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Comment by OnlineGladiator | Hacker News Reader

I'm actually someone that believed in VR until I tried it, and then I lost interest because I found it so underwhelming. In my opinion it just kinda sucks and certainly isn't worth the awkward inconvenience of strapping something on to your face. I think it even has limited appeal for niche applications like simulations and personally I'd prefer a multiscreen setup.

To each their own. I was someone that was excited to try VR for years and then said "that's it?" when I finally got a chance.

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I think this and the parent comment are partially a driver of Apples response. The current state of the tech is kind of shrug worthy. Might seem like a neat gimmick, might make some games better, might make you motion sick. Essentially a niche product indefinitely.

I think the current market targeting the $200-500 price point is a large part of the problem. If you think about what's needed to make this well vs say, the phone in your pocket, how is a good VR implementation going to come out cheaper than the phone?

Apple is basically throwing the kitchen sink at the space in terms of compute, optics, sensors, and software.. with a price tag to match. If it's going to work, it's probably going to work at that price point first.

I agree. Videos and vision are powerful but I think most still underestimate the cost of wearing something on your face for more than a few mins.

I see the opposite phenomena after Apple Vision Pro announcement. Many seem to love VR / AR but never tried it. Retention numbers with current tech indicate that cost of wearing a headset exceeds the value proposition for most people and use cases. Maybe Apple Vision Pro will change that. Excited to see.

edit: typos

I feel I'm very pro-technology and pro-innovation but most of what tech has been creating recently had been total crap, and I'm tired of the disconnect.

That's like taking a $100 Nokia phone in 2002 and saying that mobile phones are nice but will never be important.

If this is suggesting that we should write off VR for now and re-evaluate in 2033, then I can get behind that.

Fine, but you came to a thread on the prototypical future variants of VR hardware. Just don't click if you don't want to read about it.

Just because people are short-sellers doesn't mean they're not interested in the market.

Regardless of the price point (3.5k or some hundreds dollars) it's more like a heavy phone that you have to strap to both your ears. We had ones that had to be strapped to cars and didn't become popular until they were small, light and cheap.

By the way, do people still ride the subway with those large earphones I remember to be fashionable before covid? I moved and I'm not using subways anymore so I'm missing observations.

Ear muff headphones have always been really niche in mobile environments (they’ve been around since the 70s!). Most people prefer lighter alternatives, like ear buds, I personally prefer bone conductive since I don’t like putting things on or in my years. By subway I guess you mean NYC, it could have been a local fad.

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