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invent_or_die t1_j27qehy wrote

Reply to comment by o5mfiHTNsH748KVq in Saudis take control of US augmented reality company Magic Leap by MicroSofty88

It is, but the headgear is so uncomfortable for any real length of time I couldn't imagine working or playing for more than an hour maybe two.
Also, the visual area in AR is still tiny.

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KruppeTheWise t1_j28q4ye wrote

Consider the original iPhone in 2008 and the latest one available today.

Apply the same level of funding and development to VR today and 15 years from now, you'll barely be able to tell a regular pair of glasses from a VR pair.

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AintThatJustADaisy t1_j29eduj wrote

The original iPhone was good and sold well

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KruppeTheWise t1_j29inbx wrote

The original iPhone was an iPod with phone capabilities. No app store. If you tried to tell anyone how big apps would get in 2008, they would laugh in your face.

The current gaming and meeting gimmicks VR is viewed as are analogous to slapping a SIM into an iPod and saying here, iPhone.

The company that makes the VR equivalent of the original iPhone could end up with something worth what the current Appstore is worth, with around $100 billion gross, if they can catch that lighting and stay on top of the market.

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zerogee616 t1_j2ce2v5 wrote

The first iPhone, from a UI/UX perspective, isn't really that different than what we have today. Sure, processing power, camera capabilities increased over the years, but the core product is similar in how it looks, acts and operates.

It also wasn't sold on a "It'll get better guys, I know it sucks now but you just gotta hang in there" promise, it did what it set out to do from the get-go and everybody just kept building on it.

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KruppeTheWise t1_j2dtgpy wrote

The first iPhone didn't have an app store. It was literally an iPod touch with a SIM card in it. You're mistaken.

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zerogee616 t1_j2dtyz0 wrote

The app store has zero bearing on UI/UX. That was the result of a business philosophy decision to allow other parties on the platform. iPhones (and most smart phones in general) look, feel and control the same way, minus Apple and Android's specific differences. People liked it when it came out, basically made the playbook for smart phones and wasn't relegated to a niche product for 5 years like VR is and demand compromises from the user, because it did the job at the beginning.

I owned an iPod Touch around that time, with an app store. Minus technical capabilities, it's really, really not that much different in terms of user experience to a phone today.

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KruppeTheWise t1_j2dwvad wrote

You're litterally arguing my point here dude. There were a host of proto-"smart" phones from the likes of Nokia (the N95 that had apps, GPS superior camera etc) Blackberry etc.

Most people couldn't see the point in them and just had a regular Nokia brick, or a Razer.

Some thought they were just palm pilots with calling ability, for nerds.

There were plenty of MP3 players too (often superior to the iPod) but they were clunky, in the case of my Creative Nomad it looked like a CD player!

What the iPod touch and iPhone did, and you're correct, is make something both usable by the average non techie person with their UI, and also a status symbol that cost just enough like a pair of Nike's to make it desirable versus being a geeks toy. So yes, the UI like you said made a big impression, but it was just a row of apps for things like calculators made by Apple the capacitive screen if anything was more important at the time. Once it was mass market enough, once enough people had the device it caused a cascade of devs to jump on the app store and the rest is history.

My point is, someone has to make the VR headset equivalent of the original iPhone, to be a desirable object the rich kids in the schools all get first, a status symbol, and then the Metaverse/VR Store etc will come alive with devs and people buying and using those apps and then we will see the real creativity and living breathing ecosystem it can become.

Meta seem to be trying to brute force the marketplace before they can get the device in enough homes or get it desirable enough, in the chicken and the egg debate they have firmly picked the egg to focus on.

I don't think you can argue today's VR headsets are N95s and or blackberries, for tech enthusiasts or business use only. People are looking at them like wow so expensive and make you look like a geek. When it flips it will be wow look, so expensive, only geeks don't have the Apple iSet whatever it will be called.

The VR headset you see your parents using, the one you see kids using at school while other kids stand around hoping to have a go, that's the one that's going to kick off the VR revolution.

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metarinka t1_j2a75rk wrote

Fun fact AR has this unsolved vision blocking paradign.

Imagine a big tablet in your hands with a full screen video playing. Your wife calls you and you look up at her.

Ok now imagine you have a table sized screen floating in front of your face and your wife calls and you are already looking up. She doesn't know you can't see her and you can't see her without pressing buttons or whatever to hide the screen. Inconvenient.

Now imagine your a 737 pilot about to land in bad weather and you get a full screen pop-up that you forgot to check the tire pressure.

If it's small you can work around it but then it's a stamp at arms length. If it's big then no one has solved when you want to pay attention and when you want to not. Typical gauges let you look down at them. At best it solves really niche things like when you want limited headsup info like a speedometer floating while you drive but that's not life changing.

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w1ldw1ng t1_j28e4e6 wrote

I thought ML1 and ML2 are some of the "comfiest" looking HMDs in the AR space. However yeah still not ideal for long term use.

Have you gotten to try a ML headset before?

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Mcarrazz t1_j28g0c9 wrote

The HoloLens is actually very comfortable. I regularly wear it for 2-3 hours at a time. Battery life is usually the limiter there, not comfort. It’s not like wearing a VR headset, where there is a lot of pressure on your face and the screens cause a lot of eye fatigue. The Hololens is also a visor on a swivel so you can “get out of mixed reality” very quickly.

I don’t use Magic Leap, mostly because it requires a puck with a cable and a controller which don’t work for the use cases at my job. But it is used for surgery in China, and surgeons would never wear it if it wasn’t comfortable for multiple hours. Magic Leap 2 also has the best field of view of any mixed reality headset

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w1ldw1ng t1_j28ghg7 wrote

I’ve been enjoying the comfort upgrades on the Quest Pro which I hear is similar to the feel of the HoloLens design.

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Mcarrazz t1_j28h44l wrote

I think the Quest Pro feels clunkier and is harder to adjust than the HoloLens. I have a big head, and I’ve struggled to adjust the front dial while the device is on my head.

The Hololens also has a top head strap that makes the weight more evenly distributed for longer use which the Quest Pro does not.

I’m not a huge fan of the Quest Pro to be honest

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EVOSexyBeast t1_j2976ck wrote

How did you manage to get a hold of a hololens?

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invent_or_die t1_j2b2nqp wrote

I've had access to one and used it for a while. It is quite nice but it was version 1, and the image area was small. Could not imagine 2 hours, my neck gets bad. Would like to try ML2.

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