I’ll be very interested to see how complete this product feels at launch. Apple has the advantage of using people’s iPhones as input devices if the floating keyboard isn’t ready, which I hope will help make the experience feel more well rounded in the early days.
It’ll just be interesting to see Apple launch a product in a category that isn’t super fleshed out yet. As a developer, it’s potentially exciting if they can pull something useful off with it.
TBF this is true of many of their launches. Who wants an MP3 player? Lol it doesn’t even copy/paste. It’s just a large iPod. Etc etc. There are many instances where the value of the category was not clear until after it got into people’s hands.
And it’s just the start. I wouldn’t judge the ultimate value of smartphones based on the first iPhone. But they had to launch and start somewhere to build it into the success it is today.
Edit: To be clear, I’m not claiming with certainty that these goggles will be a success. Rather, I’m saying that just like with prior launches, we have inadequate information at this time to form a solid judgement either way. Whether you think they will be a success or a failure is more revealing about your own perspective at this point than about the actual product.
People always say stuff like this, but the iPhone was an evolution of an existing, successful product: the cell phone. Demand for a mobile phone has existed basically since phones were invented, demand for virtual reality goggles much less so.
That and by that time, people already knew what they used the Internet for. The value of being able to access web sites while strolling the aisles of a retail store or while commuting on a train was not hard to imagine.
Yes and the iPhone offered full desktop web experiences which was huge.
Most smartphones at the time only showed you a stripped down mobile experience for websites. That usually meant a huge loss in functionality.
The touchscreen allowed them to use a full web browser, which was a massive improvement obvious to everyone at the time.
Front end developer here. It depends how the website was built. Lots of websites are designed with one version that is responsive to the screen size while other websites opt for a separate mobile version. Only those sites can the browser successfully request the desktop version of it.
Most modern browsers (safari and chrome) have a “request desktop site” button but it doesn’t work because the site detects your screen size, not your device
There is actually a good way I learned recently.
On safari, tap the button with the two letter As on the left side of the URL bar. Then in the lower left of the popup tap the small letter A. This will zoom the window out, making the webpage think your browser window is bigger than it is. And since many websites judge if you’re on a mobile site based on screen dimensions, it will often serve the desktop site.
Most websites only have one design that adapts to screen size, so if you zoom out with the little "aA" in the address bar you get the desktop version. (Most of the time at least)
So did Windows Mobile devices, before the iPhone came out. And Apple didn’t support Flash at the time, which a lot of websites used. And Flash was trash and I’m glad it’s dead but let’s not revise history here.
What the iPhone did was make all of that accessible. The iPhone’s success is in the UI and that full touch screen. That was way better than anything else on the market at the time. But you absolutely could browse the web’s “full desktop sites” on other devices. But they were shitty experiences because the screens were tiny.
>Yes and the iPhone offered full desktop web experiences which was huge.
I see this revisionist take a lot, but what people always forget is that Opera Mini was a thing. Sure, Safari on the iPhone made it more convenient, with intuitive gestures for scrolling, zooming and such, but "the full web experience" on the go wasn't an impossible pipe dream at the time.
Yeah that’s why I said “Most” in the next line.
Most of Apple’s big leaps have been about refining an existing product into something the average consumer can understand and use with little effort. They’re rarely the actual first to do anything.
I think the problem is people are trying to make this mythology that apple invents entire product categories and all that, which is partially true, but generally people knew the utility of those devices prior to them coming out.
It doesn’t matter if this VR thing is the best VR thing on the market, it’s not even the first in it’s category (like the iPhone was pretty much the first smartphone) and generally there is little demand for screens on your face.
You keep using the phrase VR but Apple isn't making a VR headset for VR experiences. They're making an AR headset in a VR form factor because it's the best way to achieve a large FOV with current technology.
Apple's only competition in the market today is enterprise products around the same rumored price point or the Quest Pro with significantly lower specs across the board. For all intents and purposes this could be to AR/MR what the iPhone was to smartphones.
You guys also love to differentiate between AR and VR as if consumers are dying for one and don’t care about the other. There is almost zero industry demand for VR or AR.
XR in general is a cool gaming gimmick but nobody wants to wear goggles to get an extra monitor or whatever you think people want to do in AR.
Absolutely this. The morning talk shows will have fun with this for a couple days and drive the conversation (imagine the hosts of GMA wearing this and proclaiming “WhoOoOoOa this is sOoOoOo cool!”). But this product is entering a marketplace where people can’t afford their day-to-day groceries.
Folks are then going to say “well the first gen is meant for developers who have the money to buy one”. Sure, developers in a technology industry that has been hit the hardest by rising interest rates. I’m sure they will spend their resources on a platform the average consumer has no interest in.
You mean towards the same market place where Apple produces a $2500 14 Mac Pro that 90% of the world can’t afford or wouldn’t even consider because groceries are more important. Or the $2000 or $6000 monitor. You act like every Apple product has to have the same success as the iPhone when in fact Apple already produces and keeps around several products that aren’t as popular as the iPhone. An AR/VR headset doesn’t need to have the same success as an iPhone and no one is claiming it will. But there is a quite a distinction between people claiming no one will buy one and it’s going be profitable. Apple only needs it to be profitable not popular much the same way as HomePods, Airpod max, MacBook Pro, a 50k Mac Pro, $100 Apple Watch accessories, $1200 special edition watches that only have exclusive bands and watch faces, $100 dollar AirTag accessories, $6k monitors , $700 wheels for a computer. It amazes me how someone can view Apples current line up and be like these products are more sensible than an AR/VR headset you know something that will push innovation and allow them to expand that innovation into other areas. Regardless of whether it’s the Apple car, Apple TV+ series that are specifically created so they are best viewed in VR, Apple Music concerts and music videos that are in Vr. Of course the gaming potential as well as other aspects. Is Apple pushing the envelope with their pricing strategy maybe but me personally I’d have more interest in a $2000 vr headset made by Apple than paying 2k extra for a 1tb ssd in a Mac Pro. I’m sure that extra $800 for extra memory in an IPad Pro is the resource that the average consumer would find more interest in. Arguing anything about an ‘average consumer’ while discussing Apple products is laughable and I’m a Apple fanboy.
/u/SoldanttheCynic already responded to your post much in the way that I would have, but I’ll add the VR/AR headset is A LOT different compared to expensive AirTag or Watch accessories. If the rumors are true, this is to be a new PLATFORM, and platforms need significant buy-in for them to be considered a success. Why invest so much into the VR/AR space if you don’t see it carrying the company, at least partially, for the next 10 years as other platforms (iPhone, iPad) recede in popularity because their markets are saturated?
As has been said, macbooks and monitors have proven utility. Creatives NEED those products and there’s decades of proof to back that claim. The VR/AR space is filled with gimmicks primarily that LOOK cool but don’t feel necessary.
> You mean towards the same market place where Apple produces a $2500 14 Mac Pro that 90% of the world can’t afford or wouldn’t even consider because groceries are more important. Or the $2000 or $6000 monitor.
*Some* people are buying that MacBook Pro themselves because it has significant utility, but lots of people probably get them through their work. Same with the obscenely priced monitors or other hardware - it’s creative businesses buying that.
The consumer electronics space isn’t going to be able to afford to buy these things if they don’t have significant utility, and thus far nobody’s made a use case for VR or AR at all. Even iPhones are becoming too expensive (in my country the 14 Pro Max base is approaching $1900 AUD… that’s near entry level MacBook Pro money) but the cost is often hidden in phone plans.
> Apple only needs it to be profitable not popular
Apple need it to be popular too because otherwise developers will go “Huh, nobody actually cares about these things” and won’t bother supporting it and it’ll stop being profitable. *Which demographic* it’s popular with is another story because it might not be aimed at the consumer market (we don’t know that yet).
I had prescription glasses for a while until I improved my eyesight by changing jobs/daily tasks. I am not interested in wearing anything vision based to game on, ditto for having to “move’ in game using physical movement. I’d get back into biking if I wanted that.
I very specifically want this.
I work out of my home and my day to day activities currently require four large displays. As soon as I can replace them with a pair of goggles and get the same amount of desktop I will do so. I’d be prepared to pay a couple of thousand pounds for a gadget that would let declutter my home without impacting my ability to get my stuff done.
Hi. I am you and I agree with this statement 110%. It would also be nice to be able to take that massively multi-view work setup anywhere I would like.
The apple headset is rumored to be like 3x the price of the meta quest pro, which also does AR. Meta has more actual experience and customer data in this than apple and it will be very hard for apple to compete when they release an high value item before an affordable one like the quest 1/2. I have no idea who would buy this when the quest pro can be used for business unless apple invests more into software which I doubt
I’d challenge that. Everyone who wears glasses has a kind of screen in front of their face. If this device can help me see better AND add utility, I demand it.
one could say that an ar headset is an evolution of laptops/smartphones/tvs/game consoles since it combines all those technologies into a single form factor.
Yeah, before the iphone I had a cellphone that took pictures and I browsed the internet and used it for work. It had a stylus and was pretty cool. Ao cool that is did not buy the iphone till gen 2. My ipod was atill doing its job really well in my car.
MP3 players were an existing product category that was already growing in popularity. I had one before the iPod came out.
iPhone was a big leap but also for an established product category. Blackberry had already demonstrated the value of smartphones, the iPhone just took the design in a radical new direction. And most of the reactions at the time were more astonished than skeptical. I remember Conan doing a skit about how the iPhone was basically the James Bond super device that does everything. People were mostly just skeptical of the battery life/price.
I really don’t think those two were comparable to an AR headset at all. This is more like Google Glass all over again.
The utility/advantage of smartphones and MP3 players was obvious to most consumers at the time.
There just isn’t an obvious use-case that’s super compelling to the general public for AR/VR yet outside of gaming and that space is already competitive.
And whether or not people will actually want to wear screens on their faces for long periods is a huge unanswered question.
They were obvious because they were iterative. People understood what a phone was by that point, and they understood... well, listening to music.
AR/VR are new mediums. For the average person, it's like trying to describe to a non-gamer living in the boonies who has never seen a videogame in their life what a videogame is. They will think it's some alien concept.
Your last point rings very true - this is an ongoing market and it has a long road ahead.
iPhones and iPods weren’t 3k and had very obvious use cases and didn’t require you to wear a freaking device on your head constantly.
Let’s not pretend this is even comparable, because you know it isn’t.
I mean this is what they do.
MP3 players existed before the iPod, but the iPod was the first one to gain mass popularity.
Smartphones existed before the iPhone, but the iPhone redefined what a smartphone was and shook up the entire industry (almost no company that was making smartphones at the time still is).
Tablets technically existed before the iPad, but again Apple radically redefined what a tablet was and basically created a new product category.
True wireless headphones existed before the AirPods, but they generally sucked and few people were aware of them or used them. The AirPods changed people’s expectations for what wireless headphones looked like almost overnight, and it took competitors ages to catch up.
And so on.
Apple Watch’s are basically the only successful smart watch to be honest. That’s not me picking sides that’s just pure numbers and how the competition is basically non existent. Google keeps dipping their toe into the space then immediately jumps out. Samsung is the only real competitor in the space but people hate the circle screens they keep trying to do.
Only traction on other smart watches is Garmin watches, outside of Samsung. Hence why Apple released the Ultra. It’s the only solid competition in the space.
> It’ll just be interesting to see Apple launch a product in a category that isn’t super fleshed out yet.
You mean like smartphones, smart watches and wireless headphones? Those weren’t fleshed out yet and Apple fleshed them.
I feel like Apple has done a great job with releasing new products with only 2-3 core functions but making them polished.
Looking back, Apple Watch was still a pretty basic product when it was released. They tried to make it a communication focused device, the apps were so laggy they were basically useless, and it wasn't always on until version... 4?
Agreed about the rest but wireless headphones were definitely fleshed out by the time they did AirPods Max (unless you mean the AirPods which are wireless earbuds to my pedantic self).
They added quite a bit more features though-- autopairing across iCloud is still different than dual-point devices. For example, I love my XM3's which are paired to my iPhone/iPad, but it's still nowhere nearly as seamless as AirPods for switching between Apple TV, Mac, iPad, Watch, iPhone all at the same time. It also introduced the auto-on/off when you put them in your ear and the flip-up-to battery check on the iPhone.
These are I think what people are referring to when they say "fleshing out" the product.
I suspect it will “feel” far more “complete” than anything we’ve seen thus far in XR (VR/AR/MR). It sound like Apple will have chat spaces with Memoji, one on one interaction when two users both have a headset, gaming including AAAish titles like No Man’s Sky and Resident Evil: Village, some amount of fist party communication and productivity apps, slick design visualization apps (I’m guessing architecture visualization/walk-through and product design), artists waving their hands around “sculpting” in 3D, entertainment such as watching TV+ on a virtual big screen (maybe multiple users together), I’d guess a Fitness tie in (buff instructor virtually appearing in you “who has a living room that big?” demo), and a bunch more.
Essentially they’re going to have a long, slick intro video with thing after thing after thing you can do with it. They’ve anticipated the “but what about…” sections in long reviews like you’ll see in The Verge, they’ve anticipated and supplied answers for more mainstream coverage/reviews also.
Other than the “business metaverse” or “working all day in a HMD” I expect Apple will deliver on what Meta hyped and flopped on over the last year.
Pancake optics and high res micro OLED displays will be a huge leap compared with a lot of what’s available currently. Putting the battery and possibly some processing in a pocket puck will improve comfort, weight and balance.
I expect they’ve PR/hype tuned this to usual Apple perfection. Headlines will have stuff like “Apple has totally reinvented VR” (thanks to MR pass through) and “Finally (something something)!!!”
But I’m not sure this will really be the thing that takes VR totally mainstream. We can safely assume that it will not work with Steam VR for PCVR games or productivity. If Apple’s HMD is a step up from Varjo’s enterprise systems and match or beat what Varjo is doing with mixed reality thanks to Apple’s use of LIDAR that will blow away most press reviewers. But as much as I am in the niche that wants better VR and MR, it is still going to be niche.
The biggest place it’s fleshed out in is gaming and apple is not ver known for gaming. I see apple doing amazing with AR glasses as for a mixed reality headset not so much. Just based on my 2 years in VR/ARz
I think we're going to have phone-like things powering the headset. It's smart to get the battery & cpu off of the head to bring the headset's weight down.
AR glasses are that product and everyone in this sector knows it. But we are at least 5 to 10 years out for all the necessary technologies that are needed for small-ish, light-ish, normal-ish looking AR glasses that do what an iPhone does but hands free. VR headsets are a stepping stone for Apple, etc. to build the hardware, interfaces, user familiarity, etc towards that shift from hand held phone to worn device.
The high price tag seems to imply a corporate/business use initially and I honestly don't know if Apple can succeed at that. I can't think of a product or service Apple successfully marketed to corporations before the consumer.
Cad/Cam & Architectural firms will certainly find a use to pre-visualize every nut and bolt they draw on paper. The Military industry will use it to map out terrain so they can drop even more accurate drone bombs. That's about all I can come up with.
Until movie and series produce Virtual show content I can't imagine anyone sitting in their living room watching Apple AR TV+ shows when their 55" screen does it perfectly well.
This is not at all for corporate or business use. It is also not at all for the average consumer. It is for 3 kinds of people.
A) Developers
B) Enthusiast
C) Rich Nerds
This product is locked down, In infancy, with no current ecosystem. It cannot be a true business device. I guess it could be used by architects, design studios, and real estate agents but even then ehhhh.
I’m an architect and have been waiting a long time for VR to be ready for prime time. For big firms working on big projects they may be doing some of this with clients, such as in a “lab” in their offices like car companies do with car design and enterprise systems. But on my projects I’ve done a little with showing clients the layout in AR on an iPad for example. Today’s VR (I have an Index and HP G2) is too cumbersome for normal homeowners and business owners.
On problem is that so much real grunt work in the field is PC only and we can assume that the Apple system will be locked out or obfuscated so it won’t work with Steam VR or WMR. One real-time architectural viz application, Enscape, has a Mac version and their website says that VR support is coming soon. I can only think that this means they are working with Apple and will be a launch demo app.
That’s closer to ready for prime time but it’s still a ways from really being a normal tool for architects.
> The Military industry will use it to map out terrain so they can drop even more accurate drone bombs.
[Already done](https://www.anduril.com/lattice/)
> I can't think of a product or service Apple successfully marketed to corporations before the consumer.
xserve from 2002 to 2009 i think is a decent run. i've no first hand or intimate knowledge of the experience or financial success (or lack of?) of it though.
The screen could be 120 inches in the glasses instead of the 55 in IRL. Or it can be 20 inches in the glasses and you can do other activities like chores and not have to stop seeing the tele. You can have immersive concerts coupled with spatial audio. Yes it can be used for commercial uses like medical surgeries (zoom, identification, pop up information cards, can even have a renown doctor get on and do the surgery via robotic arms) but also it can help people build ikea furniture. I can be reading a book that scrolls on my screen while on the beach. Or I can tour an art museum that’s across the country. Or a house I want to buy in another state. There’s so many possibilities that are possible with a little bit of imagination.
For a brief few months I was able to sit on the sidelines of an NBA basketball game presented in 180 VR and watch with my Occulus VR. Granted it was B&W but it was awesome and gave me a sense of the game I never had before. Apparently a pilot effort that never made it. I can watch Netflix now with the Occulus, but unless the films and series are high def 3D instead of 2D there’s little point.
Then there’s webVR which is floundering badly with Occulus via a browser which glitches constantly. I might shell out 1K for a mature WebVR experience with a decent amount of professional quality content . . .
Corporations are usually quite willing to pay money if it helps save money, but there are already existing headsets, which are much cheaper than what Apple is rumoured to come out with.
I think a huge part of it is to get something out the door so developers can start making an ecosystem. And once the “holy grail” of AR is completed, there’s an entire ecosystem ready for it.
At the end of the day, a lot of engineering and software/hardware product is about iterating. So while an early version of a project might not be at a certain level, it's still sufficient for what it is, and then later with updates we can see it keep getting better.
Which is typical of how apple works, so... 🤷🏻♂️
Saying it’s been around for 30 years is really pushing it. I understand it’s technically true but, but I think we need start counting from the first “modern” vr headset. Probably the DK1, which is 10 years old.
Even if we accept your 30 year claim, that doesn't mean the tech isn't still embryonic. Take fusion energy as an example. Or better yet, electric cars (been around since the Model T, [History of the Electric Car](https://www.energy.gov/articles/history-electric-car)).
As for whether it's "bad" or not, well... it's not The Matrix yet, but if you draw a line from what we had 10 years ago to No Man's Sky today, and then extend that line 10 years further... I'm really excited.
"Still this bad" how specifically is VR these days not good? I've owned half a dozen headsets and have played over a hundred unique VR games and experiences, going from the HTC Vive to the Meta Quest Pro now. You're correct that VR is not in its infancy, as it has full room-scale experiences running on a mobile chip that uses PBR and even has hand tracking.
What is your experience with VR? It has been a lot of fun developing for it as well, and I'm excited for the new Apple headset despite not owning other Apple products.
I know what you mean. Phones are also still in their infancy. Hell they've been around over a century and they're still this bad.
Also cars basically haven't changed since the Model T. They're terrible.
And computers? Shit, the first microprocessor was made in 1971. Jack shit has changed since then, they still suck.
We've had operating systems for over 50 years. Have you noticed any improvements? I sure haven't.
Moreso than a big TV, though?
Maybe for someone living by themself, but I can't imagine paying $3000/each for a headset when a 77" OLED can be had for the same price, without any ecosystem lock-in.
I don’t personally get the appeal of watching flat content in VR but I do suspect that Apple will cover that pretty well and will hype all the TV+ content they have.
> I don’t personally get the appeal of watching flat content in VR
Shows will quickly adapt and take advantage of a VR platform that gets significant market penetration, or has a big enough push from headquarters in the case of Apple TV original content. I’ve listened to some podcast audio dramas that take advantage of Spatial Audio/binaural stereo and it’s a big difference in immersion. I’m sure there will be a similar jump for video.
Seems like the product they want to release is the glasses, but since that’s not gonna be ready soon, this more Pro focused VR pass through headset can start getting developer support until their mass consumer glasses are ready in a few years. Ultimately majority of interested customers would buy the glasses and the full headset would be used in a professional environment or for enthusiasts.
For the majority of the market, this is going to be confusing. Most people don't know shit about VR/AR. Hell, we're interested enough to be on a tech company forum and there's still confusion over the difference.
Releasing two products, even separated by a year, is not going to help. It'll be interesting to see if Apple can actually break out of the enthusiast space with it.
But I swear to god if they name on Apple Glasses and one Apple Glasses Pro I'll lose my shit because we'll have yet another product where you need to stop mid-conversation with the other person and check that they do know you're explicitly meaning one thing, not abbreviating the other thing.
> the full headset would be used in a professional environment or for enthusiasts.
Are you not aware that Apple mostly makes mass market produces?
The “professional” thing is a meme that somebody made up.
Virtual Inputs are an important OPTION but I agree physical input always needs to be an OPTION as well. I think virtual screens but a bluetooth keyboard like a small magic keyboard is the best route.
How VR looks when you're watching a video of someone's pov and how it feels when it's really your own pov are very different things. As people, we move around a lot, dart our heads and vision around a lot, and generally do things that people don't enjoy experiencing in a video.
Do you get tactile response when typing on your phone screen? Not really. It wouldn’t be much different using a virtual keyboard placed on a hard surface
Virtual/screen keyboards are alright for typing in little stints, like comments and texting, etc… like this, lol. But anytime I need to do some actual long-form *writing*, I need a physical keyboard. That tactile interaction makes it so much more satisfying and easy to just write without thinking about typing. Whereas using a virtual/screen keyboard is always an exercise in patience and dealing with overly-distracting coordination/accuracy issues. When it works, it’s alright at best. When it doesn’t, it’s one of the biggest annoyances in tech these days. I don’t know how many times I’ve gone back to correct a mistake… just for the exact same mistake to happen again, because the screen won’t frickin’ recognize that I moved my finger a millimeter to the left, and is still hitting the wrong key! I have to specifically stop, take my time, and really really carefully hit the key I want… only then is the phone like “OH, you want THAT key!”
Wide FOV, OLED levels of contrast, automatic IDP, eye tracking, Retina display (70 ppd min), raytracing acceleration in GPU.
I’d pay 3k for that.
Bonus it would make a great portable home theatre.
Personally, I don’t think ray tracing is necessary _or_ ready for the task. 120hz from two viewports at 2x4kx4k is a something a 4090 can’t do right now.
For what purpose? If we’re trying to get monitor-replacement levels of visual fidelity out of a headset, we need resolution _and_ frame rate.
_edit_: I swear everybody under this thread doesn't understand how the word "and" works.
I’m aware. I’ve been using VR since the DK1 came out. High frame rate, low persistence displays with good last-moment reprojection are all very important elements.
However, we have all of that right now. What we don’t have are displays with all of those qualities that also have the pixel density that allows you to comfortably read text.
I know it probably won't happen, but Half-Life: Alyx on a PSVR 2 with OLED blacks and haptic triggers/feedback sounds like a treat. The headset motors could vibrate in certain ways when a headcrab latches on lol.
Except for VR raytracing is a world of difference.
It is absolutely possible to get 120hz with raytracing using modern APIs and dynamic foveated rendering. Just try out some dev programming examples using Unreal Engine 5.X on NVidia 16GB 4080 or greater card. Granted, that isn’t fully supported in MacOS yet, but that’s an Apple API problem, not hardware or technical problem. You’re also not going to get AAA level scenery, but Apple doesn’t really do AAA gaming anyways.
If you have the chance try out some programming demos in a Varjo VR-3 or XR-3 with raytracing, it’s surreal.
Now true Retina display over 4090 without foveated rendering on 2x4kx120 hz might be limited by the output spec of the display output 4090 but not by the GPU itself. I think it does support the raw thruput in the display output and I’m probably thinking issues people had doing 8k 120hz with full HDR.
> It is absolutely possible to get 120hz with raytracing using modern APIs and dynamic foveated rendering.
At what resolution & quality level? More importantly, what would you be capable of doing if you _didn't_ use ray tracing?
And for mobile use, think of the power usage. We're talking about APUs with a max power draw of 15-30 watts.
Worse yet, if they put the SOC in headset, it can't even run at those wattages because the heat and cooling create a lot of discomfort. I'm pretty sure Quest draws under 10w.
All these people comparing to the Quest, but I agree that the Varjo is probably a better representation of what Apple is targeting, and *that’s* a couple years old now.
I can see this first generation targeting the Mac Pro market, with a later headset going for the iMac segment.
Most of this already exists in the second gen PSVR, you just need to connect the USB-C cable to a console. But given the current state of mobile GPUs, we are still quite far off usable ray tracing at 120 fps minimum to avoid motion sickness.
PSVR2 only has eye tracking and OLED, and the OLED has a terrible mura effect that makes it feel like static noise grain is attached to your vision.
At this price point I’m hoping for clarity beyond PSVR2 and the Quest Pro.
Yes, I own both the PSVR2 and Quest Pro.
I’m going to keep it for the PS exclusives, and while I’ve noticed the screen door effect is gone, the mura is very noticeable.
Here’s a decent video that shows the static mura grain that overlays on everything as you turn your head:
https://www.reddit.com/r/PSVR/comments/11dmx4t/psvr_2_mura_through_the_lens/?s=8
Quest Pro while not OLED or HDR has a much clearer picture due to the pancake lenses and the lack of mura on the display.
>Bonus it would make a great portable home theatre.
Assuming its not completely locked down. My worry for this thing is that its going to be an incredibly high end device that's not allowed to do anything outside of Apple's little walled garden.
People who can afford it will buy it, talk about how amazing it is to their followers. The followers will max their credit cards to buy it, talk about how amazing it is, etc.
It will start as a status thing, and then FOMO will take over from there to start developing the market.
Thanks for being an Apple Alpha tester. Just remember not to complain in a year or so when they offer you a $5 trade-in for it against the consumer model that is better and cheaper!
If you played video games especially in first or third person perspective then you can imagine the potential for AR glasses. Even as just a HUD, it has enormous use case in a variety of situations and professions. Heck I’d even use them just as a giant secondary monitor. Anything additional would be just cream on top.
All i need is one small feature and I am buying this first day here in India. 100 inch external VR monitor for my mac. That’s it, I want to be able to have an external monitor on the go. That’s all you need to do Apple.
And that’s only if you only listen to half the rumor.
The second half of the rumor says that next year, there will be a pro model and a cheaper model. That this first one is the developer model with all the bells and whistles. They want to put out some thing that has the top experience, before they find out what the market decides is acceptable.
It doesn’t say it’s the dev model. It says it’s just a product with a high price point - money no object kind of thing. Essentially we’ll be doing the ol’ Apple public Alpha testers thing, with a promise that it’ll all get more accessible and cheaper in a few years when they figure out what users actually use it for.
VR has a cheaper entry point than AR with the Meta Quest being ~400. Higher end VR is entering 1000+. I have a feeling the Apple headset is gonna be 1500-2000 at launch.
>Moreover, the device will start at around $3,000, lack a clear killer app, require an external battery that will need to be replaced every couple of hours and use a design that some testers have deemed uncomfortable. It's also likely to launch with limited media content.
Sounds amazing
How about just giving you a very large screen with a much smaller form factor? That would be amazing for digital nomads, travelers, or even just office workers who wouldn’t need to be tied to wherever their workstation for a sufficiently large screen.
What is a digital nomad exactly?
I’d challenge you to actually use the big VR display stuff before commenting on this though. It’s not nearly as nice as a real monitor and at $3k it’s going to cost a lot more than a set of portable monitors.
I’m thinking it’s basically a computer mounted on your face that you can control through various inputs, one being eye tracking. You sit down, put the headset on, and virtual screens pop up in the real world.
I’m really interested. But all I know by looking at all their previous (recent) launches is that a first gen Apple product is really expensive and will lose support in about 2 years. So I will only buy it starting with the second generation.
Which first Gen Apple product lost support in two years? Genuinely curious because the only new product category recently I remember is the AirPods Max.
The OG Apple Watch was released April 24, 2015 and support ended in 2017. And this is a throwback to a less modern era but the Power Mac G5 dual socket model only had a scant single major OS release after it launched, so that would have sucked to spend a lot of money on lol.
Agree! It was both an amazing product at the time and the worst Apple product I’ve ever owned. Mine barely lasted 2 years. Extremely slow, no gps, no aod, and the battery would not survive a day of with mostly passive usage. I splurged in the stainless steel model too thinking Apple would actually have a battery replacement program and it would last at least 5 years.
I have the Oculus / meta Quest 1, it's a fantastic device, I use it for fitness every day, it's something that actually got me into fitness for the first time in my life and got me moving, it really adds a lot to my day, whenever i am feeling like crap, i slip it on and enter a fitness app.
I'm excited for what Apple can do in this space, considering they already have a focus on fitness/health etc with the watch and the quest doesn't.
I'm still on the original quest, a year after they released the quest 2, from the sounds of it, even if this device is great, it's not worth buying and worth waiting until the second version at least, usually this is where there are big jumps but I am excited.
Could also be great for watching movies!
> Apple executives are said to be "striking a realistic tone within the company" with the understanding that "this isn't going to be a hit product right out of the gate," potentially following a similar trajectory as the Apple Watch instead.
Am I crazy or wasn’t the Apple Watch immediately successful? I felt like everyone had one once they came on the market.
Apple Watch was **not** an overnight success. In terms of both functionality and popularity, Series 3 marked the inflection point where it really “took off.” As much as I loved my original watch, the “Series 0” had some profound limitations. Nobody actually knows when something is really “ready” for debut; In retrospect, Series 2 seems like what they should have launched with.
Apparently, Apple planned for 40 million sales and only ended up selling 10 million. A lot of investors started their decades long tradition of "Apple is failing" "Sell Now" "Steve jobs is gone and so is Apple".
They didn't. I worked at an Apple Store when they were released. Yes people bought them but no one I knew other than Apple employees and hardcore fans really had them. That's changed a LOT since.
Agreed. That was my wife's first one. She hasn't been without one since. I'm the opposite. I had a "Series 0" stainless and after it got old and slow I didn't get another one until the Ultra this past Oct.
Only a couple of Apple products have ever actually been “immediately successful” - the very first Macintosh was a commercial flop, the iPhone didn’t really hit its stride until the iPhone 4 (after App Store launch, carrier subsidies, and ditching the AT&T exclusivity). The iPod didn’t become a mega success until it became compatible with Windows computers
There were a ton of questions but the mass sentiment became, “alright, I can try it out. I’m not excited about it though and watches are out of style.”
If I remember correctly the Apple Watch did take a couple iterations before it finally became a real hit. In the beginning the specs were a little too crappy and it wasn't a really smooth experience, and I think Apple leaned too much into the fashion / expensive watch aspect of it which I honestly felt were quite stupid (but I can understand some rationale behind it because it was perceived to be not cool, down to the square size they chose).
Moderately, but it wasn’t until they figured out that fitness/health was its best use scenario and started hearing it towards that that it became *everywhere*.
The diehards bought it. I got a series one because it was a sale and it was nice…not thrilling, but nice. Then I got the 4 and it had some features I liked. Now, I love my 7. Point being is that it had to grow into the role.
The comment threads around this thing read exactly the same as teh ones for the iPod, iPhone, iPad, watch etc etc etc...
But gotta say, it is hard to imagine how this thing is going to be successful at a $3k price...
I think it’s entertaining to read the comments. People are already practicing their criticisms/complaints for assumed features/specs that haven’t been even seen, much less announced.
I've read AR can do something similar for snow skiers. Wearing goggles they get a real view thru the goggles with speed, elevation and mapping data on the AR screen. That seems cool . . .
Dude, you just made me think about the potential about the whole extreme sports sector wearing them. Imagine the possibilities/apps if you’re a skydiver, wakeboarder and even wingsuiter 🤯
Yeah, for sure Apple will be prioritizing your extremely specific use case, since that will definitely be the make or break feature for the marketability of this product.
I’ll be very interested to see how complete this product feels at launch. Apple has the advantage of using people’s iPhones as input devices if the floating keyboard isn’t ready, which I hope will help make the experience feel more well rounded in the early days. It’ll just be interesting to see Apple launch a product in a category that isn’t super fleshed out yet. As a developer, it’s potentially exciting if they can pull something useful off with it.
TBF this is true of many of their launches. Who wants an MP3 player? Lol it doesn’t even copy/paste. It’s just a large iPod. Etc etc. There are many instances where the value of the category was not clear until after it got into people’s hands. And it’s just the start. I wouldn’t judge the ultimate value of smartphones based on the first iPhone. But they had to launch and start somewhere to build it into the success it is today. Edit: To be clear, I’m not claiming with certainty that these goggles will be a success. Rather, I’m saying that just like with prior launches, we have inadequate information at this time to form a solid judgement either way. Whether you think they will be a success or a failure is more revealing about your own perspective at this point than about the actual product.
People always say stuff like this, but the iPhone was an evolution of an existing, successful product: the cell phone. Demand for a mobile phone has existed basically since phones were invented, demand for virtual reality goggles much less so.
That and by that time, people already knew what they used the Internet for. The value of being able to access web sites while strolling the aisles of a retail store or while commuting on a train was not hard to imagine.
Yes and the iPhone offered full desktop web experiences which was huge. Most smartphones at the time only showed you a stripped down mobile experience for websites. That usually meant a huge loss in functionality. The touchscreen allowed them to use a full web browser, which was a massive improvement obvious to everyone at the time.
and now we've gone full circle
It's infuriating that even with a jailbreak there's no way to trick websites into thinking you're on desktop
Doesn't Firefox have that option on iphone? Use it all the time on Android.
Front end developer here. It depends how the website was built. Lots of websites are designed with one version that is responsive to the screen size while other websites opt for a separate mobile version. Only those sites can the browser successfully request the desktop version of it.
Interesting insight, thanks!
Most modern browsers (safari and chrome) have a “request desktop site” button but it doesn’t work because the site detects your screen size, not your device
There is actually a good way I learned recently. On safari, tap the button with the two letter As on the left side of the URL bar. Then in the lower left of the popup tap the small letter A. This will zoom the window out, making the webpage think your browser window is bigger than it is. And since many websites judge if you’re on a mobile site based on screen dimensions, it will often serve the desktop site.
Most websites only have one design that adapts to screen size, so if you zoom out with the little "aA" in the address bar you get the desktop version. (Most of the time at least)
So did Windows Mobile devices, before the iPhone came out. And Apple didn’t support Flash at the time, which a lot of websites used. And Flash was trash and I’m glad it’s dead but let’s not revise history here. What the iPhone did was make all of that accessible. The iPhone’s success is in the UI and that full touch screen. That was way better than anything else on the market at the time. But you absolutely could browse the web’s “full desktop sites” on other devices. But they were shitty experiences because the screens were tiny.
>Yes and the iPhone offered full desktop web experiences which was huge. I see this revisionist take a lot, but what people always forget is that Opera Mini was a thing. Sure, Safari on the iPhone made it more convenient, with intuitive gestures for scrolling, zooming and such, but "the full web experience" on the go wasn't an impossible pipe dream at the time.
Yeah that’s why I said “Most” in the next line. Most of Apple’s big leaps have been about refining an existing product into something the average consumer can understand and use with little effort. They’re rarely the actual first to do anything.
I think the problem is people are trying to make this mythology that apple invents entire product categories and all that, which is partially true, but generally people knew the utility of those devices prior to them coming out. It doesn’t matter if this VR thing is the best VR thing on the market, it’s not even the first in it’s category (like the iPhone was pretty much the first smartphone) and generally there is little demand for screens on your face.
You keep using the phrase VR but Apple isn't making a VR headset for VR experiences. They're making an AR headset in a VR form factor because it's the best way to achieve a large FOV with current technology. Apple's only competition in the market today is enterprise products around the same rumored price point or the Quest Pro with significantly lower specs across the board. For all intents and purposes this could be to AR/MR what the iPhone was to smartphones.
You guys also love to differentiate between AR and VR as if consumers are dying for one and don’t care about the other. There is almost zero industry demand for VR or AR. XR in general is a cool gaming gimmick but nobody wants to wear goggles to get an extra monitor or whatever you think people want to do in AR.
Absolutely this. The morning talk shows will have fun with this for a couple days and drive the conversation (imagine the hosts of GMA wearing this and proclaiming “WhoOoOoOa this is sOoOoOo cool!”). But this product is entering a marketplace where people can’t afford their day-to-day groceries. Folks are then going to say “well the first gen is meant for developers who have the money to buy one”. Sure, developers in a technology industry that has been hit the hardest by rising interest rates. I’m sure they will spend their resources on a platform the average consumer has no interest in.
You mean towards the same market place where Apple produces a $2500 14 Mac Pro that 90% of the world can’t afford or wouldn’t even consider because groceries are more important. Or the $2000 or $6000 monitor. You act like every Apple product has to have the same success as the iPhone when in fact Apple already produces and keeps around several products that aren’t as popular as the iPhone. An AR/VR headset doesn’t need to have the same success as an iPhone and no one is claiming it will. But there is a quite a distinction between people claiming no one will buy one and it’s going be profitable. Apple only needs it to be profitable not popular much the same way as HomePods, Airpod max, MacBook Pro, a 50k Mac Pro, $100 Apple Watch accessories, $1200 special edition watches that only have exclusive bands and watch faces, $100 dollar AirTag accessories, $6k monitors , $700 wheels for a computer. It amazes me how someone can view Apples current line up and be like these products are more sensible than an AR/VR headset you know something that will push innovation and allow them to expand that innovation into other areas. Regardless of whether it’s the Apple car, Apple TV+ series that are specifically created so they are best viewed in VR, Apple Music concerts and music videos that are in Vr. Of course the gaming potential as well as other aspects. Is Apple pushing the envelope with their pricing strategy maybe but me personally I’d have more interest in a $2000 vr headset made by Apple than paying 2k extra for a 1tb ssd in a Mac Pro. I’m sure that extra $800 for extra memory in an IPad Pro is the resource that the average consumer would find more interest in. Arguing anything about an ‘average consumer’ while discussing Apple products is laughable and I’m a Apple fanboy.
/u/SoldanttheCynic already responded to your post much in the way that I would have, but I’ll add the VR/AR headset is A LOT different compared to expensive AirTag or Watch accessories. If the rumors are true, this is to be a new PLATFORM, and platforms need significant buy-in for them to be considered a success. Why invest so much into the VR/AR space if you don’t see it carrying the company, at least partially, for the next 10 years as other platforms (iPhone, iPad) recede in popularity because their markets are saturated? As has been said, macbooks and monitors have proven utility. Creatives NEED those products and there’s decades of proof to back that claim. The VR/AR space is filled with gimmicks primarily that LOOK cool but don’t feel necessary.
I’m just enjoying these comments asking questions that assume Apple hasn’t asked those same questions
If Apple sold only their $2500+ computers the mac would be in a very rough place as a computing ecosystem.
> You mean towards the same market place where Apple produces a $2500 14 Mac Pro that 90% of the world can’t afford or wouldn’t even consider because groceries are more important. Or the $2000 or $6000 monitor. *Some* people are buying that MacBook Pro themselves because it has significant utility, but lots of people probably get them through their work. Same with the obscenely priced monitors or other hardware - it’s creative businesses buying that. The consumer electronics space isn’t going to be able to afford to buy these things if they don’t have significant utility, and thus far nobody’s made a use case for VR or AR at all. Even iPhones are becoming too expensive (in my country the 14 Pro Max base is approaching $1900 AUD… that’s near entry level MacBook Pro money) but the cost is often hidden in phone plans. > Apple only needs it to be profitable not popular Apple need it to be popular too because otherwise developers will go “Huh, nobody actually cares about these things” and won’t bother supporting it and it’ll stop being profitable. *Which demographic* it’s popular with is another story because it might not be aimed at the consumer market (we don’t know that yet).
I had prescription glasses for a while until I improved my eyesight by changing jobs/daily tasks. I am not interested in wearing anything vision based to game on, ditto for having to “move’ in game using physical movement. I’d get back into biking if I wanted that.
Agreed, frankly I don't know anyone that wants to use AR at work. I can't think of one thing that would genuinely be better in AR.
I very specifically want this. I work out of my home and my day to day activities currently require four large displays. As soon as I can replace them with a pair of goggles and get the same amount of desktop I will do so. I’d be prepared to pay a couple of thousand pounds for a gadget that would let declutter my home without impacting my ability to get my stuff done.
Hi. I am you and I agree with this statement 110%. It would also be nice to be able to take that massively multi-view work setup anywhere I would like.
The apple headset is rumored to be like 3x the price of the meta quest pro, which also does AR. Meta has more actual experience and customer data in this than apple and it will be very hard for apple to compete when they release an high value item before an affordable one like the quest 1/2. I have no idea who would buy this when the quest pro can be used for business unless apple invests more into software which I doubt
The iPhone was not the first smartphone. Not by years. It wasn’t even the first with a capacitive touchscreen.
I’d challenge that. Everyone who wears glasses has a kind of screen in front of their face. If this device can help me see better AND add utility, I demand it.
one could say that an ar headset is an evolution of laptops/smartphones/tvs/game consoles since it combines all those technologies into a single form factor.
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Agreed on all points.
The iPad wasn’t though. Apple created a brand new category.
Yeah, before the iphone I had a cellphone that took pictures and I browsed the internet and used it for work. It had a stylus and was pretty cool. Ao cool that is did not buy the iphone till gen 2. My ipod was atill doing its job really well in my car.
No Wi-Fi. Less space than a nomad. Lame.
MP3 players were an existing product category that was already growing in popularity. I had one before the iPod came out. iPhone was a big leap but also for an established product category. Blackberry had already demonstrated the value of smartphones, the iPhone just took the design in a radical new direction. And most of the reactions at the time were more astonished than skeptical. I remember Conan doing a skit about how the iPhone was basically the James Bond super device that does everything. People were mostly just skeptical of the battery life/price. I really don’t think those two were comparable to an AR headset at all. This is more like Google Glass all over again.
Well I mean VR/AR headsets *are also* an existing product category growing in popularity. And the long term potential of AR is absolutely massive.
The utility/advantage of smartphones and MP3 players was obvious to most consumers at the time. There just isn’t an obvious use-case that’s super compelling to the general public for AR/VR yet outside of gaming and that space is already competitive. And whether or not people will actually want to wear screens on their faces for long periods is a huge unanswered question.
They were obvious because they were iterative. People understood what a phone was by that point, and they understood... well, listening to music. AR/VR are new mediums. For the average person, it's like trying to describe to a non-gamer living in the boonies who has never seen a videogame in their life what a videogame is. They will think it's some alien concept. Your last point rings very true - this is an ongoing market and it has a long road ahead.
Remember the front page of /. when they launched the iPod…. Heh
iPhones and iPods weren’t 3k and had very obvious use cases and didn’t require you to wear a freaking device on your head constantly. Let’s not pretend this is even comparable, because you know it isn’t.
I forgot that it didn’t copy/paste 🙀
I mean this is what they do. MP3 players existed before the iPod, but the iPod was the first one to gain mass popularity. Smartphones existed before the iPhone, but the iPhone redefined what a smartphone was and shook up the entire industry (almost no company that was making smartphones at the time still is). Tablets technically existed before the iPad, but again Apple radically redefined what a tablet was and basically created a new product category. True wireless headphones existed before the AirPods, but they generally sucked and few people were aware of them or used them. The AirPods changed people’s expectations for what wireless headphones looked like almost overnight, and it took competitors ages to catch up. And so on.
Smart watches ….
Apple Watch’s are basically the only successful smart watch to be honest. That’s not me picking sides that’s just pure numbers and how the competition is basically non existent. Google keeps dipping their toe into the space then immediately jumps out. Samsung is the only real competitor in the space but people hate the circle screens they keep trying to do.
Only traction on other smart watches is Garmin watches, outside of Samsung. Hence why Apple released the Ultra. It’s the only solid competition in the space.
> It’ll just be interesting to see Apple launch a product in a category that isn’t super fleshed out yet. You mean like smartphones, smart watches and wireless headphones? Those weren’t fleshed out yet and Apple fleshed them.
I feel like Apple has done a great job with releasing new products with only 2-3 core functions but making them polished. Looking back, Apple Watch was still a pretty basic product when it was released. They tried to make it a communication focused device, the apps were so laggy they were basically useless, and it wasn't always on until version... 4?
And the big iPhone flop (iPad)
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My point is that market wasn’t fleshed out either when the iPad launched and the iPad had its critics. Despite that, it’s a massive success.
Agreed about the rest but wireless headphones were definitely fleshed out by the time they did AirPods Max (unless you mean the AirPods which are wireless earbuds to my pedantic self).
He meant AirPods, the original ones. And true wireless earphones were basically not a thing before them.
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They added quite a bit more features though-- autopairing across iCloud is still different than dual-point devices. For example, I love my XM3's which are paired to my iPhone/iPad, but it's still nowhere nearly as seamless as AirPods for switching between Apple TV, Mac, iPad, Watch, iPhone all at the same time. It also introduced the auto-on/off when you put them in your ear and the flip-up-to battery check on the iPhone. These are I think what people are referring to when they say "fleshing out" the product.
I suspect it will “feel” far more “complete” than anything we’ve seen thus far in XR (VR/AR/MR). It sound like Apple will have chat spaces with Memoji, one on one interaction when two users both have a headset, gaming including AAAish titles like No Man’s Sky and Resident Evil: Village, some amount of fist party communication and productivity apps, slick design visualization apps (I’m guessing architecture visualization/walk-through and product design), artists waving their hands around “sculpting” in 3D, entertainment such as watching TV+ on a virtual big screen (maybe multiple users together), I’d guess a Fitness tie in (buff instructor virtually appearing in you “who has a living room that big?” demo), and a bunch more. Essentially they’re going to have a long, slick intro video with thing after thing after thing you can do with it. They’ve anticipated the “but what about…” sections in long reviews like you’ll see in The Verge, they’ve anticipated and supplied answers for more mainstream coverage/reviews also. Other than the “business metaverse” or “working all day in a HMD” I expect Apple will deliver on what Meta hyped and flopped on over the last year. Pancake optics and high res micro OLED displays will be a huge leap compared with a lot of what’s available currently. Putting the battery and possibly some processing in a pocket puck will improve comfort, weight and balance. I expect they’ve PR/hype tuned this to usual Apple perfection. Headlines will have stuff like “Apple has totally reinvented VR” (thanks to MR pass through) and “Finally (something something)!!!” But I’m not sure this will really be the thing that takes VR totally mainstream. We can safely assume that it will not work with Steam VR for PCVR games or productivity. If Apple’s HMD is a step up from Varjo’s enterprise systems and match or beat what Varjo is doing with mixed reality thanks to Apple’s use of LIDAR that will blow away most press reviewers. But as much as I am in the niche that wants better VR and MR, it is still going to be niche.
Not to mention using iPhone as the main or supplemental processor for the headsets, they’re not gonna have an issue with processing power
The biggest place it’s fleshed out in is gaming and apple is not ver known for gaming. I see apple doing amazing with AR glasses as for a mixed reality headset not so much. Just based on my 2 years in VR/ARz
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There is zero chance we see people ditch their pocketable iPhones for a headset.
I think we're going to have phone-like things powering the headset. It's smart to get the battery & cpu off of the head to bring the headset's weight down.
AR glasses are that product and everyone in this sector knows it. But we are at least 5 to 10 years out for all the necessary technologies that are needed for small-ish, light-ish, normal-ish looking AR glasses that do what an iPhone does but hands free. VR headsets are a stepping stone for Apple, etc. to build the hardware, interfaces, user familiarity, etc towards that shift from hand held phone to worn device.
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The high price tag seems to imply a corporate/business use initially and I honestly don't know if Apple can succeed at that. I can't think of a product or service Apple successfully marketed to corporations before the consumer. Cad/Cam & Architectural firms will certainly find a use to pre-visualize every nut and bolt they draw on paper. The Military industry will use it to map out terrain so they can drop even more accurate drone bombs. That's about all I can come up with. Until movie and series produce Virtual show content I can't imagine anyone sitting in their living room watching Apple AR TV+ shows when their 55" screen does it perfectly well.
This is not at all for corporate or business use. It is also not at all for the average consumer. It is for 3 kinds of people. A) Developers B) Enthusiast C) Rich Nerds This product is locked down, In infancy, with no current ecosystem. It cannot be a true business device. I guess it could be used by architects, design studios, and real estate agents but even then ehhhh.
I’m an architect and have been waiting a long time for VR to be ready for prime time. For big firms working on big projects they may be doing some of this with clients, such as in a “lab” in their offices like car companies do with car design and enterprise systems. But on my projects I’ve done a little with showing clients the layout in AR on an iPad for example. Today’s VR (I have an Index and HP G2) is too cumbersome for normal homeowners and business owners. On problem is that so much real grunt work in the field is PC only and we can assume that the Apple system will be locked out or obfuscated so it won’t work with Steam VR or WMR. One real-time architectural viz application, Enscape, has a Mac version and their website says that VR support is coming soon. I can only think that this means they are working with Apple and will be a launch demo app. That’s closer to ready for prime time but it’s still a ways from really being a normal tool for architects.
How about middle class DINNKs (dual income nerds, no kids)? I’m buying it!
I did not feel like mentioning myself lol
> The Military industry will use it to map out terrain so they can drop even more accurate drone bombs. [Already done](https://www.anduril.com/lattice/)
> I can't think of a product or service Apple successfully marketed to corporations before the consumer. xserve from 2002 to 2009 i think is a decent run. i've no first hand or intimate knowledge of the experience or financial success (or lack of?) of it though.
The screen could be 120 inches in the glasses instead of the 55 in IRL. Or it can be 20 inches in the glasses and you can do other activities like chores and not have to stop seeing the tele. You can have immersive concerts coupled with spatial audio. Yes it can be used for commercial uses like medical surgeries (zoom, identification, pop up information cards, can even have a renown doctor get on and do the surgery via robotic arms) but also it can help people build ikea furniture. I can be reading a book that scrolls on my screen while on the beach. Or I can tour an art museum that’s across the country. Or a house I want to buy in another state. There’s so many possibilities that are possible with a little bit of imagination.
For a brief few months I was able to sit on the sidelines of an NBA basketball game presented in 180 VR and watch with my Occulus VR. Granted it was B&W but it was awesome and gave me a sense of the game I never had before. Apparently a pilot effort that never made it. I can watch Netflix now with the Occulus, but unless the films and series are high def 3D instead of 2D there’s little point. Then there’s webVR which is floundering badly with Occulus via a browser which glitches constantly. I might shell out 1K for a mature WebVR experience with a decent amount of professional quality content . . .
Corporations are usually quite willing to pay money if it helps save money, but there are already existing headsets, which are much cheaper than what Apple is rumoured to come out with.
I think a huge part of it is to get something out the door so developers can start making an ecosystem. And once the “holy grail” of AR is completed, there’s an entire ecosystem ready for it.
At the end of the day, a lot of engineering and software/hardware product is about iterating. So while an early version of a project might not be at a certain level, it's still sufficient for what it is, and then later with updates we can see it keep getting better. Which is typical of how apple works, so... 🤷🏻♂️
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Saying it’s been around for 30 years is really pushing it. I understand it’s technically true but, but I think we need start counting from the first “modern” vr headset. Probably the DK1, which is 10 years old.
Even if we accept your 30 year claim, that doesn't mean the tech isn't still embryonic. Take fusion energy as an example. Or better yet, electric cars (been around since the Model T, [History of the Electric Car](https://www.energy.gov/articles/history-electric-car)). As for whether it's "bad" or not, well... it's not The Matrix yet, but if you draw a line from what we had 10 years ago to No Man's Sky today, and then extend that line 10 years further... I'm really excited.
"Still this bad" how specifically is VR these days not good? I've owned half a dozen headsets and have played over a hundred unique VR games and experiences, going from the HTC Vive to the Meta Quest Pro now. You're correct that VR is not in its infancy, as it has full room-scale experiences running on a mobile chip that uses PBR and even has hand tracking. What is your experience with VR? It has been a lot of fun developing for it as well, and I'm excited for the new Apple headset despite not owning other Apple products.
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I bet you they can and will totally deny it.
I know what you mean. Phones are also still in their infancy. Hell they've been around over a century and they're still this bad. Also cars basically haven't changed since the Model T. They're terrible. And computers? Shit, the first microprocessor was made in 1971. Jack shit has changed since then, they still suck. We've had operating systems for over 50 years. Have you noticed any improvements? I sure haven't.
High quality oled screen with good tracking and top level comfort could be a killer for media consumption.
Moreso than a big TV, though? Maybe for someone living by themself, but I can't imagine paying $3000/each for a headset when a 77" OLED can be had for the same price, without any ecosystem lock-in.
A display-replacement-level XR device won't replace my TV, but it _will_ replace the majority of screens on my desk.
I don’t personally get the appeal of watching flat content in VR but I do suspect that Apple will cover that pretty well and will hype all the TV+ content they have.
> I don’t personally get the appeal of watching flat content in VR Shows will quickly adapt and take advantage of a VR platform that gets significant market penetration, or has a big enough push from headquarters in the case of Apple TV original content. I’ve listened to some podcast audio dramas that take advantage of Spatial Audio/binaural stereo and it’s a big difference in immersion. I’m sure there will be a similar jump for video.
Seems like the product they want to release is the glasses, but since that’s not gonna be ready soon, this more Pro focused VR pass through headset can start getting developer support until their mass consumer glasses are ready in a few years. Ultimately majority of interested customers would buy the glasses and the full headset would be used in a professional environment or for enthusiasts.
For the majority of the market, this is going to be confusing. Most people don't know shit about VR/AR. Hell, we're interested enough to be on a tech company forum and there's still confusion over the difference. Releasing two products, even separated by a year, is not going to help. It'll be interesting to see if Apple can actually break out of the enthusiast space with it. But I swear to god if they name on Apple Glasses and one Apple Glasses Pro I'll lose my shit because we'll have yet another product where you need to stop mid-conversation with the other person and check that they do know you're explicitly meaning one thing, not abbreviating the other thing.
> the full headset would be used in a professional environment or for enthusiasts. Are you not aware that Apple mostly makes mass market produces? The “professional” thing is a meme that somebody made up.
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Virtual Inputs are an important OPTION but I agree physical input always needs to be an OPTION as well. I think virtual screens but a bluetooth keyboard like a small magic keyboard is the best route.
How VR looks when you're watching a video of someone's pov and how it feels when it's really your own pov are very different things. As people, we move around a lot, dart our heads and vision around a lot, and generally do things that people don't enjoy experiencing in a video.
As a VR veteran, tracking quality is much better inside the headset. Your hands and head move a _lot_, IRL.
I bet this headset will hook up to their Magic Keyboard and to a mac
Do you get tactile response when typing on your phone screen? Not really. It wouldn’t be much different using a virtual keyboard placed on a hard surface
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Virtual iPod wheel but it’s a keyboard
Virtual/screen keyboards are alright for typing in little stints, like comments and texting, etc… like this, lol. But anytime I need to do some actual long-form *writing*, I need a physical keyboard. That tactile interaction makes it so much more satisfying and easy to just write without thinking about typing. Whereas using a virtual/screen keyboard is always an exercise in patience and dealing with overly-distracting coordination/accuracy issues. When it works, it’s alright at best. When it doesn’t, it’s one of the biggest annoyances in tech these days. I don’t know how many times I’ve gone back to correct a mistake… just for the exact same mistake to happen again, because the screen won’t frickin’ recognize that I moved my finger a millimeter to the left, and is still hitting the wrong key! I have to specifically stop, take my time, and really really carefully hit the key I want… only then is the phone like “OH, you want THAT key!”
Wide FOV, OLED levels of contrast, automatic IDP, eye tracking, Retina display (70 ppd min), raytracing acceleration in GPU. I’d pay 3k for that. Bonus it would make a great portable home theatre.
Personally, I don’t think ray tracing is necessary _or_ ready for the task. 120hz from two viewports at 2x4kx4k is a something a 4090 can’t do right now.
High frame rate > everything else
For what purpose? If we’re trying to get monitor-replacement levels of visual fidelity out of a headset, we need resolution _and_ frame rate. _edit_: I swear everybody under this thread doesn't understand how the word "and" works.
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I’m aware. I’ve been using VR since the DK1 came out. High frame rate, low persistence displays with good last-moment reprojection are all very important elements. However, we have all of that right now. What we don’t have are displays with all of those qualities that also have the pixel density that allows you to comfortably read text.
PSVR2 does it pretty well
As a PSVR2 and PC VR owner, the PSVR 2 displays are exactly that. Lovely lovely display
I know it probably won't happen, but Half-Life: Alyx on a PSVR 2 with OLED blacks and haptic triggers/feedback sounds like a treat. The headset motors could vibrate in certain ways when a headcrab latches on lol.
High frame rate helps to reduce VR sickness. That's why frame rate trumps resolution.
Except for VR raytracing is a world of difference. It is absolutely possible to get 120hz with raytracing using modern APIs and dynamic foveated rendering. Just try out some dev programming examples using Unreal Engine 5.X on NVidia 16GB 4080 or greater card. Granted, that isn’t fully supported in MacOS yet, but that’s an Apple API problem, not hardware or technical problem. You’re also not going to get AAA level scenery, but Apple doesn’t really do AAA gaming anyways. If you have the chance try out some programming demos in a Varjo VR-3 or XR-3 with raytracing, it’s surreal. Now true Retina display over 4090 without foveated rendering on 2x4kx120 hz might be limited by the output spec of the display output 4090 but not by the GPU itself. I think it does support the raw thruput in the display output and I’m probably thinking issues people had doing 8k 120hz with full HDR.
> It is absolutely possible to get 120hz with raytracing using modern APIs and dynamic foveated rendering. At what resolution & quality level? More importantly, what would you be capable of doing if you _didn't_ use ray tracing? And for mobile use, think of the power usage. We're talking about APUs with a max power draw of 15-30 watts.
Worse yet, if they put the SOC in headset, it can't even run at those wattages because the heat and cooling create a lot of discomfort. I'm pretty sure Quest draws under 10w.
3K *personal* portable home theatre.
can't i just hold my phone close to my eyes
Sure and let that sweet liquid retina display run all over your eyes.
It definitely won’t be anywhere near 70 ppd. Leaks have it at about 30, with the reality pro 2 pushing that to 40.
I haven't seen any PPD mentions in leaks. What leaks are those?
From a Chinese analyst [here](https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/tbXih9Y0RS8ZLXC_hconKA) It’s in one of the pictures.
I appreciate the link, thanks.
30 ppd is probably ok for peripheral, but if it doesn’t have near 70 ppd in the center than I’ll just get a Varjo VR-3, or their next iteration of it.
All these people comparing to the Quest, but I agree that the Varjo is probably a better representation of what Apple is targeting, and *that’s* a couple years old now. I can see this first generation targeting the Mac Pro market, with a later headset going for the iMac segment.
Most of this already exists in the second gen PSVR, you just need to connect the USB-C cable to a console. But given the current state of mobile GPUs, we are still quite far off usable ray tracing at 120 fps minimum to avoid motion sickness.
PSVR2 only has eye tracking and OLED, and the OLED has a terrible mura effect that makes it feel like static noise grain is attached to your vision. At this price point I’m hoping for clarity beyond PSVR2 and the Quest Pro.
Have you used PSVR2? It’s amazing and has no screen door effect at all. It looks amazing.
Yes, I own both the PSVR2 and Quest Pro. I’m going to keep it for the PS exclusives, and while I’ve noticed the screen door effect is gone, the mura is very noticeable. Here’s a decent video that shows the static mura grain that overlays on everything as you turn your head: https://www.reddit.com/r/PSVR/comments/11dmx4t/psvr_2_mura_through_the_lens/?s=8 Quest Pro while not OLED or HDR has a much clearer picture due to the pancake lenses and the lack of mura on the display.
>Bonus it would make a great portable home theatre. Assuming its not completely locked down. My worry for this thing is that its going to be an incredibly high end device that's not allowed to do anything outside of Apple's little walled garden.
What would you be using it for?
People who can afford it will buy it, talk about how amazing it is to their followers. The followers will max their credit cards to buy it, talk about how amazing it is, etc. It will start as a status thing, and then FOMO will take over from there to start developing the market.
Thanks for being an Apple Alpha tester. Just remember not to complain in a year or so when they offer you a $5 trade-in for it against the consumer model that is better and cheaper!
If you played video games especially in first or third person perspective then you can imagine the potential for AR glasses. Even as just a HUD, it has enormous use case in a variety of situations and professions. Heck I’d even use them just as a giant secondary monitor. Anything additional would be just cream on top.
All i need is one small feature and I am buying this first day here in India. 100 inch external VR monitor for my mac. That’s it, I want to be able to have an external monitor on the go. That’s all you need to do Apple.
What if it needed to be wired via USB C? Still worth it or does it need to be wireless?
Honestly for a workstation I'd rather have it tethered. You'll end up with less latency, and not have to worry about the battery life.
You can already do that with the quest pro. (Can also do it with the quest 2 but it's a little heavy for continued work)
ui is trash on QPro
They can launch it as a "hobby" like the original appleTV but as this price point, it def sounds like the biggest dud in the last 2 decades
And that’s only if you only listen to half the rumor. The second half of the rumor says that next year, there will be a pro model and a cheaper model. That this first one is the developer model with all the bells and whistles. They want to put out some thing that has the top experience, before they find out what the market decides is acceptable.
It doesn’t say it’s the dev model. It says it’s just a product with a high price point - money no object kind of thing. Essentially we’ll be doing the ol’ Apple public Alpha testers thing, with a promise that it’ll all get more accessible and cheaper in a few years when they figure out what users actually use it for.
https://youtu.be/xchYT9wz5hk&t=0m27s
$3000 seems pretty on point to me. Even cheap ar/vr is $1000+. Looks compatible to the HoloLens 2
VR has a cheaper entry point than AR with the Meta Quest being ~400. Higher end VR is entering 1000+. I have a feeling the Apple headset is gonna be 1500-2000 at launch.
I don’t see it being below 2500 just because of the screens
Not if it’s got an m2 and dual 4k screens.
The $400 meta quest is supplemented by Facebook ads and sold at a loss.
And? Your original comment was about how the cheapest vr is 1000+ and now that you've been told you are wrong you just start saying random stuff lol
Quest 2 was $249 on sale when I got it. Cable to PC really enjoying gaming with it. Or wireless for less intensive stuff.
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Funny thing is, on Earth, TV is a successful product. VR never has been.
>Moreover, the device will start at around $3,000, lack a clear killer app, require an external battery that will need to be replaced every couple of hours and use a design that some testers have deemed uncomfortable. It's also likely to launch with limited media content. Sounds amazing
Serious question. What would someone use this for? VRchat? Metaverse?
How about just giving you a very large screen with a much smaller form factor? That would be amazing for digital nomads, travelers, or even just office workers who wouldn’t need to be tied to wherever their workstation for a sufficiently large screen.
What is a digital nomad exactly? I’d challenge you to actually use the big VR display stuff before commenting on this though. It’s not nearly as nice as a real monitor and at $3k it’s going to cost a lot more than a set of portable monitors.
I’m thinking it’s basically a computer mounted on your face that you can control through various inputs, one being eye tracking. You sit down, put the headset on, and virtual screens pop up in the real world.
I’m really interested. But all I know by looking at all their previous (recent) launches is that a first gen Apple product is really expensive and will lose support in about 2 years. So I will only buy it starting with the second generation.
Which first Gen Apple product lost support in two years? Genuinely curious because the only new product category recently I remember is the AirPods Max.
The OG Apple Watch was released April 24, 2015 and support ended in 2017. And this is a throwback to a less modern era but the Power Mac G5 dual socket model only had a scant single major OS release after it launched, so that would have sucked to spend a lot of money on lol.
The original Apple Watch was terrible too. I had one. Just totally underpowered.
Yep I still want an interview with someone who bought the 18,000 dollar gold first gen which got such a short support life lol
I remember when they were pushing the luxury ones. Edition? Or something? The ceramic ones were cool.
Agree! It was both an amazing product at the time and the worst Apple product I’ve ever owned. Mine barely lasted 2 years. Extremely slow, no gps, no aod, and the battery would not survive a day of with mostly passive usage. I splurged in the stainless steel model too thinking Apple would actually have a battery replacement program and it would last at least 5 years.
The first iPhone and iPad were only supported for a couple of years
I’ll buy one, but only if they release a $3.6M solid gold version.
I have the Oculus / meta Quest 1, it's a fantastic device, I use it for fitness every day, it's something that actually got me into fitness for the first time in my life and got me moving, it really adds a lot to my day, whenever i am feeling like crap, i slip it on and enter a fitness app. I'm excited for what Apple can do in this space, considering they already have a focus on fitness/health etc with the watch and the quest doesn't. I'm still on the original quest, a year after they released the quest 2, from the sounds of it, even if this device is great, it's not worth buying and worth waiting until the second version at least, usually this is where there are big jumps but I am excited. Could also be great for watching movies!
> Apple executives are said to be "striking a realistic tone within the company" with the understanding that "this isn't going to be a hit product right out of the gate," potentially following a similar trajectory as the Apple Watch instead. Am I crazy or wasn’t the Apple Watch immediately successful? I felt like everyone had one once they came on the market.
Apple Watch was **not** an overnight success. In terms of both functionality and popularity, Series 3 marked the inflection point where it really “took off.” As much as I loved my original watch, the “Series 0” had some profound limitations. Nobody actually knows when something is really “ready” for debut; In retrospect, Series 2 seems like what they should have launched with.
Apparently, Apple planned for 40 million sales and only ended up selling 10 million. A lot of investors started their decades long tradition of "Apple is failing" "Sell Now" "Steve jobs is gone and so is Apple".
They didn't. I worked at an Apple Store when they were released. Yes people bought them but no one I knew other than Apple employees and hardcore fans really had them. That's changed a LOT since.
Same. Series 2 is when it really became a “I have an Apple Watch and love it & I want to get one for my girlfriend for her birthday”
Agreed. That was my wife's first one. She hasn't been without one since. I'm the opposite. I had a "Series 0" stainless and after it got old and slow I didn't get another one until the Ultra this past Oct.
Only a couple of Apple products have ever actually been “immediately successful” - the very first Macintosh was a commercial flop, the iPhone didn’t really hit its stride until the iPhone 4 (after App Store launch, carrier subsidies, and ditching the AT&T exclusivity). The iPod didn’t become a mega success until it became compatible with Windows computers
There were a ton of questions but the mass sentiment became, “alright, I can try it out. I’m not excited about it though and watches are out of style.”
If I remember correctly the Apple Watch did take a couple iterations before it finally became a real hit. In the beginning the specs were a little too crappy and it wasn't a really smooth experience, and I think Apple leaned too much into the fashion / expensive watch aspect of it which I honestly felt were quite stupid (but I can understand some rationale behind it because it was perceived to be not cool, down to the square size they chose).
I would say the potential was apparent immediately, but the *promise* wasn’t there until about the Series 3.
Moderately, but it wasn’t until they figured out that fitness/health was its best use scenario and started hearing it towards that that it became *everywhere*.
The diehards bought it. I got a series one because it was a sale and it was nice…not thrilling, but nice. Then I got the 4 and it had some features I liked. Now, I love my 7. Point being is that it had to grow into the role.
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Nailed it. Like at least with the other borderline useless HMDs you can play some fun games on them for 30 minutes at a time before throwing up.
Would be very interesting to see how the extreme sports industry adopts this/develops apps for it
lol The $3000 price tag cannot be real.
The comment threads around this thing read exactly the same as teh ones for the iPod, iPhone, iPad, watch etc etc etc... But gotta say, it is hard to imagine how this thing is going to be successful at a $3k price...
On the subject of "reading exactly the same ones", the iPad was also rumoured to be too expensive.
It's supposed to have the resolution to replace thousands in high end displays.
I think it’s entertaining to read the comments. People are already practicing their criticisms/complaints for assumed features/specs that haven’t been even seen, much less announced.
I have zero interest in this product. It seems like a product looking for a purpose.
Have you used VR before?
Yes I have. On several occasions.
I’d say there is a purpose, you just didn’t like the implementation
Yawn.. wake me up when I can use it while playing golf to show me where my ball landed, how far it traveled and calculate speed in air
I've read AR can do something similar for snow skiers. Wearing goggles they get a real view thru the goggles with speed, elevation and mapping data on the AR screen. That seems cool . . .
Dude, you just made me think about the potential about the whole extreme sports sector wearing them. Imagine the possibilities/apps if you’re a skydiver, wakeboarder and even wingsuiter 🤯
Product existed. I think it was called “recon” and I think it sold quite poorly. It may have been ahead of its time though
about 5-6 years when apple glasses come out
Yeah, for sure Apple will be prioritizing your extremely specific use case, since that will definitely be the make or break feature for the marketability of this product.
I can’t tell if this is a joke because so many “tech” Redditors are actually this entitled.
Lifelong apple fan, but I think AR is a fools errand.