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Comment by TillE | Hacker News Reader

I'm genuinely excited to see their AR/VR headset announcement. Not so much the hardware itself, but their whole pitch.

I don't think Apple would be working on a device like this unless they had some kind of new angle for it. Apple's not into high-end gaming, and I doubt their focus will be dull virtual meetings or niche industrial applications either.

They have a plan for making this a mass-market device (eventually, when the price comes down), and I'd love to know what that plan is.

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My bet is that they try to solve the "VR headset creepiness factor" by having eye tracking and an external display that allows others to "see inside the goggles", so they can make "eye contact". These can be realistic eyes or cartoon eyes.

I had this idea when I used the Quest 1 and felt like I had a shoebox on my head. I've have since heard rumor's of an external display on Apple's ski googles.

Industry rumors: Enterprise features such as Micro-OLED, pancake lenses and eye tracking. Possibly an innovative "external puck" design with battery and compute in your pocket [1][2].

[1] https://twitter.com/SadlyItsBradley/status/16308547515154513...

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64Qrtc6y3ug

I agree with GP here the thing to watch is not the hardware, it will be the software and xrOS UI look & feel where their design ethos can shine unbound by physics and manufacturing constraints other than how many polygons the M# Chip can throw at the displays every 11ms or so. Think the iPod wheel moment but reimagined as a novel 3D interaction between natural real world controls and a visual space made pleasing even to the eyes of the old Sir Jonny Ive types.

Imagine, Memoji eyes on the front screen.

I'm hoping this will push Meta to release the Quest 3 to avoid losing sales to Apple's new headset.

Side prediction: Echo VR getting shut down in August actually means it will become an activity inside Horizons instead.

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