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Comment by erulabs | Hacker News Reader

> As with Butterscotch Varifocal, the goal of Flamera isn’t to show something that’s viable for a consumer product—at least, not yet.

A bit surprising that these seem so far away from production. I think Apple is playing it properly here: Announce a product people really want, even if its very far into the future and may possibly not actually come onto the market for years. Use the feedback from the public to fine tune the product as it's developed.

Facebook seems now to be something like the company whose former HQ it inhabits: Xerox PARC. Potentially vital R/D happening in such a way as to have almost zero chance of actually becoming a product.

I can't be excited for Butterscotch or Flamera, because they're not products I can buy, and they explicitly never will be. If I managed to get a demo, I'm sure I'd be NDAed to hell and back. I am excited for Vision Pro because it's something I will actually be allowed to purchase in the future.

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> I think Apple is playing it properly here: Announce a product people really want, even if its very far into the future and may possibly not actually come onto the market for years. Use the feedback from the public to fine tune the product as it's developed.

Do note that doing it like that is not what Apple commonly does. Usually work happens in silence and secrecy, then the product is available within like 6 months to purchase (in the US, not necessarily all over the world)

Isn't that what they are doing with the Vision Pro but more like 12 months to purchase? Then they annually iterate on their products with differing success?

In this case I expect it’s because they wanted outside developers to work on software for it before launch so it’s ready day one.

Otherwise I agree it’s very likely they wouldn’t have said anything yet.

> Potentially vital R/D happening in such a way as to have almost zero chance of actually becoming a product.

My assumption, of this early work, is to scoop up important patents.

Related to important patents, varifocal is almost certainly the future of HMDs.

Having fixed focus, as all HMDs do now, is fatiguing and strange. A really interesting example of this is, in VR, hold something close to your eyes. You'll see that it gets blurry. Now close one eye. You'll see that it's clear. It's not that it's actually blurry, it's that your eyes are refusing to put up with the physical nonsense of a fixed focus 3d world.

> to scoop up important patents

Or perhaps to refine that, to scoop important patents

Apple is aggressively out there patenting obvious things that have been basic public knowledge / in use for years to try and lock up the field (eg: [0]). You can try and get your own patents but if you aren't strategically dependent on the IP for your own needs it is much easier and quicker to just nuke the field by putting as many things in public as possible so it's much harder for Apple (or others) to retro-patent broad classes of obvious features.

[0] https://image-ppubs.uspto.gov/dirsearch-public/print/downloa...

Wait am I reading this right? Is this saying that 2 days ago, Apple got approved of a patent on all of AR? Like, what Pokemon Go has been doing since 2016?

It is talking about showing nonvisible features as visible.

Like this quest app for visualizing wifi strength in mixed reality.

https://www.oculus.com/experiences/quest/4793438284066128/

Sure but the Vision Pro uses eye tracking and foveated rendering to simulate planes of view

Looking at a far object relaxes the muscles, while looking close tenses them. Any deviation from this is somewhat uncomfortable. Fixed focus displays mean that, when you look far, your eyes relax, expecting the physics to be correct, but then have iterate to focus at 3m (or whatever the fixed distance is). Same with near objects. The eyes tense, things go wrong, then they drift back to 3m.

Blurring can be applied, but that doesn't change the physics that your eyes expects, which causes the disconnect and discomfort, which varifocal displays solve.

It doesn't solve the problems.

Apple has actually issued developer guidelines for AVP that Apps should only render UI / static content at a fixed position from the headset in space corresponding to the fixed focal distance for this reason.

…because the headset does the simulated focal plane rendering.

Can you cite an Apple source that says that? Nothing I read matched what you’re saying. As another comment said foveated rendering and eye tracking to help with simulating depth.

I'm confused on your phrasing of "they explicitly never will be."

Those prototypes, of course, aren't going to themselves be shipping. But they are for R&D and to provide example of a nascent technology that one day should end up in a consumer product.

You absolutely can disagree with the approach of showing this too early or not trying hard enough to incorporate this into an (albeit expensive) consumer product today/soon.

But my read is Meta wants this stuff to one day be in consumer headsets. Just not there yet.

I don't disagree with them showing this off, just them avoiding making an actual product. Always be embarrassed by v1 and all that. I understand Meta has the cash to bankroll a decade of R/D (like XEROX used to), but iterating actual products actual people use is a far safer bet, and as a result the world actually gets products. "Explicitly never will be" only because of the bit I quoted and that these are two quite different products. One would imagine the final product would combine these two experimental headset's technologies.

It's not like Facebook, as a product, was some hidden away R/D project. It was iterated on in public.

Anyways, I didn't mean to poopoo the awesome work done here. I just want to actually use some of this stuff.

There is virtually no market for a $3,500 headset made by Meta. These demos don't seem like things that can't do at all, just things they can't do affordably. What can be done in a $500 consumer device will only increase each year. It is probably smart for Meta to keep slow and steady.

Right that's also a big problem for Meta - they can't capture the market at this price point. Who is paying that dollar level for hardware from the likes of Meta?

Apple, sure. Sony, Microsoft, could be.

But Meta, Google, Amazon.. lol. No.

People buy devices that do what they want, not brands.

People do not buy multi-thousand dollar hardware&software combos from companies with unknown histories of software patches, product line commitment, warranty coverage, etc. That's why there's so few operating at those price ranges.

If Meta continue investing for this, I believe it can be like a Microsoft Gaming.

The price of that $3500 headset will also drop each year.

Let’s say it takes five years for Apple or Meta to be able to release this kind of hardware at $500.

Would you rather bet on the company with 5 years experience selling that class of hardware and software and finding real use cases? Or the one who is leaving the lab with it for the first time?

Ignoring Apple is a supply chain MONSTER that can get things cheaper and better than Meta can thanks to their volumes so the products might not be comparable at $500.

I would not count on immediate price drops. Typically cheaper devices like iBook or iPhone SE were years down the line.

Apple picks a price point and sticks to it (first generation iPhone was a one-off). People with too much money pay for early development on exclusive feature poor devices. As the technology becomes more functional inflation drops prices into affordable ranges.

Given the tolerances needed for head mounted quality and comfort Apple will never have a comparable cheap model. Meta has the edge here and will have Android levels of market share while Apple has Apple shares of profit.

I meant that only as a thought exercise. I agree with you about Apple cutting prices directly. While I think they’ll drop the price eventually on the Pro, maybe to start at $2000-$2500, it will be a few years.

When the more consumer oriented model comes (assuming things are successful) it will slot in at a lower price point, say $1000. But the Pro will still be up there.

I trust they’ll get to $500 or less (again, assuming success), but it’s going to take a long time. However Apple is the company that with their suppliers can design/make ultra high precision stuff and ship it in mass at prices that wouldn’t otherwise be possible.

Meta in market share: that I question. I don’t think these products compete (AR vs VR, not just price). Even if Apple becomes extremely successful I’m not sure VR demand will take off. And if someone tries to make a much cheaper AR I’d be concerned the experience is below the acceptable threshold. $3500 will never be mass market, but I’m not sure $500 can be good enough at current tech levels.

It’ll be a while before we start to see this play out. Could be totally wrong.

They’re shipping pancake lenses, color pass through, and depth sensors on the Quest Pro and Quest 3. Those were features on the last batch of prototypes a few years ago. Some features from prototypes haven’t shipped yet like their ultra high brightness display or varifocal lenses but I doubt they’ve canned them. I’m glad they’re being so open about this research, along with the release cadence they’re building up for new headsets it inspires a lot of confidence.

I was actually really curious about the r/d to product pipeline after I posted my comment. I appreciate your reply! If the turnaround is within a year or two, that’s excellent and totally counters my comment!

If you need the public to help you develop something, it's an indicator you don't have the wisdom to build the right thing.

Anyway I don't think that's what Apple is doing. The are just being expensive, exclusive ass clowns, like usual.

If you need the public to help you develop something, it's an indicator you don't have the wisdom to build the right thing.

I guess you missed the last 20 years of crowdsourcing fueling half the tech economy.

What in the world are you talking about? What major commercial innovations have been crowdsourced

“There’s an app for that”

Meta occupies Sun's former HQ. Xerox PARC (someone correct me if I'm wrong) is in a completely different place in Silicon Valley.

Also Meta has something Xerox PARC never had, copious amounts of revenue.

The Apple Vision is way more akin to the Meta Quest and you can buy that today for $300, not Apples $3,000 price tag.

That’s like saying Ferrari is a two-seater sports car just like a Miata.

I know plenty of people that would rather own a Miata

> Facebook seems now to be something like the company whose former HQ it inhabits: Xerox PARC.

did you mean sun microsystems?

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