Thoughts and Observations in the Wake of Apple's 'It's Glowtime' Keynote
daringfireball.net
daringfireball.net
I think what people forget is pre-iPhone, we all saw _something_ coming. Maybe we didn't expect it to look exactly like the iPhone, but there was a sense of excitement around what was coming next for computing. Sony Style magazine was still in print. eCommerce was picking up. Palm phones, Blackberry, Windows Mobile. Super quirky laptops and UMPCs. I remember lusting after some wildly impractical UMPCs, because it meant that everything I did on my desktop could now fit in my pocket.
Even after smartphones took off, I remember sometimes thinking "man, imagine in the future when this stuff is good and it actually just works." A lot of stuff was basically just demos back then. Well, here we are. A huge portion of my life happens on my iPhone, and that really does mean it has to Just Work.
Jobs cared deeply about the keynotes and was ruthlessly strategic about which feature was in and which was out, who—other than Steve—would present, and which guests would be invited onto the stage. That didn’t mean they were perfect—as Gruber points out, we saw plenty of busted demos and boring partner CEO’s.
But now all the pressure to put on a high-wire act is gone, and Apple can rely on increasingly sterile and repetitive “ultra-production” to make every new supported Fitness activity seem like a headliner, which means everything’s just indistinct, cheerfully delivered mush.
And it's clear that Tim and co. don't understand Jobs's pacing and narrative structure whatsoever. It felt amateurish, even worse than previous pre-recorded keynotes. Jobs used superlatives, but he didn't use them like that. He also didn't scream, Tim.
It's funny. In early 2022, the Apple blogosphere loudly wondered when Apple would go back to "real" keynotes, since Covid was dying down. But Apple was already batting away antitrust concerns, devs were pissed, and WWDC was coming up. I'm convinced that Apple was worried about unenthusiastic crowds, laughter, or even a couple of boos, and decided to delay the return some more. I guess they never got that confidence back.
I'm surprised that Gruber doesn't mention the fact that Apple is now in the habit of announcing products or features 6+ months before they ship, both software and hardware (not talking about things like the iPhone which have to be submitted to the FCC). And sometimes, they never ship at all (see AirPower). This would never happen under Jobs.
Also, while Steve Jobs straight up lied in order to protect future announcements (i.e. 'we're not making a video iPod', Tim Cook will say things like 'we are very interested in the AR/VR space' for close to a decade before announcing any products).
The original iPhone but that was because its existence would have been leaked/semi announced once they tried to get it approved for public use. So their hand was forced on that.
Also we never did get a 3Ghz G5 or mobile variant of it. This is something that Jobs mentioned when unveiling their Intel switch. As an aside, I did find it funny that PA Semi did end up designing their PWRffcient PowerPC chips with the goal of getting into Apple products. They eventually were purchased by Apple and now do all their hardware stuff. So I see the PWRffience chip has being one of the best job applications produced.
There's really not much left to 'innovate'. More cameras, more memory, bigger and bigger and bigger screens, less ports.
The next innovation here is gonna have to be a total paradigm shift, and I'm not particularly convinced that Apple and/or Google are capable of that anymore. The only levers in their grasp left to pull are software. So now we are innundated with capital-F Features. And these Features are so important that users must be constantly bombarded with tips and popups and hints and notifications telling them about the latest Features. Google even calls their extremely normal and standard update cycle 'Feature Drop'.
People just want to buy a phone that fits their preferred physical dimensions, lasts at least most of the day, and generally does what you tell it and stays the hell out of the way.
Nobody, not one person on this planet wants their phone to swoop in an animated rainbow-bordered modal telling them that their calculator app now includes AI, for some reason, and that they now are compelled to accept some new terms and license for a calculator.
Built-in 2D projector or hologram projector (eventually with input detection)
Force Touch returns to the display but with actual tactile feedback
Force Touch but in the hologram or projection
Non-contact charging within range of a base station
You can also imagine tons of security features for a device that you always have in your pocket
Look, I'm willing to accept a certain level of fanboyish Apple defense, especially from Gruber. It does seem like a bit of a stretch to say the fat iPod Nano was a failure for selling 10 million+ units but the Vision Pro somehow wasn't a mistake by comparison.
But Apple obviously didn’t think it was the right track because they abandoned it and went back towards the previous form factor.
I’d say the Vision Pro is different. I’m not sure they got the form factor wrong. Maybe some adjustments needed, but I don’t think the core design is wrong.
Also a ton of the Vision Pros issues have nothing to do with the physical design. The cost is massive to get components (mostly the screens) that can achieve what they want. Their normal profit margins makes it worse. OS and App Store policies blunt the utility. Refusing to let developers have them until release meant no/few killer apps. US only for 6 months made all that worse.
In my mind it’s a totally different thing.
The Vision Pro is literally mind blowing.
Mind-blowingly stupid? I used an Oculus Rift DK2 in 2014; the fact that Apple could brute-force a similar product with no market fit and slightly more "magic" in it hasn't impressed me the slightest. Add in the fact that it's slower than an iPad and costs as much as a used car and the thing is dead-on-arrival. Meta ate Apple's lunch with $500 headsets and Valve dominated the high-end with better controllers and software for years. The only way Apple can create market fit is by inventing a new price segment (read: Stupid Expensive) and leveraging their branding to do the heavy lifting.
Apple dodged Khronos standards for years, avoided OpenXR during it's development, and got cut off from SteamVR after Valve gave up engineering support. They have so many loose ends to tie up that it's kinda hilarious anyone thinks Apple is a competitor in this industry, at this point. Vision Pro isn't an iPhone moment, it's a Lisa moment. We'll count ourselves lucky for each one we're not burying in a landfill.
I think that hope that they are working on some kind of 'magic wand' that uses the same haptic feedback and gyroscope-type tech that is in the Apple Pencil.
Once the weight is reduced and the input UI is fixed, it will be truly useful.
> The only way Apple can create market fit is by inventing a new price segment (read: Stupid Expensive) and leveraging their branding to do the heavy lifting
Meh, sounds like something steve ballmer would say. The price will drop. By the way, have you actually tried it?
Yes (albeit not at an Apple Store). For $3,500 it's not a competitive AR experience. It's not even cutting edge, either. Inside-out hand tracking has been a thing on standalone headsets since the first-gen Oculus Quest. Gaze tracking is more trouble than it's worth, the glowing eyes on the outside are like a cheap Halloween decoration, and the whole assembly feels like it will get bricked from a waist-height drop on the carpet.
Have you tried other, modern headsets? Bigscreen Beyond, Pimax Crystal, even the Valve Index? It's a blowout. Apple's price tag doesn't justify the lack of competitive features compared to their alternatives. They can't break into a market of "metaverse fans" because they don't support OpenXR or SteamVR - they are explicitly only targeting Apple fans. As someone who isn't part of the Apple ecosystem anymore, the Vision Pro is a fucking joke. What am I supposed to use it for, a $3,500 dedicated 360-degree porno machine? An overpriced streaming client for desktop VR? I have literally zero applications for it, I wouldn't have a reason to own Apple's headset if it was as cheap as an iPhone.
> Once the weight is reduced and the input UI is fixed, it will be truly useful.
Do you honestly believe that? After hundreds of failed attempts to make VR useful, you sincerely think Apple will be the one to do it?
This will only work if Apple can convince customers to go all-in on their ecosystem. And very clearly they won't; even the US Army doesn't have an interest in the headset where they have been applying Oculus Quest and Hololens operationally. Big businesses might care, but besides telecommunication applications I don't see where they're going to get applied. Consumers don't give a flying fuck, as evidenced by the lackluster sales and basically non-existent userbase entrenchment.
> The price will drop.
It certainly will. If the iPhone has taught us anything, it's that when prices drop, profit margins rise. The MSRP will only climb, especially as Apple gets more-and-more desperate for stupid and gaudy gimmecks like the eyeball passthrough.
> What am I supposed to use it for, a $3,500 dedicated 360-degree porno machine? An overpriced streaming client for desktop VR? I have literally zero applications for it, I wouldn't have a reason to own Apple's headset if it was as cheap as an iPhone.
Like I said, I think right now it's a glorified dev kit. If you have one, you can get a head start on making apps/experiences so that when the mass market one comes out, you can be on the app store already. Many people including myself didn't buy an iPhone until the 4 one came out.
> For $3,500 it's not a competitive AR experience > If the iPhone has taught us anything, it's that when prices drop, profit margins rise
My whole point is not to use the current price as an indicator of anything. Apple cut the price of the first iPhone by 50% after 3 months due to poor sales.
>> Once the weight is reduced and the input UI is fixed, it will be truly useful. >Do you honestly believe that? After hundreds of failed attempts to make VR useful, you sincerely think Apple will be the one to do it?
I believe if the weight and input are addressed, then it's automatically a million times better. But it's not the only thing that needs to be fixed. It also needs a bigger field of view and battery life. But the MOST IMPORTANT thing is a better input method. It's obvious that for input methods, Apple has a huge head start compared to everyone else. (mouse, click-wheel, multi-touch, force touch, etc). They are probably keeping their cards close on input to the vest until the mass market version is ready in order to keep their head start. For now, gaze tracking is all we have.
> Gaze tracking is more trouble than it's worth I think gaze tracking is great, but shouldn't be required for input.
> Have you tried other, modern headsets? Bigscreen Beyond, Pimax Crystal, even the Valve Index? I've only tried the Quest2, which was super pixellated. The Vision Pro is very price competitive with varjo headsets, which are just about equivalent on specs.
> the glowing eyes on the outside are like a cheap Halloween decoration
The outside display feels unnecessary right now because the whole device is meant to be used at home. But the fact that they are building this tells us they are working on a more mobile version of it, where interacting with other people is actually important.
The thing is no one is forcing you to buy it. You can buy the competitors if you prefer. You have the opportunity to start developing apps on the apple system, for an up front cost. Or you can wait for the cheaper, better ones to come out and not have a head start on making apps. It's whatever.
There have been so many bad VR headsets. I remember trying Doom on one in the 90s and getting motion sickness immediately. I also wear glasses so it’s never been great to wear anything else.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the Vision Pro is just not getting any attention due to the high bar to actually use one. It’s not something you can describe that hasn’t been polluted by prior experiences with VR
For a day or two then the newness wears off quickly. It's an iPad you can strap to your face. If I thought the iPad was a real platform then I might be more interested but unless they make the Mac display thing much better and/or open up the Vision Pro to be a real computing platform then it's just a very expensive iPad and in most cases I'd honestly pick the iPad over it.
I _really_ wanted to love mine but it got boring very quickly. It's only good as a content consumption device that has numerous downsides to just watching my TV. My TV is big enough, I couldn't make a much bigger screen in the Vision Pro without having to move my head (defeating the purpose) to see everything.
It's cool, it was the sharpest text I'd ever seen in VR (I've also tried the Quest 2 and 3) but the Mac display was fuzzy and huge disappointment. I thought I could justify the cost if I could replace my monitors with it but it sucked as a monitor replacement and I never anticipated how much would be lost in a video chat. It looked like I had botox injections and my face was much less expressive. When you work remote you want every communication advantage that you can get, this added a significant degradation to all video chats.
I could go on but I already have in a number of blog posts so I'll stop here. It might blow your mind in a demo but day-to-day use? Yeah, most people barely use theirs anymore and I returned mine. I'm sure there are a number of die-hard fans but it's a tiny number of people (hell, there were only a tiny number of Vision Pro headsets sold and if 50% are still in daily use or even weekly use I'd be shocked).
The Mac screen replacement enhancement is the “killer app” for me. Mac screen surrounded by simpler (mostly Safari) windows.
I would happily pay $4500, $5500 for a true “Pro” Mac replacement Vision. With an emphasis on maximizing the value of spacial computing for productivity.
I can think of dozens of small Vision OS tweaks they could make now that would better facilitate this, even before any hardware updates.
Alas, more power for its users is not an Apple priority. “Bicycle for the mind” is a lost mantra.
“Media kiosk” is in.
Even though they essentially created a new category of VR they show every sign of leaning back into “iOS, iOS, iOS”.
Steve Balmer would be proud!
I disagree. It’s inventing new multi modality such as the pinch to select and the in-the-air drag and drop. This brings us a bit closer to Minority Report Tom Cruise magic.
All the "innovations" in the current hardware feel destined to get removed as a cost-saving measure. Eye tracking is sketchy is frankly just worse than traditional locomotive pointing in other headset software. The passthrough screen is worse than the living devil and needs to be removed STAT. The software is fixable, but currently in a state that barely supports WebXR and doesn't support SteamVR or OpenXR. A good iteration on this headset would look almost nothing like Vision Pro, which suggests to me Apple really just doesn't know how to capitalize on their market.
Welcome to middle age, John. I'm here too, so I can't tell you what comes next, but I hope it's more fun.
Gruber seems to think of iPhones as portable, use-everywhere computers when such characterization puts Apple in good light. However, his opinion about what the iPhone is seems to change when dealing with sideloading and, in general, App Store shenanigans:
> The iPhone and iPad are not PCs; they’re consoles for games and apps.
(From https://daringfireball.net/2024/01/coming_to_grips_with_appl...)
Honestly I think apple has become both too impersonal and too controlling.
SJ at the helm would have made things more personal, and might have headed off all the rot that has led to poor developer relations, anti-trust, and relentless profiteering without clear benefits.
I disagree with the characterization.
The only thing that should matter is the device's raw computing power. The user should have the same level of control over code execution that the manufacturer has post-sale. That should apply to every single appliance and product on the market that uses a chip.
It's not.
> The only thing that should matter is the device's raw computing power.
It's not.
The software & hardware that comes together in general purpose mobile devices is non-trivially different from simple raw “computing” capabilities.
My smartwatch has a CPU that is far less powerful than my WiFi access point. But I absolutely expect to be able to install third-party apps on my smartwatch. And I can't care less about making my WiFi AP drive an external monitory displaying spreadsheets.
FWIW, gaming consoles are not used as general-purpose devices. PS3 was probably the only console that attempted that, and it was utilized by less than 2% of users.
For me, a great criterion for "general purpose" computers is this: "Do people use the device to work with spreadsheets?" Mobile phones certainly qualify.
I don't want to run random self-made apps on my watch, I want it to work reliably at all times. And that is done by using APIs and frameworks provided by the smartwatch manufacturer.
There are fully custom watch solutions where you can program everything from bare metal up yourself. Get one of those.
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As for the PS3 "general purpose" thing, it was 100% to get around EU tariffs. PCs were on a lower tariff than gaming consoles.
Both consoles run pretty much off the shelf PC hardware, iPhone has a custom chip.
There is no valid reason why I shouldn't be able to install, say, Firefox on either of them. The architecture is there and on the Xbox even the APIs are there.
OK, so, a completely optional market charges 30%. This means the market is comfortable with 30% and elects not to bypass that 30%. Why should Apple charge less for an experience buyers seek out?
That doesn’t make it a win today.
The physical store vig didn’t just get you better customer access, it reflected real physical world investments by the stores to get you that.
And originally, Apple’s vig represented both new better access and innovative efforts they made to provide it.
But today Apple’s store vig only represents their gatekeeper status, not actual expenditures matching developers efforts.
The reason they’re vig hasn’t dropped to 2-3%, or alternatively they have innovated new ways to increase developer sales, is they ban alternative stores on a platform people are tied to via high switching costs. (Both reflecting real iOS ecosystem value & other walls.)
Once upon a time he made a variant of textile and restructuredtext, with a lot of help from Aaron Swartz. Turns out it's a really good invention. But everything else is just mindlessly pro Apple bloviating to the point of self parody. He's probably one of a few hundred who bought the iPod hifi
I adore that CommonMark exists too: https://commonmark.org/ .
[1]: djot.net/
Nor should Apple aim to deliver "I'm so special!" feeling of a new product category.
The key is: Tim Cook understands the criticality of goodwill in the context of pervasive computing.
If you used computers from the 1990's-2010's, you grew to hate - hate - the fact that you had to use Microsoft. Office was king, and blue screens and viruses only evolved into more subtle pain.
Now, we just settle into our lives, as enhanced by devices we carry. That scale happens when you hit not 99% but 99.999% quality. (Yes, Android+Samsung is a copycat, one that wouldn't exist or have any direction without Apple.)
Gruber's not sure what the next thing will be. I am. It will be the natural UI's - voice and maybe vision - augmented with AI assistants. Voice computing, like speech recognition more generally, is jarring because 3-5% of the time you're dropping back into correction mode. But on-device speech-interactive AI will learn and correct all that. It will be understood as such in 2025, voice-only apps will go big in 2026, and voice-only devices will be available in 2027, along with lightweight voice+vision.
Then we'll only need to carry airpods, and we'll be happy to pay $3k for that.
That is the largest hurdle to over come and it is something that will in part come from sizable R&D but also be driven by a few inspired folks that can intuitively resolves some key issues.
Apple is trying, like how they had the Voice only version of Apple Music, but it still isn't there. The problem is with anything, others rush in to get to market first but not doing it right and ruin it for those trying to make it great.
Nobody likes navigating call center menus. A voice only smart device would be doing that all day long.
The last time I was blown away by any tech would have been the first time using generative AI stuff, yes we figured out its limits, but just that feeling of being able to just type something and just have these thing created on demand was wild. The time before that, I couldnt really say, it has been that long. Maybe seeing realtime raytracing on commodity hardware and even that wasnt ground breaking.
In a way it us like the 10th season of a sitcom, we know all the characters and it is familiar but nothing much is new or fresh any more. The jokes are still fine and the catch phrases are there but it all just feels same-ish. That is ok so long as that is your expectation.