Whatever use cases they try to push for social settings, I think Google Glass was still the better solution. Nobody uses their Vision Pro outside, and it’s way too expensive as just another VR headset to use at home.
Whatever use cases they try to push for social settings, I think Google Glass was still the better solution. Nobody uses their Vision Pro outside, and it’s way too expensive as just another VR headset to use at home.
Companies are still trying to figure out how to make VR/AR mainstream beyond entertainment and niche use. They desperately want it to be the next cell phone, but we had good reason to want to carry around access to virtually all information and it was in a good form factor.
I agree with you - Google Glass had the right idea for the form factor. The problem is it’s a solution looking for a problem to solve.
I would buy an Apple Vision Pro if it were in the Google Glass form factor.
I want things like walking directions virtually overlayed on the street, or reminders to visibly pop up when relevant, or just a neater interface than my phone for things like checking my calendar or recent messages.
I think part of the issue is the Google Glass form factor came with some unfortunate limitations. The full VR headset approach allows the image to look however Apple wants. With the Google Glass things can only be lightly overlayed on a small portion of the visual field.
I think AR and VR will become much more interesting when they can get tweaked by the consumer and a hobbyist market develops.
That’s Apple’s hope as well. They started allowing even hobbyist devs to test on the device almost a year before the public release.
They don’t do that to allow consumers or hobbyists tweak the device in ways they want. They want to establish a functional ecosystem, so they need apps. Once it’s running, apple is the first to shut it down again and charge whatever they want
Those two statements, allowing consumers and hobbyists to tweak the device in the ways they want, and having a functional ecosystem of apps, are loosely equivalent.
I know the difference is you want hobbyists to be able to change more than Apple allows. But it isn’t a binary hobbyists or not.
That may be true but if you’re looking to Apple to encourage open source enhancements for their products you must not be very familiar with their corporate philosophy. It’s technically possible that could evolve but it would require a complete change in direction compared to where they have always positioned themselves which seems pretty unlikely.
There are open source apps for all of Apple’s Products. I’m using one to type this comment.
They do put restrictions on what you can make, but they absolutely want the open source and hobbyist devs.
I’d like a real life adblocker, which unfortunately runs against everyone’s business model.
The other reason why especially facebook is pushing VR so hard is that they need their own platform to continue to have a business. Right now, their personalized, ad-based business model is severely threatened, because both Android and iOS have shut down 3rd party tracking and continue to do so. So facebook is kind of fucked and needs a hardware platform they control. That’s why they spend so much money on it. I’m pretty sure it’s not because Zuck is a moron living in an 80’s sci-fi world, although that’s of course the more fun story to tell.
I’m not sure about apple’s motivation here, to be honest. Just creating something to kick facebook out would probably not be enough of a motivation to spend so much money and developing their own thing. Maybe to keep the hype and stock price up? They don’t have a lot of other interesting things to show at the moment. No “AI” crap like the others have and flashy innovation basically halted with smartphones/laptops etc.
IRL ad blocker would be something I’d wear a Google Glass-type device for. It does feel a little like an episode of black mirror though, filtering things from life.
As a long time gamer, I have so many different use cases just for a heads up display that I don’t understand how it’s still niche aside from the fact the hardware isn’t there for the form factor desired.
If you could do all the AR/MR stuff devices do now, but as a pair of lightweight wraparound sunglasses instead of a goofy goggle with or without a screen that shows your eyes to people, and was also more affordable… It would probably actually take off.