5 ms·

I agree this is the main intended use case, but I’m not sure it’s compelling enough to offset all the downsides: * Unless Apple has figured out true mixed real

I agree this is the main intended use case, but I’m not sure it’s compelling enough to offset all the downsides: * Unless Apple has figured out true mixed reality (i.e. transparent lenses with full field-of-vision overlaid video), opaque AR goggles are a non-starter for most people. Seeing your surroundings only through a camera and screen is unacceptable. Not to mention the fact that people around you can’t see your face either. * Unless other people have these glasses, they can’t see your screen either. Even if these glasses have no shortcomings whatsoever, I can’t imagine a future where everyone in the room needs compatible glasses to look at the same screen. * Few people actually need enormous amounts of screen real estate, beyond what’s practical to pack in a laptop. The use cases you’ve mentioned (watching movies on the go, logging into device consoles) are fairly niche IMO. There would have to be some compelling new UI paradigm (e.g. truly 3D displays) that’s only possible at massive virtual display scale.

andybak 3y ago
There's a lot of strong statements here: > Seeing your surroundings only through a camera and screen is unacceptable. Without qualification this statement is strange. I don't care if I'm seeing through a camera and screen or through a transparant piece of plastic. What I care about is image quality, distortion, FOV, latency etc. So the question is surely a more nuanced one about the relative importance of each of these factors? > Not to mention the fact that people around you can’t see your face either. When I'm working I'm not sure this is a huge deal. > Unless other people have these glasses, they can’t see your screen either. Even if these glasses have no shortcomings whatsoever, I can’t imagine a future where everyone in the room needs compatible glasses to look at the same screen. Ah. I get it - you're assuming there's other people in the same room as you! Why would you make that assumption for this device? I rarely work with anyone in the room, and when I do, they tend to be working on their own stuff. My collaborations are 90% remote (and for the 10% I can take the headset off)
- MontyCarloHall 3y ago
  >I don't care if I'm seeing through a camera and screen or through a transparant piece of plastic. What I care about is image quality, distortion, FOV, latency etc. There is currently no camera/display tech that is remotely close to delivering dynamic range, latency, refresh rate, and resolution anywhere close to what our eyes can perceive. >>Not to mention the fact that people around you can’t see your face either. >When I'm working I'm not sure this is a huge deal. It is certainly a big deal for many people to be able to maintain eye contact with people they're speaking with in person. >Ah. I get it - you're assuming there's other people in the same room as you! Why would you make that assumption for this device? I think you are the one making several constraining assumptions here: 1. this device is just for work 2. most people work physically alone 3. in the rare instances that people work together, they almost never look at each others' screens Re: 1, OP's vision is that AR goggles may ultimately supersede displays entirely, which would make it difficult to do things that most people commonly do today, like show their friends things on their phone. Re: 2, this is also not true; as of February 2023, it's estimated that 30% of all office work occurred remotely [0]. Re: 3, this is also not true, especially outside of the tech industry, where people collaborate in-person on documents/spreadsheets/presentations all the time. I see a whole host of impractical impediments: knowing Apple, only Apple glasses will be able to have a shared reality experience, so all the people in the room with non-Apple glasses will be left out. There will also be version incompatibilities as the tech evolves, leading to a whole host of awkward scenarios: "sorry friends, I can't show you this funny video, I have the iGlass 5 but you guys only have the iGlass 3, and you guys have Samsung Galaxy Glass." Furthermore, since these glasses will have to be networked, you'd likely need a separate pair for work and personal life, which creates a host of incompatibilities ("sorry coworker, I can't show you my photos from the weekend, since I took them with my personal glasses and you only have your work pair on you.") [0] https://thehill.com/policy/technology/3862069-nearly-30-percent-of-work-remains-remote-as-workers-dig-in/ https://thehill.com/policy/technology/3862069-nearly-30-perc...
  - jayd16 3y ago
    Honestly, I think you're just pulling some of these user preferences out of nowhere. Or at least you're greatly underestimating what is acceptable. Its not like people don't use sunglasses and ski-goggles. Eye contact is nice but proven to not be necessary in many many cases. The reason a Quest Pro is a pain is the weight and passthrough quality. You get used to not seeing someone's eyes fairly quickly. >3. in the rare instances that people work together, they almost never look at each others' screens This is a huge one but I think its a workable problem. Hopefully Apple lets you 'cast' your screen to others for a shared experience. It makes a huge difference.
xoa 3y ago
>Unless Apple has figured out true mixed reality (i.e. transparent lenses with full field-of-vision overlaid video) This sounds like a very early adopter/developer version 1. The tech for what you describe exists, but this particular version isn't going to be it. Which I'm basing on Apple themselves, leaks says they're thinking in terms of hundreds of thousands of units in a year for this, for contrast they sold something like 220 million iPhones just last year. The question is whether they can achieve an MVP and get iterating. >Unless other people have these glasses, they can’t see your screen either. Even if these glasses have no shortcomings whatsoever, I can’t imagine a future where everyone in the room needs compatible glasses to look at the same screen. I can, very, very easily. But in the long interim between now and then, I can imagine remaining legacy screens which people already have for that. Because we already have them. It's not a zero-sum game, having wearable displays too doesn't somehow make existing screens shut off. >Few people actually need enormous amounts of screen real estate Utterly ludicrous. The only reason people use small screens is portability, size (not everyone physically has room for a large display), and cost. If there were two 12" notebooks, one of which had a conventional matching screen like now and the other at the push of a button could pop out a 30" magic solid hologram display (resizable to whatever one wanted) at zero extra mass or stored size cost for the same price, there are zero people who'd pick the former. Everything everyone does with computers and gaming and movie watching and so on benefits from full resolution arbitrary size windows. It's just that right now there is no way to separate that from the physical size of the display hardware itself. >watching movies/playing games/reading books/doing work is niche, and wanting to do it privately is niche :\ Come on.
- MontyCarloHall 3y ago
  >The tech for what you describe exists I am not aware of this technology; can you point me to it? >>Unless other people have these glasses, they can’t see your screen either. Even if these glasses have no shortcomings whatsoever, I can’t imagine a future where everyone in the room needs compatible glasses to look at the same screen. >I can, very, very easily. Currently, if your own device doesn't work, it just means you can't access your own content. With connected AR devices, it would mean that you also can't access anyone else's shared reality. Here are some common ways I foresee AR devices not being easily interoperable: * Knowing Apple, only Apple glasses will be compatible with each other, so all the people in the room with non-Apple glasses (or glasses that are too old) will be left out: "sorry friends, I can't show you this funny video, I have the iGlass 5 but you guys only have the iGlass 3, and you guys have Samsung Galaxy Glass." * Battery life on these had better be phenomenal, since you're cut off from a large portion of reality if it dies. * These glasses will have to be networked, with close to zero latency, which is always tricky business—even mature technologies like wifi are far from perfectly reliable today. >But in the long interim between now and then, I can imagine remaining legacy screens which people already have for that. Because we already have them. It's not a zero-sum game, having wearable displays too doesn't somehow make existing screens shut off. I totally agree. This is the future I think is most likely — some sort of clever hybrid between physical screens and AR screen extensions. >>Few people actually need enormous amounts of screen real estate >Utterly ludicrous. You are right. I should have said, “given the tradeoffs of AR glasses, few people need that real estate.” >The only reason people use small screens is portability, size (not everyone physically has room for a large display), and cost. If there were two 12" notebooks, one of which had a conventional matching screen like now and the other at the push of a button could pop out a 30" magic solid hologram display (resizable to whatever one wanted) at zero extra mass or stored size cost for the same price, there are zero people who'd pick the former. I totally agree with this. If this technology were a magic hologram (i.e. zero tradeoffs), it would be totally game-changing. > watching movies/playing games/reading books/doing work is niche, and wanting to do it privately is niche You don't need a giant screen with tons of tradeoffs to read most books or do most work. Gaming and movies would benefit, but most people do not spend the majority of their time on a computer gaming or watching cinematic movies.

andybak 3y ago

There's a lot of strong statements here: > Seeing your surroundings only through a camera and screen is unacceptable. Without qualification this statement is strange. I don't care if I'm seeing through a camera and screen or through a transparant piece of plastic. What I care about is image quality, distortion, FOV, latency etc. So the question is surely a more nuanced one about the relative importance of each of these factors? > Not to mention the fact that people around you can’t see your face either. When I'm working I'm not sure this is a huge deal. > Unless other people have these glasses, they can’t see your screen either. Even if these glasses have no shortcomings whatsoever, I can’t imagine a future where everyone in the room needs compatible glasses to look at the same screen. Ah. I get it - you're assuming there's other people in the same room as you! Why would you make that assumption for this device? I rarely work with anyone in the room, and when I do, they tend to be working on their own stuff. My collaborations are 90% remote (and for the 10% I can take the headset off)

MontyCarloHall 3y ago
>I don't care if I'm seeing through a camera and screen or through a transparant piece of plastic. What I care about is image quality, distortion, FOV, latency etc. There is currently no camera/display tech that is remotely close to delivering dynamic range, latency, refresh rate, and resolution anywhere close to what our eyes can perceive. >>Not to mention the fact that people around you can’t see your face either. >When I'm working I'm not sure this is a huge deal. It is certainly a big deal for many people to be able to maintain eye contact with people they're speaking with in person. >Ah. I get it - you're assuming there's other people in the same room as you! Why would you make that assumption for this device? I think you are the one making several constraining assumptions here: 1. this device is just for work 2. most people work physically alone 3. in the rare instances that people work together, they almost never look at each others' screens Re: 1, OP's vision is that AR goggles may ultimately supersede displays entirely, which would make it difficult to do things that most people commonly do today, like show their friends things on their phone. Re: 2, this is also not true; as of February 2023, it's estimated that 30% of all office work occurred remotely [0]. Re: 3, this is also not true, especially outside of the tech industry, where people collaborate in-person on documents/spreadsheets/presentations all the time. I see a whole host of impractical impediments: knowing Apple, only Apple glasses will be able to have a shared reality experience, so all the people in the room with non-Apple glasses will be left out. There will also be version incompatibilities as the tech evolves, leading to a whole host of awkward scenarios: "sorry friends, I can't show you this funny video, I have the iGlass 5 but you guys only have the iGlass 3, and you guys have Samsung Galaxy Glass." Furthermore, since these glasses will have to be networked, you'd likely need a separate pair for work and personal life, which creates a host of incompatibilities ("sorry coworker, I can't show you my photos from the weekend, since I took them with my personal glasses and you only have your work pair on you.") [0] https://thehill.com/policy/technology/3862069-nearly-30-percent-of-work-remains-remote-as-workers-dig-in/ https://thehill.com/policy/technology/3862069-nearly-30-perc...
- jayd16 3y ago
  Honestly, I think you're just pulling some of these user preferences out of nowhere. Or at least you're greatly underestimating what is acceptable. Its not like people don't use sunglasses and ski-goggles. Eye contact is nice but proven to not be necessary in many many cases. The reason a Quest Pro is a pain is the weight and passthrough quality. You get used to not seeing someone's eyes fairly quickly. >3. in the rare instances that people work together, they almost never look at each others' screens This is a huge one but I think its a workable problem. Hopefully Apple lets you 'cast' your screen to others for a shared experience. It makes a huge difference.

xoa 3y ago

>Unless Apple has figured out true mixed reality (i.e. transparent lenses with full field-of-vision overlaid video) This sounds like a very early adopter/developer version 1. The tech for what you describe exists, but this particular version isn't going to be it. Which I'm basing on Apple themselves, leaks says they're thinking in terms of hundreds of thousands of units in a year for this, for contrast they sold something like 220 million iPhones just last year. The question is whether they can achieve an MVP and get iterating. >Unless other people have these glasses, they can’t see your screen either. Even if these glasses have no shortcomings whatsoever, I can’t imagine a future where everyone in the room needs compatible glasses to look at the same screen. I can, very, very easily. But in the long interim between now and then, I can imagine remaining legacy screens which people already have for that. Because we already have them. It's not a zero-sum game, having wearable displays too doesn't somehow make existing screens shut off. >Few people actually need enormous amounts of screen real estate Utterly ludicrous. The only reason people use small screens is portability, size (not everyone physically has room for a large display), and cost. If there were two 12" notebooks, one of which had a conventional matching screen like now and the other at the push of a button could pop out a 30" magic solid hologram display (resizable to whatever one wanted) at zero extra mass or stored size cost for the same price, there are zero people who'd pick the former. Everything everyone does with computers and gaming and movie watching and so on benefits from full resolution arbitrary size windows. It's just that right now there is no way to separate that from the physical size of the display hardware itself. >watching movies/playing games/reading books/doing work is niche, and wanting to do it privately is niche :\ Come on.

MontyCarloHall 3y ago
>The tech for what you describe exists I am not aware of this technology; can you point me to it? >>Unless other people have these glasses, they can’t see your screen either. Even if these glasses have no shortcomings whatsoever, I can’t imagine a future where everyone in the room needs compatible glasses to look at the same screen. >I can, very, very easily. Currently, if your own device doesn't work, it just means you can't access your own content. With connected AR devices, it would mean that you also can't access anyone else's shared reality. Here are some common ways I foresee AR devices not being easily interoperable: * Knowing Apple, only Apple glasses will be compatible with each other, so all the people in the room with non-Apple glasses (or glasses that are too old) will be left out: "sorry friends, I can't show you this funny video, I have the iGlass 5 but you guys only have the iGlass 3, and you guys have Samsung Galaxy Glass." * Battery life on these had better be phenomenal, since you're cut off from a large portion of reality if it dies. * These glasses will have to be networked, with close to zero latency, which is always tricky business—even mature technologies like wifi are far from perfectly reliable today. >But in the long interim between now and then, I can imagine remaining legacy screens which people already have for that. Because we already have them. It's not a zero-sum game, having wearable displays too doesn't somehow make existing screens shut off. I totally agree. This is the future I think is most likely — some sort of clever hybrid between physical screens and AR screen extensions. >>Few people actually need enormous amounts of screen real estate >Utterly ludicrous. You are right. I should have said, “given the tradeoffs of AR glasses, few people need that real estate.” >The only reason people use small screens is portability, size (not everyone physically has room for a large display), and cost. If there were two 12" notebooks, one of which had a conventional matching screen like now and the other at the push of a button could pop out a 30" magic solid hologram display (resizable to whatever one wanted) at zero extra mass or stored size cost for the same price, there are zero people who'd pick the former. I totally agree with this. If this technology were a magic hologram (i.e. zero tradeoffs), it would be totally game-changing. > watching movies/playing games/reading books/doing work is niche, and wanting to do it privately is niche You don't need a giant screen with tons of tradeoffs to read most books or do most work. Gaming and movies would benefit, but most people do not spend the majority of their time on a computer gaming or watching cinematic movies.