Xcode 11 GM Confirms Apple's Work on AR Headset

[gleepskip]

I’m watching it right now after all the people saying his ending felt off and I just don’t see it. What the heck are you guys talking about?

There are multiple factors that prejudiced the audience:

1) People's expectations of tiles, macbooks, and apple tv hardware.
2) "By Innovation Only" implied to many that it wouldn't only be an iterative release show.
3) There was a one second pause at 1:40:44 where he clicked his tongue and began into the "Our mission at Apple blah blah". It was the moment people were expecting a "one more thing".
4) Many assumed they compressed the presentation to leave time for something new. There was no review of iOS 13, nor talk of release dates. They sped through the new hardware, when there were many new features they could have highlighted.

The presentation could have stood on its own just fine as an iterative hardware bump, but people anticipated more and that skewed their experience watching the show.

 

[TheFluffyDuck]

I have an oculus quest and it is light years ahead of the 3-DOF you see in the Daydream, and Gear VR. I was sceptical based on the hardware what you could achieve, thinking you need a massive beasty computer, but the Qculus quest continues to surprise me with its room-scale VR and true 6-DOF inside out track working on an out-of-date Snapdragon 835. With Apples silicon they could do quite a bit. However, Apple ALWAYS under install Ram in their devices. Which means 1st gen products are obsolete faster than their 2nd generation refresh, look at the iPad 2, or Apple watch 2 for comparison.

I'm still not convived AR is anything more than a battery-draining gimmick to show off to grandma. It's just an animated video background on a model that bobs around as you hold your phone out like an idiot trying to visualise a 20ft dinosaur through your flat 4" iPhone screen. VR you get true depth and scale. AR, applications are not very convincing thus far. Perhaps in glasses, as a HUD would be more useful.

 

[Minxy]

You would think that from all the other times iOS has been data mined that Apple would have learnt and swapped labels with other terms, eg HMD for Xarlon.

 

[Whathappened]

This should have never made it into the GM. More evidence of software development incompetence at Apple.

More evidence of you making ridiculous assumptions.

 

[ctdonath]

I only see one product category that might disappear: the MacBook.

nope.
Still need a heavy duty content creation system that's portable. You need a display covering a square foot or more, and dual-sensory input (visual & tactile), for sufficient bandwidth.
The anchor of desktop-bound is not overcome by need/desire for portability. Desktops are great for where notebooks are insufficient, but notebooks are practically vital if they are sufficient.

MacBook is the foundation of Apple. Boring, but carries the weight of everything else.
[doublepost=1568207973][/doublepost]

I’m watching it right now after all the people saying his ending felt off and I just don’t see it. What the heck are you guys talking about?

May not have been obvious to all. Demeanor seemed he expected to cover one more thing. There was no sense of culminating triumph, followed by "now go try it yourself" - it was more "good but not amazing, hopefully hands-on will impress you."

 

[Kachelaar]

I got this stereo AR headset (holokit) from Aryzon at home, it's great for developers who can't afford a HoloLens:

 

[Abazigal]

But why would someone who has no need for glasses suddently put on glasses?

The same reason why someone who doesn’t see a need for wearing watches (because he can tell the time using his phone) starts wearing an Apple Watch for the misc benefits such as Apple Pay, EKG and fall detection. Because the pros outweigh any inconvenience of wearing one.

Apple could convince someone with perfect eyesight to wear AR glasses if he can be convinced of the benefits (eg: market the AR glasses as augmenting one’s vision).

For example, AR apps on smartphones tend to make for a pretty poor experience because you have to hold them up and the field of view is that tiny smartphone screen you have. Imagine now having a screen as wide as your own vision (glasses), without you having to hold anything or even raise your hands.

I am thinking that it might be cool to have turn-by-turn get beamed right in front of my face while I am walking, or maybe have some translation app convert the Japanese text on manga that I am reading into English in real time or something along that line.

Truth be told, I have no idea what the killer AR app / experience for the glasses might be. Apple took a few years before they finally doubled down on health tracking for the Apple Watch, but I believe they will eventually figure it out.

 

[frifra]

With those glasses you can see the apple airpower working

 

[5105973]

The same reason why someone who doesn’t see a need for wearing watches (because he can tell the time using his phone) starts wearing an Apple Watch for the misc benefits such as Apple Pay, EKG and fall detection. Because the pros outweigh any inconvenience of wearing one.

Apple could convince someone with perfect eyesight to wear AR glasses if he can be convinced of the benefits (eg: market the AR glasses as augmenting one’s vision).

For example, AR apps on smartphones tend to make for a pretty poor experience because you have to hold them up and the field of view is that tiny smartphone screen you have. Imagine now having a screen as wide as your own vision (glasses), without you having to hold anything or even raise your hands.

I am thinking that it might be cool to have turn-by-turn get beamed right in front of my face while I am walking, or maybe have some translation app convert the Japanese text on manga that I am reading into English in real time or something along that line.

Truth be told, I have no idea what the killer AR app / experience for the glasses might be. Apple took a few years before they finally doubled down on health tracking for the Apple Watch, but I believe they will eventually figure it out.

Translation would be great. Also, and this is a bit of a privacy issue and etiquette issue, but there are times when I'm at a gathering or event and I run across a person I've been introduced to before but I go blank. I've often wished there would be a way I could activate a heads up display that would visually ID the person and whatever contact information or notes I entered for them. I used to be very good with names but I've been out of the game for years as a stay at home mom. I have dedicated my surviving brain cells to remembering there's socks in the dryer that need to be sorted. And I remember enough not to call the kids by the dog's name.

Someday, my dream is to be armed with enough sensors to warn me I'm about to step on a Lego if I don't act fast.

 

[Abazigal]

Translation would be great. Also, and this is a bit of a privacy issue abs etiquette issue, but there are times when I'm at a gathering or event and I run across a person I've been introduced to before but I go blank. I've often wished there would be a way I could activate a heads up display that would visually ID the person and whatever contact information or notes I entered for them. I used to be very good with names but I've been out of the game for years as a stay at home mom. I have dedicated my surviving brain cells to remembering there's socks in the dryer that need to be sorted. And I remember enough not to call the kids by the dog's name.

Someday, my dream is to be armed with enough sensors to warn me I'm about to step on a Lego if I don't act fast.

I understand that feeling. As a school teacher, I see my students graduate year after year and when they come back the following years to visit me, the sad reality is that I can’t quite remember all their names, especially if they tend to be more “under the radar”.

 

[NMBob]

The camera bump of the iPhone 12 and 12 Pro will be detachable and you will be able to adhesively stick it to your forehead while it remains in contact with your iPhone via Bluetooth 6. This will be called the Forehead 1 and Forehead 1 Pro. The AR image stuff will be holographically projected in front of you by a projector in the 12 camera module. Eddy Cue said, "We don't want anyone looking like a geek with having to wear special AR glasses." It's just a rumor.

 

[5105973]

The camera bump of the iPhone 12 and 12 Pro will be detachable and you will be able to adhesively stick it to your forehead while it remains in contact with your iPhone via Bluetooth 6. This will be called the Forehead 1 and Forehead 1 Pro. The AR image stuff will be holographically projected in front of you by a projector in the 12 camera module. It's just a rumor.

View attachment 857359 View attachment 857360

Lol take my money!

 

[jonblatho]

I’m watching it right now after all the people saying his ending felt off and I just don’t see it. What the heck are you guys talking about? This is the same ending he’s done at every keynote for years. It’s like the same copy and paste formula of “we announced this and that and that and we can’t wait for you to try it blah blah”. See for yourself and tell me at what point it feels “off”. It feels like people hear the rumors about Apple glasses and try to pigeon hole it into this keynote because it was such a boring keynote

The ending is at about the 1:38 mark

It’s not what he said, it’s how he said it.

Tim Cook still isn’t Steve Jobs when it comes to charisma during presentations, but he’s improved drastically over the past few years. For example, he now introduces some products all by himself, where he used to hand off to someone else for everything. Yesterday, it seemed like he had a regression at the end; he seemed uncharacteristically nervous again.

I’ve given and witnessed enough presentations to know that that nervousness often comes simply from straying significantly from what was rehearsed. Some are better at hiding it than others, but these folks have teleprompters, so it’s not like he forgot what he was supposed to say.

But at the end? That says to me that the ending we got wasn’t the ending we were supposed to get.

Really, with five (!) app demos and so much time wasted on minutia, you could tell that they were pretty desperate to fill time, and they still came up 20 minutes short of the usual 2 hours. They could have easily prepped a segment on iOS 13 (on iPhone) to kill some time, but they didn’t because they didn’t have enough time to prepare the necessary screenshots, videos, device mockups, demos, and/or slides. Something seriously got canned at the last minute.

 

[Mascots]

It’s possible this AR headset might be announced in a separate keynote next month. Today was really all about the iPhone, and Apple wouldn’t want a new product reveal stealing all the attention away.

Though my guess is a 2020 reveal. This way, you have two generations of iPhones that will support it processor wise, thus improving adoption rates.

Seems similar to a Marzipan situation to me: Apple had already begun integrating Starboard components into the OS (privately) and had a roadmap in which they timed the projects announcement with the general flourish of public underpinnings in the OS but the difference here is that it was cut-out last minute and unexpected.

Apple was incredibly behind with iOS 13.0, is rushing to 13.1 out of the door, and soon after will be rushing to add in the features they had to cut from the 13.0/13.1 due to lack of stability (iCloudDrive agent, for example); my guess is these major pushbacks made the timeline for iOS 13's future roadmap to unpredictable to announce a product/products based on it.

 

[Apple Freak]

If these work with prescription lenses, I'm totally in!

 

[farmboy]

Just because Timmy the Crook tells you something is a success, doesn't make it a success:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/524830/global-smartwatch-vendors-market-share/

Keep in mind it's a market share graph that shows Apple's market share decreased. Smartwatch unit sales are indeed growing fast, but it's still early to make broad claims.

Pray tell, how many years are needed before it's not "still early"?

 

[Ghost31]

nope.
Still need a heavy duty content creation system that's portable. You need a display covering a square foot or more, and dual-sensory input (visual & tactile), for sufficient bandwidth.
The anchor of desktop-bound is not overcome by need/desire for portability. Desktops are great for where notebooks are insufficient, but notebooks are practically vital if they are sufficient.

MacBook is the foundation of Apple. Boring, but carries the weight of everything else.
[doublepost=1568207973][/doublepost]
May not have been obvious to all. Demeanor seemed he expected to cover one more thing. There was no sense of culminating triumph, followed by "now go try it yourself" - it was more "good but not amazing, hopefully hands-on will impress you."

I think we should consider the possibility this was an incredibly boring keynote and even he had a hard time acting excited
[doublepost=1568220646][/doublepost]

It’s not what he said, it’s how he said it.

Tim Cook still isn’t Steve Jobs when it comes to charisma during presentations, but he’s improved drastically over the past few years. For example, he now introduces some products all by himself, where he used to hand off to someone else for everything. Yesterday, it seemed like he had a regression at the end; he seemed uncharacteristically nervous again.

I’ve given and witnessed enough presentations to know that that nervousness often comes simply from straying significantly from what was rehearsed. Some are better at hiding it than others, but these folks have teleprompters, so it’s not like he forgot what he was supposed to say.

But at the end? That says to me that the ending we got wasn’t the ending we were supposed to get.

Really, with five (!) app demos and so much time wasted on minutia, you could tell that they were pretty desperate to fill time, and they still came up 20 minutes short of the usual 2 hours. They could have easily prepped a segment on iOS 13 (on iPhone) to kill some time, but they didn’t because they didn’t have enough time to prepare the necessary screenshots, videos, device mockups, demos, and/or slides. Something seriously got canned at the last minute.

I see what you’re saying, but I think you’re overthinking it. I think it’s a lot simpler than you think. Innovation isn’t there this year and when there isn’t a single exciting feature to talk about other then “hey the camera is a bit nicer”, it’s hard to really get on board the excitement train.

I mean just look at the slides they had for each product right after talking about them. Like the Apple Watch for example. All they showed was how it has an always on screen, and everything else on screen was iOS 13 features all watches are getting. Why even mention all that crap? Because there’s literally nothing to talk about. It’s a keynote so dull that they could have skipped it altogether and just updated their website.

If I use your logic, it kinda breaks down the second you look at the features of each product. Look at iPhone: it’s not like it has a bunch of new features and they just blew through it real quick to get it out and push it away to make room for something else. No. They spent forever talking about the camera and showing demos of photos and videos and and they strung out what could I’ve taken 5 minutes. They didn’t condense it at all. They expanded it! It was all filler because there was nothing else to talk about.

Now your logic about condensing for another product would make sense if it was like: new iPhone has better camera, bilateral wireless charging, usb c, in screen fingerprint reader, etc. and they rolled through all of them super quick. They didn’t. They had one feature. The camera. And they spent forever talking about it.

So I think you’re overthinking it to be more significant than it was. Tim Cook just wasn’t excited. I just rewatched the ending a few times with a skeptical eye trying to see it from your perspective and I still came back feeling like he just wasn’t excited about what was shown. It’s like trying to brag about things that aren’t going to sell massive amounts of product. People crave innovation and new feature and he says “it’s better camera!” He knows what people expect and that he’s selling them short. Of coarse he’s not going to sound excited. And he can already see all the blowback Apple is going to get in articles the next day for not being innovative

 

[smulji]

It’s not what he said, it’s how he said it.

Tim Cook still isn’t Steve Jobs when it comes to charisma during presentations, but he’s improved drastically over the past few years. For example, he now introduces some products all by himself, where he used to hand off to someone else for everything. Yesterday, it seemed like he had a regression at the end; he seemed uncharacteristically nervous again.

I’ve given and witnessed enough presentations to know that that nervousness often comes simply from straying significantly from what was rehearsed. Some are better at hiding it than others, but these folks have teleprompters, so it’s not like he forgot what he was supposed to say.

But at the end? That says to me that the ending we got wasn’t the ending we were supposed to get.

Really, with five (!) app demos and so much time wasted on minutia, you could tell that they were pretty desperate to fill time, and they still came up 20 minutes short of the usual 2 hours. They could have easily prepped a segment on iOS 13 (on iPhone) to kill some time, but they didn’t because they didn’t have enough time to prepare the necessary screenshots, videos, device mockups, demos, and/or slides. Something seriously got canned at the last minute.

No tech exec right now, working or not working at Apple, has the charisma of Steve Jobs. But I did watch the keynote yesterday & actually thought Cook looked very comfortable, relaxed, and genuinely excited on stage. I actually thought it was his best presentation delivery to date. Even though the products were mostly iterations, I enjoyed the presentation overall. Very focused.
[doublepost=1568221311][/doublepost]

Seems similar to a Marzipan situation to me: Apple had already begun integrating Starboard components into the OS (privately) and had a roadmap in which they timed the projects announcement with the general flourish of public underpinnings in the OS but the difference here is that it was cut-out last minute and unexpected.

Apple was incredibly behind with iOS 13.0, is rushing to 13.1 out of the door, and soon after will be rushing to add in the features they had to cut from the 13.0/13.1 due to lack of stability (iCloudDrive agent, for example); my guess is these major pushbacks made the timeline for iOS 13's future roadmap to unpredictable to announce a product/products based on it.

"my guess is these major pushbacks made the timeline for iOS 13's future roadmap to unpredictable to announce a product/products based on it."

I wouldn't be surprised if that's definitely part of it which is why I think Spring 2020 is the earliest we see the headset.

 

[jonblatho]

I think we should consider the possibility this was an incredibly boring keynote and even he had a hard time acting excited
[doublepost=1568220646][/doublepost]
I see what you’re saying, but I think you’re overthinking it. I think it’s a lot simpler than you think. Innovation isn’t there this year and when there isn’t a single exciting feature to talk about other then “hey the camera is a bit nicer”, it’s hard to really get on board the excitement train.

I mean just look at the slides they had for each product right after talking about them. Like the Apple Watch for example. All they showed was how it has an always on screen, and everything else on screen was iOS 13 features all watches are getting. Why even mention all that crap? Because there’s literally nothing to talk about. It’s a keynote so dull that they could have skipped it altogether and just updated their website.

If I use your logic, it kinda breaks down the second you look at the features of each product. Look at iPhone: it’s not like it has a bunch of new features and they just blew through it real quick to get it out and push it away to make room for something else. No. They spent forever talking about the camera and showing demos of photos and videos and and they strung out what could I’ve taken 5 minutes. They didn’t condense it at all. They expanded it! It was all filler because there was nothing else to talk about.

Now your logic about condensing for another product would make sense if it was like: new iPhone has better camera, bilateral wireless charging, usb c, in screen fingerprint reader, etc. and they rolled through all of them super quick. They didn’t. They had one feature. The camera. And they spent forever talking about it.

So I think you’re overthinking it to be more significant than it was. Tim Cook just wasn’t excited. I just rewatched the ending a few times with a skeptical eye trying to see it from your perspective and I still came back feeling like he just wasn’t excited about what was shown. It’s like trying to brag about things that aren’t going to sell massive amounts of product. People crave innovation and new feature and he says “it’s better camera!” He knows what people expect and that he’s selling them short. Of coarse he’s not going to sound excited. And he can already see all the blowback Apple is going to get in articles the next day for not being innovative

Well, yeah, if one or more things he was excited to announce got canned, I would expect him to be less excited. Kind of what I was saying.
[doublepost=1568225622][/doublepost]

No tech exec right now, working or not working at Apple, has the charisma of Steve Jobs. But I did watch the keynote yesterday & actually thought Cook looked very comfortable, relaxed, and genuinely excited on stage. I actually thought it was his best presentation delivery to date. Even though the products were mostly iterations, I enjoyed the presentation overall. Very focused.

I didn’t say he didn’t do well. In fact, to state more clearly, he did very well up until the end, where again he seemed to be uncharacteristically nervous compared to his recent performances.

Wouldn’t agree that it was his best delivery to date, though. The March event, for all its oddities, went off without a hitch on his part.

 

[smulji]

Well, yeah, if one or more things he was excited to announce got canned, I would expect him to be less excited. Kind of what I was saying.
[doublepost=1568225622][/doublepost]
I didn’t say he didn’t do well. In fact, to state more clearly, he did very well up until the end, where again he seemed to be uncharacteristically nervous compared to his recent performances.

Wouldn’t agree that it was his best delivery to date, though. The March event, for all its oddities, went off without a hitch on his part.

LOL, I thought the March event was one of the weirdest Apple has done.

 

[name99]

Amazing how they leave all this info right on their doorstep.

Why not? What's the goal here?
Apple wants SOME secrecy, yes, so that the mass market is surprised at new announcements. But they're also quite happy with a constant dribble of rumors and guesses that keep the true fans excited. There's an upside to these very minor leaks, and no real downside.

"The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about"...

 

[ridddder55]

after the "one hit wonder" iPhone.

If this is a one hit wonder, then name any other tech company that has introduced anything other than copycat tech that others have designed, that has been a success. Please don't say Windows phone, or Surface, or any other tech that is a re-hash of an original product.

Granted the iPod is a re-hashed Rio, but really how good was the Rio MP3 player?

 

[rcread]

I'm going to wait until they come out with the AR contact lenses.

 

[mrothroc]

Granted the iPod is a re-hashed Rio, but really how good was the Rio MP3 player?

It was a rehashed nomad, but with less space and no wireless, as immortalized in this comment on /.

 

[developer13245]

I use the vision test. I walk around and see what others are using. The amount of Apple Watches in the wild is kind of crazy and it's only going to sell better now that they are offering a $199 option. Look at whatever made up statistic you want, the real world tells a different story.

Your "vision test" is limited to only what YOU can see. And that's somehow more valid than published market research? Wow.

Dude - Tim Cook just got $100 Million in stock - that was his Performance Bonus.

Maybe Timmy can't hide a guilty conscience, which is what most people should have when they're selling a lie.
[doublepost=1568238630][/doublepost]

If they have a closed loop test of preferred top tier developers who have been given hardware to test, they might as well keep the framework in there instead of building custom builds of XCode specific to just these developers.

I know from experience as I used to co-oversee the Prereleases at NeXT and we carried it over to Apple before later moving a non hard media deliver to developers.

Great perspective from real experience - thanks for your input. I agree it's more work to manage multiple (+private) distributions on hard media. But any mature source control / build system should mitigate such complexity in the current era.

My criticism also should include the parallel 13.0 + 13.1 situation, which is also a sign of incompetence.