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Not a fan of VR, it's anti social.

Also it's not the 90's anymore. Cyberpunk is no longer a thing, and VR is part of that aesthetic.

I think VR will always be niche, like the Kinect or something.
 
The largest potential market for this technology right now is porn and video games.

But in an age where porn is widely available for free. That creates porn addicts accustomed to their hobby being inexpensive ( not accounting for relationship and other potential issues).

Gamers are accustomed to spending a lot of money on games and technology. So that does provide a market, but a small market when compared to the size of the smartphone market.

While almost everyone has a smartphone, not everyone is into gaming.

Personally, until we get to the point of holographic television shows that basically appear to be physically taking place in the living room, I have no interest. So it's possible that I'll never be a consumer in this market in my lifetime.
 
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If they invest just billions more every year in the middle class, keep it from further dwindling -- then and only then would companies expect to see astronomical demand. It's basic math. Most companies are creating products to appeal to those who are big spenders, who can afford expensive toys or those who can't, but are willing to make it a dream goal

At this point, general demand is focused on things like food, housing, a car, and gas. That's great for those government lobbying bodies because they sell essentials that don't care about minimum wage because demand won't change no matter what. You always need to eat. You always need to drive to work. In order to have any mass demand for expensive entertainment devices, there has to be a mass of people who can afford to demand non-essential purchases. Everyone I show the Vive to really likes the technology, but most wouldn't spend $800 and get a system with a good GPU to get it.

Right now, VR is an experience for young adults with good jobs and no student debt and their friends. That's not a big demographic right now. I know pockets of friends who like to go over to other friends' houses to share the VR system. In this economy, VR isn't something that each individual consumer purchases for themselves like they would a phone or a laptop.

I can see why. I played around with PlayStation VR for a day before returning it as it was stupidly pointless. Not one of the games justified its existence tbh. Much better playing normally with a big HD screen.

It's one of those technologies which is for a very niche market and entertains the 'look at the shiny shiny' generation.

Those darn kids and their books. They only entertain the 'I'm not doing hard labor' generation.
Those darn kids and their radios. They only entertain the 'listen to the wavey wavey' generation.
Those darn kids and their TV's. They only entertain the 'look at the shiny shiny' generation.

PSVR has a way to go before it can really be considered full-featured VR. It's limited, and its price tag relative to something like the Vive reflects that. I'd assume that you didn't invest that much in games if you returned it the next day, and most of the PSVR games worth anything right now are in the $20-30+ range.

You also don't get the same games you do with full VR like the Vive and Vanishing Realms as PSVR doesn't let you crouch behind a rock to hide from something or bend down to look underneath a desk for items and then literally walk over, and hide under it.

If you turn around and block the glowing balls on the motion controllers with your body, they lose tracking. That limits most PSVR experiences to just looking toward the camera and interacting, which isn't that different from a big 3D TV. With the Vive, you usually lose your real-world orientation by the time you're done. The first time that you have a half-robot fall right on top of your head in Raw Data on a Vive, you'll definitely be able to tell the difference between a flat-screen tv and VR.

If PSVR makes it to a 2nd gen with better tracking and a larger area for playing, then it might be able to incorporate some gameplay mechanics that are better in VR. I would argue that being able to physically position yourself like the character in your game would will always be more immersive than just grabbing a controller and seeing your character do it on the screen.

I don't think that VR will have the same long-term issues as 3D. My mom can enjoy it, and she can't handle RealD 3D in theaters or the 3DS due to motion sickness, so it won't have that barrier for entry. VR will become a mature and possibly mainstream market when you can buy it like you buy a monitor; one headset for every VR experience you want to have. If Vive-quality headsets and controllers were suddenly sold with a system that can handle it for $400, I would expect the outlook on VR to change overnight.
 
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The problem is what you have just described, unknowingly. Prices are way to high for what you get. When I can buy a vr headset and use it out of the box I will. Not buying a PS4,ps VR and god knows what else just to use it. I'm not spending 800$ on an oculus that requires a 1000$ computer.
But if you're one of the 50 million people who already have a PS4, especially one of the people who had one on launch day or bought one in the first year or two, this is a tempting option if you want to try out "real" VR and don't want to have to deal with a gaming PC to do it.

Yes, a phone-based headset can be kind of cool too, but it's not anything like what these full blown systems are like. If you're going to pay under $100 for VR, you're going to get what you pay for and will have a very bad representation of what true VR can be like.
 
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AR & VR are just capitalism creating solutions looking for a problem. Its where Steve Jobs is missing significantly. The guy just had a knack for creating things we wondered how we ever lived without them. Pioneering the graphical user interface - it was just ridiculous to think we could really type in archaic commands for the rest of our lives. If Steve did not start that fire, Bill Gates would be pushing MS-DOS 16.0 on us right now.

He pushed the need to make computers look good for a change, its not about dull, beige boxes sitting in a corner. The iMac really inspired the industry to take aesthetics seriously and create computers that didn't just focus on beauty, but functionality too.

Honestly, could you imagine carrying around 60 CDs with you in 2016? The iPod was just a logical means of carrying and easily accessing your music wherever, whenever you wanted.

Look at smartphones pre-2007; they were the hottest things, yet I never desired to own one. When Jobs demoed the iPhone in 2007, it was a eureka moment, you immediately knew this is what you wanted in a phone for a change.

The MacBook Air was a revision of what an everyday notebook computer for the masses was all about. Initially an expensive luxury for a few, it would eventually come down in cost due to efficiency in manufacturing and economies of scale. Which computer do you think is the most popular among Mac users today? Its the MacBook Air of course. Certainly, no one would predict that in 2008.

Steve Jobs rightly saw that, not everyone honestly needs the full power and complexity of a MacBook Pro, Air or MacBook. Hence the iPad, because we all have that friend or family member who simply just wants to check email, browse the web, use social media, basically just consume content. An obvious market was there all along and it was tapped into.

The iPhone 4 was really about making a better smartphone: Retina display, FaceTime, A4 performance etc.

The Retina MacBook Pro which was probably in the pipeline focused on what we are we doing with computers and what are we planning to do with them 5 years from now. When was the last time you really used an optical drive. If you are a creative/professional user, what do you want out of staring at your screen all day. So, there was obviously a market.

The iPhone 6 Plus was really about tapping into market demand, responding to the competition and this was obviously a smart strategic move. We don't know if the iPhone 6 designs and the iPad Mini were ever blessed by Steve Jobs, but they did find a niche.

When we arrive at present day, we see more solutions looking for problems. We now have a glorified notification wrist band. The rest of the industry is gung ho on stuff that honestly has no mass market appeal. AR/VR are not a recent holy grail, this is something the industry has been tackling for ages.

I am sure Steve Jobs had access to it before anyone. If he saw a potential for mass market appeal, he would have already designed a vision for where it would make sense when the technology was ready. He didn't and he didn't tackle everything, like the TV and smart watch, home automation or vehicles. He was narrow in his focus. Not denying he experimented with the ideas, but that's not different from keeping x86 versions of OS X in development for 5 years without anyone outside of Apple knowing.

I don't know what Jobs would have done today (I wish he had done the surgery from early then we would have found out). Its just, we are going through a period of doldrums right now. I sense, if we were to know the real truth, everybody: Microsoft, Facebook, Apple and Google are all panicking. They are throwing everything at the wall hoping it sticks but the reality is, we are back to the days of 1985 to 1996. The industry is truly rudderless.

One of the obvious things you learn from Steve Jobs and Silicon Valley is that engineers are at their core tasteless and talentless. Jobs pragmatism and lack of ability to write code balanced things out, not to mention the vision and logical common sense. This gave Jobs the ability to see both sides of the coin and to really use it to put both sides under manners, the engineers and the consumers. This is something the industry lacks right now. As much as Jony Ive might have been Jobs soulmate at Apple, he is consumed too much by design and aesthetics and fails to balance it out with being practical.

Very, very well written. It still makes me so sad sometimes to think of what amazing things we could've had if he were still here. Not just entertainment-wise of course -- health tech, transportation tech, and tech to improve efficiency are all approached so timidly and with a focus mainly on profits since he's been gone, and it's just tragic.
 
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Technology advances are 1/10 tech and 9/10s human. That human element is always ignored by tech people every time. VR is a failure for many reasons that were well predicted by most casual observers. Sure it's immersive and captivating but that's not enough. The biggest factor in my view will always be the content, it's what mostly killed 3D as it's just too hard to make 3D with hardly any benefit. VR is even harder to make content for.

The main social reason is convenience, you can't do VR anywhere but at home and you have to do it solo ignoring others in the room. It's rude enough just glancing at a watch or phone whilst socialising, adding a headset kills the idea of it becoming accepted even worse. 3D TV and cinema had the same issue, it's uncomfortable to wear glasses and our eyes don't like being fooled. Glasses were also poorly styled and we're difficult to keep and inconvenient to carry and get in the way when not watching TV. Another huge issue is there is nothing you can do in VR you can't do other ways. VR has also been around for many years before now, the limits are not technological.
 
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At this point, general demand is focused on things like food, housing, a car, and gas. That's great for those government lobbying bodies because they sell essentials that don't care about minimum wage because demand won't change no matter what. You always need to eat. You always need to drive to work. In order to have any mass demand for expensive entertainment devices, there has to be a mass of people who can afford to demand non-essential purchases. Everyone I show the Vive to really likes the technology, but most wouldn't spend $800 and get a system with a good GPU to get it.

Right now, VR is an experience for young adults with good jobs and no student debt and their friends. That's not a big demographic right now. I know pockets of friends who like to go over to other friends' houses to share the VR system. In this economy, VR isn't something that each individual consumer purchases for themselves like they would a phone or a laptop.



Those darn kids and their books. They only entertain the 'I'm not doing hard labor' generation.
Those darn kids and their radios. They only entertain the 'listen to the wavey wavey' generation.
Those darn kids and their TV's. They only entertain the 'look at the shiny shiny' generation.

PSVR has a way to go before it can really be considered full-featured VR. It's limited, and its price tag relative to something like the Vive reflects that. I'd assume that you didn't invest that much in games if you returned it the next day, and most of the PSVR games worth anything right now are in the $20-30+ range.

You also don't get the same games you do with full VR like the Vive and Vanishing Realms as PSVR doesn't let you crouch behind a rock to hide from something or bend down to look underneath a desk for items and then literally walk over, and hide under it.

If you turn around and block the glowing balls on the motion controllers with your body, they lose tracking. That limits most PSVR experiences to just looking toward the camera and interacting, which isn't that different from a big 3D TV. With the Vive, you usually lose your real-world orientation by the time you're done. The first time that you have a half-robot fall right on top of your head in Raw Data on a Vive, you'll definitely be able to tell the difference between a flat-screen tv and VR.

If PSVR makes it to a 2nd gen with better tracking and a larger area for playing, then it might be able to incorporate some gameplay mechanics that are better in VR. I would argue that being able to physically position yourself like the character in your game would will always be more immersive than just grabbing a controller and seeing your character do it on the screen.

I don't think that VR will have the same long-term issues as 3D. My mom can enjoy it, and she can't handle RealD 3D in theaters or the 3DS due to motion sickness, so it won't have that barrier for entry. VR will become a mature and possibly mainstream market when you can buy it like you buy a monitor; one headset for every VR experience you want to have. If Vive-quality headsets and controllers were suddenly sold with a system that can handle it for $400, I would expect the outlook on VR to change overnight.

I was considering an occulus to use with my 1080 on my PC but there is nothing that really grabs me game wise. I already spend maybe £50-£300 per month on games and kit at the mo depending on release schedules but I'm going to wait till the next generation of VR or until the killer app arrives for it now.
 
I personally don't care where this technology leads, I just can't justify attaching this to my head. It looks ridiculous.
 
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I have the oculus rift and I love it. Thisnis tje future of gaming, NO DOUBT!

The only problem is that they need to up the resolution to increase graph quality, and we need more content. Once that is achieved, it will be amazing!
 
AR & VR are just capitalism creating solutions looking for a problem.

And then you go on to give the justification for VR.

As consumers strive for ever bigger & higher resolution screens, there will (akin to shifting from "more higher capacity CDs" to "streaming cellular media") be market for full field of view coverage in a tiny lightweight package.

What you're stumbling on is akin to how crappy MP3 players were pre-iPod. VR headsets are improving, but still haven't hit that magic moment. Someone will eventually find the breakthrough.
 
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I'm getting déjà vu! People had the same conversation about VR back in the early 1990's! Big awkward headsets, cost lots, etc, etc. The tech doesn't seem to be moving forward at all!
 
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How myopic are you? A lot of us are interested in expanded technology scopes, and how they may relate in the future.
Why don't you ask Apple how myopic they are? They are the ones making rubbish computers that can not handle VR...and clearly have no interest making any.

Maybe when VR Emojis are a thing they will get onboard.
 
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And then you go on to give the justification for VR.

As consumers strive for ever bigger & higher resolution screens, there will (akin to shifting from "more higher capacity CDs" to "streaming cellular media") be market for full field of view coverage in a tiny lightweight package.

What you're stumbling on is akin to how crappy MP3 players were pre-iPod. VR headsets are improving, but still haven't hit that magic moment. Someone will eventually find the breakthrough.
I do hope the DNA is at Apple to truly create something truly purposeful of AR/VR. Right now, I just not seeing it, I am not getting that "s***ing" my pants feeling when Jobs demoed Aqua with photo realistic icons, swiping the lock screen, taking the air out of the manila envelope. Of course, Jobs story is a unique one, the idea that you have to perfect whatever you do from the inside out is not something everyone can and wish to strive to. Jony Ive certainly carries a large percentage of that trait, but at the same time, he has his own personal experiences.
 
I had been in the VR business from about 2001 through a few years ago. By VR I mean 360x180° panoramas. All that time the new people who entered the business thought they discovered the next big thing. I always thought it was interesting but would remain a niche item. Granted I haven't been exposed to high end gaming so I don't know if that is compelling. I'll leave that for others.

My current interest is to try out a VR headset with my panoramas. I'm waiting for my iPhone 7 plus and will then plunk down $50-$60 for a headset but don't see putting much more into it than that. To me it is just a glorified Viewmaster but without the 3D as my panoramas are not stereoscopic.

I'm older and never got into gaming. My nieces and nephews are into it and I asked them what attracts them to gaming. They like the aspect of being what you want to be. For me, I'd rather be hiking with my dog. As they say, you should go outside. The HD view is incredible.
 
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If you've ever had the chance to try TiltBrush on the HTC Vive, you'll probably agree that VR is pretty transformative. It's certainly the best experience I've had in VR, and Ive been lucky enough to try a number of them. It's also not ready for mass consumers. VR does not have a "killer app". It has a number of impediments including price, the amount of space required for a good experience (about 4x4 feet), and the bulkiness of the headsets. I'm not a gamer, so for me, the social angle is more exciting. Being able to meet far away friends in any location we can dream up. I'm also kind of intrigued by fully customizing my own avatar and meeting strangers in virtual worlds — 2nd Life taken to the extreme. I could be anything I wanted, from a little bit taller to a knight to a giant to a bird. For all its setbacks, an actual good VR experience is extremely compelling.

I think it was VC Marc Andreesen who said "the world is divided between those who think VR is a waste of time and those who have tried it". There's a threshold of immersion reached when you see your hands and there's no lag. It changes your reference point from "I'm controlling a game camera with my head" to "oh... this is the holodeck from Star Trek".

A couple other missing pieces: a very good vrOS so you're not switching between applications and wearing it, the social angle I mentioned, a retail presence so people can actually try it out somewhere, apps that are better than tech demos (I actually think serialized content would be good). And again, the bulkiness.

While AR most certainly has a brighter future, it is even further away. The HoloLens demos on YouTube deceptively well. The AR image is actually a tiny postage stamp in the middle of an otherwise useless glass face mask.

All of these companies are trying to beat Apple to the punch. They all want to be the next iPhone of whatever is after mobile and in doing so, they've done the technology a massive disservice. This stuff would have been ready in 3 years, but now the burned public won't give it a chance for another 8. No one has innovated because the tech wasn't ready. They've faked innovation by showing lab work.

They're right to fear Apple. Reducing bulk, hardware in general, retail presence, building a dedicated OS, media partnerships, a developer network. Apple was right not to pull the trigger early on this, but they're uniquely positioned to succeed with it. Hopefully they can salvage some pretty awesome potential. It really could be the next big thing. Just needs a couple more years to mature on the tech side. Everyone needs some patience.
 
All I know is I tried the Samsung product and was very underwhelmed. The graphics looks like late 90's 3D models, the pixels of the screen were huge, and the optics were horrendous. Interesting but no thanks.
 
What we need are standalone HMDs. Supposedly the Android versions of these,
with this leading the way, will be thick on the ground at CES17.
 
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I have a MacBook Pro, iPhone 6s and 4 Windows PCs. In fact, I bought my first Mac and iPhone last year. Prior to that, I only owned a 3rd gen iPod Touch and a shuffle. Does that sound like a fan boy to you? Your problem is you are consumed by capitalism and the machinery behind it, which is to buy more, more, more because it has a bitten Apple on it.

Certainly, Apple still has a strong presence in industrial design. The reality is, the company is certainly lost in one aspect of the company's characteristics. I am a huge Michael Jackson fan, but the last Michael Jackson album I bought was Invincible. The truth is, Michael was no longer interested in music after 2002, and anything that was released after his death was just the record company desperate to capitalize on his death. They released a couple posthumous albums in 2010 and 2014. Xscape is actually a good effort, but you could honestly sense Michael would never approve of it.

I purchase electronics to add value to my life. It took me 9 years to buy an iPhone, even though Apple released one every year since 2007. I went to the Apple store last month while visiting the states. Had the cash ready to buy a iPhone 7, but I said to myself, what do I honestly need of this I can't currently get out of my iPhone 6s?

Your problem is, you are in denial that "One More Thing" is truly dead and you are trying to hold on to some nostalgia that no longer exist. Steve Jobs said it, the products they make, others will one day follow. I certainly won't be loyal to a brand because of a logo. I don't plan to aimlessly walk off a cliff either for everything they make under the sun and the same goes for every other electronics company. I don't need a Surface Studio, Surface Book, Oculus Rift and all the other industry gimmicks that have popped up over the past 5 years.
I am consumed by capitalism? I am now an Apple fanboy? I am in denial? I am experiencing nostalgia?

You truly have lost the plot, take a break from the forum for your own sake. Or actually do carry on, haven't seen a looney posting for a while, this is funny. I just hope you are being serious and not trying to pull my leg, because this is gold.

On a serious note, get your nose out of Steve Jobs' behind, man is dead, he ain't going to give you free electronics for raving about him.
 
Here's the formula for success

4k iPhone + Apple-designed vr set + czechVR = winner
 
Pioneering the graphical user interface - it was just ridiculous to think we could really type in archaic commands for the rest of our lives. If Steve did not start that fire, Bill Gates would be pushing MS-DOS 16.0 on us right now.

Xerox started the GUI fire. And it was getting out, even if Apple had never seen and used it. Xerox developers left and spread it to many places. GEM was an example.

Honestly, could you imagine carrying around 60 CDs with you in 2016? The iPod was just a logical means of carrying and easily accessing your music wherever, whenever you wanted.

Apple didn't invent the MP3 player. They smartly gave it a music store. Even then, it was a niche product until they made it work with PCs.

Steve Jobs rightly saw that, not everyone honestly needs the full power and complexity of a MacBook Pro, Air or MacBook. Hence the iPad, because we all have that friend or family member who simply just wants to check email, browse the web, use social media, basically just consume content. An obvious market was there all along and it was tapped into.

He wasn't the first to think of an easy webpad, not by at least a decade. However, yes, he hit the market at the right time. This was his forte: knowing when the time was ripe.

We don't know if the iPhone 6 designs and the iPad Mini were ever blessed by Steve Jobs, but they did find a niche.

From trial evidence, we know that Eddie Cue... who had used a small Samsung tablet and realized it was a market they were missing... claimed internally that Jobs eventually began to be open towards Cue's suggestions for Apple to make a similar size.

I am sure Steve Jobs had access to (AR/VR) before anyone. If he saw a potential for mass market appeal, he would have already designed a vision for where it would make sense when the technology was ready.

From others at Apple, we know that Jobs was often initially against things that later became popular products or features. Multi-touch, for example, according to Ive.

One of the obvious things you learn from Steve Jobs and Silicon Valley is that engineers are at their core tasteless and talentless. Jobs pragmatism and lack of ability to write code balanced things out, not to mention the vision and logical common sense.

I agree with the overall intent of your post.

Engineers and many executives usually design by committee and want to throw in the kitchen sink. Jobs was all about making things simple to use, and good looking. He instinctively knew that those attributes made highly marketable products.

(Which is why many of us think he would never have approved confusing things like the multiple Watch input methods.)
 
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Well duh.

VR is great for demo, but who would use it on a daily basis, let alone buy one? It is the new Nintendo Wii, and will simply collect dust.
 
Technology is moving faster than the human population can absorb it. There is a threshold.

And the advance of technology is driven by profit not making something that works well, will last, and be friendly and understandable to the user.

It's one thing to use technology when you have been using it intimately for 20-30 years. But for the average person who, technology is seen as something that costs a lot of money, is confusing, and breaks or is otherwise unreliable.

Tech is moving fast because of competition, that hurts us, because the people creating this tech, barely understand it at first. Things need time to be done right, most people won't even take the time to read this post.
 
Whatever was making it sickening or nauseous for you has to be from a crappy PC kit they hooked it up with. The problem, I suspect, is NOT the VR unit but the PC kit's hardware specs.

I've tried the HTC Vive demo a few months ago in October and have not had any vertigo at all. It was high resolution enough to work smoothly. The tracking was on par and the cameras worked perfectly since I could see myself and others surrounding me in a little corner screen in the goggles.

Oh and headphones can be attached to the goggles for a more immersive experience, but it's optional I believe.

The VR unit is about $700-800 in the USA and requires a PC kit such as Alienware or whatnot with powerful specs.
It was set up by Intel. I was dealing with a GTX 1080 and some 12 core unreleased Xeon processor. It ran pretty smoothly, the resolution was just terrible.

We did have a headset on, though it was separate from the headset itself.
 
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