Apple will be the one to win VR. They’ll wait until the very last possible moment. All Meta is doing is making their R&D cheaper.
Google should bring back Cardboard. Even with crappy quality, people will try it out for $10.
Google should bring back Cardboard. Even with crappy quality, people will try it out for $10.
Of course, those are mostly their successes. They had stumbles too, no doubt.
If there's one thing Apple excels at, its convincing the mass market to adopt technologies that currently only cater to a niche audience. I have no idea what their plans for VR are, but I do imagine if they do something in it they'll make some waves. But maybe it'll turn out like the Newton. Maybe they will never launch a VR product. Who knows.
This is just flat-out wrong.
They may have shot up in popularity after phones stopped having headphone jacks, but there was certainly a Bluetooth headphone market before that.
> Personal media players weren't nearly as mainstream before the iPod.
Again, wayyyyy off base.
Personal CD players were VERY popular and common in the late 90s. I'd wager Napster and the advent of CD burners popularized them even more.
> Almost all of these product markets existed and mostly catered to niche audiences before Apple jumped in.
Cringe. This reeks of the attitude common attitude around 2010 where Apple fanboys would praise Steve Jobs for his innovation when Apple would implement a feature into iPhone that Android had for years.
> If there's one thing Apple excels at, its convincing the mass market to adopt technologies that currently only cater to a niche audience.
They excel at UI/UX. From a purely technical standpoint, they're often a couple years behind, but if you polish the crap out of it, people don't notice.
By personal media players, I'm talking about MP3 players and iPod-like devices. Essentially post-CD players. They existed, they weren't popular. Even the initial iPod took a while to gain a real market presence.
I'm not an Apple fanboy, but I can definitely acknowledge there were lots of markets which were largely ignored by the mass market until Apple made it cool and easy to use. I had a 3G phone which could do video calls when the iPhone came out, so I definitely understand that Apple isn't usually on the bleeding edge of technology, they're just the ones that often manage to refine it enough to be acceptable by the mass market.
They weren't popular because they just simply sucked.
Flash memory was still expensive, so they'd usually only have enough room for 10 songs at the most. They didn't have displays to see file names, which I suppose isn't a big deal when you only have 10 songs.
> Even the initial iPod took a while to gain a real market presence.
I don't even consider the iPod to be innovative in any way besides maybe the click wheel. It was just that the iPod was the first product that was actually designed to be a good product and not a cheap money grab designed to get a few dollars from all the Napster users.
To put it more bluntly, IMO, all the other products were made by boneheads. The iPod was the bare minimum of what an MP3 player should have been. It wasn't innovative, it just wasn't made by boneheads.
Personally, I had always expected MP3 CD players to become a thing. I didn't like the iPod's idea of a hard drive (Though they weren't the first to make a portable MP3 player that used a hard drive). I expected them to have high failure rates from head crashes.
Ever since the ipod came out people were salivating for the possibility of an iphone. Upon it's release the hype for it was incredible and had been building for years.
Virtually everyone I know has a pair of non-airpod blue tooth headphones.
Everyone had a walkman, then a discman, pre-ipod. Yea adoption of early mp3 players wasn't particularly high because they were not that great, but the same is true for the mini-disc (which I believe had even lower adoption). I still knew quite a few people that had pre-ipod mp3 players.
Even among my gamer friends very, very few people have an Oculus. Everyone of the few people I knew who got an occulus (including myself) has had the exact same experience: First month, "wow this is a game changer!" second month, it's collecting dust. I know of literally no one who has used a VR headset weekly for a period longer than 3 months.
And yet barely anyone bought the devices which were already on the market which could have filled that niche. Which yes, they existed, almost exclusively listened to music on bluetooth headphones through my phone before the iPhone released. Even streaming internet radio over a 3G connection before the non-3G iPhone was released. The market wasn't wanting a smartphone, they wanted specifically an iPod phone. Because, once again, Apple is great at making the general market want tech that roughly already exists, but just isn't very popular yet.
> Yea adoption of early mp3 players wasn't particularly high because they were not that great
There were good MP3 players on the market before the iPod came out, but they weren't very popular. There was a bit of a lack of ecosystem with them and a massive lack of marketing.
I do agree there's not a large market for VR at the moment, and I agree its entirely possible there won't ever be a large market for it. I'm not saying its a given Apple will make a VR headset, I'm just arguing if they do it, it'll probably make a splash given their track record of releasing decently polished products with a good enough ecosystem to get the market to buy it. I don't think Apple would just dump a half-baked VR headset into the market.
In the US, I was not even aware of mobile broadband availability before iPhone 3G. And whatever quality mobile internet was available, I assumed was very costly and metered.
Some combination of the timing of iPhone 3G release coinciding with widespread deployment of 3G mobile broadband access and/or Apple negotiating ATT to provide unlimited data made it possible to have a little pocket computer that could stream whenever, wherever, however much you want.
That was a game changer. A lot of the big tradeoffs that people had to make with smartphones before iPhone 3G disappeared to make it a very compelling product compared to its competitors.
It was a $15/mo add-on to get up to 3Mbps unlimited data on my phone on AT&T in the US in 2006.
3G came out multiple years before the iPhone 3G.
I had a pocket computer with unlimited data on AT&T the day people were buying the original iPhone.
I just remember mobile companies charging nickel and diming for everything extra, so I never bothered to try and use anything that was not phone calls/SMS since those had been made unlimited and included in cheaper mobile plans.
I would buy unlocked GSM phones online and just pop my dumb phone SIM card into them. AT&T seemed to not recognize the IMEIs or at least wouldn't care that they weren't the cheap dumb phone on my plan. Then I'd have apps like Opera Mini and Google Maps. IMAP email would sync on the device without issue. internet instant messengers worked fine. I could stream music through m3u's. When the iPhone came out nothing about it seemed revolutionary to me, as I was a part of that niche market. Most consumers didn't even realize they could do those things on their phone, and for a lot of users it would be too complicated for them to even really consider it.
What is the main killer use case of VR? How many people want it or would enjoy it or would pay for it?
The main use cases I see are gaming, and of that market only certain kinds of games. Then on top of that its challenging having the space to play those games safely. Personally, I really enjoy my VR headset, I love playing games like Star Wars: Squadrons in VR.
I think of that in terms of “escape from reality” or “entertainment”.
I suppose there are also educational use cases and remote control use cases.
Apple takes existing markets grows them and sets the new standard: PCs, smartphones, fitness trackers, headphones… Not first or early mover.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/263437/global-smartphone...
The market for smartphones was miniscule before Apple made the mass market decide they really wanted one. I don't deny there were smartphones which existed before the iPhone, I used them and enjoyed them. But most consumers didn't have them. These days most people over the age of 16 have a smartphone, you can't say that was true in the Blackberry heyday.
Apple didn't make the smartphone. Apple made the public want to buy a smartphone.
In the early days no one wanted computers either.
I think there will be a market for VR. However, I'm not entirely convinced games and entertainment are it. Certainly I think there will be a market for those, as well; but I can't shake the feeling that it doesn't actually add too terribly much to them.
The social aspect of entertainment is completely missed with VR. We want to do things /with people/ when we are being social. Is why people watch sports games in parties. Most of the folks at the party are marginally interested in the sport, but in the people they are there with.
For games, 3d shooter is certainly a genre. But it isn't the only one. And the casual market that they hope to capture is largely not the 3d market.
Once we're there then we can see what sort of future VR has.
Think about it, even the amazing open world games like Zelda will be nigh inaccessible in a VR world where you have to actually climb. Yes, you can get some sweeping visuals where you can turn your head to see the landscape, but a large TV already goes a long way to getting that, with much much better controls for the movement. So, you can get enhanced "you can turn your head to look around," but at the tremendous cost of "everything else about moving and interacting is completely broken. You will still need obviously untenable item management. Want to have many weapons? It will be hilariously off looking compared to everything else in the world.
Can it help with some desktop management and such for work? I mean, maybe? It will definitely be a good aide. I'd wager the high level workers are already "retreating into their brain" for a lot of their work, such that I don't expect miracles out of AR assistance.
Robotics and control do have a lot of promise, of course. But, again, I'm more questioning gaming and entertainment.
Even if climbing is an challenge insurmountable then you'd just make games with out it. Elevation changes could be handled by predefined paths.
>Yes, you can get some sweeping visuals where you can turn your head to see the landscape, but a large TV already goes a long way to getting that, with much much better controls for the movement
I think you're way underselling the impact of VR. It's a massive upgrade and a different level of immersion. You don't see people face planting trying to jump off a building when it's a TV.
Plus those stationary treadmill things look cool as shit. If you get that working plus the headset it's really something. Even just taking an evening walk through Paris/Tokyo/the Himalayas would be bonkers if all the technology comes together.
And then think of transferring that to "we want you to feel like you are in a vast world.... that you can physically traverse in less than a day. Probably less than an hour."
But to get to that stage you need to at the very least integrate all that functionality into a set of glasses (more than 60% of all people already wear glasses daily anyway), and you also need direct brain interfacing control to make it practically usable at all.
Way beyond anything we can currently do these days unfortunately.
And, as I said elsewhere, also not gaming/entertainment focused. Arguably anti-social.
Indeed, for many folks that like the idea of online socializing, we like it /because/ it is not necessarily visual.
The Occulus Rift came out six years ago. We are well into the phase of VR where improvements are incremental each generation.
If that's the end of it, VR is doomed to remain a curious niche. It struggles to deliver compelling results for thousands of dollars (headset plus powerful enough PC), and if all we ever get from now on are tiny incremental updates, we'll never reach a steady state where perceived quality, relative to contemporary 2D offerings, can keep up.
This is all about where the ball is going to be tomorrow, not where it is today.
I can ??? by strapping an enormous headset to my face, flailing my arms around, and getting sick to my stomach and lightening my wallet by $500-$1500 with VR headsets. What do I gain by doing this?
VR headsets are far more bulky and intrusive. They don’t allow for easy context switching between cyberspace and the real world, and they’re not portable enough to be used on the go like a smartphone.
Have you compared headsets lately? Because just recently I have, and this shit is changing. A 2017 Vive is very different from a 2021 Oculus from that friction POV. With nm chip architectures and battery tech improving, it really doesn’t take that much imagination to predict where they will be in 2025 or 2030.
Personally, I think one of the killer features for this category will be matured inside-out hand-tracking. Not having to do anything but put the headset on your head makes a huge difference.
When? When is this magic moment where it stops sucking? We've been told oh just wait for better hand tracking... oh wait for better screens... oh wait for portable/wireless headsets... oh wait...
Shit or get off the pot VR. You've had 10 years.
I am not a VR believer by any stretch, but this is such myopic thinking.
And all those inventions piggy backed off a very rapid pace of hardware getting faster, smaller, more power efficient and cheaper at the same time.
Moore's law meanwhile is dead, the rate at which CPUs/GPUs get faster is slowing down considerably, and VR needs a lot faster and cheaper and more power efficient hardware just to become affordable at reasonable quality.
That's not a good starting point, especially when you're a publicly traded company and your future depends on reaching that inflexion point soon™.
And then you still run into practicality problems:
• User input is still fairly clunky. Touchscreens just removed most of the friction of computer input devices, VR puts it back in. That won't make it particularly popular. Granted, future advances in hand/finger tracking might solve this, but this adds another set of sensors and hardware to make sense of them, when VR headsets are already struggling to reduce the bill of materials to become affordable.
• VR needs lots and lots of space. Digital cameras, MP3 players, smartphones, laptops, … for the most part reduced the amount of space a family needs to do things, compared to what came before, which made them a no-brainer for all demographics. No amount of technology improvement can really reduce VR's space demand without compromising on user experience. Not a problem for US tech bros, but ask an European or Asian family what they feel about doubling their rent so one family member gets enough space to use VR. Not gonna happen.
What a strange anthropomorphization of technology/product. Is this somehow hurting you personally? Is there some other technology being developed by someone that is somehow not “getting it’s turn”?
VR though... it's really hard to imagine use cases that will cause a billion people to buy a headset and wear it for a number of hours a day.
Or that excessive use of the device will probably have long-term consequences for your eyes. As a long-time user of smartphones, I am beginning to wonder if staring at a small screen has accelerated aging in my eyes. I can only imagine the damage from poorly calibrated VR glasses.
You gain nothing - not right now, not today. Nobody is holding a gun to your head. Nobody is saying this stuff works today.
And you can get into VR for much less than $500. Have been able to for years now.
Which isn't good then, it's so cheap yet barely adopted?
Speakers are, with few exceptions, inconsiderate of folks around you.
The iPhone completely changed the game, no doubt, but there were a lot of non-techies that had smart phones and used them heavily prior to the iphone's release.
Apple made a successful bet that multi-touch screens/UI done with sufficient discipline could be not an enormous pain in the ass to use. And that a well groomed AppStore would create a plethora of opportunities for change. Without Android quickly following that model we wouldn’t then have the arms race of functionalities. This is probably something Meta is hoping for - that this time around they will have a better seat at the table than they got in that smartphone arms race. I’m looking forward to all of it.
I personally like to sit back and watch random "experiences," virtual tours and stuff and when I introduce someone new to VR I show them these first rather than games. Complete immersion without having to think about what to do with your hands.
Another interesting experience is Liminal https://liminalvr.com/ It uses sounds/visual stimulation with the intent of affecting your "mood" and it's being developed by bona fide psychological researchers. It's truly something that can only exist in VR!
Assuming you aren't serious about becoming a jedi and don't do it enough to give yourself RSI it should be OK. Maybe not as good as a personal trainer but I'd be shocked if it was worse than sitting on the couch, on balance.
Also, with the cameras on the headset as well as peripherals they can give you some idea of where your body is.
Unless they completely surround your eyes to block outside light, VR "sunglasses" would absolutely awful. For VR to work well, you need immersion, which is not possible when the edge of your vision is filled with the scene of where you are in the real world.
AR sunglasses on the other hand would be great, but I'm not convinced AR has much of a future outside of some specific niches.
The biggest hurdle for any sort of portable VR or AR is compute and power. VR is incredibly compute intense, which means portable headsets only have a 1-2 hour battery life and need a heavy battery.
AR perhaps, but that’s a whole different set of use cases. A single device cannot adequately cater to this “spectrum” of full vs, semi-immersion.
That's a bit more than a niche.
vr market value
vr devices sold
If I can do it, so can every other person on this forum.
But the VR excitement pool has been poisoned by Meta’s image and a decade of overpromise.
Where would VR even be if Zuck hadn't bet facebook on it? I'm not sure it'd be getting the attention it is, the hardware isn't ready, the software isn't ready and frankly users aren't ready.
Cardboard -> Note 4 with Gear VR -> S8+ with newer Gear VR -> Oculus Rift CV1 -> Oculus Quest 2 -> Selling my Quest 2 (and CV1) because Facebook (temporarily) made Facebook accounts mandatory to use it.
I doubt I'll ever purchase another VR headset from them in the future.
Cardboard blew my mind at the time, I was so excited to get a taste of VR.
I'll probably buy a Valve Index 2 if it ever happens.
Portable VR is highly limited by battery power. VR requires high pixel counts and high framerates to be immersive, and pushing that many pixels uses a lot of power.
It looks like it's similar to Cisco's telepresence.
https://sea.mashable.com/tech-1/20432/60-of-entire-gaming-ma...
I guess mobile will be the proof of the future of VR one way or the other. Mobile game companies have the funds to conduct the research to determine if VR increases profits and customer spend, and by how much.
Other articles I've read have said they are somewhere between Microsoft and Sony as far as gaming revenues go.