Apple Plans Smaller, Lighter Vision Headset; Meta Works on Cheaper Quest 3
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I think the most that people would ever consider would be a HUD with some walking directions or something.
I could be wrong and it ends up being the biggest thing since the PC, but I just don’t understand even the most optimistic takes outside of cool gaming experiences.
This is where i think Apple can get a real foot into the door eventually, because the experience would be such a large leap from flatscreen.
The engines are really good. In fact, I think that a couple of movies have been made, using Unreal.
Those are coming together with AR.
That said, advertisers could easily kill this, and there's so much money in ads, that I don't know if there's any way to prevent that.
Yeah, it's expensive, but pro anything is expensive. I have friends that have made movies, and have given me some insight into the process. It's not really something that I think I'd enjoy.
What will kill it, will be cheap-ass ads, splattered around a high-quality scene.
I'll take "Things that never stopped the Internet from succeeding" for $400, Alex.
For advertisers, the only metric is "$". Others may have different priorities.
But you have a point. A stroll around the Ginza District at night, shows how advertising can actually become a cultural heritage.
And I mean... I own a Quest 1. I've not seen an advertisement anywhere besides the "Store" and "Browser" apps to my knowledge. If you want to immerse yourself in a scene, nothing stops you. There's probably a reality where Roblox-style VR is supported by ads, but that will exist on all headsets. The only way to guarantee advertisement becoming the norm is to lock out competitors and make it impossible for Open Source software to compete. Apple is quite good at that last part.
Just consider how much live action content an unskilled teen can produce vs how much CG content they can produce. The labor differential is massive. Making movies is hard but making immersive CG is on a different level.
As far as democratizing 3d content creation, I think live action depth aware capture on the iPhone is the immediate path forward.
The current serious producers have built their own cameras, but these tend to come with an expensive pipeline of compositors to make up for a lack of willingness to automate position and color calibration.
The problem, as I alluded to earlier, is creatively it is far closer to theater than cinema, and many people want to make cinema.
It is certainly nothing like as hard as game development, but for people coming from TV/movie land the whole software and interaction aspect (even just moving the head) confuses them.
If anything resolving 3D audio was the hard part, by which I mean most subject to being misunderstood. (Try explaining to a media creative type that crossfading binaural mixes of two orientations does not create a valid intermediate new binaural mix).
Source: I worked on several notable stereoscopic VR productions.
I’ve heard people say “wow VR porn must be amazing”
I’ve heard people say it exists
I don’t think I have ever heard the name of a single title, porn or otherwise. I also don’t feel like I have heard any claims that it’s actually considered added value.
Big budget productions companies (like, you know, Apple) are already shooting with fancy cameras and their 3D pipeline is pretty capable of generating stereoscopy.
Every 3D movie released for 3DTVs is waiting for re-encoding to 4K+. Free money for distribution companies.
Porn companies are the main mover in this domain. VHS, Bluray, and now headsets.
And there are lot of tricks you can use. Like use ML model to estimate depth of any 2D movie.
But real spatial capture and rendering is going to be where the headset will truly shine.
Now I don't think there will a "killer" app, but probably many niches, with one or more resonating with each of us. The same way current TV business isn't surviving on a single use case, but a constellation of cases where people want a big screen in their living room.
Might want to experiment with that and virtual desktop in passthrough mode.
I would love to be able to have essentially a pair of "triple monitor setup goggles" that I can throw into a backpack, but right now the cost and battery life isn't there quite yet. But I have hope!
In a way, looks like Apple is gambling on that direction.
I wonder if we need a design revolution before headsets become "killer app" useful. I suspect we don't.
Just get the resolution and refresh rate high enough, and it's already a revolution.
Isn't that a solution looking for a problem still?
With smartphones the problem wasn't surfing the web – you're right that mobile devices and the mobile web grew up together. The problem was needing information when not at a desktop computer, or wanting more information quicker than you'd get through a phone call, or just wanting human interaction (even if it was online).
The killer apps for mobile were things like finding your way around (maps, transport times, traffic), social networking (without logging on to a desktop chat room or actually meeting someone), and photos (without carrying around another device).
So far the only "killer app" for VR/AR – something we literally could not do before VR/AR, is immersive gaming. I know non-VR games can be immersive in their own way but VR is clearly a step up. The problem I believe is accessibility – we don't have the physical space, or cheap and good enough devices, or enough content that people find what they like, and that's just one somewhat niche use-case (gaming isn't niche, but gaming aiming for immersiveness is).
If it’s just an awkward $3500 monitor that poorly packs into a carry on, it won’t work. AirPods Max poor folding comes to mind
I drink coffee at my desk, and I suspect the headset will get in the way of drinking from the cup...
I also tried using the Hololens a couple of years back at my desk for longer periods of time, and there were loads of issues; Lower resolution than screens, narrow field-of-view (FOV), extra weight on head, unable to scratch my nose... And the headset getting in the way of the coffee cup.
It just wasn't a good experience.
Even if Apple has solved resolution and FOV, I doubt it can be comfortable enough to work with for 8 hours/day. It's 500 grams (probably) extra weight on your head, a lot of unnatural light, and weird seclusion from colleagues.
It is also not a good form factor for traveling, because unlike a laptop which is slim and flat, these headset are actually quite bulky and take up a lot of space in your bag. It would take up a good portion of space in your carry-on bag on a flight.
What does 'really use them' mean? I use the Q2 almost daily to take a break just to view some street view images. It's a short-time passive entertainment device for me, and certainly worth the money for it. Most people own a few devices for casual use like that, like a tablet. It doesnt need to be like a smartphone
To this day, it looks like a solution looking for a problem.
AR makes sense as HUD for specialized jobs, for everything else give us Holodeck.
Which is perhaps why it really only has a (consumer) foothold in gaming; it's not offering a solution to a real problem, it's selling an entertainment experience.
It will take some more time though, and I'm still skeptical how many people will not hate putting on such a rig, personally I'm not even comfortable wearing headphones.
The Vision Pro is obviously just a development platform for apps and for Apple to miniaturize everything, and then it's all going into a pair of regular glasses for everyone to wear all day. Meta is trying to get out in front of them with their Ray-Ban partnership, but those don't include a display yet, although I think they could have done it already.
Content is king here and whoever launches hardware faces the empty room problem of having a lot of potential but no content to realize it. The Apple vision pro makes for a really great way to enjoy 2D content. So, it's immediately useful that way just as a really premium way to enjoy that content. Using it to just interface with your normal desktop apps also seems highly useful. It's cheaper than getting Apple's really expensive screen and offers more screen real estate.
None of that really requires new content. Then there's a huge back catalog of 3D movies, which have been coming out in cinemas for nearly 2 decades now that as of yet have struggled to reach home audiences. The deal with Disney seems like it is a smart move here. Disney has no other way to sell their 3D content right now. 3D television failed and it seems most streaming services aren't interested so far. And finally, there is of course a lot of game and VR content out there that can be adapted. Apple's new game porting kit is a strong hint that they are interested in tapping into that.
All of that before developing new content specifically for this device. That's a smart move and it stretches the use of this device beyond just gamers. My guess is that if they can scale production, it will sell really well. And then the dedicated content will ramp up over the next years.
Others may copy what they do technically but getting a content strategy together is much harder. Meta and Valve have bits and pieces of it. Same for Sony. But is it enough? I think they need to up their content game. Apple has that nailed it seems.
Funny enough, meta does actually have Android apps running in headset. The licensing battle is the bigger issue.
I wonder if Meta have a plan to take on flat Android app uploads if it looks like this is the way AR takes off.
Examples:
Facial recognition + contact list
Shopping list
Monitor replacement that lets you see your keyboard and stuff on your desk.
Phone replacement that frees up your pockets.
Hands-free camera that can take pictures 5-10 seconds in the past.
Apple has solved most of the problems plaguing other headsets. The only remaining problem, which is a huge problem, is weight and size. VR headset should be as effortless to wear as a pair of headphones. It's absolutely not a "software" problem, i.e. a lack of a killer app.
The problems they have already solved:
- Controllers and user interface (VR controllers and their associated interfaces are atrocious; you basically need to "shoot" at interface targets like shooting a gun, lol)
- Eye-tracking also makes "retina" resolutions possible with less compute, thanks to foveated rendering
- Low-latency/high quality AR
- Spatial tracking without external base stations
- Weight reduction with wired external battery
However, I'm afraid they'll need to scrap everything. Bigscreen Beyond is the form factor they should copy. It's just under 200g. Add extremely lightweight cameras for eye/spatial/hand-tracking. Remove everything else, like auto-adjusting IPD and the external display. Move compute to the battery case or stream it wirelessly from an external device. This would allow better thermals as well, and a fan wouldn't be needed in the device. High-resolution AR might have to go as well (although it might be possible to reconstruct from low-quality cameras).
I'm also waiting for Beyond to copy what Apple has done, and add wireless streaming. For PCVR in general, compute should be wirelessly streamed to/from a PC, and battery should be wired, like Vision Pro.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ic_uqEGI18
MRTV is a great channel for all things VR/AR
There are also differences in optics. Game headsets tend to have fewer pixels at the edge, and iirc, they want to have optics optimized for work use cases.
I'm interested to see how Cook will price the non-pro version.