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Apple Moving Forward on Semitransparent Lenses for Upcoming AR Headset
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Shut up Randy!
As someone who has worn glasses all his life, if they could pull off AR specs at the prices they are purposing it'd be a real tough decision to not try it out. The glasses industry is one big con and screw people with overpriced products. My regular glasses can cost me anywhere between $300 and $500 depending on if I was dumb enough to think of having a brand name was worth the hundreds of dollars mark up.
Sure, but my point was that I’m struggling to imagine the logistics of having custom varifocal lenses made up by Apple.
Microsoft repurposed the "Surface" name... Apple could always do the same with iSight.
(No, I don't actually expect them to do that...)
Lenses are ground by automated equipment, does the particular prescription really matter? It could, but it wouldn’t seem to be a particularly difficult logistics operation for Apple. Just a guess.
so much potential in this arena
just make sure the design and implementation is "insanely great"
just make sure the design and implementation is "insanely great"
This really is an inevitability and has nothing to do with Apple. Even Google glass was merely a trial balloon to indicate possibilities and drive further development - not intended as a mainstream commercially viable product.
All credit should be due to the likes of Jaron Lanier and the folks at Nick Negroponte's MIT Media Lab like 30 years ago and onward. I wouldn't call what they were doing "crude" at all - they were state of the art at that time, in fact far ahead of what was generally possible for mobile computing at that stage. Those were sci-fi in real life - proper miracles.
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I hated having to wear glasses all day too. Glasses were a safety problem in my work & sports, so they had to go. I switched to contacts rather than laser beams, so I can still use binoculars & sunglasses or VR Goggles or Googly Glass or this new Apple Helmet or whatever it turns out to be, w/o interference or focusing problems, but don’t need to spend a half a years salary on it.
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Yes but spectacle lenses are not normally also semi-transparent digital displays. If you can't see the potential difference between grinding these and normal spectacle lenses then I'm not going to be able to explain it to you
Presumably they’re done in layers - a standard shaped display bonded to a bespoke shaped prescription lens?Yes but spectacle lenses are not normally also semi-transparent digital displays. If you can't see the potential difference between grinding these and normal spectacle lenses then I'm not going to be able to explain it to you
Yeah maybe. It's going to be interesting to learn all about it, that's for sure. Right now I can't see me getting on board but I said the same about Apple Watch
Ignoring the insult, your post and my response were clearly addressing varifocal lenses, not normal spectacle lensesYes but spectacle lenses are not normally also semi-transparent digital displays. If you can't see the potential difference between grinding these and normal spectacle lenses then I'm not going to be able to explain it to you
I’m pretty sure Apple is well aware that many customers wear eyeglasses, but I’m sure they appreciate your concern over the logistics of supplying a usable product to their customers.
Ignoring the insult, your post and my response were clearly addressing varifocal lenses, not normal spectacle lenses
I’m pretty sure Apple is well aware that many customers wear eyeglasses, but I’m sure they appreciate your concern over the logistics of supplying a usable product to their customers.
Apologies, it wasn't meat to come across as an insult. More just tongue in cheek. In any case, I didn't say they couldn't do it, I said I was curious to see how it turns out because I can't imagine it being easy. I find it very hard to believe that grinding complex, custom fitted (measured to suit your face) varifocal lenses that are also semi-transparent displays was/is not a rather large factor to consider in the design and production of these glasses. That is all. Nothing more.
No need to apologize really, rather it should be I apologizing to you. I was being a smart ass and you didn’t deserve that. Thanks though.
I'm commenting on the possibilities not the actualities.
Though if I was a betting man I'm not very concerned about it. Apples track record should make people feel comfortable enough, they are not afraid to stop a project in its tracks if it isn't living up to expectations and grinding lenses is not a difficult or expensive task. My cousin worked at making lenses for glasses and he told me he was mostly a handler they have a machine that does everything quickly and efficiently. Hard to believe Apple would screw that up.
Varifocals must be custom measured with chosen frames so that the focal points exactly match the pitch of your eyes. This needs to be done in a setting that I can’t easily imagine happening in an Apple Store. Not impossible, of course, but I still find it all somewhat unlikely. Getting Apple to grind up a regular prescription, yes, but varifocals are not a regular prescription and must be effectively made to measure.