Two stories this week need some comment:
I can’t buy into either one, and have a concern that AR and VR – interchangeable though they are not and interchangeable though they seem to be – have become buzzwords (buzzacronyms?) that have no meaningful value. Nothing has changed about what these products do, how the experience is delivered, and there is nothing to indicate in any sense that Apple is going to blow the market wide open.
You put the user front and center, first, by not assuming that people, almost everyone, who would rather wear contact lenses than glasses, or get laser surgery, regardless of the state of their eyesight, are the very same people who are going to wear ….. er, glasses. Bulky, ugly glasses at that. With batter packs, cables, and at jobs that they most likely don’t want to be doing.
Secondly, the price of a decent, commercial set of AR/VR glasses is going to be prohibitively expensive, at any price, no matter how you slice it, because the application value remains unproven, and has been unproven for decades.
If you know any different, feel free to drop me a line. In the meantime, never overestimate the market for these devices, and even if Apple engenders a blip of curiosity, which could mean a surge in sales, remember that Meta has put more money into this technology than any other company in history, and still has to subsidize unit sales and hasn’t managed to come up with one must-have application.
And, if someone brings up games, I’d like to point out that even Microsoft, with years of investment and volume sales, couldn’t stay in the game hardware business, and mournfully sighs at Xbox placing third in the console wars. You cannot expect any AR/VR product to compete with console volumes, that’s not the point, the point is, trying to compete in the gaming industry is a very, very hard sell for any company, and even for one with a deep, deep bench of A class titles.
