6 ms·

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 worthwhi

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
  [deleted]
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
        Sure. Not sure that was indepedently important (for adoption, it clearly had a big impact on the course of mobile interaction) but even if it wasn’t it was essential to the web thing, because otherwise you couldn’t have a usable keyboard and a sufficiently large screen.
    - pavlov 3y ago
      It was a ho-hum phone by the existing standard of mobile phones. But it offered a full-size capacitive touchscreen and a desktop-level operating system. These were both unique in the market, and importantly they were designed together for a cohesive experience that nobody else could match. The iPhone introduced UI affordances like inertial touch scrolling which we take for granted today, and that UI enabled things like mobile web browsing that didn’t suck. The iPod touch was an important pillar of this new platform’s introduction. It’s often forgotten today, but a lot of people around the world got introduced to iOS on the iPod rather than the iPhone.
- bombcar 3y ago
  The iPhone worked as an iPod and a phone. It didn’t need to do anything else to already “win” for a few bucks more than both combined.
- notatoad 3y ago
  Did people really say that about the original iphone? I don't remember that. I remember the iPhone announcement as being a product that basically everybody had been asking for and immediately saw the value in. And the rumour cycle leading up to the announcement was insane - people were so hyped for apple to announce a proper smartphone, it was already a product category. Things like the Palm Treo and the Nokia N95 existed and were relatively popular - handheld computers with phone capabilities as well as full web browsers, email clients, maps, video playback, etc. The iPhone was taking a product concept that had already been proven, and hugely improving the form factor and user experience. Nobody saw the iPhone announcement and said "nah, i just don't see the value there".
  - wodenokoto 3y ago
    Yes. The iPhone was expensive upfront, with an expensive contract to top it off. They did cut the price relatively early.
  - BryantD 3y ago
    Gizmodo loved it, but "The real elephant in the room is the fact that I just spent $600 on my iPhone and it can’t do some crucial functions that even $50 handsets can. I’m talking about MMS. Video recording. Custom ringtones. Mass storage. Fully functioning Bluetooth with stereo audio streaming..." TechCrunch: "That virtual keyboard will be about as useful for tapping out emails and text messages as a rotary phone. Don’t be surprised if a sizable contingent of iPhone buyers express some remorse at ditching their BlackBerry when they spend an extra hour each day pumping out emails on the road." A ton of people loved it, but it came under heavy criticism for the lack of physical keyboard and the AT&T dependency.
    - Eisenstein 3y ago
      Not enough emphasis can be placed on the existence of a usable web browser on a phone. It did not exist before. Blackberry was great for emails, and Windows mobile was great for propping your door open, but when Safari on iOS came out, even with it being slow 2G and with a buggy keyboard and no copy/paste -- you could use websites on a mobile device -- anywhere. Being able to pull up amazon and check reviews for products while browsing in a BestBuy or whatever was something that just was not practical before and it was a game changer, instantly. Lots of people criticized it for not being able to do basic tasks like copy and paste or the lack of 3G after they bought it. The iPhone didn't suffer at all from the criticism because people saw it as a work in progress -- the AT&T attachment was actually brilliant because it allowed them to make AT&T build their network and offer decent data plans. Before iPhone the data rate was something ridiculous as an add-on to a regular phone plan, and everyone using 2G data all at once brought the network to its knees in dense areas and forced upgrades.
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...)

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
[deleted]

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
        Sure. Not sure that was indepedently important (for adoption, it clearly had a big impact on the course of mobile interaction) but even if it wasn’t it was essential to the web thing, because otherwise you couldn’t have a usable keyboard and a sufficiently large screen.
  - pavlov 3y ago
    It was a ho-hum phone by the existing standard of mobile phones. But it offered a full-size capacitive touchscreen and a desktop-level operating system. These were both unique in the market, and importantly they were designed together for a cohesive experience that nobody else could match. The iPhone introduced UI affordances like inertial touch scrolling which we take for granted today, and that UI enabled things like mobile web browsing that didn’t suck. The iPod touch was an important pillar of this new platform’s introduction. It’s often forgotten today, but a lot of people around the world got introduced to iOS on the iPod rather than the iPhone.
bombcar 3y ago
The iPhone worked as an iPod and a phone. It didn’t need to do anything else to already “win” for a few bucks more than both combined.
notatoad 3y ago
Did people really say that about the original iphone? I don't remember that. I remember the iPhone announcement as being a product that basically everybody had been asking for and immediately saw the value in. And the rumour cycle leading up to the announcement was insane - people were so hyped for apple to announce a proper smartphone, it was already a product category. Things like the Palm Treo and the Nokia N95 existed and were relatively popular - handheld computers with phone capabilities as well as full web browsers, email clients, maps, video playback, etc. The iPhone was taking a product concept that had already been proven, and hugely improving the form factor and user experience. Nobody saw the iPhone announcement and said "nah, i just don't see the value there".
- wodenokoto 3y ago
  Yes. The iPhone was expensive upfront, with an expensive contract to top it off. They did cut the price relatively early.
- BryantD 3y ago
  Gizmodo loved it, but "The real elephant in the room is the fact that I just spent $600 on my iPhone and it can’t do some crucial functions that even $50 handsets can. I’m talking about MMS. Video recording. Custom ringtones. Mass storage. Fully functioning Bluetooth with stereo audio streaming..." TechCrunch: "That virtual keyboard will be about as useful for tapping out emails and text messages as a rotary phone. Don’t be surprised if a sizable contingent of iPhone buyers express some remorse at ditching their BlackBerry when they spend an extra hour each day pumping out emails on the road." A ton of people loved it, but it came under heavy criticism for the lack of physical keyboard and the AT&T dependency.
  - Eisenstein 3y ago
    Not enough emphasis can be placed on the existence of a usable web browser on a phone. It did not exist before. Blackberry was great for emails, and Windows mobile was great for propping your door open, but when Safari on iOS came out, even with it being slow 2G and with a buggy keyboard and no copy/paste -- you could use websites on a mobile device -- anywhere. Being able to pull up amazon and check reviews for products while browsing in a BestBuy or whatever was something that just was not practical before and it was a game changer, instantly. Lots of people criticized it for not being able to do basic tasks like copy and paste or the lack of 3G after they bought it. The iPhone didn't suffer at all from the criticism because people saw it as a work in progress -- the AT&T attachment was actually brilliant because it allowed them to make AT&T build their network and offer decent data plans. Before iPhone the data rate was something ridiculous as an add-on to a regular phone plan, and everyone using 2G data all at once brought the network to its knees in dense areas and forced upgrades.

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...)