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Funny how reading the comments about how this won’t sell, no one will want this, it’s a niche product etc. exactly what they were saying about rumored iphone in 2006. Go to Macrumors archives and see for yourself.

I think a lot of the negativity is down to the rumoured price point of £2k. It’s not going to sell in large mainstream quantities at that price but then I don’t think Apple are intending it to. Your average consumer isn’t going to try out a new technology at that price and this will appeal to the niche enthusiast initially and in maybe 10 years time when it’s a few hundred quid, people will be a bit more inclined to try it out.
 
As much as I’d like that to be the case, I doubt it’s gonna have “productivity” uses

macOS apps are different in iPadOS since all the advantages of mouse-keyboard input (like some features as simple as resizing a side bar) can’t just be adapted to touch, we’ve seen that with Stage Manager resizing. I don’t want to imagine “pro” apps being adapted to a not-even touch UI
B
Perfect for all those high quality, bleeding edge AAA games on the App Store.
yeah Apple should really step up the game here.
Now with M chips it would be possible to run those.
 
$2000 when Meta is around $500 will be a tough sell, even for a niche product. Of course it will have its buyers, but I can’t see thing gaining a lot of traction.
This isn't a Quest competitor, though... it's more of a competitor for Meta's upcoming super-premium Project Cambria headset (which is expected to carry a $1k+ price).

The real question is what will both of those headsets offer in terms of performance, functionality, and developer enablement?
 
8K is not double 4K but 4 times 4K despite popular belief.
An 8k TV is roughly 8000*4000 pixels. This headset will likely have two 4000*4000 screens, at best.
For instance, I don't have that great of vision. When I was younger, I had nearsightedness and astigmatism, now, after cataract surgery, I have eyes tuned for computer work, and to top it all off, I have Duane syndrome. Duane syndrome is a eye muscle problem from birth that means my eyes don't focus together, nor even track together. (when looking through a particular eye, the other one turns in, kind of like cross eyed on that side.) I'm an extreme case, I know, and probably can never use something like this, but I think people underestimate how differences in vision run the gamut of possibilities and VR makers would have to be able to adjust for various difference and I'm betting that they haven't even thought of that yet. Up to 20% of people don't even see in 3D for instance. At least out in real reality <g>, we all have our ways of adjusting to the circumstance, but in a fixed focus screen plastered in front of our eyes, our brains just wont be able to handle it.

I described my vision in another message, but to put it in a nutshell, no 3D vision and my eyes don't track like a normal person's eyes. Trying to fool my eyes/brain to see fake 3D actually causes really bad headaches.

This is really hard for me to explain, and I have no formal training in in 3D vision other than satisfying my own curiosity, but even though I can't see in 3D like a normal person does, but the brain is wonderfully adaptable in in the way it perceives things. I don't just see a flat screen like vision. I see what looks 3D to me. Rather than stereoscopically interpreting 3D, I see 3D via perspective and my brain interpreting 3D that way. Basically like everyone else sees in 3D outside of 25 or 30 feet. Unfortunately all the ways of faking 3D currently are based on stereoscopic vision and not perspective, so all it does is look like 2 images and my brain gets confused in putting them together. Since I never had stereoscopic vision, it never learned how.
Unlike “3D” cinema/TV, VR isn’t just a stereoscopic image. It changes the image based on your head position, and will soon be changing the image based on your precise pupil position, as most headsets will soon have eye tracking. VR shows you things based on your natural perspective, not just the perspective of camera lenses that may not match your natural perspective.
VR use does not require stereoscopic vision. Sure, for people who have stereoscopic vision, they get an extra bonus… just like in real life. Have you actually tried VR with 6-DOF tracking? (Cardboard/GearVR/Oculus Go only have 3-DOF rotational tracking).
VR headsets currently have a fixed focus distance, which can actually be a good thing for older uses, because eyes lose flexibility in focusing as they age. As headsets with variable-focus technology come onto the market, I’m sure they’ll allow you to calibrate them to match the focusing capabilities of your own eyes.
 
just like in real life. Have you actually tried VR with 6-DOF tracking? (Cardboard/GearVR/Oculus Go only have 3-DOF rotational tracking).
no, just 3-DOF. All that does is break my brain.

It changes the image based on your head position, and will soon be changing the image based on your precise pupil position, as most headsets will soon have eye tracking.
That's one of the things that bother me conceptually, my eyes don't track together, but I may be looking out of either one. (and the other one turns in.) When I'm looking left, I look out of my right eye, when I'm looking right, I look out of my left eye. My eyes can't turn outward. I just don't see them doing any compensation for that, so they wouldn't work. Strabismus would have the same tracking problem as well.
 
As headsets with variable-focus technology come onto the market, I’m sure they’ll allow you to calibrate them to match the focusing capabilities of your own eyes.
That part I'm actually looking forward too, as long as it would be a smaller package. Think of it as autofocus glasses. That would be VERY cool and useful.
 
no, just 3-DOF. All that does is break my brain.
Yeah, 3-DOF VR sucks, but thankfully it’s pretty much dead.
That's one of the things that bother me conceptually, my eyes don't track together, but I may be looking out of either one. (and the other one turns in.) When I'm looking left, I look out of my right eye, when I'm looking right, I look out of my left eye. My eyes can't turn outward. I just don't see them doing any compensation for that, so they wouldn't work. Strabismus would have the same tracking problem as well.
The eye tracking will track your pupils individually, so the images it gives you should look natural to you. I really don’t understand why they’d need to do any special compensation. It will simply put the virtual cameras in the 3D scene at the precise location of your real pupils, and feed the same two images to your two eyes that you’d see in an equivalent real world scene.
On the other hand, strabismus would make using eye tracking for selection more difficult, because the software wouldn’t know which eye to use for selection. But maybe there could be some sort of training where it could have you look at things in various locations in your FOV and it could learn which eye you favor in different directions. Apple usually does quite well when it comes to accessibility options. But maybe you’d just have to forgo using eye tracking as a selection option.
 
$2000 when Meta is around $500 will be a tough sell, even for a niche product. Of course it will have its buyers, but I can’t see thing gaining a lot of traction.
The $2K price point is too low in my opinion. No it won’t have “traction” among the lower socio-economic classes and the uneducated. this is not another low end device.
 
I’m usually a first adopter for all new tech, but I just don’t see the sales pitch for this device yet. I get why Apple and Facebook want to create virtual worlds where they get a cut of all the money spent inside them, but I don’t get why I’d want to pay money to pretend to live in such a place.
Same here. Such technology in my eyes promotes disconnecting from in-person social life.
 
Not interested. I find both AR/VR to be boring. And $2k is way overpriced.

And this guy throws out more predictions than Nostradamus.

You throw out a 1,000 predictions a year, and then sites rerun the ones that were correct, anyone can look like an all seeing prophecy.
$2K is way UNDER priced. Microsoft’s HoloLens is $3500. ( The DoD has a $20 Billion dollar contract with MS for development) — this is not a product for the masses. The masses don’t matter. they have Meta/Oculus and other sub $1000 devices for their uses.
 
i myself need a new 27” M-processor iMac more than a VR set ….
 
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I'm rather surprised to see that most of you do not comprehend the potential of this technology...
Why are you “surprised”? Apple consumers are not smarter than others. There are many embittered anti-technology Apple consumers. In recent weeks I have read on forms that Apple is “Greedy”, “Racist” “Elitist” and that Apple “doesn’t know what it’s doing”. In the Mixed reality space. The good news is those who don’t “comprehend the potential” of this technology are irrelevant. And that is as it should be.
 
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On the other hand, strabismus would make using eye tracking for selection more difficult, because the software wouldn’t know which eye to use for selection.
That would be a problem with my vision as well. Strabismus is very similar. One of my eyes is turned in all the time. And here's the tricky part, depending on which way I'm looking, I may be seeing through the turned in eye, or the one that's not turned in. I do it all automatically, and most of the time I don't even notice which eye I'm looking through.

This is hard to describe, but if my brain tries to see a full image through both eyes, like when watching a 3D movie, I get double vision, but kind of offset from each other. It doesn't work.

But like I said, I'm the odd man out and I can't expect to be able to use something like VR/AR. That's okay though, I count it as a minor inconvenience. But maybe that does color my vision in not being able to figure out a good use for such a thing. I do have other relatives that can't see in 3D, but I bet everyone does, so I guess my main point is that you can't expect the same kind of vision from everyone.
 
Same here. Such technology in my eyes promotes disconnecting from in-person social life.
Increasing social connectivity is actually one of the coolest use cases I can think of for the eventual AR device. Right now, it's generally weird to engage with strangers in public to the point that it's difficult to make new friends if you're new to an area. It would be super cool if there were a meta reality that allowed people to signal that it was cool to interact with them. There would even be some AR interactions that encourage conversations. If the product is successful, it will also enable cool interactions like handing people your contact information and their device automatically saving it and associating it with your face for the next time you interact. It could even parse conversations to give you reminders about things you said you would do. None of this is beyond the capability of AI software right now and Apple has already implemented most of the fundamental technologies in HomeKit person detection, airdrop, live subject detection and gesture tracking for Apple Watch.

I have doubts about why I'd want to pay to use this device when the main function of it is clearly to make Apple massive amounts of my money in a really anti-competitive way. But I don't doubt at all that the people who adopt this will be socially connected to each other in really cool ways.
 
This is hard to describe, but if my brain tries to see a full image through both eyes, like when watching a 3D movie, I get double vision, but kind of offset from each other. It doesn't work.

But like I said, I'm the odd man out and I can't expect to be able to use something like VR/AR. That's okay though, I count it as a minor inconvenience. But maybe that does color my vision in not being able to figure out a good use for such a thing. I do have other relatives that can't see in 3D, but I bet everyone does, so I guess my main point is that you can't expect the same kind of vision from everyone.
VR is closer to real life 3D than it is to 3D movies. If you don't get double vision in real life, there is no reason you should get double vision while using a VR headset. There may be some other properties of the optics that may trigger the double vision, such as limited field of view, but that should be improved as the technology matures.

Sure, you won't get all the benefits from VR, such as stereoscopy and using your eyes as a replacement for a mouse. But those are just 2 of many benefits. Just like how quite a large portion of the general population has some degree of color blindness, but that doesn't mean full color monitors are no better than black & white TV for them. Very few people see no color, so almost everyone gets some benefit from color screens.
VR will also have benefits for people with vision disorders. You can scale a virtual display to any size. You can hold a virtual screen like its a piece of paper, and hold it close to your face to zoom in and scroll around, but with a custom focus distance. You can get a sense of 3D space by moving your head. You can see scenes from a natural perspective.
 
Why are you “surprised”? Apple consumers are not smarter than others. There are many embittered anti-technology Apple consumers. In recent weeks I have read on forms that Apple is “Greedy”, “Racist” “Elitist” and that Apple “doesn’t know what it’s doing”. In the Mixed reality space. The good news is those who don’t “comprehend the potential” of this technology are irrelevant. And that is as it should be.

It works both ways too. It’s irrelevant at this point to a lot of Apples consumers as well. At the end of the day many won’t care what price it is because they were interested in getting it anyway. It doesn’t interest me if I’m truthfully honest.
 
It's pretty easy to see why VR would be preferred in many important usecases.

Perhaps the most important and human usecase of all - being with other people. People don't really like phonecalls or videocalls compared to real life, because they know that real life provides a sense of togetherness that these technologies don't get close to. Humans evolved to detect other human faces in striking detail up-close in our near-field vision. Intimacy and trust happens in personal distance space, something that can't be replicated well with a screen.

This is where VR would come in, to make people feel like they are together, especially as the tech matures and the experience feels lifelike. The corded telephone changed the world and only transmitted our voices.

Other uses for VR would include the ability to travel and attend events in a perceptually real way, to change identity at will, to enhance exercise, to provide more engaging and fun education, more productive computing work, and more.

In my opinion the pandemic has proven how important it can be for people to be with others. Time and time again we would read or hear stories of people dying alone in hospital beds or in care homes because loved ones were refused permission to visit due to fear of spreading or catching the virus. Also with restriction of movement in place many people not being allowed to leave their homes to visit their loved ones. This is where VR would have been able to step in, stick on a VR headset and you could see your loved one(s) (ok yes they be in digital form but it better than nothing).

Also business meetings. How many times has a company told an employee to drop everything and go to a meeting across state(s) or to another country because something has come up unexpecetedly or at the last min. You've got issues of getting flights in time, accommodation in time, taxi's, trains, it all mounts up but hey, here's a thought, how about using VR. The company could send over a VR headset to the employee to be there in as part of a virtual meeting.

There is definitely a market out there for VR, it is just that the hardware needs to be less cumbersome (Oculus and Playstation VR user)
 
Very costly if it is going to be priced at $2000. Hopefully the future generations will be cheaper.
This is not an mass consumer product. The crowd always claps when someone wants a lower price. I want to see a more expensive product. Apple is not in the business of providing tech for the poor.
 
Same here. Such technology in my eyes promotes disconnecting from in-person social life.
A decade from now, when many professional positions, education, medicine and sports efforts are enhanced or use mixed reality tools you’ll be outside looking in. The Pentagon has spent Billions on the Metaverse in recent years. Few know about it, because most Americans know little of things military. (They surely don’t serve) Other sectors of the economy are also eagerly looking at the space and it’s potential. The gamers and entertainment make all the noise. But there will be enormous impact across the economy. And some of that impact will be ugly. It’s not a utopia. And it will be abused by some (many?). No matter. Those who turn their back on this fast emerging tech do so at their peril.
 
Cheaper and uniform hardware that just works without the need to set it up, customize it or make sure everything is compatible.
that’s a ridiculous idea. Not everyone wants uniformity. The beauty of the present is personalization. My way may not be your way.
 
Apple sell to the mass consumer market and believe it or not but low earners do buy their tech. There’s a reason why iPhones are in the hands or multiple demographics in our society.

Yes I understand that. They buy into the Apple mystique when less expensive alternatives abound. My point is Apple does not focus on the low end. Nor should they.
 
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