft keyboard right which was no small feat. People were dead set against it but here we are no physical keyboards anywhere on smartphones.
        dragonwriter 3y ago
rsynnott 3y ago
> We could be wrong and people are happy to hand over 3k for this There'll be _some_; remember Google Glass? I'm not convinced there'll be enough to make it any more than a niche oddity, though (even the numbers quoted in the post imply that; Apple doesn't launch that many products where they only expect to produce 500k in six months...)

kmos17 3y ago

I remember the original Macintosh launch, and just prior to that the failure of Lisa, both were very expensive for their time. I’m also skeptical but Apple has managed to pull it off even if like you point out it might not be an instant success, the main question will be can they take an idea that everyone has been excited about for a while but couldn’t get quite right and hit a home run. Also excited to see what they come up with.

anonymouse008 3y ago
Your perspective here is invaluable: do you think pulling over all the other apps from Mac, iPad and iPhone is enough to make this device compelling at day 0? There’s no huge productivity shift like there was for spreadsheets to visicalc that pushes our perception for what’s possible - so something has to make this device compelling in a different way.
brookst 3y ago
The original Macintosh was $7500 in today’s dollars. It did ok.
- pavlov 3y ago
  Not really. Sales collapsed after an initial rush of excitement. By the end of 1984, Apple was selling only 10,000 Macs per month, much less than they had projected. Jobs was ousted a couple of months later.
  - asimpletune 3y ago
    The success of the Mac was to show what a pc could be. This headset is the same. Both Apple Watch and iPhone sucked when they came out, but they were good enough at showing what the future could be; enough for people to buy them. Both have improved dramatically around 5-10 years after release. This headset should be thought of as a dev unit, except substitute dev with early adopters. If it’s good then there will definitely be a value add in maybe 5-10 years. If it sucks then they’ll just have failed at creating a compelling headset experience that has broad appeal, just like everyone before them. It’s important to realize just still how early we are in the computing revolution, and how much of the growth curve there’s left.

roflyear 3y ago

From apples perspective it is a small project that costs them close to nothing.

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Geee 3y ago

You're probably not putting this in the right category. It's not a headset, but a powerful computer with two 4K displays. This is the first iteration of a product category which eventually replaces desktop and laptop computers. Next time you're buying a new computer, you might buy this instead.

pohl 3y ago
One could have spoke similarly about the Apple Watch, but it’s still tethered to a phone. I’d love to just have the watch.
- lostgame 3y ago
  My God, me; too. Never - ever - could understand why Apple wouldn’t just sell the watch as a potentially standalone device. I know, it’s Apple; but at the same time, you’re easily going to sell 2-3 times more of them, and; like the iPod, it can easily introduce them to the Apple ecosystem and when it comes time to buy a new phone; they’ll maybe say ‘well, I’ve already got an Apple Watch and really like it…maybe I’ll get an iPhone this time my contract expires.’ But it’s Apple business logic. I’ve used their products pretty much exclusively for nearly 20 years (I’m an iOS/WatchOS dev and have used Logic to make music for 15 years) but I’ll never understand many of their decisions.
  - dagmx 3y ago
    The watch can be used completely standalone. Even fairly notable tech industry folks like Linus from LMG use it even though he’s a Samsung phone user. The only part you need the phone for is initial setup.
    - charlie0 3y ago
      Yes, and not everyone has an iPhone for the first step. There are lots of iPhone users, but lets not pretend Android users are an insignificant userbase.

basisword 3y ago

Apple Pay was great from day one - depending on where you lived. In the UK contactless payments are the standard and already were when Apple Pay was released meaning I could use it in 99% of retailers, even small ones.

omnimus 3y ago
It was the case for most of europe actually.
- c-hendricks 3y ago
  Same with Canada. Apple Pay having "lackluster adoption" might be one of those uniquely American issues.
  - rsynnott 3y ago
    As I understand it, the US didn’t really have contactless payment pre-apple/google pay _at all_, so it’d naturally be a harder transition than in places where it was already rolled out. Even today, you’ll occasionally see terminals in Europe which don’t actually support Apple Pay as such; it’ll work, because it acts like a normal contactless card, but only up to 50 euro, because the terminal doesn’t know it’s authenticated.
    - c-hendricks 3y ago
      Sounds like you're aware of why it's a uniquely American thing. You forgot to mention companies that did accept it but stopped after they implemented their own payment system (which again only applies to American branches of their stores).

status200 3y ago

The announcement coming from WWDC makes me think that the first wave is mostly for developers to build on, and then the cheaper/more advanced headsets coming later will be the ones marketed to regular users. I was on the fence until Palmer Luckey gave it a thumbs up, now I am cautiously optimistic.

twoodfin 3y ago
The rumor mill has been consistent for over a year that the “mass market” iteration is coming in 12–18 months (I’d guess they’re targeting holiday season 2024). I think people are underestimating how effective a “cost-almost-no-object” version is going to be at generating interest. There will be lines at Apple Stores as soon as it’s available to try. The model is iPod / iPod mini|nano. Everyone wanted the former, everyone bought the latter.
- JimDabell 3y ago
  > I think people are underestimating how effective a “cost-almost-no-object” version is going to be at generating interest. There will be lines at Apple Stores as soon as it’s available to try. Not to mention all the developers who want to build something for the mass-market iteration. This is going to be like the original launch of the App Store, where even small gimmick apps get a lot of attention. If you want in on the gold rush, you’ll have to buy the first version.

amelius 3y ago

> I am really struggling to see how this can succeed. It could work if they allowed pr0n on it. They already offer the privacy which makes it a much better proposition than a Quest where Zuck is always watching over your shoulder. But Apple will probably nanny it to death.

pavlov 3y ago
Nothing stops you from watching porn in the Quest web browser. It has private browsing mode like every other browser. I don’t think this is the killer app for headsets though, unless maybe someone comes up with a volumetric production pipeline for truly immersive participatory experiences…
- amelius 3y ago
  How do I know if activating private mode in the Quest web browser is not equivalent to sending a signal to Meta that "now extra juicy information is coming in"?
  - pavlov 3y ago
    How do you know activating private mode in Chrome isn’t doing the same with Google? After all that’s their business model too.
    - amelius 3y ago
      Good question, that's why I use Firefox ;)
  - sebzim4500 3y ago
    Becuase the stuff people use private browsing for is useless information for Meta. Why do you believe that Zuckerberg wants to see your porn preferences?
  - jayd16 3y ago
    You can packet sniff it if you're really concerned, no? There's been no evidence for what you suggest.

moonchrome 3y ago

If they can execute well on a simple use case - virtual desktop for professionals -this will be justifiable to me. I spent >1000€ on my last 5k ultra wide five years ago. This promises to be a portable unlimited screen space - if I can use it 8h+, OS integration is there - I could see myself spending that kind of money. Having a portable workspace anywhere with a chair and desk is big - especially when desk/chair dimensions now don't play a factor.

chasd00 3y ago
“Portable workspace “ is an interesting concept to me. Something more than a laptop screen. It would be hard to get input devices right when you’re wearing a headset though.
- amelius 3y ago
  > It would be hard to get input devices right when you’re wearing a headset though. I suppose this is where Augmented Reality comes into play.
  - jakeinspace 3y ago
    I've never been convinced by an AR keyboard-like interface. You need tactical, physical feedback. I really can't imagine anything short of direct brain interface being a good replacement for physical input devices, specifically the keyboard, though LLMs will maybe make voice interfaces tolerable for certain creative tasks.
  - trafficante 3y ago
    This is how Meta does it: With supported keyboards (basically Apple and Logitech’s offerings atm), they load up a tracked 3D model of the keyboard and then pull in an overlaid video feed of your real hands. With non-supported keyboards, the video feed is more of a small “window” that also captures the keyboard. And when it works, it’s honestly very impressive (especially with color passthrough). I fully expect Apple to have a more robust and less buggy version ready to go - and with the much higher specs they’ll probably be able to get a lot of “wows” from the demos.

jayd16 3y ago

This is probably more like a dev subsidized devkit than a real product. I doubt even Apple thinks $3k is sustainable.

bee_rider 3y ago

Where’d you get $3k from? $3k seems a bit high. OTOH I wouldn’t pay $3k for a laptop, and Apple seems to sell plenty of $3k laptops.

deleted 3y ago
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0zemp2c 3y ago

[flagged]

jonathantf2 3y ago

What do you mean about Apple Pay? Ever since it came out I've seen it absolutely everywhere.

GeekyBear 3y ago

> I am really struggling to see how this can succeed. People seem to forget this every time, but this version of the tech is aimed at developers and early adopters, just like version one of Hololens was. It's also priced like Hololens was. The consumer focused version in a thick sunglasses form factor comes later.

refulgentis 3y ago
Or, not at all - we’re on year, what, 8 of that? There isn’t anyone reputable who thinks there’s a short term breakthrough coming, especially after Metas $$$$ swings at it and Apple failed to. c.f. Bloomberg recent piece on this; tldr lot of internal strife at Apple because that’s what they were supposed to do and simply couldn’t. Now it’s limping out the door because they might as well ship something. Lead was saying as recently as a year ago that glasses were 3 years out, but they were shelved because there’s no path to it
- GeekyBear 3y ago
  > There isn’t anyone reputable who thinks there’s a short term breakthrough coming One big thing Apple has going for it is that they will iterate on a product year after year instead of doing one hardware update and giving up like Microsoft did. Regardless, developers need hardware in their hands if you want third party apps for the new platform.
  - anonymouse008 3y ago
    I've built too many experiments to attempt to make this visual wearable plane worth it, and if these devices try to do anything more than hands free reading, they are a worse experience to achieve the same task. Think about its 'most compelling' consumer use case - Lifelike Avatars in FaceTime. Which one do you think is preferred, cooking in the kitchen and wearing a headset, or propping your iPhone up and FaceTiming while cooking? Where on earth does it 'change the experience' to have a real-life like avatar? We have the 'life like' avatar right now with Zooms - and the reason Zooms suck is innately the human part, not the rendering part - most meetings could be emails or 5 min phone calls. Everyone had spreadsheets and publishing needs (Mac), portable music players (iPods), cellular phones (iPhone), headphones (AirPods), home wireless music speakers (HomePods)... think of fitbit / pebble, 1980s VR and then todays VR ?

screye 3y ago

$3k+ is exactly the right price point. A customer cannot be disappointed from a product they don't buy. And the type of enthusiast who spends 3k+ on it, will be satisfied before they even wear it. At 3k+ it will likely be the unchallenged top headset on the market, and that alone will mean that tech nerds will be raving over it. > where are the apps going to come from? Gaming whales exist. Enterprise customers exist. Microsoft got a $2b from the DOD for building the holo-lens 2 at tech demo levels of product quality. IMO, VR is 1 UX breakthrough away from finding a money-generating niche. And UX breakthrough/popularization is Apple's bread and butter.

twoodfin 3y ago
Agree, and would add that “apps” is likely the wrong mindset: This thing is going to be all about experiences. Yoga on the beach. Standing on the pitch during Ted Lasso. Watching the Apollo moon landing from the surface of Tranquility Base. Either they have the immersion and UI model that makes this kind of content viscerally “wow”, or they don’t have a product. I’m guessing they have a product.
- hnaccount_rng 3y ago
  I had that visceral “wow” while reading your post. I’m not saying that’s what they’ll do. But that _is_ one way of leveraging the content/IP from TV+ and could serve as an impressive demonstration which is fun to work on.
  - twoodfin 3y ago
    … and Fitness+, Arcade, Music, … This platform, if it works, will supercharge the value of their service offerings.
- anonymouse008 3y ago
  Have you ever been to a live action theater and dinner thing? Like Tony and Tina’s wedding and the lion king - it’s corny as hell and meant to be consumed in small doses.
- 3y ago

pfannkuchen 3y ago

High quality head mounted screen could be a huge breakthrough for ergonomic work. Staring at a fixed plane and orienting your body with respect to the plane is pretty mechanically unnatural for the human system and it causes a lot of problems.

alexose 3y ago
I tend to agree with this take. It's interesting to think about what you could do with an "infinite" screen, especially if it's socially acceptable to wear in a cafe, on a plane, etc.
- pfannkuchen 3y ago
  Even just at home. Removing a major ergonomic constraint from the ~8 hours of daily work computer screen staring would be huge.

sebastianavina 3y ago

I thought the same about the iPad. who in their right mind would like a huge screen like a phone, without a good way to input information like a keyboard or a mouse. what would be the use case for a product like that? watch youtube? boom

sssilver 3y ago
I thought the same about Apple Watch. who in their right mind would like a watch they need to charge every night? bam
- ChildOfChaos 3y ago
  Isin't the watch still a massive waste of time though?
  - SoftTalker 3y ago
    I don't find anything compelling about it either. I don't even like my iPhone that much. Half the time I pull it out of my pocket to find that the camera is on (no way to disable that) or I've made some other gesture that has opened up a dialog with no obvious means to dismiss it.
- steve_adams_86 3y ago
  My watch mostly replaced my phone. It’s a game changer. I thought they were fairly superfluous and unnecessary and expected they’d actually phase it out within 5 years.

ktosobcy 3y ago

I think problem with Apple Pay you experienced was due to US not being up to speed with contactless payments (or chip one for that matter as well)? In Poland you coild use contactless cards for a veeeeery long time, so when mobile payments came it was just swapping card for a phone. What's mote, before Google / Apple pay, banking apps offered mobile payments, first Via dedicated sim card and then via app

timeimp 3y ago
+1 for Australia. People literally switched banks to get Apple Pay here. I think the whole "chip-and-pay" thing in the US is so very laughable - everyone else has been with it for at last a decade. It's a shame it took forcing merchants to wear the cost instead of banks making the terminals more affordable - then again, I am talking about the banks here.

michelb 3y ago

I think Apple just needs to get this out. If it’s somewhat decent it may spur development in 3D and vr/ar tooling on the mac platform again, something which is sorely lacking after Apple’s disinterest and inability to have good GPU’s. Having this in the hands of developers could be great, Apple can followup with an affordable hardware product a few years later. It’s basically Apple’s hololens, with hopefully a different fate.