Tim Cook Ordered Headset Launch Despite Designers Warning It Wasn't Ready | Hacker News Reader

Tim Cook Ordered Headset Launch Despite Designers Warning It Wasn't Ready

macrumors.com

38 pointsthunderbong16 comments

> Upon the departure of design chief Jony Ive in 2019, Apple's design team now reports directly to Williams. While design led the direction of Apple's products under Steve Jobs, employees have noticed that operations is increasingly taking control over product development under Cook's leadership. One former engineer said that the best part of working at Apple was devising engineering solutions to meet the "insane requirements" of the design team, but that has apparently changed in recent years.

My take on this is that change isn't necessarily bad. The shift away from design leadership at Apple may limit product innovation, but it has given us (back) MacBooks with usable keyboards and HDMI ports. We might lose something valuable as this shift continues, though. I think the true test will be whether Apple notices when that has happened and course-corrects, or if they continue into commodification and stagnation.

It is a bad thing if they release products that don’t make sense.

It is strange to me that Apple would consider releasing a product with such a low sales target. What is the point?

People often ask what did Steve really do. Was he really that important to Apple, but Steve understood people and he was pragmatic. He understood if a real person would use something or not.

A $3,000 AR headset that looks like ski googles is on the surface not a very practical device.

> It is strange to me that Apple would consider releasing a product with such a low sales target. What is the point?

Apple already has many examples of this, including Apple TV and iPod Hi-Fi (the latter of which I had totally forgotten about until now). I don't think the first generation of HomePods sold many units either. Even if the product is a flop the first time around, these experiments still often have value in that you can collect feedback from your customers.

Both were cheaper Apple products that Apple described as hobbies, not a major product category or release. I would also say at this point Apple TV has sold quite a bit.

It's kind of important to realize though that they didn't have a choice. Apple had a magical thing going with Steve Jobs and Johnny Ive, they were/are generational talents, you can't find yourself in a situation where both of those people leave and say "Well, I guess let's just slot another generational talent into Johnny's old job". They need to get the organization to work with the people they have. If their innovation starts to decline it's not really helpful to say "go back to design led" because that might not be what works in the future.

The rumors are that this device will have a much higher resolution than anything else on the market. I’m really looking forward to this launch as a way to prime manufacturers and competition to step up their game. I know the technology isn’t “ready” yet compared to how Apple normally ships their products, but I’m hopeful apple pushes through and helps build up this market segment.

IS the market ready for AR? There's no killer app. Unless Apple has a secret they're not telling us, it's going to be a tough sell. I'd like to see it happen, if anyone can do it I'd think Apple could

The leading contender for becoming the killer app seems to be (surprisingly to many, including the makers of all the early VR headsets) fitness.

Using various game mechanics, you can make exercise so much more fun in VR/AR than say, just a coach on a TV or just a boring screen on an exercise bike.

John Carmack has talked at length about how fitness games like Beat Saber and VR boxing surprised everybody to become by far the biggest category.

I don't know if Apple will excel in this product category like they did with phones and music players, or muddle along like they did with TV boxes and smart speakers, but I guarantee you they will present some new advances around Apple Fitness and enjoyable fitness/game software.

It's fun and it is also something people find deeply meaningful (makes you healthy, makes you live longer, makes you happy) and therefore willing to drop a few Gs on (assuming they have that kind of money) without spending a lot of thought trying to compare specs or figure out if the hardware is worth it.

The killer app is waiting for the right hardware.

Imagine doing remote surgery, with your headset showing, in 3D, the patient's body.

Or in-person surgery, with a 3D rendering of the CT/MRI scan overlaid the patient's body.

The only real limitation is hardware.

I think AR is really cool, but I honestly can't think of a reason that I would use it outside some niche applications.

…Just As In Every Product Launch In History

Nothing would ever happen if there wasn’t a deadline

No software worth shipping ever met a deadline

Nowadays that's around 80 years +/-...

This is so true!

No product is ever ready. The iPhone didn't have copy/paste for a while, after all.

Feed it to the public and see what happens.

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