“Apple’s approach to negotiations may have cost it the technology that powers Microsoft’s Kinect, an anecdote revealed today,” Electronista reports. “The CEO of technology creator PrimeSense, Inon Beracha, explained during a flight that he had shopped the motion control technology first to Apple but that the company had asked him to sign ‘crippling’ legal deals and non-disclosure agreements. With other companies very interested at the time, there was no reason to agree to Apple’s terms, Beracha told Cult of Mac’s Leander Kahney. ‘Apple is a pain in the ass,”‘ Beracha claimed.”
Electronista reports, “Apple’s unintentional sacrifice of the technology may have come from its ad hoc negotiation method which only recently became refined with full-time staff. The lack of a dedicated team, and an absence of pressure to complete a deal, ultimately cost it the acquisition of AdMob.”
Read more in the full article here.
Leander Kahney reports for Cult of Mac, “PrimeSense’s system is at the heart of Microsoft’s new Kinect game controller, which is getting rave reviews and looks set to be a monster hit. It’s a “crazy, magical, omigosh rush,” says the New York Times‘ David Pogue. And it almost belonged to Apple.”
Full article here.
I fail to understand the love people are showing for the new xbox and ps3 addons that make them wii like. What’s so special about showing up late to the party? Someone please enlighten me..
Bummer. Does seem like something Apple should have gobbled up.
No loss for Apple.
You should check out the execution of Kinect. Not smooth at all but a good concept. It has years of refinement to go, maybe even decades.
@truth
I guess it’s late to the gaming party as far as gimmicky games goes but, have we all become so detached that we aren’t excited at all by a system that brings voice recognition and commands, face recognition and movement tracking right into our homes? This type of tech is awesome and mostly we just disdain it online, no it’s not perfect but the potential is amazing, personally I can’t wait to see what the indie gamers do with it when they get the chance. Let’s recognize that MS has put out some crap but let’s also recognize this tech for what it us, something that has great potential and that we could only dream of being in our homes before. It all really depends on refining what it can do and imagination, there’s more there than just the gimmicky games, that’s just where it starts
yep – $150 Kinect vs $200 Wii = Kinect FAIL.
Apple could have obtained jetpacks before Microsloth too – so what? This is hype aimed at backing Microsloths ‘good choices’ and nothing else – pure hype. Apple specializes in utilizing technology to its fullest – not technology for its own sake. Touchscreens existed a long time ago, but it was the implementation that Apple fully considered. Kinect teardowns show a few camera and a motion sensor in a box – if i’m correct – and Apple is way beyond that level, designing batteries and cpus.
“…Beracha believed it would also replace remote controls completely…”
Whenever I read things like this, I recall a sequence from “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”, in which Zaphod Beeblebrox listens to a radio equipped with a remote control so advanced that you only had to wave your hands to change the channel. Of course, it meant sitting absolutely still if you want to keep listening to the same channel.
IOW, the user interface has to be optimized for its specific purpose. It’s not something that you throw into products without a lot of R&D. Apple knows this better than anyone.
My gut tells me that this technology, amazing as it may be, requires a lot more fine tuning.
In a world with iPods, iPads, and iPhones… who needs to have a separate gadget to play games…. it’s right here in your pocket or on your lap… I have no idea why they still think a game console should be a separate thing…. iPhone does games as good as it handles my Emails, web browsing, calls, contacts, etc.
Once Microcrap has it, you can be sure they’ll fudge it up!
Eh… kinect is just Eye Toy 2… big deal …
The iPhone and iPad are not dedicated among consoles. There is far more power in a ps3 or xbox 360 pr wii
Is this another Bungie fiasco? Probably not. If it were truly ready for prime time Apple has learned to be aggressive. Look how fast that made the Intrinsity deal.
This sweatmill/sweatshop technology has nothing to do with Apple’s products, so the article is empty pointless nonsense.
I’ll reserve my judgement of Kinect because I’ve never used it. For certain gaming applications, I can see it being a runaway hit.
Where computing is today, multi-touch is a far superior interface solution, though.
Plus, if everyone can just go around breaking Apple’s multi-touch intellectual property, don’t really see why Apple couldn’t rip this off (and do it better) anyway down the road.
That sucks. Incorporating it with Apple’s multi-touch technology would’ve brought us a big step closer to that vaunted “Minority Report” world.
The good news is that Apple is at least working on multi-gestural recognition. I feared they might get left behind. I’m sure Microsoft is hard at work bringing Kinect-like features to other products, especially computers. They want to own that space.
@ R2
I really don’t want to be waving at my computer to make it do things the that subtle (but extremely accurate) movements of my fingers can do. It’ll be awhile before we have images floating in space like in Minority Report that would make that at all practical.
Typical response from MDN and the posters here. Defend Apple even if it means hypocrisy.
I bet if they had bought it, the response would have been how great Apple is.
Reality anyone?
Apple doesn’t pander to anyone – Steve Jobs has always been a no bullshit straight arrow – Apple has come thus far because of that.
Bottom line – if you don’t like it, lump it.
Glad they didn’t invest in it… I’ve already got a Wii and it rarely gets played… Won’t be buying it for the 360 either
Microsoft has a huge investment in gaming consoles with their X-Box franchise. It made perfect sense for MS to go after this technology (especially on the heels of the Wii’s success). I truly doubt that Apple had any serious interest. Apples emphasis and recent success is based on “touch”. This tech does not fit in with this.
As the owner of an X-Box console I have been paying attention to Kinect. It will be interesting to see how is ultimately implemented.
Steve will pick it up at the Redmond yard sale. Why pay full price for new when you can get a deal on it used.
Since Apple does not make anything like an XBox, I would have to say I weep at the thought of not being able to jump up and down and wave my arms to open a folder on my Mac.
Monster hit my @ss. Certainly not at $150. The PlayStation Move will definitely out sell Kinect this Christmas season.
And they would have done exactly what, with this technology? Made a game console? Had us waving our hands in the air like Tom Cruise in Minority Report.?
Philosophically multi-touch and motion systems are not necessarily compatible. Everything Apple does is aimed to make the magical effortless for the user. A motion system where you have to move like a mad conductor is the opposite. If I can turn all the lights off in my house with 1 click on the iPhone, then it is far easier than and effective than doing “Clap-On-Clap-Off”.
I know. I have a WII, and it is boring after a few games. You cannot compare it to snowboarding, tennis, or golf playing for real. You cannot do it while relaxing in a cafe or in public transit either.
@ZealotDetector
It would have been kind of stupid for Apple to buy it.
Steve Jobs: “Here’s our awesome new motion sensing videogame controller! Wait, what? We don’t make a videogame console? Oh. Well, shit…”
Also, I’ll go out on a limb and say the Kinect was ultimately a bad idea in the first place. The reviews are actually mixed, they say its motion detection can be shoddy, and there’s really nothing it does that that the Playstation Eye doesn’t already do, except for cost alot more money and take up more space. Oh, and have more hype behind it.
Even if Apple did make a console, I seriously doubt turning down PrimeSense would’ve been a loss. Hell, they weren’t even offering anything unique.
And they didn’t want AdMob either. Right?
@ZealotDetector
“…I bet if they had bought it, the response would have been how great Apple is. …”
1. How much do you want to wager?
2. How are we going to prove this bet?
Plus, if Apple had bought PrimeSense’s motion control technology, I’ll bet they would have made it even more awesome.
And I’ll bet Microsoft totally screws it up.
1. I’ll bet $100 on each scenario.
How big is the average person’s game room?
The Kinect requires 7-10 feet to work optimally and I am willing to bet that most people don’t have that kind of space in front of their TVs.
kinnect is great – for preteens that love to jump around. for everyone else, it will get old very fast. its UI is just too limited in scope while too much effort at the same time.
teens and grownups will want the Sony Move, now a better version of the Wii with much more gameplay abilities than Kinnect. the PS3 will sell well from now on.
but – as an add-on for the still-working xx million XBoxes, Kinnect will be very popular for those households with young kids. so it will sell a lot and be considered a success, depite its niche market.
the big loser here is Nintendo. the Wii HD should be going on sale now too, but Nintendo stupidly thought it could milk the old one for another year.
The real deal killer is Apple wanted it to recognize black people too.
It appears that Kinect is pretty useless in the daytime, it doesn’t like sunlight.
http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2010/11/review-kinect/
so it has a lot in common with the 360 then
‘pretty useless’
Soon there will be more monkeys jumping around than there are sane humans.
Saw an ad for this system several days before this article was posted, and I noticed the space requirements too.
Wondered why someone would want to pay the price of a Wii for an add-on that needs that much working area.
People talk about Move being a Wii copy. In fact Kinect looks more like Wii than Kinect. Why?
Because Sony is pushing Move to be used as a controller for “real” games. Shooters are going to fit perfectly with move, because it has analogs and is more precise than the Wiimote (besides being used with a much superior console). There’ll always be “flay your arms around” type games, but Move has the potential to substitute the DualShock.
Kinect, on the other hand, is nothing but a gimmick piece, just like Wii was. Wii sales exploded at first, and many people said it was better than xbox or ps3 because of it (that was, and still is, annoying to hear), but there are nearly zero good games for the Wii.
And that’s exactly what’s happening with Kinect. You can’t put it to control Modern Warfare or Mass Effect. Only those useless party games. And it pains me to hear Pogue talking about it as if it were a big deal. He’s got no idea what the fuck he’s talking about
@R2 Except that kinect already does a “Minority Reporty thingy”, and it is the same ergonomic disaster that a desktop with a touchscreen
Beracha IS A PAIN IN THE ASS…
Apple should be happy they didn’t get this crappy technology.
I have no idea what Apple would have done with this technology. They are not a game box maker and have stayed away from gaming in general.
Therefore, despite the fact that the developer is a sucker to go with Microsoft, he’s making sales residuals right now as opposed to having the tech sit and gather dust at Apple.
Meanwhile, watching the Kinect ads, all I can say is ‘BFD’. Eventually there might be a virtual reality killer app for it. But what I’m seeing is as exciting as dancing in a mirror. Yawn.
Apple (unfortunately) has shown little interest in gaming on their platform. I don’t see this integrating well with any current products. And from what I hear, you need a 6×6 foot playing area for it to work. I’m sure eventually it will be worth getting, but for now it sounds like version 1.0 tech.