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Comment by dcfun | Hacker News Reader

The thing is, it's easy to say this, but doesn't it ignore the fundamentals of what's behind the magic in the first place. All of their major breakthrough products (Mac, iPod, iPhone and iPad) came at a time when the technology that made them possible had just reached maturity. Add on top of that, their undoubted refinement of UI and industrial design and they created some major winners.

What I think Apple lacks at the moment, is any new just-mature technology on which to base its 'next big thing'. That's not to say Steve Jobs didn't have a huge roll in making all their previous products a big hit, just that there is nothing new on the scene at the moment with which to craft a break through tech hit.

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Interesting thoughts. I don't wholly disagree. You are right that the maturity of solid-state drives and multi-touch displays played a big role in the timing of new Apple products in the past. Though, I could point to VR and Electric Vehicles as just-mature technologies where Apple could have made a big investment. How excited would people be if Apple released an electric car... or just bought Tesla.

I know Tim Cook has mentioned VR as something "interesting" in the recent past, so they may be waiting for it to become a little more mainstream.

Amazing new graphics cards from Nvidia, Apple have all the bits to make a nice VR headset and laptop / ipad that will drive it. I'm surprised they haven't dropped any hints yet.

So, they've thought it through and decided now is not the time... why? Why not get in there while Playstation is getting in there. I guess they aren't really a games company, yet the iPhone and iPad are both great for casual games. So maybe that's not the reason. Could be that there is something better in the pipeline (hololens) or that VR isn't consumer ready yet.

There's no way Apple would make a VR headset tethered to another device. To be on-brand it has to be elegant, which means all-in-one. It probably needs a new OS... certainly none of the UI from iOS can be reused, and it needs VR-specific heat and power optimizations, probably with a new low level graphics toolkit.

From Tim Cook's statement it seems pretty clear that they're going to wait until they can do AR glasses, which also fits their anti-nerd brand strategy. AR is more social, more human.

Although when the standalone Google/Oculus headsets hit next year I suspect people will be surprised how well they sell. The mobile VR app ecosystem should hit puberty around then. Assuming Oculus/Google can hit a $600 price point I think we'll see an iPod-like growth curve in that category, which would lure Apple into the market for sure.

Isn't AR less immersive, less good as means of escapism ? And less "Addictive" ?

and that means VR will have a larger market ?

Immersion is nice for "experiences", but AR has the potential to be used all day, just like smartphones. Besides, they'll eventually converge.

The problem is that while potentially more immersive, VR is more exclusionary. By definition it's not an experience that shares well with meatspace. So it's easy to cut off and be cut off from other people in the same room. That's fine for a teenager in their room but not so much someone living with a significant other or children.

VR is at that "just mature" cusp for video games, but not for general computing interfaces. I believe that's why Apple hasn't jumped in yet. They don't want to be a video game company like Steam or Oculus. They want to create a completely new general computing UI, and VR just isn't ready for that yet, nor is AR.

Positional tracking plus something like Leap Motion on a mobile headset will get us there. We're just a year or so out from that yet.

Personally I think/hope that the next "magic" thing will be practical and affordable hologram projectors/volumetric displays a la R2D2 (but of course better.)

Apple has made a big investment in both VR and electric vehicles. Tim Cook has spoken publicly- really rare- about the preference for AR, so he's already positioning the companies approach. This tells me that they have a compelling solution that is being refined. (who knows when it will hit the market).

It looks like they are still working out the compelling solution to electric vehicles and so there's no reason to talk about it before they have a product ready.

My best is that AR/CV and conversational UI will be the next big things.

> How excited would people be if Apple released an electric car...

If the car looks just as clunky as the Apple watch, I think people will not be very excited.

Apple would likely claim they invented the electric car, too.

>What I think Apple lacks at the moment, is any new just-mature technology on which to base its 'next big thing'.

So what you're really saying is that Apple is waiting for other technology companies to come up with something new so that they can take that idea, put their spin on it, paint it white and announce their next big thing.

It's the "undoubted refinement of UI and industrial design" that was so important, and it's that same thing that is dying within the company.

It's not over yet, but they need a cultural shift back toward the light.

Also, Apple was buying their way upwards.

After the candy imacs i think much of their tech is bought.

Best i recall at least the iPod firmware, iTunes, the iPhone multitouch tech, and even Siri was startups Apple bought and internalized.

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