Apple Shifts 'Bug Wrangler' to AR Team to 'Bring Some Order' to AR Headset Development

[ipedro]

Ugh. I don't envy a culture that "markets" potential mates like job applicants. It's one thing to meet people socially who share similar interests. It's another to sell yourself—or interview others—like an arranged marriage. Or are these just hook up scenarios? Either way, you noted that people don't advertise themselves accurately.

I wonder which approach has produced the most legitimate relationships... serendipity? Or dating apps?

I’m a wedding photographer. Over the years, more and more of my couples turned out to have met on dating apps to the point we’re at today when easily most of them have met that way. I also have noticed that more of these couples stayed together.

We’re getting really off topic from this thread but to finish this point, people who have a greater choice (hundreds, even thousands of potential matches on a dating app) tend to find someone they’re a true match with than couples who met from a very small pool (at work, friends of friends, arranged etc) and just settled.

Back on topic, AR glasses are going to produce uses that we haven’t even thought of today. I’m a big believer in that social/ dating apps are going to flourish when superimposed onto the real world.

 

[DoctorTech]

Apple will solve that problem quite easily:

1) they will look like regular glasses, not like a Borg appliance
2) they won’t be able to take photos or record video (at least not without some very prominent indicator that lets others know it is happening)

You could be right, it really might be that simple. I am sure the Apple Glasses will be way more stylish that Google Glass. But the bigger issue is the recording, or as you suggested, the lack of recording. The glasses would have to have cameras to function but that does not automatically mean they would have the ability to record which would solve the problem.

 

[freediverx]

I'm still holding out hope that one day there will be AR built into vehicle windshields. That could pave the way for true heads-up operation including GPS turn-by-turn, etc.

Automotive heads-up displays have been around for years...

https://www.bmwux.com/bmw-performance-technology/bmw-technology/bmw-head-up-display-explained/
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I am sure the Apple Glasses will be way more stylish that Google Glass.

I don't think we're at the point yet where we can make attractive AR glasses that don't look like gadgets. Current technology will still require bulky modules that distort their size and shape. If Apple is about to release something in the next year or two, my guess is that they will market it for specific use cases (multitasking, sports, gaming, content consumption), and not as a fashionable "wear all the time" product to replace your current glasses.

 

[freediverx]

The input mechanism is already a "solved" problem - it's hand tracking. It's just not solved by Apple.

Wow, I just had a flashback of viewing Jeff Hahn's multi-touch demo back in 2006, months before Steve Jobs revealed the first iPhone. These AR/VR tech demos will probably look infantile compared to what Apple ultimately releases.

Just because we haven't seen anything in this field from Apple doesn't mean they aren't already way ahead of the competition. Unlike Google, Microsoft, and others, Apple prefers to wait until they have a fully fleshed out product instead of bragging about nascent technologies.

 

[DoctorTech]

Automotive heads-up displays have been around for years...

https://www.bmwux.com/bmw-performance-technology/bmw-technology/bmw-head-up-display-explained/
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I don't think we're at the point yet where we can make attractive AR glasses that don't look like gadgets. Current technology will still require bulky modules that distort their size and shape. If Apple is about to release something in the next year or two, my guess is that they will market it for specific use cases (multitasking, sports, gaming, content consumption), and not as a fashionable "wear all the time" product to replace your current glasses.

Good point. "Stylish" may be an over statement. "Less Borg-like" may have been the better way to say it. Either way, you are probably right about starting launching a brand new product category for specific use cases so they can get some real customer feedback and field experience among early adopters while they continue to work on a broader appeal product for the mass market.

 

[mattspace]

Unlike Google, Microsoft, and others, Apple prefers to wait until they have a fully fleshed out product instead of bragging about nascent technologies.

To me, it looks like they've burned down and rebuilt their iOS multitasking switcher UI Paradigm about a dozen times, the multi-app on screen at once paradigm multiple times, rebuilt the WatchOS UI from a fundamental level after it was released - and arguably, the iPad wasn't a "fully fleshed out product" until the Pencil came out. The Lion document model which replaced Save As with Duplicate - a total culsterf#$k of foisting an untested, ill-considered experiment on their userbase, which thankfully most developers ignored.

Apple sells half-finished, and partially-realised experimental products all the time, they just put more effort into packaging and marketing. Apple is the test-case 101 to the truth that actions are judged based on reputations, not reputations altered in light of actions.

 

[TheRealTVGuy]

Automotive heads-up displays have been around for years...

https://www.bmwux.com/bmw-performance-technology/bmw-technology/bmw-head-up-display-explained/

True, but I’d still love to see Apple’s implementation. It would be akin to comparing Ford Sync to CarPlay.

 

[kazmac]

Sigh > move one of the most important software folks to AR.

What would possess Apple to move someone who stayed on top of software bugs to another team?

Oh that’s right, the exact same thing that possessed them to do things like this recently: $