“There’s a market segment that’s desperately needing a little slice of Apple [AAPL] product marketing magic, and it’s 3DTV. Introduced with much brouhaha as a ‘must-have’ killer new feature, the technology has rapidly been relegated to just another spec, consumers like it, don’t love it,” Jonny Evans writes for Computerworld. “Does Apple have an iPad plan to make the technology interesting?”
“‘The fact that the iPad 3 is 3D is a dead certainty,’ a Hollywood insider told RCR Wireless,” Evans reports. “The report claims numerous big name studios are attempting to develop 3D content for Apple’s next launch. Foxconn sources have also claimed Apple is working on a 3D iPad.”
Evans reports, “Apple has filed a wide number of 3D patents, including for 3D operating system elements. The company has also been rumored to have been working on the development of 3D glasses. In the last few days Apple has said that the 3D Web graphics standard, WebGL, will be an option within iOS 5 for iAds.”
Much more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “rimshot” for the heads up.]
oh dear god please no!
Are you kiggin me. Why the hell not?
I expect Apple to do it better than anyone else,,,,,i.e. no headaches, no crossed eyes, no glasses, and definitely optional ON/OFF switch.
BECAUSE THEY COULD BE SPENDING THE FRIGGIN MONEY WITH A ROGUE GPU, THAT’S WHY.
3D is a goddamn gimmick, the ultimate waste of money. It consumes resources and fucks with the color balance. DO NOT WANT.
All right, you turds, I hate 3D as well. However, there is some market for it. Apple doesn’t need to make any hardware changes to the ipad, let alone ipad2. The implementation requires a simple app, combined with bluetooth-synced glasses. All your video player app has to provide is alternating left-eye/right-eye frames, then use bluetooth to sync to your LCD glasses, which alternately black-out one eye at a time. Granted, if Apple included system-wide API’s, you could do this with any app, but there’s nothing stopping 3rd parties from implementing it today! And it would work in portrait mode, too.
3D movies are awful because only the subject is in focus and everything else is fuzzy. The rest of the scene is important too and should be able to be seen clearly if the viewer wants. The only way that the rest of the scene can be in focus is if it is computer generated and even then, it lacks the proper scaling change that occurs with normal vision.
Robert. Seriously. Your complaint about 3D displays could be applied just as well to LIFE. In nature, only the thing you are focused on is in focus. Sort of by definition. Everything else is fuzzy. That’s a side effect of being able to focus. When you focus on something, you defocus everything else.
If this bothers you, your issues are deeper than 3D movies. 🙂
Sorry. I think you’ve misinterpreted what Rob’s trying to say. In real life, you can *change* your focus, for example you can stop focusing on the foreground and bring something in the distance into clarity. In 3D movies (or at least, with RealD 3D), the focus is always fixed upon something in particular, and usually on the foreground. Thus, you don’t have the freedom to target objects across different depths of field yourself. Would be interesting to see how affordable 3D in the future can overcome this -though like Robert, I’m kind of wary about Apple taking the plunge…
Although the director may want our attention on a certain character, the scene and the other characters in a movie are also important to most viewers. 3D technology, as it stands, is poorly designed. What is required is a greater range of focus which could be achieved by having long range lenses that are placed further apart to simulate our binocular vision.
The ultimate camera would require pinhole lenses spaced as far apart as our eyes and very sensitive optic receptors. This would roughly approximate a focus free system that would achieve the realism that we crave.
If ‘3D Fan’ understands optics, I am sure that even they would like to watch a system like I have described more than the present day systems.
@ Robert … who said;
“The ultimate camera would require pinhole lenses spaced as far apart as our eyes and very sensitive optic receptors. This would roughly approximate a focus free system that would achieve the realism that we crave.”
Biological 3D doesn’t work like that. The brain decides what to focus on – it is not “focus free”. That can’t be duplicated with any imaging system because it can’ t know what you want to focus on at any given moment. The only possibe way to even approximate such variable real time focus in 3D would be for the device to track the movement of your pupils and re-focus the image accordingly. Even this would be rough, and likely make mistakes, blurring the wrong object at the wrong time.
Biological 3D doesn’t work that way
Guys,
Please….. can’t we all just get along.??? 🙂
Really. unless I am mistaken, 3D does not make a screen unable to do regular tv, it just has enough resolution to do both. 3D means with out the glasses, the image is blurry, but only for that specific movie. Run the regular movie and everything is fine. So everyone take a breath, if the new iPad screen is higher res, I think everyone will be happy. 3D capable, even better.
Just a though.
PS it will leave the others even farther behind. 🙂
3D is not needed. Just plain gimmicky.
Agreed! The iPad is mainly NOT used for watching movies. Why adapt the iPad to a minor application which most consumers don’t want to pay for?
Have to agree with kirkgray. Apple can probably do 3D better than others, at least from user ability point of view. However, Apple will still be limited by production capabilities from manufacturers for 3D displays. It would have to be sans-glasses, as no one would want to have to put on special and ugly glasses just to use their iPad.
If Apple offered it, I think it would be mostly limited to viewing movies and not general OS 3D at first.
3D doesn’t work, and there’s certainly no way to do it on a 2D surface.
Humans do not perceive 3D thru stereoscopic vision, so no amount of mucking around with it will produce anything other than the shoddy garbage being peddled as some new magical experience (pointing directly at James Cameron).
At best, a View-Master effect can be produced but only with one stationary camera angle, and centered content. It’s why the title sequences and opening movie studio logos look 3D, and only a few gimmicky “jumping out from the center” moments. The rest of the film is spent trying to focus on blurry garbage and calling the experience 3D.
When you can’t see the 3D effect during, well of course it’s because the movie wasn’t made properly, and then if that doesn’t hold, it’s always because it hasn’t been seen on the correct ‘__insert_brand__’ of 3D – 2D projection.
People also used to see fleas on trapezes at flea circuses.
I wouldn’t worry about a Hollywood insider’s report, 3D ticket sales are already failing, this summer is killing the trend (note the amount of movie trailers now advertising 2D availability). Sure Hollywood is hoping to turn around declining 3D ticket sales, but its doubtful Apple would invest heavily into such a fad. The latter has a stake in real businesses, as opposed to merely picking the corpse and repackaging old product. Nintendo on the other hand is desperately reaching for a gimmick to help boost sales.
Okay… Have you ever seen a 3D illusion and put your hand through it?
This rumour is BS and that’s why, at least when it comes to the prospects of 3D apps and the user interface. I could see Apple including a 3D feature specifically for displaying fullscreen video and nothing else, though… Maybe. Because you’d still have to interact with some on screen controls to pause and whatnot, screwing up the illusion.
Would Steve tolerate that?
My guess is that before the iPad3 is released next year, the iPad2 HD will be released this Fall in time for the holidays. Retina screen, faster processor, more memory, an Aperture app, etc.
Agreed except the chip. A5 has legs, it’s not in touch and phone yet.
But they NEED faster processor to compensate the Retina Display, and thus a (much) better GPU. That’s why I predict a quad-core or at least higher-clocked A5 and either a four-cored 543 GPU (iPad 2 has a two-cored one) or, in my wishful thinking insanity, a dual-cored Rogue GPU.
I think the people here at MDN have not grasped the importance of the Rogue GPU. We could potentially see things like 1500p games with PS3 graphics on AN IPAD. Not to mention super-snappy system animations, of course
I totally agree kirkgray. The whole 3D this is way over rated! I have played the 3DS from nintendo, and although it is cool technology it leaves you with eye strain and a headache after too long. 3D doesn’t add all that much to movies, except for Avatar which hugely benefited from it. Still putting 3D on a product like the iPad that is meant to be used for hours a day doesn’t seem logical. Not until the tech gets better on the eyes. OF course if anyone could make that happen Apple and its partners could.
Did you adjust the 3D intensity any? When I first got mine I had to leave the adjustment slider at or below the 50% point else I’d get a slight headache. The slider adjusts the maximum depth of the 3D, the higher up you slide it, the further away the objects appear to be. After almost 3 months, I’m now able to leave it at 100% w/out any eye strain or headaches.
That said, the 3D technology used in the 3DS wouldn’t work for an iPad. If you rotate the 3DS display to portrait mode, the 3D disappears.
Yeah I have played with the slider and it does make the effect better. I also love that nintendo created that slider. Its nice to be able to turn the effect completely off if you want. Overall I am happy with the 3DS and although I don’t have one of my own yet I still think there will be one in my future. I doubt they’ll launch Zelda Ocarina of time on my iPhone. Though how sweet would that be?
Thats a good point on the iPad not working in a rotated mode.. I wonder how they would over come that…
Apple is most definitely not working on 3D glasses. Apple will not produce anything for 3D with glasses.
Right. Apple is all about the experience, and the more intuitive the better. 3D glasses don’t fit that paradigm.
And, for now, there is no way to make really good 3D without glasses either. Resume: Apple probably will not do anything 3D in the nearest future.
+1. No way they’ll use glasses. I already wear glasses, and I’m not going to get prescription 3D glasses.
Don’t you want to see Life in 3-D? lol
No, it interferes with my pirate costume.
If they are able to go from normal look to 3D with a simple click, like normal apps, then a 3D film, fine, but not a fully 3D iPad.
video from the article ..here
Thanks for the link. What I didn’t see was exactly how the so-called prototype (if indeed this wasn’t total BS) syncs up the headache induction glasses with the flickering images on the iPad. Are we talking BlueTooth? (gag) Are we talking Wi-Fi?
In any case, I see no reason to panic in the belief that anyone will every have to wear headache induction glasses in order to use their iPad day to day. 3DTV stuff would most likely involve buying the glasses gear as well as the media separately.
I’m going to guess that Apple would including the player software with the OS. And yet we have no sign of such a thing in Lion. We don’t even have a sign that Apple have bothered finishing buggy 64-bit QuickTime X. Once again we appear to be stuck having to use 32-bit QuickTime 7.6.x, which of course is insanely-ridiculous. /rant
LOL. Stupid.
I hate this stupid 3D fad. Hollywood has seen a drastic drop in 3D movie ticket sales and drastic drop in 3D TV sales
Ah F this nonsense. 3D sucks. I can’t wait for this trend to die.
This is dead stupid. The source author is confusing 3D GUI programming with 3DTV. They’re NOT the same thing. Therefore, judging from simply the TechTardiness of the author, I’d say we can all have a hearty laugh at this foolishness.
I would, however, say this is GREAT news for those of use who have been hoping and dreaming for seriously 3D GUI development for Mac OS X and the Internet.
As for 3DTV: I have a headache. 😛
This!
MDN needs a comment voting mechanism. You would’ve won this post.
3D video is no where near ready for tablets. First, it’s obvious that glasses just won’t do. Not going to happen.
That leaves glassess-less 3D. On the one hand, the iPad is perfect for single-viewer direct positioning 3D without glasses. The problem is that you can’t “turn off the 3D”. Sure, you can watch non-3D content, but the display itself is still a 3D display for use without glasses. The problem with that is that these displays are much darker, which means they’d have to use about twice as much back lighting to achieve the same brightness… And there would go your battery life for 99% of the use of the iPad for most people.
3D is so Gay!
That’s right I said yet
I get it. Gay equals bad, so 3D equals Gay means 3D is bad.
You, sir, are a douchebag.
And or course you had to perpetrate your misery mongering as an anonymous coward. Thanks ‘ed’ for being a non sequitur trolling douchebag.
You mean it’s more stylish than you, gets more sex and has a higher disposable income?
Cool.
Watching Thor in real3D was painful. The glasses really limited the viewing experience when watching the fast action scenes. After watching it again without the 3D, I’m off the 3D train.
I want good wireless earbuds before 3D.
Stupid rumor.
Sorry for the mundane question but how do you pronounce your name?
Complete and utter BS
Apple is minimalistic. Not into making the experience more complicated. Unless they can achieve it without glasses, it won’t happen. Glasses are distracting. More of a pc experience but not an apple one.
I scoff at the notion that a “Hollywood insider” would know anything about Apple’s device plans. 3D technology is no where close to the quality that Apple would require (i.e. It doesn’t “just work”, and I’m not sure it ever can). 3D doesn’t add enough benefit to make it beyond a gimmick except, perhaps, in some limited cases.
3D would be completely pointless in an iPad. It’s pointless in a TV. It’s just pointless.
Maybe Disney wants it, so they might do it … But it would be pointless.
Can’t believe all the negativity on this, especially from what I considered to be one of the more intelligent groups of tech geeks on a web discussion site.
Do you guys really not see the amazing benefits of 3D DONE RIGHT? Now I must admit the “DONE RIGHT” pat is the key ingredient. And YES, like all of you I hate the 3D gadgets we have had to date; what with all the headaches and having to wear glasses etc etc. But do none of you see that Apple will not bring 3D UNLESS it provides a painless experience?
I think Apples 3D will be painless. And I think it will be amazing to see. Oh by the way, your brain is geared to be a 3D engine. It uses less effort to see a moving 3D image than to process a moving image in 2D. Why? Because a moving 2D image is not natural, and your brain has to extrapolate the missing details of the 3rd dimension.
The one version of 3D ‘Done Right’ uses polarized glasses and a polarized projected image. It requires two film projectors that are in perfect sync with one another. It can also use a special twin LCD projector, although I am personally not aware of their existence.
That fact tosses conventional TVs and computer/gadget screens out the window. They can’t do that.
Potentially in the future there could be some sort of dynamic polarizing layer over the LCD layer of a display whereby the polarizing flickers 90º in sync with the corresponding frame. The viewer would wear the conventional polarizing glasses to pick up the corresponding frames into one of their eyes.
Except I am personally unaware of any way to create dynamic polarizing in any way.
CONCLUSION: Without dual image projection of polarized images and the use of polarized glasses, 3DTV/3DVideo is a headache. What we’re left with is flickering images and flickering glasses, which is by no means a ‘hit’ with the public. It’s just an annoying fad. Or worse yet, you use the dual color glasses and the dual color images on screen: tackiness defined, highly retro, but at least you don’t get a headache.
” Oh by the way, your brain is geared to be a 3D engine. It uses less effort to see a moving 3D image than to process a moving image in 2D. Why? Because a moving 2D image is not natural, and your brain has to extrapolate the missing details of the 3rd dimension.”
True, but but the way we perceive 3d in the real world is a function how our eyes focus and converge. Our eyes tell us about depth by focussing at the same distance that they converge (where the line of site from one crosses the other), the way 3d is done now forces us to separate these functions and makes our eyes focus at one distance and converge at another, that is why 3d sucks.
So yes, our brains are built to work in 3d, but REAL 3d caused by differences in spacial relationships, not fake 3d created only through a shifted parallax, and until someone figures out a way to address the focus/convergence issue 3d will continue to suck.
But I too hold out hope for a 3d future, I just won’t hold my breath.
Paul that is wrong. First of all, I am sure Apple has no intention of doing anything with 3d content. It has been a non-starter from the beginning. A fad that the movie industry was hoping to differentiate the movie-going experience from home theatre. Unfortunately the tv manufacturers ruined their plans.
As to the brain having an easier time with 3d content, that is also wrong. The brain has to adjust the images you see for the parallax shift inherent in binocular vision. In looking at 2nd the brain simply ignores that process.
I thought Paul was dead?
Google it if you don’t know.
cranberry sauce.
“It uses less effort to see a moving 3D image than to process a moving image in 2D. Why? Because a moving 2D image is not natural, and your brain has to extrapolate the missing details of the 3rd dimension.”
This must be why I get a migraine 3 minutes into anything “3D” — suddenly my brain has all this extra processing power it’s not using so it figures, “Hey let’s pump those extra cycles into a killer headache, that’ll be fun!”
Highly doubtful… Apple has MANY patents (the majority) that have never been applied in actual products. And if studios are working on “3D” content for iPad, it is because all current iPads (including the original) can probably do 3D right now, with an special viewer app and glasses.
This is more nonsense (from the competition) to encourage consumers to delay iPad purchases, because “something new” is always just around the corner. There is nothing close to iPad 2, so Apple has no need to release an “iPad 3” until 2012 (right ON schedule).
Not a fan of 3D myself but if it’s optional everyone wins.
Ugh. I have yet to see any 3D media where the 3D part adds anything to the experience but the cost. Even with an “off” switch, I don’t want to pay for any 3D hardware that I will never use.
It may be interesting without glasses, and an option to turn it off.
I won’t be spending my money though on a device that doesn’t look right without wearing those stupid glasses.
It seems like a lot of adding iffy tech by a company known for subtracting iffy and standard tech to make the best product.
I can’t imagine a 3d version of the iPad as being best at anything other than being a 3d iPad, beyond that, iPad doesn’t need 3d.
If i want a headache from using a tablet computer I’ll get one with windows on it.
This will never happen.