There is sufficient chatter among Apple stans and media fans to suggest that the company’s mixed reality (MR) headset is going to be a seminal product for the company, if not the industry. It’s hard to stay if Apple can really deliver on the promises of its dewy-eyed followers, but it looks more and more like the point of this exercise is not just to have a successful product launch, but to shape the broader narrative of how consumers will interact in the Appleverse.
First, let’s put everything into perspective for the display industry: if we move to a mixed reality approach to human-machine interaction, which is perfectly feasible with our existing knowledge of the technology, we change the primary display for the user to such an extent that there is only one, the one that they wear. Apple hegemony 1, Display industry 0.
Second, Apple doesn’t have to convert the multitudes to its headsets, just enough to create a groundswell of support for its grander vision. That grander vision can be whatever Apple wants it to be. So, now, everyone else in the computer industry has to copy that vision and match it. More importantly, Apple can sell those headsets at whatever price the market bears because that’s what it has done repeatedly, with very little ill effect, because it is about the only company that can sell hardware at a premium like that. And it won’t matter one bit what other headsets vendors do or try to do because they will have to match Apple, albeit without anywhere near the audience or manufacturing power, which means compromised feature sets. Apple hegemony 2, Display industry 0.
Third, if you are developer, there is no better platform to develop on than Apple’s because it’s closed off to any unwanted distractions or modifications making it a safe bet to deliver what you intended to make. You build your application once, and it works on every Apple device, you don’t have to worry about who built the device, what version of the OS they are using, what quirks are built in by a manufacturer etc. It’s Apple. To accelerate the platform for MR applications, all Apple has to do is to marshal its own internal resources to make applications, identify the resources needed for development, open up the APIs, and send out a note to its developer community. If Apple has MR SDKs laid out for programmers, and they will, it opens the floodgates to applications. You’re guess is as good as mine as to what the end result will be, but you can safely assume that Apple’s devices will get the most innovative software before anyone else does. Apple hegemony 3, Display industry 0.
At this point, Apple doesn’t need to run up the score any more. All that happens is that the definition of what is a display is the one that Apple gives. Just like the definition of a phone today is what Apple says it is. Sure, this could all be hypothetical, but there’s other stuff happening that lends credence to the notion that Apple’s mixed reality headset is a beachhead product.
AI Changes Everything
Everyone’s heard about ChatGPT. AI is a hot topic. We’re all just waiting for when Skynet takes over and starts replacing us with its robot babies. The reality may be less exciting but one thing’s for sure, the nature of interaction, that human-machine interface thing we talked about earlier, is going to evolve beyond point and click, even if only because our actual nerd overlords, who seem to make all their decisions in some VC’s office, want us to talk to our computers so they can bring back Ask Jeeves.
You thought listening to people talk on their phone while you’re waiting in line at Starbucks was bad enough (“I told you, it’s not my vomit!”), progress and AI will undoubtedly lead us to another level of cringe (“Siri, I rubbed the fungus ointment all over like you said, but I’m still itching. What’s up with that, dude?”)
It’s not like people are not already familiar with, “Hey, Siri,” “Alexa,” or, “Hey, Google.” Also, I guess now we have to start thinking about saying, “Hey, Bing, sing White Christmas for me, will ya….” Changing the interface to a conversational format takes our eyes off of the display. That was a totally uncalled for score: Apple hegemony 4, Display industry 0.
Now, we have a perfect storm brewing. Generations are growing up watching everything, including those epic movies which cry out for big screens, on their phones, rejecting boomer TVs. They’re going to get used to interacting with those devices without being glued to the screen. That’s a good thing, by the way, judging by how many people are just lost in their phones in public settings. And, given that generations are growing up without any attachment to PCs and broadcast television, they might just as easily slip into viewing the world and viewing their content through a heads-up display. We may be talking about 5 to 7 years before any of these ideas are feasible for the mass market, just long enough for those younger generations to have more disposable income. I love it when a plan comes together.
Apple Owns the Display Industry
Apple’s has 2 billion eyeballs, is better than Meta at keeping its eyeballs happy, and has more resources than the next top five Android phone makers to build an infrastructure to support its MR ambitions, play catch up on AI, and line up every major application and game developer to get behind its platform. That is an existential threat to mobile and computing displays. You can argue all you want about AR/VR/MR/XR adoption rates, the fact of the matter is that Apple’s headset could be a loss leader, but it is one that challenges the way its users – those loyal worldwide consumers who rarely shift allegiances – interact with displays. That the definition of hegemony, a word which I plucked out of my word of the day calendar with ease on this piece.
I am as cynical as the next guy about wearing headsets and all that it entails, but I wasn’t born with a gadget in my hand that was my whole view of the world. If someone comes along and puts a gadget on the heads of new generations, and gives them a new way to interact with the world, one that feels just as natural as being constantly tethered to your phone, it will probably work out. That’s not a bad guess. As for conversation replacing point and click? We’ve broke all social mores and etiquette with the way we use smartphones a long time ago, at least it seems like a long time ago. So, pay attention, you just don’t want to get left behind if you’re in the business of keeping those eyeballs on your products.
