Maybe it will leave marks on your face like the HomePod leaves marks on your table 🤣
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Report: Apple CEO Tim Cook Ordered Headset Launch Despite Designers Wanting to Wait for AR Glasses
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This will be a car crash. The apple console pipin or whatever it was called will seem a huge success in comparison.
Fair. But SJ was actually a very good salesman. He did not create the Mac (he was head of the Lisa team) nor develop the original Apple. But he did help sell it.
Engineers never think a product is ready to ship; there is always something not quite perfect and something that can be tweaked. It is a manager's job to keep the team on task to the spec and to decide when the product meets the spec.
I don’t have a settled opinion on the headset given all we know is rumours at this point, and I cant predict the future, but it’s interesting that many folks read this article - or the headline/summary alone - to be talking about hardware or software bugs. What it actually talked about was product design/go to market decision and the internal discussions around whether they should do a headset vs. waiting for AR glasses to be ready. I don’t know what the right call is, but if the headset comes out this year, it seems the leadership felt that they couldn’t let perfect (AR glasses) be the enemy of good (headset) and they should start their public journey of being involved in the AR space. Whether that’s the right call, time will tell.
This isn’t as big of a deal as people are making it out to be. Steve Jobs did this all the time to push the engineers to get something right on schedule. It’s about time they were pushed to innovate more quickly again. The original iPhone wasn’t even ready for its launch and the presentation was faked.
Exactly, that’s why the iPhone failed during one of SJ presentations and had to go to a backup. Because it was perfect.
Soo, when Apple launched these? Never.
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
Tim took it to the next level. Tim took everything in the company and the company itself to the next level. It’s irrelevant if SJ and TC “discussed” something prior to his death or not.
Nobody expects a perfect 1st-gen AR/VR headset that takes over the world. Ship the min viable model and expand every year. Apple has ecosystem as leverage - it can ship a headset w/o gyroscope and people will still buy it to watch media. [basically strap Apple TV in your face]
We don't know why Apple stopped selling the larger HomePod initially. The effective HomePod replacement were the smaller models introduced. Just because these might not have been a replacement that met your needs, HomePod Mini was still part of the same product category. I know many people transitioned to HomePod Minis when they became available. And the larger HomePod is now back too with refreshed innards and a more refined approach.
iPhone Mini wasn't a flop. Just because it didn't meet Apple's ambitious sales projections, it sold well compared to the rest of the market and the product is loved by many people who still use them. I think iPhone 14 Plus will be a flop though.
Apple has monopoly position and creative core is rotting out > Apple looses monopoly position > Apple refreshes and refocuses. People, just hang on until 2040 and everything will be fine.
I don't understand the purpose of these things, but I understand why they need to get them out sooner than later because they're already late to the game. I could change my tune once I've tried them out, but much like the AirPods Max, they'll be priced way out of my range -- only more so if that price is to be believed.
Ehhhh VR has been in the making for decades. John Carmack from id software one of the grandfathers of game engines is been part of these VR teams at oculus for years helping start VR. The technology is getting there to the point where you don’t need a ps5 plugged in anymore and you can play immersive haptic feedback type of games through a headset? This isn’t gonna go the way of 3D TV. The educational purposes alone. Seems as though you may be more disconnected from the technology fads than you think you are.
OG HomePod wasn’t a flop. Unlike other products in the market (speaking generally) the form and function are top notch. Everyone will have their own opinions as to why it was pulled* and replaced with a model that appear to be near identical. That doesn’t scream flop. We can only speculate and if the OG HomePod is being used in these forums as an analogy to the glasses i think it’s a flawed analogy.
*still supported with software through an indeterminate length of time.
Fun fact - designers always want more time.
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
Signed, a designer.
Other products also made a big leap after one generation like iPad and iPhone. However those first-gen products worked fine and it's starting to sound like this headset won't.
Tim Cook should have dropped acid. Maybe things would have been true to the original Apple vision then. 🌈
Meta has sold less than 20 million Quest headsets worldwide as of this month. Would not be hard at all to overcome that - if, and it is a big IF, Apple comes out with something worthy. If the rumored prices are true, I am pretty skeptical that people are going to pay a really large premium for a bulky, rushed to market device. I guess we'll see what they come out with.