The Apple Headset

 Apple did their really cool WWDC thing on the 5th where they showed off everything coming up in their lineup. Now, despite the really cool idea of apple celebrating the people who make things using their things, I can’t help but feel apple themselves are kinda… slacking in this regard. I know that certainly isn’t a new idea, I mean look at the iphone. The last major “innovation” on the iphone was Faceid. Everything else since feels pretty minor in comparison. Not to say the phones got worse, but they didn’t necessarily get better. Meanwhile they just keep getting more expensive. Like you can legitimately buy an iphone for as much as a budget gaming PC or a high end graphics card. It’s nuts! Anyways, back to the whole point of this. While I think that the majority of the WWDC presentation was underwhelming there are two things that I feel are notable enough that are even worth talking about.

The first thing is Presentation mode. This is something coming to MacOS Sonoma which I think is actually very cool. What it does basically is separates you from your background and allows whatever you're presenting to become like this floating element on your screen. It uses AI to achieve this and the demos make it seem very awesome. It can also do this thing where it automatically makes you a floating head element in your own presentation. 

    

I would’ve loved something like this during the zoom era because sometimes it was so hard to focus on a presentation without being able to see the person presenting. Funnily enough it almost looked like I was watching a pretty decent youtuber giving a video essay. That vibe makes the presentation immediately more engaging for me. I think the craziest part is not needing a greenscreen or anything else, just the camera + the software does it all itself. Out of all of the things included in the announcement, this is actually an innovation that excites me. A diamond hidden among the usual “we made this 5% better” talk that comes out of these normally.

Now here comes THE thing that people will remember from this presentation. The thing that people will be talking about so much until apple crams it into the mainstream so much everyone has it. The Apple Vision Pro. Now, this is most certainly not the first mixed reality headset that a company has tried to do. Google did with the google glasses many many years ago. Microsoft does it with whatever their headset is called. AR technology has been cooking for a while now and Apple feels like they can finally put their hand into this still very very young and evolving market. To be blunt: I think this move just ain’t it. Without even talking about what the thing does or its features just look at that price

Now I don’t know about you, but $3500 is not the kind of money I want to be paying for a first generation product in a category that has historically been extremely niche. Like yea it’s cool and yeah the technology is advanced, but making a consumer pay that much for something we’re not even sure we’ll be using in a few years or even less time seems a little outlandish. Not to mention it only has a TWO HOUR battery life when not plugged in. I wasn’t expecting to be able to do my morning runs with this thing, but sheeeeeeesh that is quite a disappointment when Apple has had a decent expectation of battery life in their products. The digital passthrough of the eyes is also scary as well. Like I was legitimately freaked out when I saw it. It’s scarily good, but not good enough to pass the uncanny valley test for me. I don’t know man. I strongly have the opinion that if they had waited like an extra year, it could’ve been so much better. Especially if they were able to release it at a cheaper price point. It prices out like everyone except those who are on the top end of the field it feels like. Most people’s computers don’t even cost that much. Despite that though, the technology is exciting and I definitely after they get past the period where all we can afford to do is meme on the product they can make something that might actually be exciting.

Thanks for reading to the end! I know that was a little bit off topic compared to the last two posts, but that’s the point of the whole thing. It was also my first time using images in a post which I don't think I'll use too many more since it's a little annoying to get them to look the way I want them to, in fact they still don't. Anyways, all feedback is appreciated as always and I'll see y'all with the next post!