I played around a lot with VR180 when it came out. The experience is incredibly, almost uncomfortably intimate for personal videos. I felt so awkward watching demos of other peoples “blow out the birthday candles” moments. However, the fact that it was uncomfortable means that the technology itself is very good, otherwise it couldn’t produce such and emotional experience.

On the tech side, I’m just guessing, but it looks like Apple has an even better version of VR189. A 6dof version of VR180 seems entirely plausible for Apple to pull off with NeRFs and would be even more incredible.

Again, I agree that it’s a bit weird for personal memories, both on the recording side (possibly awkward to wear goggles in those situations) and even watching personal memories.

However, I’d expect Apple to make recording spatial videos possible w iPhone/iPad, which at least fixes the awkward recording issue.

Even with that possibility, I think Apple hurt themselves using this “personal memory spatial video” example.

For me, the far better use cases are for entertainment. Professional, live (and recorded) spatial video will be huge. Everyone can have front row, court side, or even birds-eye views of all forms of in-person entertainment. Sports, plays, comedy, concerts, orchestras. The experience of watching it is so intimate experientially I think it will be amazing. Looks like the tech to make it happen is finally here. Imagine them owning “the App Store” for spatial video pay-per-view…

Excited to see where this goes!