WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:10.240 It appears that Apple's vision for the future is this, a VR headset. 00:00:10.240 --> 00:00:14.200 They're cool and quite a bit of fun, at least for a while. 00:00:14.200 --> 00:00:18.840 And at this year's WWDC, we're expecting to see their version of it. 00:00:18.840 --> 00:00:25.280 From what I know about Apple's history, this seems off, an Apple VR platform that seems 00:00:25.280 --> 00:00:29.880 so open-ended and unresolved. I'm not confident and I don't know why. 00:00:29.880 --> 00:00:33.520 So to see if I'm the only one, out of the announcement, let's ask people what they 00:00:33.520 --> 00:00:35.640 want from an Apple VR headset. 00:00:41.640 --> 00:00:44.800 Mark, do I look cool wearing these? 00:00:44.800 --> 00:00:49.280 A little bit. Kind of, but probably just wear inside. 00:00:49.280 --> 00:00:52.280 You look cooler. What? Kind of. 00:00:52.280 --> 00:00:58.280 Kind of look like a bug. I don't know where to look. Look, like there's cameras right above your nose. 00:00:58.280 --> 00:01:01.440 You look like a Star Wars alien if I just focus on that. 00:01:01.440 --> 00:01:05.720 This headset has been a long time coming, actually, with rumors trickling out steadily 00:01:05.720 --> 00:01:09.040 for the past eight years. 00:01:09.040 --> 00:01:13.280 People have been speculating about the specs, but I'm more interested in the whole point 00:01:13.280 --> 00:01:18.160 of Apple's headset. Because frankly, I think it's worth tamping down expectation. 00:01:18.160 --> 00:01:22.120 So if I had to sum it up, it's probably not going to be amazing. 00:01:22.120 --> 00:01:25.840 In my opinion, what they're going to probably announce or release according to all those 00:01:25.880 --> 00:01:32.520 rumors, it's going to be kind of VR headsets with potentially C2 applications. 00:01:32.520 --> 00:01:36.800 To help me on my journey, I reached out to Zane Bahamri, a lead analyst for Display Imaging, 00:01:36.800 --> 00:01:42.200 as well as Eugene Fumay, Dean of Applied Sciences at Simon Fraser University here in Burnaby. 00:01:42.200 --> 00:01:45.840 I would have preferred the straight AR solution personally. 00:01:45.840 --> 00:01:52.480 I think there would be a lower barrier to acceptance, and more people would try it out. 00:01:52.480 --> 00:01:58.240 I think AR actually has more potential in society at large. 00:01:58.240 --> 00:02:03.840 The very fact you're looking at me through this VR headset, and I'm not sharing that 00:02:03.840 --> 00:02:08.800 experience with you, is fundamentally problematic. 00:02:08.800 --> 00:02:14.320 But I'm not too surprised that they would go to a VR setting first. 00:02:14.320 --> 00:02:20.560 There is an opportunity to capitalize on existing VR applications, interesting graphics games, 00:02:21.440 --> 00:02:25.760 and having a pass-through gives you an AR-ish experience. 00:02:25.760 --> 00:02:30.320 The closest analog to what's expected is this, the MetaQuest Pro. 00:02:30.320 --> 00:02:34.000 I've been using it for the past week, and it's really sold me on what VR offers, 00:02:34.000 --> 00:02:38.240 especially in terms of immersion and sense of scale in virtual worlds. 00:02:38.240 --> 00:02:45.680 Whoa, cool apartment! Unfortunately, it's decent hardware controlled by maddening Meta software. 00:02:45.680 --> 00:02:53.920 But fortunately, this is what Apple does best. Take an established category that's a little lost, and then show the world how it should be done. 00:02:53.920 --> 00:03:01.040 It's what they did with the PC, it's what they did with the music player, it's what they did with the cell phone, and I guess what they're doing with the Apple Watch. 00:03:01.040 --> 00:03:05.520 The question is, are those past successes any indication that Apple will be the company to 00:03:05.520 --> 00:03:10.640 finally crack VR, or is this just a radically different challenge from what they faced before? 00:03:13.120 --> 00:03:20.960 Search! We have to remember that this idea of extending reality has been around for millennia. 00:03:20.960 --> 00:03:25.440 I mean, you know, with the development of eyeglasses and microscopes and telescopes, 00:03:25.440 --> 00:03:30.400 we're kind of extending the nature of the reality we can perceive. 00:03:30.400 --> 00:03:34.480 So this idea of augmenting reality has been around a long time. 00:03:35.360 --> 00:03:38.880 The difference is that those were all purpose-built. 00:03:38.880 --> 00:03:44.320 What we're dealing with here with these glass technologies is we've been through a cycle since, 00:03:44.320 --> 00:03:49.600 you know, the mid-1960s, and they've really been largely the same kind of applications, 00:03:49.600 --> 00:03:56.080 simulation technologies, and it's moved into the idea of immersive computer graphics environments, 00:03:56.080 --> 00:04:02.080 games, and so on. So the cycle of applications hasn't changed that much, and the nature of the, 00:04:02.080 --> 00:04:04.720 frankly, the form factor has not changed that much. 00:04:05.200 --> 00:04:11.440 And the use case, the application is really what's missing. And I mean, if we look at the history, you opened up with the VR. 00:04:12.480 --> 00:04:16.800 Don't know if you remember, 2014, Max Zuckerberg by Oculus for two billion, 00:04:17.440 --> 00:04:22.720 and he says, no worry, we're going to start with the video gamers, and then it's going to be what he 00:04:22.720 --> 00:04:27.120 called a social VR. It's going to be for everyone. You're going to be able to call the grandma or the 00:04:27.120 --> 00:04:32.400 VR and so on and so forth. Lo and behold, we are many years after that, and the market is only 00:04:32.400 --> 00:04:37.680 the video gamers and the industrial applications. I'm sure you've heard that there are a lot of 00:04:37.680 --> 00:04:43.600 rumors that Apple's going to release a headset similar to this. What should it do? Like, what's 00:04:46.400 --> 00:04:51.360 I don't want to watch like Netflix outside, but like maybe scan some areas, maybe make 00:04:51.360 --> 00:04:56.720 graphs, I don't know. Final Cut Pro, my new editing setup. So you would edit Final Cut Pro in like a 00:04:56.720 --> 00:05:01.920 virtual world? That'd be amazing. What's that movie? Minority report? Minority report, but like video 00:05:01.920 --> 00:05:07.680 editing. I'm not an Apple. I don't have anything Apple, so I don't, if it could get my wife interested 00:05:07.680 --> 00:05:13.280 in it, then I would buy it. Seriously, if this could get your wife into VR, that would make it work well. 00:05:13.280 --> 00:05:20.960 Yeah. The more that being in a VR environment is more like being in the real world, this is obvious. 00:05:20.960 --> 00:05:26.320 The more I want to try it. Yeah. Yeah, it would be cool if it can incorporate with some like 00:05:27.200 --> 00:05:33.840 applications where you can like do like draping or some sort or pattern making. 00:05:33.840 --> 00:05:38.800 Because gravity sketch can already do something similar with like drawing in a 3D space with 00:05:38.800 --> 00:05:44.720 VR headsets. What would it have to do to be revolutionary and useful? You'd have to be able 00:05:44.720 --> 00:05:52.000 to use it while it's charging. Okay. Would I want to watch a movie through an AR VR headset? 00:05:52.880 --> 00:05:57.040 No, we already saw the problem with that with stereo televisions. You lose track of your 00:05:57.040 --> 00:06:02.640 companions. What I would want is something where there's nothing but a gain. And there seems to be 00:06:02.640 --> 00:06:08.320 a situation where there's a gain, but there's a demonstrable loss. So if it's win-win-win along 00:06:08.320 --> 00:06:13.840 the way, then I'm in. Well, it's interesting you mentioned like that we've been making progress 00:06:13.840 --> 00:06:17.840 forward, but there's always been kind of caveats. It kind of feels then that we're not getting as 00:06:17.840 --> 00:06:23.920 far as we could. Like there's lots of obstacles in the way. What we haven't seemed to have gotten 00:06:23.920 --> 00:06:31.040 past is getting really into the mainstream. We seem to be stuck in the early adopter world 00:06:31.040 --> 00:06:38.400 with these technologies. Unlike, say, you know, look at where we've gone with games technologies 00:06:38.400 --> 00:06:44.320 and how far people are willing to go to really upgrade their systems so that they get the best 00:06:44.400 --> 00:06:50.160 possible experience. They're early adopters, but there's many others that have joined. There's a 00:06:50.160 --> 00:06:55.600 huge momentum to the point that video games are a gigantic industry that dwarfs the moving industry. 00:06:55.600 --> 00:06:59.920 So show me more gains. And you know, I'm all in if they do. 00:07:00.880 --> 00:07:05.920 Like VR, the rumors of Apple's headset haven't shown a win-win though. It sounds more like a 00:07:05.920 --> 00:07:12.080 compromise. The dream and intention from the start was to create a set of augmented reality 00:07:12.080 --> 00:07:18.080 glasses, which wouldn't look out of place on your face while displaying an interface in your space. 00:07:19.200 --> 00:07:23.920 But that's not happening. Instead, we're getting mixed reality. And that's quite new. 00:07:25.120 --> 00:07:30.080 Using this makes that hard to see, though. Sure, I can walk around with it just fine, 00:07:30.080 --> 00:07:34.320 but the effect from these cameras make me feel like Scott Pilgrim battling the X's. 00:07:34.320 --> 00:07:39.200 And who wants to do that? In 2017, Apple launched ARKit for developers, 00:07:39.200 --> 00:07:43.360 and for a few years after, they would demo how the LiDAR sensors in their pro-mobile devices 00:07:43.360 --> 00:07:50.720 could enable such amazing experiences, like Lego on a table or overlays in clips. Perhaps the best 00:07:50.720 --> 00:07:55.600 experience I've been able to find is the AR walking directions in Apple Maps. That would be great 00:07:55.600 --> 00:08:02.000 in a pair of glasses, but only if I'm willing to be seen out in public with them. What I'm hoping for 00:08:02.000 --> 00:08:09.200 is that we see a lot of creative people looking at these beyond-games technologies, that they'll 00:08:09.200 --> 00:08:18.080 be looking at more somber or austere applications that really will help people. And another aspect 00:08:18.080 --> 00:08:22.560 of this is how do we make these devices more inclusive? But we really need creative software 00:08:22.560 --> 00:08:26.640 people to generate and develop really interesting, inclusive applications. 00:08:27.600 --> 00:08:32.560 So what kind of applications can we expect developers to make? Currently the most compelling 00:08:32.560 --> 00:08:38.960 use case for VR is gaming, but that's the one thing Apple's the worst at. If a developer wants 00:08:38.960 --> 00:08:43.760 to make a game, they have to use Apple's Metal API, whereas most are using Vulkan. 00:08:45.120 --> 00:08:48.880 So if you were to take the number of VR developers and cross them with the number of Metal API 00:08:48.880 --> 00:08:54.720 developers, I imagine the Venn diagram overlap is quite slim. Not to mention if they have to give 00:08:54.800 --> 00:08:59.520 30% of all transactions on the platform to Apple, which has already strained the company's 00:08:59.520 --> 00:09:03.520 relationships with developers, even on top of App Store review struggles. 00:09:05.600 --> 00:09:10.000 But maybe we don't need any new applications. We just need the applications we already have 00:09:10.000 --> 00:09:14.960 with a new interface and in a new way, which is what Apple's done exceedingly well. The 00:09:14.960 --> 00:09:18.800 Macintosh had the mouse, the iPod had the click wheel, the iPhone had multi-touch. 00:09:24.800 --> 00:09:30.560 You know, one of the things that we really might want to think more about is the whole 00:09:30.560 --> 00:09:36.720 nature of display systems. As I went through my understanding of computer graphics, I was forced 00:09:36.720 --> 00:09:43.520 to learn about magic. And the magic starts with things like cathode ray tubes. They're magic. 00:09:43.600 --> 00:09:50.640 Then we go to, you know, we went to LCDs and to LEDs, magic. But one of the things that we're stuck 00:09:50.640 --> 00:09:59.360 with is the display. And it means that we have to go to the display. The promise of AR and VR, 00:09:59.360 --> 00:10:05.600 in particular AR, is that we can be freed from the display as a fixed thing. 00:10:06.800 --> 00:10:10.640 We actually have an opportunity to get a glimpse of what this is like with the in real 00:10:10.720 --> 00:10:13.760 air glasses. And I gave Eugene a chance to try them out himself. 00:10:14.320 --> 00:10:20.000 You know, that's really good. I think I could actually use this. That's always being the promise 00:10:20.000 --> 00:10:28.160 of it. And that's, I think, a place where we can kind of imagine really a world where the computer, 00:10:28.160 --> 00:10:32.720 and in some sense, the display disappears. It's simply part of a human visual system, 00:10:32.720 --> 00:10:37.520 part of the cognitive processing we do. I think it will happen though. And that's, 00:10:37.520 --> 00:10:44.400 that's really something for us to be thinking about as human beings. What will happen when we 00:10:44.400 --> 00:10:50.240 are completely unmoored from, you know, the home office and the display systems that we 00:10:50.240 --> 00:10:57.120 essentially have our faces stuck into. Now the display travel with us. It's kind of cool when 00:10:57.120 --> 00:11:02.400 you think about that as it's as the promise of the technology. It's really interesting that you 00:11:02.400 --> 00:11:07.120 bring up, you know, replacing screens because that is kind of a compelling application. And is 00:11:07.120 --> 00:11:13.920 it really that simple? I think it is that simple. And, but then we have to have the compelling 00:11:13.920 --> 00:11:18.720 applications. I could imagine sitting in the office managing Windows floating in space, 00:11:18.720 --> 00:11:23.360 maybe even video editing a timeline that spans across the entirety of the desk. 00:11:24.080 --> 00:11:29.440 The office use case is where meta has been trying to go and they've yet to set the world on fire. 00:11:29.440 --> 00:11:31.360 But meta is an apple. 00:11:33.840 --> 00:11:39.360 And the apple coming in would be kind of a strong commitment. So they're going to release something 00:11:39.360 --> 00:11:45.760 that's top level that she goes through. And I'm really hoping that it creates the emulation 00:11:45.760 --> 00:11:51.440 and the development that's needed for the whole industry because you can have the best hardware. 00:11:52.160 --> 00:11:57.280 If you don't have anything to use it for, it's going to be useless. So you can see, right? 00:11:58.000 --> 00:12:03.040 But you know, it's going to happen. Like this is going to happen. Does it happen now versus 00:12:04.080 --> 00:12:10.880 the next wheel of reincarnation? That's going to be the interesting question. 00:12:10.880 --> 00:12:18.320 So yeah, it's been a 50 some odd year process. And it'll just be very interesting to see 00:12:18.880 --> 00:12:25.360 where we end up. I think, you know, given Apple's reputation, I think they'll likely have a very 00:12:25.360 --> 00:12:31.760 nice looking headset. Thanks for making this Mac Address a virtual reality. If you're excited for 00:12:31.760 --> 00:12:35.280 Apple's headset, give this video a like. And if you want to learn about it when it gets announced, 00:12:35.280 --> 00:12:39.440 well, you might as well subscribe. Now, I'm curious in the comments below what you think 00:12:39.440 --> 00:12:43.920 the right use case for one of these is.