6 ms·

Apple Scraps Work on Mac-Connected Augmented Reality Glasses

46 points by dm 2y ago

dm 2y ago
https://archive.is/Ny2oj https://archive.is/Ny2oj
doener 2y ago
Previous posting: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42901132 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42901132
torben-friis 2y ago
Apple's adventures in XR are weird. I started my career as a dev working in VR apss. At the time there was consensus in the industry that apple was about to release something huge that would push the whole industry to the mainstream - and indeed you couldn't rely on any new VR/AR product or software without it being silently acquired in months and their website redirecting to apple. Fast forward one decade, nothing's happened yet. I moved to web dev long ago, but people seem to be still waiting.
- hnra 2y ago
  Didn’t they release a pair of VR glasses last year?
  - api 2y ago
    The Vision Pro, and despite being pretty good they were kind of a flop. Like I said elsewhere I think VR and AR are niche products tech companies and investors keep trying to make go mainstream because they showed up in a lot of sci-fi. I don't think many people want them.
    - PaulHoule 2y ago
      Meta is having some success with the Meta Quest, but it is in the gaming sector where they have cultural problems. [1] The notable thing is that the Meta Quest consumer is price sensitive: when the MQ3 came out and they dropped the price of the MQ2, MQ2 sales surged. Next year they came out with the MQ3S which has the brains of an MQ3 in the body of an MQ2, so it is a cost-reduced device that can run MQ3 software. The AVP, on the other other hand, was just too expensive. At that price it could go with a seat of [2] (been a high end enterprise play) but no way was it going to compete with buying a big ass TV and a home theater system, which you can enjoy with other people. Worse than that, Apple rejected the immersive world experiences that are big fun on the MQ3 -- if a device is that expensive it has to do it all. [1] https://components.one/posts/gamer-and-nihilist-product-hunt https://components.one/posts/gamer-and-nihilist-product-hunt [2] https://www.3ds.com/3dexperience/ https://www.3ds.com/3dexperience/
    - jnsie 2y ago
      If the Vision Pro was indistinguishable from a regular pair of glasses and didn't cost over $1000 it would take over the world. I don't think it's a case that people don't want them, it's more that people want what's in sci-fi you spoke of and not this early iteration.
      - ghaff 2y ago
        Yeah (at least maybe). If AR were in a fashionable pair of glasses that you could effortlessly switch into a Google Lens mode for example or call up a Wikipedia article that starts getting interesting. But that's a long way off.
  - threetonesun 2y ago
    The "something huge that would push the whole industry to the mainstream" seems to be the missing piece here. I'm sure the Vision Pro will get some follow up, but as someone who wears glasses I don't see the glasses/headset version of AR/XR ever catching on in the mainstream.
  - paxys 2y ago
    Headset, not glasses
- api 2y ago
  I think this is a niche technology that people keep trying to make go mainstream, but most people just don't want it. For most people (including myself) trying VR a little is a novelty, but it's not something I want every day, and AR seems like it'd be useless or annoying unless I were using it in e.g. some industrial context like a heads up display. It's like NFTs in gaming, NFTs in general, AI shoehorned into places it doesn't make much sense, wifi connected can openers, Soylent, ... Startup founders are always told that there must be market pull, and many startups fail because they try to push an idea nobody wants, but it's not just startups. Big companies and VCs do this too.
  - HPsquared 2y ago
    It's still just a bit too clunky, like PDAs. Still waiting for an iPhone moment.
    - api 2y ago
      I don't think it's even that. I don't think most people want it. VR is for gaming. I can see it finding a solid niche there. Make a VR headset that connects to a PC/Mac with extremely low latency and focus all the engineering on the quality of the display and making it lightweight. Gamers will buy it. AR is IMHO for industrial uses. I could see it being incredibly valuable doing inspections of industrial systems, working in a high-risk environment (for safety awareness), etc. I think the most practical depiction of AR in sci-fi is probably the heads up displays in The Expanse, which make perfect sense to augment human sensory in both military and industrial/maintenance operations in an environment like space. I actively do not want AR for civilian uses. Yeah, I want to wear glasses and contacts to superimpose ads and slop and Internet drama in front of my life. Get that the hell away from me. When I want to touch grass, I want to touch grass. A lot of that kind of stuff shows up in cyberpunk, and people forget that most cyberpunk is dystopian. The cyberpunk aesthetic is also kind of 1980s-1990s and is not contemporary. People are stuck in it. We're well past that and even on the tail end of "millennial minimalism" (the Apple aesthetic).
      - ghaff 2y ago
- PaulHoule 2y ago
  Apple is centered around the iPhone, it's hard for them to make anything that isn't a peripheral of it. The best idea they've had in the last ten years is the Apple Watch, but I'm using Garmin because I don't have an iPhone. The Mac benefited from all the work Apple has done on the iPhone CPU, but the software scene on the Mac has been deteriorating because developers are using the same tools and the same toolkits to develop desktop applications that are motivated by mobile. The article mentioned here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42930025 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42930025 claims to be about the deterioration of desktop interface but it's by someone who's so steeped in the Apple culture that they don't get it is really about the deterioration of Mac interfaces. Apple doesn't care if you buy a Mac, in fact they'd feel most comfortable if the Mac became a peripheral of the iPhone. It's hard for them to picture developing a new peripheral for the Mac, even something straightforward like the Magic Mouse. A peripheral for the Mac that's groundbreaking? It doesn't fit into their world view.
  - sitkack 2y ago
    I got one, a shell you can put your phone in, so you can slide your phone around your desk AS your mouse. It can provide vibration feedback, alerts, sounds, etc. It can use the macro lens and the IMU for tracking its location across the desk. Would also serve as biometric auth for websites. Prior Art for G06F 3/0338 - Computer mice, trackballs or similar devices for computer control G06F 3/041 - Digitisers using touch-sensing G06F 21/32 - Biometric authentication See, you can have peripherals tha
  - paxys 2y ago
    Macs obviously have an outsized mindshare and market share in Silicon Valley but globally make up like 5% of PC sales. In Apple’s own books the entire Mac division accounts for 8% of revenues. Apple is serious about the line, sure, but it doesn’t have anywhere close to the importance of iPhone for the company.
    - PaulHoule 2y ago
      I wonder if that's a 'kill your startup' pattern, that is, develop an app for Mac because you're surrounded by Mac users, but then you don't sell many units because the market is too small. I had a time when I was involved with startups of various kinds (sometimes West Coast, sometimes Research Triangle Park, more often NYC or upstate.) I was a Windows user in a MacOS world and the most important accessory I packed was whatever I needed to hook up to mini-Displayport.
- wrfrmers 2y ago
  Every company in the space realizes that it's the next computer pillar, after desktop PCs and smartphones. Even more so: these devices see everything their users see (and more), hear everything they hear (and more), and can provide significant insight into their mental and emotional states. The prospect of controlling the platform all of this takes place on? No one - especially incumbents that know their history - wants to get left behind. Everyone knows Apple's modus operandi: wait for others to experiment, then define the standard and run away with the market. So, Facebook bought Oculus (and slow-walked its R&D), Google shelved Project Tango, and everyone resolved to wait for Apple to make their move. Apple knew this, and kept pushing back their own reveal. The arrival and demise of upstart Magic Leap (and smaller failures from Vuzix and Snap, among others) confirmed to everyone that there was no point in trying anything until Apple had shown their hand. So, we've been in a stalemate for more than 10 years. The AVP finally had to come out - antsy investors - and turned out to be the overengineered product of Apple trying to outmaneuver everyone else's outmaneuver, with the entire field understanding that whoever wins this owns the next 20 years. However, it's a bit of a Chinese finger trap. Consumers and users want actual value out of this technology, and developers want to provide fantastically innovative uses, and both are at odds with the platform owners' lust for unilateral control. The platform that wins will be more like a PC than a Silicon Graphics workstation (which is what Apple et al seem hellbent on forcing down people's throats). Get something with basic functionality that just works out of the box, and that is open and ready for experimentation, into as many hands as possible. It will bulldoze the field. (This is why the Quest line has gotten so close. Shame about the owner.)
  - phlipski 2y ago
    I agree with your sentiments on an open platform ultimately prevailing. The hardware is still not there yet for good AR glasses (IMO). The processing power, connectivity, power, displays, etc.... just can't be crammed into an almost invisible pair of glasses. You basically need to squeeze the equivalent of the latest apple watch into a form factor about the size of a stick of gum (cut in half length wise)....
nxobject 2y ago
Interesting reminder from the article that those AR glasses are one of a family of ideas Apple is simultaneously pursuing: > The company is still working on successors to the Vision Pro, including updated versions of the original model. It also has other concepts in the works, such as AirPods with cameras, and executives still hope to eventually create a set of standalone AR glasses someday.
- rob74 2y ago
  Yeah, AirPods with cameras. Cameras sticking out of your ears. I can't help trying (and failing) to imagine how cool that would look...
m_ke 2y ago
This is only semi related but I wonder what will happen to these huge hierarchical orgs when the pace of software development improves by 10-20x thanks to LLMs. How will these risk averse slow moving teams with a ton of process keep up with 100x more tiny teams of engineers who can ship whole features in days instead of months.
- skybrian 2y ago
  When one bottleneck is removed, that usually means the rate of change is bottlenecked somewhere else. Maybe in the release process, or testing? Or maybe the bottleneck is the willingness of customers to try new things? Risk-adverse customers will often avoid startups. Showing yourself to be trustworthy isn’t purely about the rate of feature development. If the other bottlenecks can’t be removed easily, instead of 10x features you could end up with fewer software developers.
  - brookst 2y ago
    Someone’s read The Goal! 100% agree. The SW pipeline is complicated. AI may one day slot into every part and improve velocity, but it will be piecemeal and better at some processes than others for a long while.
  - m_ke 2y ago
    Yes for sure, but from what I've seen at large companies the bottlenecks are already usually caused by intra team conflicts, legal hurdles and "processes" that take something that would have taken a dev with ownership 1-2 days to do and turns it into months long slogs and rituals. Having worked at early stage startups and mid sized companies there's already a 10-20x productivity gap between them due to this (even on brand new projects at large companies vs startups, where it's not an issue of legacy code). As an example I just witnessed a large co hire a consulting company to help them "ideate" on a RAG app that barely worked and required 3 rewrites and ~18 months to make it to POC stage, even though a front end dev had a better working POC that he hacked together in a day and a half. I've heard way worse horror stories from friends at Google / Meta / Apple. What will happen when tiny startups of 3-8 people get 5-20x more productive and can ship new stuff daily?
jmyeet 2y ago
The lesson here is that simply wanting something to be true doesn't make it possible or practical. We also tend to get carried away with sci-fi becoming reality. You see this constantly where people desperately hope for some form of FTL. They want it to be true and cling to fringe theories because of that. Companies have been trying to make VR happen for decades. It's not going to happen. Not only do people not want to strap something to their head, there are fundamental technical limitations around latency, true blacks, depth-of-field and what input feels "natural". People just take Snow Crash and Ready Player One too seriously. AR is kind of the between of that but it has fundamentaly technical problems and constraints like processing power, energy, true blacks and lag. A true AR experience would have to constantly repaint the overlay as you move your head at incredibly low response time to feel "natural". Lag will be a major factor with AI chatbots for probably some time to come. The processing loop is basically text to language to embedding into AI model and then converting that token stream to spoken language. That takes time. We're such a long way from something that feels "natural" like talking to another person.
- SaberTail 2y ago
  My impression is that there are a lot of geeks out there who want the Star Trek holodeck, and they see VR and generative AI as a way to get there. But they ignore all the episodes that explored the ways such a technology could be harmful, socially and psychologically and physically.
- Miraste 2y ago
  VR has a long way to go on the technical side, but true blacks and latency are both basically solved. Vision Pros have a motion to photon latency of ~12ms, which is unnoticeable, and miniLED and OLED allow for true blacks in plenty of headsets. Depth-of-field hasn't been solved yet, but it is doable. Processing power and battery are limitations, but not critically so. IMO, none of those things are major factors compared to how insanely clunky current VR headsets are. That's where the real fundamental issues show up-these headsets need to lose ~90% of their weight and size before they'll catch on.
weberer 2y ago
I feel like whenever the topic of AR glasses come up, these large companies focus too much on cameras. When really, I'd be happy with just a persistent display that can be in my field of vision. A clock, notifications, maybe a map if I'm walking. I've been using the Viture One glasses as an external monitor and they've been great for privacy in public places. You definitely can't walk around with them since the internal prism messes with your sense of balance. But they are a nice step in the right direction. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdc9rcrZW8I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdc9rcrZW8I
- Damogran6 2y ago
  The cameras are needed for inside-out positioning. Now...outward facing screens displaying my face? Billet Aluminum frame?
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- hx8 2y ago
  I'd be happy with a persistent transparent display that is in my field of vision for AR.
- chewmieser 2y ago
  The camera is one of the most important features for me. I had (and returned) a pair of INMO Air2's primarily because of the poor camera quality. Waiting to see how the TCL RayNeo X2 performs (was supposed to ship in December, still waiting) but may just cancel those and wait for the next generation to release, which was just announced at CES. I love the notifications and the other stuff as well (mapping, translations... Even streaming YouTube through them while I exercise) but my primary driver for these was to have a rapidly accessible camera. I found great success with the Humane AI Pin primarily for this feature. FYI there are some other options available today for glasses without cameras (Vuzix has some, as well as some announced at CES) and/or with simpler screens... As well as some with screens in the frame (like Halliday) if the rainbow effect gets to you.
- 2y ago
gyomu 2y ago
Apple reshuffles internal programs and product roadmaps all the time. Just because a program with an internal codename gets terminated doesn't mean there aren't a bunch of other initiatives in related spaces going on. And the work on the core technologies certainly doesn't end. There's no product until there are boxes piling up in warehouses, getting ready to be shipped. If only we could stop giving attention to these "news", which are really just propped up narratives for investors to nudge the market in their favor, and for Mark Gurman to get a paycheck.
- Damogran6 2y ago
  It's idle fantasy speculation...like reading Popular Science and Popular Mechanics as a kid (with a similar hit rate on speculative future stuff...)
- lumost 2y ago
  VR/AR gets attention as despite the investment levels, adoption has been mixed. Provided a bug tech co has a “next” offering, this is fine for startups. It pays to be a risk taker on a new platform. If big tech decides that VR/AR is not worth the investment any longer, then its tough to be a startup in this space. Hence tracking apple rumors is a way to get a read on where the market is heading.
- stetrain 2y ago
  Yes, this report could actually mean for example that Apple is focusing on an alternative glasses product that doesn't require so much computation power. If the path of the previous project led them to a product that would have to be connected to a Mac to work, that seems like a dead-end that wouldn't make a compelling consumer product in the near future. You could write a similar headline about "Apple cancels iPod Phone Project" back in 2005 or whenever they made the decision to go with the Darwin/touchscreen phone instead of the iPod-based alternative.
matwood 2y ago
These stories about unreleased Apple products always make me laugh. It's rumored Apple stops working on something they were rumored to be working on.
- talldayo 2y ago
  Most of them seem to be correct. Apple Car was basically an open secret for years before it was cancelled, same with AirPower and even Apple Vision Pro had it's price estimate leaked before it was announced. It feels like Apple thinks they're really good at hiding stuff, but forget that their employees love to talk. Nobody will forget the prototype iPhone left just sitting there unattended at a bar.
  - matwood 2y ago
    AirPower was actually announced. The problem with the others is it’s hard to know which are intended to be products or research. Particularly items that are far from any sort of release. For example, I’m skeptical that Apple ever intended to release a car.
ourguile 2y ago
I love my Vision Pro, but I do feel like it's quite heavy and delicate for every day, general use. Also, one thing that I have to keep in mind when using it is that the room needs to stay very well lit. Something I don't need to even think about with my phone, laptop etc.
- brutus1979 2y ago
  Curious what are your use cases? I was reading a thread where a bunch of people complained about their iPad not having use cases while for me, it is a dream device. Curious about your experience with vision pro.
iamleppert 2y ago
Fast forward to the year 2025. We have ultra-wide monitors that cover our entire field of view for less than $800, don't need to wear bulky headset, and can perfectly maintain our situational awareness without the need for 1 TFLOP of compute and 8 tracking cameras.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
pachorizons 2y ago
In the U.S. in 2024, 32% of adult Americans reported being the target of workplace bullying[1]. Nearly 3 in 10 women (29%) and 1 in 10 men (10%) reported being subjected to debilitating sexual, physical or psychological abuse by their partner[2]. This means that 1/3rd of workers do not feel safe in their workplace, and a significant number of people don't feel safe in their own homes. There is no way these people are going to put anything on their faces that obscures their vision - not a pair of glasses, and not a giant headset. Until these numbers come down, VR and AR will never, ever go mainstream. [1]: https://workplacebullying.org/2024-wbi-us-survey/ https://workplacebullying.org/2024-wbi-us-survey/ [2]: https://www.thehotline.org/stakeholders/domestic-violence-statistics/ https://www.thehotline.org/stakeholders/domestic-violence-st...

46 points by dm 2y ago

dm 2y ago

https://archive.is/Ny2oj https://archive.is/Ny2oj

doener 2y ago

Previous posting: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42901132 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42901132

torben-friis 2y ago

Apple's adventures in XR are weird. I started my career as a dev working in VR apss. At the time there was consensus in the industry that apple was about to release something huge that would push the whole industry to the mainstream - and indeed you couldn't rely on any new VR/AR product or software without it being silently acquired in months and their website redirecting to apple. Fast forward one decade, nothing's happened yet. I moved to web dev long ago, but people seem to be still waiting.

hnra 2y ago
Didn’t they release a pair of VR glasses last year?
- api 2y ago
  The Vision Pro, and despite being pretty good they were kind of a flop. Like I said elsewhere I think VR and AR are niche products tech companies and investors keep trying to make go mainstream because they showed up in a lot of sci-fi. I don't think many people want them.
  - PaulHoule 2y ago
    Meta is having some success with the Meta Quest, but it is in the gaming sector where they have cultural problems. [1] The notable thing is that the Meta Quest consumer is price sensitive: when the MQ3 came out and they dropped the price of the MQ2, MQ2 sales surged. Next year they came out with the MQ3S which has the brains of an MQ3 in the body of an MQ2, so it is a cost-reduced device that can run MQ3 software. The AVP, on the other other hand, was just too expensive. At that price it could go with a seat of [2] (been a high end enterprise play) but no way was it going to compete with buying a big ass TV and a home theater system, which you can enjoy with other people. Worse than that, Apple rejected the immersive world experiences that are big fun on the MQ3 -- if a device is that expensive it has to do it all. [1] https://components.one/posts/gamer-and-nihilist-product-hunt https://components.one/posts/gamer-and-nihilist-product-hunt [2] https://www.3ds.com/3dexperience/ https://www.3ds.com/3dexperience/
  - jnsie 2y ago
    If the Vision Pro was indistinguishable from a regular pair of glasses and didn't cost over $1000 it would take over the world. I don't think it's a case that people don't want them, it's more that people want what's in sci-fi you spoke of and not this early iteration.
    - ghaff 2y ago
      Yeah (at least maybe). If AR were in a fashionable pair of glasses that you could effortlessly switch into a Google Lens mode for example or call up a Wikipedia article that starts getting interesting. But that's a long way off.
- threetonesun 2y ago
  The "something huge that would push the whole industry to the mainstream" seems to be the missing piece here. I'm sure the Vision Pro will get some follow up, but as someone who wears glasses I don't see the glasses/headset version of AR/XR ever catching on in the mainstream.
- paxys 2y ago
  Headset, not glasses
api 2y ago
I think this is a niche technology that people keep trying to make go mainstream, but most people just don't want it. For most people (including myself) trying VR a little is a novelty, but it's not something I want every day, and AR seems like it'd be useless or annoying unless I were using it in e.g. some industrial context like a heads up display. It's like NFTs in gaming, NFTs in general, AI shoehorned into places it doesn't make much sense, wifi connected can openers, Soylent, ... Startup founders are always told that there must be market pull, and many startups fail because they try to push an idea nobody wants, but it's not just startups. Big companies and VCs do this too.
- HPsquared 2y ago
  It's still just a bit too clunky, like PDAs. Still waiting for an iPhone moment.
  - api 2y ago
    I don't think it's even that. I don't think most people want it. VR is for gaming. I can see it finding a solid niche there. Make a VR headset that connects to a PC/Mac with extremely low latency and focus all the engineering on the quality of the display and making it lightweight. Gamers will buy it. AR is IMHO for industrial uses. I could see it being incredibly valuable doing inspections of industrial systems, working in a high-risk environment (for safety awareness), etc. I think the most practical depiction of AR in sci-fi is probably the heads up displays in The Expanse, which make perfect sense to augment human sensory in both military and industrial/maintenance operations in an environment like space. I actively do not want AR for civilian uses. Yeah, I want to wear glasses and contacts to superimpose ads and slop and Internet drama in front of my life. Get that the hell away from me. When I want to touch grass, I want to touch grass. A lot of that kind of stuff shows up in cyberpunk, and people forget that most cyberpunk is dystopian. The cyberpunk aesthetic is also kind of 1980s-1990s and is not contemporary. People are stuck in it. We're well past that and even on the tail end of "millennial minimalism" (the Apple aesthetic).
    - ghaff 2y ago
PaulHoule 2y ago
Apple is centered around the iPhone, it's hard for them to make anything that isn't a peripheral of it. The best idea they've had in the last ten years is the Apple Watch, but I'm using Garmin because I don't have an iPhone. The Mac benefited from all the work Apple has done on the iPhone CPU, but the software scene on the Mac has been deteriorating because developers are using the same tools and the same toolkits to develop desktop applications that are motivated by mobile. The article mentioned here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42930025 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42930025 claims to be about the deterioration of desktop interface but it's by someone who's so steeped in the Apple culture that they don't get it is really about the deterioration of Mac interfaces. Apple doesn't care if you buy a Mac, in fact they'd feel most comfortable if the Mac became a peripheral of the iPhone. It's hard for them to picture developing a new peripheral for the Mac, even something straightforward like the Magic Mouse. A peripheral for the Mac that's groundbreaking? It doesn't fit into their world view.
- sitkack 2y ago
  I got one, a shell you can put your phone in, so you can slide your phone around your desk AS your mouse. It can provide vibration feedback, alerts, sounds, etc. It can use the macro lens and the IMU for tracking its location across the desk. Would also serve as biometric auth for websites. Prior Art for G06F 3/0338 - Computer mice, trackballs or similar devices for computer control G06F 3/041 - Digitisers using touch-sensing G06F 21/32 - Biometric authentication See, you can have peripherals tha
- paxys 2y ago
  Macs obviously have an outsized mindshare and market share in Silicon Valley but globally make up like 5% of PC sales. In Apple’s own books the entire Mac division accounts for 8% of revenues. Apple is serious about the line, sure, but it doesn’t have anywhere close to the importance of iPhone for the company.
  - PaulHoule 2y ago
    I wonder if that's a 'kill your startup' pattern, that is, develop an app for Mac because you're surrounded by Mac users, but then you don't sell many units because the market is too small. I had a time when I was involved with startups of various kinds (sometimes West Coast, sometimes Research Triangle Park, more often NYC or upstate.) I was a Windows user in a MacOS world and the most important accessory I packed was whatever I needed to hook up to mini-Displayport.
wrfrmers 2y ago
Every company in the space realizes that it's the next computer pillar, after desktop PCs and smartphones. Even more so: these devices see everything their users see (and more), hear everything they hear (and more), and can provide significant insight into their mental and emotional states. The prospect of controlling the platform all of this takes place on? No one - especially incumbents that know their history - wants to get left behind. Everyone knows Apple's modus operandi: wait for others to experiment, then define the standard and run away with the market. So, Facebook bought Oculus (and slow-walked its R&D), Google shelved Project Tango, and everyone resolved to wait for Apple to make their move. Apple knew this, and kept pushing back their own reveal. The arrival and demise of upstart Magic Leap (and smaller failures from Vuzix and Snap, among others) confirmed to everyone that there was no point in trying anything until Apple had shown their hand. So, we've been in a stalemate for more than 10 years. The AVP finally had to come out - antsy investors - and turned out to be the overengineered product of Apple trying to outmaneuver everyone else's outmaneuver, with the entire field understanding that whoever wins this owns the next 20 years. However, it's a bit of a Chinese finger trap. Consumers and users want actual value out of this technology, and developers want to provide fantastically innovative uses, and both are at odds with the platform owners' lust for unilateral control. The platform that wins will be more like a PC than a Silicon Graphics workstation (which is what Apple et al seem hellbent on forcing down people's throats). Get something with basic functionality that just works out of the box, and that is open and ready for experimentation, into as many hands as possible. It will bulldoze the field. (This is why the Quest line has gotten so close. Shame about the owner.)
- phlipski 2y ago
  I agree with your sentiments on an open platform ultimately prevailing. The hardware is still not there yet for good AR glasses (IMO). The processing power, connectivity, power, displays, etc.... just can't be crammed into an almost invisible pair of glasses. You basically need to squeeze the equivalent of the latest apple watch into a form factor about the size of a stick of gum (cut in half length wise)....

nxobject 2y ago

Interesting reminder from the article that those AR glasses are one of a family of ideas Apple is simultaneously pursuing: > The company is still working on successors to the Vision Pro, including updated versions of the original model. It also has other concepts in the works, such as AirPods with cameras, and executives still hope to eventually create a set of standalone AR glasses someday.

rob74 2y ago
Yeah, AirPods with cameras. Cameras sticking out of your ears. I can't help trying (and failing) to imagine how cool that would look...

m_ke 2y ago

This is only semi related but I wonder what will happen to these huge hierarchical orgs when the pace of software development improves by 10-20x thanks to LLMs. How will these risk averse slow moving teams with a ton of process keep up with 100x more tiny teams of engineers who can ship whole features in days instead of months.

skybrian 2y ago
When one bottleneck is removed, that usually means the rate of change is bottlenecked somewhere else. Maybe in the release process, or testing? Or maybe the bottleneck is the willingness of customers to try new things? Risk-adverse customers will often avoid startups. Showing yourself to be trustworthy isn’t purely about the rate of feature development. If the other bottlenecks can’t be removed easily, instead of 10x features you could end up with fewer software developers.
- brookst 2y ago
  Someone’s read The Goal! 100% agree. The SW pipeline is complicated. AI may one day slot into every part and improve velocity, but it will be piecemeal and better at some processes than others for a long while.
- m_ke 2y ago
  Yes for sure, but from what I've seen at large companies the bottlenecks are already usually caused by intra team conflicts, legal hurdles and "processes" that take something that would have taken a dev with ownership 1-2 days to do and turns it into months long slogs and rituals. Having worked at early stage startups and mid sized companies there's already a 10-20x productivity gap between them due to this (even on brand new projects at large companies vs startups, where it's not an issue of legacy code). As an example I just witnessed a large co hire a consulting company to help them "ideate" on a RAG app that barely worked and required 3 rewrites and ~18 months to make it to POC stage, even though a front end dev had a better working POC that he hacked together in a day and a half. I've heard way worse horror stories from friends at Google / Meta / Apple. What will happen when tiny startups of 3-8 people get 5-20x more productive and can ship new stuff daily?

jmyeet 2y ago

The lesson here is that simply wanting something to be true doesn't make it possible or practical. We also tend to get carried away with sci-fi becoming reality. You see this constantly where people desperately hope for some form of FTL. They want it to be true and cling to fringe theories because of that. Companies have been trying to make VR happen for decades. It's not going to happen. Not only do people not want to strap something to their head, there are fundamental technical limitations around latency, true blacks, depth-of-field and what input feels "natural". People just take Snow Crash and Ready Player One too seriously. AR is kind of the between of that but it has fundamentaly technical problems and constraints like processing power, energy, true blacks and lag. A true AR experience would have to constantly repaint the overlay as you move your head at incredibly low response time to feel "natural". Lag will be a major factor with AI chatbots for probably some time to come. The processing loop is basically text to language to embedding into AI model and then converting that token stream to spoken language. That takes time. We're such a long way from something that feels "natural" like talking to another person.

SaberTail 2y ago
My impression is that there are a lot of geeks out there who want the Star Trek holodeck, and they see VR and generative AI as a way to get there. But they ignore all the episodes that explored the ways such a technology could be harmful, socially and psychologically and physically.
Miraste 2y ago
VR has a long way to go on the technical side, but true blacks and latency are both basically solved. Vision Pros have a motion to photon latency of ~12ms, which is unnoticeable, and miniLED and OLED allow for true blacks in plenty of headsets. Depth-of-field hasn't been solved yet, but it is doable. Processing power and battery are limitations, but not critically so. IMO, none of those things are major factors compared to how insanely clunky current VR headsets are. That's where the real fundamental issues show up-these headsets need to lose ~90% of their weight and size before they'll catch on.

weberer 2y ago

I feel like whenever the topic of AR glasses come up, these large companies focus too much on cameras. When really, I'd be happy with just a persistent display that can be in my field of vision. A clock, notifications, maybe a map if I'm walking. I've been using the Viture One glasses as an external monitor and they've been great for privacy in public places. You definitely can't walk around with them since the internal prism messes with your sense of balance. But they are a nice step in the right direction. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdc9rcrZW8I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdc9rcrZW8I

Damogran6 2y ago
The cameras are needed for inside-out positioning. Now...outward facing screens displaying my face? Billet Aluminum frame?
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
hx8 2y ago
I'd be happy with a persistent transparent display that is in my field of vision for AR.
chewmieser 2y ago
The camera is one of the most important features for me. I had (and returned) a pair of INMO Air2's primarily because of the poor camera quality. Waiting to see how the TCL RayNeo X2 performs (was supposed to ship in December, still waiting) but may just cancel those and wait for the next generation to release, which was just announced at CES. I love the notifications and the other stuff as well (mapping, translations... Even streaming YouTube through them while I exercise) but my primary driver for these was to have a rapidly accessible camera. I found great success with the Humane AI Pin primarily for this feature. FYI there are some other options available today for glasses without cameras (Vuzix has some, as well as some announced at CES) and/or with simpler screens... As well as some with screens in the frame (like Halliday) if the rainbow effect gets to you.
2y ago

gyomu 2y ago

Apple reshuffles internal programs and product roadmaps all the time. Just because a program with an internal codename gets terminated doesn't mean there aren't a bunch of other initiatives in related spaces going on. And the work on the core technologies certainly doesn't end. There's no product until there are boxes piling up in warehouses, getting ready to be shipped. If only we could stop giving attention to these "news", which are really just propped up narratives for investors to nudge the market in their favor, and for Mark Gurman to get a paycheck.

Damogran6 2y ago
It's idle fantasy speculation...like reading Popular Science and Popular Mechanics as a kid (with a similar hit rate on speculative future stuff...)
lumost 2y ago
VR/AR gets attention as despite the investment levels, adoption has been mixed. Provided a bug tech co has a “next” offering, this is fine for startups. It pays to be a risk taker on a new platform. If big tech decides that VR/AR is not worth the investment any longer, then its tough to be a startup in this space. Hence tracking apple rumors is a way to get a read on where the market is heading.
stetrain 2y ago
Yes, this report could actually mean for example that Apple is focusing on an alternative glasses product that doesn't require so much computation power. If the path of the previous project led them to a product that would have to be connected to a Mac to work, that seems like a dead-end that wouldn't make a compelling consumer product in the near future. You could write a similar headline about "Apple cancels iPod Phone Project" back in 2005 or whenever they made the decision to go with the Darwin/touchscreen phone instead of the iPod-based alternative.

matwood 2y ago

These stories about unreleased Apple products always make me laugh. It's rumored Apple stops working on something they were rumored to be working on.

talldayo 2y ago
Most of them seem to be correct. Apple Car was basically an open secret for years before it was cancelled, same with AirPower and even Apple Vision Pro had it's price estimate leaked before it was announced. It feels like Apple thinks they're really good at hiding stuff, but forget that their employees love to talk. Nobody will forget the prototype iPhone left just sitting there unattended at a bar.
- matwood 2y ago
  AirPower was actually announced. The problem with the others is it’s hard to know which are intended to be products or research. Particularly items that are far from any sort of release. For example, I’m skeptical that Apple ever intended to release a car.

ourguile 2y ago

I love my Vision Pro, but I do feel like it's quite heavy and delicate for every day, general use. Also, one thing that I have to keep in mind when using it is that the room needs to stay very well lit. Something I don't need to even think about with my phone, laptop etc.

brutus1979 2y ago
Curious what are your use cases? I was reading a thread where a bunch of people complained about their iPad not having use cases while for me, it is a dream device. Curious about your experience with vision pro.

iamleppert 2y ago

Fast forward to the year 2025. We have ultra-wide monitors that cover our entire field of view for less than $800, don't need to wear bulky headset, and can perfectly maintain our situational awareness without the need for 1 TFLOP of compute and 8 tracking cameras.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

pachorizons 2y ago

In the U.S. in 2024, 32% of adult Americans reported being the target of workplace bullying[1]. Nearly 3 in 10 women (29%) and 1 in 10 men (10%) reported being subjected to debilitating sexual, physical or psychological abuse by their partner[2]. This means that 1/3rd of workers do not feel safe in their workplace, and a significant number of people don't feel safe in their own homes. There is no way these people are going to put anything on their faces that obscures their vision - not a pair of glasses, and not a giant headset. Until these numbers come down, VR and AR will never, ever go mainstream. [1]: https://workplacebullying.org/2024-wbi-us-survey/ https://workplacebullying.org/2024-wbi-us-survey/ [2]: https://www.thehotline.org/stakeholders/domestic-violence-statistics/ https://www.thehotline.org/stakeholders/domestic-violence-st...