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Apple Hardware

Apple's Upcoming AR/VR Headset To Require Connection To iPhone (macrumors.com) 60

Posted by msmash from the shape-of-things-to-come dept.
The first AR/VR headset that Apple has been in development will need to be wirelessly tethered to an iPhone or another Apple device to unlock full functionality, reports The Information. MacRumors: It will be similar to the WiFi-only version of the Apple Watch, which requires an iPhone connection to work. The headset is meant to wirelessly communicate with another Apple device, which will handle most of the powerful computing. According to The Information, Apple recently completed work on the 5-nanometer custom chips that are set to be used in the headset, and that's where the connectivity detail comes from. Apple has completed the key system on a chip (SoC) that will power the headset, along with two additional chips. All three chips have hit the tape-out stage, so work on the physical design has wrapped up and it's now time for trial production.
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Apple's Upcoming AR/VR Headset To Require Connection To iPhone More

Apple's Upcoming AR/VR Headset To Require Connection To iPhone

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  • Goodie! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by MachineShedFred ( 621896 ) on Thursday September 02, 2021 @03:36PM (#61757639) Journal

    Hey look a product that ignores ~90% of the market. Have fun, iPhone users!

    • iPhone users typically like vendor lock-in, or at least, don't understand why it's a bad thing.

      • I have an iphone, and I got it because it was the cheapest option. I would have preferred android at the time. I liked it at first, but now it's just getting damn annoying - charging is painful and I have to jiggle constantly, and it stupidly insists on having cellular data on, even if briefly, to do some simple things (like play a podcast that is already downloaded). I would NOT want any sort of product that requires a particular phone, and for that matter I could not like a product that requires ANY pho

        • I still use a wired mouse, wired speakers, wired headset, etc.

          That says a lot about what type of consumer you are: atypical.

          • Batteries are convenient, but also highly inconvenient. They run out at the wrong time, there's no easy way to dispose of batteries, they don't last very long, etc.
            Nothing wrong with being atypical.

          • Wired headsets aren't atypical yet and won't be until BT technology improves to perceptual parity in latency and mic quality. Currently BT audio is good for passive audio-only media consumption and not much else. I have and use a bunch of BT audio devices (other than grandparent poster, who doesn't?) but thinking that they're suitable for main cans/speakers is delusional.

            Decent wireless mice have no downsides compared to wired at this point though, I'm surprised they're not more popular than they are by now

        • charging is painful and I have to jiggle constantly, and it stupidly insists on having cellular data on, even if briefly, to do some simple things (like play a podcast that is already downloaded).

          Change the cable.
          Use Overcast for podcasts. It's free, very good, and doesn't require cellular data.

          • Naw, I have 6 different cables all with various degrees of success. It works best when connected straight to power it seems, though maybe the best cables are the ones there. I think the lightning connector is worn out, even though the phone is less than 5 years old. My iPad is similar but not quite as bad, some of the cables that won't work with the phone work with the iPad, and vice versa. Maybe lightning connector just sucks, or maybe it just refuses to work unless I constantly upgrade. This is not a

            • You may have already done this, but it may help to dig any lint out of the lightning port on your iPhone.

              My iPhone got progressively worse at charging. Iâ(TM)d have to wiggle it, force it, etc. Eventually, it wouldnâ(TM)t charge at all.

              I temporarily switched to an office iPhone we used for testing until I could buy a new one, but then discovered my lightning port was crammed full of pocket lint.

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • But which costs 2x more than competing solutions, delivers 1/2 as much, but does that 1/2 pretty well and with marketing that makes normies willing to learn how to do it.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by MikeMo ( 521697 )
      Apple is currently running ~50% in the US, and >20% worldwide. Here are some handy statistics [backlinko.com]

      You may be confusing phone share with iOS share, which is only about 23%.

      Additionally, they generally don't make these devices as standalone products, anyway. They're intended to increase the value of the whole ecosystem.

      • You've missed the point. By tying products together in this way, they are drastically limiting their potential market.

        Something about forests and trees.

        • The first iPod was also Mac-only if I recall correctly.

          As always, don't forget that this is going to be a 1st-generation Apple product. It will be good but lacking in all sorts of areas. By the 2nd and 3rd generation, it should be much better.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Merk42 ( 1906718 )

            The first iPod was also Mac-only if I recall correctly.

            This was back when Apple was still an underdog, not the giant 1 Trillion dollar behemoth they are today. They didn't have enough pull to require people to buy, or assume people already had, other Apple hardware.

            As always, don't forget that this is going to be a 1st-generation Apple product. It will be good but lacking in all sorts of areas. By the 2nd and 3rd generation, it should be much better.

            The sixth, and presumably seventh, (non-cellular) Apple Watch still requires an iPhone to even set it up, and after the fact still doesn't pair with an Android phone.

    • Hey look a product that ignores ~90% of the market. Have fun, iPhone users!

      Which of these was a standalone device on the day it launched: iPod, iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch?

      Seriously. Take a guess. Which do you think could operate without being tied to some other device?

      Between the iPod, the iPhone, the iPad, and the Apple Watch, the only one that was a standalone device when it launched was the iPad. The iPod was Mac-only, and Firewire-only at that. You couldn't activate an iPhone with a computer until iOS 5 (which was coincidentally when the iPad launched), and its eye watering pr

      • couldn't activate an iPhone without a computer until iOS 5

        Fixed that for myself, since it kinda changes the entire meaning of the sentence.

      • You couldn't activate an iPhone with a computer until iOS 5 (which was coincidentally when the iPad launched), and its eye watering price point made it something only a handful of people purchased.

        The 1st gen iPhone sold ~6 million units and the 1st gen iPad sold ~15 million. Small compared to their current models selling 100 million units, but a hell of a big "handful" for first entries into a product category.

      • So because that's what was necessary 15 years ago, it's still necessary today? Don't you think the almost ubiquitous deployment of WiFi may have changed things a little?

        Is that "Apple Innovation" ?

        When the iPod was firewire / Mac only, they barely sold any of them. iPod took the market over when it flipped to USB and iTunes for Windows shipped. But I'm sure that was just an amazing coincidence, right?

        You could activate an iPhone on Windows from the very first version. Hardly a similar argument to "you m

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Merk42 ( 1906718 )
          Yet the most recent of those in the list, Apple Watch, still requires an iPhone.

          Facebook figured out how to do a VR headset without being absolutely tied to a particular phone platform, and once you've set the thing up you don't need to have a phone in the picture at all. Why can't Apple?

          Because then they couldn't lock you into their ecosystem and make you own other hardware of theirs.

          • Only because they don't have other hardware to sell you. They absolutely DO lock you into their ecosystem with compulsory Facebook login to make the device function (at least with the Quest 2 headset).

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by Merk42 ( 1906718 )
              Yes and? Point being while it's could very well be technically possible to build such things without lock-in, it won't happen
              So "Why can't Apple?". They can, they just won't. Much like Facebook could build Occulus to not require a Facebook login, but they won't.
            • The difference between Making a free account and buying hundreds of dollars worth of hardware ... is vast. Wouldn't say that's a lock in

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by GuB-42 ( 2483988 )

      You buy into Apple or you don't.

      I am sure most people who would want an Apple AR/VR headset already have an iPhone, maybe also a Macbook and an Apple Watch. Apple products are designed to work together, and they do it very well.
      If you want to have a custom setup where you can mix and match parts, like I do, then Apple is not the right vendor for you.
      Apple knows their market, it may be only 10% (your number), but they are satisfied customers who make them rich, why would they make compromises for the 90% who

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

      Hey look a product that ignores ~90% of the market. Have fun, iPhone users!

      And yet, somehow the Apple App Store is a monopoly, despite Android being a much bigger market

      Either Apple's marketshare is big enough to matter for all sorts of things, or it's not big enough to matter at all.

    • Apple typically targets north America for in its first iterations of products. If that is the case for this product, they have a 47% share of the phone market here. Not that I think its a good business strategy, but I do think Apple has traditionally out performed where us internet posters have thought they would fail. Yet to be seen.

    • Hey look a product that ignores ~90% of the market. Have fun, iPhone users!

      This is just the oddest comment, if you examine it and really think about what it is trying to say, it is beyond non-sensical.

      There are thousands of devices that have "add-ons" which will only work with that particular device - it's been that way ... heck, for a very long time.

      Would you expect a Sony VR Headset to work on an XBox?
      Back in 1982, would I have expected my Sinclair 16k RAM extension pack to have worked on my buddies Commodore64?

      And yet, in typical /. fashion, posts like this get modded up to Ins

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by trawg ( 308495 )

      Android user here. On the fence about switching to Apple, or at least I was until this latest CSAM scanning bullshit.

      If Apple nail AR, I am highly likely to switch. I don't think Apple will release a product in this space that isn't ready and at least good, if not excellent. I was a long-term wisher for VR and now it's here(ish) I have found myself vastly more interested in AR. Hoping Apple can get it right where others have failed.

    • Have fun, iPhone users!

      Thanks! I will!

  • What about the 8k per eye display? That seems like the hardest thing to make. Other things are known technology.

  • First of all, I always assumed from the first time an Apple augmented reality set was spoken of, it would require the phone to be used...

    Just as the summary mentions, it was true of the Apple Watch, and it just makes so much sense that you can maybe shift some of the load of UI and connectivity to the phone.

    Even the standalone Oculus Rift does not require a phone I think, but it's useful for managing your games library.

    But even that aside, anything Apple Developed is very likely going to be at least partial

  • Everyone's whipped into a froth already . . . that's dumb.

    Who cares?
    1) It's not like there's a standard and without a tight hardware tie-in, it's not likely to take off.
    2) It could be the greatest thing ever, then they 'Microsoft' it, like the Kinnect
    3) If it's awesome, it's gonna get ripped off a million times in a million ways - a hardware/software war is ALWAYS good for the consumer
    4) VR sucks . . . but see above.

    And if you're just complaining because it's Apple . . . who cares?

    ./ is becoming

  • But it's ok, they won't be selling you out to advertisers, they'll show you the ads and be the middleman collecting money in both directions.

    Not that it matters much, VR is pretty fucking pointless once the novelty wears off.

  • A VR headset is really nothing more than a fancy display and input device. It actually benefits the consumer NOT having several hundred dollars of extra hardware in the headset to grow old and out of date, especially when most consumers buy a new phone every couple years anyway.

    The truck I bought a couple years ago has CarPlay, and I am totally seeing the value in having my phone doing the computing / app store / connectivity instead of having any of that built into the vehicle itself. I have zero extra c

    • A VR headset is really nothing more than a fancy display and input device. It actually benefits the consumer NOT having several hundred dollars of extra hardware in the headset to grow old and out of date

      While that is true, it does not benefit the user to be locked to a single vendor. The user benefits most from portable software and open standards.*

      * Okay, the user benefits most from Free Software, but this was never going to be based on that

  • I bought a 12 Pro a couple of months ago. Will I need a 13 to use this thing?

  • Where does my RTX3090 plug into the next iPhone?

  • There is no point of fuzzin about this before the chip shortage is solved. If even mighty GM is closing down due shortage, Apple ain't gonna get this thing flying either. First rule: When in a hole STOP DIGGING.

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