Apple headset leak reveals new details and confirms earlier rumors | Hacker News Reader

Apple headset leak reveals new details and confirms earlier rumors

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99 pointsmmq155 comments

I continue to think that if anyone could actually pull off mainstream AR it would be Apple... I am just not convinced the tech is ready for it to be mainstream.

I feel like for it to be mainstream it needs to be borderline invisible (or just looking like normal glasses). Bonus if it can just be contacts (yes I know science fiction here).

Part of the reason I think Apple is in a place to possibly actually make it a thing though, is their track record of taking an existing category and fixing usability issues. See Tablets, Smart Watches... and of course Smart Phones.

They have also been building their AR platform for years and been getting developers to use it. If they are smart with how they have done that, the work for those apps should "easily" translate to this device.

That being said cost is going to be a major issue here, as well as size like I already mentioned. But unlike a certain company... Apple is not known for abandoning projects and I would hope that they are smart enough to realize that this is not a device that will make a profit in the short term

A lot has to happen for mainstream AR to be viable. But it's an example of a technology that, if it could surpass a lot of very significant technology hurdles, would be very interesting to a lot of people and probably scary to others. And a bit of both to most.

One use case that comes to mind is virtual tours in museums and such. I remember going to the Louvre in 2015 and you could rent a Nintendo DS with audio and location tracking and then as you approached a work it would point out various details.

These glasses don't just have to be consumer focused, though. I imagine if you wanted to repair your TV or install a new whatever to your car, or clean your gutters glasses like this could help or provide interesting features. Imagine if you work at a car dealership and you wear these to repair an in-warranty car. You don't know where the parts are, you look around, the glasses identify the parts and steps 1...n to locate the parts and then where to place them around the car in the optimal positions. Or inventory tracking...

I know there are a lot of potential anti-patterns here as well, but we could see some really cool features come out of these or similar devices.

Although you can do a lot the museum stuff on a phone. Most isn't great today--in part, because it's probably hard to incrementally monetize.

AR repair stuff sounds really hard to get beyond what you can already get on YouTube--or just training in general. Auto repair is probably mostly constrained by a lot of the complicated edge cases and physical realities of rust and other environmental factors.

I prefer to think of what could be. In the case of cars glasses could identify where a part is or something and highlight it, almost like how it is done in video games with object selection. Cars are standard so it’s a matter of whether there is a payoff and how difficult it is to do. I imagine since CAD models for every part are created there is synergy there. No more “where does part X go?” - instead you can get highlighted areas potentially with facts and such. Parts could be embedded with small signal mechanisms or a QR code. There are many possibilities.

> Imagine if you work at a car dealership and you wear these to repair an in-warranty car

Any employed car mechanics here to comment on this? I would think unless you're in training you would not need this. I also suspect it's a poor idea to rely or depend on this kind of technology as a mechanic. I'm not a mechanic or engineer so maybe I'm very wrong here.

100% Agree.

The hard part is that I don't think we will have the perfect device for this right out the gate. It just isn't realistic. Partially because I think a lot of those hurdles are societal like you said.

So something with the potential needs to be put out there (that won't be abandoned) and then changed as we figure out how society dictates what is and is not acceptable.

This is one of those things that... I am really glad they are doing it. But I doubt I will buy even the first couple iterations unless they pull some price shocker with it. But we have seen to many abandoned attempts that they might as well have never existed when it comes to how we use them on a daily basis.

The first iPhone has no App Store no custom app, no push notifications, no Retina display, no iMessage, horrible camera, incredibly slow cellular.

Basically all the things that make iPhones popular and addictive didn’t exist on the first model.

Nonetheless it was a complete and utter success.

I think technology problem has been solved, mostly. Google glass came out what? 10 years ago? Remember the "Glass Holes?"

The problem is society. I personally don't want to hang out with anyone who has a camera always on, possibly recording everything I say.

I agree, but this is literally the world we already live in. On my coffee break walk I past 12 Amazon-owned front door cameras alone. I know there are pictures of me on Facebook , even though I’ve never had an account there…

I don’t disagree at all with your privacy concerns - but I disagree that it will be a problem. I think the population of people that care about not being on other people’s cameras enough to complain and make those people stop using their camera-laden devices is very, very small.

Google glass was far from solving the technology. Not anymore than saying Nokia had solved mobile phones with the 3310. Both were fantastic devices but so far from what is available now.

there are so many other issues like reliable object detection, slam quality, waveguide or display optics, rendering quality, battery life, latency etc…

that plus I just prefer reality? 2d video + a shared white board is great for 99% of everything I need for remote stuff. I have enjoyed a few video games with a headset but outside of that I don't want to wear one 8 hours a day (or longer?), even if it's glasses. I have a feeling that I'm not alone with this in discussions I've had with friends and coworkers about metaverse and other versions of it.

What share whiteboard app are you using? Or do your literally mean a shared whiteboard?

I don't think it needs to be "mainstream" even in the upcoming gen, in the way that phones/laptops are "mainstream".

For the initial market I think that replacing work/gaming PCs is a good enough start. I'd love to be able to fully replace my gaming PC/work computer with something like this. (And I'm keeping a close eye on simula VR. ;) )

Batteries imo is the biggest hurdle, something this intense with only a two hour battery life like other portable devices, steam deck, is a real issue to being a drop in replacement for a work laptop.

EDIT: Also as far as a killer app, I don't think video calls are the right way to look at it per se.

Immediate and immersive personal connection are a huge plus imo. Example, would you rather see your long distance parter on a phone screen, or in full body form sitting next to you?

The magnetic battery packs for iPhones would be ideal for swapping out waist attached power as described in the leak. Imagine that you had a couple of these batteries and one could be charging while the other was in use and then you just swap. Bonus because they also act as extra power for your iPhone and lock you into the Apple ecosystem even more.

> Bonus if it can just be contacts (yes I know science fiction here).

AR contacts might not be that sci-fi [1]

I don’t know if what I’m linking to is even the best example, but I was pretty sure I’d seen or heard of the tech before and just searched for it…. Very cool if real!

[1] https://www.mojo.vision/mojo-lens

This seems like something out of Black Mirror. Imagine ads that you cannot shut out by closing your eyes; they would just keep playing unless you rip out your contacts. Horrifying.

There are a lot of pieces, but one thing that we'll see stranglehold any devices from Apple is the app store. Browser based interaction only goes so far, especially for a new technology, and some apps just won't pass the app store review process.

I agree that if anybody could do it then Apple could but I just don't think there's a market for it. The iPhone succeeded because everybody needs a telephone. Nobody has yet shown a reason for actually needing a pair of VR goggles. VR goggles just look plain dumb today and the concept art looks rubbish too.

You could also argue that nobody needed the iPad -- and in fact many people still have no use for tablets -- but it still created a significant new market for Apple and plenty of interesting applications. It doesn't need to take over the world to be successful.

There are a lot of reasons the iPhone succeeded but judging by how much I use mine as a phone, as opposed to everything else I do on it, I don't think it's the phone part of the iPhone that made it successful. Apple was able to convince ordinary consumers they needed a tiny computer with them all the time, creating a new market. Same for AR. Current AR glasses don't have the pull for consumers yet but as soon as that killer app comes out we'll see how the market evolves and changes.

I can’t imagine anyone buying a $3000 headset for “videoconferencing” as the killer feature.

Would Apple build a VR headset & new operating system just to position it similarly to the Pro Display XDR? Because that’s what these rumors sound like - a super high end hardware for a very narrow professional market. I think the rumors must be getting at least one or two key elements very wrong because the overall picture doesn’t make much sense.

Perhaps the rumors conflate an Apple VR Headset - Mass Market ($5XX) with an Apple VR Headset - Developer Kit ($3000)?

On the subject of the belt battery pack, The Information reported that earlier prototypes used a power-tool LiIon battery at the waist; maybe this is incorrect holdover and we don’t see a production device that works that way?

> I can’t imagine anyone buying a $3000 headset for “videoconferencing” as the killer feature.

Believe it. "Social presence"[0], the feeling of actually being in the room with another human being, is a very real phenomenon. Its influences are things like gaze following, head movements, hand gestures-- things flatscreen video chat has not and likely will never be able to capture veridically. Its impacts are things like empathy, affinity, trust-- things you very much care about when money is at stake.

To be excessively glib, social presence is why deals are still being won by the firmer handshake, not the better term sheet.

Can Apple deliver this today? Who knows. No one's done it outside of a lab before. But if they can, this isn't competing with video chat-- it's competing with airplanes. And if they can, $3000 is an unbeatable price.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_presence_theory

Apple can’t even do realistic gesture tracking with their memojis on their highest end iOS devices. It’s appallingly bad and can pretty much only do a dozen or so expressions and with lag. I highly doubt their ability to do this in a more serious setting.

There’s enough issues in video conferencing today with audio codec compression and video buffering and Bluetooth issues - I would not want to add an entirely virtual layer on top of that. “Can you hear me?” will be replaced by “are you angry?” when it mistranslates a facial expression. Miscommunication over digital medium (text) is already a huge issue.

I just tried it on iPhone 14 Pro Max. There is no lag at all. Also I am not sure what exactly is appallingly bad? It's pretty good. If you are expecting Pixar quality gestures then that's on you

...and don't forget the benefit of having your persona represented as a Memoji -- you don't have to waste your morning prettying your self up. Hygiene, of course, keep doing that. But what if you didn't have to even concern yourself if your hair is unkempt or you're just wearing the sweatshirt you slept in.

Time savings given back to people is worth something.

> No one's done it outside of a lab before.

Depends on the person. There are many videos [1] where people report that feeling of social presence e.g. whilst working in a virtual cafe.

Question now is whether Apple/Meta can bring that feeling to everyone.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAA9hBwnQKQ

Indeed, and to clarify, it's not a binary feeling for anyone-- IRC is better than email, FaceTime is better than the telephone. VRChat is state of the art on prosumer hardware, but it's not competitive with the boardroom. Yet.

Today? No. Tomorrow? Maybe.

I think it will be an expensive luxury for another while, but commonplace in a decade or so.

It all seems really odd, and the waist-mounted battery pack makes me question the credibility of this 'leak'. Apple won't let me plug in my headphones, but they will force me to wear a lithium-ion Walkman? It just doesn't make sense. The pricing is all wrong and the anticipation of a "killer app" seems way off-base. It's either a very confused product that probably shouldn't release, or a questionable leaker.

FWIW, having used the Oculus Quest, my primary thought on how to make VR go mainstream is to reduce the size/weight/bulk of the headset. Strapping the battery to my waist/chest/back/leg/arm would be strongly preferable to having it on my head.

It's easy and convenient to snake a power cable down my shirt and into my pocket -- I do this all the time with my corded headphones to keep the wire out of the way.

I agree that it doesn't seem very "Apple" in that it's not a sexy solution, but there may be real physical constraints to battery size here that are not surmountable without a giant breakthrough in battery technology (that would probably be bigger news than anything VR related).

I fly FPV drones, and use a headset for that - a Skyzone 04X. It doesn't have an onboard battery, but I can plug in a Li-Po, put it in my pocket, and let the cable just kinda hang. It doesn't get in the way and is significantly more comfortable than my Quest 2.

The main problem with the Quest 1's (and Quest 2's) weight is that it's all in the front, making you feel top-heavy; you can actually make it feel "lighter" by adding weights to the back (commonly, external battery packs, but I literally strapped a ziplock bag of sand to the back and even that was an improvement)

The Quest Pro is a major improvement in this regard; despite being heavier on paper, it feels much lighter because of the weight distribution.

That said, I wouldn't be surprised if the waist-mounted battery pack is purely for auxiliary power for extended use, which makes sense.

Really? Having used wired VR, my primary thought on making VR go mainstream was to remove the wires. The Quest has problems, sure, but the vision of an "all-in-one" headset is simply so Apple that I'm not sure Apple can resist it. With more efficient hardware and more elaborate battery tech, Apple may well be able to brute-force these issues (especially if they're optimizing for video calls).

It's just really bizarre to read about. Its very possible that Apple is working on a headset, but these rumors just don't sound like something they'd do.

Wires by themselves are not evil, the annoying thing about what we consider "wired VR" is that the wires are attached to some fixed point in space (the computer), so you need to dedicate some spatial awareness to where the wires are and periodically untangle yourself or whatever.

In contrast, a wire between two parts of the body that don't move that much in normal operation is basically effortless, and besides the knee-jerk perception "eww wires" isn't a real issue. (By "don't move that much" I mean that the movement range of the spine, the longest section of body that the wire would span, is much more limited than, say, the arms. Controllers wired to a headset would be supreme chaos, but headset wired to a belt piece is not nearly as bad)

I tried the Magic Leap at work, and the computing and battery is off-headset, attached to your pants or something with a simple wire. It did not impair usage nearly as much as, say, my HTC Vive, which has a long wire to my computer I must take care not to step on or tangle myself.

On the other hand, when going out with VR friends, the Quest users are always the first to head off, due to their batteries running low, even though the humans would be comfortable continuing to use it. So I guess a place to put more battery, or even more computing power, (though that is rather more complicated) would not be a bad idea at all.

Generally, I agree. I played a lot of Beat Saber with wired headphones to lower the latency, and the effect of two connected headpieces wasn't too distracting. I'll even concede that tethering headsets is probably the way to go, for now.

What I don't understand is this best-of-both-worlds approach that people seem to be illustrating. If you're going to be tethered either way, why would anyone use it with the battery pack plugged in? Will the battery pack be an optional accessory altogether? Will the battery pack also have the CPU in it? Where will it plug in?

There's so many questions that just don't make sense here. Even previous shockers like the Macbook notch can be easily waived with aspect ratios and the menubar - this just makes no sense to me. Especially if they're chasing benign use-cases like office aides.

> Quest users are always the first to head off, due to their batteries running low

I'm not sure if they know this, but you can charge the Quest while using it. I use the same 20-foot USB-C cable I used for tethering and it works fine, albeit adding a bit of clunk.

There is a huge difference to being tethered to a fixed device (like a desktop computer) and having a wire running to your own body. Having a wire running to your own body, you can still do all of the spinning/ducking/jumping/whatever that all sorts of games require without worrying about getting tangled.

Running the wire down the inside of my shirt and to my hip is completely negligible. Having a wire plugged in to a stationary device / the wall is absolutely non-negligible.

> you can charge the Quest while using it

Yeah, but you need a really long cable or be restricted to sitting games. Most of my friends don't have that, only a short charging cable. (They use the WiFi linking for playing PC VR games)

And the one that does have a long cable fears using it for anything where you have to turn around, because there isn't much strain relief, and a broken USB port of a Quest in Brazil is an expensive repair.

As I recall from the article, the batteries will be swappable. That means:

1. There will be a small battery in the headset

2. Processor can't be on your waist/pocket

The most successful headset will be one that is powerful and lightweight. Right now we seem to only be able to make one of those things. If it's powerful, then it's a heavy, bulky brick strapped to your head. If it's lightweight, then it's laggy and nauseating.

Moving some of the heft to a separate module is one way to cheat and get both of those things. It's a 3rd tradeoff.

When you used wired VR in the past, was it tethered to a stationary computer? If so, then this is different at least because you're not tied to any specific spot in the room.

All that said, I agree that it's very "un-Apple-like" to have a clunky two-piece solution. But it might be a stepping stone solution to show what's possible with a lithe-but-powerful headset.

> But it might be a stepping stone solution to show what's possible with a lithe-but-powerful headset.

Like the dozens of headsets without batteries that preceded them? I think Apple has a shot at delivering a decent tethered VR experience or a decent standalone experience but not both. If they try chasing this $3,000 'worst of both worlds' solution, they'll never move more units than Oculus/Meta has (over 10 million to-date).

I'm being generous and assuming that this is misinformation, but releasing a product like this might be their biggest head-scratcher since the upside-down Magic Mouse.

I may be showing my ignorance here... Did all those previous headsets actually work with a small belt-mounted module? Or did they connect to a gaming PC?

I'm imagining that the rumored product here has a small thing you clip on your waist, not a full-blown computer with an Nvidia card and fans and stuff.

They could work with anything, really. It wasn't uncommon to see people with backpack-mounted gaming laptops or even mini PC builds connected on the other end. Point being - tethered headsets are been-there, done-that. If this rumor is true (which I seriously doubt), Apple is positioning themselves at a direct disadvantage relative to the rest of the market.

Like, if the headset's "killer app" is videoconferencing, why wouldn't you use anything else? You could use the LIDAR on your iPhone, the 6DOF tracking in a $400 Oculus Quest, the much-nicer full-body tracking of a Valve Index setup... the possibilities are limitless, and this rumor purports that Apple is choosing the worst one. I just refuse to believe something like this will ship.

> They could work with anything, really. It wasn't uncommon to see people with backpack-mounted gaming laptops or even mini PC builds connected on the other end. Point being - tethered headsets are been-there, done-that.

That's what I was thinking, and that's not what's being rumored here. It's a small battery pack, not a 2-lb mini PC or a backpack or anything like that. I'm assuming that they got the headset really light. The Quest is still over 500g, which is heavy for being strapped to your head. So imagine they targeted the headset to < 200g, and the only way they could hit that target was to take the battery and move it somewhere else. (And also charge an obscene amount of money for carbon fiber or whatnot)

I'm not going to disagree on the price points, the lack of gaming focus at first, or any of the other complaints about this strategy. It all does seem a bit weird. But I can totally see the value in taking as much weight as possible off of the head, even if that means moving it to your belt.

I guess I really like the hip battery, because it lowers the rotational weight of the headset and allows for a larger battery without the same tradeoffs. It would make the headset lighter than all the competition that uses headset mounted battery. Apple could say "lightest XR headset on the market" while still packing it with tech. Apple loves superlatives like that. Maybe not ideal for a consumer device, but for a pro device a hip pack seems fine to me. Of course, my brain does not work the way apple does so it making sense to me is not an indicator that it is really true.

This probably depends on all the other variables involved, most of which we don’t know.

I cringed at the idea of the hip-battery idea but here are two things that came to my mind when I entertained it:

- If this is a productivity device, not for dancing around, then the USB-C battery pack could be optional. The device could be plugged in via cable when you’re at your desk.

- That braided mag-safe cable feels more like a nice piece of rope. It wouldn’t have to be that shitty tangly experience.

None of our brains work the Apple way - they have a thorough process. They implement the results.

There are other battery-less headsets that exist, though. Plus, if Apple is just going to offload part of the device elsewhere, why not just put the processor in your hip too? Hell, why not just run it off a Mac Mini and a Thunderbolt cable? Going halfway with the cable-based headset seems like a recipe for redundancy.

> There are other battery-less headsets that exist, though.

Sure but not battery-less standalone headsets as far as I know. I mean obviously they have to have a battery somewhere to be standalone, but I am not aware of other standalones that have a hip battery. I am however not an expert, but anyway we know that their big competitor Meta doesn't have a hip battery so the headset could be lighter than theirs.

> why not just put the processor in your hip too

You have all these cameras that have to be in the headset, plus the screens and other basic electronic components. To put compute on the hip you have to have a high bandwidth low latency connection to the hip pack, then back up to the headset. You already have to have an interface pcb in the headset to collect and compress the data to send over this high bandwidth interface, and the cable has to be expensive, etc. Whereas sending power up a cable is trivial. It may be that when looking at all these tradeoffs, remote compute is a net loss, but remote power is easy.

I'm pretty sure the whole computer is on the hip. It makes sense. There's no way they could get the headset light enough otherwise. Even the best wired headsets are too heavy currently. It should be 200-300 grams to be comfortable.

They would need to take all the tracking camera feeds, compress them and send them over a high bandwidth low latency interface, do the compute, then send the result back up to the displays. That all requires a bunch of interface electronics, which may eliminate the savings from moving the CPU to the hip.

At that point, I have two questions:

1. Why can't I just plug it into a Mac/Macbook instead?

2. Does this mean the battery/compute pack will be an optional add-on?

Maybe you can plug it in. But then you'd be tethered to the computer.

However, Mac might not have low enough latency / high enough bandwidth for best experience. My thinking is that it will be an ultra-optimized highly integrated device designed to do just AR/VR, and that's also why it can beat all competitors which interface with standard PCs. I have a very high-end VR headset and GPU, and it just isn't good enough. Apple has to make some miracles here.

The logic board in a modern iPhone is very light, perhaps 10-20 grams?

a) Apple lets you plug in your headphones. You just leave a 3.5mm adapter attached to them like most of us do.

b) Given the complaints about the weight and poor battery life of the Meta Quest Pro there needs to be a better solution than trying to balance batteries on your head.

Waist level pack makes a lot of sense especially since if you're sitting at a desk there is simply no need for batteries.

> Apple lets you plug in your headphones.

Do you know that for sure? How are we certain that the serial port isn't being used by the waist-mounted battery pack?

> there needs to be a better solution than trying to balance them on your head.

There is one - you plug it in. You can use all the Quest headsets while they're tethered to power if you want, it just defeats the purpose of owning a wireless headset. The battery life of those units will definitely last longer than your meeting, presuming the VR sickness doesn't hit you first.

All-for-all, I have to believe this rumor is fake because Apple doesn't make products like this. If Apple does release a VR headset, I doubt it will look like what's described here.

What's the point of having batteries on your head if they aren't being used.

Lightweight headset connected via Thunderbolt 5 to a combined battery/CPU pack or desktop Mac.

The same reason as having batteries in your phone, even though you can use it while plugged in. Most people use VR while moving around, and mobility is much easier when you're untethered. If you're going to make an all-in-one headset, that hardware should probably be one piece.

Hopefully they just drop the standalone element altogether and go all-in on a nice tethered experience.

> Most people use VR while moving around

That's if you're primarily into gaming which Apple isn't.

I suspect the future of VR is going to be at a desk, sofa, bed etc. with virtual screens, meetings, educational lessons, movies etc.

Well good news then! The future of VR is here, and you can already watch movies, educational lessons and virtual screens at your desk, bed or sofa. You don't need a headset to do that, even. You certainly don't need to spend $3,000 on it.

The problem is, none of that stuff is appealing. It's not only not a killer app, it's not even a profit driver. Games move some units, but even that is arguably clunky when you're not fully leveraging 6DOF.

So, what's the point of making a mobile headset that's not intended to be moved around? Why tether a headset that could be plugged into another machine altogether?

Is there another article that talks about the 3.5mm adapter? This one makes that sound unsupported

Which other option is there? Only waist-mounts or backpacks are able to remove the weight of the battery.

You could run a cable to a nearby Macbook Air, and use its processor/battery instead.

Many Apple rumors come from various parts of the supply chain, which explains that they are often incomplete, but have a grain of truth.

Regarding the battery pack, though, I don’t find that completely implausible. With some existing headsets, people have complained about discomfort from the weight of the headset. If a well-designed cable helps to reduce that significantly, why not?

I can see people using these for work on virtual screens if the DPI is high enough and they're powerful enough. Already when I visit a coworking space I see people with a laptop up on a stand, a keyboard, a mouse, and ipad doing second monitor duty. That's close to 3k depending on the macbook and ipad they're using. This is pretty niche though.

Yeah if they can use the foviated rendering feature and iOS compatibility to make it look like my head's surrounded by various application windows with a sufficiently high resolution to read text in a browser/termina/slack/etc then I'd probably ditch my laptop.

My 2.8lbs laptop is great for carrying around the city but its 13" screen leaves something to be desired when it comes to productivity.

Really feels to me like microsoft is just in such a better position to capitalize on the enterprise use case stuff. They already have relationships with every large org and could conceivably include a headset as part of some office+ subscription. Apple has next to no enterprise business, but they're going to convince businesses to buy headsets for employees? Not buying it.

Anecdotally, every company I've worked for has been 100% macOS exclusive. And practically every SWE I know is given a MacBook for work, so they definitely have some enterprise business.

You seem to have a very old-school way of viewing the enterprise.

With the cloud, SaaS, remote working etc. the days of central IT/Procurement departments dictating the technology mix across the organisation is long gone.

Now employees are often bringing in new technologies and IT/Security are forced to scramble and figure out how to manage them.

It's exactly what happened with the iPhone/iPad and now increasingly Macs as well.

> the days of central IT/Procurement departments dictating the technology mix across the organisation is long gone.

No, they're really not. Maybe at some startups, but large organizations have too much to lose by allowing random software to be installed instead of a single suite like microsoft provides. As new programs appear microsoft will continue to copy or buy them and absorb them into office, and will continue to get more and more dominant in the enterprise productivity game.

I work in the enterprise now and have done for 20+ years.

Most software these days has moved to Cloud or SaaS including Microsoft with Office 365.

And so whether you are running Mac, Windows or iPad simply isn't as important to IT/Security teams.

> Apple has next to no enterprise business

Some orgs I worked at had Mac as a standard machine. Not that Apple is in “enterprise business”, but they can sell hardware to some enterprises.

Say we had a 1 dollar, 1 gram, 1000 DPI VR headset. How would that improve margins of businesses?

This is usually how Apple enters/creates a new market. Many other follow the same strategy. They start with a very high end version that highlights their strengths and the product's potential. It will not have mass adoption and it won't make them money. If successful Apple will certainly roll out newer lower costing versions.

> This is usually how Apple enters/creates a new market. They start with a very high end version that highlights their strengths and the product's potential

iPad, AirPods, Apple Watch - none of those fit your criteria, and they’re the biggest launches apple has done post iPhone (which arguably also wasn’t high-priced, it just lacked carrier subsidies at launch).

I think you might be misreading the word "high end"?

By "high end", the person you're replying to was (probably?) not referring to "luxury", but rather the "high end" of the affordability spectrum. i.e. technology that is cutting edge and hasn't yet reached economies of scale. The first iterations of each of those product lines were expensive to procure, which meant their initial margins were thinner and their initial prices were higher.

The "mass market" version of each of those products was not created until the second, third, or arguably fourth generation. Those generations are the ones where the price of components has come down, to the point where you start to see truly affordable options (iPhone SE, Airpods 2, Watch SE).

Apple's insight is that the R&D work required to produce "pro" versions of their hardware (as well as the work required to produce v1) of each product line improves the performance and cost structure of all the "lesser" versions.

They famously derive R&D budgets for gen X+1 as a function of projected profits from gen X and X-1. This connection to the "market" is a strong explanatory variable for the success of their R&D fly wheel since the iPhone. It's a major contrast against how their competitors have historically operated (cough Meta).

I remember all of those products seeming really expensive at launch, though I see your point. They've all become a bit cheaper but not significantly. What's also changed is my perception of what a reasonable cost should be. Spending $150 on AirPods to replace my cheap earbuds used to seem absurd but now it feels more defensible. If AR is a huge success the price will certainly come down, but perhaps only 30%-50% and spending the equivalent of a new Macbook on a headset starts to feel more reasonable.

While those items are expensive for market, they were still affordable for a large market segment. I purchased iphone, ipad, airpod, airpods pro, ipod all in the first year of them debuting. I doubt I would do that for a $3k VR set and I have spent over 400hrs in VR. I will need to let others prove the value on this system before I can jump in.

I've never been all that interested in early VR, but for a truly seamless VR headset I think 3K would be perfectly reasonable. For example, being able to take a laptop onto any train and have the equivalent of a 360º monitor with me seems already worth that. If apple launched a VR headset, I'd assume they've got it to that kind of point where it's a device you carry with you all the time.

The iPhone was more expensive than most phones even without the subsidy.

They certainly have the cash to subsidize a new market creation...

Plus who knows how much for the custom lenses needed if you wear glasses.

It says they are magnetic? I wonder if it'll be possible for third parties to make compatible lenses.

It's likely you will choose the lenses up front.

Similar to how when you buy an Apple Watch you choose the strap size.

You can't just "choose" prescription lenses. You need a valid prescription.

Sure but Apple can just have a range of lens types and you upload your prescription.

How do you think people buy glasses online ?

That's... complicated.

It depends on the state in the US.

Would that necessarily cost way more than the custom lenses needed for glasses?

Traditionally* VR lens fittings have been relatively affordable (Quest had them for <$100). That being said, this is Apple we're talking about here... are we perhaps getting a 'Lens Pro Max ME (Medical Edition)'?

Off-topic: The article uses an image generated with DALL-E (Image credits: "Midjourney / DALL-E 2 prompted by MIXED"). I'm not surprised. However, it's the first time that I see that in an article that is not about DALLE-E or Stable Diffusion, a sign of how these models are changing web publishing (and stock photos/digital illustration work).

Yeah, I think there's a lot of hype around generative models, but in my mind only a few use cases that will really stick.

Stock photos/illustrations is imho the most likely industry that these models will change.

Once inpainting is sufficiently good they'll be ubiquitous in concept art as well.

> Image: Midjourney / DALL-E 2 prompted by MIXED

Oh, good grief. I'd rather have a generic logo or headquarters as the article image than some misleading computer-generated fantasy of a new product.

If the reported price ($3,000) is anywhere near accurate, then Apple really risks falling into the HomePod trap - the original was great, but costed more than mass-market wanted, which opened up a huge hole for Amazon's Alexa speakers to come in and dominate. Then, when Apple came out with a cheaper device (HomePod mini), the market had largely moved passed it.

To be clear, this is not my judgement of quality at all - only a market assessment based on pricing.

Alexa also had a 4-year head start on the HomePod. I don't know if that's the most apt comparison. Additionally, while it is an absurd price tag, the rumors are also that this is being aimed at Apple's famed "Creative Pro" segment and not gamers/casual VR users.

Well, Meta (Occulus) has also had a head start. I find the analogy very fitting because of that.

Original homepod was pretty rad. I got one for free and it was the best speaker I ever owned minus siri which I didn’t really care for. The tech they put it with room sensing really made a difference I thought

I've heard great things about them, but never heard one in an actual home (only those fake settings in stores).

As a (former?) hi-fi guy, I would have bought one if it had come with a detachable cable. I'm still holding out hope for a new one of some sort.

I think you mean, Google Mini's dominating -- Alexa speakers were the OG and they've just been slowly floundering in existence since who knows when.

Totally agree with the rest though.

> Apple bets on XR video calls as ‘killer app’

I certainly have complaints about video conferencing but there's no issue with current gen video calls that requires a $3000 face mask with a tiny battery life as a valid "solution".

We might just not know what we are missing. I used to think that video calls is a solved problem until I saw Google's Project Starline [0]. Video calls in AR could be vastly better, not just a little bit, but basically a completely different experience/relationship.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q13CishCKXY

This is insane! Looks amazing

I hate Zoom calls enough to pay $3000 for something much better.

At the same time Zoom issues probably have very little to do with the hardware.

That clearly isn't true because companies will routinely spend thousands of dollars flying employees across the world to talk to each other in person.

If (and I accept this is a big if) these headsets can reproduce the experience of meeting someone face to face then $3k is great value for money.

I am short term skeptical, but long term VR/AR are going to absolutely dominate computing. The moment you can teleport across the country with a photorealistic "retina resolution" avatar is the moment this product category is going to shoot off to the billion user level. Apple is right to focus on collumications, but I doubt we are on the right side of the uncanny valley yet.

Just think -- you can teleport into an Excel spreadsheet and walk across the columns, just like in real life!

You could open your email from realistically ray-traced paper envelopes.

You can check the weather by standing out in a virtual field and looking up.

You can listen to your podcasts by loading a VR cassette tape into a VR tape deck.

You can watch a powerpoint presentation by looking at a VR guy standing at a VR easel.

...so much of what we do on computers has nothing to do with 3D.

For most people, it'd be a huge waste of a month's income to do everything they already do, but slower and with a weird interface.

There's a market, I'm sure, but not as large a percentage of total computing as many people seem to imagine.

You are missing the forest for the trees. Ask yourself, why do we spend so much time looking at 6 inch rectangles? In its final form, this will be a perfect 2D and 3D display of any size accessible using any form of input attached shortly afer birth to our optic nerves or perhaps written into our genetic codes. If you want to touch glass, you can carry around an inert piece of glass in your pocket that will be functionally identically to a phone. This is the platform of the next 1000 years, but I'm not sure if we will see it in the next 100.

No-one wants to forsake the world we live in to go and get imprisoned on a corporate dystopia infested with ads and questionable "work" at the cost of our peripheral senses and our peace of mind.

If, like you say, we will attach computers to optic nerves -- then wars will be fought over it first.

edit: besides the detriment, the added-value is still very questionable right now.

Not sure which world you are living in, but most people under the age of 70 are already there 100%. The world has been forsaken and we live in a world of screens and ads. The corporate dystopia raises our children, mediates our relationships and infests our politics. The world's formerly richest person is indeed developing the neural implants. It's later than you think.

I think you are making a category error here by assuming we will need to use the new tools the same way we use our existing tools. 3D is different and that includes working with 2D things in 3D digital spaces. Working with 3D things in 3D is a natural fit but you are correct, that is a limited problem space. Working with 2D data but where you have a surrounding 6DOF 3D/360 Infinate canvas of possibility provides elbow room to reimagine and improve each of the experiences you list in ways you can't have with physical screens, a keyboard, and a mouse where every feature delivery system is constrained by 2D structural tolerances. Not that PC computing will become obsolete at all; XR will find a place to add a new layer of interactions that complement the human digital partnership in much the same way as the introduction of mobile computing provided in its own way.

Imagine the aching shoulders people will get :D.

We need real life contact, not digital contact for god's sake. This is just another oppression device.

Unrelated but interesting how they used Dall-E and Midjourney for the article cover art

Wonder if they rendered it primarily in Midjourney with some minor in-painting done by DALL-E.

I'm not expecting much from the 1st gen. The 1st gen Apple Watch was very slow and pretty useless as a result. The 1st gen iPhone was also missing a few features that were pretty common place on other phones of the time like picture messaging. 1st gen Apple TV was pretty basic as well if I remember right.

Gen 3 will probably be where it starts picking up pace and the ecosystem starts building up around it.

Agreed. Apple is one of the best companies (if not _the_ best) to be able to afford several iterations before reaching a wide adoption.

The AR application I want is what I had always hoped to get google glass for ages ago and that is face recognition.

I'm terrible at remembering names, it would be wonderful if the glasses I'm wearing when I look at someone would pop their name (and any other note I've created on them) off to the side of my view for quick reference.

That done with a really clean interface would be worth it to me alone with almost no other functionality.

Finally!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2YhXQaNiY4

https://www.cnn.com/2000/TECH/computing/06/30/wearable.pc.id...

When I read "killer video calls", I can't stop but think about: long distance relationships, sex calls, etc...

I also find it interesting how many people (even here in comments) underestimate the potential impact of AR video call tech. It could be as revolutionary, if not more, as Skype, FB, even Street View, etc in terms of connecting people in new ways.

> sex calls

That filthy sex suite from Amazon’s “Upload”.

I'm very curious about the optical hand tracking as the main input. Yes, there's still a lot of progress in that area recently but the main problem remains: it gets really tiring to waive your hands around in front of you and there is no haptic feedback and very quick pressing of different buttons like on a controller.

It's an excellent choice for default controllers. Your hands are free to use keyboard and mouse, and your hands are also free for AR interactions in the real world.

If you need a controller (for games etc.), then there's always the possibility of using a 3rd party one.

>XR video calls as ‘killer app’

Getting closer to THX 1138's personal pleasure device https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rn-Sa0MlFkg

If true, it looks like the most un-apple product since iphone. It is probably years until they officially showcase this product. The potential backlash from the market is enormous.

Take my money? I just want a mobile desktop environment that I can set up anywhere. I have strange places I need to do work and the hunched over laptop situation is killing me.

Hmmmm.

https://v.fandom.com/wiki/John

If asahi linux can run on this it's an instant buy for me.

Who’s the target audience for this? Businesses only? I don’t see consumers plopping down $3k for this in the mass numbers that would matter to Apple’s bottom line.

The initial target is developers who think they can build successful AR software for when the price comes down. You will not have significant numbers of users without compelling applications. $3k is a pittance in the scheme of creating a ground breaking application in an unexplored space.

$3k keeps the limited units out of drawers and in the hands of people that will be making something with them.

This device has a lot of cameras and scanners in it. After they work out what is actually required and used the consumer model may have fewer to control cost.

Apple will deliver an app or two to set the user experience quality bar, it sounds like VR conferencing is one of those, but that doesn't mean they think that is what the device is for. It is just that they need to give an example of what the user experience should be or you will have developers delivering poorly performing, battery eating, usability disasters and customers will think that is inherent to the device.

Maybe for work, but everyday life, I don't see the benefits. At the moment all of this seems redundant, just like a smartwatch when you also have a smartphone.

I think this is going to be a benchmark device first and foremost, designed to make every other XR device on the market look inadequate. Meta, Valve and the rest will be forced to spec up to match Apple, this will drive the costs down as suppliers start to manufacture better displays, lenses, batteries and XR chipsets in large quantities. Apple Headset 2 will then cost $1.5k.

As I said in other comments, don't underestimate video calls in AR. This could be an instant killer app that will change the industry.

How many people can afford at least 2 AR headsets? Not many, but also not too few. Engineers who flock to the Bay Area and leave their parents/families in other countries can afford that, and will - if AR calls will offer an immersive experience.

I agree, can’t see this either, but all major tech companies and quite a few smaller companies are working on this. And they all did their research so these things are coming.

so...if this has a computer in it, and can be a productivity device the way an iPad could be....maybe. It would give more screen real estate, less desk, maybe the same apps. I can just about see how someone might expense it if they had to work on private content in public environments a lot...

$3k is really just too much for a fancy monitor for productivity apps, though. I'm bought into the concept, but not the price.

If those VR glasses emulate high resolution virtual three-monitor setup which you can take everywhere with you, count me fucking in!

As with apples laptops, resolution could be the killer app.

For people who can afford it, being able to communicate remotely with an added dimension is going to be priceless. To be able to see your parent or child in AR from anywhere in the world is worth way more than $3k. This is IMO absolutely the right bet from Apple. It's table stakes for AR and the most relatable easily understood killer app.

Really eager to see whether Apple can turn AR/VR into a mainstream product. My guess is no but then again it's Apple.

Waist mounted battery huh.

Will be interesting to see if they can pull this off because the visual in my head looks ridiculous.

iFanny

Does anybody have full text of the Information article that is the source for this?

For those baulking at the cost:

Various estimates size the corporate travel market at hundreds of billions of dollars per year.

$3000 isn't that expensive compared to a business class plane ticket, and hotel.

Apple has a history of convincing people to pay lots of money for things (the $1000 iPhone wasn't that long ago!)

Side point: cool to see DALLE images replacing stock photos…

A cord to a separate battery?

No focus on games?

Zoom calls as the killer app?

You’re not getting my $3000

Why is anyone still pouring money into this again?

Because with every year the technology behind it becomes more viable for main stream usage (smaller, cheaper,…).

Even if Apple succeeded to make a 1 dollar, 1 gram, 1000 DPI VR headset, what would be the point of it?

Who would want to watch HD movies at theater size from the comfort of their home for $1?

I'd think a silent disco would be a good parallel, and those haven't caught on either...

I don't get what analogy you are making here.

What are silent discos supposed to be a parallel to exactly?

I'm questioning wether the experience of going to a movie theater is really comparable to slapping on a headset. After all, it's all about immersion. If you just cared about image size, you could also watch a movie on your smartphone and hold it close to your face, which doesn't feel the same as watching a movie on a big screen either. Hence the analogy to a silent disco - sure, the music is just as loud, but the experience is completely different.

Ah I get you. Yeah, VR headsets probably don't replicate the experience of going to a movie theater but they might replicate the experience of having your own movie theater, which for many people (me included) is preferable.

Current VR headsets are way more immersive than holding a smartphone in front of your face and I would imagine that a $3k headset from Apple would be better still.

Not at all, that's the biggest problem of these things. They further alienate human-human contact, while the opposite should be the goal. I'm wondering who is pushing this AR/VR madness and for what reason.

I don't know about this device, but vr games experience (oculus rift) are something, well, that is kind of outstanding.

The problem with (wired) VR is the wires and the computer. And Quest seems to be underwelming graphicaly compared to Rift.

A 1 grams, 1000 DPI headset, would be, regardless of the price, a revolution in a lot of domains, from gaming, defence, training of all kind, conferencing, tv/video/streaming, remote working...

A successor to 3D movies, sure, but for more serious purposes you would have to push the level of immersion way up. I'm not sure anything less than a computer-brain interface could actually achieve that. Would you trust your life to a pilot who has only been trained using a VR headset?

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