Comment by shadowgovt
3 years ago
I think it's a good risk, and the kind of risk Apple is well-positioned (as a combined owner of hardware, software, and third-party software ecosystem) to take.
Major we'll-see risk factors I identify:
1) $3,500 is expensive, any way you slice it. That makes it price-competitive with a workstation.
2) The stand-up-and-work environment they demo'd doesn't work for a lot of people. But if you sit down, you lose a lot of the benefit of that panoramic space.
3) Their gesture interface has to be rock-solid (meaning no false negatives but also no false positives) for it to be part of a daily work environment.
4) We've been experimenting with headsets for long enough to know that for the average user, the amount of time you can comfortably use one is lower than the amount of time seated at a mouse-keyboard-monitor UI.
5) The battery life is 2 hours, which is like nothing. You can use it plugged in, but then you're plugged in (meaning not only that you're tethered to somewhere, but that you've got the constant pressure of the tether disrupting your head motions, which adds up over time in irritation).
All of that having been said, if anyone has a prayer of overcoming these obstacles it's Apple. They've got the software / hardware / UI / UX integration in-house to take a solid run at the challenge.
I completely agree with your point about risk. When we're talking about risk, the opposite of risk is a great benefit, just like a starship. Captain Kirk said great risk we have, the more potential gain we probably gain. Stand-up work environment is also huge for me. I don't like sitting all the time in front of a desk. But I'm not sure if I sit down, all the benefits gonna last. Maybe it's just a choice. Maybe I can sit down doing some different kind of things. Or maybe I can lay on my bed, just do something else. The gesture interface has to be rock solid. I agree. Especially you're already doing something more fine-tune level things.For example, you want to manipulate a 3D object, but I think we can, or the engineering can finally overcome those difficulties by using those optical algorithms to track, to kind of think about a new way to interact with computer. Actually, if you think about the way we communicate with computer, all we're talking about is the keyboard, but does the keyboard is the only solution to all the problem we have? I don't think that is the only problem. The battery lapsed two hours, I'm not sure what exactly they mean. If it's just two hours, maybe it's a replaceable charge or something like that, maybe we can bring a bigger external battery. I'm not sure, but if it's just only working for two hours, that's going to be some potential issues here.
IMHO the biggest risk factor is that without a mass market version (running iPhone apps in a window doesn't count) the developers won't reach the critical mass you need to support a novel piece of hardware like this. $3500 is a shit ton to spend on a toy that lets you have a virtual Mickey Mouse standing next to a screen playing a Disney movie.
If nobody is buying the product then developers have no incentive to buy one either. The only software for it will be demos from Apple and extremely expensive bespoke professional applications for businesses, and that market is far too small for Apple to ever recoup their R&D costs, much less ongoing expenses.
The only way I see this working is if Apple themselves invent a killer application for the headset. Even then its going to struggle to find buyers at that price point. It doesn't matter how cool your hardware is if nobody can afford it. It's hard to see how they would even cut down the existing hardware to make a version for real people.