We will see how it will end up , you will note that the big gaming companies are going down that road already with exclusives , buying betsheda for 7.5billion just to get some desirable exclusive is going to lose money from sales pov but will make the platform stronger overall , so there is value in paying developers to code stuff for your platform , and yha , selling tons of macs will do it , but my guess is that gaming is important to get to the numbers you have in mind
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Surprised by low interest in and discussion of AR
- Thread starter Tooldog
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From what I’ve been reading this morning, no one that’s actually a part of Apple Arcade is at liberty to say how they are helped financially, but it does appear that each game’s situation is different, though. One thing that’s clear is that Apple Arcade (the non “+” games) seems to be focused on two things as requirements up front:
1. New titles, i.e. not currently existing titles on other platforms, and
2. No IAP’s
So, it’s far more limited than the broad “Apple paying developers to port popular games to the system”.
Apple’s a big gaming company, too. By some measures the biggest. And that’s with, to my knowledge, only ONE Apple developed exclusive, Warren Buffet’s Paper Wizard… and it isn’t even in the store anymore.
Microsoft bought Bethesda for 7.5 billion, Minecraft for 2.1 billion, yet Apple has bought no one, and makes more money in gaming than Microsoft does. Maybe if the Mac was all Apple had, they’d be trying to FORCE gaming to happen on it. As it is, gaming is happening organically and fairly effortlessly on their iOS platform.
What’s most likely to happen? Enterprising folks that REALLY want to jump through hoops to play games on the Mac will get better at putting together the bits and pieces that makes it work “ok enough”. Seeing this, cross platform developers will be even LESS likely to release official native games as they can “do nothing” and still make money from Mac users. There are really a LOT of barriers to Mac gaming happening.
For exclusive Apple Arcade titles, Apple approaches a studio and asks for a pitch - the studio pitches a project, if it's a licenced property, the studio does all the IP negotiations first with the IP holders first, then if Apple likes the project, it pays the studio in instalments over the course of development, and for updates after release. Also, Apple throws serious money into promotion for the games they fund - they film broadcast TV advertising with actors, costuming etc.
It basically gives the studio an ongoing salary, rather than having to launch off their bank accounts, or from venture funding - they know the project is paid for, and they can budget their staff etc, before they start work. But yes, it means they can't ask the customer for money - and the thing is, the games companies LOVE it. IAPs and micro transactions and nickel & diming kills game devs, they hate it.
Still, a FAR cry (6) from “Could you please port [AAA title that already exists] to the Mac? Here’s a bucket of cash.”
Some of what I’ve read indicates that the deals could vary somewhat from developer to developer. I’ve “expected” a situation like what you described, but in the articles I found no one was at liberty to say
Still, a FAR cry (6) from “Could you please port [AAA title that already exists] to the Mac? Here’s a bucket of cash.”
True, Blender is about the closest analogue to that.
Some of what I’ve read indicates that the deals could vary somewhat from developer to developer. I’ve “expected” a situation like what you described, but in the articles I found no one was at liberty to say
No, it's the sort of information that wouldn't be published
Maybe buying a porting company (there are a few) , and just putting them to work on AAA titles will be a good start , instead of buying AAA studios , get a big ass porting operation !!!Apple’s a big gaming company, too. By some measures the biggest. And that’s with, to my knowledge, only ONE Apple developed exclusive, Warren Buffet’s Paper Wizard… and it isn’t even in the store anymore.
Microsoft bought Bethesda for 7.5 billion, Minecraft for 2.1 billion, yet Apple has bought no one, and makes more money in gaming than Microsoft does. Maybe if the Mac was all Apple had, they’d be trying to FORCE gaming to happen on it. As it is, gaming is happening organically and fairly effortlessly on their iOS platform.
What’s most likely to happen? Enterprising folks that REALLY want to jump through hoops to play games on the Mac will get better at putting together the bits and pieces that makes it work “ok enough”. Seeing this, cross platform developers will be even LESS likely to release official native games as they can “do nothing” and still make money from Mac users. There are really a LOT of barriers to Mac gaming happening.
Agreed 100%. Their mobile SOCs are clearly being iterated on in a way which makes them perfect for AR/VR. They are clearly working on the software stack. They've had "ARKit" as a work in progress, publicly for like... 5-10 years now? Tim has stated repeatedly for years that AR is the next big thing.
They do not have an AR headset yet, but anyone who thinks it isn't coming when its fully-baked and ready to make whatever else is on the market look overpriced or pedestrian has their head firmly in the sand.
Apple's SOCs are essentially 2-3 years ahead of anyone else. The quest 2 has been on the market for 12+ months at this point. Facebook had the devs from Oculus to give them a head start but other companies have proven that VR/AR capability is not exclusive to Oculus.
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Apple had been unashamedly anti-gaming while Jobs was there. He was somewhat infamous for not wanting to make it easy to game on a Mac, much less to cater to gaming on Macs. I think it happened on iOS devices "organically" as someone here has already mentioned. <Apologies for not linking to your post, its a longish read for me by the time I can get back in here.> It will be a paradigm shift when and if Apple releases something gaming-centric. But would an Apple branded VR headset be a standalone device that's designed with gaming in mind? It could be, I don't know anyone at Apple to ask. Maybe that is exactly the avenue they are most likely to take, but I would expect any Apple VR product it to be marketed for something educational or social that happens to have games. -Insert early iPod ad here-
Is it going to take Apple to turn VR into a fun and affordable holiday gift must-have? For sure AR needs a different set of technologies than VR so I have to wonder where Apple are with solutions to the engineering challenges.
As always, I really appreciate everyone who is sharing what they know and think here.
Is it going to take Apple to turn VR into a fun and affordable holiday gift must-have? For sure AR needs a different set of technologies than VR so I have to wonder where Apple are with solutions to the engineering challenges.
As always, I really appreciate everyone who is sharing what they know and think here.
I think, like the iPad, it’s going to designed to be easy enough for folks with small budgets to create compelling content and be able to make money from it due to being tied to the App Store. If games, something educational, or something social is created, it won’t be because Apple’s pushing it, it’ll be because some developer makes it happen.
I think the first apps may be those companies that currently have apps that capture 3d spaces as they’ve already got lots of content their customers have captured that they may want to visualize.
I think what made the iPad such a big hit aside from the tech was the price , as much as innovation and the product is important factor , price is up there as well , if the rumors by Kuo are correct it is going to be a KILLER product but a "pricey" one according to him , and if that's the case we will run into the infamous Mac vs Windows situation , where the Oculus is being sold in a magnitude of order of whatever Apple puts out even with a lesser HW , just because FB are willing to lose on the device as long as they get the SW developers and users on board ,and to be honest for a rich company this is the best way to get yourself the entire market , there were times where we had so many major players in the VR space , now its basically "Code your game to run on Oculus 2" first and only then the reset gets their optimizations if at all.
Kuo says VR at 2022 , lets see.
The price did factor into it, but let’s think about that for a minute. That initial price seemed low primarily because, capable tablets were primarily windows tablets and trying to tabletize something that’s not really tablet worthy to a population not really excited about the whole tablet thing meant you had to charge a lot for it.
These days, you can find a LOT of tablets cheaper and with wider feature sets than the iPad, much like Windows/Mac. So, that initial low price (or even today’s… ahhhh $329 is it?) isn’t so very low anymore. Apple would enter the VR market with a device meant to be profitable, so it’s going to cost more, but I’d guess more in the “high end iPad” range, not the MBP range. It’s going to be expensive, it’s NOT going to take over the world, but Apple’s never HAD to take over the world, just a good chunk of the part of the world that has the money to spend to buy their stuff.
As a result, developers… understanding that there’s a bunch of folks that had the money to purchase the headsets AND have their credit card info in the App Store will seek after this “group of people with money to buy stuff” with whatever they think will sell. I’m actually ready to be surprised with what the first experiences will bring as the fidelity (3D audio/visual/tracking) will have been built together from the ground up and, as a result, could bring something new.
I think there is a price in which the market will be unable to bare it to a point where the eco system can flourish , ill say that an amazing VR headset with almost no games that cost 1500$+ will be a hard sell , I am hoping to be wrong on this one , but Apple MO where they are building products in their underground labs and announce them 1 week before you can buy them is not the way to go here , some Developers kits needs to be in developers hands a year in advance.
Apple’s currently selling devices for OVER that much that don’t have many more games than that brand new VR device will
If it can do at $1500 what competing systems that cost $5000+ can do, yeah it’ll be a small market, but it’ll be profitable for Apple right from the start and it’ll grow from that.
The required devs likely already have signed NDA’s and are providing some level of feedback on the design and features. Who knows, we might even get some good leaks in the coming months
The trimble is already well above $1500 ($3500+) with a focus on industry. No idea if the headset is profitable for them. VIVE cosmos is $900+, Pro2 is $800+ ($1400 for kit), Reverb G2 $600+. No idea if these are profitable either. I still think Apple will wait a good while yet. More than 2 years. I'm prepared to be wrong
Tremble’s just using HoloLens, right, not their own thing? Looking at the HoloLens, audio’s not a big part of the solution and I’d assume that these other devices may “support” audio, but my assumption is that Apple’s would be one of the first solutions that support 3D audio as a part of the initial hardware purchase.The trimble is already well above $1500 ($3500+) with a focus on industry. No idea if the headset is profitable for them. VIVE cosmos is $900+, Pro2 is $800+ ($1400 for kit), Reverb G2 $600+. No idea if these are profitable either. I still think Apple will wait a good while yet. More than 2 years. I'm prepared to be wrong
I can totally see going for a industry focus, especially since those folks have the money they can spend on something like that and get a return on their investment. Apple’s going to do something such that folks that have $1500 dollars will gladly spend the money and it won’t be a huge market, but it’s a market that will be profitable for Apple.
The trickiest thing about AR is interaction. AR glasses (for out in the world) could take off as the more passive device that compliments our smartphones, rather than replacing them.
The parts of mobile computing that include tapping buttons, entering searches, and Liking posts... and we still do a lot of this stuff... will remain easiest for a long time if we still have our hands on *something*, even if it's not our primary device. And maybe if you're assuming there's still a smartphone in the mix, you offload the processing there. the AR glasses handle display and sensors. Very low latency wireless would, of course, be key. AirPlay for your face.
As for AR Apps – killer or otherwise – I think Layers are a better descriptor for what Apple should guide companies to make for the glasses. It likely won't be a great experience diving in and out of Apps as we know them now. I think instead you'll have all the Layers you want (made by different companies) turned on at the same time. Most will pop in and out of view like Notification toasts based on timeliness (new Mail received or a reminder) or contextually aware floating HUD elements (The famous "you're at a conference, networking and people's business cards/LinkedIn Profiles appear over their heads"). Or you may opt for a couple persistent HUD elements (or Widgets), in a few niche cases (maybe time and date?) but they are otherwise ephemeral. Arrow for directions. Maybe an app that let's people pin messages to locations in space; a real word comment section you can have on wherever you go. These HUD elements appear based on proximity, time, and AI understanding context.
I think being able to stack these things on all at once, turning them on as Layers and never worrying about launching or moving between apps ever again is a more native AR paradigm and helps AR become far more personal. Your literal view out on the world is completely different if you're a teen girl or a retiree and that's personalization on a different realm than wallpapers. It also improves the general minute to minute utility of AR if users can just keep adding features until it's useful or fun for them. They're less reliant on a single "killer app" to make wearing it (outside of a very specific context) beneficial.
The parts of mobile computing that include tapping buttons, entering searches, and Liking posts... and we still do a lot of this stuff... will remain easiest for a long time if we still have our hands on *something*, even if it's not our primary device. And maybe if you're assuming there's still a smartphone in the mix, you offload the processing there. the AR glasses handle display and sensors. Very low latency wireless would, of course, be key. AirPlay for your face.
As for AR Apps – killer or otherwise – I think Layers are a better descriptor for what Apple should guide companies to make for the glasses. It likely won't be a great experience diving in and out of Apps as we know them now. I think instead you'll have all the Layers you want (made by different companies) turned on at the same time. Most will pop in and out of view like Notification toasts based on timeliness (new Mail received or a reminder) or contextually aware floating HUD elements (The famous "you're at a conference, networking and people's business cards/LinkedIn Profiles appear over their heads"). Or you may opt for a couple persistent HUD elements (or Widgets), in a few niche cases (maybe time and date?) but they are otherwise ephemeral. Arrow for directions. Maybe an app that let's people pin messages to locations in space; a real word comment section you can have on wherever you go. These HUD elements appear based on proximity, time, and AI understanding context.
I think being able to stack these things on all at once, turning them on as Layers and never worrying about launching or moving between apps ever again is a more native AR paradigm and helps AR become far more personal. Your literal view out on the world is completely different if you're a teen girl or a retiree and that's personalization on a different realm than wallpapers. It also improves the general minute to minute utility of AR if users can just keep adding features until it's useful or fun for them. They're less reliant on a single "killer app" to make wearing it (outside of a very specific context) beneficial.
That's all a long-solved problem - go look up UltraLeap and their hand tracking (formerly Leap Motion).
Hand tracking, depth cueing and occlusion isn't the difficult part, making the optical path short enough to fit into glasses, while still being able to focus on it is the hard part.
The thing is with Apple is the scale , selling 50,000 units x 1500$ might be a lot for some companies but its nothing on Apple scale , that is why they usually aim for the general public as they have the most buying power overall , turning a profit is not the only thing that matters , its how much profit that matters , Apple engineers are expensive the opportunity cost is immense , putting them to work on a product that generates 50M USD a year is not a good return on Apple time when they just pocketed after all the expenses 20Billion USD in 3 months.
I would grant you the fact that putting your leg in the door is important , so they can iron out the kinks and get a baseline to iterate on for future projects.
The tech is cool and it would be neat to use for VR or somewhere more private. Oculus Quest has hand and finger tracking too. As for AR in public though, I'm not seeing a grocery store queue of people doing air finger gestures while they wait like they surf on their phones now. Is it *possible* to navigate without touching a smartphone? Sure. But scrolling instagram and checking your email is easier and quicker on your smartphone. And AR doesn't add much to either of those most-used applications to make it worth doing Harry Potter fingers. And mass adoption is a big ask.
I’ve only just come to realize that the first year or so of the iPod, it was not considered hot or even desirable for most of the buying public. However, during this growth time, I think it was very important that it was at least profitable. It was an enthusiast buy and Apple could count on similar small but profitable numbers from any VR headset they release. If they use their ties with the music industry to release VR-type music videos with Spatial Audio? Maybe marginally better.
If they have a long term vision for this, like they had for the iPod, they’re likely to expect and stick with it through initial low sales understanding that there’s a potential ‘iPod’ moment where it breaks out and, even at it’s high price, will become something desirable for many. Maybe not to the point where it outsells or takes over the Quest, but enough of the market where it remains profitable to continue iterating on it. Most of what Apple makes doesn’t end up being a market leader, but it does end up being profitable enough for Apple to continue working on.
I've had some conversations with so-called street photographers who keep calling for small cameras capable of discreet photography. When I ask those people if they ask permission to photograph someone, they always seem to say "no". The most amazing street photographer I've seen always gets permission.
There are too many people who can't be trusted, even if they're in the minority. If AR/VR ever becomes popular, a new set of rules will have to be constructed.
Street photography is a different thing to stalking, obviously. Fundamentally, you don't need someone's permission to photograph them in the public sphere, and doing so can end up making the images recorded dishonest, if what you'e trying to do is capture urban slice of life.
We already have no-photography zones in the public sphere - beaches, children's playgrounds etc. Personally, I think the more obvious your camera is, the less people are freaked out by it. No one thinks a person under a blanket with a large format glass plate camera is stalking them for some large company, or government agency.
There are two versions of Apple Glasses being shown around on TikTok and YouTube mostly those based in India. One looks exactly like Google Glass (I'm pretty sure they are mockups of that product), the other looks like a Warby Parker product. Search "Apple Glasses 2021" on YouTube or your favorite search engine. Here is a link to get started: https://www.tomsguide.com/news/apple-glasses
Retinal projection is mentioned in several of the newer internet posts. Many of them suggest a 2022 release; and while I have no inside connections for information in our current manufacturing environment that "feels" overly optimistic.
Retinal projection is mentioned in several of the newer internet posts. Many of them suggest a 2022 release; and while I have no inside connections for information in our current manufacturing environment that "feels" overly optimistic.