Apple is betting on augmented reality | Hacker News Reader

Apple is betting on augmented reality

bloomberg.com

148 pointsiKenshu129 comments

I'm impressed by the ability of the press to take any new tech idea and spin that into Apple being the latent dark horse that will win the category.

Off the top of my head I can think of streaming TV, a physical TV set, AI, and self-driving cars.

Is there any evidence Apple has any advantage over the already quite competent, well-funded players who have already demonstrated significant progress in this area?

One advantage could be the sales channel. Through Apple store they can easily get the products into the hand of customers. This might be quite valuable with products which you need to experience in order to understand them.

Apple's share of mobile phone market can be helpful if they want to bring in functionality that requires special features from the handset.

Also if we think about some more down to earth stuff, Apple could become "number one AR vendor" by just putting the features to next iPhone models. If the stuff actually works and if Apple allows, this might bring in 3rd party developers.

Nope. Apple's biggest advantages were always a sensitivity to untapped consumer interest, and marketing genius to get consumers excited about products that integrated smoothly into their lives.

The latter has certainly disappeared. See e.g. the stampede away from the Mac.

For the former: it's debatable how much untapped consumer interest there is in AR.

Glasses would work if they were slim and stylish. But if the motivation is to "beam content into the eyes of the user" and not to empower users to do non-gimmicky cool new things they couldn't before - that's not going to happen.

It's the difference between a power tool approach and a menu approach. If you give people power tools and let them play with them, they'll do amazing things.

If you give people a menu of options - tweak a photo, tweak a photo a different way, take a 180 degree panorama, passively watch a VR movie - that's extremely unexciting.

Cook has always been more of the latter type than the former.

"Stampede away from the mac" is a complete overstatement, Apple still makes the most profits of any computer manufacturer.

Agreed. There is a lot of ranting in the tech community, but for your average user they seem as popular as ever.

AR will become mainstream at the point people see it as the norm in public.

Apple's core advantage is that they set the standard for mobile smart devices and consumer will follow them if they're able to gain momentum.

Question at that point swings back to how they'll try to do it, which becomes highly speculative.

If I had to guess, they'll morph the iPhone to a AR device like the morphed the iPod to a phone; meaning the first step is to add AR to the iPhone and gain traction.

> they'll morph the iPhone to a AR device

...eventually, maybe; probably after someone else has first.

The technology backing this is the stuff that the kinect was based on, by PrimeSense; it's for 3d spatial scanning, and it's super cool tech, but it's no more 'AR' than the kinect was or the leap motion was; turns out that even if you have a point cloud, AR is still hard.

The sad thing is that there's no sign that Apple is actually building any kind of meaningful product with it.

Any kind of competitive advantage Apple might have as a company hinges on them actually building something novel and meaningful in this space.

I know they like to be all ninja and secret with their R&D, but you can't just hide in a closet for 6 months with a million dollars and pull out a strong AI; that sort of technological leap just doesn't happen very much any more, and certainly not without a lot of people noticing the massive amount of money it consumes to produce.

Being first is irrelevant when it comes to being mainstream. Apple's iPod was not the first mobile digital music player, nor was the iPhone the first smartphone.

Being novel also isn't that important. For example, Apple's white earphones played a major role in getting the public to see that their devices were mainstream, but there was nothing truly novel about them.

You're right in general, but iPhone was the first touchscreen smartphone. Today, (almost) all smartphones look like an iPhone. (Though Apple didn't invent the touchscreen.)

IBM Simon was the first phone with a touchscreen in 1992.

I'll just leave this here.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Simon

Beyond what the others are saying about IBM's Simon, Apple wasn't even the first with a capacitive touchscreen - they did it a year after the LG Prada...

Being first may be irrelevant, but if you're never first then someone else has to come up with the tech first.

I believe parent comments are mostly making the point that we still have another generation before Apple would have anything sufficiently advanced enough that they could do their post-90s "polish and package" magic.

"Polish" is irrelevant as it relates to realism - what matters is people believe it adds value realitive to the cost to them, which includes the social impact it has on them.

The iPhone already is an AR device though, and one of its first major apps was an AR application - Layar, back in 2009. One of its major apps has an AR component (Pokemon Go).

I could see them making a Google Cardboard-like mounting bracket / dock for the iphone I guess, maybe with better cameras and sensors.

Speculation is rising that Apple will add 3D sensing to give the phone a sense of depth to be used for augmented reality applications.

3D sensing is not a new technology and was initially adopted by Microsoft‘s Kinect and Lenovo‘s Tango-enabled Phab2 Pro.

I think Google Glass is more where they will go. Except, just like the first iPhone, they will make it actually look like a normal pair of sunglasses. Apple has NEVER made new products, but they have refined existing products at key times to come out with something amazing. iPod, iPad, iPhone were not the first, but they were breakthrough staples that rules their area. Apple Glasses would do the same if done right.

> Except, just like the first iPhone, they will make it actually look like a normal pair of sunglasses.

Not going to happen (any time soon). That's an insurmountable engineering challenge for the foreseeable future.

Let's get specific: How long do you think it will be before Apple release iGlasses? 10 years?

I'm not sure when they will release a product in the vein of "iGlasses", but I'm certain they won't release an AR device that "looks like a normal pair of sunglasses" within 10 years. This isn't a situation where incremental progress will make this possible, there would need to be a fundamental breakthrough in battery and GPU efficiency that, while possible, is not necessary inevitable and definitely not on track within a predictable timeline.

What do you think about solving this with wireless power transfer? There has been some promising research recently into extending the range of resonant inductive coupling.

It's nobody's ideal, but a clip-on/necklace style power solution might be sellable to the public if the value proposition of the glasses is good enough.

A future where resonance charging equipment is safe, functionally practical and ubiquitous is sort of a breakthrough scenario in and of itself, but even then, you're still talking about a technology that is somewhat out of reach. Even if we can squeeze the necessary GPU power into the form factor of "a normal pair of sunglasses", consider the additional heat dissipation requirements of a device as thin as normal glasses that is also in a state of perpetual charge, especially when we take into account the human face's particular sensitivity to heat.

Maybe very thick oversized (by today's standards) frames will come into style and something like that will be on the border of possibility, but it seems like a real stretch within the next 10 years.

After thinking it over a bit, I'm going to take the other side of the bet.

We agree that power consumption is a limiting factor no matter what. In my imagined system, only something on the order of 1W would be delivered to the glasses. Delivering 1W over 10cm with large-ish coil area at >50% efficiency using NFMR isn't really a breakthrough, but it's only a way of eliminating the LiPo bulk and nothing more.

The thing is, I don't think we're near the boundary of power efficiency even with today's silicon. The way forward is to push all the feature tracking and other low-level vision tasks down to the ASIC level, while accepting some strict limitations on the rendering side. So a lot of it comes down to scope of features. Its most immediately useful applications are little more than a glorified HUD -- project some GPS data here or an info overlay there. Blit a video source on top of a marker, that sort of thing.

This sort of practical product, by 2027, I'll say yes. Mindblowing, transform-your-world stuff? No. But let's see what happens...

AR will become mainstream, yes. Apple will do well in AR, maybe but future is difficult to forecast.

Anyway, my prescription glasses are maybe 25 grams (0.89 ounces). I think the current technology is a long way from giving us something as light as that even if the bulk of it rests in our pocket. I expect to read about the upcoming AR revolution for many years.

AR is not only about eyes, nor does it require realistic overlay - all that's required is it's sync'd to reality and augments reality.

Their idea of AR's use is... novel. I cant see myself wanting to "turn someone's head" in AR/VR.

Can I get a Siri that can actually answer my questions instead of "Here's what I found on the web for that" ....

As someone who's already built several prototypes for the HoloLens, marketed for the Air Force, I also find this kind of humorous.

.....Continue please..... :-)

We've purchased a few, and wanted to develop practical applications for someone in the field looking up materials and conversing with support. The truth is the new Skype beta is already a lot better than the things we've built. It's actually pretty sweet, because even the person who's not on the device can see what the person on it sees and can place holograms and access shared files and such.

I don't think it's geared towards interaction. You can connect any bluetooth device to it, because it's just a Windows 10 machine, but it seems unreasonable to expect the user to be sitting down with keyboard and mouse or to assume they have some kind of gyroscopic mouse. There are some cool games that show what's possible, but data visualization seems to be a huge possibility. At least until they standardize more forms of input.

The advantage is the same - integrated ecosystem of products they have strong control over and brand recognition. That's why this story pops up about everything, whether it's true or not or whether Apple can actually leverage the advantage. Also, aren't dark horses inherently latent?

Apple can make fashionable stuff, which headgear/glasses are, much more so than phones or watches. Few good engineering firms can.

e.g. Consider the publicity shots for VR. As fashion, they are self-parody.

Though IMHO key is heads-up display only - ie no creeping camera. This subtraction destroys AR, and so much related value... it's something a google could never bring itself to do. But Apple has demonstrated time and again that they will omit so-called "crucial" features if they undermine the offering. Another fairly rare strength...

> Apple can make fashionable stuff

Got to be honest, I think they missed a big opportunity to make the watch fashionable and popular by simply choosing a square face, reminiscent of nerdy calculator watches from decades past, rather than a nice circular face, like most other watches.

Most people won't get an Apple Watch not because it isn't useful, but (I think) because it just doesn't look right, doesn't fit into the "fashion" that it claims to be.

Most people won't get an Apple Watch not because it isn't useful, but (I think) because it just doesn't look right, doesn't fit into the "fashion" that it claims to be.

Apple's gamble seems to be targeting people whom have never owned or even wanted to own a traditional watch and for whom the traditional shape holds no intrinsic emotional value.

Nor for that matter is square an unknown shape even for higher end watches:

http://media.gq.com/photos/56c61128b9dd6cd82e6f7bb5/master/w...

http://media.gq.com/photos/56c61128585fc86b2f2497c6/master/w...

This is totally OT, but your first whom should be who.

>Apple's gamble seems to be targeting people whom have never owned or even wanted to own a traditional watch...

That should be who. People who have never owned... is the noun phrase acting as an object of targeting, and who is the subject of the modifying phrases who have never owned and [who] never even wanted to own. I'm not trying to be a pedant. By using whom, you're signaling that you care about grammar; so I thought I'd give feedback. Feel free to ignore.

Feedback received and accepted.

I haven't bought one because I feel it is redundant. You have a second device, with very similar functionality, that you now need to keep track of and keep updated, etc.

The goal should be simplification.

When Jobs/Ive was crazy over Dieter Rams designs for Braun, the year was 2001 and music players were designed like if it was a gadget for Batman's belt.

For the years to come all apple designs made look the competition like ridiculous old technology.

Today, Apple designs like the watch and Macbooks follow the same tired idea of curvy, minimalistic Braun-like devices while some competitors are leapfrogging to new design paradigms, maybe trying to pull the same 2001 success of the iPod; Perhaps no one is there yet, but many years have passed and the taste of design is eager for the next thing.

Simplicity in design seems like a fairly timeless design principle. Unfortunately, once you've simplified the design to its near simplest form, its hard to make design updates that feel significantly advancing.

> while some competitors are leapfrogging to new design paradigms

Which competitors/designs do you think are beating out Apple?

Given that every phone and laptop design is a weak derivative of Apple's work I too am curious.

Even many newer smart watches are trending to more Apple-like

At some level form has to follow function, and a square face is simply more functional for a computing screen than a round one. A round faced screen is just as much of a gimmick as a square dial.

IMO Apple did an outstanding job with the aesthetic aspects of their Watch. They sold it in different sizes and finishes, with a large variety of different straps. They understood that different people would want different looks, and made the perfect timelessly understated device to accommodate most.

The bigger problem is that Apple Watch never became its own fashion statement. The hype fizzled out quickly and it never reached the same cultural peaks as some of Apple's other products like the iPod or iPhone, products that became their own status symbols in their primes.

And that comes back to function, because the Apple Watch is still a solution in search of a problem.

"Hey dude, something is happening, take out your phone!"

It's not a very compelling value.

> I think they missed a big opportunity to make the watch fashionable and popular

Yeah, I mean they're only the second largest watchmaker in the world, barely popular at all!

Apple are superb at introducing aging, but specialized tech to the mainstream masses.

> I'm impressed by the ability of the press to take any new tech idea and spin that into Apple being the latent dark horse that will win the category.

I'm not. Not everyone is up on new tech. But, there's probably only 5 people in developed nations that have not heard of Apple and that they are a big tech company.

The goal here is ad revenue and for that, one needs clicks and for that, one needs Apple in the headline to reach more people.

I have to say, this makes a whole lot more sense than an Apple car though, for which they have to start from square one on all the relevant parts.

I want to contest that "streaming TV" currently encompasses quite competent players. DirecTV Now has been a dumpster fire of a rollout, Hulu is coming in late with a rather boutique offering, and none of these services offer some basic tablestakes features like greater-than-2-channel audio. Which, maybe I'm just overprivileged, but 5.1 audio is streamed over airwaves right now, and these guys can't figure out how to do it over the internet? Additionally theres tons of arcane pricing rules around how many streams an account can hold, weird DVR inplementation / rules around DVR, basically the kind of efficacy in solutions that existed for music before Apple came along and forced sanity into the market.

I think this is easily an area that any number of players could really ratchet up & take, but not one solid reference implementation exists right now.

The lack of 5.1 support is not due to a lack of competence. It's due to the relatively small number of people who have a 5.1 setup. Basic product management.

Do you have marketshare numbers? I mean, soundbars would get an audio bump out of the upgrade, and theres egads of those sold. This is also "basic product management" until 1 competitor offers it, and then it becomes a wedge issue, so I'm not convinced that skipping table-stakes features is completely wise. It's also a wedge issue for people to subscribe to any of these services coming from OTA / Cable / Satellite, so if that's the competitive market place, again, I'm not sure it's a great product management decision.

What is this "small number"? A few millions of potential customers with (now rather cheapish) home cinema systems?

To be fair they did it with phones.

already quite competent, well-funded players who have already demonstrated significant progress in this area?

And who exactly would that be? In terms of HMD shipments Microsoft is the only one doing anything serious with AR and even the Hololens form factor, FOV, PPD, battery etc... are nowhere near ready for mainstream. I can only think of one "well funded" AR company and they aren't doing so hot. That's not to denigrate my brothers over at Meta, Avegant and others who are working hard on HMD and who we love.

In sum total there has been just south of $5B of public investments or acquisitions into the AR development market since about 2014. Basically nothing when you consider what has to go into making the AR ecosystem work.

In fact I don't know if people really understand what it's going to take to make consumer AR huge, which is why I wrote this handy guide[1].

My take is that Apple has the best shot because it bought Metaio (at the time the largest AR company in the world) for pennies a long time ago and absorbed all of the knowledge they had been building since 2003.

The trick is whether Apple has figured out how to do a sleek, wide FOV HUD with SLAM, quality 3D rendering and a decent battery life - likely as an attachment to the iPhone.

[1] https://virtualrealitypop.com/heres-what-it-s-going-to-take-...

Exactly. While you could argue whether or not "significant progress" has been made, I don't think you can argue that success in AR is going to require an investment well beyond what any VC will be willing to cough up. Apple, with it huge stockpile of cash, can invest in long game instead of trying to satisfy an investor.

What about Facebook and Google? They aren't hardware companies. As a content producer, I don't trust them to be a good technology partner for consumer products.

The Microsoft Hololens integration and packaging is quite impressive. It's a full, self-contained AR system in reasonably lightweight self-contained headgear. The HTC Vive and the Oculus Rift are big, clunky devices with cables.

If the Hololens could be brought down to a price point where the Pokemon Go crowd could use it, it would be a success for that alone.

How good does AR need to be to do HyperReality?[1] Not much better than the HoloLens. More field of view would be needed. The ability to draw dark would be nice, but isn't essential for that, because it's explicitly a bright overlay on the world.

[1] https://vimeo.com/166807261

First of all I think the hololens is an amazing piece of tech and is the best device out there. That said, I disagree about the price point being the only thing. It needs to be in a really tight form factor and needs a lot of work on FOV and usability.

How good does AR need to be to do HyperReality?[1] Not much better than the HoloLens

You're underestimating the problem significantly. Read the link I posted previously because I lay it out there in detail. (I don't get paid or referrals or anything if you read it, it's just that I already wrote it all out there and don't want to do it again). FOV and draw dark are far from trivial issues, not to even mention content and geolocalization/georectification.

I've tried the HoloLens, and it's not bad for what it does. The narrow field of view is the main limitation. Putting in a greyscale filter to dim the real world makes the inability to write dark tolerable. It's amazing how much hardware they crammed into a lightweight, wireless headset.

The VR headsets, on the other hand, are still about as clunky as they were in the 1990s. The head tracking is much better, and the resolution is a little better. They're still too heavy, too bulky, badly balanced, and need cables.

Apple can push AR onto their huge installed base of iPhones. People who have no idea what AR is will discover the feature and start using it. Only Apple and Google have an advantage like that.

I'm still waiting for the Apple TV set that jobs invented on his deathbed.

I'm still waiting for the Apple TV to have gigibit ethernet. Its wireless is faster than its wired interface.

No one is really responding to your question:

> Is there any evidence Apple has any advantage over the already quite competent, well-funded players who have already demonstrated significant progress in this area?

Yes. They obviously have world-class expertise in miniaturization, which is the key challenge for augmented reality glasses.

They also just released last year their AirPods, which have a custom chip for delivering low latency wireless streams of audio. Video or light field is the next step, but AirPods are on the market which means Apple already has an MVP out. That's a huge advantage.

The other key missing piece for any kind of mobile AR or VR is inside-out tracking. That, again, requires custom low-power silicon which is very much a strength for Apple. Compared to Google, Oculus, HTC, or any of the startups, Apple has much more experience with custom silicon. They acquired Metaio and Flyby, which build their machine vision base.

I love reading paragraphs like this:

The global market for AR products will surge 80 percent to $165 billion by 2024, according to researcher Global Market Insights. But Apple really has no choice, says Gene Munster, a founding partner at Loup Ventures who covered the company for many years as an analyst. Over time, Munster says, AR devices will replace the iPhone.

Oh, OK. Glad we've got all that sorted.

It's 2017, and e-books didn't replaces paper books, tablets didn't replace textbooks or laptops, gamers still use their PCs (it's not dead!), and consoles are still a thing despite the popularity of mobile games.

Someone please explain to reporters that the universe isn't zero sum.

It's 2017, e-books have hugely affected the paper book market, tablets have hugely affected the textbook and laptop markets. PCs are no longer a growing as a market and are actually shrinking a bit. Consoles aren't as lucrative as they used to be because of the popularity of mobile gaming.

Anyone in this industry who doesn't try to look ahead will be caught with their pants down. The byline:

> CEO Tim Cook is betting on augmented reality, a cousin of VR that he believes will keep his company on top and may even supplant the iPhone.

This is a completely reasonable statement in that context, it isn't as strong as Munster's quote above, but it probably wasn't meant to be that strong anyways.

Gene Munster, of course, is uniquely talented at predicting what Apple is going to do:

https://9to5mac.com/2011/10/24/analysts-apple-prototyping-te...

https://9to5mac.com/2015/05/19/munster-apple-television-retr...

That's kind of equivocating on "replace". The old tech hasn't been eliminated, but for many people it has been replaced. That is, it's been displaced.

I wonder where all these "billions of billions" IoT devices from the last "next big thing" went as had been forecasted for ~5 years now.

Gone with the watch. That's what happens when random analysts and the media hop onto a "trend" before it even exists or has proven itself.

At least they don't have to read the entrails of animals, like the ancient folks did. I guess, we can call that progress.

There are a lot of skeptical comments in this thread, but remember: Apple has revolutionized past industries like phones and tablets where other competitors failed miserably. A compelling AR product can and will exist eventually, and all this article is saying is that Apple will be competing in the AR field.

An aside, but I can imagine AR done right being extremely useful. I love the idea of being able to instantly have access to information on my phone, but it always requires typing or voice input. I could totally see just looking at something and tapping a button triggering a card that says "that thing you're looking at is this."

While that's just my dream, I'd much rather see people experimenting with new technologies rather than forgoing it with "Apple can't do X right, how can they do Y?" If anything, it could be because Apple is working on Y that X is taking a backseat for a while.

Before, Apple used to be led by a product visionary. Now it's led by a supply chain expert.

I seriously doubt Apple will develop another revolutionary product with the new leadership. My prediction is that paradigm shifting AR products will come from a product-driven organization, though Apple may buy them out and scale it...

I also have some very serious doubts about Tim Cook's abilities as a CEO.

However, it's quite obvious that AR is the next UX frontier:

Historic UX frontiers:

#1: text/console/terminal

#2: Graphical UI with a mouse (Apple sorta owned this at first)

#3: Mobile graphical UI with a capacitive touch screen (Apple owned this, at first)

#3.5 VR (but putting on a helmet is quite a bit too hardcore for mass adoption)

#4: AR

This progression is because of the 3.5 VR step quite obvious even to Tim Cook. So, I don't really doubt the claims that he's been doubling down on AR @ Apple. It all makes sense.

And once he has given the command, I have no doubt that the Apple company has enough talented people in each of the required competency areas to pull it off.

Perhaps the most important thing here is that a) Apple has lots of money, b) Apple/Cook has lots and lots of pressure to come up with the new thing.

I think we currently are in that particular place that doesn't require lots and lots of executive vision and taste.

Right - identifying AR as a hot area is easy, but formulating what that looks like requires vision. Money and talent will deliver the Palm Pilot (1997), vision will deliver an iPhone (2007).

My take on UX frontiers:

#1 text console #2 mouse & keyboard #3 touchscreen #4 camera & microphone

I think we're at the beginning of #4, and starting to see this in categories like messaging, social networks, dating, and e-commerce. I consider overlaying AR elements to a live camera feed to be a subset of this shift, but by no means the defining aspect of this new method to interact with machines.

> Right - identifying AR as a hot area is easy, but formulating what that looks like requires vision.

Good point. And an relevant parallel between Sculley's Newton and Cook's potential "AR innovation project".

However - I get the feeling that it's a bit different from the mobile/touch UI revolution. That required lots of vision in terms of software and design. In AR I think there's really a lot of low-hanging fruit in terms of UX/design - once the trick part; the AR hardware has been solved.

Thanks!

What low-hanging fruit do you see for AR?

I just don't see this happening, for a number of reasons related to the way Apple designs hardware - as unobtrusive, natural extensions of what we already do that you can hold but also toss aside as required.

And also because most of the "evidence" listed in the article has many other, simpler, uses in Apple's "incremental improvement" juggernaut. They can keep adding minor popular (and less risky) features without building in-your-face solutions that have uncertain acceptance.

Bloomberg might well be becoming the new Gizmodo as far as Apple coverage is concerned.

> Run by a former Dolby Laboratories executive, the group includes engineers who worked on the Oculus and HoloLens virtual reality headsets sold by Facebook and Microsoft as well as digital-effects wizards from Hollywood.

The entire focus of the article is AR, yet the author classifies HoloLens as a "virtual reality headset". This is sure to be embarrassing when he realizes the size of the gaffe.

I tend to be a skeptic with these types of technology but I must admit I've seen a video of supposed HoloLens footage (and even if it wasn't, it would do as a concept), that made me wonder.

This is the video I'm talking about: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mtS_224mKU

Now it's super flimsy and everything, but I guess those technologies are best imagined as they would look like if all hardware quirks were solved. I can definitely see a future where, instead of a desktop/laptop/tablet, you put on glasses and see an unlimited amount of virtual, arbitrarily-sized, floating monitors in front of you. Forget the 3D-gimmmicks, even. That alone sounds cool and useful. It's 2030 tech more than 2020 tech, probably, but I can see a future where this works.

People love to dismiss an idea because of its current hardware limitations, acting like nothing has ever gotten better as time goes on. Sure Hololens has a small FOV, but so does my 13" laptop and I'm using it just fine. Even if AR hardware never makes it to 180 degree FOV, it's still going to be a game changer.

There are two things to keep in mind when watching videos recorded through the HoloLens:

1. The frame rate and image stability are much better in person. The HoloLens has to cut the rendering frame rate in half to be able to record video through its front-facing camera because the camera and the display share a bus. So what you see is significantly degraded.

2. The constrained field of view is much more noticeable in person. With the video, you don't get to see anything out of the bounds of the frame, so there is no reminder that we can't "see" everything. Also, we are used to watching videos, so we don't think about the fact that we can't turn our eyes and look in different directions. What you see is significantly more generous to the HoloLens than reality.

I think the combination of the two factors generally makes the video an "accurate" representation of the HoloLens, even if it's not terribly "precise".

I don't consider the current iteration of the HoloLens to be a usable device. Comparably, the HTC Vive is a much better experience, one that is capable of providing to users an experience that is worth the drawbacks and the extra effort necessary to deal with them. The HoloLens is more effort than it is worth.

But on the other hand, tethered, completely opaque systems that require external tracking hardware for head and limbs are clearly a dead-end technology, even if that dead end is 5+ years from now. The end goal with mixed-reality technology is clearly in the HoloLen's lineage, not Vive or Rift or even Meta 2.

i tried the Walk On Mars hololens demo at a conference last year. It seemed very clunky at first, but a couple of minutes into the demo, I entirely unconsciously crouched down to look under a virtual rock outcropping - that was the point I knew my brain had bought it.

That's stuck with me. There's something there.

I'd rather want a new Mac Pro VR with a $20,000+ price tag. They should make something cool, and not this crippled stuff. Completely new virtual OS with built-in virtual programming language. Etc. Go crazy. Make it so that this is the workspace of the future for every professional. It's been too long that we have had to glimpse through these tiny windows. Break us free.

Yeah, seriously! Skip the car research. Bring us a virtual alternative that enables us to vastly reduce our need to travel! This is probably the closest we can ever get to teleportation. Why should I have to travel to various cities on either coast every few weeks to meet with clients? We should all be able to meet in a virtual space that allows us to connect nearly as intimately as an in person visit. The fact that we can do it far more often, would probably make for an even better relationship than we currently have with yearly live visits and lots of conference calls in between.

Probably for the same reason you're having to travel despite the telephone, FaceTime, secondlife, and email being invented. Telepresence isn't the same as physical presence, and the act of costing you is an important social signal itself. VR won't change that.

And how are people supposed to develop for this new technology if they haven't released a Mac pro for nearly 4 years, and graphic card support is well behind Windows?

Who says this has to come from the desktop/laptop hardware side of things? They make the fastest and more powerful mobile chipsets (including GPU) right now...

Mobile chipsets can barely support 1080p 2D 60FPS.

You want to support >1080p 3D graphics projected onto the real world with VERY harsh latency limits (human sensory). Modern GPU's that eat more than 100watts and have terraflops of compute power are only starting to offer the compute speeds VR needs.

With Moore's Law ending I don't see mobile ever being able to render VR settings to a sufficient degree.

This is a 4/5 year development project. And that's being optimistic. On top of that, I'm not sure AR needs that kind of power. It's not VR. Just needs to display some objects and text on field of vision.

Hololens, for example, it's far from being a powerful machine and seems to do it just fine. Obviously we are talking about taking the first steps in a field that is still in development. it's not going to be perfect at first.

I am more akin to believing the phone will automatically sync with whatever AR equipment you have and that will do the processing, like hooking up my laptop to the projector.

Mobile chipsets support 1440p stereo 3d 60FPS (Gear VR, Daydream)

If only it were possible for Apple to launch new dev hardware alongside the new platform. Whenever or if ever it comes out.

Probably via ThunderBolt3 connected eGPUs and whatever GPU comes in the next iMac update. Graphics card support isn't that difficult of a problem to solve. It'll never be on par with Windows but it doesn't have to be either. There are already a lot of AR/VR capable GPUs supported on macOS via the included AMD drivers and NVIDIA's third party drivers. It's probably a moot point though because they could just support testing on the AR device itself or perhaps with any other iOS devices with a similar GPU.

If only there were some way to get rid of all the cables! Could you, I don't know, and plug the GPU directly into a socket on your computer?? Then put everything inside a bigger box to keep it all tidy and clean.

I wonder if Apple is secretly working on something like that.

Apple just freshly created that problem by abandoning tech that wouldn't have required those cables.

Maybe they'll re-introduce it some day and call it revolutionary.

If you're counting on the iPhone of AR, expect to wait. The state of the art is more at the palm pilot stage.

There's too many bleeding edge technologies, both software and hardware related, that have to come together before a sleek and affordable consumer grade device can really be a thing.

I look at a company like Magic Leap, and it's disappointing to see how much money has been dumped on them. Now they have to build a consumer grade device to justify their valuation, and I don't think it's possible anytime soon. I think they should be working with a fraction of the capital they've received and be focusing on a killer enterprise app that some industry might be willing to pay $5000 per unit for a clunky and unfashionable device.

The only thing iPhone needs to become the best AR device on the market is rock solid low-latency positional tracking, low latency camera, and custom silicon for overlaying simple 3d graphics over the camera feed while using low power.

They don't need a headset.

They don't need stereo.

They don't need lightfield projection.

They just need an iPhone that feels like a handheld portal into augmented reality. I see no reason why they couldn't do that this year.

Heck, if they add positional tracking to the AirPods, it'll even feel immersive.

People have such a fundamental misunderstanding of Apple's business model. They do not invent—they refine. You won't see Apple release a VR/AR product because they simply haven't been in the market long enough. Their strategy has never been about being the first or even an early mover in a new technology.

It has always been about taking technologies which have been on the market for a substantial amount of time and iterating on a version that gets all the small details right until it reaches their very high internal standards for usability. Apple isn't interested in being the first to do something, they're interested in being the first to do something right.

Although I am skeptical that Apple will bring out a good, furnished AR product, I am afraid that they might actually be successful because developers have often showed a good inclination towards making apps for Apple devices, and it is one of the primary reasons why Apple has been really successful in what they do, they have apps. Microsoft's HoloLens uses apps from their Windows Store and those that they made themselves, which is a very big limitation for them, and when both devices are out in public and ready for use, Apple will probably get a much larger influx of apps for their device than other AR/VR products. Even failed Apple devices are good money-makers for Apple, and apps are one of the main reasons for it.

The only reason I see Apple failing in the AR and VR field is their lack of data. Apple refuses to save data from their users, and although it is something I admire about them, it is what drives Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence. Google and Microsoft is successful in this area because of the data they collect (via their Search engines and other OS services), which Apple does not. It is one of the reasons why Siri is competitively weaker than it's counterparts on Android and Windows, because it does not have a good data-driven Machine Learning backend, and unless Apple starts changing their policy on the type of data they collect and use from their devices, their AR/VR devices will go the same way, that is they will be successful in the amount of sales they make, but will be the weakest in terms of functionality and services they can provide.

> Microsoft's HoloLens uses apps from their Windows Store and those that they made themselves, which is a very big limitation for them, and when both devices are out in public and ready for use, Apple's devices will probably be more successful.

What does the current state of the various app stores have to do with AR? By that, I mean, AR applications are so fundamentally and significantly different than 2D apps that back catalogs are meaningless. Any new player to the AR ecosystem is starting with an essentially empty app store, regardless of whether or on they deploy it on top of a pre-existing, successful app store. We can effectively say that Microsoft has the largest AR app store in the world.

And, we can expect Windows Store to grow as they push Windows Holographic and their tethered, cheaper VR displays (the Hololens is still a $3000 "dev kit"). Apple is not just starting from behind, they haven't even started yet.

Apple does have more registered developers than any other company right now. It is why Apple is able to get a larger portion of the consumer market than other devices even when they arrive late. Just take Apple's Watch and it's competitors for instance (Android wear and Microsoft Band).

I see AR and VR being two very different markets. VR is going to initially be almost entirely for entertainment while AR will be almost entirely for industrial applications. The first commercially successful AR systems are going to be based around integration with software from companies like Autodesk, Bentley, Catia, Tekla and the like, not some consumer app store.

I suppose this is as good a thread as any to again make the claim that I don't think AI will be anything but a toy before AR is mainstream. For whatever reason right now the fashionable thing in tech is to pretend we don't have incredibly sophisticated and powerful meat brains in our heads and the best, most economical, and most feasible way forward is to completely eliminate it from every equation and replace it with silicon. When in truth the melding of silicon (binary) computers is easier and results in something much more powerful (and much sooner) than just silicon.

I'm fully aware computers will eventually outpace us. But the economic and human potential of human/computer augmentation is enormous and will likely last decades or even centuries in the "near" term. At some point we'll shed our obsessive fascination with denigrating humans as "old'n'busted" and remember just how incredible people can be.

> While the smartphone will do the heavy lifting, beaming 3D content to the glasses will consume a lot of power, so prolonging battery life will be crucial.

The compute required for the AR or VR experience that would satisfy Apple isn't going to happen on battery power. Perhaps the headset can be battery powered and tetherless. I think the base unit would have to be a new Mac Pro.

> Content is key too.

Stating the obvious. But less obvious is to define exactly what one means by "Content" in this new realm. Simple things like "games" and "movies" aren't going to attract new customers to the new realm. What I expect from Apple here is a paradigm shift like was the iPhone.

"Baidu goes all in on AI."

"Apple is betting on augmented reality."

What's next? "Facebook doubles down on human cybernetic enhancement"?

> What's next?

Uber folds.

when Apple looks at a technology it means the tech is ripe for mass production.

They can see profit here, i'm sure it will be a similar price to existing products, but the price has gone down enough for Apple's type of profit margin.

also apple are not desperate to make a quick buck, they'll spend 10 years on R&D on something till they think Starbucksers will be prepared to part with their cash.

And they're willing to let go of an idea - like the car, TV, etc that they have probably spent a nontrivial amount of money into. Or postpone it for a few years, like the ipad which was conceived well before the iphone.

As an Apple fan, this smells like the Apple car rumours. Moonshot projects to retain talent perhaps?

Either way, AR is more suited to Apple than VR, even if more of a technical challenge.

My BMW had a rather rudimentary HUD (they've since gotten a lot better). I think something like that for personal use would be really cool: the ability to look via some glasses or something at an object and see wikipedia snippets or the like. Or turn by turn directions as I walk without looking at a phone, pretty cool.

I think Apple could leverage it's supply chain in this market very well. The product is small, intimate, and needs to work well with a minimalist interface. With the right sort of eye tracking, it could optimize CPU/GPU time only where the user is actually looking.

Wait. I thought that was wearables? No wait, the TV, or was it cars? Oh gosh I've lost track.

"The global market for AR products will surge 80 percent to $165 billion by 2024"

So, current market is $32 billion a year? Where is that market? Mostly military and for professionals, I would guess?

I think Apple's play here should be around making iPhones amazing online clothes shopping devices. I would kill for a way to see how shoes or a shirt would fit before buying them online.

https://www.mtailor.com

I've used this for a few flannel and dress shirts. It works pretty well.

I initially thought Amazon has to buy this. They would dominate retail if they can flip those last remaining shoppers for clothes who need to buy in person in order to try on clothes.

This app has incrementally improved over time, and added products. Initially you could only buy shirts. Now they have pants, suits and just recently added jeans. There's a lot of potential there...

That tagline perfectly targets a man with certain feelings on masculinity: "Stop Wearing Another Man's Clothing." I get that it is another way to present the idea of having clothes tailored, but it makes me think of how I used to trick my son into eating his all of his dinner by asking if he was man enough to eat it all or not.

lets have apple get their bread n' butter stuff right first. Like how unplugging a USBC -> Displayport cable causes my macbook to crash requiring a hard boot, several times a day.

I'd honestly be more interested in them focusing on existing products. I'm still skeptical of VR/AR really becoming mainstream. The best AR app so far is what? Pokemon Go?

Apple will likely ship an AR device this year using the tech they've acquired from metaio/primeSense. All signs are indicating an AR-enabled iPhone 8.

i'm excited to see what comes next for AR/VR, but without any prototype or demonstration, it seems more like investor fodder than real tech.

Worked so well for Goggle and Microsoft so far.

That's why they might do so well. They can study what Google and MS did, learn from that, and then if develop something that works they will be hailed as "pioneers."

Like with smartphones. Google and Microsoft do the hard work and then Apple swoops in and claims to have invented stuff.

> Like with smartphones. Google and Microsoft do the hard work and then Apple swoops in with something that consumers actually want to buy.

FTFY.

I have friends in VR and apple has tried recruiter them last year. It wasn't for their development experience. Only their VR work.

Could this be just a decoy strategy from Apple while they work on something more tangible? AR is not a smaller disc or faster processor, AR does not exist - yet - and may very well never exist due to physical constraints (you can not paint black etc).

I'm not sure what you're talking about. AR already exists:

https://www.microsoft.com/microsoft-hololens/en-us

It isn't necessarily useful but it exists.

As for whether this is a decoy strategy... Apple aren't even promoting this so it's not a strategy on their part; it's just information pieced together from hirings, anecdotes and guesses.

Makes sense for Apple to spend some resources investigating potential large & new technologies, even if they don't produce a product. The field will shift when AR and self-driving cars and [insert intriguing vaporware here] arrive, so Apple should take a good hard look at the impact, if not the product potential, before they're too far behind the curve.

    One of the features Apple is exploring is the ability to take a picture and then change 
    the depth of the photograph or the depth of specific objects in the picture later; another
    would isolate an object in the image, such as a person's head, and allow it to be tilted 
    180 degrees. A different feature in development would use augmented reality to place 
    virtual effects and objects on a person, much the way Snapchat works.

Oh come on.

I'm completely unimpressed to hear Apple working on AR if that's the best they can do.

It's a fabulously hard problem that no one has come close to solving; and to be fair, if they poured R&D $$$ into it, maybe they could make something out of it...

...but you know, since I can't use a Vive or Occulus on a mac, because of the ancient ass version of opengl they support, and the ridiculous on going split between vulkan and metal, I'm kind of unimpressed by the weight of their technical prowess at this point.

I don't believe it. General consumer AR won't come from Apple.

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