Apple's AR Team Includes Talent From Lucasfilm and Weta Digital, Smart Glasses Still 'A Ways Off'

[bobbie424242]

Expect your iOS POKEMAN(tm) edition.
Tim has seen the light since POKEMAN, while Federighi is enamored with Emoji for years to come.
What a great combo ! Just missing Schiller taken with a sudden passion for dj mixing on the Touchbar to complete a painting of the future of tech for you in 2017.

 

[nwcs]

Well I disagree and think you're wrong, so we will see in a few years.

Fair enough

 

[InuNacho]

This picture is a pretty bad example of what AR can do for you.
First theres the fact that walking around any San Francisco BART station like that is a red flag for anybody to swipe your phone, I don't think your phone is going to tell you to put it away. Then theres the problem with the navigation, or complete redundancy in it. There are signs everywhere in those tunnels and more importantly there is a real life blue strip on the ground telling you where to go.

 

[Col4bin]

Now the iPhone 8 mockup featured in is article is a MUCH better solution for showing how Apple could potentially implement a virtual home button within a "touch bar" at the bottom of the phone. This integration featuring 2 apps flanking either side of it is so much better than the other mockups depicting a virtual home button all alone at the very bottom of the screen with dock apps positioned above it. (What a lame waste of space that would be.)

 

[NT1440]

The future may be like this with AR if it takes off as people suspect. Everyone looking at their phone but one person who actually experiences the event:

...That's a picture from how things are today. How would AR make this any different?

 

[Col4bin]

You don't see any reason for AR? Imagine walking through the streets of Rome, pulling up your iPhone, pointing it at some random ruin, and then getting a full history of that ruin, it's name, and maybe checking it off some "to go see" list.

That's just a quick, contrived example. The possibilities are endless.

Ditto for an art museum so you wouldn't need to attend a boring guided tour or use one of those weird speaker/wand things to explain what it is you're looking at. The biggest challenge I've experienced with AR apps to date is rapid battery drain and the phone getting hot due to the processing power required.

 

[nwcs]

...That's a picture from how things are today. How would AR make this any different?

Yes, this is from a celebrity sighting event. What would happen is the AR stuff would take over even more of people's lives -- if this technology is going to become what the adherents believe.

 

[NT1440]

Yes, this is from a celebrity sighting event. What would happen is the AR stuff would take over even more of people's lives -- if this technology is going to become what the adherents believe.

Technology is neutral. What you do with it is up to you. Currently its literally a drug for much of the population. AR can either exacerbate that with whatever the equivalent of click bait on that platform will be, or it can be highly educational and useful if used appropriately.

 

[ApfelKuchen]

Again, these are the same user stories that keep being trotted out yet they haven't really addressed a systemic user problem. "limitless potential?" I've been in software development for decades. So many times that term gets pulled out to justify something when in the end the market decides something totally different and unexpected.
[doublepost=1490025676][/doublepost]
Not really. It speaks to experience and realism. On the one side are the wide-eyed dreamers who see, with their hammer, nails everywhere. On the other side are those realists who say "show me something meaningful, practical, that really solves a problem for me."

Then you've been around long enough to recognize that blue sky scenarios are just a normal part of the process. If you can't spin exciting scenarios, you don't get the funding, you can't inspire the engineers, entrepreneurs, or early-adopters. Without that, a blue sky future has no chance of arriving.

Still, it's all science fiction until the day it becomes reality, if it ever does.

While "systemic problems" are some of the more compelling applications of new technology, not every application need rise to that test, and not every systemic problem is apparent until the solution is in hand. Not every innovation will succeed or stand the test of time, but we hardly have 20/20 foresight. Twitter began as a solution for dispatching bicycle couriers. Could anyone then have foreseen its use in electoral politics?

Why is it always binary (wide-eyed dreamers vs. realists)? Something that "really solves a problem for me," fails to recognize that other people have different needs. "What I have today is good enough for me," may only be good enough because there is no known alternative.

 

[nwcs]

Why is it always binary (wide-eyed dreamers vs. realists)? Something that "really solves a problem for me," fails to recognize that other people have different needs. "What I have today is good enough for me," may only be good enough because there is no known alternative.

It ends up being binary because of the extreme positions usually taken up by those who believe in the technology -- or, truly, those who are absolutely against it. However, the "solves a problem for me" only works when there are enough "me" type people out there to justify it. While we want to believe our individual use case is important (and it may be from a relative point of view) the reality is that many of those individual use cases are too highly specific to be shared by enough people. That's one reason why customization ends up being such a big thing and even then there are people who want customization to extremes.

Then you've been around long enough to recognize that blue sky scenarios are just a normal part of the process. If you can't spin exciting scenarios, you don't get the funding, you can't inspire the engineers, entrepreneurs, or early-adopters. Without that, a blue sky future has no chance of arriving.

Yes, and you're right about that. Starry-eyed dreaming is a big part of the funding process and plays a role. I still remember the first MacWorld expo where Steve came back in Boston. I was at that one. Saw all sorts of "ooh" and "aah" stuff that Apple R&D was working on. Everyone said it was a glimpse of the future (it wasn't). Same when Kai's Power Tools was first unveiled there. It was a gotsta-have instabuy. Even I bought it. Then I realized it was largely useless for practical use...

You do need the dreamers but the dreamers also need people with wisdom.

 

[hawkeye_a]

So AR is the buzzword and gimmick for this year?

*yawn*

I wish I could get a phone which actually fits in my pocket and has a headphone jack (something I would actually use unlike Siri, 3D touch, etc, etc...).

 

[citysnaps]

So AR is the buzzword and gimmick for this year?

*yawn*

I wish I could get a phone which actually fits in my pocket and has a headphone jack (something I would actually use unlike Siri, 3D touch, etc, etc...).

Why not purchase any number of Android phones that meet those requirements.

 

[kmanmx]

Again, these are the same user stories that keep being trotted out yet they haven't really addressed a systemic user problem. "limitless potential?" I've been in software development for decades. So many times that term gets pulled out to justify something when in the end the market decides something totally different and unexpected.
[doublepost=1490025676][/doublepost]
Not really. It speaks to experience and realism. On the one side are the wide-eyed dreamers who see, with their hammer, nails everywhere. On the other side are those realists who say "show me something meaningful, practical, that really solves a problem for me."

I think you are looking at it from the wrong perspective. AR doesn't need to solve a problem to be successful (even though it will solve many). What problem does Snapchat solve ? Do I need to take selfies with overlayed AR dog ears ? well, ofcourse not. Did that stop Snap Inc. raising a multi billion dollar IPO ? well no, it didn't.


It needs to be fun, and it needs to entertain. It will do both of those with ease. I'll present some crude examples, but honestly, they're the kind of thing that'll be popular.

1. Life size photorealistic animated nude models (or even full on pornography). You can have one danceing on your desk at work. Only you'll be able to see it, unless you choose to share it with others. What percentage of the male population do you think wouldn't like to have that kind of ability ? Do people get bored of porn and the like, or do they consume it regularly without fail for almost the entirety of their life ? Do you think they'd prefer to watch their favourite actress on their phone screen, or life size in their own bedroom with exceptional realism ?
2. I'm going on a 12 hour flight. I can either watch Netflix on my 5" phone screen. Or I can lumber along a large laptop and watch it on a 15" screen. Or, in complete privacy, I can wear some lightweight AR glasses and watch whatever I want on a screen as large as one can reasonably fit in a plane.
3. I want to buy a new car but i'm not sure which. I can get my phone out to look, but that's a bit of a painful experience. I can sit down at a desktop computer with a large monitor, certainly a better idea. Or I can just step out my front door onto my driveway, and have ultra high quality animated 3D models of cars placed on my driveway, they'll be extremely realisticly placed within the environment. I can walk around, open doors, look under the seats, inside the engine bay.. etc. In fact, it doesn't give me much reason to go to a car dealership other than to actually buy or test drive the vehicle.

Perfecting VR and AR is in many ways the final frontier for technology. For once you create VR/AR that is so good, it is indistinguishable from reality, the world is your oyster. You can do anything you want. Obviously, we are far off technology to enable that. We're decades away. But there will be a day where you wake up, put your glasses (or contacts) on, and you can replace clouds with sun, boring trees with Hawaiin palm trees, black birds with parrots, Ford Focus's with Lambhorgini Aventadors. You can augment the entire world around you in real time to be whatever you want it to be. Don't get me wrong, this is fantasy island stuff right now. Scarcely even tractable. The first AR products won't come anywhere close. But I think we'll get close to that fantasy type world within the next 10 years, and people will lap it up.

 

[spacevator]

To get a better understanding of the power of AR, take a look at Google's Project Tango and how Lenovo implemented this AR tech in their Phab 2 Pro phone. I have been using this phone since Christmas, got it as a gift. Since the phone has a real time infrared laser scanner, scanning the 3d environment around you, it can augment the world you see on the screen. There are games and apps that prove the really cool power of AR such as apps from Lowes and online furniture stores that let you test how furniture to buy would look in a room. Or games that have aliens blasting thru your bedroom walls, etc. It truly is amazing tech and you can see it today. I'm sure that is what is motivating Tim Cook and the engineers at Apple.

 

[canny]

Poor Tim is always bragging about all the things in Apple's pipeline. But when you look at it closely you can see it's completely empty.

 

[kmanmx]

To get a better understanding of the power of AR, take a look at Google's Project Tango and how Lenovo implemented this AR tech in their Phab 2 Pro phone. I have been using this phone since Christmas, got it as a gift. Since the phone has a real time infrared laser scanner, scanning the 3d environment around you, it can augment the world you see on the screen. There are games and apps that prove the really cool power of AR such as apps from Lowes and online furniture stores that let you test how furniture to buy would look in a room. Or games that have aliens blasting thru your bedroom walls, etc. It truly is amazing tech and you can see it today. I'm sure that is what is motivating Tim Cook and the engineers at Apple.

Yep. Tango is great tech, and the Lenovo Phab 2 is really cool. And I mean this in the nicest way, but that level of AR is incredibly poor and rudimentary compared to how good it can and will be in the next 5 years or so.

 

[ApfelKuchen]

It ends up being binary because of the extreme positions usually taken up by those who believe in the technology -- or, truly, those who are absolutely against it. However, the "solves a problem for me" only works when there are enough "me" type people out there to justify it. While we want to believe our individual use case is important (and it may be from a relative point of view) the reality is that many of those individual use cases are too highly specific to be shared by enough people. That's one reason why customization ends up being such a big thing and even then there are people who want customization to extremes.



Yes, and you're right about that. Starry-eyed dreaming is a big part of the funding process and plays a role. I still remember the first MacWorld expo where Steve came back in Boston. I was at that one. Saw all sorts of "ooh" and "aah" stuff that Apple R&D was working on. Everyone said it was a glimpse of the future (it wasn't). Same when Kai's Power Tools was first unveiled there. It was a gotsta-have instabuy. Even I bought it. Then I realized it was largely useless for practical use...

You do need the dreamers but the dreamers also need people with wisdom.

We could go back and forth on this forever, and I doubt we disagree in fundamental ways - more likely a difference in the weight we each give to concepts like "dreamers" and "wisdom" at any given time, for any given idea.

Wisdom can prevent folly or kill a great idea dead in its tracks. Dreams can lead to wonders or waste.

To me, "wisdom" might be to say, "It's a lousy, Rube Goldberg execution, but the underlying concept is intriguing." Or, "It's not economically feasible as it stands, let's see if we can bring the costs down." Since wisdom is rooted in experience, we should remember that, "Past performance may not predict future results." Essentially, is "wisdom" being used merely to impede, or is it contributing to progress?

Overall, I'm biased towards the dreams. Many won't succeed, but it's not all that easy to accurately predict the successes and failures. Unless it's obviously dumb ("invention" predicated on a violation of the laws of physics), I'm going to err on the side of new possibilities.

In our wide world, even a solution for the 1% will be helpful to a significant population. Of course, AR is not being touted as a solution for the 1%, it's being touted as the Next Big Thing. I think it does have that potential, but very possibly in a lot of smaller ways, rather than as a single killer app.

 

[spacevator]

Yep. Tango is great tech, and the Lenovo Phab 2 is really cool. And I mean this in the nicest way, but that level of AR is incredibly poor and rudimentary compared to how good it can and will be in the next 5 years or so.

The Google Tango AR tech is really cool and Lenovo has done a wonderful job of putting it to use. The tech components exist and I can absolutely see where Apple can take this and run and develop apps and an iPhone 8 this fall that will blow everybody away.

 

[JMacHack]

I can't wait for an Apple version of the Gear VR to have vomit-inducing eye strain inflicted on me by my favorite tech company.

 

[NT1440]

I can't wait for an Apple version of the Gear VR to have vomit-inducing eye strain inflicted on me by my favorite tech company.

But with all that vomiting you'll be a thinner and lighter version of yourself, no?

 

[nwcs]

In our wide world, even a solution for the 1% will be helpful to a significant population. Of course, AR is not being touted as a solution for the 1%, it's being touted as the Next Big Thing. I think it does have that potential, but very possibly in a lot of smaller ways, rather than as a single killer app.

In this I would agree with you. It's a lot like the smartwatch thing. They have some purpose but they are still a solution in search of a real problem and they haven't taken over the world in storm as was predicted. Overall industry sales of them are on the decline as they retool for being more fitness-centric.
[doublepost=1490037667][/doublepost]

I think you are looking at it from the wrong perspective. AR doesn't need to solve a problem to be successful (even though it will solve many). What problem does Snapchat solve ? Do I need to take selfies with overlayed AR dog ears ? well, ofcourse not. Did that stop Snap Inc. raising a multi billion dollar IPO ? well no, it didn't.

There's a lot to your post but I'll reply to parts. What problem does snapchat solve? I wondered that myself but after seeing enough people use it (I don't use it myself) I figured out it's basically the gradeschool "notes" being passed back and forth. It solves the immediacy need for people to be goofy or share immediate info. I personally didn't think it would have any staying power but apparently it does. Of course there's a big difference. Snap is here and now and people have voted with usage. Most of the AR stuff is theoretical and conjecture. The market hasn't spoken on it yet.

I can sit here and come up with a lot of "interesting" uses for AR and VR but how much of what I come up with will be practical and people would actually buy into it. People have been saying VR was the next big thing since the late 1980s. Still waiting. AR is just VR re-tooled.

 

[RogerWilco]

AR will be massive. Just not any time soon, it seems...

Yes, just like the hinted/rumored medical tracking features on the watch, features that never saw the light of day. And then we have the rumors about the "we cracked it" revolutionary new TV product, the car project, etc., etc. All nothingburgers.

Hey really smart investors, how does it feel getting played repeatedly by Apple PR? (It's not a profit until you sell)

 

[andreiru]

Hopefully it'll be more accurate than current pedestrian routes on Apple Maps. They're not bad but oftentimes it tells me to go left when it's right and vice-versa..? I've grown to distrust it as a result.

 

[ApfelKuchen]

I can sit here and come up with a lot of "interesting" uses for AR and VR but how much of what I come up with will be practical and people would actually buy into it. People have been saying VR was the next big thing since the late 1980s. Still waiting. AR is just VR re-tooled.

The way I view things, AR has been with us for a very long time. A good example is military aircraft heads-up displays. Another is the integration of exposure controls/information with a camera's LCD display, or the lines superimposed on the field in a televised football game. What's changing is the amount of computing intelligence available in mobile devices. For example, I can imagine a number of very good uses for real-time facial/object recognition (view person/object, see information about that person/object superimposed on the scene or delivered by voice to an earpiece).

VR is predominantly simulation, nearly the antithesis of AR (though there will undoubtedly be examples where augmentation may be hard to distinguish from simulation). It may seem to be merely semantic difference, but in a sense, it's the difference between fiction and non-fiction. I can only hope that the practitioners respect the distinction.

VR takes you out of the "real" world, AR finds new ways to bring computing into the real world. Sure, AR can be used for games and other entertainment, but I expect many more practical applications.

My own feeling is that VR could never be the Next Big Thing, because the time we have in our day for leaving the world behind is limited. Sure, VR has plenty of practical uses (pre-surgical medical visualization, training, architecture, engineering and design), but they're very profession-specific. AR seems to have broader potential, in part because it has more modest goals.

 

[JMacHack]

Hopefully it'll be more accurate than current pedestrian routes on Apple Maps. They're not bad but oftentimes it tells me to go left when it's right and vice-versa..? I've grown to distrust it as a result.

"Walk directly into the open sewer, meatbag" - Siri, 2020