[HN Gopher] Apple is building the metaverse substrate ___________________________________________________________________ Apple is building the metaverse substrate Author : grork Score : 155 points Date : 2021-06-21 18:51 UTC (4 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.codevoid.net) (TXT) w3m dump (www.codevoid.net) | Ankintol wrote: | Slightly adjacent to the article, I don't think Apple cares all | that much about the AR metaverse/ecosystem. | | My own prediction, using many of the same data points as the | author, is that Apple is trying to create a suite of features | that act as a sort of Software Personal Assistant. For years | Apple has consistently put in better sensors and larger TPUs than | strictly necessary for the expected lifetime of the device. We're | already seeing some of the results of this with the Health app. | | Apple understands the profit potential of platforms, so they'll | make some of the data that enables these features to App | Developers and that in turn may enable AR, but I doubt any Apple | executives are seriously focused on bringing AR capabilities to | developers. | dwhitney wrote: | I hope you're wrong. I understand that the technology for the | dream that "Google Glasses" was selling isn't quite there, but | I hope Apple has a research team moving closer and closer to | it. | Ankintol wrote: | They may still make that, but I suspect developers will not | have full access to the full power of the platform. | | A thought I should have fleshed out in the above post: the | kind of sensor data that enables AR can also be used to | deduce a great deal of personal information[0]. With Apple | taking a strong position on privacy I suspect they will make | only a limited subset of data available to developers. | | [0]: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/332386880_Priva | cy_I... | root_axis wrote: | "Not quite there" is an understatement. The advancements | necessary in optics, battery technology and GPU performance | for a practical AR wearable are considerable, this is without | considering the need for a fashionable form factor and | practical heat dissipation. IMO we're at least a decade out | from a serious MVP. | dodobirdlord wrote: | Non-gaming AR tech will have to be extremely good out of the | gate to dodge the issues that sank Google Glasses. I suspect | it will remain an active research project for as long as it | takes, and in the meantime Apple will chart their product | roadmap along a sequence of technologies that they can be | confident of having ready on 1-5 year timescales. | SheinhardtWigCo wrote: | Is this just a fancy/confusing of way of saying "Apple is | building an AR ecosystem"? | ronyfadel wrote: | Yes. Apple could be building AR/VR hardware, but if you're | convinced they are, then you'll start to mentally force | everything they publish as a building block for said hardware. | SamBam wrote: | And is the "AR ecosystem" the "metaverse" or the "metaverse | substrate?" | vincent-toups wrote: | I'm really looking forward to not engaging with any of this stuff | at all! | kyle-rb wrote: | Some of this stuff is cool, and I can see how it might fit | together (although I doubt half of it will pan out). But some of | it just seems like nothing. | | The Shazam stuff seems very limited in use case, and I'm annoyed | at "AppClips" because they should just be websites. | | Notes+Spotlight+Shared with you all seem like they're inventing | new paradigms to avoid ever adding a user file system on iOS, | since Apple is opposed to that. It's possible that those new | paradigms will be great, but I think they'd be better if Apple | gave up a little control. | Jtsummers wrote: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Files_(Apple) | | That's existed for 4 years. A user file system is effectively | available on iOS, even if it's not exactly what you might | expect coming from a desktop OS. | mncharity wrote: | > SwiftUI [...] doesn't feel like an AR platform component | (Where's the third dimension?). | | I'm unfamiliar with SwiftUI, but fwiw, I found the extensions | needed for CSS3D to support AR to be surprisingly small. | | A few years back, having a custom browser-based VR stack with | passthrough AR, I sketched a talk for the BostonVR meetup, to | give around April Fools. It would have purported to be an | introductory onboarding demo, of newly available CSS3D extensions | for AR. With support for placement in realspace, billboards, HUD | overlays, integrated multiple displays, position aware and 3D | displays. The extension needed was surprisingly minor. The talk | would have been basically "introductory CSS positioning, in a | slightly enriched context", which I expected to be quite | believable, followed by a "surprise! - the making of the demo | spike". I don't quite remember why it didn't happen. | | > 2(.5)D experiences | | Shallow-3D UIs seemingly have a lot of potential, but don't get | much discussion. | | Meta: I wish HN discussions around AR were of higher quality. | It's be clear for years that Apple was pursing this. Being | unfamiliar with the Apple ecosystem, I'd have liked to see more | discussion of what those pieces and their characteristics might | suggest about the future. Or for instance, of whether Apple is | doing any CEP complex event processing, or retraction of app | state changes, to support input with diverse latencies. | narrator wrote: | The funny thing about Apple is how people confabulate mythical | powers to it. I can't wait for Apple iTulpa[1]. | | Jokes aside. What is the mission statement here, what is the | dream? Make you never want to interact with the real world again? | Help you manage your to do list better? | | I feel there was much more of a mission statement for mobile back | when everyone was stuck on public transit and at the office for | hours every day. You could finally make your life on transit and | at the office more meaningful by integrating your personal life | with that through your phone. | | What's the dream now? I don't get where all this is going unless | it's like you're never going to leave your house again, so escape | into VR. | | [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulpa | zelon88 wrote: | This guy is way too excited. He's thinking he's gonna get | Cyberpunk 2077 but in reality he's getting a combo of Wall-E and | The Final Cut. | rektide wrote: | Apple's Bluetooth-LE tags don't seem to be mentioned but to me | this is one of the most notable beachheads for Apple to mix the | metaverse with physical reality. we still don't see a ton of | uses, but there's something super enticing about being able to | casually discover digital things amid the physical. I'm not | surprised good adoption has been slow, that we don't have a ton | of neat use cases to wow people, but also: I was shocked as heck | to see Google retreat from their open standards competitor, | Physical Web/Eddystone. | | Apple also makes good use of Bluetooth for airdrop & wifi | password sharing, something else google is light-years behind in. | | Good writeup, interesting, even if it seems a bit (quite) | oversold to me. Makes me think of Benjamin Bratton's The Stack, | the many tiers that compose the digital. | RandallBrown wrote: | That was touched on in the "Find My" section. | rektide wrote: | > "Find My"-style devices will help tighten up the mapping of | the physical world to enable augmentation -- really this is | part of the platform substrate, but the same tech underlies a | key bridge between physical and virtual. | | The section has good stuff in it, but to me it came off as | me-centric, as about high end experiences like VR, accurate | spatial systems. | | And that feels like it's a very different piece of the | platform than what I was talking about, which is beacons that | we can leave for each other. Getting to a bar & having the | menu advertise itself. Art installs that come with | interesting mini-sites on the browser, or which are cross- | media. QR codes are the closest thing we have today, but QR | codes require very explicit intent to use, and I've long been | interested in the promise of more ambient computing, of | seeing the numerous micro- / edge- clouds about me, & seeing | what they might offer. | | I didn't get any of that from the Find My. I'm looking for | Find Your, I guess. Or Share Mine. Which Physical Web did, | which Apple's iBeacons continue to do. | [deleted] | ryanmarsh wrote: | The conclusion almost followed the points except for one major | failure of imagination: VR. Apple will release a VR product but | it can only do so after the migration to Apple Silicon. Anyone | familiar with M1 performance and VR games on Intel will | immediately see why. Did anyone else notice/remember what | specific use case Apple touted for the the newest generation of | Mac Pro? VR content creation. Very resource hungry. Apple can't | release the VR device we know they could, without giving content | creators the tools. What makes VR more than just a gaming | product? Giving everyone with an Apple laptop the ability to | create content for a meta verse. You might be thinking Ready | Player One, I'm thinking more like a better Roblox. There's | massive ARR potential in a VR metaverse ecosystem where everyone | can be a content creator / inhabitant. Apple is the only company | that could put it all together and make it work from soup to | nuts. | Animats wrote: | This is the feature set needed for Hyperreality.[1] Which is hell | with interactive overlays. | | AppClips. Drive-by installs. What could possibly go wrong? | | [1] https://youtu.be/YJg02ivYzSs | walterlb wrote: | Hell is exactly how I would describe this. | | Well-made, cool video though! | asadlionpk wrote: | This is what Android equivalent would look like. | jccalhoun wrote: | Apple keeps trying to make AR a thing. Bless their heart... | dang wrote: | " _Please don 't post shallow dismissals, especially of other | people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something._" | | https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html | shirhan wrote: | I learned Apple keeps trying to make AR a thing, but it's not | a thing. | SheinhardtWigCo wrote: | Bless their heart, and their $204b in cash, and their team of | 1000+ engineers dedicated to AR. | andrewmcwatters wrote: | Something that's dawned on me for the last few years is that | Microsoft basically settled on the idea that the modern operating | system is effectively done, which I suppose is true, but then | they stopped creating technologies to build on top of Windows all | together. | | It was as if they said, OK, here's the supermarket, now vendors, | create stuff and we'll stock the shelves. | | Except everyone publishing software today that isn't a game | developer is targeting the web. Which means the best software | you're going to get for Windows that isn't long-lived incumbent | software like Creative Cloud is going to be... over Google Chrome | (or Microsoft Edge). | | OK, but Microsoft is in the best position to create great, | integrated, first-class technologies that build on how great | Windows is. But they don't. I have mixed feelings about this, | because when Apple does it, they basically put people out of | business. | | But here's the thing, in 10 years time, you're going to have | Windows, which is still just, and will continue to be, Windows. | And macOS, and iOS, and tvOS, and every other Apple OS, is going | to be so much more. And they already are so much more. | | For those who haven't experienced it yet, or can't afford Apple | products, they're missing something that just hasn't happened in | computing in any other period of time I can immediately think of. | | Or, idk, I'm blind because I think Apple products are so great. | The lattermost is probably more likely. | outside1234 wrote: | That's because they got sued for antitrust the last time they | tried to do this. | | And given that they don't sell hardware, there isn't money in | it. And if there isn't money in it, it isn't worth getting sued | over trying it. | | So here we are. | an_opabinia wrote: | > and every other Apple OS, is going to be so much more... | [non-Apple users are] missing something | | Android hasn't really faced many obstacles in cloning things. | Consumers in China, for example, still buy Android phones, | despite iPhones and despite having enough money for those | iPhones. I don't know if anyone is missing out on all that | much. I wouldn't say they are like, unenlightened. If anything | the Android ecosystem has led to more digitization of life in | China than in America, far faster - it looks way more like the | metaverse in terms of computing taking over daily life than | here, which is to say that you're really far off the mark in | terms of what really matters. | | Anyway, this metaverse stuff. It blows. Roblox blows. Second | Life blew. World of Warcraft is great, but you can hear about | why it's great direct from the source | (https://www.media.mit.edu/videos/conversations-2014-05-07/) | and it's all about really carefully curated and purposeful | design choices, the user driven parts of it are not why the | game was so good. | | Existing metaverse experiences blow not for lack of immersion! | So the technology will change little of that. If Roblox was | photoreal, it would still blow. Minecraft AR didn't matter. | None of that shit matters. | | A company that barely supports 1 external video card vendor, | that releases shit graphics APIs, that sues game companies - | they're not going to break ground in the "metaverse." Apple | Arcade games are good, but that's because they are fighting the | real antagonist, the real horror show: free to play gaming. | That is the antagonist of the metaverse, having to be free and | monetize people via Robux or V-Bucks or whatever it is that | activates neurons in a 10 year old's brain. It's got nothing to | do with the technology. | yellowfish wrote: | > Or, idk, I'm blind because I think Apple products are so | | > great. The latter most is probably more likely. | | Isn't Microsoft already shipping AR headsets to the US Army? if | anything they are the leaders in the space | | anyway, as far as "Metaverse" goes I'd argue we already have | multiple and the presentation layer is just gradually changing | salamandersauce wrote: | Like what exactly? What is Windows missing? They have a way to | integrate with Android phones, I can share my Galaxy's screen | with PC and use apps that way even. They are working on AR | stuff with Hololens and VR. You can do wireless screen sharing, | sync your Microsoft Edge tabs, do 3D audio in games. | | I was all in the Apple ecosystem the past couple years except | for the Watch. And I'm struggling to think of something that's | impossible to do with Windows and non-Apple devices besides | Airdrop and that didn't even work half the time between my | iPhone and Mac mini. Sidecar is a cool feature to have built | in, but apps like Duet and Astropad do the same thing... | | And I don't think it's a bad thing that MS doesn't Sherlock | devs either... | arghnoname wrote: | Windows is a gigantic market so in general the vast majority | of things one could do in MacOS are going to end up being | possible in Windows (assuming Apple even was the first to | market some feature in the first place). | | It's almost unthinkable that some in-software feature that a | lot of people like can be done in an Apple OS and not a | Microsoft/Android OS. | | The question is not whether it can be done, but how easily it | can be done. If you have to jailbreak your phone or cobble | together a collection of different applications to simulate | the experience, for 80%+ of people that's basically | equivalent to impossible. | greggman3 wrote: | you mean like play all the VR games or too AAA games in | general? | | I own both. From my POV I'm able to do more on Windows even | if I prefer MacOS for day to day use and iOS for my phone | (though again can do more on Android) | salamandersauce wrote: | You don't have to jailbreak your phone or root it to | accomplish these things. Stuff like MS "Your Phone" for | integrating your Android phone and Windows is built into | some devices like those from Samsung and Windows will even | walk you through the steps at first boot. Most of this | stuff is built in and I'm not entirely sure app installs | are onerous. 80%+ seems a little ridiculous. | thekyle wrote: | I'm curious what you use the Galaxy screen share feature in | Windows for, because I've tried it a few times and always | found it to be a bad user experience. | tyingq wrote: | On the other hand, Microsoft did a fairly decent job capturing | cloud revenue with o365 and Azure. Apple is leaving most of | that on the table. | | Apple has cloud services, but they are, for the most part, | intended to help sell more iPhones. Can't argue with the | Apple's approach since it works well revenue wise though. | chaostheory wrote: | > Or, idk, I'm blind because I think Apple products are so | great. The latter most is probably more likely. | | As a fellow cult member who hasn't drunk enough kool aid, Apple | products have been losing their luster in recent years. | | Apple TV still doesn't have hands free voice control. Fire TV | has had this for years now. Using your iPhone isn't great | because it doesn't have the microphone setup to consistently | hear your voice well. Does Siri and Apple TV finally work | together with Home Pod like how Google TV uses smart Google | speakers? | | Apple Macbooks have suffered immensely with the near useless | touch bar and terrible keyboard. | | Thinness as a feature seems to override everything else. I | don't care about having a thin desktop. I want something I can | open and replace parts in without paying about $10k. | | The list goes on. Including how there's still no word on the VR | / AR unit, while Facebook mops the floor. | | The only light in the darkness is the M1 chip. | edem wrote: | Can you name a few examples? From what I've seen I can now run | a Linux within my Windows, that solves my long-standing gaming | vs developing problem. I can finally run Docker properly on my | Windows box, and literally everything else that was problematic | before. I'd pick Windows over MacOS 12 times out of 10. | flatiron wrote: | I was a contractor for Apple for 4 years and when I left a | few months ago my new company let me choose windows or mac | and I chose windows (mainly spite) but it's really good now. | I live in the command line and having full blown Ubuntu | inside windows is great. Docker works as expected. On top of | that ms office is wayyyyyy better on windows than mac. I | won't be switching my personal devices off arch anytime soon | but I think windows is a better development platform than mac | now (can't believe I just wrote that) | edem wrote: | I also couldn't believe it when I realized it a while ago! | Also...I hear Arch more often lately. Why would someone | choose Arch over let's say Ubuntu? I'm curious. Never used | it. | flatiron wrote: | Arch is great for desktops and laptops because it's | rolling and always up to date with upstream. Install it | once. Update it once a week. Never have to do anything | else. They also have a user repository where they pretty | much have everything. There's nothing on my laptop that | isn't version controlled with their package manager. | gilbetron wrote: | Seems like you are just really in deep with Apple. I've used | Apple professionally for over a decade now, and personally for | a long time before that (Mac SE was my first). When I'm on my | personal laptop (windows/linux) I miss absolutely nothing about | Apple. Well, that's not _quite_ true, I appreciate the | uniformity, but the uniformity costs too much in terms of a | walled garden, which is an antithesis to how I think things | should be. | | I think Microsoft does far more interesting research than | Apple, which largely (but not completely) just buys new ideas | like Cisco. An effective strategy, granted. I feel MS has a | feel for where development is going better than Apple, with VS | Code and the purchase of Github. | | "missing something that just hasn't happened in computing in | any other period of time I can immediately think of" is just | hyperbole. To me, Apple has always been the company that takes | other people's ideas and polishes the hell out of them - which | is amazing, but when I look at my 30+ year tech career, I don't | get very excited about Apple. | Terretta wrote: | Keep hearing about "walled garden" as though it's a _bad_ | thing -- Archibald Craven doesn't want Mary to play? | | The word "garden" suggests bespoke curation for appreciation | and abundance, while "walled" suggests within this boundary | the experience is purposefully tended and safe. | | The Japanese put them in the middle of their homes. The | British write children's literature set in them. Just look -- | the very idea of a walled garden is _lovely_ : | | In film: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/5b/52/41/5b524125c48b | 35bfe0ca... | | In life: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Maytham_Hall#Gardens | | In my experiences with the non metaphorical variety, most | anyone who can afford one prefers it. | llbeansandrice wrote: | I think HN and similar value free (as in freedom) and | openness of a system a lot more. So "walled garden" is a | bit of a buzzword against those ideals. | | > bespoke curation...purposefully tended and safe | | These ideas are antithetical to what many on HN seem to | want. I personally love Apple products, but walled gardens | are great when you don't bump into the walls all the time, | which a lot of other people seem to do. | | In these cases (wall bumping) I think it's reasonable to | want alternatives. But there are fanatics and anti-fanatics | that I think skew any discussion about Apple. | john_minsk wrote: | Interesting. So you think they are not even working on making | this thing faster? Shame. Windows needs some performance boost. | carl_dr wrote: | > OK, but Microsoft is in the best position to create great, | integrated, first-class technologies that build on how great | Windows is. | | For a few years now there has been some noise that Apple's Pro | hardware lineup isn't Pro, that macOS is becoming more locked | down and more iOS-like, that the software is buggier than ever, | and - until they dropped their App Store split to 15% for small | developers - that 30% was too high a price. | | With WSL, and VScode and GitHub Microsoft are making a (messy, | so far) play for developers. But as you point out, they didn't | take it to the nth degree and nail the execution. I wonder if | they've missed the opportunity now. | | I develop for web on macOS, and have all Apple hardware, so | maybe I'm missing some of the other things Microsoft have done. | | Maybe it is the lack of verticality MS have, and the | integration between devices, something they can never match | Apple on that means there hasn't been the transition they were | aiming for. That's why I've not switched. | | I'll be very interested to hear what people think about this. | tomjen3 wrote: | I would say MS nailed VScode remote development. It is | seriously, seriously good. I used it during WFH and while VS | didn't work nearly as well as the version of IDEA I was using | the remote part worked so well I would forget I was working | remote. | nextstep wrote: | >> Except everyone publishing software today that isn't a game | developer is targeting the web. | | What? | | Even your example (Creative Cloud) has an iOS and iPadOS app. | andrewmcwatters wrote: | Sorry, to clarify, anyone targetting Windows users, is | probably only doing so by proxy, because there's no | compelling reason to create a first-class Windows desktop | application over just a web app. | nextstep wrote: | Aah I see what you mean | criddell wrote: | I think you are right on this and it's a real bummer. | | In Ellen Ullman's book _Life in Code_ , she writes about | Whitfield Diffie's (of Diffie-Hellman fame) speech at the | 2000 Computers, Freedom, and Privacy conference in Toronto. | | > "We were slaves to the mainframe! he said. Dumb | terminals! That's all we had. We were powerless under the | big machine's unyielding central control. Then we escaped | to the personal computer, autonomous, powerful. Then | networks. The PC was soon rendered to be nothing but a | "thin client," just a browser with very little software | residing on our personal machines, the code being on | network servers, which are under the control of | administrators. Now to the web, nothing but a thin, thin | browser for us. All the intelligence out there, on the net, | our machines having become dumb terminals again." | | I've been thinking about this a lot lately. Smart people | like Diffie saw this happening more than 20 years ago. | | It's really made me rethink web apps that don't need to be | web apps (including stuff like electron). Like you said, | Microsoft has thrown in the towel and it seems now Apple is | really the only platform making a compelling argument for | native apps and keeping the computer _smart_. | smoldesu wrote: | Apple products have every right to be great: after all, Apple | is the largest company in the world. But they also have a duty | to extend their services, one that they have sorely neglected | for the past 15 years. I wouldn't be so angry at Apple if | things like Airdrop, Handoff and Airplay were all open | protocols. The only reason Apple _doesn 't_ extend these | protocols is to have leverage over their competitors. It's not | like any of the aforementioned technologies are impressive, | either: they were all preceded by Warpinator, XDG and MPRIS, | respectively. So Apple embraces these open-source concepts, | extends them with proprietary interfaces and then extinguishes | the source... where have I heard this one before? | jolux wrote: | EEE is about actual intellectual property and compatibility, | not just concepts. As far as I know AirDrop, Handoff, and | AirPlay are proprietary all the way down. | fossuser wrote: | I think Stratechery accurately called Microsoft's strategic | shift: https://stratechery.com/2018/the-end-of-windows/ around | the time that Nadella showed up to save them. | | I think Apple is better positioned with total vertical | integration to lay the ground work for the next platform (AR) | and has been doing so for years now. They'll ship some hardware | when the time is right. | | They've repeated this approach since the iPod successfully, | never first to market, but laying the ground work before | shipping the best in class product. | | FB (Zuck specifically) recognizes the next platform and Oculus | is a bet to win it. Their issue is they don't have their own | phone OS, the Oculus platform they have to build up from | scratch (which they've done a decent job doing). They also have | a brand issue (I personally dislike their ad-driven business | model). | | It'll be interesting to see what hardware Apple ships - the UI | potential for AR is enormous and very cool. I know Zuck sees | this and is public about it, Apple is acting in such a way that | they definitely see it - they're just quiet about it until they | ship. | | Looking at tiny glass displays will be a funny anachronism of | our time. | timmg wrote: | > the Oculus platform they have to build up from scratch | | It's Android, right? | chaostheory wrote: | It's Android. | [deleted] | germinalphrase wrote: | That AR will be visual first is the eventual obvious thing, | but the soft start is audio based. Siri and transparency mode | on airpods is the unacknowledged AR present that hasn't been | fully unveiled. | slver wrote: | Well, it's easy to get excited fantasizing about the future, | but your predictions are about as likely to occur as the | flying cars we're flying around right now. | | In fact none of the major platforms we use today was just | predicted and constructed. They've evolved and shown their | benefits naturally and not entirely in expected ways. No one | actually planned the web to be an application platform. It | was a university paper exchange program. And the Internet | before it was a military communication network. | | Your predictions about the grand future of AR remind me of | the excitement around VRML couple of decades ago. | | "Looking at stale 2D web pages will be a funny anachronism of | our time" we thought. Turns out making existing content more | fancy in 3D wasn't that useful, it actually was more | cumbersome both to create and to use, so 3D web pages died | before they even had a true chance to live. | fossuser wrote: | You can see the direction things are heading. | | The iPhone was a UI step change improvement over previous | 'smart phones' and the app ecosystem came out of that. | | The ground work being set in the OP's post is about getting | things ready for hardware that can then take advantage of | it. | | It's possible to make predictions based on trends and the | capability of hardware that becomes possible when it | previously wasn't: | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTdWQAKzESA (Also see: | Douglas Englebart's the Mother of All Demos: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mother_of_All_Demos). | Xerox PARC too - computing history is filled with examples | of people pulling the future down because they recognized | what was possible. | | Just because 3D websites are a bad UI doesn't mean looking | at little hand-held glass displays is the best one. Likely | in AR we'd still pull up flat 2D websites a lot of the | time, you just wouldn't need to pull out a little glass | display to do it. | | Michael Abrash used to have a blog post about the hardest | AR problems when he was at Valve (he's at Oculus now): | drawing black, and latency - the latter is mostly a | hardware constraint - I'm not sure if anyone has solved the | former (the magic leap sucked). | | If the hardware is possible, the UI benefits seem big. | slver wrote: | I don't know if you remember Google Glass was a thing, | and turned out that wearing glasses on your face 16 hours | a day is far more annoying than those "little hand-held | glass display" you're trying way too hard to be | dismissive of. | | Google Glass didn't die because it wasn't AR, it died | because wearing glasses all the time wasn't practical. | | Not practical technologically in terms of battery life, | weight, and not practical in terms of simply that you | don't need to interact with some digital UI every waking | moment of your life. | | Also while in our imagination we can conjure up virtual | displays in AR and use them for complex UIs, actually | waving your hands in empty air, aside from being super | weird, is also super inconvenient, compared to handheld | multitouch glass. | | You're not making AR predictions based on "current | trends". You think you are. Instead you're trying to draw | a straight line from the present reality to your favorite | sci-fi movies that have shaped your idea of what the | future is going to be like, while also skipping over all | the pesky details that can trip up that idea from concept | to realization. | | In other words, same reason why everyone was dead set | flying cars are coming. And yeah, the generic "no one | believed in XEROX PARX and no one believed in trains and | car engines, no one believed in airplanes" argument was | brought up about flying cars. Turns out that this | argument is not an automatic win for believing whatever | you wanna believe is coming. | | Just because someone didn't believe in airplanes doesn't | mean I can't roll my eyes at predictions that faster- | than-light travel is just around the corner. | fossuser wrote: | Google Glass died because the hardware sucked, the UI and | utility were not there. The general magic device was also | a failure, but mobile computing is obviously not. | | The timing has to be right and the hardware has to be | possible - if you're too early it won't work. | | Flying cars is a bad comparison - they mostly don't exist | in widespread use because of reasons not related to | computing. Risk, fuel, control, etc. - even then rich | people do have helicopters (though that's mostly | different). | | Pointing out failed predictions does not imply that all | predictions are similarly wrong. In computing - the | examples I showed (and there are others) are more | relevant. | slver wrote: | > Google Glass died because the hardware sucked, the UI | and utility were not there. | | And nothing has changed about that. | | > Pointing out failed predictions does not imply that all | predictions are similarly wrong. In computing - the | examples I showed (and there are others) are more | relevant. | | Most predictions are actually wrong. Let's see the | hardware that "doesn't suck", let's see the UI and | utility that "are there" and then I'll tell you if we | have a winner or not. | | Right now we have nothing except bold fantasies powered | by sci-fi movies full of cheap hologram VFX. | fossuser wrote: | > And nothing has changed about that. | | Yet - it's a prediction based on the capability of future | hardware that seems plausible. | | > Let's see the hardware that "doesn't suck", let's see | the UI and utility that "are there" and then I'll tell | you if we have a winner or not. | | Yeah sure, it's way easier to make predictions in | hindsight after other people have already built it. Even | then - when the iPhone launched in 2007 it was largely | panned in a similar way to what you're doing now. | | Making accurate predictions is hard - I agree with that. | If you dismiss everything you'll be right a lot of the | time, but you'll also miss every big and interesting | change until someone else builds it. | shirhan wrote: | Comparing the launch of the iPhone with the "launch" of a | prediction blog post void of any idea how said AR device | is even going to work is honestly absurd. | tomc1985 wrote: | > But here's the thing, in 10 years time, you're going to have | Windows, which is still just, and will continue to be, Windows. | And macOS, and iOS, and tvOS, and every other Apple OS, is | going to be so much more. And they already are so much more. | | And what is wrong with this? A stable, long-lasting platform is | a beautiful thing. | | Maybe I'm an old fart (at 36...) but I don't really want "so | much more". I want something that I can count on and bank on | _now_ , and that will be there for me for as far into the | future as possible. None of this lofty futuretech seems to | promise that, at least without bleeding me dry in pointlessly | recurring interactions like subscription fees. | PaulDavisThe1st wrote: | > Except everyone publishing software today that isn't a game | developer is targeting the web. | | All pro or semi-pro creative applications target native. | | live streaming / video editing / animation / DAW / image | editing | | There are some toys for parts of these workflows in the | webspace, but no serious tools for people who do this stuff | seriously. | mioasndo wrote: | > Something that's dawned on me for the last few years is that | Microsoft basically settled on the idea that the idea of the | modern operating system is effectively done, which I suppose is | true, but then they stopped creating technologies to build on | top of Windows all together. | | What happened was open source software, linux dominating the | server side, and android dominating mobile (iOS as well, to a | lesser extent). | | > Except everyone publishing software today that isn't a game | developer is targeting the web. | | Except for nearly all backend development... which mostly | targets linux first. | | > OK, but Microsoft is in the best position to create great, | integrated, first-class technologies that build on how great | Windows is. But they don't. I have mixed feelings about this, | because when Apple does it, they basically put people out of | business. | | For example? Apple software is average, and Microsoft has a | long history of 'putting people out of business' (not in a good | way). | | > But here's the thing, in 10 years time, you're going to have | Windows, which is still just, and will continue to be, Windows. | And macOS, and iOS, and tvOS, and every other Apple OS, is | going to be so much more. And they already are so much more. | | You forgot... android and linux. How does apple 'already have | so much more'? | | > For those who haven't experienced it yet, or can't afford | Apple products, they're missing something that just hasn't | happened in computing in any other period of time I can | immediately think of. | | That just sounds like an opinion of the average non-tech user | who lives inside an apple bubble and likes icon shapes and | default keybindings. You're not saying anything specific, just | poetry about apple being 'first-class' and 'something that just | hasn't happened in computing in any other period of time' (???) | [deleted] | [deleted] | tomc1985 wrote: | Can someone please define 'metaverse' in the context of... | whatever this article is about? | | Like jfc people, 'End users will experience the metaverse through | the default device delivered experience.' sounds like the most | doublespeakiest doublespeak ever to have been written. | | I love tech and this lofty shit makes me want to gouge my eyes | out. Speak plainly and simply, folks. | slver wrote: | Basically bunch of wanking about futuristic AR sci-fi | technology that the author has decided to accept as proven to | be coming, but actually isn't. | | See flying cars 20 years ago. | EvanAnderson wrote: | I assume it's a reference, at least in part, to the virtual | reality world in Neal Stephenson's "Snow Crash". | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaverse | OedipusRex wrote: | Which is where this falls apart. In the book the Metaverse is | basically a completely novel location in "VR". | | If we're pursuing a Metaverse, VR Chat is closer to a | Metaverse than Apple. | sombremesa wrote: | > Can someone please define 'metaverse' in the context of... | whatever this article is about? | | Personally, I dislike the term and I believe that it causes | people to lose credibility when they use it. However, I _can_ | define it to some extent. | | Consider the term 'universe' in the context of 'a particular | sphere of activity, interest, or experience'. For example, the | 'Harry Potter universe'. | | The 'metaverse' is simply such a 'universe' that you can't | really opt out of, because it's a layer on top of, rather than | distinct from, the regular old world. This is why AR is often | considered to be such an intrinsic aspect of it. | | Now, you might say that 'the internet' is just such a | metaverse, but it isn't because it doesn't benefit the people | who peddle the buzzword. | tomc1985 wrote: | I guess I don't get what's so meta about it. We're not | talking about a universe that describes universes. | | Metaphysics = the physics of physics | | Metascience = studying science itself with science | | Metaphilosophy = Philosophy about philosophy itself | | Metadata = data describing data | | Gaming 'meta' = the game of how to best play the game | | 'Meta' is one of those ultra-abstract terms that obfuscates | the meaning of whatever word it is attached to unless the | listener gives or has given the word a fair amount of | thought. Ah, then maybe that is why it is being used here. | [deleted] | Grustaf wrote: | Why wouldn't you be able to opt out of some AR world? | | I thought metaverse just meant Second Life 2.0. | sombremesa wrote: | You're right, that wasn't the best choice of words. I just | meant that it would be difficult to ignore or be | uninfluenced by it, at least if there were able to exist | "THE metaverse" rather than several fragmented attempts. | AndrewKemendo wrote: | The Metaverse in this context is a continuously updated digital | copy of the real world, where the "environment" is generated | passively by users. | | Imagine a city park where a handful of people have glasses with | cameras on them that are continuously sending a geo-located | feed of the images to a map server which processes it into a 3D | reconstruction. You could watch in real time as the city park | is reconstructed and updated in real time 3D, add in virtual | content, make content "layers" for different digital assets, | track interactions etc... | | It's a globally crowdsourced, consistently updated real time | digital twin of the world. | grawprog wrote: | I could be wrong, but sifting through that utterly terrible | corporate buzzword filled whatever the hell that was... | | I think it's what Apple's calling their new Augmented Reality | platform...I think...or what the author is calling what could | be Apple's potential AR platform...maybe? | [deleted] | TheOtherHobbes wrote: | Ads that follow you around in VR. There will be no escape. | | Also, Apple will try to make useful things appear in your VR | goggles - like showing you how to get home on a map, when in | fact you're planning to go out for a drink, or go grocery | shopping, or anything but. | | This is a terrible article, but the idea is - if not sound, at | least potentially interesting. | | It's basically enhanced location-aware cognition, taking input | from _everything_ around you - sound, video, tactile input, GPS | location, event history, AI-enhanced memory - and combining it | in real time to produce (checks notes...) "a new class of | life-enhancing interactions." | | The problem? It needs a lot of moving parts working together | seamlessly with better-than-human performance and reliability. | | Otherwise it will be a kludgy distracting nightmare of failed | meta-everything - like the most annoying and useless intern | anyone has ever had, only everywhere. | Accujack wrote: | Except it won't go on a coffee run. | eecc wrote: | > Otherwise it will be a kludgy distracting nightmare of | failed meta-everything - like the most annoying and useless | intern anyone has ever had, only everywhere. | | Clippy? | dole wrote: | Can I just get Alexa on a drone that perpetually follows me | around and broadcasts (or projects visually) occasional | targeted advertising? /s | donpdonp wrote: | HYPER-REALITY from 2016 is a very well done imagining of that | AR advertising dystopia. | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJg02ivYzSs | tomc1985 wrote: | Great, then I look forward to another useless technobauble | being hamfistedly shoved down my throat. | hn_throwaway_99 wrote: | Completely agree. The words "metaverse substrate" just set my | BS meter to a thousand, so I didn't even bother reading the | article at first. Then I did read (most of it), and still my BS | meter was at a thousand. | | If you can't explain what you mean in simple, easy to | understand language, and you're not talking about quantum | physics, you're just bullshitting. Should be required reading: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_and_the_English_Langu... | mikepurvis wrote: | It's right there in the first paragraph: | | "I've been less sure they understood the full scope needed to | build a compelling AR ecosystem - a metaverse." | tomc1985 wrote: | I saw that, and the definition still says nothing. | | Ok, so a metaverse is somehow the realization of the "full | scope" needed for a compelling AR ecosystem? And what exactly | does that mean, and how does that define this particular | usage of the (heavily overloaded) term 'metaverse'? | | Meta meaning 'about', so a universe about a universe? | | edit/ugh: googling the term says 'a virtual-reality space in | which users can interact with a computer-generated | environment and other users.' | | Like wtf does that have to do with the meta root word here? | | There is far too much abstraction in this vocabulary defining | a thing that is very real. | lallysingh wrote: | It's the universe (the regular meatspace one) augmented | with metadata, traditionally named such in AR/VR circles. | Metadata like names, statistics, directions, etc. Such as a | HUD you'd see in first-person video games. | | Another use of the term (not here) would be a way to jump | between VR systems, but they never generalized well enough | to make that a significant thing. Right now Steam would | count | blowski wrote: | To understand the metaverse first you need to understand | the metaverse. That's what I take from these comments and | the article. | tomc1985 wrote: | mind_blown.gif /s | beeandapenguin wrote: | In general, the term 'metaverse' is commonly used in the AR/VR | space to describe virtual worlds. Today, in (virtual) reality | it feels somewhat analogous to an "immersive operating system". | It's the entry point for doing _other_ things on a VR system. | | Some examples: Roblox, Facebook Horizon, VRChat, NEOS | canadianfella wrote: | > most doublespeakiest doublespeak | | > Speak plainly and simply, folk | | Ironic | memco wrote: | I was also confused and clicked just to try to figure out what | the headline meant. In the very beginning of the article | there's this line: | | > I've been less sure they understood the full scope needed to | build a compelling AR ecosystem - a metaverse. | | Seems this is about augmented reality being integrated into the | regular experience of a significant population. | deeviant wrote: | Of course, I think I can help. | | What is trying to be communicated here is psychographic content | will be delivered via standard device substrates existing in | well aligned usage patterns that will no doubt delight the end- | user with value. Metaverse here simply means they will deliver | an experience that is parallel to user expectation yet | orthogonal to the digital representation of the physical model | of the prevailing social zeitgeist. | | Or maybe someone just read Ready Player One recently, and is | just thinking: We're going to build the Oasis but nobody could | possibility understand what that is, I'll have to break it down | into easy-to-misunderstand corpobabble. | bjornjajayaja wrote: | Like a hipster wearing a monocle fashioned with metaverse- | substrate. The new age user interface is like cup of coffee | and a pipe with eco-friendly, translucent tobacco. | tomc1985 wrote: | I appreciate the irony of your second paragraph | hprotagonist wrote: | > We're going to build the Oasis and | | The Black Sun was there first. | | Can i interest you in a loose collection of extremely janky | perl scripts? The bar's owner hates it but, who cares? If he | kicks us out we can just race bikes for a while until the | fuss blows over. | jsemrau wrote: | You rmemeber Blaxxun from the '90s ? Man, that was a | Metaverse. | [deleted] | nixpulvis wrote: | Any idea where a guy can score The Librarian these days? | Wikipedia is cool and all, but it's lacking a certain... | finesse. | | On a more serious note, I think these are different | metaverses. Ours is pretty much locked in VR as far as I | can tell, and Apple is building an overlay on zeroth-order | reality, aka AR. Arguably harder and more powerful if done | properly. Which I'm sure it won't be. | | :P | chipotle_coyote wrote: | > Arguably harder and more powerful if done properly. | Which I'm sure it won't be. | | My response is kind of stuck between "that's overly | cynical, isn't it" and "statistically speaking, that's | pretty likely". | | (I was actually working at an early AR project at Nokia a | bit over a decade ago, at the time called Point & Find, | later called CityLens. It gave me a feeling that good AR | may be one of those things that remains "just a couple | years away" for decades.) | hnuser123456 wrote: | Define "good AR"? Pokemon Go is nearing its 5th birthday. | A VRchat overlay you can use on the street? If you get | the Epson AR glasses, combine it with the Quest 2's | Snapdragon XR2, and mess around in Unity for a bit, that | could be done by the end of the year. Create an app | that's killer enough to make up for the | bulkiness/inconvenience/price of a version 1 streetwear | AR headset and we'll be getting somewhere. | chipotle_coyote wrote: | That's fair -- with the caveat that your last sentence is | asking for a lot. :) I think Pokemon Go did a great job | of being an AR game, although I couldn't help but notice | that literally everyone I knew playing it turned off the | camera functionality after a few weeks and gave up on the | AR overlay part. | | I don't know what the "killer app" for AR is really going | to be. CityLens and comparable apps like Yelp Monocle on | smartphones clearly haven't cut it. (Show of hands: how | many people remembered Yelp _had_ an augmented reality | mode? I don 't think it's there anymore.) I think the big | challenge now is thinking of applications that _aren 't_ | games where using goggles/glasses give you more than | incremental improvements over putting the UI on your | wrist or in your ear(s). | ryanmcbride wrote: | That's where my mind immediately goes when I hear | 'metaverse' too | amelius wrote: | Does this have something to do with the reality distortion | field? | ant6n wrote: | >> Speak plainly and simply, folks. | | > Of course, I think I can help. (...)[jibberish] | | Lol, well done! | abricot wrote: | Listen to him. He speaks jive. | SkyMarshal wrote: | This very light grey text on white background = almost | unreadable. (Firefox 89 on linux) | | https://contrastrebellion.com/ | piinbinary wrote: | Interestingly, the background is black for me in Chrome, and | white in Firefox (both under macOS) | ezekg wrote: | Almost seems like Chrome has some default styles for dark | mode, such as a black background on <body>. | | Edit: TIL about the color-scheme (draft) CSS property. FF | doesn't support it. | 00jimbo wrote: | similarly, it renders light on black/dark grey for me in | safari. | Andrew_nenakhov wrote: | Reader mode to the rescue! It is almost the default way I | consume most blogs and news sites, reading experience is so | much better! | gtirloni wrote: | Same here. I use it on every other website and it's just | great. | [deleted] | [deleted] | Freak_NL wrote: | Something is screwy with the dark-mode CSS. | LeifCarrotson wrote: | Yep, it's fine unless you use a dark mode, in which case it | looks like this: | | https://i.imgur.com/7XwxrSb.png | | If you're not using dark mode, it's #EBEBEB on #121212, which | has plenty of contrast: | | https://contrast-ratio.com/#%23EBEBEB-on-%23121212 | | If you're using dark mode, it doesn't simply do nothing, | which would be the reasonable approach with those colors, it | gives you that light gray text on #FFFFFF pure white | background. It's basically the opposite of dark mode. | grork wrote: | Apologies for this -- I apparently failed to test on dark mode | in Firefox. I fixed it up just now | (https://github.com/grork/personal- | blog/commit/b9df1e924ef296...), and should be much more | readable. | SkyMarshal wrote: | Much better, thanks! | jodrellblank wrote: | > " _Please don 't complain about website formatting, back- | button breakage, and similar annoyances. They're too common to | be interesting. Exception: when the author is present. Then | friendly feedback might be helpful._" - | https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html | mark_l_watson wrote: | >> SwiftUI is getting more capable with every release, and | appears to be the long-term UI platform for apple. It also isn't | just about 'below the glass' experiences. | | SwiftUI 2 is so much better. I am taking a 50 hour course, and | spent a few hours hacking this morning. So much better than when | I tried it 14 months ago. | | Spacial Audio works really well. They are probably using | something called Head Related Transfer Functions, which I used at | my company's VR lab in the mid-1990s. | | The example AR Swift Playgrounds examples are also pretty cool. | | I agree with the general premise of the article! | th3h4mm3r wrote: | Marketing buzzwords. | streamofdigits wrote: | The curious thing about the past, present and future of AR... if | there was low hanging fruit (in terms of irresistible | applications) that people must absolutely have, love at first | "sight" experiences, wouldn't it have happened already? with | whatever crude software and hardware? Not as a gimmick but as | persistent interest and investment[0]. | | People got busy with computers when computers were the size of | houses. They carried mobile phones when phones were the size of | suitcases. Is the proto-AR revolution happening somewhere out | there without anybody noticing? | | Its possible that there is no low hanging AR fruit. That somebody | has to do the difficult job of climbing up the AR tree so to | speak (refine the technology until it feels like magic). | | It just seems that this would be an exception in how things | played out so far in the "digital transformation" journey. Its | the nature of the human brain to fill-in the gaps and overlook | the rough edges when it really has an incentive to do so. | | [0] investment in the sense of personal time by users, creators, | business people etc to really learn and use the technology to | scratch whatever itch they found it is scratching... | nottorp wrote: | Technobabble aside, I'm betting the battery life on the Apple | Glasses will be as bad as on the Apple Watch or worse. | | And people with prescription glasses won't be able to afford the | Apple Prescription(tm) anyway. | titanomachy wrote: | > Device-local speech recognition is fundamental to AR -- we | can't tap our feet & twiddle our thumbs while we wait for a | round-trip to the cloud to conclude how to handle "Group these | five items, and remember them for next week when I'm at the | office" | | I'm not convinced that this is true. Round-trip latency has | gotten a lot lower, especially if you take edge computing into | account. 20-30ms round-trip is not unusual. If your mic feed is | being streamed in real-time, and the program is able to achieve a | high-confidence prediction at (or before) the moment you finish | speaking, I think it should be possible to deliver an experience | that feels instantaneous, at least for users with cutting-edge | connectivity. For visual interactions, 100ms feels instantaneous; | I bet tolerance for spoken interactions is even higher. | dangus wrote: | Some of the ideas in the article make a lot of sense in the | context of AR, specifically the parts about on-device Siri and | Spatial Audio. | | However...I'm sorry, the article as a whole just leaves me with | the taste of Apple butt-licking. | | So many of these parts of this "metaverse" are typical recurring | revenue and ecosystem lock-in encouragements. | | Find My: Let's sell some high profit margin trackers and | keychains. | | SharePlay: let's sell more TV+ subscriptions. | | Universal Control: platform lock-in: make you question using a | Windows desktop instead of an iMac if you already own an iPad. | | Spatial Audio: sell more headphones | | Notes features: sell more News+ subscriptions, more vendor lock- | in. | | ShazamKit: data mine advertising info. Yes, Apple has ad | platforms, and with each passing day their business model creeps | closer and closer to Google's (e.g., When they inevitably drop | Yelp in favor of their own review system, or if they launch their | own search engine) | | (Apple can still mine data and use it to sell you things and | understand what you're likely to buy even if they "respect" your | privacy and leave all the data on-device. They can still get you | to click an affiliate link or buy an app without leaving the | realm of on-device ML. | | And remember that Apple's marketing is not the same as their | documented privacy policy. | ericmay wrote: | Heh, I'd say at least Apple is differentiating... | | Google: | | GMail -> Let's sell some ads | | Android -> Let's sell some ads | | Android Auto -> How can we put ads in cars? | | YouTube -> How can we show people more video ads? | | Search -> Let's sell some ads. | | Google Music -> Did this sell enough ads? If not lets rebrand | it and try to sell more ads. | | etc. | | Anyway, not a slight against Google, but you can do this with | any large company probably. I'm not sure how meaningful it is. | robertoandred wrote: | Oh please describe all of these Apple ad platforms. | dangus wrote: | Sure! | | The App Store has sponsored apps. | | Apple News has ads in the app, before you click on any | articles. | | Apple Music/iTunes Store/Books has promoted | artists/albums/movies/TV. It's unclear whether any of these | are paid promotions by the content producer but they're in a | banner so I have to assume Apple gets something out of it. | | Apple Podcasts also has a featured section, likely paid ads. | | And, as I mentioned, it's extremely likely that Apple is | working on a replacement for Yelp for Apple Maps, which will | potentially be a big source of revenue. | | And of course, there are ads for Apple's own in-house TV+ | content. Not an ad network, but if they know what you like | they can better promote their TV shows. By default the TV app | sends random push notifications. | | The more Apple gets into content the more knowing your | personality and interests is important to their business | model. | imwillofficial wrote: | This is the most biased take on useful platform differentiating | features I've ever seen. | lallysingh wrote: | Meh, I think that's not out of line with how other vendors | (e.g. Google) are treated here right now. | SheinhardtWigCo wrote: | Indeed, it's totally nuts to suggest that the world's most | capitalized company might be focused on revenue growth | instead of the "metaverse substrate". | lazyfuture wrote: | Are you out of your ducking mind? | | Sent from my iPhone | theonlybutlet wrote: | The ramp up in the use of the term 'meta' for everything over the | past few months makes me cringe. | Jtsummers wrote: | Well, 'metaverse', here, comes from 1992's _Snow Crash_ and has | been in use for nearly 30 years. Not really just the past few | months. | Animats wrote: | If this is correct, Apple's vision is that in the future, all | their customers will be glassholes. They could be right. I | never expected people would walk around wearing iDweebs, those | silly headphones. | meh99 wrote: | Apple makes the idea of Plan9 viable using wireless technology | and smart protocols. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2021-06-21 23:00 UTC)