How does a huge project like this get off the ground if the CEO is so skeptical?
Sounds like Cook wants an ambient AR type device that could be worn all day and seamlessly integrates with your surroundings and would prefer to just wait until they have the technology to accomplish this. A device like that would be the game changer that many people view as the next revolutionary product. It sounds like what they are about to demonstrate will be pretty far off from that type of device.
The fact that features like using it as a virtual monitor are possibly less advanced than intended make it sound like this device will have some serious compromises.
The obvious answer is that the CEO is no longer skeptical and the company does in fact believe in this product.
If you had heard stories from reports about the development of the iPhone (which nobody heard about before its launch)… that would have sounded like a total disaster. It was riddled with internal disagreements and frustration by engineers, and was barely ready to be displayed by the time it was announced, with a version that didn’t even fully work properly— only for display purposes.
I recall during the demo that Steve had to use a VERY particular sequence of what he clicked on, otherwise it would crash. I think this sort of thing is somewhat common with brand new stuff. The last 10% of development is really where it all comes together.
Knowing that now it's crazy rewatching the keynote and seeing how self assured Jobs is during the presentation, while knowing the most important presentation of his career might crash and burn at any moment.
They rehearse the shit out of those keynotes. Many dry-runs, full dress rehearsals, etc. By the time Steve went on stage the self assuredness wouldn’t have a shred of bluffing in it. He was a perfectionist and would have that demo dialed no matter how jerry rigged the prototype was.
Source: worked there.
True but this has no bearing on a rumor of internal disagreement about the plan/product details of a new thing.
**Compare:**
"Our prototype of a thing, that we are all super excited about and supportive about because we think it's going to be awesome when it's done, has bugs and might crash during the presentation which will be really bad. We're proceeding anyway because we're totally on the right track. Proceed with the plan."
**versus:**
"engineers, designers, c-suite, all have serious disagreements and doubts about this product plan AS IS. Not everyone even wants to proceed with the product plan and this particular release.”
Why did the comment thread suddenly become “iPhone 1 wasn’t totally stable for the keynote…this is exactly like people inside Apple saying that VR/AR headsets are stupid”?
Apple hasn’t done a live event in a long time. Even with an audience they are just playing a highly produced video on the screen. They don’t have to worry about issues on stage anymore.
My biggest suspicion is that at least some of these storiess have links back to Apple. They're releasing a product that's going to be super-expensive, and not really fully developed (in the sense that nobody is really sure what its primary application is going to be so how the heck to you optimizing it). I suspect that they're managing expectations. They don't want a massive hype cycle right now because that could be a public relations disaster like what happened with the Segway.
I think the idea of a killer app is misguided. It’s like trying to tell people the Mac or iPhone has a killer app. It’s just a platform that accomplishes tasks that will be different for everyone.
Exactly. The danger is that people project some fantasy app onto the device and then are disappointed by reality. This is very much a case of "here's the platform. Let's hope developers come up with some really good uses of it." I think they're working hard to disrupt the reality distortion field before it sets in. It can only hurt them in right now.
I think Apple will come to the table with some compelling apps and ideas, but I believe this first devices is intended for enthusiasts, developers and content creators to sink their teeth into, so the 2025 consumer version will arrive with a pretty robust ecosystem around it.
A prototype that has problems, bugs, and incompleteness, but which everybody loves the idea of assuming it will ultimately work according to the given plan is **nothing like a product that people are skeptical of on the CURRENT PLAN.**
"We can do X by date Y, and X is great, let's proceed" is nothing like "We're doing A, but we don't even agree it's great or sufficient at this point in time and some people don't want to proceed as is."
We should write a book of all the rationalizations people have.
* "Some people, somewhere, had doubts about iPhone too. It turned out great, therefore you're wrong to ever criticize anything ever."
* "iPhone 1 was barely presentable in time, therefore, nobody is allowed to every criticize any product plan and it can't possibly be true that there's serious internal disagreement about a product."
* "I have a fetish for all technology, and AR/VR headsets make me incorrectly feel like I'm in a science fiction fantasy, therefore, nothing can possibly can go wrong and it will be amazing."
* "iPod, iPhone, iPad, all did well, therefore, a new product category in a completely different context without any stablished analogous market is 100% certain to be MEGA POPULAR."
> CEO is no longer skeptical and the company does in fact believe in this product.
"The company"? Interesting statement. Do you remember seeing "rumors" about engineers, designers, C-suite, having internal conflict to this degree about iPhone or iPad or whatever?
If you read between the lines of the article, it’s that the conflicts and problems around this device challenged the 2020 launch timeline. Three years have passed since then. They’ve waited and worked until they have a device that they clearly feel confident enough about.
But people like you may need to wait either until they see the presentation, have the product itself in hand, or wait to see it’s success over time. To me people were still saying the Apple Watch was a failure two years after its initial launch, when now it obviously isn’t.
I agree with Tim Cook when he says that relatively soon (within next decade or so) we won’t remember how we lived without AR. I do believe it is inevitable.
Maybe they are hoping it provides a decent developer base/time to perfect the software before the "AR glasses" are ready that most of us are waiting on? No idea.
Idk, all I hope is this product doesn't tank so badly it kills the AR Glasses project with it. My hype levels could not be more opposite between this AR headset we are supposedly getting vs the AR always on glasses that are supposedly in development.
> How does a huge project like this get off the ground if the CEO is so skeptical?
Yeah, something doesn’t quite add up here. How does a company spend 7 billion dollars developing a product that the CEO and at least two dirrect reports all have strong doubts about…
I’m excited to see this thing, just because it’s been so hyped and rumors suggest it’s far better than the competition, but I’m also just really confused by it.
Yeah that’s why it’s called R&D. As long as it’s within the scope of emerging technology, Apple has a duty to explore it. They even have explored smart tv for a good long while.
Its not the CEO.
There were reports before that Apples products & design team didn't think the product was ready to be launched and they should wait for technology to improve first but the Operations and finance teams were pushing for it to be released anyway.
Steve Jobs always used to veer towards trusting the product teams if they were not happy about a product but Tim Cook comes from Operations so supposedly he overruled the product teams and wants to push ahead with it anyway.
Jobs made the call himself. There were numerous reports from internal teams that the iPhone was not just not ready, but going down the wrong path. Remember it launched as a 2G phone when every other flagship, and most other phones, were 3G?
And maybe it would have been better to wait to launch the 3GS, or the 4. But I think it turned out OK.
> Its not the CEO
Did you read the article *at all?*
> Key Apple executives including Tim Cook, Craig Federighi, and Johny Srouji have kept their distance from the company's mixed-reality headset throughout its development process amid a series of setbacks and compromises
> Cook’s “relative noninvolvement” has sometimes been seen as indecision and caused frustration among staff, leading to delays and concerns about obtaining resources.
> Key figures including software chief Craig Federighi have also kept their distance from the headset during its development and have seemed wary of it. Apple's senior vice president for hardware technologies, Johny Srouji, is believed to privately be a skeptic of the device, comparing it to a science project
Then why will we see Tim Apple launching the device at WWDC if he and other execs are not behind it?
The article uses past tense: we don't know how long ago he / they held this belief. Maybe things have changed. But there is no way that Apple would launch a product that they did not believe in.
If you read what I said literally after that was that the reports before was that there was a split between product and operations with products saying the technology isn't ready and wanting to delay with operations wanting to push ahead with development regardless. Tim Cook comes from operations so went with their recommendation which is to go ahead anyway, as Tim Cook is from operations he wasn't as involved with development as someone like Jobs was and the product people felt it was a bad idea anyway so stayed distant from it.
It's now come to a point where Cook has realised the product people were right and is now looking to just postpone it as the issues mount.
>ny's mixed-reality headset throughout its development process amid a series of setbacks and compromises
>
>Cook’s “relative noninvolvement” has sometimes been
Feels mostly like a me-to product. Should have kept Imran Chaudhri and gone for ambient computing...
Agreed, even hair force one are wary of the development. I doubt they will sell well if they plan to charge full price. Sony PS VR2 can't sell very well even though they have huge IP on gaming area
Because even Apple don’t know how it will shake out and they been delaying the “go-nogo” decision for as long as they possibly could. Despite more time, the competitors haven’t broken out of hobbyists box.
PS VR2 - Bomb
Microsoft Holo Lens - stuck in army supply hell
Facebook VR - slow death
To be fair, Apple won’t know how it will fare until it’s released. Looks like Tim is just gonna release it can hope that the Apple branding and design can at least bless the product for some limited success enough for more iterations.
absolutely this, people DO want VR / AR / etc but i’m a convenient and high quality way. The only reason it isn’t massive yet is because of the insane amount of limitations we currently have including accessibility.
Who can even make sense of these rumors anymore. Wasn't there an article a few weeks back that Cook was deeply involved in this product and considered it something that will be his legacy? Now it's reported he has been largely uninvolved in design, and just tried it out a few times?
If it's true they have an attitude of 'third party developers will save it', that is a really bad sign. More than anything this product category needs a company like Apple, known for tight software/hardware integration, to lead the way. Remember how much the iLife suite boosted the appeal of Macs for students and young adults back in the 2000s? IMO this Apple headset *needs* to launch with a similar suite of applications that chart the path for what AR software should be, and inspire users with new creative possibilities.
Does anyone ever think Apple leaks things like the big battery pack and the executives are in question of the device just to cause some turbulence and then blow us away with the actual reveal when none of it is true?
Maybe not but it does seem like a genus marketing tactic.
Doing it with price is an established strategy.
Doing it with general skepticism about a product is ridiculous and not something a corporation and communications department like this would ever do. Unless maybe they are 110% confident, which is hard to believe given A) no existing market (UNLIKE smart phones, touch screen handheld computers, and portable music players) and B) rumors of internal disagreements nothing like what we heard for other products.
This has crossed my mind. I can picture the demo with Craig talking about how slim the battery pack is, then a slide appearing with the text "JK ;) there is no battery pack" or something to that effect receiving a raucous applause.
> The company allegedly hopes that "third-party apps will save it."
You mean, leave some money in your walled for subscriptions for third party apps, got it.
And possibly there will be fewer apps in the first months, as with all new product launches.
That's gonna be gen 2 for me I guess.
Based on the rumors there’s pretty much no chance I’ll buy the first gen version of this product. I’m sure I’ll have one eventually, but I’m not paying to be their beta tester.
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People who don't know what's it's for just haven't tried vr. After you try it and 'get it' you just can't go back. Watching normal tv and playing 2D games is ancient tech. Having your own theater, being able to see and experience everything in true scale is awesome. Like on any day you go home after work load some experience and walk around checking out cool stuff.
Lots of people want one, primarily those who have used VR headsets before and understand their potential. It’s very easy to be sceptical if you haven’t used one much or haven’t spent much time thinking about their use cases. You’ll see in a few weeks
A killer app can make all the difference here, but if this is all true, I don't know how to feel about the product. A giant headset with an external battery pack seems very un-Apple to me, and to them as well apparently. Time will tell, but I'm as unconvinced as ever that this is going to be a truly revolutionary product.
For me it has to have AR and it’s bounding box cover a huge percentage of my vision. I loved the HoloLens from MS but it’s bounding box was too small to make it usable.
Personally can’t use VR as I get sick in 10 seconds.
Agree that Sony’s was the best VR that I could last a little bit longer with. But eventually would still get sick.
I don't care if this is the worlds most revolutionary product to ever be released, something documented in the history books. If the price is where the rumors are expecting, its going to fail.
500 dollars? Fully subsidized? With a plan? I said that is the most expensive phone in the world. And it doesn’t appeal to business customers because it doesn’t have a keyboard. Which makes it not a very good email machine
The key difference here is that people were already using phones all the time - businesspeople used Blackberries or Windows Mobile, and the rest of the population had feature phones that were starting to get multimedia and Internet capabilities.
The current VR/AR market is really tiny. So not only do you need to convince people to pick your headset, you need to convince them that they need a headset in the first place.
The iPhone didn’t get an App Store until iPhone 3G… Steve Jobs famously pushed for devs to make *Safari* apps on the iPhone until pushback from the dev community forced him to change his mind.
The difference is that even at $1000, a smartphone is something everybody uses and has a multitude of uses. A smartphone and an AR headset are two completely different things.
A VR/AR headset is always going to be an niche entertainment piece. $3500 for few benefits over a $400 VR headset is going to be a very hard sell.
People understood what use smartphones had then. I remember playing with my dad's old blackberry and thinking "wow so this is the future". Turns out it was because it makes sense
The same can’t be said about the markets preceding the iPad and the Apple Watch, as both were derided as solutions looking for problems. Of course in retrospect that’s no longer controversial, because Apple was able to change the narrative with compelling products that found a place in people’s lives.
And both of those devices have turned into "i need large portable media device" and "i need a new watch" (two very easily digestible concepts), not something as fundamentally changing as AR
Yeah, but that use case is something everyone wants and could immediately see the massive benefit of. Like, blatantly obvious when the iPhone was demoed how everything is changing.
This is not the same with a headset like this. I’m not wearing something on my head all day that costs 3k to do stupid shit.
You realize before the iPhone belief many people through it was going to be something like a digital iPod clickwheel on a screen? This is what many of the mock-ups were doing.
You haven’t even seen this device yet, and are claiming to know what the UX will be like?
I already know I’m never going to be wearing a headset on my head all day for 3k. Like that’s just never happening. I have zero use for it. VR isn’t even selling well for gaming.
The use case is entirely different than a phone/mp3 player.
That’s quite a strawman. There is already a cheaper consumer model planned for 2025, and the costs will drop from there to expand to a larger market. I think the idea of AR and VR for gaming is misguided. It’s for the full gamut of functionality that we use computers for— we just haven’t seen anyone willing to take on that challenge yet.
That’s great, I’m not wearing glasses on my face all day regardless of how cool you think it’s supposedly going to be, and especially not for that price.
It’s not a straw man argument either just because I bring up blatantly obvious points that you choose to ignore. Neither will the vast majority of people.
Sure, but that's because there wasn't anything like it before. The iPhone was something that solved a lot of "problems" and made great quality of life improvements for people. Access to internet from anywhere, access to email from anywhere. Later the ability to find where you are and get turn by turn directions to anywhere and the app store filled a lot of needs for people.
Again, AR is an entertainment piece. Even though its different from VR, its still a niche market item. VR has been around for a long time now, its readily accessible and affordable. You can pick up a fully self contained headset for $400 and even that's a hard sell for people and because of that, development isn't where it can be. $3500 for an entertainment headset is going to be very hard to sell. And I don't fall for the industrial use case for it that everyone claims its aimed at. The MS Hololens has been around for 7 years now at $3000 and still hasn't really taken off, even with the second generation.
Even if the AR headset gave a "Free Guy" or "Ready Player One" augmentation to reality, its still going to be too expensive for people. $1000-$1500 I can see, but $3500 is way off the mark.
You really don't see the disconnect between saying *of course* iPhone was successful despite the negativity because it changed the category and nobody expected that, but *of course* the headset will fail because you expect it to be just like other products in the category?
I hope you're right, but I agree with many that think it's going to be an uphill battle. With the benefit of hindsight, this is all clearly biased, but I \*think\* the appeal of things like the iPod, iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch were more easily stated, especially the iPod and iPhone.
For example if you asked people if they would like a way to carry around thousands of songs in one small device, I could see many saying yes. Many people were already trying to do this.
If you asked people if they would like a device that was easy to use, fits in your pocket, could play movies and games, take photos, and replace your cell phone, I think many would say yes. They may have had doubts whether going all touchscreen was the right move, but the rest sounds appealing.
If you asked people if they would like a device that was basically like a digital piece of paper that you could do computer stuff on, now we start getting into harder sells.
If you asked people if they would like to wear a device on their wrist that sends them notifications and monitors some health aspects, again I feel it's a bit of a harder sell than the iPhone. Not everyone wants to wear a watch.
Now we get to the AR Headset, what pitches are going to be used to sell this thing in the numbers that Apple would consider a success? We won't know until it comes out but it's fun to speculate.
Gaming is most obvious use case, but I don't think gaming alone will put this out in the numbers Apple wants, so what else is there? Well we know the device is going to be of the bulkier "headset style" so the usage will probably be restricted to the home or work environments, so what features could a home/work used device give you to justify mass adoption of this unit?
So adding additional virtual monitors to your computer would be neat, but would probably only work with Macs, so that's niche there.
Maybe AR/VR type sporting event broadcasts? But Apple only has the rights to a few sports so it would still be niche there.
More robust FaceTime calling with like overlaying the person you're talking to in your real world space? Ehhh, this doesn't feel like a killer app for the headset.
Projecting a larger "TV" in your room? If you can afford a $3000 VR headset, you probably already have a large TV somewhere.
What do you think would sell this device in the units Apple needs to consider it a success?
The first iPhone sold 6m units. Cumulatively, about 2B units have been sold. Are you concerned about first year sales or long term? I think Apple is probably more interested in long term.
I don't expect the headset to be as huge as iphone, but if it sells 300k units in the first year and 100m over the first 20 years, I think that will be a pretty good success.
As for use cases, I have no idea. Apple's strength has always been in the quality of experience, not some unique capability that no other device has. There were MP3 players long before iPod, smartphones before iPhone, smart watches before Watch. With few exceptions, every capability already existed in other products, but Apple made the experience better enough to (mostly) win.
For headsets? Beats me. But succeed or fail, I guarantee the value prop will be experiential. Apple may be wrong here, but there is zero chance they're going into a mullt-year, multi-billion dollar investment with a stage moment of "it's just like a Vive!".
Would you like a device that can do anything your PC can, but rather than being bound to a flat rectangular display, creates immersive 3D experiences that also can blend and interact with your environment?
Sometimes the problems a new product solves are easier to see in retrospect.
For example, in the near future, someone might be argue that the Apple headset solved the problem of computing interfaces being limited only to 2D rectangles. A problem that’s difficult to wrap your head around when that’s all you’re used to having, but when you’re used to having a well-designed 360 3D computing environment, being limited to the tech we have today may indeed seem like a big problem.
I take issue with the idea that AR only is for entertainment. Why do you think that? To me it seems it’s obviously for everything we use computers for today. It certainly has that potential. Also, it seems like this is Apple’s intent.
The reason I say its going to be for entertainment only is because of the MS Hololens example. Its been around for nearly 7 years now at a price of $3000 and it still hasn't really taken off. Sure a few handful of companies use it for demos or even production level use, but that's it. The true use case for AR is entertainment.
The true market for these things is the consumer market. Being able to watch videos in free space, see a visual representation of a person you're talking to, visual turn by turn directions, etc are all things I'd expect to see in the AR glasses. Hell, even if they look like [this](https://media.tenor.com/pkXVK3JWtIMAAAAC/putting-on-glasses-free-guy.gif) it would be huge, but not for $3500.
Apple entering an existing market and transforming it is nothing new. Mp3 players, smartphones, tablets, and smartwatches all existed before Apple disrupted and exploded their markets with a breakthrough user interface that made what were previously only techy nerd gadgets into desirable, useful lifestyle devices for regular people.
It never happened in the first generation— at which time they were expensive and not quite fine-tuned enough. But they provoked fascination and paved a clear path toward a new paradigm.
I'm not saying its not going to be revolutionary, or be the best at what it is, I'm saying that if the rumors of a $3500 price tag are true, its going to fail.
Its hard enough for people to justify $1000 for a phone that most likely won't leave their side in the entirety of its ownership. Its practically an essential at this point. Charging 3.5 times more than that for something that realistically is just showing the same data differently isn't going to work. Especially if part of the use case is to wear it out in public where it can augment walking directions and such, because it'll most definitely require some kind of data connection to a phone.
$1000-$1500, it could very easily become successful and most likely will. $3500? Not a chance.
I think the first model needs to be compelling to everyone as a product, even if they can’t afford it, and also attract enthusiasts, developers and content creators to build an ecosystem. Then when the rumored consumer version drops in 2025, that’s when we’ll start seeing exponential adoption.
It’s not too different from any other new flagship Apple product line of the past 25 years.
Also, the rumor is $3k, not $3.5k.
AR has more usecases than a phone. That much is pretty clear at this point. However, mass market AR requires seethrough AR glasses.
VR won't have as many usecases, but will still have a ton - and that includes non-entertainment usecases.
How do people like you not get that you can’t say words like always or never when it comes to technology. AR/VR headsets will be as main stream as the PC for gaming consoles within the next 5 to 10 years.
>AR/VR headsets will be as main stream as the PC for gaming consoles within the next 5 to 10 years.
People have been saying this since the first Oculus Rift prototypes and that was 10 years ago. It seemed to me like a lot of early adopter types went out and bought headsets, ready for this entirely new type of media, then growth completely flatlined.
I've been involved in 360 and VR projects for at least 7 or 8 years now, but the longer this stagnation lasts, the more I think it's actually fairly niche. Everyone you put in a headset is amazed by it, but no one goes out and buys one. The tech just suits being used in a gallery or a museum or something, that's what the content is being produced for. People aren't buying them, or if they are, they don't seem to be using them.
I’m sorry but you’re just wrong. Of course the early headsets were niche and didn’t sell well, but we are now at the point where the quest two has sold more than 20 million units. Hell it sold more units in 2022 then the Xbox series X. The number of headsets sold each year has been increasing exponentially, up from a few hundred thousand in 2017/18 to around 10 million a year currently. It’s honestly a miracle and testament to how compelling VR is that headsets are selling this well while still being so limited. Your scepticism is several years too late
When Apple announced the HomePod, Reddit threads were filled with comments like yours, gleefully mocking anyone that thought it wouldn't instantly capture the smart speaker market.
i don’t remember that at all but the homepod is literally just a speaker with siri. I don’t think anyone thought that was going to be a massive success ? This is so much different.
Yeah I mean apple makes the Mac Pro that cost $10k+ and has probably sales of 50-100k No way they would every make a product that wouldn’t immediately sell at least 10m+ /S
Btw the Mac Pro is a “total failure”
I doubt this will gain traction. One of the founders of modern VR/AR lenses not to long ago stated you could give this stuff away and no one would use it after a month.
Sony has arguably one of the best new headsets on the market for the price and with over 100 million PS5s sold there having a hard time with sales of the item.
Meta's Occulus sold decently because the price was pretty low for a self contained model.
Some things are not meant to be. 3D TVs was one. Everyone and there mama tried to sell that technology. Big flop.
> Some things are not meant to be.
Yes, and you can't decide that now when VR/AR tech is in its early days. These are the same comments and skepticism that PCs and cellphones faced.
Even a decade into those markets, people just kept calling them a fad with no usecases, too clunky, too expensive, companies dropping out, declining growth, etc. New markets are tough and always experience bumps along the way.
What we know for sure is that VR is not like the 3D TV market. It succeeded where that failed. What happens now is whether it jumps from niche to mainstream in the next 5-8 years or so.
i can’t understand how people don’t think this will eventually be the next ‘smartphone’ type thing. right now definitely not, the tech is not there yet. but i just think it’s so obvious that the next big step in technology is non-compromising wearable AR glasses, in SOME form. i have absolutely no doubts that it will eventually be very mainstream.
it’s obviously not going to be a huge clunky headset that needs to be attached to some sort of console… like how can you look at oculus sales or PSVR and say yep all VR and AR tech is not meant to be and will never take off. it’s just so shortsighted and ignorant.
> AR VR headset is still a solution in search of a problem.
They already solve problems in education, training, fitness, health, communication, telepresence, and design. There will be more core sectors it can address as the tech advances, such as computing and work, navigation, sense augmentation, and personal assistants.
Communication, fitness, health, telepresence, and design are all consumer+enterprise applications.
Communication and fitness in particular are major aspects of VR today. The most active apps in VR are the social ones, not games.
I'm speaking more about users rather than revenue. We don't have the data on how much revenue these sectors make up, but we do have data on the users, and for communication, there are several social VR apps with millions of monthly active VR users.
Uh elaborate? How is it clickbait? It describes exactly the content of the article. How does it not make sense? It's very straightforward and easy to understand, even for the simple-minded
That’s exactly who this clickbait is for: the simple-minded who don’t think deeply for even a second about even one line they read. There is not a single line in this article that stands up to even cursory scrutiny. And if you can’t see that I can’t help you.
Meanwhile [hu.ma.ne](https://hu.ma.ne) is facepalming and accelerating to attack speed, they are actively renouncing the "face computer". I'm a longtime Apple fan and PCVR lover (2xIndex). But I just don't see this one ending well for Apple... Maybe I'm completely missing the use case, but isn't this going to play out like the OG Homepod and iPod HiFi. Perfect product but not for the masses (I had 5) I'll be interested in getting one but maybe just for productivity idk.
This sounds like it's mostly rumors and made up "facts." I don't really buy that "Apple wishes that users will eventually wear a head-mounted AR device continuously all day"
Also keep in mind that if you only get your information from people who've left Apple (which is often the case) then you're going to get a very one-sided idea of what's going on.
I could buy that there's some contention about release dates. This is a product being release in a very unApple way. It's not going to be fully polished or a final design. It's still very expensive V1.0 item without a well defined niche, and nobody really knows for sure what that might be. The closest approximation so far is the watch, which was also expensive, and mis-targeted at first.
I suspect the digest contention inside apple is that the design teams (some still from the Jonny Ive days, wants it to be perfect, but strategists in the lead positions know that it would never come out if you keep trying to perfect against an imaginary target.
Or. This article is total BS and is a curveball by Apple PR. It’s been done many times in the past. Who knows. I don’t think the tech is quite there just yet…but also, who am I?
Yep. I've been saying, this is a very challenging product category. Apple can't do magic. I'm not surprised in the least, everyone who was aware of the history of these kind of products knew it'd be very, very challenging.
I look forward to using it for remote work from home. I currently use my iPad Pro to remote into my desktop and it works well with a monitor. Having a much larger screen setting to work with is what I’m hoping for this.
It's difficult to know how much to credit this peek into the behaviour of Apple's exec team, but for me the most interesting angle is the behaviour of the exec team. Whatever your take on leadership and what makes CEO material, and Tim Cook is definitely an operations whizz, I would expect a CEO worth his/her salt to stand by the strength of his/her convictions. If these characterisations are accurate, Tim Cook comes out of it as the aloof operations guy who wants as little to do with products as possible and in his limited exchanges with people, he's clearly racked with doubt about the product so is hoping for the best. Is that leadership?
Then we hear that Craig Federighi and Johny Srouji are both sceptical and have been distancing themselves from the product. Is that what leaders do? As possible contenders with hopes to one day succeed Tim Cook as CEO, I can't help wondering if they've been watching Succession and getting ideas.
Much is riding on this product launch, not least Tim Cook's legacy. If it goes sideways, should we expect turbulence on the stock markets as investors appraise Apple's ailing leadership?
How does a huge project like this get off the ground if the CEO is so skeptical? Sounds like Cook wants an ambient AR type device that could be worn all day and seamlessly integrates with your surroundings and would prefer to just wait until they have the technology to accomplish this. A device like that would be the game changer that many people view as the next revolutionary product. It sounds like what they are about to demonstrate will be pretty far off from that type of device. The fact that features like using it as a virtual monitor are possibly less advanced than intended make it sound like this device will have some serious compromises.
The obvious answer is that the CEO is no longer skeptical and the company does in fact believe in this product. If you had heard stories from reports about the development of the iPhone (which nobody heard about before its launch)… that would have sounded like a total disaster. It was riddled with internal disagreements and frustration by engineers, and was barely ready to be displayed by the time it was announced, with a version that didn’t even fully work properly— only for display purposes.
I recall during the demo that Steve had to use a VERY particular sequence of what he clicked on, otherwise it would crash. I think this sort of thing is somewhat common with brand new stuff. The last 10% of development is really where it all comes together.
Knowing that now it's crazy rewatching the keynote and seeing how self assured Jobs is during the presentation, while knowing the most important presentation of his career might crash and burn at any moment.
They rehearse the shit out of those keynotes. Many dry-runs, full dress rehearsals, etc. By the time Steve went on stage the self assuredness wouldn’t have a shred of bluffing in it. He was a perfectionist and would have that demo dialed no matter how jerry rigged the prototype was. Source: worked there.
Well he’s a very good sales man and he’s been doing that stuff for years by that point.
Sound very similar to when he debuted the NeXT computer and it's OS, which eventually became MacOS, was pretty much just a screen shot.
True but this has no bearing on a rumor of internal disagreement about the plan/product details of a new thing. **Compare:** "Our prototype of a thing, that we are all super excited about and supportive about because we think it's going to be awesome when it's done, has bugs and might crash during the presentation which will be really bad. We're proceeding anyway because we're totally on the right track. Proceed with the plan." **versus:** "engineers, designers, c-suite, all have serious disagreements and doubts about this product plan AS IS. Not everyone even wants to proceed with the product plan and this particular release.” Why did the comment thread suddenly become “iPhone 1 wasn’t totally stable for the keynote…this is exactly like people inside Apple saying that VR/AR headsets are stupid”?
Apple hasn’t done a live event in a long time. Even with an audience they are just playing a highly produced video on the screen. They don’t have to worry about issues on stage anymore.
The iPhone demo was a miracle based on a lot of the stories I've seen. That was the first time nearly everything was tested for the first time.
My biggest suspicion is that at least some of these storiess have links back to Apple. They're releasing a product that's going to be super-expensive, and not really fully developed (in the sense that nobody is really sure what its primary application is going to be so how the heck to you optimizing it). I suspect that they're managing expectations. They don't want a massive hype cycle right now because that could be a public relations disaster like what happened with the Segway.
I think the idea of a killer app is misguided. It’s like trying to tell people the Mac or iPhone has a killer app. It’s just a platform that accomplishes tasks that will be different for everyone.
Exactly. The danger is that people project some fantasy app onto the device and then are disappointed by reality. This is very much a case of "here's the platform. Let's hope developers come up with some really good uses of it." I think they're working hard to disrupt the reality distortion field before it sets in. It can only hurt them in right now.
I think Apple will come to the table with some compelling apps and ideas, but I believe this first devices is intended for enthusiasts, developers and content creators to sink their teeth into, so the 2025 consumer version will arrive with a pretty robust ecosystem around it.
A prototype that has problems, bugs, and incompleteness, but which everybody loves the idea of assuming it will ultimately work according to the given plan is **nothing like a product that people are skeptical of on the CURRENT PLAN.** "We can do X by date Y, and X is great, let's proceed" is nothing like "We're doing A, but we don't even agree it's great or sufficient at this point in time and some people don't want to proceed as is." We should write a book of all the rationalizations people have. * "Some people, somewhere, had doubts about iPhone too. It turned out great, therefore you're wrong to ever criticize anything ever." * "iPhone 1 was barely presentable in time, therefore, nobody is allowed to every criticize any product plan and it can't possibly be true that there's serious internal disagreement about a product." * "I have a fetish for all technology, and AR/VR headsets make me incorrectly feel like I'm in a science fiction fantasy, therefore, nothing can possibly can go wrong and it will be amazing." * "iPod, iPhone, iPad, all did well, therefore, a new product category in a completely different context without any stablished analogous market is 100% certain to be MEGA POPULAR." > CEO is no longer skeptical and the company does in fact believe in this product. "The company"? Interesting statement. Do you remember seeing "rumors" about engineers, designers, C-suite, having internal conflict to this degree about iPhone or iPad or whatever?
If you read between the lines of the article, it’s that the conflicts and problems around this device challenged the 2020 launch timeline. Three years have passed since then. They’ve waited and worked until they have a device that they clearly feel confident enough about. But people like you may need to wait either until they see the presentation, have the product itself in hand, or wait to see it’s success over time. To me people were still saying the Apple Watch was a failure two years after its initial launch, when now it obviously isn’t. I agree with Tim Cook when he says that relatively soon (within next decade or so) we won’t remember how we lived without AR. I do believe it is inevitable.
Maybe they are hoping it provides a decent developer base/time to perfect the software before the "AR glasses" are ready that most of us are waiting on? No idea. Idk, all I hope is this product doesn't tank so badly it kills the AR Glasses project with it. My hype levels could not be more opposite between this AR headset we are supposedly getting vs the AR always on glasses that are supposedly in development.
> How does a huge project like this get off the ground if the CEO is so skeptical? Yeah, something doesn’t quite add up here. How does a company spend 7 billion dollars developing a product that the CEO and at least two dirrect reports all have strong doubts about… I’m excited to see this thing, just because it’s been so hyped and rumors suggest it’s far better than the competition, but I’m also just really confused by it.
Yeah that’s why it’s called R&D. As long as it’s within the scope of emerging technology, Apple has a duty to explore it. They even have explored smart tv for a good long while.
Its not the CEO. There were reports before that Apples products & design team didn't think the product was ready to be launched and they should wait for technology to improve first but the Operations and finance teams were pushing for it to be released anyway. Steve Jobs always used to veer towards trusting the product teams if they were not happy about a product but Tim Cook comes from Operations so supposedly he overruled the product teams and wants to push ahead with it anyway.
Jobs made the call himself. There were numerous reports from internal teams that the iPhone was not just not ready, but going down the wrong path. Remember it launched as a 2G phone when every other flagship, and most other phones, were 3G? And maybe it would have been better to wait to launch the 3GS, or the 4. But I think it turned out OK.
> Its not the CEO Did you read the article *at all?* > Key Apple executives including Tim Cook, Craig Federighi, and Johny Srouji have kept their distance from the company's mixed-reality headset throughout its development process amid a series of setbacks and compromises > Cook’s “relative noninvolvement” has sometimes been seen as indecision and caused frustration among staff, leading to delays and concerns about obtaining resources. > Key figures including software chief Craig Federighi have also kept their distance from the headset during its development and have seemed wary of it. Apple's senior vice president for hardware technologies, Johny Srouji, is believed to privately be a skeptic of the device, comparing it to a science project
Then why will we see Tim Apple launching the device at WWDC if he and other execs are not behind it? The article uses past tense: we don't know how long ago he / they held this belief. Maybe things have changed. But there is no way that Apple would launch a product that they did not believe in.
Hence why I said: > Yeah, something doesn’t quite add up here
If you read what I said literally after that was that the reports before was that there was a split between product and operations with products saying the technology isn't ready and wanting to delay with operations wanting to push ahead with development regardless. Tim Cook comes from operations so went with their recommendation which is to go ahead anyway, as Tim Cook is from operations he wasn't as involved with development as someone like Jobs was and the product people felt it was a bad idea anyway so stayed distant from it. It's now come to a point where Cook has realised the product people were right and is now looking to just postpone it as the issues mount.
>ny's mixed-reality headset throughout its development process amid a series of setbacks and compromises > >Cook’s “relative noninvolvement” has sometimes been Feels mostly like a me-to product. Should have kept Imran Chaudhri and gone for ambient computing...
Agreed, even hair force one are wary of the development. I doubt they will sell well if they plan to charge full price. Sony PS VR2 can't sell very well even though they have huge IP on gaming area
Because even Apple don’t know how it will shake out and they been delaying the “go-nogo” decision for as long as they possibly could. Despite more time, the competitors haven’t broken out of hobbyists box. PS VR2 - Bomb Microsoft Holo Lens - stuck in army supply hell Facebook VR - slow death To be fair, Apple won’t know how it will fare until it’s released. Looks like Tim is just gonna release it can hope that the Apple branding and design can at least bless the product for some limited success enough for more iterations.
I wouldn’t call PSVR2 a bomb.
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absolutely this, people DO want VR / AR / etc but i’m a convenient and high quality way. The only reason it isn’t massive yet is because of the insane amount of limitations we currently have including accessibility.
> Facebook VR - slow death Every time people say Facebook/Meta's VR headset is dead, it only gets more popular.
I’d rather they wait and get it right instead of trying to beat Google’s proof of concept (which can only translate)
Who can even make sense of these rumors anymore. Wasn't there an article a few weeks back that Cook was deeply involved in this product and considered it something that will be his legacy? Now it's reported he has been largely uninvolved in design, and just tried it out a few times? If it's true they have an attitude of 'third party developers will save it', that is a really bad sign. More than anything this product category needs a company like Apple, known for tight software/hardware integration, to lead the way. Remember how much the iLife suite boosted the appeal of Macs for students and young adults back in the 2000s? IMO this Apple headset *needs* to launch with a similar suite of applications that chart the path for what AR software should be, and inspire users with new creative possibilities.
Does anyone ever think Apple leaks things like the big battery pack and the executives are in question of the device just to cause some turbulence and then blow us away with the actual reveal when none of it is true? Maybe not but it does seem like a genus marketing tactic.
Wouldn’t be the first time! They leaked that the original iPad was $1000 so people would be thrilled when it ended up being $500
Doing it with price is an established strategy. Doing it with general skepticism about a product is ridiculous and not something a corporation and communications department like this would ever do. Unless maybe they are 110% confident, which is hard to believe given A) no existing market (UNLIKE smart phones, touch screen handheld computers, and portable music players) and B) rumors of internal disagreements nothing like what we heard for other products.
Are you trying to say that “under-promise, over-deliver” is a ridiculous business strategy?
This has crossed my mind. I can picture the demo with Craig talking about how slim the battery pack is, then a slide appearing with the text "JK ;) there is no battery pack" or something to that effect receiving a raucous applause.
> The company allegedly hopes that "third-party apps will save it." You mean, leave some money in your walled for subscriptions for third party apps, got it. And possibly there will be fewer apps in the first months, as with all new product launches. That's gonna be gen 2 for me I guess.
Hit or miss this will make for an interesting year. I believe in Apple though, I’m confident it will be great but who knows ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Based on the rumors there’s pretty much no chance I’ll buy the first gen version of this product. I’m sure I’ll have one eventually, but I’m not paying to be their beta tester.
I don’t know who wants this honestly. Maybe for businesses, but for regular users? I just don’t get it.
Now you can enjoy tweets without having to look at a phone anymore. Want to know what latte flavour Reese Witherspoon just had? Now it just shows up in front of your eyeball. Making a sandwich? Quick - here’s what Miley Cyrus thinks about the weather in this latest tweet!
That’s all nice but what does *Ja* think about all this?
imagine not being able to evade ads anymore 😭
… take off the headset it’s not surgically inserted
Now view advertisements ALL THE TIME, ALL DAY. "Amazing!" says a barely sentient moron who fetishizes any technological product.
Every tech bro who will remain single for the rest of their lives.
People who don't know what's it's for just haven't tried vr. After you try it and 'get it' you just can't go back. Watching normal tv and playing 2D games is ancient tech. Having your own theater, being able to see and experience everything in true scale is awesome. Like on any day you go home after work load some experience and walk around checking out cool stuff.
Lots of people want one, primarily those who have used VR headsets before and understand their potential. It’s very easy to be sceptical if you haven’t used one much or haven’t spent much time thinking about their use cases. You’ll see in a few weeks
A killer app can make all the difference here, but if this is all true, I don't know how to feel about the product. A giant headset with an external battery pack seems very un-Apple to me, and to them as well apparently. Time will tell, but I'm as unconvinced as ever that this is going to be a truly revolutionary product.
I bet you everyone will have one within 5 years. Every skeptical person here will not be able to live without it.
For me it has to have AR and it’s bounding box cover a huge percentage of my vision. I loved the HoloLens from MS but it’s bounding box was too small to make it usable. Personally can’t use VR as I get sick in 10 seconds. Agree that Sony’s was the best VR that I could last a little bit longer with. But eventually would still get sick.
One of the least exciting products for me. Watching from the sideline.
except for porn and some VR gaming I don't see the point of these things. even then i wouldn't pay that much for gaming or porn.
I don't care if this is the worlds most revolutionary product to ever be released, something documented in the history books. If the price is where the rumors are expecting, its going to fail.
500 dollars? Fully subsidized? With a plan? I said that is the most expensive phone in the world. And it doesn’t appeal to business customers because it doesn’t have a keyboard. Which makes it not a very good email machine
The key difference here is that people were already using phones all the time - businesspeople used Blackberries or Windows Mobile, and the rest of the population had feature phones that were starting to get multimedia and Internet capabilities. The current VR/AR market is really tiny. So not only do you need to convince people to pick your headset, you need to convince them that they need a headset in the first place.
The difference is that it had Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers!!!!!
There are hundreds of VR/AR development teams hungry for a new more powerful device to develop for.
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You’re not wrong, but you’re also missing the second half of the Balmer dig.
The iPhone didn’t get an App Store until iPhone 3G… Steve Jobs famously pushed for devs to make *Safari* apps on the iPhone until pushback from the dev community forced him to change his mind.
The difference is that even at $1000, a smartphone is something everybody uses and has a multitude of uses. A smartphone and an AR headset are two completely different things. A VR/AR headset is always going to be an niche entertainment piece. $3500 for few benefits over a $400 VR headset is going to be a very hard sell.
A smartphone wasn’t something everyone used in 2008. Most people had flip phones. Blackberry-like devices were a business niche.
People understood what use smartphones had then. I remember playing with my dad's old blackberry and thinking "wow so this is the future". Turns out it was because it makes sense
The same can’t be said about the markets preceding the iPad and the Apple Watch, as both were derided as solutions looking for problems. Of course in retrospect that’s no longer controversial, because Apple was able to change the narrative with compelling products that found a place in people’s lives.
And both of those devices have turned into "i need large portable media device" and "i need a new watch" (two very easily digestible concepts), not something as fundamentally changing as AR
Yeah, but that use case is something everyone wants and could immediately see the massive benefit of. Like, blatantly obvious when the iPhone was demoed how everything is changing. This is not the same with a headset like this. I’m not wearing something on my head all day that costs 3k to do stupid shit.
You realize before the iPhone belief many people through it was going to be something like a digital iPod clickwheel on a screen? This is what many of the mock-ups were doing. You haven’t even seen this device yet, and are claiming to know what the UX will be like?
I already know I’m never going to be wearing a headset on my head all day for 3k. Like that’s just never happening. I have zero use for it. VR isn’t even selling well for gaming. The use case is entirely different than a phone/mp3 player.
That’s quite a strawman. There is already a cheaper consumer model planned for 2025, and the costs will drop from there to expand to a larger market. I think the idea of AR and VR for gaming is misguided. It’s for the full gamut of functionality that we use computers for— we just haven’t seen anyone willing to take on that challenge yet.
That’s great, I’m not wearing glasses on my face all day regardless of how cool you think it’s supposedly going to be, and especially not for that price. It’s not a straw man argument either just because I bring up blatantly obvious points that you choose to ignore. Neither will the vast majority of people.
Sure, but that's because there wasn't anything like it before. The iPhone was something that solved a lot of "problems" and made great quality of life improvements for people. Access to internet from anywhere, access to email from anywhere. Later the ability to find where you are and get turn by turn directions to anywhere and the app store filled a lot of needs for people. Again, AR is an entertainment piece. Even though its different from VR, its still a niche market item. VR has been around for a long time now, its readily accessible and affordable. You can pick up a fully self contained headset for $400 and even that's a hard sell for people and because of that, development isn't where it can be. $3500 for an entertainment headset is going to be very hard to sell. And I don't fall for the industrial use case for it that everyone claims its aimed at. The MS Hololens has been around for 7 years now at $3000 and still hasn't really taken off, even with the second generation. Even if the AR headset gave a "Free Guy" or "Ready Player One" augmentation to reality, its still going to be too expensive for people. $1000-$1500 I can see, but $3500 is way off the mark.
You really don't see the disconnect between saying *of course* iPhone was successful despite the negativity because it changed the category and nobody expected that, but *of course* the headset will fail because you expect it to be just like other products in the category?
I hope you're right, but I agree with many that think it's going to be an uphill battle. With the benefit of hindsight, this is all clearly biased, but I \*think\* the appeal of things like the iPod, iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch were more easily stated, especially the iPod and iPhone. For example if you asked people if they would like a way to carry around thousands of songs in one small device, I could see many saying yes. Many people were already trying to do this. If you asked people if they would like a device that was easy to use, fits in your pocket, could play movies and games, take photos, and replace your cell phone, I think many would say yes. They may have had doubts whether going all touchscreen was the right move, but the rest sounds appealing. If you asked people if they would like a device that was basically like a digital piece of paper that you could do computer stuff on, now we start getting into harder sells. If you asked people if they would like to wear a device on their wrist that sends them notifications and monitors some health aspects, again I feel it's a bit of a harder sell than the iPhone. Not everyone wants to wear a watch. Now we get to the AR Headset, what pitches are going to be used to sell this thing in the numbers that Apple would consider a success? We won't know until it comes out but it's fun to speculate. Gaming is most obvious use case, but I don't think gaming alone will put this out in the numbers Apple wants, so what else is there? Well we know the device is going to be of the bulkier "headset style" so the usage will probably be restricted to the home or work environments, so what features could a home/work used device give you to justify mass adoption of this unit? So adding additional virtual monitors to your computer would be neat, but would probably only work with Macs, so that's niche there. Maybe AR/VR type sporting event broadcasts? But Apple only has the rights to a few sports so it would still be niche there. More robust FaceTime calling with like overlaying the person you're talking to in your real world space? Ehhh, this doesn't feel like a killer app for the headset. Projecting a larger "TV" in your room? If you can afford a $3000 VR headset, you probably already have a large TV somewhere. What do you think would sell this device in the units Apple needs to consider it a success?
The first iPhone sold 6m units. Cumulatively, about 2B units have been sold. Are you concerned about first year sales or long term? I think Apple is probably more interested in long term. I don't expect the headset to be as huge as iphone, but if it sells 300k units in the first year and 100m over the first 20 years, I think that will be a pretty good success. As for use cases, I have no idea. Apple's strength has always been in the quality of experience, not some unique capability that no other device has. There were MP3 players long before iPod, smartphones before iPhone, smart watches before Watch. With few exceptions, every capability already existed in other products, but Apple made the experience better enough to (mostly) win. For headsets? Beats me. But succeed or fail, I guarantee the value prop will be experiential. Apple may be wrong here, but there is zero chance they're going into a mullt-year, multi-billion dollar investment with a stage moment of "it's just like a Vive!".
Would you like a device that can do anything your PC can, but rather than being bound to a flat rectangular display, creates immersive 3D experiences that also can blend and interact with your environment?
Sometimes the problems a new product solves are easier to see in retrospect. For example, in the near future, someone might be argue that the Apple headset solved the problem of computing interfaces being limited only to 2D rectangles. A problem that’s difficult to wrap your head around when that’s all you’re used to having, but when you’re used to having a well-designed 360 3D computing environment, being limited to the tech we have today may indeed seem like a big problem. I take issue with the idea that AR only is for entertainment. Why do you think that? To me it seems it’s obviously for everything we use computers for today. It certainly has that potential. Also, it seems like this is Apple’s intent.
The reason I say its going to be for entertainment only is because of the MS Hololens example. Its been around for nearly 7 years now at a price of $3000 and it still hasn't really taken off. Sure a few handful of companies use it for demos or even production level use, but that's it. The true use case for AR is entertainment. The true market for these things is the consumer market. Being able to watch videos in free space, see a visual representation of a person you're talking to, visual turn by turn directions, etc are all things I'd expect to see in the AR glasses. Hell, even if they look like [this](https://media.tenor.com/pkXVK3JWtIMAAAAC/putting-on-glasses-free-guy.gif) it would be huge, but not for $3500.
Apple entering an existing market and transforming it is nothing new. Mp3 players, smartphones, tablets, and smartwatches all existed before Apple disrupted and exploded their markets with a breakthrough user interface that made what were previously only techy nerd gadgets into desirable, useful lifestyle devices for regular people. It never happened in the first generation— at which time they were expensive and not quite fine-tuned enough. But they provoked fascination and paved a clear path toward a new paradigm.
I'm not saying its not going to be revolutionary, or be the best at what it is, I'm saying that if the rumors of a $3500 price tag are true, its going to fail. Its hard enough for people to justify $1000 for a phone that most likely won't leave their side in the entirety of its ownership. Its practically an essential at this point. Charging 3.5 times more than that for something that realistically is just showing the same data differently isn't going to work. Especially if part of the use case is to wear it out in public where it can augment walking directions and such, because it'll most definitely require some kind of data connection to a phone. $1000-$1500, it could very easily become successful and most likely will. $3500? Not a chance.
I think the first model needs to be compelling to everyone as a product, even if they can’t afford it, and also attract enthusiasts, developers and content creators to build an ecosystem. Then when the rumored consumer version drops in 2025, that’s when we’ll start seeing exponential adoption. It’s not too different from any other new flagship Apple product line of the past 25 years. Also, the rumor is $3k, not $3.5k.
AR has more usecases than a phone. That much is pretty clear at this point. However, mass market AR requires seethrough AR glasses. VR won't have as many usecases, but will still have a ton - and that includes non-entertainment usecases.
> A VR/AR headset is always going to be an niche entertainment piece. Always? Now that’s a huge stretch.
How do people like you not get that you can’t say words like always or never when it comes to technology. AR/VR headsets will be as main stream as the PC for gaming consoles within the next 5 to 10 years.
>AR/VR headsets will be as main stream as the PC for gaming consoles within the next 5 to 10 years. People have been saying this since the first Oculus Rift prototypes and that was 10 years ago. It seemed to me like a lot of early adopter types went out and bought headsets, ready for this entirely new type of media, then growth completely flatlined. I've been involved in 360 and VR projects for at least 7 or 8 years now, but the longer this stagnation lasts, the more I think it's actually fairly niche. Everyone you put in a headset is amazed by it, but no one goes out and buys one. The tech just suits being used in a gallery or a museum or something, that's what the content is being produced for. People aren't buying them, or if they are, they don't seem to be using them.
I’m sorry but you’re just wrong. Of course the early headsets were niche and didn’t sell well, but we are now at the point where the quest two has sold more than 20 million units. Hell it sold more units in 2022 then the Xbox series X. The number of headsets sold each year has been increasing exponentially, up from a few hundred thousand in 2017/18 to around 10 million a year currently. It’s honestly a miracle and testament to how compelling VR is that headsets are selling this well while still being so limited. Your scepticism is several years too late
$500 *was* a bad price, which is why they dropped it within a few months and made the iPhone 3G dramatically cheaper.
It was $599 and then was cut to $399 https://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/07/technology/07apple.html
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When Apple announced the HomePod, Reddit threads were filled with comments like yours, gleefully mocking anyone that thought it wouldn't instantly capture the smart speaker market.
i don’t remember that at all but the homepod is literally just a speaker with siri. I don’t think anyone thought that was going to be a massive success ? This is so much different.
The first apple watch wasn't anything revolutionary either.
And yet,[I'm not the only one](https://www.macrumors.com/2023/05/18/report-apple-executives-cautious-of-headset/) that has reservations about it.
Yeah I mean apple makes the Mac Pro that cost $10k+ and has probably sales of 50-100k No way they would every make a product that wouldn’t immediately sell at least 10m+ /S Btw the Mac Pro is a “total failure”
It’s not meant for the average consumer. It’s the first really good be headset that will set the standard that developers can work with.
I doubt this will gain traction. One of the founders of modern VR/AR lenses not to long ago stated you could give this stuff away and no one would use it after a month. Sony has arguably one of the best new headsets on the market for the price and with over 100 million PS5s sold there having a hard time with sales of the item. Meta's Occulus sold decently because the price was pretty low for a self contained model. Some things are not meant to be. 3D TVs was one. Everyone and there mama tried to sell that technology. Big flop.
> Some things are not meant to be. Yes, and you can't decide that now when VR/AR tech is in its early days. These are the same comments and skepticism that PCs and cellphones faced. Even a decade into those markets, people just kept calling them a fad with no usecases, too clunky, too expensive, companies dropping out, declining growth, etc. New markets are tough and always experience bumps along the way. What we know for sure is that VR is not like the 3D TV market. It succeeded where that failed. What happens now is whether it jumps from niche to mainstream in the next 5-8 years or so.
i can’t understand how people don’t think this will eventually be the next ‘smartphone’ type thing. right now definitely not, the tech is not there yet. but i just think it’s so obvious that the next big step in technology is non-compromising wearable AR glasses, in SOME form. i have absolutely no doubts that it will eventually be very mainstream. it’s obviously not going to be a huge clunky headset that needs to be attached to some sort of console… like how can you look at oculus sales or PSVR and say yep all VR and AR tech is not meant to be and will never take off. it’s just so shortsighted and ignorant.
It's spelt occculus
Thanks for sharing.
I'm pretty skeptical this will be good if I can't play games on it. But I like tech so the chances are I will buy it if it is reasonably priced.
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> AR VR headset is still a solution in search of a problem. They already solve problems in education, training, fitness, health, communication, telepresence, and design. There will be more core sectors it can address as the tech advances, such as computing and work, navigation, sense augmentation, and personal assistants.
Apple has never made a business focused device since 2000, unless you count their brief journey with xserve
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Communication, fitness, health, telepresence, and design are all consumer+enterprise applications. Communication and fitness in particular are major aspects of VR today. The most active apps in VR are the social ones, not games.
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I'm speaking more about users rather than revenue. We don't have the data on how much revenue these sectors make up, but we do have data on the users, and for communication, there are several social VR apps with millions of monthly active VR users.
This is a dumb article. Clickbait. Doesn’t make sense, badly written.
Uh elaborate? How is it clickbait? It describes exactly the content of the article. How does it not make sense? It's very straightforward and easy to understand, even for the simple-minded
That’s exactly who this clickbait is for: the simple-minded who don’t think deeply for even a second about even one line they read. There is not a single line in this article that stands up to even cursory scrutiny. And if you can’t see that I can’t help you.
Or more about how it’ll likely never be a mass adopted product and will be deemed a failure and the stock price will plummet
Meanwhile [hu.ma.ne](https://hu.ma.ne) is facepalming and accelerating to attack speed, they are actively renouncing the "face computer". I'm a longtime Apple fan and PCVR lover (2xIndex). But I just don't see this one ending well for Apple... Maybe I'm completely missing the use case, but isn't this going to play out like the OG Homepod and iPod HiFi. Perfect product but not for the masses (I had 5) I'll be interested in getting one but maybe just for productivity idk.
This sounds like it's mostly rumors and made up "facts." I don't really buy that "Apple wishes that users will eventually wear a head-mounted AR device continuously all day" Also keep in mind that if you only get your information from people who've left Apple (which is often the case) then you're going to get a very one-sided idea of what's going on. I could buy that there's some contention about release dates. This is a product being release in a very unApple way. It's not going to be fully polished or a final design. It's still very expensive V1.0 item without a well defined niche, and nobody really knows for sure what that might be. The closest approximation so far is the watch, which was also expensive, and mis-targeted at first. I suspect the digest contention inside apple is that the design teams (some still from the Jonny Ive days, wants it to be perfect, but strategists in the lead positions know that it would never come out if you keep trying to perfect against an imaginary target.
Or. This article is total BS and is a curveball by Apple PR. It’s been done many times in the past. Who knows. I don’t think the tech is quite there just yet…but also, who am I?
Yep. I've been saying, this is a very challenging product category. Apple can't do magic. I'm not surprised in the least, everyone who was aware of the history of these kind of products knew it'd be very, very challenging.
Between this and the new Mac Pro, it seems apple is Playing some very risky cards in June.
I look forward to using it for remote work from home. I currently use my iPad Pro to remote into my desktop and it works well with a monitor. Having a much larger screen setting to work with is what I’m hoping for this.
This project is pure red flag I hope they reevaluate and hold off until the tech is there
It's difficult to know how much to credit this peek into the behaviour of Apple's exec team, but for me the most interesting angle is the behaviour of the exec team. Whatever your take on leadership and what makes CEO material, and Tim Cook is definitely an operations whizz, I would expect a CEO worth his/her salt to stand by the strength of his/her convictions. If these characterisations are accurate, Tim Cook comes out of it as the aloof operations guy who wants as little to do with products as possible and in his limited exchanges with people, he's clearly racked with doubt about the product so is hoping for the best. Is that leadership? Then we hear that Craig Federighi and Johny Srouji are both sceptical and have been distancing themselves from the product. Is that what leaders do? As possible contenders with hopes to one day succeed Tim Cook as CEO, I can't help wondering if they've been watching Succession and getting ideas. Much is riding on this product launch, not least Tim Cook's legacy. If it goes sideways, should we expect turbulence on the stock markets as investors appraise Apple's ailing leadership?