I'm not convinced they'll ever be more than niche unless they keep getting smaller and smaller
Size matters, but i don't think it's the main obstacle. It's the invasive aspect of technology, and what's a better symbol for such invasion than something you put very close to your eyes. Glasses, contact lens, so maybe brain implant is the next step. Dystopian SciFi fantasy, or obvious association?
Idk, but current generations have consumed enough SciFi, so there is primal fear. We don't want to become a Borg society, we don't want to be tracked in data centers, we don't want to trade the wonders of life and nature against a simulation lie.
Maybe that's exaggerated concerns, but it raises the question: Do we want to extend our reality with something virtual? Or do we not, but rather expect we would be forced to do so, e.g. to work?
That's why i'm so doubtful. Things like comfort or costs come only after that. Wearable computing may be just too close to us. We might prefer to keep it locked away in some box at a distance.
That's also why Apple is in a much better position than Facebook. Apple is expensive, but they don't promise you to get a lot of friends while throwing ads at you.
That's more worth than 'finally you can't see the pixels anymore!', i think.
So if you want to watch movies, i'd expect Apple serves you well, not only because their tech is usually good and works.
I want something similar: Just playing games.
And would assume that's the things most people want. I really don't see anything social here. There is nothing social about tech in general, imo.
But then here's the problem: Movies and games are clearly VR. It's about fantasy and ignoring the real world for some time, not about augmenting it in any way.
So why not just some video glasses, without bunch of tracking HW you do not need? Or some Valve headset, actually coming with nice controllers to play?
Even if we combine our interests, still no need for AR beyond some gimmicks. Why should we pay for it then?
I guess Apple will not answer this question, and maybe they shouldn't.
They might just give the option and hope app developers come up with something.
Oh, maybe showing the real world just on the edges of the screen would fix the motion sickness problem for games, for example? Immersion might suffer a bit, but could be worth it.
Time to reactivate my Apple dev account, hehe...
The closer the screen the more it appears flat because you recognize it due to binocular "background processing" , you can keep telling yourself there's depth but it's just not the same, and that hurts a lot of genres because? Let's take for example SPACE EXPLORATION game- it's highly likely mass effect would work better if it wasn't for the need for VISCERAL hi-octane stuff on every corner because devs had to overcompensate for the lack of subtlety offered by nearby flatscreen.
Quoting this again, because i think you overestimate the importance of subtlety. I mean, subtlety by definition is not important, but subtle. Thus, even if we manage to nail subtlety, no huge change on the big picture is to expected. Simple logic.
But you also overestimate the importance of display quality in general. Remember the GameBoy for example. Worst display ever, one of the most successful toys ever. You could barely see anything on the screen, it did not even had some colors, and still people loved it. This implies what people love about games is not what is shown on the output device, but what happens inside the box. The simulation of a small world which is fun to interact with. The reward of mastering a hard but fair challenge. The progress of some exciting story. Things like that.
In other words: Smoke On The Water rocks, no matter if composed and played on some Gibson or Fender, no matter if heard on some hifi amp or some crappy ear plug. It's the song that shatters the earth, not the speaker.