News Apple's Vision Pro Is Pricey, but It Has a Chance

[Admin]

Apple's Vision Pro is the first step in a years-long play. Its WWDC announcement was proof that it will need time editing, and need developers on board.

Apple's Vision Pro Is Pricey, but It Has a Chance : Read more

 

[toffty]

If this was iGlass (aka Google glasses competitor) I'd be interested. This is not something people can walk around with and the price is ridiculous.

We have computers in our pockets already, we should not have to wear one on our heads too

 

[mrv_co]

It's a Segway for your face. Most people will rent one while visiting San Francisco, wander around gawking at Augmented Reality and the unlucky ones will get hit by a bus.

 

[-Fran-]

It's a fair overall take, but make no mistake: Apple is not at the bleeding edge of XR by a long shot.

Everything presented by Apple is not "bleeding edge" by Varjo's standards (for example).

The world's most advanced virtual and mixed reality devices.

Varjo makes the most advanced augmented, virtual and mixed reality headsets for professionals. Welcome to the immersive workplace.

varjo.com

As or this being an early Dev Kit, I think you're mostly right, but I can't shake the feeling it's an awkward middle ground they had to take given how long it's taken them to reach this point and how, more or less, Meta's Quest Pro and now Quest 3, have been received.

It is an interesting piece of hardware for sure, but this is just Apple's spin/take on what is mostly a somewhat proven concept by other companies out there.

I love your closing remark, which I 100% share, Andrew.

Regards.

 

[YouFilthyHippo]

I remember when my mommy told me sitting too close to the screen would hurt my eyes.

 

[bit_user]

It's a fair overall take, but make no mistake: Apple is not at the bleeding edge of XR by a long shot.

I think we've established you're no expert on AR. You're basing that on features or specs others have advertised, but what you cannot quantify is how well Apple implemented their tech.

I can tell you this: in terms of phone AR, Apple has always been the one to beat. In spite of Google having a head start, Apple has been the gold standard basically since they launched AR Kit. Therefore, I'm reasonably confident they have implemented all of Vision Pro's features at least equal to anyone else in the industry.

Everything presented by Apple is not "bleeding edge" by Varjo's standards (for example).

The world's most advanced virtual and mixed reality devices.

Varjo makes the most advanced augmented, virtual and mixed reality headsets for professionals. Welcome to the immersive workplace.

varjo.com

They state that their "inside-out tracking" is merely in beta! They still rely primarily on base stations! What the heck kind of AR solution does that?

If they can't even do that beyond beta quality, how is their SLAM any good at all? Accurate inside-out tracking is but one building block of SLAM.

This is what I'm talking about: you are Dunning-Kruger, here. You don't even know how much you don't know about AR, but that doesn't stop you from making sweeping pronouncements and trying to talk like an expert. You're treating AR like a special case of VR, but it's not.

 

[Deleted member 2838871]

I will keep my comments to the other thread.

 

[helper800]

I think we've established you're no expert on AR. You're basing that on features or specs others have advertised, but what you cannot quantify is how well Apple implemented their tech.

I can tell you this: in terms of phone AR, Apple has always been the one to beat. In spite of Google having a head start, Apple has been the gold standard basically since they launched AR Kit. Therefore, I'm reasonably confident they have implemented all of Vision Pro's features at least equal to anyone else in the industry.


They state that their "inside-out tracking" is merely in beta! They still rely primarily on base stations! What the heck kind of AR solution does that?

If they can't even do that beyond beta quality, how is their SLAM any good at all? Accurate inside-out tracking is but one building block of SLAM.

This is what I'm talking about: you are Dunning-Kruger, here. You don't even know how much you don't know about AR, but that doesn't stop you from making sweeping pronouncements and trying to talk like an expert. You're treating AR like a special case of VR, but it's not.

I do not know anything about AR other than surface level, however, I fail to see many good use cases for it other than some niches. Even with advances in tech to 10 times the efficiency per watt as compared to right now, will these be good enough for more broad uses without being a hinderance to wear? What are your thoughts on the uses for such technologies?

 

[Giroro]

The price isn't the main problem for this thing. It's the lack of utility. It's Apple's complete lack of vision (pun intended). They have neither communicated their core concept, nor captured the imagination.
It's a Video conferencing headset that prevents you from appearing in video. Its killer productivity apps are a Home Screen, and the ability to switch between windows. Its key entertainment app is "That unprofitable streaming service you keep forgetting to cancel."
It's a touchscreen that is slightly to far away to reach. It's keyboard you can't type on. It's an iPod that can't play music nor sync with iTunes. It's hardware without software. It's a solution looking for a problem.

Of course, Apple is no stranger to absurdly overpriced devices with questionable Utility, like the Apple watch. But those were watches, which are pure fashion accessories for the vain. Nobody who buys a watch at any price from $70-$7,000 actually cares if it does something useful. So anything an Apple watch does is just a nice to have bonus.
Apple's Vision Pro is an ugly face-covering set of scuba goggles that nobody would ever want to be seen wearing in any public venue, especially in the office. Vain fashion-minded individuals never want to hide their faces, so Apple won't even be able to sledgehammer-market this headset into a fashion statement.

It doesn't look good. It doesn't do anything better than what we already have.
Apple is throwing a loose handful of Styrofoam at the wall and wondering why nothing hit the wall.

Has Apple inspired developers to do the hard work of figuring out what anybody is supposed to do with one of these things? I doubt it.

$3500 is a bad and beyond insulting price, but the bigger issue it that is has a customer-facing price at all. They're at the pre-alpha software phase where should still be issuing these as SDKs to development partners operating under NDA.
Maybe Apple has already been trying to court developers. Maybe they've been doing it for a decade. But if that's the case, then they need to take a big step back and ask Google Bard to define "sunk cost fallacy".

Apple would sell exactly the same abysmal number of headsets if they were charging $2000, or $5000. Maybe they would sell a few dozen more if they charged $1000, because a handful of hopeful people would try to see if they could someday hack VR chat onto it.
Customers don't want this. Its arguably not even a product. It scares investors away from VR. Apple is poisoning the well.
At best, it's just a waste of time and a waste of our perfectly good bemusement.

 

[baboma]

>$3,499 is a lot to swallow

This depends on how the device is positioned. Yes, $3.5K is a lot relative to other headsets on the market, but none of those can lay claim to be the next general-purpose computing platform as the VP can.

As claimed in the demo, the VP will (potentially) have the functionalities of a quasi-PC + phone + AR/VR entertainment/productivity device rolled into one. If I were a marketer (yes, this is why marketing exists), I would pitch the VP on that basis, as a fusion of legacy devices with next-gen UI and UX. That alone would command a much higher premium than a compare against existing headsets.

Of course, $3.5K is way over the limit for a consumer device. The real question is how much the next consumer-focused VP would cost. My first thought was that Gen 2 would be priced around iPhone Pro level, ie $1000-1500 range. My revised take, given the generally positive hands-on, is that Apple can hit the $2000 mark for Gen 2 and have good sales volume. It will depend on how good the public reception is for Gen 1.

What's more likely is that VP will be split into a line of products, each targeting a different price point. My SWAG is that there'll be price points of $1K, $1.5K, and $2K. I very much doubt we'll see anything lower than $1K.

>But the Vision Pro is the first play in a long game, which will compete with Meta, HTC, and likely a number of other players who we may not even know the names of yet.

I don't see any real competition to VP unless MS or Google were to jump in again with new AR headsets. The gating factor is that only those three (Apple/MS/Goog) own their respective computing platforms, and to be the next computing platform, you need tight integration with the existing platform to leverage the wealth of apps already available, along with the established developer base. I don't see Meta capable of that, let alone smaller players like HTC or Valve or whatever name out there.

Further, Apple has a unique advantage that neither MS nor Goog has, and that is its full control of both the hardware + software stacks and tight integration between them. To name one instance, the HoloLens ran on an Atom, HoloLens 2 on a SnapDragon 850. I doubt either MS or Goog can put together a hardware stack as powerful as what Apple has. It took years for Apple to develop its chip expertise, and is not something that can be overcome quickly.

 

[-Fran-]

I think we've established you're no expert on AR. You're basing that on features or specs others have advertised, but what you cannot quantify is how well Apple implemented their tech.

I can tell you this: in terms of phone AR, Apple has always been the one to beat. In spite of Google having a head start, Apple has been the gold standard basically since they launched AR Kit. Therefore, I'm reasonably confident they have implemented all of Vision Pro's features at least equal to anyone else in the industry.


They state that their "inside-out tracking" is merely in beta! They still rely primarily on base stations! What the heck kind of AR solution does that?

If they can't even do that beyond beta quality, how is their SLAM any good at all? Accurate inside-out tracking is but one building block of SLAM.

This is what I'm talking about: you are Dunning-Kruger, here. You don't even know how much you don't know about AR, but that doesn't stop you from making sweeping pronouncements and trying to talk like an expert. You're treating AR like a special case of VR, but it's not.

And you are an expert because you can just find cool terminology to smear your keyboard with? What is wrong with you? Please stop.

The one that has no idea is you, because you just "think" LIDAR is so much better than traditional light base-stations to track. Guess what, it is not. You think LIDAR is so much better than depending on cameras for AR, because that's all that you can think of for depth calculations. depending on tracking for closed spaces is been something proven to work and low on processing power for a good while. It has its place and it's functional. As per always, it's a trade off and I'll reserve judgement on how well Apple's implementation is until there's people that actually knows (like Bradley) putting the headset to its pace under real-life conditions and, well, with his interesting experiments. He has already said he'll buy one and check it out (I'm watching his live Stream right now about it).

Also, have you tried using Google's AR applications as well? Have you been around the world using AR to translate things on the fly and detect locations using the maps service, for example? Do you own a VR headset, by any chance? Have you actually tried any of them at any point? Have you experienced the bare minimum or mixed reality?

I'll just stop here for good with you. You are just wasting my time by either baiting me or trolling me here, not sure.

Ugh.

 

[bit_user]

I fail to see many good use cases for it other than some niches.

AR gives you a way to receive situational intelligence. Paired with AI and cloud connectivity, that's incredibly powerful.

It's really just the next step in human-computer interfaces, making computing more seamless. Apps can be more aware of your surroundings and superimpose data in-situ, rather than forcing you to refer back-and-forth to a tiny screen. Take Google Maps, for instance. Imagine your route highlighted right in front of you. As you walk past restaurants and other businesses, being able to see information like user reviews, typical meal prices, peak activity, and years under current ownership, without having to fuss with looking it up on your phone.

Perhaps a service or sales person can make a customer visit and see people's names and details recorded from previous visits hovering above them, so that you know who you're dealing with.

In a repair context, you can not only see relevant documentation and videos, but they can be automatically keyed off the images collected from your camera. If you require online assistance, the remote agent can see what you see and what you're doing, without you having to juggle a phone.

In the case of firefighters, a floor plan can be matched up to indicate where the walls and doors should be, in case the smoke is too dense. They can also superimpose imagery from IR cameras and microwave sensors to help see where there hotspots and obstructions.

In the other thread, @Dantte had an interesting example of using it for powersports.

There are so many examples, it's like trying to sell someone on the idea of a smartphone whose never seen one. You know it's better than a regular cell phone with SMS, but it's hard to really convey what a monumental shift it is other than to enumerate a litany of different apps and use cases.

 

[bit_user]

The price isn't the main problem for this thing. It's the lack of utility. It's Apple's complete lack of vision (pun intended). They have neither communicated their core concept, nor captured the imagination.

Eh, the iPhone had no new utility, right? It was a phone that could browse the web, play music, and run apps. All things we had before. There were even phones on the market that could do all of those things. So, how is this really any different?

It doesn't look good. It doesn't do anything better than what we already have.

Whether you're talking about AR/VR or their specific implementation, I think you're wrong on this point.

$3500 is a bad and beyond insulting price,

I'm sure you said the same about Hololens, right?

They're at the pre-alpha software phase

According to whom?

It scares investors away from VR. Apple is poisoning the well.

Investors should be smart enough to understand what Apple built is not simply VR.

At best, it's just a waste of time and a waste of our perfectly good bemusement.

You know that being cynical doesn't make you seem cool or smart, right? I think it makes you look closed-minded, old-fashioned, and insecure.

 

[bit_user]

My revised take, given the generally positive hands-on, is that Apple can hit the $2000 mark for Gen 2 and have good sales volume. It will depend on how good the public reception is for Gen 1.

I'm right with you.

What's more likely is that VP will be split into a line of products, each targeting a different price point. My SWAG is that there'll be price points of $1K, $1.5K, and $2K. I very much doubt we'll see anything lower than $1K.

The clue is in the name: Vision Pro That almost guarantees there will be a non-pro version. It also smartly implies this product is aimed at professional and commercial markets.

Further, Apple has a unique advantage that neither MS nor Goog has, and that is its full control of both the hardware + software stacks and tight integration between them. To name one instance, the HoloLens ran on an Atom, HoloLens 2 on a SnapDragon 850. I doubt either MS or Goog can put together a hardware stack as powerful as what Apple has. It took years for Apple to develop its chip expertise, and is not something that can be overcome quickly.

Hololens had a custom coprocessor that Microsoft designed (I think using licensed Tensilica DSP cores). Google designs its own deep learning hardware. Both of these companies are more than capable of building something with processing capabilities roughly within the ballpark of what's powering the Vision Pro. As Meta has shown, you can still do a lot with much less.

BTW, Hololens 2 launched way back in 2019. Even if MS sticks with off-the-shelf ARM cores, their X-series has really brought them into competition in the laptop market. However, don't forget that Qualcomm also has those Nuvia cores...

 

[Deleted member 2838871]

>$3,499 is a lot to swallow

This depends on how the device is positioned. Yes, $3.5K is a lot relative to other headsets on the market, but none of those can lay claim to be the next general-purpose computing platform as the VP can.

Speaking of $3.5k... you sound like just the guy who could sell me a 16" MacBook Pro with 32GB ram and a 1TB SSD for $3500...

I would go buy the one I just put together on the website but I'd rather hear your pitch about how this MacBook Pro is the next general purpose laptop computing platform that I just have to have.

Go ahead... I'm waiting.

 

[bit_user]

And you are an expert because you can just find cool terminology to smear your keyboard with? What is wrong with you? Please stop.

No, I'm not just googling terms. I've actually developed apps on Google's AR platform and followed the tech quite closely, ever since MS first announced Hololens.

The one that has no idea is you, because you just "think" LIDAR is so much better than traditional light base-stations to track.

No, that's not why I brought it up. If you knew more about AR, you wouldn't have thought so.

You think LIDAR is so much better than depending on cameras for AR, because that's all that you can think of for depth calculations.

No, I'm well aware of all methodologies for depth perception. Each has its strengths and weaknesses. There's no single solution that's usable for good depth extraction, all on its own.

depending on tracking for closed spaces is been something proven to work and low on processing power for a good while.

Your VR-centric mindset has you too focused on tracking. Tracking is the easy part, and no you don't need LIDAR to do good inside-out tracking.

have you tried using Google's AR applications as well?

Not since they killed Tango. AR Core was a huge step back, for quite a while after that, and I was also hestinta about investing my time and energy into another Google technology.

Do you own a VR headset, by any chance?

Yes. If you'd been reading my posts, I already answered this question.

I'll just stop here for good with you. You are just wasting my time by either baiting me or trolling me here, not sure.

Your loss. Just don't spread misinformation and we'll get along fine.

Ugh.

Same.

 

[truerock]

I guess I can see some use cases emerging for VA and VR...

I see drone pilots using it a little bit. I could see it catching on there.

Classroom education for some subjects - especially at MIT, CalTech, West Point, etc. Not so much public grade school. Maybe some elite private prep-schools.

Entertainment... definitely pornography. Supposedly pornography underwrote the creation of the internet. I guess I could see pornography underpinning VR and VA. Sporting events would be great for VR and VA - but, real-time 3D photography of the real world has always had issues with quality.

So, yes - I could see VR/VA replace Apple iPhone, Apple Watch, iPad, MacBook, Apple TV, etc someday - but, not anytime soon. The thing is, I sit in front of a desktop PC monitor for several hours a day. I also watch TV for several hours per day. Could a VR/VA headset replace those 27" to 65" monitors (the big ones that never move) sometime in the near future? I think perhaps.

In my house, we have 5 TVs, 2 PC desktop monitors and 3 iPads. Except for the large TV in the family room, all the other of those screens are single user and could easily be replaced with a VR/VA headset today.

The mobile screens... iPhones, Apple Watches, Windows notebook PCs, etc will not be replaced by VR/VA headsets anytime soon.

I have kids that spend a lot of time playing video games on various devices. I could see almost all of that replaced by VR/VA in the short term.

Each of my kids have an iPhone that cost around $800, perhaps an iPad that cost around $400 and a Windows notebook PC that cost around $1,200. I don't see how each of them could own a $3,500 VR/VA headset. That is not going to happen in our family. Maybe, I could see buying a VR/VA headset for the whole family to share - but, I don't see that happening, either.

 

[helper800]

AR gives you a way to receive situational intelligence. Paired with AI and cloud connectivity, that's incredibly powerful.

It's really just the next step in human-computer interfaces, making computing more seamless. Apps can be more aware of your surroundings and superimpose data in-situ, rather than forcing you to refer back-and-forth to a tiny screen. Take Google Maps, for instance. Imagine your route highlighted right in front of you. As you walk past restaurants and other businesses, being able to see information like user reviews, typical meal prices, peak activity, and years under current ownership, without having to fuss with looking it up on your phone.

Perhaps a service or sales person can make a customer visit and see people's names and details recorded from previous visits hovering above them, so that you know who you're dealing with.

In a repair context, you can not only see relevant documentation and videos, but they can be automatically keyed off the images collected from your camera. If you require online assistance, the remote agent can see what you see and what you're doing, without you having to juggle a phone.

In the case of firefighters, a floor plan can be matched up to indicate where the walls and doors should be, in case the smoke is too dense. They can also superimpose imagery from IR cameras and microwave sensors to help see where there hotspots and obstructions.

In the other thread, @Dantte had an interesting example of using it for powersports.

There are so many examples, it's like trying to sell someone on the idea of a smartphone whose never seen one. You know it's better than a regular cell phone with SMS, but it's hard to really convey what a monumental shift it is other than to enumerate a litany of different apps and use cases.

I guess my problem with seeing it as a viable product now or even in the next couple years as you have described above is support for the device hardware and the hardware required to do such things.

On the hardware side I am not sure there is a way to cram in enough processing power, wi-fi / e-sim, batteries, storage space, et cetera for something like this to be small and convenient enough to exist.

On the support side I can only imagine being able to create the GUIs alone required to do what you described. They, meaning AR developers, will really have their work cut out for them creating the firmware, drivers, OS, UI, applications, et cetera to support such a device. Most companies in app development already have good apps for phones which may be half way there to a good VR app, but just doing phone app development is a huge undertaking if you want to make a good one.

We are at least a decade away in getting tech small and convenient enough to make this a minimally viable product. We have at least a few years of serious development of software to convert or create existing phone apps into VR versions or originals. We may be multiple decades away from the materials science required for some of the tech required to fit in such a device for widespread general adoption like cellphones.

In summary I believe the hardware, software support / development, and materials science are a ways away for this product to take over the phone industry.

Any thoughts? Did I miss anything major? Do you agree?

 

[-Fran-]

I guess I can see some use cases emerging for VA and VR...

I see drone pilots using it a little bit. I could see it catching on there.

Classroom education for some subjects - especially at MIT, CalTech, West Point, etc. Not so much public grade school. Maybe some elite private prep-schools.

Entertainment... definitely pornography. Supposedly pornography underwrote the creation of the internet. I guess I could see pornography underpinning VR and VA. Sporting events would be great for VR and VA - but, real-time 3D photography of the real world has always had issues with quality.

So, yes - I could see VR/VA replace Apple iPhone, Apple Watch, iPad, MacBook, Apple TV, etc someday - but, not anytime soon. The thing is, I sit in front of a desktop PC monitor for several hours a day. I also watch TV for several hours per day. Could a VR/VA headset replace those 27" to 65" monitors sometime in the near future? I think perhaps.

You made me laugh with the "porno" bit. You're right though! And to add a bit to it I heard some people already saying they like the front LCD display because they're counting on being able to use anime-girl eyes xD!

Whatever makes people happy, I guess.

Regards.

 

[bit_user]

I guess my problem with seeing it as a viable product now or even in the next couple years as you have described above is support for the device hardware and the hardware required to do such things.

On the hardware side I am not sure there is a way to cram in enough processing power, wi-fi / e-sim, batteries, storage space, et cetera for something like this to be small and convenient enough to exist.

Yeah, it'll probably be a while before you can use something like an iPhone to power an AR headset of that caliber.

They, meaning AR developers, will really have their work cut out for them creating the firmware, drivers, OS, UI, applications, et cetera to support such a device.

Huh? That's the point and the promise of having a platform. If you develop an AR app for Android, you just use their AR Core SDK and that handles all the low-level details for you. It's then supposed to "just work" on any device that AR Core supports.

Most companies in app development already have good apps for phones which may be half way there to a good VR app, but just doing phone app development is a huge undertaking if you want to make a good one.

VR and AR app development isn't for everyone, but you can use frameworks like Unity 3D that make it a lot more accessible.

We are at least a decade away in getting tech small and convenient enough to make this a minimally viable product.

I don't think it's a decade. I just look at how far we've come in the past 8 years, and I'd say we're more than half way there. It seems like there's now enough resolution and processing power. The main challenge is just to shrink it down and improve battery life.

Any thoughts? Did I miss anything major? Do you agree?

I think the transition will be more gradual and not overnight. The costs will ensure that's true.

There are also societal questions to be answered, before people go walking around with these headsets in public, like what happened during the trial run of Google Glass. That's one reason I think it's not such a deal breaker that Apple's Vision Pro isn't something you'd want to wear in public. If it were more of a fashion accessory, then people doing foolish things with them in public could provoke a regulatory backlash. Apple sure doesn't want that.

 

[helper800]

Huh? That's the point and the promise of having a platform. If you develop an AR app for Android, you just use their AR Core SDK and that handles all the low-level details for you. It's then supposed to "just work" on any device that AR Core supports.

I understand what you mean, however, this rarely "just work" in software development. A lot of time you can end up trying to do something that is not supported yet or was not thought of as a need when the tools were created. For instance, ECS (Entity Component System) Engines in Unity. My Buddy spent close to a year creating one for his project, then they release their own scuffed one that to this day is not in great shape. I think Unity just recently release 1.0 of that system. Point being is that there are many problems yet to be encountered that may make a product's use more limited in scope that previously thought. An example that has plagued VR is the past is the mind-body connection in relation to movement in VR causing nausea. I feel these things will add a huge amount of additional delay to such a product.

 

[ingtar33]

It's a Segway for your face. Most people will rent one while visiting San Francisco, wander around gawking at Augmented Reality and the unlucky ones will get hit by a bus.

no, i think if you're wandering around SF with that on your face, that you'd be pretty lucky if all that happens to you is getting hit by a bus.

 

[jaquith]

My initial observation is the Apple Vision isn't an "AR" per se, it's a VR with a simulated AR overlay. The glasses are not see-through with a e.g. translucent OLED. I'll certainly try it but I'm not holding my breath and I have no desire to be a long-term Beta user...

 

[neojack]

Before the iphone, smartphone existed but were not really popular or practical.
I see the current VR market today as the same as the smartphone market was before the iphone.
Maybe Apple will be able to make the technology and usage of VR evolve. i hope so.

I mean, there are only a handfull of real games in VR, the media is fantastic with a lot of potential... since the last 10 years. I need a AAA VR MMORPG. you need it too even if you don't know it yet.

 

[bit_user]

My initial observation is the Apple Vision isn't an "AR" per se, it's a VR with a simulated AR overlay. The glasses are not see-through with a e.g. translucent OLED.

You raise a good point, which is that I hoped it would use lightfield display tech, like Magic Leap was meant to have. I still believe that's truly the gold standard, for AR.