Can Apple compete in the mainstream?
The hype about virtual, augmented and mixed reality: the failure of Apple, Magic Leap, and Google in the 2021/Memory era
By comparison, Apple sells more than 200 million of its devices annually. Sales of the device in its first year were less than 12 million, meaning that it wasn’t an immediate sensation.
Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives estimated Apple will sell just 150,000 of the headsets during its first year on the market before escalating to 1 million headsets sold during the second year — a volume that would make the goggles a mere speck in the company’s portfolio.
Magic Leap, a startup that stirred excitement with previews of a mixed-reality technology that could conjure the spectacle of a whale breaching through a gymnasium floor, had so much trouble marketing its first headset to consumers in 2018 that it has since shifted its focus to industrial, health care and emergency uses.
Microsoft also has had limited success with HoloLens, a mixed-reality headset released in 2016, although the software maker earlier this year insisted it remains committed to the technology.
The response to virtual, augmented and mixed reality has been decidedly ho-hum so far. The most notable example of this was the internet- connected glasses released by Google more than a decade ago.
Catch that? He didn’t say that the headset’s new software was more directly against Meta’s headsets. Cook told us that Apple was going to announce a new augmented reality platform that would enhance and not obscure the world around us before we knew anything about the Vision Pro.
The “metaverse” has been described by the Facebook founder. He tried to push the concept into the mainstream by changing his social networking company’s name to Meta Platforms in 2021 and investing billions of dollars into improving the virtual technology.
What Will Apple Do If You Can’t Wear an AR/VR Headset?” Apple CEO David A. Davis of Insider Intelligence
If the Vision Pro turns out to be a niche product, it would leave Apple in the same bind as other major tech companies and startups that have tried selling headsets or glasses equipped with technology that either thrusts people into artificial worlds or projects digital images onto scenery and things that are actually in front of them — a format known as “augmented reality.”
Analysts don’t think the Vision Pro will be a big hit right away. That is mostly due to the hefty price, but also because people can’t see a reason to wear something for an extended period of time.
“They’ve worked hard to make this headset as integrated into the real world as current technology allows, but it’s still a headset,” said Insider Intelligence analyst Yory Wurmser, who nevertheless described the unveiling as a “fairly mind-blowing presentation.”
Vision Pro will have to be plugged into a power outlet or portable battery if you want it to work with a controller that can be difficult to use.
CUPERTINO, Calif. — Apple on Monday unveiled a long-rumored headset that will place its users between the virtual and real world, while also testing the technology trendsetter’s ability to popularize new-fangled devices after others failed to capture the public’s imagination.
The company emphasized that it drew upon its past decades of product design during the years it spent working on the Vision Pro, which Apple said involved more than 5,000 different patents.
The tradition of Apple’s breakthrough technology dates back to 1984 with the first Mac being sold by Jobs, as well as the iPod in 2001, the iPad in 2010, and the Apple Watch in 2015.
“We believe it is a stretch, even for Apple, to assume consumers would pay a similar amount for an AR/VR headset as they would for a combination of those products,” D.A. Davison Tom Forte wrote in a Monday research note.
What was it like to be in the virtual world? The early experiences of the Apple Experience at the end of a massively immersive experience and how to make it mainstream
It was an Impressive piece of technology, but it was almost like a tease. It looked like the beginning of a long journey.
skeptics questioned if Apple could make virtual reality anything but a niche technology after reviews were mixed. If any company can make it mainstream, it is Apple with its vast user base of two billion subscribers to its mobile devices.
Yet what Apple demonstrated on Monday were mostly immersive versions of apps like FaceTime and Safari, as well as 3-D photos and video, rather than a wholly VR experience. Here’s what early testers had to say:
“At the end of the demo, I took off the headset and felt two things: 1) Wow. Very cool. 2) Did I just do drugs?” wrote Joanna Stern of The Wall Street Journal.
These are tough times for virtual reality. Enthusiasm for virtual worlds, often called the metaverse, rose during the pandemic, but waned as lockdowns eased. The amount of money raised by Metaverse-related start-ups is down 77 percent year on year, according to PitchBook.
What is the Power Apple Vision Pro? How to use a headset to create 3D manipulation with your voice, eye, and eye for productivity
We have seen Apple struggle to adapt the iPad for creation over the years, even after the company blurred the lines with the iPad Pro. The focus of Apple’s presentation at the iPad Pro announcement in 2015 was productivity applications like Office and Photoshop that were geared for professionals to get work done. I used to grab a laptop when I wanted to get my work done, but the OS and iPad apps still don’t match up with macOS or Windows for multitasking.
“This powerful combination of capabilities makes Apple Vision Pro perfect for the office or for when you’re working remote,” said Allessandra McGinnis, a product manager for Apple Vision Pro, during Apple’s WWDC 2023 keynote. We didn’t really see just how powerful these capabilities are or how well the voice, eye, and hand gestures let you control and manipulate documents. The 10-second demo of team collaboration on the document was shown by Apple to the headset wearer. But it was just a static document, and we didn’t see how you can interact with or create a document. What is it that the office should be doing about this? We do not know yet.
You need a physical keyboard and mouse for that kind of control on the Vision Pro. Because, like the iPad, developers will need to adapt their apps for this new input. When you want to type up long emails or fill out information in a spreadsheet, you can use the Magic TrackPad and Magic Keyboard, which Apple demonstrated. You can even remotely connect to a Mac screen and make it a portable and private 4K display in the headset, running alongside apps built for the Vision Pro headset.
The ability to drag and drop 3D content from Messages, but we didn’t see people creating that 3D content within the headset. There was a brief demo shown using a virtual keyboard to send a message, but not the complex type of “pro” interactions for text, document, and image manipulation using just your voice, hands, and eyes that we’ve come to expect from pro devices with a traditional mouse and keyboard attached.
That’s probably because the “pro” label has long lost its meaning across the industry since those early MacBook Pro days. Apple started using the name “pro” on its phones after it decided to do the same with the iPhone 11 Pro in 2019. At the time when Chaim queried what it meant for a phone to be “pro”, we were nearly four years later asking about a new headset.
The MacBook Pro was one of Apple’s first Macs to switch to Intel, announced alongside an Intel-powered iMac that was targeted more at consumers with a built-in iSight camera, DVD burning capabilities, and a bundle of digital lifestyle apps. The MacBook Pro was all about justifying the switch to Intel for power and, in particular, performance per watt. Steve Jobs stood onstage and even showed off SPECint benchmarks for CPU integer processing power during the announcement. Apple did not use any benchmarks in justifying its label on the Vision Pro.
But every successful Apple product of the past two decades has disappeared into our lives in some way—the iPhone into our pockets, the iPad into our purses, the Apple Watch living on our wrists and the AirPods resting in our ears. Wearing the Vision Pro for hours on end will call into question what it means to compute, but also, what it means to live in the real world. I took the Vision Pro off after around 30 minutes and my forehead felt cool, thanks to Apple. But my face also breathed with relief, the way it has after using other heads up displays. The air feels more real out here.
In theory, it would be an opportunity to create an extremely human experience. In my demo, it didn’t achieve this. The internal cameras within the headset are capable of capturing and regurgitating your face in digital form, a hyper-realistic digital twin that appears before the person you’re chatting with. In my FaceTime demo I chatted with the digital twin of an Apple employee who cheerfully talked me through some of these features. But she felt disembodied. She was real, but she was also not. I’m afraid I don’t even recall her name.
Visualizing the App Store in AR: I Observed The App Store as a Virtual Dock of Apple Apps (Apple Vision Pro Hands on Demonstration)
The more interesting part was how I interacted with them. I opened Photos by pinching my hand together, scrolled through photos by grabbing each image and then looked at and tapped the “Expand” option. I used my eyes and a couple fingers to scroll through the web pages. I didn’t get to record or send a message, though, because audio interactions aren’t ready yet. Most of the content I saw wasn’t fully volumetric, nor could I pinch the apps to scale up, or bring myself into them. An Apple representative has said, though, that app makers can build these experiences in the future.
In home mode, a virtual dock of Apple apps floated in front of me. I could see the room that I was in. A home screen of Apple apps in AR is very much the same as it sounds. The app containers themselves were certainly not reinvented, and their icons were not little grabble globules or anything else that conferred volume. They were just … there.
The Vision Pro interface is intuitive—within a few gestures and taps on the digital crown, I had it down. External cameras obviate the need for hand controllers, because the device sees your hands. And internal eye-tracking cameras see where your eyes are looking, so it knows which app you want to open or close.
Source: https://www.wired.com/story/apple-vision-pro-hands-on-demo/
Tim Cook and the Calibration of a Headset for Virtual Reality: How Apple is trying to Make Sense of the People Around You
I assumed this external battery pack meant the headset itself would feel as light as a feather, but it still felt hefty. After adjusting both the bigger back strap and the top soft strap, I proceeded to go through another process of calibration which ended with an audible chime of approval. (Still, a light orb appeared in the middle distance throughout my demo.)
“People’s tolerance for wearing something on their head for an extended period of time is limited,” says Leo Gebbie, a VR analyst at CCS Insights. It needs to be light and comfortable if it’s going to be something that people will wear all day. No one has really achieved that just yet in the VR world.”
The screens we use everyday aren’t reliable. You might have had the experience of trying to grab a photo or video of something, only to have the app crash or stutter. Imagine the situation with your entire field of vision.
I was struck by Tim Cook’s choice of words, as he was about to reveal Apple’s Vision Pro headset on Monday.
Apple is intentionally avoiding other VR tropes by making sure that “you’re never isolated from the people around you” with the headset, Apple’s Alan Dye, VP of human interface design, said during the keynote. (You don’t say?) The EyeSight feature on the Vision Pro could be a good way to look into a person’s eyes. The headset on my face prevents anyone from looking at me unless I remove it.
How I Get Up When I’m Getting Up, and What I Wish I Had to Do About It: The Last Day of Meditation in 2025
The year is 2025. I am sitting next to my husband on the couch and he is staring at my field of vision. When we aren’t talking, he fades out of view so I can focus my attention on the screens in front of me. I am learning Spanish, watching cooking demos on youtube at the same time, and I am editing a presentation for work.
I am notified that it is time to meditate. The room around me fades away completely so I can watch an animation and count my breaths. When I’m done, the session is automatically logged in my journal, along with my daily mood: pleasant. Just like yesterday. My family members are laughing at something funny my mom said, and the FaceTime call comes back into focus. I’m not sure if it was a joke or not, but I laughing along with theirs.
Source: https://www.theverge.com/23751675/apple-vision-pro-vr-headset-ios-17-mental-health-mood-journal
Self-Centeredness: How to Manage Your Emotions, Feel Your Oscillations, and All That with an iPhone
By design, it puts you at the center of your own world, even though it isn’t supposed to take you out of reality. That is an inherently more solitary experience compared to holding a screen in your hand. How do you show someone a funny TikTok you just watched in your headset? How do you watch a cute video you took of your kid with your spouse? How do you tell everyone on your call that your cat just jumped into your lap? Won’t Apple please think of the pet moments we’re going to miss?
To be clear, I don’t want to declare this product — which is still many months away from shipping — a disaster for society or anything like that. Even if it takes off, nobody’s going to come to my house and replace my iPhone with a headset overnight. It is easy to avoid this whole experience if you do not spend more than $3,500 on a headset.
The Vision Pro, with its self-centered nature and Apple push for better tools to manage mental health are both juxtapositions. New features for the upcoming edition of Apple’s app will allow people to understand and manage their own moods and emotions. You will be able to log your emotions and moods in the Health app, as well as access a standard survey health professionals use to screen for depression.
The new app can prompt you to stop, reflect and write a journal entry based on things you have recently photographed or places you have been. It is probably not a bad idea to just write something for yourself and take a break from the constant pressure to post things on social media.
And not to be forgotten, Apple has spent years building features designed to help you keep track of and minimize your screen time. If we already have a hard time putting our phones down, how hard will it be to peel yourself away from TikTok when you’re actually wearing the screen? Apple is willing to provide us with some flimsy tools to help us stay in touch with our phones, but also willing to sell us a screen that will keep it from flying off your face.
