Much like the company did with Apple Watch, Apple will pitch their mixed-reality headset with a variety of features — games, fitness services, ebooks, and computing in virtual reality — and hope that buyers find something they like.
Mark Gurman for Bloomberg News:
It’s not such a wild approach. After all, Apple did the same thing when it unveiled its watch. In 2014, Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook pitched the original Apple Watch… Apple had little idea which options would resonate. In the end, it focused on health tracking, notifications and complication-rich watch faces — but only after customers zeroed in on those features as their favorites.
MacDailyNews Take: Apple is forced – by a decision made by Steve Jobs himself – to launch new products this way.
The Apple Watch is a perfect example of the difference between Steve Jobs’ Apple and the post-Steve era under Cook. We, the users, were the Apple Watch alpha and beta testers, collectively standing in for Steve Jobs, doing much of what the singular genius would have done before release by brute force and sheer numbers after release. It took four generations of Apple Watch, but we’re here now! – MacDailyNews, February 28, 2019
Tim’s not a product person, per se. – Steve Jobs
Of course, what we predicted many years ago has come to pass:
A team of people – talented people who actually get it and who are all on the same page – is an absolute necessity for Apple’s success, but it creates a problem: Jobs was a single filter. A unified mind. The founder. A group of people simply cannot replicate that. This is not to say that they cannot do great work (we believe Apple does, and will continue, to do great work) just that Apple is fundamentally affected by the loss of Steve Jobs and has to figure out a new way to work. — MacDailyNews, April 8, 2014
Nine years later, we’re about to see something similar play out with the Apple headset, which — based on trademark filings — is likely to be dubbed the Reality Pro or Reality One. The device is packed with new technologies and a wide range of capabilities.
They include:
• The ability to run most of Apple’s existing iPad apps in mixed reality, which blends AR and VR. That includes Books, Camera, Contacts, FaceTime, Files, Freeform, Home, Mail, Maps, Messages, Music, Notes, Photos, Reminders, Safari, Stocks, TV and Weather.
• A new Wellness app with a focus on meditation, featuring immersive graphics, calming sounds and voice-overs.
• Being able to run the hundreds of thousands of existing third-party iPad apps from the App Store with either no extra work or minimal modifications.
• A new portal for watching sports in virtual reality as part of Apple’s push into streaming live games and news.
• A large gaming focus, including top-tier titles from existing third-party developers for Apple’s other devices.
• A feature to use the headset as an external monitor for a connected Mac.
• Advanced videoconferencing and virtual meeting rooms with realistic avatars, ideally making users feel like they’re interacting in the same place.
• New collaboration tools via the Freeform app that let users work on virtual whiteboards and go over material together.
• A new VR-focused Fitness+ experience for working out while wearing the headset (though this feature likely won’t arrive until later).
• A way to watch video while immersed in a virtual environment, such as a desert scene or in the sky.
• Users will also be able to operate the headset in several different ways, including by hand and eye control and Siri. It also will work with a connected keyboard or controls from another Apple device.
MacDailyNews Take: The Apple Watch certainly found its way – we, the users, were the Apple Watch alpha and beta testers, collectively standing in for Steve Jobs, doing much of what the singular genius would have done before release by brute force and sheer numbers after release. It took four generations of Apple Watch, but we’re here now and we wouldn’t trade the experience for anything! The same goes for Apple Glasses!
The Apple Glasses will be the key as holding up slabs of glass as “windows” is suboptimal. When we’re running in a race, for example, we don’t want to have to hold an iPhone or even glance at an Apple Watch, but with a pair of Apple Glasses constantly overlaying time, pace, splits, etc. it’ll be ideal! — MacDailyNews, September 6, 2019
Augmented Reality is going to change everything. — MacDailyNews, July 21, 2017
Someday, hopefully sooner than later, we’ll look back at holding up slabs of metal and glass to access AR as unbelievably quaint. — MacDailyNews, July 28, 2017
The impact of augmented reality cannot be overstated. It will be a paradigm shift larger than the iPhone and the half-assed clones it begat. — MacDailyNews, August 4, 2017
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With Mac, iMac, iPod, iPad, and iPhone there was a clear market place for the products. They changed the market by the power of their innovation. There wasn’t need to do marketing research because either the product itself defined the market, or Apple designers could use themselves to discern what the market would want. For example, everyone at Apple hated their phones. Too hard to use. Didn’t help the user’s productivity, weren’t enjoyable. Designers simply asked what would we want our phones to do for ease, productivity, and enjoyment. They figured they were like the general public enough that if they loved their phones a large portion of the general public would to. The rest is history, as they say.
Now with the Apple Watch ⌚️ and these goggles there was/is no clear compelling reason for their existence prior to their development. So makes them do lots of things to discern what people want. So the product’s true use will be defined by how the customer chooses to use them.
Is this good? Bad? Don’t know. But it’s different.
there was not a clear market for the Mac before the Mac.
New Sam, obviously you don’t know or else don’t remember your personal computer history. In 1985 released the Mac. In that year, the personal computer market was growing rapidly, with IBM and Apple being dominant players. The IBM PC and the Apple were two of the most popular personal computers of that time.
Close, it was 1984…
But there were IBM XT/AT’s and Apple. Lisa, then Macintosh.
It cost damn near as much as my new car then! 🙂
You’re correct. 1985 was a typo. Point of comment doesn’t change. In 1984 personal computers were already a big financial deal when released the first Mac.
they best offer 3000 dollars.
listen computer tech has been with us a pretty long time now, it’s time to see some major price drops on hardware.