Apple Focusing on Sports, Gaming, and Fitness Apps for AR/VR Headset

[prefuse07]

Take a trip back to the early 1980s and you can rewrite your comment as "Time and time again, it's been proven that the majority of consumers don't want and care for PCs. Apple's Lisa and Macintosh products will bomb hard."

I'm not sure how old you are -- but you could also argue the same about VR. Take a trip to the 80's and even mid 90's and you will see that by 1997, outside of a few arcades, VR died right then and there, and it has been trying to come back ever since, but seems to be experiencing the same thing. Mainstream consumers just aren't interested.

Reminds me of all the talk of Fusion -- 10 years out, 10 years out, 10 years out.... Yet still in development

I know you're probably gonna try to talk about Oculus and Failbook, but look what happened with PSVR -- and Gaming is a huge use case for it.

 

[torartc]

Can we please stop with this tired, unrealistic, ugly render please?

 

[AlexESP]

Getting more excited about this. I always thought it wouldn’t be a dev-kit product, not even a professional-focused device. I’m really looking forward to experience a great implementation of VR and AR.

 

[xpxp2002]

MLB in VR on Apple TV anyone?

It's all vaporware and smoke-and-mirrors, anyway. I'm glad the article finally called this headset out for what it really is: a solution in search of a problem.

Meanwhile, back on Earth, I'm still waiting for this to happen. Been waiting since 2017.

 

[wlossw]

This is reminding me a lot of the launch of the first Apple Watch.
Tuns and tuns of things being thrown at the wall but if this thing succeeds, it’s not gonna be till version two or three.
And I expect over the years a lot of the stuff that’ll become considered nonsense will be ditched, just like most of the glaringly stupid things about early watchOS

But having tried other VR headsets the biggest problem remains that many people become HORRIBLY ill from wearing headsets (myself included), no amount of software will fix a physically unpleasant use experience.

 

[AlexESP]

Btw, I enjoy AAA, but simple and boring Apple Arcade games could become amazing on 1st person, very well accomplished VR. And Apple overwhelmingly dominates mobile gaming (which translates into gaming in general). I can imagine this to be a similar feeling to playing the first accelerometer-based games on the iPhone.

 

[Koivari]

Maybe they should replace the wellness app with welding app, this might do as a welding mask alright.

 

[Druggar]

I don’t care.

I don’t want to control Super Mario with my eyes and head.

I don’t want notifications appearing in my face. I just want to hear the alert and take my sweet time to check what they are.

How about controling Super Mario with a game controller but playing it as if you were looking through his eyes? That would be fun.

 

[raindogg]

Cut to next year and everyone is watching porn.

 

[DocMultimedia]

I still think losing the NFL contract hurt them. Football with AR/VR in some form might be what got me and many others to buy. (Yes, soccer/football is bigger, but Americans pump up the Apple $$$.)

 

[Havoc035]

Apple focussing on games?

 

[compwiz1202]

I would love to play World of Warcraft in it.

Any 3d action game could be cool especially with surround sound. Even way back when I was playing some Jurassic Park game at a friend's with surround sound, it was so cool to hear something behind me so I could turn around a address it.

 

[Octavius8]

A device create to solve a problem we don't have. And give us need we also don't need.
Instead of innovation in the iPhone let's do this to get more money!

 

[Born Again]

When are people going to understand that Apple doesn't expect this to sell many millions? Apple will treat this like their earliest products - Lisa and Macintosh. The very early start of an industry that has to be built upon across many iterations.

VR/AR is hard engineering. Creating the iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, and other products in the last two decades were the low-hanging fruit. We're now back to the days where you have to invent much of the tech from scratch, just like we saw back in Apple's early PC days.

I don’t doubt it but this isn’t what people want.

We need VR without goggles.

 

[macdisciple]

It these are the initial use cases then what is this product bringing that hasn’t been out for the last 30 years?

Answer: A new platform with untapped potential. Anyone judging it's relevance on what it can do now, is not tuned into what it might do in 5 years.

 

[DarthBuzzard]

I'm not sure how old you are -- but you could also argue the same about VR. Take a trip to the 80's and even mid 90's and you will see that by 1997, outside of a few arcades, VR died right then and there, and it has been trying to come back ever since, but seems to be experiencing the same thing. Mainstream consumers just aren't interested.

Reminds me of all the talk of Fusion -- 10 years out, 10 years out, 10 years out.... Yet still in development

I know you're probably gonna try to talk about Oculus and Failbook, but look what happened with PSVR -- and Gaming is a huge use case for it.

1980s VR isn't worth bringing up since you couldn't buy a headset back then. 1990s was the first time the headset market existed, but it faded away in only a couple of years. Today's VR has been around for about 7 years, which means it clearly has much more runway than the 1990s, and is here to stay.

PSVR2 sales could bounce back a bit if Sony puts more effort into it. They're really messing up the marketing angle, since they aren't marketing it and aren't selling it in retail stores or even on Amazon. Of course don't expect this massive success as that was never the intention this early on.

 

[Armada2]

Oh Apple.. who wants to wear a headset and do gym exercises and sweat the headset out and ruin it over time...

 

[MacsRgr8]

Flop goes the headset. A books app? Lol.

This needs games and more games if apple wants any chance.

X-Plane 12 puuhleeeeeezzzee! 😁

 

[robbietop]

It's not the software that's the issue, it's the use case. How do you parse data?

On the iPhone/iPad, it's scrolling with a finger. On the Mac, mouse scrolling.

Don't say eyes, because mine are gonna get sore from rolling, just like it will get sore from looking constantly down. Also, what if I need to look away?

How do you select data? I can't tap with my eyes, and don't say there will be controllers.....BECAUSE THE iPHONE IS A GIANT CONTROLLER. And then on top of that, I can do EVERYTHING the headset can do.....on my iPhone. Everything. Everything. There is nothing that headset can do that the iPhone can't. And don't say the iPhone can't do AR/VR.....remember Google making a cardboard cutout for their AR/VR? Even Nintendo has done this.

This thing gets more complicated every second and it seems like the only people really into it are gamers.

I don't see an everyday use for anyone. It's a device in search of a market, which means DOA.

 

[Realityck]

Apple is preparing to unveil its AR/VR "mixed" reality headset at WWDC in June, and the company is working to create appealing app experiences to encourage people to adopt the device. Apple is working on dedicated sports, gaming, wellness, and collaboration apps for the device, reports Bloomberg.

Thats hilarious if true. No media but hype it towards those services,

 

[phenste]

I’m sorry…do they actually expect people to workout with this thing on?

I hope this product eventually succeed, a la Apple Watch, but I am truly f—king cackling at the thought of someone doing this particular activity (no pun intended) wearing a headset with a HIP BATTERY

 

[DarthBuzzard]

A device create to solve a problem we don't have. And give us need we also don't need.
Instead of innovation in the iPhone let's do this to get more money!

VR/AR is objectively much more innovative than the iPhone. A greater set of usecases (which solves many problems we have, but you just don't think you have), and is a greater effort in terms of engineering. Couldn't think of a more innovative hardware play.

However, we are not at the iPhone moment yet, so the sales will be widely different until the tech matures.

 

[xpxp2002]

I don’t doubt it but this isn’t what people want.

We need VR without goggles.

The thing is, most people don't want nor care about VR at all. It's the industry trying to force it to keep pushing unsustainably perpetual increasing growth and profits.

 

[poematik13]

Exercise is one of the more popular uses for VR's userbase right now, and this headset will be at least half as thin as most headsets.

Maybe it was for a brief time in spring 2020 when gyms were closed, lol

The most popular usecases for VR right now are enthusiast gaming and porn, two things Apple won't care about

Take a trip back to the early 1980s and you can rewrite your comment as "Time and time again, it's been proven that the majority of consumers don't want and care for PCs. Apple's Lisa and Macintosh products will bomb hard."

Not at all, but nice try at making a gotcha lol. PC's had no precedent. They turned analog work (office documents, art, etc) into digital and changed the world. Same with smartphones and app stores. That's why they were successful.

VR/AR is just taking an existing digital precedent (iOS) and putting it in a gimmicky UI/UX wrapper that's subpar because it's physically strapped to your head and blinds you and also costs three thousand ****ing dollars lol

This will bomb hard- I wish this website allowed banbets lol I will bet my account that this product will bomb

Every VR product since the 80's has failed.

 

[MacsRgr8]

I hope it’ll have crash detection when used on ski slopes.

Or maybe embed this in a crash helmet?