VR headsets have been around for many years now and why does anyone believe a somewhat better version of those things would hit critical mass? It seems like the form factor is as much the problem as any of the implementations. Many people really wanted an Apple version to be a game changer. Maybe this game can’t really be changed?
This isn't the mass market version of the tech. This iteration is a developer kit that early adopters can also buy.
Apple has always said that they want a version that fits in a glasses style form factor as their mass market product, but the tech wasn't there yet.
> Apple CEO Tim Cook said that it will be a while before the technology available for augmented reality glasses rises to Apple’s standards, according to British Vogue.
“There are rumours and gossip about companies working on that, and we obviously don’t talk about what we work on. But today I can tell you that the technology itself doesn’t exist to do that in a quality way,” Cook told Vogue.
When they released dev kits, that’s what they called them.
This is a Pro product release. I’m personally inclined to believe that this product is more likely to kill off the entire VR/goggles dream than lead to a $500-$1000 iteration that’s at least as big as iPad.
Glasses? Like the ones I have on my face? Not in my lifetime…
> Glasses? Like the ones I have on my face? Not in my lifetime…
Your remaining lifetime must be pretty short.
Technology evolves at a ridiculously fast pace. Just as a reminder, the Nokia 3310 was one of the most popular phones in 2000. We went from tiny, monochrome displays to foldable full-color displays with magnitudes higher resolution in what most call a quarter of a lifetime.
I wonder what the BOM cost of the device is. At $500 they'd sell 100x as many. Hell, even at $999 they'd sell quite a lot of them. I'd probably give it a try for that price, but I'm hesitant to blow $3500.
2x iPad Pro 11 inch cost 2x$800 = $1600 - and they also have big profit margin on those. A lot of tech and sensors are similar if not the same, like: Lidar, TrueDepth, Cameras, IMU, wifi, bluetooth, M2 chip. The only obvious thing not available in iPad Pro is much smaller and higher quality screen.
Hopefully they can reduce price to $1500 in next few generations and increase functionality:
- macOS support (We can only probably dream about it)
- usb-c / hdmi out so this can replace desktop iMac when connected to external monitor (still probably unlikely)
- 3rd party access to cameras stream if given permission - hard to make any innovation with this hardware if you cannot even detect QRCodes because Apple doesn't provide any API and you don't have access to camera feed.
The original Oculus Quest was pretty much that. Granted, they had an unrealistic amount of talent on their side and a decent history taking stabs at the whole "consumer VR" thing.
But I mean, look at it - the first Quest was $300-400, fairly comfortable, self-contained and standalone with tethering capability. If you just wanted to watch TV or browse the web in VR, that's what you'd want to buy. Oculus made the Steam Deck of VR, and all the other business models seem kinda extreme by comparison. I doubt we'd be seeing the reservation towards Vision Pro today if there weren't cheaper entertainment-focused headsets already on the market.
Experience shows that they will keep on iterating on it year after year.
The thing I was most interested in was if they could nail an intuitive UI right from the outset.