Good, I wanna see Apple flop just like Meta’s VR nonsense did.
He’s f*** detached
I mean, AR is pretty awesome to be fair.
Never from big stock market corpos. Fuck their “vision”.
There are a lot of things at Apple that I, as the paying customer, would rather Cook care more about than AR/VR boondoggles.
Guess what Tim Apple? No one wants them just like no one wanted your stupid headset that I honestly can’t even remember what it was called.
why? AR has always been superior to VR in terms of technology. i had hopes googles and later microsofts demo a few years back would take off but the tech just couldn’t find a niche market to hold onto and its just taken a backseat because it isn’t as gimmicky and easy to market to a ready-to-burn-money demography as VR (gaming). AR has actual real-life every-day application. as long as Apple does it well, competitors will follow, and as they do, we’ll actually be able to use it one day.
Well I do want this, augmented/virtual reality is exactly the kind of shit I dreamt about as a kid during the 90’s, and having a huge screen available anywhere I go is pretty fucking cool.
But yeah, I used a VR headset exactly once for like 5 minutes, and there’s no way in hell I’d buy one from meta or apple. If Valve releases good XR/AR glasses I might consider it.
Honestly in five minutes you didn’t do basically anything in VR
I know, I meant that although I’m interested in the tech I’ve barely tried it.
It sounds cool in theory, but modern tech companies aren’t going to make what you wanted as a kid. Whatever they make will be heavily enshittified.
Hold on a second. For it to be enshittified, it has to be good at the beginning, and I highly doubt that’s possible.
Next courageous Apple creation:
Such a prescient episode.
Being able to keep a screen in front of the user at all times is the goal. This is one step closer to replacing the eyes Cyberpunk style.
This is why Siri and Apple Intelligence is so important to Apple, getting away an actual keyboard will make this more addicting. They can decide what to show you before you even start thinking about it!
Corporations would love being able to not only know where you are at all times, but now they have the tech to see exactly what you see!
it’s not that complicated, the goal is to create another hit product that everyone wants like the ipod and iphone.
They already did this with Google glass and failed spectacularly. There is no market for this. Nobody is wishing they had computer glasses. It is something being forced onto consumers for the benefit of apple and it will not work.
You’d think with the massive failure of their apple vision they’d have learned this lesson already.
I’m not even a huge proponent of AR glasses, but i think that’s a pretty shortsighted view. AR/VR tech was still in its infancy when google decided to drop it (as they do with many beloved products btw), and Apple has a history of repackaging/refining products in a way that allows them to catch on. Apple Vision is by all accounts a cool product, just still way too expensive for mainstream use. The tech is still maturing. I’m not saying Apple will for sure succeed, but it’s just silly to outright claim “there is no market for this”.
also “forced onto consumers”? no one is being forced to buy anything, what a ridiculous take.
There’s a gag in Futurama about ads being displayed in your dreams. If that were possible they’d be doing that, but right now they’re settling for just the waking hours.
How far apart were those two episodes? Like, production date? Futurama is a long-running show with a big gap in the middle, they did topical episodes about Napster and the iPhone.
If only Siri could understand what I say
I have turned off any assistant app in any of my devices. It would be easier and a lot of times faster just typing out what I need.
That’s ok, I’ll just disagree with their Terms of Service!
…to play breakout.
This AR obsession is utterly baffling to me. There are so few real applications and the hardware requirements are insane so it’s not something that will get widely adapted anyway. Sure in a decade or so it might have matured enough to have shed all these issues, but AR/VR feels like a really out of touch thing to prusue, especially if you look at the garbage ideas they have on how to use it - virtual meetings??
I get movies and games on these, possibly even some recording and porn, but these are not their B2B wet dreams anyway.
It’s been over a decade since the oculus rift came out and there hasn’t been much improvement.
A Quest 3 isn’t “insane.” It does AR just fine for a few hundred bucks. There ARE real world applications and more coming all the time. The education and medical fields in particular can benefit greatly from such tech.
Agree on all that. In addition, headsets would become so very unhealthy if they took off. Just imagine the addictiveness of phones combined with the sedentary qualities of TV, with both dialed up to 11. People’s vision would get all fucked up, and they would start dying on their couches plugged in. It’s simply not a vision for the future that has any legs.
More often than not, I’m burning calories in VR.
This AR obsession is utterly baffling to me.
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It’s a mobile phone you don’t need to hold.
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It’s a mobile phone that never goes in your pocket.
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It’s a mobile phone that is always on and has access to everything you see and hear.
It’s also a device that can literally put your imagination in front of you in the real world.
A corporate marketers imagination. Yes.
It’s a bummer than those sound like bad things simply because corporate abuse is always a forgone conclusion. If your data was truly private and always entirely under your control and ONLY your control, those would be really attractive features.
Totally. I’d also love to train a LLM on my own personal data and preferences, but there is no way I’m trusting a corporation that information.
Sounds like a fucking nightmare, but a wet dream to Big Tech.
That’s pill. They just have to sugar coat it enough for everyone to swallow it (like we did with phones).
Exactly, it’s literally just the next step more convenient than a smartphone. You know how many people have neck and back problems now from smartphones? Not having to look at your hands or even hold anything in your hands is going to be so much better. Not having to pull your phone out of your pocket for a map or a web search or a text or to translate stuff(visual or audio). Having both hands free while doing the things your current phone does, or new things a current phone can’t do.
It’s going to be so much nicer, and sure, the first one is gonna be expensive and not perfect, but it only needs nerds to start with anyway. We’ll make sure it gets to a point where it doesn’t annoy normal people and offers real value. And while the most popular ones will inevitably be the ones made with walled gardens like apple and meta, there will be good ones too for us nerds to move to once we have finished beta testing the mass market ones for you guys.
It’s the same as every tech product cycle. You know the main thing preventing wider adoption of VR/MR/XR right now? Headsets don’t look cool… so, once they are a pair of glasses, or sun glasses, the main barrier is gone. Can’t say people wouldn’t spend 500$ to 2000$ on something as un-necessary as a smartphone every couple of years. They very much do. And if you no longer need to buy or carry a smartphone, all of a sudden you got exactly that amount of money in your pocket.
I want an open source version of this https://www.evenrealities.com/
Yeah, open source third party ones come a little later. But they will come.
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In theory, there’s a Million awesome business applications for it.
Let’s say you’re in construction and your glasses tell you exactly what to build where and how.
You’re a waiter and the glasses tell you which table ordered what, needs attention, etc.
You’re a network engineer and the glasses show you on every port which device is connected.
And don’t even get me started on the military applications.
Of course we’re not there yet. But that’s why they’re so obsessed with it. They want to be the first.
Even lightweight glasses can be irritating and the extra weight from steel v plastic is noticeable. There will never be ar glasses or goggles that are comfortable to wear all the time.
All of this can be done with AR on a mobile phone.
Only when you need to do this AND have both hands free do AR glasses become necessary. So surgery, bomb refusal or something niche like thar.
This might be the dumbest take I’ve heard today.
Everything your smartphone does your laptop can do, too. Therefore, smartphones are useless!!
Everything AR can do that your smartphone can do today will be a hundred times more convenient because you don’t have to carry a slab of glass with you all the time. You just have to wear glasses. Like I already do anyway.
The only reason for smartphones to still exist in a world where AR is compact will be if we can’t figure out a way to efficiently input data without annoying everyone around us. As soon as that problem’s solved, nobody will be using smartphones anymore.
In the current US political climate, giving everyone glasses with always-on cameras run by big tech companies seems particularly dangerous.
If it helps, they don’t have the battery life to be constantly recording or sending that much traffic. And that stuff can’t be invisible, us nerds can see it all. That’s one of the things dystopian sci-fi dramas have to gloss over, it all still runs on the properties of physics, sending a wireless message, even if the contents themselves are encrypted, we can still figure out where it is going and how much data it is by reading the wave. No way to block that from being possible.
Plus, there is no reason to be covert or secretive about manipulating people. They have been literally saying it out loud for years now, and it’s still just as effective.
I agree. But unfortunately, nobody gives a flying fuck.
I think for the most part society has gotten used to being on someone’s camera when in public at pretty much all times.
It’s something I used to think about, now I just, don’t.
Everyone has been looking for the next big hardware thing. It looked like it might be foldable phones for a little while but I reckon AR Glasses are the ultimate endgame until they start making bio implants.
They’ve gotten used to it in different political circumstances. But as people start to see how an authoritarian and vindictive fascist government works with surveillance tech to invade and endanger people’s lives, attitudes to things like always-on cameras may start to shift.
you’re a network engineer and the glasses show you on every port which device is connected
Unifi equipment already can sorta do this! The little dot pattern on the screen is an AR code and you can use the app to see this. It’s pretty cool actually. I’ve never actually used it for real work though, I just look at the dashboard on my laptop and find the port that way.
It would be really really cool to be able to just touch the physical port and be able to change the settings in real space with AR glasses though.
Yep, that’s why I was thinking of that example 😄
Imagine being anyone anywhere whipped like an Amazon worker. Will the waitress have to piss in bottles? Bad for tips I think.
This could also be the breakout app for AI. While AR glasses obviously need shape recognition and manipulation, the real world has many many more things than likely to be codified. How do you deal with that? AI. How do you do arbitrary summaries of whatever you’re looking at? AI. How do you interact with the glasses and the real world? Speech recognition and AI.
You heard it here first, folks. Two hot new technologies with no real use yet will find each other and turn into something useful
I mean, technically, we heard it first at the demonstrations of the meta and google glasses, where that is exactly the main use of them demonstrated. But they also do smartphone stuff. Like project directions when looking straight ahead, and a map when glancing downwards. Or translate stuff you are looking at. Their AI stuff was like, “Where did I leave my keys?”, “Can you play me the first song off this album(while holding a record)?”, and they also did more general memory stuff like “what was the title of the white book on the shelf?”.
But yeah, even “indoor” VR headsets have an AI assistant on them now that can help with context aware intelligence. Like “What is this thing I’m looking at?” And it can be used in both the real world and the virtual world. Like, “Is this everything I need to bake a cake?” or “how do I kill this boss?” See, real world and virtual world… lol. Or like, “Can you give me a hint on this puzzle? Not too big of a hint though.”.
I just personally don’t like asking questions out loud.
Sure in a decade or so it might have matured enough to have shed all these issues
That’s the point. They want to set themselves up so that when the issues are shed and it becomes a realistic product, they’re already in a place where their product can be the one that takes over the market. If you wait until a product is viable before starting on development, you’re too late.
overlaying ads on literally everything could be the end goal.
We need laws restricting advertising
Apple is not that strong in the overlaying ads over everything department though.
But Apple will happily take a 30% cut of everything bought using the AR glasses.
Maybe it’s as simple as the next big product. When smartphones were new, nobody foresaw just how huge they’d become. Nobody could have foreseen what a force they’d turn Apple into. But now improvements are simply iterative, the market is nearing saturation, there’s not much room left to expand what’s next?
Maybe AR. It’s a really cool technology just now becoming practical to implement. Think of them as where smartphones were 15 years ago. Maybe they won’t go anywhere but imagine if they did! Imagine being the company most associated with the next hit tech product!
Apple risks stagnating if they don’t find a next hit product
I’d really just like some glasses that simulate multiple monitors without needing special software. That’s all I want
It depends on what you mean by special software, but current VR headsets already do that out of the box, it’s just that their built-in multi monitor stuff is not amazing. Without any special software, you could have multiple apps open, and those apps could be any android app(including browsers or relatively bad desktop experiences like dex). The third party stuff you can download or buy is just way better. And it’s also way better when the multiple monitors are your computer’s monitors. Cuz then they have 50x the horsepower behind them. For current headsets, generally the best option is Virtual Desktop, if you don’t need more screens than can be handled by high quality timewarp layers. You can get clear 4k or 5740x1080, or anything smaller. With other multi desktop options, you can get more total screens, but there is no point to picking anything above 1080p since even that is already not rendered clearly.
Solutions for current VR/MR/XR headsets will follow to VR/MR/XR glasses, since headsets and glasses are slowly meeting in the middle. Headsets will continue to shrink while packing in the same or more tech, and the glasses will slowly be able to handle more and more tech in their tiny frames.
There will always be full size headsets, but they will essentially be the PC equivalent to the glasses being the smart phone equivalent. We will also likely still have PCs, but it’s concievable that a smartphone won’t be necessary for most people anymore. And even for the people that would still want a smartphone, a “processing puck” for the glasses would be the more likely solution. Give them pocket computer level power instead of smart watch level. So you can play good games on them, like 10-15 years ago-then pc game graphics.
That is literally special software lmao
I’m not sure that wish will every be granted. You need some sort of specific software to get the hardware communicating.
Yep, and that seems to be the route Apple was going. Screens you can place anywhere in your visual field.
Gotta need some insane resolution for that right? And 1000hz refresh to make things good I guess.
I mean for text editing, coding etc.
The resolution thing is actually almost solved IMO. I used my Quest 3 in AR mode almost every single day and the screens are perfectly fine for reading text or having a video on in the background.
Yeah there’s still some screen door effect but it’s really only noticeable when I look for it, it disappears in normal use.
And I genuinely can’t think of a reason you would need 1000hz displays. Human eyes start to get steady motion at like 50-60 and 90-150 is when the normal eye starts to hit the limit.
Yep I’ve played with virtual monitors in VR space and I don’t even like watching movies on them, the loss in resolution and the way the dynamic aspect of it (using a moving screen to simulate a static screen) makes it a shitty solution. Eventually it’ll be good enough to watch TV in but I can’t imagine doing serious work in it.
If you tried on anything lower than a Quest 3 with Virtual Desktop, you were right.
Quest 3 was the first VR headset to make virtual screens worth it. The clarity of pancake lenses cannot be overstated. The Quest pro technically had them too, but it wasn’t quite good enough in some of the other aspects.
A Quest 3 with Virtual Desktop has replaced my TV and monitor because it was an upgrade to both. Even if all I did was placed those screens statically exactly where they used to be in real life. But of course, they can be anywhere, any size. The screens are 4k 120hz, good enough for pretty much anything. Once you get to about 80 degrees field of view, every pixel of a 4k 60hz signal can be temporally represented. Your head micromoves enough that you aren’t missing any detail between each frame of the reference taking up two of the headsets frames. And when playing a game in actual 120 fps, you won’t notice that you aren’t seeing every single pixel directly physically represented every single frame, it looks good. Worth doing. 4k still looks much nicer than 1440p, which can be fully properly represented at that size and framerate.
Using anything other than Virtual Desktop, there is no need to set a monitor any higher than 1080p since they can’t even draw that well enough to be properly represented. Virtual desktop is the only one that uses timewarp layers. If you were around for Carmack, you’ll know that was always his first advice to every piece of VR software he reviewed, “please use timewarp layers for anything you want to look clear face-on” it’s a huge difference.
Interesting. Ok, I will give it another go at some point. I had an Oculus Rift and there was a ton of promise but the tech was just not ready.
Oh yeah, for sure. The rift was great for it’s time, but it is straight up comparitively garbage compared to what is out now. Wireless is now even more stable than the rift was at tracking, and the screens are so high res and they can decode at such speed that a wireless feed is almost as low latency and is much higher fidelity than what the Rift could do. There are still wired headsets that would be more clear nowadays, but with Virtual Desktop, the downsides to streaming wirelessly are pretty minimal.
Definitely get a demo of a Quest 3 if you can, or better. Though keep in mind the 3s isn’t better, despite being newer, it is “s” in the same sense that smart phones tend to use it, it’s a newer generation, but a cheaper lower end headset. A really good value. But it doesn’t have pancake lenses, the most important part of the Quest 3, and clearly most expensive part, lol.
Wireless headsets can just be used anywhere, especially when you are in AR mode or playing something mixed reality. But they are still at their best when using your computer through them. Although, you don’t have to. Their standalone games are basically xbox 360/PS3 level graphics, not amazing, but not really a problem. Most of what graphics have advanced by since then is just less “faking” stuff to look almost exactly right anyway and more rendering it in insanely computationally demanding ways to make it look 10% more right.
With Virtual Desktop, my computer is now in every room of my house, including the ones where I get to lay back in a recliner. And my computer is also at all my friends and family’s houses. And with cell-phone tethering, it can be on a bus, or a hotel room where I don’t want to use their wi-fi. Sometimes the cell connection is bad enough that I have to lower the resolution or framerate, but often times 4k 120hz is still viable on cell. Just has a bit more latency, so some game types are contraindicated. A 4k 120hz stream only needs about 25mbit to be clear enough to be worth using over a lower resolution or framerate. And cell latency can be as low as 5ms nowadays. 4g could only go as low as 200ms, 5g can theoretically go as low as 1ms, but obviously in practice that is almost impossible.
I did have fun with the novelty of moving multiple screens around like Minority Report but it really is just a novelty at this point
I want a GTA style HUD at all times 🤪
Current wanted level by the police would be quite handy
Health bar, bank account balance, number of steps in the day, calories burned, my next calendar event
Arguably just gps instructions and step tracking superimposed on reality would be a great use of AR
Definitely. AR has a lot of potential, also could go sideways and have ads shoved in your peripheral view all the time too.
It was in the movies they liked when they were kids. Or at least in the movies they think users want to see brought to reality.
As in an answer to the question “what’s cool and futuristic”. Solving medieval barbarism and wars is futuristic, but turns out to not be achievable. Same with floating/underwater oceanic cities, blooming deserts, Mars colonies and 20 minutes on train from Moscow to New Delhi. At the same time the audience has been promised by advertising over years that future will be delivered to them. So - AR. For Apple this is the most important part, I think.
Also to augment something you have to analyze it, and if you have to analyze it, you are permitted to scan and analyze it. That’s a general point of attraction, I think. They are just extrapolating what led them to current success.
Also in some sense popular things were toys or promises of future for businesses and individuals alike, in the last 10-15 years. The audience is getting tired of toys and promises, while these companies don’t know how to make something else.
So let Tim Apple care about anything from AR in front of him to apples in his augmented rear, he surely knows what he wants. As another commenter says, a source of instructions and hints for a human walking drone is one, with visualization. I’m not sure that’s good, because if you can get that information for the machine, having a human there seems unnecessary. And if that information is not reliable enough, then it may not improve human’s productivity and error rate.
And the most important part is that humans learn by things being hard to do, it’s like working out in an exoskeleton, what’s the purpose? And if training and work are separated here, then it seems more effort is spent in total. Not sure.
It’s for real time facial recognition for LEO so they can easily identify and round up immigrants and dissidents. They want the government contracts
I’d be interested to hear from the youngest generation (15-20 YO) to hear if they care about this at all.
I’m approaching 50 years old and had been an early adopter most of my adult life. Growing up from the 1980s through 2000s, there was a near-mainstream narrative that we were living in a unique era of emerging technologies. It was exciting and we were anxious for anything new.
It seems to me that nothing is really new and there is nothing exciting, if not interesting, about technology today.
I’ve actually been stripping down the technology from my life as it’s become too distracting to get things done and has prevented personal growth and the formation of memories. For one example, I recently subscribed to a print magazine because I prefer a tangible object that I can associate with in and of itself (and choose to own and collect).
Looking at analog trends like vinyl records and film photography and cassette tapes, it seems like people are at least trying to incorporate tangible objects into a modern lifestyle. Then you have the trend of the dumb phones which indicate people are becoming more aware of the detriments caused by an always connected lifestyle. Thankfully, some car manufacturers are returning buttons to their cars in response to owner feedback about everything being a touch screen.
I mean, I’m not a multi-trillion dollar organization with different departments studying the feasibility of future products but I do wonder if something like AR glasses are already more of our past than our future.
I think there’s a more than reasonable desire for a device to help you through your day - especially in foreign countries. But do you think you want that to be glasses or something else?
Lastly, this reminds me of the prediction from Michio Kaku in Physics of the Future about augmented reality contact lenses. Should we at least accept AR glasses as first step towards contact lenses? Do you think society would accept these 20-40 years in the future?
i am somewhere around it, and i think the best part about AR glasses is we don’t have to buy monitors,
when i used to be 15 couple of years ago i also fantacized about the asthetics of 80’s after watching many 80’s animation films, there was just something about them ,although i wasn’t alive during that period.
i am personally more excited about fdvr, i hope we have it in 25 years, but i don’t think we will
It seems to me that nothing is really new and there is nothing exciting, if not interesting, about technology today.
There is the massive infiltration of personal privacy to surveil everyone for whatever reason that is currently deemed acceptable, so there is that - smh
This is just another attempt to capture even more control over our attention - advertising everywhere. Of course Apple wants it
But think of the constant, total surveillance opportunity for Apple, and how this could help them win favor and contracts from the fascist US government!
Apple doesn’t do that though. That’s Google, Amazon, and Meta’s MO.
You’re right. Tim Cook only gave Trump $1m for fun, right?
You’re being intentionally obtuse to make a political point. I don’t agree with corporations making large political donations, but stick to the actual topic. Name one military contract that Apple holds that involves tracking users. If Apple was about that, it wouldn’t need to wait for smart glasses to arrive, it already could try. But, it doesn’t. Why?
Lmao you make this too easy while trying to play fanboy way too hard
I’m not playing fanboy, I’m just not jumping to conclusions and making shit up to serve my political views. Your article is still just speculation. And, rather than being about mass surveillance, it’s about flying aircraft with VR headsets.
What do you think the airforce is tracking from up there dumdumb, stars?
A reality distortion field that seperates a person from the real world? What could go wrong?
It’s about as dystopian as it gets.
It’s taxing imagining everyone naked all the time. I’m at least looking forward to technology doing that for me.
You don’t have to strap the internet to someone’s face to distort their reality with it, as demonstrated by… Well, gestures broadly
Just a part of my fear.
add those to a long line of things no one asked for or will buy, like tablets, ipods, and the metaverse.
Are you actually trying to say no one bought iPods or tablets?
iPod’s were literally the hottest piece of tech in the world in their heyday
Boringgggg, do another trick apple.
Right? Where’s the Apple Car already?
Anything that will create jobs, help people and the planet. Fuck everything else.
tim (is) cook(ed)
nobody on this planet is more qualified to navigate the oncoming global operational tsunami. doesn’t mean he’s an engineering visionary, or knows how to build the machines that build the machines.
Honestly, this is probably the next game changing tech. There are lot of uses for AR. Size, style, and battery life are probably the biggest issues to overcome.
With the exception for extremely niche stuff like surgery (and they won’t use off the shelf AR anyways) what’s your usecases to bring AR to the masses?
Boring everyday stuff like reading notifications without pulling out your phone, watching videos on public transit, watching a tutorial while working on a project, reading a recipe while cooking, navigation, watching whatever people watch when they get high, text magnification for folks who need it…
without pulling out your phone, [doing phone stuff x10]
Ding ding ding.
Everyone is so focused on AR glasses having some killer use case that must justify it’s existence. The use case is simply not pulling a phone out of your pocket; not waiting for face ID, tapping your way to the necessary app, and so on.
Removing these micro inconveniences has always been Apple’s forte (even if a little stagnant in recent years), so it’s no surprise that they will continue to pursue the same.
Yes, I swear that’s the biggest benefit of the Apple Watch. For the things it does, it’s so much more convenient than dragging a big old phone out of your pocket. From reading texts and notifications, to payments, to exercise and health data, to 2fa,to using a voice assistant, even checking time and weather.
Then again that’s a high bar of convenience for ever lower marginal improvements for the goggles to try to build
Thinking of that article about Deepfake porn the other day probably real-time nude body overlays for everyone you meet. Can’t think of a serious application that is actually useful enough for people to want this.
You don’t think that’s a good enough reason?
I really want it just for my crippling propsagnosia. Having something be able to tell me that A. I know this person, and B. What their name is could really give me a leg up with trying to integrate into society.
Your problem is certainly one that would be enough for niche success of the technology but not the kind of killer application that would make the majority want this.
How about gps directions to navigate an unfamiliar location?
Or for travelling: there already is a phone app to translate signs but it would be so much more to have that live
Or for travelling: there already is a phone app to translate signs but it would be so much more to have that live
Most countries use street signs that do not require translations, that is more of a US thing.
US street signs are standardized so you can see at a glance without reading. I understand the EU does similar but with a different standard.
But street signs are not the only signs. There are place names and ads and directions and telling you where to line up for what and how much the subway costs and how to get from one part of Paris to another and directions for the theater, etc, and most of those are localized
Yeah, and I’m fine with that. I don’t need to see Tim Apple more rich
