Apple might be getting into VR at the worst possible time
theverge.com
theverge.com
It's worth noting that in 2008 it wasn't clear why we needed an Apple smartphone. Web-browsing smartphones were a niche market, and wireless bandwidth limitations made browsing painfully slow (and media streaming virtually impossible). For messaging, the Blackberry had an overwhelming market share. And the iPhone was crazy expensive. How could it possibly succeed?
The iPhone had an excellent web browser, a novel form factor, and fun first-party apps. And, notably, no one else had a web browser that was even decent.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/27/technology/circuits/27pogu...
For all we know, there may also be insane demand for good VR once people see what good VR looks like.
If I had a nice room with padded walls. . .
People keep saying this but it just isn't true. Well it was crazy expensive, but when the iPhone was released it was actually slightly cheaper than what passed for a smart phone back then.
I am personally very excited for an apple VR headset. But it is a tougher sell because it demands a whole new few thousand quid to be found that I was currently not spending. It doesn’t replace anything.
It will be very interesting to see what they market it for. Seems like a hard sell for consumer, but I could see it as a pro-device. There are all kinds of creative applications that could benefit from a high end headset.
If they can get some of the 3D modeling tools ported for launch, plus some music tools etc, and perhaps some data visualization apps, I could see it being interesting.
There were even rumors of a dedicated gpu die for VR... which I do not have a citation for.
They also have an ecosystem advantage. Going by Horizon World's development, Meta knows nothing about what makes virtual environments in video games fun, and not enough of an ecosystem to hit a 3rd party cricital mass. But Apple has a decent pile of good iOS devs.
I think of my Oculus (I have versions 1 and 2) as the 'perfect toy.' Both versions were cheap, and I have spent about $100 on a few programs, and it is something that I play with for about 10 minutes almost every day. So very much worth the money.
TBH I am not an Apple fan, as I dont like the closed ecosystem, but I think its pretty compelling for luxury and business VR.
Apple Watch was something I couldn't imagine anyone wanting, and, frankly, still is. Why would I wear a watch when I have a phone with me 24/7?! Outside of niche applications like running, I'll always be completely befuddled by the success of smartwatches. Watches just don't have a place in my world model anymore.
VR falls into a similar category. I don't want it -- although I can envision limited applications for AR -- but it seems a lot of other people do. Sometimes we have to just admit that our perceptions and prejudices are out of line with the reality of the marketplace.
Unfortunately I haven’t had this feeling with AR yet. AR that makes distinction between reality and virtuality imperceptible. Passthrough mode on Quests and PSVR2 just isn’t there yet. (Varjo might be..?) I hope Apple will deliver this experience for the masses.
If it does poorly, well, so is everyone else. If it does well, then it’s because Apple are geniuses.
(the other option, of course, is to not release at all - but then they aren’t, by definition, getting into VR)
There is a recent claim that they did from a random South Korean outlet with no track record of being correct on such claims.
If you Google, you’ll see that “Apple cuts production on low demand” claims are made once or twice a year on average.
I think Apple would have been more likely to be successful with the Apple Car. I think Apple should take over the kitchen appliance market. I want an Apple Faucet™ on my Apple Sink™ and to cook meals on my Apple Rangetop™ and store leftovers in my Apple Refridgerator/Freezer™. Apple should also just come in and eat Microsoft's lunch in commerce and business. I don't understand why Apple is not interested in these markets.
So you think you don’t need VR and now it’s up to Apple to show you that you are wrong.
The modern VR that was jump started by HTC Vive (which got demo at WWDC) is really impressive. Quest 2 is a success — 20 million units sold. Even with terrible UX and limited use cases.
The modern VR? So you're drawing a clear line with HTC VIVE as modern and everything before was... what? VR is VR. HTC merely reproduced what came before with slightly better resolution. There's no such thing as "modern" here when the difference between the first HMD in 1968[1] and whatever Apple's releasing is merely miniaturization of components.
> is really impressive. Quest 2 is a success — 20 million units sold. Even with terrible UX and limited use cases.
Quest 2 was released two and a half years ago, so they've sold 8M a year. Apple sells about 200M iPhones and 40M Apple Watches every year. If Apple double's Quest 2 sales performance with their VR/AR headset, it would not be considered a success and would be cancelled, and it would probably force Cook into retirement.
It really doesn't matter how "good" it is when the market is puny. Apple needs to sell this thing to half of all Americans in five years or less somehow, and keep selling it to them. That would be success.
Miniturization matter. FOV matter. PPD too. Standalone is better than tethered. Performance is a killer. All these things matter. If I swap your iPhone 14 for iPhone 1, would you notice? It’s still an iPhone, right? And difference between Sutherlands Sword of Damocles and Varjo XR3 is abysmal on many axes.
But Apple isn't the same company it was in 2007 and 2008. In 2007, Apple had something like 6% of desktop computer marketshare. Within four years of the release of iPhone, it had over a quarter of the smartphone market, and Apple overtook Exxon as the worlds most valuable company. Homepod was released in 2018 and sold somewhere between 1-3M units. This was a failure and the product was cancelled by 2021, even though it outperformed iPhone in 2007. Apple really needs to sell a metric shitton of AR/VR headsets. No matter how amazing it is, the market simply isn't there. Maybe Apple is big enough now to massively expand that tiny market, but this is something they've never before attempted. A lot is riding on this product as far as Tim Cook is concerned. I'm worried, and I'm not even a shareholder. If Cook isn't mentally ill, he must also be worried. I suppose he could defend himself by not being Mark Zuckerberg and burning through $15B with no return. I think Apple will at least break even with this, I just don't see how it could possibly be the success that it needs to be.
Seems hard to believe that Apple would be better in this area than Sony.
And so we really have to hope and believe that Apple has come up with a very compelling reason to use VR outside of games!
Not so sure about "one of". Games are the only use case I can think of that could support more than a small market.
I also expect Apple to frame this as an AR device that can also do VR (rather than the other way around). In other words, if it's an AR device that is 10x better than Hololens 2 and slightly cheaper, they can capture that existing (small) enterprise AR market today and grow that market much larger.
Not saying that this headset is exactly like a first gen VCR but it could follow a similar price/acceptance curve.
losing peripheral vision is a bigger annoyance than i expected also
Even if it's low resolution, as long as it's something I can look at and wear for extended periods of time without my eyes falling out or ears falling off, it'd be interesting.
What I'm not interested in is a face-attached TV/games console/billboard/social media interface. Yet that's what I fear most firms are looking to create, because it benefits them.