That's why I think it's all bs. I can't wait for it to get "delayed" again... lol. Apple has never confirmed the existence of any VR headsets or glasses, after all these years it's still 100% rumors.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Report: Apple CEO Tim Cook Ordered Headset Launch Despite Designers Wanting to Wait for AR Glasses
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
I used to trust every Apple move. I remember I used to have positive feelings about Apple launching new product category cause I knew in advance they were gonna make it right no matter what. Not the same feeling this time. I feel like this is going to be a big fail 🤷🏻♂️
Truth is Cook and Zuckerberg want to be the first to crack the AR shell so badly that they are willing to risk it all, knowing they more than likely won’t be about when it actually happens, but they still want to make their mark on the proceedings.
I have no doubt that AR glasses like normal reading glasses will eventually be a thing but their is one big caveat….not everyone wears glass or wants too, and not everyone wants to wear the same design of glasses as everyone else, they are a very personal thing.
Now if they could somehow get it in contact lenses they might be onto something
It would not have been successful if you had to lug around laptop.
But it would certainly have been possible. And the decade-old existence of taxicabs that could ordered with a phone call (even from a dumbphone) or hailed on the street is evidence to the contrary.
Here's the thing: The revolution that Uber brought to the table is not the form factor with which your order your ride.
Uber has simplified and automated the exchange the of routing information (where you are, where you want to go, how long it takes) and replaced the human middleman with its limited "database". And they've developed a successful marketplace matching algorithm and system to assign drivers to riders.
You could literally use a GPS tracker and a dumbphone to call your Uber service number. Give them your GPS coordinates or tracker number and they'll quote you a price over the phone. You accept - that's it.
...and crash into the nearest lamppost on the street and/or have your wallet stolen, cause you're distracted by your head-worn AR glasses.
Also, there's much cheaper ways to identify your Uber. You could literally have a small digital display with a number - or your name on it. It's not that hard to identify - today's technology is good and convenient enough.
Tinder models get less right swipes with glasses.
Then again, some facetuning algorithm could probably digitally "remove" the glasses, couldn't it?
Apple Music doesn't require a headset or AR glasses. And identifying the car isn't that hard. Have you ever seen those car key fobs that make a car's lights blink, when it's locked or unlocked while parking?
Why drive the long way to IKEA - when IKEA and it's couch can come into my living room at home?
I'll just take a picture with my iPhone - which, with its protruding camera cutout has better cameras than my smart glasses, send it to IKEA/the IKEA app. They'll do spacial recognition on it and let me virtually position a couple of couches on my computer in that room.
I'm still seeing a lot of people wearing them - but rarely using them for their "smart" functionality.
👉 Don't get me wrong, I'm not a naysayer or hater. I honestly appreciate your futurist thinking and your post providing concrete examples. I am, however, also a believer in technology that's "good enough" or even just "simple enough". And people and businesses being too wary or lazy to switch from or improve on such technology. I just don't see the killer application.
Last edited:
No. No, they won’t. This is why I don’t buy these rumours. What Gurman is describing sounds very much like a developer kit that’s being used internally to prevent leaks of the consumer product. Unless Mark Gurman’s mole is Tim Cook himself, it’s very unlikely that the high level team who has access to the fully assembled device would leak to him.
Everything from the size, to the external battery pack to the price point sounds like what’ll be sold to developers at WWDC with a teaser of what’s to come for consumers shown at the keynote. A full reveal would happen at the September event and a launch of the device some time next year.
People need to stop judging this device based on rumours and use common sense. Apple isn’t going to try to enter a new space at a price point that most people won’t buy. From iPhone to iPad to Apple Watch, everyone has repeatedly overestimated the price point of those rumoured new categories.
Last edited:
How is an article not based on fact make one so judgmental on something that hasn't occurred? It's like accusing Apple of being stupid when they haven't done anything yet. Reminds me of the 2002 Minority Report sci-fi. Plot: specialized police department, apprehends criminals by use of foreknowledge provided by three psychics called "precogs". Does anyone here possess the ability of precognition? Seems to be a lot of that here.
Don't forget iPoD HiFi. Steve literally emptyed the Apple Store stock of nearly all competing products to sell that lemon.
Last edited:
Lot of times Apple works with third parties by getting samples made and some loose lips might be involved in their depts.
Not sure what argument you’re trying to make.
What made Uber possible and successful was it serves the symbiosis between people who need a ride and people who have a car both having always on internet devices that they can carry with them everywhere. The iPhone + App Store is what made it possible.
A new device category will find these unique use cases and become a must have app that we didn’t know we could live without.
You don’t seem to understand how augmented reality works. It’s not covering your vision, it’s not distracting you. It becomes a part of the world you’re looking at. You don’t crash into a lamppost glancing at traffic signs as you drive… or do you?
There are much cheaper ways to look at videos of cats. But many people do so on $1000 devices. AR glasses are going to inevitably become ubiquitous whether it’s Apple who pulls it off or Meta (shudder) or another up and coming startup. Individual uses like the ones I mention won’t be why someone buys them, they’ll just be an app you use with your glasses you bought for its overall value of the many things it does.
Your question was answered perfectly during the pandemic lockdowns. We can do anything online without leaving our house now, including shopping and even work. People are still going in droves to real world shopping and returning to in-office work. Sitting on a couch and feeling it is a different experience than just looking at it on a website. Bringing the benefits of internet shopping to real world shopping is going to be one of the killer use cases for these devices.
None of this stuff is even that hard to grasp. This isn’t even big vision stuff yet, just low hanging fruit of what’s possible. You know what they prescribe for people with poor vision? Glasses. 🥁badum-tss
We don’t really know what apples targets were or why they replaced the OG HomePod with HomePod 2. As my ludicrous yet enlightening example shows sales are one barometer.
As I said above we are not privvy to apples targets or sales. I would tend to speculate with you that the OG didn’t meet apples targets, but we don’t know for sure.
Apple infamously makes all their industrial design prototypes in-house. Tony Fadell talked about the hundreds of prototype iPod iterations they manufactuted and never left the walls of the lab and were only seen by a handful of people before being shredded. There’s no reason for low level employees to ever had seen this thing. For something this secretive, they’re most definitely working on a dev kits or black boxed devices.
What Apple employees worked on when the iPod was being developed up to mere weeks before the iPod’s launch:
(iPod for scale)
Takeaway point: Mark Gurman is highly likely describing a dev kit, not the consumer device which won’t have been seen even by his moles inside Apple.
Still you don’t release a new product just for the sake of it or just because it’s something you’ve been working on in the lab for years. You release it because you think it will be a viable product that consumers will buy. And Apple is a consumer tech company. No one has demonstrated yet that the average consumer will wear bulky googles on their face.relatively little of Microsoft hololens is gaming.
or magic leap
https://www.magicleap.com/news/how-ar-remote-assistance-can-aid-surgery
the problem is more so commenters who can only map this into a gaming context and those laboring under the impression that VR==gamming. Or that it is has to be in their limited budget.
If Apple intends to push this as a 90% VR gaming and 10% AR tool then yeah it probably is a miss.
The huge problem there is that Apple has pounded the table over and over again at the last 3-6 WWDC sessions about AR. So likely more an extension of what the AR abilities iPhone/iPads already have into 'better' than in aping 'Ready Player One" .
They don't have to be to do AR.
No it reeks of you have had 10's of millions of dollars of funding per year over the least six (or more ) years. It is time to 'piss or get off the pot'. The lightweight headset is technologically blocked for several more years so let's delay everything and still steadily burn money. Really?
I doubt that Cook et. al. are trying to substantively change the balance sheet in just a handful of quarters. It is more so about inaction due to artificial perfection. At some point have to get the product out to developers and users so that can get feedback and incrementally improve the product. Even more so if the goals and objectives keep slip-sliding around over the six years. If it is 'always something else... need another 1-2 years'. That gets old.
Opps, I should have defined "samples" better, I meant "part samples" not anything to do with prototypes of partial or complete product assemblies developed in labs.
Millions have bought Apple Watches but there really isn‘t an app market for it. The whole ‘there’s an app for that’ is so 2010. Apple needs to have a compelling story for this from the get go. Otherwise it’s just the TouchBar but really expensive.
Yeah but it's an iPhone accessory. That is it's reason to exist, is a highly portable device that acts as an extension to the functionality of their phone with the added fitness/health features.
The watch is a much easier sell than this. You can pick up a watch for $250 - 500 and its discrete enough that people won't look super awkward using it.
Name the last product (besides Apple’s own silicon) that they first sold to developers and then brought to consumers? When Apple Watch was first announced they spent a lot of time on apps but then over time realized the watch really wasn’t going to be this major app platform. I fear the same thing is happening here. Just curious what you think the use cases will be for the v1 product sold to consumers.
If it’s not easy after 7 years and the team wants to wait “several” more then either it’s compete junk or it’s perfectionism gone awry. Tim Cook thinks it’s ready to launch, we’ll see if it turns out to be good or not. I think getting a solid product into the wild will probably speed up design in the future with so much data coming in.