Why Orion Doesn't Mean Apple Vision Pro Was A Mistake
Why Orion Doesn't Mean Apple Vision Pro Was A Mistake
Here's why, contrary to the hot takes, Meta's Orion AR glasses prototype doesn't render headset lines like Apple Vision and Quest obsolete.
By the time AR glasses with the field of view of Orion ship to consumers, passthrough headsets will be sleek, light, and powerful, with passthrough quality that may rival transparent optics, and virtual object quality that far exceeds them.
To put it simply: incredible mixed reality headsets will arrive before acceptable AR glasses. […]
The future is AR glasses, yes. But it's mixed reality headsets too. And unlike AR glasses, mixed reality headsets are here right now, and both the hardware and software is getting better every year.
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There's no doubt the visual quality is and will be better in many ways but not when it comes to the actual passthrough video which will never be as good as just showing reality directly.
AVP can also still be a mistake because it released now at an insane price point and without that light form factor. Doesn't really help the case that some day it can be light, especially when Apple didn't really even try with this one.
Passthrough will likely never be the same as regular vision, but it could have some unique opportunities as well. You could easily apply a false-color filter, for example, which could help colorblind people or even allow vision into the infrared spectrum
It does help by building out the ecosystem though and getting feedback for future versions. And it exists, which is more than can be said about Orion.
For the ecosystem something like Quest 3 that a substantial number of people can actually afford would probably help way more. For feedback they probably do usability testing etc. anyway.
While I do appreciate that Apple threw their hat in the ring and found some of their designs very interesting to look at I am overall fairly puzzled when it comes to the question of what exactly did releasing AVP achieve.
I’m sure there’s feedback to be gained by actually releasing something, but I bet they’d like more people to actually use it. But yeah, it doesn’t look like there’s tons of apps being developed for it. They do keep reiterating how many companies are using it. Curious what their next version will look like.