this post was submitted on 19 Jan 2024
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the ipod filled a hole in the market. wtf is this solving for?
To be fair, a lot of people were wondering the same thing when the iPad was announced. Now there's like a billion of them out there.
They were wondering that for the iPod, the iPhone, the iPad, the Apple Watch, and AirPods. I’d bet that in 10 years a decent portion of the population will have some sort of headset, Apple or otherwise.
None of those had a point nearly as questionable as this headset thing. The ipod was an advanced mp3 player, which was very popular and common tech at the time. The iPhone was an advanced phone with a large touchscreen, which was rapidly becoming very common at the time. The iPad was an advanced tablet, which was a concept that had already been tried many times by many other companies by then. The air pods are just advanced wireless earbuds, which nobody could ever deny were rapidly becoming more popular.
VR headsets are fundamentally different from all of those, in that there's no technological and social precedence quite like it. People used mp3 players and watches and phones before Apple did something new. Nobody was wondering the point of a better mp3 player that could hold massive amounts of songs. But the history of humankind says nothing about the masses' willingness to walk around in public with big ass high tech ski goggles strapped to their faces. VR is much, much more unknown compared to those.
I get what you’re saying, and regarding people walking around in public wearing a headset, I completely agree. It’ll be a very long time before that happens, if ever.
I disagree that AR won’t become more ubiquitous in people’s lives. Right now, the biggest gripe I see when people talk about Vision Pro is the price. Which was also the case with all the other Apple products I mentioned. The price will come down, it’ll get more features, and it will become more attractive to consumers.
Only time will tell which of us will be right.
The iPhone had 2 interesting things going for it. Everyone had been begging for an iPod phone for years before this happened. Apple had been working on the iPad since the Newton failed and the iPhone was a combination between iPod phone and iPad.
All glass all touch screens were not a thing people thought they wanted before Apple made a really compelling (and pleasing) device.
AR has been a thing for years, but hasn’t garnered the popularity or utility that MP3s and phones ever had. QR codes being the possible exception and only since most phones handle them natively at this stage.
It’s possible that AR just hasn’t had a good enough UX to break the “cool experiment bro” uses imagined so far (because of screen/camera/movement limitations). It’ll be interesting to see if Apple has managed to revolutionize the experience enough to imagine new and more widely needed AR uses or not.
We can argue that this product has no continuity with anything anyone has ever used, or we can admit that it is a new kind of immersive screen for a world where people are absolutely hooked to screens. It’s pretty simple.
And the very concept of virtual reality has been an inevitability for decades. This is something people have been fantasizing about for a long time, thought they underestimated the technical challenges and limitations of it all. We’re getting close to overcoming most of them now.
While the whole world laughs at Mark Zuckerburg, Occulus headsets are selling in rapidly increasing numbers. They sold more headsets in 2021 than Microsoft sold Xboxes. So to use your own words, yes, this product is a foray into a space that is rapidly growing in popularity.
If you have a computer space with multiple monitors with various equipment interfacing with it cluttering up a desk at your home, imagine all of that just completely gone, cleaned up, with nothing there but a recliner and a headset that can even go with you.
I think this is the value proposition. The price is too high for me, but I don’t think there’s anything to be confused about. The smart watch and iPad took more for me to wrap my head around than this.
When they get it down to rad sunglasses I’ll wear them everywhere.
I love my Quest headset, but I haven’t turned it on in 6 months. I don’t have time to be isolated like that without asking other people to make sacrifices for me so I can have that time.
I think the tech will be important in the future. I could be wrong, but when it shrinks down and becomes easy to remove isolation, I think people will want it.
The thing is, I don’t want those replaced by a headset. I have a total of 5 monitors on my home setup, and I can’t see a reason to replace any of them. Especially with a headset that’s likely going to be uncomfortable, heavy and isolating. I just can’t see any case where a headset could be even remotely close to preferable.
A recliner would probably decrease my enjoyment of the setup anyways, as I much prefer a physical desk, chair and monitors.
That sounds like a pretty epic setup! Fortunately no one is forcing you to replace anything. You’re free to keep and make the most of what you’ve spent your own money on, just like anyone else.
Actually, I’m sure you more than most can appreciate why others who don’t already have a setup like yours might want to look at a headset as an option.
If you can’t see any use case for this, especially as they become smaller and cheaper, then no one is going to convince you otherwise. Even now, there are literally thousands of scenarios where a headset with no physical limitations is going to be more preferable than needing an entire room in your house or office for your computer setup.
People understood what the iPhone was about immediately. Heck, they knew before it was even announced.
Same for the Apple Watch…ish. People didn't know exactly what area it would end up focusing on, but the idea of getting and responding briefly to notifications without getting your phone out has always been appealing.
AirPods people have, again, always understood the appeal of. People are/were just angry at the option of using wired headphones being taken away.
I mean, yeah, you can find people who believed in them. But the general consensus around all those products was they are too expensive, don’t offer any meaningful upgrades over current tech, or are just useless and no one will want them.
I’ve been reading MacRumours forums since before the iPhone launch and it’s always the same thing regarding new products. Without using them, people can have an hard time seeing the positives. I think that issue is even bigger now with the Vision Pro.
Your confusion probably relates to your idea that people dislike the cost of Vision Pro, as opposed to any actual problems with the product. All those other products were expensive versions of things that existed already that people used.
VR has existed for 40 years (remember Tron?). The reason it never took off is because the headset sucks and gives you a headache after an hour. That's basically it. People will buy most anything, but a headache is pushing it.
Occulus sold more headsets than Microsoft sold Xboxes. And that’s 2021. https://x.com/JackSoslow/status/1471549480595955716?s=20
no, they werent. the ipad replaced the netbooks everyone wsa using until tablets became viable. again, an actual use case for a product.
theyve been pushing these headsets for years now, and theyve gained little traction and not solved any of the common problems.
anyone who thinks this is will some popular thing everyone will be doing is smokin the reefer, or just not paying attention
do you seriously think retail consumers are the demographic Apple is trying to capture right now?
talk to some creative professionals & craftsmen. my company used to work with hololens on a regular basis but there way too much jank in how it performed in a live setting. If the Vision Pro provides even the same level of utility but manages to make live object rendering & tracking consistent and reliable, they’re going to sell truckloads. Hollywood alone has probably 100 different ways to use this tech on set to slim creative workflows and save time (and therefore money). a $5000 headset is practically a rounding error when your principals cost 10x that per hour.
How is retail not their demographic? All the marketing for this thing has people sitting on the couch, watching movies, viewing their children's photos in 3D, relaxation and meditation, taking photos with the headset on at a kids birthday, playing NBA 2K24, browsing news, spacial audio. Even the work stuff is pushing things like FaceTime and virtual screens. If retail consumers aren't their demographic someone should let the marketing department know
nope, i think this will sellout to their core audience, the 1%s. its just funny many people think they are part of that number.
but my point is, this isnt a mass market device. its not a new ipad or iphone... this is an imac. a niche product for their niche audience.
even your example is hardcore niche and no where near an actual, large scale adoption
why would it need to be a massive immediate retail success?
moreover, why do you seem so irritated that you might not be the target audience here?
Reddit clowned soooo hard on the iPad when it was launched.
How have they been “pushing these headsets for years” considering that we’re literally discussing the launch of this product?
Monitors. It's not there yet but imagine a world where you have like 8, 30-inch, 4k monitors in a giant grid and it costs like $600. That's the endgame here. Get VR tech to the point where it's better than buying physical displays for general productivity.
Though in that case, I'd rather have these virtual displays driven by my PC, not some bs apple ecosystem.
And their resolution and size are arbitrary. Those have meaning in the physical world because they are physical objects that need to have dimensions and must fit those pixels within that space. For virtual displays, it's only limited by how much of your field of view would you like to dedicate to each display and how high is the resolution of your headset.
And this is only really scratching at the surface of what AR might be capable of. Why use virtual displays when windows could be displayed floating without a display? Why use windows when UI elements could be floating on their own? Why show a screen playing a video when you could render the video as a semi-transparent 3d scene happening around the viewer (other than the obvious "because it's in video format, not 3d)?
That said, I'll wait for someone else to do it since apple likes to take good ideas and simplify them down to the point of frustration.
Yeah I don't want Apple's implementation either, just saying to the other guy where I thought the endgame was headed
Your vision starts with iVision. You can see that Apple is trying to do most of that. If the high priced niche product succeeds, everyone else will jump on that bandwagon and your vision is a few years away
the use cases ive seen would never use this, like 911. having run a 911 center, this product would never be implemented despite the 8 giant monitors at each station.
this is just an incredibly niche product, with very niche uses.. and realistically its a toy that might be also used by some very specific industries.
Why not? it's a lot more space efficient; it's a lot more power efficient. The only thing holding it back is cost and comfort. I'm a developer rocking 4 monitors standard for work and I can absolutely imagine a world where I just have a desk, a keyboard, and a headset.
its about use case. in a 911 center, for example, all people need immediate access to all information in the room... often personnel not sitting at that station it is a non-static environment for a plural audience.
and cost is not really an issue anymore. giant, flat screens are Dirt cheap. this will never, ever be cheaper than the equivalent. they have new monitor tech rolling out that is literally like wallpaper.
i just cannot envision a generic use case that would make it popular
In 911 centers does anyone use a headset for answering calls or are all calls only on loud speakers?
AR/VR could work the same. You have your private view screen just like you have your headset. When you press a button, your view becomes public on a large standard display that anyone can see just like when you press a button to switch from headset to loud speaker.
a little of both. they wear headsets and have little local speakers per station. in a room you can get a pretty good idea of what each station is doin if youre within range
but this all just sounds like extra, more expensive steps to whats currently happening. this is a product begging for a problem to solve.. and remember, existing solutions are continually cheaper and easier to implement.
also, no op is going to want to wear some giant head thing for a 12 hour shift. reminds me of when they pushed touchscreens like it was the end-all be-all of compute (even in 911!) turns out no one wants to keep raising their hand constantly for 12 hours.
I don’t understand this. Using something like this would give people more immediate access to all the information in the room and increase the amount of information they have access to. Your vision isn’t obscured with this. That’s why they’re calling it a “spatial computer”.
we know you can’t lol
that doesn’t mean they don’t exist though
right, i totally missed all those examples you provided
You can get that for $500 with the quest 3
The resolution isn't quite there yet, and I think the headset is too heavy to wear for 8hrs a day, 5 days a week (plus leisure if you're a gamer or hobbyist)
No you can't.
The resolution is not close to sufficient for a monitor with any meaningful amount of text on it. Your eyes will be bleeding in about 2 minutes.
From what randos on the net have said the next closest headset that doesn't require a computer to operate costs $5k+ so from an enterprise standpoint they could more cost efficient there. So apparently it might appeal to the enterprise market.
I have seen much dumber, much more expensive tech in the wild in offices.
If it lives up to the hype, it could replace 2-3 desktop monitors (or convince some executives it can, anyway). It's about the same price as two Apple Studio Displays. I've seen offices with very expensive standard equipment. $3500 per employee isn't all that much to begin with if it's legitimately useful.
Except an employee leaves and a new one doesn't mind using used monitors. Try that with a stinky used headset.
I'm just genuinely confused by the value proposition. $3500 seems to be about a 1000% Apple Tax over comparable tech. I'm sure the interface will be slightly nicer, but the Venn diagram of those who need the unique benefits of Apple's product overlapping those who have this much money to spend has to be very small. For business or personal use.
Do you have an example of comparable tech?
To be clear, my value question and note about the Venn diagram is that there may be a specific configuration of features only on the Vision Pro, but "comparable tech" includes to me all of the standard VR/AR products out there that as I understand it (correct me if I'm wrong) can do 95% of what Vision Pro can do. So, the Quest line, the Vive line. Even the ultra high-end products I think are only $1500, aren't they?
The best explanation I've seen is it would be nice on airplanes so you can watch movies and not have to awkwardly scrub past everything that might offend the toddlers behind you.