This is what is wrong with modern Apple. Products being pushed out before they are ready. Software is the same - iOS shouldn’t be tied to the September iPhone release. iOS and MacOS should be released when they’re ready.
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Report: Apple CEO Tim Cook Ordered Headset Launch Despite Designers Wanting to Wait for AR Glasses
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So good, so timely. I wish Tim would watch this. He must think, "oh thats not us." ...I guess?
It's surprising to me Apple of all companies is still making these mistakes. I don't think they've gone full Balmer Microsoft bad, but the trend is not encouraging.
For example Apple Silicon is revolutionary, it should change the entire industry, but Apple's price points still keep it rather niche. Furthermore, macOS used to be noticeably faster than my higher specced Windows machine, these days, win11 boots faster than macOS. Overall I still prefer the apple ecosystem, but it doesn't feel head and shoulders above anymore while the prices keep increasing.
Hardware, Os's are all being pushed out with barely if any quality control. With that said I find it somewhat hard to believe that Cook is doing/saying this.
Ping, iPod Hi Fi both Jobs era; there are more from the 90s though.
I feel like this is speculating a bit too much. Seven years is already twice as long as the time to develop the iPhone. Designers are great and innovative but they don't always have all the answers.
I feel like this is one of those products that the tech is not 100% there yet and the designers are too obsessed with perfection to just let it be the best it can right now. Apple has likely spent millions over seven years working on this and at some point it needs to get out there and see if its eve na viable product before they invest even more into developing it.
A design team should not control every decision. They also came up with the Touch Bar, butterfly keyboard and removing of ports. Sometimes their vision gets too skewed when allowed to run wild.
I think of it like software design where we have whats called scope creep. Thats where we keep adding new features and making changes and never launch the software. Endless tweaking limbo to make it perfect. Perfect to who however? How was it not perfect before? At some point a company has to follow a release schedule and stop farting around.
I think this is going to not go well for Apple no matter what. Not because of anything Apple did or did not do but just the lukewarm attitude towards this sort of thing from consumers. I have an Oculus. It's neat but I hate wearing it and hardly ever use it. Maybe I'm old school but I prefer o sit in comfort in my chair or couch when I game. A virtual avatar for a chat is neat but it's not the same as a real person on a vide call. It's fake and weird. The calls end up being more about the Avatar experience than the actual purpose of the calls. Too many distractions.
This entire concept is just not very practical for consumers to invest in. I paid $300 for the Oculus and thats already a lot for a glorified toy that is not comfortable at all and forces we to stand in one spot. If Apple actually puts this out there for $3,000 I just don't see a realistic world where that sells. Game developers will only develop for it if Apple sells enough units to justify the development cost. We also have yet to see what the hardware is actually like. The Oculus is essentially an Android phone yo swear on your head in terms of processing power to run games. This is no Nvidia 3090 performance we are talking here to really push what games can do. I expect the Apple product to more or less be in line with other Arm mobile device performance in terms of whats possible for gaming. Sure we forgive a lot more when its AR or VR because of the different experience but still its not a bleeding edge gaming experience in terms of quality.
Wearables need to be comfortable and affordable enough to make sense. They also need to provide enough benefit to justify their existence. A watch kind of makes sense because it's something people were used to wearing anyway. It also provides a lot of daily benefits in the background like health tracking which is the #1 reason people bother with watches like this. It has very tangible and unique uses no other device can provide. Uses that fit in with our daily lives and do not get in the way. The watch provides data without us worrying about getting that data. Data we can use to be healthier. What does a headset provide thats tangible to our daily lives without being cumbersome and obtrusive? Nothing really. Its entire point is to replace reality and our daily lives. Not to combine them together. It's entirely an alternative way to experience the world and 100% designed to be obtrusive. Outside of a few niche uses it's just not the way most will want to use $3,000. I can see schools and museums buying them but thats not enough to keep the product alive. Especially when they can just get a $300 Oculus to likely do the same thing. Sure Apple may do it better but 10x better? They may manage better comfort and actually make it usable for those that wear glasses. They may manage better resolution or better benchmark performance but at the end of the day none of that will really matter. VR and AR is about the experience of altered reality and Oculus and others already do that. I may be wrong and somehow people find $3,000 burning a hole in their pockets for a toy. I don't think I am however. Apple has to find a way to make it cost less.
I feel like this is one of those products that the tech is not 100% there yet and the designers are too obsessed with perfection to just let it be the best it can right now. Apple has likely spent millions over seven years working on this and at some point it needs to get out there and see if its eve na viable product before they invest even more into developing it.
A design team should not control every decision. They also came up with the Touch Bar, butterfly keyboard and removing of ports. Sometimes their vision gets too skewed when allowed to run wild.
I think of it like software design where we have whats called scope creep. Thats where we keep adding new features and making changes and never launch the software. Endless tweaking limbo to make it perfect. Perfect to who however? How was it not perfect before? At some point a company has to follow a release schedule and stop farting around.
I think this is going to not go well for Apple no matter what. Not because of anything Apple did or did not do but just the lukewarm attitude towards this sort of thing from consumers. I have an Oculus. It's neat but I hate wearing it and hardly ever use it. Maybe I'm old school but I prefer o sit in comfort in my chair or couch when I game. A virtual avatar for a chat is neat but it's not the same as a real person on a vide call. It's fake and weird. The calls end up being more about the Avatar experience than the actual purpose of the calls. Too many distractions.
This entire concept is just not very practical for consumers to invest in. I paid $300 for the Oculus and thats already a lot for a glorified toy that is not comfortable at all and forces we to stand in one spot. If Apple actually puts this out there for $3,000 I just don't see a realistic world where that sells. Game developers will only develop for it if Apple sells enough units to justify the development cost. We also have yet to see what the hardware is actually like. The Oculus is essentially an Android phone yo swear on your head in terms of processing power to run games. This is no Nvidia 3090 performance we are talking here to really push what games can do. I expect the Apple product to more or less be in line with other Arm mobile device performance in terms of whats possible for gaming. Sure we forgive a lot more when its AR or VR because of the different experience but still its not a bleeding edge gaming experience in terms of quality.
Wearables need to be comfortable and affordable enough to make sense. They also need to provide enough benefit to justify their existence. A watch kind of makes sense because it's something people were used to wearing anyway. It also provides a lot of daily benefits in the background like health tracking which is the #1 reason people bother with watches like this. It has very tangible and unique uses no other device can provide. Uses that fit in with our daily lives and do not get in the way. The watch provides data without us worrying about getting that data. Data we can use to be healthier. What does a headset provide thats tangible to our daily lives without being cumbersome and obtrusive? Nothing really. Its entire point is to replace reality and our daily lives. Not to combine them together. It's entirely an alternative way to experience the world and 100% designed to be obtrusive. Outside of a few niche uses it's just not the way most will want to use $3,000. I can see schools and museums buying them but thats not enough to keep the product alive. Especially when they can just get a $300 Oculus to likely do the same thing. Sure Apple may do it better but 10x better? They may manage better comfort and actually make it usable for those that wear glasses. They may manage better resolution or better benchmark performance but at the end of the day none of that will really matter. VR and AR is about the experience of altered reality and Oculus and others already do that. I may be wrong and somehow people find $3,000 burning a hole in their pockets for a toy. I don't think I am however. Apple has to find a way to make it cost less.
I believe the reason to ship is more related to developing a product that not only competes with what already exists but allows A wide range of developers to begin creating for rOS to push the product forward. They see significant parts of the internet infrastructure shifting to support this technology and if they don’t have a dog in the fight the loose the ability to shape that conversation.
The Microsoft/Google strategy has been to convince Businesses to adopt online protocols that are proprietary to these two companies. This undermines the internet standards that have allowed the internet to remain open. Google is successfully apply the same strategy Microsoft used in the 90s to keep apple users from using the internet as effectively as it should be. When websites require chrome to function as I have been seeing in recent years it means web has been highjacked
Or we could wait until we see the final product before lamenting the depths apple has fallen into. It’s less fun but more sensible.
By the way, the graphic UI of the mac was invented by xerox, not apple, and was implemented in the lisa before the mac, as I’m sure you’re aware of.
And even then, the mac and the iPhone were 23 years apart. It’s not as if apple used to shock the world time and again.
You could add the iPad and the iPod, those were revolutionary but… They both were products that already existed, but had not so much importance until apple reinventend them. Maybe apple can do the same with AR/VR this time.
I know several people that have had them for a while now. They usually talk about it once, and then I don’t hear about it again from that person. Not sure if they just don’t use it, or think people don’t care? I had one of the Samsung things back in the day, it was cool for a week or two, then never got it out again until we gave it to somebody else who had a Samsung
Too early means it fails in the market. If the battery life was a real problem, the market wouldn’t buy it.
And it would go away.
My problem with VR is the novelty wears off really quickly. I’ve got a psvr and a quest 2, both of which haven’t been used for months. It was great at first but once the wow factor wears off, your left with average games and experiences. AR glasses might be a bit more useful but I’m not convinced.
I understand Tim perfectly. You cannot wait forever to have the 'perfect product', you have to launch it and continue working on next versions. The first iPhone (understanding that it was more disruptive than these glasses of course) was far from perfect. You don't have to be afraid to launch, position yourself and improve from there.
FaceTime is all about seeing each other while talking. Do you really want to look at someone with that contraption over their eyes, vs seeing them as you would normally?
Another view is that there is only so much development you can do in house especially as leaks begin to spread allowing competitors to steal your innovations and build to counter your Go to market strategy Years before you release. After 7 years it’s time to either cut bait and cancel it or get the a device into developer and consumer hands to allow their usage to guide next steps.
I typically take these reports with a healthy dose of skepticism, given that they are likely intended to push a narrative, rather than paint an accurate picture of what is really going on behind the scenes (I have been seeing this a lot recently from articles by Bloomberg and Mark Gurman). What is likely happening is that they interview 1 or 2 disgruntled employees, but then choose to report selectively on what was said and / or twist their words to fit whatever narrative they wish to push.
Right now, the angle is probably that this is the first new product category Apple has had in a while, Tim Cook wants to rush it out the door in the interest of profits, and if it fails, the Financial Times can turn around and go "I told you so". But the thing is, there will likely be bugs and flaws with any first gen product no matter how long a company continues to work on it behind the scenes (just look at the Apple Watch after 7 years), so what we are seeing here is an extremely disingenuous statement to make.
Apple isn't perfect, but they aren't run by idiots either. My guess is that its functionality will be limited at launch, but still be able to nail that user experience just enough to get people to buy it. Apple will then collect feedback and continue to iterate on said product over the next couple of years.
On a side note, I feel that having the design team report to Jeff Williams makes sense when you consider that designers typically don't want to take on leadership / managerial positions. They just want to design products, but they ultimately still have to answer to someone. In this regard, I don't think anything has changed at Apple. The design team continues to work with other teams, including engineering, to come up with pretty much every consumer-facing element found with a product. Meanwhile, Jeff Williams serves as the bridge between the design team and Apple's inner circle.
This article is likely much fear-mongering over nothing for the sake of clickbait and easy views.
Right now, the angle is probably that this is the first new product category Apple has had in a while, Tim Cook wants to rush it out the door in the interest of profits, and if it fails, the Financial Times can turn around and go "I told you so". But the thing is, there will likely be bugs and flaws with any first gen product no matter how long a company continues to work on it behind the scenes (just look at the Apple Watch after 7 years), so what we are seeing here is an extremely disingenuous statement to make.
Apple isn't perfect, but they aren't run by idiots either. My guess is that its functionality will be limited at launch, but still be able to nail that user experience just enough to get people to buy it. Apple will then collect feedback and continue to iterate on said product over the next couple of years.
On a side note, I feel that having the design team report to Jeff Williams makes sense when you consider that designers typically don't want to take on leadership / managerial positions. They just want to design products, but they ultimately still have to answer to someone. In this regard, I don't think anything has changed at Apple. The design team continues to work with other teams, including engineering, to come up with pretty much every consumer-facing element found with a product. Meanwhile, Jeff Williams serves as the bridge between the design team and Apple's inner circle.
This article is likely much fear-mongering over nothing for the sake of clickbait and easy views.
Well, we'll see. At ~$3k this isn't going to sell like gangbusters at all no matter how good the use cases are - but will be a really initial product for some users with alot of disposable income and devs.
The AR glasses (they'll have to handle prescriptions in there) are the end game, so I see this as a stepping stone...but I can't see sales being very high. As for gaming, hmmmnnn....I guess if they make the platform close to iOS they'll have some game content within easy porting reach.
The AR glasses (they'll have to handle prescriptions in there) are the end game, so I see this as a stepping stone...but I can't see sales being very high. As for gaming, hmmmnnn....I guess if they make the platform close to iOS they'll have some game content within easy porting reach.
Good book by Ernest Cline but mediocre movie at best.
I had a 3D TV and enjoyed but the theater experience was a bit better. If it didnt get fried during a lightning storm I would still watch 3D movies.
Of course the OG HomePod was a flop. Apple cut the price on and then stopped selling it without an immediate replacement. Apple just doesn't do that.
Other recent flops would be the iPhone mini (although they still sold millions and I love mine it didn't sell near what Apple was expecting) and it seems the iPhone Plus (same as the mini).
As I've mentioned before, I hope whatever Apple releases sells well enough we get future generations. But I highly doubt I'll be interested in the 1st or even 2nd Gen.
MacRumours forums is a niche audience and people get it wrong. I might be wrong about this. I haven't seen what Apple has done differently yet so I can only make assumptions based on what exists now, the reception these products have received, the concerns that people have about this type of device and my own experience using products from competitors along with my own feelings regarding this type of form factor. We'll have to see how the future unfolds...
If anything, it’s changed for the better. When Ive was in charge of design, we got the butterfly keyboard, the ports debacle and the trashcan mac pro, all in the name of function follows form.
Well, Siri still isn’t ready … now they will have two products released in beta.
Apple CEO Tim Cook sided with operations chief Jeff Williams in pushing to launch a first-generation mixed-reality headset device this year, against the wishes of the company's design team, the Financial Times reports.
The timing of the mixed-reality headset's launch has apparently been a cause of considerable contention at Apple. The company's industrial design team cautioned that devices in the category were not yet ready for launch and wanted to delay until a lightweight AR glasses product had matured several years later. On the other hand, Apple's operations team wanted to ship an early version of the product in the form of a VR-focused ski goggle-like headset that allows users to watch 3D videos, perform interactive workouts, or make FaceTime calls with virtual avatars.
Tim Cook, who served as Apple's operations chief prior to becoming CEO, reportedly sided with Jeff Williams, overruling objections from Apple's designers and pressing for an early launch with a more limited product. Speaking to the Financial Times, former Apple engineers who worked on the device described the "huge pressure to ship."
Upon the departure of design chief Jony Ive in 2019, Apple's design team now reports directly to Williams. While design led the direction of Apple's products under Steve Jobs, employees have noticed that operations is increasingly taking control over product development under Cook's leadership. One former engineer said that the best part of working at Apple was devising engineering solutions to meet the "insane requirements" of the design team, but that has apparently changed in recent years.
Apple's headset has reportedly been in active development for seven years, twice as long as the original iPhone prior to its launch. The device is seen as being tied directly to Tim Cook's legacy, as Apple's first new computing platform developed entirely under his leadership.
The company is still expecting to sell only around a million units of the headset during its first year on sale at a ~$3,000 price point. Nevertheless, Apple is purportedly preparing a "marketing blitz" for the product later this year.
Article Link: Report: Apple CEO Tim Cook Ordered Headset Launch Despite Designers Warning It Wasn't Ready
