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Comment by woah | Hacker News Reader

Seems pretty simple. If you could have UI overlayed on the world around you, it would be huge, and would change how people use computers, like the smartphone did.

The current stumbling block is that the tech sucks and the headsets are enormous. If someone got it into a lightweight pair of glasses or contact lenses, the use case is obvious, and it would be a big of a shift as the smartphone.

Denying this is like being the guy in 1993 saying “why would I want a computer in my pocket? Am I going to work on spreadsheets on a tiny screen in the bathrooom? And where would I plug it in?”

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> If you could have UI overlayed on the world around you, it would be huge, and would change how people use computers, like the smartphone did.

Is this really a game-changer? Technology adoption is all about tradeoffs. We already have location-based services and applications that are granular enough for most purposes. AR applications add sensory awareness and localized interaction at the cost of distraction and intrusiveness.

History is littered with inventions that were supposed to be the next telephone, computer, smartphone, etc., but most of them never materialize because they don't meet people's practical needs. And if AR/VR isn't the quintessential solution in search of a problem, I don't know what is.

It's absolutely a game-changer. Imagine having driving or walking directions laid out on the street in front of you. Imagine using AI to help you identify things like engine parts in your car, plants, birds, other people (never forget a name again). Looking at a package and scanning the barcode to get price comparisons. Recipe directions on the counter in front of you, even labeling the next ingredient and how much of it to measure. Walk into a museum and see highlighted details of every painting or information about a particular element in a sculpture. First aid details right in front of you, keeping both hands free to offer assistance in a roadside accident. Live AR-driven instructions for changing a tire or locating an oilpan plug.

Currently any time you need information you have to pull yourself away from your present moment to dive into your phone. AR will make it so the information you need is just integrated into the world around you.

Whether or not we're way off-base or not, it's certainly possible to envision a HUD in a fairly ordinary looking pair of glasses. It's certainly SF today but it's possible to imagine. There are of course various creepy aspects as well but, honestly, if the technology can be made to work well, most people will just get over that.

There's plenty of neat ideas for what AR could do - but how often are you changing tires or having to find an oilpan plug on an unfamiliar car? Some great professional use cases, potentially, but for a consumer? A lot of this sounds like an open-world video game with no design restraint, where your map gets littered with dozens and dozens of points of interest all at once and it just makes it that much harder to focus on what you actually wanted to be doing in the first place.

And with people's resistance to paying for software services, you'll have exactly the same problem with looking at something on your phone of half the crap being ads intentionally trying to sidetrack you.

I think there's certainly a risk of information overload, but I'd say that's a risk of our modern lives in general, whether we have AR glasses or not. Well-designed AR would, in my opinion, be vastly less intrusive than having to stare into a handheld device for hours a day. I would trust Apple to make a well-designed UI for the thing if and when they manage to release them. 3rd party apps not so much (although certainly there will be a handful of great ones). That's more on users making informed choices about the apps they download than a downside of AR, though.

I hear your killer features and don't care for them at all in any way to put on glasses for them.

I only need real navigation on holiday and I'm pretty sure not taking some expensive glasses on travel. Neither when hiking nor in a foreign country.

And all the other Infos? I don't even use my smartphone for them. Why would I wear an expensive headset to compare a 3€ product?

I hear your killer features and don't care for them at all in any way to carry a tiny computer for them.

I only need real navigation on holiday and I'm pretty sure not taking some expensive pocket computer on travel. Neither when hiking nor in a foreign country. I just print out the directions from MapQuest. K.I.S.S.

And all the other Infos? I don't even use my desktop PC for them. Why would I carry an expensive handheld computer to compare a 3€ product?

And where would I even plug it in?

What, you expect me to wear those gaudy glasses for my HUD? Can't you just send me the Neuralink version instead?

>I only need real navigation on holiday and I'm pretty sure not taking some expensive pocket computer on travel. Neither when hiking nor in a foreign country. I just print out the directions from MapQuest. K.I.S.S.

This is actually what happened historically. Various pocket devices existed for navigation (e.g. by Garmin), but they never got too popular until the smartphone became popular for entirely different reasons. Only after the smartphone become really common, then it was reused for existing applications where the benefit existed but was not that big compared to alternatives. AR/VR will need a killer application first, only then it might be reused for navigation.

You compare a small pocket device with a headset?

You don't see the difference? Especially when hiking?

You are then a non sweaty asian?

What you've described would be a game changer because of incredible AI, not so much because of a UI overlay. It would be just about as good to leave one of my headphones in and just ask an ultra-AI assistant my questions. Maybe have a set of glasses (not capable of UI overlay) but just having a camera so the AI assistant can see what I see.

Sounds great, but I feel we'll be wading through ads and product placement

You're already wading through ads and product placement. They're just physical signs.

To add on, having a phone being your heavy computing device is a little silly if you think about it. It's essentially the smallest portable form factor people can conveniently carry around, connect to the internet, consume and send information.

A pair of glasses or monocle/power reader, wrist device with holo display or some other format makes much more sense as a way to interact with a portable computing device conveniently. The main bottleneck is hardware.

Don't forget the fingerprints!

But yeah, so many things are obnoxious and clunky about smartphones. Glancing down is never a good look, let alone glancing down and then walking into a wall. The moment that minimum viable AR tech happens, people will suddenly remember how many compromises we have to make for smartphones.

I’m not sure that focusing on something no one else can see when you appear to be looking elsewhere is a good look either. At least other people can tell you are distracted when you’re looking down at your phone.

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