WWDC 2023: What to expect (READ FOR UPDATE)

[HenrySalayne]

14 hours ago, leadeater said:

Also it doesn't have to be broad-mass focused at all, that's a bad assumption. iMac Pro, Mac Studio and Mac Pro 100% are not, Apple isn't afraid of products like this and a VR headset would be no different.

How many of these model lines have been updated (or even been available) in the past 3 years?

 

Edit: And I want to add, that the three models you just named are either "brethren" of existing consumer products and/or using somewhat off-the-shelf components.

iMac Pro was an iMac based on a Xeon, Mac Pro is a desktop workstation using Intel hardware and the Mac Studio is an upscaled Mac Mini.

We cannot foresee the future of the Mac Studio yet, since it was launched quite recently.

Sales of the Mac Pro and the iMac Pro were so piss-poor, that Apple updated the lines very infrequently. Development costs for these products were also rather low compared to creating a entire new product and ecosystem with their VR headset.

If Apple fails to make their VR headset appealing to the broad mass, it will wither into non-existence.

 

14 hours ago, leadeater said:

You say that but have you really thought about how that would actually be like. You might want to try it but is it actually something you would do every time always. Again AR sure, VR headset no.

It depends on the headset? That's why I said there is a market for it, not that Apple will launch the perfect product within a week.

 

14 hours ago, leadeater said:

Apple is not going to market a product on a "ooo shiny" use case that will get dropped after a few tries because it's actually impractical and horrible experience. In an office situation have you ever tried interacting with someone with a VR headset on? Would that be conducive to a good working environment? 

I explicitly talked about mobile work.

And to be perfectly honest - headphones or gigantic monitor setups also require user interaction. You have to remove headgear or roll out of your display dungeon to actually talk to someone. Why should pulling of a VR headset be any different?

[DrMacintosh]

On 5/24/2023 at 9:20 PM, johnt said:

I'm curious to know what happened with the satellite service from the last phones. Will there be new service fees? Can I just not have a satellite subscription?

When Apple announced the Emergency SOS feature they did say it was going to be free for X amount of time. I don’t recall how they said it would be free for. Either way, yes, it will be optional and you don’t have to pay for it if you don’t want it. 

[johnt]

1 hour ago, DrMacintosh said:

When Apple announced the Emergency SOS feature they did say it was going to be free for X amount of time. I don’t recall how they said it would be free for. Either way, yes, it will be optional and you don’t have to pay for it if you don’t want it. 

I suspect that be the case. Would be nice to have an official statement. I think they said it was two years free. 

 

 

 

[Paul Thexton]

On 5/28/2023 at 12:11 PM, leadeater said:

I'll be rather sad not to see a M[x] Mac Pro.

As a consumer I have absolutely no interest in the Mac Pro. My current laptop is already way more powerful than I realistically need.

 

As a software engineer who develops software for Macs, making use of CI pipelines for automated integration testing across all supported OS versions, I immediately lost interest in the Mac Pro when Apple hard-implemented their "2 VMs per physical Mac at any one time" in their Virtualization framework, meaning we get far better value from shoving multiple Mac Minis in a rack.

 

It's a shame really, but I think whatever the Mac Pro ends up being (if they even release it in this generation of M[x] chips), it'll be targeted specifically at people doing insanely heavy duty video and audio production work.

[hishnash]

3 hours ago, Paul Thexton said:

it'll be targeted specifically at people doing insanely heavy duty video and audio production work.

Yes for sure, I think they could also opt to taker some simulation worklaods but that for me depends on if Apples GPUs adopt better FP64 support. The benefit they have in the HW is the high VRAm to compute ratio at a comparably lower price and for the portable devices a very good price and extremely good on the road battery life, a PC workstiaon laptop with 60ish GB of usable VRAM if they exist will cost close to $10k and will last less than 30minuts away from a wall plug.  

If apple could attract the CAD and other high VRAM (reliatilvy low compute) ratio apps they could get a lot of that market very fast, the fact is there are not that many software vendors servising this market its not like game studios, apple could get a large chunk even if they just got one Autodesk to support thier platform. 

[leadeater]

On 6/3/2023 at 10:10 AM, HenrySalayne said:

I explicitly talked about mobile work.

That doesn't make it any better, I would say worse. Again unless it's actually something suitable to VR in the fist place it doesn't matter where you do it it's still going to be bad. It's not like typing up word documents and checking emails is a struggle on a laptop display so again the applications that were thrown out and I am refuting as having ANY worth in this discussion is horrible point to try and make or why an Apple VR headset is likely to be so much better than all those before it.

 

On 6/3/2023 at 10:10 AM, HenrySalayne said:

And to be perfectly honest - headphones or gigantic monitor setups also require user interaction. You have to remove headgear or roll out of your display dungeon to actually talk to someone. Why should pulling of a VR headset be any different?

Do you actually work in an office. Do you conduct near even amount of in person and remote/computer meetings. I do. Putting on a VR headset is absolutely without question different. First have you actually used a VR headset? If you have not done so then you really are commenting without any practical experience and just going on your feelings and idealisms.

 

Once you have a VR headset on and lets say doing work or in a meeting you are totally unaware of anything around you, totally and completely. With just headphones on you can still see exactly as you can before and people around you can also for the most part tell what you are doing and if you are busy. Someone is able to come up to you and get your attention or you can see something you might need to see in the moment, not with a VR headset. 

 

Are they just checking emails and doing a word doc and it's fine to interrupt them or they see you are there and stop and ask, or are they in the middle of something quite important and now is not the time, can they signal to wait or come back later?

 

VR headset vs headphones is legitimately vastly different. Have a longer and harder think about how this would actually work out, for real, long term, not a gimmick to try.

 

On 6/3/2023 at 10:10 AM, HenrySalayne said:

Edit: And I want to add, that the three models you just named are either "brethren" of existing consumer products and/or using somewhat off-the-shelf components.

iMac Pro was an iMac based on a Xeon, Mac Pro is a desktop workstation using Intel hardware and the Mac Studio is an upscaled Mac Mini.

Makes absolutely no difference at all to the point that Apple has no problem and has released products with limited TAM. If you want a better example then the first, original Apple Watch. The first Apple watch was not marketed as mass market, wasn't mass market either, and had about as much longevity as milk left out in a desert.

 

On 6/3/2023 at 10:10 AM, HenrySalayne said:

It depends on the headset? That's why I said there is a market for it, not that Apple will launch the perfect product within a week.

Except we're in the middle of a discussion about THIS product and addressing what are legitimately bad reasons why it's going to be so great, for everyone when it's not. I do not need to wait for the release to know use cases it's not going to be good at based on what people have said it's going to be.

 

Some future product, later generations aren't going to make this one good or better years later, don't retro actively make this one better. No it's going to be just as good in two years as now usability and use experience wise in regards to application applicability. 2 years from now it's going to be just as bad a user experience with Pages as it will be today.

 

If you are selling yourself on some future dream of AR glasses with a go anywhere do anything experience then you best wait for actually that.

 

On 6/3/2023 at 10:10 AM, HenrySalayne said:

If Apple fails to make their VR headset appealing to the broad mass, it will wither into non-existence.

Apple Watch shows otherwise.

 

Quote

In comparison to other Apple products and competing smartwatches, marketing of the Apple Watch promoted the device as a fashion accessory.^[28] Apple later focused on its health and fitness-oriented features, in an effort to compete with dedicated activity trackers.

 

Quote

Pre-orders for the Apple Watch began on April 10, 2015, with the official release on April 24.^[32] Initially, it was not available at the Apple Store; customers could make appointments for demonstrations and fitting, but the device was not in-stock for walk-in purchases and had to be reserved and ordered online.

 

It wasn't really much of a functional device without an iPhone. Yet this, as of then not mass marketed product, device is not dead is it?

[Obioban]

On 6/2/2023 at 6:10 PM, HenrySalayne said:

How many of these model lines have been updated (or even been available) in the past 3 years?

 

Edit: And I want to add, that the three models you just named are either "brethren" of existing consumer products and/or using somewhat off-the-shelf components.

iMac Pro was an iMac based on a Xeon, Mac Pro is a desktop workstation using Intel hardware and the Mac Studio is an upscaled Mac Mini.

We cannot foresee the future of the Mac Studio yet, since it was launched quite recently.

Sales of the Mac Pro and the iMac Pro were so piss-poor, that Apple updated the lines very infrequently. Development costs for these products were also rather low compared to creating a entire new product and ecosystem with their VR headset.

If Apple fails to make their VR headset appealing to the broad mass, it will wither into non-existence.

 

It depends on the headset? That's why I said there is a market for it, not that Apple will launch the perfect product within a week.

 

I explicitly talked about mobile work.

And to be perfectly honest - headphones or gigantic monitor setups also require user interaction. You have to remove headgear or roll out of your display dungeon to actually talk to someone. Why should pulling of a VR headset be any different?

I would guess that what we’re going to see next week is the (low sales volume) “Pro” version. The consumer facing version will arrive in a couple years, when the price can be lower (at a spec level they find acceptable) and the software story is up and running… or maybe the intention is the AR glasses to be the consumer version.

 

Either way, at the rumored pricing, this is not intended to be a mass market, consumer product. 

[HenrySalayne]

10 hours ago, leadeater said:

It's not like typing up word documents and checking emails is a struggle on a laptop display

Or a tablet or a phone. You can set arbitrary rules when something becomes a struggle. A large display is even beneficial for "simple" tasks. Every time you need to use more than 1 application, you have to jump between these applications on a laptop display. If you are writing a novel this might be enough, I need at least 3 different applications at all times and I can use them all in parallel on a larger screen.

 

10 hours ago, leadeater said:

Once you have a VR headset on and lets say doing work or in a meeting you are totally unaware of anything around you, totally and completely. With just headphones on you can still see exactly as you can before and people around you can also for the most part tell what you are doing and if you are busy. Someone is able to come up to you and get your attention or you can see something you might need to see in the moment, not with a VR headset. 

You are describing a "VR bubble" which is one end of the spectrum while AR with a giant floating screen in your FOV is the other.

 

10 hours ago, leadeater said:

Apple Watch shows otherwise.

No, it shows exactly what I'm saying. The Apple watch has three to five orders of magnitude more costumers than the Mac Pro or iMac Pro. For every 3 iPhones 1 Apple watch is sold. That's the broad mass. For every 10,000 Macs, maybe 1 Mac Pro is sold. That's laughable and it will lead to product revisions every 4 years.

If the Apple headset is not on a steep, upward trajectory in a few years, it will be terminated.

 

[saltycaramel]

3 hours.

 

My body is ready.

 

 

[whispous]

I would hope that it's already been said, but I highly doubt apple's headset is intended to be a consumer device. (for this generation).
It's almost certainly got to be aimed specifically at industry and creative work, not at entertainment so hurf-blurfing about a $3,000+ price tag is largely irrelevant at this stage.

 

If you can get adoption in a smaller, more professional sector first, the pricey investment in tools and use cases will provide a solid bedrock for more appetisingly priced consumer products later.

[saltycaramel]

22 minutes ago, whispous said:

I would hope that it's already been said, but I highly doubt apple's headset is intended to be a consumer device. (for this generation).

 

But if, as I suspect, today they will talk

- VR movies

- VR tv shows

- VR live concerts

- AR/VR games

- VR sport events

- VR fitness and meditation

 

those things scream “consumer”. 

 

But I agree the first generation has a limited scope compared to the second gen headsets (especially the cheaper one). Also limited availability, 1M/year is (comparatively) nothing.

[leadeater]

On 6/5/2023 at 3:15 AM, HenrySalayne said:

No, it shows exactly what I'm saying. The Apple watch has three to five orders of magnitude more costumers than the Mac Pro or iMac Pro.

It does now, not at release. I am, as already stated talking about now, not Apple VR/AR 3-5 when things will have drastically changed from now. Having to state this yet again, future events and changes do not retroactively change the past.

 

Apple having, or not having, a roadmap for mass market device doesn't make this one so. It can be later, it could be now, I don't think it is now. No problem being wrong, but a $3000 headset certainly doesn't give it a good chance at being one nor does it set the tone of being one either.

 

On 6/5/2023 at 3:15 AM, HenrySalayne said:

You are describing a "VR bubble" which is one end of the spectrum while AR with a giant floating screen in your FOV is the other.

If the headset has a display that you cannot see directly through ie literal glass then it's a VR headset period. It has all the problems of one, every problem I have talked about. IF it's not showing you everything only through cameras and a screen and you can have direct natural light hitting your eyes i.e. optical glasses then and only then do my comments not apply.

 

You can say AR all you like, it's a VR headset if the above applies. If you cannot see the real world then you aren't AR, and seeing the real world the real worlds light hitting you eyes, not captured through a camera and displayed back to you. 

 

I am talking the way I am because the only information available is describing such a headset, one that does not actually do AR. 

 

P.S. Go back and watch the linked Mac Address video with him walking around and talking to people with a headset on with visual passthrough, don't ever try and tell me that's an actually workable use case.

[saltycaramel]

Audio-transparency mode on my Airpods Pro2 is so good it tricks my brain into thinking I have no headphones on.

 

Could video-transparency mode on a VR headset one day be so good to the point of being an exceptionally good, workable, substitute for real see-thru natural light AR? I don’t know but I wouldn’t necessarily bet my life against it, I don’t have this kind of certainties. 

[leadeater]

31 minutes ago, saltycaramel said:

Could video-transparency mode on a VR headset one day be so good to the point of being an exceptionally good, workable, substitute for real see-thru natural light AR? I don’t know but I wouldn’t necessarily bet my life against it, I don’t have this kind of certainties. 

Or just do actual AR 

 

Why bother persisting with a way that is known to be not suited in certain ways when you have a known better one. Equally glasses are bad at things VR are better suited at. Making a screen so close to your eyes produce light in the way sunlight does is basically near impossible, at least probably in the next like 20 years anyway. We have a lot of indirect light, lots of light that has bounced off things, our focal point changes quite rapidly. Our eyes and brain take in so much information that a lot of it gets filtered out by the brain. Reproducing that is at least for me essentially indescribably hard to do, then you have to do that again but with cameras so you have two exceedingly hard problems to figure out versus just using transparent glass to see the world avoiding all of those problems.

 

But I guess some people like taking the unnecessarily hard path, although sometimes that is necessary. I have zero expectations screen and camera technology is going to get anywhere near this sort of level in any relevant time frame.

[OhYou_]

is apple going to announce an iphone that doesnt thermal throttle down to a slideshow presentation in Genshin Impact?

[saltycaramel]

7 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Or just do actual AR 

 

Why bother

 

the unnecessarily hard path, although sometimes that is necessary

 

Why bother? Because it’s necessary at this point in time, since manufacturing standalone 8K M2-graphics AR glasses is the incredibly harder path with the tech available today. It’s literally impossible. Even the rumored later-this-decade Apple AR glasses (codenamed “N421” inside Apple) will supposedly borrow some computing power from the iPhone in your pocket, like the Watch does. Standalone AR glasses as powerful the headset Apple is about to unveil today are many years away, not in this decade for sure. So the “unnecessarily” in your “unnecessarily hard path” is the understatement of the century. 

[leadeater]

5 minutes ago, saltycaramel said:

Why bother? Because it’s necessary at this point in time, since manufacturing standalone 8K M2-graphics AR glasses is the incredibly harder path with the tech available today.

A) Why is it necessary? B) "8K" and AR glasses is an incorrect statement. Don't mix up this device as reported as having screens of X/Y resolution as having any comparison to AR glasses. Very different technology and needs.

 

You can have glasses right now with the same SoC in it, put it on the back of the head for example. It's literally possible, trivially so. Further to that, and this is not a good solution and has it's own problems, you have have the exact same sized headset but with optical glass instead of screens so I don't know why you think it's even hard at all let alone impossible 

[saltycaramel]

For context, this is the kind of GPU power we’re talking about

 

 

And it will destroy the headset’s external battery in 2 hours supposedly…

I hope to see the day this is possible on lightweight AR glasses. Not this decade though. 

 

I see from a new answer above that you’re talking about AR goggles more than lightweight AR glasses…those are slightly more feasible if we imagine some ergonomic nightmare like having the hot computing part behind the head (instead of a soft comfy headband), sure..still, far harder path than VR goggles at the moment, and the screen tech isn’t quite there yet..

[leadeater]

15 minutes ago, saltycaramel said:

I see from a new answer above that you’re talking about AR goggles more than lightweight AR glasses…those are slightly more feasible if we imagine some ergonomic nightmare like having the hot computing part behind the head (instead of a soft comfy headband), sure..still, far harder path than VR goggles at the moment, and the screen tech isn’t quite there yet..

How about the ergonomic nightmare of something hot over your eyes... Or that the headband can still be comfortable and soft while having computing hardware attached to it.

 

Also I'm talking about AR vs VR, differences of, the good and the bad. How each have their own strengths and weaknesses. The only device I am talking about is the as talked about Apple Headset and with that context areas it's going to be strong and and areas it's going to be weak at. References and examples of other things is in relation to the Apple headset.

 

Also your last statement, screen tech? What? You know it's astronomically harder and more requirement to do an VR image than an AR overlay right? One you have to render everything, the other you only render object to display in your vision, displaying a text bubble over someone head showing their name is a darn sight less computationally demanding.

[saltycaramel]

2 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Also your last statement, screen tech? What? You know it's astronomically harder and more requirement to do an VR image than an AR overlay right? One you have to render everything, the other you only render object to display in your vision, displaying a text bubble over someone head showing there name is a darn sight less computationally demanding.

 

The tech isn’t there to do the things Apple wanna do at the performance Apple wants, at the price point and yield Apple needs, at the power consumption Apple needs. You’re not getting a 4000ppi full color transparent AR display in 2023. (not to mention Apple’s headset was initially supposed to launch even earlier than 2023)

 

This site has a trove of information about these sort of things and the latest advancements:

https://kguttag.com/

 

Here’s an interesting comparison from 2021:

https://displaydaily.com/ar-display-luminance-requirements-micro-oleds-vs-micro-leds/

 

[leadeater]

2 minutes ago, saltycaramel said:

The tech isn’t there to do the things Apple wanna do at the performance Apple wants, at the price point and yield Apple needs, at the power consumption Apple needs.

So you actually know what Apple wants to do? Odd since the presentation hasn't started yet.  That's an interest power you have.

 

3 minutes ago, saltycaramel said:

You’re not getting a 4000ppi full color transparent AR display in 2023. (not to mention Apple’s headset was initially supposed to launch even earlier than 2023)

Again the screen needs of VR and AR are different, and even that is based on what you actually want to do with them too.

 

You could have a look at Magic Leap 2 if you want an idea of what is current of this year in an actual device, Apple can do better than that.

[Deadpool2onBlu-Ray]

I'm a little bit of an Apple whore nowadays, so I am excited for today. I have an iphone, airpods, Mac, Apple watch, and a bunch of airtags, oh and an Apple TV 4k 2022.... I love all of them honestly. I do have a gnarly custom rig though so that balances out my apple whoreness

[saltycaramel]

10 minutes ago, leadeater said:

So you actually know what Apple wants to do? Odd since the presentation hasn't started yet.  That's an interest power you have.

 

Based on the rumors.

And what is rumored is far more appealing than what could be done with early 2020s tech on see-thru AR displays. 

[leadeater]

1 minute ago, saltycaramel said:

 

Based on the rumors.

And what is rumored is far more appealing than what could be done with early 2020s tech on see-thru AR displays. 

No disagreement there, but remember I'm saying this is going to be great in the areas VR headsets are known to be good at and not so much where they aren't. I am still unsure why this is a problem statement or why this is a problem with the device if so and how Apple presents it. Since Apple has done the VR headset path as told so far rather than AR glasses that is a really good indictor to me of where Apple is going to be focusing on right now. Mixed reality will be there but I'm quite sure it'll be leaning on the side of VR type use case than AR. Use cases like creative design, construction etc, going in to a room and seeing how it would look after renovation.

 

I just don't see it being positioned in every day task use cases like AR is, where wearing the device doesn't or shouldn't hinder your normal activities.

[IkeaGnome]

49 minutes ago, leadeater said:

How about the ergonomic nightmare of something hot over your eyes...

This is my single biggest complaint about VR. With the Oculus 2, and a glasses spacer they still fog up, so I end up just not wearing glasses under them. 

Not having good pass through vision compounds this. It's fairly normal for me to have to lift them off. Combine this with long hair and I just end up with sweaty strands of hair in my eyes and locked in that compartment. 

 

Give me game compatibility with Windows games and good pass through vision and it'll be hard not to get. I don't see that happening though, and until the pass through vision is fixed I don't see VR becoming "every day use main stream."