Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “Apple’s VR headset will be *fine*”.
It appears that Apple’s vision for the future is this: a VR, headset, they’re cool and quite a bit of fun, at least for a while and at this year’s WWDC we’re expecting to see their version of it from what I know about Apple’s history. This seems off an apple VR platform that seems so open-ended and unresolved. I’M not confident – and I don’t know why so to see. If I’m the only one ahead of the announcement, let’s ask people what they want from an Apple VR headset mark. Do I look cool wearing these a little bit kind of, but probably just wear inside uh, you look cooler.
What kind of kind of look like a bug? I don’t know where to look like there’s cameras right above your nose. You look like a Star Wars. Alien. If I just focus on that, this headset has been a long time coming actually with rumors trickling out steadily.
For the past eight years people have been speculating about the specs, but I’m more interested in the whole point of Apple’s headset, because, frankly, I think it’s worth tamping down expectation. So if I had to sum it up, it’s probably not going to be amazing. In my opinion, what they are gon na probably announce or release according to all those rumors, it’s going to be kind of VR headsets, with a potentially see-through applications. To help me on my journey, I reached out to Zine bahamri a lead analyst for display Imaging, as well as Eugene fume dean of applied sciences at Simon Fraser University here in Burnaby, because I would have preferred the AR straight AR solution.
Personally, I think, there’s there would be a lower barrier to acceptance and more people would try it out. I think AR actually has more potential in in society at large. The very fact you’re looking at me through this VR headset and I’m not sharing that experience with you uh is is, is fundamentally problematic, but I’m not too surprised that they would go to a VR VR setting.
First, there is an opportunity to to capitalize on existing VR application, interesting Graphics, games and so on and having a pass-through gives you an arish experience, the closest analog to what’s expected is this the metaquest pro I’ve been using it for the past week and it’s really Sold me on what VR offers, especially in terms of immersion and sense of scale in Virtual Worlds: whoa cool apartment. Unfortunately, it’s decent Hardware controlled by maddening meta software, but fortunately this is what Apple does best. Take an established category, that’s a little lost and then show the world how it should be done, it’s what they did with the PC, it’s what they did with the music player, it’s what they did with the cell phone and I guess what they’re doing with the Apple watch, the question is: are those past successes any indication that Apple will be the company to finally crack VR, or is this just a radically different Challenge from what they faced before search? We have to remember that this idea of extending reality has been around for Millennia. I mean you know, with the development of eyeglasses and microscopes and telescopes, who are kind of extending the the nature of the reality we can perceive. So this idea of augmenting reality has been around a long time.
The difference is that those were all purpose-built. What we’re dealing with here with these glass Technologies is we’ve been through a cycle, since you know the mid-1960s and they’ve really been largely the same kind of application simulation Technologies and it’s moved into the idea of immersive computer Graphics, environments, games and so on. So the cycle of applications hasn’t changed that much and the nature of the frankly. The form factor has not changed that much and the use case.
The application is really what’s missing and I mean if we look at the history you opened up with a VR. I don’t know if you remember 2014 Mark Zuckerberg by Oculus or 2 billion and he says no worry we’re going to start with the video Gamers and then it’s going to be what he called a social VR. It’S going to be for everyone, you don’t be able to call the grandmother with Yarns and so forth. Lo and behold, we are many years after that, and the market is only video Gamers and the industrial applications.
If we’re going to be doing anything with these headsets, it’s surfing the web right and if you want to participate well, might as well make a website with this video sponsor Squarespace building a website has never been easier with. Squarespace’S One-Stop shop use their wide range of templates and themes and be ready for the metaverse or whatever Apple comes up with and if you’re running a business track and grow it with their marketing tools and take advantage of their 24 7 support. In fact, we believe in Squarespace so much that we use it here for our own web pages visit squarespace.com Mac address to receive a 10 discount on your first purchase. I’M sure you’ve heard that there are a lot of rumors that Apple’s going to release a headset similar to this yep. What should it do like? What’S make it useful? I don’t want to watch like Netflix outside but, like maybe scan some areas, maybe make graphs. I don’t know Final Cut Pro my new editing setup, so you would edit Final Cut Pro in like a virtual world. That’D be amazing.
What’S that movie Minority Report Minority Report, but like video editing, I’m not an apple, I don’t have anything Apple, so I don’t. If it could get my wife interested in it, then I would buy it seriously if this could get your wife into VR yeah. That would make it worthwhile Yeah the more that being in a VR environment is more like being in the real world. This is obvious, the more I want to try it yeah yeah.
It would be cool if it can incorporate with some like applications where you can like do like draping or some sort or pattern making, because gravity’s gravity sketch. You can already do something similar with like drawing in a 3D space with VR headsets. What would it have to do to be revolutionary and useful have to be able to use it while it’s charging? Would I want to watch a movie through through an AR VR headset? No, we already saw the problem with that with stereo televisions. You lose track of your companions. What I would want is something where there’s nothing but a gain and there seems to be a situation where there’s a gain, but there’s a demonstrable loss. So if it’s win-win-win along the way, then then I’m in well, it’s interesting. You mentioned like that.
We’Ve been making progress forward, but there’s always been kind of caveats. It kind of feels, then, that we’re not getting as far as we could like there’s lots of obstacles in the way. What we said to haven’t seemed to gotten to have gotten past is getting really into the mainstream. We we seem to be stuck in the early adopter world with with these Technologies. Um, unlike say um, you know look at where we’ve gone with with games Technologies and how far people are willing to go to really upgrade their systems so that they get the best possible experience. They’Re early adopters, but there’s many others that that have joined. There’S a huge momentum to the point of video games are very gigantic industry. The dwarfs the moving industry so show me more gains, and you know I’m I’m all in if they do like VR the rumors of Apple’s headset haven’t shown a win-win, though, sounds more like a compromise that dream and intention from the start was to create a set Of augmented reality, glasses, which wouldn’t look out of place on your face, while displaying an interface in your space, but that’s not happening instead, we’re getting mixed reality and that’s quite new using this makes that hard to see, though sure I can walk around with it. Just fine, but the effect from these cameras make me feel, like Scott Pilgrim battling the x’s and who wants to do that in 2017. Apple launched AR kit for developers and for a few years after they would demo how the lidar sensors in their Pro mobile devices, could enable such amazing experiences like Lego on a table or overlays and clips.
Perhaps the best experience I’ve been able to find is the AR walking directions in Apple maps. That will be great in a pair of glasses, but only if I’m willing to be seen out in public with them. What I’m hoping for is that we see a lot of creative people looking at these Beyond games technologies that that they’ll be looking at more somber or austere applications. That really will help people and another aspect of this is: how do we make these devices more inclusive, but we really need creative software people to generate and develop really interesting, inclusive applications.
So what kind of applications can we expect developers to make? Currently, the most compelling use case for VR is gaming, but that’s the one thing Apple’s the worst at. If a developer wants to make a game, they have to use Apple’s metal API whereas most are using Vulcan. So if you were to take the number of VR developers and cross them with the number of metal API developers, I imagine the Venn diagram overlap is quite slim not to mention if they have to give 30 of all transactions on the platform to Apple, which has Already strained the company’s relationships with developers, even on top of App Store review struggles, but maybe we don’t need any new applications.
We just need the applications we already have with a new interface and in a new way, which is what Apple’s done exceedingly well. The Macintosh had the mouse, the iPod had the click wheel, the iPhone had multi-touch, you know. One of the things that that we really might want to think more about is is the whole nature of display systems. As I went through my understanding of computer Graphics, I was forced to learn about magic and the magic starts with things like cathode ray tubes, they’re magic. Then we go to you know. We went to LCDs then to LEDs magic, but one of the things that we’re stuck with is the display, and it means that we have to go to the display. The promise of AR and VR in particular AR is that we can be freed from the display as a fixed thing.
We actually have an opportunity to get a glimpse of what this is like with the inreal air glasses, and I gave Eugene a chance to try them out himself. You know, that’s really good. I think I could actually use this, that’s always being the promise of it and that’s, I think, a place where we can kind of Imagine really a world where the computer and in some sense the display disappears. It’S simply part of a human visual system.
Part of the cognitive processing we do. I think it will happen, though, and that’s that’s really something for us to be thinking about as as human beings. What will happen when we are completely unmoored from you know the the home office and the display systems that we essentially have our faces stuck into now, the display travel with us, it’s kind of cool when you think about that, as as it’s as the promise of Of the technology, it’s it’s really interesting that you bring up. You know replacing screens, because that is kind of a compelling application, and is it really that simple? I think it is that simple uh and but then we have to have the compelling applications.
Imagine sitting in the SE managing Windows floating in space, maybe even video editing, a timeline that spans across the entirety of the desk. The office use case is where meta has been trying to go and they’ve yet to set the world on fire. But meta is an apple and the Apple company would be kind of a stronger commitment, so they’re gon na release, something that’s that level that you will see through and I’m really hoping that it creates the emulation and the development that’s needed for the whole industry, because You can have the best hardware if you don’t have anything to use it for it’s gon na be useless, so you can see right yeah, but you know it’s going to happen like this is going to happen. Uh does it happen now versus uh versus the next wheel of reincarnation, um uh. That’S that’s! That’S going to be the interesting question so yeah, it’s been a 50 some odd year process and it’ll just be very interesting to see where we end up. I think um. I think you know given Apple’s reputation.
I think they’ll likely have a very nice looking headset foreign thanks for making this Mac address a virtual reality if you’re excited for Apple’s headset give this video a like, and if you want to learn about it when it gets announced. Well, you might as well subscribe now I’m curious in the comments below what you think the uh right use case for one of these is .