weatheriscool wrote: ↑Mon May 23, 2022 6:08 pm
Apple Inches Closer to Launching Its Mixed Reality Headset
https://www.extremetech.com/computing/3 ... ty-headset
By Josh Norem on May 23, 2022 at 11:15 am
Apple’s Augmented Reality (AR) slash Virtual Reality (VR) headset has seemingly been delayed more times than we can count. The ambitious program has been in the works for seven years now. Along the way it’s been repeatedly hampered by both hardware and software issues according to reports. That’s not a big surprise as it’s a brand new product for Apple, and it’s an inherently complex undertaking. Apple seems to be out of the woods though, as a new report states the company’s board received an in-person demo of it last week.
I heard they showed off their headset to their board of directors. That all but signals they're in the final stretch towards commercialization.
I appreciate all this. I really do. For many reasons.
We've been hearing about a prospective Apple mixed reality headset ever since, I want to say 2014-2015 around the peak of pre-release hype for the Oculus Rift. We know for a fact they've been working on something since roughly 2016 when we heard about patent filings from the year prior. And that's a good thing. It shows they're not releasing whatever they have too soon. It's probably not going to be the absolute best headset out there, because this is Apple we're talking about— they're experts at talking as if they're the bleeding edge when they're ultimately mid-range (but they'll price things at bleeding edge levels, that's for sure). Still, what they will release will be more than competent, almost certainly better than the Quest 2 and HoloLens 2 and able to be used in a practical, everyday way.
Furthermore, if there's anything I can give Apple, it's that they have a tendency to support their products for a damn long time. Often too long. They're the inverse of Google— once they release something, they're almost always committed to it for many years even if it never takes off. Whereas Google will research and develop something for years, release it to much self-created fanfare, and then immediately drop it in a couple years and memory hole its existence if it's not an immediate revolution in consumer technology.
I have a hunch that Apple engineers themselves knew that the 2010s were too soon for VR to be a reliably successful technology. It was almost but not quite primetime. There were still too many bugs to quash, too many wrinkles to iron out, that technology of the time wasn't able to enable us to accomplish, at least affordably. At the same time, we did need that first big wave of consumer VR tech to advance the field and sow a massive market. They just didn't want to be dragged into the quagmire of early adoptor struggles; they'd rather do the Apple thing of letting everyone else figure out the technology, then when they recognize that the tech is finally there, swoop in with their own product and pretend they invented the whole industry.
To anyone whose head wasn't in the clouds deluding themselves over VR being an immediate world-changing success (and that definitely didn't include me; I was a believer of it too), it ought to have been clear even as far back as 2013 that we needed another decade to refine the tech into truly usable and practical levels and that the next generation of technology circa around 2022-2024 was going to be the one that would give us the full bore of VR success, at smartphone or smartwatch levels. No sooner than that. And the dream was that someone like Apple would be the one to do it because their brand name and general long-adopting stance towards tech products would throw mixed reality into the exosphere.
Seems like this is all coming true after all.
I'm normally more cynical, especially towards Apple, but I'm so supportive of AR/VR/XR as a technology that I'll let this one slide if it turns out that 2022-2023 is recognized as "The Year Mixed Reality Broke."
And remember my friend, future events such as these will affect you in the future
