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Regal

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VR bros on their way to try to convince you to drop several thousand dollars on a headset and/or rig because "the tech is in its infancy" and "it's only going to get better/cheaper."
(Commercial VR tech is over 20 years old and has been little more than an expensive novelty with few exceptions)
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As a recovering VR bro, yes, I have been kinda shocked and upset at how VR headsets have basically gone the iPhone route. They stay the same high price with marginal hardware improvements with every iteration. Maybe even worse than iPhone since a new model only comes out every 4 years. And you can only replay the same ~10 games so many times.
 
As a recovering VR bro, yes, I have been kinda shocked and upset at how VR headsets have basically gone the iPhone route. They stay the same high price with marginal hardware improvements with every iteration. Maybe even worse than iPhone since a new model only comes out every 4 years. And you can only replay the same ~10 games so many times.
adob(leh) model... sucks money, 0 improvement
those darn monopolies...
 
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VR bros on their way to try to convince you to drop several thousand dollars on a headset and/or rig because "the tech is in its infancy" and "it's only going to get better/cheaper."
(Commercial VR tech is over 20 years old and has been little more than an expensive novelty with few exceptions)
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180. The technophiles are taking us all on an utterly reckless ride into the unknown. Many people understand something of what technological progress is doing to us yet take a passive attitude toward it because they think it is inevitable. But we (FC) don't think it is inevitable. We think it can be stopped, ...
One member of FC met a sales manager a couple of years ago who was frank enough to tell him, "Our job is to make people buy things they don't want and don't need." He then described how an untrained novice could present people with the facts about a product, and make no sales at all, while a trained and experienced professional salesman would make lots of sales to the same people. This shows that people are manipulated into buying things they don't really want.
 
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At this point I think Apple thinks more like a cigarette company than a tech company. I remember when I was in middle school and the apple watch came out, and the only people who had it were rich kids who loved to spend money on the newest fad. eventually that piece of tech became part of their lives and they still own one today, despite it being little more than a gimped phone you can wear on your wrist. I feel like this VR headset is going in the same direction; appeal to young kids who can get their parents to buy this toy, get hooked on it (just look at ipads), and then buy them more as an adult. Because no adult today would look at that and think "by god I need a pair of goofy goggles to get into AR!" but a child might. Only those who get immersed in a piece of tech from a young age see it as a necessity, because they have had it for so long.

my prediction? It'll flop, some geeky tech enthusiasts will buy it so they can connect it to their smart thermometer and smart fridge so they can hop onto the metaverse while eating diner.
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Orlando Smooth

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So unlike a lot of you around here I actually I like* Apple products and have an appropriate level of emotional response to their stuff (neither cringe fanboy nor blind hatred). With that said, here are some points that either haven't been brought up or have mostly been brushed over so far:

  • It's expensive, even for an Apple product. But if you know anything about their product lines, you know the "Pro" in the name implies that there will eventually be a version that is substantially cheaper. They're clearly taxing the early adopters in order to retroactively fund the development and front load revenue of this new product line.

  • Similar to what @punishedgnome was saying, I think a major use case for this device will be "doing big things in small places." Pair one of these devices with a set of AirPods using spatial audio, and you can have 98% of the experience of watching a movie on a huge screen in a theater with amazing surround sound, without paying exorbitant ticket prices for the privilege of being crammed into tiny seats next to smelly strangers. Same thing for TV (of which Apple is already in that space) where people living in 600 sqft apartments can suddenly have "huge displays."
    >But you can already do that with [other headset]!!!
    Yeah, technically, I guess, but compared to Apple stuff the user experience is janky as fuck on those devices and I seriously doubt the felt-resolution on those devices will stack up. Whatever you feel about the walled garden, you can't deny that it's seamlessly smooth experience on the inside.

  • Similarly, the concept of having multiple desktop windows in an AR space to work in is appealing. Sorry, but not everyone wants to have a RGB rainbow gaming rig surrounded on all sides by monitors and a repurposed aftermarket drivers bucket seat as the centerpiece. The notion of having desktop-level computational power with multiple "displays" that can all disappear into a drawer when not in use is appealing for a variety of reasons.

  • The eye tracking ads thing so many of you are freaking out about simply will not be a problem - or at least, Apple themselves will not do that or allow it in approved apps. Their entire appeal to customers is that they don't do annoying and invasive bullshit like Microsoft and Google, and they make their products as pleasant to use as possible. This is exactly why they can charge so much money for their stuff, and it's evidently an extremely successful strategy considering they're the most valuable company in the entire world. Mark my words, they simply will not throw away that reputation. Could other developers implement such things? Possibly, but if the iOS app store is anything to go off of there will be pretty strict rules for what approved applications are and are not allowed to do with biometric data. They already use biometric data in virtually every product available now, and apps cannot directly access it. If this happens anywhere, it's going to be in online VR content providers that primarily utilize a browser (read: porn) because they will have greater freedom to rope you in to their terms and conditions outside the watchful eye of Tim Apple.

  • The two reviewers that I actually trust and who've been able to try it so far (MKBHD and Joanna Stern) have both said it's heavy but extremely comfortable; this will also be a major selling point. I've used a lot of VR headsets dating all the way back to that weird Google cardboard thing. One of my closest friends is such a VR nut that he literally has an entire room dedicated to it in his house, so I'd say I've probably had the top 0.1% consumer-level experience possible. The thing that has always been true is that you never forget you're wearing them. They've gotten better over the years but I'd expect this to be a quantum leap forward in terms of industrial design and user comfort.

  • This isn't the next "iPhone moment," because there won't be another iPhone moment for a generation or more. The reality is that the low hanging fruit of consumer tech has all been plucked at this point, and pretty much everything will be iterative improvements for a long time now. It's my opinion that the best VR/AR can hope for is to become what gaming consoles were like ~20 years ago: popular, profitable, and mainstream, but something that was of no interest whatsoever to the average grandpa or suburban wine mom. The long arc of consumer tech has always bent towards more interactive, but you eventually run into the problem of convincing average people that spending large sums of money on something you strap to your face isn't wasteful, frivolous, and dehumanizing. If any company can do it it's Apple, but there will always be a little bit of inherent bullshit to virtual worlds that portray themselves as real.
Overall I think it looks like a cool concept and will definitely try one out when released, but there's no way I'm spending $3.5k for it. It's not the end of the world as we know it, and it's also not some save grace either.

*Tinkering and optimization are a hobby for me, not a lifestyle. So while I enjoy building my own gaming rigs, maintaining a home media server, and getting the various gadgets around the house to an optimal state, when I need to do boring stuff like pay utility bills or play music in multiple rooms I much prefer not having to worry about update compatibility, security vulnerabilities, cross platform communication, et cetera. Apple products are genuinely better for that and if you can't accept that, your hatred is blind.



People over 25 years old sees every single big tech product as the "Next Dystopia" agora road has one of these every week that it, is so common that at this point doesn't feel important anymore lmao, big tech is gonna announce something after this, and we are gonna be claiming "THE DYSTOPIA IS HERE" even tho it said dystopia has been claimed 27 threads ago
Don't you mean under 25? Zoomers are the most doomer generation by far, constantly talking about "escape the matrix" if they're culturally right and making "we live in a society" tier complaints if they're culturally left. Older generations still believe tech is going to save us (ask me how I know) and are only pessimistic about specific topics like pedophiles on instagram and tiktok sending user data to the CCP. Blanket "tech bad" statements are not the domain of Millennials or Gen X, and never have been.

Imagine sitting on the underground train, evening rushhour and the car is full of people, in business casual I might add, who look like they just came back from scuba diving. And everyone would act like it's normal. It would be a sight to see.
Is this meaningfully different than the current situation of everyone on public transport being braindead, bloodshot eyed, and staring at their phone? If you think that's the dystopia, we've already been there for over a decade.

This image disgusts me on multiple levels but, similarly, is this meaningfully different than a fat fuck playing GBA on the beach 20 years ago?

They stay the same high price with marginal hardware improvements with every iteration.
So, just like the peak consumer tech TVs, stereo systems, and personal computers of the 20th century?

I guess the point I'm getting at with these replies is: most of the differences between now and X number of years ago are aesthetic at this point. It does not appear as though VR is capable of moving the needle in terms of tech addiction. Huge portions of the living population have been plugged in for their entire lives, now they can just plug in to a different piece of hardware. Same shit, different day, tech companies get paid. Midcentury it was GE and Bell Labs, then it was the Japanese, then it was Silicon Valley. Now the center of gravity may be moving again as people turn against SV in general, but the point is that it's the same as it ever was.
 
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Is this meaningfully different than the current situation of everyone on public transport being braindead, bloodshot eyed, and staring at their phone? If you think that's the dystopia, we've already been there for over a decade.
All I can think is, when you wear those for an extended period of time, when you take them off, they'll leave an imprint, like after wearing diving goggles; You're gonna have a red ring around your eyes. Imagine sitting on the underground train, evening rushhour and the car is full of people, in business casual I might add, who look like they just came back from scuba diving. And everyone would act like it's normal. It would be a sight to see.
Oh no it is in no way more dystopian. Even before smart phones people have been remarking on the zombie like appearence of their fellow riders, staring at newspapers to try and escape the boredom and potential responsibility, like for example seeing a girl being groped, to name a typical example. No, I don't think it came with the smartphone, just accelerated, as any vice for that matter; But I digress. It wasn't the dystopia that would be new in this situation, it's that I would find it hilarious. That the next techno-life affliction after the blood-shot eyes you just mentioned, would be something you associate with leisure, with holidays. The subway car being full of people who seem like they have returned from from the worst scuba trip of their lives, red skinned rubber ring imprint but dead eyes. Like they need a holiday from their holiday.