Kuo: Apple's Mixed-Reality Headset Likely to Debut at Spring Media Event or WWDC

[citysnaps]

A couple of folks made the same weak post early in the thread and you repeated their posts. I answered them if you want to read it. You're just rewriting history to make a weak argument.

Everyone wanted thousands of songs in the pocket. Mobile phones without a keyboard already existed and were selling well enough for a better version to come along. Lots of people were using bluetooth earphones and were waiting for them to improve. Various types of smart watches were around for three decades. Some were very popular. As a kid we all wanted Casio watches that spoke, had calculators and radios.

VR has also come and gone many times since the 80s. True there is a steady improvement, but unlike other device categories this one is highly complex and comes with some permanent issues, such as people generally don't want to wear electronics on their face.

Others have raised even more difficulties associated with headsets. Those difficulties don't exist with other types of devices

Everyone? Those are the responses from people here on MR when Apple released each of those products years ago. Too funny.

"You're just rewriting history to make a weak argument."

Nope. Just stating what I observed here at the time.

"VR has also come and gone many times since the 80s. True there is a steady improvement, but unlike other device categories this one is highly complex and comes with some permanent issues, such as people generally don't want to wear electronics on their face."

Again, you're conflating VR with AR, or don't understand the differences and how they are used. I've already explained what the differences are, how they are used with different examples, and that Apple's focus is AR (with VR coming along for the ride).

But no worries. I do understand you don't see any use cases or applications for AR, believe Apple doesn't know what they are doing, and believe that Apple's entry into that market will be a big flop. Just like iPod, iPhone, iPad, and AirPods. And that's OK. No need to repeat yourself.

 

[ponzicoinbro]

Everyone?

Yes everyone wanted thousands of songs in their pocket.

Sigh.

 

[citysnaps]

Yes everyone wanted thousands of songs in their pocket.

Sigh.

Not the case when Apple introduced iPod as that ("Who asked for a thousand songs in your pocket?") was the common reply here on MR in response to Jobs' "A thousand songs in your pocket" marketing.

 

[ponzicoinbro]

Not the case when Apple introduced iPod as that was the common reply here on MR.

No doubt every customer in the world was on MR in 2001 /s

iPod sales kicked off when Windows compatibility was introduced, just FYI.

 

[citysnaps]

No doubt every customer in the world was on MR in 2001 /s

iPod sales kicked off when Windows compatibility was introduced, just FYI.

Nice obfuscation.

The discussion is about people on MR coming up with all sorts of corny reasons why a new device will flop every time Apple introduces outstanding innovative tech.

The same thing is happening with respect to Apple's upcoming AR/mixed reality device. Thank you for weighing in with your opinion on the subject.

 

[Sasparilla]

Will be interesting to see if this pans out and is released. As "goggles" though, rumors are they're transparent if memory serves, they'll mostly be the developer tools to create apps etc. for the glasses (which will be the real product) which will be a few years down the road.

Sales will be low regardless, but I look forward to seeing them. JMHO

 

[Michael Scrip]

"No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame."

CmdrTaco - Slashdot - October 23, 2001

 

[ponzicoinbro]

Nice obfuscation.

You made a weak argument and invented your own evidence...to someone who was at the iPod launch event and my personal friends had a chain of computer stores in EU that were selling out of the iPod. No Apple Stores at the time. I bought my iPod 5GB 1st gen from them. They gave me cost price on anything I wanted in those days. Before that they were selling Creative mp3 players like crazy.

Never compare two very different types of devices, especially when one is a simple Walkman successor and the other a lot more complex and unattractive to the masses.

 

[compwiz1202]

"No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame."

CmdrTaco - Slashdot - October 23, 2001

Was that the first post? I've only been on since 2010

 

[citysnaps]

You made a weak argument and invented your own evidence...to someone who was at the iPod launch event and my personal friends had a chain of computer stores in EU that were selling out of the iPod. No Apple Stores at the time. I bought my iPod 5GB 1st gen from them. They gave me cost price on anything I wanted in those days. Before that they were selling Creative mp3 players like crazy.

Never compare two very different types of devices, especially when one is a simple Walkman successor and the other a lot more complex and unattractive to the masses.

"You made a weak argument and invented your own evidence...to someone who was at the iPod launch event and my personal friends had a chain of computer stores in EU that were selling out of the iPod."

How nice for you. I also liked iPod right from the beginning (ditto iPhone/iPad/AirPods). But that has nothing to do with this discussion.

Again, what I listed were responses from MR contributors as to why they'd flop when Apple introduced each of those products.

No doubt comments about Apple's upcoming AR device will age just as well.

 

[Jensend]

VR has also come and gone many times since the 80s

(this is citysnaps' quote of another poster.)

This is like someone dismissing the future of streaming video in the early 2000s because it didn't succeed in the early 90's when the hottest new modem ran at 14,400 bit/s, or the 80's with 2,400-bit/s.

We didn't get moderately fast rendering of polygonal graphics until the late 90's, which is as important to VR as high bandwidth is to streaming video.

 

[ponzicoinbro]

"You made a weak argument and invented your own evidence...to someone who was at the iPod launch event and my personal friends had a chain of computer stores in EU that were selling out of the iPod."

How nice for you. I also liked iPod right from the beginning (ditto iPhone/iPad/AirPods). But that has nothing to do with this discussion.

Again, what I listed were responses from MR contributors as to why they'd flop when Apple introduced each of those products.

No doubt comments about Apple's upcoming AR device will age just as well.

I can tell you exactly what's going to happen and then you can stop painting VR/AR critics as tech illiterate naysayers.

A device will be introduced. It will whoa the crowd and make headlines. There will be a lot of buzz.

It won't do half the things that some people have been posting. You won't use it "all day" unless it is tethered/charged often and it won't replace your computers and smartphones.

It will have multiple avatar chat. It will display notifications. It will have some camera, photo and messaging apps. Most important feature is that e-commerce stores are building support for looking at products in three dimensions. It could give more information about real world objects you look at, but it will take time for this feature to roll out.

If it is a a very light AR headset or glasses and pairs with a Mac, when you look at your Apple Studio Display the dimensions and position will be captured by the headset. Then instead of having the system notifications appear on the monitor, the notifications will appear between you and the monitor instead. You will be able to use a gesture to wave them aside.

Stage Manager will be integrated with it. Then people will say 'Oh that's what Stage Manager was for'. Groups of app windows minimized to the side make sense in AR/VR, even if they don't make sense the way it is on macOS/iPadOS right now.

Enthusiasts with money will buy it. They will be ecstatic for a while and show off their headsets and straps on the forums.

And then there will be many posts about practical problems, bugs, performance problems, battery life and hardware issues.

So basically just like every sub-forum.

The difference is that these bugs and performance problems will be directly attached to your physical actions with your face, head and body. So they may be very personal and discomforting.

People who wear glasses/make up/etc will use it less than people who don't, or just play with a friend's.

With this in mind, Apple should take their time to develop it first. If some things cannot be pulled off well they should scrap it until the right time. For the launch, only keep the stuff that will be less problematic.

 

[citysnaps]

I can tell you exactly what's going to happen and then you can stop painting VR/AR critics as tech illiterate naysayers.

A device will be introduced. It will whoa the crowd and make headlines. There will be a lot of buzz.

It won't do half the things that some people have been posting. You won't use it "all day" unless it is tethered/charged often and it won't replace your computers and smartphones.

It will have multiple avatar chat. It will display notifications. It will have some camera, photo and messaging apps. Most important feature is that e-commerce stores are building support for looking at products in three dimensions. It could give more information about real world objects you look at, but it will take time for this feature to roll out.

If it is a a very light AR headset or glasses and pairs with a Mac, when you look at your Apple Studio Display the dimensions and position will be captured by the headset. Then instead of having the system notifications appear on the monitor, the notifications will appear between you and the monitor instead. You will be able to use a gesture to wave them aside.

Stage Manager will be integrated with it. Then people will say 'Oh that's what Stage Manager was for'.

Enthusiasts with money will buy it. They will be ecstatic for a while and show off their headsets and straps on the forums.

And then there will be many posts about practical problems, bugs, performance problems, battery life and hardware issues.

So basically just like every sub-forum.

The difference is that these bugs and performance problems will be directly attached to your physical actions with your face, head and body. So they may be very personal and discomforting.

People who wear glasses/make up/etc will use it less than people who don't, or just play with a friend's.

With this in mind, Apple should take their time to develop it first. If some things cannot be pulled off well they should scrap it until the right time. For the launch, only keep the stuff that will be less problematic.

Thank you for your exact opinion. Though it seems your view of AR and what it offers and what its purpose is, is very simplistic, and has little to do with AR.

 

[Michael Scrip]

Here's HTC's latest Vive headset.

Yeah it's more VR than AR... but at least they're getting smaller and lighter.

 

[ponzicoinbro]

Thank you for your exact opinion. Though it seems your view of AR and what it offers and what its purpose is, is very simplistic, and has little to do with AR.

What I said came straight out of Apple's patents and concepts they have been trying to get to work, either with multi layer display concepts or with augmented reality as a layer. The concept include using Stacks and Stage Manager to give a layer of depth to the desktop, all of which is optional.

If you don't have the equipment you get a standard desktop without depth. What AR offers in these GUI cases is a special effects layer but it isn't essential and we can do just about everything without it.

And everyone in web development knows commerce stores have been implementing 3D views of some products. Again, the AR feature on webpages is optional. You'll still be able to spin 3D objects around without AR using a mouse.

If you have an issue with the post it's not my fault.

 

[ponzicoinbro]

What I said came straight out of Apple's patents and concepts they have been trying to get to work, either with multi layer display concepts or with augmented reality as a layer. The concept include using Stacks and Stage Manager to give a layer of depth to the desktop, all of which is optional.

If you don't have the equipment you get a standard desktop without depth. What AR offers in these GUI cases is a special effects layer but it isn't essential and we can do just about everything without it.

And everyone in web development knows commerce stores have been implementing 3D views of some products. Again, the AR feature on webpages is optional. You'll still be able to spin 3D objects around without AR using a mouse.

If you have an issue with the post it's not my fault.

This looks great.

Glasses-free 3D and apparently the 3D effect is solid and not ghostly. The camera filming the demo can't capture the effect.

This could introduce some of the GUI effects mentioned above in my post and Apple's patents without the need for a headset. We can get augmented reality and interactive 3D objects on monitors, phones and tablets without the discomfort of wearing anything.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

Yes, but the big, foundational difference between that kind of technology vs. the promise of VR would be akin to looking at "reality" only though a small, rectangular window vs. looking at reality as we see it in normal life. Conceptually, these Goggles/Glasses will deliver that wrap-around immersion. It won't be about making something front, center and directly in front of us appear to be in 3D; it would be about making us seem like we are in a 3D space with EVERYTHING we can see- directly and indirectly- in 3D.

Here's a pre-review of something towards that kind of immersion attempting to be accomplished on what is still a flat- albeit curved- ultra-ultra-wide screen at CES. To try to better simulate being in that world, the screen wraps around to fill more of the visible range of vision. Read the reviewers comments as it pertains to this concept: he felt like he was more IN those scenes (because more of what he was seeing was projected into more of his range of vision). The same game could run on a small laptop screen or maybe even a phone screen too... and perhaps the visible stuff applying that technology could give it more of a 3D appearance... but the smaller the view, the less our eyes see.

Example: take a small box about the size of a laptop screen and knock out the bottom so you can see through it while having the 4 sides of the box intact (a rectangular tube if you will). Bring the box up to your face to block out seeing around the box to simulate an approx. 15" rectangular view of the world. Everything you see through the 15" rectangle is in reality 3D, but your view is very limited. Find something on which to focus your eyes. Now remove the box. Even if you are still looking at that something, you now have a much bigger view of the world in the periphery, previously hidden by the walls of the box.

I completely get the apprehension (plus) to the idea of putting anything on our heads. But the VR game is about fooling our eyes into perceiving that we are seeing whatever reality is served up to those screens: NOT only what is directly in front of us but all around us, even in the periphery. The idea of getting most of the same on a flat screen would be like inserting super-fat, static bezels around our view of that 3D "reality"- everything our eyes can also see that is not fitting into that screen... as just illustrated with the hollow box view.

Cincinnati- for one- has a variation of IMAX called Omnimax. I'll stop in and watch anything on it whenever I visit that town. Instead of being a huge flat screen like IMAX, the Omnimax is like many planetarium screens. Basically viewer is looking up into a dome screen. Films made for Omnimax fill that dome with imagery. Put your head back in the seat and there's even stuff in the far periphery- just like reality. Everywhere you look (or can barely see in peripheral vision) is filled with whatever they are showing. It's a terrific effect!

Last example: live sports. It's a very different visual experience being at the game vs. watching it on television. Why? Television is like watching the game through a limited view window (looking through that hollow box again). Being there, you have views of the action and all kinds of things around the action (other fans, scope of the arena, what's up there?, what's over there?, etc.) No way to take in as much through a 2D rectangle view. However, if you put a VR camera in that arena, you have something like your own personal Omnimax view. The effect should be much closer to being there.

Whether Apple VR can effectively deliver such experiences or not is TBD but- best I grasp it- that is the intent. The existing attempts at it already do this to various degrees of success. At times, there have been demos of existing VR headsets at stores like Best Buy. One demo I saw several years ago basically had the wearer climbing a cliff face. The person demonstrating had to be on alert to catch the wearer in case they got disoriented because their eyes were fooled enough to see that world. I doubt anyone would ever be at risk of falling down from the same cliff face climb on any 2D screen. Why? Because the rest of what they can see OUTSIDE of the 2D screen reminds them of their actual reality... that they are simply staring at a 2D rectangle.

 

[ponzicoinbro]

Last example: live sports. It's a very different visual experience being at the game vs. watching it on television. Why? Television is like watching the game through a limited view window (those looking through that hollow box again). Being there, you have views of the action and all kinds of things around the action (other fans, scope of the arena, what's up there?, what's over there?, etc. No way to take as much in through a 2D rectangle view. However, if you put a VR camera in that arena, you have something like your own personal IMAX view. The effect should be much closer to being there.

Whether Apple VR can effectively deliver such experiences or not is TBD but- best I grasp it- that is the intent. The existing attempts at it already do this to various levels of success. Can Apple's cut at it do it better? We'll see.

The discomfort of wearing something wrapped around your head means you don't have a true immersive experience watching live sports in VR. Instead of being able to peaceably watch a game part of your focus is on the device wrapped around your head.

Also, most people do not watch sports on their own. They watch TV with people, they consume food and drink while watching, they go to the bathroom at random times.

Every point you've made in these discussions appears to be made from the perspective of users who live a lonely isolated lifestyle and have a tolerance for discomfort. That will always be a niche.

Most people will just watch live sports on TV and most of them won't bother with the 3D version unless it is absolutely perfect - meaning multiple people in the same room get the same experience.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

Yes, I appreciate each point you've made. Until we can have Star Trek holodeck-type technologies, there is no way to deliver a goggle/glasses-free, VR immersive experience like live without it actually being live. Since any potential of holodecks seems very far off in the future, another way to potentially "fake" it a bit in the 2020s would be to use technical trickery to fool our eyes with something placed over them. Anyone not interested in what that delivers are not obligated to partake. However, some might be willing to put up with goggles, like some wear helmets, hats, glasses, ski goggles, diving masks, etc for experiences that call for any of that.

I love diving but I hate the burden of an oxygen tank on my back and the limited time it offers. However, the only way to have that kind of diving experience means I must strap on the oxygen tank. I don't want it. I'd rather be able to simply breathe underwater. But until a better option comes along to jettison the tank, I have to deal with them if I want that experience. If I don't want any burdens of the equipment for the experience, I can simply forgo the experience.

The example of a live game was not about the social aspects, but there is more to the view in "being there" than what we can ever see watching any 2D screen. Live sports means seeing something wherever YOU want to look. Watching on TV means ONLY seeing whatever the producers of the show want you to see.

In no way will Goggles enhance the social experience vs. being at a game live. Thus, there is still a very tangible reason to go to live games. Goggles will also not deliver the smells, the touches, the vibrations of excited crowds, etc. But, for those willing to put on some headgear, it should be possible to simulate attending it in person to our eyes and ears. Look wherever you want to look and see what is where you are looking.

If you have friends/family around, you watch the game as we do now. When you are on your own, you have another option. We all probably have plenty of friends & family. But we all also have our "alone" time too. Maybe the FAM has gone out shopping for the day today and I'd rather watch the big game like I'm there instead of on TV?

Mockup doesn't block our mouths. So if the actual doesn't block our mouths, we can still eat the hot dog and sip from the straw... or we can pop off the goggles and carry on in 2D on the TV while we feast on a 4-course meal. If we have to use the restroom, we can pop off the goggles and go take care of it. As is now, if I have to use the restroom while watching the game, I typically wait until a commercial break or maybe halftime... then abandon the entire TV screen AND ROOM to go to another room to take care of that. Why not abandon the Goggles to do the same? Again, Goggles are not glued on our heads. Pop them off like popping off a helmet at the end of a ride.

This social interaction thing is a negative of the concept. But, in my experience, when one is "on their phones" or focused on getting work done on their laptop, that focus makes them ignore social interaction anyway. Yes, they can come out of the focus very quickly to re-engage with the real world around them... but Goggles person can pop off the Goggles just as easily as folding up the laptop and putting it away.

I respect your concerns- and can readily share in the negatives of them- but I don't see them as being so onerous. Goggles should pop on and off as readily as a helmet and maybe sunglasses. We are not locked inside them as soon as we put them on.

 

[ponzicoinbro]

Yes, I appreciate each point you've made. Until we can have Star Trek holodeck-type technologies,

That's a sci fi TV show so that's not going to happen. To make a holodeck in real life you'd need to generate so much gravity to manipulate photons that it would kill people or you would need to flood a user's eyesight with a very large number of photons that it could blind them. It would also be very exhausting for the brain to try to process it.

I love diving but I hate the burden of an oxygen tank on my back and the limited time it offers. However, the only way to have that kind of diving experience means I must strap on the oxygen tank. I don't want it. I'd rather be able to simply breathe underwater. But until a better option comes along to jettison the tank, I have to deal with them if I want that experience. If I don't want any burdens of the equipment for the experience, I can simply forgo the experience.

The example of a live game was not about the social aspects, but there is more to the view in "being there" than what we can ever see watching any 2D screen. Live sports means seeing something wherever YOU want to look. Watching on TV means ONLY seeing whatever the producers of the show want you to see.

What you're asking for here is that the whole sports pitch be 3D scanned and rendered in extremely high resolution in real time so that you can navigate it. That would require a massive array of sensors and compute power, not only to capture the event but also to feed it to millions of viewers who would all choose their own angles.

The cost is far above what any network would be able to pay for.

I have no doubt within 15-20 years phones and film cameras will capture a lot of depth data, but it would be for moving around in replays rather than live. It wouldn't be complete freedom of movement either. They will not let you go up to people at the event who do not want to appear on a stream. Same reason faces are blurred in Google Maps.

Mockup doesn't block our mouths. So if the actual doesn't block our mouths, we can still eat the hot dog and sip from the straw... or we can pop off the goggles and carry on in 2D on the TV while we feast on a 4-course meal.

Nobody says you can't put food in your mouth when wearing a headset. It is reaching around for food and drink while blind that isn't a good experience. Removing the headset every few minutes to see your food and drink isn't a comfortable experience either. It's time consuming, uncomfortable and impractical.

 

[josselinco]

Imagine the difficulties for women who wear make up.

They have to remove the make up to wear the goggles. Then put the make up back on after using the goggles.

How can they do that all day? 😂😂😂 make up on, make up off, make up on, make up off.

Even worse if they have a nice pair of dress glasses. They have to keep juggling between dress glasses, make up on/off and goggles. Just a usability nightmare 🙃

It also messes around with hairstyling so you have to wash and brush your hair again after you use it.

Even with recommended tightness settings, VR goggles (just like motorbike and ski goggles) leaves a crease on your face after an hour. That crease takes a while to disappear so are people going to go around with crease face all day? 😂😂😂

So it’s appealing to some type of people who don’t care how they look but it isn’t appealing to people who like to wear nice make up and nice hair styles and don’t want a creased up face.

You're taking for granted that this device will be for long-use just like a Mac.

My guess is they know of this problem very well and are targeting a more limited use-case, like for exhibitions, company demo, training...

You hop in VR and experience something, then get out of it.

I think it will be more B2B at first, but we'll see!

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

Presumably, if there is AR in these too as throughly rumored, no one is blind. The latest rumor is even having Apple putting some variation of the watch's Digital Crown to quickly shift from VR to AR to passthrough without doing what seems to be the simpler thing and just lifting them off. Family & friends & I sometimes watch a movie in a room as dark as we can get it. If we want to find food to eat at the same time without turning on lights, we are able to do so with only a tiny bit of ancillary light from the screen. This thing apparently comes with AR cameras. We should easily be able to find food while wearing them... OR remove them to eat as we do now and use our televisions as the screen while we feast. If iPhone is able to "shine light" on dark objects while taking a picture, it seems plausible that AR cameras can help us find a size of pizza or a chicken wing in a relatively dark environment... perhaps BETTER than our own eyes leaning on the bit of light from the TV in a dark room.

I've never had the experience of needing to be eating or drinking something every few minutes during any show or game. There is usually a segment of time where I might eat & drink but not "every few minutes". However, IF that was something I wanted to do, I could watch the game or show on TV as we do now... perhaps in a well illuminated room... so that this problem is entirely resolved.

Owning Goggles wouldn't mean that I can only watch things in Goggles forever after. Use them when it makes sense... don't when it doesn't. I can watch the big game or show on a tiny phone screen- and do in a situations where I want to see it right now and that's the only screen available. But I much prefer to watch on the best screen available. Owning a tiny iDevice screen doesn't obligate me to only watching on that one screen. Maybe I'll watch a game on Goggles sometimes? Maybe the TV other times? Maybe a laptop another time? Maybe an iDevice still another time?

There are cheap 360 degree cameras available to consumers now. Hop on YouTube and type 3D camera for VR to see all kinds of videos shot with them. We can't see the "I'm there" effect they offer without VR equipment but we can fake it. Get one running, click on the screen and move the mouse to look left, right, up or down from the default. Example...

and

​

For this concept of immersive watching something (show, concert, game, tours, trails, etc), that can illustrate some of what even amateurs are already shooting. Instead of having to click & drag to shift the view, presumably Goggles wearer just looks in different directions to shift what they are seeing.

For big game type stuff- particularly a (I imagine) subscription service akin to NFL Sunday Ticket VR/NBA Courtside VR, etc, investments in pro cameras to deliver the best possible experience seems plausible. The cheap ones have been out for years.

Most of your negative points seem to revolve around some concept that once Goggles are on, we are locked in them... that they are the ONLY way to watch anything going forward. Or that it will be so hard to slip in and out of them that simply taking them off to overcome whatever obstacles you share will be some difficult task. It won't.

Personally I mostly imagine them as a new kind of mobile screen equivalent, with expectations of using them similarly to how I use a laptop when I want to focus on getting something done and/or watching something. I have ZERO expectations that these are permanently on my head. I suspect I'm sliding them on and off when desired without much more trouble than sunglasses or a divers mask... only when applicable and using existing screens when those are better suited for the situation.

 

[turbineseaplane]

I really think everyone misunderstands how much resistance there will always be to something that goes on your face.

It’s not like a watch on your wrist

It’s not like a phone in your pocket

It’s not like switching from discs to streaming on your TV

“On your face” has such enormous societal, fashion, perception and experience challenges to overcome that it’s hard to overstate it honestly.

 

[MattD74]

People are way too dismissive about AR/VR headsets. It always happens when Apple introduces a new hardware category in their lineup.

I mean it's pretty clear in what direction the mobile industrie is going to go, phones are already kind of at the end of their lifespan, they all have very good cameras, nice displays, best materials, high refresh rates etc etc etc. you can't really upgrade much more. If I would have to guess, in maybe 5 years multiple companies like Google, Apple and Samsung have their own kind of AR Glasses on the market and eventually they will replace the phone we know now.

The possibilities of "Smart Glasses" are massive and tech is only going to get better. Obviously the new Apple Headset will be kind of clunky and pretty expensive, but that's how it will start and as I said, tech only gets better, smaller, more powerful etc.
As far as I can tell, this first Gen Device isn't meant for your average Joe that still uses his iPhone 11. It's meant for Devs and Tech Enthusiast that want the newest thing. Devs can create Software and Apps (Apple will definitely have their own special use cases that they will show in the Keynote and some sort of App Store maybe). A couple Generations down the line they will release their Glasses and by then there will be an active Dev Community and people that already used their AR Goggles. By the time the Glasses are thin and light enough, the price will already be down and more and more people will start using them. I don't know when but it's only a matter of time until they will replace your iPhone because all the stuff you do on your phone will be on the glasses. Obviously we can't really imagine how this will look like but you can bet that apple has it figured out and it will shift the whole mobile industrie.

 

[turbineseaplane]

People are way too dismissive about AR/VR headsets

No, they really aren't too dismissive.

Something you strap to your head has enormous barriers to adoption that literally no other category comes close to having.

Even people that need RX correction many times don't want glasses (for fashion/confidence/image/other) reasons .. and that's to be able to "see at all" (at least clearly)...let alone have a "tech thing" strapped on there, at all times, and all the implications and issues there.

What's really going on is tech companies desperately trying to find the next iPhone level cash cow "thing" ... and they are praying and hoping and wishing that this might be it. Maybe it will be a hit, but mainstream to the cell phone level has some really uphill challenges here.

The tech to truly make something disappear into a normal looking pair of glasses (with no extra hardware) required simply isn't here -- and even then, you have folks who understandably don't want things on their face.