Apple Events WWDC23

[Pressure]

Pre-event and after-event thread for possible new products and software from Apple at this years WWDC23.

What does everyone expect to see tonight and what would you want to see?

Although I am intrigued by AR/VR I still have a hard time seeing it becoming mainstream unless it would function like some HUD that feed you relevant information / help depending on your specific context, be it real-time translation, navigation or in education.

I feel like the technology is still in its infancy, especially if the only "killer" app is gaming for the general population. We'll see later today I guess.

I'm personally waiting for an updated Mac Studio to replace the current model I have, so it finally will work with my Dell UP3218K (7680x4320) monitor (quirky dual DP 1.4 connections and no DSC support). Right now it is functioning as two separate 3840x4320 displays side-by-side

Live stream should be available directly from Apple here, on YouTube here or through the Apple TV+ app at these time zones.

• Honolulu, Hawaii -- 7:00 a.m. HAST
• Anchorage, Alaska -- 9:00 a.m. AKDT
• Cupertino, California -- 10:00 a.m. PDT
• Phoenix, Arizona -- 10:00 a.m. MST
• Vancouver, Canada -- 10:00 a.m. PDT
• Denver, Colorado -- 11:00 a.m. MDT
• Dallas, Texas -- 12:00 noon CDT
• New York, New York -- 1:00 p.m. EDT
• Toronto, Canada -- 1:00 p.m. EDT
• Halifax, Canada -- 2:00 p.m. ADT
• Rio de Janeiro, Brazil -- 2:00 p.m. BRT
• London, United Kingdom -- 6:00 p.m. BST
• Berlin, Germany -- 7:00 p.m. CEST
• Paris, France -- 7:00 p.m. CEST
• Cape Town, South Africa -- 7:00 p.m. SAST
• Helsinki, Finland -- 8:00 p.m. EEST
• Istanbul, Turkey -- 8:00 p.m. TRT
• Dubai, United Arab Emirates -- 9:00 p.m. GST
• Delhi, India -- 10:30 p.m. IST
• Jakarta, Indonesia -- 12:00 a.m. WIB next day
• Shanghai, China -- 1:00 a.m. CST next day
• Singapore -- 1:00 a.m. SGT next day
• Perth, Australia -- 1:00 a.m. AWST next day
• Hong Kong -- 1:00 a.m. HKT next day
• Seoul, South Korea -- 2:00 a.m. KST next day
• Tokyo, Japan -- 2:00 a.m. JST next day
• Adelaide, Australia -- 2:30 a.m. ACST next day
• Sydney, Australia -- 3:00 a.m. AEST next day
• Auckland, New Zealand -- 5:00 a.m. NZST next day

 

[eastmen]

Their AR solution is very much hololens a decade later. Good for them I guess. I can't really say there was anything ground breaking here

 

[Scott_Arm]

Apple Vision Pro is cheaper. If it ends up with higher quality visuals and better fov, they'll have basically stolen the consumer market for AR away from any potential Microsoft had.

 

[Flappy Pannus]

Apple Vision Pro is cheaper. If it ends up with higher quality visuals and better fov, they'll have basically stolen the consumer market for AR away from any potential Microsoft had.

At $3500, the 'market' here is measured in the thousands, potentially. Even at a significantly reduced price, the market is limited to people who don't mind wearing huge-ass obnoxious gear on their head. There really just isn't a 'consumer market' for this stuff where it has any real kind of penetration.

 

[Scott_Arm]

At $3500, the 'market' here is measured in the thousands, potentially. Even at a significantly reduced price, the market is limited to people who don't mind wearing huge-ass obnoxious gear on their head. There really just isn't a 'consumer market' for this stuff where it has any real kind of penetration.

I don't know. Apple products are expensive and people buy them. It's in the same price range as a high end macbook. It obviously won't have the same appeal as a macbook air, but something like hololens is basically non-existent. I'd guess that there will be buyers for the Apple Vision Pro, and there will be a lot more consumer awareness for it.

The 16" macbook pro is $3200. I doubt this will sell as well as a macbook pro 16", just out of function, but I'd still think it'll have consumer mindshare and the price is well within what can be considered consumer devices.

Personally, I have an apartment so I could see using it in place of a home theatre if the image quality is good, but my work would never allow me to use it and it wouldn't have any use for my pc gaming.

Also I can imagine a "Field of Dreams" meme, but instead of baseball players coming out of the cornfield it's porn stars. "If you build it, they will come." (pun intended)

 

[xz321zx]

...expected much less, their audio sounds sci-fi tbh. Overall this is kinda sci-fi territory vs. what's on market (so far) when it comes to stereoscopy, soo it'll go to places for sure. With 7.5 um pixels they are living up to their lineage I'd say.

 

[Scott_Arm]

Also I was in a chat with my friend and we were both watching. He said it was going to cost $10K. I said it was going to cost $5K. Based on all of the sensors, the micro-oled screens, the materials and all of the fitting I knew the price was going to be very high. Kind of interesting what the expectations were for pricing. AR is going to be more expensive than VR. It'll be interesting to see if they could ever get it down to the $2K range and what sacrifices that would entail. Hololens is like $4800 and it at least appears to be a worse product, so it's not like the Apple tax is necessarily the problem.

 

[Flappy Pannus]

It's in the same price range as a high end macbook. It obviously won't have the same appeal as a macbook air, but something like hololens is basically non-existent. I'd guess that there will be buyers for the Apple Vision Pro, and there will be a lot more consumer awareness for it.

There will be 'buyers', sure. I don't know what 'consumer awareness' means in this context though. Of course consumers will be aware of it, just as they were 'aware' of Google Glass and the myriad of VR headsets that have existed on the market and promoted in media for decades. It hasn't resulted in any significant uptake outside of small niches.

VR enthusiasts just consistently underestimate how much of a barrier to adoption it is to have a large cumbersome device strapped to your head, even with compelling software and a reasonable price. Even in a private setting it is isolating for other family members, which leaves its applicable market to largely single-dwelling households with lots of disposable income.

 

[Scott_Arm]

There will be 'buyers', sure. I don't know what 'consumer awareness' means in this context though. Of course consumers will be aware of it, just as they were 'aware' of Google Glass and the myriad of VR headsets that have existed on the market and promoted in media for decades. It hasn't resulted in any significant uptake outside of small niches.

VR enthusiasts just consistently underestimate how much of a barrier to adoption it is to have a large cumbersome device strapped to your head, even with compelling software and a reasonable price.

I mean, does anything have to be more than a niche to be a successful product? Ar is always going to be a niche until they can get the price down without sacrificing comfort, power consumption, display quality etc. I think this looks like what Apple views as the bare minimum for an AR and they wouldn't release it with compromises to the experience. The margin is probably high and they probably expect the sales to be on the low side. I don't think the expectation is mass adoption like the ipod.

I guess the difference I see is hololens is targetted purely at professionals, and isn't marketed towards general consumers at all. Apple Vision Pro is an expensive luxury item, but most of it's features are targetted at general consumer use (streaming video, facetime, video recording, personal photos) and things that could fit into everyday life. Yah, it'll be a toy for rich people.

Edit: I think a lot of it will hinge on hands-on experience. If impressions are wildly positive, it'll be totally different than if people say it's good but not revolutionary. I want to know the weight, the fov and whether the AR elements are opaque or always somewhat translucent.

Edit: There are other interesting things about having AR in the future. For a work setup you could save a ton of space. Pretty much anyone I work with has dual or triple monitors at home, plus their work laptop. A bunch of virtual screens with a small desk with just enough space for a laptop, keyboard and mouse would be a very nice alternative. Or just being able to move your office anywhere without losing screen space. When do neovim and tmux get ported to Vision Pro?

 

[Flappy Pannus]

I mean, does anything have to be more than a niche to be a successful product?

When your product depends on software that needs to be highly tailored to the experience, it's hard to get developer interest if you don't achieve some level of mass adoption.

Or just being able to move your office anywhere without losing screen space.

It has a 2 hour battery life- that's with the tethered battery pack. Many office tasks would still require a keyboard and the fine control you have with a mouse (waving your arms around as the main interaction method with a UX can quickly get tiring).

So in this scenario, you're competing against a device (laptop) with a 15+ hr battery life and those controls contained within it.

 

[xz321zx]

(...)

Edit: There are other interesting things about having AR in the future. For a work setup you could save a ton of space. Pretty much anyone I work with has dual or triple monitors at home, plus their work laptop. A bunch of virtual screens with a small desk with just enough space for a laptop, keyboard and mouse would be a very nice alternative. Or just being able to move your office anywhere without losing screen space. When do neovim and tmux get ported to Vision Pro?

Yeah, the interesting thing is that not only they went with what's basically an isolation headset, all the demo stuff was veeery spacious. Soo it very much looks like they intend to use isolation as a way to give space, also "all-day experience" (?), kinda wow. Possibly the passthrough stuff is just for nuisance the real deal might be the spaciousness.

 

[iroboto]

Apple Vision Pro is cheaper. If it ends up with higher quality visuals and better fov, they'll have basically stolen the consumer market for AR away from any potential Microsoft had.

1/3 the cost IIRC. Hololens started at 15K, dropped to 10K, then I believe HL2 was supposed to be in the 3-4k range, but it never hit the market.

 

[Scott_Arm]

1/3 the cost IIRC. Hololens started at 15K, dropped to 10K, then I believe HL2 was supposed to be in the 3-4k range, but it never hit the market.

I was wrong. Hololens 2 is basically the same price $3500 ... unless you can't actually buy it?

HoloLens 2—Pricing and Options | Microsoft HoloLens

Explore pricing and options for HoloLens 2, including an offer that pairs it with Dynamics 365 Remote Assist to help you get started and save over time.

www.microsoft.com

 

[Scott_Arm]

When your product depends on software that needs to be highly tailored to the experience, it's hard to get developer interest if you don't achieve some level of mass adoption.

Yah, that's fair. If it's going to be used for work you'd kind of need Microsoft Office etc. I'm kind of curious about how streaming apps and games will work. How much modification does it take to go from iOS to VisionOS.

 

[iroboto]

I was wrong. Hololens 2 is basically the same price $3500 ... unless you can't actually buy it?

HoloLens 2—Pricing and Options | Microsoft HoloLens

Explore pricing and options for HoloLens 2, including an offer that pairs it with Dynamics 365 Remote Assist to help you get started and save over time.

www.microsoft.com

hmm maybe I had that confused with HL3

 

[xz321zx]

Hololens is just a completely different product, there's no way the see-through 50-60 diagonal FOV adds up to anything like this. For starters, pass-through will disallow IRL depth cues (possibly very bright) thereby won't make you refocus from time to time and that's kindof the point, at least until they add variable focus.

 

[eastmen]

Apple Vision Pro is cheaper. If it ends up with higher quality visuals and better fov, they'll have basically stolen the consumer market for AR away from any potential Microsoft had.

Sure apple vision pro is cheaper for now. But we haven't seen a new hololens yet which I reckon we see next year. MS is also going to be mass producing these for the US army and have gotten tons of data from the private sector and government sector for improvements.

 

[SmooTh]

Is Hololens alive with MS kicking the MRTK Team?

 

[JoeJ]

So we're in the era of 'spatial computing' now. Nice marketing term.
But i wonder they seemingly target private use for entertainment and communication.
For that price i assumed the target is something like industrial design work.
Well, we'll see if this becomes an attractive new platform for games...

 

[eastmen]

Is Hololens alive with MS kicking the MRTK Team?

Hololens is still going on. They have a deal with the Military worth tens of billions so yea they are still working on it. Its the side stuff around it that they killed off. I'd expect to see a new one either 2024 or 2025. Before leaving the company I saw one with about roughly the FOV double that of the second generation. It also had better cameras and tracking and was a bit of a pyhsical redesign. dunno if that is ultimately what will be released since that was pre army feedback.