I think there were some hints in the presentation that they “get it”. I believe the killer app for a mixed-reality headset is Presence. From looking through two eyes and hearing you get a sense of really being there that you wouldn’t otherwise get, and something like the live basketball game which you could see through multiple mixed-reality camera devices at the court sounds compelling to me. Mixed-reality concert tickets, being there on stage and in the crowd through a number of cameras seems like a great way to spend a few hours. Or a virtual tour of the Vatican or the Louvre, examining all the art that you might never get to see with your own eyes, or a guided morning walk through Macchu Pichu.
But the price seems excessive — $3500 is too much for a mass audience even for a new computing platform. Look at how people are still struggling with the idea of pro apps on the iPad. It will take a while for programmers to get used to the new paradigm, and that time might well be a decade or more. So I think the mixed-reality platform is a long-term play, there will be new iterations of the device and the software.
In a way Apple are locking themselves into a certain minimum spec for a headset with this device: “computing platform”, “input gestures via camera’s”, “augmented reality and virtual reality”. The minimum viable product for the range of future devices is still going to have to be a relatively full-fat device. So it remains to be seen if they can bring the cost down to something like an iPhone’s cost.
But the price seems excessive — $3500 is too much for a mass audience even for a new computing platform. Look at how people are still struggling with the idea of pro apps on the iPad. It will take a while for programmers to get used to the new paradigm, and that time might well be a decade or more. So I think the mixed-reality platform is a long-term play, there will be new iterations of the device and the software.
In a way Apple are locking themselves into a certain minimum spec for a headset with this device: “computing platform”, “input gestures via camera’s”, “augmented reality and virtual reality”. The minimum viable product for the range of future devices is still going to have to be a relatively full-fat device. So it remains to be seen if they can bring the cost down to something like an iPhone’s cost.