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.