Tim Cook Bets on Apple's Mixed-Reality Headset To Secure His Legacy (ft.com) 87
When Tim Cook unveils Apple's new "mixed-reality" headset later this year, he won't just be showing off the tech giant's latest shiny gadget. From a report: The Apple chief will also be guaranteeing his legacy includes the launch of a next-generation hardware product that some inside the company believe might one day rival the iPhone. After seven years in development -- twice as long as the iPhone -- the tech giant is widely expected to unveil a headset featuring both virtual and augmented reality as soon as June. The stakes are high for Cook. The headset will be Apple's first new computing platform to have been developed entirely under his leadership. The iPhone, iPad and even Watch were all originally conceived under Apple's co-founder Steve Jobs, who died in 2011.
Apple's growth during Cook's tenure has been spectacular, growing its market capitalisation from around $350bn in 2011 to around $2.4tn today. But despite the twin hit launches of Apple Watch in 2015 and AirPods a year later, which have helped turn its accessories division into a $41bn business, the company has been accused of iterating on past ideas rather than breaking new ground. "They have huge pressure to ship" the headset, said a former Apple engineer who worked on the product's development. "They have been postponing the launch each year for the past [few] years." The timing of the launch has been a source of tension since the project began in early 2016, according to multiple people familiar with Apple's internal discussions. Apple's operations team wanted to ship a "version one" product, a ski goggle-like headset that will allow users to watch immersive 3D video, perform interactive workouts or chat with realistic avatars through a revamped FaceTime. But Apple's famed industrial design team had cautioned patience, wanting to delay until a more lightweight version of AR glasses became technically feasible. Most in the tech industry expect that to take several more years. In deciding to press ahead with a debut this year, Cook has sided with operations chief Jeff Williams, according to two people familiar with Apple's decision-making, and overruled the early objections from Apple's designers to wait for the tech to catch up with their vision.
Apple's growth during Cook's tenure has been spectacular, growing its market capitalisation from around $350bn in 2011 to around $2.4tn today. But despite the twin hit launches of Apple Watch in 2015 and AirPods a year later, which have helped turn its accessories division into a $41bn business, the company has been accused of iterating on past ideas rather than breaking new ground. "They have huge pressure to ship" the headset, said a former Apple engineer who worked on the product's development. "They have been postponing the launch each year for the past [few] years." The timing of the launch has been a source of tension since the project began in early 2016, according to multiple people familiar with Apple's internal discussions. Apple's operations team wanted to ship a "version one" product, a ski goggle-like headset that will allow users to watch immersive 3D video, perform interactive workouts or chat with realistic avatars through a revamped FaceTime. But Apple's famed industrial design team had cautioned patience, wanting to delay until a more lightweight version of AR glasses became technically feasible. Most in the tech industry expect that to take several more years. In deciding to press ahead with a debut this year, Cook has sided with operations chief Jeff Williams, according to two people familiar with Apple's decision-making, and overruled the early objections from Apple's designers to wait for the tech to catch up with their vision.
Cook's legacy... (Score:5, Insightful)
... is a big glass donut, lots of profits, and little innovation. Nothing Apple has made under his watch has ever had the buzz of the original iMac, or of the iPod, or the original iPhone. It's basically the same stuff since Jobs died, with marginal improvements every generation of the product.
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... is a big glass donut, lots of profits, and little innovation. Nothing Apple has made under his watch has ever had the buzz of the original iMac, or of the iPod, or the original iPhone. It's basically the same stuff since Jobs died, with marginal improvements every generation of the product.
Well, let's not overlook his ability to continue to market and sell overpriced tech as fashion statements. That shit ain't easy. Just ask every other company who can't get away with that delusion.
"They have been postponing the launch each year for the past [few] years."
Oh, I almost forgot about Cook's shining moment; finally releasing his "legacy" product in the face of a global recession. Good luck selling overpriced fashion to influencers standing in bread lines. Narcissists will soon figure out the horrific downside of disposable income being their only source of income.
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finally releasing his "legacy" product in the face of a global recession.
Like the IPhone? That dropped right in the middle of the last financial implosion, and had no problems succeeding.
A game changing product will be successful regardless - however I question the utility of a 3d headset... I really don't think the market is all that big for something you have to wear on your face like that. Call me when I can get high resolution AR in a contact lens, then maybe we'll talk.
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But they REMOVED so much, how can this not be better?
COURAGE!
Re:Cook's legacy... (Score:5, Interesting)
Cook was more of a supply chain guy than anything else. The M1 MacBook Pro is easily the best laptop they've had in over a decade and I think there's a strong argument for it being one of the best they've ever made. I'd rather have a legacy of solid and continual improvement.
Maybe Apple gets this right, but I think it will be a lot like the Newton. A good idea, but too far ahead of its time.
Plus the smooth transition (Score:1)
I disagree. The M1 chips that they've made to use in their previously Intel x86 products are damned impressive.
Not to mention the transition from Intel to M chips was amazingly seamless. It's not that there were no issues, but there were very few and Rosetta works amazingly well. It was on-par with the switch from Motorola to Intel in terms of smoothness, and the world is more complex now...
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Not to mention the transition from Intel to M chips was amazingly seamless.
Except the whole "killing 32-bit programs" thing.
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Killing 32 bit apps happened with Catalina back in 2018, two years before M1 was announced. And seriously, 32 bit apps?
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And seriously, 32 bit apps?
That means, lots of games that will never be updated. Not that this affects me, I haven't used a Mac in a long time.
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Not to mention the transition from Intel to M chips was amazingly seamless.
Except the whole "killing 32-bit programs" thing.
Announced for like 5 years; had to happen for ARM to be efficient.
And the transition was seamless: Mojave supported 32 bit; Catalina did not.
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Not to mention the transition from Intel to M chips was amazingly seamless.
Keeping with the trend of SuperKendall making some comment and the exact opposite being true. The transition to Intel caused Apple to drop it's core market. Not even Adobe could be fucked supporting the transition and the creative industries abandoned the platform in droves as for years they were forced to run what was previously superior software on a dedicated platform in effectively "compatibility mode". Hell there were multiple versions of photoshop and premier that weren't even released in a 64bit vari
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Not to mention the transition from Intel to M chips was amazingly seamless.
Keeping with the trend of SuperKendall making some comment and the exact opposite being true. The transition to Intel caused Apple to drop it's core market. Not even Adobe could be fucked supporting the transition and the creative industries abandoned the platform in droves as for years they were forced to run what was previously superior software on a dedicated platform in effectively "compatibility mode". Hell there were multiple versions of photoshop and premier that weren't even released in a 64bit variant for Mac, at a time when memory limitations very much were a thing. It couldn't have gone any worse if they tried.
The transition to Intel was rushed, and the result was unpleasant. Intel didn't have 64-bit chips ready in time, so they transitioned to 32-bit Intel for exactly one generation of hardware, which meant everybody got stuck supporting the 32-bit legacy Intel architecture, and worse, various leeches^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hsoftware companies charged folks for 32-bit Intel apps and then charged again for 64-bit Intel apps, all because Apple jumped the gun by a year.
To be fair, Apple was screwed. Motorola/Freescale wasn'
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Not to mention the transition from Intel to M chips was amazingly seamless.
Keeping with the trend of SuperKendall making some comment and the exact opposite being true. The transition to Intel caused Apple to drop it's core market. Not even Adobe could be fucked supporting the transition and the creative industries abandoned the platform in droves as for years they were forced to run what was previously superior software on a dedicated platform in effectively "compatibility mode". Hell there were multiple versions of photoshop and premier that weren't even released in a 64bit variant for Mac, at a time when memory limitations very much were a thing. It couldn't have gone any worse if they tried.
That was on the Third-Party Developers. Apple supplied the toolchain, the Frameworks and the Documentation. Some Developers were just too fucking lazy.
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He should stick with the M1, that is a true achievement. But if Cook wants his legacy to be AR he will be forever remembered as that guy who has a slightly better product than Zuckerberg, because let's face it every VR product will forever be compared to Oculus who basically revived the entire concept for the modern generation.
And better he may be, but frankly I'd be happier not having my name associated with Zuckerberg in any way shape or form.
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Switching the Mac over to Apple custom silicon made sense from a cost-cutting perspective. Tim Cook has been all about vertical integration to improve Apple's profit margins on a whole range of products.
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Switching the Mac over to Apple custom silicon made sense from a cost-cutting perspective. Tim Cook has been all about vertical integration to improve Apple's profit margins on a whole range of products.
Cost savings were not the prime reason. Do you really think it wouldn't have been cheaper to just follow the Intel Roadmap, like pretty much everybody else?
Apple, just like with IBM and the PPC earlier, got fed up with a lazy, deadender-vendor (Intel) controlling their performance per Watt, and ultimately holding them back.
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I'm a bit hardware and software agnostic. I use windows daily, linux desktops frequently, and I've migrated to apple si for mobile. I know there are people out there hanging on to intel for dear life but every one I've met that has given in does a 180. I'm rocking the M2 Max MBP 16 right now and it's the best laptop computer I've ever owned. I'm on day 4 without plugging it in and it's the fastest feeling machine I have.
I am very skeptical of any sort of a 'goggle' though. Novelty vibes. I can't see
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How innovative is M1 though? Most of the technology was designed by ARM, and is available to other ARM partners. There is nothing particularly innovative about the specific design of the M1. Big caches and on-die RAM have been done before, it's just that nobody bothered on the desktop because consumers wanted upgradable RAM. I suppose it's "innovation" in the sense that he sold consumers non-upgradable, over-priced hardware that other manufacturers didn't dare try to insult the market with.
By the way, M1 an
Re:Cook's legacy... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Cook's legacy... (Score:5, Informative)
... is a big glass donut, lots of profits, and little innovation. Nothing Apple has made under his watch has ever had the buzz of the original iMac, or of the iPod, or the original iPhone.
True as this may be...the trouble is that each of those things were a whole lot of ingredients put together, with lots of groundwork, and an enthusiast early adoption market that demonstrated interest in a streamlined iteration with an ecosystem around it.
The iMac is a dubious inclusion in the category; they had the 'wow factor' of looking a whole lot better than the beige boxes that were being sold by the PC market at the time...but it's not like Apple managed to catch up to Dell or HP during the P2/P3 era where those iMacs were being sold. They made waves because creative folks liked them, and they were the foundation upon which the desktop publishing market matured. They're iconic, and they're fondly remembered, but they weren't selling 1:1 to any individual PC vendor at the time, let alone the collective of them.
The iPod, again, garnered interest in its first and second iterations, but it wasn't until the third gen units and the release of iTunes for Windows that waves really started to be made. There was already a market for MP3 players when the iPod entered the scene; Diamond Rio, iJam, and a number of other vendors had early-iteration players that either used external storage (somehow I still miss Smartmedia cards) or presented themselves as mass storage devices, and played back MP3s. A good part of the iPod's appeal was the possibility of carrying one's entire music library around...and while a handful of other players had such an option, it was the iTunes ecosystem that made it viable for the masses.
The iPhone came out at a time when "feature phones" were a thing, and the very first iteration did most of those things *well*. Mobile web browsing was a mess at the time; Internet Explorer Mobile was, by some miraculous feat of software engineering, the *second* worst browser on the market: what the Blackberry Browser did to websites should be banned under the Geneva Convention. A phone that could display websites in a useful manner was a massive improvement. Mobile music listening was similarly a mess; most phones that could do it at all went back to the mass storage mode, and the handful of phones that did iTunes syncing (or had any sort of library management software) were tricky-at-best in other areas. I'd also submit that a crucially overlooked component of the iPhone's early success was Microsoft licensing Activesync at the same time that Blackberry Enterprise Server cost a fortune: it made the iPhone viable as work phones to replace Blackberry phones, which put them in more hands early on.
AR...doesn't have the same sort of 'market prep' going for it. The most famous example, of course, is Google Glass, but while AppleAR might give Glass the honor of being "too far ahead of its time" (though we can give that honor to IBM [youtube.com] if we're being real), there's not really an AR ecosystem in existence yet. It's certainly possible for Apple to make that happen; I wouldn't put it past them to lay the groundwork...but there's no Napster or Musicmatch analogue here - from the business model to the content to the hardware, Apple would have to drive all of it.
I think the biggest difficulty Apple is going to face is just that: the face. If people were cool putting 'just whatever' on their face, there would be no market for contact lenses. Those dark wraparound glasses you have to wear for a few hours after having work done on your eyes are the most functional sunglasses available, but nobody wears them to the beach because they're not only ugly, they're associated with medicine. Apple may have more aesthetic experience than Dell or Meta, but will Apple be able to overcome fundamental human vanity, to sell a product which lacks an existing enthusiast market, on an ecosystem they'd have to cause to coagulate?
I'll put it this way: If Tim Cook really does make AppleAR take off, it will be the most impressive corporate gamble I can think of.
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The original iPhone WAS a feature phone. It didn't support 3rd party apps. No app store. Just the apps Apple shipped with it.
At the time there were already platforms like Nokia's that allowed 3rd party apps, although they didn't have an app store either.
Driving everything by touch screen had been done before too, notably by the LG Prada which looks remarkably like an iPhone.
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The original iPhone WAS a feature phone. It didn't support 3rd party apps. No app store. Just the apps Apple shipped with it.
I'd submit, Ami, that the first-gen iPhone really straddles the line depending on one's definition of "feature phone" and "smartphone". We completely agree that the first iPhone didn't have third party applications available (not formally, anyway - I wax fondly over iBrikr), but neither did Blackberry for several iterations of BlackberryOS. Conversely, most feature phones didn't have real-time e-mail functionality, desktop syncing (with exceptions [R.I.P. Nokia PC Suite]), general web browsing, or Youtube v
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99% agree.
The 1% would maybe be Apple Silicon (M1, M2)? But given how Apple wants to lock everyone into their ecosystem maybe you are right given that it is just another specialized ARM CPU.
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I really can't understand the attraction of AirPods.
If I want in-ear monitors then I want them with decent isolation, and enough retention force to stop be losing them.
If I want wireless headphones then I'd rather they had decent battery life.
I can see the appeal of higher end models that do have noise cancelling, but I'd go for the Sony ones that are better in basically every way. I include size in that because being bigger makes them harder to lose, makes them stay in your ear better, and gives them bette
Re: Cook's legacy... (Score:2)
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Apple Watch was released in 2015, Airpods in 2016 and Apple TV+ in 2019. They sold 82 million AirPods and 53 million Apple Watches in 2022 [businessofapps.com]. Jobs died in 2011. But if we only consider things successful is if they outperform the iPhone, the most successful product in history [macdailynews.com] by some estimates then yeah, Tim Cook did nothing.
Exactly.
Any ONE of those Product Categories would make a damn successful business on their own. Heck give me the absolute suckiest one!
And you're right: Tim Cook helped get every one of those (and more) off the whiteboards and into Customers' hands.
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And the revisionist history some people espouse of "Tim Cook isn't responsible for the Apple Watch" is just incorrect. The Apple Watch didn't launch for a full five years after Steve Jobs died. Do they think Apple sat on anything remotely approaching a final product for five years???
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Absolutely. If any other company on earth created any of those products and were as successful as the Apple versions the company and CEO would be a household name. We're talking about a multi-BILLION dollar product line [appleinsider.com].
And the revisionist history some people espouse of "Tim Cook isn't responsible for the Apple Watch" is just incorrect. The Apple Watch didn't launch for a full five years after Steve Jobs died. Do they think Apple sat on anything remotely approaching a final product for five years??? Of course not. Back when we didn't know if the Apple watch was successful, it was completely considered Tim Cook's baby [phys.org] but now that it's successful all the credit goes to Jobs, who died a full five years before the first release.
And many people simply have no knowledge and/or appreciation just how much work and how many steps it takes from scribblings on a bar napkin or whiteboard to something sitting in a box with a UPC code on it; and how easy it is for any one of those steps to completely tank a Product R&D Project; long before it is even a Rumor; let alone a "Delayed Product"!
Actually, the measure of a well-run company, especially a tech-driven one like Apple, lies not in how many half-baked ideas are forced by incompetent
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Largely, but I wouldnt underestimate the effect the ARM macs have made. Yeah companies have been toying with the idea for a while, but most where pretty underpowered. Apple coming out with something that can stack handily against the entire market for intel arm cpus AND gpus is a move thats going to reverberate across the industry for a long long time, especially once the competing ARM SOCs finally catch up.
Layers of vaporous speculation (Score:2)
We don't know if the mixed reality headset is real. Nothing's been announced by Apple. So that's one speculation. And on that speculatory castle, we're adding a tower of speculation that he's betting on it to secure his legacy. Wow.
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There seems to be a thing in tech media that I'm going to call the "Hail Apple Pass" where some tech journalist really wants some piece of technology to become a thing, but the current implementations kind of suck. So they turn towards Apple and try and read the tea leaves proving that Apple is going to come out with one. It happened with self-driving cars - supposedly there was an Apple Car that was going to be released that would bring in the promised future of amazing self-driving vehicles. Never happene
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So Cook bets his legacy on vaporware.
Well, wouldn't be the first time.
What's a AR/VR headset for? (Score:2)
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The iPhone filled an actual gap people had - 1) seamless and easy access to information on the go. 2) reducing the need for multiple clunky devices needed for daily use (GPS, Camera, Phone, etc).
For VR? I don't see the gap... Outside of video games, there's very little utility of VR/AR in daily life - At least not enough to justify attaching big piece of equipment to your head. AR could have some utility once that "package" is right... But the right package is an AR contact lens,
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Exactly this...
The iPhone filled an actual gap people had - 1) seamless and easy access to information on the go. 2) reducing the need for multiple clunky devices needed for daily use (GPS, Camera, Phone, etc).
For VR? I don't see the gap... Outside of video games, there's very little utility of VR/AR in daily life - At least not enough to justify attaching big piece of equipment to your head. AR could have some utility once that "package" is right... But the right package is an AR contact lens, not chunky glasses on your face.
The AR contact lens won't be possible. We'll have Borg-style Implants long before we can develop a way to power something floating on the outside of your eyeball.
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Not that different from the state of mp3 players or smartphones before apple launched their products.
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That doesn't sound like a lot. Let's look and see how that compares to other game things:
20 million about what the aging Nintendo Switch sold ... just last year. (Different sources have it between 15 million and 19 million in 2022) They've moved ~120 million units lifetime. PS5 sold a little over 12 million (or 10 million, depending on who you ask) in 2022, and between 27 and 32 million over its lifetime. The XBox S|X around 8 million, 20 million lifetime.
The Quest (all versions, not just the Quest 2) ar
People don't want this (Score:2)
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People don't want to wear VR or AR headsets. Ask Facebook. The most useful of all these kinds of devices was Google Glass...and nobody wanted that either.
This is a ridiculous statement. Nobody wanted a smart phone before Apple released the iPhone. The ones that came before it sucked, were huge, slow, underpowered, lacked a real browser, etc. The original iPhone was called "the jesus phone" for a reason.
I have to believe that Apple is smart enough to know that they have to deliver that level of refinement to the AR/VR world to make a hit product. And I have to believe it will be lightyears ahead of what Meta is capable of.
Re:People don't want this (Score:5, Informative)
This is a ridiculous statement. Nobody wanted a smart phone before Apple released the iPhone. The ones that came before it sucked, were huge, slow, underpowered, lacked a real browser, etc. The original iPhone was called "the jesus phone" for a reason.
Don't be ridiculous.
Palm, Windows, and Blackberry all sold millions of smartphones before the iPhone. In most cases, they had more features than the first-gen iPhone did, including GPS, 3G, and an app ecosystem...and while some were certainly bulkier than the iPhone, many others were within millimeters (the HTC Excalibur being a good example - it was thinner).
What the iPhone did in its first iteration was to leverage people's existing iTunes library so they didn't have to carry their music player *and* their phone. It also had a web browser worth a damn; the Blackberry Browser was a tool of cruel and unusual punishment...but Opera Mobile was arguably nicer than the first iteration of Safari on iPhoneOS, and it was worth having a Windows Mobile phone to use it. Millions of people still used Blackberry phones at the time, because of the keyboards, and because of BBM.
Smartphones weren't simply for corporate email drones and nerds prior to the iPhone; there was a consumer market for them. Apple did a fantastic job of directly addressing pain points and shortcomings of the *Feature Phone* market, and iteratively added smartphone functions and the App Store as time went on, making it more and more viable to compete with phones that really didn't do "OS updates" in any meaningful way.
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Don't forget that, despite the hype, it didn't exactly dominate the market. Blackberry phones outsold iPhones until q2 2013.
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I have to believe that Apple is smart enough to know that they have to deliver that level of refinement to the AR/VR world to make a hit product.
It's not clear that it's actually possible to make a device lightweight enough for consumers to accept it today, which also has a decent experience (graphics quality, frame rate, latency etc.) It's certainly not possible to make it at a price point any significant number of people would accept. AR/VR seems to currently be at the point that the Newton represented to PDAs: Too little, too soon to be affordable. A Newton had about as much raw number crunching power as a Macintosh without a math coprocessor, no
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Cook blew it on this.... (Score:5, Insightful)
I can already tell you... the designers advising patience to wait for the tech to make a lightweight "pair of glasses" type interface are correct.
The watch and the Airpods are largely big hits because they're unobtrusive. Watch-wearers are used to strapping a small, relatively flat object to one wrist and wearing it around all day. Airpods have no cords, offer a really intuitive interface with iOS devices (automatic Bluetooth pairing and sensing when you flip the lid open or shut on their charging case, etc.), and again, just mimic something people have been doing for years .... wearing earbuds of some type on a daily basis.
When you start talking about a headset that's bigger and more clunky than a traditional pair of sunglasses, people are uncomfortable with that. You won't go wearing it around in public because you stand out and look weird. It might become the norm for use in an office environment, and obviously will be ok for people just using one at home. But the bigger and bulkier it is, the more it'll make users want to take it back off after short periods of use. People don't like elastic straps around the back of their head or things heavy enough to give you neck pains after X number of hours of use, or items that make part of your head or face start to sweat.
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Developers are chomping at the bit on this.
Are they?
Because from what I can tell, people are mostly hoping that Apple will release the magic lightweight glasses that the industrial design team says aren't possible yet. No one is really chomping at the bit for an oversized AR headset.
A lot of the AR development you seem to be proposing can only be done with this magic headset is already being done with ARKit on the phone. And, uh, it's not great. ARKit is kind of "wobbly" with its tracking. Things sometimes float around and don't quite "stick" to rea
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You're being delusional again. Most developers don't care about AR. We know what's possible and not even your imaginary version of what Apple will release is going to change that reality.
AR is a novelty. There are surprisingly few real practical applications, given the current state of the technology. Translation is probably the most useful, but it's still niche, and a headset really doesn't offer much of anything over what we've been able to do with a smartphone for years now.
For most of the things peo
Sounds good (Score:2)
If the biggest use will be to put a screen in the room with me, then that's enough, honestly.
Glare sucks, especially when you're wearing glasses. If I can trade this for glasses and dial down all the light in the room, then look at a 5-foot-wide screen at a comfortable distance - even if it's only the equivalent of 2k - that's a big win, as far as I'm concerned. I'll wear that thing to get work done (and do video conferencing) at home, but also when I'm on a train, or a plane, or a boat, or a passenger in
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I'm going to bet that in your fantasy, the floating screen isn't partially transparent, which it undoubtedly will be. As for the rest, that's still long the realm of science fiction.
The problem isn't my lack of imagination. The problem is your inability to separate fantasy from reality.
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We shall see. I give most of this about three years. Come back then and we'll both compare what is and isn't "long the realm of science fiction".
Six years ago I predicted [slashdot.org] that four years from now we'd be launching robots that can answer their own questions at press conferences. That seems pretty spot on.
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I totally agree about the lightweight "pair of glasses" being a requirement for anything to get significant traction. The Google glasses seemed reasonably unobtrusive as a browser-like interface, and maybe if they had sold for under $100 it would have been a hit.
Its possible that Apple can come up with a lightweight headset if all or most of the computing and internet elements are on your iPhone. Even just to bring all iPhone functionality to some stylish eyeglasses would be interesting, especially if there
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I think there's definitely a threashold that will matter. If the device is indistinguishable from tyical glasses, it will be a slam dunk of epic proportions. if it's 1oz heavier it's a complete and utter failure. IMO...
VR no longer a gimmick? (Score:3)
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But the thing is, even Meta's best gear isn't good enough. Based on their history of products, I have to believe Apple will release something far superior to what Meta has delivered.
Apple magic can't defy physics + SDK? (Score:3)
But the thing is, even Meta's best gear isn't good enough. Based on their history of products, I have to believe Apple will release something far superior to what Meta has delivered.
Was the iPod really superior to what creative labs had been releasing around the same time? I strongly disliked the first iPod, especially compared to the stainless steel CL Nomad. Apple definitely surpassed them, though in follow up releases.
Apple has hits and misses, like any other company and tends to improve over releases. I will concede, their record is much better than their competitors, but AR is really really bold and difficult for the reasons so many pointed out. I will be shocked if the fir
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I'll remind you of a blackberry...
“We’ve learned and struggled for a few years here figuring out how to make a decent phone,” he said. “PC guys are not going to just figure this out. They’re not going to just walk in.”
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They were right. Blackberry handily outsold iPhone for years after the media declared them 'dead'. Their products were arguably superior in just about every way as well, they even beat them in the browser space after they acquired Torch Mobile.
BB10 was next-level, it just came a bit too late. A real shame, as there still isn't anything even remotely comparable today.
The better technology doesn't always win.
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I strongly disliked the first iPod, especially compared to the stainless steel CL Nomad. Apple definitely surpassed them, though in follow up releases.
Doesn't stop some people from misremembering history and assuming Slashdot got it wrong with the iPod. The truth was, the original iPod was a Mac-only overpriced piece of crap. It didn't really start catching on until Apple announced that Hell froze over [qz.com] with their release of iTunes for Windows. At that point, the iPod stopped being a "halo effect" product, intended to convince you to buy a Mac, and represented the start of Apple reinventing itself as a consumer electronics company.
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"No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame"
Don't get your hopes up.
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But the thing is, even Meta's best gear isn't good enough.
For you or in general? Meta's best gear is far from the best thing on the market, and Meta is a universally hated company. And yet they outsell every other company combined by a long shot.
What's that tell you about "good enough"?
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and people still aren't impressed (see Facebook).
I just checked Facebook and it seems their product was an an exponential growth with a little asterisk beside the COVID year. Not bad for a company that is almost universally hated around the world.
There will always be people like who you won't be impressed until VR looks like RR (real reality?) but the real reality is that people are massively impressed with VR in its current state, which should be obvious by the fact that 3 year old $1000 luxury items are still very much selling well despite the incredibl
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There will always be people like who you won't be impressed until VR looks like RR (real reality?) but the real reality is that people are massively impressed with VR in its current state, which should be obvious by the fact that 3 year old $1000 luxury items are still very much selling well despite the incredibly small audience they have.
I think the part you're missing is that in most people's minds, the last part of that sentence contradicts the earlier parts. The Apple watch outsells the Oculus Quest 2 about 8:1, by my rough math. If VR headsets actually impressed people in general, a lot more people would buy them, but the reality is that they're bulky and require a larger open space than most people have indoors. And the high loss of peripheral vision and contextual awareness (not to mention lack of waterproofing) makes them problema
Re: (Score:2)
VR is for gaming. That's the only established market for it. No other application sells enough to support developing the hardware. Maybe in the future there will be other profitable markets for it. Tim Cook thinks so. But we're not there yet.
Today, any VR headset that doesn't appeal to gamers is a niche product that doesn't sell many units. I don't see any reason to think Apple's headset will change that.
his legacy (Score:2)
HIs legacy will be a shrine in the bean-counter hall of fame. That's all he is, but he's done it well. Not much innovation, but oodles and oodles of profit.
Price will be the ultimate obstacle... (Score:3)
... then practicality ... then content ...
I've seen people predicting $3000, but that's just crazy - that's a product which will just be Dead On Arrival at that price point.
If Apple are serious about trying to gain traction in this still very niche market, they'll need to hit a sweet spot.
But that sweet spot is seriously hard to hit, because it's more than just price.
There has to be a compelling reason to strap a pair of goggles to your noggin - and that compelling reason is many fold.
Content - which is king
Weight and size - comfort is important
Battery life
So many things - plus, I can almost guarantee that the walled garden will include the requirement to have an up-to-date iPhone.
I think Apple would be unwise to release anything until they are sure they have an absolute killer of a product.
So that's the hill (Score:2)
So that's the hill he decided to die on. Very well.
The deranged fool (Score:2)
No idea how people in such positions often lose all contact to reality.
Everyone's got their windmill (Score:2)
It's possible I'm wrong, that maybe he can make a market out of this. But Tim's not a product guy. The Apple lineup so far is solid but not exactly exciting. I'm not sure there's anyone with Apple who has vision other than creating the vertical integration stack and doing it slightly better than the next guy. MacOS Ventura 13 has some troubling signs that half-bakery is on the rise at Apple, particularly the ugly rework of System Preferences.
Re: (Score:2)
MacOS Ventura 13 has some troubling signs that half-bakery is on the rise at Apple, particularly the ugly rework of System Preferences.
I'd argue those "troubling signs" have been popping up around Apple's software releases for 4-5 years now - Ventura is only the latest demo.
Non-Paywall Link Of You Need It (Score:1)
The article. [qsstudy.com]
VR is an escape. AR is an annoying distraction (Score:1)
Someone just needs to make a VR that does not make you feel sick at a good price point, and they will take over the gaming world.
AR is just an annoying distraction or something your boss makes you use.
Severance (Score:1)
My bet is that mixed reality is being more or less forced upon workers by employers. A lot more than a million people will gladly put on a digital face mask to do work - possibly with the help of advanced remote robotics.
I have seen people opening drums of industrial waste only to test if the waste seemed/smelled oxidative or reductive. I bet they would like a pair of mechanical hands and sensors and stay at a safe distance.
It’s not a playful consumer product - it might a real work tool.
Does VR really need 8K? (Score:1)
I hope it fails spectacularly (Score:1)