Apple Scraps Work on Mac-Connected Augmented Reality Glasses (opens in new tab)

These Viture One Pro glasses seem good, I might interested in one of these. I wear glasses, don't like wearing contacts, so I wonder how they would work for me. The video (at 1:18) shows that the Pro version has 2 dials to set focus. But the product page says that's to fix "blurry edges". Is this something I could use without my glasses? or will I need to wear contacts?

https://youtu.be/bdc9rcrZW8I?si=j9kY7rrCaQstYoQd&t=78

https://pro.viture.com/

edit: I think this maybe answers my question: https://www.reddit.com/r/VITURE/comments/159gt36/i_wear_glas...

| You can easily adjust each VITURE One XR Glasses lens to your prescription (0 to -5.00D) with convenient knobs located on the top of the frames.

| If your prescription doesn't fall into this range, no worries – to make sure everyone has access to a clear VITURE One experience, we’ve also developed a prescription frame that you can have your own lenses fitted into. This frame attaches to VITURE One XR Glasses magnetically for easy on and off.

The camera is one of the most important features for me. I had (and returned) a pair of INMO Air2's primarily because of the poor camera quality. Waiting to see how the TCL RayNeo X2 performs (was supposed to ship in December, still waiting) but may just cancel those and wait for the next generation to release, which was just announced at CES.

I love the notifications and the other stuff as well (mapping, translations... Even streaming YouTube through them while I exercise) but my primary driver for these was to have a rapidly accessible camera. I found great success with the Humane AI Pin primarily for this feature.

FYI there are some other options available today for glasses without cameras (Vuzix has some, as well as some announced at CES) and/or with simpler screens... As well as some with screens in the frame (like Halliday) if the rainbow effect gets to you.

The cameras are needed for inside-out positioning.

Now...outward facing screens displaying my face? Billet Aluminum frame?

I’ve purchased and evaluated a number of AR glasses and have come to the conclusion that the Vuzix Z100s are the most practical and functional, I actually wear them pretty often just for the convenience of notifications in my vision, because even watch glancing is distracting in comparison.

other I have are Viture’s, Frame, Everysight, and ActiveLook. All of those have downsides to wearing as glasses over Vuzix’s Z100. People just find you a big big frame geeky and don’t necessarily notice them as smart glasses unless they are particularly observant type.

Everysight Maverick are runner ups and work for summer outdoors situations as they are basically sunglasses.

I'd be happy with a persistent transparent display that is in my field of vision for AR.

Most of them seem to be correct. Apple Car was basically an open secret for years before it was cancelled, same with AirPower and even Apple Vision Pro had it's price estimate leaked before it was announced.

It feels like Apple thinks they're really good at hiding stuff, but forget that their employees love to talk. Nobody will forget the prototype iPhone left just sitting there unattended at a bar.

Apple is centered around the iPhone, it's hard for them to make anything that isn't a peripheral of it. The best idea they've had in the last ten years is the Apple Watch, but I'm using Garmin because I don't have an iPhone.

The Mac benefited from all the work Apple has done on the iPhone CPU, but the software scene on the Mac has been deteriorating because developers are using the same tools and the same toolkits to develop desktop applications that are motivated by mobile. The article mentioned here

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42930025

claims to be about the deterioration of desktop interface but it's by someone who's so steeped in the Apple culture that they don't get it is really about the deterioration of Mac interfaces.

Apple doesn't care if you buy a Mac, in fact they'd feel most comfortable if the Mac became a peripheral of the iPhone. It's hard for them to picture developing a new peripheral for the Mac, even something straightforward like the Magic Mouse. A peripheral for the Mac that's groundbreaking? It doesn't fit into their world view.

I think this is a niche technology that people keep trying to make go mainstream, but most people just don't want it. For most people (including myself) trying VR a little is a novelty, but it's not something I want every day, and AR seems like it'd be useless or annoying unless I were using it in e.g. some industrial context like a heads up display.

It's like NFTs in gaming, NFTs in general, AI shoehorned into places it doesn't make much sense, wifi connected can openers, Soylent, ...

Startup founders are always told that there must be market pull, and many startups fail because they try to push an idea nobody wants, but it's not just startups. Big companies and VCs do this too.

Every company in the space realizes that it's the next computer pillar, after desktop PCs and smartphones. Even more so: these devices see everything their users see (and more), hear everything they hear (and more), and can provide significant insight into their mental and emotional states. The prospect of controlling the platform all of this takes place on? No one - especially incumbents that know their history - wants to get left behind. Everyone knows Apple's modus operandi: wait for others to experiment, then define the standard and run away with the market. So, Facebook bought Oculus (and slow-walked its R&D), Google shelved Project Tango, and everyone resolved to wait for Apple to make their move. Apple knew this, and kept pushing back their own reveal. The arrival and demise of upstart Magic Leap (and smaller failures from Vuzix and Snap, among others) confirmed to everyone that there was no point in trying anything until Apple had shown their hand.

So, we've been in a stalemate for more than 10 years. The AVP finally had to come out - antsy investors - and turned out to be the overengineered product of Apple trying to outmaneuver everyone else's outmaneuver, with the entire field understanding that whoever wins this owns the next 20 years.

However, it's a bit of a Chinese finger trap. Consumers and users want actual value out of this technology, and developers want to provide fantastically innovative uses, and both are at odds with the platform owners' lust for unilateral control. The platform that wins will be more like a PC than a Silicon Graphics workstation (which is what Apple et al seem hellbent on forcing down people's throats). Get something with basic functionality that just works out of the box, and that is open and ready for experimentation, into as many hands as possible. It will bulldoze the field. (This is why the Quest line has gotten so close. Shame about the owner.)

Didn’t they release a pair of VR glasses last year?

VR has a long way to go on the technical side, but true blacks and latency are both basically solved. Vision Pros have a motion to photon latency of ~12ms, which is unnoticeable, and miniLED and OLED allow for true blacks in plenty of headsets. Depth-of-field hasn't been solved yet, but it is doable. Processing power and battery are limitations, but not critically so.

IMO, none of those things are major factors compared to how insanely clunky current VR headsets are. That's where the real fundamental issues show up-these headsets need to lose ~90% of their weight and size before they'll catch on.

My impression is that there are a lot of geeks out there who want the Star Trek holodeck, and they see VR and generative AI as a way to get there. But they ignore all the episodes that explored the ways such a technology could be harmful, socially and psychologically and physically.

Yes, this report could actually mean for example that Apple is focusing on an alternative glasses product that doesn't require so much computation power.

If the path of the previous project led them to a product that would have to be connected to a Mac to work, that seems like a dead-end that wouldn't make a compelling consumer product in the near future.

You could write a similar headline about "Apple cancels iPod Phone Project" back in 2005 or whenever they made the decision to go with the Darwin/touchscreen phone instead of the iPod-based alternative.

VR/AR gets attention as despite the investment levels, adoption has been mixed. Provided a bug tech co has a “next” offering, this is fine for startups. It pays to be a risk taker on a new platform.

If big tech decides that VR/AR is not worth the investment any longer, then its tough to be a startup in this space. Hence tracking apple rumors is a way to get a read on where the market is heading.

It's idle fantasy speculation...like reading Popular Science and Popular Mechanics as a kid (with a similar hit rate on speculative future stuff...)

Yeah, AirPods with cameras. Cameras sticking out of your ears. I can't help trying (and failing) to imagine how cool that would look...

Curious what are your use cases?

I was reading a thread where a bunch of people complained about their iPad not having use cases while for me, it is a dream device. Curious about your experience with vision pro.

You don't have to worry, it's not going to happen. LLMs does/will make individuals more efficient, therefore, reducing number of developers maybe, but you will still have the exact same bottlenecks at the exact same places throttling the delivery speed.

When one bottleneck is removed, that usually means the rate of change is bottlenecked somewhere else. Maybe in the release process, or testing?

Or maybe the bottleneck is the willingness of customers to try new things? Risk-adverse customers will often avoid startups. Showing yourself to be trustworthy isn’t purely about the rate of feature development.

If the other bottlenecks can’t be removed easily, instead of 10x features you could end up with fewer software developers.