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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.

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?

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…

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.

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.