6 ms·

Even if they came to my house to fit me with it I wouldn't buy it. What problem is it solving for someone other than Apple? We've been seeing this AR pipe-dream

• throw47474777j 3y ago
  > Not because the technology was bad, but because people just don't want it. It’s hard to see how anyone who has been following the technology could make this claim.
  • kibwen 3y ago
    People want it, but not in this form factor. Like I've been saying regarding Oculus' products for years: VR/AR isn't a bad idea, but nobody wants to strap a set of heavy, sweaty ski goggles to their face for eight hours a day. Just because the newest models are lighter/more comfortable than the old models doesn't mean they're anywhere near acceptable. I'll be passing on these until they're the size and weight of ordinary glasses.
    • throw47474777j 3y ago
      Comparing Oculus’s products of years ago with Vision Pro makes no sense.
      • kibwen 3y ago
        I have been saying it for years, but it remains true of Oculus' modern products, and it remains true of the VP. In ten years it may be different, but today is not ten years from now.
        • sleepybrett 3y ago
          people who have demoed the vision pro claim the ventilation in the headset solves the 'sweaty' problem.
    • iLoveOncall 3y ago
      I'll go much further than that: nobody wants to wear ANY pair of glasses. Some people do because the benefit is literally regaining one of your senses, but even if AR / VR glasses one day become like normal glasses, it will be a niche product. Nobody's wearing glasses just to get notifications and gimmicks like this. Ever. The only moment where AR / VR can maybe become mainstream is when we can send signal straight to the brain to generate images (disregarding that there's no way people will be ok with other people controlling their brain).
      • filleduchaos 3y ago
        I (and very many others) very much like wearing our vision-aid glasses, thanks. There is also an entire industry of eyewear crafted and worn just to look cool (sunglasses have not primarily been a protective aid in a very long time, they're fashion accessories now). Of course all that's orthogonal to AR/VR, but the idea that "nobody wants to wear glasses" is a bit laughable.
      • throw47474777j 3y ago
        > there's no way people will be ok with other people controlling their brain What do you think advertising and news are?
  • qqtt 3y ago
    Can you expand on this comment? What have you seen in the AR market that leads you to believe the comment you are responding to is not accurate? From many observers, we have seen many AR/VR devices fail over the years. Some spectacularly (like Snap Spectacles), and some seem to be just throwing money into a furnace (like Oculus, which hasn't failed, but even with millions of devices sold doesn't seem to be reaching product market fit for anything outside of niche gaming and fitness). Yes, the Vision Pro is a different device, but there are orthogonal attempts at this kind of screen sharing experience which also have very niche markets, like Sightful's Spacetop laptop. I get that the Vision Pro has some product differentiation, such as the App Store, the developer ecosystem (debatable at this point compared to other AR products), and so on - but what exactly are you seeing the market today that will drive this demand for Vision Pro? Where is the evidence that customers want this technology?
    • zmmmmm 3y ago
      Objectively, I think it's reasonable to say the technology was bad compared to what is/will be available in the next 12 months. There are actual material technology breakthroughs that really do fundamentally alter the equation (primarily: micro-OLED displays, significantly faster mobile processors and distortion-free pancake optics). The original phrasing is ambiguous as to whether its acknowledging the tech was bad or not. But it doesn't seem reasonable to conclude that people don't want something until they can experience an implementation of it that isn't "bad".
    • wombat-man 3y ago
      Snap spectacles weren't AR really. They were just a camera strapped to your glasses. Hololens or magic leap are sort of comparable to the Vision Pro, but they were much worse. The spacetop sounds kind of low quality based on the verge review. It's an emerging product category. I think the workmachine use case is compelling and I can imagine myself using something like it. The price is steep for a personal device, but I suspect that will be fixed in one or two iterations.
  • Gigachad 3y ago
    HN users are generally pretty good at predicting the exact opposite of the future. Every obviously good product like Dropbox is claimed to be useless while every obviously crap product like Mastodon or the Librem phone is hyped up as the future.
    • creata 3y ago
      Did people really suggest that Librem was "the future"?
• CrampusDestrus 3y ago
  AR is a wet dream fostered by decades of science fiction. Please don't kid everyone with this
  • ip26 3y ago
    AR exists commercially today in the armed forces. Where do you think sci-fi got it from?
    • staticman2 3y ago
      "Where do you think sci-fi got it from?" Go on...please tell me where the AR in William Gibson's 1984 novel ,Neuromancer, came from.
  • mhh__ 3y ago
    Whats wrong with replacing 4 monitors with an AR headset?
• wombat-man 3y ago
  Uh, this seems a lot better than the other AR things to me. I'm intrigued but will probably sit out the first version.
  • juve1996 3y ago
    It's a better iteration but doesn't solve the core problems of VR/AR.
• deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
• JKCalhoun 3y ago
  I agree with you. I may be an old man, but what I want is the opposite of immersive technology. Put a computer on my face? Are you kidding? The one in my pocket already feels increasingly parasitic.
  • beanjuice 3y ago
    In a converse way, what could be more freeing to our living spaces than confining our access to technology to such a secluded and particular space?
    • lotsoweiners 3y ago
      What is this freeing though for a lot of people? Maybe if you’re single and live in a tiny apartment then you wouldn’t have to dedicate a wall to a tv but then again you could already be watching on a tablet/laptop. As a married person with 2 children this would solve nothing. We still need tv to watch, play PlayStation etc as a family and as my wife and I wfh we are still required to use our work issued Windows PCs.
  • renewiltord 3y ago
    Nah, you're not an old man or anything like that. This is just the mainstream present technological scepticism. At some point marvelous technology became so ubiquitous we became blasé about it. Cynicism, pessimism, and affected jadedness have always been the way people have attempted to sound cool. Nothing new about that part. Ultimately, the question is whether your path brings you joy.
    • nocontextpls 3y ago
      [dead]
    • whimsicalism 3y ago
      You’re downvoted but I agree with you - tech has a massive gap between stated and revealed preferences.
    • 3y ago
• mberning 3y ago
  I think they are building all this on the hope that they can convince tech addicted kids to strap this stupid ass thing on for many hours per day. I think “on the person” computing devices are reaching their “peak tobacco” moment. Every day more and more people realize how bad it is for your mental and physical health and decide to unplug more and more.
• 01100011 3y ago
  AR feels like 3D TV. Mfgs want it badly so they have a 'next big thing' to sell. Otherwise they risk having their premium product line turn into a boring commodity. I'm more excited for something like Humane's laser projection system or a less-intrusive, deep-learning driven assistant which uses voice and tactile feedback.
• PUSH_AX 3y ago
  No, objectively the technology and hardware especially are bad. It’s an immature market and the high barriers to entry hinder the progress needed for the market to mature. It won’t get better without big drives in adoption, adoption won’t happen without big improvements to.. everything. Catch 22
• georgespencer 3y ago
  > Not because the technology was bad, but because people just don't want it. Have you ever used an AR/VR headset for something you generally enjoy (a game, a movie, Google Maps, whatever)? I ask because my own experience (and the consensus of my network and the critics I read) is that devices like Oculus and the Vive Pro are extraordinarily compelling but overall held back by immature technology. Base stations. Wires. Visible pixels. Low quality video pass through. Stupid controllers you have to hold in your hands. People see the potential and flashes of what might be, but it's impossible to get beyond the awful user experience. > What Apple is missing here is that people wanted the iPhone (a phone with an iPod built in) for years before it was even officially announced as under development. Two thoughts on this: 1) It seems to undermine your point that iPhone launched in 2007 and yet through 2011 failed to come close to outselling iPod in terms of units. 2) The device you are describing -- "a phone with an iPod built in", before the iPhone -- actually did exist. The Motorola ROKR E1, or the "iTunes Phone": it was unveiled in 2005 on stage by Steve Jobs. Motorola did the phone stuff, and Apple did the iPod bit. It was a dismal failure and was discontinued after roughly a year on the market. > It succeeded because the market invented it, not because Apple are geniuses who showed us we needed it. What do you mean by "invented"? Because literally two years before the iPhone launched, the market "invented" a phone with a built-in iPod, manufactured by the leading cell phone manufacturer of the day, in collaboration with Apple, and it failed miserably. Did the market invent that phone? It's fair to say that Apple is not the first entrant to most market it contributes to, and it's fair to say that they are rarely the progenitors of the technologies their devices rely upon. What Apple is very good at is deeply understanding when new technologies can be combined or honed to bring them over a threshold of resonance with consumers which drives widespread adoption. It is not enough to simply say "ship a phone with a touch screen' --- folks were doing that for years before iPhone launched. Instead it's about understanding the interplay of latency, brightness, PPI, plural point awareness, manufacturing yields, component costs, and making tradeoffs which pursue a vision which people buy into. That's why when you said "a phone with an iPod built in" you could have been referring to both iPhone _and_ the ROKR, but the two devices could not be more different: ROKR had a fiddly microSD card for storage. Crummy slow processor and user interface. Stupid tiny keyboard for typing on. WAP internet. Wired transfer speeds slower than high speed USB. Slow java apps. A low resolution TFT LCD display. Only 11 megabytes of onboard memory.
• mhh__ 3y ago
  People have been fantasizing over magic floaty screens in the air for decades.
• mhh__ 3y ago
  Also iPod + phone is clearly not what actually made the iPhone successful, certainly not raw features at least.