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Kuo: Apple Mixed-Reality Headset May Not Appear at WWDC as Mass Production Pushed Back Yet Again

MacLoveMacHate said:
Anyone excited for this thing?
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I am. I have the curiosity of 5 cats. I want to see what Apple thinks we are supposed to do with something that, according to rumors, sounds clunky and prohibitively expensive. I want to see if they still have the old Apple magic and have made something insanely great, or just insane. I can't wait to see it. Unfortunately it sounds like I'll have to.
 
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It’s pretty funny that leaks like that always happen conveniently for Apple. I guess it's a nice way to do some damage control after the leaks on internal disagreements have appeared. I still think this could get announced at WWDC, with a launch date late 2023. It would allow developers to get onboard and generate excitement prior to launch.

Also, while I am generally skeptical about VR, I am actually optimistic and still curious to see what Apple has been working on for so long.
 
I wonder if because of the previous delays they decided to push off a couple more months so they could incorporate the M3 in the final design rather than the previously rumored chipset.
 
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antnythr said:
This rumour doesn’t make any sense. If the concern has been about the product itself not being ready and it was at the point of being brought out to the world and entering mass production, delaying by a couple months doesn’t make any sense. You’re not making any major changes this late in development “in a few months”.
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This is just CYA from the rumor mongers. Just say the product is delayed so they can never be wrong.
 
this is getting so messy…Cook’s f*tish for AR really mighta got the best of him this time-

at the same time, this has been nothing but rumors and speculation for yeeeeeeeeears. I really don’t trust anything I read about this thing anymore.
 
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I'm not egocentric enough to think that everything Apple makes has to be relevant to me — a 55-year-old man. That said, I have purchased almost every Apple product at some point and have no idea what needs this product is supposed to meet. The rumored price point seems ridiculous, the idea of a battery pack around my waist seems awful, and I still do not know what I would ever do with them if I ever did get my hands on them. There is no "killer app" and no "killer use case" for this...yet?!
 
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klasma said:
You mean a micro-OLED balloon. ;)
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OLED Zeppelin

Screen Shot 2023-03-30 at 09.37.53 AM.png
 
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This kind of tech needs to be much smaller, more like glasses. Powerful and full of great features.

You wont get this unless you start somewhere, evolve it, miniaturize it and make it cheaper.

Thats a long way away. Good Luck, I’ll wait.
 
it seems like numerous companies keep going down this vr rabbit hole thinking its the future of computing.

having worked with vr for a while, my take is... does everything have to be a mass market device? its a cool technology, and has a passionate enthusiast fanbase. lean into the things that its good at and listen to the audience that already is using it. stop trying to make it the thing you'll use to facetime with grandma.

i keep thinking of the meta horizons scenario where the people building the product didn't even want to use it.
 
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The reasoning doesn't make sense. If Apple is concerned about whether the $3000 device will have an iPhone moment, then why not release at WWDC, especially since WWDC gets the most amount of attention and is about software? What about the headset OS, shouldn't that be discussed at WWDC? How does releasing the device later in the year solve that problem?
 
stevemiller said:
it seems like numerous companies keep going down this vr rabbit hole thinking its the future of computing.

having worked with vr for a while, my take is... does everything have to be a mass market device? its a cool technology, and has a passionate enthusiast fanbase. lean into the things that its good at and listen to the audience that already is using it. stop trying to make it the thing you'll use to facetime with grandma.

i keep thinking of the meta horizons scenario where the people building the product didn't even want to use it.
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The most active VR apps are social apps. People aren't doing VR FaceTime with grandma, but they are doing VR FaceTime with friends, which could lead into grandma later on with more mature tech.

So it turns out that the industry has the right idea.
 
MacRumors said:
In a tweet, Kuo explained that Apple "isn't very optimistic" about whether the headset will be able to create an "iPhone moment." As a result, the company has chosen to delay the device's mass production schedule to the middle to the end of the third quarter of 2023. Kuo believes that the delay adds uncertainty around "whether the new device will appear at WWDC 2023, as the market widely expects."

The delay also means that shipment forecasts of the headset for 2023 will be even lower than previously thought, reducing to just 200,000 to 300,000 units. Previously, around half a million units were expected to ship this year.

Apple's cause for concern with the device is allegedly in anticipation of poor market feedback, catalysed by the economic downturn, hardware specification compromises, the weight of the device, the readiness of the headset's ecosystem and applications, and its high selling price. Kuo believes that the headset will be priced at $3,000 to $4,000, or even higher.
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Also obvious is the lack of media content. I still think a DTK for devs working with AR might happen, but a dedicated product without resources for consumers is a total risk with this immature marketplace.:cool:
 
smaffei said:
If people want VR, it's already out there at vastly cheaper prices. And, from a look in my local retail stores, Meta's Quest 2 is just sitting on the shelves unsold. So, even at reasonable prices, the general public doesn't want VR. Apple failed before they started.
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Quest 2 sold better than anyone including Meta expected.

And yeah, the 'general public' doesn't want VR because the general public always waits for technology to mature. By the same token, the general public didn't want a cellphone or a PC until the tech matured across many years.
 
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PinkyMacGodess said:
And there is no spoon...

It's hard to believe that so much noise could be generated by nothing, but it's happened before...

Tangent: Early days in college: In a Freshman Comp class, the prof was going through what the class would be about. He said 'This is not your normal Composition class. You will be expected to write papers on a wide array of subjects. Our first subject is 'Reality'. Researchers into quantum physics have reported that they can't prove why the world we see exists. They have said that, given that, the world we know could completely disappear in the blink of an eye.' Well, if that's possible, wouldn't we all disappear too? 'Hmm, possibly. Put it in your papers people!'

One poor kid had an existential breakdown. They had a panic attack and ended up having to quit school. Their parents blamed this prof, and he brought it up a week or so later. We wrote papers on all kinds of things going on in the world at the time, and some stuff from history too. It was a very interesting class that apparently ruined at least one person. Just reboot and they'll be okay, right?
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See my Philosophy professor was a lot more cool about the subject of reality than that one. This is why RateMyProfessor exists for this exact reason.

In the end the lesson was reality is what we make of it, not that nihilist crap that bad professor spat out that ruined that kid. Hell I'd just say in rebuttal "I just work here Dave."
 
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Koni17 said:
This is just silly, there is no way a company like Apple is deciding between launching/not launching a product just under 1.5 months before an event. Either the rumour was correct that they are going to launch it at WWDC, or it was a false rumour to begin with, and they had planned on launching it later on.

If they are going to launch it in 2023, I can see them choosing WWDC to do it, especially since they want developers working on apps before the official consumer launch happens. Similar to the M1 launch and how they provided the mac mini Developer Transition Kits, I could see them sending out developer units initially.
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I agree with all that except I think a Fall announcement either dedicated entirely or a large section at the end makes more sense. Just like the Apple Silicon announcement. Too much to pack in to WWDC.
 
I have zero interest in this kind of product VR headset. However, sleek AR glasses which could be used for FaceTime calls or navigation etc, do definitively appeal to me. I have a feeling that glasses have way higher potential to become a bit with the general public.
 
Mr. 123 said:
I have zero interest in this kind of product VR headset. However, sleek AR glasses which could be used for FaceTime calls or navigation etc, do definitively appeal to me. I have a feeling that glasses have way higher potential to become a bit with the general public.
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If I was to ask, why do you have no interest in a VR headset?
 
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