Meta Cancels High-End Mixed Reality Headset After Apple Vision Pro Struggles

A counter point on premium VR headsets. They are teleportation devices.

I've used every popular VR device, but one Vision Pro experience stood out - 'The Haleakala environment'[1]

It was literally like being transported there. I know because I had been in that exact spot a few years before. I have a rich visual memory which served as reference, and no exaggeration, it felt like was there. I was immediately in tears. It was profound.

The Vision pro's lack of a killer app because development is unintuitive, userbase is small, the UX is alien and the hardware costs of constructing these experience is still rather high. Give it a few years. The hardware is already there. This isn't a solution in search of a problem. This is PalmOS, a solution that is too early to the market.

I have family with disabilities. Being able to teleport my loved ones to places they could never go themselves is worth the $3000. If I could record my most profound memories with 'VR recorder', I would. My parent missed my graduation because of being continents away. You think they wouldn't want to be teleported to it ? Wedding photographers cost $4000+, so we can relive those memories through shoddy snapshots. Why not be teleported back to the most beautiful day ?

Don't knock it till you try it.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wK63OSmF1FM

If you’re asking yourself:

Why are all these giant companies going hard on AR and repeatibly in cycles it’s for one reason:

Egocentric data and full control of the highest bandwidth human I/O (vision + sound) is the most important possible data pipeline to get

Its the penultimate data pipe, with direct connection to the brain being the ultimate data pipe (see:Neuralink)

Every company that is winning and going to win in the future is the company that can best predict human behavior, such that it’s directly shaped by the platform itself

Google had a internal teaser trailer about this a decade ago that I’m sure someone has seen. Hyperreality was a short video about this probable and likely future

So it’s all a game to get perfect attention and the best way to do that is - literally - something like the interface that is used for the matrix on each hovercraft

If you introduce that too quickly - like now - then you scare everyone. So Apple rushed it and Meta is a actually good at timing in AR cause they have a giant lead, so they can wait till people forget.

The goal is titration of all encompassing spyware that eventually literally controls your behavior. The short story Manna is currently, unironically, and not hyperbolically what the employee experience at Target, Amazon warehouses and Walmart are 1:1. The corporate goal is to have everyone in their ecosystem deterministically creating, consuming and engaging at the peak for optimal tuning of the attention system.

As Carmack (the game guy, head of Oculus, etc.) says, until the headgear gets down to swim goggle size, it's not going to get any traction, and until it gets down to eyeglass size, it's not going mainstream.

The Apple Vision Pro was an unexpected dud. Something more eyeglass sized, with phone-like functionality and good design, would have been more in line with Apple's aesthetic. Instead, it was another half brick on your head VR headset. Apple had a success with iDweebs, their ear pieces, as something worn full time. The Apple Vision Pro could not be used that way.

I suspect these newer headsets have struggled because of walled gardens and crazy pricing, and thus lack of developer interest.

The Oculus DK2 was just a second monitor, amazingly simple and fun to develop for. One of the most developer friendly devices I worked with.

Oculus CV1 proprietary driver, forced experience, worsening SDK and dropping linux basically killed the device (and VR) for me, even before fb got their grubby mits on it.

So I struggle to understand these premium devices, when there seems to be no developer incentive to build for these platforms. Shame, I think VR still has some great potential, but I will never don a headset that needs an account or shows me even a single advert.

Isn't it simple why AVP isn't moving? They don't treat anime-loli-porn content, chiefly VRChat, as first class citizens, if they support those at all. Tons of people have bought and are buying Quest 2 and 3 as well as its competitors with sole intent of using it with VRChat.

Don't you guys all remember that iPhoneOS had YouTube since version 1.0, before it even had App Store? Where would you think iOS would have been if it didn't? No way it could have been like Apple TV+ would have launched years earlier and completely obsoleted YouTube. But to me it looks that that is what Apple is banking on.

IMHO: the AVP is a DevKit that is sold to consumers. But more polished then the typical DevKit.

But looking into the past and seeing how many people where eager to buy GoogleGlas/Oculus Devkits, why shouldn’t a brand like apple decide to push out a devkit as high price consumer device, instead of trying to keep a devkit for a upcoming product a secret?

I’m still wondering what direction the product can and will take from here on. If you compare it with iphone1 vs iPhones today, it could be quite interesting.

It has been clear from fairly early on the AVP should never have launched - it just has no reason to exist. I cannot escape thinking there must have been some internal argument where the choices ended up as kill the project or release what we have, and the latter was chosen because it was seen to be easier.

Let’s face it, without Zuck’s personal interest reality labs would have gone years ago.

It is one thing for companies with billions to burn them chasing non existent markets but when they attempt to drag in lots of smaller third parties in order to build demand for their platforms . . . well, developers should be a lot more skeptical. The low hanging fruit of the personal computing age appears to have been picked.

I feel like they have struck gold with the Meta Ray-ban glasses. Perfect form factor, looks cool, not obtrusive, has actual features that people want to use. That IMO is the future of wearables + AR/VR + AI, not a bulky headset.

Raise your hand who was there during the first boom and doom of VR/AR headset/glasses in the 90's? A cycle or couple of more and we'll be there, maybe.

I have an AVP. It’s the best TV and movie-watching experience I’ve ever had, in some ways even better than Metreon IMAX

The killer app is pr0n, but Apple won't allow it while Zuck loves to watch over your shoulder.

VR just isn’t going to happen for a long time. It does have a real purpose or a strong drive to use. I have meta 3 and i played for a bit but then it ended up on the shelf for a variety of reasons.

It has a lot of good specific uses but struggles past that.

It continued to be very impressive technology wise but something that wont be adopted en mass for a long time. Tim Cook was right to be worried about this product - should have trusted his intuition on that one.

VR will probably never be more than a gimmick imo.

AR is where the market is at. Regular glasses, with current phone capabilities, like painting the actual road you’re going to travel green would already get hundreds of thousands of adopters.

Honestly, this is a shame, because I think a lot of the vision pro's flaws are Apple problems.

That said, meta seems to have found a sweet spot in price/performance, so maybe in a few generations we will have something with the quality of vision pro that is not locked down

Before the bandwagon jumps on "Metaverse is dead", Meta is pursuing multiple headsets, devices strategy and trying to find the right Features / Price mix.

Quest 2 is the most successful headset and it seem to have the perfect balance. Quest 3 although great, probably is slightly expensive for the mass market. But there will be a chatGPT moment for Metaverse in the next 5 years and Meta's strategy will pay dividends.

It's Ray-ban smart glasses is already a huge hit. Like a startup, you just have to keep iterating and I'm glad zuck is on it

I have been bearish on VR, but could never overcome motion sickness. This obviously puts a limit on viable content types for me.

Can anyone speak to any differences in motion sickness between VR and Apple’s implementation of AR/MR?

There was an interesting email from Zuck released during one of their trials where he explained why they were focused on VR: it was basically all about Apple and wanting to own the next platform.

Makes sense although gaming is and will remain the most significant use case for VR in the foreseeable future

The original email is from 2015, posted on HN in 2022: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33538742#33540359

There is no future for the Vision Pro unless they can scale it to a comfortable stylish form factor or establish a killer app.

Nobody wants to walk around wearing goggles all day just to read email.

The Vision Pro is a solution looking for a problem. This is the same problem plaguing Apple Home. It just feels very - so what? Tech nerds like it because it's "cool", but everybody else is wondering why would I ever need this thing?

Personally, I think they need to be thinking of a more Apple Watch type device wearable in normal glasses frames. Something more akin to Google Glass, and yes, I'm familiar with the term "glasshole." But maybe it was a product too far ahead of it's time? Or maybe these are just products we don't need?

This is good news for Apple because their foot is not going off the pedal and now can create more firsts which can lead to more standards gearing toward them

I wish Meta also created something similar to xreal glasses or even better: some modular RayBan smart glasses that can be transformed into xreal with addon.

Never bought any headsets of any sort. And until there is a compelling, application, or a killer app I probably never will. Gaming is definitely not it.

For VR really taking the next step, (realistic) haptic feedback is needed. Just better graphics and the like won't do anymore.

Just want to point out this headline or article doesn’t say that one is the cause of the other, just that they coincide.

Yes, also whatever high-end device they launch would also have a lower market capture from the TAM of high-end VR/XR headsets thanks to Apple being nearly uncompeteable in the hardware for it.

MAANG - N need to make compact AR goggles to assist with visualizing and interacting with the world containing additional context and interaction rather than a simulation of one in VR.

I think the chain of logic is that due to anaemic reception and the Quest3 being unexpectedly good, Apple has pulled forward the cheaper Vision Pro. This has lead to Meta launching head to head with that product, and hence needing to either produce something with comparable specs or do it for a much cheaper price than they thought previously. That not being feasible, they are falling back to their mass market strategy - fully own the low to middle end.

But none of this is about either company stepping back from the overall vision. What they are doing is jostling for market strategy, fit and timing - and adjusting to each other's moves as they go.

Apple probably need to choose between vision pro (i.e. experimental hardware) and making movies and TV.

If they do the latter, everyone (i.e. netflix) will fight them.

It struggles mostly because it’s far too expensive, which also prevents bootstrapping some ecosystem of usecases.

it still baffles me how Apple decided to release the Vision pro as an actual consumer product and not use this generation as just dev. kits and release a successor to the vision pro and have a cheaper one based on on the mobile chips too in 1 to 1.5 years

Not an expert, but my first impression was that once Meta got ahold of the Apple Vision Pro and took it apart in the lab, the conclusion was that had no chance of beating it, from a hardware point of view.

I think everyone knew this wouldn't work or simply because we aren't ready for this tech yet? But kudos to Apple for giving it a go!!

Zuckerberg really is grasping at straws now. Failed projects:

- metaverse

- VR

- digital currency

- failed to reel in on misinformation campaigns on social networks

- meta/facebook killed “crowdtangle” (misinformation tracking tool)

The only thing keeping them afloat is advertising money (which has been dwindling due to people fleeing their shit platform).

I learned from these comments Apple Vision Pro isn't intended for gaming. No wonder Buffet sold out of them. WTF are they thinking? Might have to transition to Linux fully at some point before I die if they continue doing stupid things.

Is it time for another company rename to llama or data or something a la AI ?

aww man i was looking forward to consuming even more content and seeing even more relevant ads in virtual reality!

Computer headsets. Blockchain. AI.

Really hitting the mark recently.