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Vision Pro Creator Mike Rockwell Has Considered Leaving Apple

When it comes to mixed reality, Apple had to start somewhere and possibly went a little too ambitious with the AVP. But I believe their ultimate goal is to shrink the technology to where it looks more like everyday glasses. In the meantime, they'll utilize the current AVP to refine the UI and user experience. They were never expecting the current design to be massively adoptive by consumers - and neither were we.

As for Siri, it's been a disaster long before Mike Rockwell took over. I believe iOS 27 will be our first time seeing the results of him taking things over. So it's premature at this point in time to cast judgement on him in regards to Siri.

I honestly think the real issue with the software team stems from the top - with Craig Federighi. He's got an amazing personality, but software has really been neglected under his leadership.
 
It's quite possible we'll be doing nothing in the future that resembles VR headset / mixed reality stuff of today.

Just because something has been tried (and failed pretty spectacularly) it doesn't necessarily portend anything about the future.

Sometimes ideas are just "wrong", even for a company like Apple.
 
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There has/have been medical uses like training and videos to show a patient what happen to them on the operating table.... Not a huge market. But viable for teaching how to so medical procedures. I want the chap that has done many of the procedure I am having versus being the first one on the table...

But at $3,500 list, the cost would have been much lower. Thousands were sold. Put three zeros after the list price and suddenly it is millions of dollars revenue. Did it make a profit? Who knows. But the millions that came in off set the costs to some degree.

Perhaps the board of directors thought a changing of senior management was past due. Tim it seems is good at smoozing politicians so is now in a position to do that full-time.

Apple has needed an engineer in charge for a long time to get the kinks out both software and hardware. Hopefully this chap is up to the job.
 
ry-guy said:
Check out the Cyberdeck community. Im sure you could make one yourself. Someone put an ai on a Raspberry pi zero 2 with a small screen so, its possible.
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Second this. Found some cyberdeck build videos on YouTube and there are some amazingly creative people out there.
 
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switz said:
There has/have been medical uses like training and videos to show a patient what happen to them on the operating table.... Not a huge market. But viable for teaching how to so medical procedures. I want the chap that has done many of the procedure I am having versus being the first one on the table...
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All true and wonderful possible uses.

It isn't really a fit for a company like Apple to be in this space and something so hyper niche however.
 
MrENGLISH said:
When it comes to mixed reality, Apple had to start somewhere and possibly went a little too ambitious with the AVP. But I believe their ultimate goal is to shrink the technology to where it looks more like everyday glasses. In the meantime, they'll utilize the current AVP to refine the UI and user experience. They were never expecting the current design to be massively adoptive by consumers - and neither were we.

As for Siri, it's been a disaster long before Mike Rockwell took over. I believe iOS 27 will be our first time seeing the results of him taking things over. So it's premature at this point in time to cast judgement on him in regards to Siri.

I honestly think the real issue with the software team stems from the top - with Craig Federighi. He's got an amazing personality, but software has really been neglected under his leadership.
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A good take and I do agree with you. But the real question is whether Apple as a company wants to be in this niche market. Is it the best strategy to devote people and capital to this product line. Maybe if they see a pathway to reduce the hurdles that exist today preventing it from becoming more mainstream, but I still have my doubts having now owned a Vision Pro for a few years.

For me, today, the AVP is better than it was years ago. With 26.4, it has now crossed the bridge into being quite possibly the best PC gaming headset out there and I'm using it more now than I ever have. There is little doubt in my mind AVP is now the best VR/AR/MR headset in the market, but still sits in that difficult "nice" area.
 
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It's interesting how people get into these bubbles of delusion. Objectively, anyone could have looked at the Apple Vision Pro and the price tag and the heaviness and the separate battery and told you it would be a failure in the marketplace. Companies have been trying virtual reality headsets for years. It's a niche that has never caught on. Why would anyone be surprised the product failed?
 
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People come and go on big companies and life goes on.

Everyone is replaceable and that’s how it should be in a well run org.

Remember when Jony Ive left?

Things are still ok (although I have a feeling that his company secretly consults on ID for Apple)
 
All these comments and rumours are paid by meta. Apple Vision Pro is 200x better than any MR device. It is multiple years ahead in software and hardware.
 
MrWayne said:
Apple is making a spatial computer. Not a crappy vr headset with useless mobile operation system that you can’t use at all for important things.
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Call it whatever you want, Meta has sold orders of magnitude more of their VR units than Apple has.

Whose to say what are the "important things"?

Do you realize what makes up the bulk of Apple Services Revenue?

(it's not "the important things" that you are hinting at)
 
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I think the only real failure of the Vision Pro is the price. It's more of a novelty, and fun-to-have, but its priced at serious-investment levels. If they sold it for less than $1,000, or made it $2,000 with a mobile plan and installments via the carrier, they would probably double the shipments.
 
MrWayne said:
Apple is making a spatial computer. Not a crappy vr headset with useless mobile operation system that you can’t use at all for important things.
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What exactly are these “important things” you speak of?

Don’t feel bad. Apple doesn’t know any more than you do, and that is the problem. Nothing that can be done so much better with AVP that people would be compelled to pay for it and wear it. Well, aside from media consumption and gaming, just like every other crappy headset out there, and Apple punted on gaming, as usual.
 
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Mr_Ed said:
What exactly are these “important things” you speak of?

Don’t feel bad. Apple doesn’t know any more than you do, and that is the problem. Nothing that can be done so much better with AVP that people would be compelled to pay for it and wear it. Well, aside from media consumption and gaming, just like every other crappy headset out there, and Apple punted on gaming, as usual.
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Not to mention how shortsighted it is to just "not have a gaming narrative" at all.

Even if one deems that "not important", it moves units and gets developers engaged, which would help the platform be a going concern.

As it is now, it's basically dead.
 
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Sorry AVP haters, Jon Favreau used the product for pre-production on "The Mandalorian and Grogu", to be released on Memorial Day weekend. Vision Pro was always meant to be part of the long game, not an instant smash hit.

“We built software so that I could pop on my Apple Vision Pro and be sitting in an IMAX movie theater and see the full aspect ratio when we’re lining a shot up and I could watch that take and see what people will see,” Favreau explains.
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Future versions of the Vision Pro or its descendants will be lighter and cheaper, the way tech normally evolves. If anything, I think Ternus - who has a VR background pre-Apple - hated Vision Pro's focus away from VR. Ternus is still a believer in spatial computing.
 
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throAU said:
Eh.

You may not like it but vision pro is a halo product to show the way forward in terms of how to build a relevant UI, figuring out app design patterns etc. for what is coming.

Forget the form factor. It’s not ready for mass production yet because we do not yet have the technology.

Something a little larger than a set of glasses though is where it’s headed. Maybe not this year, maybe not next but within 3-5 years that’s what we’re going to get.


Like AI LLMs, augmented reality is going to go from being a bit of a joke to a game changing technology very, very rapidly once it hits a critical tipping point.
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Spot-on. It is estimated Apple has sold roughly 500,000 AVPs. Many of them will have been to developers. I've always viewed the AVP as a technology demonstrator to show the potential of AR/VR in many different environments and situations.

No doubt in my mind the next version will be much more refined. Likely in the form of glasses, and possibly using a person's iPhone for doing the heavy computations and communicating to glasses via Apple's U1 UWB spread spectrum chip.
 
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The problem with AVP is that it was supposed to kickstart a new platform with an unaffordable and bulky offering

It’s don’t think it’s a coincidence visionOS is already in maiteinance mode with major releases coming with changes that look like minor point upgrades

I don’t know if “spatial computing” is ever gonna be a thing and I’m starting to think maybe that’s for the best

I’d glad to be wrong tho, conceptually it sounds cool as hell and hey, maybe it will be an Apple Watch situation where the product pivoted from apps to fitness tracking and notification and became a much more compelling product because of it

There’s no shame in changing course, I can see a future where the vision platform becomes an invaluable tool for filmmakers or a gaming platform

Only time will tell
 
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Mr.Rockwell, sir, if you fix Siri, you will have the gratitude of every Apple user across multiple devices not just one and not just a satisfactory position at Apple. We will build a statue to you sir.
 
I think the best use cases for Vision Pro have been in the medical field. Medical devices are already expensive so Vision Pro is cheap by comparison. That said, even a person with the money to spend on Vision Pro is not likely to wear that thing on their head when friends come over.

When a friend pulled out the original iPhone and showed it off you got that "gotta have it" feeling just watching them use it. Vision Pro is too big and heavy to carry around so you never just see somebody using it. Even if you were at somebody's home and they started using Vision Pro you (A) would not see whatever cool thing they were seeing and (B) you would feel like that person was just isolated from everybody else and looked awkward. There are no opportunities to create a "gotta have it" feeling and even if there were, you wouldn't get that feeling.

Even if your friend let you try out their Vision Pro, half the time it may not work for them because of the customization that was done for each user for fit and eyesight when they visited Apple Store and bought their Vision Pro. Strong chance one person's Vision Pro won't work for another person.

I have seen Apple executives using iPhones, Apple Watches, iPads and MacBooks. I have never seen an Apple executive wearing a Vision Pro -- not even on stage during product announcement -- it was demonstrated using videos.

Apple should have simply made it a limited-release product targeting specific industries like Health Care.
 
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