Ars reporting that this tech starting to get somewhat affordable. That would mainstream it pretty quickly, am thinking. http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2017/...culus-ready-pcs-are-getting-relatively-cheap/
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Apple Allegedly Partnering With Carl Zeiss for Augmented Reality Glasses
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Not under Jobs, which makes all the difference. If you want to argue Apple's position in the 90's as a high point, then keep demonstrating your wealth of knowledge.
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Just margins? Yes and no.
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Thank you for equating the !Jobs Apple with Jobs Apple. Give yourself a pat on the back.
Okay, okay, it is more than margins. Video Games just isn't the cash cow industry that, say, iPods were. Or iPhones. Or Macs. Steve Jobs knew how to make money hand over fist, and video games were not going to do that.
Google Glass was a step in the right direction, I wrote that earlier, but Google seem to have stopped investing in their product. Two years since they shipped units.
Vuzix has been working on it ... forever and their glasses still look ugly and bulky, and battery only lasts 8 hours. Could they step up their game and make sleek looking glasses for tens of millions of consumers. I don't know, perhaps.
Any other you are thinking of "that have been doing it for....years" that could take on Apple?
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Sony is also making it wrong. They think AR is some kind of 3D game in your living room, like Microsoft and Magic Leap, but that's not where the real AR market is. The one where Apple could sell billion devices.
The real market is glasses that you can wear all the time and that look stylish. They will:
- provide subtitles when you are in foreign country
- show pin codes when they are needed
- act teleprompter when you have presentation
- show text message and notification without having to bring up your phone
- allow you to start, stop and change music / videos using simple gestures
- show heart beats and tempo when you run
- take picture from the view you see things
- allow others to see what you see
- will give advice when you are sporting (golf club selection, how will pool ball bounce etc)
- take notes without using pen and paper
- show name and alerts when somebody you know are in sight
- allow you to zoom in or have night vision.
- see time, temperature and other statistics.
- replay what happened during the day
- show instruction when putting together furniture from IKEA
- count calories you eat or have on your plate
etc. etc.
There will hundred of thousands, if not millions, of apps.
It will revolutonize everyday life. People will wonder how they could live without them.
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Gaming is as close to a mainstream application as we've seen for this technology, which is still looking for a reason to exist beyond some very specific uses. I think this entire rumor is bogus simply because Apple is and always has been a consumer electronics company. Unless they are changing direction, Apple is not going to pursue products with no clear appeal beyond a narrow market. A "more stylish" version of Google Glass does not fundamentally alter an extremely limited appeal.
As underwhelming as Apple Carplay is shaping out to be I'm cautiously pessimistic anything will come of this with Apple leadership showing the chutzpah of a whimper on the innovation front.
Oh I'm sorry.. I must have missed the part of your post where you explicitly mentioned the Jobs era Apple.. Not just Apple.
You said Apple hadn't tried to enter the console gaming market. Nowhere was it asked if this was a high point for the company. 90's Apple was still the same company, thus Apple has, in fact, tried to enter the console gaming market.
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The video game industry is massive right now. I don't know if you just haven't paid attention or are willfully ignorant.
http://fortune.com/2016/02/16/video-game-industry-revenues-2015/
"Total revenues for the industry in the U.S. hit $23.5 billion last year"
Look at those numbers and think about what it means. 23.5b split between so many companies. Apple makes more money from Macs than they ever would with video games.
Yes but video games as a whole are bigger than just the PC industry. In fact, the video game industry is helping fuel the PC industry. As game devs keep pushing graphics in their games people keep needing stronger and stronger computers which means a large majority of the population buys a new PC every 1-3 years. Your average PC is more than strong enough for 90% of day-to-day tasks. If it wasn't for the massive push from the game industry then a big chunk of people wouldn't need to upgrade their computer more than once every 6-10 years at this point.
Also, Apple inadvertently DID become a player in the gaming industry anyways. It wasn't deliberate, but mobile gaming on smartphones has eclipsed every other form of handheld gaming, and the mobile app/game ecosystem was pioneered by Apple, and as iPhones make a big chunk of smartphones, Apple technically makes revenue from having a stake in the gaming industry.
Of course they are backing AR, having hardware to compete with VR would hurt their margins. This way they can keep charging top dollar for last years Fischer Price hardware. To bad AR is a gimmick.
Yes, agreed, a big factor. But Jobs's vision was ultimately for the broad public.
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Oh I'm sorry.. I must have missed the part of your post where you explicitly mentioned the Jobs era Apple.. Not just Apple.
LOL. If you can demonstrate that the majority of the discussion around the philosophy and successes of Apple includes the !Jobs Apple era, then I will relinquish my comment.
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The 90's was also not reflective of Apple's philosophy. Jobs wanted to bring computation in an elegant usable form to every person in the world, beyond even the realm of a profitable and strong niche like the gaming industry. That was his vision from the beginning, one that was lost in his absence, and adopted again once he returned. Tell me anyone who takes the 90's Apple seriously.
Doesn't matter. Apple as a company has tried to enter the console gaming market. The End.
Microsoft is only rising again if you care about giant touch screens and enterprise solutions. If you do not (95% of consumers don't care about non-mobile solutions) then Apple's A processors and mobile dominance is the most exciting thing out there. The tech world is completely different from what it was when Jobs first left Apple. Microsoft lost out in a big way on mobile so they are just eating the table scraps that Apple doesn't even care about anymore. I love Macs and Apple laptops but I don't see a reason to ever buy a laptop again and I'm a video editor. I hope iMacs still exist in 2-3 years when I'm due for a new one but if they don't, iPad pro should be sufficient by then. if not, I'll consider leaving Apple but for who? I'd rather use a 10 year old Apple device to create content than the latest MS device and I know an entire creative community that feels the same way.
I guess these last to the party items weren't innovations:
iPad
Apple Watch
iMac
iPod
iPhone
Apple Music
Apple Pay
App Store
They are all brilliant innovations, Apple have rarely been first to do anything it's kind of like the hare and the tortoise.
most on that list they came second (or later) or many released at some time.
Smartwatches were out before watch. As was fitbit for a very streamlined thing
iMac was not the first computer and screen put together. Google Whyse terminal. Look for older ones before a dell acquistion it seems. I dealt with them when an independent entity many moons ago. Apple made it much better I will grant. Whyse terrminals...sucked ass, I have to be blunt there. Apple succeeded in making thin client tech that didn't suck.
Apple pay...I on flip phones in japan had payment systems built into them. TBH its why I held out for iphone many many moons ago for a while....that little system was pretty convenient for systems related to the train systems. Suica/pasmo. But several stores tied in as well.
Its been several years for apple to get me back what sony (others as well) flip phones in japan did I want to say...8+ years ago. Apple's flare here expanded markets and such.
App store as innovation...arguable. Its the only means to get software on the iphone/ipads. Alternate universe time....how well would it do if iOS allowed direct download? reason I wonder this....for mac OS I direct download from from dev unless I have no other choice but to use the store.
We can also argue a spinoff of itunes music store when it was clear it needed its own space to roam in and the other part to the itunes store that handled ipod music was just not cutting it.
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Basically. Others like webcam makers have done this. Webcam with Zeiss glass. It sells better than product with voigtlander or Cosina glass.
Voigtlander being a sister company to Zeiss who both fall under Cosina (Japan based company...insert joke about german engineering and Japanese production quality being a perfect marriage here).
And from what I have heard, Voigtlander and Zeiss are made in the same production facilities. Probably share the same engineering backend too but that is me guessing.
Voigtlander is the cheaper alternative to Zeiss for those not into lens'. Pretty good stuff, just not the engineering and such of Zeiss usually 1200+ glass offerings. they make some very nice so called pancake lens options. Pancake being what we call smaller more flatter lens'. My voigtlander 40....makes for a very light general purpose setup. Its a from my cold dead hands is how you will get it lens. Also own A Zeiss. Very nice lens too.
Also worth noting the allure of Zeiss is their lens offerings What this gets from Zeiss besides the name use....no idea really.Zeiss makes jsut plain glass for glasses but here...yeah its all name. I say that needing to wear glasses.
Zeiss' claim to fame from the lens world is so called microcontrasting. It picks up contrast really well to give a sort of 3d appearance is how its described. Thing is....your subject needs to have contrast to pick up. And you have to know how to compose and shoot the frame to get it.
Subject or my composition not right....still a nice picture but one you can get with any decent lens really lol. Now when I nail that microcontrast...I go yep, this is why I paid 800 for a used piece of glass.
Other famed thing of Zeiss is old school almost all solid metal manual focus construction. these lens' are tanks really. And the rings even after years of use are precise and clean in movement.
these AR glasses...aren't going into this realm though.