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The problem with standalone VR and "spatial computing" (www.spacebar.news)

submitted 9 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

It’s funny too because at the same time AI promises a very different future where screens are less important. Tasks that require computers could be done by voice command or other minimal interfaces

Apple seems to be the only major tech company that still believes in that future. Microsoft has killed Cortana entirely and all of their AI work is now focused on enhancing ordinary every day computing, Google and Amazon have both been cutting features and laying off staff for their voice assistants. Which means right now, the only serious entrants in that space are Apple and a bunch of startups.

From what I can see, Vision OS is perfectly suited to it. You can go about your day without any computing, ask your voice assistant a question, see the answer, dismiss it, and move on, without taking devices out of your pocket or sitting down at a desk. What's clearly not ready for that is the hardware - it's too big, too heavy, the battery life isn't good enough, the viewing angle is too narrow, too expensive, etc etc.

The other thing missing is Apple's voice assistant is clearly falling behind. It has always worked well for simple commands but that doesn't cut it any more. Tim Cook has said they have more to announce on that front "later this year" and it's worth noting that Apple has bought 21 AI companies in the last several years. All they have to show for that is the ability to search for "dog" in your photo library. Clearly they're working on something more meaningful and it seems pretty obvious that a better Siri is going to ship sooner rather than later.

My best guess is Siri has fallen behind because all of their best staff are working on something to replace it.

Apple Vision Pro, I think, is two products:

An immersive content viewing experience - movies, photos, games, etc
An experimental new computing platform that developers can potentially use to build great things

The second won't really pay off until the hardware is better. But the first is good enough justification to ship this product now, even though it's nowhere near achieving it's potential.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

Interesting perspective! I think your right in a lot of ways, not least that it's too big and heavy now. I'd also be shocked if the next iPhone didn't have an AI powered siri built in.

I guess fundamentally I am skeptical that we're all going to want a screens around us all the time. I'm already tired of my smart watch and phone buzzing me with notifications, do I really want popups in my field of vision? Do I want a bunch of displays hovering in front of my while I work? I just don't know. It seems like it would be cool for a week or so, but I feel like it'd get tiring to have a computer on your face all day, even if they got the form factor way down.